oOo
"You world sounds quite wonderful. So very….different from our lives here."
"I suppose it is," Rose replied, suddenly feeling a bit home-sick. Being with Liann and her two children reminded her of her mother back home and of how far away she really was without the Doctor and the TARDIS around to take her back any time she wanted.
"Yet you leave it behind to travel to the stars. Does your family not miss you?" Liann asked, smiling gently.
"My mother does. I miss her too," Rose admitted, trying to ignore how tight her chest suddenly felt.
"You must be tired. I will show you were you can sleep tonight," Liann offered, her voice soft with sympathy.
Realising that she wouldn't be good company in her present state of mind, Rose nodded in acceptance.
Liann got up, showing no sign of strain after sitting on hard packed ground for over two hours. Rose on the other hand, despite being around ten years younger, couldn't help but wince when got back on her stiff and aching legs.
The sleeping area was separated from the rest of the tent by a thin curtain. It wasn't much of a bedroom, at least not like the ones she was used to on Earth. There were two low pallets of what looked like straw, barely covered with a few furs and rough woven sheets. A small oil lamp stood in between them and the smell of liquid burning filled the alcove.
"I shall stay up tonight," Liann spoke from behind her. "We can feel them closing in, but they can only hurt us when we are vulnerable. The children's minds aren't strong enough yet to keep them out, but they'll be safe with us watching over them. At least for a while. I do hope your friends are victorious."
"So do I," Rose said and nodded. The thought of going to sleep when aliens were trying to invade her mind, terrified her. She recalled the crazed young woman they had met just after their arrival. The look in her eyes had been one of abject terror. The thought of the Doctor having gone to face their enemy head on filled her with worry. She had a lot of confidence in him, she had seen him escape from impossible situation before, but she couldn't forget that behind the broad grin and silly banter, the Doctor wasn't indestructible.
oOo
The return to the physical world was sudden and brutal. Like being thrown into a pool of ice cold water - lights, sounds, smells and sensations exploded around him. The Doctor found himself coughing and gasping for breath, his body reeling from the shock of the mental connection to the hive mind having been cut off.
Left on its own, his brain was struggling to process what was going on around him. Gradually, the cacophony of noises resolved into voices and eventually words that he could understand. Bits of sights and sounds coalesced into a whole and the Doctor found himself in the darkened hall where they had first landed.
All around him, humanoid figures were starting to wake up. Cries and sobs filled the air as the surviving members of the original inhabitants returned to the physical reality after having suspended vacuum for millennia with only themselves and the minds of their fellow prisoners to keep them company. The Doctor couldn't imagine the overwhelming shock they were going through. He had been separated from his body for only a very short time, hours at the most, and already his brain had to painfully readjust to the outside world.
The Doctor got to his feet, somewhat unsteady on his legs, but slowly gathering his bearings. The two men from Atlantis were walking towards him, both looking more than a bit rattled from the experience.
"Good job. Unfortunatly, it isn't going to last. Not unless we do something to stop them once and for all." The Doctor told them.
"What about them?" McKay gestured at the surviving members of the original crew. "There has to be something we can do to help them."
"I'm not sure there is anything we can do. They have slowly been drained for thousands of years. There is only so much a body can recover from." The Doctor said sadly. He desperately wanted to help these people. They had done nothing to deserve this, but touching their minds while he had been connected to the alien hive mind, he had seen only despair and madness. There was nothing he or anyone could do for them. Still, he couldn't leave them here to die. Those few, whose bodies had survived during all that time, didn't deserve to die like that. He had freed them to die, he couldn't leave them now.
"The TARSIS, it should still be outside. They wouldn't have been able to move it. Take them there." It wouldn't change anything for these people, they were still going to die, but not like this.
Please. The voice was faint and for a moment the Doctor wasn't sure he had heard at all.
He could feel a bony yet solid grip on his left ankle. When he looked down, he saw one of the survivors clinging to him. But when he looked at his emaciated face, his mouth wasn't moving.
Please don't take away the only thing we have left.It was weak voice, an old voice and the Doctor realized that it was only inside his mind that he could hear it. The connection was faint and the Doctor hadn't spoken telepathically to another being since the Time War. He had best tried to burry that part of his mind that yearned for mental contact with other Time Lords.
We are the last. This is our home.
I can't leave you here. There might something… The Doctor didn't have a chance to finish the thought before the voice spoke again inside his head.
We both know that there is nothing left to do for us but die. He was really letting his mental discipline slip. That wouldn't have happened to him a regeneration or two ago.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
You freed us. We are grateful.
The Doctor felt a sense of utter peace and contentment spreading through him. Purple cities under an amber sky, plains over silver grass under the pale light of three moons and deep blue waves lapping on glitter white sand flashed through the Doctor's mind. With a deep sigh resounding in his mind, the images slowly faded.
"What the…This simply isn't…"
The Doctor jolted back to reality to see McKay wearing an expression of shock and disbelief and Sheppard with an unreadable expression seemingly frozen on his face. The Doctor felt a pang of dismay at having taken advantage of the relative defencelessness of the human's mind.
Puzzled, the Doctor looked around the room. First, he noticed that the bodies were gone, and then he noticed the green crystal he was clutching in his right hand. It took a few seconds for the penny to drop, and then a smile formed on his face. His triumph was short lived, when the ground beneath him shook hard, throwing him off his feet. Something rumbled and growled deep underground and the ground shook and bucked once more. The Doctor was just clambering back to his feet, when he was confronted by the withering glare of Rodney McKay.
"I knew it! I don't know how and I'm starting to think I don't even want to know…"
With a deafening crack, the ground split open mere meters from where they were standing.
"No time for that now! The energy release is making this place highly unstable." The Doctor silently cursed he argumentative nature of the human race. "To the TARDIS. Quick!"
When the two humans failed to react, the Doctor suppressed a sigh and grabbed Rodney by the hand. "Run!" He screamed.
Apparently that did it and the two humans followed behind, more stumbling than running, but following nonetheless. He could hear muttered protests spiced with some insults regarding his intelligence, parentage and length of his legs from the scientist, but they made it to the TARDIS. A second later, the hall and presumably the rest of the building collapsed.
oOo
The Doctor managed to stay on his feet long enough to hit the recently installed emergency take-off designed to transport them to the safety of the vortex and remain there until an actual destination was entered. He spent a final thought complementing himself for thinking of making this excellent addition to the TARDIS, before he finally gave in to the strain of having his mind invaded repeatedly, being placed in suspended animation and revived again and being hooked up to an alien hive mind intent on sucking the life out of him. Blackness overwhelmed him and the Doctor knew no more.
oOo
Rodney gave his travel companions a worried gaze before turning back to the console. For the last twenty minutes, he had been trying to coax one of the many monitors and displays into giving him some sort of information about where and when they were. He had surmised that the regularly bobbing light of the central column meant that they were still in flight, or at least hovering somewhere in space and time. He still wasn't quite convinced that the Doctor knew what he was doing, but he had to concede that whoever he was, he had managed to get them out of this latest mess alive. Beyond that, Rodney really didn't want to speculate.
The Doctor hadn't moved since collapsing in a dead faint almost an hour ago. A cursory check had revealed that he was still alive, but that was all Rodney had been able to determine. There was something very odd about his pulse and he was cold to the touch, but Rodney wasn't sure whether it was a sign of ill health or merely part of some not-so-human physiology.
Deciding that for once in his life he didn't need or want to know, Rodney had turned his attention back to Sheppard. The colonel still sat in the some spot Rodney had put him after their mad dash back to the ship. He was staring into space with a worryingly empty gaze, as if in some sort of trace. The even more worrying thing was that he showed no signs of coming out of it and all of Rodney's, albeit awkward, attempts to rouse him had failed. Rodney felt utterly helpless. All he could do was sit in the huge control room and wait.
oOo
The Doctor snapped back to consciousness after exactly one hour and fifty-eight minutes (as the TARDIS ever so kindly informed him.) She also informed him of their current position – hovering peacefully in the vortex and the fact that despite temporarily having been buried under tons of rock, she had sustained only minimal damage. Satisfied that there was nothing requiring his immediate attention, he turned to his passengers.
Rodney was slumped in one of the seats attached to the railing, snoring quietly, Humans, the Doctor thought and smiled. As a Time Lord, he required only very little sleep. It took an unusual amount of physical and mental exertion for his body to demand an abrupt break from the conscious world. But thrice in one day was really pushing it – he thought ruefully. He was really getting old, he wondered shaking his head. Maybe he should mix himself a restorative drink in the med bay. He probably should try to find something for the colonel as well while he was at it. He was fairly certain the man would recover on his own given a few hours time. The minds of most humans didn't take well to intense psychic intervention and what the Doctor had done was in violation of quite of few rules of universal mental etiquette. At least, the military man would mostly likely have no memory of the experience.
The Doctor went to set the co-ordinates for Atlantis, planning their arrival a few hours after their departure. He wanted to avoid undue confusion and uncomfortable questions, but at the same time he thought it wouldn't be fair to Rose to let her wait (and probably worry) for too long.
oOo
Their return to Atlantis was fairly unceremonious. The TARDIS set down in the same spot she had landed in the first time. A quick check revealed that they had arrived around six hours after their departure and that it was currently early morning according to local time. Even though the sun wouldn't rise for a few hours, the City was well alive even now.
The Doctor let the two men lead the way, keeping in the background when they were greeted by a team of military men and medics. He idly wondered whether the explorers always expected their people to come back in pieces as the physician Beckett and two of his staff took custody of Sheppard. McKay followed the group down the corridor, leaving behind the Doctor on his own. The Doctor was about to slip back to the TARDIS when a voice from behind halted him.
"Doctor!" He turned around to find Dr. Weir, the expedition leader, looking at him expectantly. "I don't want to keep you here longer than neccessary, but there are a few questions that I'd like to have answered."
The Doctor flinched. "I'd love to stay and chat, but there is something I need to take care of. Well, two things actually," He amended, feeling the weight of the crystal in his suit pocket.
"I don't suppose there isn't any way I can convince you to stay," Dr. Weir admitted.
"Unlikely." The Doctor said with a nod. "But things should be getting back in normal now that the aliens have been removed from this dimension. It might take a few hours for the after-effects to wear off, but not to worry."
"Thank you, Doctor. I don't know who you and your friend are or where you're really from, but you picked the right moment to drop by."
"I do have a knack for that." The Doctor smiled and turned back towards his TARDIS. "
Within seconds, he had disappeared into the blue box and Dr. Weir was left to watch in astonishment as it faded out of existence with an unearthly whine.
oOo
When Rose woke from a restless sleep, it was still dark outside. With her back aching from sleeping on what felt like sheer rock, going back to sleep seemed impossible. Shivering and wishing she had taken at least a jean jacket with her; Rose went outside, taking care not to wake the two girls who were still fast asleep.
Despite the pre-dawn darkness, the first villagers were already up, working on their daily chores quietly. A group of women were gathered around a large fire and Rose could smell food being cooked. She spotted Teyla standing in the opening of her tent, steam rising from a cup in her hand. She greeted Rose with a bright smile. Rose didn't need to ask to know that the Doctor and the men from Atlantis had been successful. That in itself was a quite a relief, but Rose would have felt much better if the familiar shape of the TARDIS was shining through the nearby woods. Dejectedly, she sat down on a tree stump close by. It wasn't really fair, the Doctor stranding her on a planet, whose name she didn't even know, without saying so much as good-bye. He'd better come back in one piece, Rose thought darkly. After having spent less than a day Stone Age-style, she was starting to appreciate the inventions of actual beds and not to mention indoor plumbing. She was contemplating to investigate breakfast options when she heard the familiar sound of the TARDIS engines.
Rose jumped up and ran towards the spot where the ship was starting to materialize.
"Doctor!"
"I hope you had a better night than I had." The Doctor leaned in the opened door of the TARDIS, flashing a tired smile at Rose. "Come on, I know just the spot for the perfect breakfast."
"All right. I'll just say good-bye to Teyla and Liann." Rose said happily, thankful for the hospitality of the Athosians, but also glad to be reunited with the Doctor and the TARDIS.
To be concluded in the epilogue