Disclaimer: I don't own the Doctor, the TARDIS, Rose or any of the characters, planets, technology etc that appear in Doctor Who. I am only borrowing them and they will be returned to the BBC undamaged and in their original packaging.

Thanks for all the reviews; I'm really pleased that people seemed to be liking this!

Chapter Seven: The Depths Of Desperation

The Doctor went very still and silent. He didn't looked around, kept his eyes fixed upon Solia's. 'Is she telling the truth?'

'Yes,' Xan said faintly. He looked slightly sick. 'We're all poisoned. It was in the water.'

'Doctor,' Rose said shakily.

Solia folded her shaking hands together. 'You see?' she said. 'Help or die.'

'I am a Time Lord,' the Doctor said quietly. 'We don't die easily.'

'But what about us?' Rose asked, her voice shaking slightly.

The Doctor didn't looked around. 'You and Xan will have been affected, yes.'

'We're going to die?' Rose whispered.

'No. I'm not going to let that happen.' The Doctor turned a furious glare upon Solia who finally quailed. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' he snarled.

She drew herself up. 'Trying to save my people.'

'You stupid, ignorant little child,' he said softly. 'How dare you? How dare you?'

'I see that you do not understand desperation and the depths that it drive people to - ' she began.

'Don't you take that sanctimonious tone with me,' he cut in. 'You know nothing of desperation, little girl. Stupid, ignorant, arrogant little girl. You have no understand of what you've done and what you are doing - you're blind and worse, you don't know it. How dare you harm us? We have done nothing to you and we owe you nothing! And you attempt to harm, to force us into doing what you want! You selfish, spoilt, arrogant and thoughtless little bitch!' He spat the last word out with such venom that Rose actually gasped.

Solia looked as if she were about to cry. 'You don't understand - '

'You're right,' he said tiredly. 'I don't understand why you could possibly think that poisoning someone can help you.'

'I am sorry,' Solia said eventually. 'But I need your help.'

'You demand our help,' he corrected. 'You seem to think you are entitled to it. Now I'm making a demand.' He looked up. 'Cure us.'

'Only if you help me,' Solia said stubbornly.

'Is there any room in your stupid thick head for anything else?' he snapped.

'You don't have much choice,' she reminded him quietly.

He looked at her with loathing and fury.

'Doctor, what'll happen to us if we refuse?' Rose asked tentatively.

'Why don't you tell her?' the Doctor said to Solia.

'The poison is painless,' Solai said with difficulty.

'How considerate of you,' Xan said sarcastically.

Solia gave him a hasty, worried glance, then looked back at Rose. 'It is painless until the end,' she said. 'Then death comes very quickly.'

'How long do we have?' Xan asked abruptly.

'Two days, maybe longer,' she said cautiously. 'Less, perhaps.'

'Does it matter?' Rose asked Xan. 'We're poisoned - '

'I just want to know if I have time to beat the crap out of her,' Xan said, his eyes fixed on Solia and an feral look in his eyes. 'Maybe some violence can persuade her that it's a bad idea to be poisoning people.'

Solia went white.

'Stop it,' the Doctor said absently. 'We'll save the violence for later, when we'll really need it.' He gave Solia a furious scowl. 'All right,' he said, from between gritted teeth. 'I'll help you. If I can. As long as you promise to heal my friends.'

'Once you save us,' she nodded.

'No,' he said as patiently as he could. 'I can't promise that. I can only promise to try.'

'Solenistra must be saved - '

'Shut up and open your ears for once,' he said, still in the same overly patient tone. 'I promise to do what I can, if you will heal them. If I can't save Solenistra, then I will take you and your people somewhere safe, where you can start new lives. And you will heal my friends. That is the bargain I am offering. Do you accept it?'

She hesitated. 'You're trying to make a deal? You don't really have much choice - '

'Neither do you. What's it to be?'

She thought for some time. 'All right,' she said. 'I accept.'

'Why are we here?' Rose said, sprawling on a sofa. 'Not that I'm complaining, but this is a step up from the cells, isn't it?'

'I want to think about this prophecy,' the Doctor said, looking cross. 'I told Solia I'd think and try to work out what I can. I think she thinks I'm just playing for time, but time is exactly what we don't have.' He gave them both concerned looks. 'How are you two feeling?'

'Pretty good,' Rose said. 'Which is a surprise, but there we go.'

'Yeah, fine,' Xan said. He was perched on the edge of a footstool, elbows resting on his knees. 'I assume you're not playing for time - what are we doing here?'

They had been moved into much nicer rooms. There were a couple of beds, which were mattresses on the floor, a large table made from a boulder and chairs with cushions and rugs. It was all very bare and plan, but much more comfortable than the cells. They had been supplied with water and some food which Xan was now picking at, rather cautiously.

'Solia refused to let me take the book,' the Doctor said. 'So we're going to talk about it, see if the three of us can come up with some way to sort this out.'

'So we are going to help them?' Rose said.

'Yes. We don't have any other choice right now.' The Doctor sat down at the table and pulled a sheet of paper out of his coat, along with a biro.

'What did the prophecy say?' Rose asked.

'I couldn't remember much in the time I looked at it.'

'That's not much help. What are you going to do?' she queried.

Xan sighed. 'You want me to pick it out of your head, don't you?'

'Pretty much.' The Doctor gave him a concerned look. 'You don't mind, do you?'

Xan shrugged. 'As long as you promise not to poke around in my head, I don't. If you do, you'll be moping your brain up off the floor.'

The Doctor raised his eyebrows expressively. 'I know a thing or two about telepathy. You might find it harder to liquefy my mind than you think - '

'I wouldn't count on it.'

'Confident, aren't we?'

'I know my abilities.'

'Stop with the masculine competing,' Rose said, cutting the discussion short. 'I want to know what the prophecy is.'

'All right,' the Doctor said. He looked at Xan. 'All right?'

Xan nodded and sat down. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. The Doctor sat down opposite him. 'Keep anything you want to keep hidden behind closed doors,' he warned. 'Anything could slip past - '

'I know how to do this,' Xan said testily, not opening his eyes. 'Now focus on the prophecy - visualise the page it was written on. Keep your mind focused on that. Doesn't matter if you don't remember the exact words - the image, the memory is there.'

The Doctor nodded, he already knew this, also closing his eyes, his forehead creasing in a slight frown of concentration.

Minutes passed. Rose watched first with interest, then gradually growing boredom.

The Doctor's eyes sprang open. 'What the hell did you just do?' he demanded.

Xan opened his eyes. 'What?' he said, looking confused. 'I just restored your memory of the prophecy to an accessible area of your mind - you do remember it now, don't you?'

'Yes.' The Doctor was glaring at him. 'Where did you learn to do that?'

'I was taught,' Xan said, rather shortly.

'Who by?'

'Does it matter?' Xan snapped.

'Yes!'

'Why?'

'Because for someone who lacks the very basics, the very simplest of abilities, you have done a very advance piece of telepathy.' The Doctor waved his hands for emphasis. 'You just picked one single memory out of my head, and placed it somewhere else entirely in my memory. Without touching one single other memory or thought in my head. That takes skill, and training. And yet you lack basic control?'

Xan shrugged, his face taking on a mutinous expression which told the Doctor he had just run up against a brick wall.

'Fine,' he said wearily. 'If and when you want to discuss this, then we can all discuss it. Although I do think you're being stupidly pig-headed, bloody-minded and stubborn - '

'The prophecy?' Rose prompted.

'Oh, yes. The prophecy.' The Doctor began scribbling on the sheet of paper, frowning in concentration as he tried to get every word right. When he finished, he took a look at it and said, 'It's gibberish.'

Rose took the sheet of paper and examined it. 'Weird,' she said.

Xan snatched it off of her and read it. He dropped it on the table. 'We're doomed,' he said.

The Doctor retrieved it and shook his head. 'This sounds like it was written by someone trying to sound like a piece of bad fantasy writing,' he muttered. 'This has got to be a joke.' He cleared his throat and intoned,

When the last be upon you, travellers shall come from the skies, their number being three. The Great Healer will return and he shall bring the storm in his wake, yet to lead you to safety, to battle the turning tide and to cut down the advancing shadow. Be not afraid, for Solenistra shall not die but shall be rescued from death. Look to the coming of the one Great Healer, the one who dares stand in the path of the storm and who defies its fury.

He shook his head in disgust. 'This is garbage. Someone wrote this as a joke and these pathetic idiots have taken them at their word - '

'Maybe it's meant to be a joke,' Rose said, taking it back.

'What?'

'I don't know - maybe someone, whoever wrote it, thought that if it sounded so absurd someone might actually take a look at it?' She shrugged. 'It certainly caught your attention, didn't it?'

'I wouldn't say that,' he said sourly.

'No, listen,' she said, eagerly. 'Does this sound like any other you've ever heard?'

'Outside of fantasy and bad movies? No.' He shook his head. 'And?'

'Sometimes you're as dense as a lead brick,' she muttered.

'You're suggesting it might be a real prophecy exactly because it doesn't sound like one,' Xan said suddenly. 'That's a really good thought, Rose.'

She grinned at him and turned back to the Doctor. 'Well? Maybe it is. What do you think?'

He rested his chin on his hand and looked thoughtful. 'That's an idea...You're right, my attention was caught by the fact it's so stupid...I'd almost be tempted to think that this was so dumb it couldn't not be real.'

'Isn't that logic for you,' Xan muttered.

'Like you said, it's a thought,' Rose pointed out.

Xan drew the paper towards him and studied it again. 'Come from the skies,' he murmured. 'Great Healer...Healer...storm...turning tide...shadow...' He looked up. 'I got something about shadow from Solia, and it wasn't just this prophecy. She knows about something shadow or something is a shadow.'

'Only something?' Rose said.

'She was too terrified of it to think about it clearly,' Xan said absently. 'Great Healer...' He was frowning deeply. When he didn't add anything else, Rose and the Doctor continued their discussion.

'So, maybe it's a genuine prophecy,' the Doctor said. 'That gives us no clue as to what it's about and certainly not who - and still no idea what this storm is, the shadow or the turning tide. It's a riddle wrapped inside a mystery wrapped inside an enigma wrapped inside a cement block.'

'How poetic you are,' Rose said dryly.

He dropped his head onto the table. 'If we don't work this out and save this bloody planet, you and Xan could die.'

Xan sat up. 'Wait.'

'For what? You two to die?' the Doctor muttered. 'Not a chance.'

'No,' Xan said impatiently. 'I mean, it's obvious.'

Both the Doctor and Rose looked at him. 'What?' they said together.

'It is real,' he said. 'And it's not a prophecy - not exactly. It's more - a piece of history.'

'What?' the Doctor said, incredulously.

'I mean, you time travel, don't you Doctor?'

The Doctor nodded.

'What if you came here years in the past and you warned them? About this storm?' Xan waved a hand impatiently. 'After we've been here, you ended back here sometime and you warned them in their past?'

'I can't do that,' the Doctor said flatly.

'You might have!' Xan exclaimed. 'This man who made the prophecy is obviously you! It has to be. The Great Healer?' he added. 'Substitute that for Doctor. Plus the time travelling, the coming from the sky, and if anyone would stand in the path of any storm, metaphorical or not, it would be you.' He paused, then said, 'Talk about the bleeding obvious. I think the appropriate colloquial term here is duh.'

The Doctor laughed weakly and looked at Rose for support.

She was frowning. 'He might have a point,' she said slowly.

'I've got more than a bloody point,' Xan muttered.

'He's right, it does add up,' Rose said to the Doctor. 'At least, the bits that we can understand add up. The rest, I don't know about.'

'We could just be forcing them to add up,' the Doctor said.He looked a little shaken by this unexpected turn of events. 'There's something else.'

'What, then?' Rose asked.

'When I took a look at the prophecy book - '

'You said you couldn't understand it,' she said.

'I couldn't. There's two things that could be the cause of why I couldn't understand it. Either the language it was written was too ancient, long before my time or my people's time, or it's gibberish.'

'Gibberish?'

'I know a thing or two about languages,' the Doctor said. 'It had no recognisable structure, no rhythm, I think it was just a collection of random words.'

'Then the prophecy?' Xan questioned.

'Yes, I could read that,' the Doctor nodded. 'But nothing else. Which is why I wanted to look at the entire book more closely, in case there was sections of the prophecy hidden within the text. A word here, another word there…I've seen it before, it's a clever idea. That might be where the Great Healer,' he glared at Xan, 'got this prophecy from and 'translated' it for them. Or he just made it up.'

'Would you do that?' Rose asked.

He shrugged.

'Of course you would,' she answered herself.

He paused. 'You both really think this Great Healer is, me don't you?'

'In the end, I guess that doesn't really matter,' Rose said. 'After all, you don't know what it is all about yet, do you? Maybe all this was just to make sure that you didn't just give up and wander away.'

'I don't usually come back to a place before I've been there,' he said dubiously.

'We'll worry about later?' Xan suggested. 'The question is, what do we do now?'

The Doctor thought, then said, 'I need to talk to Solia again.'

'You're going to tell her?'

'No, not yet. I think I need to find out a little more about these concepts before we start telling her anymore. She hasn't shown herself to be trustworthy yet. Let's keep a few things to ourselves before we start revealing everything.' He got up and went to the door. 'Hello?' he called.

A couple of guards materialised from around the corner. 'I'd like to see Solia,' he said. Glancing over his shoulder, he said to the other two, 'Will you be all right on your own?'

'We'll take a rest and eat all the food,' Rose assured him.

'All right. Think hard, see if you can come up with anything else.' He gave a quick wave and then the guards led him away to find Solia.