Chapter 7

Just as the Doctor feared, there had not been an easy solution to their problem. As days turned to weeks trapped inside the city, he grew restless and anxious over his failure to effectuate a miraculous escape. Stuck without his TARDIS and with his time senses blocked, he felt terribly helpless. His early confidence eroded as the reality of their situation sunk in; he wasn't used to being on the slow path, watching time pass in the right order. Was this what it was like to be human?

He could tell their confinement was taking its toll on his companion as well. Rose was wonderful of course, and brilliantly resilient, but even with him there she'd been waking in the night regularly, frightened and shaking. When he asked her what was wrong, she'd replied that she dreamt that she could hear the TARDIS calling out to her in pain. He did his best to calm her and soothe her back to sleep but her dreams worried him. What if whoever or whatever was keeping them here had done something to his TARDIS?

He'd taken over the spare bedroom in the flat with his current project. He was attempting to build a device that could pick up on minute traces of energy left behind by the transport process, in the hopes of identifying the particular technology behind it. If he could locate the source of the transport energy, then maybe they could reverse it. Since he suspected time manipulation was involved in the process, he was designing it to pick up on artron energy as well. Rose had dubbed the device his "timey whimey detector" in jest when he'd explained what he was trying to do with it. The process was slow-going without his sonic and several of the parts he needed had to be manufactured wholesale by hand.

He wasn't even certain that the device would be of much use once completed though; energy patterns tended to degrade rapidly and he and Rose had been the only recent victims. And their trail was already nearly five weeks cold.

The Doctor swore in Gallifreyan as his sleeve caught on a jagged metal edge, pulling a still hot soldering iron on to his lap. Hopping and patting at his trousers, he barely managed to not injure himself further when he tripped over his chair. Very glad Rose was not home to witness the spectacle he'd made of himself, he grimaced as he surveyed the damage. His pinstriped trousers, already beginning to look at bit worse for wear without his ship's handy nanofabricators, now featured an ugly scorch mark and hole in the crotch. He was going to have to give in and change out of his favorite suit. Sighing, he tugged them off and held them up for closer inspection. Perhaps he could find a way to repair them.

The Doctor was walking dejectedly to the bedroom in just his pants when Rose returned to the flat. She'd been spending time in the evenings hanging out with her new friends, usually Sayuri and her fellow teacher Annabelle, though often Pasha would join them with his latest girlfriend. The Doctor had been too absorbed in his latest project to join them most of the time and Rose didn't want to disrupt him if it meant they found a way back to the TARDIS. Tonight though, she'd left early, she was feeling homesick and hearing them talk cheerfully about their lives in Corazón Perdido as if nothing was wrong was just too much for her.

Rose's sudden appearance startled the Doctor into dropping the damaged suit he'd had clutched in his hands, leaving him standing awkwardly in their hall in his shirtsleeves and pants.

"Doctor," she began carefully, "what are you doing?" He seemed slightly at a loss for words for a moment so she pressed further, playfully, "am I interrupting something?"

He looked at her blankly and then cleared his throat and looked down when he caught her meaning. "Ah, no. Just seem to have torn a hole in my suit." He stooped to gather the garment from the floor and hurried quickly into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Shaking her head, Rose moved to the kitchen to put the kettle on to make herself a cup of what passed for tea here. The Doctor reemerged from the bedroom wearing the dark blue multipocketed trousers that he'd been issued weeks ago but left untouched and an off-white jumper with the sleeves pushed up. Without his suit he seemed more vulnerable and seeing him in those clothes reminded her of how he'd looked just after regenerating last Christmas. Recalling that day just made her think of her mum and Mickey and how she didn't know if she'd ever see either of them again. It didn't seem very likely; not with Mickey fighting the remaining Cybermen on Parallel Earth and them stuck here.

Rose sat down hard at the table and dropped her head in her hands, struggling to reign in her emotions. It wouldn't do them any good to cry about it and she was tired of feeling helpless and overwhelmed. Not for the first time she wondered what impact having a way out would have on their fellow residents, many of whom had settled down in Corazón Perdido and made lives for themselves. Obviously some of them were still interested in leaving, otherwise, why have a science team working on it? But she knew the Doctor and his solutions were often fairly messy ones. Look at what had happened when they'd removed the Jagrafess from Satellite Five; the Daleks had come in and nearly destroyed the human race.

She felt a hand on her back and looked up to see the Doctor holding a cup of not-quite-tea to her. He was being sweet to her which for some reason made something inside her snap and she felt herself getting unreasonably angry with him. Or maybe it was angry at herself; she didn't know. Accepting the cup, she said somewhat more sharply than necessary, "I told you that if you kept wearing that thing every day, you'd ruin it."

He stepped back as though she'd slapped him with a confused expression on his face. She cringed internally at his response but heard herself continue anyway, "we might as well dress like the locals, since we don't appear to be going anywhere any time soon."

"Rose, I'm working on it. I promised you, I'll get us out of here." He meant it.

She looked up to meet his eyes, "Doctor, that was weeks ago. In a month, they're going to be celebrating twenty years since the first residents were brought here. What happens to me if it takes you another twenty to find us a way out?" She stood, ready to storm off or scream and yell at him more, she wasn't sure which.

He rocked back on his heels and stared at her solemnly. "I don't know," was his quiet reply.

Bitterly she muttered under her breath, "at least I don't have to worry about you dumping me in Aberdeen if we're trapped here," and tried to push past him.

He caught her by the arm and pulled her back though. "Rose! You don't mean that!"

She shook her head, unable to stop the tears now. "No, no... I'm just so scared Doctor! Everyone here has just given up! They're moving on with their lives like it doesn't even matter that they'll never get back home. And I can't pretend that it's okay! It's supposed to be me and you, exploring all of time and space!"

"Rose, look at me." His voice was pleading. "I'm doing everything I can to get us out of here. I'm so very sorry we're stuck here; I never wanted this to happen to you. I want you to be happy. Rose, you must know I lo... care about you more than anyone else in the universe."

And there it was. He'd nearly said it out loud. From the look on her face, she'd heard the word he hadn't been able to get past his lips. His gaze dropped to her mouth and he couldn't help but think how easy it would be for him to lean forward.

Rose stared at the Doctor in disbelief, all of her anger dissipated in an instant. He moved closer and all she could think was is he going to kiss me?! He came perilously close to following through, only to swallow hard and pull himself back at the last second. He muttered something about needing to fetch a part for his detector and fled the flat before she could process what had happened.

Outside the door, the Doctor paused to collect himself, his twin hearts beating furiously against his ribcage. He'd come entirely too close that time. Maybe it was this place, the quasi-normalcy and routine of it, making him think it was safe to feel this way. He was a fool. He had rules against this for a reason. Clenching his fists, he set off into the night before he lost all willpower and marched back in to that flat to finish what he'd nearly started.