Author's note: here we go! this is probably one of my least favorite chapters - sorry, it's kinda boring and it was a beast to write! I should have titled it "In Which We Take a Short And Rather Boring Walk" instead of chapter eight. I promise the next one is soonish :) plot exposition can be so tedious! this may get rewritten, but y'all will be the first to know :) I know my interpretation of Ida is a bit unorthodox, but if it bugs y'all let me know & Ill tone it down a bit. please review! every single one makes my day a million times over :)
The door chose the exact moment that Rose began to respond to the Doctor to open with a viscous bang. A small, hard-looking woman stood in the doorframe, messy brown hair dull and knotted, like she couldn't be fussed to care for it properly. She seemed surprised to see Rose awake, and the shock of it gave her momentary pause.
"Oh. You're up." she blinked a bit, almost shaking her head like a dog who'd been startled. "Not exactly what I was expecting - resilient little mite, aren't you? I was coming' down to talk to him." a thumb jerked towards the Doctor. "But it's nice to see you looking so well. I'm Science Officer Ida Scott. Seems you've already met Toby - I wondered where he was heading with the tray. Well, grab a sandwich and fall in, then. No sense sitting about here if everyone's feeling better!" Ida paused, rubbing her hands together as she surveyed the broom-closet-with-aspirations-of-being-something-more.
"Lots going on, and since we've collectively abandoned explaining how your ship got here -" the Doctor winced, and Ida glanced at him in sympathy. "- sorry again for her loss; you lot may as well come and be a part of the proceedings." the science officer's eyes sparkled, the pure joy of discovery radiating off of her in excited little ripples. Rose couldn't help but grin at her display, her bad mood shrinking away a little in the presence of so many positive emotions.
The Doctor, however, was not as easily swayed. His large arms remained crossed in front of his chest, a skeptical frown perched on his face. "What, exactly, are these proceedings?" he half growled, radiating irritation and aloofness. Ida had the good grace to shrink back a bit from his snarl, eyeing him with trepidation.
"We've finally done it. We've reached the source of the energy." Ida stated plainly, her eyes glowing with anticipation. "Oh, dear, but of course that means nothing to you two. So much explaining to do. Come on then - easier to see than to be told." Ida stepped out of the doorway into the hall, and Rose launched herself from the bed in a scramble to follow her. As an afterthought, she leaned over, snagged two prepacked sandwiches from the tray, and grinned at the Doctor before grabbing his hand with her free one and urging him on. The Doctor scowled at her before rising, his steps much heavier than Rose's.
If he was being honest, he was more than a bit wounded due to Rose's lack of anxiety regarding his poor TARDIS. Did she not understand that the last of another species was gone, beyond retrieval? And just how badly that ripped him apart? Another ancient species, gone forever, because of him. Oh the TARDIS was fine physically - he could still feel her mind within his, the gentle tickle that had always represented her presence still floated freely through his consciousness. She was projecting her confusion, and a bit of sadness, but still completely trusting in his ability to recover her. He sent some warm thoughts of affection and regret that they were not together in her direction. The TARDIS accepted them with a twinkle and a surge of good faith. He wished some of her unshakeable confidence would rub off on him. He could sorely use it.
His hearts told him that his beloved ship was gone for certain, and that he and Rose were good and stuck. Here - in the 42nd century if his time sense was to be believed - far from the home she loved. There would be no way of getting back. They would spend their days on the slow path, and eventually Rose would grow tired of him and his daft face. Surely she would, when he was unable to show her the wonders he had promised when he ripped her away from the life she had so contentedly been living before he showed up and bolloxed it all up. Rose would leave for greener pastures in the end - and she should. There was nothing he could give her. Washed up, battle-scarred, broken, so used to being alone he was incapable of decent companionship any longer. She should not spend the limited years of her lifespan with a man that was unable to completely return the acceptance, the companionship, the healing she so freely gave of herself. She should leave him, he mused, and find someone who would return her affection and adoration in excess. Someone who actually deserved it. Deserved her.
As if sensing his morbid train of thought, Rose squeezed the Doctor's hand gently. To his surprise, a warm wave of affection washed over him as they followed Ida through yet another talking door. He blinked at the unexpected emotion, wallowing in the warmth it left in his seemingly permanently chilled body. He squeezed back with equal force, running his thumb over the back of her small hand. Rose hadn't left him yet - he had to keep their situation in perspective. Treasure the times he had left with her. The Doctor looked down on Rose, drinking in her features like a man dying of thirst in the desert. He worked on committing every facet of her face to his memory. Rose smiled up at him, dark eyes sparkling with unnamed emotion - for the first time since she woke up this morning, The Doctor had a hard time getting a read on her general state. She swung their conjoined arms, lit up like a firefly with the capture of his full attention.
"Chin up, Doctor. We've been in worse scrapes than this. Missile aimin' directly for us? Murdering Dalek? Zombies? Sound familiar?" she cajoled, nudging him with her shoulder. When he failed to respond with enough good cheer, his mood continuing to darken, Rose's grin faltered, hoping against hope she was recalling things that they had actually done together.
The Doctor gave her a strained smile, squeezing her hand. "Of course we have. We'll sort it." he knew he could sense the lack of conviction behind his words. Rose was a multitude of things - unobservant was not one of them.
His - his? - pink-and-yellow girl smiled a sad, small smile up at him. No playful tongue poked between her teeth with this grin. "Don't worry, Doctor. She's okay. The TARDIS, I mean. I know she is. I can still feel her - and I couldn't if she were gone. Bit of fuzzy golden glow, kinda tickles and makes my teeth hurt sometimes. She's complaining of a bit of cold, though." Rose grinned; a genuine smile curved her lips upwards as she watched the disbelief spread over her friend's face. "Can't you hear her, too?" she asked, full of confusion and innocence. "I thought for sure you'd be able to, you bein' her pilot and all."
The furrows in his brow became valleys as the gears in the Doctor's head spun even faster. Did she have any idea - any at all - what she just said? "Rose -" he began, excited and terrified by the prospect of her realizing her telepathy, only to be silenced by necessity as Ida stepped through a final door, motioning them forward with a grin.
"Come on then, step lively! Everyone else is in here. You've already met Toby," Ida gestured to the tow-headed young man, who raised a hand in recognition. Rose ducked through the last doorframe, still pulling the Doctor behind her. "He's our archeologist." The Doctor scoffed, and Rose gently kicked him in the shin and shot him a look, which he returned in kind. No love was lost between the Doctor and those who pretended to understand the past.
"And this is Scooti, our maintenance trainee," a young woman with a shock of dirty blonde hair and kind eyes poked her head up from behind some crates, waving quickly before disappearing back into her work. A clang and a girlish cuss rang out from behind the crates, and a panel hit the floor with a clatter. Ida grinned and gently kicked the man she stood next to, shocking him enough to pay attention. "This is Danny, he maintains and controls the Ood workforce here. I understand you've already met that lot." Ida said, her voice tinged with amusement. Danny, a dark-skinned man with inky black hair to his shoulders looked up long enough from his wristcomp to grunt, and to wink cheekily at Rose. The Doctor stiffened again, and Rose just rolled her eyes at the pair of them before squeezing the Doctor's arm and shifting one of the sandwiches to his free hand. Macho posturing should be beneath his so called highly-evolved superior genetics, but it still warmed Rose in ways it probably shouldn't to his see hackles rise in defense of her - even against such a harmless threat as wifebeater-clad Danny.
Ida, if she even noticed, chose to ignore the tiny turf war that erupted to her left, and instead sat down next to the last crew member in the room. He was an older man with a shock of grey hair rapidly going white, and annoyance was written in every line of his face. "And this miserable old sod is John." Ida said cheekily, electing a small grin from the scowling man as she lightly punched his arm. "He's the security officer on this tug. Only one missing now is Captain Zachary, and you've met him already, haven't you..." Ida faltered, as if suddenly realizing she didn't know either of their visitor's names.
The Doctor stepped forward, extending a hand to Ida with a brilliant grin. "I'm the Doctor. Just the Doctor." The science officer accepted his handshake with a smile of her own. The Doctor swung his arm about to indicate Rose, who wiggled her fingers and smiled with the intoxicating confidence of the unafraid. Gods, he had missed her brilliant grin. "And this is Rose. She's my... she's..." Rose quirked an amused eyebrow at him, and the Doctor swallowed in a bit of embarrassment. "She's my best mate." Rose's nudge and grin erased his anxiety over the misstep in the way that only she was capable of.
Nods and smiles were exchanged afresh with the rest of the crew, and Ida patted Rose on the shoulder. "It is good to see you looking so well, Rose. To hear Captain tell it, when he stumbled across you two and our Oods in the hallway, you were out like a light and the Doctor looked like he was about to take on the whole host empty handed for your benefit!" the woman chuckled, oblivious to the flush of red across the Doctor's face. "Not often we get visitors here - for obvious reasons." Ida continued, prattling on cheerily.
"Speaking of..." she pranced over to a switch on the wall, enjoying herself a little bit too much. Rose relished her enthusiasm as she showed off her little family, and their home. She wondered how long the crew had been working here – and more importantly, what they were working on. Rose frowned as she remembered the predicament they found themselves in. Her mind flashed back to the poor TARDIS, somewhere on the surface of this apparently inhospitable and out of the way planet.
Ida spread her arms, as if to indicate the whole of the base and the surrounding planet. "Welcome to Sanctuary Base, situated on the planet orbiting K37 Gem 5."
The Doctor frowned, his arm tightening around Rose's where it was still wound around his own. His mind flew through its vast libraries of knowledge, lighting on the information about that particular star and why, exactly it felt so wrong. "That's impossible." he stated, refraining from his impulse to pace and puzzle this out. "K37 Gem 5 is a black hole. No planet can orbit a black hole, its gravity field would obliterate anything that even considered it before it even began to coalesce enough to pretend to be a planet. There would have to be a huge force, enormous, in order to overcome it! Something like six to the power of six for at least six seconds..." he trailed off, looking at Ida with a questioning expression. Suddenly, he began to understand what the crew was looking for. And he didn't like in the least.
Ida eyed the Doctor with a newfound esteem. It wasn't often that people even began to comprehend the enormity of their situation, much less begin to work out why, exactly, they were there. She could see the comprehension dawning in his eyes, and she could certainly respect that. "… and we've just broken through to the source." She said, proudly, her pointer finger depressing a button on the wall.
Rose gasped as the ceiling of the cafeteria began to slide back, revealing a fiery sky above them. She burrowed closer to the Doctor's side, and he lifted up his arm to allow her to snug herself in line with his body, held close and protected. The black hole loomed over their heads, exactly as she remembered it. Fire and flares and doom and destruction reeled through her head, and Rose resisted the impulse to retch. The image of Toby, eyes reddened and face covered with crooked black marks, burned in her mind, and she cast a sideways glance at the man. He was mesmerized by the sight of their unlikely sky, eyes unfocused as he stared upwards.
The throbbing over her left eye, present since she awoke this morning, redoubled its efforts to make her ill. Rose scrubbed at it with the back of her hand still clutching the sandwich in its plastic wrapper, and tried to control her body's rebellious tendency to quiver and shake. She had shown enough weakness for today. What she really needed to do was get the Doctor alone again, explain the new memory she had of Toby. Perhaps this time could be different. Maybe her knowledge could be used to change things for the better. Scooti's face was burning in her mind's eye, as well, although the details of her situation were hazy and unfocused. Rose was proud of herself, however, for not despairing when the memories rose to the surface. They were tools - possibly even gifts. She should chose to use them as such. She ached to speak to the man next to her, but the Doctor's stillness spoke of his desire to think. There would be time enough for conversation later. Rose turned her gaze to the inferno above them, and watched the skies with eyes much older than her nineteen years.
The Doctor felt Rose snuggle in deeper to his embrace, feelings of fear and discontent niggling under his skin. He tightened his arm around her as he stared at the sky, watching the black hole above them consume everything around it – except their tiny planet. He scoffed to himself as he remembered Rose's fevered statement just a few short hours ago. Welcome to Hell. On this impossible planet, he might just be persuaded to believe that such a place existed.
