Chapter Ten
The Doctor flung open the TARDIS doors and bounced out, arms open wide onto a vista of rolling green hills and abundant forests that stretched for miles in every direction the eye could see. The faint sound of water rushing through the countryside reached their ears and the distant cries of birds echoed down to them. The air was so pure and fresh that it momentarily made their heads spin as their bodies got used to a planet with little to no air pollution.
"Thanatos!" He exclaimed like a magician performing one of his best tricks. "One of the most beautiful planets in this part of the galaxy. At least before the industrial revolution kicks it but that's not for – oh, another few centuries."
"It's so pretty." Zoe said happily, stepping out of the TARDIS with Rose, who tugged her scarf tighter around her neck because, for once, the Doctor had warned them to put on warmer clothing. She breathed in deeply and her eyes watered at the purity. "And it smells nice too."
"Mmm." Rose agreed, linking her arm with her sister and burrowing close into her side, still sleepy; the Doctor had woken them up by pounding on their bedroom doors and singing an off-key aria that had left them begging him to stop as they peeled themselves out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. "'S like somethin' out of a fairytale."
Around them, the colours of autumn swept across the land. The leaves in the trees were a mixture of reds and oranges as they died in the approach to winter and the air held a slightly bitter chill that made Zoe nostalgic for London in the autumn – although, London was never as beautiful as where they had landed. The TARDIS had materialised on the top of a hill that looked down over everything, including a thick, long river that wound its way lazily through the forest and the base of the hill, disappearing in the rugged stone mountain range that rose up high over the yellowing tree tops. It was the closest thing to paradise that Zoe had ever seen for, having been born and raised in one of the biggest cities on Earth, she never really had the opportunity to visit the countryside. The nearest she had come to it was the green parks of London and Essex. She dropped her hands into her pockets and strolled along, side by side with Rose and the Doctor – her older sister had abandoned her arm in favour of the Doctor's hand, their fingers twining together and swinging by their sides.
They made their way down the steep hill. By the time they reached the bottom, Rose's cheeks were rosy and pink, which made her look beautiful, a fact that didn't seem to escape the Doctor's notice as he kept glancing at her with a small smile on his lips. With her hands deep in her pockets to keep them warm, having forgotten her gloves despite the Doctor's warning and not wanting to give him an opportunity to complain about humans and their tiny minds, she turned to him.
"Go on then." She said, kicking a loose rock away from her into the long grass that towered over even the Doctor. "I know you're dying to dazzle us with the history of this place."
Rose smothered a giggle against his arm.
His expression bordered on almost-offended. "Zoe Tyler, what are you saying?"
"I'm saying that you like to tell us the history of the places we visit." She said with an air of teasing politeness, ignoring his mock offence with practised ease. "And you're being suspiciously quiet right now. Do you not know? Have we come to the one place that your superior Time Lord brain doesn't know about?"
He gasped in indignation and Rose tipped her head back and laughed, hazel eyes sparkling with laughter and happiness.
"Is she right, Doctor?" Rose asked, tongue pressed between her teeth as she grinned up at him.
"She most definitely isn't." He replied, sniffing in an attempt to reclaim some dignity. "Well then, since you asked."
He shot her a look and she stuck her tongue out at him.
Thanatos, at this point in its history, was a galactically isolated planet. It hadn't yet split the atom and was a thousand years away from its first contact with extra-terrestrials – the Venusians who would be passing through the system on a pleasure cruise would accidentally encounter the sixth ship to leave the orbit to land on one of their orbiting moons. The Doctor likened their current phase of development as akin to the early medieval ages on Earth, specifically Eastern European medieval ages. The countries and cities and towns on Thanatos were even isolated from each other. News took months, sometimes even years, to travel between regions and it left the planet feeling very peaceful and relaxed.
"It'll all change, of course." The Doctor told them as they walked along a forest path – not a normal path with gravel or concrete but simply a path where the grass had been tramped down beneath the weight of traders passing back and forth. Trees soared high above them, the faint chattering of birds filling the air. "It always does. There are going to be horrible, violent wars as they all scrabble for the diminishing resources before an atomic war will shock them out of their selfishness and start them on a path of peaceful co-existence. By the time they're space worthy, there'll have been a complete peace on this planet for over two hundred years."
His unlike Earth went unspoken.
Despite the teasing she occasionally unleashed on him, Zoe actually enjoyed his tour guide rambles. They were always interesting and almost always contained something of the future, which amazed her even after travelling with him for month, and she couldn't quite believe that it had been that long. The time had just disappeared so when the Doctor had mentioned it the night before, suggesting they do something to celebrate, Zoe had been taken aback. It felt like both a lifetime, and no time at all, since she had joined the TARDIS.
The last four weeks had been full of the most wonderful experiences and adventures as they worked their way through her list; Rose was as eager to explore the destinations as much as Zoe. They had joined in the Civil Rights march on Washington and listened to Martin Luther King Jr. make his speech in 1963 before travelling down Route 66 in a hired, open top mustang that had left both Zoe and Rose certain the Doctor shouldn't drive any Earth based vehicle at all for their own safety.
They had prime seats on the moon to watch as Neil Armstrong took humanity's first steps on another celestial body. They spent two days exploring the Library of Alexandria and Zoe had to be physically peeled away from the scrolls and books of knowledge long since lost in her time, as she babbled on about saving something, just one thing, Doctor, thereby earning herself a lecture on the dangers of time travel and don't think I won't take you home, Zoe Tyler, even though no one, least of all the Doctor, believed he would do that. They spent an incredible night dressed up in the finest clothing Zoe had ever seen to watch Frank Sinatra live in Las Vegas where he performed all of his greatest hits, leaving her in a state of blissful wonder. Afterwards, they tried their hands at gambling in the casino and, to no one's surprise, the Doctor had walked away flush from the table.
In between their adventures in the past, they had visited alien worlds, and distant restaurants, and exploding stars. She fell into bed every night, her body and mind thoroughly exhausted and so completely happy that she couldn't quite believe it. However, despite her exhaustion and her blinding happiness, she made sure to call her mother once a week, carefully keeping track of the days on a calendar the TARDIS helpfully provided her.
"So you're enjoyin' yourself then?" Jackie asked the first week she called home, lying supine on her bed, dressed in her pyjamas, still buzzing from watching Freddie Mercury perform live and the promise of visiting the Globe Theatre the next morning to watch one of Shakespeare's plays on opening night.
"I really am." She answered, even though she knew it wasn't the answer her mother wanted to hear but unable to lie. "There's so much to see, mum. I get why the Doctor's always travelling, never staying in one place too long. How can he?"
The walk through the forest was deeply pleasant and they emerged from the woods to find a small town built next to the winding river, which rushed and burbled between the deep riverbanks. The town itself was, as Rose had said, like out of a fairytale. The streets were narrow and packed close together, fallen straw littered the cobbed streets, and buildings made out of wood rose above them with elegant, but functional, facades. A stone bridge crossed the river, connecting the two sections of the town together, and animals that closely resembled horses pulled carts along through the wider sections of the town. People moved through the streets in colourful clothes of reds and blues and, yet again, the three TARDIS travellers stood out in their Earth-based clothing.
"It's like England." Zoe decided. "Elizabethan England that is. The architecture is similar."
"I suppose it is." The Doctor said as though noticing it for the first time.
Rose breathed deeply. "Smells better though."
"Here's hoping they have indoor plumbing." Zoe grinned, raising her crossed fingers.
Neither of them cared to repeat their stay in the 16th century, which they had enjoyed for the most part until they realised there was no indoor plumbing and the fun had disappeared fairly swiftly.
"Ooo, a market!" The Doctor's face lit up.
The man was incapable of walking past any type of market and Zoe supposed it was a good thing that the TARDIS was, theoretically, infinite because he always filled his pockets at such things.
As was normal for them, they attracted some attention by virtue of the Doctor's enthusiasm and their unusual dress. It was still disconcerting to be stared at but she was slowly getting used to it and slipped away from her sister and alien friend to explore the market on her own, examining the stalls, absently thinking of finding a gift for Jackie. She still had yet to raise the issue of going home to visit their mother with the Doctor. She knew that she was procrastinating, putting off the inevitable temper tantrum that would put the Doctor into a sulk before he ultimately caved in with a lot of grumbling, simply because she didn't want to deal with his behaviour. For a man coming up to 1000 years old, he was remarkably like a spoilt child at times.
There were some nice soaps that she thought Jackie might like but as soon as she brought one to her nose to have a sniff, she immediately started sneezing, her allergies set off. She quickly dropped it and stumbled away from the stall, shoulder knocking into a stone wall where she leaned as she sneezed and sneezed, eyes watering. It took ten minutes for her sinuses to clear and her eyes and nose to stop running. The Doctor found her mopping her face with her scarf not long after, pulling Rose along behind him.
"Fancy getting lunch?" He asked her. "Or I s'pose it's breakfast for you."
"Are you okay?" Rose asked, brow dropping to a worried frown.
"Allergies." Zoe said thickly. "I'm fine." She rubbed her face again. "And I always fancy lunch."
"Great!" The Doctor said. "We found a tavern."
"Oh, an actual tavern!" She exclaimed, enthused, her eyes itchy. "Do you reckon they'll have mead? I've always wanted to try mead."
The tavern was located on the near the river bank and they took a stone-crafted table outside while Rose showed Zoe the material she had bought, figuring that Bev back home could make a dress out of it for her. The material was incredibly fine and delicately soft. It felt like the softest cotton between her fingers, and was a deep, gorgeous pink that would look amazing against Rose's soft-white skin.
"Good catch." She said.
"The Doctor actually saw it." Rose said, pleased, carefully folding it away back into the package it came it before slipping it into the Doctor's deep pockets. "He thought it'd look nice."
The alien's ears turned red and Zoe grinned openly at him but he avoided her eyes, refusing to take part in her mockery. Fortunately, he was saved by a server who emerged in a stained apron, corpulent stomach straining against the ties. To her delight, the tavern did have mead and so she ordered a mug of that and whatever was hot and ready to be served. As much as she enjoyed the adventurous, exploration aspects of their travels, the bits that she always looked forward to were the meals that they shared at each destination. They were always fun and relaxing and she got to try all sorts of food that she wouldn't be able to get in London, even with its vast multiculturalism.
Lunch turned out to be a hearty stew with fresh bread and it was delicious. Her hungry stomach soaked it up, listening to Rose and the Doctor go back and forth with gentle flirtation that was quite sweet to witness. It was painfully obvious that they fancied each other – or at least that Rose fancied him, it was harder to tell with the Doctor as he was open and affectionate with most people they met – but Zoe doubted anything would truly come of it. The Doctor's life was so long. He would outlive both Zoe and Rose by hundreds, if not thousands, of years. She couldn't imagine such a life and it was saddening to realise that while he was such a large part of their lives, they could only be such a small part of his.
She scooped up a piece of tender meat and spooned it into her mouth, wondering whether he would remember them in another thousand years. She felt a foot knock against her ankle and she looked up. The Doctor was looking at her, his blue eyes focused on her as Rose ate her lunch.
"You look sad." He said, unusually observant. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, no." She shook her head with a smile, chastising herself for being so silly and sentimental. "I'm not sad. How can I be sad when I'm here?"
He looked closely at her, as though not he didn't believe her, but he smiled.
"Good," he said, "because I thought you'd might like to go for a hike in the mountains."
"Just me?" She asked innocently. "If you and Rose want to be alone, you just have to tell me. No need to send me to the mountains."
Rose turned pink while his ears turned red. The lingering sadness disappeared from her.
"All three of us, you irritating ape." The Doctor grumbled.
A fat, heavy droplet of rain fell onto her cheek.
"Love the idea," she said, "but it might have to wait though."
They had just enough time to leap from their seats and gather their belongings before the skies opened and a heavy downpour dropped from the heavens. The tavern owner looked surprised at their entrance – stumbling and laughing as water dripped from them – before he peered out of the doorway they had burst through. His tongue clucked against the roof of his mouth, the world darkened by the unexpected arrival of torrential rain.
"Well, now." He said surprised. "Wasn't expectin' that."
The rain continued unabated for three days and three nights.
There was a discussion about trying to make it back to the TARDIS but the Doctor spent fifteen minutes outside to help secure the banks against the rising water and came back in soaked through to the bone. He knocked the idea off the table. If they went out in the rain, both Rose and Zoe would be sick for days afterwards and he didn't plan on playing nursemaid to two humans. Fortunately, the tavern had a room available upstairs that they could stay in. It wasn't much – a rickety bed that the two sisters shared, and a chair that the Doctor sat in, fiddling with his sonic screwdriver, bored out of his mind at being trapped inside with nowhere to go and nothing to do.
The tavern owner, Thadeus, had taken to joining them at mealtimes since business had slowed right down. Only the very brave, and very foolish, ventured out from their homes to reach the tavern and as the roads got slicker and thicker with mud as each day passed without any let up, no one left their homes. He was a cheerful, jolly man with a young son, Okana, who had taken to Rose as quickly as the Doctor had. Thadeus's wife had died in childbirth but instead of letting her death send him into a deep, spiralling sadness, he had let him turn him into happy, kind, and devoted father whose son clearly adored him.
"It'll pass." Thadeus said, repeating his optimistic words when they had gone downstairs for breakfast on the first morning to find the weather still howling and pounding at the single paned windows that began to leak around the edges. "Can't rain forever now, can it?"
In an effort to stave off his ever-increasing boredom, the Doctor decided that it was the perfect time to begin the lessons he had promised Zoe after Downing Street. Zoe had very little say in the matter and whilst she wanted to know about temporal and quantum mechanics, because she held the not-so-secret desire to one day fly the TARDIS, she was not prepared for it. Whilst Rose played games with Okana and helped Thadeus around the tavern, Zoe was made to sit still and listen as the Doctor explained basic mathematics, or at least what he called basic mathematics; she would have argued the point had she been given the opportunity to speak but her job was just to sit there and listened.
He was a fairly enigmatic teacher, something that didn't particularly surprise her, but he had the annoying tendency to look at her like she just dribbled on her shirt when she told him she didn't understand something. It was disheartening, and incredibly infuriating, and it made her want to clobber him over the back of the head with the iron wrought candle lamp, if only to get a few minutes of peace and quiet. However, she did eventually find the lessons interesting because once he figured out her level of mathematics, he was able to explain the complicated concepts in terms that she understood.
It was after lunch on the third day, in the middle of the Doctor explaining the extreme basics of quantum mechanics to her – and more fool her for asking if she could learn to fly the TARDIS because you're not touching my ship until you understand quantum mechanics and the fourth dimension –, when the rain stopped. It stopped so abruptly that the volume change took a moment to register. She dug a finger into her ear, thinking that she'd just gone deaf, before she realised what had happened.
Rose appeared from the kitchen, flour dusting one cheek as Thadeus had offered to teach her to make bread from scratch and the laughter that came from the kitchen had been warm and attractive.
"It's stopped." She said with a hint of amazement in her voice.
"Gods be good!" Thadeus exclaimed as he appeared behind her. "What did I tell you? It'd pass, my friends, and it has!"
Zoe turned in her chair, stretching as she did so – if they were going to continue their lessons then she hoped they would do it in the library with the comfy chairs. "Just like that?"
"You complain'?" Rose asked, hurrying towards the door and opening it, bursting out into the fresh air. She spread her arms wide and cheered. "Freedom!"
Thadeus laughed and let his son run out to join Rose. They all followed her, and the rest of the town slowly emerged from their homes, looking around curiously and with relief etched on their faces. It seemed that the Doctor wasn't the only one who had been antsy locked up in their homes for three days. The ground was soaked. Large pools of water turned into rivers, winding their way through the cobbles to the river that was ferocious in its anger, burbling and screaming as it wound its way past them.
"At least the river didn't flood." Zoe said, stretching her arms high above her head, grunting at the pull in her sore muscles. After a month of activity, she was no longer used to sitting and studying and everything had started to hurt.
"Yeah." The Doctor said, stepping onto the grass and mud, sinking up to his ankles with a surprise sound. Rose laughed at him while Zoe reached for his hands and helped him out, his body stumbling into hers. "That explains it."
She looked curious. "What does?"
He pointed his screwdriver at the ground and it hummed.
"Loam soil." He told her. "Very absorbent. It helped to keep the floodwaters down."
"They built the town on this loam soil?" Zoe asked, poking at the ground with the toe of her boot before flicking the mud off.
"Seems so." He nodded.
"Doesn't that mean that the foundation is now a sodden mess?" She said, arms folded across her chest against the cold that brushed at her even through her jacket.
"It'll dry." The Doctor said even as a small expression of worry passed through his eyes. "So long as there's not another downpour, and they're careful not to put too much pressure on the ground." He scratched behind his ear. "Actually, maybe I should have a quick word with whoever's in charge."
"Couldn't hurt." She smiled and he bumped shoulders with her before carefully moving towards Thadeus, distributing his weight evenly, making him walk like a penguin. She stifled her laugh and turned to watch Rose and Okana pick their way across the path to make their way towards the stone bring.
It hadn't been the most exciting trip they'd taken, but it had been kind of nice to take it easy for a few days. They didn't normal pause for very long. It tended to be one destination after another with breaks long enough for Zoe and Rose to get some sleep. Gaju had been unusual in the fact that they stayed for a week. Normally they stayed for a few hours, sometimes overnight, before they were off again. She felt rested and ready to start up their adventures again, deciding to put off asking the Doctor to take them home for a quick visit. After spending three days trapped in a tavern, he would be even less willing to put up with a Sunday spent in London visiting Jackie.
"Right-o." The Doctor said, appearing at her side like a genie from a bottle. She jumped, startled, and he smirked down at her. "I'm off to find the mayor."
"Fancy some company?" She asked, desperate to stretch her legs properly.
He looked surprised and happy by her offer and he nodded, making a gesture to take her hand before catching himself and aborting the movement by shoving it into his pocket. She hadn't had to tell him that she didn't like holding hands. He picked up on that by himself and quietly respected her preferences but sometimes – rarely – when it was just the two of them, he automatically reached for her. He yelled out to Rose who just waved at him, happy building mud pies with Okana, and they set off through the town in search of the mayor – Zoe had a flash of what her sister would be like as a mother and it warmed her through.
The town had weathered the rain surprisingly well. The worst of the damage came in the form of dips in the road where it sank in on itself under the weight of the cobbles. None of the buildings dipped and Zoe assumed that was because the weight was evenly distributed across the surface. She followed in the Doctor's footsteps exactly, taking care to step where he stepped, figuring that his superior Time Lord whatever told him where to step to avoid sinking into the ground. Not that anyone else took care of such things.
"I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that's the mayor's house." Zoe said as a large, gaudy house distinguished itself from the houses around them. It seemed that those in power who liked to flaunt its wealthy trappings was universal. It towered over the other houses and looked much better constructed. "Think he's compensating for something?"
The Doctor laughed at that and she grinned. There were already other people grouped around the house, talking and jostling against each other, clearly waiting for an audience with the mayor. Using his tall body and broad shoulders, the Doctor cleared a path for them and Zoe jogged up the slick stone steps behind him. He didn't bother knocking and Zoe shut the door behind them on the surprised faces of the local citizens.
"Oh, this is nice." She said, stomping the water and mud from her boots. The house was cleaner and warmer than the tavern with clean walls and wooden floorboards, fires roaring in every room. "Why do we never stay in nice places like this?"
He looked a little offended. "I take you to nice places."
"The places are nice," she agreed, "the accommodation is sometimes questionable."
"I apologised for Riva VI." He grumbled and she bit back a smile; they'd intended to spend the night on Riva VI but Zoe had been mistaken for a prostitute in the lobby of their hotel and had instead spent the night sitting in a police cell whilst the Doctor tried to solve the problem.
The cell had been less than pleasant.
The company not so bad though. One of her fellow criminals had a bottle of home-brewed alcohol tucked away up their leg and they'd proceeded to get royally drunk until the police were happy to tip her into the Doctor's surprised arms.
The hangover hadn't been nice though. The only reason he didn't let her suffer through it was because he'd felt guilty about her being in the cell in the first place.
"Who are you?" A confused voice asked and they both looked up and around to find the mayor staring at them. He was obviously the mayor due to his voluminous black robes and extravagant gold chain that Zoe hoped was an artefact of the office and not a personal choice.
"Hello." The Doctor said with his usual wide smile. "I'm the Doctor, this is Zoe."
She waggled her fingers. "Hello."
"We're here to help." He continued.
"Oh, well, good, I suppose." The mayor replied, clearly flustered by their presence. "Although I can't say what you could help with. The rain has stopped, after all."
"Yeah, except you're going to have problems with your foundations if you don't talk to your people." The Doctor replied and the mayor blinked at him. "Your town's built on very absorbent soil, mayor. You need to give it time to dry out before you get back to normal."
"Well..." he said before pausing. "I'm sure it'll be fine."
"You've already got parts of the roads sinking in on itself." He said, the skin around his eyes tightening slightly at the mayor's tone. "If you don't talk to your people and tell them to ease off transporting things across it for the next month, at least –"
"A month!" The mayor exclaimed.
"Then you'll have an even bigger problem on your hands than some wet roads." The Doctor continued as though he hadn't been interrupted.
"Yes, well, thank you for your concern...Doctor, was it?" The mayor asked and Zoe recognised the tone of his voice. It was the tone of voice of someone who didn't want to listen to reason because he either didn't understand, or he just didn't care. "It's very good of you to come to me with that. You're performing your civic duty, I like that, but, rest assured, everything will be fine."
"But –" Zoe began but the Doctor cut her off with a shake of his head and she fell silent.
"Now, if you'll both excuse me, I need to make sure the people see me." The mayor said, straightening his outfit. "It's important to be seen at times like this, you know? Make sure everyone understands that it's business as normal."
They were ushered out of the house and lost the mayor in the crowd of people below. They watched him from the top steps as he relished in the citizens attentions, enjoying being able to reassure them.
"Why did you stop me?" Zoe asked, looking up at the Doctor.
"Hmm?" He replied, distracted before hearing her question. "Oh. Sometimes you can't get through to people. He has the information. It's up to him to do with it what he will. No sense in wasting our time. Nothing might actually happen."
"You think that?" She asked uncertainly.
"The odds are low." He admitted, pulling a face as he did so. "Nothing to get too worried about. They'll have some bumpy roads but no one'll die."
"Oh." She said. "Bit anticlimactic."
He looked amused. "Not everything's the end of the world."
"Considering how we first met, I'm going to take that with a pinch of salt." She replied and he laughed as they walked down the stairs, taking them carefully due to the rain slicked nature of them. "So we're off then?"
"Yep." He said. "Thought we could tick something else off your list. What's next?"
"Drana." She said with a grin. "Purple oceans, Doctor."
"Purple oceans." He smiled widely at her.
Riding on a wave of affection for her alien friend, she linked her arms with him and leaned against him, cheek pressed to his shoulder. He smiled fondly down at her. She wasn't as emotionally expressive as Rose, which made the few moments she did express her affection for him all the more valuable. They walked in silence, enjoying each other's company, smiling at the people they passed before the bridge came into view. Okana was walking along the walking, holding onto Rose's hand as he did so, Thadeus smoking his pipe at the stone table where they ate lunch on their first day on Thanatos.
Okana saw them first and waved wildly at them. They waved back.
"He's a sweet kid." Zoe said.
"He is." The Doctor agreed. "He likes Rose a lot."
"Jealous, Doctor?" She teased.
"Oh, shut up." He laughed and she laughed with him before it was cut off by an ominous rumbling sound.
She looked around, confused. "What on earth is that?"
Panic slipped across the Doctor's face. "Earthquake."
"What?"
"Earthquake!" He shouted. "Rose! Earthquake!"
The words left his mouth a moment too late. Beneath their feet, the ground exploded with anger, shaking and trembling. They were thrown to the ground and Zoe screamed in surprise as she went down. The Doctor grabbed her and shielded her with his body from the roof tiles and windows that were shaken loose from their rightful place. The noise was overwhelming – much worse than when the missile had struck Downing Street. It filled her ears and made her cry out in fear as it went on and on, the ground splitting beneath them, soaking their bodies with thick, wet mud that pushed to the surface, the force of it carrying them down towards the river.
The Doctor caught hold of a piece of wood that jutted out from the base of a house. He held tightly onto Zoe around her waist and she pulled herself up his body, clinging onto his shoulders as the earthquake continued. Mud flowed into her mouth, forcing her to spit it out or drown in it.
Eventually, after many long, terrifying minutes, the ground stopped shaking. The Doctor's face was right next to hers, mud streaked and concerned.
"Are you okay?" He demanded, worry coating his words.
"Rose." Zoe coughed up mud and spat it onto the ground as she struggled to sit up. "Where's Rose?"
He helped her to her feet and they turned, stumbling towards the bridge. Zoe's stomach bottomed out. The bridge was gone, broken asunder, bricks and mortar dropped into the river below, forming a dam that was pushing the water higher and higher.
"Rose!" She cried out, panic filling her voice. She ran as quickly as she could through the mud towards the destroyed bridge, fear surging through her as the Doctor's voice joined hers. "Rosie! Rose!"
"Zoe! Doctor!" Rose called out, stumbling from the wreckage, soaked through and pale with fear and panic. She stumbled into their arms and Zoe held onto her tightly. "Okana. Okana – he – he let go. He's in the water."
They all turned to look at the violent, rushing water and they could just make out the small, terrified form of Okana, clinging to the rubble.