The problem was, what happened next was that they crashed.
Seo helped him out of the wreck. "They're still after us," she said. "We've got to run."
"Can you see the TARDIS, yet?" the Doctor asked, coughing, as he emerged from the wreckage. "See where we are? Or…?"
He stopped.
As he noticed the area around him.
"Ah. Not the Time Agency, then."
"It looks like it did before," Seo said. "From the view, in the capital. Is this what your home planet usually looks like?"
The Doctor looked around himself.
Red earth. Orange sky. Silver leaves on trees.
He sighed.
"I wish I could say it wasn't," he admitted. "But… nope. This is exactly what it's supposed to look like, on Gallifrey, outside the capital. Right down to the smallest detail."
He couldn't think why.
Just how much of this planet had these people recreated, to keep himself and Seo trapped? And where, exactly, was the Time Agency? Where was his TARDIS?
…had they even taken his TARDIS?
"Keep going?" the Doctor asked.
"Keep going," Seo agreed. Squinting so she could peer through the sand and the sun. "Whatever's out here, they don't want us to reach it. So I think we'd better do just that."
The Doctor smiled.
Sometimes, he could really tell she took after him.
"Come on!" Seo called back, hurrying out into the sand. "Let's go!"
No one chased them.
No one needed to.
The first obstacle that they encountered was the weather.
High winds swept up, seemingly from nowhere, creating a massive sand storm around them. Sand spurt in their faces. Whipped itself around them, howled in their ears.
"It won't bury us alive," the Doctor insisted, keeping a tight hold on her hand. "They might make us suffer, but they won't let us die. We've already seen that."
Seo stumbled.
And the Doctor turned. "Seo?"
Seo looked up at him. Her teeth chattering, shivering as if from cold. "Can… I borrow your coat?"
They went on. Into the storm. Despite every instinct they had in them, despite every scrap of common sense, they continued into it. Letting the storm tear at their skin and make them ache… but the Doctor had been right.
It didn't kill them.
At least… the storm didn't.
They slowed, as Seo began to feel sluggish. Her face flushed, her teeth chattering, her head swimming with fever.
"You need to stop and rest!" the Doctor told her.
What she really needed was water.
But the settlement was too far away. And every step forwards that they took, Seo seemed to get worse and worse.
"Have to go on," Seo gritted, through her teeth. Trying to push forwards. "Have to… get out. Have to… save…"
But she couldn't go on.
The Doctor knew it.
She only managed a few steps, before she collapsed into the sand. The Doctor scrambling to pick her back up.
"We have to turn back," the Doctor said. "It's our only hope."
Seo shook her head, struggling out of his grip. Falling to her hands and knees, in the sand. "They'll kill you."
"Haven't so far." The Doctor knelt down, beside her. "But they might kill you, if we don't. And you've got too much life left in you to die, now."
Seo looked at him.
Terrified.
"I… don't want you to die," Seo said. She huddled into his coat, trying to seek warmth. "Maybe they won't need Big Panda anymore, when they've got Baby Panda to drive in the crowds."
"Baby Panda can't fly Big Panda's TARDIS," the Doctor reminded her. "And Big Panda's TARDIS doesn't go on temper tantrums all the time when she doesn't get her way."
He was expecting at least a smile out of her, from this.
But she just tugged his coat tighter around herself.
They managed to turn back. Make it a little ways back towards the capital. The wind dying down around them, with every step back towards their prison.
By the time the storm was gone, Seo had passed out.
The Doctor bent down. Sweeping her into his arms, as he struggled to carry her the rest of the way. But even without the wind and the storm, she grew heavier and heavier with every step.
He found himself panting, stumbling forwards out of sheer willpower.
He was about half-way back to the capital when he found… he couldn't go any further. Just didn't have any energy left to use up. He stumbled, fell down into the sand. Barely able to keep Seo in his arms, where she groaned, her face still flushed and feverish.
He heard the sound of the skimmer before he saw it.
Didn't have to look up, to know who it was.
"Need a lift home?" came Romana's voice.
The moment Seo re-entered the capital, her fever broke. Almost right on cue. She was immediately rushed to the Mortal Coil Hospital Complex, and admitted there.
The Doctor stood by Seo's hospital bed.
Watching her, unconscious. But stable. As she lay in a hospital on a fake version of a world he'd just undestroyed. And all he could feel, looking at her, was a horrible gnawing emptiness, deep down inside him.
Not again.
Not another.
Romana came by to see him. Offered him some water.
He took it. Sipped it. Eyes never leaving Seo. "You'd think it would be easier," he remarked, idly, "when it's not really your child. But… it isn't. Not at all."
"Isn't she yours?" said Romana.
"Some other me," said the Doctor. "Some other Doctor, in some other timeline, living some other life. He's dead, you know. That whole universe is dead."
Romana nodded, slowly.
"And her mother?" she asked, softly.
"I'm sure you know all about that, already," the Doctor said. Hand tightening around the water glass. "Seo thinks it's her fault, you know. If she ever forgives me for not going back in time and saving Buffy… that'll be why. Because she think it should be her cross to bear, not mine."
"Shouldn't it be?" Romana said.
The Doctor turned.
Looked his once-friend right in the eye. If this had really been Romana, she'd never have asked that. If this had really been Romana, she would have known. She would have understood.
"Stop hurting Seo," the Doctor demanded. "Whatever this is about, you've got me. You don't need her."
"I have no intention of harming Seo," Romana replied. "You're the only one doing that."
The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her.
Didn't dare dignify that with an answer.
Romana sighed. "Perhaps it's time… we talked," she said. "In private."