Chapter Ten

A/N: No reviewers.

For a moment, all that could be heard on the deck was silence, bar the resounding crackle of the ice that had hit the ship, and the lapping of the waves at it. But that moment passed quickly, and then began the screams.

They came from below deck, the exclamations of annoyance at having been jolted so violently, and then the protestations when they could not work out what had happened to make them jolt. But the cries from below did not compare to the cries of those who had come up to the deck to see for themselves, and had caught sight of the iceberg drifting away from the ship as it moved from its course. Those cries were piercing, terrible. Scared. Just as scared as Sybil was now.

The Doctor, the moment he saw the people coming out onto the deck, as the lifeboats were being prepared for first class, caught the young woman's hand and began to pull her inside, sprinting as fast as his legs would carry him in the direction of the blue box, which had been parked at the edge of a first class lounge, where many people thought it was simply a decorative feature, having no idea that it was so much more than that.

It took the young woman just a few moments to come to her senses, at which point she tugged at the Time Lord's arm a little more firmly than he did with hers, jerking him backwards to her, thus ceasing their running, leaving them the only ones on the boat that were stationary, or so she assumed, from the chaos that surrounded them from every direction.

"Doctor, where are you going?" she questioned the man, the horror at what he was doing evident in the tone with which she spoke to him. "We can't just abandon these people, Doctor, they need our help! The ship might sink, we need to get them off of it!"

"How, Sybil?" the Doctor questioned, his tone filled with anger, though not with her, but with himself. The moment he had discovered that they were on R.M.S. Titanic, he should have bundled them back into the TARDIS and taken them somewhere else. Now, he would have even more blood on his hands, the blood of the people who had looked forward to a new experience, to a new life. The majority of them would not even see their old lives back to shore, and he could not save them. It was all happening again.

"You have a ship below decks that is bigger on the inside than this ship could be by far!" she exclaimed, desperate to prove the point, as if the man's reluctance to help was merely due to a lack of an action plan, and that providing him with one would change his mind. She knew that it would most likely not do so, but she also knew that she would not be able to live with herself if she did not try and people died as a result of that. "Even if we don't have enough time to save everyone, surely we can save as many people as we can! Surely we can save someone!"

"Sybil, it is not that simple!" the Doctor all but yelled, evidently just as distressed as she was. "If it was like that, I would have already been sending people into the TARDIS, but it isn't. There are a set number of people that will die on this ship, and that has created a fixed point in time. I can't change it, even if I want to."

Immediately, the young lady, which she was referred to in the most literal sense of the word, opened her mouth once again, to make a comment in return, most likely on his use of the word 'if', but she paused, her mouth closing and her eyes widening in realisation as she considered something that she obviously had not thought of before. For a moment, the Time Lord considered asking what was wrong, but he did not get the chance, as she spoke before he could do. "Does that number include James and Patrick?"

The moment she asked, the Doctor let out a slight sigh. He should have anticipated that she would ask that question, and was suddenly glad that it had not been he who had asked it, as that would have been an extremely awkward situation indeed, given the answer that he would be forced to give.

"Well?" she pressed on, evidently not satisfied with the answer that the poignant silence was giving to her, as she wished to hear the madman say it, however good or bad it would be. After all, it was better to know for certain than to wait and wonder, and if she was going to lose two people so dear to her, she would rather be prepared for that occurrence than be ignorant and feel the blow a great deal harder when the time came, even if it would spare her the pain for a little while.

Though he could see that she so desperately needed an answer to her question, the Doctor found himself unable to speak, for fear that doing so would break him. After all, he had very much liked James and Patrick in the short time that he had known them, and telling her what she wanted to hear would be far too emotional for the pair of them, he feared. That was the reason that, although he had not really wished to answer at all, he gave a stiff nod in the affirmative, before continuing to pull her along, though on this occasion, she did not object, as she was far too shocked to do so.

Once they reached the TARDIS, the man allowed them access to the box with little delay, and as soon as they were in there, he moved to the controls, preparing for them to set off, so that they could be away from the ship long before it went down. However, as he turned, having heard a sigh, the dark haired man was horrified to see that the sigh had been that of aged wood, and that the door of his machine was barely closed.

Sybil had run away.

A/N: As you can tell, this story is close to being done, but still, please review!