Chapter 10

Rescue

"River," The Doctor walked up to the cell, "How are you?"

"Oh, fine," She smiled, "And you?"

"Not so good," He frowned, "We're looking for someone. Her names Rose Tyler, we think she might be here?"

"And you came to me... why?" River kept smiling.

"Well, different reasons," The Doctor replied, "So, help us?"

"Of course," She backed away from the cell, "Except, better warn you, the sonic isn't going to work and I can't open the doors."

"We have the master key… sort of," The Doctor held up Amy' s phone, "It has all the codes."

"Ah, but the cell doors need an actual key," River said, "Ever since this new prisoner arrived security's gone crazy. They've moved all the guards to that wing, she was in the cell next to mine for a couple days but she was moved. They took out all the keypads for the cells and now you can only use a physical key. There's a specific one for each cell door. Of course there is an overall key, a skeleton key. It fits into all the locks, but only one man knows where it is and he's billions of miles away. So, I'm stuck in this cell. They took my vortex manipulator."

"So you're actually stuck in there now," Amy raised her eyebrows in surprise, "No way out?"

"No, none at all," River sighed.

"This new prisoner, did you get a good look at her?" The Doctor asked.

"As good as possible," River sat on her bed, "She was smaller, blond with brown eyes. Definitely had an English accent, not sure of the specific one."

"That sounds like Rose," John moved forward, "Where did they take her?"

"Oh, now you're new," River smiled and walked forward, "Doctor River Song, and you are?"

"John, John Smith, sort of," He shook her hand, "Any idea where she is?"

"I heard them talking about the general area they were taking her. The second maximum security zone. They were moving all the other prisoners to other cells. She's going to be alone there."

John rummaged through his pockets, "Have it… in here… somewhere. Aha." He pulled out the blueprints quickly, causing the other things in that pocket to follow. "Where is it? Can you point to it on here?"

River pointed out the section and was going to sit back down when she froze, "Where did you get those?" She said, pointing to the floor next to Amy's foot where the contents of John's pocket had fallen.

"What? I don't know, I think I got the sweets from some carnival in the Jeistrel Nebula, not sure where, huge carnival," John frowned, "The keys… well not sure. Found them under a sofa in the library."

"Whose sofa was it?"

"Mine," The Doctor said, "And no, I've no idea where we got the keys."

"That one, right there," She said, "The dark gray, bluish one." Amy held it up, "Yes, that one. That's the skeleton key."

"Really?" the Doctor said, "Well that's interesting. We seem to be very lucky today."

"Or it could be Rose, like you said," Rory added.

"Or it could be that," The Doctor nodded, he unlocked the cell door, "So River, coming?"

"Definitely."

They walked quickly through the halls, the Doctor opening all doors they came to with Amy's phone.

After few minutes, River sped up to walk next to him. "So," She started, pulling out a blue book, their diary, "Where are we now?"

"Hmm," The Doctor said, thinking, "Just went to some gardens…"

"Gardens of Elia?" River smiled, "That was three days ago for me."

"Really?" The Doctor looked up, surprised, "Two weeks for me."

"Well, we seem to be in the middle somewhere," River smiled sadly, "The halfway point."

"Yeah, well, still got the other half to look forward too," The Doctor looked away, knowing what she meant. Each time she met him a again he would know her less, he knew because he remembered. As she started to know him even better he would stop trusting her.

And it would all lead up to the library, with CAL, the handcuffs and the countdown. He tried to push the memories to the back of his mind. River was still here, focus on that.

"So, Amy, Rory," River turned around slightly, still walking, "How's life?"

"Pretty good," Amy said, "Minus this bit of confusion we're in."

"Really? I was going to say not that good," Rory said, "I mean he said we were going to go to some resort planet, and we end up on a planet that was a huge dump, that's where we were a week ago, before this happened. But there were still people living there, on that dump planet and they decided they would worship red heads."

"Yeah, I liked that planet," Amy smiled, "Minus the whole it was a rubbish heap."

"Yeah, I was fine with it until they assumed I was your slave and I was to be sacrificed so you could be immortal," Rory responded, "No help from him though. What were you even doing?"

The Doctor tried to avoid his glare, "Well, I was… distracted. I mean it's not every day that you land on a planet that's a huge-"

"Pile of trash?"

"Yeah. And you know 'One man's trash is another man's treasure'," The Doctor grinned, "There was a huge wrecked ship. It was ancient, I didn't even recognize it."

"So how did you two get out of it?" River asked Rory. They were still five minutes from the new prisoner's cell. The prisoner they believed to be Rose.

"Well the Doctor sort of…" Rory thought about it, "They found him 'trespassing on an ancient burial ground'. That's how they described it."

"How was I to know they buried their ancestors in the ship?" The Doctor defended himself as River laughed.

"Yeah, well we got out of it," Amy smiled, "Had to convince them that I was a very angry goddess and that the Doctor didn't even deserve to be executed. They just exiled him, and Rory and I managed to get back to the TARDIS before he left."

The Doctor frowned, "I landed right next to the throne. It took days to get all the darts out of outside of the TARDIS."

The four were all smiling now, with John just walking in the back.

"You okay?" Amy asked, noticing.

"Yeah, I'm fine," John looked away, "I'm just worried. What if it isn't Rose?"

"Then we'll find some other way to find her." Amy reassured him. "We'll find her."

John nodded, not believing her. He couldn't stop the ideas flooding through his head. Rose betraying them, Rose not betraying them, Rose dead…

"Well this is the last door," The Doctor interrupted his thoughts. "Better do a quick scan."

He brought the screwdriver up and scanned, "Let's see, ten heat signatures, well eleven, but I'm guessing the last one is the prisoner… who is hopefully Rose." He added seeing the look on John's face. He felt exactly the same way.

"So how're we going to get past the guards?" Amy asked quietly.

"Umm." The Doctor paused, "No idea."

"We could always just walk in," River suggested.

"Em, maybe," John glanced at her, "But from those readings, they all have guns. Ready to kill us with."

"Yes, that is true," River looked around for a second, "Hold on. I have an idea."

She grabbed the skeleton key out of the Doctor's outside pocket and ran down the corridor, back where they came from.

"Where's she gone?" Amy asked.

The three men all shook their heads. "No idea," The Doctor said out loud.

They waited for about a minute before they heard her returning.

"River, what was that about?" The Doctor asked.

"I remembered where they put this," She held up her wrist with a smile. On it was the vortex manipulator.

The Doctor grinned. "So we just stick in the coordinates of the cell. Jump in there, grab her, and jump back here."

River nodded. "I'll just put them in and do-"

"No," The Doctor said, "I'll go, and I'm not taking no as an answer," He said in reply to River's glare. He quickly took the vortex manipulator and wrapped it around his own wrist, checking the coordinates.

John walked up to him, "I want to go," he kept going as he saw the Doctor had opened his mouth to reply, "I won't go in your place, but I want to go with you. It can transport more than one."

The Doctor knew the look in John's eyes and decided not to argue. It wasn't a very good idea to argue with himself in this sort of situation.

"Fine," He held out his wrist, "Let's go."

"You're coming back right to this spot yeah?" Amy said quickly before they had left.

"Yeah," The Doctor grinned, "They won't expect it. They'd probably think we were miles away, not a few feet. Safe enough."

"Come on," John had his hand on the vortex manipulator.

The Doctor nodded and they both disappeared.

They reappeared in a small cell, the ten guards were in formation on the other side of the bars, three facing the door, two watching the corridor to the left while two others watched the corridor to the right.

The worrisome bit was the three guards facing the cell. The three guards who immediately brought their guns up, ready to shoot.

The Doctor grinned, "Surprise." He turned to face the back of the cell, hoping the shock of their appearance would keep the guards frozen for the much needed five seconds it would take to get Rose out.

Except it wasn't Rose sitting on the bed in the cell. It was a man that the Doctor hadn't seen in over two years, right before his regeneration. He wasted a second just staring.

He then wasted another second to open his mouth and gasp out, "Jack?"

:) I just had to put Jack in it. Sorry about the rambling about the dump planet, just thought it would be something they might start talking about. Also, I've had the idea for the story up till now for a really long time, so I knew it almost by heart, after this point it might take longer to update, possibly, maybe not.

Well, thank you so much for reading and reviewing(hint hint). :D