Chapter X

Doctor's POV

They were all following him – Sarah Jane, Rose and Mira – as he ran out of the maths room and down the stairs. Just like in old days when he had travelled with more than one person at a time.

At the bottom of the stairs he bumped into Mickey and one of the children. The one that wasn't allowed to eat chips, he remembered.

"What is going on?" Mickey wanted to know. But before he had the chance to answer, the Krillitanes – now in their bat-form – were closing in. Their wings weren't the best option to move through the narrow corridors, but they were still fast enough.

"This way!" he yelled and turned on his heals. He shoved the whole bunch of people – no less than five they were now, not including himself – in his desired direction. His eyes fell on Mira, but she seemed to keep up rather well with all this running.

They reached the canteen and he immediately tried the doors on the opposite wall, but they were locked. Not time to deal with them he realised, his hand halfway in his pocket to reach the Sonic, as the Krillitanes swept into the room, followed by Brother Lassa.

"Are they my teachers?", he heard Kenny ask.

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Leave the Doctor alive. As for the others... you can feast.", Lassa commanded his brothers.

As if they had waited for that, the Krillitanes began to swoop down on them. They all were ducking for cover. Kenny was still standing somehow exposed in the middle of the room, as one of the Krillitanes chose to charge on him.

The Doctor was about to throw a chair at the bat, just as Mira threw herself over Kenny and brought them both down to the floor. The Krillitane missed them by a few inches.

Only to be hit by a red beam of light.

"K9!", Sarah Jane exclaimed.

"Suggest you engage running mode, mistress.", the robotic dog answered, still shooting at the Krillitanes.

"Come on!", the Doctor yelled at his companions. Meanwhile, Mira had gotten back to her feet, pulling Kenny with her. As he met her glance he could see tears of pain in her eyes and she was even paler than usually. She pushed Kenny in the direction of the door before following him herself.

"K9, hold them back!", he ordered the K9 and finally left the room himself.

"Affirmative, master. Maximum defence mode!", was the last thing he heard from him.

He shoved them through the corridors and into the physics lab. As he was sure that everybody – except the Krillitanes – was inside he looked the door with his Sonic. He took a quick look at them all. They seemed to be unharmed, except for Mira. She must have fallen on her left side.

He finally gave her a quick scan with the Sonic, ignoring the defensive glance she shot him.

Well, even if her ribs had been just bruised or partially fractured before, they now were definitely broken. These humans. So fragile and yet still always throwing themselves right into trouble. As if simply ignoring the fact that they only had one heart, rather fragile bones and above all, just this one life would make them somehow invincible. Well, of course not all humans were that way, but it definitely was a trait that spread throughout their species.
He suddenly thought of Rose and the Heart of the TARDIS. She had almost sacrificed herself for him...

He was still staring at Mira. Like everyone else was doing now, with rather concerned expressions on their faces, he noticed. "How are you doing? Can you still walk?", he asked her, his hand on her right shoulder. She was leaning against the wall and visibly in pain.

"Don't worry. I'm not about to die any time soon. Besides, it's my ribs, not my feet", she said and tried a reassuring smile.

Before he could answer anything, the first Krillitane slammed against the door, causing it to shake in its frame alarmingly.

"Oh!" He almost jumped as it stroke him. He took a step back from Mira and looked at all of his companions.

"It's the oil. Krillitane life forms can't handle the oil! That's it! They've changed the physiology so often, even their own oil is toxic to them. How much was there in the kitchens?"

"Barrels of it.", Rose answered.

Now suddenly everybody jumped as the bangs on the door got louder. The Krillitanes were now ripping through it with their claws as if it was made out of cardboard.

"Okay, we need to get to the kitchens. Mickey...", he said, staring at the door out of wide eyes.

"What now, hold the coats?", Mickey replied.

"Get all the children unplugged and out of the school. Now then, bats, bats, bats, how do we fight bats?", he said, ruffling his hair and walking around. "Anyone? No idea?"

Right then his eyes fell on Kenny, who was just walking over to the fire-alarm, smashing in the glass with his elbow and pressing down the button.

"Oh, now that's brilliant!", he said admiringly.

A few moments later the door was open again and they all could see the Krillitanes in agony. They rushed by them, Mickey heading for the class-rooms, the others right behind him.

"K9!", he called out as the dog emerged from a doorway.

"Master!"

"Come on, boy! Good boy." No time to lose, he thought.

Not much later they finally reached the kitchen. He instantly walked over to the barrels, trying the Sonic on one. Then on another. And a third one. "They've been deadlock sealed! All of them! Finch must've done that - I can't open them." Would have been a nice plan, he thought. Well, it seems that he better had to come up with a new one...

"The vats would not withstand a direct hit from my laser. But my batteries are failing.", he heard K9 saying. He considered it for a few moments.

"Right. Everyone out the back door. K9, stay with me.", he said.

Rose's POV

They were all running towards the back door. All except for K9 and the Doctor. Great. He wasn't about to blew himself up again, was he?

Came to think about it, he hasn't tried it in this Regeneration, has he?

She looked at Mira. She was clearly injured, although Rose had no idea when this had happened.

"Run!", she yelled at them all and waved them out of the back door. Kenny, Mira and Sarah. Where was Mickey?

Now that they were all out, she hurried to the school yard. And there he was. Mickey, rushing all the children out of the school. She suddenly smiled. And felt a bit proud of him.

"What's he still doing in there? Should we not help him?", she suddenly heard a voice next to her. She turned her head and saw Mira. The other woman didn't look threatening at all now, she suddenly realised. Not as if older than thousand years and immortal. Her hair was all messed up and she was looking a bit tired, just as they all did.

"I guess he has a plan.", she answered.

Mira just shook her head. "Is he always like that?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid so.", Rose smiled at her, although she really was worrying about the Doctor now.

"Am I always like what?", she suddenly heard an all to familiar voice from behind. There he was, with Sarah Jane. She just was about to hug him, as a loud bang made her jump. She immediately turned around to face the school.

There had been a rather large explosion that had even cause the windows to burst. A cloud of heavy smoke was emerging from them, filling the air. But there seemed to be no actual fire.

For a moment, there was collective silence before all the children started to applause and cheer. Of course, Rose thought, it was the dream of every child, wasn't it? Blew up your own school.

A few feet away Kenny was standing, smiling all over his face. "Yes!", he yelled. A girl turned around to face him: "Did you have something to do with it?"

"Yeah, I did.", Kenny said proudly.

"Oh my God. Kenny blew up the school! It was Kenny!", she shouted, making all the other children chanting: "Kenny! Kenny! Kenny!"

She caught Mickeys glance. He was smiling at her all over his face.

Mira's POV

She was standing next to the Doctor and Sarah, as Rose rushed over to Mickey to give him a big hug.

A lot of hugging here...

She herself didn't feel like hugging at all right now. The breathtaking pain in her side had ceased to a manageable throbbing. Manageable as long as she didn't move too much. Or better speaking: Didn't move at all.

Sarah stood at the other side of the Doctor. She didn't need to look at her to feel how sad she was. K9 was missing, probably destroyed by the explosion.

"I'm sorry.", the Doctor said to Sarah.

"It's all right. He was just a... daft metal dog. Fine, really.", Sarah replied sadly. As she turned her head to them, the Doctor had put his arm around Sarah, who was crying now. It might have been just a tin-dog, Mira thought, but it was the only thing Sarah had left from her travels with the Doctor. Besides her memories.

She had just walked a few steps to give them some privacy as she felt a hand around her right upper arm. "Oi! Where are you going now? Can't take my eyes off you for even a second, can I?"

She looked at him and couldn't help herself but feeling caught red-handed. "I just wanted to give the two of you a little bit of privacy."

He looked at her in disbelief, his brows furrowed. "You have three broken ribs. You're in pain. And you still think about the privacy of others?"

She shrugged at him and immediately regretted the sudden movement. Why not care about such things, even if she was injured? As long as she didn't had to walk around like that for days, or she was bleeding to death or such, it was completely fine with her.

"TARDIS. Sickbay. Now.", he said as he took her by the hand.

"The TARDIS is in there.", she remembered suddenly.

"Yeah. That's why we're going there."

He had now turned his head to her, dragging her into the building, evading debris from the blast without even looking at it.

Great. And I manage to fall over chairs in my direct field of vision.

"She's not made of wood on the outside, is she? Because if that's the case, then..."

"Nah. She's fine." He was now walking next to her down a corridor.

"I'm old enough to walk on my own, you know?", she said after a few minutes of silence. He was still holding her by her hand.

"Oh, I don't doubt that."

She eyed him from the side. There was so much she wanted to ask him. Wanted to talk about with him. But suddenly she didn't dare. Was it because of what she had heard last night? Well, she hadn't assumed anything else, had she?

You have.

Even back in the class-room and later in the canteen it had seemed to her as if their was some sort of understanding between them. Or had it all been just polite interest? And why did she care at all? She hardly knew him, and it wasn't as if she was planning to stay here. Above that, he was a complete mystery to her. Was she annoying him? What did he feel about their conversation a few nights ago? About what she was? Was she really just allowed to stay out of pity? She suddenly realised just how much she always had relied on the empathy.

Well, just as much as other people rely on their eyesight.

Maybe she should leave. The thought stroke her out of nowhere, filling her mind. Leaving as long as there was time for doing so without causing any damage. Not to Rose, not to herself, and not to him. She was about to play with fire, she noticed all of a sudden. She had seen a different side of him at the swimming pool, and she knew herself rather good by now. They were more or less constantly challenging each other since he had rescued her. Not that she didn't liked it in some way. But how must this look like to Rose? To her it must just seem like flirting. No wonder she was jealous.

Talking to him, even being with him was a bit like walking over a minefield. Well, at least from her point of view. His point she could only guess. And that was driving her mad. At the same time his mere presence somehow had a strangely calming effect on her.

It was almost as if she was running in circles. She didn't really know what to do because her psychic senses weren't really working on him and because of that...

"You're not thinking about leaving?" She almost jumped as she heard his voice. Almost, yet still enough to send a stinging pain through her body. She looked up, directly into his eyes. Eyes so deep and dark that they almost appeared to be black and made her instantly forget the pain.

What the hell?

Did he just...? She felt how her face started to burn as it turned red. She immediately strengthened the mental barriers around her mind. She had neglected them a bit lately, she had to admit. On the other hand, it hadn't prevented the TARDIS from getting into her mind, had it?

She also noticed that he had let go of her hand. When did that happen?

"How...?", she looked at him bewildered, only too aware of the fact that her face must still be glowing red.

"I just thought. You heard us last night at the shop, didn't you? Rose and me."

Doctor's POV

They had almost reached the TARDIS as they stopped in the corridor. He looked at her face which was red with embarrassment. Had she noticed anything? Well, not that he had actually done anything. It was she who was thinking that loud. At least he assumed it had been her. Who else could it be?

Maybe I should leave.

He had heard it out of nowhere in his mind. Just subtle and quiet, not much more than a distant whisper, soft and with a somehow dark and cold undertone to it, but nevertheless, he had heard it. The first telepathic voice in his head for quite some time. How did she do it anyway? She had told him she could interact with telepaths and mirror them in some way, but he wasn't too sure how she had meant that.

He had let go of her hand immediately, for he was afraid that maybe the physical contact had triggered it a bit and he didn't want to hear any more of her thoughts. At least not without her permission.

It also might have not been the best idea to directly bring up what he had just heard, but he assumed he had a decent justification for his question.

Yeah, assuming put it quite right.

It was written all over her face that she wasn't buying it.

Besides that, she had asked 'How?'. Not 'Why' as in: Why do you think that? It had been 'How' as in: How do you know? Above all it was her mental shields that gave it away. She had suddenly raised them and he could clearly feel them now.

He wasn't even sure why he had asked it at all. He didn't wanted to hear the answer. What if she was about to say that she would leave? He knew he wouldn't stop her. He had never stopped any of his companions. If they wanted to leave him and go on with their own lives, he had hardly ever found it in himself to ask them to stay. Not if they were really serious about leaving.

And it had broken his hearts every single time.

Well, not that he knew her as long as he had known the others, but anyway. It was.. nice having her around. The way she had covered the boy with her own body as the Krillitane attacked, even though she was already injured. Her opinion about taking orders, despite her being with the military. Not to mention what she had said to him earlier..

It's just us who remain.

He had almost given up hope to find someone who could actually understand how he was feeling.

"I...", she started to say.

"Oh, stupid me.", he interrupted her immediately. "Maybe now's not the time for that. You're in pain, and I'm just asking questions which can easily wait for later." He could actually see her pain. Her pupils were slightly dilated and he had felt her raised heartbeat as he was holding her hand.

"Come on.", he said and carefully placed an arm around her shoulders. Never mind physical contact.

He guided her down the rest of the corridor, through the door and into the storage room where the TARDIS was waiting.

Once inside, he eyed her carefully. "Just one minute.", he said. "Wait here. Just right here. I'll be right back. Don't wander off! Please." He turned on his heels and was out again. K9. If there was anything left of him he maybe would be able to fix him. Even if not, he couldn't risk that anyone would find his remains. The place must be crawling with firefighters and such at any minute.

He found him in the kitchen where he had left him. The place was badly damaged, and so was K9.

"Poor dog.", he said as he crouched at his side. His ears were fallen off and hanging on cables at his side, his casing was badly burned and even had a few holes. He lifted him up and rushed back to the TARDIS. He halfway expected Mira to be gone, but to his surprise she was still in the console room, leaning against the chair.

"Wow. He is really heavy.", she commented as he hurried in, K9 still in his arms.

"Yeah, and I'm really strong.", he said whilst putting the dog on the floor.

"He's beyond repair, isn't he?", she asked sympathetically.

"I'm not sure yet.", he informed her. "Let's fix you first. Come."

She followed him out of the console room and into the corridor. He had already seen in his mind that the TARDIS had kindly moved the sickbay right next to the console room.

"Sit down.", he asked her, as he held open the door for her.

"She has rearranged again?", she wondered, whilst carefully lifting herself up on one of the beds.

"Yeah. She does that.", he said casually as he was switching on the medical scanner and then went through some of the equipment. The bones were just plain fractured and not shifted against each other, at least not the last time he had scanned her with his Sonic.

"Oh shit.", he heard behind his back, making him turn on the spot. She sat on the bed, her shirt pulled halfway up and looking at her side. "It's so blue, it's almost black..."

"I told you they are broken.", he shook his head. The bruise went from her waist up to where her skin was still covered by her shirt.

She gave the impression as if she was about to say something against it, so he just switched on a screen at the bed-head. After a few adjustments she could now clearly see for herself.

"Yeah. I believe you.", she sighed. "Did so all the time, by the way."

"Good.", he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "It's the lowest three ribs.", he continued quietly after he had pulled a chair to the bed and grabbed a device that looked a bit like his Sonic. It would just stabilise the bones and numb the nerves for a while to ease the pain. "It's not too bad..." She twitched as he lifted the hand that was holding the bone-stabiliser. "I'm not touching it.", he reassured her with a gentle voice, looking up at her. He switched on the device which came alive with a buzzing sound and a red light at its top. He let it hover about two inches above her skin and slowly moved it along the fractures. He could feel that she was staring at him. "What's it?", he asked after a few minutes of silence, looking at her face again. She breathed in as if she was about to speak, but instead she just exhaled, bit her lip and looked away. "Nothing." she said after a few seconds.

"Mira, if there is something, just tell me." He had also turned his head, looking at her skin again. There was something in the air. Like a deep, black cloud hanging above their heads. Why was it that they couldn't just talk? Whenever they were alone, things seemed to grow heavy with meaning. But not necessarily in a bad way. Well, somehow.

"You do want to leave, don't you?", he continued without looking at her as she remained silent.

"You did really hear it.", she said.

"Yeah. Sorry. It was just that. 'Maybe I should leave.' You were thinking quite loud, we were touching each other, well, I didn't try it deliberately, I...It just happened.", he stumbled, gesticulating with his free hand.

"It's OK.", she said softly, now looking at him again. "Just one thing."

"Yes?"

"Back in 1879 you said something about seeing time."

Well, if there had ever been a change of topic...

He switched off the device and she pulled down her shirt again. "Thank you.", she murmured.

"Yeah, I did...", he said carefully.

"How did you mean that? Do you see time as a whole, I mean, great, important events, or, well... down to individuals?"

All right, now he knew where this was heading. He eyed her. Not only her hands were shaking slightly again – they hadn't done that until they had reached the sickbay – he could even hear her heart beating heavy in her chest.

"I do see timelines, even of individual people. Not everything is fixed yet, so sometimes I can't say what really will come to be in the end.", he said quietly. "But I can't see yours. You're not a part of this universe. I'm sorry, but I can't see if and when you will find a way back."

"Thanks. It was worth a try, I guess.", she whispered almost inaudibly, avoiding his gaze.

"I'm so sorry.", he said again. He really meant it. There was one more thing he wanted to talk about with her. About this universe being sealed off. But as he looked at her, he just didn't have the hearts to do so.

"It's OK.", she finally said not really convincing and hopped of the bed. "Let's see what the others are doing."

10th Squad 3rd Seat: Thanks for your reviews and corrections :-) I've already fixed it. And yeah, the commas. I just realised that myself during the last chapters ;-) The German language has an awful lot of them (but you really do need them all) and I'm really using them quite excessively. But I've already started to eliminate them. :D

time-twilight: Thanks for your reviews. I'm thinking about your idea, but I can't promise anything yet. Let's see if it fits in somewhere. :-)

Alwaystherereading: Thanks to you too. I'm afraid this chapter is rather sad again. But they're both masters in avoiding certain topics, so what can I do... But i'm optimistic that they will work it out sooner or later ;-)