Happy New Year, guys! And I hope you had a lovely Christmas... I don't want to beg for reviews here or anything, but I just turned 24 and now everyone keeps asking me when I'll get married and have kids... you know what? Forget it. I'm begging :)

Thanks very much to Scarlett Jackson 18, Conan in love, Abraxania, ForeverDreamer12, RhizOneill, brikasporns and greeneyesCutie for reviewing. And DragonRose4 in particular on her thoughts of what Sally actually meant by her comment about Rose:) Answer is coming up in a hopefully short amount of time.

Chapter 11

Another Distress Signal

Life inside the TARDIS settled into quite the comfortable routine after that. At least for a while. The Doctor showed Rose around the universe, they laughed and had fun and sometimes they didn't do anything at all, just stayed inside the vortex and spent their days relaxing on the couch, the Doctor reading a book to her, Rose making some tea. It was all, for lack of a better term, really domestic and sometimes Rose even joked about that and what his previous self would have had to say about the two of them. It was one of those occasions, that the Doctor actually admitted it might not have bothered him as much, as he had tried to make it appear.

"I was quite jealous.", he told her one day, "Of everyone."

"Everyone?", Rose asked, sitting on the couch next to him and actually taking the time to paint her toenails. TARDIS blue. The only acceptable colour.

"Well, yes. Mickey, Jack, Adam..."

"Really? I never noticed.", the told him, smiling her famous tongue-touching smile.

"Because you never were, right?", the Doctor teased back, his glasses perched high on his nose and something that might have previously been a toaster clutched in his left hand.

"Of course not. Never.", Rose laughed.

"You told me to me home by midnight."

"You called Mickey Rickey."

"You actually asked me, if the world would and, when I danced!"

"And you magically found your ability to dance as soon as I wanted to dance with Jack!"

"Ohhhhh, you..."

The TARDIS shuddered violently around them and Rose cursed when she lost her balance and fell of the couch.

"What happened?", she asked, as the Doctor pulled her back on her feet and the both darted towards the console room.

"Distress Signal!", he answered.

"Perfect!", Rose shouted as the door to the bedroom materialized right in front of her, "Need my shoes for that."

So she darted into the bedroom and over to the closet to find a pair of sneakers, that actually belonged to her, pulled them on and followed the Doctor, who had already landed them with only slight turbulences.

"Okay, what is it.", Rose asked the Doctor, while pulling up her hair into a ponytail to keep it out of her face.

"Haven't looked yet.", he informed her hand hopped impatiently from one foot to the next, waiting for her to get ready.

"Of we go then, Alons-y.", she grinned and he smiled happily at her as he opened the door.

"Distress signal transmitted.", the mechanical voice of a computer greeted them, when they exited into a small, steam-filled room, that glowed eerily red.

"Whoa, now that is hot.", the Doctor muttered and looked around them.

"Yeah, glad I'm in a shirt.", Rose agreed looking around with a creased forehead.

"Automated distress signal transmitted.", the computer repeated.

"Why is it so hot? Every time something is hot, it ends badly. Every time we lend in some weird room, it ends badly. Mpf, every time we answer a distress signal, It ends badly. Come to think of it: It always ends badly."

"Oi, not always!", disagreed the Doctor vehemently and opened a door next to them. As soon as they both had walked through it, three people ran towards them.

"Oi, you two!", one of the two men shouted at them. And the only woman continued: "Get out of there!"

"Rude.", breathed Rose softly and the Doctor next to her snored rather loudly, as the three ran past them and shut the door they had just walked through.

"Who are you? What are you doing on my ship?", the woman asked them rather forcefully.

"Are you the police?", the young man, who had spoken first, asked, looking rather more worried than anything else.

"Why would we be police?", the Doctor caught on to his discomfort immediately and completely ignored the woman.

"You sent a distress signal, didn't you? That's why we're here.", Rose tried to pacify the miffed looking woman.

"If this is a ship, why can't I hear any engines?", the Doctor continued to assess the situation.

"It went dead four minutes ago.", the woman grudgingly answered his question.

"So maybe we should stop chatting ans get to Engineering, Captain.", the other man urged .

"Secure closure active.", the computer informed them.

"What?", the woman, who was evidently the captain, asked, looking up at the ceiling in disbelief.

"The ship's gone mad."

As if on cue, another woman came running towards them, the door closing behind her.

"Who activated secure closure?", he breathed heavily, "I almost got locked into area 27. And who are you?"

"Ah, yes, hi. He's the Doctor, I'm Rose."

"Impact projection 42 minutes 27 seconds."

"Impact?", asked Rose in surprise and turned to take a look around.

"We'll get out of this, I promise.", the captain tried to reassure her crew, but Rose wasn't listening anymore, she had found a pothole and seen what exactly they were heading towards.

"Erm, Doctor...", she started carefully.

"42 minutes until what?", the Doctor asked the crew, not hearing Rose's soft call.

"No really, Doctor. Take a look.", Rose tried again, her distressed voice finally alerting him to the fact, that all was not well with his companion. He turned around to look over Rose's shoulder, as the captain narrated the scene by explaining: "42 minutes until we crash into the sun."

The Doctor stared at the sun in front of his eyes for a small moment, before springing into action: "Right, how many crew members on board?"

"Seven. Including us.", The captain answered almost automatically and Rose had to grin proudly. Whenever the Doctor felt the need for it, people intuitively seemed to accept him as an authority figure.

"We transport cargo across the galaxy. Everything's automated. We just keep the ship space-worthy.", one of the man told them reluctantly. Rose quickly decided to call him Grumpy. The Captain. Grumpy. Concerned and Runner. That's what the got stuck with, if the weren't polite enough to introduce themselves. Period.

"Call the others. I'll get you out!", the Doctor shouted and ran past them all towards the door they had just entered through.

"What's he doing?!", Concerned yelled in horror, as the same time as the Captain shouted "No! Don't!"

But she was too late, the Doctor had already opened the door and was knocked on his back by an enormous blast of heat. Reflexively Rose wanted to run towards him, but the Captain held her back, shouting: "Wait. It's too hot!"

Runner put on a mask and ran over to shut the door and the Captain released Rose, who ran over to the slightly dazed looking Doctor.

"But... but... our ship is in there!", he told them, as if the heat hat personally decided to mock him.

"In the vent chamber?", Concerned asked, clearly believing the Doctor to be mentally challenged.

"It's out lifeboat.", the Doctor explained offhandedly, turning around to look at Rose with worried eyes and a deep feeling of dread settled in her stomach. They had lost the TARDIS. Again. And she had joked about Krop Tor and the sanctuary base when the had exited the TARDIS.

"Next time we end up in a hot cupboard, we just turn around, yeah?", she asked weakly, attempting

to light his mood with a little humour. And failed miserably, although the Doctor did his best to smile back.

"I'm sorry, but you're ship's lava.", Grumpy informed them, not without pity.

"The temperature is going mad in there. Up 3000 degrees in ten seconds. And still rising.", Runner continued, wearily watching the door.

"Channelling the air. The closer we get to the sun, the hotter that room is going to get.", the Captain completed their dooming explanation.

"Right then. How about a nice little proposal for a solution. I'm all for it.", Rose smiled and this time the Doctor really did grin before turning towards the crew again: " My offer: Fixing the engine. Fly away from the sun. Temperature to normal. Back to the TARDIS. Simple really. Acceptable?"

"Affirmative.", came Rose's dead-serious reply, "Engineering down there?", and she pointed down the corridor.

"Yes.", the Captain answered, looking slightly dumb-struck.

As they ran down the corridor, Rose good vaguely hear Concerned's voice behind them: "But it's lava!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Reaching engineering was properly motivated by the fact that the computer's emotionless voice kept informing them of their impending doom in regular intervals and Rose was fully prepared to crash the next speaker in reach just to make it stop, but sadly that would have been a waste of valuable time, so she had to content herself with running after the Doctor instead. They reached engineering in an almost laughable amount of time and stopped dead, when they saw the state the room was in.

"Blimey, do you always leave things in such a mess? Looks like Rose's...", the Doctor started, before a sharp "Oi!", interrupted him.

"Oh my God.", the Captain looked around in horror.

"What the hell happened?", Grumpy asked, looking equally horrified at the scene in front of them: The engine seemed to have been blown to pieces, pits scattering the floor all around it.

"It's wrecked.", Concerned stated the obvious, watching the Doctor as if hoping for guidance.

"Pretty efficiently, too. Someone knew what they were doing.", the Doctor scuffled over to the engines interface.

The Captain gave one wary look towards the destroyed system before turning around and asking in a remarkably calm voice: "Where's Korwin? Has anyone heard from him or Ashton?"

"No.", stated Grumpy, his voice calculating and Rose was farely certain why: If the Doctor was right and someone had done this on purpose, the suspect pool wasn't very big.

"Why would someone intentionally destroy the engine? If they don't have a way to get of ship, they'll die as well.", Rose whispered towards the Doctor, who was studying the interface intendly

"Yes.", he agreed, "And that's what worries me."

The Captain meanwhile had walked over to the intercom and asked: "Korwin? Ashton? Where are you? Korwin, can you answer?" When no answer came she turned around towards them and asked in a low voice, obviously speaking to herself more than anything: "Where the hell is he? He should be up here."

The whole crew seemed to take that as a cue and scattered around the room, everybody obviously having found something to do for the time being.

"Oh, look, we're in the Torajii system. Lovely. Haven't been here before, have we, Rose?"

"Don't think so, no."

"And you're still using energy scoops for fusion?", the Doctor spoke into the general direction of the crew, "Hasn't that been outlawed yet?"

Rose noticed the Captain exchange a somewhat nervous look with Grumpy, before informing them plainly: "We're due to upgrade next docking. Scannel, engine report."

Well, that was a smooth subject change, Rose noticed with interest and filed it away for later to think about.

At the Captain's question everyone had turned towards the no abandoned interface again and was now impatiently waiting for an answer, as Grumpy checked the readings.

"No response.", answered Grumpy. No, Rose had to remind herself, Scannel.

"What?", the Captain breathed with a heavy mix of disbelief and horror, as Scannel ran over to inspect a different part of the engine, seemingly randomly picking up cables and parts.

"They're burnt out. The controls are wrecked. I can't get them back online."

"Oh come on, auxiliary engines. Every craft's got auxiliaries.", the Doctor exclaimed in disbelief, as the crew looked around in despair.

"We don't have access from here. The auxiliary are in the front of the ship.", came the Captain's remorseful reply.

"Yeah, with 29 password protected doors between us and them.", Scannel came up behind Rose, "You'll never get there in time."

"Not if we don't try, no.", Rose told him sharply, fed up with all of their downtrodden behaviour. She turned towards the Doctor and added: "Sonic?"

"What kind of seal?", the Doctor asked, his left hand playing with something in his pocket Rose knew to be the sonic screwdriver.

"Dead-lock.", Scannel answered impatiently.

"Sonic no use then.", Rose mourned and even the Doctor looked a little worried at that idea.

"Nothing's any use. We got no engines, no time and no chance.", grumbled Scannel again. Maybe Rose should go back to call him Grumpy. Or Gloomy.

The Doctor looked just as annoyed at this as Rose did: "Oh, listen to you. Defeated before you even got started. Where's your Dunkirk spirit? Who's got the door passwords?"

"They're randomly generated. Reckon I know most of them.", Concerned piped up, actually smiling about the fact, that the Doctor wasn't ready to give up, "Sorry. Riley Vashti."

Finally, Rose thought and grinned ant him, someone with manners and spirit. That was more like it.

"Then what're you waiting for, Riley Vashti? Get on it.", the Doctor tasked him, almost proudly.

"Well, it's a two person job.", Riley replied and turned around to start getting some weird backpack of the shelf behind them, "One, a technics for the questions ans the other to carry this. The oldest and cheapest security system around, eh, Captain?"

"Reliable and simple, just like you, eh, Riley?", the Captain dead-panned. And Riley answered without stopping in his motion: "Try and be helpful, get abuse. Nice."

"I'll go with you then, it's the most helpful I can be.", Rose declared and moved over to help Riley.

"It's remotely controlled by the Computer panel. That's why it needs two.", Riley apologized.

Rose simply nodded and turned around to look at the Doctor , who gave her a sharp look before crossing the short distance between them, giving her a quick put passionate kiss, before stepping back and saying: "Be careful."

"Always am. See you in a bit.", she smiled slightly breathless at him and ran after Riley.