Next chapter! Is there anything else I should say here:D
On top of the roof of Canary Wharf, the Doctor was trying to persuade the others that he wasn't crazy.
"You – you could die! You could get fried! You're... completely crazy, you are!"
"This might just work. Here's the reason – I'm not just an energy source, I can control it. When the energy focuses along the wire I'm holding, it should travel straight through me. Moving energy is charged – it's attracted to anything that it can travel through easily, and I should be able to act like a superconductor. Result: I get the entire National Grid within a few seconds from one wire. That should combine with the cosmic energy, but has no outlet for the short time it's in my body. Because of my body's defence mechanisms, the energy should be expelled into one point in the air – that might be enough to cause a rip in time and space. Because Rose and I have Bad Wolf divided between us, the bond should act like a homing device – Bad Wolf will naturally try and bring the other end of the tunnel as close to Rose as possible. So the tunnel should lead me straight to her. That is... if EVERYTHING turns out right..."
"You're still crazy..."
"Of course I'm crazy!" He grinned.
The old man looked at him. "So... you're saying all we need is a pair of wire cutters?"
The Doctor blinked. "Er... yes, actually."
He took out his sonic screwdriver. "Setting 366D, I do believe. Now, your job – he looked at the Prime Minister and the old man – is to wait right here. If I fall off or let go of the wire, you have got to make sure I stay attached to that wire. That's the only chance I've got of surviving once the process has begun – an energy transfer like this can be done once in several years, that's for sure. If this goes wrong I won't be able to do it again."
"You know, no-one's actually done this before – I mean, they've done teleports and all that, but they're all high-level technology – no-one's tried to physically blast a hole in time."
"You're an incredibly brave man." The Prime Minister didn't often say things like that.
The Doctor shook his head. "If I was brave... I wouldn't be scared about it."
Then he leapt from the fire escape onto the roof of the building. Without pausing to think, he ran along the length of the roof to where a pylon crossed the sky. A bomb suddenly fell a few metres away. His hands sparked, blue and purple darts of terror. Fear was good. Fear would get him through this. That – and anger. He forced himself to turn his mind into an emotional whirlpool. His hands and feet were on fire with electricity. His hair stood on end. He could feel Bad Wolf resurging, differently to how it had before. Something was wrong! He could feel it. Something was hammering the same message over and over again into his skull – Rose was in danger. He was now not far short of panic. He aimed the sonic screwdriver, fired and watched as the blue light neatly cut the cable in two. The ends of the wire that dangled now sparked with their own electricity. Without pausing for thought, he grabbed the white-hot ends and... knew no more.
Still hidden behind the fire escape, the Prime Minister and the old man watched in amazement as the Doctor was consumed by a sudden white-hot fire. As the fire grew, the centre of the fire appeared as a solid sphere, that grew and grew until suddenly the whole thing escaped from the Doctor into one almost invisible point in the air. The point grew rapidly and soon an enormous hole appeared, as large as a man, glowing around the edges, with an intense all-consuming black hole in its centre. The Doctor let go of the wires as he was drawn inside and vanished from view.
Trapped in her cell, Rose felt the vibrations as her cell door was continually battered by lasers from the Cult of Skaro trying to get into her cell. With one final blast the metallic structure gave way at last, shattering into a thousand pieces, and Rose knew real fear.
The Daleks took their time cornering Rose, gradually forming a semi-circle around her with the cell wall pressing against her back.
The contractions came again then and Rose was temporarily lost to pain, screaming with three Daleks surrounding her.
"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" She heard the Dalek screech through a haze of agony. This was it, she thought. She honestly believed she was going to die.
And then... something exploded.
A hole ripped through the sky barely a metre above her head, and an intense white fire came pouring out. In a series of resulting explosions the sparks flew everywhere and a violent roar of thunder heralded the arrival of... someone who appeared, suspended for a moment in the mouth of the tunnel, able to fully view the entire situation.
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!"
His hair was blowing around his face, his clothes were torn in several places and were hanging off him as he dropped down onto the floor, still glowing slightly from the effects of the journey through the tunnel. He looked, quite frankly, exhausted.
He got to his feet, took one look at her and as far as Rose was concerned, he was beautiful.
The Doctor took one look at Rose and anything else he might have felt took second priority to noticing the obvious. His mouth dropped open.
"Oh my GOD... Did I miss something?"
"The teleportation sped up the pregnancy – Theta, I can't control it - " As she said this she was rocked by another series of contractions that left her doubled over in pain. White-hot bursts of energy seeped from her as Bad Wolf struggled to break free from metaphorical chains. It was real. It was painful. Rose, however, was too preoccupied in a blinding white haze to hear herself screaming.
Realising the Daleks were preparing to pounce, the Doctor got out his sonic screwdriver and waved it at them.
"Don't... even...blink. Got that?"
He dropped down to his knees and bent over his wife, realising that the situation was... well, explosive.
"Rose. Can you hear me?"
His voice echoed in her head. She managed to nod.
"Good. SNAP OUT OF IT NOW!"
The white light suddenly faded and Rose looked up at him, shaking slightly.
"Good to see you too, by the way..." He held out his hand and helped her to her feet.
They both turned to face the remainder of the Cult of Skaro, who all pointed their suckers at them and screeched ferociously.
"YOU WILL GIVE US THE EYE OF SKARO!" roared Dalek Sek.
"Wait a minute – you've got the Eye of Skaro?"
"Yeah..."
"Hand it over... I've got an idea."
Rose rolled her eyes, but threw him the small wooden box, which he caught.
The Doctor held the wooden box and stretched out his arm, an odd look of hence unseen determination on his face.
"So here we are, then. I'm holding your future in the palm of my hand. That's right, all of you turn your heads and look at me... look at me and my little wooden box... Now, if I'm not mistaken, this box we've got here is intended to bring back Gallifrey during the time war, right? And your objective was to create an energy source powerful enough to destroy it? Oh, you're very clever. Very, very clever. But, as usual, I'm cleverer."
"See, this box does bring back Gallifrey, it's true. But the mechanism inside is very simple. How else would you fit the technology into one small box? That's the brilliant part – yes, things easily made are easily broken. But also – things easily made are easily changed. So what if I... reversed the polarity?"
He waggled his sonic screwdriver. "Instead of pushing Gallifrey further fowards in time, what if I pushed it further back? Further back enough to make sure it never existed, hmm? I'll tell you why I'd do that. Because this box was designed to bring both of those worlds forwards in time. If I pushed Gallifrey and the Time War back in time – guess who else gets pushed back so they never existed, eh? The ultimate evil -the Daleks."
"NO! Theta, I am warning you, do NOT do that!"
"If I didn't want to do this d'you think I'd be doing it?"
"Of course I do!"
The Doctor didn't answer. She was right – Rose knew him too well. But he had finally realised that the end was inevitable. As much as he wanted – craved – his people, he knew that this could be quite possibly the only way to defeat his ultimate arch-enemy... to trap them inside the walls of time forever.
Looking up, he saw that the ripped hole was slowly fading and decreasing in size around the edges. The sudden burst of energy had obviously begun to dissipate. He didn't have long, that was for certain.
He pulsed the screwdriver quickly against the side of the box, drawing it back in a complicated motion – just once, and then stared at the box, unsure he could believe what he'd done.
Rose suddenly yelled and dropped to the floor again in pain, which coincidentally was excellent timing.
The Doctor took a deep breath, broke the barriers and let himself go to the power he'd known he commanded ever since that blood transfusion that seemed a lifetime away, right now. Rose, realising what was happening, fought the pain as best she could and got shakily to her feet.
"Channel the energy. Rose – listen to me. Make it flow. Make it ."
So, Rose controlled the flow and focused it on that one wooden box held in the palm of Theta's hand – and the white hot sparks jumped the physical gap and streamed through the air into the box. Suddenly, the wooden box grew so hot the Doctor dropped it – although it didn't catch fire. It didn't even hit the ground. It stopped in mid air, rapidly gathering energy, and then – it began to sing.
And suddenly, the world around them began to turn black and hazy before their eyes.
The Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and turned to the portal, which was rapidly diminishing in size and was now only just large enough to fit them through. They heard, momentarily, the Daleks thrashing around in the semi darkness.
"I'm sorry." The Doctor breathed the words, astonished to find that deep inside, in some small way, he really meant them. It was a single moment of the most subtle but desperate importance.
"Get in. NOW!"
Rose scrambled in and he jumped after her – and, for the final time, they were away.
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