Chapter Fourteen

Daddy's Girl

The Doctor skidded around the corner and instantly gave thanks for his almost scary ability to always take the right direction when not knowing where he was going. He hurried forward, slipping twice on the smooth ice that was getting thicker and thicker beneath his feet.

'Ashley, wait!' he called to her. 'You can't open that door!'

She turned and looked at him and he could see the pain on her face. Her fingers were wrapped around the bolt on the heavy cell door. Her eyes were red and wet, but the tears on her cheeks had frozen into small crystals on her cheeks. There was a glittery cast on her eyelashes and hair and her skin had a painful looking blue tint.

'That's my dad.' She told him in a small voice. 'I can't leave him here.'

The Doctor took a tentative step forward, not wanting to panic or frighten her, but still knowing they didn't have much time left. 'He's not who he used to be,' he told her. 'He might have been a good man at one point in his life, but he's been in that cell for years, Ashley. He's insane. And very powerful.'

Ashley shook her head. 'I'm not leaving him here.'

'He'll kill you, Ashley,' the Doctor insisted. 'Trust me. He doesn't know who you are. He's too far gone. The rift is expanding and the whole place will probably come down before it gets sucked in. We have to leave, Ashley. There's no time.'

Ashley swallowed and glanced around, seeing that the ice was getting thicker and thicker on the walls. She looked down at the bolt. It was practically an ice cube. There was no way she could pull it back on her own.

'Please, Ashley,' the Doctor said softly, one hand held out to her. 'We have to go. I'm so sorry, I'm sorry for everything, I truly am, but I'm not going to let it end like this. We have to go.'

Ashley looked to him, all of her face quivering with emotion. 'What you told me wasn't the thing that upset me,' she told him. 'I know you had no choice and… I understand why the Time Lords had to do what they did. The thing that frightened me so much was that I already knew. I knew everything. I knew about the Telkalines, and knew about the planets they went through and I even know what the war looked like! I don't know how but… I just knew.'

The Doctor watched her sadly. 'We can talk about it. But we really have to leave now.'

'But… I dreamt about them, Doctor. I've had hundreds of dreams since meeting you and if all that turned out to be true then what else could be true?' She shook her head. 'I don't want them to come true.'

The Doctor took a step forward, now getting anxious at the time. 'They were just dreams, Ashley. They're not real. The reason you knew about the war must have been because of some memory passed on from your father, it happens some times in telepathic races. Everything else were just dreams. Please, we have to go. Come on.' He held out his hand.

Ashley turned her head towards the door, to Loah who was staring out at her through the window. She put her hand on the glass again and shook her head. 'I'm sorry.' She whispered to him. 'I'm so…' She trailed off when something began to happen.

The glass beneath her fingers began to run away like water, running down the metal surface and dripping onto the icy floor at her feet. She snatched her hand away, confused by the acidic reaction her touch had. Suddenly she was engulfed by a very familiar feeling, but at the same time it was completely different. There was a ball of heat in her stomach and it started to spread out, running down her legs and through her arms. She stepped back and looked down, realising she had left a melted footprint in the ice at her feet.

'Wh… what's happening?' she stammered, confused by the sudden rush of heat in her system. 'Doctor! What's happening!'

'It's the injection! It's wearing off! Ashley, you need to calm down. Your power is getting out of control because you're too emotional, you need to calm down!'

The news only made her panic more. 'I can't!' she cried. 'Doctor, help me!'

The Doctor moved forward, but the head coming off her was too strong. The ice on the floor and walls around her was beginning to turn to water, dripping all around her. 'I can't! You're too… Ashley I can't when you're like that! You have to calm down! Please, just calm down!'

'Yelling at me like that isn't helping!' Ashley shrieked, panic causing her voice to waver. 'I can't… it won't stop…'

The ice beneath her feet began to crack and she looked down in alarm. She snapped her head back up to the Doctor and both of their eyes widened in realisation of what was happening. The Doctor sprang forward.

'Ashley!' he yelled, hands outstretched.

Ashley began to reach out for him, but the ice beneath her gave way. The Doctor grabbed for her but his fingers only skimmed hers. She didn't scream, or yell, or call his name. She just tumbled downwards into the blinding whiteness below. The Doctor looked down into the whiteness of the rift, watching her disappearing into it.

'Ashley!' he cried, face red with the force of his voice. He began to move over the side to climb down, panic moving him more than rational thought, when he heard a cracking from above him. He looked up to see another black zigzag forming across the ceiling.

He skidded away just in time. Ice and concrete tumbled down, through the icy hole and piling around in. As soon as the dust cleared the Doctor moved back to the mound, pulling at the debris and digging through the powdered ice. In the cell beside him, the imprisoned Telkaline cried out and thrashed against the door. The Doctor ignored him, and yelled for Ashley.

He couldn't move the rubble and she wasn't responding to his calls. He looked to his watch and realised that he had less that a minute and a half to get out before the whole place came down.

But he couldn't leave her under there.

But if he stayed he would die for certain.

He yelled out in frustration at the decision he had to make. He picked up a large rock and tossed it aside. It crashed skidded along the icy floor, picking up a concertina of white frost. He looked back to the pile of debris. Ice was already creeping over it, turning it into some eerie memorial. He looked at it for a moment longer, pain playing on his face. He knew he had no choice. He had to go.

He turned, fighting the emotions that wanted him to go back and dig, not caring about his own fate, and ran down the icy corridor. Chunks of ice fell around him, but he kept going. If he stopped he feared he wouldn't be able to carry on.

He found the TARDIS on level four, where Reina had said it would be before she had met her demise because she helped him. It's doors were still open, trolleys lying all over from where they had been getting ready to pull it apart to start their TARDIS shopping centre. The Doctor threw himself inside and slammed shut the doors, leaning against them.

He stood there, breathing heavily. He wanted to go back, but he blanked out his mind. He ran to the console and started up the TARDIS. The blue cylinder rose and fell and the whirring, cranking sound started up. The Doctor watched it, teeth clenched. He continued to watch it for a long time after it had stopped. Eventually, he allowed himself to run back over the events of the last three minutes.

With an anguished yell he punched the console, and dropped to his knees.

He hadn't kept his promise after all.

He hadn't been able to save her.