Chapter XIV

Mira's POV

She watched the droids vanish. That could only mean one thing, couldn't it? They had found her. She was 'complete', as the Doctor had just explained.

"One of them must've found the right time window, and now it's time to send in the troops. And this time they're bringing back her head," the Doctor spoke out what she was thinking. "Rose, Mickey: Go look for Reinette. Find a new time window when she is older than she was whilst meeting the King. Tell her what's about to happen. That she has to be careful, and that I will be there to help her."

"But...," Rose tried to say something.

"Go! We don't have much time. Hurry!"

Rose glanced at the Doctor for a bit longer, then she went off with Mickey in her trail. Mira was about to follow them, as she heard his voice behind her.

"Mira, I need you with me. We have to locate the right time window. Looking around the ship would take too long, but maybe I can work something out with the ship's computer-systems." He rushed back to the room where the TARDIS was standing and she followed him. Once there, he handed her this ominous, multi-purpose scanning device.

"What's that anyway?" she asked.

"A Sonic Screwdriver. Just switch it on and scan the room. The walls, everything. These windows are somehow controlled by the main control panel here. With your readings I might be able to find it. They're somehow hiding it. I guess that it might be in this room somewhere."

She looked sceptically at the little device and pressed the small button on its side. It sprung to live with the blue glow on its tip and the buzzing noise it always seemed to produce.

"Bloody hell!" She almost dropped it. Suddenly all sort of information flooded her brain. Readings of energy signatures all across the room, information about the materials used and the composure of the air in here. Well, at least she guessed that from the pictures she was seeing. There were also signs, just as the ones on the Post Its in the TARDIS.

"What?" he asked as he fiddled with the control panel. He had a puzzled expression on his face as he looked up to her.

"I... just wasn't expecting that," she said absently as she was trying to sort out all this information. She soon gave up, it was just too much. But she managed to push it aside a bit, so that it wasn't that overwhelming any more.

"Telepathic field." he said cheerfully with a big grin. "Just like the TARDIS. Oh, you're brilliant!"

"Why didn't I notice that before?" she asked and began walking through the room. The information in her head changed, depending on where she pointed this... Screwdriver.

Screwdriver? Really?

"You need to touch it, obviously. I don't. Now hurry, there's not much time!"

She did as he told. She had always wondered how he could get any information out of this device without it having any screen. She had thought about the sound that differed a bit, but she hadn't expected that his technology was based on telepathy that much.

Oh well, anyway. Just get this done, hopefully save Reinette's life and then have a few words with him. Mission first, as always.

They were working in silence for a few minutes until she finally pointed the Sonic on the right spot.

"That's it!" he yelled. She also felt it. Well, at least that it was something different. Still too much information at once for her to make much out of it.

He pulled some switches on the control panel before he walked over to her. She handed him back the Sonic rather gladly. It had been interesting, but also quite confusing. After a few more moments the window appeared right in front of them. They could see into a ballroom. A ballroom full of people, Reinette standing there and.. The droids. An awful lot of them. Right at this moment Rose and Mickey came back.

"I don't get it. How come they got in there? " Rose asked.

"Rose... They teleported - you saw them. As long as the ship and the ballroom are linked, their short-range teleports will do the trick," he answered.

"Well, we'll go in the TARDIS!" Rose said now.

"We can't use the TARDIS, we're part of events now.," the Doctor said desperately whilst he was hurrying around the room, working on the computers.

"Well, can't we just smash through it?" Mickey asked.

"Hyperplex this side, plate glass the other. We need a truck." the Doctor answered.

"We don't have a truck," Mickey replied.

"I know we don't have a truck!" Now the Doctor was shouting.

Mira looked around. Nothing useful. Maybe they could use some of the teleport devices from the two droids she had destroyed earlier. But there was hardly any time left to get them...

"Well, we've gotta try something!" Rose threw in.

"No, smash the glass, smash the time window, they'd be no way back.", the Doctor said, suddenly very quiet. Rose just stared at him in disbelief. So did Mira. What was he up to now?

Doctor's POV

Arthur. The horse just walked in at the right moment. Who needed a truck if he could have a horse?

"Madame de Pompadour. You look younger every day," he greeted Reinette with a smile on his face after he had jumped through the mirror on Arthur's back.

"What the hell is going on?" the King demanded to know.

"Oh - this is my lover, the King of France," Reinette said to him as he hopped of the horse.

"Yeah? Well, I'm the Lord of Time," he said with a slightly distastefully expression on his face whilst he was walking by the King towards the robots. "And I'm here to fix the clock." He removed the mask from the droid's head, to reveal its true nature to the people around him. They were gasping as they looked at the mechanical being. The droid immediately pointed its weapon at him.

"Forget it. It's over. For you and for me," the Doctor said calmly as he glanced up to the broken mirror. Behind it was just solid wall. He was trapped. "Talk about seven years bad luck. Try three thousand...," he realised as the droid also turned his head to the mirror. Right after that it tried the teleport on his wrist. It looked a bit desperate, almost human, as the robot was hitting the switch several times without anything happening.

"The link with the ship is broken. No way back. You don't have the parts. How many ticks left in that clockwork heart? A day? An hour? It's over. Accept that. I'm not winding you up," the Doctor said quietly to the robot. Finally, the clockwork wound down, the distance between the clicks grew longer until it finally stopped. The heads of all the droids dropped down, one of them even fell backwards to the floor, shattering like the ones he had seen back on the ship. This had been Miras work, he guessed. Suddenly the feeling of doubt flooded over him. He really should have given it a second thought. On the other hand, he had made a promise to Reinette.

He turned to Reinette who was still kneeling on the floor.

"You all right?" he asked as he hold out his hand to her. She nodded at him, took his hand and let im pull her to her feet.

"What's happened to them?", she wondered.

"They've stopped. They have no purpose now." He was staring at the broken mirror again, now with Reinette at his side. Three-thousand years. That was a long time, even for him. He thought about his companions. They wouldn't have to wait that long, he planned to find a way back to his TARDIS right after the moment he jumped through the mirror. He had no idea how he would make it, but he had enough time to come up with a plan...

Rose's POV

She stared at the wall where the time window had been. It was gone. As was the Doctor. He had just jumped through it, although he had known exactly that there would be no way back. How could he do that? Leave her alone just like that. Of course, there was the TARDIS, and she had already flown her once, but that had been different.

"We can't fly the TARDIS without him. How's he gonna get back?" she heard Mickeys voice. She turned her head and saw him standing right next to her. On her other side, two steps away, Mira was standing.

She just shrugged. How should she know?

"He has three thousand years to make it back," Mira said. "In fact, he could be here any minute."

Rose looked at her furiously. "Oh yeah. That's so simple, isn't it?"

"It is," Mira sighed. "Of course I don't know anything about his life-expectancy, but if he can live that long, he has a good chance to get back to us. It's dammed three thousand years. Twice my lifetime. All he has to do is to wait for the development of space-travel on Earth and then find a ship and make it over six point twenty-five million light-years, give or take."

"You really must think you're so clever. Able to explain everything." she said, now clearly annoyed.

"I'm just saying that it's not impossible. And after all what I've seen of you so far, I really thought you have a little more trust in him," Mira answered.

"He abandoned us!"

"Yes he did. For now. But we have a whole space-ship here. And we have the TARDIS. Even if we can't fly her, she might have some spare parts stored somewhere for us. Then we can try to fix the radio, for a start, and call for help. Or maybe get the TARDIS to do that. What's it with humanity in this universe? Losing hope so fast?" Mira said.

"Doesn't sound that bad, Rose, does it?" Mickey asked her. He had grabbed her hand by now.

"Great. Not you too, Mickey."

…

They were waiting for longer than five hours now. So much for 'any minute'. Mira had strolled off to have a look at the rest of the ship, mainly at the engines and the radio equipment, as she had told them. And to search for a technical manual. Seriously? Should you be flying a space-ship at all if you'r not able to do so without a manual? Mira had just shook her head and murmured something of complexity and check-lists and schematics. Then she had even asked her if she could look for something like that in the TARDIS. No way. She knew that the old time ship normally wouldn't go anywhere without the Doctor on board.

Mira had returned by now, with a bunch of semi-transparent plastic sheets in her hands. She was now sitting with her back against the TARDIS and studying them. She even had offered some of them to her with ostentation, but she hadn't taken them. What for? The Doctor would return. He would never leave her like that. At least that was what she had believed until now. She thought she knew him. And now this.

She leaned against Mickey, who was sitting next to her. He had been really quiet for the last couple of hours. At least he wasn't following Mira.

Suddenly she heard a voice from the room with the fireplace in it. She jumped up and ran through the door to the other room, followed by Mickey and Mira. There he was, crouching in front of the fireplace.

"Doctor!" she yelled and he turned around, only to give her a tight hug. He did come back. He really did.

"How long did you wait?" he asked.

"Five and a half hours!"

"Right, always wait five and a half hours," he told and let go of her and then turned to Mira. But something seemed to stop him from hugging her as well.

"I'm glad your back," the other woman said with her arm crossed.

Oh, now you're pissed?

"Yeah, so am I," he said and turned to Mickey. Instead of hugging him, he just shook his hand.

"Where've you been?" she demanded to know.

"Explain later. Into the TARDIS, be with you in a sec," he just said. As they were walking back to the TARDIS she looked over her shoulder and saw how he turned to the fireplace again.

Mira's POV

She waited in the console room with Rose and Mickey, wondering what the Doctor was up to now. There were still some topics she had to talk about with him, and she was planning on doing so as soon as they were alone. First, the situation with Rose. She doubted that the girl would listen to her, so either he would talk some sense into Rose, or he would never leave her alone with Rose and expecting of her to take care of Rose's safty again. Second, his behaviour. Attending a party whilst she was with two kids on a ship, hunting some robots? That had definitely been over the top. Way over the top. And the stunt he had performed through the window? She could somehow understand that, but she definitely needed to hear his version of it. Just to get a grasp of his behaviour in these situations.

Finally, the door opened. But at the moment she saw him, she rejected her plan. Something had happened. She could tell it from the way he was closing the door and walking over to the console without saying a word. All of his enthusiasm was gone. His steps were somehow heavy. All in all he was behaving just like someone who had gotten a really bad message.

"Why her?" Rose asked somehow out of nowhere.

He didn't answer. From everything she had seen from him for now, that would have been a keyword to give some really detailed explanations. But there was just silence.

"Why did they think they could fix the ship with the head of Madame de Pompadour?" Rose tried it again.

"We'll probably never know. There was massive damage in the computer memory base. Probably got confused." he answered as if he had to force himself to speak. "The TARDIS can close down the time windows now the droids are gone. Should stop it causing any more trouble."

He started to work on the console, but it seemed as if he wasn't in it at all.

"Are you all right?" Even Rose noticed it.

"I'm always all right," he said and made an attempt to smile. It was as if looking into a mirror for Mira. Yeah. All right. Sure you are. She had behaved in that way herself, countless times. She just wondered why he was lying to Rose in that way. Was it just because Mickey and she herself were here right now? Even Rose obviously didn't expect that. Mira could sense the feelings of disbelief and being rejected coming from her.

"Come on, Rose. It's time you showed me around the rest of this place." Mickey said to her. Point for Mickey, she thought. The Doctor obviously wanted to be alone now. She looked at him for a few moments after Mickey and Rose had left the console room, but he was just fiddling with some switches, so she left too.

At first she was heading to her room, thinking about what might have happened. Something with Reinette? But he had saved her, hadn't he? She desperately tried to remember what had happened to Madame de Pompadour in her own universe. She had known it. She basically knew the whole history of humanity, it had been hammered into her head in some sort of hypnotic procedure they had adapted from the Arkons. But that was just plain knowledge. You have to use it and think about it on your own, or you would forget it. And when had she ever thought about the history of France? Back at home she would have just looked it up in some positronic library.

Library!

So now she headed for the library. She didn't have to look through the shelves for long until she found a lexicon. An actual lexicon from Earth, printed in 1974.

And then she saw it. Reinette died at the age of only forty-three. When the Doctor had saved her from the droids, she had already been thirty-seven. Given the change in the speed of time between the ship and France... He had wanted to see her again. Maybe even asked her to come along.

She sighed and put the book back on the shelve. Even the TARDIS appeared to be sad, she realised as she stood in thoughts for a moment. All right, maybe he really needed some time alone. He hadn't even talked to Rose. What could she herself do for him? They hardly knew each other. Well, it wasn't exactly that simple, but nevertheless. She left the library and was heading back to her room. As she stood in front of the door, she hesitated for a moment. He had looked so sad. Just like she had felt for so often. She knew how hard, almost impossible it had been for her to ask someone to just be there. And how grateful she had been if one of her friends or her father had ignored all her attempts to sort it out for herself. Not that sorting it out on her own didn't work, but it was just so exhausting.

At least she could see what he was doing. Maybe she was wrong and he was back to normal, then she could at least bring up everything else.

As she entered the console room, the TARDIS was in flight-mode and he had just hung his cloak over one of the columns.

He looked up and the sadness in his eyes hadn't become any less. He immediately tried to smile. "So, this was France, eh?"

"She died?" she asked, ignoring his attempts to pretend that everything was back to normal. Suddenly his face fell.

"Mira...I.. Yes." he said, rubbing his eyebrows and turning to the console.

What was going on? How long had he known her? For a day? How close did they get? She really had been a fascinating woman, but...

Wait. How long did he really stay in France?

Instead of saying anything, she stepped over to him and leaned against the console so that she could look at his face. What was there to say anyway? That she was sorry? Had that really helped anyone ever? To her it was little more than a flowery phrase. Maybe because she knew how often people were just saying it without any deeper meaning.

He was now leaning on the console with both hands. She put her hand over his and gave it a slight squeeze. Suddenly he freed himself, walked a few steps and turned around to face her again.

"It's just.. I promised her to come back. She waited. For the rest of her life. She even wrote me a letter. And I..." He turned his back to her again.

So that's what it's all about. Or at least a part of it.

Suddenly it hit her. What had Brother Lassa said about his people? They were all but extinct. Was it really true? Was he the last of his kind? How incredibly lonely he must feel.

"Hey. You did what you could," she said gently and put her hands on his shoulders. As he turned around again she pulled him towards her and into an embrace. At first she could feel him stiffening, but after a second he returned it, laying his chin on her shoulder. "I know how that feels," she whispered into his ears. And this wasn't just a flowery phrase, not for her. She had left people behind, people that had hoped to see her again and so had she in return, but for some reasons she hadn't made it in time. That was how things went sometimes. It was cruel and painful, but even how hard you try, sometimes it wasn't meant to be and you had to live with it.

She could feel his cheek on hers. It was a little bit colder as she would have expected it with another human, but not that much. And she could feel how he leaned into her embrace and she closed her eyes. And their was something else. The psychic field around him, that she had already noticed earlier. That very field she wanted to stay away from. But now she found that she had somehow gotten into it. She couldn't even say when it had happened.

She wasn't just an empath. She had a real high psychic potential, but it was all somehow raw. You need to be able to modulate all these energy into telepathy or telecinetics or whatever there was.

There was another thing she could do besides the empathy. She could see the psychic fields of others. Of course she didn't see them literally. She was able to tune into them, just as if focusing her eyes on something, and then reinforce them, neutralise them or even use them independently. She really was a great reinforcement to the other mutants back in her universe, but she couldn't do much on her own. She had learned to control it, but she used it more or less all the time subconsciously when she was around other psychic people. Preventing other telepaths from getting into her head, for example.

All of a sudden she did not only feel his physical presence. Not only his skin on hers, but also the presence of his mind against her own. It was as gentle as the touch of a feather on her skin. Tingling on the edges of her consciousness. It hadn't been her intention at all, but there it was. She also wasn't willing to pull herself out of it. Not really, even though she knew she should. It was as if she had lived in a world of grey and now suddenly gotten a glimpse of a sunset. It was a quite accurate comparison. She was different to most of the other humans. At first she had struggled with her psychic abilities, but then she had come to embrace them. She really had enjoyed the telepathic conversations she'd had with Gucky and the other telepathic mutants she knew. It was a so utterly different way to communicate. To show yourself and see the other. And she was already missing it.

It was a mutual contact, she could feel that, but he also made no attempt to end it. They just stood there, captivated in that moment, not daring to move, neither physically nor mentally. As if waiting for the other to take a step further or back. Their contact was only skin-deep, just enough to feel each others consciousness. There were no thoughts or anything like it. His mind was hardly like anything she had ever felt. He was so alien, the presence of his mind was dark and bright at the same time, ancient, flowing around her like a breeze from times long gone and yet to come. And yet, despite all these foreignness, this way of being close to someone felt so familiar to her.

But suddenly something pulled her out of it, as if a bucket of ice-water had been poured over her head.

"Rose said there..." she heard a voice. She twitched, just as if waking up from sleep with the feeling of falling and gasped. He let go of her instantly and she took a hasty step backwards.

"...is a swimming-pool somewhere..."

She looked at the Doctor's face. He looked also a bit startled, but not half as shocked as she herself felt. This time it had really been close to a heart attack. She was shivering all over and her heart was thumbing like mad, as she turned her head. Mickey.

"Dammit! Don't sneak up on people like that! Do you want to kill me?" she snapped at him with a shaky voice. She was even close to tears now due to the shock. She really had forgotten everything around her for that moment. Plus, she always had been a bit jumpy, but on the other hand, you just don't sneak up on someone like that when..

Yeah, when... What the hell was she doing? At least not sticking to her intentions of keeping herself out of... everything that was going on here. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down a bit. She was now holding on to one of the coral pillars with one hand.

"Mira, you're all right?" she heard the Doctor and felt his hand on her upper arm. She turned her head to him and could see concern written all over his face. Oh great. No way in pretending. They both knew what had just happened. She couldn't even say who had started it. Had it been her?

"I'm fine.", she said wilfully, still trying to gather herself. She turned her head to Mickey, who just stood there, mouth opened, and obviously having no idea of what was going on.

"I'm sorry," he finally said.

He might not have any idea of what really had happened, but she had no doubt that he would tell it to Rose at the first opportunity. And rub it in. Just as he did with Cleo and Sarah Jane.

"Oh, now I'm getting it. You two were kissing!" Mickey exclaimed smirkingly.

"No!" the Doctor and Mira said simultaneously.

Great. Suspicious behaviour at its best.

"Yeah. Sure." Mickey smiled knowingly and strolled of.

Mira stared after him for a moment before walking off to follow him.

"What are you doing?"

"What am I doing?" She turned around and faced the Doctor. "Damage Control! That's what I am doing." He just stared at her with one of these looks in his eyes.

Oh, just stop it.

She was about to turn around again, as she realised something.

"Where is the pool?"

"The pool? Just through the library, there's a door..."

"Thanks!" She replied and finally ran after Mickey, feeling the Doctor's glance in her back.

So, final chapter of Girl in the Fireplace. I struggled a bit with it, because parts of it were really hard to write in a language that's not your native language, especially the part in the TARDIS. I hope it makes sense nevertheless.

One other thing: I had a two week's holiday, but from tomorrow on I'm back at work and have less time for writing. I'm aiming for updating twice a week, though, but I can't promise anything. (Well, ok, at least once a week I can promise ;-) )

10th Squad 3rd Seat: I guess because he had seen different sides of Rose so far. Behaving like that is not defining her complete personality, at least for him, I think. But yes, even he won't watch her behaving like that forever ;-)

VampinGina: Thanks for your comment. I hope you like the rest of the story as well :-)

time-twilight: There is a good chance for this to happen ;-)