'Told you you could fly a time machine!'

Rose frowned at herself in her bedroom mirror, examining the angry red flush that spread across her forehead and nose.

'I look like a tomato,' she complained to no one as she rubbed on the thirty-third century burn gel the Doctor had provided her with night before. They had returned from a two week stint in fifth century Persia, a desert climate her skin had not been prepared for. She'd been too busy to notice the sting before, but now it was making itself known with a vengeance.

The futuristic gel eliminated that pain within seconds of application and reduced the violent colour to a more manageable tan.

'Better,' she decided, giving herself one last assessment before heading out the meet the Doctor. Maybe she could convince him to bring her for breakfast somewhere – she figured after the last adventure he owed her some good food.

He was sitting on the jump seat, booted feet up on the console and engrossed in a heavy hardcover when she entered the control room. Rose would bet money he was reading Dickens.

'Morning!' she said brightly, enjoying how he rolled his eyes at that, but put down the book and swung around to face her. He was already grinning at her.

'So, where are we off to today?' he asked. 'If you've got no plans, I thought we'd set it to random. See where it takes us.'

'No way – I'm done with random travelling,' she told him flatly. 'Whenever you put us on random, we always end up back on Earth. I want alien. An alien planet, far, far away from Earth. With a different coloured sky and real looking aliens.'

'I am a real looking alien!'

'Yeah, but you look human.'

'You look Time Lord.'

'I want to see an alien that doesn't look Time Lord.'

'You humans – so hung up on looks.'

'I'm not hung up on looks!'

'True, you are dating Rickey.'

'Watch it you!'

'Suppose we might narrow the parameters,' he decided, sliding over to the computer terminal and typing something in. 'Everywhere and everywhen except Earth, but still keep things set to random.'

'And somewhere with food that won't blow up my stomach – I'm starving!'

'Could do with a bit of nosh meself.'

'What's the occasion?' Rose teased as the Doctor flew around the console, setting coordinates and preparing them for their journey. 'Got nothing to eat while enjoying the princess's hospitality?'

'I was too busy rescuing you to enjoy the local cuisine.' She heard the ship's hum change slightly, the way it always seemed to when they suddenly changed direction in the Vortex. 'All right, random alien planet, not Earth, with human compatible food – anything else, or are you done taking the fun out of travelling randomly?'

She stuck out her tongue at him. 'Let's go somewhere cold – I'm so over deserts and sun. Oh! No sand! Unless we're talkin' beach – no, wait! Let's do underwater! Can we visit underwater places? How would that even work?'

'Plenty of subaquatic observational areas. Superior lungs or not, I can't actually breathe water,' he remarked, bending down to examine a gauge on the console. 'That's not supposed to happen.'

'What?'

'The TARDIS is slowing down, but we're no nearer to any physical place to land,' he explained, pointing to the view screen like it should make sense to her. 'The coordinates to our nearest location turns up empty space.'

'So if there's nothing there, what's making us slow down?' Rose asked. 'We running out of gas – or whatever the TARDIS runs on?'

'Shouldn't be. Not for a long while, anyhow.' He scowled at the screen and pressed a combination of buttons, shoving several of the little coloured post-it notes aside. She figured now wasn't the time to ask about them. 'Hm. According to the sensors, looks like we might be near another black hole.'

'Been there, done that,' Rose chuckled.

'How jaded are you, if a black hole can't impress you anymore?' he remarked distantly as he worked. 'I should take you somewhere boring, so you're suitably impressed by this sort of thing again.'

'There's nowhere in the universe you could take me that would be boring.'

'Oh.'

'I can't believe you're surprised at that!'

'Not "oh" that, "oh" this!' he tapped the console where a series of coloured lights were blinking.

'What?'

'It's not a black hole we're heading for,' he replied, expression inscrutable.

'Oh. Well that's good, right?'

'Not really,' he said, jaw set. 'We're heading straight for a quantum rip.'

'A what?'

'A tear in the fabric of reality!' the Doctor snapped, typing quickly one-handed while adjusting a dial that was barely within his reach across the console.

'And that's worse than a black hole?' she guessed.

'It isn't just a gravitational pull we've got to worry about, but an active vacuum,' he explained. He smacked his hand against the screen when it did something he didn't like, then reached for a lever, pulling it down with a snap. The entire ship shuddered around them, and the lights flickered. 'Gonna be a bit harder to escape than a black hole.'

'But you can do it, right?' Rose asked, nervous as something on the other side of the console sparked in protest. The Doctor cursed and jumped out of the spray. 'Cos I'm not keen on getting ripped apart.'

'No danger of being ripped apart.'

'Thank God…'

'But we'd be trapped forever,' the Doctor went on, grabbing a mallet she hadn't noticed before and hammering at something. 'If we're extremely lucky, we end up in a charged vacuum emboitement and pop up somewhere like E-Space.'

As if that meant anything to her! 'And if we're not?'

'We'll be spat out into the Void or into a pocket universe – hang on!'

She found herself thrown into the jump seat as the TARDIS lurched, and she grabbed hold of the backrest to keep herself from tumbling to the grating.

'Pocket universe doesn't sound so bad!' she said. At least if they ended up somewhere that actually was somewhere they would probably find a way of getting back.

'Pocket universes are deadly to the TARDIS.'

'Oh.' Never mind that idea then…

'She can only survive a few seconds before getting trapped forever – damn!''

Rose gasped as the lights flickered once more and went off. The entire room was now bathed only in eerie green light. She had to fight down a rising panic at the sudden realisation that things were more serious now.

'Only… only a few seconds?' she bit out, trying to force a calm she didn't feel. Panicking would not help the Doctor any.

'Just as well, some pocket universes only last that long anyhow –' he said, his voice not the slightest bit breathless as he continued talking. As if they were enjoying a discussion about the weather instead of their possible impending doom.

Trust the designated driver, she coached herself when the TARDIS began shaking in earnest. 'So a pocket universe is pretty much like an insect trap?'

'Mm… not exactly, though that's a good guess. More like a blister.'

'Lovely.'

'You've got your skin normally, which let's say is the universe, and you've suddenly got this fluid build-up beneath it. The skin's unbroken, but the blister is there. You feel it,' he explained. 'But it's temporary. Either it's broken when you lance it, or it fades away on its own. Either way, temporary. You can't have a permanent blister, unless something's really wrong.'

'And then you need a doctor?'

'Exactly!' he beamed.

Now there was a deafening sound, drowning out the comforting hum of the TARDIS with the creaking, angry whir of an engine trying to function despite intense resistance. Rose felt dizzy, the same way she got when standing on a beach and watching the tide retreat all around her. The world was moving, and she wasn't, yet it seemed like she was being pulled.

'Anything living inside exists for centuries, millennia, even billions of years,' the Doctor continued to talk, voice muffled beneath the din. There was a clatter from the other side of the Time Rotor. She watched the Doctor dropping down to the ground, followed by the sound of a panel being thrown open. 'But that's no good if your sense of time is synced across the dimensions of this universe the way the TARDIS is –'

'So what are we supposed to do? Shouldn't we be doing something about it instead of talking about it? We're still heading there, right?'

'Doing it now, hold on!' The sonic screwdriver whirred, and the grating noise of the TARDIS dematerialisation sequence started up. The lights flickered back on. 'Hah! There we go – nothing to it.'

'If you say so, Mr Tearing-Apart-The-Fabric-of-Reality,' Rose returned as the Doctor clambered to his feet. 'You don't half exaggerate, do you?'

His response was cut off as the Time Rotor made a horrendous, scraping noise, like metal being dragged on pavement. The ship shook again and once more the lights went out.

'Let me guess,' Rose yelled, hands clapped over her ears. 'That wasn't supposed to happen either?'

'We dematerialised too late, it's still trying to suck us in –' the rest got lost in a series of swearing that abruptly turned into guttural nonsense. Alien swearing perhaps?

The TARDIS hum had become a high-pitched, laboured whir, and the shaking was getting worse. She was only able to see half the Doctor's face in the shadow now, and he was muttering to himself.

' – complex space-time event damaging the fabric – like a rip – how's a rip even happen? Holes need to be plugged, rips need to be mended – Hah! That's it!' He straightened up, and she could make out a grin; it looked sinister in the green light. He darted forward, snatched her hand and shoved it down on panel. 'Put your hand there and keep it held down!'

Rose did as she was told, fitting her hand snugly into place and keeping whatever it was pressed down. Her mind flickered back to what he had been saying, trying to make sense of it. 'Hold on – we're going to mend it? How?'

'By redirecting our momentum!' the Doctor called. 'We can't permanently escape the vacuum by dematerialising, there's too much drag interfering. But if we speed up – head towards it – we might generate enough power to overshoot where the vacuum is trying to take us!'

'How?'

'Crosswinds!' he declared jubilantly. 'Same way you nullify a whirling dervish – create a vacuum in the opposite direction or, barring that, enough interference that it loses power!'

'So we're gonna do that… how?'

'Rapid directional shifts, moving in and out of multiple dimensions of time and space!'

'In English?'

'Slingshot across the gash and then crisscross the rip with quantum material.'

'That makes no sense!'

'Well, it wouldn't make sense to you, would it?' he disparaged. 'Now are you gonna help me or not?'

'Not like I've got much of a choice!' Rose bit back. 'What d'you need?'

'Just keep your hand on that panel and don't let go until I tell you. As soon as we achieve maximum resistance, you'll let go and we should be catapulted toward the rip.'

'I thought we didn't want that?'

'It's exactly what we want. The force will send us just past the singularity of the rip – not far enough away to escape the vacuum, but enough that we can change direction again.'

'Change direction?'

'S'like weighing anchor. Plonk that down, we'll create drag. Won't stop us, but our momentum will cause us to change directions. And I'll steer us where we need to be.'

'And each time we move, we'll create a crosswind?' Rose finished, his plan dawning on her.

'Exactly,' he beamed.

'Right – s'pose that sounds easy enough,' she said doubtfully.

'Ready?' the Doctor demanded, too soon for her liking.

'Not really!'

'And – release!'

She pulled away from the panel and had to grab the edge of the console lest the sudden jerk of the room send her sprawling to the floor. The TARDIS whined, and for a moment Rose's feet left the floor before they started moving again.

The Doctor sped past her, cranking something up while pulling out a wire that had come loose. Rose had only regained her footing when he called out, 'Again!'

She shoved her hand down on the panel, bracing herself for the impending abrupt stop as well as possible.

'Let go!'

It continued like that another half dozen times at least.

Her heart beat a mile a minute, and she could barely breathe, but there was no time to rest between orders. She didn't dare stop or delay.

'It's working!' the Doctor said.

They fell into an odd rhythm, the Doctor dancing around the console, manoeuvring around her as he bobbed from station to station, while Rose listened for his instructions. Every time he spoke, Rose either pressed down on the panel or released it. It wasn't as simple a job as she first thought – her hand was already slippery with perspiration, and the lurching of the time ship didn't help. Every time the Doctor made them change direction, the motion threatened to throw her across the control room – right, left, up, down. She never knew which way to lean.

'Almost there,' the Doctor said after what seemed like forever. 'Might just make it if we can – '

Another violent shudder, and this time Rose did lose her balance, falling to her knees.

The Doctor cursed again, and he dived around the console to pull her up.

'It's not gonna be enough,' he lamented. 'The power won't hold. We've only got one or two more passes before we run out.'

'Then what?' Rose asked, fighting to ignore the cold dread in her stomach.

'We end up in a pocket universe.'

'And we die?'

'In a lifetime and an instant.'

'All right – I propose we don't die then.'

'Seconded.'

'Any idea how not to?'

'Workin' on it – and, hand down!' The TARDIS lurched again. The Doctor's arms bracketed her, keeping her from going flying, for which she was immensely grateful. 'We'll keep it down as long as possible this time. Build up as much resistance as we can, cos we've only got enough speed left for one more pass.' He let out a resigned sigh. 'Least everything outside the rip is safe, even if we will still be pulled in as the tear closes.'

Her stomach plummeted. 'Isn't there anything that would give us a jump, or a push, or… or something!?'

'Done everything I can think of, beyond ejecting the unused parts of the ship. Even that – I don't know what else to try.'

She had never heard the Doctor sound defeated before, and it sparked both fear and anger in her.

'What are you talking about, you don't know? You always know!' Rose shouted. 'You're supposed to have some plan, some insane and dangerous idea that –'

He whirled her around then, and grasped her shoulders, eyes so wide she only saw the whites in the dim light,

'Ace!' he declared, and laughed madly, taking off out of the control room. 'Stay right there! And hold that lever down as if your life depends on it – cos it does!'

'What? Doctor!' Rose shouted after him, but he was already gone.

She gaped at the spot where he had been, conscious of the fact she was now standing alone in the control room. In a dark TARDIS that was filling with smoke and still shaking worryingly around her.

Terror grew, increasing exponentially with every second.

What if something happened while he was gone, or she did something wrong and they slipped into the pocket universe? Was he absolutely insane leaving her in here by herself? Hadn't he made it clear that humans couldn't fly the TARDIS? Yet he was leaving her here, the only thing keeping them from hurtling into a rip in the fabric of reality?

Guess it's not like he can get mad at me if we get killed, she thought madly.

It was getting harder to keep her hand down on the panel as if the TARDIS was fighting being stopped or the pull was finally getting too strong. Had the Doctor gotten lost or something and that was why he hadn't –

Even as the thought formed, he was suddenly back, his boots thumping on the grating before throwing himself into the jump seat and typing madly.

'Where the bloody hell have you been? You lost your mind or something?!' she yelled, fear and frustration boiling out of her. 'You just left me here!'

He didn't answer her, looking distracted and instead muttering something about a "workshop" and "Nitro 9".

She was losing her grip. 'Doctor – I can't hold on much longer–!'

He laughed, hitting a final key. 'Right, let go!'

'Doctor –?'

'Now!'

She let go of the panel, sending the ship sailing on a final pass across the rip. She swallowed, waiting to hear that this was it, that they were done for, but the Doctor was charging toward the door of the TARDIS and tugging at it.

'Doctor!'

But he was hauling it open and throwing something out into the black of space and slamming the door behind him.

'Hold on to something!' he ordered, diving for the nearest coral strut. Rose imitated him, wrapping her arms tightly around it and clenching her eyes shut.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then there was a swooping sensation behind her navel. She couldn't help think that this was it. That they had been pulled into the pocket universe and any moment everything would end.

The TARDIS had gone completely silent now, her laboured hum completely spent, and only the silent vacuum of space itself existed.

It was because of this silence that Rose heard the muffled explosion behind the door, and the world went topsy-turvy.

The control room – no, the entire ship – spun around. Rose's legs dangled in the air as the floor became the ceiling, loose wires and debris falling past her as the walls rolled over her head. She continued to grasp the strut desperately, trying to wrap her legs around it for added security.

As fast as it started, the movement stopped, and she was upright.

Rose waited with bated breath, for whatever was to come next.

There was a beat, followed by a slow, hesitant hum returned.

The lights flickered on seconds later, illuminating herself and the Doctor sprawled on opposite sides of the room. The Time Rotor slowly slowed down. They had landed somewhere.

Are we dead? She thought, but couldn't seem to regain control of her mouth to ask. Doesn't feel like it…

The Doctor stood with little production, as if nothing of import had happened, and straightened his coat. Then he crossed the floor, studied the monitor and nodded.

'Well, that's that,' he grinned.

'Hold on – what? What the hell was all that?' Rose demanded. 'What did you do? Why're we still… here?'

'We got free of the rip, obviously,' he disparaged. 'Closed it on the final pass, too, so no one's gonna get drawn into it again.'

'But – how? You said we didn't have enough power?'

'We didn't, so I got us some. Nitro 9. Fantastic stuff. Registers nine on the Richter scale, so it was only a matter of increasing the blast potential.'

She blinked past the fuzziness of her brain. 'And… what, it pushed us away from the rip?'

'Exactly!' the Doctor was beaming at her now. 'Just far enough away so we could dematerialise. Then the old girl landed us – suppose she needs a few hours to recover after that. Works for us though. You said genuine alien planet, yeah?'

'You're mental,' Rose told him as she stood, though she wobbled a bit on her feet as she did. 'We just almost died, and that's it?'

'We almost die all the time, no need for a post-match analysis,' he disdained. 'Besides, it's what you wanted – granted, we took a bit of a detour, but right outside those doors? A planet that's not Earth.'

Sometimes all you could do was accept it and move on.

Rose shook her head, trying to put their most recent near death experience behind them and offering the Doctor a cheeky smile, albeit a weaker version than usual. 'Oh, you sure this time?'

'Why don't you go out and see?'

'Maybe I will.' She tossed her hair behind her shoulder and made a beeline for the door, deciding if the Doctor was going to be nonchalant in the face of certain death, so was she. 'Any idea where we are?'

'Dunno, never been in this system before. The universe is big enough that I don't personally know every planet in existence.'

'So there is something you don't know everything about?'

'Of course there is! Reality TV for example. Don't know anything about it, don't want to know anything about it,' the Doctor explained as Rose opened the TARDIS door, keen on her first truly alien planet.