The Doctor waited, fighting down the dread in the pit of his stomach, as the water beneath rose, closer and closer. Steam came off the top of it, hot, dense, and damp. It coated his body, blurred his vision, and made his normally gravity defying hair droop with the moisture.
He missed Rose. She was only a few feet below him, but he missed her. He could just imagine her making a joke right about now, something about him going through all this trouble just to have a sauna, probably. If you miss her now, when you are only separated by three feet, a few minutes, and some measly water, how will you feel when you are separated by all time and space? He wondered. He closed his eyes as if by shutting the windows of his mind to the world he could shut out the thought. He wished for a moment he could step out of his role. Give up on being the protector of all universes and always doing the right thing. He wished he could keep this beautiful girl at his side and damn the consequences. He couldn't though. He had to take her back where she belonged and erase all memory of ever meeting her, so that someday, he could meet her again. So that someday, he could change an ordinary shop girl's life, a shop girl that wasn't so ordinary after all. The thought of what he knew he had to do was painful. What was also painful was breathing in boiling hot water, which is what he did in the middle of that thought.
He coughed, opened his eyes, and then closed them quickly, the tender skin of his eyeballs stinging from the heat. Perhaps he should think about what was going to happen after they got out of here, after they actually managed to get out. While he had been contemplating the future, the present had snuck up on him, in the form of not so slowly rising water. The Doctor screwed his mouth and eyes shut, and began to shift himself around the pipe, grunting with the effort, until he was straddling it from beneath, and facing the ceiling. This position was considerably more strenuous, but would buy him a few extra moments of air.
He felt the hot water lapping at his back, and continuing to rise. It climbed over him, covering his ears. He found it rather ironic that its ominous roar was silenced when it was closest to him. Perhaps the silence was more scary than the noise. The water continued, up, up, up, a silent killer creeping up on him from behind. Just as it reached his mouth, he took a big, gulping breath of air, and then let it wash over him.
To Be Continued