Complications
By The Plot Thinens
Chapter 38 - Hell in hand Basket
"But we've got to bring them back." Stated Rose as if it were obvious. To which Jefferson flippantly stated,
"They're ten miles down. We haven't got another ten miles of cable." As if things couldn't get any worse, the door started banging, door 25, their door.
"Captain? Situation report." Jefferson as coolly as he could asked Zach.
"It's the Ood. They're cutting through the door bolts. They're breaking in." Zach stated simply.
"Yeah, it's the same on door 25." Jefferson informed his Captain as if they were talking about a stuck up drain pipe.
"How long's it going to take?" Zach Inquired of the man.
"Well, it's only a basic frame, it should take ten minutes." Noted Jefferson. What were they to do? If they didn't do something, then Rose wouldn't have to worry about things like being a good or bad parent in this century...because she and her child would be dead. That was not an option, she thought as another bolt was cut by the Ood. Jefferson noted that they now probably had eight minutes left.
"I've got a security frame. It might last a bit longer, but that doesn't help you." Declared Zach over the comm.
"Right. So we need to stop them, or get out, or both." Stated Rose plainly.
"I'll take both, yeah? But how?" Danny asked Rose. In the absence of the Doctor Rose was finding herself in the attitude to step up to the plate and take charge. She knew what this creature, whatever it was devil or not, was up to. The Doctor had helped her out of the darkness of her fear and now she was not going to let this thing swallow them up again.
"You heard the Doctor. Why do you think that thing cut him off? Cos he was making sense. He was telling you to think your way out of this. Come on! For starters, we need some lights. There's got to be some sort of power somewhere." Stated Rose. Without the Doctor here it was her job to be the Doctor and she had had a lot more practice at it since the last time she played Doctor. She would save her baby, these humans, herself, and then find a way to rescue the Doctor.
"There's nothing I can do. Some Captain, stuck in here, pressing buttons." Said Zach in a defeated voice.
"That's what the Doctor meant. Press the right buttons." Encouraged Rose.
"They've gutted the generators... But the rocket's got an independent supply. If I could reroute that..." Said Zach as the wheels finally got turning in his head. He could help save the rest of his crew, the Doctor was right, use his head.
"Mister Jefferson? Open the bypass conduits. Override the safety." Ordered Zach.
"Opening bypass conduits, sir." Declared Jefferson as he toyed with some controls on a nearby wall.
"Channeling rocket feed in three, two, one. Power." Announced Zach as he turned the power back on. Rose cheered the group and clapped her hands.
"There we go." Rose beamed, the Doctor's encouragement had been all that they needed to unlock their potential to work through this problem. She then thought and hoped her baby could hear, 'You've the smartest Daddy in the universe.'
"Let there be light!" Crowed Danny.
"What about that strategy nine thing?" Questioned Rose, not actually knowing what it was.
"Not enough power. It needs a hundred percent." Explained Jefferson to Rose, but even if they had had the power, if Rose had known what that meant for the Ood, she would have been as appalled as the Doctor had been.
"All right, we need a way out. Zach, Mister Jefferson, you start working on that. Toby, what about you?" Rose stated as if she were commanding an army, and in a sense she was.
"I'm not a soldier. I can't do anything." Mourned Toby, but Rose was having none of that attitude.
"No, you're the archeologist. What do you know about the pit?" Rose Interrogated Toby.
"Well, nothing. We can't even translate the language." Said Toby. Rose accepted this as a dead end and was about to walk off when Toby stopped her,
"Hold on. Maybe." Rose turned back to him and inquired what Toby wanted, eager for any new information that could help the group.
"Since that thing was inside my head, it's like the letters made more sense." Noted Toby.
"Well, get to work. Anything you can translate, just anything. As for you, Danny boy. You're in charge of the Ood. Any way of stopping them?" Question Rose of the room as she took command of their own rescue operation.
"Well, I don't know." Declared Danny, his mind still to upset from all that had happened to think straight.
"Then find out. The sooner we get control of the Base, the sooner we can get my husb…The Doctor out. Shift." Ordered Rose. There was not a moment to waste.
"Well, we've got all this cable, we might as well use it. The drum's disconnected. We could adapt it, feed it through." Declared Ida a bit desperately
"And then what?" Asked the Doctor a bit confused by her logic.
"Abseil into the pit." Answered Ida as she pulled at the cord.
"Abseil. Right." Stated the Doctor a bit shocked that this was what she wanted them to do.
"We're running out of air with no way back. It's the only thing we can do. Even if it's the last thing we ever achieve." Declared Ida fatalistically. If she only had a little time left to live, then she wanted to spend it doing something that was important to her, exploring and learning new things. It was very human of her to want to see all that she could see before she died. The Doctor was not so accepting of such a grim fate though. He had faith that Rose would think of something, she always did. And he was not getting out of diaper changing like Rose said.
"I'll get back. Rose is up there." Said the Doctor matter of factly.
"Well, maybe the key to that is finding out what's in the pit." Suggested Ida, even if she thought that she was grasping a bit at straws for justifying her desire to find out just want was at the bottom of that pit before she died. It would be a hell of a regret and she wanted as few as she could prevent before she suffocated.
"Well, it's half of a good plan." Mused the Doctor.
"What's the other half?" She inquired of the mystery man.
"I go down, not you." The Doctor declared resolutely.
Back up at the Drill area, Jefferson was working at another console to help set a path for their escape. All the while they could hear the Ood cutting away more of the door bolts. Each boom that followed a destroyed bolt, put them all on edge and forced them to look to the door every time to make sure it was still closed. They'd be in very soon and Rose despite her mustering of the troops couldn't help but place a hand over her abdomen for comfort, it was the closest thing she could get to a hand holding right now. Whether she was seeking comfort or giving it she couldn't be sure, but she wanted to protect her daughter.
"Open junctions five, six, seven. Reroute filters sixteen to twenty four. Go."
"There's all sorts of viruses that could stop the Ood. Trouble is, we haven't got them on board." Sighed Danny as he worked at another console trying to solve their Ood problem.
"Well, that's handy, listing all the things we haven't got. We haven't got a swimming pool either. Or a Tesco's." Snipped Rose in a sarcastic voice. Was everyone this fatalistic in the future and lacking of resourcefulness? Suddenly his screen flashed the text 'Affirmative' and Danny's mood lifted.
"Oh, my God. It says yes. I can do it. Hypothetically, if you flip the monitor, broadcast a flare, it can disrupt the telepathy. Brainstorm!" Cheered Danny.
"What happens to the Ood?" Asked Rose, not quite getting what Danny was implying.
"It'll tank them spark out." Explained Danny, Rose didn't necessarily like the idea of harming the Ood, but at this point it was them or her baby.
"There we are, then. Do it!" Commanded Rose. Then Danny's mood fell and waving his hand a bit disappointedly, he explained,
"No, but I'd have to transmit from the central monitor. We need to go to Ood Habitation." Another bolt was cut and the humans nearly jumped out of their shoes.
"That's what we'll do, then. Mister Jefferson, sir. Any way out?" Rose asked the head security officer.
"Just about. There's a network of maintenance tunnels running underneath the base. We should be able to gain access from here." Suggested Jefferson.
"Ventilation shafts." Noted Rose, already wondering if she would have trouble climbing through an air vent on her hands and knees with an already large belly in her way.
"Yeah, I appreciate the reference, but there's no ventilation. No air, in fact, at all. They were designed for machines, not life forms." Explained Jefferson. Once more they heard another one of the bolts being cut away, and then Zach's voice, sounding a bit happy at the prospect of being useful to his team, came through the comm.,
"But, I can manipulate the oxygen field from here. Create discrete pockets of atmosphere. If I control it manually, I can follow you through the network."
"Right, so we go down, and you make the air follow us...by hand." Stated Rose wanting clarity, that sounded like a plan, but like a plan where there was a lot of room for error.
"You wanted me pressing buttons." Said Zach bluntly.
"Yeah, I asked for it. Okay, we need to get to Ood Habitation. Work out a route." Ordered Rose, hopefully if all went well and they didn't suffocate in a tiny maintenance tunnel, then they would stop having Ood problems and could focus on saving the Doctor.
Down at Point Zero, The Doctor and Ida now had about ten miles of cable wrapped around a drum, with one end tied around the Doctor's waist. As the Doctor peered over at the dark abyss and back at the cable attached to his suit, he started to think better of it.
"That should hold it. How's it going?" Asked Ida.
"Fine. Should work. Doesn't feel like such a good idea now." Noted the Doctor in a nervous voice as he stepped onto the rim of the trapdoor. Best case scenario, they would somehow find the key to their salvation below, and at worst the cable would somehow snap or malfunction and he'd die. He seriously did not want his body to have a go at trying to regenerate in the vacuum of an atmosphere-less planet. Still there was something down there of note in that dark deep abyss and it was calling him. Like a siren call just barely audible off in the distance. Down there, down there, something is down there.
"Hmm, there it is again. That itch. Go down, go down, go down, go down, go down." Rambled the Doctor with caution in his voice.
"The urge to jump. Do you know where it comes from, that sensation? Genetic heritage. Ever since we were primates in the trees. It's our body's way of testing us. Calculating whether or not we can reach the next branch." Explained Ida. Maybe her genetic heritage, thought the Doctor, but not his. Not a primate him, his baby was part-primate, but not him. He could really honestly call her his little monkey, thought the Doctor for a moment, before the reality of the present and its situation reaffirmed itself in the front of his mind. Still it didn't mean that his species didn't have drives similar to that of humans.
"No, that's not it. That's too kind. It's not the urge to jump. It's deeper than that. It's the urge to fall!" Corrected the Doctor as he launched himself into the chasm.
"Doctor!" Shouted Ida for the Doctor as she threw the brake on the drum from her wrist computer. His action had been so sudden and impulsive that she had been caught completely off guard. Ida all but shouted into her head set for the Doctor to confirm that he was not injured in the fall or the sudden stopping of the cable. With relief, she heard his voice,
"Not bad, thanks. The wall of the pit seems to be the same as the cavern, just not much of it. There's a crust about twenty feet down and then nothing. Just the pit. Okay, then. Lower me down."
"Well, here we go then." Stated Ida as warning to him and bit to comfort herself that they had a plan that they were actively engaging in. The Doctor was lowered further into eerily calm, dark, silence.
Unfortunately in the drilling area, calm was the last thing on Rose and her fellow human's minds. The Ood were nearly through the door as they hurried to get a piece of deck plating up so that they could climb down into it. Rose and Jefferson shouted for Danny to come away from the console and join them, but Danny said that he'd need a moment to conform his program. Finally he got the green light and pulled out a orange chip from the machine and ran over to them.
"Put that in the monitor and it's a bad time to be an Ood." Bragged Danny. Rose now felt herself gripped with panic. Sure he was ten miles below them, but Rose still felt that by leaving the last place she saw him that she was abandoning him. Probably more to convince herself than anyone else she shouted the out the command,
"We're coming back. Have you got that? We're coming back to this room and we're getting the Doctor out." Jefferson was for the most part ignoring Rose and focusing on his task, Danny right now had the best chance of stopping this madness, so he was to go first.
"Okay. Danny, you go first, then you, Mrs. Smith, then Toby. I'll go last in defensive position. Now, come on, quick as you can!" Shouted Jefferson as Rose struggled a bit to maneuver herself into the confined space. Once inside the maintenance tunnel, which reminded her of an air conditioning tunnel, only it smelt like methane and old machine oil, she was sure to protect her stomach from injury. Rose sat on her knees blow legged and prepared to crawl for her life once given a direction.
"God, it stinks. You all right?" Rose asked Danny as she looked around either end of the tunnel.
"Yeah, I'm laughing." Stated, Danny realizing Rose suspected him of passing wind.
"Which way do we go?" Danny asked Zach trying to change the subject, who told them to go straight ahead until he informed them to stop.
With the last of the bolts on the door in the drilling room cut, Jefferson shuts the entrance to the maintenance tunnel behind him as the Ood broke through door 25. The group crawled off on their hands and knees as if the devil was after them and in a possible literal sense it was. Rose was following close behind Danny, literally she had been looking at his butt for hundreds of feet all the while she awkwardly tried to crawl without hitting her large stomach. She thought that she must look quite comical from behind.
"Not your best angle, Danny." Stated Rose trying to keep the mood as light as possible.
"Oi, stop it." Yelled back Danny, not in the mood for jokes as the situation had made his stomach upset as it was.
"I don't know, it could be worse." Stated Toby, who thought that Rose's rear end looked good for being several months pregnant. Though that fact seemed to be slowing her down a bit and that might have been making the group behind her a tad bit worried. Rose mouthed off her protest,
"Oi! Married woman!" Now was not the time for such thoughts.
"Straight on until you find junction seven point one. Keep breathing. I'm feeding you air. I've got you." Instructed Zach from his control room to his team in the tunnel.
"We're at seven point one, sir." Noted Danny as they stopped partly for air, partly for instructions. The smell wasn't getting any better and the air was a bit thin, Rose hoped that nothing she was breathing in or not breathing in was causing damage to her child as she huffed and puffed. That had taken a lot out of her.
"Okay, I've got you. I'm just aerating the next section." Explained Zach to group.
"Getting kind of cramped, sir. Can't you hurry up?" Whined Danny who seemed to be getting a bit claustrophobic. Zach growled that he was working on it all the while the Ood were still trying to break into the control room. He understood urgency as much as his team did.
"Stop complaining." Jefferson snapped at the younger man as she gasped for air. Rose in a game of telephone bark to Danny that Jefferson told him to stop complaining. To which Danny in an annoyed voice shouted that he had heard. Rose then 'telephoned' his response back to Jefferson who looked so done with the young people.
"But the air's getting a bit thin." Noted Toby.
"He's complaining now." Rose exhaled in an equally done mood.
"I heard." Snapped Jefferson, clearly the lack of oxygen was making them all short tempered and snippy. Rose then took another sniff of the air and recognizing it as indeed methane, and without a doubt who the source was, she questioned,
"Danny, is that you?" Danny all but admitting that the situation was making him gassy, hissed that he wasn't exactly happy. Rose just hoped that it didn't do any lasting damage to her or the baby. Anymore and they wouldn't have to worry about Ood because Danny would gas them to death.
"I'm just moving the air." Announced Zach to which Rose thought, 'Thank God! But why don't you move the bad air too while you're at it?'
"I've got to oxygenate the next section. Now, keep calm or it's going to feel worse." Warned Zach as a loud BANG was heard down the other end of the tunnel.
"What was that?" Danny screamed.
"Mister Jefferson, what was that?" Rose asked the man, but only slightly calmer than Danny. She'd watched enough movies about women under stress going suddenly into labor and she had no desire to give birth in a maintenance tunnel with little air while alien hostiles were on her tail and the Doctor ten miles beneath her.
"What's that noise?" Cried Toby, as Jefferson calmly asked Zach what was the source of the noise.
"The junction in Habitation Five's been opened. It must be the Ood. They're in the tunnels!" Announced Zach.
"Well, open the gate." Cried Danny in a panic.
"I've got to get the air in!" Zach stated to his impatient comrade as Danny continued to try for him to open it anyway.
"Where are they? Are they close?" Asked Rose in a much calmer manner than Danny now.
"I don't know. I can't tell. I can't see them. The computer doesn't register Ood as proper life forms." Explained Zach.
"Whose idea was that?" Questioned Rose at such a moronic short sight of programming. They were going to be killed because the stupid human-made program was inherently racist or speciesist, whatever! Danny cried once more for Zach to open the gate as he could see an Ood making its way surprisingly fast down the tunnel while keeping its weapon of choice, its interface device, in its front pocket.
The gate finally slid up behind Danny and they hurry through with the Ood in hot pursuit. All the while the humans were a panic of scrambling bodies as Zach barked orders on where to turn to his teammates.
"The Ood, sir. can't you trap them? Cut off the air?" Questioned Jefferson as he made up the rear of the group all the while looking back while pointing his gun behind him.
"Not without cutting off yours." Zach stated in a voice that was irritated and shouted at them to hurry up before they got caught.
"I'll maintain defensive position." Stated the tired Jefferson as he sat down in the tunnel with his gun pointing in the direction the Ood would be coming. Rose protested that he could not stop. She had seen too many people sacrifice themselves for her and she didn't want to see it happen again.
"Mrs. Smith, that's my job. You've got your task, now see to it." Growled the older man, as Toby, seemingly quite uncaring about leaving his comrade behind shoved Rose and told her to keep moving. No sooner was Jefferson out of Rose's sigh she heard him start firing at the Ood as they came around the corner. More gun fire was heard as Danny shouted over his comm. for Zach to open gate 8.2. Danny was not pleased when Zach told him that he had to aerate it first, and that he was trying his best. With anger born of fear the young man began banging on the door.
"Danny, stop it. That's not helping." Chided Rose.
"Zach, get it open!" Shouted Toby.
"Jefferson, I've got to open eight point two by closing eight point one. You've got to get past the junction. Now move. That's an order, now move!" Rose heard Zach say over the comm. as more gunfire was heard. How many Ood were there again, thought Rose, but then she heard no more bullets. A chill set in, was he out or had he been taken out?
"I'm going to lose oxygen, Jefferson, I can't... stop for your dramatics!" Zach was heard over the comm..
Finally the gate opened and Danny let out a cheer before telling everyone to move.
"Danny, turn left and head for nine point two. That's the last one. Jefferson, You've got to move faster. John, move!" Zach begged the older man as the gate was closing in front of him. Rose could see he wasn't going to make it and was struck with the memory of a similar situation in which she had also not been fast enough. Although she had been given a second chance, she worried that poor Mr. Jefferson would not. Rose shouted her encouragement to the man, but again was shoved along by Toby.
"Regret to inform, sir, I was a bit slow. Not so fast, these days." Jefferson informed his captain with grim humor as he sat against the now closed gate. Rose had said something similar once and she knew that feeling of accepting your death, it was not a good feeling to come to.
"I can't open eight point one, John. Not without losing air for the others." Mourned Zach to the man as Rose and the others reached the last gate that would free them from the tunnels. They had nothing else to do but gasp for air and listen to Jefferson's final words.
"And quite right too, sir. I think I bought them a little time." The man said proudly as he tried to get himself in a comfortable position as he panted for what little air was left in the closed off tunnel.
"There's nothing I can do, John. I'm sorry." Apologized Zach.
"You've done enough, sir. Made a very good captain under the circumstances. May I ask, if you can't add oxygen to this section, can you speed up the process of its removal?" Questioned Jefferson as he witnessed an Ood making its way up the tunnel toward him. Zach did not understand and asked the man what he meant.
"Well, if I might choose the manner of my departure, sir, lack of air seems more natural than, well, let's say death by Ood. I'd appreciate it, sir!" He said with more urgency as the Ood got closer to him. Zach wished him luck and Jefferson said his thanks, and with the push of a few buttons, Jefferson expired in the manner of his choosing.
"Report Officer John Maynard Jefferson PKD deceased. With honors. 43 K two point one." Zach recorded as Danny replied,
"Zach, we're at the final junction, nine point two. And er, if my respects could be on record. He saved our lives." Zach made the note and opened the final gate only for there to be an Ood is waiting for them on the other side. Rose saw her life flash before her eyes and her adrenaline go through roof as she shouted for Zach to lower the gate back down.
"Back! Back! Back!" Shouted Danny to which Toby shouted back,
"We can't go back! The gang point's sealed off. We're stuck." Rose's very strong survival instincts were looking all around for an escape when she noticed a floor grating above her as the Ood struggled with the half opened gate.
"Come on! Up!" Ordered Rose as she slammed the floor grating open with her arms and climbed out as best she could. She looked around and saw that they were near door 32, Danny then pulled himself up, and Rose shouted back down to Toby to hurry up. Somehow they managed to pull him up safely. Rose was thankful that they had not lost Toby too in the tunnels. However, she didn't have much time to celebrate as more Ood were coming down the corridor towards them.
"It's this way." Shouted Danny and led them to the direction of Ood habitation, while Zach encouraged them to hurry from the control room.
Finally they were at Ood Habitation and Danny was running up to his familiar work station as quick as his legs would carry him.
"Get it in!" Shouted Rose at Danny as the young man fumbled through his pockets for the needed computer chip. They couldn't help but notice that more Ood where down below them too, no pressure.
"I'm trying, I'm trying! I'm getting at it." Shouted Danny as they were being surrounded.
"Danny, get that thing transmitting!" Shouted Rose as he finally managed to find the chip and place it in the needed location in his console. The reading on the screen then fell from basic 100 to zero and all the Ood grab their heads and writhe for a few seconds before finally collapsing. A collective sigh was let out. Rose gave Danny a hug as best she could and cheered,
"You did it! We did it!" Danny gasped out a happy, yes, before Rose then hugged Toby. She then grabbed for the comm. microphone on the console and announced to Zach,
"Zach, we did it. The Ood are down. Now we've got to get the Doctor." Rose was elated! They had survived against impossible odds and now nothing stood in the way of her getting the Doctor back. She couldn't wait to tell the Doctor about how they had saved the day.
"I'm on my way." Said Zach.
The level of drama unknown to the Doctor and Ida below, the two had a quiet conversation as the Doctor still continued his descent down the pit.
"You get representations of the Horned Beast right across the universe, in the myths and legends of a million worlds. Earth, Draconia, Velconsadine, Daemos. The carving on the wall. It's the same image, over and over again. Maybe that idea came from somewhere, bleeding through. The thought at the back of every sentient mind." Noted the Doctor as he thought about the coincidences of all those alien cultures having a similar monster of legend.
"Emanating from here?" questioned Ida as the implication hit her like a ton of rocks. The Doctor just mused that it very well could be true.
"But if this is the original, does that make it real? Does that make it the actual devil, though?" Ida inquired as she felt a chill down her spine. The Doctor just sighed,
"Well, if that's what you want to believe. Maybe that's what the devil is, in the end. An idea." And he know from experience and from history, how hard ideas were to kill. But his pondering was interrupted when suddenly the cable stopped. They had run out of cable and The Doctor was now just dangling there in the darkness.
"That's it. That's all we've got. You getting any sort of readout?" Sighed Ida that they had failed to reach the bottom even with ten miles worth of cable.
"Nothing. Could be miles to go, yet. Or could be thirty feet. No way of telling... I could survive thirty feet." The Doctor said more to reassure himself than anyone else as he pondered his odds of surviving the fall. This way of thinking horrified Ida who strongly protested,
"Oh no you don't. I'm pulling you back up." She then tried to reverse the drum, but the Doctor stopped her.
"What're you doing?" Shouted Ida who then ran over to the pit to look down as if she could see him.
"You bring me back, then we're just going to sit there and run out of air. I've got to go down." The Doctor said solemnly and with conviction. Ida was now very upset.
"But you can't. Doctor, you can't." She begged the man, who whispered to call it an act of faith.
"But I don't want to die on my own." She sobbed, the fear of a lonely and cold death biting into her soul now that there was no task left to keep her mind on anymore. Her mortality very real and frightful that she should just fall over and die in this place, never to be found.
"I know." Said the Doctor as he began to unhooked his carabineers holding the cable him in place.
"I didn't ask. Have you got any sort of faith?" Questioned the Doctor as he was removing the last of his safety restraints.
"Not really. I was brought up Neo Classic Congregational, because of my mum. She was... My old mum. But no, I never believed." Stated Ida as she mourned people she believed that she would never see again in this life or any other.
"Neo Classics, have they got a devil?" Inquired the Doctor, there were so many religions that it was hard to keep track of what they all were about at times.
"No, not as such. Just er, the things that men do." She explained.
"Same thing in the end." Noted the Doctor. Well while they were talking about religion then she might as well ask,
"What about you?" The Doctor paused for a moment. He had had his belief system kick from the side too today. And now he was left to make sense of everything after the shake.
"I believe, I believe I haven't seen everything, I don't know. It's funny, isn't it? The things you make up. The rules." Stated the Doctor. He was so clueless, as clueless as the human he was speaking to about what happens beyond life. Time Lords would always talk like that they had everything under control and figured out, but they still only knew so much. Amazing that his big brain had never thought about this before, he guessed he was too wrapped up in the present...or the future to think about a time beyond the past. It boggled his mind at the impossibility. He continued,
"If that thing had said it came from beyond the universe, I'd believe it, but before the universe? Impossible. Doesn't fit my rule. Still, that's why I keep travelling. To be proved wrong. Thank you, Ida." Finished the Doctor.
"Don't go!" Begged Ida of the Doctor, but there was no stopping him from what he had to do.
"If they get back in touch, if you talk to Rose, just tell her. Tell her. Oh, she knows. I've said it before, but I never said it enough." Stated the Doctor as he released the last carabineer and fell into the blackness.
Ida gasped once she realized what the Doctor had done and as if it were not cruel enough, no sooner had he fallen to his death, Rose's voice finally came back onto the comm.. A pity if she had been a few moments sooner perhaps she might have been able to convince him not to fall.
"Doctor, are you there? Doctor, Ida, can you hear me? Are you there, Doctor?" Asked Rose in a crackly voice through Ida's helmet. To Ida's horror, she heard the voice of the Doctor's mate continue to come through the comm. loud and clear.
'Oh …his wife, and the child…' Thought Ida as she pondered just what was she going to tell Rose. 'Your partner fell to his death, your baby is fatherless now?' Great, not only was she going to die alone down here, but now the last thing she would ever do was tell, a soon to be sobbing, woman that she had just missed her last chance to talk to her mate. She said all that she could,
"He's gone."
"What do you mean, he's gone?" Rose asked in confusion. Ida let out a breath and knew this wouldn't be getting any easier.
"He fell... into the pit. And I don't know how deep it is. Miles and miles and miles." Explained Ida.
"But what do you mean, he fell?" Asked Rose, still not believing what she was hearing.
"I couldn't stop him. He said your name." Was all Ida had left to say on the matter. Grasping the situation much more clearly than Rose, Zach took the microphone from Rose back up at the drilling area console.
"I'm sorry." He said somberly to Rose who was clearly processing the unfortunate information she was given while clutching at her stomach. He then turned his attention to Ida.
"Ida? There's no way of reaching you. No cable. No back up. You're ten miles down. We can't get there." He apologized to the woman.
"You should see this place, Zach. It's beautiful. Well, I wanted to discover things, and here I am." She mourned in the ironic situation.
"We've got to abandon the base. I'm declaring this mission unsafe. All we can do is make sure no one ever comes here again." Zach explained to Ida,
"But we'll never find out what it was." She stated as if that were worse than death. Nothing would be learned and she would have died for not even a footnote of information.
"Well, maybe that's best." He sighed. Ida then weighted the dangers that they had faced already, the lives lost. This discovery was not worth anymore innocent lives. Accepting your death was not easy, accepting that you were being told that you were being left to die was not easy, and accepting that a dream would never be realized was not easy either.
"Yeah." Sighed Ida, better if no one ever came here again. This lovely, lonely place would be her tomb.
"Officer Scott" Zach began, but was interrupted by Ida.
"It's all right. Just go. Good luck." She said, trying at a cheerful goodbye. Better to be remembered with dignity than a crying, begging mess. Like it mattered to her, she'd be dead and wouldn't care.
"And you. Danny, Toby, close down the feed links. Get the retrotropes online, then get to the rocket and strap yourselves in. We're leaving."
Rose was alone. The Doctor...He might very well be dead. He probably was, even if he survived the fall, he'd run out of air or his equipment would be damaged and...The thought of him, just the thought of his cold lifeless body lying in the dark, alone forever, all bloodied up...She was alone in the universe so far from home...only no, she wasn't alone. Her mate was either dead or soon to be. If it had been just her, she would have stayed, there would have been nothing for her in this universe, so far removed from anyone she knew or loved. She be content to die of hunger for food or air at the opening of this ten mile whole, if it meant just being closer to him. The thought of going off and living a life without him, she could do it but she wouldn't have wanted to. Only she had to. She had to live on for the sake of their child. She have to leave behind the Doctor and the life they had together for their daughter, the last of the Time Lords would perish right along with her. This was her only chance left to get their daughter away safely. She looked once more at the hole, and with a traitorous sigh and a voice fighting back tears she said to Zach,
"I would have waited for him. If I were on my own...I would have, Just like he waited for me. I would have stayed behind. I wouldn't have been able to leave him all alone on his own down there."
"I'm sorry, that he's dead, Rose. I might not have been able to help him, but I can still get the two of you back safely. I have lost too many people and I wouldn't have left you behind. Let's get on board." Declared Zach as he led a mournful Rose down the corridor to the rocket. Her eyes were so full of tears she could hardly see. She was abandoning The Doctor, she would always feel guilt for it. But then the Ood in the corridor began to start twitching.
"Did that one just move?" Toby asked with fear in his voice. Panic began to set in and Danny shouted,
"It's the telepathic field. It's reasserting itself."
"Move it. Get to the rocket. Move!" Shouted Zach as he pulled Rose along.
It was dark. It was quiet. The only sound was a double heart beat. And that was all there was for what seemed like forever. That was until the Doctor heard words.
'Daddy, I'm scared you have to wake up.' The Doctor heard a faint voice in his head and he was jolted awake. Who had that been? Daddy? The baby… Was that a full sentence? Had that been…Suddenly the Doctor was very aware that he was in pain. His neck, chest, his everything was sore from the fall. It was nothing that would leave lasting damage, but he was going to be sore for a bit, might go to bed early tonight... His eyes focused and he saw broken glass on what appeared to be the bottom of a cave floor. So he had survived the fall, that was good, but then suddenly the Doctor remembered that he had seen broken glass. He was at the bottom of the pit and his visor of broken!
"I'm breathing. Air cushion to support the fall. You can breathe down here, Ida. Can you hear me, Ida?" Shouted the Doctor through his comm. link to Ida as he got up off the ground. He waited a few moments but heard nothing. Great he was alive, but how was he to get out of this mess now?
"Dislocating B clamp. C Clamp. Raising blu-nitro to maximum. Toby, how's the Negapact feed line?" Questioned Zach of Toby as he readied the Rocket for takeoff.
"Clear. Ready to go, sir. For God's sakes, get us out of here!" Shouted Toby all too eager to leave.
Rose found herself a ball of nerves, bordering on hyperventilating. She had never traveled in a literal rocket off a planet before, let alone while pregnant. Also the fact that she was choosing to strand herself in a foreign time and place without the Doctor and with a child to eventually provide for, didn't help calm her nerves.
"And lift off! Whoo!" Shouted Zach they felt the force of the rocket beneath them. It was a sound so powerful that it could even be heard faintly miles down to reach the Doctor's ears.
"A rocket." The Doctor said softly, knowing what it meant. It meant that he wasn't leaving and hopefully Rose was on it. He was truly stuck now and there was nothing for it but to go forward for the sake of his own sense of discovery. Well it was all he had left to discover now, though he would have rather discovered what his child in a few months would have looked like on the day she was born. Or what Rose looked like with their child in her arms. He sighed, by comparison learning some mystery about a long forgotten civilization before he slowly died of hunger was frightfully dull and painfully lonely. It seemed his fate to die and his wife's to continue the Tyler family tradition of outliving their mate. At least he hoped that would at least be the case. No telling if that human built rocket would even get her back to Earth safely. He just had to trust that Rose could somehow will the universe to keep herself and the baby safe. After all, she is Rose Tyler, he couldn't put anything past her ability to survive. The Doctor let out a sigh and moved further down the dark cavern.
Things were really starting to shake around in the rocket now Rose noticed as she grabbed a bolt gun to the side of her before it slammed into her side. She looked at it and noted the one bolt left in it. It was heavy too and looked like it could do some damage if it had to. She didn't know why she was so interested, maybe it was better for her mind to focus on the object then on the situation she was in. It was that or focus on the guilt of abandoning the Doctor. But what other choice had she had? All this trouble they'd gone through because the Doctor had been scared of watching her grow old and die, how ironic that he'd go first. What a waste, she supposed it was just the Tyler women's karma to go at child raising alone. Under any other circumstances she probably would have never left the Doctor behind. She would have stayed and died with him, but she could not be selfish, she could not doom herself and her daughter along with her. The Doctor probably would have told her the same too. Rose slumped back in her seat in defeat. There was just nothing she could do to save her mate.
"I just wanted to rescue him!" Cried out Rose in frustration at the universe.
"Sorry, but it's too late anyway. Take a look outside. We can't turn back and save him. This is what the Doctor would have wanted. He'd want you and the little one to get away safe. Isn't that right?" Zach answered having heard Rose's disappointed statement. Rose pulled herself from her seat to look out the window of the ship, they were a good distance away from the planet and black hole now.
'No, the Doctor would have wanted to get out of this alive along with me and raise our child together in our TARDIS.' Thought Rose bitterly, but the universe just wouldn't allow that, would it? The literal millions of directions that Time and space could take and it always seemed to split the two of them up. Why the hell did the TARDIS even land them here? She always seemed to have a mind of her own, why would she knowingly bring them here. They had just wanted to go baby shopping for Rassilon's sake! Now she was even using the same explicit as the Doctor, thought Rose as the rocket zoomed away from the black hole.
She felt a great ache in her single heart, and a feeling of anxiety she sensed might not completely be her own. Why hadn't she learned more from the Doctor about his species before now. She had nothing of her father to offer to her daughter now. Some rescuer she turned out to be. She'd only been able to rescue herself. A voice in her head told her that she had also rescued their daughter and that was something, but she was in no mood to congratulate herself now.
The Doctor shined his flashlight on the wall next to him revealing paintings. This was probably the first time light had been shined on them in eons and he the first to appreciate such art since the civilization here had died out.
"The history of some big battle. Man against Beast. I don't know if you're getting this, Ida. Hope so. Anyway, they defeated the Beast and imprisoned it." Narrated the Doctor to Ida above and hopefully he wasn't just talking to himself. He then saw two bronze urns on a pedestals nearby and there were two matching urns depicted in the painting on the wall. Curious...
"Or maybe that's the key." Noted the Doctor, wondering if he was looking at art or an instruction manual. The Doctor then walked over to one urn and to his surprise, when he touched one, they both lit up with a reddish yellow glow. Very curious...
"Or the gate, or the bars." The Doctor said the last part with grim caution. Then to his absolute astonishment, which very quickly grew into horror, an impossibly big horned creature woke from the dark and looked at him. Then as if it's very wake consciousness willed it, hellish lights flared up beneath it and the Doctor saw that it was chained to the wall of the cavern by its horns and limbs. It was as much a prisoner to this cavern as he was and it was angry to see him.
Inside the rocket Toby was grinning like a idiot and it was sort of creeping and confusing Danny.
"What's the joke?" He asked a bit incredulous, now did not seem the time for laughter. They were the only survivors of an alien massacre and barely got away with their lives. Most of the people that they had spend months living with were dead and Ida they had had to leave to die. What about that was cause to grin?
"Just, we made it. We escaped. We actually did it." Smiled Toby at their seemingly impossible accomplishment.
"Not all of us." Mourned Rose, she could not share in his enthusiasm.
"We're not out of it yet. We're still the first people in history to fly away from a black hole. Toby, read me the stats." Zach commanded as he worked the controls on the rocket's console.
"Gravity funnel holding, sir. Always holding." Toby beamed with glee.
The Doctor stared at this horrible creature, it frightened him on one level that it existed down here, on another level that such a creature could exist, but it existed just like him. It was a physical being and a telepath, in a way obviously from how it communicated earlier, so it was either equal to him or weaker. And he could best both options. He had bested his equals before and he could certainly do it now if he had to. This was living being versus living being, but it was frightening to look at. He just hoped that it wasn't stronger than him.
"I accept that you exist. I don't have to accept what you are, but you're physical existence, I'll give you that. I don't understand. I was expected down here. I was given a safe landing and air. You need me for something. What for?" Questioned the Doctor as to why he was still alive. Such a creature like that could have destroyed him through other means, like the cheap shots he had gotten wind of topside, but here he was alive, so why? It had been pulling strings from behind the scenes and directly, it had power on this planet, so why had it spared him? He doubted that it wanted the company from how it was growling at him. The Time Lord continued his inquiry,
"Have I got to, I don't know, beg an audience? Or is there a ritual? Some sort of incantation or summons or spell? All these things I don't believe in, are they real?" The Doctor was just confused now, a bit ridiculous to invite him down here and just growl. 'Throw me a bone, it's not like I've got anything else to do.' Gruffed the Doctor in his head. Finally completely exasperated the Doctor threw his arms up in air and shrugged,
"Speak to me! Tell me!" The Doctor then looked curiously at the growling demon-like thing as a conclusion was dawning on him,
"You won't talk. Or you can't talk. Oh, hold on, wait a minute, just let me. Oh! No. Yes! No. Think it through. You spoke before. I heard your voice. An intelligent voice. No, more than that. Brilliant. But, looking at you now, all I can see is Beast. The animal. Just the body. You're just the body, the physical form." The Doctor tried to sense anything of that brilliant mind from earlier and he was coming up empty.
"What's happened to your mind, hmm? Where's it gone? Where's that intelligence? Oh, no." Trailed the Doctor as he finally realized the creature's plan.
"Stats at fifty three. Funnel stable at sixty six point five. Hull pressure constant. Smooth as we can, sir, all the way back home. Coordinates set for planet Earth." Declared Toby from his seat next to Rose on the rocket. Rose was still in a daze and felt as if she were watching a movie and not really experiencing what she was. Maybe it was a nightmare and she'd wake up on the TARDIS. Earth, so Earth was the destination, thought Rose at Toby's words. 'Lord, what would it look like now', she thought. Was London even still there, was Britain? Where the continents all moved? How was she going to survive? She knew she had to, she just wasn't sure on the how yet. She wished the Doctor were here, the idea of exploring a new older Earth would have been more exciting and less fearful with the Doctor by her side. She guessed that her daughter would have to serve as company if she got scared. Thinking of her daughter brought her mind to imagine having to eventually tell her daughter just how they escaped an alien planet to get back to Earth...Rose began to think about the escape...really think about it. Just how had they escaped. It was the devil's work staying alive for part of it, but the end had been a cakewalk. Why? How? It made no sense.
As if he were lecturing a class as he solved a complex math problem in real-time, the Doctor waved his flash light over the parts of the mural on the wall that interested him, as he lectured the giant creature,
"You're imprisoned, long time ago. Before the universe, after, sideways, in between, doesn't matter. The prison is perfect. It's absolute, it's eternal. Oh, yes! Open the prison, the gravity field collapses. This planet falls into the black hole! You escape, you die. Brilliant! But that's just the body. The body is trapped, that's all. The devil is an idea. In all those civilizations, just an idea. But an idea is hard to kill. An idea could escape. The mind. The mind of the great Beast. The mind can escape!" The Doctor then spun around in excitement as he realized the truth that the Beast didn't want him to know.
"Oh, but that's it! You didn't give me air, your jailers did. They set this up all those years ago! They need me alive, because if you're escaping, then I've got to stop you. If I destroy your prison, your body is destroyed. Your mind with it." The Doctor said as he came to his grim conclusion and grabbed a rock. Clearly he was on to something the way the Beast roared at him as he raised his rock to smash one of the urn, but then the Time Lord dropped the rock to the ground. Something else had dawned on him.
"But then you're clever enough to use this whole system against me. If I destroy this planet, I destroy the gravity field. The rocket. The rocket loses protection and falls into the black hole. I have to sacrifice Rose. You're using her and my child as collateral. Your hostages, hmm? That's why you didn't kill them yet. You saw that I was clever, just as clever as you and you needed something to keep me in check if I found my way down here." Surmised the Doctor grimly as the Beast laughed at him like it won the game before it started. The Doctor leaned against the pedestal that the urn was on and tried to think of some other solution.
While the Beast was dealing with the wheels turning in the Doctor's head, it was finding out rather quickly and much to its displeasure that it was starting to become a battle on two fronts. Rose was clever too and with nothing else to think about but the escape, she was starting to notice some glaring facts about their miraculous ability to escape alive from such a being as the one they just faced.
"It doesn't make sense. We escaped, but there's a thousand ways it could've killed us. It could've ripped out the air or, I don't know, burnt us, or anything. But it let us go. Why? Unless it wanted us to escape?" Rose began to realize grimly from her rocket seat. As impossible as it seemed, it was still all too easy.
"Hey, Rose, do us a favor. Shut up. Almost there. We'll be beyond the reach of the black hole in forty, thirty nine..." Toby hissed at Rose to try and shut up her ponderings on questions which were bothering him.
"So, that's the trap. Or the test, or the final judgment, I don't know. But if I kill you, I kill her." The Doctor said with heavy hearts at the logic. The Beast laughed again, but then the Doctor composure and voice changed completely, much to the Beast confusion,
"Except that implies in this big grand scheme of Gods and Devils that my wife's just a victim. The trope pregnant helpless woman who needs her mate to save her and their unborn child from harm. Overdone, especially in Earth cinema. But I've seen a lot of this universe. I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods, and out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing, just one thing, I believe in her. I believe in my wife!" At this point the Beast was wishing for a less chatty audience, but then it was dumbfound to see the Doctor, despite the hostages that it held against him was smashing one of the urns!
"What happened? What was that?" Screeched a scared Danny as the rocket began to shake.
"What's he doing? What is he doing?" Questioned Toby, but not at the situation his body was in at the moment, his mind or rather true body was elsewhere. He had been in a position to enjoy what he had thought was both Rose and the Doctor's anguish at their permeate separation, but instead he was freaking out at the illogical behavior of the Time Lord.
"We've lost the funnel. Gravity collapse!" Zach reported grimly.
"What does that mean?" Asked Rose, not understanding what funnel gravity he was talking about.
"We can't escape. We're headed straight for the black hole!" Announced Zach in defeat as the ship made a 180 and began to shoot back toward the black hole and their deaths. Rose placed her hand on top of her stomach as her heart sank and whispered an apology to her daughter,
'I'm sorry. We tried.'
In the Pit a grim, but gleefully gloating Doctor smashed the second urn. Then looking the Beast dead in the eye without fear, crowed,
"This is your freedom. Free to die. You're going into that black hole and I'm riding with you." The Beast flared and pulled at his chains in complete rage. Trying its best to cower the Doctor, to which he growled back with a crazy look in his eyes and clawing his hands in the air like a jungle cat back at the Beast. 'Oooo, big scary devil. Let me tell you when I burn up I take the town with me.' Though the Doctor as he reveled in his thwarting of the Beast's plan. At the very least that was a great final achievement, Screw over the devil, no golden fiddle required.
"It's the planet. The planet's moving. It's falling." Declared Rose in disbelief, realizing what the meant for the Doctor, Ida, and all those Ood they left behind. They would die fast and first. They all were going into that black hole and whatever awaited her afterwards, she just hoped that the Doctor could somehow be there. She turned to looked at the other frightened humans to feel that connection that she would at least be doing this for a bit with company, only to see, much to her horror, that Toby's face was covered in symbols. He then began shouting,
"I am the rage. And the bile and the ferocity..." Rose implored Zach to do something now that she realized that the thing that had been tormenting them was still with them and regrettably still inside Toby.
"I am the Prince and the Fall and the enemy. I am the sin and the fear and the darkness." Roared Toby with his red eyes and rune marked face.
"It's him! It's him! It's him!" Screeched Danny in terror.
"Stay where you are. The ship's not stable!" Ordered Zach, but then Toby began to breathe fire.
"What is he? What the hell is he?" Shouted Zach in more fear than he had ever been in his lifetime. This was the first he had seen of Toby like this and he could do nothing now but shout in confusion and fear. Toby or rather the Beast was now just growling and shouting no doubt panicking over his actual body in the pit bursting into flames as the Doctor watched the victor in defeat. The Oncoming Storm, at his finest moment.
"I shall never die. The thought of me is forever. In the bleeding hearts of men, in their vanity and obsession and lust..." Shouted what used to be Toby, back in the rocket, as Rose again picked up the nearby bolt gun with only one bolt left in it, that had slipped from her grip in the shaking earlier.
"Nothing shall ever destroy me. Nothing!" Roared the possessed Toby. Rose had to do something they were all going to die, but this thing could not and was not allowed to do it with them. If they all had to die, let it be on her terms and not the torture victim of this thing once it stopped screaming and decided to take its anger out on her, Danny, Zach or the baby. The end should come quick and as painless as possible.
"Go to hell." Hissed Rose quietly to the being that was no longer Toby as she looked dead on ahead and shot out the front window of the ship with the bolt gun. The effect was instant after the bolt hit the glass and a vacuum began sucking out anything not tied down inside the ship. Rose then reached over and unfastens Toby's seatbelt as he continued to angrily breathe fire. In the blink of an eye he was sucked out into space, still roaring curses at the humans who had outwitted him as he too was on his way to be sucked into the black hole. Zach pushed a button and roared,
"Emergency shield!" And the broken window was shuttered close with a metal shutter sealing the hole, keeping them safe for now, but the rocket was still falling. Nothing could keep them safe from that. Rose then let out a sigh of slight relief and disbelief. She was sure that she had literally defeated the devil and at least, in some form, avenged her husband's death.
Things were now decidedly calmer inside the rocket, but all the closed shield meant was back to the waiting for whatever happened to living things when they got too close to black hole.
"We've still lost the gravity funnel. We can't escape the black hole." Zach stated solemnly. They were stilled doomed, but at least more peacefully doomed. Well as peaceful as a rocket currently shaking to pieces can possibly be. Rose doubted all this shaking and stress was good for the baby, not that it would matter very soon.
"But we stopped him. That's what the Doctor would've done." Stated Rose in resignation.
"Some victory. We're going in." Mourned Zach at the ironic situation.
Rose then placed her hand on her stomach and mentally apologized again to her daughter,
'I'm so sorry I'll never get to see you now. I'm sorry that you'll never get to see the universe, but we did something so important today, you and me, and your Daddy…He'd be very proud of both of us. I don't know if you can even hear me, but whatever comes now, I'll be with you until the end.' Assured Rose in her head to her baby in a mournful tone of what time they had now lost together. Rose thought that she could feel a comforting presence in response, but in light of the situation it was hard to tell. Once again it seemed that her baby might be trying to comfort her too.
As their doom was becoming clearer and soon to come, Rose did her best to calm herself, trying to mentally send pictures in her head to her baby of happier times on a lovely blue skied planet, oh so far away. Now more than ever she had wished that she had taken the Doctor up on lessons in communicating with her daughter. She had so much to tell and share in such a short time and she now could only pray that somehow she could convey it to her baby. She thought of her mother. Another person that Rose would never see again and that her baby would never meet.
'Oh, she would have loved you, even if you did have tentacles as she feared.' Rose sort of laughed to herself and the baby as she pictured her mother punching out or giving the stink eye to anyone who would look at her granddaughter funny.
The Doctor and the Beast were not having a good time either as the Beast writhed in painful flames and the Doctor began to move away from the beast in search of a calmer looking place to die.
"The planet's lost orbit. It's falling!" Choked Danny. Rose was snapped out of any pleasant thoughts she could muster Danny's remark.
"The planet's gone I'm sorry!" Danny apologized to everyone, especially to Rose. He knew that information would hit Rose hardest. He knew that, if The Doctor wasn't dead already, that she now without a doubt had just lost her husband in the most violent way imaginable. Rose choked back a sob. The Doctor was gone for sure now, widowed again. As she caught a glimpse out the window, she saw debris from who knows where all about and was surprised that with the ship still rocking and shuttling had not been torn to pieces yet as they moved faster toward the black hole.
"Accelerate. I did my best. But hey! The first human beings to fall inside a black hole. How about that? History." Zach said apologetically looking back from the controls with some humor in the hopes of going out on a joke to ease the tension that was their scary crushing death to follow. Rose might have seen some humor in it if one, her husband's sacrifice had not been for nothing and two, if her baby, innocent of all this, wasn't about to die with her mother. Hopefully, her half Time Lord baby would not sense it coming. The ship shook violently as they edged ever closer to the black hole. Rose closed her eyes and gripped the handle bar above her head harder to stabilize herself. She wanted to be as calm and focused as she could be at the end and thought of things like diners with loved ones, hugs from Mum, and apple grass. Some very disturbing noises were coming from the metal hull now and Rose despite all her efforts tensed for end. Then suddenly the shaking stopped and it was quiet. She was almost too afraid to open her eyes, but curiosity got her.
"What happened?" Questioned Rose. Why weren't they being torn to pieces and why was she complaining about that? No one said a word each equally confused and then the ship started to tilt.
"We're turning. We're turning around. We're turning away!" Zach announced in disbelief and relief. There was then a crackle over the ship's comm. unit that interrupted their confused silence.
"Sorry about the hijack, Captain. This is the good ship TARDIS." Rose eyes widen more than she ever thought they could as her heart swelled with unbelievable joy at the sound of the voice that she thought she'd might have a chance of hearing again only in the hereafter, if there was one. And the wonderful voice still kept talking,
"Now, first things first. Have you got a Rose Tyler Smith on board?" Questioned the Doctor hopefully over the comm. system of the rocket. This was very important information and despite the high he was on from his narrow escape earlier, could obviously make or break that continued mood.
"I'm here! It's me! Oh, my God. Where are you?" Cheered Rose in joy of hearing the Doctor's voice and that her husband was safe.
"I'm just towing you home. Gravity schmavity. My people practically invented black holes. Well, in fact, they did. In a couple of minutes, we'll be nice and safe. Oh, and Captain?" Declared the Doctor to the inhabitants of the rocket, as he worked the controls of the TARDIS console.
"Can we do a swap? Say, if you give me ma' Rose Tyler Smith, I'll give you Ida Scott? How about that?" He suggested as he looked to one of the coral struts that he had propped the woman against. He thought that his trade agreement was good, but he'd be getting the better deal. No offense to Ida, she was amazing, but Rose was Rose. He'd have no doubt that they would be relieved that one more of their crew had survived and would most likely want her back.
"She's alive!" Sighed Zach in relief, followed by Danny's cheer,
"Yes. Thank God."
"Yeah! Bit of oxygen starvation, but she should be all right." Assured the Doctor as he looked over to Ida before returning to his work at the console of the TARDIS.
"I couldn't save the Ood. I only had time for one trip. The Ood had not deserved such a fate. They went down with the planet." Mourned the Doctor at the loss of life and having to have picked one life over another. But he had a very limited amount of time since the TARDIS was so involved in the event on the planet and he knew where Ida was for sure. He might be too late to escape if he went after the Ood too who could have been anywhere on the base. A moment of silence from the Doctor, and the TARDIS alerted him that they were at a safe distance. He pulled a few more levers on the console.
"Ah! Entering clear space. End of the line. Mission Closed." Declared the Doctor with finality.
Rose could not stop smiling. She smiled when she got up out of her seat. She smiled when Danny read that the sensors had picked up something just appearing in the hold. She smiled when Danny led her to the hold to investigate and she smiled when Danny cheered at the sight of Ida resting peacefully beside the TARDIS. The Doctor must have placed her there after materializing and Danny ran over to hug Ida, which was helping her come around from her oxygen deprived snooze. Seeing that Danny had things outside the TARDIS covered, Rose rushed through the TARDIS door to the man that hopefully awaited her inside. No words were needed as soon as she locked eyes with the man, she ran to him and him to her. Then, as best as one could when one of the two people involved is pregnant and the other inside a clunky spacesuit, they engaged in a bear hug. They were grinning like morons and trying their best to melt into each other. Rose wanted to kiss him wanted to shout her love and devotion to him. She wanted to so badly, but something in her was screaming for him to make the first move this time. She had been the wolf hunting him for so long in the past and now she wanted to be the one to be pursued in this case. She needed him to say the words again, but she didn't dwell too long on those lightning fast thoughts as the majority of her brain wanted to know how he was even standing here at all in his TARDIS.
"How?" Asked Rose as she let up on the hug enough to look him in the eyes.
"Remember I said she'd fallen down into the planet itself? Well while I was down there, I turned a corner and there she was." Bragged the Doctor, really it had been a terrifying run avoiding falling rocks and trying to just stay upright with the planet so violently shaking. He had fallen to the ground and landed up against something only to see that the rock he was leaning against was his TARDIS waiting for him.
"I can't believe your luck." Gasped Rose.
"Believe it, I'm one of the luckiest beings in the universe, after all I met you didn't I?" The Doctor smirked, who then straightened up a bit and let go of Rose,
"Anyway, there's a bit too much in the way of this hug, now your issue will sort itself in a few more months time, but mine there is no excuse. It can be fixed with a change of clothing. So, you relax, you earned it. I'm going to go off and slip into something more comfortable."
"Aww, can't I watch?" Joked Rose, but she was kind of very serious. The Doctor felt his blood run hot at the suggestive remark, but took in a deep breath.
"I'm crazy to say this, but best not this time, might be a bit too distracting and we still have loose ends to tie up with Zach and his crew. We also have to swap notes on what we just experienced...but I don't see any reason why we can't talk through the changing room door." The Doctor stated the last part with more enthusiasm. Rose then followed the Doctor off to the wardrobe to get changed all the while swapping notes on what they had been up to since they last spoke.
The Doctor was proud of his Rose, he thought as he straightened his tie in the mirror of the changing room. She might have fought the devil and won. Though very much like Rose she regretted that she had to kill what was left if anything of Toby in the process. The Doctor had assured her that her decision had help save them all and marveled at her quick thinking of rallying everyone.
"If it wasn't for you they would have thought that they should just roll over and die, but you inspired them. You took charge, you're quite the leader, Rose." Smiled the Doctor as he fixed his formerly helmet headed hair. He wanted to look perfect for Rose before he stepped out again.
"Nothing you wouldn't have done." Said Rose modestly to which the Doctor tutted.
"Ah, but I wasn't there, you were. Give yourself credit. I gave a speech, but you put thing into action. You're brilliant."
A half hour later, yes it took him that long to fix his hair, the Doctor was soniced, booted and suited. Rose was never happier to see her Doctor in pinstripes as she was when he opened the door to the changing room in the wardrobe. The Doctor grinned at her and like a flash he pulled out his sonic and waved it over Rose.
"Everything checks out, everyone is fine despite the exertion. Now that I've seen to the most important issue at hand, I should probably make sure that Zach's ship is still space worthy and not in need of repairs." Noted the Doctor as he ran back to the console to do a full scan on the ship the TARDIS was inside. Rose caught up with him as he was finishing his work at the console.
"Everything looks good for the rocket...Slight misalignment of the comm. frequency matrix...not anything of concern, but if they are fans of Poosh soap Operas, they won't be picking up any of those on the way home. Still, livable. I should stop bashing human tech, you guys really can do great jobs on your machines." Stated the Doctor quickly as he was ready to speak to the rocket's remaining crew members. He pushed a button the TARDIS and there was slight feedback over the comm..
"Zach? We'll be off, now. Have a good trip home." Smiled the pinstriped Doctor, who continued,
"And the next time you get curious about something. Oh, what's the point. You'll just go blundering in. The human race." The Doctor scoffed in slight annoyance to which Rose poked him in the arm.
"We're just as curious and jeopardy friendly as Time Lords from my knowledge." Scolded Rose.
"Yeah, well you only know one." Defended the Doctor.
"Two." Corrected Rose holding up two fingers in a teasing gesture that some might consider offensive before pointing down at her belly. The two Time Traveler were then interrupted by Ida's voice asking,
"But Doctor, what did you find down there? That creature, what was it?"
The Doctor was very glad to know Ida was awake and asking questions again. Good woman. What the Doctor didn't know was that Zach, Danny, and Ida had been talking about the TARDIS and trying to figure out just what it was while the Doctor had been changing.
"I don't know. Never did decipher that writing. But that's good, Day I know everything? Might as well stop." Noted the Doctor as he fiddled with the TARDIS console.
"What do you think it was, really?" Question Rose of the Time Lord, looking to him and his centuries longer life and knowledge for wisdom.
"I think we beat it. That's good enough for me." Exhaled the Doctor in relief.
"It said I was going to die in battle." Rose whispered in a worried voice, she didn't want to believe the prophecy that creature made was true, but it still had shook her. She had a lot to live for right now, she thought as she placed her hand on her abdomen. She had a little one to love and care for and she had no desire to be cut short on that. A grim part of her brain worried about the prediction coming true before she gave birth and she hated the creature in that pit all the more for.
"Then it lied. Right, onwards, upwards." Said the Doctor seriously before becoming more upbeat and switching his attentions to communication link with Ida and company,
"Ida? See you again, maybe."
"I hope so." Smiled Ida. Rose then piped up at her two male companions, who had seen her safely off the base,
"And thanks, boys!"
"Hang on though, Doctor. You never really said. You two, who are you?" Questioned Ida over the comm., hoping to learn who these extraordinary people were.
"Oh, the stuff of legend." Smirked the Doctor as he cut off the communication link with their former companions and set the TARDIS safely into vortex.
"Ever the showman, Mister interplanetary man of mystery." Smirked Rose.
With a sigh of relief the Doctor turned to Rose. He was so tired and yet not tired. He had nearly lost not only his life, but the life of his family too. It had only been Rose's quick thinking and the TARDIS's sudden reappearance that saved them.
Rose could see strain on him through his happy grin. That creature had done a number on both of them. And although the Doctor had dismissed the creature's prophecy, it still left her a bit chilled. But then again, that creature had thought that it was going to get away, so much for seeing into the future. Still, evil creatures or not, as a human her time was always limited and right now she didn't want to waste another minute. She knew how she felt now about the man standing next to her.
Rose wordlessly took him by the hand and led him away from the console room. A few moments more and they had passed Rose's private room until they were in front of a room that both of them had not stepped in front of together in what felt like ages. Not believing his eyes Rose opened the door and thought it nice of her to walk him to bed. He probably looked a wreck and could do with a cat nap. What he had not expected was for Rose to close the door behind her and start dressing or rather undressing for bed. The Doctor didn't know what else to do as he stood their frozen in his suit. A telling look over her shoulder at the Doctor snapped him out of it and he began to take off his suit. Who cared if he'd just got into it. Clearly it was bedtime and, oh yes, it looked like they might spend it together in the same room! Perhaps his rescue was won him more points than he thought! It was a rather daring rescue, he thought as he watched Rose reveal more torturously irresistible skin.
In only her knickers Rose had already slipped in under the silk-like covers on the large ornate bed that dominated the room, when the Doctor was done taking off the suit and was standing in just his boxers. His pinstripe suit lay there forgotten on the floor as the Doctor gasp when Rose put up an entreating hand toward him. Quickly but sheepishly he walked over to the bed and got under the covers with Rose. Again without words the two understood that they were meant to be spooning. In unison the two began to say,
"I almost lost you." They both laughed at how they had jinxed themselves.
"But we didn't." Smiled the Doctor as he tightened his hold on Rose, making sure to leave her belly alone. Rose hummed in agreement and not being able to help but feel that a part of the Doctor had been missing her backside. She snuggled her bum up against the Doctor a little, which she noticed made him shirk back a bit. He was worried that that motion had been an accident and he didn't want to assume Rose was ready for anything else then a cuddle. Trying to use his Time Lord biology to send his blood anywhere else in his body the Doctor squeaked,
"Soo…This is new, er, I mean old…it's like old times…before I cocked up." Though no sooner had the Doctor said it, he seriously questioned the logic of bringing up how things were lately. Especially when things right now were so nice, warm, and oh, she was so soft.
"I forgave you and now I feel that I can trust you." Rose answered simply.
"You do?!" Questioned the Doctor, not believing what he heard come from Rose's mouth.
"You'll always be there for me and the baby. I believe that now with all my heart." Rose declared as she carefully turned around to face him laying down on the bed.
"I trust you with my heart and my body and now I would like to be with you." Explained Rose. Seeing that the Doctor still seemed to be scanning her for any misunderstandings on his part, Rose sighed, and made it as clear as day,
"I want to have sex with you right now. Then sleep in this bed with you, and sleep with you in it every night forever, yeah?"
"So… we're going back to the way things were." Asked the Doctor hopefully. Rose scrunched her nose a bit at the wording. She knew that he didn't mean the state of their relationship before Sarah Jane and Reinette had come into the picture. She knew he meant, the love, trust and closeness they had shared before in the past, but she wanted to make things clear that they now had more than that.
"No, not like things use to be. We can never do that. Things have changed, you've changed. I've changed. We're better than we were before, we can never go back to 'the way things were', nor should we. We know more about each other, we've keeping fewer things from each other. We've been more open with each other than we ever were. We've grown as a couple, matured even. From this day on things are different. It's a better life not for the people we were, but who we are now. And I hope we will continue to grow, love and trust each other more than the day before."
"Oh, I see. Well, this life, better with two, yeah?" Grinned the Doctor.
"Well three actually." Noted Rose as she comically pointed at her belly between them.
"Guess you are right, that is a bit different. But I like different, different with us is nice." The Doctor stated as he got a confirming look from his Rose that they could do other things besides sleep in this bed. They had worked through their problems and he had earned this. Through honesty and hard work he earned Rose's trust and all her love again. He would protect that trust and love everyday for the rest of Rose's life and he would let no one, not even himself get in the way of it. Overwhelmed with this knowledge, the Doctor leaned over the bed and grabbed for his suit jacket, before fishing something out of it. Then getting on his knees, well he was already on his knees on the mattress, he was just trying to straighten up more.
"Rose, I know that it's a custom on Earth, perpetuated by artificial scarcity, to present shiny, but overpriced, crystallized carbon, cut in a specific pattern, to a person that you would like to begin a lifelong mating bond with. And that it is an expression of love that is, in comparison to what I actually feel for you, lacking in expression, but I wanted to present this to you anyway in context to your place in time, space, and culture. However, rather than a worthless diamond, I wanted to instead present you with a gold ring with something of greater worth. It is of great value to me and I hope that its substitution will not come off as offensive in light of the custom, but…" The Doctor prattled on nervously. Rose was not dumb and getting the idea, she said in a giggle,
"You want to present me with an engagement ring? A little late for that don't you think?" The words stung the Doctor slightly and Rose realized that her amusement at the situation was being taken wrong.
"I know I should have given you one so long ago, I even knew that as human me, but for some stupid reason I still…" Rose interrupted him again by placing a finger on his lips,
"No, sorry. I didn't mean it that way. I meant that I think it's sweet, but I don't need one to know how much you love me."
"Still I want to give you one you deserve such a token. And one as rare and lovely as you are." Insisted the Doctor as he opened the little blue box and presented Rose with the gold ring. Rose's eyes fell on the ring and gasped. It was indeed a lovely piece of jewelry. What she recognized as Gallifreyan text and patterns were beautifully carved into the gold ring and on top of it was a gem that she had never seen before. Before she could ask the Doctor slipped it on to her ring finger, right next to her wedding ring and explained,
"It's called a White Point Star. It's from my planet…The last of its kind for all I know."
"And you put it on a ring for me? Such a rare keepsake of your planet? You're trusting me with something so valuable?! " Rose gasped, the gesture very much felt.
"Rare and lovely things should stick together." Smiled the Doctor, trying not to be too overcome with sadness for his lost world at a moment such as this. Rose looked at the ring and back up to the Doctor.
"But I couldn't even hold on to my own wedding ring without losing it!" Rose said one last time doubting her ability to keep it safe.
"As I do recall, we got it back. And as long as you are safe, that's all that matters?" Assured the Doctor.
"Well I'd say, 'yes' but I sort of already have… no, why can't I say 'yes' everyday? I'll say it again anytime you ask. Yes, I'll marry you again, Doctor." The two smiled at each other and then their lips met in a passionate kiss.
"I'll ask you everyday if you'd like too." Growled the Doctor in a husky voice as he ran his hand up and down Rose's arms. The human body was so sensitive to things like temperature changes. It had been so long since he had held Rose like this that he had almost forgotten what pleasure he got from feeling her body break out into goose bumps from his touch. He loved how Rose's body broadcasted its approval of his ministrations. How she could physically hide her reactions to him or desire. He mused over this as he licked a particularly sensitive patch of skin Rose had on the side of her neck. He might be able to hide arousal a bit better from humans with his superior biology, but that didn't mean Rose couldn't raise his heckles on the back of his neck with the right touch or puff of breath. Rose then broke their kiss before removing her hand off his stomach, which had a bit lower than one would in Earth public.
"Now you're sure she won't feel or sense a thing that we're doing right now? You might be trained to block your thoughts, but I'm not." Rose said as she worried her lip.
"I'm allowed in her mind and I can block out things from her and she me. Just a little encouragement for her to go into a deep sleep and a few mental locked closed doors. She'll be fine, besides, I won't be letting your mind stray away from us tonight." The Doctor purred as he placed his hands on the underside of her pregnant belly and then ghosted them to rest on Rose's hips. The Doctor then gently leaned Rose back onto the bed against the soft downy pillows of their magnificent bed and removed the sheet covering them. Torturously slow he removed the only clothing she had left to hide the parts of her body that he had missed seeing. Making sure to pay close massaging attention to a new patch of skin whenever he revealed it.
"No fair." Rose gasped,
"You too." She continued. Knowing what Rose meant, he too removed the last vestiges of his clothing but not without doing it with a flourish that made Rose throw her hands against her face in a fit of giggles.
"You're such a geek." She snickered,
"I think you meant, mind numbingly handsome, intelligent, alien love god. But remember, I'm your geek...for life." He noted in a sarcastic voice while pointing at the gold ring on his finger. He then waved his hips once like he had a hula hoop around it for her amusement, and Rose broke into another fit of giggles. One thing was for sure for all the times Rose had known this man in bed, in the married way, regardless of his form, she had never had so much fun love-making.
With that the Doctor carefully, minding her belly, pounced on her. They had had enough foreplay and wanted to get down to the serious business at hand. As if it were muscle memory the Doctor tried to get them into one of the many ready positions that they had enjoyed in the past only for Rose to make a little grunt saying,
"My body is a little different now too. We are going to have to improvise on that." Rose then, a bit clumsily, sat up on the mattress and stifled the Doctor's apology that was about to come out of his mouth with her lips. The Doctor followed up with a kiss of his own that would have made steel melt. They were finally a full and whole couple again. Rose let out a sigh against his lips that she had been holding in for so long now and gave into the full embrace and loving aura of the Doctor, her husband.
Author's note: And then they had smexy time. Sorry guys, that's as far as I can go into a scene like that...Already was pushing myself past the point of comfortable for me. Hope it didn't come off as awkward, boring, disappointing or dumb...I hope that's still pg-13.