To the Stars and Back

by LiteratusAO3

Following the Game Station and the Christmas Invasion, Team TARDIS set out to do what they do best: explore the universe, get into trouble, and run for their lives. And as a threat to their happiness grows in the form of a shadowy organisation known only as Torchwood, they learn that the past doesn't always stay buried and the future isn't what they think. (Covers season two.)

54. Chapter 54

Chapter Fifty-Four

Rose picked up a metal tray from the side and stepped up to the serving hatch. None of the food looked particularly appetising but she knew how important it was to eat when possible during their adventures. There was no sense in being squeamish and picky when she didn't know when the next time she would get to eat would be, and with the TARDIS currently buried under a significant amount of rock and inaccessible, she would have to eat the food at some point. Zach had told them they were welcome to everything on the base – food, accommodation, fresh clothing – and that they would be put on the work roster. She didn't know what sort of work they might end up doing: She imagined that Jack, Mickey, and Zoe would be set to work as mechanics while the Doctor would simply get in the way; for herself, she imagined she might end up joining the ranks of the Ood in serving the rest of the crew.

Trapped in the middle of nowhere, years away from any form of human civilisation, and she was going to be a dinner lady.

Great, she thought. Should've taken UNIT up when I had the chance.

"Don't have the green," Scooti warned, appearing at her shoulder with a friendly smile that felt welcome amid the uncertainty. "Or the blue. To be honest, it's all a little bad but it's got all the appropriate nutrition we need."

Rose grinned. "Heard that a lot, have you?"

"Maybe," she admitted. "We used to have more variety but we sort of ate our way through the good stuff early on. Zach said we should ration it out. Really wish we'd listened to him now."

"It's not that bad," Rose said, trying to remain positive even as she eyed the tubs of green and blue beans hesitantly. "My mum once tried to make this fish dish. She'd got the recipe from god knows where an' it was awful. It had this sticky orange sauce that was lumpy, an' none of us could figure out why it was lumpy. I still get sick thinkin' about it. I'm kind of reminded of it right now."

"I think I'd kill for that at the moment," Scooti said before pointing at the food. "You mind if I –?"

"Go ahead." She stepped out of the way. "I'm just goin' to brace myself for it."

Accepting a trayful of beans and a piece of flatbread, she grinned at her. "Good luck."

Leaving her alone at the counter, Scooti joined Ida at her table and smiled, knees knocking together beneath the surface.

"This looks...nice," Rose said, politely, to the Ood behind the counter who ladled a dollop of the green onto her plate where it spread, the gelatinous sauce making her hunger swiftly disappear. "Thank you."

It didn't look at her. "Would you like some bread to go with that?"

"Yes, please," she said, watching the Ood behind the counter and feeling a surge of kinship towards it. "You know, I did that job once. I worked in a chip shop, I mean. Not my favourite job, not that I actually have a favourite job, they were all a bit shit except for Henrik's because that's where I met the Doctor. But...d'you get paid? Do they give you money?"

It hadn't escaped her notice that none of the crew seemed to interact directly with the Ood unless they needed something and despite the passage of months, her experience aboard the Grifari slave ship was never far from her thoughts.

The Ood raised its head, its eyes stained red. "The Beast and his armies shall rise from the Pit to make war against God."

Surprise ricocheted through her, slamming her heart against her ribcage and stealing her breath. "What?"

It shook its Orb, strange eyes blinking audibly. "My apologies. I said that I hope you enjoy your meal."

"Unless that's got autocorrect –" she pointed at his orb with her fork. "That's not what you said. What the hell was that about a beast an' his armies?"

The Ood's tentacles twitched. "The electromagnetics have interfered with my speech processor. Please forgive the confusion. Would you like more bread?"

"No, thank you." Her fingers tightened around the edge of her tray and held it close to her. "I don't know much about electromagnetics but I think that's a crock of shite. Thank you for my dinner though."

It inclined its head. "You're welcome."

Grateful to leave the serving hatch, she made her way over to her friends where the Doctor was draped morosely over the table, head resting on one arm, the other curled around Zoe's leg as she stroked his hair absently. Catching her approach, Jack pushed a chair out for her, arm draped around the back of Mickey's, looking as relaxed as a person could be given the situation. Rose took her seat, chair scraping loudly across the ground as she pulled it beneath the table, and stared down at her food, bracing herself for it.

"That looks interesting," the Doctor said, eye-level with the food. "What is it?"

"No idea," she said. "An' Scooti said to avoid the green an' the blue but since those were the only two colours, I didn't have much of a choice. What to try it first?"

"Go on then." His head remained on his arm as he opened his mouth. Zoe leaned back as Rose put a small helping of the green onto the tines of the fork and fed it to him, their eyes on him as he chewed and analysed it with his tongue. "It's not bad. It's not great but it's also not bad. There doesn't seem to be anything in it that you lot can't eat so there's a spot of good news: We're not going to starve to death."

"There's a relief," Jack said. "See? Things are already looking up."

Rose risked the beans and chewed. The texture was...odd and the taste was off but, overall, it wasn't the worst she had ever eaten, and she figured she would get used to it sooner rather than later.

"What did Zach say about divertin' the drill?" She asked, tearing off a piece of flatbread. "Is he goin' to do it?"

"Not until they've done what they want to do first," the Doctor sighed, sitting up straighter and placing his arm around Zoe. "Rassilon knows how long that's going to take but it should be fairly easy to reposition the drill when it's at the bottom. Zoe's done the math."

She picked up a scrap piece of paper she had stolen from Toby and showed Rose the complex math on it. "We'll have to do a bit of tinkering to get more power from it but it won't be too hard."

"What about the Manipulator?"

"No go there," Jack said. "It's on the fritz like the TARDIS's systems."

"All problems that can be solved," Zoe said, loosely linking her fingers with the Doctor's over her shoulder. "We'll figure this out. We just need a bit of time and patience to understand what's going on here, help the crew with their mission to stop from going bored, and then we'll be able to get to the TARDIS."

The Doctor rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. "You believe that?"

"I have to," she said. "I'm not willing to accept that a) she's gone for good or b) we're stuck here for the rest of our lives."

"Problem solved then," Mickey said, grinning when the Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Last time Zo wasn't willin' to accept things as they were, she rescued the two of you from the Game Station an' that horde of Daleks. Give her a couple of days, some string, an' a piece of gum, an' she'll have fixed everythin'."

She laughed. "I'm not MacGyver."

"MacGyver's got nothin' on you, ZoZo."

Overhead, the lights flickered and Zoe stiffened, startled, the Doctor's arm tightening around her as he looked up, bracing himself for another quake. When it didn't come, he glanced to Ida who had her wrist-comm. at her mouth, murmuring into it as Scooti idly played with her fork, waiting for her to be done. Satisfied that the base wasn't about to be swept off the surface of the planet into the black hole, he kissed the side of Zoe's head and looked at the Vortex Manipulator on Jack's forearm as it remained their best chance of reaching the TARDIS if he could get the systems to work. Unfortunately, none of the base technology was as advanced as the Manipulator and even Zoe's phone was no good; despite being from the 31st century and thus more simplistic than Jack's Manipulator in its base form, both she and he had tinkered with it until it was boasting above-average software and power cell.

However, it also wasn't working.

"The green's better than the blue," Rose decided, chewing on a large piece of flatbread with a faintly disgusted expression on her face. "Do not eat the blue."

"Do you remember that thing Mum made us once?" Zoe asked, weight leaning against the Doctor's chest. "The cod and gloopy orange sauce thing?"

"I actually just told Scooti about it," she grinned. "It was so disgustin'."

"An' those weird pockets of cornflour in the sauce?" Zoe's nose wrinkled even as she smiled. "I remember you being so polite about it even when I thought you were going to throw up all over the carpet."

"I'm pretty sure Mum did throw up later," Rose said, a sudden feeling of sadness sweeping over her as she wondered how long it would be before she set eyes on Jackie again. "Still, it was better than your bakin'."

Mickey laughed. "That's the damn truth right there."

"I'm sorry, what?" Jack asked, confused.

"Zoe's a great baker," the Doctor said. "That chocolate banana cake she makes is the best."

Rose curled her tongue behind her teeth, eyes sparkling. "Oh, she can bake now but when she was – what was it? Six or seven? Nope."

"You used to make mud pies," Mickey remembered, looking to the Doctor and Jack as Zoe pressed a hand over her face, embarrassed. "Problem was, she didn't know how to follow a bloody recipe so she made this weird biscuit crust thing that was just broken biscuits stuck together with crazy glue an' then she'd go down to the green an' dig up mud. She'd get it all wet, add sugar, an' eggs an' get all upset when we didn't eat it."

"The name was mud pie," Zoe said through her fingers. "Who would think you're supposed to put chocolate in it?"

"Literally anyone who's ever read a recipe," he said. "Ow!"

She removed her toes from his shin. "Oops."

"Mud?" The Doctor asked, amusement lilting the word. "Really?"

"I was little and it made sense at the time," she said, resting her head on his arm. "I could make one for you, if you like. A little birthday treat."

He laughed. "It's not my birthday."

"You don't know when your birthday is," she said. "So instead of that chocolate banana cake, it's going to be a mud pie."

His fingers brushed over the bare skin of her shoulder. "I can think of one or two other things if you're in mind to give me a treat."

"Stop it," Rose said.

"But –"

"Stop. It."

The Doctor sighed and eased back from Zoe. "Fine but –"

"You might want to see this," Ida interrupted, pushing her chair back and making her way to the side of the room. "We're about to witness a moment in history that will never be seen again. Right now above us, the Scarlet System is burning up."

Lifting the lever, the shutters pulled smoothly open to reveal the black hole over head, the red drift of a dead system passing gently by.

"What's the Scarlet System?" Mickey asked.

"It was home to the Pallushi," Ida answered. "It was a mighty civilisation spanning a billion years before it ended. No one knows how but by the time archaeologists found it, it had been gone for millions of years. And now it's disappearing forever, their planets and suns consumed." She sighed, eyes fixed on the sight above her. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have witnessed its passing."

"Could you leave it open?" The Doctor asked when she went to close the shutters again. "Just for a bit. I won't go mad, I promise."

Her hand fell away from the lever, amusement softening the lines around her eyes. "How would you know?"

Stretching in his seat, the Doctor leaned his head back and watched the passing of the Scarlet System and all it contained to the annals of history. He supposed there would come a day when the constellation of Kasterborous would suffer the same fate and that of the Sol system too; yet, even for him, it felt like an unlikely thing. As the red dust of time passed over head, the faint sounds of the crew slowly leaving the room to complete their evening tasks before bed. Off to the side the Ood emerged from behind the counters to tidy up until only his family remained in a quiet, companionable silence that eased the knot of tension in his chest.

If he was to be stranded for the foreseeable future, then there was no group of people he would rather be stranded with more than them.

"It's beautiful," Jack murmured, transfixed on the sight above them, the image reflected in his eyes. "You hear about planets dying and systems turning to dust and you know it happens but you never expect to see it, it's always theoretical. Yet here we are watching the end of the Pallushi, Sometimes I'm amazed this is my life these days."

Zoe looked at the Doctor, admiring his profile. "Me too."

"Aren't black holes like doorway to another universe or somethin'?" Rose asked.

The Doctor tore his eyes from above and looked at her. "Where makes you think that?"

"Films an' stuff." she shrugged.

"You know not to believe that," he said. "Except the Muppets. You should always believe the Muppets."

"Don't do Kermit the Frog," Zoe warned.

His mouth shut, disappointed. "But some people have theorised that black holes are a way to access another universe but no one's ever proven it, not even my people, and we definitely tried. That's where the Void ships came from. We sent them into black holes but they never came back so it's hard to tell if it worked or not. I can't say for certain that it's not a doorway but that –" his eyes lifted up again. "That one just eats."

"Guess we won't be seeing Mrs Moore and the others again," Jack said.

The Doctor allowed himself a small smile. "Sadly, no."

"Well," Zoe said with a sigh, stretching her legs beneath the table. "It's not like we haven't been further from home before. At least this time we don't have to cross universes to get back."

"True," Mickey agreed, eyes fixed resolutely away from the black hole while pointing upwards. "Just figure out a way to get away from that. At least the crew said they'd give us a lift when they leave, whenever that is."

"Where is home, anyway?" Rose asked, elbows resting on the table. "Doctor?"

He cleared his throat, attempting to ignore the guilt that burnt in his stomach at trapping them somewhere with no easy way out, and searched the stars before pointing. "There. Turn right, keep going for about five hundred years or so, and you'll reach Earth."

"We could stop at all the planets on the way back," Jack said. "Get into some trouble."

"Business as usual then?" Zoe grinned. "Besides, it's not that bad here. At least we're together this time, which is an improvement on the last time I was stranded." She smiled at the Doctor. "We could get married. Make it so each time I get stranded, I get married."

"Oh, that's a romantic proposal," he replied, eyes rolling. "Is that really how you're going to ask me to marry you? We're stranded so we might as well?"

"Do you want more than that?"

"I want romance and some courtship," the Doctor said. "A little bit of wooing."

She pulled a face. "That sounds like hard work."

"I'm so lucky to have you," he said, dryly.

Rose shook her head, amused. "You better not get married without Mum here. She'd smack the Doctor so hard he'd regenerate."

He rubbed his cheek, memories of old slaps filling him. "Yeah, you might be right about that. No marriage then, love. Sorry. We'll have to live in sin for longer."

"If we must," Zoe said, leaning into him with a smile. "But, hey, at least with you guys here I won't be verging on crazy again. That's definite bonus."

Jack glanced at Mickey and felt safe and as happy as it was possible to be without the TARDIS there. "I think we can manage. If we just chill out here with this lot, make a nuisance of ourselves, and get to the TARDIS, we'll be fine. It'll just take a bit, that's all. Maybe not four years like Zoe had to do, but we'll be fine."

"What if we're not?" The Doctor asked.

"God, what's with you?" Rose asked. "It's not like you to be our Negative Nelly. If the worst happens an' we can't get the TARDIS back, then we'll find a planet, get a job, an' live our lives, same as the rest of the universe. I know you've got issues with settlin' down but it's not that bad at the end of the day."

He frowned. "I do not have issues –"

"You do, mate," Mickey interrupted as Zoe rubbed his thigh comfortingly. "But we've all got issues so whatever."

The Doctor's face scrunched up. "Settling down. What would that even look like? I'd have to get a house or something. An actual proper house with doors and carpets and all sorts of nonsense. Curtains! I'd have to get curtains. Where do you even buy proper curtains these days? Rassilon, I haven't lived in a house since I left Gallifrey. I think I'd go crazy in one."

Rose laughed. "You'd have to get a mortgage."

"He'd have to get a job," Jack said. "The Doctor with a job? There's a terrifying thought."

"Stop teasing him," Zoe told them. "That's my job."

"No, I'm sorry, I can't." The Doctor shook his head. "It's all over. This is how it ends for me. There's going to be my grave here and its going to say Here lies the last of the Time Lords. It was a good run."

"That's your epithet?" Mickey asked. "Nah, mate. How about: Here lies the Doctor: He came, he saw, he caused a lot of trouble?"

Rose's eyes lit up. "There we go, that's the one!"

"Oi," the Doctor protested. "I'm having a moment here."

"He's not exactly wrong though, is he?" Zoe asked. "You do cause a lot of trouble. I'm going to bet it's at least three days before Zach wants to lock him outside."

"Three?" Rose scoffed. "C'mon, this is the Doctor, at least one."

"No, no," Jack said, thoughtfully.. "I'm with Zoe. Zach seems like the patient type."

"Tenner says it's Ida who tosses him outside," Mickey added.

"None of you are as funny as you think you are," the Doctor said, earning a ripple of laughter for his trouble. "But I suppose if there's people I have to be stuck with, I'm glad it's you lot." He pressed another kiss to the top of Zoe's head and looked down at her. "We could get a place together. I don't think I'd mind curtains if you were there."

"We'd need a garden though," she said, rolling her head against his shoulder to meet his eyes. "I'm not living anywhere without a garden."

He hummed, eyes closed as the image of her standing in the red fields of Gallifrey came to mind again. "Can we have some apple trees?"

"Of course." Her fingers curled against the inside of his thigh, relieved that whatever the future held, she wouldn't be alone. "Lots of flowers too. Maybe a banana grove if the soil's right."

Observing them from across the small table, fondness stretching through him, Jack smiled. "You spoil him."

"He deserves it," Zoe said, tilting her head for a kiss the Doctor gave. "Besides, we'll be out of here soon enough. Mum might be a little pissed at more time passing but she'll understand and be happy that we're safe."

"You're not the one who gets acquainted with the flat of her hand every time something goes wrong," the Doctor said. "I think I'll send Jack in first if we get back. She likes him and won't go for him."

"When we get back," she corrected. "This current mood of defeat you've got on is extremely unattractive."

He huffed. "Really? And here I was thinking that defeatism was the biggest turn on."

"Nope, that's cat calling," she said. "Any woman will tell you that having a man holler that he likes your tits from the window of his white van is what really gets us hot under the collar, right, Rose?"

"It does it for me," Rose agreed with a nod. "Specially when they circle back just to make sure we heard them the first time."

Jack sighed. "Sometimes I hate the 21st century."

Zoe murmured an agreement and turned into the Doctor's chest, a small yawn hid against his side. Already tired from the aftereffects of a busy few days and their subsequent stranding, the smell of his aftershave, warmed after a few hour's wear, lulled her into sleep. Her body relaxed, his arm shifting around her to better support her, and she thought she might actually be able to get ten minutes of shut eye before Rose's obnoxious ringtone cut through the companionable silence, and her eyes snapped open in surprise.

"You've got signal?" Her hand dipped into the pocket of her shorts to yank her phone out. "How do you have signal? I don't."

Rose shrugged. "You're the tech person, you tell me."

Mickey stayed at the phone. "Are you goin' to answer it?"

"Am I goin' to answer the phone that's ringin' when it shouldn't be?" She repeated incredulously. "Last time that happened, there were gas mask children an' Jack. For all I know, whatever's on the other line is going to suck me down an' eat me."

The Doctor rubbed his eyes. "Stop watching crap films and answer the phone."

"I've got it," Jack said, plucking the phone from her hand and lifting it to his ear. "Ahoy-hoy?" He paused and listened, their eyes on him. "I understand. Thank you." Sliding his thumb across the screen, he hung up. "Well...that was terrifying."

"Who was it?" The Doctor asked, lifting his arm from Zoe's shoulders and gesturing for the phone, running the tip of the screwdriver over it. "Friend or foe?"

"I'm leaning towards foe," he replied. "It was a deep voice, very masculine, but as though it was created of many voices layered on top of each other. Kind of reminded me a little of the Face of Boe but far more menacing and not in my head."

"That's creepy," Zoe said. "What did it say?"

"He is awake."

"An' the creepiness keeps on comin'," Mickey muttered, hand resting on the back of Jack's neck. "You all right?"

"I'm fine," Jack assured him. "Like Zoe said, it was creepy but nothing else."

"Okay," the Doctor said slowly. "I agree, that's terrifying. Who's he though?"

"Probably someone who can read that writing on the wall," Zoe said. "These people are drilling down into a planet that's in orbit of a black hole. God knows what they're disturbing. It's like on Níphikân. They drilled until they hit something they shouldn't, maybe this lot are doing the same."

"That's not makin' me feel good," Mickey said. "Because somethin' that's livin' on a planet in orbit of a black hole isn't goin' to be as nice as Nippy was."

"Nippy," the Doctor repeated, shaking his head with a small laugh. "But what's the likelihood of us encountering two sentient planets?"

"Probably about the same as us meeting you," Jack said. "And stranger things have been known to happen. You and Zoe for one."

Zoe lazily flipped him off. "If this he is awake, then this can't be the first time it's making contact with people. Someone on the crew must've noticed something unusual. We should ask around and see what they know."

Rose glanced towards the closed serving station, stomach twisting uncomfortably.

"The Ood," she said. "One of them said somethin' when I was gettin' dinner. He played it off as the electromagnetics interferin' with his thing." She shook a curved hand, signalling the orb that Ood used. "But he said somethin' about a beast rising from the pit an' his armies wakin' up. I'm sorry, I should've mentioned it when it happened but I just – I didn't."

Jack placed his hand over hers, thumb stroking over her knuckles. "It's okay. But if the Ood are saying it then we should listen. They're not exactly known for exaggeration."

"What are they known for?" The Doctor asked. "Because, I've got to be honest, I've never heard of the Ood before today. Haven't seen them before, haven't heard whispers of them, but from the way you're speaking, they're pretty important."

"They're the most important," Jack replied. "I'm surprised you haven't heard of them or had dealings with them. They're right up a Time Lord's alley what with keeping the cosmic balance and all that."

He raised his eyebrows, interested and half-amused. "Tell us about them then."

"There's not much to tell," he said, leaning back. "In my time they're the Keepers of Wisdom. They keep themselves to the Ood Sphere mainly and rarely travel off it, but that's because they don't actually need to physically leave their planet because they're capable of projecting their consciousness across the stars, kind of like astral projection, I suppose. A lot of people actually think they're a myth, like the Time Lords, but the Time Agency met them way back at the beginning and had a course on them. Basically we were taught not to interfere with them and do whatever they told us to do."

"Oddly civil for the Time Agency," Zoe noted.

"They weren't always like what you saw," Jack said. "We did good work until we didn't."

Rose frowned. "Wait. Hold on. If these Ood are so important an' wise then why are they here? I tried to ask them about their salaries but I don't think they're paid. Have you seen how the others treat them?"

The Doctor looked at her curiously over the top of Zoe's head. "No. What did we miss?"

"The crew ignore them," she explained. "It's like they're here but not. Makes me think of the way you treat furniture. You know it's there but you don't have to – I don't know – be nice to it because it's not got feelings an' stuff. The Ood are just here for the crew. I think – I think they're slaves."

Mickey frowned and Zoe stiffened, anger flashing in her eyes. "Not again. We are running into too many slavers these days."

"Jack?" The Doctor looked to his friend. "What do you think?"

"The Ood were enslaved before the 42nd century when humans colonised their planet," Jack said, thinking on his long-ago history lessons. "But that ended in 4120-something. I'm not sure what year we're in. Maybe we're before that."

"Danny said it was 4221," Mickey told them. "I asked when he was showing us around."

Jack frowned. "Are you sure?"

"Only sure that he told me 4221," he replied. "The Doctor's normally the one who knows the year."

"It's hard to tell time here," the Doctor admitted. "The black hole's warping my senses but I don't see why Danny'd lie about the year. Maybe it's taking a while for all Ood to be free from slavery?"

Zoe tapped her fingernails against the table. "It took Earth centuries to get rid of the slave trade in our time. Although, a fucking return to god-awful form with enslaving aliens. I want to be surprised yet I'm really not."

"Me neither," Mickey said, meeting her eyes. "But if the Ood are free then why don't they help the lot here?"

"We are in the middle of nowhere," the Doctor pointed out. "And in orbit of a black hole. And from what the others were saying, they're based in the outer colonies so it's unlikely the – what was it? Ood Sphere?"

Jack nodded. "That's the one."

"It's unlikely they have the reach to get here," he continued. "We'll make sure we take them with us when we leave."

Zoe turned, a pleased smile lifting her mouth. "You said when we leave."

"Your optimism's rubbed off on me."

"That won't be the only thing I'll be rub–"

"No," Rose protested, loudly. "Stop with the innuendos. Christ, you're as bad as Jack was."

"That wasn't an innuendo, that was a promise," Zoe said, letting the sentence remain unfinished. "But I'm thinking we should go pay the Ood a visit. Maybe they're here for a reason and are masquerading as slaves or something. If they're as important as Jack says they are, they could've come here with Zach and the others to figure out what's going on here."

"I like the theory," the Doctor told her, rapping his fingers against her thigh. "Hope it's true. Right then, everyone up for a visit to the Ood? I don't want us splitting up just yet, so no wandering off, Mickey." He rolled his eyes and flipped the Doctor off. "At least not until we get a better understanding of what's going on, that is."

---

Despite the loneliness of being stuck on a base in orbit of a black hole with a group of people she liked but wouldn't otherwise have chosen to spend time with – except Ida, she would always choose Ida – Scooti liked her job. It was nothing she had dreamed of as a child when she sat on the floor of her mama's workshop and got her hands and face dirty from the grease of whatever it was she was repairing that week, expecting to take over the family business one day before the existing debts had been too much to handle and the shop closed. With no clear idea of what her future was going to look like, she had applied to the Sanctuary Six mission on something of a whim: A small burst of childish rebellion that had worried her mothers since everyone knew what had happened to the previous five missions. The money had been too good to turn down though, the salary for the crew higher than anything else on offer since there was an extremely high likelihood of death, and, if she was honest, she hadn't actually expected to be selected.

Life on the base was boring though.

After the first horrible few months where they buried the rest of the crew and Nadine and Dmitri had lost their minds in the worst possible way, it was like any other maintenance job. Things broke, she fixed them. Rinse and repeat. It had been made more interesting by the fact that she was the only maintenance personnel left after their arrival, the rest of the team dying as they plummeted through the gravity funnel, making it further than anyone else had before them, their survival thanks entirely to Zach's piloting skills. He was the best pilot in the outer planets and it showed as he landed them on the surface with scorch marks on the side of the rocket and with nine team members and half of the Ood still alive.

They had all had to readjust and accept new responsibilities in the wake of their disaster and while Toby griped about the extra work, Scooti didn't mind it. She had learnt more in the last few years than she would have done in two decades in her mama's workshop, and if they ever got off Krop Tor then she would have her pick of jobs. She knew that Ida wanted to keep working for the Torchwood Institute and so she would also continue with them as long as it meant that they could stay together.

"Scooti!"

She turned on her heels, startled at hearing her name called by a voice she didn't recognise, relaxing when she saw one of their surprise guests making his way towards her. As far as a break in the monotony went, the strange crew of a ship that apparently appeared and disappeared on an impossible planet was a good one. Scooti personally thought they were all more than a little mad, especially the Doctor: Charming as he seemed to be, he also appeared to be not entirely there mentally, not that any of his friends looked as though they minded.

"Hello," Scooti said with a smile. "Mickey, right?"

"Yeah, Mickey Smith." He stuck his hand out, and she was tickled by the archaic greeting, handshakes having gone out of fashion after one too many health pandemics on Earth made unnecessary touching unnecessary. However, she had been raised by her mothers to be polite and she shook his hand in return, immediately wanting to disinfect her skin. "I'm tryin' to find a bathroom but I don't know what one look like."

Scooti felt a grin pull across her face. "You don't know what bathrooms look like?"

"Not here."

"What kind of bathrooms do you have on your ship?"

"Fancy ones," he said. "Mine's got enough space for a sofa in it. It's bloody weird."

"You're weird," Scooti said without thinking.

Mickey laughed. "Jesus. I guess the Doctor's been rubbin' off on me. I s'pose I do sound strange, don't I? Sorry. I've been travellin' with him for a bit now. I sometimes forget what it's like to people who don't know us."

"That's all right," she said, pleased she hadn't offended him. "We don't have bathrooms for general use since we have them in our quarters. You can use Toby's if you like. I'm heading there now to have a look at something in his room."

"Toby," Mickey repeated. "That's the archaeologist, right?"

"That's the one."

"The really grumpy one?"

Scooti grinned. "Yeah."

"Sure he won't mind me using his bathroom then?" He asked. "He didn't exactly look like he likes helpin' people out."

"If he gives you any problems, I'll deal with him," she assured him. "But Toby's all talk. He's about as harmless as a mouse. He was actually really nice before we got here. Used to joke with us all the time and stuff but the black hole makes people go a bit funny and he's been cranky since we got here."

"I bet," Mickey replied, falling into step with her and glancing out of a small viewing port as they walked. "It's a bit much, isn't it?"

Scooti nodded. "We were told about how big it was when we were training but hearing about it and seeing it are two very different things. I try not to think about it too much, to be honest, otherwise I go a little –" she waggled her fingers. "I'm still not allowed to go out onto the surface alone after what happened last time."

"Do I want to know?"

"I was just stupid and looked up, that's all," she said. "We're told never, ever look up at the black hole because it will mess with your mind. And I looked up. Mr Jefferson said I didn't stop screaming for hours. Not that I remember it. I think I blanked it out."

"Jesus," he replied. "That sounds awful."

She shrugged. "Zach says I have to go out with a partner each time now so I don't try and jump off the surface again."

"That's..." Mickey paused as he tried to think of what was appropriate to say. "Probably for the best."

"Yeah," she agreed. "That's what Ida says too."

She led them through a door, the computer announcing the opening and closing, and rapped her knuckles against Toby's door, adjusting the tool belt strapped around her waist. While it was the night shift and they weren't supposed to work during those hours, the quake had caused a lot of damage that needed tending to and Toby's room was on her list of things to look at before she called it a night. The warmth of Ida's bed and the woman herself called out to her, and she flattened her hand against the door and pounded harder, calling his name. The sooner she looked at the squeak in his room, the sooner she was able to get back to Ida as it felt like there was never enough time for them to spend alone together.

"Toby," she repeated, glancing at Mickey. "Come on. I'm here for the squeak, and Mickey needs your bathroom. Toby!"

"I think he's not in," Mickey said.

"He's always in," she replied, swiping her all-access maintenance card across the scanner to open the door. "He doesn't really leave his room unless he has to for work or something. Toby, you ass, what's –" surprise washed over her when she entered and found that Toby was nowhere to be seen. "Oh. Well. That's different."

Mickey appeared at her shoulder. "Bathroom?"

"Through there." She pointed at a side door that had been left cracked and Mickey disappeared into it. Annoyed at Toby's absence, she lifted her wrist comm. to her mouth. "Toby, come in. I'm in your quarters to have a look at the sound you told me about. Where are you?"

She waited only to receive no response. Frowning, she tapped her wrist again only for the computer to interrupt her.

Open door forty-one.

She looked up, surprised. "Forty-one?"

Close door forty-one.

"Computer?" Scooti heard the sound of the recycler working and water emerging for Mickey to wash his hands "Did you open and close door forty-one?"

Confirmed.

"Why?" She asked. "Has someone gone out?"

Confirmed.

"Everything okay?" Mickey asked, closing the door to the bathroom behind him.

"I don't know," she said. "The computer says that door forty-one's been opened but that's the airlock."

"Maybe someone's gone out to check that everything's okay," he said. "That quake was pretty strong."

"Maybe, but we always, always tell everyone when someone goes out in case there's an emergency." She tapped her comms. " "Zach, this is Scooti, come in. Captain, please respond."

Mickey looked at her communicator curiously. "Does that happen a lot? Your comms not workin'?"

"At the beginning, yeah, but we fixed the problem," she said, shaking her wrist violently to get the communicator working, rapping her knuckles against it. "Don't suppose you've got a comm. on you, have you?"

"Sorry," he said, thinking of the phone in his pocket. "That's not been workin' since I got here."

"It has to be a glitch," she said. "No one's allowed out onto the surface during the night shift, even after a quake. And definitely no one's allowed out without everyone knowing they're outside. So many things can go wrong that there's always an emergency rescue standing by."

Mickey nodded. "It's probably a glitch. Somethin' the quake did to the sensors. But you said it's the airlock, right?"

"Yes."

"Then you probably don't want a glitch on the airlock," he said. "I'll come an' check it out with you. I'm a mechanic back home so I can help you fix it if you like. I don't know the tech but I know enough to hand you the right tools."

Her face lightened. "Would you? That'd be really helpful."

"Yeah, of course," he said. "Doctor's goin' to go off on me about wanderin' off anyway. May as well do somethin' useful to deserve the lecture."

Scooti grinned and left Toby's quarters, Mickey easily keeping up. Sometimes the sensors in various doors played up, the odd energy output from the planet and the occasional interference from dying planets that were caught in the black hole's pull tended to confuse the base's sensors. Torchwood had sent them with the best equipment they had: Everything was top of the range and had been tested again and again and again at various stages leading up to their departure. The problem was that no one had been able to test how the equipment would react when in use in orbit of the black hole. Overall, the equipment held up well but it sometimes felt like a constant game of whack-a-mole with the problems that cropped up.

And no one wanted the airlock to be a problem.

Open door forty.

Close door forty.

"The computer's odd, by the way," Mickey said. "Don't you get annoyed every time it does that?"

"Not really," Scooti replied. "Maybe at the beginning but I'm used to it now. Why, is it bothering you?"

"A bit," he admitted. "I had a bad experience with an AI a while back though an' it reminds me of that, that's all."

Scooti nodded. "My mums' AI once tried to heat the flat because it thought the temperature outside was too cold. Except it was middle of summer and it melted our furniture because of the confusion. I get it."

"Mine was in charge of a planet an' was goin' to execute my friends," Mickey said, bobbing his head in agreement. "Same difference, really. Is this door forty-one?"

Scooti dropped to her knees to inspect the seal, running her fingers over it and closing her eyes in order to feel if there was a crack. She had the tools to check it but had found from experience that tools only told her so much and that her hands were better equipped for unearthing problems. Only when everything felt normal did she remove her scanner and begin running it over the door as Mickey looked out of the window, squinting against the brightest of the halogen lights that illuminated the external generators and various experiments that littered the surface nearest the base.

Stretched above them like a cut in space, the black hole drew his attention.

"Computer, please confirm that door forty-one has been opened in the last ten minutes," Scooti requested.

Confirmed.

She shook her head. "The protective layer I apply to the seal after every EVA has definitely been broken. Someone's gone out."

"I don't see anyone," Mickey said, tearing his eyes away from the black hole. "What do the space suits look like?"

"Bright orange."

"Useful."

"Has to be for visibility," she said. "What's the point of having spacesuits if you can't find someone if they get lost?"

"True," Mickey said. "But I can't see anythin' orange out there."

"Dammit," she sighed, resting an arm on her knee. "Computer, who's gone out?"

Cannot confirm.

She rolled her eyes. "Then tell me whose spacesuit's been logged out."

No spacesuit has been logged out.

"I don't get it," she complained, standing up. "The door's definitely been opened but no space suit's been logged out."

"Maybe someone opened it up an' then changed their mind?"

"The space suit would still have been logged out," Scooti said, rubbing her forehead as she thought. "I don't understand how a door can have been opened but no space suit's been logged out. It can't be done. Computer, trace the fault."

No fault detected.

From the window, a shape caught Mickey's eyes. Without the bright orange space suit, it was easy to blend against the surface and between one generator and a turbine, a form stood, clothes rippling as though caught in a strong wind.

"Er...Scooti?"

"There has to be a fault," she said. "Computer, trace the fault again."

He is awake.

Mickey flinched back from the window, and Scooti froze, blood running cold. "What? What's that supposed to mean?"

He bathes in the black sun.

"Scooti, we need to go, now." Mickey grabbed her arm and pulled her back from the door. "Hurry."

"What?" She wrenched her arm from his grasp and pressed herself to the window, squinting against the bright light until she gasped. "Toby?"

On the surface, Toby turned and the black symbols that stood out against his pale skin became clear. A smile twisted across his mouth, terror slicing into her and pressing deep into her bones.

"There's no air," she breathed, shaking her head, looking to Mickey in confused fear. "There's no air. You can't – this isn't –" she frantically pressed at her communicator. "Zach, Ida, anyone, please! Help me. Toby's outside and he's – he's –" Toby reached out an arm and beckoned to her. "No! Stop it! You can't be outside, you can't be!"

"Scooti, run," Mickey yelled.

Hooking his fingers into her tool belt, he yanked her back from the window and half threw her towards door forty. Stumbling and scrabbling to get her feet under her, body shaking like a leaf, she raced behind Mickey who grabbed the wheel handle and turned it as a crack echoed through the corridor. Breath catching in her throat, she looked back over her shoulder and made out the fracture that ran across the window, splintering out into smaller and smaller cracks, the pressure from the vacuum outside shattering it further.

"Shit," Mickey swore, turning the wheel faster and faster. "Scooti, help!"

"Open door forty, open door forty!" The computer ignored her screams, the window cracking further behind them, the cold of the vacuum sweeping in. "Zach! Open door forty!"

The window broke and Scooti screamed, Mickey's arm an iron grip around her waist, and the air rushed from her lungs.

---

"Unbelievable." The Doctor turned a full 360-degrees before spreading his arms wide and shaking his hands. "This is unbelievable. I told him not to wander off. You all heard me tell him specifically not to do so, and what has he done? He's gone and wandered off. We are in the middle of something here and Mickey Smith – who I thought had graduated from an idiot – has decided to faff about without telling us and wandered off."

Rose examined her nails. "Oh, dear."

"Jack." He turned to point a finger at his friend who attempted to hide behind Rose. "Where's your boyfriend?"

"He said he wanted the bathroom," Jack replied. "And he saw Scooti heading off so he went after her. Said he'd catch up with us."

"There we go them," Zoe said, laying a hand on the Doctor's arm. "He's not wandered off, he's just popped to the bathroom. Shall we keep going or would you like to wait here so you can chastise Mickey like he's a child when he gets back?"

His eyes narrowed. "See, I feel like that's a trick question. Of course I want to wait here for him, he deserves a solid telling off, but the way you phrase it makes me think that you think that's a ridiculous thing for me to do."

"That's because it is," she said, curling her fingers around his elbow and tugging him down the corridor, Jack and Rose stepping out of their way with equally amused expressions on their faces. "Mickey's a fully functioning human adult who's quite capable of finding a bathroom by himself and then catching up with us without having to run it by you first. I get that you're worried after everything – I am too – but mothering us all to death isn't the way to go about it."

"Rose was placed in danger when I was standing right next to her," the Doctor protested. "Jack was kidnapped from under my nose. You got stuck in the past and your mind nearly torn apart when I was right there. Mickey's the only one I haven't messed up with yet."

Zoe stopped so suddenly he walked into her side. She looked up at him, concern etched across her face. "What?"

He waved his free hand uselessly. "What's the point of me if I can't protect the people I care about?"

"Doctor..." Rose made a small sound as though she had been punched as Jack looked at him, askance. "You're not...none of it's been your fault. Have you been blamin' yourself all this time?"

"Of course I have," he said, not quite able to meet their eyes. "Who else is there to blame if not me?"

"Ryga," Jack said. "The Time Agency. Those weird android things on Reinette's ship. The Cybermen. You're not responsible for their behaviour, and you're not responsible for what happens to us."

"You travel with me," the Doctor told them. "I take you to places that are dangerous and when you get hurt there's no one else to blame but me for putting you in those situations."

"Hey." Zoe took his face in her hands, thumbs sweeping over his cheekbones. "Look at me. Doctor, look at me." Slowly, his eyes met hers and she felt hideous for not having seen his suffering before. "I love you. I love you so much. And I do not love dangerous, reckless people. If you put any of the people we love in danger on purpose, do you think I'd still be here?"

His throat moved as he swallowed. "No."

"Of course I wouldn't," she told him. "None of what's happened has been your fault. Not a single bit of it. We are adults who've made the decision to share our lives with you. You need to do us the courtesy of allowing us to make that choice freely, in full knowledge that sometimes bad things are going to happen to us."

The Doctor lifted his hands to curl lightly around her wrists. "I don't want any of you to end up like Adric did."

"Adric made his choice," Zoe replied. "He was good and brave and he chose to risk his life to save Earth. If he hadn't done what he did, the human race wouldn't have existed. Don't devalue that sacrifice. Respect him enough to acknowledge his choice."

Rose slipped her arms around his waist from behind and pressed her cheek between his shoulder blades. "What happened to me wasn't your fault."

"I was already up shit creek before I met you," Jack said, hands warm on Zoe's shoulders as he stood behind her, smiling sadly at the Doctor from over the top of her head. "It just caught up to me when it did."

Zoe rubbed her thumbs across his cheekbones before pressing one against his mouth. "Forgive yourself, my love, for whatever you think you've done wrong."

The Doctor pulled her closer to him, accidentally dragging Jack with her, and pressed his lips to her forehead, enjoying the odd and slightly awkward four-person hug even as emotion burned within him at having three wonderful people try to ease his guilt. He hadn't meant to let his feelings of inadequacy and failure spill out over them but he was tired. With everything that had happened, he felt like he hadn't had a chance to simply sit with it and absorb what he needed to, busy as he was making sure everyone else was okay. He knew Mickey didn't mean anything by the wandering off, and he knew that of all of them, Mickey was the least likely to find himself in trouble, but he worried constantly these days, even going so far as to check in with Jackie twice a day since they had left London.

He wished there was a way to keep them safe forever and to ensure that no harm would ever befall them, but he knew that was impossible.

Zoe was right – as she often was about such things: They were all adults who made their decisions by themselves. And, perhaps, it was arrogant of him to assume total responsibility for recent events, yet it was a hard habit to break.

"All right, fine," he sighed into her hair. "I won't lecture Mickey when he gets back. You've convinced me."

He felt Rose's laughter warm his back and the curve of Zoe's smile against his neck. "Have we now?"

"You've hugged me into submission," he said, grateful for each of them. "As far as therapeutic tactics go, it's a solid one."

"I'll remember that for the future," Jack said, releasing Zoe and tucking Rose's arm into his, sliding away to give them some privacy. "Now, we should really go check on the Ood. I don't mind telling you, Rosie, I'm more than a little freaked up about it."

"Freaked out," she corrected. "It's freaked out."

"Same difference."

"It's really not."

As their voices faded, the Doctor lightly brush a curl from Zoe's face. "I love you."

"I know you do," she said, smoothing her hands over his chest. "I wish you'd told me you've been feeling this way. I could've helped somehow. Been the shoulder to lean on that you've always been for me."

"I didn't realise it was bothering me as much as it was," he confessed. "I also didn't expect Mickey of all people to be the one to wander off. It's like he's been taking lessons from Rose."

She tugged on his tie. "When this is over, me and you are going to spend some time together, just the two of us. We'll go camping in that yurt of yours and relax. Don't think I haven't noticed you haven't been sleeping as much lately, even for you. You're going to be running on fumes soon."

"You don't need to persuade me to spend time alone with you," the Doctor replied. "As long as there's you, sex, and bananas, it'll be the perfect time away."

She looped his tie around her fingers. "What about sexy bananas?"

"Come again?"

"I may have purchased some – well, I wouldn't exactly call it lingerie, more comedic underwear that I look smashing in," she said. "I was going to surprise you with it at some point. It's this bright blue bra and knicker set with pink straps and a banana pattern on them."

The Doctor stilled, eyes wide. "You have banana underwear?"

"I even have banana-scented body lotion I was going to use to give you a massage," Zoe said, smiling. "Surprise."

His body vibrated with anticipation. "Damn not getting off this rock. We're getting the TARDIS back because I want all of what you've just said. How've you been able to hide this from me?"

"Kept it in my office," she laughed as he pressed her against the nearest wall. "You never nose around in there."

"I might start now you're keeping that sort of stuff in there," he said, glancing around before one hand cradled the back of her head and he kissed her with an enthusiasm ill-suited for a pubic corridor. "Jack's right, you spoil me."

She grinned. "I like spoiling you. But stop distracting me. We've got Ood to look at and possibly free."

"Slaves!" His palm slapped against his forehead. "I'd completely forgotten. Right. The Ood first, then we get the TARDIS, then we get our yurt, and then – finally – you put on the sexy banana underwear so I can take it off you."

"It's really not that sexy."

"You'll be wearing it, that makes it sexy, now come on!"

Spirits buoyed by the promise of a dirty weekend in a yurt, the Doctor overtook Rose and Jack, who leapt out of the way startled by his sudden good mood, and jumped onto the metal railing of the stairs. He heard Zoe call his name – startled and concerned – before he sped down the staircase, legs stretched out in front of him, and dropped neatly to his feet at Danny's shoulder. Taken aback by his sudden appearance, Danny's shoulders jumped up to around his ears and he spun, data PADD clutched to his chest in surprise.

"What the –?"

"Evening, Danny, my boy!" The Doctor swept past him and dragged his finger across the top of the computer, removing a thick coating of dust. "Oof, this is filthy. Haven't thought about passing a duster over it?"

Rose hurried down the stairs and slipped her arm through his, half to keep him from going full Doctor and half because she needed help keeping her balance as she stumbled. "Don't mind us."

"We just wanted to have a look around," Jack added, hopping the railing, his coat spreading behind him in an elegant wave. "Get to know our new home and all."

"And the people," Zoe said, leaning against the computer and reaching out to flick imaginary dust off Danny's shoulder. "Like you."

It wasn't for the first time that someone was rendered speechless and bewildered by their approach. It was a usual reaction for those not accustomed to the strange and the peculiar, which they most certainly were, but it took Danny longer to shake off the unsettled feeling than it did for most.

"Has anyone ever told you lot that you're a bit unnerving?" He asked when he found his voice, gesturing at them with his data PADD. "You're like the Macasian Troop."

"We're like the who and the what now?" The Doctor asked.

"Come on, the Macasian Troop," he repeated, sighing at their blank faces. "They're like seven clowns who play off each other always finishing the others' sentences and just working in tandem. They're a really popular group that travel between the outer planets. Where are you lot from anyway?"

"Earth," Zoe said. "And I'm kind of hearing you calling us clowns, right now. Not sure I like that. I don't really like clowns."

"Me neither," Danny told her. "They're not natural."

"It's not the first time we've heard we're a bit much," Rose said, jerking his thumb at the Doctor. "We're normal, he's just odd."

"Hey!"

"I mean, you are," Jack said. "You've got to be aware of that."

The Doctor pulled a face. "Odd's not bad though, is it?"

"Not for me," Zoe told him, lifting her eyes from the computer screen she was discreetly examining to smile at him. "I like you odd."

"Excellent." His face split into a smile, hand lifting to adjust his tie. Rose rolled her eyes and pinched the Doctor's side, a flinch running through him until she gestured her head pointedly at Danny. "Ah, yes, right. Sorry to cut the small talk short but I'm going to jump straight to business: The Ood – what are they doing here?"

Danny scratched the back of his neck where dry skin flaked to the collar of his shirt. "What do you mean?"

"They're the Ood," Jack told him. "They're not exactly your average work force anymore, so what's their job here?"

"Maintenance, service, that kind of stuff," he replied, his data PADD beeping and he dragged his stylus across the screen to dismiss the reminder. "They do the work Torchwood decides is too dangerous for us to do."

The name hit Zoe with an unexpectedness that knocked the breath from her, and she jerked up from the computer stand. Her hand reached towards Danny to grab his shirt and pull him towards her except Jack grabbed her wrist before she could make contact, forcing her arm back down to her side before Danny noticed.

Ice raced down her spine and across her exposed skin, lifting the small hairs across her body, as she viscerally reacted to a name she had last heard only a few days earlier in 1953. There was no evidence that Ryga was working with Torchwood – the TARDIS had been clear that he was working with the Master in whatever form that was – but after everything they had been through with the memory device implanted in Rose's neck, it all felt too close for comfort.

Torchwood isn't a threat, the memory of Harriet said in her mind followed by the implied – trust me.

"Torchwood, you say?" Zoe asked with an air of casualness that fooled no one except Danny. "They're funding the mission?"

"Course they are," he said. "Not like anyone else has the money to throw away on something like this. Five missions before ours were unsuccessful and they weren't exactly cheap. Anyone else would've pulled the plug a long time ago but not Torchwood. They're a bunch of crazy people, I suppose, but they pay really well."

"I bet," she said, looking to Jack who kept his hand wrapped around her wrist. "42nd century Torchwood?"

"It's the one I knew," Jack assured her. "Not what we heard about recently."

She nodded, a stiff, jerky movement. "Okay."

"Wait..." Rose tore her eyes from Zoe to frown at Danny. "This is the sixth mission?"

"Yeah, so?"

She shrugged. "Nothin'. Just a lot of sixes keep croppin' up, that's all."

"Good catch," the Doctor said, patting the top of her head until she batted his hand away with a bemused smile. "Now then, Danny, the Ood. Tell us about them."

"I don't know what you want to hear," Danny said. "They're just empaths, that's all. There's a low-level telepathic field connecting them and it means they don't have to speak to each other like we do, not that I think they have much to say. They're you're basic herd race." His face lit up as though he had thought of something clever. "Like cattle."

"That's funny," Rose said, sharpness lacing her words. "Don't think cattle back home serves us dinner an' cleans up after us though."

"This telepathic field," the Doctor continued before Danny picked up on her anger. "Can it pick up messages?"

"Messages?"

"We received a message through one of our communicators," Jack said. "And Rose had an odd experience when getting dinner, one of the Ood told her something strange.

"The Ood are just strange," he said, rubbing the back of his neck as he gave the matter a moment's thought. "As for the message, you probably picked it up from the chatter. It's happened once or twice. We've got whole star systems burning up around us; there are all sorts of stray transmissions. It's probably nothing."

"He is awake," Jack quoted. "That doesn't sound like nothing."

"Look," Danny said, patience exaggerated. "If there was something wrong, it would show. We monitor the telepathic field constantly. It's the only way to look after them: I mean, they're so stupid they don't even tell us when they're ill."

Zoe stared at him. "You know they're people, right?"

Danny rolled his eyes and tucked his data PADD under his arm.

"Let me guess, you're with Friends of the Ood. God, you lot really get everywhere, don't you?" He shook his head as though he found them entertaining even though Zoe's face highlighted exactly how unamused she was. "We're not mistreating them. They want to work, without it they're nothing. Literally, nothing. They just wander around with nothing to do. They'd starve to death if we didn't give them food. They're not people, not like we are."

"Thank heavens for small mercies then," Zoe said.

He stared at her, catching onto the general air of disapproval emanating from them. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that if the alternative is being like someone who thinks that enslaving sentient creatures for their own gain is normal, then being an Ood sounds pretty okay to me," she replied. "A hundred years, they threw off the shackles that the human empire put on them but here you are using them as fodder."

"It's what they are," Danny protested. "Like cows and sheep. The only difference is we don't eat the Ood."

"People used to say that about black people back on Earth too," she told him. "Anyone who looked like me was only fit for picking cotton or working the sugar fields. They used to think we were stupid too, cattle."

"Hey!" Anger flashed across Danny's face. "They're two different things! The Ood aren't even human."

"Neither's the Doctor," Zoe snapped. "You going to send him down the mines too?"

Troubled by the sharp rise in temperature, the Doctor shifted to stand next to her, arm going over her shoulders in an attempt her from launching herself at Danny. "I wouldn't be much use down a mine. I talk too much, that's my problem. Take up all the oxygen and the next thing you know, we're all dead."

"We don't even have mines," Danny muttered.

"You do seem to have slaves though so I'm not sure you really want to get into the specifics," he replied. "And as much as I would love to give Zoe the space to rip apart your Ood aren't people beliefs, we need to get back on topic. You said that you need to monitor the field. How do you do that?"

Danny hesitated. "I think I need to ask the captain whether I should –"

"Show us the damn thing," Rose said, firmly, pointing a finger at Zoe. "Or she's going to punch you in the face an' then hack into your computers an' find everythin' out anyway."

Jack raised a hand. "And I'm going to watch. I don't much like slavers myself. Aside from the fact you're abhorrent, we had a very nasty experience with them not too long back and emotions are still running high from it."

"It's this, right?" Zoe slipped out from under the Doctor's arm and approached the computer, pulling the slender keyboard towards her. "Nice. This looks like a Duron 534-XV. They're all right if don't mind a slower processing power, which quite frankly strikes me as ridiculous because what's the point of having a computer if it doesn't move along quickly."

"Hey, stop that." Danny reached for her, intending to slap her hands away, but pulled back when she levelled him with a stern glare. "You need to stop! We've only got one of these and I can't have you breaking it."

She scoffed, navigating the system with ease. "Please. You want a computer broken, you go to Rose, not me."

"It's true," Rose said. "I once downloaded a virus because it asked me to."

"Here we go." Zoe clicked through to a screen. "Simplistic programme. The aesthetics leave a lot to be desired. I know these things need to be functional but would it kill you to have designed a nicer front-end user experience? It would've taken forty minutes at most."

Danny looked up the staircase, hoping for someone to come and rescue him. "It's just the programme that came with it. I've got nothing to do with it."

"Like you've got nothing to do with the Ood?" The Doctor asked, pointedly.

"Look," Danny said, sweat beading across his skin. "I just do my job, all right?"

"Aren't you the head of the ethics committee?" Rose suddenly remembered. "Interestin' ethics you've got what with keepin' slaves an' all that."

"They're not people!" His voice bounced off the walls and back again, reverberating around the open space, and the Ood remained still and silent on the bench. "I mean look at them. They only register at a basic five on the telepathic field. That's nothing for a telepathic race. It's like us being –"

"Basic ten," Zoe interrupted, nodding at the screen where the number began to flicker and change. "And rising. They're at twenty – no, thirty now. These Ood aren't simple anything because this number keeps rising. This can't be good. Doctor?"

Hand sweeping over her back, the Doctor stepped past her and stood at the railing to look down into the cramped room that passed for the Ood's pitiful rest quarters. As one, the Ood raised their heads and looked up, eyes burning red. He looked down at them, their tentacles twitching as they sat there, hands resting on their thighs, and he felt a creeping sensation of something more pass over him. It felt as though something powerful and cruel was assessing him and finding him wanting, and the touch of Zoe's hand sliding into his had him curling his fingers tight around hers.

He felt her mistake half a second too late.

Conscious of his humans' fragile minds, he kept a casual eye on them to make sure that nothing got into them that wasn't supposed to be there, the TARDIS keeping them safe when they were inside her, but the second Zoe, only half conscious of what she was doing, reached out to the Ood with her mind in the same gentle touch she used to brush against the TARDIS, he yanked her back from the railing.

He was a beat too late.

Her hands clamped to her head and she screamed, dropping to her knees. "NO!"

"Shit," the Doctor swore, crouching and hauling her into his arms as her mind throbbed like an open wound. Pulling her hands from her head, he pressed his fingers to her face and shored up her mental defences until the pain was gone. "That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen you do."

Zoe sat slumped between the brackets of his knees and groaned. "I didn't mean to. I was doing it before I knew what I was doing."

"Let's not do that again, yeah?" He rummaged in his pockets for the analgesic strips he kept on his person, smoothing it over her temple. "I like your brain in one piece. No more opening the door to telepathic creatures."

She sniffed and nodded, accepting Rose's help to get her back on her feet. "I saw something. It was this face. It was horrible."

"Here." Jack offered her a small pouch of water from his first aid kit and she drank it, easing the dryness of her throat. "What did it look like?"

"A beast," she said, shaking. "This huge, horned beast surrounded by flame. It was...I don't know what it was."

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder at the Ood who were staring at them, muscles tensing as he realised they were listening.

"Jack," he said, slowly, not taking his eyes from the Ood. "What was the message again?"

Jack tucked the empty water pouch away. "He is awake."

"And you will worship him."

Everything froze.

The air filled with a terrified tension and Jack reached for Rose as Zoe stretched out for the Doctor, the Ood speaking in unison a loud and frightening thing. The Doctor rested his hands on the railing, curling his fingers tightly around the metal, as he thought of the symbols in the rec-room. Draugr. Beast. Throat dry and hearts beating painfully against his chest, he stared down at the Ood and slammed his mental defensives into place, unnerved at the feeling of something powerful brushing up against them.

Whatever they had found themselves in the middle of was dangerous and, after the last few days, dangerous was the last thing he wanted.

"He is awake," he repeated.

"And you will worship him."

"That's deeply disturbing," Jack muttered. "Do it again."

"Worship who?" The Doctor demanded, eyes narrowing as they remained silent. "Who's talking to you? Who is it?"

"The Beast," Rose whispered, her grip on Zoe's hand painful. "The Beast is awake."

"And his armies shall rise from the Pit," they said.

"Please stop doing a trade off," Zoe requested. "It's really –"

The base heaved violently, the walls and ground shaking. Standing too close to the stairs, Jack slipped and pitched backwards, arms pinwheeling as he cried out in surprise, only for Rose to lunge forward and heave him back to solid ground, staggering under his weight. The Doctor turned, arms extended to wrap around Zoe as the base trembled and shook, a screaming sound coming from somewhere that brought with it a bitter cold that burned against Zoe's bare legs. The thunderous shaking continued on and on, clattering teeth together and running fear through their bones, before it stopped abruptly, a low shiver running through the base in its place.

"What the hell was that?" Danny asked, breathlessly, fumbling with his wrist comm. "Captain, what was –?"

"Everyone, evacuate eleven to thirteen," Zach ordered, his voice crackling through the tannoy system. "We've got a breach, the base is open. Repeat, the base is open!"

"Shit," Danny swore, panic wrapping around him, heading towards the stairs immediately. "Shit, fuck, shit."

"What the hell do we do about the Ood?" Rose asked as the Doctor shoved her towards the stairs and pulled Zoe along behind him. "We can't just leave them!"

"We're not dragging possessed people with us," Jack told her, taking her arm and dragging her up the stairs until she moved under her own steam. "Now, move."

Danny led the way as he raced up the stairs and out of the door, not once looking back to make sure that they were behind him. With Zoe's hand linked with his, the Doctor sprinted up the stairs and converged with the rest of the crew in one of the corridors off from Ood Habitation. Taking the corner too fast, Rose slammed into Mr Jefferson and sent the two of them to the floor in a tangle of limbs that required a pale-faced Ida and an exasperated Jack to separate them. Once back on their feet, they flung themselves through the corridors as one panicked grip while Zach worked to contain the oxygen field from the control room.

"Wait!" Jefferson held up his arm, forcing them to skid to a halt, the base still and calm once more. "He's done it. Captain, did you do it?"

"Yeah, the oxygen field is in place, but we've lost sections eleven to thirteen," Zach said, exhausted and relieved. "Everyone all right?"

"We've got everyone here except Scooti," he reported back, eyes sweeping over them. "Scooti, report. Scooti Manista, that's an order. Report."

There was a moment of crackling silence as they waited for Scooti to respond. Ida swallowed anxiously and tried Scooti on her own comm before shaking her head at Jefferson. Worry was beginning to twist in her gut when Zach came back over the base's tannoy.

"She's all right," he said, relief obvious. "I've picked up her biochip. She's in Habitation Three. Better go and check if she's not responding, she might be unconscious."

"Mickey, where's Mickey?" Jack asked, panic swelling in his chest. "Zach, Mickey's not with us. Are you picking up any more life signs?"

"Hold on."

"He's fine," Zoe said, suddenly terrified that he wasn't. "Jack, he's fine. I'm sure of it."

"There's another life sign with Scooti," Zach said. "I can't be sure it's Mickey but if everyone else is accounted for, it has to be him. None of the Ood register as life signs."

Jack relaxed, passing a hand over his face. "Okay, good. I might lecture him now though. Honestly. Wandering off when the base breaches."

"Habitation Three then," Mr Jefferson said with a nod, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. "Come on. I don't say this often but I think we could all do with a drink. Let's go."

"What happened?" The Doctor asked, dragging Zoe against him for a relieved hug, her arms looped around his waist. "What was it?"

"Hull breach," he explained, pale and clammy under the unforgiving artificial light. "We were open to the elements, God knows how though. Another couple of minutes and we'd have been inspecting that black hole at close quarters."

"That wasn't a quake," Jack said, ducking his head to peer out onto the surface beyond, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. "And if it wasn't a quake, something else had to have caused it, so what was it?"

It was Toby who answered, shaking with the terror of the last few minutes. "I don't – I don't know. I was working and then I can't remember. All that noise, the room was falling apart. There was no air –"

"Come on," Rose said, recognising shock when she saw it. She dropped back to walk next to him, taking his arm in hers. "Let's get a drink in you, maybe some protein one to settle you down. Best thing for shock is food and water."

Habitation Three was a mess. Tables were upturned, chairs on their side, and the food preparation area was a mess of cutlery, cleaning materials, and leftover food that was going to moulder and solidify if left unattended. Ida was calling Scooti's name, and Jack turned around and around on the spot as though hoping to unearth Mickey that way.

"Mickey," he called out. "Mickey, where are you?"

A blur of movement caught the corner of his eye and he turned to watch Mickey surge past him and hit Toby across the back of the head with a heavy spanner, Scooti edging out from the serving station, gun held in her trembling hands. Toby hit the ground hard, crying out in pain as blood slid down the back of his neck, and Mickey hit him again and again until he lay on the floor, bruised, bloodied, and unconscious.

"What the fuck?" The Doctor demanded, flinching back in surprise. "Mickey! What the hell are you doing?"

"It's Toby," he panted, hand shaking. "Something's possessin' him."

"What?" Ida asked, wide-eyed. "Scooti, put down the gun. Zach, we have a situation down here. Get down here quickly, please."

"On my way."

Scooti shook her head wildly. "No. No. We saw him. We saw him out on the surface. He was out there without a suit on. He had all these things over his face. The same symbols that are on the things he found. He broke the window. Nearly killed us."

"We're not lying," Mickey said, poised over Toby in case he moved again, blood trickling onto the floor. "We were seconds away from bein' thrown out into space."

"Mickey saved me," Scooti said, tears spilling down her cheeks. "If he hadn't been there, I'd be dead. Ida...something's happening and I'm scared. Toby was just out there like it was nothing. He didn't have a suit on. It didn't look like him. The way he smiled –"

Jefferson looked between Mickey and Scooti before down at Toby and he made his decision. "You, Doctor, help me secure Toby. Until we know what's going on here, I want to err on the side of caution."

Rose worried her thumb. "What about his injuries? He needs medical attention."

"I'll take care of it," Jack told her, patting his pocket and pulling Mickey towards him, the spanner dropping to the ground with a clatter. He kissed him, hard and relieved. "Don't scare me like that again."

Mickey sagged into him. "I won't."

The Doctor helped lift an unconscious Toby up onto one of the chairs, using cable wire they secured him in place, and Jack was tending to his injuries with deft, calm hands as Zach entered the room and froze. He took in the sight of Scooti wrapped tightly in Ida's arms, the pair of them doing a worse job than normal pretending they weren't in love; Mickey sat in a chair with his head between his knees as Rose rubbed his back; and Toby tied to a chair, bloodied and bruised, as Jefferson stood guard over him with his finger resting close to his trigger.

"What the hell's going on here?"

The Doctor turned. "We don't know yet but it seems that Toby may be responsible for the breach but only insofar as he's being possessed by something far more powerful than he is. Still, it's early days and that's just a theory."

Zach blinked. "All right. Is everyone else okay?"

"No injuries except for Toby's head," Jefferson said. "And Jack here's an unexpectedly skilled medic."

"Good," he said. "Our medic died on arrival and Ida's been doing the best she can with the training she had. That's your job from here on out."

"Copy that," Jack replied, smoothing a clear bandage over the cut on Toby's neck. "Still hoping we won't be here that long though. How's the base?"

"Surprisingly still in one piece. After we vented atmosphere, I thought that –" a sudden and complete silence fell, cutting Zach off, and they stared at each other. "Is that the drill?"

Ida lowered her arms from Scooti. "It's stopped. We've made it. We're at point zero."

Far below their feet, buried beneath rock and sediment, the Beast roared.