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.)

55. Chapter 55

Chapter Fifty-Five

Stepping out of the room where Toby was held, the soft, desperate sounds of his weeping were silenced as the door slid into place, the Doctor released a sigh and sealed the lock with his screwdriver. Both illuminating and disappointing in equal measure, Toby hadn't been able to tell him anything at all; though, he considered, that told him more than he had had before. Pocketing his screwdriver, he glanced to Jack who leaned against the wall opposite him, arms folded across his chest, waiting. Mild surprise settled on him at the fact that no one else was there, having expected Zoe to be waiting with growing impatience and Zach to be pacing the corridor in anticipation of finding out what was wrong with his base. The fact that only Jack was there did not inspire a sense of comfort, hoping that the ill-advised trip down into the planet would have been put on hold until after he had finished speaking with Toby.

As much as he enjoyed throwing himself into situations of varying danger, there was a cool, sliding sensation down his spine that triggered caution in him, an alarm that said danger, danger, danger.

"Well?" Jack asked. "What's your read?"

"Toby doesn't have a single idea about what happened to him," the Doctor replied, fixing the cuff of his coat. "One minute he was working on the fragments they'd unearthed in their initial digging and the next thing is he's tumbling through a door as the base is losing atmosphere."

Jack made a thoughtful sound in his throat. "Sounds like our experience with Cassandra."

"Except Cassandra didn't have the power to keep us alive outside of an atmosphere," he noted. "I want him under lock and key though. I don't think he'll hurt anyone willingly but whatever possessed him is powerful enough to take control of the Ood, so I'd rather be safe than sorry."

"If this thing's so powerful, do you really think a locked door is going to stop him?"

"No," the Doctor admitted. "But it makes me feel better."

Jack huffed a laugh. "I've taken care of the Ood. They're sealed in their habitation area, such as it is, and I've booted Danny away from it. Not sure I'd trust him to look after a goldfish at this point."

A grin pulled across his face. "Not even that mechanical one you pulled apart and traumatised your brother with?"

"Not even that," Jack laughed. "Remind me never to tell you things again."

The Doctor rolled his eyes, mouth curved up towards his eyes. "Where's everyone else? I figured they'd be waiting here to hear what was going on." Jack pushed away from them wall and looked guilty. Dread swept through the Doctor. "What is it?"

"I want it to be known that I didn't agree to anything that was suggested," he said. "And that when it was suggested I very well might have questioned her intelligence and her sanity, so she'll be putting frogspawn in my bed at some point, I'm sure."

"Rassilon," the Doctor groaned. "What's she gone and done?"

"She's planning on going with Ida into the pit of doom," he said, words spiking fear through the Doctor's chest only for resignation to swiftly follow it. Of course she is, he thought. "Rose tried to talk her out of it but then decided it wasn't worth the argument and is instead bothering Zach by making sure that all the equipment's in order, not that I think she actually knows what she's looking for but it makes her feel better. And Mickey went to help Scooti with the maintenance on the blown airlock but they should be done by now."

"Right." The Doctor rolled his neck and stared up at the ceiling, wandering if it was possible to ever meet a human who would actually think sensibly for once in their life. "And you're here because –?"

"Toby nearly killed Mickey, what do you think I'm here for?"

Surprise whipped through him. "What are you going to do to him!?"

"Jesus Christ, Doctor." Jack threw him a foul look that burnt guilt into his skin. "Nothing. I just wanted to hear what he had to say."

"Course, sorry, that was me jumping to all sorts of wrong conclusions there," he said, embarrassed. "Sorry I don't have more to tell you either. Between the crying and the panic attacks, he didn't have a lot to say."

Jack nodded, glancing through the small window on the door to where Toby was hunched over in his chair, body shaking as he sobbed. "Poor bastard."

"Yeah." The Doctor shifted and tugged on his cuffs once more. "Double check the seal on the door for me, would you? I'm going to go and see if I can talk Zoe out of what she's planning."

He snorted. "Good luck with that."

"Thanks." The Doctor clapped his shoulder. "Appreciate the support."

Jack's laughter followed him down the corridor, easing some of the tension that grew in his chest. It wasn't that he was surprised by Zoe's desire to throw herself down a drilled hole without knowing what was done there, it was more that he was annoyed she was still doing so when he had told her how terrified he felt at not being able to keep them safe. He knew it was his responsibility to manage his feelings and not let them get in the way of his friends' lives but their experience with the Wire had only been two days ago, Rose's near-death experience had been just after that, and Elton's true motives following that. It was one thing after another and with possession now thrown into the mix, the fact that Zoe had decided to travel down into the unknown filled him with annoyance and fear.

Jogging quickly down the metal stairs, he passed Danny who opened his mouth to speak with him – probably to complain about Jack not letting him near the Ood – only to shut it again at the look on his face. He passed his hand in front of a closed door and stepped into the doorway, Zoe's head lowered over her knees as she struggled with her feet, her clothes folded neatly into a pile next to her, hair braided down her neck.

"Are you bored?"

Her shoulders twitched with a jump and her head snapped up from her contorted position. "What?"

"Are you bored?" He repeated. "Because it seems to be like you're making a bad decision because you're bored."

"Don't be mean," she said, turning her attention back to her ankles where she tried to roll the thin, sweat-absorbent material of the required body suit up over her toes and her ankles. "It doesn't suit you."

"I'm not being mean," he said, stepping into the room and letting the door slide shut behind him. "I'm genuinely curious. You learnt how to make sushi because you were bored once and that nearly gave us all food poisoning."

"One time."

"Twice," he corrected. "And then there was the time you took up fire breathing."

"Okay." Her hands fell away from the material and she straightened up, a finger pointed at him. "The fire breathing was a bad decision, I'll give you that. But, in my defence, it looked really cool."

"Zoe." Her name fell from his mouth in a sigh, exhaustion sweeping over him. "If I asked you not to do this, would you stay here?"

The cold bench beneath her thighs bit into her skin and she swallowed back her irritation at the conversation, not wanting to start a fight when he looked as tired as he did. There was an edge of weariness to him that she didn't like to see: A paleness highlighted by standing underneath the base's unforgiving lighting, faint purple bruises that were obvious only to her trained eye. Every part of him was tense from the last few days, his meeting with Toby having done nothing to ease his worry about what was happening, and she pulled the material of her suit up over her calves, yanking it to her waist when she stood.

"Of course," she said. "But are you going to ask me to not do it?"

"I should," he said. "I definitely want to. We don't know what's down there but whatever it is has shown it's capable of possessing people. It's already had a taste of your mind since you got grabby with your mental fingers –"

"That was an accident," Zoe reminded him. "I'm not going to make that mistake again."

"You may not have a choice," he said. "You're smart and so brave that I hate it sometimes but this isn't like the other times you've had to do these things. Whatever this creature is, it's capable of possessing people without being close to them. That means it's powerful beyond anything we've met before. I don't want you going down there."

She stared at him, incredulous. "And what makes you think I want you to go down there?"

"I'm less breakable than you are," the Doctor said. "Something gets into my head, I can get it out again. It's not going to scramble it like eggs. And, quite frankly, having been through that situation once with you, I don't want to go through it again."

She shook her head. "This isn't Mondas."

"You're right, it's not," he agreed. "It's not Níphikân either. Those were things we knew. As improbably as it was, I knew the threat of the Untempered Schism. And telepathic planets aren't exactly dime a dozen but they also aren't unusual, so I knew how to deal with that too. There are too many unknowns with this situation for you to go down there, particularly without any backup."

"Ida will be there."

He slanted an unimpressed look down at her. "That's not what I mean and you know it."

"Listen to me." She flattened her palms against his chest and twisted her fingers into his lapels. "I need you to understand that you don't have to do all the dangerous stuff. Sometimes I think you throw yourself headfirst into danger under the guise of protecting us but it's really about your guilt."

"My guilt? What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you survived and they didn't." Pain lanced through him, chest aching, not needing to ask who they was. "Not everything that goes bump in this universe needs you to be the one to go bump back. You're not alone any more. You've got me, you've got us. So please don't stand there and tell me that the best thing for me to do is to step aside because you're less breakable than me. Do you honestly think that I enjoy seeing you hurt? That even though you heal quicker, it's not something I want to avoid?"

He lifted his hands and peeled hers from his chest, squeezing them. "If you were to die down there, it would break me in ways I can't even tell you. If I died, I'd regenerate. You wouldn't. You'd stay dead."

"I've already seen you die once," Zoe told him, voice tight with emotion. "You did it right in front of me – the worst Christmas present ever. And I know that regeneration isn't death but it felt like it. For me, after everything we'd been through with that face of yours, after making love for the first time with that body, it felt like you'd died. Just for a second. It felt you like you'd been ripped from me and then I looked in your eyes – these eyes." Her fingers brushed against the thin skin on his temple. "And it was okay. So I understand why you're afraid, I really do, but I also need you not to stop me."

His throat moved in a pained swallow. "You've never told me any of that."

"I didn't want to make you feel as though I wasn't 100% in," she admitted. "And it was only for a moment. You were lying on the floor after the light died down and you sat up and this face I didn't recognise, one I wasn't expecting, looked back at me, and for that moment, I felt like I'd lost you."

"Then you know what you're asking me is unfair," the Doctor said, crowding her, an arm slipping around her back to hold her close to him. "I can't protect you down there. If something happens, I can't get to you. How am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to stay up here while you're down there facing Rassilon knows what?"

"The same way you we do everything...trust."

His head dipped. "Zoe –"

"I need to go down," she told him, her breath warming the visible skin between his collar. "I don't know how to explain it but when that thing was in my head..." she closed her eyes and held tighter to his hand. "It whispered something to me. Something I've heard before."

He brushed his forehead over her hair. "What?"

"Hybrid." Mouth dry, she raised her head. "That's what the werewolf called me in Scotland. And with Torchwood's involvement, I need to know what's going on."

"Zoe..." her name slipped from his mouth on a murmur. "Don't risk your life because Torchwood is stamped on these walls. Harriet said –"

"I know what she said but she's also the Prime Minister and there are things she can't tell me," Zoe interrupted. "I trust her, I do, but Torchwood keeps cropping up again and again and this is the second time I've been called a hybrid while on Torchwood property and I want to – I want answers."

The Doctor pressed his forehead against hers. "I hate this. I hate you a little bit for doing this too."

A short, wet laugh hiccuped through her. "You still love me though, right?"

"It's impossible for me not to," he said, dragging her into his arms properly, wrapping her up and relishing the warmth of her and the knowledge that she was safe, even for the briefest moments.

Stopping her crossed his mind. It wouldn't take much. She was still human and a small twist of her nerves between his fingers would render her unconscious but it was a foul thing to do and he couldn't bring himself to destroy her trust in him even when it would keep her safe. Instead, he hugged her to him as tightly as he could before releasing her, fingers on her chin to angle her mouth to his, kissing her.

"Whatever's down there, you can handle it, I know you can," the Doctor said when he pulled back, eyes drawn to her mouth that remained shaped in a kiss for a moment longer. "It doesn't make it any easier for me not to worry about you though. Being cut off from the TARDIS like this means we don't even have our safety net if you can't get back up. And I can't guarantee Jack's Manipulator is going to be working any time soon. This damn planet is interfering with everything."

"If the worst comes to the worst and I'm trapped down there, throw down a length of rope and I'll climb my way back up," Zoe said, though they both knew a ten-mile climb up was unlikely to bear fruit and she was putting a brave, reassuring face on things. "Jack makes me climb rope in the gym for reasons that I'll never fully understand, so it might be nice to actually use it in real life."

His nostrils flared with a small huff of amusement, fingers ghosting over the definition of her arms. "I did wonder about these. You've been looking more toned up here lately."

"Jack," she explained. "He's a fanatic for upper body strength. He gets me doing the rope and boxing, which is fun, and weights, which is less fun; plus, my Krav Maga lessons."

He blinked, allowing the surprise to wash through him and distract him from his fears. "Are you still doing those?"

"Yeah," she said, bemused smile passing across his lips. "Where do you think I go every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon?"

"Honestly, this is the first I'm hearing of you going anywhere," the Doctor replied. "How long have you been doing this?"

"Since my graduation." Zoe shook her head, amused. "I wasn't going to keep up with it but Yatta says it's good to keep a routine going even now that you're back and this was the easiest one for me to keep up."

"Good for you," he said, automatically. "You've seriously been leaving the TARDIS twice a week for months without me noticing?"

"I thought you knew," she replied. "Rose comes with me too. At least she's started too since we made up. It's our bonding time."

The Doctor frowned even as he smiled. "How have I missed this? What am I doing when you're off doing this?"

She shrugged. "I assumed something with Jack and Mickey. To be honest, I did think it was a little weird you never asked me how my class was but I didn't want to make a big deal out of it. Figured it was your pacifist side coming out."

"My pacifist side?"

"You know, your –" she twisted her hands into a complicated and confusing gesture. "Anti-violence thing. I guess I thought that you were against it but were keeping your mouth shut because you didn't want to have a fight about it."

His face twisted with confusion. "Huh?"

"Well, saying it out loud makes it sound stupid now," Zoe protested. "Why are we even talking about it?"

"Your arms," the Doctor reminded her. "I like that you know Krav Maga. The more you're able to physical protect yourself, the happier I am; I just didn't know that you were keeping up with the lessons. Is there anything else you're doing that I missed?"

"I have a standing Saturday date night with Harriet," she said. "But you're always off with Jack at that point faffing with the TARDIS. I actually deliberately scheduled our wine nights for then so I didn't have to deal with your pointed look when I finish a bottle of wine."

He snorted. "That I know. You're always extra affectionate after you finish speaking with Harriet. I assume because of the wine and not because of our dear friend the Prime Minister. Besides, I don't look at you pointedly."

"There's a small element of judgement that exists when I finish a bottle off," Zoe told him, brushing her finger over the creases by his eyes. "Right here."

"You're seeing things," he said with a smile. "And you've thoroughly distracted me from my worry. Congratulations."

"Without any of my feminine wiles too," she said, proud.

His eyes turned down, nodding at her breasts that were supported by a plain white bra. "You are somewhat half naked right now. That's always a distraction to me. But since you're determined to boldly go where no one has gone before –" her face lit up at the Star Trek reference. "Let's get you properly attired. This might make me sound jealous but I don't want a terrifying telepathic creature to see you half naked."

"I don't want to be half naked," she replied. "It's bloody cold in here."

The Doctor's hands fell to her waist and hooked his fingers into the material, easing it up her torso and helping her get her arms into the sleeves, narrowly avoiding her elbow that jerked into his face when she lost her grip. He hated the body sleeves that were required under space suits, the difficulty of getting it on and off made it something to dread, but the benefits of insulation and sweat absorption far outweighed any negatives. Pulling it tightly up, the neckline snapped into place and rippled across her body as it shifted and moulded to her form.

"This is weird," Zoe said, eyes wide. "I can feel it moving."

"It'll stop soon," he assured her. "It's just making sure there's a seal against your skin. Where are the suits?"

She pointed towards the cupboard Ida had shown her. "Scooti said I can use hers. Apparently they're one-size fits all but have toggle things you can use to adjust them."

"I know the type," he said, pulling open the door and looking for S. MANISTA. "Jack's going to want to run through the specs with you when you get out there – you know what he's like – but pay attention because I'm going through them first. Have you ever worn a space suit before?"

"Once," Zoe said. "I did an orbital EVA from the old ISS when I was at uni. It wasn't like this though; it was more protective."

Holding the suit open, he crouched at her feet and let her use his shoulder for balance as she stepped into it. "It'll feel better once the air pressure runs through it. There are tubes in the seam to keep it pressurised at the right atmosphere. Right now it doesn't feel like much but it more than does its job."

"How come we don't have these on the TARDIS?" She wobbled and his hand grabbed the back of her thigh, keeping her upright. "Seems like something we should have in a space ship."

"We do, somewhere," the Doctor said, pulling the suit up her legs and over her waist, encouraging her arms into the sleeves. "But, frankly, if we're in need of space suits in the TARDIS then we're probably already dead."

She blinked. "There's a cheery thought."

"Turn around." He zipped the back of her suit up and pressed the small button beneath the collar to deploy the nanites across the seam to ensure a vacuum seal, his terror returning full force. A small patch of skin was visible above the collar and he leant in and pressed his lips against her neck in a soft kiss, her body shivering in surprise He closed his eyes against the back of her head, breathing slowly to calm his fear. "Be careful down there. Please don't take any unnecessary risks. If anything were to happen to you...just be careful."

Zoe turned and rubbed her nose against his. "I will, I promise."

"You know," the Doctor murmured, desperate to delay the inevitable. "This is a good look on you."

"You find me attractive no matter what I'm wearing," she reminded him. "I could wear a bin bag and you'd think I'd look great."

"You're a very beautiful woman," he said, tugging on her sleeve and locking her glove in place, her fingers wriggling as she checked the fit. "It doesn't matter what you wear, that's always going to be obvious, even if you are wearing an offensively orange space suit."

Her laughter warmed him. "Right? What is up with this colour? It's really obnoxious."

"Do you really want to know?"

She paused. "It's something morbid, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I'll pass then, thanks." Stepping back from him, she stretched in the thick boots attached to the end of the suit and pulled the helmet down from the shelf above her head. "Help me with my helmet?"

Taking it from her hands, he turned it over and checked it for any weak points that might mean her death. Satisfied it was sound, he set it on the bench and drew her into his arms. "I'm going to be so mad at you if you get yourself killed."

"That's nice," Zoe said. "Imagine if I do die. How are you going to feel if those are your last words to me?"

His mouth tightened. "Don't even joke about that."

"Stop worrying then and kiss me goodbye," she told him. "Give me something good to think about on the journey down."

He took her face in his hands, thumbs brushing lightly over the soft skin beneath her eyes, and stepped into her space, kissing her without preamble. It took only a few moments for his mouth to turn hot and demanding, pulling her body firmly against his, one hand cupping the back of her head as his tongue swept into her mouth. Her heavily-gloved hands curled tightly on his shoulders, anchoring herself to him, responding in kind until the burn of her lungs forced her to pull back, breathing heavily.

"Stay safe," the Doctor whispered, mouth on her neck beneath her ear, sucking blood to the surface to make her squirm. "Don't you dare die. Don't you dare."

Her eyes turned dark and heavy. "Doctor –"

He tipped her head back and kissed her again, moving her back until she was pressed between the wall and his body, shoving his knee between her legs. He tried to touch as much of her as he could, parting only for brief moments to let her catch her breath before returning with fresh, insistent kisses. Her chest heaved and he was contemplating the logistics of getting her out of her space suit when Zach's voice crackled over the tannoy, informing the base that the elevator shaft had been fixed into place by the drones and the mission was ready to get underway.

"That's my cue," Zoe breathed, lips swollen and colour slashed across her cheeks. "You need to let me go."

He swallowed. "I don't want to."

"I'll come back," she murmured. "I promise."

"And you keep your promises." He remembered the shock and joy of her stepping out of the TARDIS dressed in white scrubs on the Game Station. He had thought never to see her again but she had done what he hadn't thought possible, which made it was easy to trust her but hard to let her go. He pressed a softer, gentler kiss to her mouth. "Okay. Okay. You need your helmet."

Zoe held still as the Doctor put the helmet on her, checking the connections, her body thrumming with need and mouth tingling from his. Once securely sealed, he rapped his knuckles against her visor and helped her navigate her way out of the room, taking a few steps to get used to the bulky suit and the way the boots clanked heavily against the ground. By the time they reached the drilling platform, she had an easy rhythm with her steps and grinned when Jack's eyes narrowed at the sight of her.

"I really don't like this," he said. "I was hoping the Doctor would talk you out of it."

"He tried," Zoe said before giving Zach the Vulcan salute. "Hello, I'm ready to go."

Zach stared at her, reluctance visible across every inch of his face. "This is breaking every single protocol that's been set down for us. You just appear out of nowhere with a ship that managed to avoid our sensors, not a single idea about where you are or the massive black hole that you had to have passed on your way in, and now you want to go down into the planet. Would you let that happen?"

"Maybe," she replied. "Depends on what the other person's like."

He rubbed his eyes. "We don't even know who you lot are."

"Nor do a lot of people we meet but it works out all right for them," she said with a shrug that was barely visible through her suit. "And Ida can't go down there alone. She needs backup."

He sighed. "That's my job."

"You're the captain," Jack reminded him. "Your place is up here with your crew."

"Don't worry, mate," Mickey said, clapping him on the shoulder from behind. "Zoe's not stupid. If there's a problem down there, Ida'll be safe with her."

Zach sighed and passed a hand across his mouth, knowing it was a losing battle. "All right then, but know that I can't guarantee your safety. You go down there, you're going at your own risk."

"I understand," Zoe said.

He shook his head. "I think you're a little mad."

"Says the man who's been livin' on a planet in orbit of a black hole for a couple of years," Rose scoffed.

"You've got a point there." His teeth flashed white as he smiled. "Guess we're all mad here."

Turning from them, he started clipping out orders to his crew and a set of hands took hold of Zoe's shoulders and turned her. Jack's serious face filled her visor as he leaned in close and checked her over, hands running across her suit, feeling for weaknesses in the material, while Rose worried her thumb behind him.

"Okay, everything's in order, now pay attention." He waited to make sure that she was focusing on him and began to show her the dials on her suit. "Oxygen, nitro balance, gravity. If any of these dip below the red line, you call for help. One of us will be at the end of the comm. at all times? You need help, holler for it, don't try and push through it."

Zoe nodded. "I understand."

"You better be careful," Mickey warned, dragging her in for a hug made awkward by her suit. "I'm not goin' through losin' you again. Once was enough."

"I'll be fine," she promised. "Honestly, you're all a bunch of mother hens."

"Shut up," Rose said, hugging her tightly, breath fogging the outside of the visor. "If you get hurt, I'm tellin' Mum."

"Snitch. But look after the boys for me," Zoe requested, stepping back when she was released. "Try and stay out of trouble and don't forget to keep an eye on the Ood. Something seriously weird is happening there. Also, don't get into any fights. These guys are our ticket off this rock if we can't get to the TARDIS. I don't want to be left behind because one of you got mouthy."

"We'll be good," the Doctor said, taking her helmet in his hands and pressing a kiss to her face plate. "See you when you get back."

Zoe stepped away, squeezed past Scooti and stepped into the capsule next to Ida who had her eyes closed, breathing slowly in through her nose and out through her mouth. She looked back out into the base and gave her friends a small wave before the doors closed, sealing them in.

The silence was muffled but she heard Zach's voice through her helmet as he counted down, a vibration starting beneath her feet and a loud snap echoing through her ears as the capsule was lifted, swaying, until it was hooked onto the shaft that led down into the dark, Scooti above them checking the security of the cable. Her dark form passed over head, face briefly at the window with a reassuring smile, and then she was gone, the capsule swaying before it jerked.

A green light flickered above the door and Zoe looked through the dirty glass of the capsule and saw the Doctor watching her, his arm tucked around Rose's shoulders, before they disappeared from view as the capsule began its descent.

Flipping open the panel on her suit, she activated the in-suit communication system. "Ida, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear," Ida replied. "Everything's functioning. Zach, can you hear us?"

"Perfectly," he said. "You've passed beyond the oxygen field now.You're on your own. How are your suits?"

Zoe checked her readouts. "Mine's working great. Everything's as it should be."

"Mine too," Ida agreed. "Continue with the descent."

There was a moment where the only thing Zoe was able to hear was Ida's breathing and the rolling creak of the cable before the Doctor broke the silence, worry spilling over. "Even breaths, love. It's easy to panic when you pass through an oxygen field so...even breaths."

Zoe grinned, glancing to Ida. "Don't mind him. He fusses and likes to – whoa!"

The capsule heaved violently, slamming both her and Ida into the wall behind them as it tilted, swinging on the cable, before it dropped. The force of their descent made her feel as though her stomach was wrapped around her throat, the ground approaching them at a terrifying speed. In her ear, barely audible above the pounding of her heart and the rush of her blood, she heard the confused mess of her friends calling out her name, worried and afraid for her.

Shaking them from her ears, she braced herself against the walls, trying to desperately remember whether or not she should jump from her feet or curl into herself in the moment before they hit the bottom but there was no time to think. The capsule slammed into the ground with an explosive force and the door buckled outwards, flying off and skittering across the dark surface. Ida cried out, thrown from the capsule, her body rolling into the darkness while Zoe hit the side of the door before rolling down the rubble to land visor-first in the dust, her forehead smacking into the front of her helmet, dazing her.

Bright white light exploded in front of her eyes and nausea surged through before she pushed herself upright, dragging in thin, desperate breaths. Flopping onto her back, she groaned and tested her limbs, running a scan on her body through the suit, blinking the light away to read it properly.

"Zoe? Zoe! Are you all right?" Rose, having snatched the comm from the Doctor, broke through, desperation increasing when she didn't respond. "Answer me, for Christ's sake!"

"I'm all right," Zoe said, swallowing back the sharp metallic taste of her blood, tongue probing the inside of her cheek where her teeth had clamped down. "My suit says I'm fine. Get off the line a second." She tapped the arm panel, hand shaking. "Ida, can you hear me? Ida, come in."

She dragged herself onto her feet and staggered across the surface, her knees wobbling until she fell back onto the rubble, something sharp and painful digging into her thigh. Groaning, she crawled towards the dark lump that she assumed was Ida. Reaching out, she pushed Ida carefully onto her back and shone the light of her helmet into Ida's face, relieved when she blinked up at her, a small smear of blood visible on her forehead and a rock jammed into the side of her helmet. With careful fingers, Zoe removed it and used the small repair kit attached to her thigh to fix the in-suit comm.

Sitting back on her haunches, she activated her comms. again. "Can you hear me now?"

"Yes," Ida breathed, eyes shutting. "Fuck."

Zoe checked Ida's health via her suit. "You're okay too. A small stress fracture on your left knee though. You should be okay to walk, I think. Probably no marathons while we're down here though."

She groaned, hand clasping hold of Zoe's arm, lifting herself up. "And there I was hoping to break the record of marathons done in orbit of a black hole."

"Maybe next time." Zoe got slowly to her feet, letting the adrenaline shake itself from her system. "Guys, are you there?"

"We're here," the Doctor said in the tone of voice she recognised as the one he used when he was trying to hide his worry from her. "Ida okay?"

"I'm fine," Ida said, grunting as Zoe helped her to her feet, both of them standing. "I was thrown clear of the capsule but I'm fine." She looked around the darkness that shrouded them. "We've made it though, we're here."

"What happened up there?" Zoe asked. "Why did we hit the ground like that?"

"Another quake," the Doctor said. "According to Zach, they don't normally happen in quick succession like this. Something's speeding it up and making it stronger. Keep your eyes open down there."

"I would if I could actually see anything," she said. "It's pitch black. The helmet lights aren't doing much to break through."

She looked at the ground beneath her feet, one of the few things she was able to make out, and took note of the grey dust covering her black boots. The thought drifted through her mind that she and Ida were the first people to visit this planet for an undetermined amount of time. No one knew when the last person to set foot on it had been but judging by the fragments of relics that Toby had found, it was a long time, longer than she was able to imagine. Excitement fizzed inside of her and, impulsively, she crouched and wrote her name in the dust.

A sudden burst of light made her look up. Ida had removed a gravity globe from her back and thrown it into the air where it hung, illuminating the grand cavern they were in: Zoe's breath caught in her throat. She straightened and turned slowly on the spot, taking in the huge, ancient columns that lined the wall, pieces of stone missing from parts of it, age wearing down the once-fine decorations. She was reminded of the colosseum in Rome during her time – a once great and important centre of life that had turned to ruin over the years.

"My God," Ida breathed, enraptured. "Tt's beautiful."

"Guys, I wish you could see this," Zoe said, breathless with her own wonder. "It's like nothing I've ever seen before. There was definitely a civilisation here once upon a time. It's like – God...I don't know. It's so hard to describe, but it's – it's amazing."

"Concentrate now, people," Zach cautioned, reminding them of why they were there. "Keep on the mission. Ida, what about the power source?"

She checked her wrist strap."We're close, the energy signature indicates north, north west. Are you getting pictures up there?"

"There's too much interference," he said. "We're in your hands."

"Well, we've come this far," Ida said to Zoe, stepping away from the damaged capsule and leading the way deeper into the cavern, her shadow stretching under the light. "There's no turning back."

It was slow progress moving across the terrain that, while not necessarily difficult, suffered from uneven gravity. Ida nearly had her leg crushed by a powerful gravity pocket that pulled her down on top of it, the weight of its gravity grinding her bones together, until Zoe was able to pull her free. They moved much more carefully after that, reconfiguring Zoe's wrist panel to detect dense pockets of gravity that they edged around. Passing between a pair of massive pillars, the gravity globe followed them as its field was fixated on Ida, they emerged into an area that was blocked by old rubble covered in thick layers of dust that required them to try to find a way around before ultimately climbing over it, pausing at the top to look down at the enormous round door set into the floor.

Reaching the edge, Zoe crouched to look at the alien script set raised around the edges, tracing the strange characters with her gloved fingers. "This is the same script Toby's been working on, right?"

"Yeah," Ida murmured, making her way carefully around the edge, eyes fixed on the ground, recording the images. "It goes all around it. The same symbols repeated time and time again."

"Are you sure?" She asked. "The same ones?"

"There are five symbols grouped together interrupted by a single curved line to break them up," Ida said for both Zoe's benefit and that of the recording. "Instructions, maybe on how to open it?"

"Maybe," Zoe agreed. "Bit weird though, isn't it?"

"What is?"

"Instructions on how to open on a door on a possibly telepathic planet in orbit of a massive black hole," she said. "No, something doesn't feel right about this. Besides the obvious, of course. There's something we're missing."

Ida frowned, tapping her comms. "We've found something. I don't know what it is but my guess is that it's some sort of door built into the floor. The edge of it is covered with the symbols of the language Toby found. The material looks metal but I can't be sure without proper equipment to scan it."

"Does it open?" The Doctor asked. "But, also, don't try and open it. Just look for a latch or something." Ida shifted, angling her wrist torch to look around the wide opening. "Zoe, love, how're you doing?"

"The Black Hole of Calcutta."

His confusion radiated across the line. "Come again?"

"In France, I had this student," Zoe explained. "She and her dad came across Calcutta when she was still a baby. She was the one who told me about the kids going missing, actually, and I went around to hers where her dad told me that he was a soldier in Siraj ud-Dualah's army when they took Fort William and threw the surviving British garrison into a dungeon they called the Black Hole. He told me all this because of the missing children and how he worried that something similar was happening in France. Wanted me to be careful when I went looking for them because the things that live in black holes are things that shouldn't see the light of day."

There was a long stretch of silence, Ida still at her side, listening to her story with a creeping sense of wrongness crawling over her skin.

"Rassilon, Zoe." The Doctor sounded oddly unnerved. "And you have a go at me for being creepy."

"Think about it," she said. "We've got a being of unknown power capable of possessing people from a distance that lives in orbit of a black hole – something all of us agree is against the laws of physics – with a written language so old that even the TARDIS can't translate it as has already tried to kill two of us."

Ida's fingers curled against her side. "He shall go whipped against his dignity back to Olympus; or I shall take him and dash him down to the murk of Tartarus, far below, where the uttermost depth of the pit lies under earth, where there are gates of iron and a brazen door stone, as far beneath the house of Aides as from earth the sky lies."

Standing, Zoe turned and stared at Ida in surprise.

"Homer wrote that as fiction," the Doctor said, breaking the tense silence that followed her words. "And about the gods."

"Fiction often has a basis in reality, you've taught me that," Zoe said, tearing her eyes from Ida. "And how many people have mistaken you for a god in your time?"

He sighed. "Zo –"

"You heard the Ood: the Beast and his Armies shall rise from the Pit to make war against God," she interrupted, cold fear sinking into her skin and seeping into her bones. "I don't think we're on a planet. I think we're in something's a prison."

"Get back up here," the Doctor said, quickly. "Whatever it is down there, I don't want you anywhere near it. We've seen what we have and we can –"

The ground beneath her feet shook violently. Zoe staggered towards Ida, grabbing hold of her, the Doctor and Zach's voices mingling in her ear as they called down over the line, panicked. And, from within the ring, the heavy seal began to retract, dust and rock falling from on high and down the slowly gaping shaft, the planet shaking all around her with an intensity that brought fear to the back of her throat. Grabbing the back of Ida's suit to keep a firm hold of her, she crawled slowly away from the edge of the ring, stomach swooping at the thought of falling into it, when a voice more powerful and more terrifying than she could ever have imagined filled every atom of her being.

These are the words of the Beast, and he has woken. He is the heart that beats in the darkness. He is the blood that will never cease, and now he will rise.

---

Terrified silence gripped those stood on the drilling station, hearts in their mouths as the voice sank deep into them, burning through their souls and leaving only fear behind. Mouth dry, Rose turned her head slowly to look at the Doctor, seeking reassurance that they were okay, only for her eyes to blow wide. A scream ripped from her throat before she knew what she was doing, Jack's name trapped in her chest as the warning she wanted to yell stayed silent under her fear.

Smoke from the cooling vents blew across the walkway, shrouding Toby in its midst as he appeared from the door, irises turned blood red, his pupils slits.

The Doctor's grip on the radio loosened, eyes sweeping over the symbols that were sprawled across Toby's pale skin, every inch of him covered. He moved stiffly as though unused to his own body, rolling his shoulders and neck, the cracking sound his joints made went straight through the Doctor. Zoe and Ida were talking over each other on the radio, the ground shaking around them, and the Doctor set the handset down, positioning it so that they were able to hear what was happening. Hands reached out and grabbed Jack, pulling him back as Toby advanced; Mickey threw a protective arm around everyone he could reach while the Doctor stared in open fascination, his mind working through the possibilities of what was before him.

Possession beyond a shadow of a doubt, though what kind eluded him still.

It was Toby's body and his face but it wasn't his voice. The sharp click of a bullet being loaded into a chamber had him bringing his hand up to place atop Jefferson's gun, forcing it down towards the ground.

"That's not going to help," he said, stepping away from them. Rose hissed his name like a whip crack and Jack tried to grab hold of him but he approached Toby with slow, cautious steps, approaching him as he would a wild, dangerous animal. "You're the Beast."

"And you're –" his head tilted to one side, eyes boring into the Doctor, stripping him apart layer by layer. "You call yourself the Doctor but your true name is buried, though it burns in the Medusa Cascade."

The Doctor strengthened his mental shields. "Stay out of my head."

"You think your pitiful protections will keep me out, ––?" His name true name that was given to him at birth and told to no one outside of his family slammed into him and he staggered back, struck dumb by the sound of it after so long. "Your mind is nothing to me. I can rip through it in the blink of an eye. I can take everything you are and turn it to dust. You are nothing."

"Perhaps," the Doctor said, hearts hammering in his chest. "But what are you? You call yourself the Beast, but what does that mean?"

Cruelty curled the edges of Toby's mouth up. "It means more than your small, insignificant mind can even begin to comprehend, child of Gallifrey. I am the Beast, the Destroyer, the First Evil. You will kneel before me and feel my rage."

"I'm not really one for kneeling, particularly to feel someone's rage." The Doctor slipped his hand into his pocket and activated the sonic screwdriver. It had the briefest second to take readings when Toby's hand shot out and grabbed hold of his wrist, twisting it, fracturing the bones. He cried out and dropped to his knees, startled by the sudden burst of pain. "Ow."

"Get off him," Jack snapped, surging forwards.

The Doctor held up his free hand to stop him, grinding his teeth together against the pain, jerking his eyes up to the Beast. "Well, I guess I'm on my knees."

The Beast reached into his pocket and removed the sonic screwdriver along with half a jelly baby that he flicked from his finger with faint disgust. He held the long, thin tube up into the light.

"Primitive technology," he dismissed, crushing it in his hand, twisting and pressing until sand fell from between his fingers. "Did you think that you would unravel my secrets with a child's toy?"

"Figured it was worth a shot," the Doctor said, pained, twisting his body towards his wrist in an attempt to alleviate the pressure. If the Beast kept pressing then his bones were going to snap as he felt multiple fractures already running their way through his radius and ulna, his radio carpal joint rubbing unpleasantly. "You profess to be the First Evil? That's –"

The pain that sparked in his wrist and forearm temporarily disappeared, quickly replaced by the throb of fractures, when flesh and muscle was ripped open and the Beast jerked back, blood blooming from a spot on Toby's shoulder. Jack seized his opportunity and jumped forward, arms wrapping around the Doctor's chest, pulling him back, Rose immediately kneeling at his side to take hold of his already-bruising wrist. Her soft, warm fingers soothed some of the pain away, and he looked up to see Mickey wrench Jefferson out of the way as the Beast was –

"Oh my god," Rose breathed, horrified.

Toby had dug his fingers into the wound and removed the compressed bullet, holding it between his thumb and forefinger with distant interest. With a wave of his fingers, he sent it into the air, holding it in place with his mind – magic the Doctor thought in Zoe's voice before memories of Omega and what he was capable of filled him, fresh panic rising. The bullet hovered there, glistening with Toby's blood, before the Beast flicked his fingers and Danny dropped to the ground, his body crumpling, a small red hole on his forehead as blood and brain matter dripped out of the gaping wound on the back of his head.

Scooti screamed. "Danny!"

"Mr Jefferson, no!"

Zach's order came a moment too late. Jefferson raised his gun and opened fire, bullets bursting out of the nozzle and cutting through the air only to disappear into nothingness before they slammed into Toby's chest.

"Stop, everyone just stop," the Doctor yelled. "Please, don't –"

With a raise of his hand, Jefferson was lifted from his feet, fingers clutching at his throat as his gun clattered to the ground. Blood vessels burst beneath his skin that turned red and then purple, lips and eyes bulging as the Beast choked the life from him. A sharp jerk of Toby's arm sent Jefferson's body flying down the capsule shaft, the impact too far away to hear the thud of his body and the cracks of his bones. Rose shivered against the Doctor's side, fear making her quiver like a leaf in the wind, and he held her close to him, his mind blank as he tried to imagine what the Beast was for while Omega had been capable of manipulating physics, that was in a universe of his own creation, his powers had been limited in N-space.

The Beast didn't appear burdened by the laws of physics and that terrified the Doctor.

"You didn't have to do that," the Doctor argued. "Danny and Jefferson – you didn't have to kill them."

"I don't have to kill anyone and I yet I will," the Beast taunted, spreading his arms wide. "But, even now, terrified as you are, you still believe you can defeat me. I see it in your mind. You think I am only one man and one man can be dealt with. But, tell me, Doctor, how many is too many for even your ego to believe you can handle?"

The symbols marking Toby's skin melted from him and rose like smoke up into the air. His body collapsed, strings cut, and Mickey caught him before he hit the ground, grunting under the weight of him, knees bending until he was kneeling on the ground with Toby trembling in his arms. Sweat poured from his face and fear etched across his features. He surged away from Mickey and landed on his hands and knees, vomiting between the grating, before he collapsed on his back, fingers touching his wound with a pained whimper. Jack swept forward and pulled out his emergency first aid kit, cracking it open.

"Where did it go?" The Doctor used Rose's shoulder to heave himself back onto his feet, her hand supporting his thighs until he was upright. He looked around, examining everyone's faces for the symbols. "It went somewhere. It's not just giving up, not when it could kill us like that." He snapped his fingers together and winced, mouth stretching silently as he bore the pain of his foolish action. "Where did it go?"

"Doctor." Mickey took a step back from the wall that was part of the planet, the base having been built into it. From the shadows, three support Ood who were working the night shift, stepped out with their globes glowing in their hands. "The Ood. It's in the Ood."

Jack swung around, snatching Jefferson's gun from the ground. "Fuck."

"What's going on down there?" Zach demanded from the control room. "Will somebody please tell me what's happening? I don't have eyes on you. The cameras are cut. Mr Jefferson, Toby, anyone."

Rose grabbed the radio with trembling. "Zach, Mr Jefferson and Danny are dead. The Beast thing...it killed them. It's now the Ood. Whatever it is, it's in the Ood. I think they're infected with that thing."

Zach swore violently, the connection crackling.

"Don't shoot at them," the Doctor warned Jack. "You saw what the Beast is capable of. Don't open fire. Don't give it any more bullets."

"Good point." He tossed the gun away and looked around. "Cattle prods. Do you have any cattle prods?" Neither Toby nor Scooti answered. "Someone, tell me! Cattle prods. Do you have them?"

Scooti shook, pale. "What are cattle prods?"

"Long sticks with electricity at the end," he explained as Mickey grabbed Toby beneath the arms and heaved him onto a crate, Danny's blood dripping through the grating. "I'm going to assume you use them to herd the Ood."

"Y-yes, we do," she said, stumbling, tears on her cheeks. "They're in – "

"The Legion shall be many, and the Legion shall be few." Scooti clamped her hands over her mouth, catching her scream before it left her, when the Ood began speaking in unison, the Beast's words spreading through the base. "He has woven himself in the fabric of your life since the dawn of time. Some may call him Abaddon, some may call him Krop Tor, some may call him Satan or Lucifer, or the Bringer of Despair, the Deathless Prince, the Bringer of Night. These are the words that shall set him free."

The base shook powerfully. Mickey was thrown off his feet, and Rose curled into the Doctor's chest, his hand splayed across the back of her head, curved over her, while Jack did the same to Toby, protecting him from falling debris. Scooti tried to keep her feet but the constant shifting of rocks beneath the base, walls crushing against the metal structure, straining the oxygen field, was too much for her to bear and she fell forwards, tripping over Danny's dead body, his blood staining her hands and clothes.

"I shall become manifest," the Beast continued through the Ood. "I shall walk in might. My Legions shall swarm across the worlds. I am the sin and the temptation and the desire. I am the pain and the loss. I have been imprisoned for eternity. But no more."

The world exploded around them, noise overwhelming as the shaking reached a crescendo, before it stopped. The Ood paused in their tracks, waiting, heads swaying from side to side before the Beast was everywhere. His voice came from no one discernable place but it sank into their minds and dripped into their bones, searing their marrow with his presence.

The Pit is open. I am free.

Jack rolled out from behind the crate he had fallen behind, his ragged breathing pressed against the Doctor's ear as he shoved his hands into his coat pockets, moving through the jelly babies, books, and detritus. He grabbed his phone and pressed it against his own, reaching behind him to pull a hairband off Rose's wrist, and he slammed his thumb against the screen, throwing the phones into the middle of the Ood.

"Ears," he yelled.

Rose slammed her hands over her ears, the others swiftly following suit, as a high-pitched explosion sent the Ood reeling, screaming in pain. They staggered back, trying to put distance between them and the noise, and Jack surged forwards, slamming his body into one and forcing them back behind the door that he sealed swiftly. Grabbing the phones, he deactivated the noise, ears ringing.

"Jesus," he breathed. "I'm surprised that worked."

Scooti sobbed, curling in on herself, and Rose turned to her, wrapping her arms around her even as she looked at the phones. "What the hell did you do?"

"A stab in the dark," Jack replied. "Ood have particularly sensitive hearing. They're telepaths and speak telepathic to each other and other species so they don't need their hearing but they haven't evolved out of it yet so there's a lot of sensitivity there. I created a quick feedback loop between the phones and hoped it'd work. It did."

The Doctor struggled to his feet. "I might just kiss you."

"You're so easily impressed," he shouted back as the noise started to die down, the violence of the base calming. "Whoa."

"We're stabilising," Zach said over the tannoy, relief pushing out of him in a breathless laugh. "We've got orbit."

Rose smoothed her hand over the top of Scooti's head, brushing over her hair, before she released her, standing to make sure that the people she loved were okay. She cared about Scooti and Toby, of course she did, but if she had to make a choice about who she wanted to emerge from the day unscathed, it was an easy one. Jack helped Toby to his feet, Mickey uncovering an emergency cattle prod that had been placed at the drilling station just in case, and Rose reached down to help a shaking Scooti to her feet. The Doctor brushed past her, dust falling from his hair, to grab the radio again, calling down for Zoe and Ida, before she approached a fallen Ood, dead beneath a piece of heavy mining equipment that had fallen free of its safety harness during the shaking.

"What the hell is that?" Lying amongst the broken globe was a slick, twisted cord that reminded her of Peter's umbilical cord – her shoulders tight at the memory. It ran out from underneath the facial tentacles and down into the Ood's palm where it looked as though the cord had been surgically severed, thin wires connecting it to the broken globe. "Jack, what the hell's this?"

He appeared at her shoulder and looked down. "No idea. It's probably just the translation sphere, a mixture of organic and technical things to make it work. Come on, get away from them. They might still be dangerous."

"She's not answering," the Doctor said, lines creased into his forehead. "Dammit, of all the times she doesn't have her phone on her." He sighed and bumped the radio against his temple. "Not that it matters. There's no bloody signal here. Fuck, shit, balls, wank."

"This is Zoe we're talkin' about," Mickey said, hauling the cattle prod passed him to pass it to Jack. "She's survived worse than an earthquake."

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "Didn't she storm Skaro once?"

He turned and stared, surprised. "She told you about that?"

"I didn't get the chance to lecture her, said you'd already covered it, but god I wanted to." He tested the electricity, blue and white light jumping between the charged points. "But if she can survive Skaro on a stupidly reckless mission to save our sorry asses, she can survive an earthquake with the actual devil breathing down her neck. Hell, she might even enjoy it."

Rose nodded, worrying the sleeve of her pink top. "She's weird like that."

"Danny," Scooti whispered, pushing past Rose to hover uncertainly at her friend's side. "He's – oh god, he's dead. He's dead." She wiped the tears and snot from her face, turning to slam her blood-stained hands into Toby who was pushed from his seat. "You killed him! And Mr Jefferson! You killed them!"

"Scooti, stop!" Mickey lunged and caught her around the waist, lifting her easily from the floor and pulling her back. "It wasn't him. Okay? It wasn't him. The Beast was usin' his body. It wasn't Toby's fault."

"But they're dead," she exclaimed. "Danny – he was my friend and now he's dead and I don't understand what's happening."

"Scooti, I'm sorry, but we don't have time for this," the Doctor said, appearing at her back and touching her forehead with his fingers. "Hush, now."

She fell silent, head lolling against Mickey's shoulder. Rose blinked and stared at the Doctor. "What was that? What did you do to her?"

"A little trick I used on my kids to calm them down when they needed it," he explained. "Nothing bad. I just tapped into her serotonin and oxytocin to give her a little bump and take the edge off. It normally just works on babies but I figured human adults and Time Lord babies are more or less the same."

Scooti turned her face into Mickey's shoulder and sighed, fingers curling into his shirt. He rubbed his hand over her back and took Jack's offered handkerchief to clean her face, letting her blow her nose against him.

"Zach," the Doctor said, snatching up the radio again. "Any word on Zoe or Ida?"

"No contact yet," he replied. "What the hell happened down there? What does Rose mean that Danny and Mr Jefferson are dead?"

Toby dragged his knees to his chest and pressed his face into them. "What did I do? What did I do?"

"You didn't do anything," Jack told him, firmly. "All of this? None of it's your fault. You were possessed by something much more powerful than you are. Put the blame where the blame lies, Toby, nowhere else."

"The Beast killed them, a demonstration of his power," the Doctor explained to Zach. "I'm sorry, Zach, I really am. They seemed like good people. And I'm sorry we don't have time to properly grieve them but, right now, we've got a situation on our hands. We've got the entire Ood contingent outside our door trying to get in and I don't think we've got all that long. I need you to find a way to get in touch with Zoe and Ida as soon as possible because I think we need to abandon the base and regroup where we can think this through."

Rose stepped forward and grabbed his arm. "You want to leave? Jesus, Doctor, how bad is this?"

"Bad enough that I don't want to be figuring things out on the fly," he said. "That thing knew my name, Rose. My real name. The one I don't tell anyone. That's not a good thing."

"Since we're obviously not leavin' without Zoe and Ida, we need ideas on how to stop the Ood until they get back up here," Rose said. "So, ideas? C'mon, people, ideas!"

"Knock them all unconscious," Jack said. "That's pretty much where I'm at right now. Mickey?"

"Lock them in a room?" He shook his head. "They'll get through any lock eventually. That won't work."

"Doctor." Rose turned to him. "You're our ideas man. What've you got?"

He stared at her. "I'm leaning towards blind panic right now, actually."

"Doctor!"

"Sorry." He shook the fear and confusion from him – it knew his name – and started thinking. "If we increase the density of the door, we can maybe slow them down." He shoved his hand into his pocket, pain lancing through him, forgetting his injury once more. "Fuck. It destroyed my screwdriver."

"But not our phones," Jack said, hand in Mickey's pocket to retrieve his, tossing it to the Doctor who slapped his hand against his chest to catch it. "I might've taken a leaf out of Zoe's book and updated a few of the settings on mine and Mickey's phones. It's not as comprehensive as hers but there might be something useful on there. Just don't look at the pictures."

Mickey turned sharply. "Seriously, don't look at the pictures."

"Yeah, I don't want to have to bleach my brain, thanks." The Doctor worked Mickey's phone open and scanned the apps, pleased that the ones Zoe considered essential were on there. "Jack, I'm definitely going to kiss you when this is all over."

The door possessed the standard safety feature that all space-based Sanctuary Bases contained after a preventable accident occurred when the main power system went down and the backup generator failed to instantaneously kick in on one of the first Ganymede colonies. Temperatures plummeted within the base but the commander – Lucy Kim – was able to get the majority of the inhabitants within three rooms that she pumped heat into. Those that hadn't been able to reach them and subsequently died had been blocked by the doors that froze solid, unable to move, thus preventing their escape. Scientists had devised a complex, sprawling network of thin tubes that carried a zeolite liquid solution heated to a temperature of two degrees Celsius and maintained at that level through the nylon tubing within the structure of the door, preventing such a disaster from happening again.

The Doctor used that to his advantage and forced the liquid to freeze, bursting the tubes, increasing the density, and buying them extra time.

He threw the phone back to Jack. "We've got an extra six minutes."

"Scooti, what's happening there?" Zach asked, breathing heavily.

Blinking slowly, lethargic as her body calmed, she shuffled to the radio and picked it up, wiping at her face before she spoke, voice hoarse. "We're sealing ourselves in. We don't think it will last though. How are you, captain?"

"All I've got is a bolt gun," he said, frustrated. "With all of one bolt. I could take out a grand total of one Ood. Fat lot of good that is."

Toby got to his feet slowly, hand braced against the wall, and his face twisted in grief as he stepped over Danny's feet, approaching Scooti who watched him with a wariness that tightened her fingers on the radio. He held out his hand, not quite looking at her, and she placed the radio in his palm without touching him, immediately stepping away, slipping back to Mickey's side where she took his hand in hers and held on tightly.

"Zach...it's me."

"Toby," he breathed, relief tingeing his voice. "Are you okay?"

"No," Toby said, honestly. "I don't know what I've done. I'm sorry, captain. I didn't – I didn't know."

"It's okay," Zach said, forcing calm into her voice. "We are going to figure this out, you hear me? Whatever's happened and is going to happen, we're going to figure it out."

Toby drew in a shaky breath, chest hollow and cold. "Captain...sir...I think...I recommend that we initiate Strategy Nine as soon as possible."

"Strategy nine," Zach sighed, reluctant. "Unfortunately, I think you're right. Dammit. I hoped we'd never have to – we need to get everyone together. The control room makes more sense as it's better protected. Do we still have no word from Ida and Zoe?"

Toby looked to Rose who shook her head. "No, sir. Nothing yet."

Static leapt across the line and interrupted them. There was a tense moment as it jumped and burbled before Zoe's voice came through, crackly but clear. "We're here, both of us. Sorry we couldn't get back to you sooner, there was a small issue of the planet falling apart around us and the door opening, but we're fine. Absolutely fine. How are you lot?"

"Jesus, Zoe," Rose exclaimed, slapping her hand down on the table. "You could've said somethin', you stupid cow."

She exhaled shakily, amusement clear when she spoke. "Sorry, Rosie. But when the door opened, we had to make a run for it because the ground was really unstable. We must've walked into a blind spot – God only knows what this planet is made of – but the door's open now. It's extremely ominous and more than a little terrifying. There's no telling how far down it goes. The light from the gravity globe seems to just be absorbed by the darkness. I tossed a rock down but either it's still falling or I didn't hear the impact because there's just nothing."

"Zo..." Rose looked to the Doctor who nodded. "Danny and Mr Jefferson are dead."

"Wh –?"

"What did you say?" Ida burst across the line. "They're dead?"

"It was the Beast," she explained as Toby turned away, hands pressed against his face. "It killed them. I'm sorry."

"Scooti, is she okay?"

"She's fine," Rose assured. "Just a bit shaken up but she's fine."

"The pit is open," Toby murmured, eyes filled with grief and remorse as he looked back at them. "That's what it said. We all heard it. The pit is open."

"But there's nothing," Zach replied, staring at the blinking dots of their life signs that kept him company. "I mean, there's nothing coming out, right?"

The Doctor took the radio from Rose, hiding the tremble of relief that came from hearing Zoe's voice by clutching the radio set tightly. "Zoe, honey, will you please confirm whether or not a beast is currently climbing out of the pit?"

Her small laugh soothed the ache inside of him. "No beast as of yet. I'll keep you updated though."

At his side, Rose turned her big brown eyes onto him. "It said Satan."

He clucked his tongue. "Come on, Rose, keep it together. Remember everything we've seen and done. There's an explanation for everything."

"I've never seen anythin' put you to your knees before," she said, features twisting with the fear that was running through her. "Not the Gelth, not the Slitheen, the Daleks, or the Cybermen. But that thing nearly broke your wrist. Look, you're bruised." He examined his darkly bruised wrist before pulling the sleeve of his coat down over it. "Anythin' that can do that to you scares me."

"Hey," he said softly, reaching out to brush her hair back, thumb tracking across her cheek. "Don't be scared. We've faced worst things before. The only difference is that we were able to put a name to them."

"So it's not Satan, then?" Jack said, his hand entwined with Mickey's, the two of them looking dusty but healthy, Scooti's cheek pressed against Mickey's arm. "Or the First Evil?"

Mickey rubbed his jaw. "I'd feel a lot better if you told us there's no such thing, mate. Because I've seen some proper mad things since meetin' you, but this is – it's a lot."

The Doctor ached to have Zoe at his side. Even if she was as scared and confused as everyone else, just having her there would help him navigate their extremely valid concerns. He wanted to reassure them and tell them all that there was no such thing, that the Beast was just an ancient creature preying upon their primal fears of darkness after the light, but he hesitated, unwilling to lie to them even for their comfort.

The things it had been able to do and the things it knew – his name, no one alive knew his name – kept the lie in his mouth. Omega had created an entire universe where the laws of physics were written by him, allowing him to manipulate what he pleased, holding his corporeal form together by sheer strength of will. No one else would have been able to achieve such a thing, but the Beast was something different to Omega, something older and much more fearsome.

"I don't know what it is," the Doctor said, at last. "But I know that all of us are going to come through this. After everything we've been through and done together, this isn't where it ends. I need everyone to keep their heads until we find a way off this planet. Zoe and Ida are down there and she needs us to stay calm and to think. We can dissect what it is when we're safe, but we don't have time for it now."

Jack squeezed Mickey's hand. "He's right. We need to concentrate. We've got possessed Ood coming in and two of our people down below. We can't afford to have our focus split."

The Doctor nodded at Jack, thank you.

"Ida?" Having listened in silence to the Doctor's conversation, Zach tapped through to Ida and Zoe, his decision made. "I recommend that you withdraw immediately."

"But –" Ida protested as he knew she would. "We've come all this way."

"Okay." He changed his tone, shifting into what Scooti liked to tease was his captain's voice. "I order you to withdraw, now. When that thing opened, the whole planet shifted. One more inch and we fall into the black hole, so this thing stops right now."

The Doctor depressed the button on the side of the radio and lifted it to his mouth. "You too, Zoe. I'm going to feel much better when I can put my eyes on you."

Ida made a sound of frustration. "It's not much better up there with the Ood. If we come up, we run the risk of being killed or possessed, at least down here we have a chance at figuring out what's happening and why."

"She's got a point," Zoe said. "Whatever's happening, I reckon we can find the source of it down here. Besides, we don't even have the TARDIS. The likelihood of us getting off this rock without the Beast possessing us in the rocket is slim to none. Our best bet is here."

"Zoe," he began.

"You should see this place, love," she breathed, stealing the words from his as her wonder slipped across the connection and into him. "There's so much here: Pillars and columns; statues with faces that are still detailed; remnants of writing etched into the walls. It's so old, so very ancient, it feels like – I don't know. Knowing that it's so old we might not be able to visit it during its height...I wish you were here. I wish you were seeing this with me."

"It sounds amazing," he said, honestly. "But nothing is worth risking your life, nothing. With everything that's going on, you need to be up here with us in case we need to abandon the station."

"Doctor, don't kick me off again," Zach said, annoyed, finding his way back onto the channel. "Ida, I'm initiating strategy nine. I need the two of you back up top immediately, no argum – " the comms cut out. "Dammit, Ida, Ida. Zoe, respond. Son of a – they cut me off."

Ten miles beneath the base, shrouded in a darkness broken only by one gravity bulb, Zoe turned to Ida and raised her eyebrows. "You cut the comms."

"They're not down here, we are," Ida said. "What do you think?"

"I think banana daiquiris are actually delicious and I kind of hate myself for it a little bit," she said, refusing to admit the truth to the Doctor for fear that it would be the only thing he would make her to drink from that point on. Ida's jaw tensed and her eyes tightened in annoyance, forcing Zoe to drop her attempt at levity. "Zach gave us an order, and while I'm not in the chain of command, you are. Do you have a punishment for insubordination out here, or do you sort of just let things slide with a slap on the wrist?"

Ida shook her head. "Possible jail time when we get back to home base. It depends on the circumstances. Torchwood'll run a review if we get back, and, depending on their findings, I might serve prison time but we've come this far. It seems foolish not to go any further."

"Yeah, I think so too." She carefully approached the edge and peered down into the chasm, her stomach swooping. "But I've got this slightly annoying habit of acting before I think. I've got better at it as I've got older, but I have been known to throw myself into dangerous situations, often without backup." She stepped onto the edge, arms out to balance herself, breathing slowly and deeply. "This might be one of those times."

"If we go back up," Ida said, moving to stand just behind her, hooking her fingers in the belt of Zoe's space suit, anchoring her. "We're going to be walking into another dangerous situation. The Ood are being possessed by whatever this Beast is, but it's like you said, we might find the answer down here."

"We might not as well," she said. "We might end up stranded down here."

"There's time," Ida argued. "We can't get up until Zach completes Strategy Nine anyway. The oxygen field can only break in one place at a time, so we're down here until then."

She hummed, thinking. "What is Strategy Nine anyway?"

"In the event of an infection or an incursion, Strategy Nine opens the airlocks and evacuates the base except for the designated safety areas," Ida explained. "The crew'll be safe inside the lockdown and the Ood'll get thrown out into the vacuum."

Zoe twisted her head around, glaring over her shoulder. "You're going to kill the Ood? What if it was your people being affected by the Beast? Are you going to throw Toby out with them too?"

"The Ood aren't people," Ida said, exasperated. "They're a herd race, they live to serve."

"How are you so intelligent yet so stupid all at the same time?" She demanded. "They might not be human and might not act like humans but that doesn't mean they're not deserving of the same rights and considerations that we are. The definition of what it means to be sentient isn't written by the human race, for crying out loud."

Ida's eyes turned amused and held an edge of mockery. "You're Friends of the Ood?"

"You know what, I am," Zoe said, annoyed, stepping down from the edge and pushing her anger and disgust away. "Not that it matters. My friends won't let Strategy Nine happen once they find out what it is. The Doctor is very much against the slaughter of innocents and you don't want to piss him off."

Ida removed her hand from Zoe's belt. "Then we should stay here all the more and find out what's down here."

"How do you know there's something down here?" Her arms swept wide, gesturing at the cavernous space. "Look around us. This place...there's nothing left. It's just ruins, the leftover pieces of a civilisation long since dead. And that voice we heard? It could be anything. I've met a lot of weird things in my life including, most recently, a telepathic planet. I wouldn't be surprised if this was much the same. You might have been drilling into its brain for all we know."

"A telepathic planet?"

"It's a real thing."

"Why are you trying to convince yourself that this is something innocuous?" Ida demanded. "We both heard the same thing. That voice said that it was the First Evil, Satan, and you said that this set up reminds you of the Black Hole of Calcutta."

"That was just a prison despite what my friend's dad said," she replied.

"Look." Ida dragged her arm, forcing her around, before pointing at the chasm. "There has to be something down there. This looks like a transportation corridor. We use them all the time at the university for transporting artefacts back and forth, so why are you ignoring the obvious?"

"Because I'm scared," Zoe snapped. "Danny and Mr Jefferson are dead. This thing – whatever it is – can possess people from a distance. And, you're right, all these failsafes in place seem to point to one answer: A prisoner. So, let me ask you, are you really sure you want to meet the thing imprisoned in orbit of a black hole? Is that really what you want to do today?"

"This has been my life's work," she argued. "I can't leave now when I'm so close to the truth. Not even if it's dangerous."

"There's no if about it," Zoe replied. "And you might also be further away from the truth than you've ever been. Something like this would take lifetimes to catalogue. Sometimes it's better to listen to the part of you that's scared and go in the other direction. Fear's a gift, Ida. We shouldn't refuse it."

Ida's hands clenched in frustration at her side. "All those things you claim to have seen and done, weren't you ever afraid while doing them?"

"All the time."

"And do you regret doing them?"

"No," Zoe admitted. "Not for a second. I'd do them all over again because they've led me to here."

"I want to to go down, even though I'm scared, I want to go down," Ida said. "What about you?"

Zoe exhaled, puffing her cheeks out, looking back down into the darkness. She recognised the feeling in her stomach having felt it once before when she was seventeen years old and standing before the Doctor in the TARDIS as he offered to show her the universe. She was standing on the edge of a precipice, aware that behind her there was safety and familiarity, a world she had always known, but before her was uncertainty, fear, but the possibility of something magnificent. The last time she jumped, the Doctor had caught her and shone light into her life, giving her love and happiness as well as sadness and grief, but there wasn't a single thing she would have changed about the last thirteen years.

She looked into the dark chasm and thought about what lay before her. If she turned back, she would return the what she had known: The comfort of the Doctor's love, the security of knowing that he was there, the warm embrace of her friends, her place among them comfortable and easy – nothing had to change. If she went forwards, dropping her body into the darkness, she might fall and fall and fall until she died of old age; yet, there was every chance she might hit the ground and learn something knew, see something even the Doctor hadn't seen.

The temptation was strong.

And the answer, she found, was easy.

Flipping open the panel on her wrist, she re-established contact with the others. "You guys still there?"

The Doctor swore effusively, vulgar Gallifreyan spilling down the line before he rediscovered English. "You cut us off!"

"We needed to have a private chat," she said. "Listen, Ida and I have decided we're staying down here."

The Doctor and Zach tripped over each other in their attempts to stop them, their voices blasting out of the tinny speaker in her helmet, nearly deafening her. Unsurprisingly, the Doctor won and soon only his annoyed tones came through to her.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

"No more so than normal."

"Zoe." She heard the deep breath he drew in to avoid snapping at her. "People are dead and we've got possessed Ood at the door. Will you please get back here now?"

"No." His irritated sigh filled her ears. "You can't tell me it's any safer up there than it is down here."

"Maybe not," he said. "But if you're here, I won't be worried sick about you."

"You're always worried about me," she shot back. "I cough and you think I'm about to die."

"Humans are fragile."

"That's not an excuse to wrap me in cotton wool," she snapped, instantly regretting it. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to snap. If you were down here in my place, you'd make the same decision that I am, and I'd feel exactly the same as you do now, so I'm sorry. However, my mind's made up. And unless you plan on coming down here, knocking me unconscious, and then dragging both of us back up, this is how it is."

"Don't tempt me," he grumbled. "I –"

The ground shook again. Seasoned from her brief experience, Zoe dropped low into a crouch, bracing herself against the ground. The Beast's voice filled the air once more and Ida reached for her, curling their hands together as they knelt, looking as though they were bent in prayer.

This is the darkness. This is my domain. You little things that live in the light, clinging to your feeble suns that die in the blink of an eye. Only the darkness remains.

"This is Captain Zachary Cross Flane of Sanctuary Base Six, representing the Torchwood Archive," Zach said. "You will identify yourself."

You know my name.

Zoe closed her eyes, focusing on Ida's hands within hers, grounding herself in the reality that was the other woman.

You will die here. All of you. This planet is your grave.

"What is it?" Ida whispered, terrified. "What the hell is it?"

"Ssh," Zoe soothed, resting their helmets together. "It's okay, just focus on me. Look at me."

High above the open pit, the Doctor looked around at his scared friends, eyes lingering on Toby who had dropped to the floor, curling himself into a small ball, shaking violently with fear.

"If you're the Beast, then answer me this," he said, taking charge even as his hearts raced. "You say you're Satan, the First Evil, Abbadon, but you can't be all of them, so which one are you? Because the universe has been busy since you've been out of it. There are more religions than there are planets in the sky: The Archiphets, Orkology, Christianity, Pash Pash, New Judaism, San Klah, Church of the Tin Vagabond. Which devil are you?"

All of them.

The Doctor rolled his shoulders back, sliding his hands into his pocket only to remember, yet again, his wrist was sore and swollen. He shook off the grimace and rubbed his mouth. "Then you're the truth behind the myth?"

A rolling laughter spread through them, coldness descending.

This one knows me as I know him: The killer of his own kind.

Not the first to know about his actions, and unlikely to be the last, the Doctor swept the comment away. "How did you end up on this rock?"

The Disciples of the Light rose up against me and chained me in the pit for all eternity.

"When was this?"

Before time.

"What does that mean?"

Before time.

"What does before time mean?"

Before light and time and space and matter. Before the cataclysm. Before this universe was created.

"You're talking about existing before the universe, before time even existed, that's not possible," the Doctor said. "No life could've existed back then. Life can't exist without time."

Is that your religion?

His mouth tightened. "It's a belief."

You know nothing. All of you are so small.

The Doctor breathed in sharply as the Beast began to run through the deep secrets that they kept close to their chest out of shame. Already on edge from the reminder of the Time War, he watched as the stripped back truths landed on Scooti, who flinched and pressed her face deeper into Mickey's shoulder, Toby, who wept, and Zach, who remained calm and stoic over the open line. He wanted to stop what was coming but he knew that he was powerless against the Beast; his muscles tightened, tension running through him, as the Beast turned its attention to his friends who were waiting, as prepared as they could be for the blow that was coming.

The valiant child, so far from home, destined to make the same mistake again and again.

Rose's eyes shuttered, lashes sweeping across her pale skin, and her fingers clenched into fists at her side.

The man who tries and tries but will never be good enough to save the ones he loves.

Mickey twitched, nostrils flaring, shoulders rising around his ears.

The conman who left his brother to die and tore his memories out because he could not bear what he had done.

The sound that emerged from Jack's throat was pained and stricken.

And the hybrid who shouldn't exist, a monster in the making.

"What does that mean?" Zoe's voice crackled over the radio, sharp panic clear in her tone. "Tell me what it means!"

"Zoe –" the Doctor tried to warn her, tried to steer her away from engaging with the Beast, but it was too late.

You are an aberration. And you will die and I will live.