Chapter Fifty-Seven

Ida hit the ground first.

Her scream cut off as the impact rendered her unconscious and Zoe had three seconds to panic before she followed suit and slammed into the ground face first. Her forehead slammed into the front of the helmet, the visor shattering at the exact moment that she gasped in a breath, pain exploding throughout her, and she choked on the small shards of glass that she inhaled. Coughing and spitting it out, blood and saliva drooling down her chin, she struggled to stay conscious even as darkness edged in around her vision. Moving an inch to the left, she put too much pressure on a strained rib and she felt it crack, burning pain rolling out from the source, nausea pulsing in her stomach. Dazed from the impact, she struggled to get herself upright, hands scrambling at the ground, until she gave up and rolled onto her back with a cry of pain.

Lying on the surface, head cushioned by the back of her helmet, she stared up through the jagged edges of her visor and realised that she was able to breathe.

Oxygen pocket she realised before finally passing out.

When she woke, it was to Ida leaning over her, pale face already darkening with the bruises of impact. Her heart raced uncomfortable, mouth slick with blood and the sharp, tangy taste of the adrenaline that Ida had injected her with.

"You're alive," Ida said, pleased. "Good."

Zoe opened her mouth only for a pained gargle to fall out instead. Sliding an arm beneath her shoulders, Ida grunted and heaved her upright, her rib screaming in pain that whited her vision, and set her against the nearest wall. The cold of the rock sank into her back and her head swam from sitting upright. With Ida's help, she removed her helmet and let it fall to the ground, rolling into the darkness, no longer useful except as a doorstop as there wasn't a single chance that they would be making a return journey. Tears wet her eyes and she looked down at her suit's computer system, the statistics leaping across the screen as something blurred its readings, and thought that perhaps she should have stayed up on the surface.

"Are you okay?"

The question left her mouth thick and heavy and she canted to one side to spit more blood and saliva onto the ground.

"My shoulder's dislocated and my face hurts," Ida said, sitting at her side and sucking in a deep breath. "But I'm fine. I gave myself a shot of epinephrine too. We've got maybe ten minutes before it wears off."

"Swell," she said, head throbbing as she closed her eyes. "That's swell."

The sound of Ida's heavy, ragged breathing served as her companion until – "we were falling for eight minutes."

"Yeah," she replied. "Was a long way down."

"We should be dead," Ida said. "That height and the speed we were going, we should be dead."

"But we're not." Zoe swallowed, wincing as small shards of visor cut at the soft, wet muscle at the back of her throat. "And we can breathe. Reckon someone softened the landing for us, made it so we can breathe. Awfully nice of them really."

"The Beast?"

"Or its jailers," she replied, carefully resting the back of her head against the wall. "Although, the Beast probably needs to breathe just like us. Useful that the atmosphere is suitable for humans though. That was a stroke of luck."

Ida smacked her computer screen against her thigh. "My screen isn't working. I can't get any readings."

"Mine's out too," Zoe said. "Must be the same thing that stopped my phone from working up top. Hopefully the transmission you set up will still broadcast despite everything." She dug her heels into the ground and glared at the darkness before her, readying herself. "Three – two – one."

Teeth bared, she groaned through the pain of awkwardly pushing herself to her feet, staggering when she stood. Her hand scrambled over the wall before reaching down to help Ida up, the two of them swaying together as their tried to keep their balance. Zoe opened her mouth to suggest that they move on with their exploration, conscious of the fact that they may not be able to do much when the epinephrine left their system, when a loud, rumbling blast echoed from the station and fell down the dark pit. Ida's mouth dropped open in surprise and Zoe turned her face up, though she was unable to see through the complete darkness, and she listened to the sound of the crew's rocket as it lifted off from the base.

Please be onboard, she thought even as her heart ached at being left behind. Please don't be stupid and stay.

Whatever had happened on the surface must have been awful for Zach to consider abandoning the base – maybe the Ood had overwhelmed them or the Beast had possessed Toby once more to kill others; whatever it was, she hoped her family was safe.

Tearing her eyes away from the pit, she looked to Ida who had her face turned away, gloved fingers brushing the tears from her cheeks, fear for Scooti stamped across every inch of her.

"C'mon," Zoe said, stepping away from the wall. "Let's see what this planet is all about."

Despite the heavy darkness above and off to the side, light came from somewhere. Rather like the emergency lighting on the TARDIS, it seemed to lead in one direction and she pressed her toes against the sole of her boots, testing her balance. She took a step forward and a loud crunching sound made her skin prickle as she stepped on the remnants of their visors. Shaking the nerves from her, she edged forwards with Ida's fingers looped in the back of her suit. With care, they approached the first light – a wooden torch drenched in paraffin – only to freeze when a row of torches on both walls burst into existence, revealing a wide passage.

The flames flickered as a gust of hot, dry air swept over them, pushed up the passage from whatever lay at the end of it.

"What is that?" Ida whispered. "Who set those?"

"It's probably automatic," Zoe replied. "And you don't have to whisper. The Beast already knows we're here."

"That's not comforting."

"I wasn't trying to be."

They moved slowly down the passage, an echo of something rattling washing around them, and distant roar froze them in their tracks. Fear pulsed through Zoe and she looked for the Doctor, seeking his hand with hers only to curl her fingers into the air where his hand should be. She didn't need him to be brave but it was certainly easier when he was there. Instead, she reached back for Ida, splaying her fingers in invitation, and felt better when her gloved hand clasped hers.

"Look," Ida said, suddenly. "Do you see that?"

On the wall beneath the flamed torches, there was art drawn into the stone. Ida stepped around her and pulled her closer, crouching as she examined the images, wincing when she tried to lift her injured arm to touch the drawings.

"It looks like they're telling a story," she said. "Maybe it's about what happened here."

Zoe grunted as she leaned over, forced to do so at an angle as her rib protested. "That looks like a battle right there. See? All those people and that big thing. I bet that's meant to represent the Beast."

"What did it say earlier?" Ida asked, frowning. "The Disciples of the Light trapped it here, wasn't it?"

Brushing her fingers over the drawings, she hummed thoughtfully. "It's kind of like David and Goliath if David had an army at his back. I think it depicts them defeating the Beast – see here? These spears must represent something because whoever these Disciples were, they were advanced to figure out a prison like this, and I don't think they'd be fighting with spears."

Ida shuffled to the side, following the history. "What do you think this is supposed to represent?"

"Are those flower pots?"

"Urns, I think," she replied. "They trapped it in an urn?"

"Maybe it doesn't have a physical body," Zoe said, straightening up when the pain grew too much to stay bent over. "Two days ago I was dealing with this non-corporeal alien trying to eat the human race so it's not out of the realm of possibility."

Ida twisted her head to look up at her. "What?"

"Long story, never mind," she said. "It might explain the telepathy we've experienced and Toby's possession. If it's –"

Hybrid.

Heart flying to her mouth, Zoe jerked as Ida jumped, a small scream of surprise slipping fee before she pressed her lips together, wide eyed.

"Stop calling me that," Zoe said, heart thundering in her chest. "I know you know my name."

You're here.

"As you wanted," she said, helping Ida to her feet and squeezing her arm. "Want to tell me why you wanted me here?"

I want you to see my victory and to know there is nothing you can do about it.

"Just my luck," Zoe replied, muscles tensing as she tried to control the tremble of fear that rolled through her. "You're a narcissist. I bet you're the sort of person who needs an audience to take a piss let alone anything else. It must've killed you being down here as long as you have without any to bask in your glory."

"What are you doing?" Ida hissed. "Stop taunting it."

Her words have no meaning here, Ida Scott. They're like dust caught on a breeze.

Zoe snorted. "Poetic. Is that how you've been filling your time, poetry?"

You joke even though you're frightened. You believe he will come and save you.

"The Doctor hasn't let me down yet," she said, inching forwards. "Besides, if he doesn't save me, I can save myself. Or I can die. That's also an option. But since we're here, chatting and all, why don't you tell me something interesting. Like – what are you?"

The Beast. The Devil. Abbadon. Names spread throughout eternity to mean one thing: Death.

"So you're the devil?" Ida asked, hand clenching convulsively around Zoe's. "The First Evil? God's fallen angel?"

I am what inspired that story.

"Locked up here?" Zoe found herself stepping forwards with more confidence, the Beast's presence focusing her mind away from her terror. "Quite a reach you've got to poison every single civilisation and culture with your presence."

When the Dvapara Yuga died, a great explosion occurred. I was transformed from my original state and made whole, the essence of my existence carried forth into everything else.

"Light and dark," Ida realised. "You can't have one without the other."

I am the darkness. I am the despair in your souls. I am –

"Overly talkative," Zoe interrupted, a thrill of delight racing up her spine when the Beast fell silent, clearly surprised at having been cut off. "Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much? Brevity is the soul of wit and all."

Against her better judgement, Ida laughed.

Anger rumbled beneath their feet and Zoe slapped a hand out to keep them standing.

You will die here, powerless to stop me. Your clever words won't save you.

"Maybe not but it's fun."

Die here and have your body turned to dust. Fade from the universe as I tear it apart.

"You're a fool if you think the Doctor won't stop you," she told him, the passage opening up onto a stone platform with more flames that caught the edge of an urn. "And I'm not sure I'd call you a – son of a bitch!"

Ida gasped, the sound ripping through her as a deafening roar filled their ears, the ground shaking beneath their feet. Losing her balance, Zoe fell to her knees, grabbing hold of Ida's legs to stop her falling onto her face again.

Looming above them, its body so large that she was only able to see the broad shoulders and the rippled, scarred torso, was a creature of such an immense size that her mind blanked, unable to fully comprehend it. The small insignificance of her human body as it was dwarfed by its size made her feel fragile and infinitely breakable; its mouth stretched wide open, a thick piece of flesh passing from its upper lip to its bottom one, teeth crammed into its jaw, crooked and sharp and unusually white. Its skin was red as though it was burning or it had been flayed and left to heal and it revealed the muscle and sinew beneath, nose flattened and open against a face that was twisted in rage as it roared down at them. One of its large, curved horns was chained to the wall behind it, the other had been snapped in half in an effort to free itself aeons earlier.

Zoe stared up and up into its wild, inhuman face and eyes that glowed green, bright and lurid, shone back at her with disgust and rage. Ida struggled for breath behind her, gasping and crying, as she sank to her knees and wrapped her arms around Zoe, afraid.

I need the Doctor, she thought, desperately. This is too much. I can't deal with this.

Painfully aware that she needed to do something, she dragged a shaking hand across her face and tried to do her best.

"And here I was thinking you were a consciousness shoved into an urn," Zoe said, unable to feel ashamed at the way her voice shook. "Guess I was wrong about that."

It roared once more, mouth yawning open, and she flinched back.

"Hey!" Anger and annoyance flared through her, fear temporarily buried. "Don't yell at me, asshole!"

Its head tipped back and another roar filled the room. With each roar, the heat seemed to grow and sweat was soaking into the thin material that lined her body, expanding as it tried to divert the moisture away from essential systems.

"Stop antagonising it," Ida said, sharply, sweat dotted across her hairline. "It's already angry."

"Yeah, and look at it, it's chained." Zoe gestured at the thick metal chains wrapped around its wrists and looped around its waist. She believed that if she inched closer to the edge and looked down, she might see its ankles chained as well. "And it's been like that for a long time so we're not physically in danger."

"I'm not willing to place my life on that."

"Ida." She cut her eyes to her new friend. "You know we're already dead, right? The rocket's gone, we can't get back to the surface...this is kind of it for us."

Her mouth tightened, skin turning white. "You didn't need to say it. You could've let me believe."

"Sorry," Zoe said with a grimace. "I just...I don't want to die either."

Ida sniffed and dragged her sleeve under her nose, sitting in the dust and staring up at the Beast, the chains rattling loudly, aggravating the pain in her head. "Why isn't it talking to us?"

"Because it wants to be dick?" She suggested, shoulders slumping over as the adrenaline began to fade from her system, eyes turning blurry. "But, honestly, I don't know. It wanted us here to watch its victory or whatever, which I maintain is narcissistic, but I don't know why it isn't talking to us. I thought we were going to die with it yabbering on in our ear." She groaned and lay back, her muscles twitching with pain. "As though death isn't bad enough without the Devil banging on."

Ida jabbed her fingers into Zoe's broken rib and she sat up, choking on the pain.

"Ow!"

"Don't fall asleep," Ida said. "You fall asleep, you die."

White consumed her vision, jaw aching, as pain radiated out from her rib. "That hurt."

"Good, it'll keep you awake."

"Your bedside manner is fucking awful, Dr Scott."

"I'm not that kind of doctor."

Zoe scowled as the sharp agony started to fade. "And the Beast is being really, really quiet right now, isn't it?"

A roar shook the room.

"That's not quiet," Ida said.

"Here we are, waiting to die, and its not gloating or anything," she continued, propping herself up on her elbows and staring at the Beast. "Doesn't that seem out of character to you?"

"A little," Ida admitted, looking over her shoulder. "I think...maybe..." she scrambled to her feet, kicking dust into Zoe's face, leaving her spluttering as she hurried to the wall. "What do you know about cave art?"

"Er –" she awkwardly got to her feet, casting a cautious look at the Beast behind her before making her way to Ida. "It's art in caves."

A small huff of amusement flared Ida's nostrils.

"In most cultures, cave art is generally considered religious or symbolic in its function," she explained. "Instead of telling a true story, it tells a story with a lesson or a moral in it like David and Goliath as you said earlier. But this art is different because it's actually telling us about the imprisonment of the Beast by the Disciples of the Light."

"Yeah, so?"

Ida poked the wall where the urns were crudely drawn. "Then what the hell do these do?"

"Decorative?"

"Oh, yes, that's likely," she said with enough sarcasm that Zoe wanted to laugh. "Let's imprison the actual devil but give it something nice to look at for all eternity."

"All right, sorry." She held up her hands and bit back her smile. "You're the expert. What do you think they mean?"

Ida turned back to the walls and examined the cave paintings closer, fingers running across the markings, the Beast pulling at its chains behind them.

"They dragged it in here and imprisoned it," Ida murmured. "Look here, I think this is them throwing the Beast into the pit but something as powerful as it is, it was never going to be held by chains alone."

"I don't know." Zoe eyed the Beast warily. "It hasn't exactly broken free of them."

They needed something else, a fail safe for after they were gone," she continued, ignoring Zoe as she traced the drawings, the answer just out of reach. "What was it though? What could it be?"

"The black hole," Zoe realised. "It wouldn't have a ship to escape through the gravity funnel so if it tried to leave the planet, it'd get sucked in. Zach said it earlier: When the door to the pit opened, the planet shifted towards the black hole, the gravity field weakened."

"Yes, that's it!" Ida moved quicker, fingers passing over the art swiftly. "But where is there a gravity funnel in the first place? Why not just make it so that there's no way off?"

"The funnel must be holding the planet in orbit like a rope or maybe like a magnet," Zoe theorised. "You said there's a massive amount of energy being put out by this place and the logical conclusion is that that's what's holding us in geostationary orbit but the energy had to beam somewhere so, my thinking is, it's the gravity funnel."

"But the Beast is powerful, it should've figured out a way to escape by now," Ida said. "Why hasn't it?"

Zoe pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and frowned. "Because the Disciples of the Light were also powerful and clever. If you're building a prison, you think through every possible route, right? They knew that it would try to escape – who wouldn't? An eternity here, that's boring – so what did they do to prevent him from ripping from of those chains and heading up the pit and out of the gravity funnel?"

"It has to be to do with this." Ida slapped her hand against the wall, frustrated, rocketing to her feet and glaring at the urns as though they had personally offended her. "They have to mean something."

"Could be some form of tech," Zoe considered. "A teleport straight into the black hole maybe. Hold on a second." She pulled off a glove and tossed it between the urns: It flopped to the floor. "Never mind the – ow!"

"Sorry," Ida said, not sounding sorry at all. In her fingers she held a few strands of Zoe's hair and she stood behind the urns before blowing the strands between them only for them to flutter to the ground. "Thought it might've been activated by biological matter."

"Next time use your own hair," she complained, rubbing her scalp as Ida ignored her and turned back to the urns, examining them with her nose an inch from their surfaces. She stayed behind the invisible line the urns created and glared up at the Beast, annoyed by its silence. "Why aren't you talking to us? Why've you suddenly stopped going on and on about us dying here? Surely you're gagging for a bit of conversation after an eternity of only having your thoughts for company. I spent four years aloneish and would've killed for some quality conversation."

Ida looked around, exasperated. "Don't put ideas into its head."

"I don't think it needs help thinking about killing us," Zoe replied. "It tried to kill Mickey and Scooti already when –" her mouth fell open, understanding sinking into her, turning her hot and then icily cold. "Oh, no."

"What?"

"Oh my god, we're so stupid." Her eyes closed, horror washing over her. "Its not here. Ida, its not here any more."

"What are you talking about?" Her hand came down on Zoe's shoulder and she pointed. "We can see it."

"Its physical form, yes, but its actual being, his consciousness, that's gone." She turned to stare at her, watching the faint colour that had found its way back into Ida's cheeks drain away as she understood. "Of course nothing came out of the pit when the door opened. Nothing needed to come out. It was already free."

Ida trembled. "Toby."

"Its probably been living in Toby all this time," Zoe said, mouth dry, heart thumping painfully against her broken rib. "Quietly, in the back of his mind, shadowing his moves like a predator. Toby wouldn't even have known anything was happening. For something like this creature, possession would be nothing to him."

Looking sick, Ida passed her hand across her mouth. "It's up there with the others. Zoe, it's on the rocket!"

Panic had Zoe pressing her fingers against her wrist communicator in an attempt to raise anyone on the rocket though it was a failure as the screen had turned blank in the presence of the Beast's body. She sucked in a deep breath and let it out, lips trembling, as she tried to concentrate, tried to remember that the Doctor had dealt with the weird, terrifying, and impossible before and that if anyone was able to save the rocket then it was him. And, if the worst had happened and he was dead, Jack was more than capable of figuring out what to do.

"What do we do?" Ida demanded. "How do we help them?"

"I – I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"This isn't exactly a routine day for me," she snapped. "Non-corporeal aliens, sure, but not the bloody devil!"

Ida pressed her fingers to her mouth, shoving a sob back inside. "There has to be something we can do. If the Beast gets off this planet, what will it do?"

"Death and destruction in whatever form that takes," Zoe said. "And, please, be quiet for a second, I need to think. I can't think with all this noise."

Mercifully, Ida fell silent, turning back to the urns though how much of them she took in, Zoe didn't know. Shifting back and forth on her feet, trying to keep herself awake and focused as the adrenaline made its way out of her body, she ignored the rumbling laughter from the Beast where there was enough of a connection left between the mind and the body to let its consciousness know that she and Ida were fully aware of the situation.

This is what it meant when it said it wanted a witness, she thought, furious with herself for playing into its hands, a faint thought of curiosity as to whether the Doctor would also have fallen into its trap.

"Stop." Zoe placed her hands over her ears and closed her eyes. "Panicking is for stupid people. You're not stupid. Think." Focusing her mind, she began to pick through the chaos of her worry and fear and pulled on a thread. "The Disciples must've known something like this would happen: Smart enough to imprison him, smart enough to think of a fail safe. What –?"

"The urns," Ida exclaimed.

"Enough about the bloody urns!"

"No, look!" She grabbed Zoe's elbow and pulled her around, dragging her back and showing her the way out. "This is it, this is the only way to leave the chamber here. It's big enough for the Beast to walk through and get up to the surface, it had to be because they needed to get him down here. But look at the urns. Look at the distance they are apart. What do you see?"

Zoe stared at the urns. "There's not enough space for it to get through. It'd have to move the urns to get through."

"And if you move the urns, what's the betting this planet shifts orbit?"

"Shutting down the gravity funnel at the same time," Zoe said, rapidly, excitement burning through her. "Yes! That's so clever. The only way it can get past the urns if it moves them or breaks them but if it does that then this whole planet goes straight into the black hole. No way out!"

"The fail safe," Ida laughed. "All we have to do is break the urn and that's it. He's dead. Us too but, like you said, we're already dead."

Zoe grinned and lightly punched her arm. "Cave art for the win, Dr Scott! We just need a – wait."

"What?" Ida stared at her, smile faltering on her face at the sudden change in her mood. "What is it?"

"The rocket," she said. "The Beast is on the rocket. If we break an urn then the rocket'll be pulled into the black hole with us with everyone on board."

"Scooti," Ida breathed. "We can't."

Zoe turned to stare at the Beast, horrified at the choice laid at her feet. "I think we have to."

"No," she said, firmly. "I won't let you."

"Listen to me!" Whirling around, she grabbed Ida's arm, pain bursting across her face as Zoe accidentally dug her fingers into her dislocated shoulder. "The Beast can't be allowed to leave. The damage it'd do to the universe? I can't even begin to imagine that and I know what damage can be done by people who think they know best. There was a war, Ida, that spanned all of time and space and it was fought between these two civilisations that were so powerful and they nearly ripped everything apart. But I think that'd look like child's play compared to what the Beast could do. You've seen its power; hell, you've seen its prison. It can't be allowed out."

"I won't sacrifice Scooti, I just won't!"

"Then you're choosing her over the rest of the universe," Zoe argued. "And she'll die anyway because she is on that rocket with the Beast right now. Do you honestly think they won't realise there's something wrong with Toby? Do you think the Beast will let them live when they know? No, he won't. He'll kill them and shove them out the airlock and then Scooti's dead and the Beast is free anyway."

Ida ripped herself out of her grip. "This isn't fair! I don't want to make this decision!"

"You're not the one making it," Zoe said. "I am."

And, with that, she grabbed the nearest rock that had tumbled free of the wall and swung it into the urn, Ida's scream ringing in her ears.

The Doctor snapped back to consciousness and tried to strangle Jack.

"Whoa!" Jack tipped back, head smacking into the back of Zach's seat as the Doctor's long arms tried to reach him, fingers straining. "Easy there, Doc. I know you're pissed but –" Legs free, the Doctor kicked him, a bruise immediately former on the tender muscles of his inner thigh, and Jack groaned. "Fuck, that hurt."

"Engines ready," Toby said, ignoring the commotion behind him. "Safety clamps disengaging."

"The starboard stabiliser isn't retracting," Scooti said. "You'll have to compensate, captain."

Zach's mouth twitched down. "Try and get it in. This is going to be tough ride even if everything's working perfectly. Jack, strap in."

"I need a moment," he said, eyes fixed warily on the Doctor who strained against the restraints that bound his arms to the chair, Mickey and Rose leaning away from him. "But take off, now. The Doctor's awake and if we're still on the ground when he gets loose –"

"Don't you dare take off," the Doctor snapped, bowing his head to gnaw at the mess of handcuffs, cable, torn cloth, and duct tape that kept his arms stuck to his chair. "Zoe's still on that planet and I –"

The final snap of the safety clamps breaking free echoed through the compartment, a sharp gunshot into the noise, a small jump running through the Doctor's shoulders as his eyes sought a display screen. Using his distraction, Jack pushed himself out of reach of the Doctor's legs – a rookie mistake to leave them unbound, he thought, thigh pulsing with pain as he strapped himself in, but it's not as though I had the time – and into a seat between Mickey and Rose.

The rocket shook, something rattling unnervingly around them, and the external levers tilted them back further and further until they were at a ninety-degree angle and the Doctor was forced to pause his escape attempt as the engines rumbled into a roar. The loud burn of fuel dug deep into their ears and Zach was barely audible over the noise as he forced as much power as possible into the engines, a tentative wobbling giving way to a smooth rise as they pushed up through the gravity.

"NO!" The Doctor slammed his foot into Zach's chair, jolting him forwards and earning a sharp, stinging rebuke for her troubles. "I can save her! You've got no right to do this, none at all!"

"Stop it," Rose ordered, shouting above the engines, tears tracking paths down her cheeks. "Please stop it!"

The Doctor fought against his restraints and the G-force, pulling his good arm up up and up and up, until there was a ripping sound before his arm was free. Somewhere behind him, Mickey swore, panicked, and he reached out to free his other arm. If he was quick enough, he would be able to pressurise an airlock and jump out of it. The fall wouldn't kill him. He was sure it would hurt like hell but it would mean that Zoe wasn't alone on the planet, that he was closer to her and the TARDIS, certain he would be able to find a way to get to her.

"Doctor, stop!" Jack kicked the back of his chair, unable to move forward as the G-force exerted its pressure on him. "What the hell good do you think you'll do by killing yourself? Zoe wouldn't want you to do that. She loves you but she doesn't want you to die uselessly for her."

Anger burned through him. "Don't you dare say her name when you left her behind to die!"

"Hey!" Mickey's eyes were visible, reflected in a window. "He loves her too."

"He's doing an awful job of showing it," he spat, clinging onto his anger as grief started to inch its way up his chest, settling in the hollow of his throat. "She went through hell to find you when you were taken and this is how you repay her?"

"Stop it," Rose yelled at them. "Stop fighting!"

The crack of her voice and the thick swell of emotion that made tears press from her eyes quelled the storm anger momentarily. He was furious at Jack and wanted him to hurt as much as he was, to feel the sting of betrayal, even as he knew – deep, deep down in a part of him that sounded annoyingly like Romana – that his friend had made the right decision, the same one he would have made had anyone but Zoe been down there. The knot of emotion in the Doctor's throat made him want to sob. His shoulders heaved as he did just that, turning his head to stare out of the window, peering past his miserable, pained expression to watch as Krop Tor grew smaller and smaller behind them until it was no longer visible.

As the distance grew between the rocket and the planet, the black hole gaping in the background, Zach eased up on the fuel and levelled them out.

Bile slicked his throat and his head throbbed with pain that came from the deep within. His head fell forwards, forehead resting against the cool window, his breath steaming it until his tears blurred with the condensation.

I love you, she whispered in his memory.

The first time in the TARDIS kitchen wearing a thin, ratty T-shirt and the weight of four years on her shoulders: I love you breathed like a revelation across his skin as she dared to take the leap.

Soft and warm in the morning when she rolled over in bed, mouth turning up in pleased delight at finding him still in bed with her: I love you pressed into his skin by her lips as she snuggled in close.

Light and filled with laughter when he did something stupid or funny or patently ridiculous and her eyes crinkled and her hands went to her hips and she laughed, properly, the deep, head back, honest laugh that he enjoyed: I love you grinned against his mouth when she pulled him in for a kiss.

Vaguely, almost as an afterthought, her mind on other things as she wander off to read, research, spend time with her friends, or any of the other million things she did without him: I love you brushed across his cheek with a burn of her lips, out of the room before his hearts remembered to beat once more.

Hot and desperate and hardly conscious of the words tumbling from her mouth as his hands moved over her body, her nails dragging against his skin, moving together – sometimes slow, sometimes not, sometimes gentle, sometimes not, the result always the same: I love you panted out of her kiss-bruised mouth, eyes dark and heavy with arousal, his fingers tightening on her in response.

"I love you," the Doctor whispered, touching his fingers to the slickness his breath had left behind.

He didn't know how – not yet – all he knew was that he was going to save her.

If it took centuries, he wouldn't stop until he felt her hand tucked in his again and feel those words against his skin once more.

A loud snap of a belt unhooking pulled him back into himself, shoulders hunching over, only for Rose to stagger forward and collapse in the seat at his side. He turned his head an inch, her face pale and wet, and she pressed her forehead against his bicep, curling her fingers into his jacket sleeve, a single, solitary sob rolling through her before she began to cry in earnest. Her quiet, heartbreaking weeping trembled against him, and he looked over his shoulder to find Jack and Mickey with their heads bent together, the sharp, ragged gasps of grief stretched between them, and he was reminded that he wasn't the only one who loved Zoe.

Toby laughed.

The inappropriateness of it had Rose snapping up, head whipping around, fingers flexing in the Doctor's jacket. "What the hell's so funny?"

"Sorry," he apologised, trying to smooth his features out, an amused snort bursting free, mouth stretching into a grin. "It's not funny. None of this is funny. It's just...we made it. We escaped. We actually did it."

"Not all of us," Scooti reminded him, her own face damp from her silent tears. "Ida and Zoe are still down there. Alone."

"And we're not out of it yet," Zach warned, the muscles in his arm straining against his T-shirt as he tried to hold the rocket steady, palms slick with sweat. "We're still the first people in history to fly away from a black hole so anything could happen. Nobody move, nobody try and do anything to turn this rocket around – and I mean you when I say that, Doctor; I'm sorry about your girl but we've got to think about the rest of us right now."

The Doctor looked away from him, too sick with grief to dignify his comment with a response.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or of the one, Zoe said, her voice rolling through his mind. Star Trek. A quote for every occasion.

He had laughed at the time, enraptured by the pleased look on her face that came half from having an opportunity to quote Star Trek and half from the glass of wine that tipped precariously in her hand, and leant forward to tug the collar of her loose shirt down, pressing a kiss to her sternum.

And what does Star Trek have to say about this?

Resistance, she had replied, legs falling open in invitation, is futile.

"Toby, read me the stats," Zach said, yanking him from the warmth of his memories. "And Scooti, how's the flap?"

"Gone, captain," Scooti replied. "Landing's going to be difficult but we don't need it in open space."

"And the gravity funnel's holding, sir, always holding," Toby said, settling back into his seat, pleased, and the Doctor stared at him, something pricking on the edges of his mind. "Stats at fifty three, funnel stable at sixty-six-point-five, Hull pressure constant. Smooth as we can, sir, all the way back home."

Do you ever think about putting down roots somewhere? Zoe had asked him one night, curled up in his lap in the library, their books long forgotten. A house with a garden or something.

I have the TARDIS, he had said, fingers splayed across the warmth of her thigh. She's my home.

Maybe she'd like a home too. Her nose pressed into the soft skin where his jaw met his neck and breathed in the warm scent of his cologne. Somewhere she can put down her TARDIS roots and grow little baby TARDISes. You could have a bushel of them.

A multitude, he remembered correcting. A group of TARDISes are a multi –

The Doctor blinked in the memory, abruptly aware that something was wrong. He cupped the back of Zoe's head and turned. He was standing in a cavern between two urns, a huge beast bearing down on him, sinewed mouth stretched open in a roar, and he fell back just as Zoe appeared from the side – dusty, bruised, and a little bloodied around the mouth – and swung a rock at him. He ducked and –

All the alarms blared at once, the Doctor thrown out of the memory and forward until he hit Zach's chair. Rose's hands scrambled against his back, trying to pull him upright, his mind trying to escape the memory.

The Beast was in his mind, forcing him into memories of Zoe to keep him distracted, losing control briefly when the Doctor made eye contact with him, dragging him down into the cavern where Zoe was – she's alive his hearts sang with relief – even as the air filled with the beeping and screaming of a computer system registering multiple problems simultaneously. Jack swore and Zach hit the console angrily as Scooti cried out, her hand slipping across the wall in search of a handhold on the ceiling above her, the rocket shaking until their teeth clacked together and their bones ached.

The nose of the ship twisted, bending around, a powerful drag pulling them back.

"We've lost the funnel," Zach exclaimed, disbelief coursing through him. "It's a gravity collapse! We're heading straight for the black hole."

"Fly us away," Rose cried, struggling with her safety belt.

"I can't, you can't escape a black hole," he replied, hands trying everything he knew how to do. "We're being dragged in."

"Good," the Doctor said, grabbing the back of Zach's chair and hauling himself up. "We're supposed to!"

"I'm not dying because you want to pull a Romeo and Juliet with your girlfriend," Toby yelled at him. "We need to get out of here!"

"It's the planet," Mickey said, eyes fixed out of the window at Krop Tor, watching in mawkish fascination as it keened towards the black hole, its orbit lost. "It's fallin'."

"As it should be," the Doctor replied. "This is Zoe's work. She figured it out and destroyed the orbit. She couldn't let the Beast escape, could she?"

Scooti twisted to gape at him. "What's that supposed to –?"

Rose screamed, terrified. "It's Toby! It's Toby! Oh my god, it's Toby!"

Toby's face was scrawled with the alien script, his eyes burning a fierce red that seemed to bleed out of his face, mouth drawn back in a snarl. Scooti yelled and Rose tried to scramble back from him, her safety harness trapping her in place, feet coming up from the floor as though she might be able to disappear into the safety of her chair. Mickey unstrapped himself and lunged forward, grabbing Toby, only to be flung into Zach, their heads smacking together with a loud thunk.

I am the rage, and the bile, and the ferocity. I am the Prince and the Fall and the enemy. I am the sin and the fear and the darkness.

Jack climbed out of his chair and pulled a garrotte masquerading as a pen from his pocket and wrapped the ends around his hands threateningly. "What the hell have you done to Zoe?"

Toby opened his mouth and breathed fire into the cabin, sending Jack lurching sideways to avoid being singed.

I shall never die. The thought of me is forever. In the bleeding hearts of men, in their vanity and obsession and lust. Nothing shall ever destroy me. Nothing!

The Doctor lunged forwards and slammed his hands onto either side of Toby's head and pushed. Every single mental reserve he had, he put into forcing the Beast from Toby's mind. He felt a wash of sheer surprise – the Beast unable to comprehend that someone would do something as monumentally stupid as attack him – before rage like the Doctor had never felt before rose up through him and seeped into the marrow of his bones. Thick, black, and tempting, every dark impulse he had ever had soared to the surface, the Valeyard made flesh, until Rose screamed his name and he remembered himself, remembered his vow, just long enough to open his eyes and stared into Toby's bleeding ones.

"Go to hell," he growled, shoving him from Toby's mind.

Toby screamed and collapsed, body shaking in a violent seizure that had Jack dropping his garrotte and surging forward to deal with even as the Doctor fell backwards, Rose softening his fall with her body. Mickey scrambled off Zach and dropped to the Doctor's side, his head pounding and body aching from his assault on the Beast, a powerful shiver rolling through him and refusing to leave him. Rose wrapped her arms around him and bowed her head over his, kissing his forehead and reaching for Mickey's hand, clasping it against the Doctor's chest.

"Is it gone?" Scooti asked, climbing over the back of her seat to get away from Toby's unconscious body. "Are we safe?"

The Doctor groaned in response.

"We're safe from the Beast, I reckon," Mickey said. "Not from the black hole though."

"We stopped it though," Rose said, petting the Doctor's hair nervously. "That's something. It can't hurt anyone now. The universe...it's safe."

"Well, when you put it like that, I feel almost heroic," Zach replied, hands shaking. "Shame no one'll know that we were heroes because we're going in. I can't stop our fall. The gravitational pull...I'm sorry. This is it."

Jack rested Toby's head on the cushion he ripped from the seat, shifting to kneel at the Doctor's side, hand joining Mickey and Rose's on his chest.

"Better death than I thought I'd get," he admitted. "Figured I'd end up knifed to death in a tacky bar somewhere. Probably with my trousers around my ankles."

Scooti laughed, a terrified, mirthless thing. "You getting a back alley blowjob and then stabbed is not what I want my last thought to be."

"Think of home," Rose told her. "Think of the people you love. That's what I'm going to do."

The Doctor's eyes fluttered, unconsciousness stealing over him, and he thought that was a nice idea so he conjured an image of Zoe standing in the red fields of Gallifrey surrounded by his children, grandchildren, and all the people he had lost.

All in all, it wasn't a bad way to die.

The crack of Ida's fist against the edge of her jaw and the entire planet shifting under her feet as it lost its gravity sent Zoe sprawling into the dust.

"What did you do?" Ida screamed, dropping to her knees to try and piece the urn back together. "You've killed them!"

The Beast's body roared furiously in its chains, pulling at the heavy metal with such force that fresh piece of wall came away, sending a shower of dust onto their heads. For the first time in her life, her mind was empty of the usual witty remarks that she lived on the tip of her tongue, a settled feeling of satisfaction and acceptance sweeping through her bones. She may have killed her friends but she had faith that the Doctor would be able to save them still. For all that she mocked him about his superior brain, he was the smartest person she had ever met and when he had his back against the wall, he was able to pull out all sorts of weird solutions that spun her mind.

He would save them.

He may not save her but Rose, Mickey, and Jack were safe.

Closing her eyes, she laughed, the rumble of it through her pushing against her sore rib. She wondered what it would be like to go into a black hole – as far as she was aware, no one had ever done that before, not even the Time Lords, and there was a hint of excitement growing in her chest at the thought that she was going to experience something that no one else had. She wouldn't be able to tell anyone about it, which was a shame, but she would at least see something new and exciting before she died.

The planet gave another heave and her body left the ground until she hit it again, the sudden tilt rolling her towards the edge. Her eyes snapped open and she scrambled against the ground for purchase, stomach bottoming out as she saw the depth of the chasm the Beast stood in.

"Too high," she gasped, pushing herself back and stumbling to her feet. "Ida, let's go."

Knelt in the dust, pieces of urn in her hands, Ida's shoulders shook. She wiped the blood from her split lip and grabbed Ida under the arms, her hand against her dislocated shoulder making Ida jump to her feet, crying out.

"They could've survived," Ida said, angrily. "They could've lived!"

"No, they couldn't," she said, grabbing her good hand. "Now, come on. I don't want to die with that ugly thing staring down at us."

Dragging Ida behind her, she fell into the wall when the planet shook again and she looked back at the Beast. It was furious and that thrilled her. Childishly, she stuck her tongue out at it, laughing at the roar of anger that provoked, before she pulled Ida back down the way they had come.

The epinephrine had faded from her system, replaced by the natural adrenaline that came when facing death. Her fingers shook and her skin felt wobbly, heart beating quick and irregularly in her chest, skipping every third beat as her body revolted against what was happening. Picking up the pace, she hurried further down the passage, wishing Ida would stop crying as the sound of her weeping was like nails on a chalkboard; she didn't know what she was doing, she only knew that she needed to keep moving because if she stopped and waited for the black hole to swallow her down, she would spend her last minutes in a state of terrified craze and she wanted to die as bravely as she could.

"I don't want to die, I don't want to die," Ida repeated behind her and Zoe found herself missing the crying. "Oh god, my family – they're never going to know. They won't know what happened here."

Zoe huffed, annoyed. "Could you please try and find the silver lining to all of this?"

"Silver lining?" The words rose on a wave of incredulity. "We're about to die!"

"Well, yes, but we're going to see the inside of a black hole so that's cool," she said. "It's little things like that that matter."

Ida yanked her hand from Zoe's and stumbled back. "You're –"

"Look out!"

The rock wall cracked, a deep crevice running from the ground up out of their eyeline, and a piece of it gave way. Zoe threw herself forwards and barrelled into Ida, knocking her back as the boulder came down where they had been standing. Vision whited out from the pain of landing on Ida's knees rib first, Zoe struggled for breath as Ida pulled herself out from beneath her body and bent doubled, dry heaving.

"Do you –?" Finding it difficult to speak, she sucked in a deep breath of air and tried to catch her breath. "Do you have any regrets?"

Ida glared at her. "Dying, obviously."

"A little more creative than that, come on," Zoe replied, wincing as she pulled herself back to her feet, bent double. "Like, I regret not visiting home more when I was at university. I should've gone home more than I did. That's something I regret."

Ida wiped her face, smearing a thick layer of dust across her skin. "Scooti. I regret not marrying her or telling her that I want to marry her. I was always...she's so much younger than I am. I didn't want to make her feel – it's stupid."

"It's not stupid," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Ida said, shoulders drooping. "Me too."

Another heave sent Zoe into the wall once more and she was getting tired of being flung around like a rag doll. Grabbing the edge of the crevice, she pulled herself forward and almost missed it. A flicker of light and the faint hum of –

"IDA!"

Her friend jumped. "What?"

"I've got a way out," she laughed. "Follow me."

"Wha –?" Ida watched as she disappeared into the crevice. "Zoe!"

Her voice echoed back to her. "Come on!"

With a lack of other options and not wanting to die alone, Ida sucked in her stomach and squeezed through the narrow crevice after Zoe. A feeling of claustrophobia hit her, mouth turning drier than it already was, and she closed her eyes as she pressed herself through while the planet shook and tilted, turning her stomach inside out, until Zoe's hand clasped hold of hers and pulled her through. Forehead smacking into something solid and wood, she opened her eyes and her vision filled with blue.

Zoe opened the door and pulled her inside.

"Oh my god," Ida gasped, eyes wide. "It's bigger on the inside!"

Laughter filled the air as Zoe staggered forward, grasping the edge of the console and patting it fondly. "I get why the Doctor likes that now. It's fun to hear."

"What – what is this?"

"This is my ship," she said, grinning. "Well, it's not mine. It's the Doctor's. I just live here. It's home though."

"I..." Ida gaped at the coral structures and the glowing blue time rotor. "It's made of wood."

"Only on the outside, now hold onto something," she ordered, hands flying across the console. Ida yelped as the time rotor began to move, a wheezing sound filling the air. "I'm going to be honest with you, my driving's only really good in normal space when we're not dealing with massive black holes and the devil so this may be pretty awful."

Pretty awful was an understatement. By the time the TARDIS settled at the Sanctuary Base, Ida felt as though she had been pulled apart and put back together in the wrong order. Bent over an umbrella stand, she emptied the contents of her stomach as Zoe opened the door and hurried out.

"Is there anyone here?" She yelled, her voice echoing through the empty corridors. Grabbing hold of a radio, she activated it to broadcast throughout the station. "This is Zoe Tyler, is there anyone still aboard this station?"

Ida stepped outside, pale and shaky, and worked her way around the TARDIS, fingers touching the ship in open amazement. "But it's wood! And it's so small."

"It's another dimension," Zoe explained, quickly. "And the outside's a camouflage to help us blend in."

She blinked. "It's a big blue box."

"I didn't say it was good camouflage." Her finger depressed the button on the radio again. "This is Zoe Tyler with Ida Scott. If there is anyone alive on this station, please respond. Ida, can you try and raise the rocket?"

Ida's hands smoothed over the front of the TARDIS. "But how do you even wrap one dimension around another?"

"Oh my god, Ida!" Exasperation burned through her throat. "Please can you –"

A door opened and an Ood stepped through, fear pricking at its eyes.

"Please," it said. "Take us with you."

Zoe stared past it, relief coursing through her body at the sight of the surviving Ood population, and she nodded. "Of course. Get in, quickly. Is the Beast –?"

"The Beast no longer lives in our minds," it said, Ida pressing her back against the wall as twenty-three Ood streamed into the TARDIS. "It's on the rocket."

"That's okay," she said, offering her hand to it, surprised at the dry warmth of its palm. "The Doctor's going to sort that. You're safe now."

Climbing back onto the TARDIS, she heaved herself to the console and stared at the computer screen. The lack of a gravity funnel made it extremely difficult to fly the ship as Zoe only knew how to pilot the TARDIS in normal space, the Doctor hadn't taught her how to do it under more difficult circumstances yet. Chewing on her lip, she attempted to calculate a flight trajectory that would land them on the rocket except every time she had co-ordinates, the rocket was flung violently out of reach and she had to start again.

"Dammit!" Her hands came down on the console, frustration in every inch of her body. "I can't get a lock on the TARDIS. I don't know how to account for the black hole."

"Doesn't the ship do it automatically?" Ida asked. "If you can put one dimension into another, surely you can –"

"I didn't do that, this isn't a human ship," she replied, knuckling the console as she tried to think. "I don't know how –"

"Please," the Ood said at her shoulder. "Allow us to help."

Zoe stared at him. "You know how to pilot a TARDIS?"

"No," it said. "But it is sentient, we can feel it. It has telepathic circuits."

She nodded. "It does."

"Please allow me access to them," it said.

Zoe pushed back and ran her fingers beneath the console, brushing her fingers over the button that opened the access panel to the telepathic circuits. Fascinated, she watched as the Ood carefully hooked its speech processor onto its jacket's pocket and slid its long, oval fingers into the gelatinous circuits. The TARDIS hummed around them, light flooding into the console room, and they were moved from the station. Zoe pulled the computer screen around to watch the rocket and keep an eye on what the Ood was doing, hope thundering through her, as the distance between them closed.

"How is it doing that?" Ida asked, a whisper in her ear.

"The Ood are the Keepers of Wisdom," Zoe said, remembering Jack's words. "I imagine there's not a lot they can't do."

Ida stared, confused. "But they live as slaves."

"Not through their choice, I imagine," she replied, eyes fixed on the screen. "It's not landing us on the rocket."

"What? No, it has to."

"Wait." She stilled Ida's fear and anger with a press of her hand. "It's – son of a bitch, it's creating a gravity lasso. It's anchoring the rocket to us, it's pulling them free."

"I – it can do that?"

"Apparently," she laughed, grabbing the radio and testing the connection. "Hello, is anyone over there? This is Zoe Tyler, please come in."

She and Ida held her breath, waiting, until –

"You're alive," Zach exclaimed and Ida laughed, forehead coming to rest on Zoe's shoulder, her body shaking. "Oh my god, we thought you were dead!"

"Not today, Ida and I had better things to do."

"Ida's alive?" Joy suffused his voice. "That is bloody brilliant news. Tell her that Scooti's fine too and – Jack, get off!"

"Zoe!" The sound of Jack's voice washed through her, tears pricking at her eyes. "You scared the shit out of us. Are you okay?"

"A little bruised and bloodied but I'm good," she admitted. "How's everyone?"

"Toby and the Doctor are unconscious but the Beast is gone," he replied. "The Doctor did something...I think he may still be doing something to keep it at bay. What are you doing? How are you pulling us free?"

"I'm not doing anything, one of the Ood is," she said. "Look, we'll be free of the gravity funnel in a few seconds. When we're clear, we'll do a swap, all right, Zach? I give you Ida and you give me my guys?"

"Sounds like a plan," Zach said, wrestling the radio back from Jack. "Your – er – ship looks like it'll fit in the food storage area just below us. Ida knows where it is, she can direct you."

"Copy that," she said, the computer screen pinging. "And we're entering clear space now. See you in a few."

The Ood slowly withdrew its fingers from the telepathic circuits and blinked, staring at her. "Your ship is a thing of wonder, Zoe Tyler."

"She is, thank you," Zoe said, stepping forward to wrap her arms around it, holding it tightly. "And thank you for that. You saved us all."

"I am happy to serve," it said, words twisting through Zoe's chest.

She pulled back and smiled. "Listen, you don't have to go back with Ida. There's no need for it. My friend says that there's a planet with your people on it, the Ood Sphere. We'll be more than happy to take you there, take you home."

Its head tilted to the side, eyes glancing over at its fellow Ood as it communicated silently with them. "Thank you for the offer. We will accept."

"Good," Zoe said, grin sliding across her face. "Do love it when I can break up a slave thing. Always makes the day better." She pulled herself closer to the console and closed the telepathic circuits. "Right, this bit I can do."

It took three attempts and a volley of curse words before Zoe successfully landed the TARDIS in the food storage room. She offered her hand to Ida and smiled when she took it, pulling her into a hug.

"Thank you," Ida breathed into her ear. "It was absolutely terrifying but...thank you."

"And you," Zoe said, hugging her back. "Now go, marry Scooti. Make sure that she knows you love her as often as you can."

Ida laughed, wiping at her eyes. "And you go home more often."

"I will," she said. "See you around, Dr Scott."

Ida paused at the door and looked back into the console room, eyes sweeping over the Ood and the incongruity of the ship itself, before she stepped out into Scooti's waiting arms, their reunion filling the TARDIS with laughter and crying and rushed professions of love. Edging around them, Rose burst into the console room, sprinted up the ramp, and slammed into Zoe who groaned loudly at the impact.

"Broken rib, broken rib," she gasped.

"Sorry!" Rose pulled back, apologetic, shifting to hug her more gently. "I thought I'd gone an' bloody lost you, you stupid, stupid idiot."

Zoe pressed her face into her sister's shoulder and nodded. "Sorry."

"There she is," Jack exclaimed, happily, the Doctor strung between him and Mickey, head lolling forwards, unconscious. "I had full faith in your ability to tell the devil to go fuck himself. Well done."

Zoe hurried forwards, touching the Doctor's chest. "What's wrong with him?"

"Telepathic overload, I think," he said, managing to kiss Zoe's cheek despite the encumbrances between them. "Mickey and I'll get him to the med bay. You may want to get us off this rocket."

She nodded, reluctant to leave the Doctor when he was injured. "Are they okay? Do they need any supplies?"

"If you could give them a little kick in the right direction," he suggested, starting in surprise when a number of Ood stepped forward to take the Doctor from him and Mickey, lifting him from the ground to carry him to the medical bay, guided by the TARDIS. "They'll have a long journey otherwise."

Mickey wrapped his arms around her. "Hey."

She smiled up at him. "Hi."

"You're right," Jack said, stepping into her and dragging Rose in. "Group hug first, then everything else."

Zoe laughed, fingers curling into the back of Mickey's shirt as she fought against the tears that threatened to fall, the feeling of home and safety wrapped around her like a warm blanket.

It was over, finally.

The Doctor woke to the sound of Zoe's voice. He resurfaced through the fog of painful unconsciousness, head throbbing the instant he became aware of himself once more, and he latched onto Zoe's voice, using it to pull himself out of the darkness. The soft, gentle beeps of the medical bay and the warm, solid presence of the TARDIS in the back of his mind confused him. The last thing he remembered was the certainty that he was going to die and he was a little surprised that he hadn't. There was something warm and familiar in his hand and he flexed his fingers to feel it, Zoe falling silent until her face appeared over his. A smile spread across her mouth, eyes soft with relief.

"Hey, you," she greeted. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

"Zoe..."

"Hold on a second," she said, thumb smoothing over his temple. "Ood Julian just needs to check you over, okay?"

His forehead turned down in a frown, Ood who?

Warm, dry hands brushed over him and the Doctor grunted in surprise as an Ood stood over him dressed in the white medical scrubs that were kept in the medical bay in case anyone needed a sterile change of clothes. It looked cleaner than any Ood the Doctor had seen before – which, admittedly, were only those on the Sanctuary base – and its hands moved competently over him, a small hypospray pressed against his neck to ease the throbbing in his head, and long, oval fingers rubbed telepathic suppresser pads onto his temples.

"You have experienced a great upheaval in your telepathic pathways," Ood Julian informed him. "Please do not remove the suppressers for twenty-four hours. Your mind needs time to heal."

He stared. "Okay."

"Can I take him back to our room?" Zoe asked. "He'll be more comfortable there."

"You may."

"Thank you," she said, turning back to the Doctor. "Come on. Let's get you into bed. The Ood are taking care of things while we rest."

"The Ood?" His arm went around her shoulder and she helped him sit up, the world spinning. "Why are they here?"

"I couldn't exactly leave them behind, could I?" She asked, staggering a little under his weight as he got to his feet. "And I wasn't going to let Zach and his crew take them just so they could be slaves again. No. I promised them we'd take them to the Ood Sphere when we could. Right now, they fixing the TARDIS's bumps and bruises. She really likes them. She keeps preening."

Lights flickered in protest when they stepped out into the corridor.

"Oh, don't give me that," Zoe shot back, amused. "You're flirting and you know it."

The TARDIS delivered the equivalent of a mental raspberry before falling silent.

"What –?" It took him a few moments to find his rhythm while walking, strength seeping back into him and he realised that he had a nutrient bag taped to his arm. "How long have I been unconscious?"

"A day," Zoe said. "I was beginning to get worried you wouldn't wake up. Mickey told me that you attacked the Beast with your mind?"

A shadow of pain at the memory washed through him. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"I bet it did," she replied, hand sliding against their door and the sight of their bed stretched through the Doctor, calling him towards it. "Do you want to shower or anything? I can run you a bath if you want."

"I just want to..." he gestured at the bed and she pulled the covers back an instant before he tipped into it, face buried in her pillow. "Ow."

Grabbing his legs, she rearranged him in bed until he was propped up by a multitude of pillows and covered by the blankets. He watched her all the while, drinking in the sight of her, not sure if he was dead and this was his version of paradise. She stripped out of her clothes and pulled on one of Jack's T-shirts that had got mixed up in their laundry, climbing into bed with him and plastering herself against his side.

"I was so scared," Zoe whispered into his neck. "I thought you – I wasn't sure I'd see you again."

His arms tightened around her. "I hate you a little for that damned message Ida recorded."

She sniffed. "I know."

Warm and alive in his arms, the Doctor nudged her jaw with his nose and kissed her when she looked up. A small, desperate sound of yes, please rolled from her throat and his hands shook as he hooked his fingers around her underwear and helped her shimmy out of them. It was hardly the best sex they had ever had, both too emotionally frayed to make it good, but it was a welcome reminder that she was alive and they were back together. Afterwards, he rested his forehead against her collarbone, his quiet tears of relief leaving a dark stain on the grey cloth.

"The others?"

"They're fine," Zoe said, carding her fingers through his hair. "Rose is helping with the Ood. There's a lot of injuries among them that seem to be quite old. She thinks that they weren't given medical care on the base and is determined to make them feel better now. Mickey's helping with the repairs – I think he quite likes the opportunity actually since you don't normally let him fiddle. And Jack is trying to find the location to the Ood Sphere with Ood Margaret and Ood Frank. The TARDIS doesn't have record of it in her database so it's a bit of crapshoot."

A small frisson of anger rolled down his spine at Jack's name, pushing it away so that he didn't ruin his time with Zoe.

"Are the Ood named after your frogs?"

"Yes, some of them," she said. "We asked what their names were but they didn't have any, just numbers. Rose said they should choose names that mean something but Ood Diana saw the frogs in the garden, took a shine to them, but there were only five names to go around so the others chose floral names. One of them's called Lemon."

His mouth flattened as he tried not to laugh. "Really?"

"Ood Lemon loves the lemon tree," she replied. "I've promised them I'll teach them how to make lemon slices before they go."

The Doctor tightened his arms around her waist. "I love you. I love you, you ridiculous, reckless, kind-hearted idiot."

Shuffling down in the bed so that they were nose to nose. "I love you too."

"Say it again," he requested. "Please."

"I love you," Zoe said, fingers brushing through his hair. "I love you so much."

He shuddered. "I thought I wasn't going to hear that again."

Her eyes closed. "It was...I think it was only pure luck that got us out of there. When the planet was falling to the black hole, it cracked the wall and there was just enough space to squeeze through and get to the TARDIS. If that hadn't happened...well, we'd both be experiencing the inside of a black hole right now."

"Don't," the Doctor said. "I don't want to think about that."

"Sorry."

Drawing his fingers across the skin on her hip, he looked at her. "What did you find down there?"

Zoe opened her mouth to respond only to sigh, rolling onto her back in the shade of his arms, fingers touching the bottom of his jaw. Jack, Rose, and Mickey had asked her what she had seen in the pit as well, their curiosity unable to remain silent for long, and she hadn't known what to say then either. As the hours slipped away and she grew more distant from the experience, she was less certain about what she had seen.

"I don't know," she admitted. "It was...the Beast...I honestly don't know. It was powerful and it was terrifying and it said things to me that –" she frowned, rubbing her eyes. "What do you think it was?"

His eyes dipped down in thought. "I don't know either. It said before time but I don't know if I can believe that."

"It said something about the Dvapara Yuga and then when it died, it was transformed from its original state and made into a physical form," she said. "I don't know if that means anything."

He blew his cheeks out. "The name Dvapara Yuga is just a name that people have given to the universe that some believe existed before ours," he replied. "Maybe that's what it meant but time must've existed them. I can't – I don't understand how anything could flourish in that chaos otherwise, corporeal or otherwise."

She ghosted her fingers over the line of his jaw. "There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio."

He huffed. "All right, yes, I get it. I don't like not knowing though."

"Really?" Her eyes widened in faux surprise. "That is new information to me."

He poked her in the side and she twisted away from him, laughing. After everything, the sound of her laughter and the feel of her body in bed next to him was all he had ever wanted and more. Wrapping his arms around her, he curled his body at her back and kissed her neck.

"And you're okay?"

Her hand rubbed over his. "I'm okay."

"The Beast...it didn't upset you, did it?" The smell of her shampoo tickled the inside of his nostrils. "With what it said?"

Monster in the making.

She shuddered, eyes closed. "Of course it did."

"You're not –"

"But it said something else too," Zoe continued. "When Ida and I were abseiling down the side of the pit, it spoke to me again. It said..." hesitance wrapped around her and she curled her fingers around his. "It called me a hybrid, again."

"You are mixed race," the Doctor said. "That doesn't always translate appropriately in alien languages."

"It isn't the first to call me that," she reminded him. "The werewolf at the Torchwood Estate called me that too. And the Beast – it said something else. It said that I was brought into existence on the edges of a mistake." His body stilled behind her, fear dropping into her stomach. "Doctor?"

"You shouldn't listen to the devil," he told her. "There are entire religions based around why doing just that is a bad idea."

Zoe twisted, turning in her arms. "It said you haven't told me something, that you're afraid of what it means. What was it talking about?"

In his face, she saw that the Beast was right. There was something he hadn't told her and a feeling of betrayal pounded through her before she knew what was happening. She pulled back, tried to free herself from his arms, but he held her in place.

"No, wait," the Doctor said, panic leaping into his tone. "I...there is something that I've been worried about. I was waiting, that's all, looking for more information. And I don't know what it means, not really. It's why I wanted to wait before telling you anything. I wanted – I needed – to be sure."

She felt sick. "What is it?"

The Doctor closed his eyes and exhaled: It was time to tell her the truth.