"I'm with Emma," Rose said after Ten had wiggled his fingers at us some more and said some techno babble that Ten Two had nodded along to. I figured they were probably just solidifying their theory, but it would have been nice if they had just skipped including us in that part before they explained. Ten pulled his hands apart.
"Our world. Pete's world." Ten waved his right hand and left hand respectively and I pointed at his left hand.
"Pete's world is parallel world?" I clarified, and he nodded so I made a gesture for him to keep going.
"A ship appears in Pete's world and wants to get to our world. But there's the void in the middle." He moved his left hand like he was pressing on an invisible box and I nodded.
"The void is big and expansive and takes a lot of energy to punch through. So instead the ship drags a little bit of Pete's world into our world, until they mush." He dragged his left index finger over to his right slowly before he linked his fingers together.
"And now we're mushed together," Ten Two said.
"How exactly does it take less energy to drag part of Pete's world over to ours?" I asked because the math on that one just didn't seem to add up.
"Well it is easier to put a blanket over a globe than shove it through the middle," Ten Two said.
"That makes sense," Rose said, and I nodded. I studied Ten's hands and reached out to move them up and down slightly,
"What happens if we don't un mush?" I asked. Ten Two came to stand next to me and clapped a hand on my shoulder while leaning over my shoulder to gesture at Ten's hands. My stomach swooped again, and I closed my eyes tightly as my ears started to ring.
"Emma!" Ten cried sharply as I teetered to the side and his hands were around my elbows in an instant to drag me a few steps away from Ten Two.
"You were supposed to tell me the instant you felt weird," Ten snapped and pushed me down to sit on something. I opened my eyes as the symptoms went way and my nose started bleeding again.
"It just happened," I mumbled defensively and dutifully held the handkerchief in place that Ten shoved under my nose to catch the blood.
"What just happened?" Rose and Ten Two asked at the same time.
"It must be the void stuff reacting to the time energy," Ten said after he had waved the sonic over me a few times. Ten Two frowned.
"Time energy?" He echoed.
"What don't I do funny things to your mostly Time Lord insides?" I asked and Ten shot me a look like he couldn't decide whether he was amused or not. Ten Two sent me a confused look.
"That's you?' He asked incredulously, and I nodded. Ten gave them a quick rundown of how I had come to possess time energy filled blood, and why he thought that I was having these physical symptoms due to the fact that I hadn't crossed the void and the void stuff was almost the exact opposite of the time energy.
"Absolutely typical," I said as I handed Ten his handkerchief back. "Can we answer my question about what happens if we don't unmush now?"
"The two worlds will probably collide and most likely everyone will die," Ten Two said.
"Well when you put it like that my minor symptoms are definitely our top priority," I said and Ten gave me a fondly exasperated look. Rose reached out to Ten Two and dragged him away from us to give us privacy.
"Sorry Emma you can't sass away my concern this time," he said and reached up to cup my face, with a great deal of worry still behind his eyes. I gave him a smile.
"I mean I've succeeded about seventy five percent of the time before this," I said. He sighed resignedly so I chalked that one up as a win.
"I'd ask you to go back to the TARDIS, but I have a feeling you wouldn't make it," he said, and l tipped my head to the side. "Either because of your 'minor symptoms' or because of your tendency to not end up where you're supposed to."
"Russia, Typus Seven and Draconia were not my fault," I said instantly, and he laughed.
"That's kind of my point. To say nothing of your complete lack of a sense of direction," he said as he held out his hand to help me stand up. I grinned as well and let him pull me to my feet.
"How do we unmush the worlds?" I asked and Ten Two raced his hands through his hair.
"There would have to be something on this ship that's hold them together like this. If we can take it apart then the worlds should snap back to where they're supposed to be," he said. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and held it out to Rose.
"So, we split up and try to find it. You can call Ten on this if you find it first," I said, and Rose nodded and took the phone from me carefully, like she was being extra cautious not to touch me.
"Be careful. Something's controlling this ship," Ten warned before we set off down the hallway the opposite way of Rose and Ten Two. I let us walk in silence for a few moments before I decided that I couldn't wait anymore.
"Are you going to tell me why you're being weird?" I asked, and he frowned at me. "You barely looked at Rose. I thought you would have a completely different reaction."
"Rose is complicated," he said with a heavy sigh. I rolled my eyes.
"So is everything with you." I reached out and took his hand and squeezed tightly.
"Story for a story?" I offered, and he nodded in agreement, so I smiled at him. "She was the first face this face saw, that's special right?"
"Rose was the first companion I had after the war, she was the first one who combatted all the ugliness that came with it." He paused, and I nodded, remembering what he'd shown me about Cassandra O'Brien the first time he'd met her.
"Do you remember what I said to you after the Silurians?" he asked, and I looked up at him in confusion.
"About how you were happy to be able to return the favour about picking up pieces?" I clarified, and he nodded.
"Somehow despite all the ugliness that Rose had to deal with she fell in love with me and I – I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure if what I felt was love or just gratefulness for the fact that she helped me pick up some of my pieces."
"Then she got stuck in Pete's world and I realized that most of the pieces she had picked up she hadn't put back. She'd just been holding them sort of. But I was stubborn and refused to accept it, right up until I saw her again when the Reality bomb happened. I had changed because I had actually put some pieces back, and Rose hadn't changed at all. It seemed like she was just ready to sweep in and continue on as if nothing had changed."
"And this time you weren't sure if she and Ten Two had fixed each other?" I guessed, while trying to not be overly touched by the fact that he had subtly implied that I had put the pieces back that I had picked up. The Doctor nodded.
"More or less. The metacrisis happened and it was the best ending I could give her. A me that was just as broken as I was when we met, a me that she could fix for herself."
"I'm sure she's realized what you gave her," I said reassuringly, while desperately hoping I was right. Ten Two certainly loved Rose, any idiot with eyes could see that, but I wasn't quite so sure with Rose. It seemed like she was holding herself back slightly.
"I hope so. The only thing I've ever wanted for my companions is happiness. Happiness with me and happiness after me," he said.
"I know." He gave me an encouraging look and I thought about what I hadn't already told him that would be on a slightly equal level of emotions as his.
"The worst fight my parents ever had was when I was ten. I'd watched a movie and decided I wanted to try climbing a tree, so I went to the clearing where we met because I was attached to the trees there." I flashed him a quick smile which he returned. "I lost my grip and fell and broke my arm. I went home and told my parents what happened, and they had a huge fight about who's fault it was. My Dad claimed it was my Mom's fault because she had let me watch the movie and my Mom claimed it was my Dad's fault because he hadn't notice me leave the house."
"I walked to the hospital and then called Dad when I got there because my parents were fighting so much that I didn't trust them to take me themselves. When they did show up at the hospital Dad had already been there for an hour and they were still fighting, and they kept fighting up until the moment security showed up and escorted them out about forty-five minutes after that." I glanced up at the Doctor and he looked pale and a little bit ill.
"Oh Emma. What happened after?" He asked.
"Child services told my parents that they would remove me from the house unless they got couples therapy. They fought about that, but they went. And you know how well that didn't work," I said, and the Doctor threw his arms around me and dragged me against him tightly.
"Every time you tell me something about your parents, I think it can't get any worse than the last story. I would love it if you would stop proving me wrong someday," he said into the top of my head. I tucked my head under his chin.
"There's a reason why I don't like talking about them." I detached myself from him slowly and gave him a reassuring smile. "Now that we've got all the emotional stuff out of the way shall we continue on with the exploration?"
"Yeah," he said with a crooked grin and we walked through a few more nondescript hallways before we came upon a large open room that was several degrees colder.
"Well this place isn't creepy at all," I said as I crossed my arms over my chest for warmth. The Doctor ran his hand up and down my spine idly like he was trying to contribute to my warmth as he skimmed his gaze over the room.
"I wonder what it's for," he said before gently steering me towards the huge desk at the front of the room with pressure from the hand that he settled at the small of my back before he went back to smoothing up and down my spine once we were leaning over the desk. The Doctor frowned harshly as he tried to sonic the table into telling him what secrets it held. I smiled before I skirted the desk and started digging through the drawers. I put all the tablets I found on the top of the desk for the Doctor to deal with.
"I think this drawer is broken," I said as I pulled on it and it only opened halfway. I pursed my lips and pulled as hard as I could, and I heard a weird click when it flew open. I looked up at the Doctor in surprise just as the lights shut off and another weird clicking sounded behind me. I screamed as arms wrapped around me, lifted me up and started carrying me away.
"Emma!" The Doctor shouted, and I heard a huge thud like he'd hit the table. "Emma!"
I couldn't see what grabbed me and when I fought against whatever it was it gave me a harsh hit against the back of my head.
When I lost the daze from my head injury, I realized that I was in a small room full of Cybermen parts. I screamed in alarm before I could stop myself and Rose appeared in my vision.
"Calm down!"
"Can't," I squeaked as I started hypervenalating.