Hi Guys! The new chapter is here! Funny thing, it took me two weeks to write it but 3 weeks and 4 people to decide where it should stop lol so enjoy! Please tell me what you think of it, I love to know :)
Big up to my beta and the friends who also helped me choose the ending of this chapter.

Chapter 31

"Can you just admit that we're lost already?" Rose sighed after they passed the same Node for the fifth time in a row.

"We're not lost," the Doctor replied grumpily, his sonic high in the air. He was trying to track the signal he had downloaded from one of the terminals, but the Moon' signal was interfering with the reading, and he could only partially track it, making it harder to follow. But he was sure they were close. "It's just hard to follow, so it's taking more time."

"That is literally the definition of the word lost, Doctor," she said with a smile. When he turned around, ready to argue once again, his expression softened when he realized she was playing with him. He smiled at her, his manner radiating the joy he was feeling at the fact she was teasing him, like nothing had happened. He knew he would soon be gone, with everything happening around them, but he could not help but cherish these moments. Before Rose could ask him what's gotten into him, as her puzzled expression was saying, his sonic bipped a few times. Telling him it had found the place they wanted to go. And when he extended the ear, he could effectively hear sound in the distance.

"Found them!" He said, triumphantly. "Told you we weren't lost."

"Yeah yeah..." She made a vague gesture, showing she was only a bit impressed. "I'll remember that the next time we have to run for our lives because you've mistaken right from your left. Again."

"That wasn't me. That was Jack. And the second time was because SOMEONE…" He looked at her insistently. "Was looking at the map upside down."

"I can't read Geltap. How could I know," she replied in a deadpan type of tone. They had a few seconds of silence before they fell into a fit of giggles, almost falling into each other at the memory that had been long discussed when they were still travelling together the first time around.

"That's weird you know," They could hear the River's voice becoming clearer and clearer as they moved in their direction. "They came when I called, like they always do. Rose is well… Rose, but looking at him and seeing a virtual stranger instead of my Doctor is pretty unnerving. I mean I knew he was different before, I've seen pictures...You wouldn't believe what he wore before. Thank god Rose didn't meet him then, she would have run for the hills...They are still the Doctor and Rose in the TARDIS. Next stop, everywhere. But it feels...strange."

"Finally found you!" Rose called out, trying not to show she had been listening. And before he could open his mouth and ruin everything, she nudged him in the ribs, making him cough with surprise.

"So how was it?" asked River, curious to know what they learned.

Rose shrugged. "Well we almost died and they're hell bent on killing us all, I think. So same old, same old.."

"If they want to kill us so bad, why haven't they gotten me yet?" Anita asked in an anguished voice. Rose didn't have the heart to tell her she still had two shadows, and by the look on the Doctor and River's face she wasn't the only one.

" I don't know," the Doctor responded with a gentle voice, trying his best to reassure her. "Maybe tinting your visor's making a difference."

Anita scoffed, crossing her arms in a gesture of clear anger, and no one could really blame her. "It's making a difference all right. No one's ever going to see my face again."

Rose wanted to touch her to comfort her, show she was not alone, but she could not risk accidentally crossing the wrong shadow. So she only smiled. "Anything I can do to help?" she asked kindly.

"Well dying old in my bed. Anything you can do?" Anita said harshly, without even turning her face.

"On it!" replied the Doctor, the sonic in his hand.

"Doctor," she continued, her whole body turning to face him. "When we first met you, you didn't trust Professor Song. And then she whispered a word in your ear, and then you did. I could do with a word like that. What did she say?" When the Doctor seemed hesitant to respond, exchanging a look with Rose, she pressed on. "Give a dead girl a break. Your secrets are safe with me."

The Doctor perked up at the words. "Wait. Safe."

"What?" Rose, River and Anita all said at once.

"Safe. You don't say saved." He turned around, his eyes wild and crazy." Don't you understand? Nobody says saved! You say safe." He pointed at Lux. "The data fragment! What did it say?"

"Four thousand and twenty two people saved. No survivors," he said, not really sure where the Doctor was going with this.

The Doctor jumped up and down, going crazier by the second. "Don't you see? Nobody says saved. Nutters say saved. You say safe. You see, it didn't mean safe. It meant, it literally meant, saved!"

"Wait does that mean…" Rose started, not really wanting to get her hopes up.

"Yes! Donna and all those people are alive!" he exclaimed. Then with a shout, Rose jumped in his arms, laughing with joy and relief. They had hope that they could still save them all.

"So what do we need to do?" River asked, her face once again serious. She was clearly ready to be back into the action.

"Easy, we need to access the archives. Something happened 100 years ago, and it's the only source of information that would tell us what it was." He turned to Dave. "We'll need to open one of the panels, so I need you to make sure I stay connected while we search."

Dave nodded, relieved to finally have something to concentrate on instead of thinking about their impending death.

Rose nudged the Doctor before he could go on full research and forget about the rest of them. "And us?"

"Rose, keep watch, I will be completely focused on the terminal, and we need to be prepared to run at the first suspicious sound or shadow." He looked briefly at the others before ducking his head so only Rose could hear him. "You are the only one I trust completely, what River said be damned. Our life is in your hands." Before she could react, he turned around with a bright smile on his face again. "Anita, can you stay with Lux? I want everyone to huddle together as much as possible. River, with me, I will need a second pair of eyes while Dave holds the panels." He threw one last look at Rose before pointing his sonic to one of the screens who were around them.

Rose blinked, still under the shock of what he said, feeling like she had been hit by lightning. She knew she was supposed to focus on the ambient sounds or the growing shadows that were popping up around them with the loss of light. But her mind could only replay his words in a loop again and again. He had never been one too keen on talking about his feelings, he was more of a 'blink and miss it' kind of alien. But when he decided to make a stand, knowing what the future held, those words were like a knife to the heart.

She looked at him and River, all serious and focused on the task at hand and wondered once again what she was for them in the future. She tried to imagine them together but failed. She knew he was not her Doctor, she told it as much, but was she not supposed to love them all if she was married to him in the future? Yet, she was looking at him more with curiosity than anything else. She could read a certain affection if she was concentrating hard enough, even a certain familiarity but nothing more. And if she was honest with herself, that bothered her even more than knowing he was not her to keep. She had loved her first Doctor with everything she had, still loved him, but she loved this one just as much. Because he was still the Doctor, the same one that took her hand and said run. So how River could not?

The Doctor, oblivious of Rose's restlessness, made a noise of appreciation when the screen lit up with all the information he wanted. "See?" He pointed to River after a few seconds of skimming the files he had found. "There it is, right there. A hundred years ago, a massive power surge. All the teleports going at once. Soon as the Vashta Nerada hit their hatching cycle, they attacked. Someone hits the alarm. The computer tries to teleport everyone out."

"It tried to teleport four thousand twenty two people?" Her voice was a bit skeptical, like she could not fathom how it was possible.

He nodded with a manic smile." It succeeded. Pulled them all out, but then what? Nowhere to send them. Nowhere is safe in the whole library." He tapped a few times on the screen, pages scrolling at an alarming speed. "Vashta Nerada growing in every shadow. Four thousand and twenty two people all beamed up and had nowhere to go. They're stuck in the system, waiting to be sent, like emails." He turned to the rest of the group, aware they were all now listening. "So what's a computer to do? What does a computer always do?"

River looked briefly at Rose "Saved them?" She suggested with an uncertain tone.

He jumped around, clapping her shoulder with a grin. "Exactly!" He looked around for a few seconds and motioned them to follow him. "The library," he continued, stopping in front of one of the tables, clearing everything that was on it. He took out a sharpie from one of his pockets and started to draw on the now clear table. "A whole world of books, and right at the core, the biggest hard drive in history." He was in full professor mode, and everyone was hanging to his every word, which Rose could not help but smile at. That's when he was at his best. "The index to everything ever written. Backup copies of every single book. The computer saved four thousand and twenty two people the only way a computer can. It saved them to the hard drive."

"You mean, the core of the planet?" asked Rose, trying to make sense of what he was saying.

But before he could respond, an alarm suddenly screamed all around them, loud and menacing, drowning every possible other sound.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Lux called out with agitation as he looked all around him. "Did you touch something you were not supposed to?" he accused while turning to the Doctor. His tone was accusatory and suspicious.

"Uh Doctor?" Dave interrupted, who had not moved from where he was. "You need to see this."

But they didn't need to. It was flashing on every screen around them "Autodestruct enabled in twenty minutes."

Rose blanched. "Does that mean what I think it means?"

The Doctor nodded, already hurrying to the nearest monitor, his sonic in hand. "In twenty minutes, this planet's going to crack like an egg if we don't do something."

"No. No, it's all right." Lux smiled, his demeanor relaxing as he sat down on the table the Doctor had been busy drawing on. "The Doctor Moon will stop it. It's programmed to protect Cal."

Rose wanted to ask him what Cal was, but the Doctor screamed before she could. When she turned around with panic, he was banging on a monitor with a frustrated frown on his face.

"All library systems are permanently offline. Sorry for any inconvenience," a metallic voice said, repeating the phrase again and again, making the Doctor visibly more annoyed the more the voice repeated itself.

Lux lost all color beside her. "We need to stop this. We've got to save Cal."

The Doctor stopped completely and turned around, his attention completely on Lux. Rose had the sudden impression she missed something important. And the look on River's face showed she was not the only one. "What is Cal?" he asked.

Lux looked down, an agitated look on his face before his shoulder dropped. "We need to get to the main computer. I'll show you. Just… Promise to be cautious," his voice was small and resigned, and Rose felt a pang of sadness for him. He was visibly trying to keep something, and was forced to show his hands without having been given a choice. She felt for him.

The Doctor, sensing that more was a stake, merely nodded. "It's at the core of the planet. We need to find a map." He turned to Dave. "Do you think you could turn one of the computers back?"

"No need, River said, her sonic pointed at the library logo in the middle of the compass rose on the floor. To everyone's surprise and amazement the logo opened, making room for a platform. "Gravity platform," she said with a grin.

"How did you know it was there?" asked Rose with astonishment. River was really full of surprises. It was almost not fair how awesome and badass that woman was.

She shrugged. "I memorized the blueprint of the planet."

Rose could not help but laugh. This woman was clearly one to travel with the Doctor, no doubt about that.

Without another word, the six of them stepped on the platform and waited for it to go down.

The globe that was the core of the planet was slowly rotating, swirling with energy. The words 'autodestruct in fifteen minutes." flashing in an angry red all around it.

"The data core. Over four thousand living minds are trapped inside it," the Doctor uttered reverently as they all looked up with silence.

"Yeah well, they won't be living much longer," River reminded them as she walked in what they supposed to be the interface. "We're running out of time."

The Doctor was the first one to it, and without another word, pushed his sonic into what Rose supposed to be the power button. As the screen turned on, the voice of a young kid erupted around them, startling Dave who jumped in fright. "Help me. Please, help me." The voice produced a slight echo in the empty room but she disappeared as fast as it appeared.

"What's that?" Anita's voice was unsettled as she stood behind Rose, who completely shared that sentiment.

"Was that a child?" asked River at the same time.

But the Doctor looked like he didn't have heard anything, continuing to tap on the keyboard with determination. "The computer's in sleep mode. I can't wake it up. I'm trying," he mumbled more to himself than to them. Rose walked behind him, wanting to help as much as possible, but squinted at the different lines of code appearing on the screen. Something was not right. "Is it me, or are those readings really weird?" She turned her head towards River, who visibly had the same idea.

But it was the Doctor who responded, his shoulder rigid and tense. "It's not you. You'd think it was dreaming."

"It is dreaming," Lux answered with a small voice, "of a normal life, and a lovely Dad, and of every book ever written…"

"Computers can't dream," Dave commented with a sense of finality. Because if he was sure of something in this whole scenario, it was that.

But Lux didn't reply, his attention already on something else. Without saying a word, he walked past the Doctor, who glanced at him with a puzzled look, and only stopped near an alcove that was partially blocked by one of the interfaces. "No, but little girls do," he retorted with a voice that was flat and forceful. Without further notice he pulled a breaker that had been concealed by a notch on the wall. After a few seconds of silence, a door opened slowly near him. After he went through the door without a word, they all scrambled to run after him, uncertain if the door would stay open. And none of them wanted to be left behind, not with what was waiting for them in the shadows.

As they entered the room, they all stopped dead in their tracks, shocked by what was inside. A Node, who sported the face of one of a very young child, was looking at them with anguish and fear. As soon as she saw the Doctor, she started to scream, her voice pleading for them to help her. Repeating the words again and again.

"Oh my god," River whispered with dismay.

Rose turned to the Doctor with an horrified look on her face. "That's the little girl I talked to. The girl is in the computer."

"She's not in the computer," replied Lux, his hand hovering on the poor child's face, who was still screaming. "In a way, she is the computer. The main command node." He finally turned, facing them with a grave face. "This is Cal."

"Cal is a child?" yelled the Doctor, outrage radiating from his whole body. And how could Rose say anything when she wanted to leap and slap Lux. But River had grabbed her before she could even move a muscle, probably having foreseen her actions in advance. "A child hooked up to a mainframe? Why didn't you tell me this? I needed to know this!"

"Because she's family!" Lux yelled out, his body language showing he was ready to go to war on it. "Cal. Charlotte Abigail Lux. My grandfather's youngest daughter. She was dying, so he built her a library and put her living mind inside, with a moon to watch over her, and all of human history to pass the time. Any era to live in, any book to read. She loved books more than anything, and he gave her them all. He asked only that she be left in peace. A secret, not a freak show." He deflated as soon he said the last word, tears running on his face.

"So you weren't protecting a patent, you were protecting her," said the Doctor, his eyebrows disappearing into his hairline at the realisation of what he was going against. Just a child, probably afraid and confused that had the consciousness of thousands of people running around her head.

Lux smiled sadly. "This is only half a life, of course. But it's forever."

"And then the shadows came."

"The shadows. I have to." The frightened voice of poor Charlotte resonated once again. "I have to save. Have to save."

Rose was crying as River put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "She just wanted them to live," her voice broke on the last word. That poor child, gifted a planet full of people, stories and books. She had been condemned to a slow madness because she had just wanted to save them all. How was that fair?

The Doctor took her hand, his eyes soft, trying his best to show comfort. "She saved everyone in the library. Folded them into her dreams and kept them safe." He knew it was probably empty words, but that's all he had at the moment.

"Then why didn't she tell us?" Anita asked.

"Because she's forgotten," continued the Doctor, his gaze still on Rose, intense and inmoving. Like he was trying to save her face to memory, like he was seeing her for the last time. "She's got over four thousand living minds chatting away inside her head. It must be like being, well, me."

"So what do we do?" River asked while looking at the countdown still running in the background. They now only had ten minutes. They needed to do something. And it needed to be done right now.

The Doctor stayed silent for a second, his eyes becoming unbelievably sad as he smiled at Rose before turning around, fiddling with his sonic with his free hand. "We beam all the people out of the data core. The computer will reset and stop the countdown. Difficult. Charlotte doesn't have enough memory space left to make the transfer." His attention was now completely focused on River, but his grip was becoming more intense on hers. Rose couldn't help but feel dread at the action. She knew the Doctor, mainly how he was thought and what kind of man he was. He was preparing for something. And when he pronounced his next words, her blood ran cold.

"I'll hook myself up to the computer," he finally said, his tone full of bravado and certainty. "She can borrow my memory space."

"Are you insane?" River replied instantly, saying aloud what Rose had been thinking. "It'll kill you stone dead."

"Yeah, it's easy to criticise." The dismissiveness in his voice shook Rose out of her numbness. If he really thought she would let him go to his death, he was more delusional than she believed in the first place. She had gone to hell and back to find him again, and she would not lose him in their own version of a horror show. Nope, over her dead body. And probably River's as well with the murderous look she was sending his way.

She snatched out her hand with force, making him turn around with surprise. "Are you trying to die?" She asked furiously. "That's what you want? Because if you plug yourself in that computer you will burn out from the inside! And you are not coming back from that!"

"Rose…" he began, but she was having none of that.

"No! I will not let you do that! You will not die and hope for the best, just because you feel responsible for the universe. You want to do it? Fine, but we do it together! It's either that or I'm the one to do it." She was sharing her lifeforce, sort of, with the TARDIS and she had the Wolf inside her. Of the two of them, she was the one that had more chance to survive that order. And if not, well then she was replaceable. He was not. When it was a choice between her and him it would always be him. No question asked.

But when she had waited for an argument, even a screaming match, he only laughed. A full out belly laugh, making her close her mouth almost violently in surprise. "I knew you would say that," he said with a fond smile. "Rose Tyler, always trying to save me, even when you know it's doomed." His eyes were kind and tender. And when he kissed her forehead in a rare gesture of public affection, she could feel the start of a sob inside her. His smile grew bigger and softer as she smiled at him in an automatic response, how could she not? When she loved him so much.

He stroked her arm softly before taking her right hand into his, his pulse pounding wildly as he was clearly resisting taking her into his arms. "I'm sorry," he whispered, just loud enough so only she could hear him. And before she could ask him what for, she heard the distinctive sound of the sonic near her arm and felt her transporter light up. "No!" she screamed, trying to jump away from him, praying she still had time. But it was too late and his contrite face was the last thing she saw before a white light engulfed her and she vanished.

The Doctor turned around, his visage hard and focused. All traces of the softness he had shown to Rose completely disappeared. "So, where were we?"

River was clearly unimpressed by what he had done."You know she will hate you for this," she warned while crossing her arms, showing her clear displeasure at his actions.

"Yeah, but she'll still be alive to hate me for it." His tone was final. He had no regret for his actions, not when he knew what the alternative was. He would always put her first, even if she would end up hating him for it. It was a small price to pay to keep her alive, but it was a price he was willing to suffer. He had already done it once before.

"Yes but this is a different situation," was all that River would reply. And to be honest, she had a feeling that he heard the words 'I told you so' quite a few times after this. And she really hoped she would be there for that one. But as the Doctor turned, his whole demeanor completely stiff, she realized that she knew what she had to do. Like the Doctor said, sometimes, it's worth the price.