~revised~

Chapter X

Doctor

He sprinted out of the maths room, his companions following on his heels. All of them – Sarah Jane, Rose and Mira. Just like back in the old days when the TARDIS occasionally had felt a bit crowded. At the bottom of the stairs he bumped into Mickey and one of the children. The one that wasn't allowed to eat chips, he remembered. Kenny.

"What is going on?" Mickey wanted to know. But there wasn't time for an answer. The Krillitanes, now in their bat-form, were closing in. They were struggling a bit in the rather narrow corridors, but not enough to buy them any time.

"This way!" he yelled and turned on his heels. He pushed the whole bunch – no less than five people he counted, not including himself – in his desired direction. His eyes fell on Mira, but she seemed to keep up rather well with all the running, despite her injury.

They reached the canteen and he immediately tried the doors on the opposite wall, but they were locked. Not time to deal with them he realised, his hand halfway in his pocket to reach for the Sonic, as the Krillitanes swept into the room, followed by Brother Lassa.

"Are they my teachers?" he heard Kenny ask.

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Leave the Doctor alive. As for the others... you can feast," Lassa commanded his brothers.

As if they had waited for that, the Krillitanes began to swoop down on them. They all were ducking for cover. All but Kenny who was still standing in the middle of the room, paralysed by the sight of those creatures, one of the Krillitanes charging on him. He was about to throw a chair at the bat to get it a way from the kid, but just before he could do so Mira threw herself over Kenny and brought them both down to the floor. The Krillitane missed them by a few inches.

Only to be hit by a red beam of light. Something was shooting at it.

"K9!" Sarah Jane exclaimed.

"Suggest you engage running mode, mistress," the robotic dog answered, still shooting at the Krillitanes.

"Come on!" the Doctor yelled at his companions. Meanwhile, Mira had gotten back to her feet, pulling Kenny with her. As he met her glance he could see tears of pain in her eyes and she was even paler than usually. She pushed Kenny in the direction of the door before following him herself.

"K9, hold them back!" he ordered the K9 and finally left the room himself.

"Affirmative, master. Maximum defence mode!" was the last thing he heard from him.

He shoved them through the corridors and into the physics lab. Once he was sure that everybody – except the Krillitanes – was inside he looked the door with his Sonic. He took a quick look at them all. They seemed to be unharmed, except for Mira. He'd seen her landing on her left side after pushing Kenny down.

He finally gave her a quick scan with the Sonic, ignoring the defensive glance she shot him.

Well, even if her ribs had been just bruised or partially fractured before, they now were definitely broken. Humans. So fragile and yet still always throwing themselves right into trouble. As if ignoring the fact that they only had one heart, rather fragile bones and above all, just this one life, would make them magically invincible. Ignorance wasn't bliss in this case. Well, of course not all humans were that way, but it nevertheless was a widespread trait throughout their species.

He suddenly thought of Rose and the Heart of the TARDIS. She had almost sacrificed herself for him...

He was still staring at Mira, just like everyone else now, with rather concerned expressions on their faces. "How are you doing? Can you still walk?" he asked her, his hand on her right shoulder. She was leaning against the wall and visibly in pain.

"Don't worry. I'm not about to die any time soon. Besides, it's my ribs, not my feet," she said and tried a reassuring smile.

Before he could answer the first Krillitane slammed against the door, causing it to shake in its frame alarmingly.

"Oh!" He almost jumped as it struck him. He took a step back from Mira and looked at all of his companions. How could he have missed it for so long?

"It's the oil. Krillitane life forms can't handle the oil! That's it! They've changed the physiology so often, even their own oil is toxic to them. How much was there in the kitchens?"

"Barrels of it," Rose answered.

The bangs on the door were getting louder. The Krillitanes were now ripping through it with their claws as if it was made out of cardboard.

"Okay, we need to get to the kitchens. Mickey...," he said, staring at the door out of wide eyes.

"What now, hold the coats?" Mickey replied.

"Get all the children unplugged and out of the school. Now then, bats, bats, bats, how do we fight bats?" he said, ruffling his hair and walking around. "Anyone? No idea?"

Right then his eyes fell on Kenny, who was just walking over to the fire-alarm, smashing in the glass with his elbow and pressing down the button. A shrill alarm sounded.

"Oh, now that's brilliant!" he said admiringly.

A few moments later they had opened the door themselves could see the Krillitanes in agony. They rushed by them, Mickey heading for the class-rooms, the others right behind him.

"K9!" he called out as the dog emerged from a doorway.

"Master!"

"Come on, boy! Good boy." No time to lose, he thought.

Not much later they reached the kitchen. He instantly walked over to the barrels, trying the Sonic on one. Then on another. And a third one. "They've been deadlock sealed! All of them! Finch must've done that - I can't open them." Would have been a nice plan, he thought. Well, it seems that he better had to come up with a new one...

"The vats would not withstand a direct hit from my laser. But my batteries are failing," he heard K9 saying. He considered it for a few moments.

"Right. Everyone out the back door. K9, stay with me," he said.


Rose

They were all running towards the back door. All except for K9 and the Doctor. Great. He wasn't about to blew himself up again, was he? Came to think about it, he hadn't tried it in this regeneration, had he? Yet.

"Run!" she yelled at them all and waved them out of the back door. Kenny, Mira and Sarah. Where was Mickey? Now that they were all out, she hurried to the school yard. And there he was. Mickey, rushing all the children out of the school, looking all professional. She had smiled. And felt a bit proud of him.

"What's he still doing in there? Should we not help him?" she heard Mira's voice next to her. The other woman didn't look threatening at all now, she thought. Not as if over a thousand years old and immortal. Her hair was all messed up and she was looking a bit tired, just as they all did.

"I guess he has a plan," she answered.

Mira just shook her head. "Is he always like that?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid so," Rose smiled at her, although she really was worrying about the Doctor now.

"Am I always like what?" she suddenly heard an all to familiar voice from behind. There he was, with Sarah Jane. She just was about to hug him, as a loud explosion made her jump. She immediately turned around to face the school.

It had been a rather large explosion, bursting the windows. A cloud of heavy smoke was emerging from the now empty frames, filling the air. But there seemed to be no actual fire.

For a moment, there was collective silence before all the children started to applause and cheer. Of course, Rose thought, it was the dream of every child, wasn't it? Blew up your own school.

A few feet away Kenny was standing, smiling all over his face. "Yes!" he yelled. A girl turned around to face him: "Did you have something to do with it?"

"Yeah, I did," Kenny said proudly.

"Oh my God. Kenny blew up the school! It was Kenny!" she shouted, making all the other children cheering, "Kenny! Kenny! Kenny!"

She caught Mickeys glance. He was smiling at her all over his face.


Mira

She was standing next to the Doctor and Sarah, as Rose rushed over to Mickey to give him a big hug. A lot of hugging here. She didn't feel like hugging at all right now. The breathtaking pain in her side had ceased to a manageable throbbing. Manageable as long as she didn't move too much. Or better speaking: Didn't move at all.

Sarah stood at the other side of the Doctor. She didn't need to look at her to feel how sad she was. K9 was missing, probably destroyed by the explosion.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said to Sarah.

"It's all right. He was just a... daft metal dog. Fine, really," Sarah replied sadly. As she turned her head to them the Doctor had put his arm around Sarah, who was crying. It might have been just a tin-dog, Mira thought, but it was the only thing Sarah had left from her travels with the Doctor. Apart from her memories.

She had just walked a few steps to give them some privacy as she felt a hand around her right upper arm. She didn't particularly appreciate being grabbed like that from behind. "Oi! Where are you going now? Can't take my eyes off you for even a second, can I?"

But, as she turned around and looked at him, she couldn't help herself but feeling caught red-handed instead of being angry at him for grabbing her arm. "I just wanted to give the two of you a little bit of privacy."

He looked at her in disbelief, his brows furrowed. "You have three broken ribs. You're in pain. And you still think about the privacy of others?"

She shrugged at him and immediately regretted the sudden movement. Why not care about such things even when injured? She wasn't in immediate danger of dying so it was completely fine with her. Ribs best healed on their own, and currently none of them were piercing her lung or some other vital organ. She had undoubtedly noticed that by now.

"TARDIS. Sickbay. Now," he said as he took her by the hand.

"The TARDIS is in there," she remembered suddenly.

"Yeah. That's why we're going there."

He was dragging her into the building whilst looking at her, head turned, evading debris from the blast without even looking at where he set his feet.

Great. And I manage to fall over chairs in my direct field of vision, she thought. Though it had been dark and Mickey had sounded as if being stabbed.

"She's not made of wood on the outside, is she? Because if that's the case, then..."

"Nah. She's fine." He was now walking next to her down a corridor.

"I'm old enough to walk on my own, you know?" she said after a few minutes of silence. He was still holding her by her hand.

"Oh, I don't doubt that."

But he didn't let go of her. She eyed him from the side. There was so much she wanted to ask him. Wanted to talk about with him. But suddenly she didn't dare. Was it because of what she had heard last night? Between him and Rose? Well, she hadn't assumed anything else, had she? Maybe she had. Even back in the class-room and later in the canteen it had seemed to her as if their was some sort of understanding between them. Or had it all been merely polite interest? And why did she care? She hardly knew him and it wasn't as if she was planning to stay here for longer than absolutely necessary. Above that, he was a complete mystery to her. Was she annoying him? What did he feel about their conversation a few nights ago? About what she was? Was she really just allowed to stay out of pity? Was he collecting weird people to keep him company? She suddenly realised just how much she always had relied on the empathy. Almost as much as other people rely on their eyesight.

Maybe she should leave. The thought struck her out of nowhere - as thoughts used to strike her when they had almost become decisions. Leave as long as there wasn't any harm done. Not to Rose, not to herself, and not to him. She was about to play with fire, she noticed all of a sudden. She had seen a different side of him at the swimming pool, and now he showed her yet another side. Dark and serious. Just how far would he have gone had she refused to come with him now? And yet they were more or less constantly challenging each other since he had rescued her. Not that she hadn't liked it in some way. And it could have looked like flirting. No wonder Rose was jealous. Talking to him, even being with him was a bit like walking over a minefield. Well, at least from her point of view. His point she could only guess. And it was driving her mad. At the same time his mere presence somehow had a strangely calming effect on her. In his presence she could feel like herself, not having to constantly sort her feelings and the other person's. It was almost as if she was running in circles. She didn't really know what to do because her psychic senses weren't really working on him, which was why she enjoyed being near him so much, but not knowing where to stand with him was driving her mad.

"You're not thinking about leaving?" She almost jumped at the sound of his voice. Almost, yet still enough to send a stinging pain through her body. She looked up, directly into his eyes. Eyes so deep and dark that they almost appeared to be black and made her instantly forget the pain.

Either he was really good at reading people or he had just read her mind. She felt how her face started to burn. She immediately strengthened the mental barriers around her mind. She had neglected them a bit lately, she had to admit. On the other hand, it hadn't prevented the TARDIS from getting into her mind, had it? She also noticed that he had let go of her hand. When did that happen?

"How...?", she looked at him bewildered, only too aware of the fact that her face must be glowing red. She had never mentioned that she was thinking about leaving. Not even hinted at it. She hardly ever hinted. She tended to think things through on her own, to brood over them and then surprising – or shocking - everyone around here once she had made up her mind.

"I just thought. You heard us last night at the shop, didn't you? Rose and me," he said.


Doctor

They had almost reached the TARDIS as they stopped in the corridor. He looked at her face which was red with embarrassment. Had she noticed anything? Well, not that he had actually done anything. It was she who had been thinking that loud. At least he assumed it had been her. Who else could it be?

Maybe I should leave.

He had heard it out of nowhere in his mind. Just subtle and quiet, not much more than a distant whisper, soft and with a dark and cold undertone to it, but nevertheless, he had heard it. The first telepathic voice in his head for quite some time. How had she done it? She had told him she could interact with telepaths and mirror them in some way, but he wasn't too sure how she had meant that. He had let go of her hand immediately as he feared that maybe the physical contact had triggered it and he didn't want to hear any more of her thoughts. At least not without her permission. Now it also occurred to him that it hadn't been the best of all ideas to immediately bring up what he had heard in his mind, but he assumed he had made up a decent justification for his question.

Yeah, assuming put it quite right, he thought. It was written all over her face that she wasn't buying it. She hadn't been buying it even before he had come up with his lame excuse. She had asked 'How?', not 'Why?' as in: Why do you think that? 'How' as in: How do you know? Above all it were her mental shields that gave it away. She had suddenly raised them and he could clearly feel them now. He wasn't even sure why he had asked it at all. He didn't wanted to hear the answer. What if she would confirm it? He knew he wouldn't stop her. He had never stopped any of his companions. If they wanted to leave him and go on with their own lives, he had hardly ever found it in himself to ask them to stay. And it had broken his hearts every single time. Well, not that he knew her as long as he had known the others, but anyway. It was... nice having her around. She had impressed him. The way she had covered the boy with her own body as the Krillitane attacked, even though she was already injured. Her opinion about taking orders, despite her being with the military. Not to mention what she had said to him earlier...

It's just us who remain.

He had almost given up hope to find someone who could actually understand how he was feeling.

"I...," she started to say.

"Oh, stupid me," he interrupted her immediately. "Maybe now's not the time for that. You're in pain, and I'm just asking questions which can easily wait for later." He could actually see her pain by the way she was breathing and how fast her heart was beating.

"Come on," he said and carefully placed an arm around her shoulders. Never mind physical contact, he thought. Now she was being more carefully anyway.

He guided her down the rest of the corridor, through the door and into the storage room where the TARDIS was waiting.

Once inside, he eyed her carefully. "Just one minute," he said. "Wait here. Just right here. I'll be right back. Don't wander off! Please." He turned on his heels and was out again. K9. If there was anything left of him he maybe would be able to fix him. Even if not, he couldn't risk that anyone would find his remains. The place would be crawling with firefighters and such at any minute.

He found him in the kitchen where he had left him. The place was badly damaged, and so was K9.

"Poor dog," he said as he crouched at his side. His ears had fallen off and were hanging on cables at his side, his casing was badly burned and even had a few holes. He lifted him up and rushed back to the TARDIS. He halfway expected Mira to be gone, but to his surprise she was still in the console room, leaning against the chair.

"Wow. You know how heavy he is?" she commented as he hurried in, K9 still in his arms.

"Yeah, and I'm really strong," he said whilst placing the dog on the floor.

"He's beyond repair, isn't he?" she asked quietly.

"I'm not sure yet," he informed her. "Let's fix you first. Come."

She followed him out of the console room and into the corridor. He had already seen in his mind that the TARDIS had kindly moved the sickbay right next to the console room.

"Sit down," he asked her as he held open the door for her.

"She did rearrange again?", she asked whilst carefully lifting herself up on one of the beds.

"Yeah. She does that," he said casually as he was switching on the medical scanner and then went through some of the equipment.

"Holy shit," he heard behind his back, making him turn on the spot. She sat on the bed, her shirt pulled halfway up and looking at her side. "That's impressive."

"I told you they are broken." He shook his head. An angry looking, dark blue bruise went from her waist up to where her skin was still covered by her shirt. "You humans," he couldn't stop himself. "Fragile bones, almost no redundancy, and yet somehow believing you're invincible."

She looked at him out of huge eyes. "You do know that I managed to survive for a few centuries with my fragile human body, don't you?"

He just shook his head in resignation and switched on a screen at the head of the bed. After a few adjustments she could now clearly see for herself.

"Yeah. I believe you that they are broken," she sighed. "Did so all the time, by the way."

"Good," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "It's the lowest three ribs," he continued quietly after he had pulled a chair to the bed and grabbed a device that looked a bit like his Sonic. It would just stabilise the bones and numb the nerves for a while to ease the pain.

"It's not too bad..." And yet she twitched as he lifted the hand that was holding the bone-stabiliser.

"I'm not going to touch you," he reassured her with a gentle voice, looking up at her. He switched on the device which came alive with a buzzing sound and a red light at its top. He let it hover about two inches above her skin and slowly moved it along the fractures. He could feel that she was staring at him. "What's it?" he asked after a few minutes of silence, looking at her face again. She breathed in as if she was about to speak, but instead she just exhaled, bit her lip and looked away. "Nothing."

"Mira, if there is something, just tell me." He was focusing on his task again, not daring to look her in the face again. There was something in the air. Like a deep, dark cloud hanging above their heads. Why was it that they couldn't just talk? Whenever they were alone, things seemed to grow tense and heavy with meaning. It was nice sometimes, but now he couldn't stand it.

"You do want to leave, don't you?" he continued without looking at her as she remained silent.

"You did hear it," she said.

"Yeah. Sorry. It was just that. 'Maybe I should leave.' You were thinking quite loud, we were touching each other, well, I didn't try it deliberately, I...It just happened," he stumbled, gesticulating with his free hand.

"It's okay." she said softly, now looking at him again. "Happens. Just one thing."

"Yes?"

"Back in 1879 you said something about seeing time."

If that wasn't a change of topic, he thought.

He switched off the device and she pulled down her shirt again. "Thank you," she murmured.

"Yeah, I did...," he said carefully.

"How did you mean that? How do you see time, I mean, only great, important events, or, well... down to individuals?"

All right, now he knew where this was heading. He eyed her. Not only her hands were shaking slightly again – they hadn't done that until they had reached the sickbay – he could even hear her heart beating heavy in her chest.

"I do see timelines, even of individual people. Not everything is fixed yet, so sometimes I can't say what really will come to be in the end," he said quietly. "But I can't see yours. You're not a part of this universe. I'm sorry, but I can't see if or when you will find a way back."

"Thanks. It was worth a try, I guess," she whispered almost inaudibly, avoiding his gaze.

"I'm so sorry," he said again. He really meant it. There was one more thing he wanted to talk about with her. He didn't need to see her timeline to know that she wouldn't make it back. This universe was sealed off. She should have never been able to get here in the first place. But as he looked at her he just didn't have the hearts to do so.

"It's okay," she finally said, not really convincing him, and hopped off the bed. "Let's see what the others are doing."


10th Squad 3rd Seat: Thanks for your reviews and corrections :-) I've already fixed it. And yeah, the commas. I just realised that myself during the last chapters ;-) The German language has an awful lot of them (but you really do need them all) and I'm really using them quite excessively. But I've already started to eliminate them. :D

time-twilight: Thanks for your reviews. I'm thinking about your idea, but I can't promise anything yet. Let's see if it fits in somewhere. :-)

Alwaystherereading: Thanks to you too. I'm afraid this chapter is rather sad again. But they're both masters in avoiding certain topics, so what can I do... But i'm optimistic that they will work it out sooner or later ;-)