A/N: Still own absolutely nothing but I have recently acquired an Imperial Dalek remote control thing which is great fun for chasing my cat (who happens to be called The Doctor- big ears, big nose and all in black- sad I know) around the flat with. Big male cat is a great big wimp!
The Doctor regarded the hooded and masked figure before him. Omega had lost the large, ornate mask he had once worn and now wore a full length hooded robe with a gold and silver harlequin mask where his face should have been. The Doctor gave him a cheeky half smile and sketched a mocking bow in his direction.
"Still not showing us your face Omega?" he said, full well knowing that years in the antimatter world had destroyed everything physical about him, "Pretty mask you've got this time. Suppose the Greek look doesn't fit in too well in Imperial Russia."
The Doctor felt Rasputin's grip tighten on his arm at his mocking tone and he shot him a vicious glare, "Would you mind letting go Razza? Kinda hurts."
Rasputin only succeeded in tightening his grip further, an evil glint shining in his icy blue eyes, "I take no commands from murderers."
"So you heard?" said the Doctor, turning his attention back to Omega, "Been telling all my secrets have you? How about calling off the performing monkey and I'll tell you some more, like how I'm going to stop you bringing forward the Revolution."
Omega's laughter echoed in the cavernous room and the Doctor felt a shudder go through him at the sound. He watched as Omega made a swift movement with his hand and Rasputin stepped back, releasing the Doctor's arm. The Doctor moved to take a step forward and crashed into cold metal bars. He pivoted on his heel to see he was surrounded by a cage, no more than a metre across. He shook the bars and pulled out his sonic screwdriver but it fizzed uselessly against the lock. He looked down at it in surprise as he realised that the last time he held it he had handed it to Romana. His mind buzzed over a thousand possibilities of how it could have returned to him but his mind drew a blank. He forced his attention back to his captor.
"Neat trick," he said through gritted teeth, "Where'd d'you learn that one?"
"I still retain the majority of my power from the anti matter world. I escaped your explosion Doctor as particles of pure will, flying back through the black hole. Oh it took me hundreds of years to regain myself but I did it and this planet was just ripe for the picking. War like, ridiculous humans with a Revolution at my finger tips. When the Tsar falls and the Russian line fails the Germans will be unstoppable and then I will step in and defeat them. They will proclaim me their God, fear me, worship me as the Time Lords should have done."
"You'll allow millions of innocents to be murdered so that they'll make a statue of you?" said the Doctor with disgust.
"They are useless vermin," hissed Omega, "Only few could ever amount to greatness and they will be my priests."
The Doctor shook his head in amusement and anger, "Yeah, Rasputin told me. How kind of you to spare the illiterate peasant."
The Doctor heard the impact of Rasputin as he threw himself against the bars but hadn't expected the feel of the blade that found its way into his leg, revealed from beneath Rasputin's black robes. The Doctor choked back a cry as he heard Omega call his pet off.
"Romana where are you?" he muttered knowing his pleas were useless, she would not come.
"Plan not going as you expected Doctor?" said Omega, getting to his feet and slowly walking over to the cage.
The Doctor resisted the urge to drop to his knees as the pain flared in his thigh, the hot, sticky blood already staining his trousers and hand, "Not the nicest way to treat a guest," he said through gritted teeth, "You wait Omega, when my missus sees the state of the washing she's going to have to do I'm going to be the least of your worries."
"Ah yes, the human child," said Omega, "What would the Time Lords say if they could see you now? Married to that inferior creature, tied to one place while your mongrel child struggles and writhes in the dust of this vile planet, never to be accepted in any society."
"You leave my daughter out of this."
"But she's not your daughter is she Doctor, you said it yourself, step father to your own child because your precious wife cannot accept your new form."
The Doctor managed a superior smile, his free hand closing around the wedding ring in his pocket, "You will not beat me with that Omega."
"I don't need to," said Omega as the Doctor shook the bars violently, trying to escape his caging, "Rasputin, I think its time I met with the Tsar. I have much to discuss with him. I will send for you when necessary. Watch the Doctor. Do as you will but keep him alive."
Rasputin bowed low as Omega moved out of the chamber and towards the stairs. The Doctor didn't need to see the monk's face to know the look that was upon it. He tightened his grip on the sonic screwdriver, doubting it would bring him much protection over what was to come.
XXXX
Rose clung onto the console as the TARDIS lurched violently. Usually the Doctor would be dancing around, pulling levers and pressing buttons to even out their ride but now she had to endure it without his expertise.
"Are you alright Mickey?" she called over the din of the engines.
Mickey's knuckles were turning white as he grasped the support bar, looking decidedly green from all the rocking of the ship, "For once I think they're right about women drivers, don't let them near a TARDIS!"
Rose felt a small smile play on her lips but it didn't ease the pain in her heart, ripped in two as she thought of her child and the Doctor, knowing the enemy he was facing. The TARDIS gave a pained flurry of beeps and Rose felt a brief shudder of pain in her right thigh. She looked down but saw nothing to have caused it. She shook her leg out and the pain disappeared as the TARDIS engines hitched and she prepared herself for the bump of a landing.
She was thrown onto her back as the TARDIS ground to a halt, he head impacting with the metal grating. If she lived through it she was going to demand the Doctor put carpets down. She hauled herself to her feet and moved to the TARDIS console, checking the read outs on the computer screen. The TARDIS dutifully translated the Gallifreyan script into English for her and she let out a whoop of joy as it confirmed they had landed in the correct time, only four hours after the Doctor had sent her away. She picked up her ice gun before helping Mickey to his feet and passing him his.
"Ready for this?" she asked, pulling the fur coat tighter around her middle.
"As I'll ever be," said Mickey, already layered up enough to survive a night on Pluto.
Rose pushed open the doors and stepped out onto the cold snow, darkness was already descending but not enough that their arrival had gone unnoticed. Several villagers had already crowded around them, pointing and chattering in wonder.
"Ever felt like a freak show?" said Rose, "Come on, Winter Palace is that way."
The sound of running feet forced them to turn. Mickey raised his gun to his shoulder but Rose pushed it down.
"Its alright," she said though her tone betrayed her confusion, "It's a friend."
A young blonde woman jogged up to them, her clothes more of a dressage rider than a maid now, not seeming too bothered by the freezing cold.
"Rose, you came back. I knew you would."
"Mickey," said Rose, "This is Romana, she's a Time Lord, like the Doctor. Where is the Doctor?"
"He's been captured, taken underground by Omega, he needs your help Rose."
Rose nodded though the wary look she regarded Romana with didn't leave her face. Mickey felt her shift an inch closer to him and knew he wouldn't be leaving the two women alone for any length of time. Rose stepped off and began a jog back towards the Winter Palace, constantly checking over her shoulder for Romana and pulling to a halt as she looked back and saw only Mickey behind her.
XXXX
The Doctor writhed in pain, curled at the bottom of the tiny cage as he tried to keep away from the various futuristic devices Rasputin was wielding with such accuracy. His entire body convulsed as another beam of energy tore through him. He fought against the bars again but they held him fast. He tried to close his mind against the pain, reaching back towards happier times to block out Rasputin's torture. He felt it then, a presence so warm that he knew so well but never had been able to sense so fully. She was glowing and she was close.
"Rose," he murmured, her voice like music on his lips, "Rose, hurry."
Perhaps it was his mind playing tricks on him, perhaps the torture had pushed him into madness but he felt, if only for a second, her warmth wrap around him in response. He heard her voice on the air.
"I'm coming."
XXXX
Mickey caught Rose as she stumbled in the snow. They had barely stopped to consider why Romana had disappeared, Rose murmuring cryptically that she had expected it, and they had kept running towards the Winter Palace. Their lungs burned in the cold and Mickey feared it was too much for Rose but she looked up at him and managed a weak smile.
"Somethings happening, something amazing I can feel it," she said scrambling to her feet and continuing to run.
"What's happening?"
"I don't know but since the Doctor let me look into his memories this morning I've felt it. Its as if he left part of him with me, that I've got some of his gifts, his knowledge. I can feel him as if he was here holding my hand," said Rose, leading them behind the Palace rather than up to the main entrance. She noticed with despair that the front of the Palace was besieged by angry people, calling for the death of the Tsar.
Rose paid them no mind, slipping passed the occupied guards and showing Mickey into the servants entrance they had escaped through early. The ran down the maze of corridors before they reached two sets of steps, one leading up and one leading down. Rose paused at the bottom and turned to Mickey.
"The Tsar and his children, they need someone to protect them. Can you do that?" she said.
"What about you?"
"I'm going down. The Doctor is down there I know it but you have to stop anything happening to the Tsar otherwise the Revolution will start far too soon."
Mickey nodded, "Ok, I'll do it but you be careful."
"I will," said Rose to his back as he began to jog up the stairs. Catching up her skirts she began her descent into the black stairwell.
XXXX
Rasputin sat in his master's chair, his elbows resting on the arms and his fingers meeting to form a pyramid with his hands. His eyes burned into the Doctor who slumped in the cage before him, exhausted and broken from the torture. The silence was only broken by the Doctor's rasping breaths and occasional futile kick against the cage he was stuck in. He dreaded to think what Omega was doing upstairs within the Palace, of the potential massacre that lay ahead. He though back over the events that had brought him here, several points becoming clear to him. The TARDIS had tried to give him an adventure, a journey into time and space but she was not to know of Omega until they arrived. He had worked out the presence of Romana in his time in captivity, worked out why he had not been able to detect her properly until he had looked for her. The thought filled him with both sadness and relief in similar measures but more pressing matters were on his mind. He knew Rose was close, knew he could rely on her to try and save him but he did not know how much he had been able to educate her that morning, passing as much of his knowledge into her delicate human mind.
Footfalls on the stairs outside caught his attention as Rasputin got to his feet, dagger in hand. He tried to see the doorway but one of the rooms support beams blocked his view. All he could see was the look of surprise on Rasputin's face before a torrent of frozen particles sent him sprawled on the ground. He heard the sound of running feet as a familiar figure rounded the corner, scanning the room for him.
"Rose?" he called, "Over here."
Her eyes widened in horror as she ran over to him, crouching by the cage and reaching her fingers through the bars to touch his.
"My God what did they do to you?" she cried, her eyes running over his body and cataloguing his injuries.
"You came back," said the Doctor pressing his lips to her fingertips, "How did you manage it?"
"No time to explain. I have to get you out of here. I think I may have sent Mickey to face Omega on his own."
"Mickey's here? What on earth…?"
"Sonic screwdriver," demanded Rose, "I need to get these bars open."
"It won't work, I tried that already."
Rose shook her head, trying to make sense of the million and one thoughts spinning in her mind, "Jesus how do you cope with this?" she said more to herself than him. Her eyes opened and she pulled off her fur coat, easing it through the bars to the Doctor.
"Cover yourself with that and when I say move, move," she said, raising her ice gun once again and flipping it up to the highest setting, "This might be a bit chilly."
The Doctor pulled the coat over himself, careful not to leave any part of his body exposed. He heard the gun discharge and felt the cold instantly penetrate the thick coat. The sound of the butt of the gun striking the frozen bars and the following shatter was all the warning he needed and he scrambled to his feet and out of the cage, discarding the frozen coat. His leg wouldn't take him far and he collapsed into Rose's waiting arms before her command had even left her lips.
"You're hurt," she said, lowering him to the floor and immediately turning her attention to his leg.
"Its not deep," he said, "Well, actually it is deep but we've got more important things to do."
Rose picked up the hem of her dress and ripped around the base of it, giving her enough material for a tourniquet. She wrapped it around the Doctor's leg and pulled it tight, causing him to yelp in pain.
"I'm sorry," she murmured and they both knew there was much more than one apology behind her words.
The Doctor bit back the pain wracking his body and pulled her close in a grateful hug, "Its ok," he murmured into her hair.
Above them echoed a desperate scream.
A/N: Cliffy endings are so rude aren't they! Please review, if its naff review and I'll stop writing. If its good review and I'll keep going. Nova x