Chapter 2: Second Chances

The Doctor opened his eyes. "Rose? Rose!" He sat up and listened. Her screams of indignation echoed through the forest. He scrambled to his feet and gave chase.

It didn't take long to find them. Still across his shoulder, Rose was shrieking at the top of her lungs, and also hitting, kicking, struggling, scratching, and biting as hard as she could. It didn't seem to affect the massive Thal in the least, who was strolling at a leisurely pace.

The Doctor called, "Hey! You! Stop! Put her down at once!"

"Doctor! Help me!" cried Rose, struggling harder.

The Thal kept walking, but glanced over his shoulder, his brows furrowed in confusion. Finally he said, "I challenged you. You lost." As if that settled the matter definitively, he turned back and proceeded on his way.

"You cheated!" The Doctor had to trot to keep up with the Thal's long strides. "You attacked me unawares."

The Thal sighed wearily. "Stranger, I do not want to injure you. Accept your fate."

"Coward! Fight, you coward!" cried the Doctor.

The Thal stopped. He turned around. "I am no coward," he said, darkly. "You will regret what you said." He put down his spear and took Rose off his shoulder. He pointed his finger at her. "Do not run away."

Immediately, of course, Rose ran to the Doctor's side. He grabbed her hand. "Back to the TARDIS, go!" They sprinted away.

Too soon the heavy footfalls came closer and closer behind them; they were still some distance from the TARDIS. The Doctor let go of Rose's hand. "Keep running!" he cried, then turned to face his opponent.

The Thal lunged at the Doctor. He was over a foot taller than the Doctor, and weighed almost twice as much. But somehow, the Doctor managed to twist out of his grasp, apply a bit of leverage and...

FLIP!

The Thal was on his back. But he was up again in an instant, clutching at the tails of the Doctor's coat. He shrugged it off, but the Thal was too quick. His hands closed around the Doctor's throat.

CRACK!

Gasping, the Doctor looked up. Standing over the now-unconscious Thal was Rose, holding a rock. "Rose!" he cried. "That was brave--and foolish. You should have kept running--"

"ARE YOU IN-JURED? WE HEARD SCREAM-ING."

Three white Kaleds had glided into the thicket, glowing opalescent in the sun. Even though Rose knew they weren't going to harm her, their resemblance to Daleks was unsettling.

"I'm all right," said the Doctor, stretching and cracking his neck. "And you're fine too, Rose? Good." He frowned suddenly, and dropped down to his knees to examine the fallen Thal, who wasn't moving. "He's another matter, I'm afraid. You hit him rather enthusiastically with that rock, Rose."

"He was going to kill you!" she protested.

"Oh, I doubt it," said the Doctor, setting about examining the Thal. He lifted the Thal's eyelids and swung his sonic screwdriver light back and forth between his pupils. "His intentions were principally matrimonial, not homicidal. If he'd wanted to kill me, he could easily have liberated my head from its shoulders. Ah--" The Doctor removed his fingers from the back of the Thal's head and lifted them up. They were covered in blood. "I was afraid of this. Depressed skull fracture. Fatal if we don't get him medical attention of a sort more sophisticated than his people can manage, I think."

"WE WILL TAKE HIM TO THE CI-TY. WE WILL DO WHAT WE CAN FOR HIM," said one of the Kaleds. It shot out a beam of light that engulfed the Thal and lifted him up. They sped away.

The remaining two Kaleds escorted the Doctor and Rose back to their city. Rose's thoughts strayed, as they often did, to her Doctor. The fact that she almost met him at the Restaurant made their separation even harder to bear. But it was a comfort to her to know that she had made the right decision, to stay with this Doctor. At the time, she felt he needed her more.

Rose glanced at the Doctor walking beside her. She was touched at the compassion he had shown his enemy. She had half-expected him to say, "no second chances," and leave the Thal to his fate. Her gaze lingered. The Doctor hadn't gone back for his coat. His shirt was open at the collar, with his silk cravat untied. Rose noticed that his cream-coloured trousers fit him extremely well. His hair was tousled, and his cheeks flushed from the activity. The curve of his lips...

Apparently aware he was being studied, the Doctor turned and looked at her, his eyebrows raised in a quizzical expression, as if to say, "What?"

Rose forced a smile, then looked away quickly. "What's the matter with me?" she thought to herself. "Don't go there...don't even go there." She directed her eyes forward, and studied the countryside.

Presently, they arrived at the gates of the Kaled city. Rose and the Doctor had to duck under the doorway, and the long hallways seemed very claustrophobic and cramped. They were, of course, perfectly sized for Kaleds. The corridor opened up to a larger chamber. A white Kaled with silver stripes at its dome bowed a greeting to them with its eye stalk.

"GOOD TO SEE YOU A-GAIN, DOC-TOR."

"Rose, this is Telvar," said the Doctor, "Chief Scientist of the Kaleds."

"HEL-LO ROSE."

Rose nodded and smiled uncomfortably. She couldn't help it; these creatures made her very uncomfortable.

"EX-CEL-LENT TIM-ING. COME SEE OUR PRO-TO-TYPE." The Kaled flashed its dome lights enthusiastically, then sped out of the chamber. The Doctor and Rose could barely keep up. They followed it down a long ramp to the floor of a spaceship hangar. There were a variety of craft arranged around the perimeter, but the Kaled was pointing to the one in the center.

"WE HAVE VER-Y HIGH HOPES FOR THIS ONE, DOC-TOR," said the Kaled, swinging its eye stalk back and forth. It seemed to be twitching with excitement.

Rose stared at the strange ship: it consisted of a long central, cyclindrical section, with two large spheres at one end. Then she became aware of the young man in a close-fitting flight suit standing next to it. "Doctor," she said, tentatively, "what year is this? Relative to Earth, I mean."

The Doctor counted on the fingers of one hand. "Early fifty-first century, or somewhere thereabouts. Why?"

Rose clapped her hands together and laughed. She bounded out into the hangar and threw her arms around the man in the flight suit, nearly knocking him over. "I know you don't know who I am--but I'm so happy to see you!"