The Tardis hadn't gone back to scolding him after Rose and Martha left for their shopping trip like he'd feared she might.
That didn't mean the Doctor didn't suffer from a few more sparks and burns than were strictly necessary as he worked on her, but despite her frustration and disappointment, he could also feel understanding as her mental touch pressed against his mind in quiet comfort.
He let himself lose track of time as he concentrated on her circuits, or lose track as much as a Time Lord could. Letting the minutes and hours cycle past without note.
He knew if he looked, he'd be able to tell exactly how long since his two companions had stepped out of the Tardis, but he kept himself distracted.
He couldn't let himself react to Rose's revelations as he had that morning. Couldn't let himself hurt her by flinching, so he split his mind between working on the Tardis systems and strengthening his newly rebuilding defences. He sank away from his time senses, let himself get lost in the process of walling off parts of his mind, and cleaning out the thermic regulator and all its associated components.
Despite the Tardis' complaints, without a shipyard to return her to, if they wanted to continue traversing time and space he needed to keep on top of her engine maintenance.
The Tardis hummed in warning, but he still wasn't prepared for the loud shout from outside the ship.
"Doctor!"
The doors to the Tardis slammed open, and the Doctor jumped, startled, hitting his head against the console as Martha burst back into the console room, his name still on her tongue.
"Doctor?!"
The hum in his mind grew from a warning to concern, and the Doctor cursed quietly in Gallifreyan, pulling himself out from beneath the console and pouting up at Martha as he rubbed a hand against his head.
The young woman dropped a frankly ridiculous number of shopping bags on the jumpseat as she gasped in an attempt to catch her breath, obviously having been running.
"Back so soon?" he asked, "I thought you and Rose— Where is Rose?" he asked, turning his eyes back to the doors. The blonde had always been quick to immerse herself in alien cultures, to make friends, and he imagined that four years working for Torchwood had only enhanced that natural skill, but he couldn't imagine her leaving Martha alone.
Especially not when the medical student was so new to travelling. As those thoughts spun around his mind, he finally caught track of the worry from the Tardis, and the panic in Martha's eyes, making his own narrow as she struggled for words.
"Umm—"
"She wandered off, didn't she?" he asked, sighing as Martha's hands started to shake.
"Kind of, you see—"
"She went wandering off during World War Two as well. Middle of the London blitz and she wanders off wearing a shirt with the Union Flag all over it," he grumbled, pulling himself out from the open Tardis grating and dusting his suit off.
His movements froze when the concerned hum of the Tardis grew deafening in his mind, insisting he listen to Martha, and he turned his attention back to the woman.
Studying her face he could see fear there and he stepped towards her, his hands lifting to rest against her arms gently even as he frowned.
"Hey, what is it? What's wrong?" he asked her softly, and Martha swallowed hard before the words started tumbling out of her mouth in a rush.
"We'd been shopping. Had lunch. We were on our way back here when there was this... noise... and then everyone was screaming, and we were running for the Tardis, but it was in the town square and Rose told me to come and get you—"
"Martha," the Doctor interrupted her slowly, forcing himself to keep his voice level and calm as he tried to make sense of the babbling story "what happened?"
Martha took a steadying breath, her eyes closed for a beat before she opened them again, and seemed to force herself to meet his gaze.
"The town was being held hostage by a dragon, and Rose agreed to go with it in exchange for extinguishing the walls of fire it had breathed around the town," she gasped out, winching as she finished, as though anticipating an explosion of epic proportions.
The Doctor admitted, to himself, that it was a reasonable reaction to expect if you considered his previous reactions to Rose being in danger but he'd spent the morning the pair had been gone forcing his mind to keep a tighter rein on his reactions.
Also, there was a large portion of him that was simply in shock.
Only Rose Tyler could go shopping on a quiet planet and find trouble. And not just any trouble, oh no, but something that looked like a dragon, of all things.
"Can't be. Impossible," he announced, shaking his head and releasing Martha with a smile as she shook her head at him in confusion.
"What?"
"Weelll, there's no such thing as dragons," he said, sliding his hands into his pockets as Martha glared at him.
"What, like there's no such thing as witches?" she asked sarcastically and the Doctor grinned.
"Exactly!"
"Okay... so whatever it is, it's not called a dragon," Martha conceded, "Rose said you'd say that," she added under her breath, and the Doctor hummed happily that she still remembered him well enough to predict his responses.
He frowned quickly, wondering if him being predictable was actually a good thing, but Martha quickly got his attention again when she sighed and crossed her arms.
"How does what it's called matter when Rose is still being taken somewhere, probably halfway across the planet, by a fire breathing, scaled creature, with wings, claws, and sharp teeth?" she demanded, eyes narrowing, and with that, the reality of the situation slammed into the Doctor's mind with the same strength as a fixed point in time.
It was like being hit by a train. No, several trains from three different directions, and he groaned, his hands rising to press against his eyes, before dragging through his hair.
"She'd been kidnapped by a dragon. Bloody hell," he muttered in disbelief. He allowed himself one second to revel in Rose's ability to find trouble anywhere, before he started moving, checking his pockets for the screwdriver and the psychic paper before he started towards the doors of the Tardis, ignoring the exasperation in her background hum.
"Come on, Martha, I need to have a look around. There's more than a few species in the galaxy that resemble the mythical creatures of Earth and several dozen resemble dragons. What kind of dragon? Different cultures have different depictions..."
With his mind running ahead in its search for answers, he was only half aware of Martha falling into step beside him as they stepped out of the Tardis.
He could feel the concern and panic clawing at the back of his mind now, and made a concerted effort to ignore it by peppering Martha with questions. As quickly as she answered him, he was shooting her a new question and gradually the Doctor pulled the full story from the woman.
He'd been planning to look at the fires, but as she told him about Rose's discussion with the creature in the town square he changed their path through the town to head in that direction instead.
He wanted, needed, to be in the last place that Rose had been seen, and it was also where the creature had chosen to make its stand. Maybe it could tell him something.
He let Martha lead the way, but as he followed her he kept his eyes on the people they passed. There was, understandably, a significant amount of fear in their eyes and he could see emergency medical services treating people for shock, but considering Martha's description of the sheer size of the creature and the fact that he could feel the increased ambient temperature from the fires at the town limits, there were remarkably few injuries.
Once or twice he spotted someone with a bleeding wound or a broken limb, but they were all injuries sustained from their fellow humans in the panic that the creature's presence had caused and the Doctor slowly began to see why Rose had volunteered herself.
"Did it attack anyone?" the Doctor asked Martha as they reached the edge of the square. The cracked fountain had, by now, run itself dry leaving the surrounding cobblestones slippery and wet.
"I don't know. Not that we saw. Just seemed to use the fire to trap the town, then landed on the Scobee Founders Fountain and gave its ultimatum for one sacrifice," Martha explained, pointing at the shattered fountain.
"Landed right there, and when Rose asked what it wanted it roared its demands. I'm surprised you didn't hear it inside the Tardis," she added, and the Doctor hummed in agreement but didn't comment. He didn't think now was the best time to explain the intricacies of the Tardis existing in her own dimension.
He pulled out the sonic and began pacing towards the fountain, scanning the shattered structure for any identifiable energy.
"I tried to stop her going, but she... she just..."
"It's not your fault, Martha," the Doctor told her quickly, his voice carefully soft and he paused just long enough to shoot her a small smile, the young woman standing by his side with her arms wrapped around herself.
"Once Rose Tyler sets her mind to something, it's impossible to stop her," he told her, his voice half complaint and half praise, but it summoned a laugh from Martha and the Doctor turned back to try and continue the sonics scans.
"Rose Tyler? Was that her name?" came a sharp voice, and the Doctor quickly slid the sonic back into his pocket before turning on the stranger.
A short, overweight, man with greasy hair slicked back against his head was approaching them, wobbling unsteadily on the slick cobblestones, and the Doctor pushed his lips into a smile as he gave the man a quick once over.
He'd just stepped away from a small group of six that looked like they could be some kind of city officials. He was smartly dressed, for the planet and time period. Shiny shoes, the Doctor noticed, and he had a large chain hanging around his neck that suggested that he probably had a role in Edlyn that put him in charge in some form or another.
"We'll replace the fountain with a memorial, in thanks for her sacrifice!" the man declared, either ignoring or not noticing the Doctor's scrutiny. At his words, the Doctor let his eyes narrow, and snapped them back up to the watery-blue ones glittering up at him with an expression he took an instant dislike to.
"I thought that fountain was to commemorate the founding family of Scobee?" he prompted, and the little man's lips twisted into something just shy of a sneer.
"It's outdated. The family line... well, it's no longer around," he explained, offering his hand for the Doctor to shake as he introduced himself, "Mayor Sloane."
"So, you're just gonna give up?" Martha asked, her voice shocked and the Doctor quietly cheered for her questioning the man. "Can't we try and rescue her?"
The Mayor's eyes widened, and he seemed startled for a moment, before withdrawing his hand and shaking his head rapidly, stammering out a half-hearted response.
"Well— That is—"
"Martha's right," the Doctor said, "you're very quick to write her off."
"While that's a lovely thought... uh... Well, you see, the power of this monster— I'm afraid that it's highly unlikely that your wife survived—"
"She's not my wife," the Doctor corrected automatically, his attention already moving on from the man as he deemed him useless in getting Rose back.
While it was irritating that what passed as the local government didn't value Rose enough to try and save her, it would make it easier for him. The last thing he needed was military types getting underfoot, and he let his eyes move away from the Mayor, visually scanning the immediate area for more information, mentally cataloguing the evidence the creature had left behind.
"Fiancee, then?"
Grazes in the cobblestones from the rough scales. The shattered fountain from the creature's weight. The deep gouges in the marble from the claws. He could estimate the temperature of the fires. All of it narrowed down the species of the creature, but not enough.
"Nope," he answered the man, still distracted, "we're just travelling together. Friends. And this is my other friend, Martha Jones. She was here as well, and what evidence do you have that Rose is dead?" he demanded, snapping his head back around to focus on the man, frowning, the Mayor's words niggling at something in the Doctor's mind as he shoved his hands back into his trouser pockets.
"I-I-I uh, now, see here! I'm Mayor here! And I will not be questioned in this manner!" the small man declared, puffing up his chest, and the Doctor's frown quickly deepened into a full glare.
Martha's hand on his arm was the only thing that stopped him from responding to the irritating man with a snarl, and she cleared her throat, quickly stepping between them and taking the Mayor's attention away from the Doctor.
"My apologies for my friend, Mayor Sloane, he's just worried about Rose... uh, but he is right," she pressed gently, "there's nothing to suggest that Rose is even hurt—"
"What else, do you suppose, a monster such as that would want with her? What else would 'sacrifice' mean?" the Mayor demanded angrily, and the Doctor sighed impatiently.
"Just— Just look. Look at this square," he spluttered in exasperation, waiting a moment for the Mayor to follow his instructions. "What was that fountain made out of? Marble?" he prompted, continuing when he received a sharp nod of confirmation.
"So, to do that kind of damage, this creature is heavy, strong. Had teeth and sharp claws, judging by the gouges it left behind. It flies, it breathes fire, and the strength in its tail is nothing to sneeze at either," the Doctor said, and the little man was nodding in agreement.
"Exactly. There's no way your friend is alive."
"So, why are any of you alive?" the Doctor asked softly, and the Mayor froze, eyes going wide with uncontrolled fear.
"What?" Martha spluttered, "But, that's kind of what Rose said. When I tried to stop her from going, I was trying to convince her it could hurt her, get her to see the danger she was in, but... she just asked me why it hadn't done it already," Martha explained, and the Doctor beamed at her.
"Exactly," he praised, delighted, "Rose figured it out. It's why she went with it. Whatever this was, it's fully capable of laying waste to this town, so why land in the middle, make yourself a target, and only demand a single person? It makes no sense, if your only motivation is to kill, to destroy There's more going on here, and if there's more going on than just the urge to kill then it's possible, no it's extremely likely that—"
"It could come back!" the Mayor gasped, and the Doctor blinked, startled, before his eyes widened in growing horror when he realised what he'd done by describing the killing machine the creature was capable of being.
"No! No, no, no, no, no!" he spluttered quickly, drawing his hands from his pockets and holding them up in an attempt to soothe the man, "No, I mean, yes, but no! It's not going to hurt anyone! It wants something else!"
He stepped forward and placed a hand on Mayor Sloane's shoulder in an attempt to ground the man and get him to think, but terror had been nipping away at the human's mind for too long and logic wasn't making a dent in the fear that now controlled him, making the Doctor silently curse his uncontrollable gob.
So wrapped up in explaining to Martha, that he'd missed the rising emotions in the other man beside him.
"We must hunt it down before it can take any more of us!" the Mayor declared, turning his back on the Doctor and Martha, and waddling his way back over to the group of officials he'd abandoned previously.
The Doctor groaned as he left, but he could already sense the message of fear being spread across the town like a whispered plague. The tales of horror getting worse with every retelling, and within minutes there would be shouts for craftsmen to produce weapons that might be capable of killing the creature.
"Damn it, why is violence the automatic human response?" the Doctor muttered, and Martha sighed.
"S'not everyone's default reaction," she muttered, nudging his side with her elbow, and when he glanced down at her, an apology on his tongue, she nodded at something across the square.
He followed her line of sight to a shadowed alley where a young woman hovered. She was wrapped in dirty, threadbare clothes, a shroud over her head, covering her hair, and her feet were bare, but there was a determination in her features that caught the Doctor's attention.
Quick as a mouse, and just as quietly, she darted towards the fountain, crouching beside one of the huge gouges that the dragon had left behind in the cobblestones, and she gently drew her fingers along the edge of the deep channel.
"Curiosity," the Doctor muttered, the smile in his voice growing to settle against his lips, "the saving grace of humanity."
He watched her carefully, but there was no fear on her face. Her hands pressed to the bottom of the deep rut for a moment, as though measuring, and then she withdrew, one hand curling into a pocket and the other lifting to tuck back some strands of mousy brown hair that had slipped free of her cowl.
"Come on then, Martha. If this lot are gearing up for a fight, let's see if our young friend over there has discovered something interesting," he suggested shooting Martha a grin that she quickly returned, and the pair of them all but bounced their way across the cobblestones towards the girl.
Halfway across the distance towards her, the girl froze and her head snapped up to stare at them.
The Doctor had just long enough to lift one hand in a wave and offer up a friendly greeting, before she was on her feet and running, slipping between crowds of people like a wisp of smoke.
A soft curse on his lips, and the Doctor took off after her, Martha's footfalls right on his heels as she followed.