A/N: Ack! I finished!
What now? My life will be void!!
This chapter isn't really funny,
unless you count Odjya dying as funny. Then it's freakin' hilarious.
xxx xxx
"No! No! No!"
A rock slid beneath his foot and the Doctor slammed head first to the ground. Sparks danced behind his eyes, but he was back on his feet before the pain registered.
"Rose! Answer me! Rose!"
Everything was black, everything was red. Just breathing was hard work- the air was thick and greasy with a sleet of grey ash. The Doctor gulped mouthfuls of the grimy stuff, coughing and choking and blinking back tears. He scrambled down the nearly liquid mountain face on his hands and bare feet.
The rock was hot, bubbling the skin on his palms. His head was filled with the crackling boom of lightening, white-hot whips that snapped mere inches above him. The air was humid, clogged with ash and vapour from the dissolving ice. The sky and earth were super energised, turning the space between them to a colossal storm cloud.
Thunder as enormous and constant as the crash of a waterfall drown out his screams. Electricity sizzled through his hair and down his limbs.
"Please, no! Please, Rose! Answer me!"
In that nightmare he was suddenly there, suddenly scrambling over the spot Rose had disappeared. The flood of rock beneath his feet had slowed, its heralding buttresses splashing into the lake of fire only yards away.
There was no sign of her.
No stray blonde hairs snared on jagged rock edges, no shreds of clothing offering respite to the hell around him. The Doctor stared at the now motionless spot. The sky was black as night, blacker. Only the evil orange glare of the flaming lake gave him constant light. The rest of the world was revealed in stark black and white by the howling lightning.
This was nothing short of hell.
"Rose! Rose! Please!"
The Doctor coughed, spitting blood and ash. He groped at the rocks before him, pulling some loosing and flinging them into the lake.
He hadn't gotten far when another tremor sent him flying. Hard against the ground then rolling down the slope. The Doctor flung out an arm, dragging himself to a stop. Fire snarled at his feet.
He swallowed, nearly choking on his own ash-gunked saliva, and stared wide eyed at the lake. A black crust was beginning to form on the molten surface. Tendrils of flame and missiles of glowing rock spat from between the cracks.
"It's not- it's not-" the Doctor gulped again. Acid burned his throat and mouth. "It hasn't blown yet. There's still time."
Maybe hours. Maybe not. There could be mere seconds distancing him from the eruption.
No time to waste, then. The Doctor tore his gaze from the fiery lake, back to the slope. Rocks cascaded from the mountain top as the earth shuddered again, but this time the Doctor was low enough to the ground not to be thrown.
He clambered back to his hands and knees. Hand over hand, covering the distance to the place Rose was buried.
There was still no sight of her. No fingers curling up over the barren rocks, no shower of pebbles as she struggled to free herself. In other circumstances he could have sniffed her out, sensed the depth at which she was buried. But now, with his nose and mouth plagued by the filmy ash, this was impossible.
"Rose! Answer me!" he bellowed, shouting straight down into the rocks.
There was no answer, but suddenly the Doctor wasn't listening out for one. He could hear something else. A low wheeze, barely audible over the frenzied boom and crash of thunder.
The tiny grinding of a crystal clockwork engine, a weary groan of ancient wave-length belts, sure sign that the old girl needed greasing. Again.
For a moment he was lost, then the Doctor put a name to the strange noise that was causing him such homesickness.
The TARDIS!
"Odjya!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet.
The Doctor turned, Rose's grave pushed to the back of his mind, and raced back down the slope. His mind buzzed, eyes straining to catch a glimpse of his beloved blue box. Faithful as always, the TARDIS was late.
With one last sigh, the laboured wheezing ceased. Blue strobe light flicked across the lake surface in the brief intermissions between lightening strikes.
Oh no, oh God no. She wasn't.
The Doctor stared in unabashed revulsion as the TARDIS materialised three feet above the lake's black crust. Ten yards from the bubbling shore, a million miles out of his reach. The lava was rising quickly now that an eruption was impending, so a bad landing was an easy mistake to make.
"This is her last hope," the Doctor told himself, "It was no mistake."
He stared on hopelessly as the TARDIS hung suspended for a moment, before plopping wetly into the spitting lava. If she realised where she was, maybe Odjya wouldn't open the doors. Maybe she would take off again, no harm done. Maybe she would-
"Odjya, no! Stay inside!"
Too late. The TARDIS door swung open, pushed hard against the sucking lava. Molten rock slopped up through the opening. The slim figure in the doorway paid it no heed, simply stared down in terrible disinterest at the charred flesh peeling away from her feet.
"Doctor."
He couldn't hear the word, but the sizzling lightening let him see Odjya mouth his name. She was smiling.
"It's not too late! Go back inside!" he shouted, voice frantic. He made a move as if pushing an imaginary boulder to emphasise his point.
No good. It was no good.
Odjya, still standing in the TARDIS doorway, swung a large bag off her shoulder. She seemed blissfully unaware of the lava scorching the flesh from her bones, and the fact that the TARDIS was sinking.
She untied the string that held the bag closed, and drew out a small object. It was an egg, no surprises there. Odjya crouched in the doorway, dipped the egg into the molten lake. Glowing slag dripped off its smooth sides.
This was too much. The Doctor plucked a fist-sized lump of granite from the rocks at his feet, and pegged it overarm at Odjya.
There was a crash of breaking glass as it sailed clear over her head and hit something in the TARDIS. Nothing vital, fingers crossed. Odjya didn't appear to have noticed anything. Every ounce of her attention was on the egg in her burning fingers.
It had cracked. Even as the Doctor watched, a long, narrow body wormed its way from the fractured shell, and squirmed onto Odjya's hand.
"They did it."
He could hardly believe his own eyes. The worm was alive, not harmed in the least by the liquid fire. This was a creature rendered indestructible by even its most deadly enemy.
"Doctor!"
He heard her this time. The Doctor turned his eyes away from the wriggling baby worm, gorging itself on the bubbling flesh of Odjya's remaining arm. She was staring right back at him, smiling to herself.
Seeing that she had his attention, Odjya turned her smiled up a couple of watts. She glanced down at the worm on her arm, then back to the Doctor. The bags slung over her shoulder were lumpy, evidently full of eggs.
"See you on the other side."
Odjya smiled one last time, and stepped out from the doorway. She sunk fast, though not fast enough to stop the Doctor from watching the worms hatch all around her, writhe in and out of her charred skin. Not fast enough to stop him seeing the flames consume her, scorch the flesh til Odjya was little but a skeleton. A nursery of burning bones.
When the last smouldering strands of her hair had been dragged beneath the lake surface, the Doctor dropped to his knees. He shuddered, almost gagged. That was it. In a matter of minutes, he'd lost everything. Odjya, his people, Rose.
This was failure.
He glanced up as the TARDIS let out an agonised bellow. Even his magnificent ship was destroyed. It was well out of his reach. There was nothing he could do to save it, and yet…
"There has to be a way."
He didn't know what, he didn't know how. His entire history was being re-written inside his head. Just boring things, ordinary things, right until the point of the war. Then everything was different, the fall of Arcadia, the last battle for Gallifrey. And after that…nothing.
The Doctor realised with a jolt what that void in his head meant. He died. The Daleks stripped him of his remaining regenerations, and he died. Imagine the misery of a universe without the Doctor! Who would save the humans, the Yymroi, the zlatlotls? Who would stop the Slitheen, the Sycorax, the crazed mannequins? Who would save Rose?
"There has to be a way." He repeated, lifting his head.
He didn't want to die. Neither did Rose. It was up to him to salvage them both.
The TARDIS was completely under now. Lost for good. Just another casualty in this disaster called Beta. The old ship howled beneath the lake's surface. Lava sprayed up in fountains as bits and pieces inside the TARDIS's intricate engine detonated.
Rock showered down the black slopes, and the earth roared as it shuddered again. So that was the plan. Crash the time ship into the centre of a volcano, trigger an eruption. Destroy any chance the Doctor might have of rectifying things.
What might have been hours suddenly plunged to seconds. There was no time left to think.
The Doctor climbed to his feet, struggling to keep his balance on the tumultuous ground. He made his way up the slope, pausing for a moment at the site of Rose's rock tomb.
"I'm sorry," he said. His next words caught in his throat. It wasn't just the ash, it wasn't just his own impending death. "I still love you."
That was it. That was all there was to be said.
He swallowed hard, blinking back tears. And he ran.
xxx
I met a man locked away
For things he hadn't done
Innocence on a ball and chain
He'll never feel the sun
Again on his face or roses
In his hands, but when he smiled
At me, I could understand
xxx
"Emergency! Emergency! All passengers please secure yourselves!"
Odjya gritted her teeth and pushed hard against the seat in front. What a way to treat the wartime council! Emergency landing in Gallifrey city indeed!
"They've got some nerve." She grumbled to the man beside her.
"What a weekend this is turning out to be." He muttered in reply.
She could only agree. The twelve members of the wartime council had been enjoying a peaceful conference on Ilibo Eight, when an urgent message-gram from the Galactic Nations had announced that the Daleks had launched the first anti-TARDIS missile on Gallifrey.
This wasn't serious news in itself; they had been expecting it for weeks. But protocol in those circumstances insisted that the wartime council return to Gallifrey (the protocol inconveniently omitted what was to be done if the city in question was under attack) and decide what actions were to be taken.
So then they'd all been bustled into this time forsaken transport ship, conference gone to the wind, any thought of relaxing for the weekend completely abandon.
Odjya sighed. It was typical.
"Emergency! Emergency!" the co-pilot's voice blared over the intercom, "All personal please brace yourselves immediately!"
A quick glance out the nearest of the ship's round windows told Odjya she had little to worry about. There were a few fires scattered throughout the mighty city, but nothing too serious. The transport ship let out a piercing howl and flopped to its side. Odjya stared out the window, to the dusky orange sky. No sign of Dalek war ships. This entire scenario certainly was out of hand.
"What did that idiot say was wrong with the ship?" she queried of the man next to her.
The man, Ycoril, gave a small shrug. He didn't seem perturbed in the least by the ship's acrobatics. "Apparently it's warp trouble. Doesn't sound like anything that should encourage this action: we're not even in warp!"
Odjya was thrown against him as the ship went belly up. Only her the seatbelt across her chest kept her from falling to what was now the floor.
"Landing in fifteen seconds! All personal must brace themselves! Twelve seconds!" the intercom bellowed.
"I certainly hope they don't intend on landing us up-side-down." Odjya remarked.
Ycoril chuckled.
There was an onerous groan from the ship's engines as they forced the ship back onto its belly. Odjya's head snapped to the side and cracked against the window. She reeled back, stunned.
The next thing she knew, Ycoril was standing over her, hands on her shoulders, shaking.
"Odjya! Get it together, woman!" he shouted, shaking her vigorously.
"Cut that out." Odjya groaned in reply. She touched a hand to her head, and her fingers came back bloody. Her stomach lurched.
"Listen to me, Odjya." Ycoril stared at her, serious, "There's no time for that. The city is burning. We have to get somewhere safe."
Things hadn't been this serious a moment ago. There were only a few fires, nothing to worry about. Odjya tried to tell him this, and Ycoril just stared at her gravely.
Finally, he spoke. "You've been out for half an hour. Look around."
Odjya looked around cautiously. They were in a - well, it was hard to say. The roof was caved in, and two walls were blown out. The council was crouched in the wedge between the roof and one of the remaining walls.
"We lost Grute." Ycoril told her, "Bastards got him as soon as he stepped out of the ship. They tossed us a mortar bomb."
The time lady swallowed. Grute was head of the wartime council. If he was dead, then they were all in very, very big trouble.
"Where are we going to go?" Odjya wondered. She was acutely aware of how childish her voice sounded. Soft and plump and frightened, just like Odjya herself.
"The college. It's the most secure place within short reach. We can try and contact the others from there."
With that, Ycoril left her. He checked on the remaining nine council members, before peering out around the ragged roof of their small shelter.
"It's clear." He announced after a minute, "Let's go."
The city outside was a world beyond what Odjya had been expecting. Everything was burning, everything was falling down. Steel skyscrapers had bent and toppled like paper clips. Stone buildings lay as piles of rubble. And everywhere, there were bodies.
"Oh God, Ycoril, I can't do this." Odjya stared up at him, a hand over her mouth. This was crazy. Mortar bombs and missiles howled in the sky and assailed the earth below. To wander into that world was nothing short of suicide.
"If you don't, you'll die. Odjya, come on. You can do this."
Ycoril snaked his hand around hers, and drew her out from the shelter. The others had already gone ahead, none of them bothering to take cover.
Even as she ran, Odjya caught glimpses of her fellow council members being destroyed. Lri had half his face ripped off by a mortar bomb, Kyimar was blown to dust by an anti-personal laser. But most terrifying was Ghylly-Tri, who was torn in half as if by some frenzied, unseen beast.
"Don't look!" Ycoril shouted, tugging on her hand.
Odjya screamed when the air around her shimmered, then turned black. A grim spectre, twice her height and slick with sinewy black muscle, crashed down beside her. For two long seconds she stared into a wall of utter darkness, which paled and faded to nothing just a few feet in either direction.
"Come on!"
Odjya let herself be dragged away. Her hearts thundered. More than the fear of the missiles, of the mortars, of the Daleks themselves, she feared that writhing black creature. She was sure she had just seen the hand of death, as he wrecked havoc upon them.
The collage wasn't far away now. It was one of the few buildings unharmed.
Odjya set her eyes on it. She didn't look back. Death was behind her.
xxx
The Doctor ran.
It had taken him a while to find the orange crate TARDIS, half buried in rock and ash. Now that he'd found it, he was running from something else.
There wasn't time!
Tell that to the creature on his ass, though. A bulky adult Sycorax, terrified and dying from dehydration, had decided to take its frustrations out on the Doctor. It snapped and snarled at him, terrible jaws fading in and out of visibility.
"Let up!" the Doctor shouted at it, barely dodging the creature's next lunge.
He cut a sharp left and angled back down the slope. The Sycorax shrieked in annoyance, and charged after him.
Finally, his refuge reappeared. The orange crate TARDIS, not twenty yards away.
The ground shuddered and roared. An explosion shredded the air somewhere to his right. This was it, the volcano was erupting.
For a moment, the Doctor could see Ilium Neocort as it had been, just four gentle, undisturbed white slopes feeding into a bowl lake. Clear blue skies, pale as a shadow on ice.
Then the Sycorax lunged at him from the left, and the image shattered.
"Get off me, you bloody frog!" the Doctor hollered. With the Sycorax on top of him, he rolled down the slope in a jumble of limbs and claws.
At last he managed to free himself from the tangle. He scrambled up, and delivered the Sycorax a sharp kick to the head.
No time to finish it off. Only time to run and pray it didn't catch up.
There was only a dozen yards separating him from the TARDIS, and the Doctor covered it on his hands and feet.
By time he reached the open door, the Sycorax had caught up to him again. The Doctor leapt into the TARDIS, taking the fall impact on his shoulder. He rolled to his feet, caught hold of the tiny orange crate door in on hand, and slammed it shut.
Thwarted, the Sycorax snarled and took its anger out on the TARDIS instead. The time ship rattled a little, but gave no sign of giving in to the assault. Impenetrable, just like it should be.
"About time I got out of here."
The Doctor spoke to himself a little longer, until his nerves calmed. He set the TARDIS into action, not bothering to give it a destination.
Outside, all around the shimmering orange crate, the mountain exploded. A tower of flame blew up from the lake, tearing up pebbles and boulders alike. Avalanches ripped down the four black slopes, spilling into the lake and instantly dissolving.
The TARDIS shimmied out of existence, leaving the Sycorax to spend its last moments in profound confusion. Pyroclastic surges - clouds of searing ash and gas - swarmed up the mountain slopes, incinerating every last living thing.
Boulders the size of houses thundered back to the ground, accompanied by rains of molten slag and soot. Blue lightening whipped the scorched earth three times a second, carbon dioxide, hydrogen fluoride and sulphur dioxide choked the air of an already dead planet.
And amongst this hell, tiny worms writhed and gorged themselves on the destruction.
Nothing could survive on Beta. Nothing perhaps, except the plague called death.
Sitting in a dank corner of the TARDIS console room, the Doctor considered his next move. There were so many things to make right, and only one chance to do it. He didn't have long. The universe has very little patience for a man who continues to live, when he ought to be dead. Already he could feel it pulling at him, coaxing him into oblivion.
"Not yet." He said, as much to himself as the rest of the universe. "Not just now."
The Doctor stood, and drew himself up to his full height. It was time to go home.
xxx
If you're free, you'll never see the walls
If your head is clear, you'll never free fall
If you're right, you'll never fear the wrong
If your head it high, you'll never fear at all
xxx
Odjya hit the collage doors and kept running.
Ycoril was beside her, urging her on. Mas and Nycolimi were there, somewhere. The four of them were all that remained of the council.
"The basement!" Ycoril shouted, "It's the strongest point!"
This was a disaster. If they had just stayed in Ilibo Eight, they would have been fine. Eight lives could have been saved. All because of that stupid protocol-
"How do we get there?"
Odjya cringed when she realised the question was directed to her. Of course, she should be leading the way. As a teacher, she knew the collage better than any of the others.
"Uh, straight ahead."
Who could blame her for not being out front? Leaders died first. Odjya could direct the party just as well from the back.
"Second left!" she panted, pointing at a hallway branching off not far ahead.
Mas, now in the lead, spun on her heel and ducked into the hallway. Before the others had a chance to follow, Mas exploded back out into the main corridor.
"Not that way!" she panted, face pallid.
"We- we have to go that way." Odjya stammered, "It's the only way!"
"Not that way." Mas said again, more firmly this time.
Shoulders sagging, Odjya took the lead. There was a disused staircase at the end of the main corridor, which led to a storage area. They might be able to get down to the basement from there, time permitting.
"Why couldn't we go the other way?" Ycoril wondered, when the party was on its way again. Jogging this time, as Mas's insistence.
"The Daleks are here."
That one sentence ended all other conversation the group might have had. They jogged on in silence. Chances of anyone surviving were diminishing with every passing second.
Minutes later, they reached the staircase. There was a door, inscribed with the message 'DO NOT ENTER- REPAIRS'. Odjya pushed the door open heedlessly, and stepped back to allow the others to enter before her.
She almost felt as if this had happened before…
There was a scream from the stairwell, then a harsh crackling filled the air.
"Oh, God." Ycoril muttered, stepping backwards into the hallway, "They're there."
Odjya didn't wait a heart beat longer. She ran.
Shouts echoed behind her, and she didn't stop. There was nothing she could do to save anyone, nothing at all. Only herself, and there was only way of doing that.
She ran, shoes clattering. Half way to the main door, she hooked a sharp left and found herself in the student-use stairwell.
Taking the steps two at a time, Odjya soon reached the first basement level. She burst out from the staircase and into a corridor that ran almost parallel to the one above. A second staircase led down into the belly of the collage, the mathematics division.
Odjya sprinted past the classrooms without a sideways glance. No refuge there. A crackle of static let her know the Daleks weren't far behind.
She took another left, to yet another set of stairs. This was the final stretch. Odjya slipped on the top stairs, and tumbled down the rest in a mess of limbs. She crashed and sprawled at the bottom, tears stinging her eyes.
"No, no." her voice was nothing more than a whimper, "Just a little more time."
She could see the round pepper-pot heads of the Daleks at the top of the stairs.
"Exterminate!" they shrieked in chorus, "Gallifryan life found! Exterminate!"
Odjya dragged herself up, and limped to the first of a long line of offices. The door wasn't locked, though she recalled doing so days earlier. Someone had been in there.
The décor of the office was conservative, walls painted a soothing blue-green, just one small plant brightening the far corner. The desk was free of clutter. It was tidy, just the way she liked it.
"Oh gods, please be in here." Odjya murmured, wrenching open the desk's top drawer.
There it was! A book, small, bound in black leather, but otherwise non-descript. Certainly nowhere near as deadly in looks as in content.
She grabbed the book, stuffed it in her pocket. There was a vent at the back of the room, about her waist height. Odjya was always complaining to maintenance that the vent chilled the offices, that maybe they should introduce heating.
Today, she didn't care about the temperature. Odjya tore the grill cover from the walls, and shifted her bulk into the vent. Dalek voices screamed in the hallway outside the door.
Not bothering to replace the cover, Odjya crawled through the claustrophobic vent. It was dark, too dark to see ahead, to cramped to turn and look back. The TARDIS room wasn't far from her office, though.
She didn't have far to go.
xxx
"He's going to think I'm a bloody hobo."
The Doctor tugged at the cuffs of his suit while he grumbled. The pants were too big, the jacket was moth eaten. The tie was positively dilapidated.
"Nothing for it, I suppose."
He'd done his best to smooth his rumpled hair, and a few minutes with a washer and soap had removed most of the blood from his face. The week's worth of beard growth however, and the dirt encrusted under his nails were there to stay.
With a sigh of resignation, the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS. A silent hallway, painted sapphire blue, greeted his weary stare.
After days, maybe weeks, of volcanoes and deserts and blizzards, the hallway was a sight not to be taken lightly. He was home. After so, so long, he was home.
He took a few steps, taking in the view. Home! The one place he thought he'd never see again. Well, one of the places. He'd probably never go back to Utah, after last time. And he might avoid Beta for a century or two. Those aside, though…
"Just a little more time."
The voice came from a room to his left. The Doctor roused himself from his reverie, and glanced at the room's closed door.
Professor O. Panthea.
"So this is who you were," he mused, reading the name on the door, "Maths teacher. Not bad."
Better get a move on. The universe was getting impatient. Meddling with time, creating a paradox, the ice was wearing thin.
The Doctor wrenched the door open and stepped inside. He looked up expectantly, and his own face stared back at him. At least, it had been his face. Once. Chubby checks, baby fat. And what were those clothes he was wearing!
He almost laughed.
The boy was rummaging through Odjya's desk, just as the Doctor had planned. He didn't stop for this stranger that had entered the room.
"You'll never find it like that." The Doctor said, noticing the boy wince as something sharp cut into his hand.
It's my hand too, he told himself.
"What?" the boy was wide-eyed, terrified.
"For Gallifrey's sake," the Doctor couldn't contain himself any longer. The lad was butchering himself! "Look at what you're doing!"
At long last, the boy managed to retrieve the book. Slim, bound in black leather. Not impressive at all, unless you knew what you were looking at.
" Co-ordinates for all the forbidden planets in the multiverse." The Doctor laughed softly, "Now, what do you want with that?"
He could see the doubt in the boy's face. Fear. Of what? Being expelled? The Doctor was hardly going to jeopardise his own education. Not that the boy knew that, of course.
"I- I- I want to travel, sir."
The Doctor smiled, and slammed his bruised fist into the boy's face. The lad reeled for a moment, arms whirling like pinwheels, then he dropped bodily to the floor.
He stared down at the boy for a moment, before bending to retrieve the book. A few seconds with a permanent marker made the co-ordinates to Beta, tucked away at the back, totally illegible.
The universe pulled hard at him now. Oblivion swam behind his eyes.
It was nearly time to go. There was only one thing left to do.
xxx
There was a man who had a face
That looked a lot like me
I saw him in the mirror and
I fought him in the street
And when he turned away
I shot him in the head
Then I came to realise
I had killed myself
xxx
Feet pushing against the steel back, hands groping for a hold on the smooth floor, Odjya wreathed herself out of the vent.
She landed in an ungraceful pile in the corner of the storage room. She was badly out of breath from the exertion of the past ten minutes. If she survived this, Odjya was going to have to start working out.
"Beta, Beta, Beta."
Odjya flicked through the little black book, stopping just a few pages from the end. There it was! Co-ordinates for Beta!
With one finger acting as a bookmark, Odjya dragged herself to her feet. Three TARDIS's huddled together in the centre of the room, blipping and wheezing softly. So alive, for machines. Almost as if they knew what was going on.
"Time lord! You have been detected!"
Odjya jumped three feet in the air at the voice. Shrill, crackling, Dalek. Where had it come from?
"Exterminate!"
Uh-oh. Odjya lunged for a TARDIS. The three were all ancient, outdated models, for emergency use only. The co-ordinate panel was located on the outside, and a destination had to be typed in before the ship's door would open.
This was apparently to stop young time lords from flinging themselves into space without first considering where they were going first. An unpopular idea. Strangely enough, however, the TARDIS neutralisers so loved by the Daleks had no effect on the relic machines.
Very fortunately for Odjya, of course.
"Life form detected! Exterminate! Exterminate!"
The static voices were frenzied now. They were right outside the storeroom door. They were-
Plaster and timber exploded outwards, and the entire hallway-facing wall of the room caved in. Light glinted off the smooth dome heads of a dozen Daleks. Guns and probes raised, ready to kill.
Odjya squealed, and dived for cover. A laser singed the air an inch above her head.
"Co-ordinates, co-ordinates," she muttered, turning back to the book.
Her face froze. Where the co-ordinates of Beta should have been, there was nothing but a big black smudge. Spilled ink or seeping marker or… it was illegible. Odjya swore.
She stood slowly, hands above her head. This was it.
No escape, no surrender, no more time.
The lead Dalek aimed its gun arm carefully. Its crackling voice rang out like a shot.
"Exterminate!"
xxx
He found himself in a world of pitch black.
"Where am I now?" he demanded of the world in general.
The bathroom, maybe. It felt to be very cramped. The Doctor stretched, and his fingertips brushed solid wood on either side. Not a bathroom then. A closet. At least that explained the smell.
He pushed the door before him open, triggering a small avalanche of books and paper. Ah, well, that narrowed it down. Not only was it a closet, it was his closet. His bedroom. His TARDIS. That old orange crate would have been absorbed, either by the universe or the TARDIS. Impossible to say which.
"Hullo," he said to his own figure, sprawled out and snoring softly on the bed beside the closet, "What a handsome devil."
Careful not to make too much (more) noise, the Doctor padded out of the room, into the hall. After a few twists and turns, he arrived at the only other occupied room. Well, fingers crossed it would be occupied.
He peered into the room, subconsciously holding his breath.
She was there. Rose! As perfect and lovely as he remembered, blonde hair strewn out on the pillow under her head. And that was that.
Rose was alive, and his work was done.
"You silly old ape," the Doctor smiled at the sleeping figure, "Take care of yourself this time."
With one last look at her, he stepped into oblivion.
xxx
If you're free, you'll never see the walls
If your head is clear, you'll never free fall
If you're right, you'll never fear the wrong
If your head is high, you'll never fear at all
xxx
"What was that? What time is it?"
The Doctor groaned. He rubbed his eyes, and stared blearily at the TARDIS relative-time clock on the bedside table. Five am. What a god-forsaken time to wake up.
He shuddered as he remembered what he'd been dreaming. A girl, slim and blonde, drowning herself in lake of fire. Snakes crawling through her flesh.
"Too many of Rose's horror movies," he told himself, and sat up. There was still the matter of what had woken him.
A noise, first feathery and then just loud, from somewhere close by. Probably the closet. Probably the TARDIS was telling him to spring clean.
"Lights on, old girl." He said, climbing out of bed.
Obligingly, the ceiling lights came on. The TARDIS murmured softly to itself.
Sure enough, there was a sloppy tower of books and papers on the floor outside the cupboard. The Doctor gathered them into a pile, and tried to stuff the pile back into the cupboard. A few saucepans slid out of the closet, clattering loudly as they hit the floor.
The Doctor dropped the piles of papers, sighed, and went to pick up the saucepans. Two umbrellas and a toboggan launched themselves out of the depths of the cupboard. A wooden stool and several gallon drums of jelly babies were quick to follow suit. A boogie board he didn't remember buying topped off the pile.
"What are you doing?"
Grinning, the Doctor glanced over his shoulder at Rose. She was standing, hands on hips, in the doorway of his room. Glowering. His grin only broadened.
"What are you wearing those for?" he wondered, referring to her pyjamas.
"I was sleeping," Rose growled. "Like every other normal person is at five in the morning. I came to see what all the racket was about."
The pair of them argued about the noise for a few minutes, before something shiny and blue caught Rose's attention.
"Is that a toboggan?" she wondered, looking tentative.
"An old earth one, yeah. Useless, really. It doesn't even have a turbo." The Doctor told her.
Rose squealed. "I haven't been tobogganing in ages! Could we go, could we? Please?"
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "I suppose. Or," he grinned, "We could always go to the beach instead."
"The beach?" Rose looked dubious.
"Yeah," the Doctor nodded, "I know just the place. Bahama, the planet."
Rose agreed readily. She couldn't wait to see the Doctor in swimmers. She giggled at the thought of him in Speedos.
"Wait, though," she said, thinking of something.
"What?"
"Are there any monsters there?"
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the end
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It's done! Really, really done! My God! Please review, because you'll never have another chance to. Bibliography up soon. It needs one! Also, the new story suggestions will be up there, so give it a look through and tell me what you like. Or don't. But how will I know if you don't?
Thanks, thanks, thanks to everyone who reviewed. I love you all!
Sax-Hog