Dust & Ashes
"A worm hole?" Pete shook his head in disbelief, "Where the bloody hell to?"
"No idea." The Time Lord murmured in response as Pete began sniffling followed by several sneezes in quick succession.
"Gesundheit-"
"Thanks."
"Can you feel that?" Rose scrunched up her face as a fine smattering of something tickled her nose, "Is that sand?"
"Dunno." The Doctor allowed some of the material to settle in his hand, his long tongue darting out to take a sample. "There are traces of Silicon Dioxide, but there's something else- oh, oh that's-"
"What is it Doctor?" Rose stepped closer as tried to wipe the offending taste from his mouth.
"Something- bad, very bad," He grimaced, pouring the powder into a small tube and pocketing it before looking about them with an expression that told Rose they were heading into serious trouble.
"Right, that bad then," She mumbled turning to the Captain, "Seal the bridge off, any media, move them, any trouble, arrest them."
"Agreed," Magambo nodded turning to her men, "I want the vehicles in standard procedure five layout, co-ordinate yourselves with Torchwood. Perimeter guards, stand ready. Stay alert, any hostile activity – shoot it down."
Rose observed the Doctor's reaction to Magambo's orders and found herself sighing in relief at the familiar crease that wrinkled his brow when something rubbed him up the wrong way. For an instant it felt almost like a betrayal that she kept watching him for Doctory things, but then again it had been so long since they'd been together that perhaps she was just enjoying being reminded of his mannerisms, something she was sure she'd never forget but somehow had. She smiled stupidly and looked away as he glanced down at her with a raised eyebrow.
"Alright?"
"Yea." She sniffed turning quickly back to Pete.
"Has anything come through here yet?" The Doctor scouted around them briefly for any signs of something larger having come through before they'd arrived. "Any fatalities?"
"No, and we're not going to if I have any say about it." Pete grumbled, phone glued to his ear and handkerchief over his nose. "So what do we do now?"
"I haven't got the TARDIS and I need to analyze that wormhole." The Doctor looked to the Captain who registered a brief look of shock at his admission.
"We have a scientific advisor on site – Dr Malcolm Taylor." She offered, her features defaulting to professionally blank. "Just the man you need – he's a genius."
"We'll see about that." The Doctor quipped following her towards the large demountable truck behind them, Rose rolling her eyes at the tone of sheer arrogance that was so very Doctor and pulled the door closed behind them almost stumbling over a cord laid haphazardly across the floor. She was grateful for the blue suited arm that caught her shoulders, righting her.
"Thanks." She mumbled looking curiously up at him. He flashed her a grin and a wink as his attention turned back to the small, slightly pale man hidden behind an impressive bank of wiring which to her resembled something akin to jiggery-pokery.
"Well now," The Doctor clapped his hands together, "What've we got here then?"
"Oh, my goodness." Malcolm ceased his meddling as the Captain cleared her throat, his mouth opening and closing like an oxygen starved cod. "It's you, you're, you're-"
"The Doctor." He grinned reaching out to shake his hand. "Malcolm is it?"
"The Doctor, blimey, I can't believe you're actually- I've read all the files, missed you last time, out with a nasty case of-"
"Ahem-" Captain Magambo shushed the bumbling man with a pointed look.
"Right, yes can't have us knowing too much so-" The Doctor continued despite Malcolm's vacant stares, "I need a complete full-range analysis of that wormhole."
"Of course," Malcolm turned back to his computers, "I must say it's really quite extraordinary, I'm measuring an oscillation of 15 Malcolms per second."
"Malcolms?" The Doctor frowned looking past the man to the bank of monitors.
"A wavelength parcel of ten kilohertz operating in four dimensions equals one Malcolm."
"You named a unit of measurement after yourself?" Rose raised an eyebrow from her place leaning against the wall behind them, her lip twitching in amusement.
"It didn't do Mr Watt any harm." Malcolm grinned at her, "Now, I've probably got the wrong idea, but I've wired up an integrator."
"No that won't-" The Doctor began.
"I set the scanner to register what it can't detect and inverted the image."
"You did what?" The Doctor stilled his movements over the keyboard.
"Is that wrong?" Malcolm scratched his head in thought.
"No, no, actually Malcolm, that is brilliant! You can actually measure the wormhole. OK, I admit, that is genius!" The Doctor nodded quite impressed.
"The Doctor called me a genius." Malcolm swooned backward into his seat toppling it as he continued to grin stupidly at the Captain.
"Up you get then." The Doctor rolled his eyes, reaching out a hand to him.
"Told you." Rose snickered.
"That's enough out of you Tyler." He muttered as he brushed passed her in the small space.
"He called me a geni-" Malcolm continued smiling dreamily at the Captain as he was deposited back into his chair.
"I know, I heard." She rolled her eyes.
"Now, we need to run a capacity scan. I need a full report." The Doctor's eyes flickered across to the live feed from outside, Malcolm finally coming back down to Earth. "It's getting bigger."
"Full Capacity Scan coming right up." Malcolm acknowledged, adjusting this equipment and monitors once again.
"What could generate somethin' like that?" Rose squinted at the rapidly increasing digits on the screen beside her.
"Ah now see that there Rose Tyler is a brilliant question," He nodded sidling up beside her to check another set of readings on her monitor, "And frankly I don't have a clue, but," He pulled a small clear tube from his pocket containing the sediment he hadn't sampled, "This, I think-"
"Which is?" Magambo questioned stepping up beside Rose.
"Ammonia, Lime, Phosphorous, Sodium Chloride, Sulfur, Fluorine, Iron, Silicon-" He listed off holding the vial up to the light, squinting at the contents. "Carbon."
"People?" Rose murmured.
"Exactly." He grimaced.
"How did you-" Malcolm began shaking his head in wonder.
"Time Lord taste buds," Rose supplied following his line of site to the vial. "He can taste the composition of pretty much anything."
"That's- interesting-" Captain Magambo raised an eyebrow in thought.
"-Disgusting more like," Rose mused, "You'll get used to it."
"Oi." He flashed a wounded look down at her, "Am not."
"Eleven times we were arrested 'cause of it." She muttered in response glancing across the monitor. "On the one planet."
"And talked us out of it too if you remember correctly." He retorted with a huff.
"You did?" She snorted, "Tha's not how I remember it."
"Oh really," He turned and lent back against the desk, "And tell me Rose Tyler just when-"
"Henry the Eighth, Casanova-" She began listing off destinations.
"Oh please," He scoffed, "As I recall there was very little actual talking and a damn sight more of you parading your womanly assets-"
"Oh don't start on that pretty boy crap," She snorted, "Jabe, Linda with a Y, Reinette-"
"She snogged me!" He retorted indignantly, "You on the other hand-"
"Well what can I say," Rose sniffed feigning nonchalance, "You's looked a bit alike."
"Are you two quite finished." Captain Magambo bristled loudly from behind them.
"Oops." The Doctor mumbled.
"Sorry." Rose added, a faint blush staining her cheeks.
"Excellent," Magambo fumed, "Now, back to the whole in the fabric of reality."
"Right," The Doctor agreed returning to the keyboard, his fingers almost disappearing in a blur. "We need to know where this tear leads to."
"An' how are we gonna do that?" Rose questioned from behind him.
"With this," He rummaged around in his trouser pocket for a good long while before pulling a small silver blob from his pocket and dropping in it to her palm without looking up from his work, "Toss it right into the centre of the rupture, wait a few moments, click your fingers then bring it straight back." He soniced it once, the colour sifting through the spectrum until it matched the pigment of her skin then back to silver.
"You're serious?" Magambo raised an eyebrow cautiously staring down at the goop in Rose's hand.
"Well of course I'm serious, does this face look anything but serious?" He snapped attempting to not feel insulted. When she failed to respond he sighed dramatically.
"Look," He took the blob from Rose and made a point to cover the distance to the other side of the room, "This little beauty is genetically linked to Rose, it's prime function is reconnaissance, spacio-temporal data retrieval, it's simple." He let it fall from his fingers and Malcolm almost had to duck for cover as the blob became a small ball and projected itself back into Rose's hand. "It wants to come home."
"Right then," Rose pushed past a slightly dazed Captain," Here we go." She disappeared out the door.
"Malcolm," He snapped his attention back to the monitors, "Keep an eye on the energy read outs while she's outside."
"Energy output spiking at 20 Malcolms." He replied cussing as a diode sparked incessantly to his left.
Rose burst through the door a moment later. "That was easy." She grinned handing the silver gadget back to the Doctor.
"Now," He set the ball between two electrodes gently and after a quick sonicing details spooled across the monitors. "What is on the other side of that hole?"
"Oh," He breathed in astonishment.
"What's it say Doctor?" Rose murmured over his hunched shoulders.
"The other side of the Universe. The Scorpion Nebula to be exact." He fiddled with the readouts until images compiled across the monitors of the planet and surrounding system.
"That's incredible," Magambo shook her head as she watched on.
"That my dear Captain," The Doctor smirked, "Is the planet of San Helios."
"That's another planet, I'm looking at images of a-" She breathed. "All thanks to a tiny rubber ball. You really are alien."
"Yeah." He agreed distractedly as another monitor flashed to his right. "And it's not really a rubber-"
"You look human." Malcolm added as almost an afterthought causing everyone in the room to gape at him. "You know just sayin-"
"And you look Time Lord. But anyway..." If anyone noticed the reassuring hand Rose ghosted over the Doctor's forearm, no one mentioned it.
"As I was saying, San Helios is a planet with over a hundred billion people and- and- cities, oceans, mountains, the wildlife all of it now just- turned to sand." He turned to Rose solemnly, "Something destroyed the whole of San Helios."
"Bad news!" Malcolm fretted as he rushed to silence several alarms, "It's the wormhole, Doctor, it's getting bigger! We've reached a Bernard and climbing."
"Estimated circumference of the wormhole is now four miles heading upward." Rose shouted over the alarms as she pulled her phone out still reading off the screen behind them, "I'm gonna get Pete to ground all flights above London. We can't risk anyone falling through."
"Doctor," Magambo pressed, "I have to know – does that wormhole constitute a danger to this planet?"
"We need to find a way to close the wormhole." Rose interrupted. "Ten miles and growing, whatever's on the other side it's gettin' closer."
"Doctor-"
He was silent for the longest time, reading through pages and pages of data before swallowing heavily.
"Mobilise your troops Captain," He sighed glancing towards Rose, "And stand ready. Possible code red."
"Understood." She nodded and quickly exited, the sounds of armed UNIT squads echoing around them through the thin walls of the demountable.
"Malcolm I need a compressed burst of feedback on a counter oscillation." The Doctor turned to face him slipping his sonic back into his pocket. "We need to shut it down now."
"Code red! Fire at will!" Came the sounds of Captain Magambo's orders to open fire, the Doctor dashing across and out the door as the first casualty was shot down, his eyes widening in recognition.
"Malcolm!" He bellowed.
"I've done it."
"Now transmit it!" The Doctor Squeaked pulling Rose out of the way of yet another falling stingray.
"What is that?" Rose squinted down at the robotic stingray flopping about before them as the Doctor squatted down, cautiously picking it up by the tail.
"No, no, no, that's bonkers." He muttered to himself as he soniced the creature dangling before him.
"Doctor?" Rose ducked as another flew past her head.
"Hang on. Yes! Oh! You see, billions of them flying in formation all the way round the planet. Round and round and round. Faster and faster and faster until they generate a rupture in space!" He sprung to his feet dropping the carcass with a clatter.
"The speed of them and the numbers and the size – all of that rips the wormhole into existence."
"And the wormhole's getting bigger," Rose realized, "Because they're gettin' closer."
"Yup," He popped.
"But how can they travel through a wormhole," Rose queried dodging another as it flew past them. "I thought you had to use a capsule or somethin', like the vortex and the TARDIS-"
"Very good," He agreed impressed. "And look at the exoskeleton."
"It's a sorta metal?" Rose kicked it with the toe of her boot.
"They've got bones of metal, so the velocity makes the wormhole and then their body makes it safe."
"They're gonna turn the Earth into a desert?" She shook her head with a smile when he began to grin slightly. "You're loving this aren't you."
"The worse it gets-"
"Some things never change." She laughed despite the situation, guns blazing around them. God she'd missed this.
The Doctor grinned back dashing away, the stingrays swooping closer to the demountable.
"There must be a whole swarm of them," He grimaced turning in time to watch another twenty eject from the worm hole. "They swarm out of the wormhole, strip the planet bare and then move on to the next world. Start the lifecycle all over again."He pulled furiously at his hair and ducking as another came tumbling to the ground, "Malcolm!"
"Nearly there!" Came his muffled response.
"No," The Doctor bellowed sonicing one that started towards the truck, "Right NOW!"
"It's not working!" Malcolm shouted over a small explosion inside
"We need that signal. We've got billions of those things about to fly through!" Rose cried.
"What do I do?" He cried back as the Doctor leapt up the stairs and began typing furiously at several different access points at once.
"We use the backfeed integrator and keep the signal ramping up!" He cackled with glee.
"By how much?" Malcolm was approaching hysterical.
"Five hundred Bernards. Do it now!" He spun another monitor as the readouts began registering fluctuations in the surrounding space of the tear.
"Doctor it's closing!" Rose shouted back through the open door.
"Target at twelve o'clock, take it out!" They heard the Captain cry over the sound of gunfire.
"Yes!" Malcolm cried grabbing the Doctor in an awkward hug as the cease fire was called. "It's collapsing back in on itself, we did it."
"Well done Malcolm," He chuckled, "I think you've just become my new best friend."
Malcolm laughed and flopped exhausted into his chair chancing a glance over his now fried systems, the sounds of the final stingrays hitting the tarmac signaling a cease fire.
"Job well done Captain." The Doctor patted her on the back as she supervised the clean up and disposal of what was left of the stingrays.
"And you Doctor." She acknowledged saluting him.
"Oh don't," He rolled his eyes.
"Thank you for coming when we needed you." She nodded returning her hand to her side.
"My pleasure." He grinned gesturing towards Pete busily helping with the clean up. "Well, we'll be off then, you know where to find us."
"Indeed." She smiled. "What will you do now?"
"Oh you know," He smiled mysteriously, "This and that."
"Home sounds brilliant." The sound of Rose's voice came from the open door of Malcolm's lab.
"Well then," Magambo nodded, "Let's hope we don't meet again for quite some time."
"Agreed." He took Rose's hand and turned towards Pete's SUV.
"Oh Doctor!" Magambo called, taking something from an officer and jogging towards them.
"This came for you." She handed him what turned out to be an envelope with his name scrawled across it in familiar handwriting.
"What's this?" He turned it over in his hand.
"Unknown." She shook her head. "It came anonymously with instructions to be delivered here at this time and date, to you, unopened.
"Well that's just weird." Rose smirked.
"Mmm, wibbly-wobbley." He muttered opening the envelope carefully and slipping the old worn out parchment from the sleeve.
"What is it?" Rose squinted at the figures scrawled across the page.
"Harmonic equations-" He breathed, eyes widening.
"Donna's theory?" Rose queried frowning down at the almost illegible swirls.
"She must have done this before-" His expression saddened as he noticed the last equations appeared rushed.
"Before what?" She asked softly.
"Before he had to wipe her memory," He murmured folding the paper and slipping it into his breast pocket. "Her body couldn't have supported a Time Lord mind Rose she would have burnt, like you and the vortex, you're not designed for it."
"Other you is alone?" She murmured.
"Yea." He agreed solemnly.
"I'm sorry," Rose took his hand and squeezed it. "Sorry she had to forget and sorry that the other you's alone."
"Ah he won't be for long," The Doctor sniffed, the memory of River Song springing to mind, "There's someone very special waiting in his future. And it's funny, when I first realized who she was I couldn't believe it but she knew- Rose she knew my name."
"But I thought-"
"Yes, exactly," He agreed, "But now it makes sense."
"I'm still not following."
"The Doctor has a wife Rose."
"Oh," She went quiet for a time, "Well that's- that's good that you- um-"
"No, not me," He clarified with a scoff, "Other me and from I can work out not that me either but next me, this me was designed for- well obviously – um- well you know- you- sort of-" He trailed off with a sniff ignoring Rose's smirk.
"Anyway," He pulled her closer to him, retrieving the jumper from his pocket. "Home?"
"You realize this discussion isn't over yea." Rose raised an eyebrow glancing up from her place close to his chest.
"Oh I have no doubt." He muttered.
"I'll tell you something else though," She replied softly just before he depressed the jumper, "Think I might have been made for you too."
He grinned as they disappeared in a flash of white.