Hello again!

I'm back! After so long...

Again, I'm sorry for the hiatus, but I'm getting back into writing everything.

Today, we finish the Long Game.

Happy Reading

Chapter 21

The Long Game part 2

The common area was already full of different employees on their scheduled breaks, barely giving the time for the group before them to leave. They followed Cathica through the crowds. "Have you every been up there?"

"I can't," Cathica said. "You need a key for the lift, and you only get a key with promotion. No one gets to five hundred except for the chosen few."

"Is there like a janitor we can talk to that has access to floor five hundred?" June asked. She could see a smile on the Doctor's face out of the corner of her eye. She attempted to stifle a smile of her own.

Cathica laughed. "Are you kidding? This place is too large for only a few janitors to keep it clean. Each floor has its own."

June tutted and snapped her fingers. "Damn."

"You gave it a shot," the Doctor said.

~*O*~

They walked back into the now empty newsroom. "Look, they only give us twenty minutes maintenance. Can't you give it a rest?" Cathica asked.

The Doctor ignored her. "But you've never been to another floor? Not even one floor down?" He sat in the dentist like chair she had been sitting in earlier. June leaned against the side, very aware of all of the equipment around her and all of the ways that it could break.

"I went to floor sixteen when I first arrived." Cathica seemed more interested in checking off the things on her clipboard than answering the Doctor's prying questions. "That's medical. That's when I got my head done, and then I came straight here. Satellite Five, you work, eat and sleep on the same floor." She crouched down to look at some of the equipment. "That's it, that's all." She paused for a moment and then stood up. "You're not management, are you?"

The Doctor kept pressing buttons on the chair. "At last. She's clever."

"Be nice," June whispered. He ignored her.

Cathica stared at the three of them for a moment. "Yeah, well, whatever it is, don't involve me." She walked around the room, staring anywhere but at them. "I don't know anything."

"Don't you even ask?" the Doctor asked.

"Well, why would I?" she kept staring down at her clipboard.

"You're a journalist," the Doctor said. She looked at him for a moment. He quickly moved on. "Why's all the crew human?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" she asked.

"There's no aliens on board. Why?"

"Well, there's not no," June added in a whisper so small that only the Doctor could hear her probably due to his dumbo ears or something. He gave her a look. Rose stared at her in confusion, wondering if she had heard whispering or not.

"I don't know," Cathica said. "No real reason. They're not banned or anything."

"Then where are they?" the Doctor asked.

Cathica shrugged. "I suppose immigration's tightened up. It's had to, what with all the threats."

"What threats?" the Doctor asked.

"I don't know, all of them," Cathica said, her body stiff. "Usual stuff." She froze when she looked at the three strangers, not from management, judging her. June could see the anxiety in her eyes. The Doctor could be intimidating sometimes, she knew that. No one wanted to disappoint him. It was an odd spell he put on people without really realizing it. And Rose was giving her this puzzled look. Like one of those looks that you got from a teacher when you're trying to ramble out an answer but you don't know what you're talking about and the teacher knows you don't know what you're talking about. June tried her best to seem as unjudgmental as possible but she wasn't sure if she could fix anything. Cathica straightened and went into a sort of recovery mode. "And the price of space warp doubled so that kept the visitors away. Oh, and the government on Chavic Five's collapsed, so that lot stopped coming, you see. Just lots of little reasons, that's all." She began to walk away.

"Adding up to one great big fact, and you didn't even notice," the Doctor said.

Cathica stopped and turned towards him. "Doctor, I think if there was any kind of conspiracy, Satellite Five would have seen it. We see everything."

"I can see better," the Doctor said. "This society's the wrong shape, even the technology."

"It's cutting edge," Cathica argued.

"It's backwards," he corrected. "There's a great big door in your head. You should've chucked this out years ago." Cathica stared down at the ground.

June leaned close to the Doctor and whispered, "You're making her feel bad." He looked back at her and opened his mouth, but she quickly continued. "It's not her fault."

"I know," he whispered back. June was sure he did, but she hated treating ignorance as part of the problem.

"So, what do you think's going on?" Rose asked.

"It's not just this space station, it's the whole attitude," the Doctor said. "It's the way people think. The great and bountiful Human Empire's stunted. Something's holding it back."

"And how would you know?" Cathica challenged.

"Trust me," the Doctor said, "humanity's been set back about ninety years. When did Satellite Five start broadcasting?"

Cathica stopped in place. "Ninety-one years ago."

~*O*~

The next step, of course, with a situation like the one they found themselves in, was to go snooping around places that they shouldn't be snooping. Places where if they were caught, they'd most likely go to jail, well, space jail. Rose looked over the Doctor's shoulder while he unlocked a metal door with the sonic screwdriver. June leaned against the wall, watching in the direction they had come from for anyone who might ruin the investigation.

Cathica still hovered around them. June sort of wondered why she was still there. It had to be something doing with being a journalist. But she shifting from foot to foot and wrung her hands together, glancing over her shoulder. "We are so going to get in trouble," she said. "You're not allowed to touch the mainframe. You're going to get told off."

"Rose, tell her to button it," the Doctor said. Rose did not tell her to button it.

"You can't just vandalize the place," Cathica shot quietly. "Someone's going to notice!"

And just then, the door to the mainframe swung open, giving the Doctor access inside the controls.

He seemed to be having fun, sonicing everything and pulling wires and wires out, making things spark and sputter. Rose and June were trying to untangle masses of wires and find where they were connected to, or really just make any progress at all considering neither of them really knew what they were doing.

Cathica seemed like she finally had enough. "This is nothing to do with me. I'm going back to work." She stormed off.

"Go on, then. See you!" the Doctor called.

She stormed right back over to them. "I can't just leave you, can I?"

"If you want to be useful, get them to turn the heating down," Rose said. "It's boiling."

June shrugged. "Yeah, it kinda is. It's not horrible, but…."

"No, it is pretty horrible," Rose argued. "How're you not dying?"

"I'm not wearing a jacket I can't change out of," June said.

"Fair point," Rose said. "But what's wrong with this place? Can't they do something about it?"

Cathica shook her head. "I don't know. We keep asking. Something to do with the turbine."

"Something to do with the turbine," the Doctor mocked.

"You're being rude again," June shot at him.

"Well, I don't know!" Cathica cried.

The Doctor turned to her. "Exactly. I give up on you, Cathica. Now, Rose. Look at Rose. Rose is asking the right kind of question."

Rose grinned. "Oh, thank you." June gave her a mini applause and Rose mocked a curtsy.

"Why is it so hot?" the Doctor asked.

"One minute you're worried about the Empire and the next it's the central heating!" Cathica sighed.

The Doctor turned back to his work. "Well, never underestimate plumbing. Plumbing's very important." He pulled out a clump of wires that used to be attached to something, but now just sparked in his hand. He smiled nervously. Cathica looked like she was about to have a heart attack.

And the Doctor kept working and working and working and telling June and Rose what to do so they could all continue to work and June was getting very tired and began to crave a soda. Something about the sizzle and pop from opening and can or a bottle. She wondered if there was a vending machine around.

But just as her mind got distracted, it was forced to snap back into focus as the Doctor pulled a screen from the mass of wires. And on it stood graphics of Satellite Five's blue prints. "Here we go," the Doctor announced. "Satellite Five, pipes and plumbing. Look at the layout."

Cathica gaped and walked up to the screen. "This is ridiculous. You've got access to the computer's core. You can look at the archive, the news, the stock exchange and you're looking at pipes?"

"But there's something wrong," the Doctor said.

"I suppose," Cathica nodded.

"Didn't we already establish this?" June asked, looking between them.

"Why, what is it?" Rose asked.

"The ventilation system," Cathica said. "Cooling ducts, ice filters, all working flat out channeling massive amounts of heat down."

"All the way from the top," the Doctor said.

"Floor Five hundred," Rose said.

"Really?" June gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth. "The one mysterious floor that's been suspicious the whole time we've been here? There's something going on up there? No way!"

"Tone down the sass, June Bug," the Doctor said. June rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, but the Doctor quickly interrupted her. "Something up there is generating tons and tons of heat."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm missing out on a party," Rose said. "It's all going on upstairs. Fancy a trip?"

"Okay, we were obviously going to go up there next," June said.

"You can't," Cathica told them. "You need a key."

"Keys are just codes, and I've got the codes right here." The Doctor did something to the wires and grabbed the screen.

"There are more types of keys than just code keys, though," June said.

"Well, yes, but we're talking about code keys," the Doctor told her. "And here we go. Override two one five point nine."

"How come it's given you the code?" Cathica asked.

The Doctor looked up. "Someone up there likes me."

June sighed. "Oh, that's never good."

~*O*~

"Come on," Rose called to Cathica as she stepped inside the elevator. "Come with us."

Cathica scoffed. "No way."

The Doctor grinned. "Bye!" he waved at her. June rolled her eyes.

"Well, don't mention my name," she said. "When you get in trouble, just don't involve me." And she stormed away. And this time, she didn't come back.

"That's her gone. Adam's given up. Looks like it's just us three," the Doctor said, glancing at the girls.

"Yeah," Rose said.

June nodded. "Yep."

The Doctor smiled. "Good."

June felt herself smile when she met eyes with the Doctor. "Very."

"Yep," Rose agreed.

He slipped a card into the wall and took June's hand as the elevator doors closed.

~*O*~

Floor Five Hundred was both nothing similar to what had been described and exactly what June had been expecting to walk into. It was about as beautiful as a sewer and as warm as a freezer. She hugged herself but it didn't stop the shivering.

The Doctor stepped out before them and glanced around. "The walls are not made of gold. You two should go back downstairs."

"Tough," Rose said.

June shook her head and began to rummage through her backpack. "Yeah, that's not happening. Where is—" her words turned into quiet angry grumbles through frozen lips. She remembered leaving her jacket on her bed, which meant that it wasn't in her backpack. She swore to herself.

And then some sort of heavy cloth dropped over her head and she couldn't see anything. She pulled away the blindfold to see the Doctor jacketless and that was when she realized what she had in her hands. "I'd rather not listen to your teeth chattering the whole time we're here," he said.

"But—?"

"Would you rather be cold, June?"

June narrowed her eyes at him and slipped into his jacket. The whole thing was long and heavy. Ridiculously heavy actually. She threw her backpack back on and curled the extra sleeve fabric around her hands. The Doctor was already off walking further into floor Five Hundred. Rose followed after him, giving June a nudge, and a playful look over her shoulder.

As they walked, June wondered if the jacket smelled like him or if he smelled like the jacket. Because there was this very particular smell that she was sure no one else would be able to pick up on unless they spent most of their time next to the Doctor. And she couldn't exactly place it or give it any similarities. And she knew that she couldn't be focused on it because they were walking further and further into what was obviously danger.

They stepped up a metal staircase into a metal room and at last, there was life. Or at least it seemed like there was life. A man stood in the middle of the room, dressed in a suit, looking a bit like that guy from that zombie movie June had seen and a lot like a live action Jack Frost. And he grinned at them merrily and said, "I started without you."

What was more alarming however, was the row of people, who all looked too still and empty to be alive, working the controls in front of him. They were all sightless and staring and working. All covered with a thin layer of frost tangled in hair and in clothes, eyelashes, on noses. They seemed more like mannequins than living people.

"This is fascinating," the man continued. "Satellite Five contains every piece of information within the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Birth certificates, shopping habits, bank statements, but you three, you don't exist. Not a trace. No birth, no job, not the slightest kiss." June wondered if that was the sort of thing they could now track in the whatever-th century. "How can you walk through the world and not leave a single footprint?"

"Magic," June breathed.

"What was that?" the man asked. June looked at him as if she had said nothing at all and had no idea why he was talking to her.

"Suki," Rose gasped. She raced across the room to one of the still people working the controls. "Suki! Hello?" The girl she knelt down next to was in fact, Suki, just absent. It was Suki's body, but it was like Suki wasn't there. June hated to realize what that meant. "Can you hear me? Suki? What have you done to her?"

"I think she's dead," the Doctor said.

"I think they all are," June added.

"She's working," Rose said, looking around, completely puzzled.

"They've all got chips in their head, and the chips keep going, like puppets," the Doctor explained.

"Oh!" the man beamed. Usually beaming was warm. His wasn't. "You're full of information. But it's only fair we get some information back, because apparently, you're no one." He laughed. "It's so rare not to know something. Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter," the Doctor said, "because we're off. Nice to meet you." He looked at Rose. "Come on."

He took June's arm since her hand was still curled in the fabric of his jacket and turned around. But they were grabbed by two living corpses of what June assumed were previous employees. They pulled June and the Doctor apart and turned them back around, holding them tight despite the struggles. Suki's arm had clasped onto Rose and she was struggling to free herself.

"Tell me who you are," the man demanded.

"Since that information's keeping us alive, I'm hardly going to say, am I?" the Doctor asked.

"Well, perhaps my Editor in Chief can convince you otherwise," the man said.

"Doubtful," June grumbled.

"And who's that?" the Doctor asked.

The man wavered for a moment and then leaned closer to the Doctor, his voice dropping. "It may interest you to know that this is not the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. In fact," he began to laugh, "it's not actually human at all. It's merely a place where humans happen to live." And in response to this, loud, monstrous growls, snarls, and barks echoed from the ceiling. The man stopped to listen, nodding along. "Yeah." He nodded more. "Yeah, sorry." He readjusted himself and then turned back to the Doctor. "It's a place where humans are allowed to live by kind permission of my client." He pointed up.

On the ceiling hung, what could only be described as a large flesh mound with teeth. It snarled and growled, but remained completely immobile, stuck to the spot. It was disgusting, roaring, and shiny with ooze or sweat or something.

"Ew, what?" June gasped. She wanted to look away, but kept staring at it.

"What is that?" Rose asked.

"You mean that thing's in charge of Satellite Five?" the Doctor asked, although it sounded more like a confirmation.

"That thing, as you put it, is in charge of the human race."

June couldn't stop herself from snickering. "Yeah, right." A flesh wad did not control humanity. It couldn't.

The man gave her a cold look and then turned back to the Doctor. "For almost a hundred years, mankind has been shaped and guided, his knowledge and ambition strictly controlled by its broadcast news, edited by my superior, your master, and humanity's guiding light, the mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe. I call him Max." The Doctor gave him one of those smiles which wasn't really a smile, but more of a bitter, 'good for you' smile.

~*O*~

In the far future, June thought that handcuffs or items similar would be simple, small, maybe purely technological or made of just painful lasers or something. But no. She, the Doctor, and Rose were all strapped into heavy black cuffs attached to a heavy black post that had to be wheeled around and stuck to the ground. It was incredibly inconvenient and yet, there they were.

The man was going off on explanations, similar to what the Doctor did, just evil and somehow more boring. It was difficult to listen to someone when you wanted to punch them for imprisoning you. "Create a climate of fear and it's easy to keep the boarders closed. It's just a matter of emphasis. The right word in the right broadcast repeated often enough can destabilize an economy, invent an enemy, change a vote." They were scaring, manipulating humans into submission.

"So, all the people on Earth are like, slaves," Rose guessed.

"Well, now there's an interesting point. Is a slave a slave if he doesn't know he's enslaved?" the man asked.

June nodded and the Doctor plainly said, "Yes."

"Oh," the man sighed. "I was hoping for a philosophical debate. Is that all I'm gonna get? Yes?" he mocked.

"Yes," the Doctor said.

The man shook his head. "You're no fun."

"Let me out of these manacles. You'll find out how much fun I am," the Doctor threatened.

"Oh, he's tough, isn't he?" he laughed. "But, come on. Isn't it a great system? You've got to admire it, just a little bit."

"You can't hide something on this scale," Rose said. "Somebody must have noticed."

The man nodded. "From time to time, someone, yes, but the computer chip system allows me to see inside of their brains. I can see the smallest doubt and crush it. Then they just carry on, living the life, strutting about downstairs and all over the surface of Earth like they're so individual, when of course, they're not. They're just cattle."

"Or then end up here," June added, looking at the team of the dead.

The man smiled. "Exactly. In that respect, the Jagrafess hasn't changed a thing."

"What about you? You're not a Jagrabelly…," she stumbled over the word.

"He just said it," June told her.

"Jagrafess," the Doctor corrected.

"Jagrafess," Rose said. "You're not a Jagrafess. You're human."

"Yeah, well, simply being human doesn't pay very well," the man said.

June shrugged. "Fair enough. But that still doesn't explain everything."

"You couldn't have done this all on your own," Rose said.

The man laughed. "No. I represent a consortium of banks. Money prefers a long-term investment. Also, the Jagrafess needed a little hand to install himself."

"No wonder, a creature that size," the Doctor said, gazing up at it. "What's his life span?"

"Three thousand years," the man said. June whistled. It felt too long to be alive.

"That's one hell of a metabolism generating all that heat," the Doctor said. "That's why Satellite Five's so hot. You pump it out of the creature, channel it downstairs. Jagrafess stays cool, it stays alive. Satellite Five is one great big life support system."

"But that's why you're so dangerous. Knowledge is power, but you remain unknown." The man laughed and snapped his fingers. All of the sudden something that felt like lightning coursed through June's body. "Who are you?" Everything in her body was tense and being shocked without the layer of skin to protect it. Her bones and muscles were being pulled at and shocked. She tried her best not to cry out in pain by keeping her mouth clamped shut, but it didn't work all that well. And then he snapped his fingers again and her entire body relaxed.

"Leave them alone," the Doctor begged. "I'm the Doctor, she's June Harlow, and that one's Rose Tyler. We're nothing, we're just wandering."

"Tell me who you are!" the man demanded, hands clasped tightly together.

"I just said!" the Doctor yelled.

"Yes, but who do you work for? Who sent you? Who knows about us? Who exactly—" and then he stopped. He paused and then grinned at the Doctor. "Time Lord."

"What?" the Doctor asked.

"Oh, yes," he continued. "The last of the Time Lords in his travelling machine. Oh, with his little human girls from long ago." He reached out to stroke Rose's cheek, but she flinched away and June made a rough attempt at kicking his leg.

"Don't know what you're talking about," the Doctor told him.

"Time Travel," he said.

"Bullshit," June spat. She really did have no idea why they were playing dumb, but she played along because she knew it would be stupid to do otherwise.

"Someone's been telling you lies," the Doctor said.

The man tutted. "Young master Adam Mitchell?" He snapped his fingers and turned around.

A screen showed up in front of them, like a projector, showing Adam. He was sitting in an empty newsroom, in the large center chair, with a hole in his brain getting information sucked right out of it. June's jaw nearly fell on the floor. "Holy shit."

"Oh my god," Rose gasped. "His head!"

"What the hell's he done?" the Doctor wondered aloud. "What the hell's he gone and done? They're reading his mind. He's telling them everything."

June shook her head. "Stupid."

"And through him, I know everything about you," the man said. "Every piece of information in his head is now mine. And you have infinite knowledge, Doctor. The Human Empire is tiny compared to what you've seen in your T-A-R-D-I-S. TARDIS."

"Well, you'll never get your hands on it. I'll die first," he snapped.

The man shrugged. "Die all you like. I don't need you. I've got the key."

And from Adam's pocket rose the TARDIS key. "Oh, come on!" June groaned.

"You and your boyfriends!" the Doctor snapped at Rose.

"Today, we are the headlines," the man said. "We can rewrite history. We could prevent mankind from ever developing."

"But why?" June asked.

The man laughed. "Why not?"

"And no one's going to stop you because you've bred a human race that doesn't bother to ask questions. Stupid little slaves, believing every lie. They'll just trot right into the slaughter house if they're told it's made of gold," the Doctor snapped.

The Jagrafess made a mess of snarling and growling, thrashing around, roaring. It was kind of annoying. And then a loud beeping came from one of the various machines the corpses were controlling. The man rushed over and shoved his way to the front. "What's happening? Someone's disengaged the safety." He snapped his fingers and a different picture popped up. "Who's that?"

It was Cathica sitting in a defunct broadcast room, light streaming into her head. She had stopped it somehow. June grinned and whooped. "Hell yeah!"

"It's Cathica," Rose grinned.

"And she's thinking," the Doctor said. "She's using what she knows."

"Terminate her access," the man demanded.

"Everything I told her about Satellite Five," the Doctor continued. "The pipes, the filters, she's reversing it. Look at that. It's getting hot." And it was. Everything was becoming water, falling down towards the floor as it could no longer sustain its life up on the ceiling. June figured that those weren't the only thing that couldn't survive.

"I said, terminate," the man demanded. "Burn out her mind."

And then the console exploded. The bodies flopped forward and the man was pushed back, crashing onto the floor. Alarms began to sound through the whole building and then Rose popped her cuffs off. June wiggled her wrists around and did the same. Rose began working at the Doctor's cuffs as June dug through the various pockets of his jacket, looking for the sonic screwdriver.

"She's venting the heat up here," the Doctor said. "The Jagrafess needs to stay cool and now it's sitting on top of a volcano."

"Yes, I'm trying, sir," the man shouted at the roaring Jagrafess. "But I don't know how she did it. It's impossible. A member of staff with an idea."

June recognized the feeling as soon as it was in her hand. "Got it!" She held up the sonic screwdriver like it was a trophy. "What now?"

"Flick the switch!" the Doctor shouted. So that's what she did. She pointed the screwdriver at the cuffs and let it buzz on until something happened. "Oi, mate, want to bank on a certainty?" he called to the man. June broke the cuffs off from around his wrists and they fell to the floor. "Massive heat in a massive body, massive bang. See you in the headlines!" And they all raced off.

She caught the Doctor's hand as they were running, dodging things falling from the ceiling. Mostly heavy shards of ice. And she didn't know how, but he knew right where to go, pulling the two girls into the news room where Cathica sat, surrounded by decaying corpses. There was a loud bang and they were safe. The Doctor snapped his fingers and the hole in Cathica's head closed. She smiled up at the three of them.

~*O*~

People were injured all around floor 139. Thankfully, no one was terribly injured and there were no deaths. But now it was time for one of the only consistent things in all of their travels. "We're just going to go. I hate tidying up," the Doctor told Cathica. "Too many questions. You'll manage."

"You'll have to stay and explain it. No one's going to believe me," Cathica said.

"Oh, they might start believing a lot of things now. The human race should accelerate. All back to normal," he said.

"What about your friend?" Cathica asked. Adam stood in front of the TARDIS, looking quite guilty.

"He's not my friend." The Doctor stood up and started in that direction.

Rose attempted to call after him. "Now, don't—"

"Do you honestly think that's gonna stop him?" June asked as they followed.

"I'm alright now," Adam said, standing against the TARDIS with a nervous smile. "Much better. And I've got the key. Look, it's—" his words left him and he tried to pick them back up again. "It all worked out for the best, didn't it?" The Doctor grabbed the key and Adam's shoulder. "You know, it's not actually my fault, because you were in charge." The Doctor pushed Adam in the TARDIS.

June scoffed. "Oh yeah, that excuse'll work."

~*O*~

"It's my house. I'm home!" They had landed in a house, nothing special about it, maybe special to Adam. "Oh, my God, I'm home! Blimey. I thought you were going to chuck me out of an airlock."

"Is there something else you want to tell me?" the Doctor asked.

Adam shook his head. "No. What do you mean?"

The Doctor picked up the answering machine. "The archive of Satellite Five. One second of that message could've changed the world." He soniced the phone and it exploded harshly in the middle of the table. "That's it, then. See you." He started back to the TARDIS.

"How do you mean, see you?" Adam asked.

The Doctor stopped. "As in goodbye."

"But what about me?" Adam asked. "You can't just go. I've got my head. I've got a chip type two. My head opens."

"What, like this?" The Doctor snapped and Adam's forehead opened.

"Don't." The hole closed.

"Don't do what?" The Doctor nudged June, nodded towards Adam. "Go on." She snickered and snapped and the hole opened again.

"Stop it!" and it closed.

"Alright, now, Doctor, that's enough," Rose snapped. "Stop it."

"Thank you," Adam said.

Rose snapped her fingers.

"Oi!"

"Sorry, I couldn't resist." Rose laughed. And his forehead closed again.

"The whole of history could have changed because of you," the Doctor said.

"I just wanted to help," Adam said. June snickered.

"You were helping yourself," the Doctor told him.

"And I'm sorry. I've said I'm sorry, and I am, I really am," Adam insisted, "but you can't just leave me like this."

"Yes, he can," June said.

"Yes, I can," the Doctor said. "'Cause if you show that head to anyone, they'll dissect you in seconds. You'll have to live a very quiet life. Keep out of trouble. Be average, unseen. Good luck." He opened the TARDIS door.

"But I want to come with you," Adam said.

"I only take the best," the Doctor said. "I've got June and Rose." And with that, he stepped into the TARDIS.

"Bye, Adam!" June called as he begged for Rose to stay for a minute.

June took off her backpack and the Doctor's jacket. "I think this belongs to you." He smiled and took it from her, slipping it back on. "Thanks. But I think it suits you more than it suits me."

The Doctor shrugged. "I wouldn't say that. Just don't forget a jacket next time."

June nodded. "I won't."

He started up the TARDIS. The room darkened and the wheezing began. Rose stepped inside a moment later, closing the door behind her, no Adam with her. She didn't look pleased but she didn't look so disappointed either. June figured it would be best just to move on as quick as possible. "So, where to next?"

How'd you guys like the chapter?

Next time, June visits home and we get a non episode based story.

Thank you so much for reading!

Reviews, follows, and favorites are very much appreciated.

Until next time,

~ C.C.