Chapter Three
Rose could hear Jackie stirring in the back of the car. It had been more than two hours since they had left the beach and it would be another thirty minutes until they reached Bergen and could take a ferry back to England, to the place her mum had already begun to call home.
Home, she mused. Her home had been a flat on a council estate for nineteen years, until it had been replaced by a blue box that was bigger on the inside. The day they had nearly lost the TARDIS on Krop Tor she had finally realised that home wasn't a place, not even a blue box that could appear anywhere in the universe, anytime. Home was the people she loved, not the place where she lived.
The Void separated her from the person who meant most to her, who she trusted with her life, heart and soul. Without him she felt incomplete, afloat at sea. But she couldn't let her life just happen to her. This was not who she was. She was going to carve out a life for herself, until she met him again. If only it wasn't so bloody hard.
"Rose?" Jackie's voice interrupted her musings.
"Yes, mum?" She sighed inwardly. In an unexpected streak of reserve Jackie had refrained from asking her what else the Doctor had said on the beach. It looked as if her reprieve was over.
"What did he say?"
She kept her eyes focused on the scenery in front of her and answered calmly, "Like I said. He didn't know if he could ever cross the Void."
"Oh, sweetheart. I'm so sorry. I know how much you loved him."
Rose knew her mum meant it, but it would probably have hurt less if she hadn't used the past tense. Her mum of all people should know that one didn't just stop loving somebody, even if he was gone. She nodded slowly, trying to hold herself back from reacting to the choice of words.
Jackie was silent for a few minutes, then she continued, "I know you don't want to hear it, Rose, but you have to decide what you're going to do with the rest of your life. He's not coming back."
Her mum sounded so secure in her assessment of the Doctor. Rose took a deep breath, restraining herself from leashing out at Jackie and turned around to finally face her.
"You don't know that," she gave back, sounding surprisingly calm even in her own ears.
"Sweetheart, you said it yourself: He doesn't know if he can come here," Jackie reasoned.
"But that doesn't mean he won't try," Rose said with conviction. The Doctor would bend every known and possibly even a couple of unknown physical laws to get to her. Even if it would take him years to find a safe way, he'd come.
"But you can't spend your life waiting for him."
"I never said that I would do that, mum. I've already made a decision. Pete said last week that he would like me to work full-time for Torchwood as soon as I've got my A-levels."
"You did what?" Jackie screeched, staring at the back of his head accusingly.
"I offered Rose a full-time job," Pete gave back calmly, his eyes never leaving the road. "She is good at what she's doing and I would be an idiot not to take her."
Rose briefly closed her eyes in relieve, thankful that he had kept her requests to himself. She really didn't want to discuss the possibility of doing field work right now, although this topic might be slightly safer than the other one.
"But it's dangerous!"
"And it's her life and her decision, Jacks."
Jackie glared at Mickey. "Say something."
He glared back. "No. I'm not getting into this, Jackie. This is Rose's decision."
Rose shot him a thankful glance.
Jackie turned back to Rose. "Sweetheart, think about it. You don't have to do this. You could go to university, make something of your life," she said, her eyes begging her to give in.
Rose sighed inwardly. She knew her mum was afraid that she would lose her. She had been like this since the year she had missed, and the carefully edited stories about her travels with the Doctor had done nothing to ease her mum's fears. But she had been lost for an ordinary life almost since the moment the Doctor first took her hand and told her to run.
"I already know what I'm going to do with my life. I told you before, mum. The Doctor showed me a better way to live. Yes, there were bad things that happened to us, but I still wouldn't have missed it for the world."
"But..."
Rose knew what her mum was going to say but she couldn't bear it right now. So she interrupted her ruthlessly. "No, mum. My decision is final."
She turned around, stared out of the windscreen and ignored all further attempts to start a conversation.
~o~o~o~
When Donna finally got up the Doctor was already at the door. "Are you coming?" He raised an eyebrow expectantly.
She rubbed her elbow and glared at him, but followed him outside.
"But what do we do?"
He grinned. "No idea."
The remark he was expecting never came. No Rose to call him out on his behaviour. His smile vanished and his hearts clenched at the memory.
Donna rolled her eyes. "I still don't understand. What do they need me for?"
"When my people got rid of the Huon particles the Racnoss web at the centre of the Earth lost its power source and they got stuck."
"Wait. You're telling me that they... they..."
"Exactly. You're the key. They need you, or better, the particles Lance dosed you with, to refuel. Unfortunately that's a bit of a problem if you take into account that their web is currently the centre of the Earth."
Donna kept silent. He had known her for less than five hours and she had never been able to keep her mouth shut for that long. He turned around, only to find the corridor empty.
"Great!" She wasn't even a companion and had already managed to violate rule number one. Although he had to admit that she might not have done it on purpose.
~o~o~o~
In the last few minutes Donna had come quickly to the conclusion that she would count herself lucky if she never saw a spider again in her life. And the same applied to cobwebs, especially if she was tied up in them with her ex-fiancée.
"You're supposed to say 'I do'," the Empress said.
"No chance," Lance gave back.
"Say it!"
He spat the words out. "I do."
Sometimes Donna really wished that looks could kill. Although she was not entirely certain who deserved that fate more: Lance or the Empress. "I do," she snapped.
"I don't," the spider said. If she had eyebrows she probably would have raised them in contempt. Then her tone became ecstatic. "Activate the particles. Purge every last one."
A faint glow began to surround Donna's body, getting stronger second by second, and Lance began to glow as well.
"Release!" the Empress ordered, and the particles dived into the hole, as if they were following an order. But sentient particles were impossible, weren't they? A tiny voice at the back of Donna's mind chose this moment to point out that bigger-on-the-inside space ships that could travel in time hadn't been on her list of possible things either.
"The secret heart unlocks. My children will waken from their sleep and feast on human flesh." She raised her arms like a priestress. "The web-star shall come to me."
A scratching sound reached Donna's ear and became gradually louder. Something was moving in the hole, and it was coming nearer. Lance began to fight against his restraints, turning towards the Empress. "Use her, use her, not me!"
The Empress laughed. "Oh, my funny little Lance. The Empress does not approve." She raised her arms again, and the threads that held Lance ruptured. He tumbled into the hole, screaming, but not even his cry could drown out the scratching sounds from deep down completely. "They never learn," she commented scathingly.
"No, they don't," agreed a voice with a distinctive Northern accent. "But on the rare occasions when they don't do something incredibly stupid they're completely fantastic." Donna turned to the direction the voice had come from and discovered a dark figure standing on the ground floor. Then the man took off the golden mask he was wearing and removed a black cloak.
"Doctor!" she yelled.
"Hello!" He waved cheerfully and aimed the sonic screwdriver at her. The web around her loosened.
"I'm going to fall!" she screeched.
"Nah. You're just gonna... swing!" He grinned at her manically.
~o~o~o~
Unfortunately Donna's momentum was a bit larger than Rose's had been when she had saved him from the Autons, but he managed to stop her before she could crash into the metal staircase. Unfortunately Donna herself was also a bit larger than Rose, so the impact knocked the air out of his lungs. And unfortunately he couldn't keep his mouth shut. "You're heavy," he complained, when he had finally dragged enough air back into his lungs to be able to speak again.
She swatted him.
He rubbed his arm. Again. He was sensing a trend. "What was that for?"
"I'm not heavy! Bloody alien!"
"I could've let you crash into that wall, you know." He grinned at her.
For exactly five seconds Donna just gaped at him. "Oi!"
"The doctor-man amuses me," the Empress said, slowly coming nearer.
The Doctor winced inwardly. He really could have done without that view. His instincts screamed at him to just kill her and her breed. The urge had been there from the moment he had first seen the Empress. For all their arrogated superiority Time Lords were no better than humans. Most people on this planet were afraid of spiders on a certain level, due to some archaic genetic trait. But with the Time Lords the fear ran even deeper, and that had nothing to do with the slightly larger scale of the Racnoss in comparison with Earth spiders.
Even in the Dark Times his planet had been protected by almost impenetrable barriers. The Racnoss were one of the very few species that had ever managed to break them, almost destroying their entire civilisation. The fear of them had been hard-wired into his people's DNA. Until his forth life no other species had ever again directly invaded his planet, and that had been his own doing. The invasion had been the main reason why his people had decided to join the other Fledgling Empires in their crusade against the Racnoss. Getting rid of the Huon particles had been more of a by-product.
Urging Donna to go first, he slowly climbed the stairs in his back, never turning his back on the Empress. This would end here for good, one way or another. When he reached the first landing he leaned casually against one of the vertical joists and crossed his arms, glaring at the giant spider.
"I'm just saying this once, so I suggest you listen carefully. I give you a choice. I can find you a planet, along with the chance to coexist. Or else I'll end this here."
The Empress laughed.
"I take that as a 'no'."
"Oh, how clever you are, doctor-man. And now I'll show you what happens next." She raised her arms and the robots that lined the walls like tin soldiers raised their weapons. "At arms!"
He sighed inwardly. It wasn't only humans who never learned. One buzz with his sonic screwdriver and the Santas shut down for the second time in a couple of hours.
The Empress turned her attention back to him. "Robo-forms are not necessary. My children will feast on Martian flesh."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "How many times? I'm not from Mars." Honestly, this was worse than explaining quantum physics to Jackie Tyler. Not that he ever would have attempted to do that, at least not as long as he was still more or less sane.
"Then where are you from?"
For a long time he hadn't been able to think about his home planet, let alone call it by its name. He hadn't even told Rose, and she had been kind enough not to ask. "Gallifrey."
"They murdered the Racnoss!" the Empress thundered.
"Oh, let's not get into what you did when you invaded my planet, shall we?" he replied, sounding almost nonchalant, although he felt anything but.
She hissed at him, and he decided that he had given her enough chances. Time to end this for good.
He pressed a button on his sonic screwdriver and one of the tanks in the laboratory exploded. A wave of Huon particles in liquid form poured into the room. Its power caused the Empress to lose her stand. When the pull dragged her along and into the hole in the ground she screamed in unadulterated fury.
At another pressing of the button the remaining tanks in the lab exploded, the liquid flooding the cave and finally vanishing in the hole. Unfortunately not even this wouldn't be enough to get rid of the Racnoss permanently. It was like flushing a spider down a drain. Literally. Not enough water, and it would come back eventually.
"And now for my next trick." He turned to Donna. "Do you remember that I said the Huon particles were lethal?"
"Do you really think I would forget that? I have that stuff in me!" she almost screamed.
He scanned her quickly. "No you haven't. It's gone. The Empress drained you completely. Anyway, the thing about the particles being deadly wasn't entirely true. In the beginning Huon particles were just a part of the barrier that separates the universe from the Void. They can be counteracted by Void stuff in combination with an extremely rare sort of energy. Which is just as well, because otherwise the universe would've turned into an incredibly large pile of dust aeons ago. The balance only skipped because the Racnoss used them as fuel."
"And what exactly does that mean?" Donna spat out every word, apparently annoyed of him for some reason. Not that that was something new.
He grinned at her. "Did you ever wonder how the particles could drag you across an entire galaxy and through time into my TARDIS?"
She just stared at him.
"It wasn't just the TARDIS that attracted the particles. You ended up there because she had been sending a projection through the Void at the time which amplified the effect, but it was mostly the Phyton energy bleeding out of a scar in the fabric of time and space that pulled you there. Although the TARDIS was the dip net that stopped you from ending up as a part of the barrier to the Void. Without her being connected to the Void the residual energy in the vicinity of London would have drawn you in. And believe me, you really wouldn't have liked the side effects."
"So you're going to send them there?"
"Nah. Why do something complicated when there's more than enough Phyton energy in the middle of London to get rid of every remaining Racnoss in existence?" He grinned manically.
If the Prime Minister was as efficient as he thought she would be, Harriet should have evacuated Canary Wharf by now. Two birds with one stone. He hadn't done something about Torchwood yet, deeming the task of finding a way to send a message through the Void more important, but he wasn't going to ignore its existence any longer. The things Torchwood had gotten hold of could alter the entire timeline of the Earth and destabilise the entire universe, and that was not going to happen as long as he had the chance to prevent it.
Although blowing up something with permission somehow took the fun out of it. Oh well, there were probably worse solutions to this particular problem.
~o~o~o~
From her place on the stairs Donna watched the Doctor climbing back down. He walked towards the rim of the hole and stared down into the abyss, arms crossed, his eyes blazing with blue fire.
"Oi! Racnoss! Do you wanna know what happened to your precious web-star?"
An angry hissing was his answer.
"You really don't know anything about Time Lords, do you? 'Cos if you did you'd know that most of us were extremely unimaginative when it came to procreation. Boring, really, almost like knitting. So saying something like that about my mother isn't going to work. Yours on the other hand... I imagine she had really weird taste in men. Oh, wait, she did. She devoured them, after all."
The hissing got louder.
"Anyway, I had a chat with the Prime Minister earlier. Lovely woman, Harriet Jones. Very polite, under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, mind, that would be unfortunately for you, she really didn't like your web-star wreaking havoc in the City of London. Especially not after the Cybermen and the Daleks last summer."
Another hiss.
"Pity, that. You could have learned that you don't mess with this planet. So, where was I? Oh, yes. She didn't like it. And do you want to know what humans do if they don't like something?"
This time the hissing was accompanied by a faint glow in the depths.
"They turn into a five-year-old with a temper tantrum. And break it. Nasty habit, that, but in this case probably understandable, don't you think?"
The hissing sounded incredibly furious by now.
The Doctor winced. "Oh, tell me when you find one, would you? I'd love to have a few words with them. Although I've got the feeling that's not going to happen anytime soon." Despite his choice of words his voice was like ice. Donna shivered involuntarily.
Another angry hiss came out of the depths, and the shine intensified, while the Doctor continued to taunt the Racnoss. "I dunno if you've noticed, but you're glowing. And did I mention the large amount of Phyton energy that's leaking out here? If you ever paid attention in chemistry you might actually have a clue as to what that means." Although the words sounded deceptively harmless the temperature in the cavernous room seemed to drop a few degrees.
This time the hiss sounded more like a furious scream, which was almost instantly followed by a blinding flash. Silence settled in the room, only to be replaced by something that sounded like distant thunder.
The Doctor stared into the abyss for a few seconds, standing completely still. The mad energy he had sported had apparently left him. Eventually he turned towards the door to the lab.
"Doctor?" Donna was still standing on the first landing of the stairs, uncertain if she should go to him. "What happened?"
His voice sounded almost lifeless when he answered her. "I ended it. They got drawn to the massive amounts of Phyton energy in Canary Wharf and the particles reacted. Without the TARDIS being connected to the Void there was nothing to stop them. They're gone."
"You killed them?"
"You might have noticed that I gave them a chance first." This time it was him hissing angrily at her, and the fury in his eyes made her stagger back a step.
He looked away and took a deep breath, apparently trying to calm himself down. After a few seconds his gaze returned to hers. "I didn't want to kill them, Donna. I'd rather have taken them to another planet. But I couldn't let them win. Everyone on Earth would have died if I had." She could see the truth of this statement in his eyes. "That's what I do, Donna: I make decisions because no one else will."
Donna nodded in acknowledgement of his words, but didn't trust her voice just yet. She didn't know what to think. When he had been taunting the Racnoss it had almost seemed as if he enjoyed it, but she also believed that he hadn't wanted to kill them.
She didn't have much time to ponder his words, though, because the Doctor turned back into the direction of the door they had used when they had entered the room for the first time. "And now there's only one thing left to do: Destroy the rest of this lab," he noted grimly.
~o~o~o~
The Doctor had to admit that the laboratory was surprisingly well stocked, even with a few things he would never have expected in this time frame. One more reason to do what he was about to do. With the chemicals available and the provided equipment it took him less than ten minutes to conjure a concoction that bore a striking resemblance to Nitro-9. Another five minutes later he had placed the explosives next to integral parts of the laboratory and was certain that the entire equipment would be thoroughly destroyed. After a bit of digging in his jacket he discovered a few time fuses and set the countdown, praying they would work properly. Just this once. Then he turned around and grabbed Donna's hand, a manic grin on his face. "Run!"
Two minutes later he shut the doors of the TARDIS behind them and sent them into the Vortex, then he leaned against the console, feeling exhausted. He hadn't slept since he'd lost Rose. Not really, apart from a few catnaps. He couldn't, and he wasn't sure that would change anytime soon. After the Time War he had seen the battles in his dreams, the destruction of Florana, the fall of Arcadia, and, worst of all, the last days of Gallifrey, when insanity had blossomed like black henbane. The dreams had nearly driven him beyond the brink of madness.
Now every time he closed his eyes for as much as five minutes the same sequence repeated itself, over and over again. He saw the white wall in the lever room and Rose falling towards it, while he couldn't move a single limb. She fell and Pete never appeared to catch her.
Rose was right. He needed someone to keep him company. Preferably her, but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Right now he was completely out of his depths. He just couldn't see a solution. And Rose would kill him if she ever found out that he had spent his entire time looking for a way to cross the Void.
So a new companion it was. Someone he could show the universe while looking for a way back to her. And he had to admit that Donna had impressed him once she had got over the 'I've been abducted by an alien' phase.
~o~o~o~
The Doctor flipped a switch and adjusted a lever. The column in the middle of the room stopped moving and the noise of the engines turned down.
"Here we are. Still London, England, and still Christmas," he said, gesturing towards the doors.
Donna opened the doors tentatively. She really didn't fancy a sequel to the events of the day. She left the ship and found herself in a spot that looked almost familiar, although she had certainly never seen the large pile of rubble in front of her.
"Where are we?" she asked, her tone demanding an answer.
The Doctor had followed her and stopped dead in the door frame. At her question he winced visibly and when he answered her question he avoided her eyes.
"H.C. Clements."
"You blew it up?" she screeched.
He crossed his arms in a defensive posture. "How was I to know that the integral structure of the building wouldn't even survive a minor vibration? Just be glad they haven't begun to dig the new Tube tunnel yet. The building would have come down in seconds."
"But you blew it up! That was my job, and you blew it up!"
Suddenly the Doctor began to chuckle.
"Do you think this is funny?" she demanded.
"Well, I sorta blew up Rose's job on the day I met her."
He grinned at her, although she could also see sadness in his eyes.
"That's the woman you lost?" she asked, her annoyance dissolving into thin air.
He just nodded, apparently not going to continue the subject, then he straightened. "So, Donna Noble, what are you going to do now?"
She thought for a moment, the question being completely unexpected. "Oh well, since I'm not getting married and someone blew up my job... I dunno, travel? See the pyramids or the Taj Mahal, maybe, or the Acropolis."
The Doctor considered her for what seemed to be a long time. "Do you want to really see it? Watch history happen in front of your eyes?" he asked finally.
"What do you mean?"
"See the pyramids being built, meet George Washington, piss off Queen Victoria, no, already done that..."
"You pissed off Queen Victoria?" she interrupted him.
"I just told her to run for her life. You would have thought she'd prefer that to being eaten by a werewolf. We could also have chips in the restaurant at the end of the universe..."
"That exists?" Wait, werewolf?
"Yep. But he got thing with the Vogons completely wrong. Blimey, do you always have to interrupt me?"
She grinned. "Of course."
He gave her one of his manic grins in return. "So, what do you say? Come with me?"
She considered his offer for a moment then shrugged. "Oh, why not."
"Fantastic." He smiled genuinely, an expression that lit up his entire being, but after a second it vanished, only to be replaced by seriousness. "Be very sure, Donna. This life I lead, it's dangerous. And I can't promise that I will always able to keep you safe."
She looked at him, really looked at him, and thought about his words. What he hadn't said was probably even more important than what he had said. He hadn't even been able to save the woman she suspected he loved, and it was killing him. He really needed a friend. She grinned at him.
"As long as you at least promise that there won't be more giant spiders trying to eat me."
"No visits to Arana Eight, then. But you'd miss out on the fantastic chocolate ice cream, you know."
"Oh well, in that case..."
He grinned back. "Then what are you waiting for?"