Nothing in the Doctor Whoniverse belongs to me.


Rose looked up at the tortured figure of Carmen Ortiz hanging in the middle of the tiny, man-made sun. Her expression was frozen in the same riot of emotions that had probably filled her last moments as she fell into the electrical field, but something in her eyes made Rose uneasy. There as no fear in them. She seemed to be watching.

Rose tore her eyes away and looked at the Doctor instead. He was staring at Carmen, and she knew what he was thinking, that this was his fault. They were too late. And it didn't matter if saving her would have created a paradox, if it would have destroy the world and the whole timeline that they lived in. If he had had the chance, he would have saved this woman. If he had run faster, thought quicker, landed the Tardis a fraction of a second sooner or later than he had, he might have been able to save her.

She reached for his hand but he didn't see her. He moved before she could touch him, stretching out his hand toward the distant figure of Carmen Ortiz. Rose tried not to feel disappointed. The outer edges of the energy field crackled and sparks danced hot across the Doctor's fingertips, and he pulled back. Even at a distance, they could feel the heat of the electrical storm that filled half the room and was barely contained within the rotating arms of the machine.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor whispered.

"Can she hear us?" Rose asked.

"I doubt it," he said, louder, pretending that he hadn't said what he knew she had heard him say.

Rose found it hard to believe that anyone could survive inside that ball of burning fire, but those eyes. It was like an old painting. Nothing moved, but Carmen's eyes seemed to follow as the Doctor pulled himself out of his anguish and leaped up the narrow, metal stairs that led to the bank of computers opposite the electrical field.

Dr. McNeil had chased them into the lab. She had also stopped short in surprise at the sight of the woman suspended in a ball of light, but when she saw the Doctor move toward the equipment, her thoughts shot back to the reputation of Gateway and the secrecy of her most classified project. She tried the intercom one her collar again, but no luck, and Dr. Kuri had run off. She would have to deal with these intruders herself.

"Get down from there!" she ordered, striding toward the Doctor and the computer banks.

Rose stepped back and spread her arms across the stairs, blocking the Head of Gateway and bracing herself, but as angry as she was, so far Dr. McNeil seemed reluctant to take physical action against them.

"That equipment is sensitive. And expensive!" she protested.

"You managed to throw a whole human being into it and it seems to be working fine." The Doctor looked over the rows of buttons and dials and fiddly little levers, all unlabeled, of course. It was just like the Tardis console only exactly, completely different.

"You have no authority," Dr. McNeil shouted.

"I'm trying to save a woman's life. That is all the authority I need!" One of the screens was already turned on, displaying a stream of numbers and lines like a seismograph measuring the energy field's voltage, resonance and a dozen other factors. The numbers spiked across the screen so fast that they were no longer individual lines but a mangled scribble of red.

The Doctor stared at the measurements. They didn't make sense. The whole damned machine didn't make sense. Frustrated, the Doctor ran a hand over his hair and stared again, harder, at the readings, trying to see past the individual numbers. There was something familiar about the way the power spikes grouped together, two beats at a time, four beats in a group… like a heartbeat racing at impossible speed.

No. Not like a heartbeat…

"It is a heartbeat!" he said, standing up and looking over the computers into the heart of the energy field. "She's still alive, Rose. The computer... it's measuring her body's electrical impulses. It's not monitoring the energy field. It's monitoring her!"

Dr. McNeal opened her mouth to protest, but she closed it again without speaking. She glanced back over her shoulder toward the doors to the lab and for the first time, Rose wondered where Dr. Kuri had gone. He had been just outside in the hallway when they entered, but he hadn't followed them in.

"Doctor, can you get her out of there?" she asked. The room felt too small for her with the molten ball of electricity so close, and she couldn't look directly at the field, at Carmen's pleading eyes, without feeling sick to her stomach.

"I don't know," the Doctor said. "The whole process is focused entirely on her. I can't get it to do anything else. Dr. Kuri is an expert in paleomagnetism. That is a static-volt monitor, and that is an electrical field stabilizer, but any fool knows magnetic fields aren't… they don't do whatever this is doing." He looked at Dr. McNeil. "What is it for?" he demanded.

She pursed her lips and wouldn't answer him. He sighed, frustrated and impatient. This was taking too much time and it wouldn't be long before Gateway's security team realized that something was wrong and came looking for them. Half the computer consul was covered in paper clutter, and he pushed it aside, spilling it onto the floor. He turned away, but a piece of yellow paper caught his eye; it was covered with a sprawling, spidery handwriting, but there was one word printed larger than the others. He tipped his head to one side to read it.

"Struldbrug?" he muttered. "Markus Kuri-Hunt? That's not a German name, that's… Swift!"

Dr. McNeil gave a start. "Who are you? What exactly are you hoping to accomplish?" She spoke quickly to distract him from the notes, and if Rose had not barred her way, she probably would have leaped up to tear them from his hands. "Dr. Kuri's work is far beyond anything that you could ever hope to understand."

"Do you?" the Doctor asked, still staring at the paper.

"What?"

"Do you understand it? Do you have any idea what you've done?"

Rose looked back over her shoulder. She could hear in his voice that whatever the machine was, he had figured it out, and he didn't like it.

"Of course I understand it. I personally approve every project that carries Gateway's name," Dr. McNeil said, sneering at him. "It is an electromagnetic energy converter that taps into the friction field generated between the earth's spinning magnetic field and the dust particles of cold space. The excess energy is siphoned off and stored in an off-site generator for…"

"Ha!" The Doctor shouted, turning away. "You haven't a clue. You've cut a hole in one of the most powerful forces in the universe and you think it's nothing but a fancy solar panel or wind turbine!" He reached for the keyboard.

"Step away from the controls, Doctor."

Rose had been watching the Doctor, but now she turned back to see Dr. Kuri standing in the doorway. His voice was clear and calm, but the red light of the electrical field reflected in his eyes and along the polished length of the barrel of his gun. Dr. McNeil smiled and stepped back from Rose to stand beside her colleague.

"Ah, Doctor…?" Rose said, slowly raising her hands over her head.

The Doctor's hands hovered over the computer controls. "She's dead, isn't she, Dr. Kuri," he said, without looking around.

"But you have said so yourself, Ms. Ortiz is alive," Dr. Kuri said. "She is perfectly safe, if a bit… restrained, at the moment. I said, step away!"

The Doctor clenched his fists and spun around. "I was talking about Mia Chen," he said, sliding down the narrow railing beside the stairs. He slid past Rose, who kept her hands up; the Doctor stepped up to Dr. Kuri, seemingly indifferent to the gun in his hand, but he was careful to put himself between it and Rose.

"Your assistant, Mia Chen," he said. "All that rubbish about electromagnetic energy converters that you've been feeding Dr. McNeil, it's all a sham. Your colleagues may have swallowed the lie, but not Mia. She worked with you. She realized what you were really up to, and she threatened to expose you, to tell everyone the risks you were taking. You couldn't let her do that, so you killed her."

The Doctor's voice was shaking with anger, but Dr. Kuri only smiled and shook his head. "Mia Chen resigned many days ago," he said. "You have seen our personnel files. It was all very well documented. Her poor parents did die recently, in an auto accident. But even you cannot suggest that I had anything to do with that sad business. Mia decided to go home to look after her brother…"

"That's a lie and you know it!" the Doctor shouted. His arms were shaking as he fought the urge to throttle the man, but the gun. There was always a gun.

"As for poor Ms. Ortiz," Dr. Kuri went on as if the Doctor had not interrupted. "It was a terrible accident. Dr. McNeil and I were talking not half an hour ago. She asked me to turn off my equipment for a little while. Of course, I came down here to comply, and what should I find but that little dustpan-pusher snooping around the power stacks of my field generator. Gateway is very clear with all new interns that this floor is off limits. But a classified project is a great temptation to any corporate spy. My unexpected arrival must have startled her and she slipped into the energy field."

The Doctor turned to Dr. McNeil. He knew he would get nowhere with Dr. Kuri. "If it was an accident then let me help her."

"Your presence seems rather to be hindering our efforts," Dr. McNeil told him, but she seemed less certain than her colleague.

"She is perfectly safe," Dr. Kuri said again. "And I have every intention of releasing her, just as soon as I have completed my studies."

The Doctor stared at him, the last piece falling into place. "You were the one monitoring her vital signs. You turned the sensors on her after she fell in. This is all just another experiment to you!"

He lunged at the man, but Dr. Kuri fired his gun. The bullet hit the wall to one side, just above Rose's left shoulder. She covered her head as a rain of plaster dust pelted her face and hair. The Doctor jumped back again, throwing his arm in front of her.

Dr. Kuri smiled. "Please, no violence here," he said calmly. "I am not glad to threaten your young assistant with an early death."

Furious but unable to do anything about it, The Doctor raised his hands over his head. "You won't get away with this," he said. "Two women are missing. People will start asking questions."

"People are always asking questions, but they won't ask about her. That woman has no family, and Mia's brother is miles away." Dr. Kuri's words were confident, but he frowned as he looked at the frozen figure of Carmen. A missing woman was easy to hide, but Carmen wasn't missing yet, and anyone who came looking for her wouldn't have too much trouble once they got past the front doors. "Perhaps you are right," he said slowly. "It may be several days before we can remove the body. Perhaps it would be better for us all if there were no questions asked, not yet…"

He aimed the gun at the Doctor's chest midway between his two hearts. The Doctor braced himself, determined that, if he was going to be shot, at least he could buy a few precious seconds for Rose to escape.

"That's enough, Markus." Dr. McNeil's firm voice broke the tension. She was bristling with indignation. "Gateway is my institute. Spies are bad enough, but I will not allow murder to be committed upon these premises!"

"And if they talk?" he demanded. "That tall one knows too much."

"Let them talk. There is no one to listen. Gateway is far too important to this community. Without evidence, they are no threat, and the only evidence is inside this building. Markus, give me the gun. You look foolish holding that thing."

Dr. Kuri hesitated. He seemed to be considering the possibility of shooting them both now, and perhaps Dr. McNeil with them, but he sighed and handed over the gun. "Get them out of my lab, Chelsey. Do as you like after that, but get them out of here. I have work to do."

"Dr. McNeil, please," the Doctor tried one last time. "You can put an end to this madness. It's a miracle that Carmen has survived this long, but the field is unstable. You cannot leave her in there. You have to let me…" He stared at her in amazement as she aimed Dr. Kuri's gun at him.

"That is where you are wrong, Doctor. I do not have to let you do anything. I will not condone murder, but also, I will not have corporate spies roaming about my institute, interfering with my employees and their work." She nodded toward the door. "Now, if you please."

Hands in the air, the Doctor and Rose were marched out of Dr. Kuri's lab. Rose looked back once toward the twisted body of Carmen Ortiz. She saw Dr. Kuri hurry up the stairs to the computer banks to see what damage the Doctor had done, and then the doors slammed shut; he didn't look back at them.

Dr. McNeil pinched the collar of her jacket again. "Security?" she demanded. A crackling voice answered her. "Finally! Yes, two spies have infiltrated at the basement level, a man and a girl. Please be so kind as to come and get them. And tell Randall that I want a full report on my desk first thing tomorrow. I want to know exactly how these people entered my building in the first place!"

A static-filled apology was cut off in mid apol- and she urged the Doctor and Rose on down the dusty hallways.

"You don't know what you're doing," the Doctor told her. "If you don't shut down that machine, it will tear a hole in the fabric of time and space. It could destroy whole universes."

"It really is a shame that you and Markus don't along, Doctor," McNeil told him. "He can be just as melodramatic as you. And, much like you, he has a habit of missing what is right in front of his nose."

They were nearly at the stairwell and the Doctor could see half a dozen security guards standing in the doorway. Even under orders, they were reluctant to enter the basement level that was so forcefully off limits. Betting that they wouldn't cross the threshold without a direct order, the Doctor turned to face Dr. McNeil.

"You've got five diplomas," he hissed. "You're not nearly as fooled as you pretend to be. If that thing is an electromagnetic energy converter, then I'm an Ameglian Major cow. There's enough electricity in that thing to power a small sun, but there are no generators to store it. What is all that power for? What is so important that you'd kill one woman and risk another's life?"

"Immortality, Doctor," she said. "Only immortality."

She gestured to the guards who came out of the stairwell. One guard took Rose's arm and ushered her ahead of them up the stairs; the other five took hold of the Doctor. He fought them every step of the way, shouting at Dr. McNeil, but the head of Gateway turned on her sensible heels and walked calmly back down the hall toward the lab. The guards dragged the Doctor bodily up the stairs to the ground floor and then up the main hall to the reception desk. Rose was pulled along behind him. She had hoped that with the Doctor's commotion, she would have a chance to slip away, but there was none.

They reached the main doors, and the guards threw the Doctor out of the building and into a soggy snow bank. Rose hurried after him with a quick, "Watch it!" snapped back over her shoulder at the guard who tried to give her a shove as well. "I'm going, aren't I?"

The doors slammed behind her and several thick deadbolts clicked into place. She turned to the Doctor and tried to offer him a hand up, but he waved her away and pulled himself to his feet. His leather jacket was spotted with salt and melt water streamed through his hair. It was dark and cold, but he was shivering with rage.

"Those fools have no idea! It's not just the girl. They'll blow up this whole planet and half the galaxy before they realize that's no fountain of youth they're playing with!"

"It's alright, Doctor," Rose said, putting her hand on his arm. "We'll get back inside, tonight when they've gone, or tomorrow while they're busy. Carmen was alive. If Dr. Kuri is monitoring her life signs, then he'll want to keep her alive. She'll be safe for a few hours."

The Doctor shook his head. He had gotten a look at Gateway's security system while he was browsing their computer files. It was state-of-the-art on any planet; it would take more than the sonic screwdriver to get them back into that building. "We would need an army to break into that building now that they're expecting us. If we try, we'll set off a dozen alarms."

Rose guessed that now was not the time to suggest they look for a broken window with a tree sticking out of it. "We've got one other problem to worry about," she said.

"Only one?" He wiped the melted snow off his face.

"Gateway Institute is full of scientists, right? So how long do you think it'll take them to realize they've got a Tardis parked in the broom closet?"


Well, I was walking home from work today, listening to The Naked And Famous, trying to psych myself up to finally write the last chapter of my Hobbit fic, when this cute little sparrow comes flying through the air... straight at my head! I seriously felt her wing grazed my temple before I ducked.

So that was my day. How was yours?

-Paint