Nothing in the Doctor Whoniverse belongs to me. UNIT claims that the sentient coffee-fungus has claimed my pencils for its own. It feeds on graphite and hopes to plant the erasers as seeds to grow a pencil forest. Personally, I am optimistic, but UNIT wants to firebombing the break room.


The doors to Dr. Kuri's lab burst open and a cloud of toxic smoke billowed into the hall, staining the grey walls and pooling overhead along the white ceiling tiles. The Doctor emerged carrying Rose in his arms. She was limp, barely conscious, and her hands and cheeks were blistered by sunburn.

The Doctor stumbled halfway down the hall, sank to his knees and laid her down gently on the floor, and then he doubled over in a fit of coughing. Behind him, Dr. McNeil and Andrew followed him out of the lab dragging the still-snoring guard. They leaned the man against the wall a little ways from Rose and the Doctor. Dr. McNeil bent over him, marking his pulse and respiration. Of them all, only the guard had managed to come out unscathed. Andrew watched Dr. McNeil for a moment, hands on his knees and sucking in dry, dusty – but unpolluted – air, and then he pulled up the collar of his shirt to cover his mouth and turned to plunge back through the lab doors into the thinning smoke.

"It's not safe," the Doctor called, but Andrew ignored him. Dr. McNeil glanced at him, but she didn't stop the boy, and the Doctor refused to leave Rose's side.

From the lab, the sound of crackling electricity and frying circuits might have been mistaken for an indoor bonfire, but the sudden and intermittent crash of broken metal destroyed the illusion. When Dr. Kuri's augmented generator had failed, the bubble it had filled with time winds and ether from the Vortex hadn't blown out the way that the Doctor had expected. The energy field, like a dying star, had imploded, pulling everything back into the time Vortex and sealing the hole shut behind it. A gap was left in the space-matter of the lab, but physics, as it is wont to do, filled the gap. Air rushed in with a final concussion that blew apart the computer banks, twisted steel railing and melted the spinning arms at the base of the generator.

Surrounded by smoke and ruins, the Doctor had picked up Rose and walked out of the room without looking back. The Vortex was closed. The world was saved for puppies and flowers and… fish and chips. He had saved Rose's life, but Carmen was gone. She had still been sucked into the Time Vortex with everything else. Whatever shield she wore wouldn't protect her in there. He hadn't saved Carmen. He hadn't saved anyone. Even Mia Chen had died because he couldn't get his damned coordinates right. He had very nearly lost Rose.

Dr. McNeil stood up, satisfied that the sleeping guard would survive. She turned to offer the Doctor her services, but his angry frown kept her back.

"We don't need your help," he said, much sharper than he had meant to. She frowned at him, and then nodded and turned her back. He could hear her speaking quietly into the intercom on her collar, giving orders and directing the emergency personnel who would most certainly begin swarming the underground corridors any minute. Somewhere, far away, a fire alarm began ringing.

The Doctor shook Rose a little more urgently. He didn't want to be around when the surprise wore off and people started asking question. He hated the clean-up.

Luckily, Rose had woken up and was sitting up slowly, holding her head. Her skin was hot to the touch, but only lightly burned. She looked around and eventually her eyes settled on the Doctor, who was edgy and eager to go.

"What happened?" Rose asked, as the Doctor helped her to her feet. "I fell. It felt like I was falling, but someone caught me."

"You fell into the energy field," he told her, "but you're alright now. We should go." He pulled at her arm, but she pulled back.

"No," she said. "It wasn't a fall. It's so hard to remember. I feel all blurry, like my thoughts are someone else's from a long time ago." She frowned. "No. I was pushed! Dr. Kuri pushed me! And he fell, too. Is he alright? Where is he?"

The Doctor sighed, but deep down, he was proud of her. It didn't matter to Rose that the man had tried to kill her, that he had almost destroyed half the galaxy with his experiments. She still asked about him. She still cared. The Doctor could only feel glad that the mad scientist was dead and gone; a man like that would be a danger to any planet he was on, at any time he was in. Rose would never see it that way. She cared about everyone, even the ones who didn't deserve it.

"He's gone," the Doctor said. "We should go, too. There'll be people on the way, and I'd…"

"Where's Carmen?" Rose asked. "Where's Andrew?"

He felt his expression freeze as he tried not to look the guilt he felt. He glanced back over his shoulder toward the smoke-filled lab. The doors were stained by the chemical fumes.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I couldn't…"

"Andrew!" Rose cried. She pulled her arm from the Doctor's hand and hurried back toward the lab.

Confused and more than a little afraid, the Doctor turned slowly and saw Andrew stumbling out of the smoke with a body in his arms. "Doctor!" he shouted. "Doctor, I think she's alive!"

Rose reached him as he staggered and fell. She caught Carmen before the unconscious woman could roll out of Andrew's arms. Her clothes were singed and smoking at the corners; her hair hung loose, twisted and brown at the edges where half her braid had been burned off. She was covered in small cuts and pinpoint bruises, and her exposed skin appeared sunburned as Rose had been, but worse, much worse. She was covered in blisters.

Dr. McNeil was the next to react, and whether it was herself or the other 'Doctor' that Andrew had called for didn't matter; she bent over Carmen as she had the sleeping guard, checking pulse and breath and looking into her unseeing eyes.

"That's impossible," the Doctor murmured. "She's dead."

"Not yet," Dr. McNeil said, beginning chest compressions. "She's not breathing."

The Doctor stood back and looked on in growing apprehension. It was impossible. It was a mistake. The energy field had been sucked into the Time Vortex. Half the lab had been pulled into the fire and if Carmen's body hadn't gone with it, her mind must have been blasted by the time winds. No human could have survived what she had gone through.

Dr. McNeil was confident and competent. She was determined. Rose stepped back to give the woman room and stood beside the Doctor, holding his hand. He looked at her and saw the hope in her eyes. For a moment, he forgot his own uneasiness and began to hope as well. He hadn't expected to forgive Dr. McNeil, but if she could save Carmen's life and make Rose smile again, he would gladly admit that the head of Gateway Institute was not entirely a bad person.

While McNeil was working on Carmen and the Doctor was standing, staring dumbly down at them, several men in fire vests and carrying large, yellow canisters arrived. The booming echoes of their feet preceded them as they came running down the corridor toward the ragged survivors. Andrew met them and directed them toward the lab, giving commands with as much certainty as McNeil herself. Jonathan appeared with a large, white case marked with a red X; he opened it and set it down beside Dr. McNeil who expertly fit an adrenaline tube onto an auto injector and pressed it against Carmen's shoulder. There was a beep and the sound of rushing air. After a moment, Carmen gasped and shuddered but she didn't wake up.

"She's breathing on her own now," McNeil said, sitting back on her heels. "Whether her mind will survive the trauma…" She shook her head and handed the injector back to Jonathan who joined two newly arrived security guards who were struggling to lift the sleeping man and carry him out of the way.

The Doctor looked around, but everyone seemed distracted and busy. No one was looking at him. He knelt down beside Carmen and touched her wrist. "Her pulse is steady," he said to Dr. McNeil. "You saved her life."

"You don't sound very happy about it," McNeil said, giving him a curious look. He shook his head but didn't answer her. She frowned and stood up to give instructions to one of the emergency workers.

The Doctor stood up, too, and quickly tucked a cracked leather wristband into his coat pocket. Not even Rose had seen him remove it from Carmen's arm. He looked down at her. Her eyes were wide open but unseeing. She was breathing, but that was the only movement she made. Her body may have been alive, but if there was anything left of her mind, then it was buried far deeper than he could see.

.

Outside the imposing edifice of Gateway, the sky had taken on the dark indigo hue that meant that daylight was less than an hour away. The heavy clouds were dropping light but large snowflakes, and Rose and Andrew took cover under the awning above the front entrance. The Tardis stood in the center of the courtyard. A pair of double-wheeled tracks led up to the Tardis doors, turned around and led back again. The Doctor had insisted on taking Carmen with him and had carried her himself into the big, blue box.

Dr. McNeil stood nearby, waiting for him and, after a few minutes, he emerged again, empty handed and unhappy.

"I am still not convinced that this is the best choice for her," the woman said. "She needs medical treatment, and she is my employee. I'll see she gets the best help available."

"The help she needs is not available in this country or on this planet," the Doctor said, shutting the Tardis doors before the curious scientist could get a better look inside.

"But you can treat her? In that little box?"

"It's bigger on the inside."

The way Dr. McNeil 'hummed' under her breath told him that she was not convinced, but he had other things to worry about. Rose was laughing and leaning a little too close to Andrew while they talked, and the Doctor watched them carefully. He already had one passenger more than he wanted; he didn't need another of Rose's boyfriends tagging along, too.

"What will you do with her?" Dr. McNeal asked loudly, and for the second time.

"You seem very interested in her future," the Doctor said.

"She is a Gateway employee. I am interested in all my employees. I take care of my people."

"You didn't take very good care of Mia Chen. Or of Dr. Kuri-Hunt, for that matter." The look on Dr. McNeil's face made him regret his words. He remembered how stubbornly she had worked on Carmen to get the woman breathing when she might easily have given up. "I'll look after her," he said in a more gentle tone. "I promise."

McNeil frowned, but she nodded. She had looked into Carmen's empty eyes and seen the burns on her hands and face that looked like nothing she had ever seen before. Radiation burns would be her best guess. And she hadn't completely shaken the habit of considering the cost-benefit analysis of her decisions. She was more than ready to be convinced to let another Doctor take over the case.

"What will happen to Dr. Kuri's research?" the Doctor asked.

"Unfortunately, the fire has completely destroyed all of Dr. Kuri's equipment," Dr. McNeil said, shaking her head. "We might be able to salvage the metal from the generator and melt it down for scrap. Whatever advances Dr. Kuri may have developed, we could not even begin to reconstruct the modifications that he made to the original hardware. The project is a total loss."

The Doctor nodded, looking up at the lightening sky. "I don't recall that there was much of a fire," he said. "A great deal of smoke, but-"

"Where there's smoke, there's fire," she interrupted him. "You were looking after your friend, concerned for her safety and rightly so. Andrew seems to think that a stray spark from the generator caught on a loose pile of Dr. Kuri's notes. The man did insist on writing everything down on paper." Dr. McNeil's words were casual, but her look was pointed. He was being given the party line.

"It really is a shame," McNeil went on. "There was a power surge when the generator failed, and the whole network database crashed. It will take days to assess the damage. Whole projects have been erased. All that research, all that work…" She smiled.

The Doctor stared at her. There was a good chance that Dr. McNeil was lying, that she had salvaged the remnants of Dr. Kuri's project and still meant to profit by it. But, somehow, he didn't think she was lying. She was a smart woman and learned from her mistakes.

"Where did you learn your resuscitation technique, Chelsey? I wouldn't have guessed that your doctorate was medical."

"It isn't. I was a medic, second-class, in the North American Army. I did two turns on the European peninsula in the war of 2022." She sighed. "I applied to Gateway because I wanted to help people. It seems, somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that."

"I seem to recall seeing a report on a very promising project involving tomatoes?"

Dr. McNeil laughed, and it was Rose's turn to look jealously at the attractive, older woman standing a little too close to her Doctor.

"If you're considering a change of direction," the Doctor went on, "you'll need new management as well. I happen to know of a brilliant, young electrician whose is utterly wasted on light bulbs and circuit breakers." The Doctor tipped his head toward Andrew.

"I've already asked Jonathon to draw up the paperwork." Dr. McNeil smiled and held out her hand. "Goodbye, Doctor, and good luck. If your next adventure is anything like your last, you'll need it."

He frowned at the premonition, but Rose and Andrew were joining them and goodbyes were said all-around. There was no hint from Andrew that he hoped to join them in the Tardis, and no disappointment from Rose when the Doctor failed to suggest it.

Ten minutes later, Dr. McNeil and Andrew stood alone in the courtyard, looking down at the square of bare stone where the Tardis had been.

"Well, Mr. Chen, we must decide on a new job title for you, and there are one or two points in your personnel file that I think need to be corrected…"

.

Rose watched the Doctor dematerialize the Tardis and set the coordinate controls for somewhere else. She saw the lines of worry around his eyes and mouth but didn't need to ask. He had been anxious ever since Andrew carried Carmen's prone body out of the destroyed lab.

"Where is she?" she asked.

The Doctor kept his eyes on the controls, turning a few unimportant dials and frowning at the screen. "Resting," he said, "in the Zero Room."

"What's a 'zero room'?"

"Level four, aft section 2B-Grenich."

"What?"

He sighed. "The Zero Room is a sort of Time Lord sensory deprivation tank. The walls are specially built to block out all electrical energy, radio waves and background radiation. Everything. My people used the technology as a sort of spa treatment, but it was also used by the older Time Lords during regeneration confusion.

"Regener-what now?" Rose asked, laughing.

He glanced at her. "It's not important."

They stood in silence for a few minutes, listening to the hum of the Tardis engines.

"Will it help her?" Rose asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. "It's Time Lord tech. If she were a Time Lord…" He shook his head. "She was in there for a long time, Rose."

"A few hours! I was in there, too."

"For a few minutes," he said. "I didn't have enough time to examine Kuri's machine. I don't know what was inside that energy field. Time Energy, yes, but what kind? She was trapped for a few hours in our timeline, but that doesn't tell us how long it was for her."

"But you put her in the Zero Room. You think it'll help her."

"It might. Or, it might just keep her alive long enough for her to go mad."

Rose stared at him. "She saved my life. She caught me when I fell into the energy field, and don't you tell me she didn't! She was reaching out before Dr. Kuri pushed me. She knew. She knew where I was going to fall!"

"You can't know that, Rose. Who knows what she was thinking. Trapped between two timelines… She may not have been conscious at all. What do you remember when you were inside?"

"It was…" Rose stopped and frowned. "It was bright," she said, "and hot. And I… I wasn't in there as long as she was."

"She didn't catch you, Rose," the Doctor said, angrily. "She wasn't reaching for you. She didn't catch you. Whatever shield was protecting her from the Time Winds, that was what saved you. Not her. When you fell through the barrier, your hand touched hers and the shield stretched to hold both of you. That's all." He turned away so he wouldn't have to see the tears in her eyes.

"Why are you saying these things?" Rose demanded. "Why don't you care?"

"Because I don't know if she'll ever wake up!" he shouted. "I don't know. And I don't want you to think that you owe her anything because you don't. I do. It was MY fault. I couldn't save her."

He hung his head. Rose hurried to his side and put her arms around him. "It's not your fault. It's nobody's fault. There was nothing that we could do for her. You heard the scream. As soon as she fell into the energy field she was…" Her words choked off. She remembered Gwyneth's last moments and what the Doctor had said after.

"Carmen isn't dead," the Doctor said. "She's alive, and maybe she'll wake up. If it takes a hundred years, or a thousand. If there's anything left of her in there…" He smiled and squeezed Rose's hand.

"You should take a rest," he told her. "It's been a long night, and I've got some work to do here." He put his hand on the Tardis console. "She got a bit knocked about during that landing at Gateway."

"Yeah, alright," Rose said, stepping away and heading for the corridor that led to her own room in the Tardis. Before she left the console room, she stopped and looked back. "You did save the world, Doctor. That's something to be proud of."

He didn't answer. He listened to her footsteps along the metal flooring as they faded away down the corridor and shook his head. How many worlds, how many billions of people on those worlds, had he saved, but it still hurt every time he lost.

He took Carmen's leather wristband out of his pocket and flipped open the protective cover, revealing technology three thousand years ahead of its time. The power cells were drained to nearly nothing, but that wasn't surprising. The Vortex Manipulator was built to travel through the Vortex, not to hang around inside while its wearer was battered and burned by the time winds.

With the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor removed the metal casing and examined the VM circuits. The coordinates input was shot, and so was the teleport mechanism. As far as he could tell, the only thing that did work was the shield, and the shock when Kuri's generator had failed had fried those circuits as well. But the shield shouldn't have protected Carmen for as long as it did. A Time Agent was never inside the Vortex for more than a few seconds. Carmen had been trapped for almost three hours. She should have been dead.

"Who do you belong to?" the Doctor whispered. He ran the sonic over the wristband. The leather was nearly an hundred years old and not original to the device, but that told him little about Carmen herself. Was she a time agent with second-hand equipment, trapped on Earth after a mission gone wrong, or just a lucky kid who had stumbled upon the one bit of alien technology that could keep her alive in a time-energy field and she'd kept it because it looked like a pretty piece of steampunk jewelry?

The Doctor put the casing back together and closed the cover over it again. His thoughts turned to the Zero Room, tucked away behind a labyrinth of corridors and stairwells in the bowels of the Tardis. He had left Carmen Ortiz laying peacefully on the floor in what must pass for sleep to her twisted mind. Her face was smooth, but he could sense the torment in her thoughts that boiled just under the surface. Maybe, in a hundred years, she would wake up again with enough sense to give him all the answers he craved. Or, maybe, she would wake up mad. What would he do with her then? Only time would tell.


Roll end credits.

Let me know what you think. It's nice to hear that someone else is enjoying the story. :)

-Paint