Chapter 8

The Beast Below

The Doctor stepped through the TARDIS door, and along a short tunnel into the rebuilt console room. Up the short ramp and to the left of the central console was a flight of stairs that curved around and led up into the depths of the ship. Further along on the left were two sets of steps which led down to the service area under the console. On the right was another staircase that again led up into the voluminous interior of the TARDIS.

The metal floor grating had been replaced by transparent panels. There were two comfortable seats either side of the curved staircase, and on one of them sat his beautiful wife, who was feeding his beautiful daughter. The console was less "junk yard" now and more "Victorian Hardware Emporium".

'It's so clean an' tidy,' Rose said with a smile. 'Just make sure you keep it like this,' she told him.

'Yes dear,' he said in the style of a henpecked husband. He walked over to the console and started up the Time Rotor, which now glowed with a clean, blue light.

Rose finished feeding Andrea and got her wind up. 'Would you change her nappy and get her baby grow on and I can make us somethin' to eat.'

'Of course I can Love,' he said as he lifted up his daughter and blew a raspberry on her cheek. 'What are you cooking?'

'I thought I'd do our favourite. Fish and chips.'

'Oh, brilliant. All my tastes are back to normal again. I'm really going to enjoy that.'

After their meal, they sat on the sofa watching television. The Doctor was cradling Andrea in the crook of his elbow, cooing at her. He chatted with Rose, and could sense that something was on her mind.

'What's on your mind?' he asked her out of the blue.

'Eh? Oh, nothin',' she said in that human way that meant "everything".

'It's my new face, isn't it? The chin's too big.'

She smiled and stroked his cheek. 'Nah. It suits your new face. I'm kinda gettin' used to it. No, I was just wonderin' how couples on Gallifrey used to cope when their partner suddenly changed.'

'Ah, right,' he said. So that was it. She was struggling to cope with his change. She had been upset last time it happened, and it took her a while to come to terms with it. And they weren't even married then.

He put his arm around her shoulders. 'Gallifreyans are naturally telepathic, so from an early age they are used to seeing people without looking at them.'

'Eh?' Rose asked.

'Close your eyes and I'll try and explain.' He smiled at her and waited for her to close her eyes. ['Who's speaking to you at the moment?']

['You are of course,'] she thought back.

['How do you know? You can't see me. You can't hear me, and have you noticed how your internal dialogue doesn't have an accent or a gender.']

['Doesn't it . . ? Oh yeah! I'd never noticed that before.']

['Your voice is created by your vocal cords, your tongue, the shape of your mouth, and your lips. Your thoughts are created by your mind. So right now, I should sound no different to how I've always sounded in here.']

['Yeah, that's right.']

['So now, I want you to take a deep breath in, breath out and relax. How do you feel?']

['Relaxed,'] she thought back, and he could feel her smile.

['Hang on, let me just put Andrea in her cot . . . Okay. Now, I've opened the door, and I'm inviting you in.']

Rose gently reached out with her thoughts, and could feel her husband waiting for her. It was strange, because she couldn't really see him, but she could. When she thought about how to describe it, it didn't make any sense. It was just him. She knew it and didn't question it.

Moving into his psyche, was like entering someone's house where they lived and had all their personal belongings that made the house their home. She could feel the fire of his passion, and the ice of his incredible intellect. He was holding nothing back, and she could feel his rage at the injustices of the universe.

He was dark and tranquil, like the stillness in the dead of the night, and yet he was also the blinding, dynamic storm at the heart of the sun. Within his vibrant youthful body, she could feel that his soul was ancient and forever. His soul burnt at the centre of time, and she could see him as he had been, as he was, and everything that he could be. Through him she could see the turn of the universe . . . He was her husband, the Doctor. And oh God he was magnificent!

Without realising it, her lips had sought his and kissed him. Her fingers ran through his now floppy hair, which was different, but still enjoyable. It was if she were detached from her body and it was running on autopilot. Her hands undid his bowtie and started unbuttoning his shirt. She felt his hands working their way up her thighs and under her dress.

At no time did she open her eyes. She didn't need to. She could see everything she needed to see in her mind, just as she could feel everything. And she could feel him pick her up and carry her out of the living room and into their bedroom.

Rose awoke feeling like a million dollars, and experimentally opened her eyes. There was a momentary flash of confusion as she saw the body of a stranger lying next to her in bed. But it was only momentary, because she knew who it was. It was the man she loved, the man who was her husband. The man who was the Doctor.

His eyes looked at her from under his floppy fringe. 'Hello,' he said.

'Hi,' she said as she stroked his new cheek and his new chin.

'So I'm still the Doctor then?' he asked her.

She smiled at the memory of the Sycorax ship. 'No argument from me,' she said and kissed him lovingly on the lips.

'Mmmm. Did you sleep well?'

'I think so . . . eventually,' she said with a broad smile, and then frowned in thought. 'Did I really scream out loud?'

'Well, it was more of a primal scream in our heads,'

She blushed. 'Oh my God. I didn't?!'

He waggled his considerable eyebrows. 'You did! It was the first time we'd made love whilst sharing our minds. The orgasms tend to be a bit more intense. Well, a lot more intense . . . Well, mind blowing actually.'

Rose started to giggle like a teenager, and the Doctor joined in as well. 'So . . . What do you think?' he asked, referring to his new body.

'It's different again,' she said diplomatically.

'Which bits are your favourite, and which bits not so?' he enquired. 'And you can be honest.'

'Hmm, o-kay. Your face is younger, it looks more my age now. Your lips kiss the same,' she said, and then gave him that smile with her tongue between her teeth. 'And your body shags the same.'

That made him laugh.

'Your eyes . . . They're deeper set, but I see the same look in them when you look at me and Andrea. Your hair isn't as foxy, but I can still run my fingers through it.' She ran her fingers through his hair to prove the point.

She hesitated and thought about the next bit and how to put it tactfully. 'Your chin is . . . noble. Yes, that's what it is, noble. Oh, and you use your hands more,' she told him, and he obliged by stroking her naked body under the duvet. 'Ooh, that's very nice, but I meant you wave your hands about when you're talkin'.'

'Ah, right,' he said, bringing his hands from under the duvet.

'No, don't stop,' she said cheekily. 'But there is one thing that's disappointin'. You've lost your sense of style.'

'My sense of style?' he asked with a hurt expression.

'Well yeah. You've gone from a chic geek in a tight suit, to granddad in a bowtie, braces and tweed jacket.'

'The old suit just didn't feel right in this new body. It was like I was trying to hold on to my old self, as though I wasn't being true to myself . . . or to you.'

While Rose thought about that, Andrea woke up and had a little niggle which the TARDIS translated for them. ['Mummy . . . Hungry.']

Rose looked to the crib by her side of the bed and saw her daughter stretching her arms and legs. 'How did she get in there? I don't remember either of us bringing her in.' She reached over and lifted Andrea out of the crib.

'I went and fetched her after you . . . sort of . . . passed . . . out,' he said hesitantly.

'Passed out? I passed out? How?' Rose sat up against the pillows, and helped her daughter find her nipple.

'Neurogenic shock caused by a massive release of dopamine and over stimulation of your nucleus accumbens.'

'Ooh, I love it when you talk dirty.' She looked at him, and he was just lying there with his head propped up on his hand, watching her feed Andrea. 'What?'

'Nothing. I just love watching you with her. It gives me a warm feeling inside.'

She smiled back at him. 'Yeah, me too.'

Once breakfasts were finished, and Rose walked into the new console room, she noticed the Time Rotor was still. 'Where are we?'

'Tranquility Base, Mare Tranquillitatis on the moon.'

'Ooh, let's have a look.' She went to the door and opened it. 'Oh, look Sweetheart,' she said to her daughter in her arms. 'That's where men first landed here.' They could see the American flag, various experiments that had been left, and the base of the Lunar Excursion Module.

The Doctor came and put his arm around her shoulders. 'Do you remember Amelia Pond asking if she could come with us, and I promised her that she could?'

'Yeah. An' then Amelia grew up into Amy. At least she's over the legal age of consent now. Do you think she'd still want to come with us?'

'We could always ask her.'

'Yeah, okay then. Why not?'

It was night time when they landed in Amy's garden again. And he'd managed to miss the new, old shed. They saw Amy hurrying down the path in her nightdress.

'This is a bit of deja vu,' Rose said.

'Sorry about running off earlier,' he told Amy. 'Brand new TARDIS. Bit exciting. Just had a quick hop to the moon and back to run her in. She's ready for the big stuff now.'

'It's you. You came back.'

'Course we came back,' Rose said.

'I always come back. Something wrong with that?' he asked her.

'And you kept the clothes.'

'Well, I just saved the world. The whole planet, for about the millionth time, no charge. Yeah, shoot me. I kept the clothes.'

'Including the bow tie.'

'Yeah, it's cool. Bow ties are cool.'

'Says you,' Rose said teasingly. 'I quite liked the swirly tie. Oh, and the tight suit.' The Doctor looked at her with raised eyebrows.

'Are you from another planet?' Amy asked them, interrupting their flirting.

'Well, he is. I'm from London,' Rose told her. ' And she was born in London as well, weren't you?' Rose said, nodding to her daughter in her arms.

'Okay.'

'So what do you think?' the Doctor asked.

'Of what?'

'Other planets. Want to check some out?'

'What does that mean?'

'It means . . . Well . . .' he started.

Rose rolled her eyes. 'He means come with us.'

'Where?'

'Wherever you like,' he said with a smile.

'All that stuff that happened. The hospital, the spaceships, Prisoner Zero . . .'

'Oh, don't worry, that's just the beginning,' he told her.

'There's loads more,' Rose said.

'Yeah, but those things, those amazing things, all that stuff. That was two years ago.'

'What?!' Rose exclaimed.

'Oh . . ! Oops.' he said.

'Yeah.'

'So that's . . ?' he started to calculate.

'Fourteen years!'

'Fourteen years since fish custard. Amy Pond, the girl who waited, you've waited long enough. So, coming?'

'No.'

'You wanted to come fourteen years ago,' he said sadly.

'I grew up,' she explained.

'Don't worry. We'll soon fix that,' Rose said. 'I said no once, nearly the biggest mistake of my life.'

The Doctor clicked his fingers and the TARDIS door opened. Rose went in first, she loved to see people's initial reaction. Amy stood outside and looked through the door. She could not believe what she was seeing. Eventually, she stepped inside and the Doctor followed her.

Rose grinned at the expression on her face. her eyes were wide in wonder as she slowly looked around.

'Well? Anything you want to say? Any passing remarks?' he asked.

'We've heard them all,' Rose said.

'I'm in my nightie,' Amy said.

'Oh, okay. We haven't heard that one before,' Rose said with a frown.

'Oh, don't worry. Plenty of clothes in the wardrobe,' he said. 'And possibly a swimming pool. So, all of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will Where do you want to start?'

'You are so sure that I'm coming,' Amy noticed.

'Yeah, I am.'

'Why?'

'Cause you're the Scottish girl in the English village, and I know how that feels.'

'Ah, Love,' Rose said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

'Oh, do you?' Amy challenged him.

'All these years living here, most of your life, and you've still got that accent. Yeah, you're coming.'

'Can you get me back for tomorrow morning?'

'It's a time machine. I can get you back five minutes ago.'

'Well . . .' Rose was about to comment on his ability to get young women back on time, when he asked a very good question.

'Why, what's tomorrow?'

'Nothing,' she said a bit too quickly. 'Nothing . . . Just you know . . . stuff.' Rose saw her face, and knew something important was happening tomorrow, and she wondered what it was.

The Doctor on the other hand had completely missed it. 'All right, then. Back in time for stuff.'

A sonic screwdriver rose from a slot in the console to replace the one that had blown up when he was trying to attract the attention of the Atraxi. 'Oh! A new one! Lovely. Thanks, dear,' he said to the TARDIS.

Rose rolled her eyes and smiled. 'Thanks Sweetheart,' she said, stroking the Time Rotor as the Doctor typed commands into the console on an old typewriter which was wired into it.

'Why me?' Amy asked.

'Why not?' he asked back.

'No, seriously. You are asking me to run away with you in the middle of the night. It's a fair question . . . Why me?'

'I don't know,' he told her.

'Fun!' Rose said.

'Do I have to have a reason?' he asked.

'People always have a reason,' Amy said skeptically.

'He wanted to say sorry for not bein' back in five minutes like he promised. He doesn't like to break a promise,' Rose explained.

'And for the two years,' he added. 'Sorry.'

'That's it? To say sorry? Just that?'

'Just that . . . Promise,' he said with a smile.

'Okay,' she said simply.

The Doctor took that as a definite yes. 'So, are you okay, then? Because this place, sometimes it can make people feel a bit, you know . . .'

'Dizzy. Seasick,' Rose suggested.

'I'm fine. It's just, there's a whole world in here, just like you said. It's all true. I thought. Well, I started to think that maybe you were just like a madman with a box.'

Rose snorted a laugh. Amy had certainly got his number.

The Doctor looked at her seriously. 'Amy Pond, there's something you'd better understand about me, because it's important, and one day your life may depend on it . . . I am definitely a madman with a box.'

'Too right y'are,' Rose laughed. 'Welcome aboard Amy.'

The Doctor started to work his magic on the console, and the Time Rotor started to pump up and down. 'Ha ha! Yeah. Goodbye Leadworth, hello everything.'

Amy watched the Time Rotor in wonder, listening to the beautiful noise that for some reason filled her with joy. 'So, this is a space ship, yeah? So we're in space then?'

The Doctor looked up from the console. 'Eh? Oh. No. But we can be.' He adjusted a few controls, and took them out of the Vortex and into real space. He held his arm out towards the door in a gesture that brought back a vivid memory for Rose.

It had been her first real journey in the TARDIS. "Where are we?" she had asked the man with the ears and the daft grin. He had just held his arm out towards the doors, just as he was doing now for Amy. "What's out there?" she had asked, and again he just pointed with his extended arm, just as he was doing now. He was such a show off, and she loved him for it.

Rose led her to the doors and nodded for her to open them. She hesitantly opened the door and gasped at the starfield in front of her.

'I thought I'd be weightless,' she said as the Doctor came up behind her.

'That's the TARDIS gravity you can feel. Do you want to be weightless?'

'Der, yeah,' she said as though it was obvious that the main reason for going into space in the first place was so that you could be weightless.

'Right then,' he said, crouching down and holding her left ankle. 'Do you trust me?'

'I don't know,' she said uncertainly, wondering why he was holding her ankle. She looked at Rose. 'Do I trust him?'

Rose smiled at her. 'Absolutely.'

'Okay then. I trust you.'

'Off you go then. Just take one step over the threshold.'

She hesitantly stepped out with her right foot, and started to float up and away from the door.

'A-ha!' she squealed with delight. 'I'm in space!' Her hair floated around her head as she looked around at the stars and nebulae.

'Come on Pond,' he said, pulling her back inside after a lengthy period of floating, that Amy felt was far too short.

'Now do you believe me?'

'Okay, your box is a spaceship. It's really, really a spaceship. We are in space! What are we breathing?'

'I've extended the air shell,' he told her.

'It's the TARDIS,' Rose explained. 'She's protectin' us, we're fine.'

The Doctor happened to look down and saw a city of skyscrapers floating by below them. 'Now that's interesting,' he said, running back to the console. 'Twenty ninth century. Solar flares roast the earth, and the entire human race packs its bags and moves out till the weather improves . . . Whole nations . . .'

'Doctor?' Amy called from the doors.

'Oops!' Rose said as she saw that Amy had disappeared.

'. . . Migrating to the stars . . .' he continued as he adjusted the controls.

'Doctor?' Rose called to him.

'Isn't that amazing?' he said as he finished fiddling with the controls.

'Doctor!' Rose called urgently as she reached outside to grab Amy's hand.

He hurried to the doors and helped Rose pull Amy back inside. 'Well, come on. I've found us a spaceship.' He went to a roundel which acted as a window that looked out of the TARDIS.

'This is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. All of it, bolted together and floating in the sky . . . Starship UK. It's Britain, but metal. That's not just a ship, that's an idea. That's a whole country, living and laughing and shopping . . . Searching the stars for a new home.'

'Can we go out and see?' Amy asked.

'Course we can. But first, there's a thing,' he said seriously as he moved towards the console.

'A thing?' Amy said.

Rose frowned. 'What thing?'

'An important thing. In fact, Thing One. We are observers only. That's the one rule I've always stuck to in all my travels. I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets.'

Rose started to laugh, and Andrea started to chuckle along with her mother. That made Rose laugh even more when she saw the Doctor looking at them as though he was puzzled at why she was laughing.

'What is it?' Amy asked with a laugh. 'Did I miss something?' Which made Rose laugh even more.

The Doctor tutted and rolled his eyes before turning on an old 1950's looking bakelite view screen. 'Ooh, that's interesting.'

He'd tapped into the internal CCTV of the city, and they could see a young girl in a red cardigan sitting on her own, looking very upset.

'So we're like a wildlife documentary, yeah?' Amy confirmed. 'Because if they see a wounded little cub or something, they can't just save it, they've got to keep filming and let it die. It's got to be hard.'

Rose remembered comforting her dying father. 'Trust me, you don't want to know.'

Amy saw the haunted Iook in her eyes. 'I don't think I could do that. Don't you find that hard, being all, like, detached and cold?'

She saw the Doctor on the view screen, speaking to the weeping girl in the red cardigan. 'Doctor?'

'Oh he's gone an' sneaked off again,' Rose said.

On the screen, he gesture for them to join him. 'C'mon,' Rose said, fastening Andrea into her buggy. 'We don't want him to have all the fun, do we?'

['Doctor. We've got a problem!'] Rose thought to her husband. ['Amy looked into a hole in the road, and a bunch of creepy guys in cloaks have taken her.']

['Ah, I was right then. A police state. Do you know where they have taken her?']

['We're following them now. Mandy says they won't hurt her. They are taking her to voting booth 330C for some reason.'] Mandy Tanner was the weeping girl in the red cardigan they had seen on the view screen.

['That's odd. A bit like the engine room down here.']

['What's odd about the engine room?']

['It's got no engines in it! I'm on my way up.']

A while later, the Doctor arrived at the voting booth and found Rose, who was cradling Andrea in her arms, and Mandy waiting for him.

'So, where is she then?' he asked them.

'She's in there,' Mandy told him, pointing to the door of one of the booths. 'You have to wait for her to come out.'

'Ah well. I've never been much for waiting, me,' he said, taking out his sonic screwdriver.

'You're tellin' me,' Rose laughed.

He sonicked the door, and pushed it open. On a view screen, they could see Amy talking. ['Listen to me. This isn't a trick. This is for real.']

'Amy?' he called to her

['You've got to find the Doctor.'] Amy turned off the recorded message.

He looked from the screen to Amy. 'What have you done?' He scanned a device in the ceiling. 'Yeah, your basic memory wipe job. Must have erased about twenty minutes.'

'But why would I choose to forget?' Amy asked him, but Mandy answered.

'Because everyone does. Everyone chooses the Forget button.'

'Did you?' Rose asked.

'I'm not eligible to vote yet. I'm twelve. Any time after you're sixteen, you're allowed to the see the film and make your choice. And then once every five years,' Mandy replied.

'And once every five years, everyone chooses to forget what they've learned. Democracy in action,' the Doctor said.

'How do you not know about this? Are you Scottish too?' Mandy asked him.

'Oh, I'm way worse than Scottish,' he said as he fiddled with the controls. 'I can't even see the movie. Won't play for me.'

'It played for me,' Amy told him.

'The difference being the computer doesn't accept me as human.'

'Why not? You look human.'

'No, you look Time Lord. We came first.'

Rose rolled her eyes at him and shook her head. He always had to be superior to humans.

'So there are other Time Lords, yeah?' Amy asked innocently.

"Whoops. Elephant in the room" Rose thought as she put a hand on Amy's arm. 'That's a bit of a delicate subject,' she started to tell her, when the Doctor recovered from Amy's question.

'No . . . There were, but there aren't. Just me now. Long story . . . There was a bad day. Bad stuff happened. And you know what? I'd love to forget it all, every last bit of it, but I don't. Not ever. Because this is what I do, every time, every day, every second . . . This.' He hit the button marked "Protest". 'Hold tight. We're bringing down the government.'

The door to the booth slammed shut, trapping him, Rose, Andrea, and Amy inside. The Smiler mannequin in the kiosk became a Scowler and the floor opened up to reveal the long drop.

The Doctor held his wife's hand. 'Say wheee!'

Rose and Amy said 'ARGHHH!'

Queen Elizabeth the Tenth had tracked the time travellers to the overflow pipe where they had been vomited out of the mouth of a Star Whale that lived at the base of the ship. The Queen was as eager as the Doctor to find out what was going on, and had taken them to the Tower of London.

'Doctor, where are we?' Rose asked as she looked through a grating, where tentacles were flailing about.

'The lowest point of Starship UK. The dungeon.'

'Ma'am,' an officious man in black robes said as he greeted his queen.

'Hawthorne. So this is where you hid yourself away. I think you've got some explaining to do,' Queen Liz told him.

The Doctor looked around the dungeon. 'There's children down here. What's all that about?'

'Protesters and citizens of limited value are fed to the beast. For some reason, it won't eat the children. You're the first adults it's spared. You're very lucky,' Hawthorne told him.

'Yeah, look at us. Torture chamber of the Tower of London. Lucky, lucky, lucky,' the Doctor said sarcastically.

'Well, the beast must have known that if it wanted to eat me, it would have had to eat Andrea as well, 'cos there was no way I was lettin' go of my daughter,' Rose said.

The Doctor smiled lovingly at his wife, before turning back to Hawthorne. 'Except it's not a torture chamber, is it? Well, except it is. Except it isn't. Depends on your angle.'

They moved over to a circular opening where the top of a pulsating brain could be seen. Giant electrodes were pointing down at it disturbingly.

'What's that?' Queen Liz asked Hawthorne.

The Doctor answered. 'Well, like I say, it depends on the angle. It's either the exposed pain centre of big fella's brain, being tortured relentlessly.'

'Or?' Queen Liz asked.

'Or it's the gas pedal, the accelerator. Starship UK's go faster button.'

Queen Liz frowned. 'I don't understand.'

'Don't you?' the Doctor asked her accusingly. 'Try to. Go on. The spaceship that could never fly. No vibration on deck. This creature, this poor, trapped, terrified creature. It's not infesting you, it's not invading, it's what you have instead of an engine. And this place down here is where you hurt it, where you torture it, day after day, just to keep it moving. Tell you what. Normally, it's above the range of human hearing. This is the sound none of you wanted to hear.'

He moved to one of the tentacles and took out his sonic screwdriver, using it to sonic a tentacle. The room was suddenly filled with a wailing screech of agony.

Andrea started to cry in sympathy, and Rose and Amy were obviously distressed as they imagined the pain that would cause that kind of scream.

'Stop it. Who did this?' Queen Liz demanded.

'We act on instructions from the highest authority,' Hawthorne told her.

'I am the highest authority' Queen Liz informed her minister. 'The creature will be released, now. I said now! Is anyone listening to me?'

The Doctor picked up the queens porcelain disguise. 'Liz . . . Your mask.'

'What about my mask?'

'Look at it. It's old. At least two hundred years old, I'd say.'

'Yeah? It's an antique. So?'

'Yeah, an antique made by craftsmen over two hundred years ago and perfectly sculpted to your face. They slowed your body clock, all right, but you're not fifty. Nearer three hundred. And it's been a long old reign.'

'Nah, it's ten years. I've been on this throne ten years.'

'Ten years,' he echoed, walking over to a table. 'And the same ten years, over and over again, always leading you here.' He indicated two buttons on the table in front of a monitor. Forget and Abdicate.

'What have you done?' Queen Liz asked Hawthorne.

'Only what you have ordered,' he replied courteously. 'We work for you, Ma'am. The Winders, the Smilers, all of us.' He switched on the monitor, which played a recorded message from Queen Elizabeth the Tenth.

['If you are watching this. If I am watching this, then I have found my way to the Tower Of London. The creature you are looking at is called a Star Whale. Once, there were millions of them. They lived in the depths of space and, according to legend, guided the early space travellers through the asteroid belts. This one, as far as we are aware, is the last of its kind. And what we have done to it breaks my heart. The Earth was burning. Our sun had turned on us and every other nation had fled to the skies. Our children screamed as the skies grew hotter. And then it came, like a miracle. The last of the Star Whales. We trapped it, we built our ship around it, and we rode on its back to safety. If you wish our voyage to continue, then you must press the Forget button. Be again the heart of this nation, untainted. If not, press the other button. Your reign will end, the Star Whale will be released, and our ship will disintegrate. I hope I keep the strength to make the right decision.']

Amy looked on aghast. 'I voted for this . . . Why would I do that?'

'Because you knew if we stayed here, I'd be faced with an impossible choice. Humanity or the alien. You took it upon yourself to save me from that. And that was wrong. You don't ever decide what I need to know,' he said angrily, wagging a finger at her.

'I don't even remember doing it,' Amy pleaded.

'You did it. That's what counts.'

'I'm, I'm sorry.'

The Doctor was still angry. 'Oh, I don't care. When I'm done here, you're going home.'

Rose stood in front of Amy, facing her annoyed husband. 'Why? Because she made a mistake? One mistake? She doesn't even remember doing it. Doctor!'

'Yeah, I know . . . She's only human,' he said sarcastically.

Rose looked deep into his ancient eyes. ['I stood before you like this once before. Do you remember?'] She thought to him, referring to the event in van Statten's bunker when he confronted his old enemy.

['Only I wasn't protectin' a confused, frightened young lady. It was a confused and frightened Dalek. She chose what she thought was the right thing to do . . . just as you did back then,'] she reminded him.

He reached up and held her cheek, rubbing it with his thumb in his old familiar style. 'And just as you did back then, you made me question my beliefs. Amy made the wrong choice with the best intention.' He leaned forward and kissed Rose on the lips before moving around to a control console.

'What are you doing?' Queen Liz asked.

'The worst thing I'll ever do. I'm going to pass a massive electrical charge through the Star Whale's brain. Should knock out all its higher functions, leave it a vegetable. The ship will still fly, but the whale won't feel it.'

'What?!' Rose gasped. 'You can't do that! That's . . . that's . . .'

'Inhuman?' the Doctor suggested.

'That'll be like killing it,' Amy said.

'Look, three options,' he told them. 'One, I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Two, I kill everyone on this ship. Three, I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can. And then I find a new name, because I won't be the Doctor any more.'

'There must be something we can do, some other way,' Queen Liz said.

'Nobody talk to me. Nobody human has anything to say to me today!'

Tears trickled down Rose's cheeks as she hugged her daughter. She knew her husband was angry and upset because it was another one of those days. A day when it wasn't possible to get it right.

She sat with Amy and Mandy, and watched the Doctor adjust the controls, as children entered the dungeon.

Mandy stood and rushed forward. 'Timmy! You made it, you're okay. It's me, Mandy.' A tentacle flailed behind Mandy, then gently tapped her on the shoulder. Rose and Amy watched in amazement as she stroked it.

They looked at each other as they put all the pieces together. The Doctor had told them to use their eyes, to notice everything. In Queen Liz's message, she had said the children screamed, and the Star Whale had come like a miracle. Hawthorne had told them that it wouldn't eat the children. It came to the dying Earth, a Star Whale, the last of its kind.

'The Doctor said he never interfered with other peoples or planets,' Amy said.

'Unless it's children crying,' Rose remembered. She looked down at her daughter, who was looking back at her with wide, innocent eyes. 'It's the children. They're the key.'

Amy gasped with the realisation. 'It won't let the children be harmed!'

'Doctor, stop. Whatever you're doing, stop it now!' Amy called out to him.

Rose grabbed Queen Liz's wrist. 'Sorry, Your Majesty. Going to need a hand.'

Amy grabbed her other elbow and helped Rose drag her to the voting buttons.

The Doctor looked up from the console 'Rose, Amy, no! NO!'

They pushed Liz's hand down on the Abdicate button, and the Whale roared. Starship UK shook briefly, causing panic on the upper levels.

'Rose, Amy, what have you done?'

'If we're right, nothing at all,' Amy told him.

'We've increased speed,' Hawthorne announced.

'Yeah, well, you've stopped torturing the pilot. Got to help,' Rose said sarcastically.

'It's still here,' Liz observed. 'I don't understand.'

'The Star Whale didn't come like a miracle all those years ago,' Amy explained.

'It volunteered,' Rose told them. 'You didn't have to trap it or torture it. That was all just you.'

'It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry,' Amy continued.

Rose looked at her husband as she explained. 'What if you were really old, and really kind and alone? Your whole race dead. No future. What couldn't you do then? If you were that old, and that kind, and the very last of your kind, you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry.'

Rose thought she could see tears in his eyes as he walked over to her, held her face, and gave her a long, grateful kiss. 'Thank you,' he said when their lips parted.

'Ahem,' she cleared her throat and nodded at Amy.

'Do I have to kiss her as well,' he said with a cheeky smile. Rose slapped his arm for him to behave. He turned to Amy. 'Thank you . . and sorry for earlier.'

They made their way back to an upper level observation deck which looked out over the city. Amy handed the Doctor Queen Liz's porcelain mask. 'From Her Majesty. She says there will be no more secrets on Starship UK.'

'You two could have killed everyone on this ship.'

'You could have killed a Star Whale,' Rose countered.

'Touche,' said Amy.

'And you two saved it.'

'Never cruel or cowardly,' Rose reminded him. 'Never give up . . .'

'I know, I know. Never give in,' he finished.

'Amazing though, don't you think? The Star Whale,' Amy said. 'All that pain and misery and loneliness, and it just made it kind.'

'But you couldn't have known how it would react.'

'You couldn't,' Rose said accusingly. 'But me, I've seen it before. Very old and very kind, and the very, very last. Sound a bit familiar?' She gave him her special smile, the one where her tongue poked between her teeth.

His face slowly broke into a smile, and he pulled her into a hug. She kissed him on the cheek, and then nodded sideways at Amy. He grabbed her into a hug also.

'Hey,' Amy whispered.

'What?' he asked.

'Gotcha.'

'Huh. Gotcha.'

'Well, come on. Time to go,' he said as he led them towards a London market.

'Shouldn't we say goodbye? Won't they wonder where we went?' Amy said.

'For the rest of their lives,' he replied.

'He's not big on goodbyes,' Rose explained.

'Oh, the songs they'll write. Never mind them. Big day tomorrow,' he said.

Amy hesitated. 'Sorry, what?'

'Well, it's always a big day tomorrow. We've got a time machine. I skip the little ones,' he told her as they arrived at the TARDIS.

'Oh . . . right. Yes, I see what you mean,' she said as she followed him into the TARDIS, relieved that the secret of her big day tomorrow was still a secret . . . for now.