A/N: Bit of a trigger warning here mentions of thoughts of suicide.
The Cybermen cried out, "delete!" just as the Doctor in the black trench coat, Jackson, and Rosita ran in. The three used info-stamps to stop the Cybermen.
As they used them, the Doctor in brown ran in. In his hand, he held his sonic in one and an info-stamp in the other. He stopped one last Cyberman that the other three hadn't seen in time as it raised it's laser weapon at his brother.
"Right. Now!" He called out to the children. " All of you, out! D'you hear me? That's an order!"
Some of the children ran, a lot of them stayed where they were, either frozen in fear or shock.
"That means every single one o' ya, scram!" the part human Doctor added.
The children finally started moving, but not fast enough for the adults.
"All of you, come on," Jackson waved the kids towards the exit. "As fast as you can, now. Come on!"
The Time Lord climbed up a piece of machinery where he would have some more height and hollered, "there's a hot pie for everyone, if you leg it!"
There were a lot of kids, more than even they had expected.
"Rosita, get them out of that sluice gate!" He called to the woman
"Once you're out, keep running, get them as far away from this place as possible," the Doctor in blue told her, a bit quieter, since he was right next to her.
"Turn right at the corner" she ordered the kids as she ran out of the room. They heard her shouting more directions but couldn't make out what she said.
That was when it hit him that Rose wasn't there. He turned to his full Time Lord counterpart. "I thought she was right behind you?"
"She was!"
"Not here now."
"I see that!"
"Rose!"they both called out.
Neither of them noticed Jackson.
XxXxXxXx
Rose's annoyance only lasted a second before she turned her mind back to the task at hand. A couple of children, both girls about the age of eight, had come out as the Doctor had hollered for her to come on, and she was determined to make sure they got out.
"Come on, you two, time to get you out of here!" she called to the girls, both of whom followed her meekly.
The entire place still niggled at her memory, but she pushed that aside for the moment as she led the girls out into the hallway. She saw a bunch of kids run out into the hallway, a moment later, Rosita ran out after them, shouting orders. The boys must have everything in hand, then.
"Girls, listen to me carefully. Follow those kids and the woman, her name's Rosita. They'll lead you out of this place and somewhere you will be safe. Okay?"
The little girls nodded. Neither of them said a word as they ran to join the rest of the throng. One of the girls, however, a cute little blonde with curls, hugged her quickly before she took off. Cute little blighter.
She turned back toward the area where the little girls had come from. As she stepped toward it, a Cyberman came out, possibly after the little girls who had gotten away.
She tried to duck behind some machinery, but the metal man saw her before she could hide.
"You are unauthorized, you will be taken to the Court of the CyberKing for upgrade."
Okay, she expected it to try to delete her, but this would work too, maybe she could get some more information before escaping.
Wait. Court of the CyberKing?
CyberKing?
No, it can't be!
Before the Cyberman could reach her to escort her, she pulled out her info-stamp and took out the Cyberman. As soon as it was down, she ran to the room where she had seen the kids coming from. A couple of stragglers were still on the move, which made it easy to find where the Doctors were.
Just before she entered the room, she felt their worry ratchet up through the links between them. As she turned the corner and saw her Doctors, they both called for her.
"Rose!" came the doubled mental shout of the Doctors. They both practically screamed in her mind, as if by shouting it, they'd be more likely to get to her. The shock of it sent her info-stamp to the floor.
"Blimey," she complained out loud. They both turned around and faced her, relief evident both through the link and written on their faces. "Give a girl a headache, why don'tcha?"
She looked around the room properly, only a couple kids were left, all of whom had been very high up in the workroom when the group came to free them. She was about to tell the Doctors what she had learned when she noticed a small boy standing up near the ceiling on a platform. He had curly hair and some serious freckles.
"My son!" Jackson shouted at the same time she noticed the boy. "Doctor, that's my son!"
"What?" both men said at the same time. Jackson pointed up to the platform where the little boy stood.
"They took my son! No wonder my mind escaped!" Jackson ran his hands through his hair, not in frustration, but joy at having found his son. "Those damned Cybermen, they took my child. But he's alive, Doctor! Oh, my. Frederick!" he yelled up to the boy.
"Come on!" the Doctor in brown yelled up to the boy.
At the same time, the other Doctor hollered, "it's okay, you're safe now!"
"He's too scared," Jackson observed, frantic. "Stay there! Don't move. I'm coming!" he ordered his son. He made his way to the stairs where he could get up to the boy, but as soon as he stepped on the bottom stair, something exploded, and the way up the stairs became blocked.
The Doctor in the blue suit helped Jackson to his feet and checked him over as the other two time travelers looked for another way to save Frederick.
"I can't get up there! Fred!" Jackson was nearly hysterical.
"They're finished with the motor now," The Doctor in blue said, "it's gonna blow!"
"What are we going to do, Doctor? What are we going to do?"
Rose noticed a rope and weight. If she could just...yes! She pulled out her katana and strode forward to grab a rope at the same time the Time Lord pulled out the cutlass he got from Reverend Fairchild's.
"Come on Jackson, you know me!" the Doctor in brown exclaimed.
The two of them reached the same rope at the same time. When their hands touched one another, they had a brief argument about which one would go up.
"Great minds," she said.
"I've got this, Rose," he told her.
She sent him an image of herself swinging from a chain just after she met him, saving him.
He sent back feelings of wanting her safe, and she sent back agreement that she wanted him safe as well.
If either of them hadn't been telepathic, it would have taken a lot longer to do it. If they weren't touching, it would have taken a few seconds. As it was, it only took about a second total.
She then had an idea. This was a CyberKing, if they kept to the plans she had seen before as much as they could, there would be an emergency manual shutoff. There was always some type of manual shutoff in human built technology, and Cybermen used to be human. If she could get it turned off before it rose, things would be easier later.
With the knowledge that he could process it as fast as she could sent it, and still keep his mind on the task, she sent her sudden, half formed idea to him through their touch, along with the relevant information that she knew, then kissed him quickly, sliced the rope with her sword, and watched him rise for just a second before she took off on her mission.
"Be careful, Rose," she heard as she left the room, the part human Doctor on her heels.
XxXxXxXx
The Doctor watched his counterpart and Rose walk up to the same rope at the same time. Each held some kind of sword. They both had the same idea at exactly the same time. Through their wide open links, he could catch bits of their very quick argument followed by bits of the plan Rose had come up with. He was impressed with it, but it was dangerous.
Suddenly, she kissed him hard and quick, stepped back, and cut the rope with a graceful swing. A second later, she took off, and he automatically followed her out of the room.
When they got into the tunnels, Rose suddenly turned on him with fire in her eyes.
"What are you doing?" she hissed.
"Oi!" he replied indignantly. "You have a plan, a good plan, but I'm not letting you go up there alone to get hurt!"
She walked over to him and put her hand on the side of his face. "Doctor, my Doctor. Look at us. 'M worried about what might 'appen to you, just a touch, and..." she trailed off with a shudder.
"And what would happen to you?! We still don't know!" he shouted. He was angry at her attempt to protect him-again. She'd been trying that a lot lately, especially since they made their bond stronger. The role reversal was...unsettling. This ridiculously weak humanish body drove him a little mad.
She turned and walked back the way she was headed before. "Did they 'ave CyberKings in this universe?"
"Yes," he answered. He knew what she did. She changed the subject. He'd go along with it, for now, but only because they had something to do.
There was the sound of an explosion in the distance, and everything shook. The Doctor and Rose were thrown together. Pain blossomed in his shoulder when he landed against her, and he heard a grunt.
"What do you know of 'em?"
"It's a ship, shaped like a big Cyberman. Dreadnought class. Front line of an invasion. And inside the chest there's a Cyberfactory, ready to convert millions."
"Amazin', isn't it? How the same concep's come back over and over again, across universes, time, places, and planets that never 'ad contact. It's like, there's certain universal, no, multiversal concep's that all sentient beings have at one time or another."
He had to smile at that, there was his Rose. "Yeah," he agreed, "I've often thought the same thing. Unfortunately, it also extends to things like these."
They came across a Cyberman, and the Doctor used an info-stamp on it.
"Crap, where is it?" Rose asked herself as she searched her pockets.
"Where's what?"
Rose shut her eyes tightly and smacked herself in the forehead. "Of course I dropped it!" She opened her eyes and looked at him. "I dropped the damned info-stamp back in the workroom. 'Ow I managed to jus' now notice, I'll never know."
The Doctor reached into his pocket and handed her the spare he carried. "Next time, strap them on like me!" He flashed her his cheeky grin while he showed off his strapped on info-stamps, and she rolled her eyes.
"Sure thing, Spiderman."
Since they had been thrown together, the whole place shook, and they had a tough time staying upright.
"Behold! I am risen! Witness me, mankind, as CyberKing of all!" They heard Ms Hartigan's voice, amplified, but it sounded wrong, like it was a computer speaking.
The pair had finally come to the shutdown switch, which was, thankfully, right where Rose expected it to be. Rose pulled the large switch right after Hartigan made her introduction. Suddenly, steam pipes all over the place burst, and it was almost impossible for two fleshy people to get through.
XxXxXxXx
The Doctor had rescued little Frederick Lake from the CyberKing and brought his to his father. He turned back to go after Rose, but before he could get down the corridor she had went through, another explosion blocked his path, and he was knocked over from the force.
If it were just a wall of flame, he'd have went through it in a heartsbeat, but the path was blocked by metal beams. He could have probably moved them, but then he'd have to stand in the flames. There was no other way to get to Rose and his other self.
An idea cropped up in his mind, and he took off after Jackson and his son. Another explosion rocked the remains of the workroom as he ran out of it and down the tunnel. When he reached the Lake's basement, he saw Jackson there, waiting on him, his son in his arms.
"What are you doing, Jackson, get out of here!" He yelled as he pulled the rod out of the center of the dimension vault.
"I was making sure you got out sir!" Jackson replied.
"Get the kid as far away from here as possible!"
The two of them ran toward the stable that Jackson had been staying in.
Suddenly, they heard Ms Hartigan's voice, amplified to levels not possible in this time. Human's weren't even capable of that much amplification in Rose's time. "Behold! I am risen! Witness me, mankind, as CyberKing of all!"
His hearts dropped. It still wasn't a Cyber speech pattern, so she still had free will, but from the sound of her voice, there had been some conversion of the woman. They watched a giant, steam engine Cyberman step out of the Thames as if it were nothing more than a puddle.
"What is that?" Jackson asked in wonder and fear.
"CyberKing. It's a ship. Dreadnought class. Front line of an invasion. And inside the chest there's a Cyber factory, ready to convert millions."
"Take him South, go to the Parkland," he told Jackson.
"But where are you going?" he asked.
"To stop that thing." The Doctor replied. He turned to run off, but Jackson's voice stopped him.
"I should be with you!" Jackson protested, worried for the Doctor.
"Jackson, you've got your son. You've got a reason to live," he reminded the man holding the boy in his arms.
"And you haven't?" He asked. "What about Rose and your brother?"
"I know they're okay for now," he told the man with a tap to his temple, indicating that he could feel them. "Rose and he can take care of themselves, mind you, there's a reason I call her Jeopardy Friendly." He shook himself of the thought. "But I won't have Rose, or him, if they get hurt, and there's nothing I can do about that right now. I have to try to stop the woman controlling the Cybermen before a lot of other people die. Go, save your son."
"God save you, Doctor," Jackson said.
The Doctor took off to where he was headed before, and Jackson took off South.
The Doctor entered the stable, set down the rod, and used the sonic to find what he was looking for. He quickly shifted a trunk and opened the next one down, searching through clothing for his quarry.
Jed was there. "What the hell is that thing, sir?" he asked the Time Lord.
The Doctor ignored his question. "Oh, good man! Jed, wasn't it?" After the young man nodded in confirmation, he said, "Jed, I need your help!"
He pulled out his quarry, another bandolier of info-stamps and headed toward the door to the yard.
"I'm not going out there!" Jed protested.
The man was no safer in the building than outside of it. Well, actually, he was probably safer outside where nothing could fall on him and he could see what came his way. Doctor tempted him with something that made a lot of humans braver than they'd normally be. "I'll give you five pound notes!"
He could see the internal battle. "Um... All right. What do you want me to do?"
"The TARDIS is gonna fly!" he shouted joyfully. He'd never been in a hot air balloon before. He wished Rose was there to share the excitement. The links between them were wide open, but they weren't deliberately sending anything to one another. He could tell that the two of them had a quick argument earlier, then there was a burst of satisfaction that he assumed was confirmation that the switch had been hit.
But the CyberKing was on its way, buildings crumpled like they were no more than card houses. Why wasn't it stopped?
Hartigan's voice came again. "People of the world! Now hear me. Your governments will surrender. And if not, then behold my power!" One of its mechanical arms raised, but nothing happened. Then the other one raised, and...nothing.
Ha! Rose and his other self weren't able to stop the whole thing, but they had disabled its weaponry!
He tossed the belt of info-stamps into the basket of the hot air balloon and climbed in.
"You're flamin' bonkers, sir!" Ah, you had to love people, insult you and call you sir in the same breath.
"It's been said before!" he retorted. "Now, gimme," he ordered, pointing at the device. Jed handed it to him, and he checked it over. It was still in it's recharge cycle. "Not enough power, oh, come on! Jed! Let her loose!" he ordered the man.
Jed ran to the ropes that secured the balloon and started untying them. "You ever flown one of these before?" he queried.
"Nope! Never! He couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice. It really was an entirely new experience.
"Can I have my money now?" Jed asked nervously.
"Oh, get on with it!" he chided. Humans.
As Jed untied the last rope, the balloon floated upward.
"Good luck to you, sir!" Jed called up.
The Doctor couldn't help but laugh as the balloon rose.
XxXxXxXx
Jackson met Rosita and introduced her to his son. The two of them looked up and saw the blue balloon rise behind the Cyberking.
"It's the TARDIS. She's flying!" Jackson, exclaimed, delighted to see the balloon in the air where she belonged.
XxXxXxXx
Inside the CyberKing, Rose and the part human Doctor were trapped by steam. They had flipped the switch, but the giant robot was still on the move.
"Why are we still moving?" the Doctor asked.
"I don' know!" Rose exclaimed. "The switch didn' work! Or maybe it does somethin' diff'ren'! Maybe it takes a minute! 'S built with steam age technology!" She was frantic. It should have worked. It should have stopped the Cyberking before it ever started moving. They could hear it crushing London below.
Hartigan's amplified voice reverberated through the corridors. "People of the world! Now hear me. Your governments will surrender. And if not, then behold my power!"
There was a sound, like that of a weapon charging up, then it immediately powered down.
"I jus' saw one that wasn' finished, and the plans for one. S'not like 'm and expert or anythin'!"
"Rose, Rose!" The Doctor yelled, having heard what she didn't. "The weapons system isn't working anymore! If I'm right, and I usually am, that switch turned off the weapons!"
Rose was happier when she heard that, at least this trip wasn't a bust after all. She suddenly felt joy and pride from the other Doctor, who had apparently also figured out that they had stopped the weapons.
"Someone's happy," she commented.
The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated. The three of them couldn't just reach into each other's minds, mostly it was emotions that got through, unless they were touching, or projecting. Telepathy at a distance was quite a bit harder for the two touch telepaths.
"That bastard," he laughed.
"What?"
"He's in that hot air balloon, flying up to fight a CyberKing! I've always wanted to do that!"
"What? Fight a giant metal robot filled with metal robots with brains inside from a flying device that you have next to no control over?" Rose asked, incredulously.
"No, fly a hot air balloon! He's got a plan, by the way. We just need to get out."
Rose started chewing the side of her thumb again. "Really? What?"
Suddenly, it felt like the whole world spun around, and the pair were thrown to the wall, the Doctor pressed up against Rose.
"That was lucky," Rose commented. "We could have been thrown into the steam."
The pipes nearby on both sides still spewed steam furiously.
"Yeah," the Doctor said as he stepped back from her. "You have any ideas for getting out of here intact? 'Cause I'm completely lost."
"Nope."
"Well, then."
"Yeah."
He pulled her against him and kissed her hard. When he pulled back, she giggled.
"What? It seemed like the thing to do," he cheekily said.
About 5 seconds later, they heard the unmistakable sounds of Cybermen coming from both sides, presumably to find out why the weapons weren't functioning. Both got their info-stamps ready and stood back to back. So they could cover both ways.
One of the Cybermen came through on the Doctor's side first. It registered the time travelers, and their location.
"Unauthorized units will be deleted," it informed them.
"Are you sure you want to do that?" The Doctor asked.
"These units are responsible for the sabotage to the weapons systems, they will be immediately deleted."
"Oh, well, then, I guess you are sure."
"Doctor, just take 'em out!" the woman behind him sent him, as she used her info-stamp on the first one to come through on her side.
The two of them stopped all five Cybermen that came in just a few seconds. Rose had two of them on her side, and the Doctor had three.
"I just had an idea about how we can get through the steam," the Doctor said.
"Cyberman shield?" Rose asked with a grin.
"You know what they say about brilliant minds." His voice low and seductive and he had more than a hint of a smirk on his face.
"I believe it's 'great minds' you're thinkin' of," she countered.
"Oohhhh, semantics," he replied. "You're brilliant, and as soon as we're out of here, I'll show you just how brilliant I think you are."
The two of them worked together to use one of the Cybermen as a shield between them and the steam shooting out. It wasn't easy, but they were past the broken pipes in about a minute. They dropped the makeshift shield and laughed, happy that they were free and unharmed.
A moment later, they ran down the corridor, trying to get free of the Cyberman. They knew that the other Doctor had a plan and they needed to get out as soon as possible.
They turned a corner, and ran straight into a couple of Cybermen. They turned to go the other way, and found three more, and there was no way to go back. The steam would just hold them up again.
Rose got both from the one side, then the info-stamp shorted out and she dropped it. One of the Doctor's info-stamps had stopped working. He was able to get two from his side before the other one gave out.
There was just one left. The Doctor backed up. "Well, if I had known that they were so short lived, I'd have brought more," he quipped.
"Intruders will be deleted."
Suddenly, the Cyberman lunged toward the Doctor, and Rose darted in front of him. The Cyberman grabbed her arm instead, and it sent it's electricity through her body.
XxXxXxXx
On his way up, the Doctor threw sandbags and any unneeded weight down so that he could rise faster.
He felt an inquiry from from his twin, which he answered with a series of images. He told his other self about the balloon and his plan, and implored them to get out as soon as possible.
When the Doctor had finally reached the height where he could talk to Miss Hartigan face to face when it swiveled around to face him. As it turned, he prepared the info-stamps. Using the same idea as his counterpart, he wrapped them around his arm.
"Excellent. The Doctor! Yet another man come to assert himself against me in the night," Hartigan sneered. "Is the Big, Bad Wolf going eat me?" She laughed.
The Doctor stilled. He had rarely seen or heard those words when they weren't directly about the old fairy tale since Rose sent them through Time, but he had seen them: in Japanese on a poster on New Earth, the name of the virus that wiped records from Torchwood, and, of course just before Rose came back just to name a few. It was never anything good when not referencing Rose directly.
"Miss Hartigan, I'm offering you a choice, you might have the most remarkable mind this world has ever seen. Strong enough to control the Cybermen themselves."
"I don't need you to sanction me!" she rebuked him.
"No, but such a mind deserves to live!" he tried to tell her. "The Cybermen came to this world using a Dimension Vault. I can use that device to find you a home. With no people to convert. But a new world where you can live out your mechanical life in peace!
"I have the world below, and it is abundant with so many minds, ready to become extensions of me. Why would I leave this place?"
He felt a jolt of fear come through the links with his twin and Rose, stronger than any of the other emotional twinges he had gotten from them thus far. He pushed the thoughts of what may be happening to them away. He'd ask, but he knew he'd probably just distract them at the worst time to do so.
"Because if you don't, I'll have to stop you," he told her simply.
"What do you make of me, sir? An idiot?" she queried, incredulously.
Suddenly, he felt a spike of fear from his counterpart, followed very closely by extreme pain from Rose. Then the link to Rose cut off abruptly.
XxXxXxXx
Inside the Cyberman, the Doctor watched in fear as the woman he loved was electrocuted. No one ever survived that, and he almost reached for her, to join her when the Cyberman stopped sending electricity into her.
Instead of Rose dropping to the ground immediately, she stood there and put her hand on the Cyberman. Its "eyes" glowed gold for a second, then it dropped.
Rose turned around, her eyes were a stronger gold than he had ever seen before, not counting the incident that changed her in the first place. When her eyes went gold, the lightest colors in her iris changed color first, the brighter her eyes went, the more shades changed. This time, only the darkest colors remained brown. And her eyes actually had a luminous quality that lit up her cheekbones.
"Be safe, my Doctor," she told him in the dual layered voice he'd only once before heard outside of her mind. "Do not worry about me, I will be fine, it is only a shock. This part of me only came out to save you from the metal men. Take this, you will, did need it, and I have forgotten, will forget about it."
She pulled a battered Vortex manipulator from her pocket and handed it to him. He remembered Rose tinkering with it, and not wanting him to fix it because she wanted to do it herself.
"Tenses are so difficult," she commented, then laughed. "When I let go, I have been asleep for 57 seconds. Use that." She waved at the leather strap distastefully. "You might want to catch me."
Her task done, the gold in her eyes disappeared, and she dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. He caught her before she hit the ground, and laid her down gently. The Bad Wolf assured him that Rose would be fine, and his mind began a countdown until the moment Rose would wake.
He knew his other self would have felt what happened, and sent him reassurance that Rose was fine and told him to go on with the plan.
He sat down next to her, pulled out his sonic, and set to work on the Vortex manipulator. It was the one Rose had found in the other universe, and Rose had it working for everything there, but when she came over here, it stopped working. She had gotten it to where it would work as short range teleportation for one, but it still needed calibration to this universe's vortex before it could do anything more.
As promised, exactly 57 seconds after the gold left her eyes, Rose woke up with a gasp.
"Ow," she complained as she held her head. "Those Cybermen always pack a wallop."
He swore his heart stopped. "What do you mean by always?" he asked with his eyes narrowed.
"They're not all gone," she told him, "in the other universe, one pops up every now and then."
"You should have told me you could survive their shocks," he said, "I wouldn't have been quite as worried about you."
"Liar," she called him out on it. "Hold on, what're ya doin' with that?"
"You gave it to me," he answered, "you aid that you had forgotten it, well what you actually said was-"
"When was this?" she interrupted.
"Just about a minute and a half ago. You told me that you'd be fine and gave me this to work on." He sighed. "But you don't remember that, do you? You took out that Cyberman somehow," he pointed to the offending metal man, "and were all, Bad Wolfy."
Rose looked at him with her mouth opened, then snapped it closed. "I didn'...know. You know...abou' that. I still have that much power?"
"Apparently." He strapped on the Vortex manipulator, hit a couple of buttons, got up off the floor, and reached his hand out for her. "Can you stand yet?"
In his mind, he heard, "Are you out of there yet?"
"Leaving now."
"Yeah, I think so." She grabbed his hand and pulled herself into a standing position.
"Ready?"
"No, but allons-y."
He grinned at her use of his favorite word and kissed her as he pushed the button. Nothing happened.
"What?"
"It needs calibration to this universe's Vortex," she told him. "I've only been able to get it to work as a short range teleport for one, maybe if you could expand it to two?"
"I know about the calibration, I'm a bloody Time Lord, I can calibrate a damned space hopper to the Vortex," he ground out, not angry so much as worried about the fact that they needed to be out of there.
The explosions began again.
XxXxXxXx
No, not cut off, the Doctor's link to Rose just dropped down to almost nothing so suddenly that it felt like it was gone. She was still alive. They'd all had their links wide open for a couple of hours, and the sudden loss of the contact almost crippled him for a moment.
He felt a reassurance from his other self that Rose was okay. "Go on with the plan, we have a way out."
They hurt Rose.
"No. The question is, what do you make of me?" he asked, coldly. He aimed the info-stamps at the Cyberking.
"Destroy him!" Hartigan ordered.
"You make me into this." He fired the info-stamp. The beam hit Hartigan's head, more specifically, the device sitting atop it. He let it go until it stopped completely, then he let the info-stamps drop to the floor of the basket.
"Then I have made you a failure. Your weapons are useless, sir!"
"I wasn't trying to kill you. All I did was break the Cyber connection," he informed her. "Leaving your mind open. Open, I think, for the first time in far too many years." He swallowed thickly. "So you can see. Just look at yourself. Look at what you've done."
She looked around at her surroundings.
Suddenly, he felt Rose come back to consciousness and his other self's relief.
"I'm sorry, Miss Hartigan, but look at what you've become. I'm so sorry," he finished.
Miss Hartigan looked around in realization and screamed. Her screams became louder as she used the device that still sat on her head to destroy the Cybermen with her, finally ending with her own death.
"Are you out of there yet?" he asked his twin.
"Leaving now."
Explosions rocked the gargantuan machine and it stumbled. The rod of the Dimensional Vault gave a beep, and he picked it up. He looked it over quickly to be sure. "Yep, now you're ready."
He aimed the device at the CyberKing.
XxXxXxXx
"Rose, are you two out of there yet?" The Time Lord Doctor asked through their link.
"Not yet, my teleport will only work for one, we thought we had it fixed, but..."
Whatever you have to do, I want you out of there now! The CyberKing's about to fall!"
Another explosion rocked the CyberKing, and she was thrown to the side and slid down the hallway, the Doctor just behind her. The hallway righted itself, and the two of them skidded to a stop. The Doctor had to spread his legs to keep from kicking Rose in the head as he stopped.
He put his sonic back to the Vortex manipulator and worked on it some more, not bothering to get back up.
Rose tried to get back up, but then fell against the wall as the CyberKing rocked another way.
"Rose, where are you, I have to do this now!"
"Working on it!"
She stopped trying to get up and just crawled over to where the Doctor was working on her Vortex manipulator. He had the face of it open and he poked around inside, all of his concentration on the device.
"Rose, hold this up?" he ordered tersely.
She grabbed the covering flap of the Vortex manipulator so that it wouldn't fall over anymore.
She felt the other Doctor's extreme worry. He had to do whatever he was going to do within a few seconds, or a lot of people would die.
The Doctor closed the panel on the Vortex manipulator and pressed some buttons on it.
"Do it, Doctor!" she sent to him.
"Are you out?"
"No, but we'll be out in a second, just do it!"
"Then no."
She sent everything she had into her next thought, "DON'T YOU DARE!"
The man next to her winced with the force of it. He pressed her hand to the Vortex manipulator and pushed one last button.
XxXxXxXx
They still weren't out of the Cyberking. He had 4.3 seconds to hit the trigger on the Dimension Vault or the CyberKing would fall on London, killing, who knows how many people.
"Do it, Doctor!" she sent to him.
"Are you out?" Oh please let her be out, don't make him make this impossible choice. He begged the universe, the multiverse, all of the Gods he didn't believe in, and the one goddess that he did.
"No, but we'll be out in a second, just do it!" It's just a second, he could wait. He had the thing pointed and he was ready to shoot it at the signal that they were out of there.
"Then no." He would not put her in any more danger, he wouldn't make the same decision he had made all the way back in Van Statten's bunker. Even then, he had let a Dalek go free rather than trap her a second time.
"DON'T YOU DARE!" The full force of her mind sent at him. It was much, much stronger than he had ever guessed, and the full weight of it had him tensing his whole body and he involuntarily twitched his finger on the trigger of the Dimension Vault.
He watched in horror as the blue and white light came out of it. It engulfed the giant, metal robot. It froze in midair, and disappeared. At the same time, his links with both of them died out.
Instantly, he felt dead inside, just like he had after Canary Wharf. He should have known it could never last. He should have known something would happen. He was too damned happy. He didn't deserve it. He destroyed everything.
Rose being a human/Time Lord/TARDIS hybrid, and having another Time Lord on hand, even if that other one was a short lived version of himself who had become like a brother to him were just too much of what he wanted.
He looked down at the ground below, mesmerized. NO, no, he couldn't do that. Rose would want him to go on. She rewrote years of time so that he would live, he would not let her sacrifice be in vain.
Rose was gone, so was his 'brother,' who he loved for himself, even though he hated him for being him.
And he was alone again.
He never even noticed the people below him cheering.
A/N: One more chapter of this left. It'll be published maybe tomorrow.