Disclaimer: I don't own the Doctor, the TARDIS, Rose or any of the characters, planets, technology etc that appear in Doctor Who. I am only borrowing them and they will be returned to the BBC undamaged and in their original packaging.

Chapter Four: The Turning Tide

There was a very long, icy silence. Rose glanced nervously at the Doctor. He looked perfectly composed and quiet, waiting for Solia's answer.

Rose glanced at Xan. He was looking down at the floor, frowning slightly. There was blood dripping from his wrists where the ropes had been tied too tightly, and more blood on his face, although the cuts had stopped bleeding. Rose was uncomfortable on her stone chair, her own bruises hurting and her wrists hurting quite a lot now. She wondered how the Doctor and Xan could seem to be ignoring their own discomfort so easily. Maybe they were just hiding it better than she was. She debated whether or not to ask Solia if they could be untied, but decided that their comfort was probably nowhere near the top of Solia's list of priorities right now.

Solia stared intently at the Doctor. Her face had gone very pale and her eyes were blazing with fury. She tapped her fingers angrily on the top of the carved table. The Doctor simply stared back at her, refusing to look away and it was Solia whose resolve broke first. She looked away, biting her lip. Somehow, despite being a prisoner and being tied up and sat uncomfortably in an uncomfortable chair, Solia was clearly regarding him as an equal rather than a prisoner.

'You know I'm right,' the Doctor said softly. His eyes were kind as he looked at her.

She shook her head, refusing to meet his eyes. Refusing to admit that he might be right. Refusing to admit defeat.

'Trust me,' he continued in the same gentle tone. 'I can feel it. I've seen a hundred world die, some before their time and others in their old age. I've seen planets torn apart by black holes, burned up by their sun, and frozen when it's died. Solenistra is one of the lucky worlds – it is dying because it's old. Ancient. It's lived a good, long life and now it is coming to its natural end. And I can feel it. I can feel this world's heartbeat slowly faltering. Solenistra is tired, Solia.'

She shook her head again, denying his words.

'Please,' he said quietly. 'Don't hold onto the past, Solia. Get your people to safety before it's too late. I can take you all away from here, find somewhere alive where you can continue to live and grow – '

'There is nowhere for us to go!' she shot back at him. 'Nowhere!'

'There is always somewhere,' the Doctor said calmly. 'You're practically human. I expected your people is all but human, species wise. Humans have an amazing ability to hang onto life, to adapt. You'll survive. Life always finds a way. And a new place would be good for you, instead of hanging onto a way of life that's dead and gone and will soon be buried – '

'The prophecy – ' she began heatedly.

He held up a hand, cutting her off. 'Forget the prophecy, Solia.'

'The prophecy says that our world will be saved and our people will not die!'

'You will be saved,' he said, trying to be patient. 'I will take you somewhere – '

'No! Solenistra will not die!' Solia's voice rose angrily. 'The Storm will come!'

'The Storm?' Rose inquired.

'The Storm,' Solia affirmed. 'That is what the prophecy speaks of. The Storm. It will come to our world.'

'Is that good or bad?' Rose asked.

'It is – difficult to explain,' Solia said after a pause. 'The concept is difficult for even my people to understand and we have kept this prophecy for years – centuries. Even we have difficulty understand exactly what it means. But the part of it that I have explained to you is the clearest part. That is not difficult to understand but the rest, about the storm, is.'

'Things are rarely as difficult as people think they are,' the Doctor said, rather sharply. 'Solia, you seem like an intelligent woman. Why are you hanging onto this prophecy?'

'Why should I listen to you?'

He shook his head in frustration. 'Solia, I am offering you and your people a chance. A chance to live, not to die in some ancient dusty caverns waiting for something that isn't going to happen. Why can't you understand that? I don't need to help you, my friends and I could probably be out of here in a matter of hours if we really put ours minds to it. But I'm here and I'm offering you my help.'

'We do not want help to run away,' Solia replied. 'We need help to save our home. Can you not understand that we want to save our home? It is all we have and we are not going to let it die!'

The Doctor was silent for a moment and Rose knew that he was thinking of his own home, now merely dust and ash. Dead before its time.

With some difficulty, he said, 'Don't imagine for a moment that I don't understand what you're going through. I understand all too well what you – '

'Without our home we are nothing! We will be the lost and dispossessed!'

Despite herself, Rose shivered at those words.

'Home doesn't have to be where you're born or where you're from,' the Doctor said softly. 'Home doesn't have to be fixed in time and space. People can always make new homes – it's one of the amazing things about them.' He sighed. He seemed to be having trouble sticking to his argument about home and moving on to find another because he was a man without a home, without roots, himself one of the lost and dispossessed. But such was his nature, Rose reflected silently. Even when he had had a home, she was pretty certain that he had always been a wanderer at heart.

'It doesn't have to be like this for you,' he said.

'Your world is dying of old age,' Rose said. 'There isn't a cure for old age, across the entire universe, there's no way to reverse that.'

'Yes, there are,' the Doctor muttered. 'But I would not try and put of those ways into actions and I'd make damn sure no one else did either.'

'So you do know a way to help us,' Solia said.

'No,' he said forcefully. 'That is playing with the nature of the universe, the fabric of the universe and I will not let that happen. So understand this, Solia, Solenistra is dying and it will die. You cannot stop this. I will not help you stop it. I am offering you the chance to save yourself and your people. I suggest you take this chance because it's the only one you're going to get. Do you understand?'

'I understand,' Solia said, and gave a smug little smile.

'Don't look at me like that,' the Doctor said irritably. 'I've that look on a thousand different faces, just before it's wiped off their lips for good.'

'I'm sure I don't know what you mean.'

'I'm sure you do. It's a look that says you're confident you're in the right, that I'm an idiot who wouldn't know the truth or reality if it slapped me in the face. Let me tell you something, Solia.'

'Go ahead, Doctor.'

'I've travelled the universe for nine hundred years. I've seen worlds come and go. I know what I'm talking about. I understand these things. Please listen to me. Before it's too late.'

'No. I appreciate that you have made this offer, but I cannot accept it.'

'You're letting your fear about leaving your home control you – ' the Doctor began.

'The turning tide,' Xan said suddenly.

Everyone turned and looked at him. It was the first thing he had said for quite some time. He was frowning, his eyes peculiarly unfocused.

'That's what you're afraid of, really,' he said.

'You don't know what I'm afraid of or not,' she snapped, her body tensing sharply.

He didn't pay any attention to that comment. 'You're afraid of the turning tide,' he stated firmly. He wasn't looking at any of them as he spoke. 'The storm comes and the tide turns and you're going to die and you know it and you're afraid.'

'You know nothing – '

'There's darkness here and it's inside you. You can feel it, can't you Solia? It's consuming you and your world, destroying you and there's nothing you can do about it except cry in the darkness of the night when you think that no one can hear you – '

'Xan, stop,' Rose said urgently.

'Because you're so afraid. Afraid of dying, of being the one who brings your world to an end.'

'Shut up,' Solia said, her eyes darkening with fury and fear.

He didn't. 'I can see it all in your mind, Solia. You want to believe that we can help you, you want to hang onto this prophecy and you want to take the Doctor's offer to get you all to safety. But you don't know what to do and the darkness it telling you something else, isn't it? It says you can afford to wait, to wait for the storm to come and the prophecy to come true. The turning tide is what you fear and you're letting that fear speak to you and guide you without thinking about what you're doing. But you don't actually know which you should do, do you?'

'Shut up,' she whispered.

'Maybe you should leave. Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe there is something in this prophecy, but the darkness is telling you that the tide is turning too fast and you're letting that blind you – '

'Shut up!'

'It's the truth,' Xan said, still very calm. 'You know it's the truth.'

'How do you know this?' she hissed at him, her fingers curling into fists. 'How can you?'

'You shouldn't fear death,' he said, meeting her eyes but ignoring her question. 'You should fear what comes before. When the darkness comes to claim you.'

Solia shrieked and leapt backwards, shoving herself away from the table. She stumbled, trying to get out off the throne and away from them. 'Guards!' she screamed at the top of her voice. 'Take them! Take them to the cells!' Without another look at the three, she spun and fled the hall.

The guards hurried in, grabbing the three prisoners and hauling them out of the great hall.

'Solia!' the Doctor shouted. 'Solia, please, just listen to me!'

'Well done!' Rose snapped at Xan. 'What on earth did you do that for?'

The guards dragged them down the corridor, not particularly gently, and not caring if any of the three stumbled or fell, simply dragging them back onto their feet and physically hauling them along.

'Xan?' Rose said again. But Xan was not saying anything, nor was he even resisting their less than gentle handling by the guards. 'What's wrong with him?' she asked the Doctor.

The Doctor turned and looked at Xan. 'He'll snap out of it in a minute,' he said and then glared at one of the guards. 'We're going!' he snapped. 'There's no need to be quite so rough, we're going to try and escape!'

'Yet,' Rose muttered in a low voice.

The Doctor couldn't resist a smirk. 'Well, that's true, but – '

A door, a large grill of metal bars screwed into the wall, swung open in front of them and, one by one, they were all shoved inside. Someone threw one of the pale light stones on the ground at the Doctor's feet, glared, a terrifying expression with all the dark black and white and grey paint smeared across their face. Then the door was slammed, the key turned in the lock and there was silence.