She found Greare in his office. He listened with alarm and growing sadness as she told him what had happened. Her voice sounded hollow, and her throat ached fiercely, but she managed to convey the dreadful news without crying.

The constable wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders and offered her a drink, but Rose shook her head.

"We need to bring him back here. I don't want him lying out there all alone. And we have to go now. We're not waiting 'til morning."

"Miss Tyler, it's not safe," he began.

But she was resolute. "You'll need a couple men to help you, right? So there'll be what, at least four of us? Nothing's going to happen in a group that size."

The constable opened his mouth to protest, but she continued.

"The only victims you've found were alone, weren't they?"

Greare nodded. "Yes."

"Then there's no danger if we're all together." The pitch of her voice rose despite her efforts to sound rational and calm.

"All right," he replied sympathetically. "I'll get some men to help."

"Take your doctor, too," she said more sharply than she intended. "We need to make sure—there's a chance that maybe he's not…" Her voice trailed off as she felt the tears welling in her eyes.

"Yes, of course," the constable said, and she hated the placating tone of his voice, but she understood that he was trying to be kind.

He encouraged her to sit and rest, but she insisted on accompanying him and the small party that left the heart of the village to retrieve the latest victim. Each member of the little group held a brightly glowing lantern, and everyone but Rose gripped a pistol at his side. Even the village's doctor carried a gun; she saw it poking out of the top of his bag.

She led them to the prone figure, running ahead in the faint yet resilient hope that she'd find the Doctor changed. If that were the case, she would need to come up with some excuse to send the rest of the group away. His little Time Lord trick was the last thing she wanted to have to explain. Yet she would gladly have spent the next week doing just that if only she had found him alive in any form. He still lay motionless and gray upon the pale earth.

She dropped to her knees and touched his face. His skin was now cold and slack beneath her fingertips. She felt the cold seeping into her, too, from her hand to her arm, spreading up through her chest, down her legs, and suddenly she realized that she was shivering.

"Here, Miss Tyler, come with me and let Dr. Turia have a look." Greare placed his hands on her shoulders, drawing her up then guiding her shaky legs back a few feet.

They waited silently until Dr. Turia stood and turned to face them. His expression was grave as he said flatly, "Same as the others."

"Is there anything… any sign of life?" Rose asked quietly.

The doctor shook his head somatically. "No, miss. I'm sorry."

"But did you really check? Did you check his hearts—heart?" Her voice grew louder and the words came faster. "I meann, he could be in some sort of coma or something, so you have to check really carefully—"

Greare's arm tightened around her shoulders. "Miss Tyler, you can see that he's gone. I'm sorry. I wish you two hadn't been out here…But there's nothing to be done now." He looked up at her. "We need to get him out of the heat and let him rest where it's quiet and cool."

The men lifted the Time Lord into their arms and began carrying him away. Rose pulled herself from the constable's avuncular embrace so that she could walk at the Doctor's side. No one spoke until she finally said, "What now?"

Really it was more a question for herself—a reminder that she had to think, had to keep her rationality. There would be many decisions to make, many issues with which to deal. She would have to decide what to do for him, what he would want. Thoughts of burial and cremation were too overwhelming at the moment, however, so she shifted her consideration to her location. She had no desire to remain here; indeed, she wanted to get as far away as possible. She needed to go home, to see her mother and feel the safety of her arms. But could she work the TARDIS by herself? Was there still some sort of failsafe that would return her home again, just as the ship had done months ago?

She lifted her hand and slid it into the Doctor's coat pocket. She wanted to remove the sonic screwdriver; she might need it, and even if she didn't, she wanted to keep it in her possession. She knew he would want her to have it. But she found only a few pebbles in the oddly large pouch. She checked his jacket and trousers, even telling the men to stop so that she could gain full access to each pocket, but the device was gone. It must have fallen out, or perhaps he was using it when he was attacked.

"I have to go back," she said, already turning and lifting her lantern to illuminate the dark path.

"Miss Tyler," Greare questioned gently, clearly worried about her state of mind, "what for?"

"There's something of his, something I need to find…" She hurried away.

"Miss Tyler!" the constable called after her. "Wait!"

She could hear snippets of the discussion that ensued. The men were already anxious about being so far away from the village center and so near the crime scenes after dark. Greare wanted them to wait while he accompanied her, but they insisted that they needed to return to safety as soon as possible.

The voices faded as she moved through the darkness. Greare was calling to her, but Rose did not care. Her sole thought was the screwdriver; if she focused on that and only that, she did not have to think about the morning and the wrenching loneliness she would feel when the full gravity of the night's events sank in.

Rose felt no fear. Some small part of her mind told her that she should, that whatever had taken the Doctor from her was still lurking, still waiting for the next victim. But she pushed the tiny, niggling thought far away because it did not matter; nothing mattered now except retrieving the one thing of his that she could hold onto.

When she reached the site where he had lain alone for more than an hour, she set the lantern on the ground. She sank to her knees, hands reaching out to pat at the dirt. Her eyes searched the ground, at first scanning almost randomly but then with more concentration, in widening circles. She tried to visualize how he had lain, the position of his hand when she had found him. Surely the screwdriver would lie where he had dropped it.

Rose moved the lantern and stretched out her own hand, fingers touching the base of the wall. There she noticed a small crevice, and her fingertips brushed against something cool and metallic. As she scooted closer, a gentle breeze caressed her cheeks, calming her, soothing her. She exhaled a long sigh, and she felt her body relax. Her limbs became liquid, her eyelids closed unbidden, and darkness cloaked her, stealing all remnants of thought. Rose's hand dropped from the wall to lie limply next to the misplaced screwdriver.

Greare had convinced Dr. Turia to accompany him to retrieve Rose, appealing to the man's professionalism; the distraught young woman probably needed sedation.. But when the constable found her, he did not require the physician's expertise to determine immediately that she, like her companion, was dead.

The constable, ignoring the protests of his sore back, carefully lifted Rose into his arms and carried her back to the village.

She stood in darkness. She could feel cool stone beneath her feet, but she was still disoriented. She had the oddest sense of floating, yet clearly she was grounded. Rose lifted her hands to her face, rubbing her cheeks and eyes in the hopes of clearing some of the fog from her bleary mind.

Slowly she began to feel less distant, and as her thoughts sharpened she found the darkness fading to a dim, twilight gray. She discovered that she stood in a narrow stone tunnel. A quick twist of her head showed that there was solid rock behind her, so she walked forward.

She only required a few dozen steps to reach the end of the tunnel, but in that short time her thoughts raced. She had been outside, next to the wall, reaching for the sonic screwdriver, and then she had felt so lethargic, so dull. She remembered the enveloping blackness and the distinct sense of corporeal loss. Her body had suddenly seemed distant to her.

She ran her hand over the smooth stone beside her. It was so familiar, but she could not quite recall where she had seen it before. Then she felt a tightness in her chest and throat, and she remembered experiencing a momentary sense of deep loss as she had stood beside the Doctor holding the light over the two lifeless bodies.

Rose stopped and suppressed a gasp as understanding flooded her. She had seen these stone walls and felt this same overwhelming sadness in the crypt. It had been dark inside, and she could not recall whether there was a tunnel at the back, but she felt certain that there was, and that she was in it now. She must have lost consciousness by the wall and somehow been mistaken for dead. She had been placed in the crypt.

She ran the last few feet to emerge from the tunnel into a large cavern. She blinked in confusion. She had expected to find the small room with the bodies. Maybe she had missed an obscured branching passage, or perhaps she had been too hasty in her assessment of the structure initially.

The cavern was nearly as dim as the tunnel; shadows shrouded the outer edges. But one bit of shade flickered then abruptly moved. Rose stood very still, watching as a figure emerged from the murky light.

A tiny grunt of surprise escaped her lips as recognition jolted through her.

"Doctor!" she cried, running toward him.

He swiveled his head to look directly at her. Yet instead of the joyous grin of greeting she had expected to see on his face she found a tightly furrowed brow and compressed lips.

"Rose." His voice was dull, muted in the gloomy atmosphere.

She didn't care. She threw her arms around him, holding him tightly. For several moments he remained still, but finally she felt his hands move up to rest against her back.

"You're alive," she murmured into his chest. "I thought you were dead—but you're alive!"

"How did you get here, Rose?" he asked, pulling back to look down at her.

"I think I must've passed out or fainted or something and they brought me back."

"Brought you back? Where do you think we are?"

"In the crypt. They must've thought I was dead—don't know why, 'cause obviously I'm fine—"

"We're not in the crypt," he interrupted.

Rose took a few seconds to look around. "I thought there was a tunnel at the back," she began.

He shook his head somberly. "No. That room was carved into the base of the plateau. There were no openings except for the one at the front. I checked while we were in there."

She frowned in confusion. "So where are we?"

"That's a good question." He stepped back and regarded her with sharp eyes. "How did you get here?"

"I just woke up and was standing in the tunnel."

"Woke up? Which implies that you were sleeping or unconscious."

"Yeah, I already told you that."

"What's the last thing you remember before you found yourself in here?"

"I went back to the wall—" Her breath hitched, then the words tumbled out in a cathartic burst. "I thought you were dead. You were lying there so still, not breathing, and your body felt so cold. I went back to the village to get the constable, and he brought the doctor, who said you were gone, so they were carrying you back to the village. But you'd dropped the sonic screwdriver, and I knew you'd want me to get it, so I went back to the wall. I was looking for it, and it was in this little channel at the base of the wall, so I reached for it, and…" She shook her head. Again she felt that strange sense of confusion and overwhelming loss. The shadows stretched over her.

Suddenly the Doctor's hands were gripping her shoulders gently but firmly, and his face was directly before her. "Rose, look at me."

She blinked hard. "Yeah."

"Is that the last thing you recall before finding yourself in the tunnel?"

She nodded. "I think so."

He lowered his hands. "I had the same experience."

"But I don't understand. If we're not in the crypt, where are we? And how'd you get here? Did you wake up here, too?"

He regarded her carefully for several seconds before replying. "I'm not sure where we are, except that it seems to be somewhere within the plateau. I really don't know how I, or you for that matter, got here. But I have to assume that I did indeed 'wake up' from whatever happened to me, just as you must have, since we're both conscious now."

"So you're saying you don't really know anything."

"Well," he managed to elongate the single word into two syllables, "I know that we're alone in here. I haven't seen or heard anyone else. And I suspect that our being here has something to do with the deaths of the villagers, because those two events seem to be more than just a coincidence."

"How do you reckon that?"

"Think about it, Rose. You found my body. You thought I was dead, just like the villagers who were found in similar circumstances. But here I am, and here you are, and obviously we aren't dead."

Rose shivered involuntarily as she remembered the odd sensations she had felt as she lost consciousness beside the wall. "Unless we are."

"Don't be ridic—" His mouth froze as his features hardened, eyes fixing intently upon her face.

"Doctor?" Her voice seemed tinny and empty in the cavern. "I was just joking, like you were when my hand was bothering me and I said I was sure I'd survive, and you said unless I didn't." She attempted a grin, but she could feel the grimace that overtook it.

He reached for her wrist and lifted it, turning her hand upward. His fingertips brushed over her palm. She shifted her gaze to follow his movements. He pressed this thumb over the skin with more force, and to her surprise Rose felt no pain.

"There's nothing here," he said flatly.

The light was dim, but she could still see that her palm was smooth and unmarred. "The aloe must've worked really well," she began.

He shook his head. "No, Rose, it couldn't have healed the irritation completely in such a short time."

Rose frowned. "Do you think we somehow lost a couple of days?"

He shook his head. "No. Impossible."

"Then what is it? How did this heal so fast?"

He dropped her wrist and moved his hands to press them against his chest. She saw him inhale a startled breath. "No, no, no," he murmured.

"Doctor? What's going on?" Panic began to burble up in her belly.

He took her hand and moved it so that her fingers rested against his neck. "What do you feel?" he asked.

His skin seemed rather cool. "Are you cold?"

"No," he replied sharply. "Concentrate, Rose. Do you feel anything?"

She realized suddenly that he wanted her to perceive the pulse beat in his neck. But there was no subtle thrumming of blood beneath her fingertips. She pressed harder but still found nothing.

"Your hearts aren't beating?" It was barely a question.

"No, and unless I'm mistaken, which I rarely am, neither is yours." He placed his fingers against her carotid artery.

Rose stood very still, trying to sense the rhythmic pulsing of her heart, but she realized that the ever-present beat was absent.

"I'm not breathing, either," he said.

"Yeah, you are. I heard you inhale a minute ago."

"That was a conscious action. But I haven't inhaled or exhaled for the last thirty seconds; I don't think I have at all, at least not autonomically, since I've been down here."

"But I'm breathing," she informed him as she took a breath.

"Stop."

"I can't," she began to protest, but he pressed his hand over her mouth.

"Just stop… and wait."

Rose expected to feel the pressure building in her chest after a few seconds, but she did not. She waited, starting to count, and when she reached one hundred she pushed his hand away.

"You don't need to breathe," he informed her. "Neither do I."

She looked up at him with wide eyes. "Are we dead?"

He did not respond for a some time. Finally he said, "I don't think so, at least not yet."

"Tell me what the hell's going on," she entreated.

Much to her frustration, he turned and began to walk away. She marched forward and grabbed his arm.

"Doctor! Tell me!"

"I will when I know for certain." He continued moving, reaching the wall in a few strides. He ran his hands over the stone. "Strange. I can still experience sensory input."

Rose grazed a rougher patch with her palm. "Yeah, me too. But what's it mean?"

He tapped at the wall, listening, then turned back to face her. "You said Greare was taking me to the village?"

She nodded.

"Did he say where?"

"I think the crypt. He said something about taking you someplace cool where you could rest—"

"And of course he'd take you there, too."

"S'pose so."

Abruptly the Time Lord slammed his fist against the wall. "I told him not to put any more bodies in there!"

"You said if he found anyone else to keep them someplace until you could have a look at them, but if he thought you were dead—"

"That's just the point, Rose. I'm not dead, and neither are you, but if we stay where are for very long we most certainly will be."