A/N: Thanks for all the reviews and support so far! This isn't my favourite chapter, but I hope it's okay :D
Rose stumbled her way towards Ganjud's bar, tripping at least three times in her haste before she even reached Hansley Bridge. Protestors shoved and screamed at each other, screamed at her to join them and help to liberate herself. She kept her head down, breathing hard and feeling a thin line of sweat trickle down the back of her neck.
She wished that the Doctor was with her, that he was here holding her hand and making a joke to make all of this easier, taking her mind off the blood staining a wall just off to her right. She turned a corner and picked up her pace; there were fewer protestors in this area away from the government buildings and power district, but there was still plenty of violence here. Men fought with their bare fists and with glass bottles, and Rose couldn't be entirely sure what they were fighting over. She guessed that the revolution was definitely not going to plan- at least, definitely not going to the Doctor's plan.
She dashed down the street, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. The road to Ganjud's bar was just up ahead; not far to go now. A gang of fighting men spilled out of a rundown building immediately in front of her, the surge of bodies slamming into her and shoving her backwards to sprawl on the floor. 'Ohhh,' she groaned as a heavy boot slammed into her back.
The men threw punches at each other, apparently not noticing the girl sprawled on the ground. Rose pulled her strength together and rolled into the wall of the building before resting one hand on the wall to push herself up. She leant her head against the rough brickwork momentarily, breathing heavily as a sharp pain shot out from her kidneys. She could already tell that she was going to have a monster bruise from that kick, accidental though it was.
It scared her somewhat that she barely reacted to the violence in front of her, the blood leaking from one man's stomach hardly even making her feel sick in the way that it used to. She wondered if she had become conditioned to that sort of thing over her time travelling with the Doctor, or if it was simply because she had been in the presence of so much blood and violence over the last couple of days. She suspected- and hoped- that it was the latter. She didn't want to think that she could just accept violence and death with so little care.
A gunshot sounded out. Rose looked back down the road to see a bunch of protestors that she recognised as part of the Alliance marching into this quieter part of the district. Her gaze swung back to the gang of fighting men as one of them fell to the floor, blood spilling from his chest. His head cracked back against the dusty gritted road, his eyes rolling back to look at Rose. She swallowed heavily and turned away.
She ran as quickly as she could, wanting to put some distance between herself and the men dying behind her. All of her instincts were telling her to go back and help them, but she had no idea who they were and there was no way she wanted to be caught helping the enemy with the Alliance so close by. She also knew that the Doctor would probably explode with anger if she got hurt by getting involved with something when he had explicitly told her to go straight to Ganjud's bar and not get herself into trouble.
She turned another corner, gratefully putting that horrendous sight behind her. She slowed her pace slightly, feeling relief course through her as Ganjud's bar came into sight. The sounds of the revolution were almost non-existent from here, and for a moment she allowed herself to entertain the idea that everything was fine; that this was just another adventure with the Doctor where everyone was safe and there were no lives at stake in her hands. And then she went inside.
'Come on.' The Doctor touched Damien's arm, calling him back to reality. 'We have to go now. Where is Airlia's apartment?'
Damien looked blank for a second, the worry in his eyes making him look years older than he was. He snapped his gaze back to look at the Doctor, doing everything he could to block out the sickening sounds of people dying outside coupled with the familiar noise of Airlia's front door opening, albeit with a bit more force than usual. His breath caught in his throat. 'Up the stairs,' he said. 'Fourth floor. Number 16.'
The Doctor nodded, his face impassive. It occurred to him that he really didn't have to help this man and that he should be with Rose instead, doing everything he could to take her away from here. But now, once again, he was in a situation when he had been separated from her whilst he got himself caught up in other people's affairs. And what's more, he was caught up in the affairs of the daughter of the tyrannous president of Eustance. Somehow it didn't seem like the smartest thing he'd ever done. He gestured that Damien should keep quiet and follow him, pulling the sonic screwdriver out of the pocket of his coat with his free hand. It was at moments like this he wished that he wasn't such a pacifist, and that he carried something with a little more pizzazz than a rather clever soniced-up DIY tool. Actually, he thought, scratch that. It was at moments like this that he wished he didn't do stupid things like encouraging revolutions when he didn't know exactly what would happen and ending up putting people's lives in danger. An image of Rose flashed in his mind as he and Damien ascended the first flight of stairs but he pushed the vision of her face away. It wouldn't help the current situation if he was caught up in worrying about her. He knew that she could look after herself. But then, he supposed, he also knew that she had a tendency to be rather jeopardy friendly, especially in already awkward circumstances.
He refused to let himself think about the matter any further, instead slowing slightly as they came to the top of the flight of stairs. He glanced around, Damien hovering at his shoulder and shifting about in the manner of someone who has had far too much caffeine in a short space of time- or someone who was desperately worried about the woman he loved more than anything. Whichever. A quick study of the corridor in front of them told the Doctor that there was nobody here who would try and stop them. He touched Damien's arm again and signalled him to move onto the next flight of stairs. He could tell from the look on the man's face that four flights of stairs had never seemed so arduous or soul destroying.
They spent the next five minutes carefully navigating their way around Airlia's apartment building, working their way up to the fourth floor without being intercepted by any of Oscar's Alliance members who may be on the lookout. The corridors were empty however; everyone was clearly either outside "revolutionising" or else they were sensibly attempting to hide away from all of the violence and murder.
Coming out of the stairwell onto the fourth floor, the Doctor turned to Damien. 'Left or right?' he asked.
'Left,' Damien replied. 'Then left again and then her apartment is straight in front.'
The Doctor nodded and held his finger to his lips as they cautiously made their way down the corridor. 'We just have to hope they don't flip out and kill us,' he murmured. 'There's no way they're going to let us take her easily.' He glanced at the other man. 'You might want to stay out of the way. I don't think they'll be that bothered about keeping you alive; they only want her.' He stopped walking momentarily until Damien nodded reluctantly.
Sounds of a struggle were evident as they approached the left turn a couple of metres ahead. Oscar's voice could be heard telling Airlia that they could either do things quietly and easily, or she could make it hard for herself. She appeared to take the first option as the sounds of laboured breathing and squeaks of pain trailed off to be left with quiet shuffles and Oscar telling Hugo to take the back stairs and go straight back to the base.
The Doctor pulled Damien back towards the stairwell, hovering back out of the way as two of the Alliance members came out of Airlia's apartment and took a left turn towards the back of the building. They were followed by Hugo and two others, Airlia in between them. Damien went stark white and opened his mouth to protest. An arm immediately clamped around his face as the Doctor muffled him and dragged him back out to the stairs as Oscar left the apartment, quickly scanning the corridor they had just been standing in before following after the other protestors. The Doctor watched until they were out of sight, his arms clamped firmly around Damien to hold him still.
The other man struggled free from the Doctor's firm grip on his mouth. 'You liar,' he said, unable to shout as he so clearly wanted to with all the tears that were currently clogging his throat. 'You said we were going to get her back. You just let them take her!'
'You think I was just going to walk in there and say "oh, hi guys, mind if I liberate you of the woman you think represents so much hate and murder?". Do you really think we would have got away with that?!'
'You promised,' Damien said quietly.
The Doctor nodded. 'I know I did.' He was really starting to regret that now, knowing that he had probably just lost his best chance of saving one man's lover from impending doom. 'But we know where they're taking her,' he continued. 'We know that they want information from her. I should be able to convince them to give me some time alone with her so that I can free her without them knowing.' He grinned madly, hoping he looked reassuring.
Damien looked sceptical, slumping heavily against the wall of the stairwell as an explosion sounded from outside. Blood sprayed up to mark the window in front of them. 'How do you know they'll leave you alone with her?' he asked, regarding the Doctor with suspicion. 'Surely if they trust you that much you'd be with them now.'
The Doctor sighed, knowing that he was going to have to admit the one thing he'd really being hoping to keep secret from this broken man. 'I…' he started, not knowing how to phrase the statement. 'I… encouraged them to stage the revolution. If I can get them to do that, then surely I can get them to give me some time with Airlia?' He purposefully left out the part where he had convinced the Alliance to bring the revolution forward by a few months. He didn't think that Damien would like that much; if everything had gone to Oscar's original plan, Damien and Airlia would have been long gone before there was even a whiff of a major protest in the air. 'We have to go to Hansley Bridge,' he said, refusing to give Damien too much time to assess the importance of what he had just been told.
'Right,' the man replied, his tone implying that he was holding the Doctor solely responsible for any damage done to the woman he loved even if he wasn't directly involved- even though he was the only one helping to try and get her back. It was at times like this that the Doctor wondered which side he was really fighting for- a revolution for the greater good, or one man's private battle. He wondered which would be the more important at the end of the day.
The two men descended the stairs in tandem, any time for small talk done with. Now it was all about the business and, in all honesty, the Doctor decided that it was probably better that way. It saved the pain of attachments and losses, and it would mean that he could leave more easily when the time came.
They went back into the chaos of outside, dodging the crowd that was moving as one, pushing and shoving and chanting and proclaiming a victory that hadn't yet been won. The numbers of guards had trebled since the Doctor and Damien had gone inside the apartment building. They picked their way through the press of bodies, the Doctor resisting all of his natural urges to go and help the people who were falling in the street and being left where they lay. This wasn't his battle, although he couldn't help the guilt of knowing that it was at least partly his fault.
In just over five minutes they had managed to find their way to Hansley Bridge with only minimal injuries from the flying rocks and uncontrollable placard wielders lining the road. The Doctor wiped a small line of blood off his chin as they came abreast of the bridge, the Alliance headquarters now plainly in sight. Looking up, it was clear that there was at least a good couple of hundred guards lining the bridge and he wondered how Oscar had managed to drag the president's daughter past them without getting caught. But by the looks of things he had managed it- the guards gripped their weapons tightly and their vehicles were rocking with a tide of prisoners but it didn't seem as though there had been any recent disturbances here. The protestors had abandoned the bridge for somewhere a little closer to the real action.
'I'm going to need you to stay back once we get inside,' the Doctor told Damien.
Damien protested immediately. 'Why?' He whirled around to face the Doctor as they walked along close to the wall of the bridge to stay out of sight of the guards. 'You don't think I'll be able to save her?'
The Doctor shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'But they know who you are; they might try and take you too, and I don't think I can get both of you out of there on my own. You need to stay near the entrance of the building to take Airlia from me when we get out of there. You're no good to her if you end up getting yourself killed trying to save her.' He paused. 'Do you know Ganjud's bar?'
The other man nodded. 'Of course.'
'If I don't come out at the same time, you have to take Airlia there, okay? Rose will be there as well.'
'Right.'
The Doctor's eyes slipped shut for a second as he thought of what Rose would do if Damien and Airlia showed up at Ganjud's without him. 'If…' he started. 'If you have to leave without me, tell Rose that I'll be there as soon as I can. Tell her I'll come for her. But…' His hearts slammed in his chest as he attempted to come to terms with how stupid he was in what he was about to do. There was no way it could go completely as he wanted it to. He had to prepare just in case. They were standing outside the door to the Alliance headquarters now. 'Tell Rose that if I'm not there by the time night falls, that she should go back to where we first arrived and try to find her way home.'
Damien nodded. 'Okay. But I highly doubt she'd leave without you.'
'I know. But if I end up in trouble at least I can pretend that she's safe.'
The look of sympathy in Damien's eyes told the Doctor that the man understood better than he'd thought he would. This was a man who knew what it was like to hold someone close to them- perhaps too close. Damien flashed a smile, the first happy expression that had graced his face since he had left his apartment earlier in the day. 'You know what?' he said.
The Doctor frowned. 'What?'
'I won't tell her that.'
The Doctor waited, knowing that there had to be more to this; especially as they could already conceivably be inside the Alliance headquarters instead of hovering outside laying plans for an eventuality that he was going to do everything within his power to make sure didn't happen.
'You'll get out of there,' Damien said. 'You'll get back to her. I can see it in your eyes. You won't leave her to find her way home alone.'
The two men shared an uncomfortable yet appreciative silence for a few seconds until the sound of another explosion came from the direction of Airlia's apartment building. They snapped into action, the Doctor placing one finger on his lips as he held the sonic screwdriver to the lock on the door in front of them. It gave way quietly and they slipped through, carefully clicking it shut behind them. They walked through the inner door and down the short corridor to the metal wall with the security door.
The Doctor thumbed the settings on the sonic screwdriver and then held the button down against the touchpad, watching numbers flick past at lightening speeds on the small screen until the correct one was found and the mechanism gave way. He gestured to Damien to stay where he was. 'I'll meet you back here,' he whispered and pointed to a small alcove in the wall behind. 'Hide in there. I'll be back.'
Damien nodded. He reached out and grasped the Doctor's hand with his, shaking it firmly before letting go and squeezing into the narrow alcove. The Doctor grinned at him. 'Don't wait up,' he said.
The Doctor walked carefully into the vast main chamber of the Alliance headquarters, expecting to find Oscar and Hugo and Airlia in there. He hoped that he didn't have to beat the men up too badly to get her out of there unharmed. He hoped that they hadn't harmed her already. From what Damien had told him today it was clear that she was an innocent caught up in a big mess of guilt and death, and that didn't sit well with the Doctor's philosophy. He didn't react well when innocents were hurt.
He raised his eyes to the room, tugging on his left earlobe as he prepared a little speech to catch the attention of Oscar and Hugo. He stopped dead. 'Ah,' he said. He cleared his throat. 'Damien,' he called out- softly, just in case. 'Could you come in here a moment?'
There was a shuffling behind him and then Damien slipped in through the door. 'What is it?' He stopped next to the Doctor, the same stunned expression on his face. 'Oh.'
The cavernous room was totally, completely, one hundred percent absolutely empty.
Rose burst into the bar to find Ganjud and Maurice talking frantically in a corner near the back door. Heather sat at a table a little way off from them, urgently shoving things into a bag and looking extremely stressed.
They all looked up as Rose collapsed against the door frame, breathing hard. 'The Doctor,' she panted out before she remembered the pseudonym the Doctor was keeping up whilst they were here. 'John,' she amended. 'John said-'
'Shhh,' Ganjud cut her off, stalking across the floor and grabbing her arm to drag her inside. He let her go and scanned the street outside before sighing and shutting the door, bolting it to make sure it was locked. 'Knew we should have locked that,' he muttered to himself.
'What did he say?' Heather stood up and led Rose over to the table, sitting her down on a chair. 'What's happened?'
Rose laughed. 'Surely you know about the revolution that's going on outside?'
'Yes,' Maurice replied, his expression dark as he walked over to lean on the table. 'We had become aware of it.'
Ganjud shot Maurice a look that Rose loosely translated as "back off." She paused for a moment until her breathing got back to normal, knowing that there was no point in relaying the Doctor's message if she was still hyperventilating. 'He said that they're gonna bring someone here,' she told them eventually. 'They're going to bring a woman here because she needs protection and he said that you should get ready.'
'Oh great,' Ganjud said sarcastically, before cursing loudly and slamming his fist against the wall. 'That's just what we need.' He swung back to Rose. 'I thought you two had left!'
She grimaced, unsure of how much information she should give away in this situation. Sure, Ganjud had given them a room to stay in and seemed friendly enough, but she hadn't been able to work out if the Doctor had properly trusted him or not. 'Change of plan,' she said dryly.
Heather frowned, laying her hand on Rose's arm to catch her attention. 'Who did you say your friend is bringing here?'
'Um, the president's daughter,' she replied. 'Her name's Airlia, I think.'
The tension in the room snapped like a cracking whip as both Ganjud and Maurice straightened up simultaneously, an indecipherable look passing between them before they both stared suspiciously at Rose. 'Why is he bringing her here?' Maurice asked casually, although there was still something forced about his manner.
'She's in trouble,' Rose replied. 'The protestors found out where she lives and they want to abduct her even though she doesn't have anything to do with her father's government.'
Maurice leaned down, his face only inches from Rose's as he asked, 'And how do you know this?'
She studied the man in front of her as renewed doubt began to set in. Something didn't seem right about this situation. 'We met her partner,' she said.
Maurice straightened up just as Ganjud leaned down. Rose was beginning to feel that this was something of an inquisition, and she could tell that Heather was thinking the same thing from the curious look on the woman's face. 'How did Mr Smith manage to get himself caught up in all of this madness?' Ganjud enquired.
'I seem to remember him saying something about how things would have to change,' Maurice added, pulling out a chair and sitting down next to Rose.
'Yeah, he did,' she replied. 'He's only helping to get Airlia safe because she shouldn't have been here at all. It's only because he convinced the Liberal Rights Alliance to start their revolution early that…' She trailed off, realising that she had just made a huge mistake in admitting the Doctor's role in the revolution. She mentally slapped herself and prayed that Ganjud and Maurice would appreciate the Doctor's liberalising nature rather than condemn him for it.
'Oh God,' Ganjud exclaimed as he moved away from the table and stood at the bar, his face in his hands.
'Ganjud?' Heather was out of her chair, walking over to her fiancé as he swore repeatedly and smacked the countertop with one hand. She laid her hand on his shoulder and he tensed beneath her touch before a tremor ran through his body. He fell silent but continued to grip the edge of the bar until his knuckles turned white.
Maurice was smiling at Rose, a sinister grin that did not look at all happy or positive in any way. He wrapped his hand around her arm, squeezing tightly until she gasped in pain. 'What are you doing?' she asked, suddenly very aware that things were going drastically wrong. She prayed that the Doctor would burst through the door and take her away.
'Bad move, sweetheart,' Maurice whispered into her ear.
'Where is she?' Damien asked, panic in his voice and on his face. 'Where's Airlia?'
The Doctor spun around from where he'd been studying the layout of the large room. 'I don't know,' he said reluctantly. 'They said that they were bringing her here.'
'Did we get here before them?'
He shook his head. 'No.' He pointed at a small patch of blood on the floor near one wall, still damp and shiny. 'That's recent.'
'Oh my God.' Damien dashed over to the blood, dropping down on his knees next to it as though it might bring Airlia back to him if he stared at it long enough.
'Hang on.' A light bulb flashed in the Doctor's mind as he looked at the blood near the wall. A small trail of it appeared to disappear behind the wall itself, hiding itself from view. He walked over to it, running his hands over the wall until he felt something give and a small partition swung open. 'It's a pressure lock,' he said, surprised. He had been sure there were no other exits from this room apart from the security door. It occurred to him that perhaps the Alliance was a lot better equipped and smarter than he had thought, although he supposed it made a strange sort of sense. He had been wondering how they had managed to utilise one hundred thousand people in less than a day. They must have been very pedantic about their emergency plans. He turned back to Damien, who was standing behind him with his mouth hanging open. 'Fancy exploring the secret passageway?' he asked.
'Sounds excellent,' Damien replied, flashing a brief smile before following behind the Doctor into the narrow corridor.
They walked slowly and quietly. The Doctor guessed that they were walking towards the far side of the bridge, away from the vicinity of Valtallahan. The Alliance must have rented out the whole of the space beneath the bridge, setting up pseudo businesses to hide their presence here. It really was a remarkably simple yet clever set-up, the Doctor thought as he used the sonic screwdriver to light their way down the dark passage.
A scream rang out from somewhere nearby, tearing the Doctor from his thoughts. The shrillness of the sound made his blood run cold and he froze for a second before grabbing Damien's arm and making the man run by his side.
'Airlia,' Damien said, tears choking his voice. 'That was her.'
The Doctor grimaced as they came to a stop outside a door at the end of the corridor. The scream sounded again. 'I think we found her then,' he said.
Rose felt her stomach lurch violently as Maurice held her tightly by the upper arms. She was straining to get away from him as he held her firmly against the bar, ignoring her protests when he shoved his body against hers to stop her kicking out at him. 'We haven't done anything!' she insisted for the fortieth time in about seven minutes. She held back a sob as she heard Ganjud slam a door upstairs, having dragged Heather off a few minutes ago under the pretence of making sure she "didn't get in the way".
'You started a revolution,' Maurice spat at her, pushing her down as she did her best to crack her head back against his.
She struggled to get a proper breath, doing her best to relax as she heard Heather screaming for Ganjud to let her out of wherever he had put her. 'I thought you wanted it,' Rose said to Maurice, trying to believe that the man hadn't been lying to her and the Doctor for the past two days. 'We thought you hated the regime.'
Maurice laughed, the sound echoing through her body and making her feel sick. 'Oh sweetheart,' he said. 'I am the regime!'
Her stomach dropped and she fell limp between the hard wood of the bar and Maurice's chest. Her head fell to rest on the wood. 'What?'
Hot, filthy breath washed over her ear as the traitor who was restraining her bought his head down next to hers. 'I said I am the regime,' he repeated. 'I knew you and your boyfriend were trouble the second you showed up in this place. It's always dodgy when you catch people out after curfew.'
'You were out after curfew,' she protested, resuming her earlier struggling and wishing that the Doctor would hurry up and get here. 'You were scared that we were guards!'
Maurice laughed again and fiddled with his coat before laying out an identity wallet in front of Rose. 'I lied. I'm allowed out after curfew,' he told her as he pulled her head up by the hair so that she could read the paper he had put down. 'It's my job to catch people like you who have come to cause trouble.'
'But we didn't!' Rose was adamant that she and the Doctor had done nothing wrong- in no way was it their fault that time and space had cocked up and left them stuck in this hell hole. 'We never meant to come here at all! We didn't want to cause any trouble.'
Maurice was prevented from replying when Ganjud burst back into the room, bloody murder written on his face. 'Heather's secured,' he said, not meeting Maurice's gaze.
'Good,' the other man said. He jerked Rose up against him, one arm tight across her stomach and his other hand gripping her arm so hard that she knew she'd have finger-shaped bruises there later on. 'Help me get her out of here.'
Ganjud crossed to behind the bar, dropping down to the ground for a minute before straightening back up again. 'Okay,' he said.
Rose was dragged unwillingly to the back of the bar. She looked down and felt her head go woozy as she saw the hole in the floor, exposed when Ganjud had shifted a large slab out of the way. She caught his eye momentarily as he descended through the trap door and into whatever lay below. 'Sorry,' he mouthed at her as Maurice shoved her towards the hole.
Sorry wasn't good enough, she decided as she was manhandled down into the hole in the ground by two men she had thought she should be able to trust. Apparently her judgement had been way off. She hoped like hell that the Doctor showed up soon.