"The av thrusters are starting. We're going into burn out."
"What does that mean?" Andy demanded.
Rose stared around the small space, her eyes wide. She knew exactly what it meant.
"It means we're going to take off."
"Take off? What do you mean we're taking off?" Max said, panicked.
"You're the tech genius you tell me," Rose snapped.
"Taking off, as in up in the sky?" Andy asked, as if afraid of the answer.
"As in, if we don't find a way to stop this thing we're going to be in space, yes," the Doctor said. He shoved his specs onto his nose, and squinted at the paneled surface of the wall. "There's got to be a control panel around here somewhere. Everyone look."
"What're we looking for?" Max asked.
Rose was already at the wall, running her sensitive finger pads over its smooth surface in order to detect anything.
"Cracks in the paneling," she said without turning around. "Buttons, levers, switches. Anything that could possibly pop out as a control board."
They began scanning the walls, running over them with their fingertips. All of the sudden, the pod they were in began to rock violently, flinging them all to the floor.
"We're exiting the atmosphere, hang on to something!" the Doctor yelled.
"Now he tells us," Max groused, clinging to a support beam.
They were flung back and forth and shaken hard as the pod burned through Earth's atmosphere.
Andy's huge body slammed into Rose, making her teeth clatter together.
"Sorry," he hissed.
Rose just clutched the edge of the counter and didn't respond.
They all knew the moment it broke atmosphere into space when the rocking stopped. And then there was an ominous stillness.
The Doctor got up off the floor, and held his hand out for Rose, who took it.
"Right, find that control board," he said.
Andy shot a panicked glance out the window.
"We're in space now."
"Yes," said the Doctor. "And I figure we have about thirty eight minutes before we break Earth's gravitational pull and float into space until we run out of oxygen in this thing, and then we all die."
'Thank you for that," Rose murmured.
"Panel," Max reminded them.
They all applied themselves to the wall again. Rose scanned the smooth metal wall surface with her eyes as well as her fingers, looking carefully, but there didn't seem to be any gaps or any indication that there was a control panel hidden behind them.
"Ahah!" cried out Max in triumph. With a smooth hisss, a part of the wall slid open, revealing a small panel with a screen and a board of buttons.
The Doctor hurried over to it and peered at the board through his specs.
"I knew there was one. These Correlian things always have control panels in every section."
"Why's that?" Andy asked.
"Because they eject when they detect intruders," the Doctor jabbed a long, thin finger at the screen. "Us. Or to be more specific, me."
Ah. Of course. Rose saw the problem immediately.
"Should have seen this coming, actually," Rose said.
The Doctor shrugged.
"Who was I know it was specially tailored for human physiology? Usually these things aren't that specific. Although judging by the way the engine was modified, I should have guessed there would be other personal touches…"
"What?" Andy demanded.
"That doesn't make any sense," Max said at the same time. "There've been lots of people all over this shuttle since we found it. I've been in here a million times checking everything out. I personally oversaw the removal of the engine. And it's never reacted like this."
"Ah yes, but I've never been inside it," said the Doctor.
"Why would you make any difference?" Andy asked.
Rose exchanged a glance with the Doctor. He gave an infinitesimal shrug.
"Doctor," she said warningly.
"No choice, Rose," he replied. He pointed to the screen.
"What do you see?"
Max squinted at it.
"Four blue dots and one red dot."
"The blue dots are for humans," the Doctor said.
"And what's the red dot for?" asked Andy.
The Doctor sighed.
"Me."
"But that would mean you're…" Andy trailed off, his dark eyes huge with the shock of the conclusion he was drawing.
"Yeeeeeep," the Doctor said.
"Actually, that kinda makes sense," Max said, staring at the Doctor contemplatively.
"You're not human?" Andy asked.
The Doctor shook his head.
"No, not human. Well, not totally human. Well, not totally Time Lord any more either. I'm somewhere in between. I'm mostly human."
"You're not human," Max said. He didn't look startled at the news, just curious.
"No, not completely. I've got just enough Time Lord DNA left in me to trigger a reaction from the security system. Which did what it was designed to do when it detects an intruder, and jettisoned the segment."
"Did you know he wasn't human before you married him?" Andy asked Rose.
Rose smiled.
"He was a lot more alien when I met him. He's more human now, what with only one heart and only one life."
"Did he used to have two?" Max asked.
"Two hearts. More than two regenerations. Thirteen, in fact. I'd used up ten by the time I met Rose."
"You knew?"
"I said I used to travel with him," Rose said. "I didn't say we travelled on Earth. Although that was where we usually ended up."
The Doctor smiled.
"Not my fault your little planet gets in a lot of trouble."
"Hang on, I thought you said this thing came from outer space," Max said, interrupting their conversation.
"Yeah, it did. Corellian design," the Doctor replied.
"Then how is it configured for human physiology? If it was made by these Corellians, how come it recognized humans as not being intruders, but you – whatever you are – to be one?"
"Good question," Andy muttered.
"What, you think Earth is the only planet that has humans on it?" the Doctor asked. "There are lots of other planets that support humans. In fact, this bi-pedal form is the most convenient and most widely used form in the galaxy. Much better than, say, the blob shapes of Gragnok six, which are very…"
"Doctor," Rose interrupted.
"Right, sorry. Got carried away," the Doctor said, taking the interruption in stride. "This ship is Corellian in design, but was rebuilt for humans. The engine's been reprogrammed by someone who really knew what they were doing. Most of those old Corellian Worm engines are held together with chewing gum and prayers. Reminds me of old Firefly engines. Best ship in the 'verse, Fireflies, but the engines take constant maintenance and a trained mechanic to keep going. Someone did some serious work on this Worm before the engine looked like it does now. I know a girl who would love to get her hands on that engine, whatever's been doing to it."
"So the security system was reconfigured for humans only?" Andy asked, cutting to the chase.
"Right," the Doctor nodded. "I have human DNA in me, but enough Time Lord was left up here," he tapped his temple. "To set off the system."
An alarm beeped.
"Speaking of which, we've got to stop this pod from getting any further out into space, or we won't have enough fuel to turn around."
"How much fuel do we have?" Max asked.
The Doctor typed into the keyboard and strange symbols appeared on the screen.
"According to this, if we continue in a straight line we have enough for an hour of hard burn. Which, consequently, will take us half way to Mars. Then we'll lose power and float around aimlessly in space until we run out of air."
"Won't we run out of air before then?" Andy asked. "There's four of us and this isn't a very big space." His eyes traveled the length and breadth of their makeshift prison.
"Oh that's easy. As long as the engine is going, the oxygen scrubbers are cleaning the air for us. When they shut down, we're on a timer," the Doctor replied. "Right. So it seems to me that what we need to do is first shut this thing down before we leave Earth's gravity in – " he checked his watch. " – dear me, eleven minutes. Then, we need to reverse the thrusters, and get back to Earth in one piece."
"How do we shut down the engine?" Max asked. "The thing is in lock down. We've tried to fiddle with each compartment's engines before, and they each have a different configuration. It's like a riddle we have to crack every time."
Rose looked expectantly at the Doctor, and he smiled.
"That's because you didn't have me," he said.
From out of his jacket pocket, he pulled his sonic screwdriver. He buzzed the controls. Nothing happened. He fiddled with the settings on the screwdriver, then buzzed them again. He cursed under his breath, and turned to face the others.
"Deadlock sealed," he said, disappointed.
"Worth a try," Rose said.
"Makes sense, though. They didn't want anyone getting into the ship's controls and turning this thing around." The Doctor grinned widely. "I love a challenge."
"I think we should first see what we have to work with," Rose said. "That way we know what we can use to get this thing going. Who knows when we might need a holocaust cloak and a wheelbarrow, yeah?"
The Doctor grinned.
"Rose is right, we need to take stock of our assets."
"Right, everyone, empty your pockets," Rose said.
She reached into her own pockets, and pulled out a bit of paper, some string, some hair pins, a tiny bottle of moisturizer, and a tube of lipstick.
Andy shot her a strange look and then shrugged. Max did the same, and together they emptied their pockets out onto the floor. Between them they had 3 pounds 46 cents in change, two leather wallets, one safety pin, one sparkly barrette, and a pen.
Rose turned expectantly to the Doctor.
There was a slightly sad look on his face.
"Not as dimensionally transcendental as they used to be," he said.
"I know you've got something," Rose encouraged.
The Doctor reached into his trouser pockets, and began to pull things out. A pocket knife, a carefully wrapped sandwich, several crumpled bits of paper, some wire, some silly putty, a nail, three oak leaves with an acorn attached, and a spool of thread.
The Doctor then reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, laying it on the pile.
"Anything we can use?" Andy asked.
The Doctor scrutinized the pile.
"Well, what we need to do first is break the coding in the eject sequence. Then we can shut down the engines." He seized a hair pin. "This might work."
The Doctor hurried to the panel, using his teeth to bend the pin out of place. He bent down and slipped the pin into the bottom of the panel.
"It's a complex computer system, John," Max said. "I don't think you can jimmy it like you would a car."
"That depends," the Doctor said. "These older Corellian models have some small programming flaws. I've found that if you stick something small and sharp right here… ahah!." There was an audible click as something inside the console gave way. " – you can hotwire it," the Doctor finished.
"Doctor," Rose called, glancing out the window. "We're getting awfully close to the moon now."
"If we pass it, we're pretty much out of Earth's gravity," Andy said.
"I just need to shut down the engines, and we'll be able to float around the Earth until we figure out a way to turn around and refire the thrusters," the Doctor said. He picked up his sonic screwdriver, and buzzed the screen. Green letters began to flow over the dark background.
"Except if you turn off the engines the air scrubbers stop working, right?" Max said.
The Doctor shrugged.
"One crisis at a time. Rose, string?"
Rose handed him the small bundle of string, and he expertly looped it around two levers, holding them in opposite directions.
His fingers flew over the keys as he typed in commands for the engines to follow.
"Somebody press the orange button," he instructed.
Andy, who was closest, pressed the button, holding it down.
"Now, all we need to do is type in the correct command code…" the Doctor peered at the screen, and typed furiously. "And the engines should shut down."
There was a moment where nothing could be heard except for the whir of the engines. Everybody held their breaths.
Then, the gentle humming of the engines kicked out. There was complete silence.
Everyone drew a sigh of relief.
"It's off?" Andy confirmed, taking his finger away from the orange button.
"I think so," the Doctor said.
He looked at the screen again, and his face broke out in a huge smile.
"And we're caught in Earth's gravity. In fact, we should be able to get a good view of the lovely planet now."
Rose looked out the small window, and drew in an involuntary breath. Earth was so beautiful from space. It was a perfect blue-and-green marble, with white clouds swirling across the surface like the inside of a snow globe. She had seen planets from space before, of course, but rarely had she had the opportunity to see her own like this. The TARDIS didn't exactly fly around place in the literal sense of the word, and the void wasn't very picturesque.
The Doctor's hand slipped into her own, and she was reminded of the first time she had gone anywhere with him, on the day when this Earth was destroyed. She had watched it then, too. Only it had looked very different.
"It's beautiful," Max breathed.
"Kinda makes you remember what we're fighting for down there, doesn't it?" Andy asked.
The Doctor nodded. He had come to stand beside Rose, his hand securely in hers.
"Brings everything into perspective, seeing Earth from up here," Max murmured.
"All those humans down there," Andy said softly. "Living their lives, never knowing that there's a whole dangerous universe out here. And we've got to protect them."
"Almost worth the harrowing, death-defying experience," Max quipped, with a smile. "To see this."
But Rose wasn't listening any more.
"Humans," she murmured.
The Doctor turned to her.
"What was that?"
"Hold on a second," Rose said. "You said four humans."
Everyone was looking at her now, startled.
"What?" the Doctor said, confused.
"Four humans," Rose repeated. "When you read the scan it said four humans and you. There's only three humans. Unless someone is hiding in here." She cast a quick look around the pod, which didn't leave very many hiding places.
The Doctor blinked.
"So I did." He turned to the control panel and began to typing, pulling up the life signs detector again. "Yep, here it is. For humans and… me. It doesn't quite know how to classify me, because technically I don't have a classification. Metacrisis isn't its own category."
"Is the scanner wrong then?" Andy asked.
The Doctor shook his head.
"I don't think so. If it was broken, it wouldn't have detected that I've got non-human DNA, and we wouldn't be in this jam in the first place." He peered questioningly at the screen through his specs. "Hmmm. It looks like two of the life signs are very close together. Almost on top of one another. Any of you standing on the others' shoulders?"
Everyone shot him a strange look. Rose raised an eyebrow.
"Right," the Doctor said, turning back to the screen. "Of course not. How silly of me. But the fact remains that two of the life signs are on top of each other. Andy, can you step forward so I can see which dot is you?"
Andy stepped forward, and the dot on the far left moved.
"Max?"
Max stepped forward, and the dot in the middle moved. All that was left was the dot to the far right, the one with the extra dot on top of it. The Doctor turned to Rose.
Rose looked behind herself, turning in a circle.
"I don't see anyone else," she said. "Could it be a parasite or something? Wouldn't be the first time."
She looked down, checking herself carefully. If she had an alien parasite in her, it would just be one more thing to deal with before they touched down safely on Earth.
The Doctor shook his head.
"Detector says it's human," he said. "Hang on a minute; I'm going to increase its power." He buzzed the screen with the sonic screwdriver, and it increased the power, now that the deadlock seal was off.
The dots on the screen got bigger, and clearer. There was something strange about the extra dot on Rose. It was fuzzy and smaller than the rest. It flickered in and out, almost as if it was in flux.
"That's strange," the Doctor said. "The extra life sign seems to be weaker than the others. And it's fluctuating. Now that might mean that it's going in and out of time, but the sonic screwdriver isn't picking up any temporal anomalies. I mean, after being around them for so long I'm rather sensitive to them myself. Part of my Time Lord physiology that I've retained is the ability to see which events are in flux and which aren't. And you don't appear to be in flux, Rose. Hmmm… most strange. It's almost as if it… oh."
He stared at Rose with wide eyes, his expression shocked.
Rose looked down at herself again.
"What?"
The Doctor was silent, just staring at her with a panicked expression.
A bubble of panic welled up in Rose. There must be something terribly wrong, for the Doctor to be looking at her in that way.
"Doctor, what is it? If it's something bad, tell me right now. Don't spare me."
The Doctor seemed to need a moment to collect his thoughts.
"It's – ah – not bad, exactly, Rose," he said. His voice was almost tender. Rose's brow furrowed in confusion.
"Then what?"
His eyes travelled from her face down to her middle, and lingered there.
And then it clicked.
Rose's hand fluttered to her stomach, and her eyes growing wide as well.
"Oh. Oh."
Author's Note: I haven't seen the Christmas Special yet. Don't tell me anything about it! All I know is – Cybermen. And as you know, I'm not too excited about that. Cybermen have been done to death. Time for a new supervillain in the coming seasons, Steven Moffat!
Uh oh, I think Rose and the Doctor are in over their heads. And I'm not just talking about being stuck in space! I went a little allusion-crazy this chapter, but what can I say? I just finished watching Firefly, which I totally love and am heartbroken only lasted 14 episodes. The characters are so amazing! And Kaylee is my favorite. As an expert mechanic, it stands to reason that the Doctor knows her, LOL.
Also, the funniest comment I got on this fic (besides a proposal of marriage, but that's another story altogether!) was my friend's constant shipping of Max. She seems to think that Max would be really good with her OOC Fitz, who in her story is the Doctor's daughter. So now I can't write Max without thinking about that. Way to go, Natasha.
I should have the next couple of chapters of this up soon. Like, within the next few days.
Merry Christmas, everyone!