Chapter 3: Saturday

On Saturday, she had a hang-over, so when Rasdajn, the annoying Time Agent who reminded her of all of Jack's bad qualities (and none of his redeeming ones) turned up with a present and a bundle of flowers, she was in next to no mood to put up with him. "Time Lords," she demanded as she climbed out of bed and staggered around looking for clothes. "Tell me what you know."

"Good morning, Ras," he mocked in his gravelly bass. "And how are you, and oooh, thank you for bringing me the flowers, I shall reward you with a little kiss."

She turned the same glare on him that she had used on the Scintillions, only with the addition of the hung-over basilisk growl. He stepped back and, before she could point a finger at him, he ducked out. "I'll just wait in the den," he said in a low soprano squeak. "'Til you're… erm… feeling better."

"Right," she grumbled as she slammed the door behind him. "That won't be 'til I'm dead, but I'll come talk to you when I feel sane."

A shower, some clean clothes, and two Tylenol later, she finally felt up to being flirted with by an ugly man with a sulky attitude and a tendency to hold things over her head. "So, tell me what you know."

"I brought you a present. It's that sonic screwdriver you were talking about last time I was here. I'm not supposed to give it to you."

She took the box anyway and dared him to take it back. "Talk, Ras," she insisted, and dunked the flowers into a vase for the stand by the doorway. They'd come from New Earth, she could tell, and they smelled like apples and time travel much more than the lilies of the field.

"They're a myth, a legend. No one believes they ever existed. No one's ever met one or heard of one, but there are old, old planets out there where the people claim to have dealt with them regularly in their early histories."

"Oh," she said. "But there aren't any? What's in the constellation of Kasterborous?"

"Can you try for something more specific? It's mostly space gas and rocks out there."

She wracked her brain. She knew this. The TARDIS had shown her once, maybe? "Galactic Coordinates 10-0-11-0-0 by 0-2 from center. I think?"

He checked the computer on his wrist, tapping a few buttons. "Black hole. Big black hole. Weird black hole, too, come to think of it."

"Why?"

"There's a star caught in the event horizon. Not doing anything, no gases, no x-rays, nothing. The event horizon, by the way is…"

"I know what it is," Rose replied testily.

"Sorry," said Ras. "It's just last time I was here, I was watching this program on the tele, right. And there were a bunch of astrophysicists nattering on and on about how shocked and surprised they were that galaxies had black holes in the center. Like, what else could a super-star cradle have, right?"

"They haven't made the connection between macro and micro yet," she said with a sigh. "Don't worry about it. They're getting there."

"You sure?"

"You're here, you're at least part human, yeah, I'm sure. It's probably complicated. Some day soon someone's going to point out that exploded star dust makes baby stars to them and they'll make the connection and who knows where it will go from there."

"Who told you all this stuff?"

"A man I knew once… or twice. Whatever. I'm going back to bed."

"Sorry."

"No, don't bother. Just… thanks."

"No prob, sweetie."

"And don't call me that."

And she went into her room, laid down on her bed, and thought about Time Lords and Captain Jack Harkness and planets that were impossible and appropriately named "Hell."