The forest of the dead part 2
Rose was cautiously walking down the dark corridors which were lined with hundreds and thousands of books a noise had startled her and so she was cautiously walking towards it. Her converses were clicking gently against the floor, her body was aching and she was exhausted. She knew that she didn't need much sleep but the demands of this adventure was taking a lot out of her physically, from all the running, from being knocked out. But her mind was tired. Her mind had been doing over time from all the things swimming around her neurons due to River, but also because she was trying to find her way back to her friends, and she was on her own. All on her own in the dark and she was terrified.
She was rounding another corridor of bookshelves, shinning the torch around the wooden shelves, looking any and every where. She was about to round the corner but she skidded to a stop, gasped slightly and shoved her body back around the corner when she noticed Proper Dave standing there. Rose was breathing heavily as she pressed her body to the book case hoping that the skeleton hadn't seen her. She pressed her hand over her mouth and the other to her broken rib as she tired to prevent her loud breathing to catch his ears but she was too slow, she took a glance around the corner to see him moving towards her. Her hearts dropped in her chest as she realised she would have to make a confrontation with him.
"Hey who turned out the lights?"
"Oh come on... I've heard you talk. Now talk to me!" Rose shouted when she moved from her position and shouted over at the skeleton, her posture strong and powerful, her voice holding so much authority. Rose finally having had enough of being hunted, of having to run for her life. The skeleton simply looked at her as he took awkward steps towards her. "Why are you doing this?" Rose asked, her head shaking to the left and right, it angled slightly to the ground as one of her eyebrows were raised as she said the sentence quietly and softly.
"You destroyed our home, you took out food. We want it back"
"But don't you see, if you remain here, if you stay here. In the place you hatched the food will run out. You would die" Rose said over to him, her hands shoving down to the ground as she spoke to the swarm.
"Who said anything about staying here?"
"What do you mean?" Rose asked with a frown, her features clouding with confusion as she spoke to him
"We will show the universe what happens when they mess with the Vashta Nerada, they will regret ever creating a book or a building out of wood. We will sweep the galaxy, eating and destroying every civilisation. We will kill everything" So with that one statement Rose knew just how powerful, how much revenge these creatures had. Rose only knew just how much trouble the entire universe could be in if they was not able to stop them.
"But why do that?" Rose voiced passionately, speaking quickly like her husband "The people out there, not one of them know of you existence, they had nothing to do with the destruction of your homes, it was their ancestors! You can't kill innocent people" Rose said quickly, shouting at him as she pointed her hand to her side, showing what she meant as her anger and frustration was rising.
"Then they will regret ever being born"
"Listen to me!" Rose said suddenly, she had moved her eyes closed and was wearing a frown, her hands out in front of her as she tried to get her point across "Staying in that suit you are liked Proper Dave. You killed a good man. A kind man. And in doing so you saw what he was saying, what I was saying when you hunted him. The human race may be violent, they may take things that don't belong to them but they have such promise. Such potential. Even during the darkest times, if you push past all the violent and angry thoughts you have a kind and compassionate race. Look at the man that you killed. Dave showed you that. He showed the brilliance and the wonder of the human race"
"But they still did harm"
"Give them a chance" Rose said letting out the breath in her lung and wincing due to her rib, a smile on her face
"We will never... they are the first to die"
"Very well then. It looks like I'm going to have to stop you!" She said slightly frustrated with the whole thing. Dave had all the while been walking towards her. She lifted her leg and kicked him in a high Karate kick which sent him staggering back. She bolted from her position, running in the direction she had come from, her body bolting through the bookshelves as she tried to find somewhere to hide. She skidded to a halt, and fell a little when she found a door. She tried to open the door but it wouldn't budge so she pressed her hand to the handle again and shoved her body to it, making the doors open. But when she rushed in she was stuck in a circular room like the one they had been in earlier that day. She looked around for an exit but she had no where to go. She knew she needed to hurry because Proper Dave was still after her. She sighed in frustration before she pulled out the map and blueprints of the library.
She managed to pull the old paper from her pocket and look at it. She found where she was and found that there was a ventilation system somewhere in the room. She was still pointing towards to map when she looked above her. The shaft was right above her head. She smiled to herself before shoving the map in to her pocket and began to move a table from the corner. She dragged it across the floor and her body exploded with nerves when she heard the skeleton's relay communicator. She began to tug on the metal grating, her arms raised above her head as she tugged on it, trying to get a good grip on it. But she suddenly shot her hand back towards her. The grating had dug into her hand causing a large and rather deep cut to be present on the palm of her hand. She muttered to herself about her stupidity before going back to the grating
"This would be so much easier if I had the sonic screwdriver!"She complained, but with a final tug she managed to pull the grating from the ceiling. She placed her hands on the top of the railings and heaved her body through the small gap in the roof.
"Where are we? Why are the children all the same?" Donna asked with a frown on her face as she spoke to the woman who had died in the library.
"The same pattern over and over. It saves an awful lot of space."
"Space?" Donna asked her, but the girl simply turned her face to look at her
"Cyberspace."
The Doctor had managed to find a information terminal and had suddenly pulled on his specs when his thoughts had pulled him towards the thing he was investigating now. His passion and his need to find out what was going on had moved to a whole knew height after he lost his wife.
"See, there it is, right there! A hundred years ago, massive power surge, all the teleports going at once. Soon as the Vashta Nerada hit their hatching cycle, they attack. Someone hits the alarm, the computer tries to teleport everyone out." The Doctor said quickly, never once making his eyes leave the screen, his hand was moving to the screen before both his hands moved into his pockets.
"It tried to teleport 4,022 people?" River asked with her mouth hanging open as she spoke up to him.
"Succeeded, pulled 'em all out, but then what? Nowhere to send them, nowhere safe in the whole Library, Vashta Nerada growing in every shadow. 4,022 people all beamed up and nowhere to go. They're stuck in the system, waiting to be sent, like emails. So what's a computer to do? What does a computer always do?" The Doctor replied quickly, one of his hands moving to explain his point as he continued to look from Mr Lux and River
"It saved them." River breathed with a smile on her face
"The Library, a whole world of books, and right at the core, the biggest hard drive in history." The Doctor said as he pulled a pen from his pocket, pushing the books from the table and he drew two circles, a bigger one and then a smaller one in which he coloured in while his two companions came to watch him, hoping he could shed a little more light on the subject "The index to everything ever written, backup copies of every single book. The computer saved 4,022 people the only way a computer can. It saved them to the hard drive." He whispered as he placed an arrow to the middle circle, his eyebrows rose as he looked to the table in front of him.
***
"Your physical self is stored in the library as an energy signature. It can be actualised again whenever you or the Library requires." Miss Evangelista voiced as she spoke over to Donna, the pair of them still sitting on the park bench.
"The Library? If my face ends up on one of those statues..." Donna voice, freaking out a little as she pulled her hands up in surrender as she backed away a little
"You remember the statues?"
"Wait, no, just... hang on." Donna voiced as she placed her hands to her head and looked down at the ground as she tried to get a hold on the situation "So... this isn't the real me? This isn't my real body. But I've been dieting!" She complained as she looked at the veiled woman.
"What you see around you, this entire world is nothing more than virtual reality."
"So why do you look like that?" Donna asked with a frown.
"I had no choice. You teleported. You're a perfect reproduction. I was just a data ghost caught in the Wi-Fi and automatically uploaded."
"And it made you clever?" Donna said again, her face still holding a frown
"We're only strings of numbers in here. I think a decimal point may have shifted in my IQ. But my face has been the bigger advantage. I have the two qualities you require to see absolute truth. I am brilliant... and someone you know is feeling very unloved and over rated. You can see those two traits which I portrayed."
"If this is all a dream... whose dream is it?" Donna voiced before stepping forward towards the girl "And who is the person you are talking about? Is it Rose?"
"It's hard to see everything in the data core, even for me, but there is a word. Just one word. CAL." But the pair of them were taken from their conversation when Ella fell from the swing and Donna came running towards her
"Mummy! My knee!" Ella cried as her brother stood next to her as Donna tried to comfort her crying daughter
"Oh, oh look at that knee! Oh, look at that silly old knee!" She smiled as she pulled Ella onto her lap and hugged her
"She's not real. They're fictions. I'm sorry, but now that you understand that, you won't be able to keep a hold. They are sustained only by your belief."
"You don't know, you don't have children!" Donna bellowed
"Neither do you." But Donna simply glared at the woman before taking the hands of Ella and Joshua and walked quickly from the park
"Donna, for your own sake, let them go!"
Rose was still crawling through the tight space of the ventilation system. Her clothes were getting even more dirty, her hair was a mess and her chest was tight from the lack of air as her rib caused some discomfort.
"Oh great Rose, yeah, run away from the alien and get yourself stuck in a ventilation system. I' m sure that's a brilliant idea. For all you know they could be following the sounds through the ceiling and their waiting for you when you get out." Rose complained to herself as she dragged herself through the chamber. Her hand was slick with blood from her wound and she new the aliens could probably smell her blood which just caused her worry to increase. Rose was tired, wounded and her mood was not a good one. Her hearts kept leaping out to the Doctor and Donna. She knew Donna was in danger, but she knew her husband. She knew he would be blaming himself for loosing her. He would be finding any and every way of trying to get her and he knew he would be angry, angry at the Vashta Nerada, grief ridden that he had lost her, not knowing if she was still alive. Even Rose was surprised that she had managed to survive that fall with only a broken rib. Maybe her Time Lady genes made her body stronger than a human.
But Rose suddenly slipped. Her wounded hand had not got the right grip and she fell. She gasped to herself and pulled her hand towards her. She had nothing to put around it, and her hands were black from the dust and dirt from the shaft. She clung her hand to her chest and closed her eyes. But suddenly the shaft began to shake, something was disrupting the structure and the metal completely broke off causing Rose to slide to the entrance. She fell from the tube and managed to roll her body as she fell. But she cried out in pain as she rolled so her body was lying on the ground. Her hand shot to her broken rib and her vision was blurry for a moment. But she was snapped from her sudden pain when she saw the white picture of a space boot. Rose shot her body to her feet and looked over at Proper Dave who was rounding the corner, obviously having been the one to adjust the ventilation system.
"Oh give me a break!" She snapped, shaking her head before running around a corner, grasping hold of her rib and pulling out the map as she bolted. She began to pull books from the shelf to try and hinder the skeleton, she pulled chairs and tables, snapping her body away from Dave as far as possible. She looked down at the map and where she was and realised she needed to take the next left. She took it before she ran to a T Junction. She looked down at the map and looked down both corridors before she nodded to the left.
"LEFT!" She muttered to herself and ran all the while she was looking at the map. She followed her progress and spun around so she could take the next left and then a sudden hard right. "Right and then straight on" She stated to herself before looking in front of her, she nodded and placed the map back into her pocket and ran straight on, her body gaining speed as she ran with her hands, ignoring the screaming of her body.
***
"What is it? What's wrong?" Mr Lux asked as he looked over at the Doctor who was looking to the ceiling, listening to the alarms and the claxon bells sounding
"Autodestruct enabled in 20 minutes."
"What's maximum erasure?" River asked as the pair of them stared right at the terminal. The Doctor had his eyebrows in a frown while River was looking at him and then to the terminal.
"20 minutes, this planet's gonna crack like an egg." The Doctor snapped loudly
"No! No, it's all right, the doctor moon will stop it. It's programmed to protect CAL." Lux informed causing both the Doctor and River to pull away when the screen of the information terminal goes blank
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" The Doctor bellowed as he immediately set to work to try and retrieve the information again.
"All Library systems are permanently offline. Sorry for any inconvenience. Shortly..."
Rose shuddered to a stop when she heard the alarms. She snapped her eyes towards the ceiling as the lights immediately dipped to the red light it was now showing. Her chest was heaving heavily and her chest was tight. But she looked away from the ceiling and to the figure that was gaining on her. She rolled her eyes at her luck and sprinted even faster than before. The blood was dripping from her hand and she knew that was how Proper Dave was tracking her. But she smiled to herself when she rounded the corner and she burst into the room she had been trying to find for the last 4 hours. She smiled to herself when all the people in the room suddenly snapped their heads towards her with their mouths hanging open.
"Mummy, what did the lady mean? Are we not real? Where are we going?" Ella asked as they were walking from the Playground, Donna was still clinging onto their hands as she looked at them gently
"Home!"
"That was quick, wasn't it, Mummy?" Ella voiced as she took in the red sky and the claxon bells sounding
"Mummy, what's wrong with the sky?" Joshua asked as they all looked out of the window and the sight terrified them.
"Rose!" The Doctor cried happily as his face moved into one of a large smile as he looked at her. He took in her flushed cheeks, her wind blown hair, and the dirt and grim on her clothing. Her body and her eyes showing how weary and exhausted she truly was. The holes and the rips showing that his inclination of danger had been put in the right place as he took in her appearance, over the moon that she was alright
"You will not believe the day I am having" Rose breathed with a smile on her face as her chest continued to breath heavily as the Doctor smiled at her, Rose returning it showing she had forgiven him. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer to him
"Oh I am so glad you're alright" He said in to her shoulder, but he noticed that she had grimaced when he squeezed her closer
"Its takes a lot more than Vashta Nerada to kill me." She said as she smiled into his shoulder. They both pulled away smiling and the Doctor then noticed her hand and the fact she was clinging to her chest
"You ok?" He asked her with concern as he moved some of her fringe from her face
"I managed to break a rib when I fell, I don't think I did much good to my hand when I pulled myself in to the ventilation system either" Rose said up to him and watched as his eyes shone with amazement and pride. A small smile of question was falling on to her face and into her eyes.
"Come here hun" He said to her gently and pulled her closer to him, he took hold of her injured hand and ignored her black hands as he pulled something from his pocket. He cleaned her hand and her cheek removing the blood and dirt to clean her wounds before he managed to pull out a bandage and wrap it firmly around her palm. All the while River and Lux were watching him. Anita having to remain completely still. But the pair of them snapped their head towards Mr Lux as he pulled them from their conversation and closeness
"We need to stop this, we've got to save CAL!" He shouted, panicking slightly
"You've got that right" Rose voiced as she spoke towards Lux, the Doctor frowning as he looked down at her, her wounded hand still wrapped into his
"Why? What is CAL" The Doctor asked as he looked down at Rose who was looking up at him
"We need to get to the main computer, I'll show you." She said up to him gently, before pulling him with her and then letting go of her hand as she walked away from him and over to Lux who was walking towards her
"It's at the core of the planet." The Doctor argued suddenly as he looked after her, a smile present on her face a little
"Well, then. Let's go!" River smiled as she sonics the symbol on the floor at the centre of the room and smiled as it opened up. "Gravity platform!" She smiled at every one of them as they all stepped through the blue light being emitted and onto the platform as it started to descend.
Donna was sitting on the couch, the red light shining through her windows as she clung onto her children, tears falling down her face as she realised the implications
"Mummy, you're hurting my hand." Joshua said to her as he clung onto her himself
"You just... you just stay where I can see you. Right, you, you don't get out of my sight." Donna said, trying to get a grip on her emotions, to stop the tears from falling as she spoke to her kids
"Is it bedtime?" Ella asked and Donna was suddenly in the children's room and tucking her children lovingly into bed.
"OK. That was lovely, wasn't it? That was a lovely bedtime. We had warm milk, and we watched cartoons, and then Mummy read you a lovely bedtime story." Donna smiled as she looked over at both of them. Donna moving some of her daughters hair from her face
"Mummy, Joshua and me, we're not real, are we?" Ella said up to her
"Of course you're real. You're as real as anything. Why d'you say that?" Donna said to them, her eyes watering as she tried to comfort them
"But, Mummy, sometimes, when you're not here, it's like we're not here." Joshua said, clinging onto his quilt as he spoke to her, Donna looking at him with her mouth hanging open
"Even when you close your eyes, we just stop." Ella said gaining her mothers attention
"Well, Mummy promises to never close her eyes again." She said with a smile but when she went to hug her children and she looked at the bed in front of her the children are gone. Her eyes are running with tears, devastated and distraught with loosing her two beautiful children, clinging onto their beds
"No! Please! No, please! No! No, no! NO!"
***
"Autodestruct in 15 minutes." The computer sounded while the group of them were running in the basement. The metal railings and concrete floor surrounding them. River having her mouth open while the Doctor was running like he normally did. Rose holding her side a little as the Doctor looked above him. A orange structure with blue electricity bolts surrounding it.
"The Data Core! 4,000 living minds, trapped inside it."
"Yeah, well they won't be living much longer, we're running out of time." River said to him, just for him to grasp Rose's uninjured hand and pull her with him, after all she was one of the people who knew what was going on. They rushed to the main computer terminal and both the Doctor and Rose rushed to one of the terminals, having to squint at the screen's due to the dark blue light while the Doctor pulled on his specks
"Help me. Please, help me." The girl cried causing everyone to look around at their surroundings
"What's that?" Anita asked, suddenly trying to stay still
"It was the child from earlier" Rose said over to her before looking back at the screen
"Computer's in sleep mode." The Doctor muttered as he tried to push the keys "I can't wake it up. I'm trying."
"Doctor, these readings!" River exclaimed as she herself started to work on the controls, the Doctor doing nothing but frowning at the information that was being shown to him
"I know, you'd think it was... dreaming." HE said gently.
"It is dreaming...of a normal life, and a lovely Dad, and of every book ever written." Rose said over to him, her arms folded across her chest as she leant on the computer main frame, her eyes flickering toward Mr Lux.
"Computers don't dream." Anita stated as she looked over at Rose.
"Help me. Please help me."
"No. But little girls do." Rose said to them cryptically before a small and sad smile found its way onto her face. She walked towards a group of leavers before pulling one of them to open a door. The Doctor and River were frowning at her as they watched her run into the next room, the group following her as they watched a node turn it's head to them. A little girl who was pleading for help.
"Please help me. Please help me."
"Oh, my God!" River whispered, her eyes wide her mouth hanging open.
"It's the little girl. The girl we saw in the computer." Anita voiced, stating the obvious as she pointed towards the face
"She's not in the computer. In a way, she is the computer. The main command node. This is CAL. CAL is a child! A child hooked up to a mainframe." Rose said to them, her voice etched with sadness as she looked at the girl before looking towards everyone else who was looking at her gobsmacked and shocked "My Lux you weren't just protecting your family's pride. You were protecting your own family" Rose said gently, a very faint smile on her face. She grasped her side before she pulled out the newspaper clipping she had found earlier, showing what had happened to the girl and then the technical blueprints of the library's systems, showing them to Lux and then to her husband who studied them intently.
"CAL... Charlotte Abigail Lux. My grandfather's youngest daughter. She was dying, so he built her a library, and put her living mind inside, with a moon to watch over her, and all of human history to pass the time, any era to live in, any book to read. She loved books more than anything. He gave her them all. He asked only that she be left in peace. A secret, not a freak show." Lux said over to them, a few tears staining his cheeks. Rose had looked down at the ground in sadness while the Doctor was looking up to the main computer, River looking from him to the girl with her mouth open.
"So you weren't protecting a patent, you were protecting her." The Doctor said gently as he looked back at Mr Lux with both his eyebrows raised as he looked down at her
"This is only half a life, of course. But it's for ever." He said to him, taking a few steps forward and placing his hand gently to her cheeks
"And then the shadows came." Rose said in a whisper, looking up from the ground and towards him
"Shadows. I have to... I have to save. Have to save..."
"And she saved them. She saved everyone in the Library, folded them into her dreams and kept them safe." Rose said, smiling at the node admiring her as Lux continued to look at her sadly, Rose's eyebrows raised as she looked at the little girl.
"Then why didn't she tell us?"Anita asked causing Lux to turn and talk to us
"Because she's forgotten. She's got over 4,000 living minds chatting away inside her head, it must be like... being... well." Rose said before looking over at the Doctor who was smiling at her weakly. He was another person who could hear all the voices in his head, knowing that the pair of them shared that as she was surprised she hadn't been driven insane by them.
"So what do we do?"River asked causing Rose and the Doctor to look at her with frowns on their faces
"Autodestruct in ten minutes."
"Easy!" The Doctor breathed as he walked away and pulled out his screwdriver, the others following behind him "We beam all the people out of the data core, the computer will reset and stop the countdown. Difficult, Charlotte doesn't have enough memory space left to make the transfer. Easy! I'll hook myself up to the computer and she can borrow my memory space!" He said as he moved to the terminal and placed his hand to his hair before he snapped to the main frame, Rose realised what he was talking about and she rushed over to him, pulling his arms away from the frame so he was looking at her
"Difficult! It'll kill you stone dead!" She cried, her eyes boring right into his, her eye large with worry
"Yeah, it's easy to criticise." He chimed as he continued to strip the wires
"It'll burn out both your hearts and don't think you'll regenerate!" River snapped from the place she had occupied from across the room
"I'll try my hardest not to die. Honestly, it's my main thing." He said in a high pitched voice, his eyebrows raised while his forehead was in creases as he soniced the wired in his hand
"Don't you dare Doctor! Not again!" Rose said, pulling his face to hers as she looked right at him, her hand still resting on his cheek
"I'm right and this works! Shut up." He said as he shrugged her off, Rose just looked at him with her eyebrows raised as she backed away slightly "Now listen, River and Luxy-boy, back up to the main Library. Prime any data cells you can find for maximum download, and before you say anything else, Rose, can I just mention in passing as your air, shut up!" The Doctor said very very fast causing Rose to not pull her eyes from him and finally letting out the air from her lung when he turned to face her and then walk off as Rose breathed
"Ha! I hate you sometimes!" Rose snapped at him as she walked back towards one of the terminals to help the Doctor in the plan which might just kill him
"I know!" The Doctor said with a smile as he walked to the terminal, River walking over to Mr Lux
"Mr Lux, with me! Anita, if he dies, I'll kill him!" River shouted before pushing the other man out of the room. The Doctor and Rose working frantically at the computer terminal. The two of the Time beings had fallen into normality as the pair of them were staying together.
"What about the Vashta Nerada?" Anita asked from her spot of the room.
"These are their forests. I'm gonna seal Charlotte inside her little world, take everybody else away. The shadows can swarm to their hearts' content." The Doctor said as he ran to the switches, pulling them on and then back to the terminal he had occupied, Rose still working quickly
"So you think they're just gonna let us go?" Anita voiced again
"We can't Doctor" Rose suddenly said as she looked at her husband, her eyes wide as the conversation she had with Proper Dave was suddenly falling back into her mind
"You're gonna make 'em an offer?"
"Rose, what do you mean?" The Doctor said as he frowned towards Rose, stopping momentarily to look at her before going back to the terminal
"I bumped into Proper Dave. I had a nice little chat with them to find out what they're planning. They wanted us to come here. Providing them with bodies, with food. We've made them strong. They're going to leave this planet, there going to swarm across the universe like a plague, killing everything and everyone. The Human Race being the first to go" She said quickly as she watched her husband look from the terminal and then back to Rose for a swift look as he continued to tap at the keyboard
"Rose I have to try and they'd better take it, cos right now, I'm finding it very hard to make any kind of offer at all. You know what..." The Doctor said as he used the sonic or one of the compartments before flinging himself to the terminal and then looking to Anita, looking at her hard at the creature in the spacesuit before turning back to his work
"I really liked Anita. She was brave, even when she was crying, and she never gave in. And you ate her." He said to them before sonicing the spacesuit's visor to transparent to reveal there's a skeleton inside. Rose just looked back a little. "But I'm gonna let that pass. Just as long as you let them pass."
"How long have you known?"
"We counted the shadows. You only have one now." She said sadly as she looked back at the blinking neural relay "She's nearly gone. Be kind." Rose said to her gently, moving her head to the side a bit, hoping to let Anita to be released
"These are our forests. We are not kind."
"I'm giving you back your forests, but you are giving me them. You are letting them go." The Doctor snapped, his eyes boring right into the skeleton, his eyebrows raised before he walked back to the terminal. Nut the shadows were reaching out from Anita and towards the Doctor and Rose
"These are our forests. They are our meat."
"Don't play games with me! You just killed someone I liked, that is not a safe place to stand. You hunted my wife and I cannot forgive you for that. I'm the Doctor and you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up." The Doctor snapped, his voice harsh and angry, his eyebrows in a raised position as his body was angled towards the skeleton. The shadows slowly withdrawing after a short pause
"You have one day." She voiced before the suit creature collapsed right in front of River.
"Anita!"
"I'm sorry, she's been dead a while now. I told you to go!" The Doctor snapped again, looking at Rose who was working at the terminal and then back towards his own work
"Lux can manage without me. But you can't." She said to him, walking over to the Doctor and Rose and without a word she knocked the pair of them out.
River was sitting in to a weird chair as she was fiddling with some wires. The Doctor was slowly coming too to find that he was handcuffed to a pillar. He moved his head to find Rose was still unconscious and connected to him via the cuffs. He looked up at River and immediately righted his seating.
"Autodestruct in two minutes."
"Oh, no, no, no, no, come on, what are you doing? That's my job!" The Doctor shouted over at her while River was smiling down at him, still fiddling with the wiring
"Oh, and I'm not allowed to have a career, I suppose?" She joked, lifting her head in the air a little while the Doctor started to struggle on the handcuffs. This was a time he really needed Rose to be awake as she always managed to get out of these things.
"Why am I handcuffed? Why do you even have handcuffs?" The Doctor complained, grasping at his and Rose's wrist before looking back at River with his face scrunched up
"Spoilers!" River said with a flirtatious smile directed in the Doctor's direction
"This is not a joke, stop this now, this is gonna kill you! I'd have a chance, you don't have any." The Doctor shouted just for River to cut him off
"You wouldn't have a chance, and neither do I. I'm timing it for the end of the countdown, there'll be a blip in the command flow. That way it should improve our chances of a clean download." She said, her voice breaking with emotion slightly while the Doctor could do nothing but look at her, his breathing hitching as he watched the woman look at the countdown
"River! Please! No!" HE yelled, struggling on the handcuffs again, his feet flying around underneath him
"Funny thing is, this means you've always known how I was going to die. All the time we've been together, you knew I was coming here. The last time I saw you, the real you, the future you, I mean - you turned up on my doorstep, with a new haircut and a suit. You took me to Darillium to see the singing towers. Oh, what a night that was! The towers sang, and you cried." River said passionately as she spoke to him, her eyes wide with unshed tears, the Doctor having his own eyebrows raised as he looked at her
"Autodestuct in one minute."
"You wouldn't tell me why, but I suppose you knew it was time. My time. Time to come to the Library. You even gave me your screwdriver - that should've been a clue. But everything's different now. You have someone to care for. Someone of your own species, from your own home. She needs your help and your love. The time line that I share with you was created from the minute she had sucked the time vortex into her mind." She said to him, smiling as the Doctor frowned "You forget Doctor, I know you. I've seen the way you look at her, I've seen the way you worried about her after you had the argument. She needs you a lot more than I do." She smiled as the Doctor looked at the screwdriver together with River's diary, on the ground between the two of them. The Doctor snapped his hand in the direction as he tried to reach them but they were out of his reach
"There's nothing you can do." River laughed a little
"You can let me do this!" The Doctor shouted through his teeth
"If you die here, it'll mean I've never met you." River cried
"Time can be rewritten." The Doctor grimaced
"Not those times. Not one line! Don't you dare!" River shouted at him before pausing "It's OK. It's OK, it's not over for you. You have Rose." She said as she shed a tear but remained determined.
"River, you know my name!" The Doctor implored up to her, his eyebrows raised, his mouth hanging open in sadness, his eyes wide and watering
"Autodestruct in ten..."
"You whispered my name in my ear. The only other person who knows my name is Rose." The Doctor continued, visibly shaking as he spoke to her, River just looked towards the countdown.
"...nine, eight, seven..."
"There's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could..." The Doctor managed to say, his mouth turning up as he struggled to bit back a sob as he watched the woman pull the headdress on
"You're a clever boy I'm sure you will work it out" River said to him with a smile, her own eyes watering.
"Rose don't do this" The Doctor shouted, his tears now falling from his face as he watched Rose pull the devices together and smiled at the Doctor gently
"I want you safe my Doctor" She smiled, mimicking the words of BAD WOLF, smiling at him tenderly through her own tears
"...three, two, one..." The Computer stated and the Doctor could do nothing but watch as his Wife pulled and plugged the two cables together blinding him with a large white light, hiding her from view.
When the light had passed there was nothing left of River. After all the pain he had put Rose though, she had put herself through it. River was Rose in the future, another reincarnation or regeneration of his wife. But he could do nothing but mourn for her. He had slumped his body to the ground, his eyebrows level as he looked over at the seat and then toward Rose who was still lying on the ground, her eyes still firmly shut. The Doctor managed to get his hands out of the metal and pulled the other from Rose's delicate wrist, hoping not to disturb her wounded hand and then pulled her into his arms, her head rested on his shoulder, her legs lying over his shoulders as he made his way back to the surface.
He was walking into the little Shop just by the entrance when Rose's eyes finally flickered open and she almost jumped out of his arms. The Doctor just clung onto her further as she wrapped her arms around his neck tighter causing the Doctor to stop and look down at her in concern
"Hey you ok" He said as he looked down at her gently and placed her on the floor
"Yeah" She managed to say but winced when she placed her hand to the back of her head and the other to her rib "I will be. I must have hit my head harder than I thought when I fell" She said with a small smile
"Well I'm glad your ok" The Doctor smiled sadly as he pressed a small kiss to her hair
"Please be patient. Only three can teleport at a time. Do not state your intended destination until you arrive in..."
"Any luck?" The Doctor asked when Donna was walking over to them, his eyes sad as he looked at her as she tried to locate Lee
"There wasn't even anyone called Lee in the Library that day. Suppose he could have had a different name out here, but let's be honest, he wasn't real, was he?" Donna said to him, her heart having shattered as she walked to them and leant he own back to the wall
"Maybe not." Rose said, smiling a small smile when she looked over at her, grasping hold of her hand
"I made up the perfect man. Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word. What's that say about me?" She said saddened by the whole situation. Rose herself having a heavy heart
"Everything." The Doctor muttered having been lost in thought. Both Rose and Donna looking at him offended
"Sorry, did I say everything? I meant to say "nothing". I was aiming for "nothing", I accidentally said "everything"." The Doctor snapped to himself, shaking himself from his thoughts as he looked down at them. Rose just looked down, knowing what was causing his unease. The death of River Song.
"Stand right in the middle of the teleport, please. Keep your hands and feet inside at all times."
"What about you?" Donna asked up to him
"And remember to switch off your mobile comm unit."
"Are you all right?" her eyes flickering away from him
"I'm always all right." The Doctor chimed, forcing a smile on to his face
"Is "all right" special Time Lord code for... "really not all right at all"?"
"Why?"
"Cos I'm "all right", too." She said to him. Rose looked up at her companions as they looked at each other, understanding each other's sorrows perfectly. She grasped both of their hands causing them to look down at her before she smiled at them gently
"Come on." She said and pulling them towards the TARDIS.
***
The three of them were walking down the steps towards the balcony they had been standing at when they first arrived. They walked down the steps and River placed the TARDIS book on to the balustrade, his hand lingering on the cover a little. Rose looking down sad at the deviation the Doctor was feeling over the woman's death and Donna looked up at him
"Your friend... Professor Song... She knew you in the future, but she didn't know me. What happens to me? Because when she heard my name, the way she looked at me..." Rose asked up at him. The Doctor standing right in front of her. Her eyes heavy with water as she shrugged her shoulders
"Donna, Rose... This is her diary. My future. I could look you up. What do you think? Shall we peek at the end?" He said awkwardly as his hand remained on the cover, his eyebrows raised as he looked over at the pair of them, his tongue resting on the top of his mouth
"Spoilers, right?" Donna smiled gently
"Right." He said causing each one of them to look at each other. Rose pulled the two of them away resisting the temptation and watching as the Doctor placed River's sonic screwdriver on the book and the three of them all turned to leave.