A/N: We left off with the Tardis arriving in the Void at Rose's location with her doors burst open. Rose is in the Void fighting against the Void Creatures. She has lost consciousness after much verbal sparring with the Void Creatures and trying to keep them from probing her mind.
Huge hugs for a_who_in_whoville who has been most awesome and listened to my ramblings about this story and served as the most stupendous beta babe
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Whoverse
The Tardis lights dimmed and its hum was hushed as the Doctor and his companions stared at the unsettling nothingness of the Void, which lay beyond the comforting glow of the interior of the Tardis. The Doctor let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. "Stay away from the doors. Don't even think of going out there. One step and you're lost, and that would be worse than death." He turned to look around at his companions. Mickey had gravitated toward Martha and gripped her hand, his eyes staring at the Void shivering with some deep primitive fear. Martha mirrored his look, trembling slightly and her breath coming quickly.
Donna walked up to the Doctor and put her hand on his arm. "Doctor, what is that?" she asked quietly, feeling unsettled by whatever was outside the Tardis.
The Doctor pulled her close and hugged her. "That's the Void. The dead nothingness between universes. The Howling. This is the place where time doesn't flow. Rose is here, somewhere nearby." He paused and turned her to look at him. "Donna, you must stay here. You can't follow me, understand? This isn't one of those times I tell you 'stay here' and you decide to follow me anyway. I mean it Donna. You step out there and I may not be able to find you. Promise me, you'll stay in the Tardis."
Donna, still staring at the darkness as if mesmerized by it, turned and looked him in the eye. "Yeah, got it. Outside there is a nightmare," she whispered. She pulled herself together. "Just you find Rose, you hear me spaceman. Don't you dare come back without her or you'll be hearin' from me," she told him with typical Donna spunk although slightly diminished from her normal acerbic nature.
The Doctor nodded and walked over to put on his coat. Jack walked up next to him. The Doctor turned to him. "Not this time, Jack."
"I can't let you do this alone. They can't go with you, they'd die. I can't die. You don't know what you'll find out there," Jack said, while glancing nervously at the open doors.
"Jack, there are some things worse than death and that's what you'd find out there. I'm the only one who can do this. Besides, if things get pear shaped, you're the only one with any chance to get this lot home."
Jack looked at him hard and pulled him into a hug. "Be careful out there. I expect both you and Rose back here." Jack pulled away and took a step back next to Donna. The Doctor nodded at all of them and turned toward the gaping doors. He walked up to the utter blackness before him. He gripped the frame of the doors, closed his eyes and sought out his connection to the Tardis. Her song was soft but firm and insistent. She was using huge amounts of energy to keep them stable in the Void, but he noticed she seemed to be directing some of her reserves toward something else. Whatever it was, she wasn't being forthcoming.
He entered a highly meditative state to deepen his connection beyond the surface telepathy he used on a normal basis for piloting her. This was something he hadn't done very often, and few Time Lords ever attempted it much less achieved such an intimate connection with a Tardis, but he was the Doctor and this was his Tardis. His Type-40 was old when he met her and had her own individual spirit and will unlike any of the Tardises to come after her. The two of them had come to terms of acceptance long ago. It was a quiet alliance which grew into something more as the years and his regenerations passed. After the Time War, they both evolved as did their relationship to each other. She was more than just a ship, more than just a Tardis. They were friends, partners and keepers of the balance of time. It was a relationship that transcended the understanding of linear beings and it's what would help him find Rose in the unfathomable darkness of the Void.
The Tardis seemed to have a connection to Rose he didn't fully understand. The fact that he didn't understand it was quite concerning to him. He was a Time Lord, no creature in the universe had an understanding of the workings of time and space as he did. And yet, here was this human girl, a simple shop girl who wasn't so simple. Within her DNA had been planted something long ago by his own people. Rose possessed such courage, tenacity and compassion combined with the capability of being so much more. His Tardis, at some level, did acknowledge her less advanced passengers, but with Rose, she had taken an interest beyond that of any his other human companions. A Tardis existed at many points in time simultaneously and perhaps she perceived some importance in Rose as she related to the multiverse that he could not. Then again, there was a bit of Gallifrey in Rose and maybe it was that which caught his Tardis' attention. No matter, Rose formed some type of relationship with his old girl and in turn, his Tardis had done something to Rose to keep her safe when she absorbed the Time Vortex.
Now, here he was at the precipice of the Void relying on the Tardis and his own Time Lord abilities to find his lost Rose. One step forward and he would be in his own personal nightmare. One step forward and he would be closer to Rose. He took a deep cleansing breath and reached his mind out into the Void. What he found shocked him. He opened his eyes and staggered backward. "Doctor?" Jack called out. The Doctor was shaken to his core.
"Doctor, what is it?" Donna asked, taking a step toward him but being held back by Jack.
"It can't be," the Doctor whispered and took a step closer to the doorway. "It's impossible."
Martha and Mickey walked up to stand next to Jack and Donna. Martha winced and looked at Jack. "Every time he says somethin's impossible it's never good," she confided, shaking her head.
"Doctor!" Donna shouted, trying to shake him out of whatever was entrancing him.
The Doctor looked back at them, his eyes wide in shock. "I can feel them," he whispered and turned back to the Void.
"Feel what?" Donna demanded.
"They're out there in the Void," he whispered again.
"Who's out there?" Martha asked.
"Time Lords. I can feel them," he answered softly.
Donna turned to Martha. "But I thought they were all gone? He's the last."
Martha stared at the Doctor's back with a troubled expression. "Once before we ran into another Time Lord. A psychotic, evil bastard. He took over the world and tortured and killed millions until we reversed time. Not exactly excited to face that again," Martha said, her face an icy mask.
"Don't be daft, if that'd happened I'd remember," Donna insisted.
Jack stepped closer to Donna. "No, you wouldn't. There was a paradox machine holding that reality together. We stopped him and time was reversed so the only ones that remember, were the ones at the center of the paradox. Martha's serious. This is serious. I was there. He tortured us for a year. The year that wasn't," Jack explained with a hardened face.
"We won't let that happen again," Martha said with conviction. "Doctor, whatever or whoever is out there could be like the Master. You know we can't let that happen."
He turned around to Martha. "They're my people and they're trapped in the Void, Martha. I won't walk away from that. I can help them, rescue them, save them," he said passionately.
Jack became extremely agitated. "But you don't even know who they are or what they'd do if they get out. I'm not exactly thrilled at the idea of a bunch of psychotic Time Lords terrorizing the universe."
"They are my people!" the Doctor shouted. "I won't leave them here to suffer. Who knows how long they must have been here wasting away! I have to save them," he whispered.
"That's it. I've had enough," Mickey declared, taking a step forward before Jack stopped him. Mickey turned and glared at Jack. "Look at him! Does he look concerned for Rose? Someone needs to smack him and I'm more than willin' to do it."
The Doctor turned and looked at all of them with a dark, angry expression. "Who do you think you are! Don't even think for a minute that you can tell me what to do. How dare you judge my actions much less condemn my people to rot in the Void for some irrational fear. You know nothing of my people," he said coldly.
Jack stiffened. "Oh really? Funny, 'cos I think I got to know one of them pretty personally as he tortured and murdered me day after day. Did you think that he was quiet that entire time? Well he wasn't. He told me all about your world. He may have been a psycho, but some of what he said rang true. The lofty and great Time Lord empire with all the political back stabbing, corruption, arrogance and in the end, desire to wipe out not only the Daleks but every other living creature in the universe so they could survive and ascend. Look, I know you miss them and you carry a terrible guilt for what you did, but Doctor, your actions saved billions upon billions of life forms," Jack explained. He paused and took a step forward. "I'm just saying be careful, Doctor. I wouldn't condemn innocent people to this fate. Hell, I'll help you. It's why we're here for Rose. All I'm asking is for you to take a step back and make sure these Time Lords you're helping don't end up trying to finish what the others started. Don't do that to yourself and don't do that to us. I promise you Doctor, you unleash a bunch of mad Time Lords on the universe, I will stop them no matter what it takes or who I have to take down," Jack told him with utter clear and calm resolve.
The Doctor stared at him darkly. Before he could respond, Mickey stepped forward. "Enough! Fine, you got people out there, good for you. We came here for Rose and she comes first. You get her out and give her to us and you can go wallow around finding whoever the hell those Time Lords are. You can go off and find yourselves some planet and do all the Time Lordy things you want. Just drop us off with Rose first."
The Doctor narrowed his eyes at Mickey. "I told you once, you will not take Rose from me," he said in a tight voice with an undercurrent of the Oncoming Storm.
Donna stepped in between Mickey and the Doctor. "Oi! That's enough. You!" she pointed at Mickey, "Shut it and let the Martian do what he does best, save people." She then turned to the Doctor. "And you, stop bein' an alien git! Rose needs you. Don't forget she's out there and somethin's hurtin' her. She needs saving as much if not more than some lost Time Lords. Got it?"
The Doctor nodded his head. "Just stay ready for when I return with them, all of them." He turned and faced the door. He took a deep breath, stretched out his mind and identified Rose and the Time Lord consciousnesses in the Void. They were close by one another. A shiver ran down his spine. Something was terribly wrong but he couldn't pinpoint it.
He stepped into pitch dark nothingness of the Void. A feeling of disorientation overwhelmed him for a moment before he latched onto his connection to the Tardis. He felt himself moving forward, almost pulled. A reality began forming around him. He blinked and found himself in the Cloister Bell room of his Tardis or at least a representation of it. Rose was encased in a block of ice at the far end of the room. Several black robed figures were surrounding her with metal spikes violently chipping away. Many more were floating overhead circling the room.
He heard a whispering which said, "The creature Rose Tyler is becoming self aware. It has begun to grasp its purpose and its creation. It will disclose all to us and show us the way to becoming the new us. We will become more and it shall serve us. It will comply."
The Doctor was uneasy as he watched them. He saw one of the metal spikes pierce the ice and trickles of red run down the surface, congealing as it ran so that only a few drops of blood splattered the stone floor. "Stop!" he shouted. "There's no reason for you to do this!"
The creatures turned to him. "It will identify itself," they whispered to him as they crowded in front and above him, keeping him from Rose.
He stared at them in horror. "Time Lords. You're Time Lords," he gasped, as the full frightening realization hit him. His words reverberated through the Void causing the reality to ripple and disintegrate a bit revealing a hideous darkness oozing at the edges, almost as if it were a tarry, stagnant river just waiting to flood this place in a current of its murky depths.
The stone well at the center of the room containing the black hole began consuming the crumbling dust and stone falling from the walls and ceiling of this place. The Doctor stared at it his eyes wide. "Impossible, the Eye of Harmony is gone," he whispered, before logic reasserted itself in his mind that this was all a hallucination, a false reality created within the Void.
"The creature will identify itself," they repeated, in deafening unison.
He stood up tall and looked at them. "I am the Doctor. I'm here to help you. I need to understand how you came to be here," he said, peering around them trying to see Rose.
The Void creatures whipped themselves into a frenzy. "You are from before we became us, the last, he who wielded the moment, the destroyer of everything. The destroyer caused the disintegration of that which contained us, hurled us here to become the new us. We are not you, we are us and we will survive." They said in a hissing voice which echoed throughout the Void while the Doctor flinched at the accusatory tone in their vicious words.