The Doctor urged, "Go. We need to get out of here."

Michelle demanded, "And go where? It's just some green light, are you sure that this isn't the Aurora Borealis or something?"

"RUN!" The Doctor roughly pushed Michelle backwards and the TARDIS vanished, just as a fireball rocketed down from the sky and slammed into the ground where the blue box had been just a second before. He leaped out of the way and grabbed her hand, yanking her along in a mad dash away from the flames.

Pink Floyd - Run Like Hell

Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run,
Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run.
You better make your face up in
Your favorite disguise.
With your button down lips and your
Roller blind eyes.
With your empty smile
And your hungry heart.
Feel the bile rising from your guilty past.
With your nerves in tatters
When the cockleshell shatters
And the hammers batter
Down the door.
You'd better run.

Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run,
Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run.
You better run all day
And run all night.
Keep your dirty feelings
Deep inside.
And if you're taking your girlfriend
Out tonight
You'd better park the car
Well out of sight.
Cause if they catch you in the back seat
Trying to pick her locks,
They're gonna send you back to Mother
In a cardboard box.
You better run.

"Slow down!" gasped Michelle in asthmatic fits. "I can't keep up!"

"No time!" With a whooshing sound, more fireballs shot down from the heavens. The Doctor frantically pulled Michelle down the hill and across the high school's football field. Random screams and obscenities could be heard from the terrified high school students.

Michelle wrenched her hand free and began to sprint towards the parking lot, where the little gray Honda Civic was still sitting. She knew her friends from the prom were inside, preparing to depart. "Laura! Alice! Get out of the car, before you..."

An explosion rocked the campus as a fireball hit the car, and the debris flew in all directions. In devastated shock, Michelle began to scream. "No! They were my friends!" She reached out to the wreckage in sheer grief, when she saw the flash of a trenchcoat and a pair of arms encircled her shoulders. The Doctor grabbed her tightly and forcibly pulled her away.

"No!" Michelle screeched. "We can't just leave them there!"

"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry. We can't stay; it's imperative that we get as far north as we can."

"Why? How will that help us?"

"If I can get to magnetic north, I can bring the TARDIS back and hide it in the EM fields. The Kedron can't detect temporal shifts as much when the environment is highly magnetized."

Michelle was aghast. "Enough with the technobabble! The Kedron are destroying Crittendon, Ohio and you want to reach the North Pole?"

"The magnetic North Pole, actually."

"Whatever! People are dying out there, Spaz! Can't we stay and fight them, beat back the Kedron? Can't you do some fancy calibrations with that screwdriver of yours?"

The Doctor did not look up. "I'm doing that as we speak. The screwdriver can lead us to the most northern magnetic point in the city."

Michelle snapped, "I don't want a glorified compass, I want some way we can kill those damn aliens!"

"I don't kill. That's not how a Time Lord lives."

"Great! Now we get to find out how a Time Lord dies because you refuse to do anything about the situation!"

"Killing doesn't always have to be involved. I just need to get to the TARDIS, and deactivate the Jewel of the Kedron..."

"My God, is destroying something that sinful, that horrible an option? Have you ever shot anything in your whole damn existence? Ever squished a bug without having a guilty conscience over the whole thing?"

"Now is not the time for philosophical debate!" shouted the Doctor. Surprised, Michelle fell silent, hearing the distant rumble of more fireballs falling to Earth. "Do you want to survive? Start heading north!" His back was turned, entering the final coding into the sonic screwdriver.

A sudden rush of wind blew back the Doctor's hair, but he did not notice.

*****

"There. That should do it!" The Doctor pointed the screwdriver forward, and it emitted a pulsating beam. "Ready?"

There was no reply. "I'll take your silence as acquiescence. Ladies first in our hurried journey!"

The Doctor spun around to beckon to Michelle...and found himself staring at only a pair of footprints in the soil where she had been standing moments earlier.

A gnawing fear bit through his abdomen. "Michelle?"

Several showers of golden sparks rained down through the air. The Doctor quickly recalibrated the screwdriver and did a scan. It registered signs of a Kedron teleporter.

"Bollocks!"