Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, any of the characters, places or alien species; those belong to their respective owners. I only own my OC Selene.
20. 42
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon…" Selene murmured as she tapped the return button on her laptop's keyboard repeatedly. It certainly wasn't helping with gaining progress of any sort, but it sure as hell felt like it was. During her time in the TARDIS she'd only ever attempted to get onto the internet maybe twice, and both times it had worked… but not with what she was trying to do now. She'd done a search on two words. Doctor Who. Each time she hit return a series of letters and numbers appeared on screen, denying her all access to the internet. While she completely understood that not knowing anything was actually doing her a favor, there was part of her that still stressed over the fact she could hardly remember when someone was thrown into danger or when something was about to go to shit. Sighing, she slammed the top of her laptop shut and pushed it half way across her bed. "You know what, it's for the best." Her fingers were drumming atop her knee, a nervousness building up in her throat; she'd woken up that morning with a sick sense of worry boiling in her stomach, a feeling that she'd grown accustomed to meaning something bad was about to happen and that prompted her to pull her laptop out from under her bed. Groaning, Selene tossed the laptop back open and started hitting return again, swearing at herself for what she was doing.
Knock-knock-knock. Swinging her head around, Selene saw the Doctor's head poking around the doorframe; she quickly shut the laptop again and threw herself on top of it, trying to fall into the most casual position she could manage. The Doctor arched a single eyebrow, staring at her curiously.
"What were you doing?" he asked, stepping into the doorway fully. Selene shrugged her shoulders and gestured around her room trying to think of something to say.
"Um… nothing. Just… checking… email?" It came out more as a question than a statement, knowing that her frustrated tapping looked to be anything but checking email. The Doctor slowly stepped into the room, pointing down at her as she sat up and hugged the computer to her chest. He'd come to know the many facial expressions of Selene Thomas, and knew the one that was resting on her face; it was too innocent, too casual… she was hiding something.
"Can I see that?"
"Ph, why would you want to see my laptop?" she laughed, standing as she began to back out of her room. "You have an entire room of consoles… so… um… bye." She then turned on her heel and began to run, knowing that she had the distinct disadvantage of still not having memorized the many, many, many halls of the TARDIS. She could hear the Doctor chasing after her, and despite truly wanting to keep her computer away from him, it was a bit fun having a little game of cat and mouse.
Selene ducked around a corner and nearly ran directly into Martha, but instead stumbled her way around the medical student, bumping into the opposite wall.
"Sorry!" she called out as she kept on running.
"What the hell are you doing?" Martha called back in confusion, watching as the Doctor nearly mimicked what Selene had done moments before.
"The Doctor is trying to steal my laptop!"
"She's being cheeky!" the Doctor added on as he just barely caught up with the American. Martha rolled her eyes at the absolute insanity the day had started off with and followed at a brisk walk, knowing that one way or another they would need to be reigned in.
The Doctor reached out and grabbed Selene by the waist just as she threw open a random door and tossed her laptop inside, slamming it shut just as he hauled her back into his chest. He looked down at her as they caught their breath, noticing the smirk on Selene's face.
"What did you do that for?" he asked. She relaxed back into him and smiled. "You could've broken it."
"The TARDIS wouldn't let me break it," she shot back. The Doctor took the time to smirk before he nodded at the door.
"I'm fairly sure that was the pool." Selene's eyes widened before she tore herself from his grasp and threw the door open with panic written on her face. Blinking in surprise and utter confusion, she found herself staring into… her bedroom. They'd run an entire circuit? She looked over at the Doctor who was leaning against the wall beside the door casually, an eyebrow arched that clearly said 'I win.'
"If you're both done running around like children, could we get on with another adventure?" Martha asked as she rounded the corner, hands on her hips. The Doctor looked back at Martha, sucking in a deep breath as he nodded emphatically.
"Lets go!" he enthused, grabbing Selene by the shoulders with a bright smile. "We've got a whole universe trying to tug us into different situations of varying degrees of excitement!"
OOOO
Like the Doctor had said, he indeed had something for Martha. And that was new programming for her phone. He was using the Sonic on it twisting the barrel to get it on the right frequency before he finished reprogramming it.
"Ah! There we go, universal roaming, never have to worry about a signal again!" he said, tossing the mobile back to Martha from across the console. She caught it and gave a skeptical look.
"No way! It's too mad!"
"Yes way!" Selene replied, falling into the pilot's seat. She smiled and patted the pocket where her own phone sat. "It totally works. I've made a couple calls to see how well it works and you'd be surprised."
"You're telling me I can phone anyone from anywhere in space and time, on my mobile?"
"Long as you know the area code," the Doctor told her, tweaking something on the console. Martha laughed in disbelief as he smiled at her. "Frequent flyers' privilege. Go on, try it!"
Just as Martha was about to try, the TARDIS shuddered, throwing everyone off balance and stumbling around. Screens began to beep and circular Gallifreyan began flashing across them.
"Distress signal! Locking on!" The Doctor kicked one leg up to knock at a switch. "Might be a bit of––" They all fell to the ground again. A loud buzzing sounded above them as they all shifted onto their knees. "Turbulence. Sorry. Come on, both of you, let's take a look!" The Doctor was already at the door, pulling it open to see where they'd landed. He was immediately greeted with a heavy, thick, burst of steam accompanied with a constant flow of heat and orange light. "Whoah! Now that it hot!"
Selene and Martha stepped out after him, the door swinging shut behind them; Selene gasped at the heaviness of the humidity that was already clinging to her skin. She pushed the sleeves of her cardigan up, already regretting the choice of clothing. The room looked to be something akin to a boiler room or an engine room of some sort, blowing billows of scalding hot steam from valves and pipes that wove through the room, tangling around each other like the road map of a crowded city. Everything was bathed in dimmed orange-yellow light, making shadows sinisterly more dark.
"Oh! It's like a sauna in here," Martha exclaimed.
"Or an oven," Selene prompted, rubbing at the back of her now sweaty neck. "You said it was a distress signal, right? Well… maybe the heat is the problem."
"Well, you're not all that wrong, actually. These are venting systems, and they're working at full pelt, trying to cool down, um, wherever it is we are. Well!" The Doctor sauntered over to the door. "If you can't stand the heat…" He pushed it open and poked his head through, already feeling sweat drip down the side of his face. "Well, that's better…" The air wasn't cool, but it certainly wasn't as hot as the room they'd just been in. The Doctor inched his way through the door, holding it open for Selene as he peered around with a curious crease between his eyebrows.
"Oi, you three!" a man's voice called out. The trio of time travelers looked up to see a group of three sweaty people rushing toward them at full speed looking the epitome of panicked. One of the two men stumbled over his own feet, nearly collapsing to the grated walkway.
"Get out of there!" the woman shouted urgently.
"Seal that door now!" the other man shouted. The Doctor watched as they rushed about, prompting them to shut the door as fast as they could. The moment Martha was through the doorway, both men shut and sealed it, panic still plain on their faces.
"Who are you?" the woman asked, nearly out of breath. "What are you doing on my ship?"
"Are you police?" asked the younger man by the door.
"Why would we be police?" the Doctor asked.
"We've often been told we don't look like police, so I'm gonna say no," Selene added, sweeping hair off of her neck as she tied it up, warily looking at the crewmates. Panicked people were never a good sign, especially if the level of danger was climbing.
"We got your distress signal," Martha added on.
"If this is a ship, why can't I hear any engines?" the Doctor inquired again, having realized that the typical hum of an engine was utterly absent.
"It went dead four minutes ago," explained the captain.
"So maybe we should stop chatting and get to engineering… captain," shot back one of the men. The feeling of fear and urgency was practically palpable, radiating off of the crew members in waves.
Secure closure active, said the pleasantly mechanical voice of the ship's computer.
"What?" the short haired woman exclaimed.
"The ship's gone mad."
"Who activated secure closure?" demanded a woman with dark hair cropped into a pixie cut. "I nearly got locked in to Area Twenty Seven!" The doorway the woman had just jumped through slammed shut, closing them off from the rest of that passage way. "Who are you?" The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but Selene beat him to it.
"He's the Doctor, she's Martha, and I'm Selene. Regardless of what this fellow here thinks, we are not police and we're only here to help with the distress signal you placed," she said, gesturing to each person in turn.
"Hello…" Martha murmured, slowly wandering forward with her eyes fixed on something Selene couldn't determine.
Impact projection forty-two minutes, twenty-seven seconds.
"Impact…?" Selene asked slowly, noticing that Martha had strode over to a window.
"We'll get out of this, I promise," the captain said in a not-so-determined voice.
"Doctor…" Martha breathed.
"Forty-two minutes until what?" the Doctor asked, brows pulling down and arching in the way that only they could.
"Doctor!" At the horror present in her tone, both the Time Lord and the American rushed forward, joining her at the small, rectangular window. Their faces were further illuminated with the orange light as they gazed out at a giant fiery ball of a planet that could only be one thing…
"Forty-two minutes until we crash into the sun," the captain told them with a forced calm. It took little to no time for the Doctor to realize just how dire the situation was. The ship's engines were dead, therefore not propelling it away from the sun, thus sending it drifting towards it. He spun around and bounded back to the crew members, grabbing the captain by her arms urgently.
"How many crew members on board?" he demanded.
"Seven, including us."
"We transport cargo across the galaxy, everything's automated. We just keep the ship spaceworthy," said one of the men.
"Call the others, I'll get you out!" The Doctor rushed towards the door he knew the TARDIS was behind and began to open it.
"What's he doing!?"
"Doctor, no!"
The moment the door was pulled open a massive cloud of scalding hot steam billowed out and sent the Doctor reeling backwards, falling flat on his bum with a pained shout. Selene and Martha were immediately at his side as the woman with the pixie cut shut the door using a set of thick gloves and with a welding mask over her face.
"But my ship's in there!" he protested, obviously disregarding any pain he felt in place of the fear for his dear TARDIS.
"In the vent chamber?" asked one of the men.
"It's our lifeboat!"
"It's lava," replied the other man.
"The temperature's going mad in there! Up three thousand degrees in ten seconds and still rising," the woman said, tugging off her mask.
"Channeling the air. The closer we get to the sun, the hotter that room's gonna get."
"We're stuck here," Martha said in a slightly peeved and frightened tone.
"So, we fix the engines, we steer the ship away from the sun. Simple," the Doctor said. "Engineering down here, is it?"
"Yes," replied the captain.
Impact in forty twenty-six.
As they began jogging towards engineering, Selene called out.
"What're your names? We can't just go about calling you 'dude' or 'guy.' And be quick, time is literally running out."
"McDonnel," the captain said.
"Erina," said the woman with the pixie cut.
"Riley," said the man with chestnut colored hair.
"I'm––oh, for gods sake, do we really have time for this?––Scannell!" said the grumpier fellow with a scruffy beard.
"Lovely, now that we're all introduced, lets try not to die."
They all jogged down a set of stairs and ducked under a pipe or two, finding themselves in the engineering room. The Doctor looked about and then asked,
"Blimey, do you always leave things in such a mess?"
"Oh my god…" McDonnell exclaimed.
"What the hell happened?" asked Scannell. The engine was utterly destroyed. Things were sticking out where they weren't supposed to and wires spilled out of the side like guts that had been pulled from the belly of some mutilated animal.
"Ah, its wrecked," despaired Riley, looking at the ship's engine.
"Pretty efficiently, too. Someone knew what they were doing," the Doctor said. He was already hovering over it, observing what had gone wrong where, figuring out how it could be fixed.
"Where's Korwin?" McDonnell asked. "Has anyone heard from him or Ashton?"
"Do you mean someone did this on purpose?" Martha asked as the crew members began to circle around the engine, looking it over. Selene wiped sweat off of her forehead with the back of her hand, placing both hands on her hips.
"Isn't that always the case around us?" she questioned, looking around engineering. It was still far too hot for her liking; she could feel the heat of the ship radiating up through the soles of her shoes, making her shift on them uncomfortably. The Doctor whipped his glasses on and began tapping at keyboard attached to a monitor, trying to figure out their location.
"Korwin, Ashton, where are you?" McDonnell asked into a comm system installed in the wall. Nothing. "Korwin, can you answer? Where the hell is he? He should be up here." A ding came from the monitor the Doctor was standing at and a smile rose to his face.
"Oh, we're in the Toraji System! Lovely," he said, staring at an image of the planets in said system. He smirked over at Martha. "You're a long way from home, Martha––half a universe away."
"Yeah, feels it," she replied. Selene finally shrugged off her cardigan and tied it around her hips, sighing in relief as she cooled off only a fraction, but it was a fraction of bliss. She stepped up beside Martha and gestured around the room as though it encapsulated their situation.
"The Doctor and I have been in a situation slightly similar to this… except it was a habitat base on a planet that was mysteriously not getting sucked into a black hole because the monster that was the inspiration for the devil was trapped there. But it turned out he wanted to be free, so… bye-bye planet," Selene reminisced, thinking back to that impossible planet and the friends they'd made and lost there… like Scooti and Jefferson and Toby. Martha gaped at her in awe, shocked at the whole 'inspiration for the devil' bit.
"Really? How'd you get out of that?" she asked. Selene looked over at Martha and smirked a bit, rubbing sweat off the back of her own neck.
"Not easily."
"And you're still using energy scoops for fusion? Hasn't that been outlawed yet?" they heard the Doctor ask, sounding highly confused. There was a pause in which McDonnel and the rest of the crew shifted uncomfortably at the question.
"We're due to upgrade next docking," McDonnell said simply. "Scannell, engine report!" Scannell approached the computer attached to the engine and clicked a few things, trying to pull up internal scans and damage reports.
"No response," he said as the machine clicked, beeped, and whirred.
"What?" Scannell jogged back over to the other end of the engine and pulled at some of the cords.
"They're burnt out," he said as he shone a flashlight on them, revealing the shorted out ends. He tossed them down dejectedly. "The controls are wrecked. I can't get them back online."
"Oh, come on! Auxiliary engines. Every craft's got auxiliaries!" the Doctor exclaimed, pulling his glasses back off before storing them in his pocket.
"We don't have access from here. The auxiliary controls are in the front of the ship," McDonnell explained with resignation in her voice.
"And with twenty-nine password-sealed doors between us and them, you'll never get there on time," Scannell said grimly.
"Can't you override the doors?" Martha questioned.
"No, 'sealed closure' means what it says. They're all deadlock-sealed." Selene winced and looked over at the Doctor.
"I guess that means the Sonic is out of the question," she said with a sigh.
"Nope, won't be any use…" he agreed.
"Nothing's of any use! We've got no engines, no time, and no chance," Scannell said sharply.
"Oh, listen to you!" scolded the Doctor. "Defeated before you even started; where's your Dunkirk spirit? Who's got the door passwords?"
"They're randomly generated," Riley responded. "Reckon I'd know most of them. Sorry, Riley Vashti." He waved a hand, realizing that the Doctor must not have heard his rushed introduction earlier. The Doctor let his lips quirk to the side slightly.
"Then what are you waiting for, Riley Vashti? Get on it."
"Well, it's a two person job. One to take this for the questions," he pulled a heavy bag down from a hook, shouldering the strap, "the other to carry this. The oldest and cheapest security system around, eh, captain?"
"Reliable and simple, just like you, eh, Riley?" she shot back, completely unamused.
"Try to be helpful, get abuse. Nice."
"I'll help you. Make myself useful," Martha told him, grabbing the keyboard he'd snagged.
"It's remotely controlled by the computer panel. That's why it needs two." As Riley and Martha began to walk off, the Doctor said,
"Oi." Catching her attention, Martha turned back around with a questioning look on her face. "You be careful."
"You too––both of you," she replied before following Riley.
"McDonnell. It's Ashton," said a voice over the comm. McDonnell bounded over and hit a button.
"Where are you? Is Korwin with you?" she asked.
"Get up to the medcentre now!" With that spoken, she did as told and jogged off with a worried look on her face. The Doctor followed with Selene not too far behind. Much like everything they ever stumbled across it couldn't be a routine distress call because of a damaged engine––no, they just had to be trapped on a ship hurtling towards the sun, didn't they?
Impact in thirty-four, thirty-one.
After running the length of the available corridor the veered into a side room that was filled with struggling shouts and pleading voices.
"Korwin!" McDonnell exclaimed. "What's happened? Is he okay?"
"Ah! Kath! Help me!" Korwin exclaimed. He was sweating profusely and had his eyes clamped shut so tightly one would have thought they'd been sewn together in such a manner; he was writhing about while a woman with thick brown hair and magenta scrubs, Abi, and a bald man, Ashton, tried to hold him down. The Doctor bounded forward to stop at Abi's side, watching as she tried to hold him onto a stretcher that was attached to a machine that looked very similar to a CAT san machine. "It's burning me!"
"How long's he been like this?" the Doctor asked Abi.
"Ashton just brought him in," she said in an urgent voice. The Doctor pulled out his Sonic and held it just over Korwin's head, much to the medical woman's surprise. "What are you doing!?"
"Don't get to close," the Doctor insisted.
"Don't be so stupid! He's my husband!" McDonnell shot back, coming to stand by Ashton's side. As the Doctor began to scan the length of Korwin's body, Selene came to stand at the foot of the stretcher.
"Captain McDonnell, whatever is happening to your husband is clearly not normal, so I would say using some caution would be advisable," she said, watching as the prone man thrashed around again, feet kicking uselessly at the air. McDonnell shot her a rather insulted looking look.
"I don't care!" McDonnell snapped.
"Listen to the girl… whoever she is. He's just sabotaged our ship!" Ashton exclaimed.
"What?"
"He went mad. He put the ship under secure closure, then he sent a heat pulse to melt the controls."
"No way! He wouldn't do that!"
"I saw it happen!" The Doctor shot a look back at Selene with a question in his eyes, a silent question they'd learned to communicate well: is this situation going to get worse? Selene sucked in a breath and put a hand on her stomach, remembering the way it had twisted so uneasily that moning. She shook her head and mouthed 'I don't know.' The Doctor nodded before softening his features, placing a hand on Korwin's chest in an attempt to calm him.
"Korwin," he said calmly, "open your eyes for me a second?"
"I can't!" he ground out, head thrashing about in his wife's gentle grasp.
"Yeah, of course you can. Go on."
"Don't make me look at you! Please!"
"Alright, alright, alright, just relax." The Doctor reached onto a tray behind him and picked up what looked to be a small metal gun that was used to deliver vaccinations and such. He held it up for Abi to see. "Sedative?"
"Yes," she replied. Without hesitation of any sort, the Doctor pressed the cold metal against Korwin's neck and pressed the small trigger, administering the sedative; with a final jolt, Korwin fell slack, breathing heavily but completely knocked out. McDonnell took a slight step back, staring down at her utterly ill looking husband; not but a few hours ago he had been completely fine, but now? Now he was being accused of sabotage, he was acting absolutely mad!
"Rising body temperature, unusual energy readings…" the Doctor murmured as he stared at a monitor that had been taking Korwin's vitals. Head snapping back to the side, the Doctor pointed at the machine. "Stasis chamber! I do love a good stasis chamber. Keep him sedated in there, regulate the body temperature, and just for fun, run a bioscan, a tissue profile, and a metabolic detail." Abi, who had stepped off to the side to start running said tests, looked back at him with confusion.
"Just doing them now," she confirmed.
"Oh, you're good. Anyone else presenting these symptoms?" the Doctor asked her.
"Not so far."
"Well, that's something."
"Will someone tell me what is the matter with him?" McDonnell asked in a pitchy voice.
"Some sort of infection. We'll know more after the test results. Now, allons-y, back downstairs, eh?" The Doctor gestured towards the door with a wave of his hand. "See about those engines. Go." Ashton left with little hesitation, but McDonnell looked predictably unsure of leaving her husband. "Hey," the Doctor said softly. "Go." The Doctor took hold of Selene's hand and began tugging her towards the door. "Call us if there's news. Any questions?"
"Yeah. Who are you?" Abi asked. The Doctor poked his head through the doorway just as he heard the question.
"I'm the Doctor."
Heat shield failing. At twenty-five percent, the computer announced as an alarm started blaring again. Selene wiped sweat off of her forehead as she and the Doctor jogged side-by-side back towards engineering.
"So, if we don't get this all sorted out, we're going to hurtle into the sun and die?" she asked, already feeling like she was about to be cooked alive. The Doctor tilted his head from side to side for a moment, weighing their options in his head.
"Well, it's more likely we'd be incinerated before we even got close to 'hurtling into the sun.' Although, I don't think that statement must inspire any confidence, sorry," he said in a thoughtful tone as the approached the stairs again. Selene let out a humorless chuckle as they made their way back down the steps.
"Not exactly, no."
Impact in thirty-two, fifty.
McDonnell, Ashton, Scannell, and Erina were all busy trying to get the half-melted, half-pulled apart controls and engines to work, wiping at their foreheads and trying to forget about the blasted heat. Selene blew out a breath and put her hands on her hips, shaking her head with a sigh.
"Why is it the TARDIS always lands us places like here?" she asked the Time Lord as he began to tap his fingers in thought. His eyebrows twitched upward slightly.
"Not sure, I often ask but she never answers." He looked over at her with a curious look on his face. "By the way, what was all the running about before? You know, earlier when I asked what you were doing on your computer; why did you run? I don't scare you do I?" Selene shook her head at his last question before blowing out a breath in the form of a sigh.
"I… I was hiding something from you," she admitted. The Doctor snorted and smirked down at her.
"I figured that much. C'mon, you tell me. Remember our promise? Hmm?" He raised both eyebrows and nudged her with his hip, trying to get her to smile; his own lips quirked upward when he saw hers twitch up a bit as she glanced up at him.
"I was… I was trying to see if I could get anything on the show to, you know… warn myself about what's to come. But… the TARDIS blocked me from the internet entirely, which I suppose I have to thank her for; it's for the best right? That I don't know?" she said, the tone of her voice becoming more of a question than anything else. The Doctor stared at her with an unreadable look on his face, but the emotion in his eyes was clear: surprise.
"It is. You know it is. The universe intends for things to happen a certain way, and you not knowing ensures it'll happen that way; changing things… it could mean bad news for the future. And it does the two of us good as well, don't you think? No more repeats of… that incident," the Doctor told her, gently grasping her shoulders. His tone was gentle and soothing, as though he were trying to completely calm whatever worries that were in her head. Selene, eyes wide and brows furrowed, met his gaze with a silent question on her lips, a question which she then voiced.
"You… you aren't mad at me?"
"Mad? Of course I'm not; it was a rather commendable action, really. You're worried about our well-being and that is commendable. But when things aren't meant to be… they aren't meant to be, you know that. So, why don't we put this whole incident behind us, alright?" She nodded and smiled at him thankfully before giving him a hug; she nearly immediately pulled back with a grimace.
"It's too hot for hugging, sorry; I'll give you one once this whole 'hurtling in the sun' thing blows over," she told him with a slight laugh. He returned the laugh and nodded in agreement.
"Sounds like a plan." The Time Lord then glanced at his wrist as though he were wearing a watch––which he wasn't––and then bolting towards the comm system. "Need to make a check in…" He pressed and held one of the buttons and asked, "Abi, how's Korwin? Any results from the bio-scan?"
"He's under heavy sedation. I'm just trying to make sense of this data; give me a couple of minutes and I'll let you know," Abi replied, sounding slightly distracted. The Doctor's finger moved to the next button.
"Martha? Riley? How're you doing?"
"At the door to twenty eight," said Martha's voice. The Doctor winced and looked over at Selene with a troubled expression.
"Yeah, you've gotta move faster," he told them while slipping on his glasses, staring at a monitor above the comm.
"We're doing our best!" The Doctor sighed and moved a few feet off to take another look at the half-destroyed engine.
"'Find the next number in the sequence––three-one-three, three-three-one, three-six-seven...' What?" came the sound of Riley's bewildered voice. The Doctor's head snapped up at the question; Selene gave him a look.
"Please tell me you know what the answer is, 'cause it sounds like they don't," she told him. "I'd help but math was my downfall, my Achilles' heel."
"Three-seven-nine!" the Doctor said, bounding back over to the comm.
"What?" Martha asked.
"It's a sequence of happy primes. Three-seven-nine!"
"Happy what?"
"Just type it in!" Selene cut in.
"Are you sure? We only get once chance," Riley reminded.
"You're talking to a man who knows half, if not more, of the things in the universe; I'd say trust him when it comes to number sequencing," Selene replied. The Doctor pushed in beside her to continue an explanation.
"Any number that reduces by one when you take the sum of the squares of its digits and continue iterating till yields one is a happy number. Any number that doesn't isn't. A happy prime is a number that's both happy and prime," he explained rapid fire, lips moving quickly. Selene stared at him with her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide. He looked down at her and blinked as though he was surprised that she was surprised. "What?"
"Achilles' heel, remember?" she asked with a shocked tone.
"I'll take you to meet him some day, you'll have a lovely conversation." He turned back to the comm. "Now type it in!" He looked to Selene and McDonnell, shaking his head. "Oh, I don't know. Talk about dumbing down," he sighed. "Don't they teach recreational mathematics anymore?"
"We're through!" Martha exclaimed.
"Keep moving, as fast as you can. And Martha, be careful. There may be something else on board the ship."
"Any time you want to unnerve me, feel free."
"Will do, thanks." The Doctor hit the button again before bounding back towards the engine, leaving Selene to follow him while asking,
"Achilles was real?" Rolling his eyes with a playful sigh, the Doctor slipped his glasses off again and began tinkering with the engine.
"That's the question you ask?" he teased.
Impact in thirty-fifty.
The Doctor lifted up an odd looking piece of machinery, staring at whatever it was with a troubled gaze; Selene figured it must have been important for him to give it such a heart-felt look.
"We need a backup in case they don't reach the auxiliary engines in time. C'mon, think!" He dropped what he was holding gently and started looking around. "Resources––what have we got?"
"Wires and metal," Selene said in a falsely knowledgeable voice, wiping more sweat off her forehead.
"Top on that list, sarcasm, thank you," the Doctor said in a deadpan.
"Doctor?" asked Martha's voice over the comms. The Doctor sighed.
"What is it now?"
"Who had the most number ones, Elvis of the Beatles? That's pre-downloads."
"Elvis. No! The Beatles. No, wait! Um… um… Ohh! That remix? Um.. I don't know. I'm a bit busy! Selene, what do you think?" he asked after pounding the back of his head in frustration. At being thrown on the spot, Selene's eyes widened and she replied with,
"Um… I… I think it's the Beatles, but I could be horribly wrong, so, please, don't get us killed off my judgement." They heard Martha sigh in exasperation.
"Fine, I'll ask someone else."
"Now, where was I?" the Doctor asked in a slight daze. "Here Comes The Sun. No. Resources. So… the power's still working. The generator's going. If we can harness that––ahh!"
"Use the generators to jump-start the ship?" questioned McDonnell.
"Exactly! At the very least, it'll buy us some more time." McDonnell and the Doctor had a staring contest for a moment before she said,
"That is brilliant." The Doctor smiled.
"I know! See? Tiny glimmer of hope!"
"If it works," Scannell added in helpfully.
"Aren't you Mr. Sunshine," Selene snorted, crossing her arms.
"Oh, believe me, you're going to make it work," McDonnell said firmly, much to Selene's amusement. That was the kind of confidence that got them out of situations like this. With a near silent sigh, Scannell made his way off as everyone smiled at the captain.
"That told him!" the Doctor said with praise. Selene laughed a bit and punched his arm.
"You're a nerd," she teased.
Impact in twenty-nine, forty-six.
The Doctor smirked at Selene and winked.
"So are you." Selene gave him an 'oh really?' sort of look as he chuckled and started more work on the engine, fiddling with wires and broken pieces of metal as she hung back and watched. It was moments like those she felt rather useless; there she was, a girl who knew an extraordinary amount about Shakespeare but knew nothing about basic engineering, which rendered her something akin to a wallflower among those, like the Doctor, who knew everything. Of course, she'd gotten mostly used to those sorts of situations, but it still made her feel uncomfortable.
Impact in twenty-eight, fifty.
"Doctor, these readings are starting to scare me," came Abi's trembling voice.
"What do you mean? the Doctor asked with concern. Selene felt her stomach tighten at the sound of the other woman's voice. Something wasn't right… very, very not right.
"Korwin's body's changing. His whole biological makeup––it's impossible!" There was a faint ding over the intercom and a pause in Abi's shaking voice.
"Doctor… this isn't right…" Selene murmured, grabbing for his hand.
"This is medcentre, urgent assistance requested. Urgent assistance!"
The Doctor immediately took off, nearly tripping over his own feet at the speed he was going at.
"Stay here! Keep working!" he shouted over his shoulder. "Selene, that means you too!"
"Like hell it does!" she shouted back, following him as quickly as she could. A harsh groan left the Doctor's throat at her response, but made no move to reply, knowing that it was futile to try and get her to actually stay; as they bounded up the steps, McDonnell was hot on their heels, and somewhere along the way, Scannell joined in the run too. As they ran they heard a viscous, frightening voice echo through the intercom.
"Burn with me. Burn with me." As the Doctor glanced over his shoulder, he noticed the two tag-alongs they'd picked up.
"Captain? I told you to stay in engineering!"
"I only take orders from one person 'round here," Scannell interjected.
"Oh, is he always this cheery?" deadpanned the Doctor as the two crewmates passed him and Selene.
"There's always one, Doctor, always one guy who's the pessimist, and you've just met him," she told him as they began a brisk walk, which was all the movement they could manage as the heat bit at their skin and dried out their lungs.
"Burn… with me."
"Korwin, you're sick," came Abi's voice.
"Burn… with… me!" And then, the most gut-wrenching scream crackled through all of the ship's speakers before it suddenly cut off and then… silence. Selene felt the Doctor's hand reach backwards and grasp onto hers, pulling her forward as they picked up into a jog again, knowing they had very little time to lose.
"Doctor what were those screams?" asked Martha.
"Concentrate on those doors!" he shouted back, his hearts pounding and his mind racing. "You've gotta keep moving forward!"
Impact in twenty-seven, oh-six.
Pushing through the plastic curtains that hung in the doorway, the Doctor, Selene, McDonnell, and Scannell all burst in the medcentre to see… nothing. Absolutely nothing. Abi and Korwin were both gone.
"Korwin's gone," McDonnell observed, noticing that he was no longer in the stasis chamber. Selene slowly began to turn in a circle, glancing about the room with concern; her heart beat harshly in her chest, her throat felt like it was burning, and to top it all off, the pull in her stomach was worse. Whatever was supposed to have happened must have gone down because her body sure wasn't having any of it…
"Oh, my god," Scannell said in a hushed voice of horrified surprise. Across the room, burned into an x-ray shield made of red metal, was the silhouette of a woman, one arm thrown up in what must have been horror, head turned to the side. Abi. It had to have been Abi. The Doctor slowly moved towards it, eyes wide in that exact realization. "Tell me that's not Lerner." The Time Lord reached out and ran his fingers over the blackened, chalky silhouette, rubbing the residue between his fingers.
"Endothermic vaporization," he said bluntly and flatly. "Horrible." He turned back to the three standing behind him. "I've never seen one this ferocious." His eyebrows leapt upwards. "'Burn with me.'"
"That's what we heard Korwin say."
"What?" McDonnell asked in a shocked tone, aghast at what Scannell was suggesting. "You think… no way. Scannell, tell him. Korwin is not a killer! He can't vaporize people, he's human!" Selene shook her head regretfully, a frown pulling down at her lips.
"We all heard him over the intercom, assuming that it was him. And there are a lot stranger things that happen than a human vaporizing someone; I know that isn't what you want to hear, but it's the truth," Selene told her. McDonnell shook her head again, denial plain on her face.
"No! He isn't a killer! He's just… he's not!"
"His bioscan results…" mused the Doctor, holding up one of the charts. "Internal temperature––one hundred degrees? Body oxygen replaced by hydrogen. Your husband hasn't been infected. He's been overwhelmed." McDonnell snatched the chart away from the Time Lord with an angry look on her face. How dare he say that about Korwin. How dare he. What did he know about any of this? He'd only been there half an hour!
"The test results are wrong!" she declared in a trembling voice.
"What is it––a parasite, a mutagenic virus? Something that needs a host body, but how did it get inside him?"
"Stop talking like he's some kind of experiment!"
"Where's the ship been? Have you made planetfall recently? Docked with any other vessels? Any sort of external contact at all?"
"What is this, an interrogation?" demanded McDonnell, sounding to be on the verge of hysterics. Selene stepped up beside the Doctor with her arms crossed and a stern look on her face.
"What this is is a rescue mission, and it has been since the moment we set foot on this ship; we're trying to figure out what's happened to your husband, alright? So calm yourself down and please, just cooperate, because it's getting far too hot in this floating hunk of metal for me to be as calm as I am," she snapped. "Because right now I'm using all of my energy to stay calm while there's someone marching through the ship with murder on the mind."
"We've got to stop him before he kills again," agreed the Doctor, placing a hand on Selene's back.
"We're just a cargo ship," McDonnell said, her voice having calmed down a few notches.
"Doctor, Selene, if you'd give her a minute?" Scannell requested as the captain turned away, hands clasped over her mouth. Selene leaned towards the Doctor with a wince on her face.
"Was I too harsh?" she asked. The Doctor chuckled internally; leave it to Selene to lay down the law one minute and then worry if she was too forceful about it the next, wondering if she was the reason someone was upset. He liked that about her.
"I'm fine. I need to warn the crew." McDonnell strode over to the intercom system and clicked the ship-wide button on the side. "Everybody, listen to me. Something has infected Korwin. We think… he killed Abi Lerner. None of you must go anywhere near him. Is that clear?"
"Understood, captain. Erina, get back here with that equipment."
As McDonnell rested her head against the wall for a moment, eyes shut and breathing erratic, Selene placed a hand on the Doctor's shoulder, drawing his attention down to her.
"You have to tell her…" she whispered. The Doctor's brows puckered and his brown eyes shone with curiosity.
"Tell her what?"
"That whatever's got Korwin is irreversible." Selene held up one of the charts. "I may not know medical-babble, but there's one very clear, very common thing on these charts; he can't come back from this." Sighing, the Doctor nodded and gently took the scan results out of her hand, enveloping her fingers with his for a brief moment, not caring that it was too hot to stand as close as they were.
"I know," he told her in a whisper. "I know."
Impact in twenty-four, fifty-one.
"Is the infection permanent? Can you cure him?" McDonnell questioned, almost as though she subconsciously knew what the two time travelers had been talking about. She moved to sit down, her heart sinking as both the Doctor and Selene turned to look at her with a sad gleam hidden poorly in their eyes.
"I don't know," the Doctor said. He knew that it was best to tell her that it was impossible, that it couldn't happen, but hope… hope was a gift, a gift that kept one going and believing… but when there's no hope to be had, it was cruel gift. But if she knew in her heart that there was no hope… she would say it.
"Don't lie to me, Doctor. Eleven years we've been married. Chose this ship together. He keeps me honest. So I don't want false hope."
"The parasite's too aggressive. Your husband's gone. There's no way back. I'm sorry," the Doctor told her in a grim voice that held all the truth in the world. McDonnell nodded, eyes becoming glassy as she did so.
"Thank you," she whispered. The Doctor nodded once and set down one of the scans as the room fell quiet. A question that had been itching in the back of the Doctor's throat finally bubbled up as he moved around the stasis chamber to stand in front of the captain.
"Are you certain nothing happened to provoke this? Nobody's… working on anything secret?"
"No devils or monsters in your cargo bay?" Selene asked seriously, now knowing that it could actually be a possibility.
"Because it's vital that you tell us."
"I know every inch of this ship. I know every detail of my crew's lives. There is nothing."
"Then why is thing so interested in you?" There was a pause as McDonnell stared off into the distance as though deciding what to say. She then met the Doctor's gaze and said,
"I wish I knew."
"Doctor, we're through to area seventeen!" Martha's voice said, suddenly cutting into the air. The Doctor looked up at the ceiling as he sucked in a breath, straightening up.
"You've got to get to area one and reboot those engines!"
Heat shield failing. At twenty percent.
Selene wandered across the room to stand in front of the burnt silhouette that had once been Abi. Literally ten minutes before that very moment, she'd been moving about, making medical scans and hoping to save a crew mate; but now, she was gone, and had been disbanded from the world in mere seconds. And Selene had to wonder that if she'd remembered all this… the infection, the killing… that if she'd remembered she could have stopped it. There was a nagging little voice, a very small little voice, but it was there and it was telling her Abi's death was her fault. Rubbing her temples, Selene sighed and shut her eyes, trying to disband all of her thoughts. A hand settled on her back, adding warmth to her body that would have normally been comforting, but was now just uncomfortable with the rising temperature inside the ship.
"Are you alright?" asked the Doctor quietly, bending his head to look down at her. Selene's brows were furrowed, her lips were pressed together, and her eyes were clamped shut; she was in some sort of distress, he just couldn't tell what kind. Her blue eyes flicked open and immediately connected with the Doctor's her face morphing into a look of weariness.
"Is it my fault she's dead?" she asked in a tired, hoarse whisper. "Abi. Is her death my fault?" The Time Lord's eyebrows jumped upward in shock at the question she asked. He turned her to face him, hands resting on her shoulders again.
"What? Why would you ask that? Of course it isn't. Why would you think that, Selene?" he asked, raising a hand to brush a strand of hair gently out of her face. Sighing she pressed a hand to her forehead, shaking her head with distress clear on her face.
"Because I would have known it was happening if my brain didn't shut everything out; because I… I could have stopped it."
"Selene, you couldn't have stopped it. Not even if you tried. Remember what we were talking about earlier? About the universe always getting its way? Abi would be dead even if you tried to help her; and you would probably have been dead too, because whatever is wrong with Korwin, it won't let him feel mercy. And I can't lose you. I can't. So, please, don't beat yourself up over this. It isn't your fault; it never has been, and it never will be. Alright?" He looked directly into her eyes. "Alright?" She nodded, keeping their gazes locked.
"Alright."
"Doctor!" the suddenly panicked voice of Martha interjected. "We're stuck in an escape pod off the area seventeen airlock! One of the crew's trying to jettison us! You've got to help us!"
"Well, this just keeps getting better," Selene said, immediately running for the door with the Doctor not too far behind. The Doctor stopped at a monitor in the passageway and tapped a few things, figuring out the best way to get to area seventeen.
"Why is this happening?" McDonnell asked. The Doctor made eye contact with both crewmates.
"Stay here––I mean it this time! Jump-start those engines!"
The Doctor and Selene ran faster than they had that day, leaping through doorways, jumping over stray equipment and nearly falling a time or two. They only stopped when they were through the doorway for area seventeen, eyes falling on Ashton, who was wearing heavy canvas gloves and a welding mask. He was pushing away at buttons on the airlock door, where Martha and Riley were trapped.
"Enough!" the Doctor shouted, gaining his attention. Ashton turned to look at them, and when he did so, the Doctor pushed Selene behind him, shielding her from whatever had gotten to the second man. "What do you want? Why this ship? Tell me!" With a shout, Ashton punched the control panel, resulting in a shower of sparks and the computerized announcement of:
Jettison Activated.
"Come on…" hummed the Doctor, head tilting to the side slightly. "Let's see you."
"Doctor…" Selene said in scared warning, hanging onto his sleeve. Ashton inched walked forward till he stood about a foot away from the Time Lord, breath hissing through the vents of his mask in a very Darth Vader like way.
"I want to know what you really are," he said in a low voice, taking a step forward so his nose almost brushed against the metal mask. Ashton raised a hand to grab at a knob on the thin shaded visor, ready to twist it to reveal his eyes, when all of a sudden he cried out in pain, bent at the waist and stumbled backwards. Then, almost immediately, he straightened back up and marched forward, brushing past the Doctor and Selene with a harsh bump to the shoulder. He ignored them as they let out grunts of pain, watching as he passed them by without a single glance. Being the closest to the comm, Selene rushed over and pressed a button while the Doctor kept his eye on Ashton.
"McDonnell, Ashton is headed your way; whatever got Korwin has got him too!" she announced.
"Korwin's dead, Selene," came Scannell's reply. The Doctor and Selene shared a shocked look, eyes locked until they heard something that made their blood go cold.
Airlock decompression completed. Jettisoning pod.
The Time Lord ran to the airlock window just in time to see Martha's face at the pod window as it began to drift away.
"I'll save you!" He shouted. He saw Martha mouth 'Doctor!' "I'll save you! I'll save you!"
Impact in seventeen, oh-five.
"What are we going to do?" Selene asked, leaning up against the wall. "We can't just let them drift into the sun, we can't." The Doctor backed away from the airlock door, breathing quickly with his teeth slightly bared; it was one of his looks of angered determination, a look that always got things done. He jammed down a button on the comm with enough force to break it.
"Scannell! I need a spacesuit in area seventeen now!" he demanded.
"What for?"
"Just get down here!" the Doctor shouted, pushing away from the wall.
A few minutes passed before Scannell showed up, suit in hand, confused look on his face. He asked what he needed it for again, but got no response as the Time Lord snatched it up and began to pull it on, doing up zippers and securing buckles as he gave a basic overview of what he wanted to do. Selene bit at her thumb nail nervously, watching him do the final adjustments to the suit.
"I can't let you do this," Scannell told him.
"You're wasting your breath, Scannell. You're not going to stop me," the Doctor said flatly.
"You want to open an airlock in flight on a ship spinning into the sun––no one can survive that."
"Oh, just you watch."
"You open that airlock, it's suicide! This close to the sun, the shields will barely protect you."
"If I can boost the magnetic lock on the ship's exterior, it should remagnetize the bod. While I'm out there, you have got to get the rest of those doors open. We need those auxiliary engines!" the Doctor ordered. "Selene'll stay here at the door in case anything goes wrong."
"Doctor,will you listen? They're too far away. It's too late!" Scannell tried to reason.
"I'm not going to lose her," the Doctor said in a low tone. He pulled on his helmet and connected it. Selene grabbed his arm just before he stepped into the airlock, staring up at him with a worried expression. She smoothed out the front of the orange suit with both her hands nervously, shaking her head at herself.
"I was this worried the last time you put one of these on," she reminded him, drawing his thoughts back to the impossible planet. "But this time you're not gonna scare me that much, alright? You're gonna get through this real easy… and you're gonna save Martha and everything's gonna be okay." She spoke as though she were repeating a mantra, not just for herself, but to him as well. The Doctor's lips twitched up to the side briefly.
"Exactly. Just stay at the door, alright? I'll be back before you know it," he assured before squeezing her shoulder and stepping into the airlock. As the door slid shut, Selene let out a shaking breath and pressed a button on the door, initiating decompression.
Impact in twelve, fifty-five.
Time ticked by impossibly slowly, each of Selene's heartbeats feeling like it took a year.
Impact in eleven, fifteen. Heat shield failing. At ten percent.
The airlock door slid open and the Doctor inched it way to the opening… but suddenly Selene found her eyes drawn to focus on something else entirely. Her gaze suddenly fell on the sun, which took up the whole of her view through the doorway; the bright light pierced her eyes with a stinging intensity, but she just couldn't bring herself to look away. In her head, Selene heard whispers, moans, gasping breaths… and something clicked inside her head, like the flick of a light-switch. The sun was alive. The sun was actually a living creature and that living creature was in pain. That pain suddenly registered wholly and Selene's eyes began to water with tears that formed out of sadness and anger; who would hurt such a creature?
Impact in eight, fifty-seven.
When the Doctor finally made it back inside the airlock, his mission complete, he turned to see Selene staring wide-eyed into the sun with a horrified look on her face; tears had begun to roll down her cheeks and the light of the sun burned brightly in her blue eyes.
"Selene?" He asked, stepping into her line of sight. Just then, her eyes flew shut and she screamed. Her body lurched away from the door and her hands flew up to grasp at her head. "Selene!"
Airlock recompression complete.
The moment he could get through the door, he rushed over to Selene, who was panting and groaning as she slid down the wall. Her head felt like it was on fire. Like some creature made of fire was worming its way into her head, trying to infiltrate everything that made her her and change it, burn it, eradicate it. Her teeth ground together and sweat beaded on her forehead as she suddenly slouched to the side, falling against the floor; the Doctor fell to his knees beside her, grasping her face with his hands.
"Selene? Selene, what's wrong? Just, look at me," he begged, voice trembling. No, no, no… it couldn't have gotten her, it couldn't have gotten her! She screamed again, thrashing in his grasp, her throat turning raw; the only pain she'd felt like it before was when her mind had been shut off from her home dimension. But the pain she currently felt… oh, dear god it hurt so, so bad. It was indescribable.
"It… it burns…" she moaned, eyes clamped shut as tightly as she could make them. Her back arched against the ground and her body stiffened; the Doctor feared in that moment that she might be dying, because she momentarily stopped breathing and she groaned in the way many people did when dying a painful death. And then he realized that if she was infected by whatever had gotten Korwin and Ashton… she was dying a horribly painful death. A gasp of air entered her lungs before she began panting and groaning again, not daring to open her eyes for any reason. "Doctor… it's… got… me…"
"Doctor! Doctor is… oh, my god, is Selene alright!?" Martha asked as she and Riley exited the airlock.
"No… no, it's got her," he said in a trembling voice full of fear. His eyes had gone glassy and his face was twisting up in a pain of his own; he didn't want her to be like this, he didn't want her to die… letting out another shout of pain, Selene's hand shot out and grabbed onto the Doctor's arm with claw-like fingers. Martha's hand flew up to her mouth as she wound her other arm around Riley, watching on as her friend trembled and shuddered on the ground.
The Doctor reached down and cradled her head with one hand and slipped the other under her back, gently lifting and shifting her so she was leaned up against the wall. Her face, neck, and chest all gleamed with sweat and her breath was coming in ragged bursts laced with pained grunts. He slipped off the gloves he'd been wearing and knelt directly in front of Selene, knowing what he was about to do. He reached up and placed his hands on either side of her head, two fingers on her temples, two fingers just behind her ears; he could feel her heart racing at an alarming, deadly speed, and knew time was running short. The Doctor sucked in a deep breath, shut his eyes and delved into her mind.
If he had any concern about finding whatever had gotten into her head, it was wiped away. He found it almost immediately. Having been inside Selene's mind twice before, he knew what it looked like, knew where specific doors were located and which ones were and weren't locked; but now, in the middle of it all, there was just a swirling ball of pain and fire that lashed out little arms of energy that slipped into each door of her mind, slowly eating away at them, burning into every inch of her subconscious. That wouldn't do. That wouldn't do at all. But suddenly… he realized something. It wasn't an infection, it was a creature. A living creature that had slipped into Selene's mind, using her as a host. The sun… was alive. And it was killing her. Focusing with all the mental power he had, the Doctor brought his attentions to that ball and began to pull; he pulled and yanked until, with a sudden pop of energy, he took the infection, the living little monster out of her mind and into his.
The physical backlash of the action sent the Doctor reeling backwards, the mental connection lost as he fell to the floor; Selene lurched forward, gasping as her mind cleared with jolt. The Doctor began to crawl away, eyes clenched shut as tight as he could manage. Still shaking, Selene tentatively opened her eyes and saw the now pained figure of the Doctor.
"Doctor…?" she whispered, reaching out to touch his shoulder. He flinched away, flinging an arm upward to brush her off. He reeled around and leaned up against the wall opposite her, eyes opening a crack.
"Stay away from me," he hissed a deep voice that barely sounded like him. She stared at him in horror as he shut his eyes again, sputtering in pain. He did that for her. He took the infection out of her mind and into his… for her.
"What's just happened?" Martha asked in confusion. Selene carefully brought herself to kneel beside the Doctor, still panting as her heart calmed down.
"The Doctor just saved my life…" Selene whispered.
"What's happened?" McDonnell asked as she bounded over. She had come running the moment she heard screaming, worried that someone else had died. Selene's head whipped over to her and a fierce glare overtook the American's face. The sun may not have been in her head anymore, but the memories, the knowledge it gave her? Oh, they were still here.
"You…" she hissed. McDonnell looked taken aback, wondering what she'd done.
"It's all your fault, Captain McDonnell!" the Doctor shouted.
"Riley, get down to area ten and help Scannell with the doors. Go!" Hesitantly, Riley obeyed, running off.
"You mined that sun, scooped its surface for cheap fuel. You should've scanned for life!"
"I don't understand…"
"Doctor, what are you talking about?" Martha inquired.
"The sun is alive!" Selene all but screamed. "A living creature and this ship is using it for fuel!"
"Scooped out its heart! And now it's screaming!" the Doctor added, lurching forward as his body jolted with pain.
"What do you mean? How can a sun be alive? Why is he saying that?" McDonnell demanded.
"Because it was living in Selene… and now it's living in me."
"Oh, my god…"
"Humans! You grab whatever's nearest and bleed it dry! Ahhh! You should have scanned!" the Doctor shouted, thrashing against Selene's hands as she tried to hold him steady.
"It takes too long, we'd be caught. Fusion scoops are illegal!"
"Ahh! Martha, Selene, you've got to freeze me, quickly." The Doctor grabbed onto Selene and used her as a crutch as she rose, body convulsing unpleasantly.
"What?" Martha gasped.
"Stasis chamber!" the Doctor reminded. "You've got to take me to below minus two-hundred, freeze it out of me! Argh!" The Doctor thrashed more, panting and groaning as he leaning against Selene for support. "It'll use me to kill you if you don't! The closer we get to the sun, the stronger it gets!"
Impact in seven, thirty.
OOOO
They stumbled into the medcentre with the Doctor sweating and screaming. Martha immediately dodged over to the instruction manual for the stasis chamber as Selene and McDonnell held the Time Lord up.
"Selene, Selene, where are you?" he asked, not knowing who was holding onto him.
"Right here, right here, it's alright," Selene told him, squeezing his right arm. He slumped into her more as his body shook. "McDonnell, help me get him to the chamber."
"Stasis chamber, minus two-hundred, yeah?" Martha tried to confirm.
"But you don't know how this equipment work! You'll kill him!" protested McDonnell as they brought him to the bed that slid into the chamber. "Nobody can survive those temperatures!"
"He's not human, if he says he can survive, he can," Selene said confidently as she helped the Doctor roll onto his back.
"Let me help you then!"
"You've done enough damage," hissed Martha, glaring up at her from where she flipped through the manual.
"Ten seconds," groaned the Doctor. "That's all I'll be able to take. No more! Ah! Ahh! Martha! Selene!"
"What is it, what is it?" Selene asked in a soft, soothing voice, smoothing hair off of his sweaty forehead as his limbs were wrought with tremors. He made a choking sound and arched his head back, like his throat were convulsing.
"It's burning me up. I can't control it. If you don't get rid of it, I could kill you. I could kill you all… Gaahhh!" His voice suddenly went soft as he whimpered, "I'm scared… I'm so scared." Martha flipped through the manual faster, watching as Selene, face contorted in a look of pained worry, continued to smooth her fingers through his hair in the most loving movement. McDonnell watched from a short distance away and wondered if that was how she looked when she stood over Korwin; did she have all the worry in the world in her eyes like Selene? Did she look down at the one she cared most about with love in her eyes like Selene was?
"Shh… shh… stay calm, can you do that for me?" she asked, voice choked with tears. "You saved Martha. You saved me from… from this. So we're returning the favor, yeah? Believe in us…" Selene dropped her forehead to rest against his, eyes falling shut. "Believe in me…"
"I do…" he replied in a shockingly steady tone. He groaned again and Selene drew back, continuing to attempt to sooth him. "It's burning through me! I don't know what will happen! Martha… Martha, there's this process, this thing that happens if I'm about to die."
"Shush! Quiet now, because that's not going to happen. Are you ready?" Martha said, drawing away from the manual to stand at the Doctor's left side. He shook his head, moving Selene's hands with his movements.
"No." Selene bent forward, brushing sweaty strands of hair off his forehead before she kissed the side of his sweaty neck and whispered,
"Survive for me…"
Martha grasped a lever and pushed it with a tense look on her face, moving the Doctor into the stasis chamber. With deliberate pushes, Martha punched in '2-0-0' on the keypad and initiated the process. The Doctor screamed as the machine started up, a scream that made it sound like he was most surely dying.
Heat shields failing. At five percent.
Martha and Selene, arms linked and equally as worried, watched as a screen on the stasis chamber monitored the falling temperature. When it hit minus seventy, the power shut off. Inside the chamber, the Doctor, covered in frost, exclaimed,
"No! Martha, Selene, you can't stop it! Not yet!"
"What's happened?" Martha asked in horror.
"Has the power just gone out!?" Selene added.
"From engineering," McDonnell confirmed.
"But who's down there!? Martha asked.
"Leave it to me," whispered the captain as she fled from the room, knowing she was the only one who could stop the descent into hell they were on. The Doctor began screaming again as he felt his body temperature begin to rise, not fall.
Impact in four, forty-seven.
"Martha, we have to do something, anything!" Selene said as she began to flick through the manual to see if there was anything they could do. If there was a back up power supply, anything.
"C'mon, you're defrosting…" Martha murmured as she hit buttons that refused to respond.
"Ahh! Selene, Martha, listen! I've only got a moment! You've got to go!"
"No way!"
"Are you insane!?"
"Get to the front! Vent the engines! Sun particles in the fuel––get rid of them!"
"We are not leaving you," Martha stated sternly.
"You've got to! Give back what they took!"
"Doctor!"
"Please! Go!"
"We'll be back for you," she said as she and Selene ran for the door. Half way down one of the passages, Selene stopped and doubled back, keeping her feet as light and quiet as possible. She wasn't going to leave him. Not by a long shot.
Impact in four, oh-eight.
Selene made it back into the medcentre just as the Doctor was trying to claw his way out of the chamber.
"Doctor?" she asked in worry.
"Selene, I told you to go!" he shouted before screaming in pain again. He heard her move towards him as he fell out onto the floor with a pained shout but he shook his head vigorously. "No! Don't come near me just run!"
"No, Doctor, no! I didn't leave you in New York and I'm not leaving you now, okay? If there's anyone who can pull through this it's you. You and I, we've been to hell and back and made it out with only a few bumps and bruises; and if this time we don't make it out, then I'm going down with you," Selene told him in a trembling voice. She watched as the Doctor crawled across the floor and towards her with an instinctual sort of prowling motion; the sun that was inside of his head already picked its next victim and it was going to be her.
"Run!" the Doctor ordered, and that time, Selene complied. But as she ran, she could hear him scrambling down the halls behind her, his knees and hands bumping and hitting the floor in scuffed movements. When she made it to area twenty one, she ducked behind the doorway to catch her breath, hearing the Doctor just one passage away. "Selene! Martha!"
"Doctor, what are you doing?" Martha demanded in shock.
"Give it back or… burn with me. Burn with me, Selene…" his voice said in a growl, clearly knowing that the American was closer than the medical student. Selene clamped her eyes shut as her chest heaved with gasping breaths.
Impact in one, twenty-two. Collision alert, collision alert, collision alert.
Selene kept her eyes shut as she heard the Doctor scream in pain and as the ship shook and whirred as the engines kicked on and ejected fuel. The Time Lord's screaming died down into a pained wheeze as the ship tilted and turned like a sick fun-house ride. Selene grabbed onto the doorway, arms straining and burning as the ship hung at an angle for a second before straightening out again.
Impact averted.
Immediately throwing herself through the door, she found the Doctor sprawled across the floor, panting with his eyes open tiredly. His warm brown eyes that were completely and utterly uninfected by some sun monster.
"Doctor!" She helped him stand before winding her arms around him tightly, one hand grasping the back of his head while his arms wound around her waist. They were both drenched in sweat, exhausted, and now that they thought of it, feeling just a bit dehydrated. "You're alright… you're alright…"
"So are you… so are you…" he murmured, holding her as tight as he could, eyes shut gently.
"That was so stupid of you," she said into his shoulder. She felt him drop his head against hers, his lips resting just by her ear; he chuckled and tightened his arms around her a bit more.
"Is that a thank you for saving your life?" the Doctor asked.
"Yes." She drew back with a serious face. "But it was still really stupid of you. It could have killed you."
"It could have killed you. I had the chance to survive in that stasis chamber. You didn't. I had to save you Selene, no matter what the cost."
"Do you have any idea what I would have done without you, Doctor? I just… I wouldn't be able to…" A shaky breath left her lips, eyes glassy with tears as she attempted to say the proper words without accidentally confessing something. "You're so important to me and I just can't stand to lose you… I can't…" That sounded okay, right?
Her hands slipped to grasp his shoulders tightly, as though holding him fast to prevent his presence from leaving. Lips quirking sweetly but sadly to the side, he swept a strand of hair from her face and kept his palm against her cheek.
"Do you have any idea what I would do if I lost you?" he asked quietly. "I'd be… lost. really, I'd be lost. You somehow manage to keep me on course, no matter how… crazy it is, or how dangerous… you keep me smiling, happy… if I lost you, I'd lose one of the best people to ever walk through the TARDIS doors… one of the best things to ever happen to me."
Selene stared up at him with wide, glassy blue eyes, her heart pounding at what he'd just said to her; her lips twitched in words she wanted to say, but nothing left them because she didn't know how to properly respond. The Doctor's lips rose up into a sweet smile as he began to lean forward, a thumb gently brushing over cheek; Selene's breath passed between her lips in a nervous and excited exhale, watching as the Time Lord inched ever closer. Their noses just brushed together when Martha came bounding through the door exclaiming,
"Doctor!"
The Doctor immediately drew away from Selene as Martha tackled him in a hug; he returned her embrace but kept eye-contact with Selene over her shoulder. She was staring at him with her lips still parted and with a note of confusion left in her eyes. He had just been about to kiss her, hadn't he? But… that couldn't be right, could it?
OOOO
"This is never your ship," Scannell said as they all stood in front of the TARDIS.
"Compact, eh?" replied the Doctor with a smile. "And another good word––robust." He ran a hand along the door frame lovingly. "Barely a scorch mark on her."
"We can't just leave you drifting with no fuel," Martha told Riley and Scannell, the last two living members of the crew. They learned that McDonnell had thrown herself out of the airlock with Korwin, who was, in fact, not dead when they thought he was, in order to save them all.
"We've sent out an official mayday. The authorities will pick us up soon enough," Riley explained.
"Though how we explain what happened…" Scannell trailed off with a shrug.
"Just tell them that sun needs care and protection just like any other living thing," the Doctor said simply as he opened the TARDIS door. Selene smiled gently.
"And use your scans in the future, alright? Or… don't do anything illegal in general," she teased, leaning up against the TARDIS doors. She and the Doctor slipped back inside, but before Martha could, Riley caught her by the arm.
"So, uh… you're off, then?" he asked. Martha nodded with a sad smile. "No chance I'll see you again?"
"Not really. It was nice… not dying with you. I reckon you'll find someone worth believing in," she told him, referencing a conversation that they'd had in the escape pod. With a serious look on his face, Riley nodded.
"I think I already did," he told her. Martha smiled before suddenly grabbing him by the front of the shirt to pull him in for a kiss. When they drew back, both shared a smile before she said,
"Well done. Very hot." Before disappearing into the TARDIS. "So! Didn't really need you in the end, did we?" Martha asked, eyes trained on the Doctor. Selene gave a shake of her head, drawing attention to how shaken the Doctor seemed. "Sorry. How are you doing?"
"Now, what do you say? Ice skating on the mineral lakes of Kur-Ha? Fancy it?" he said brightly, in his typical way of shrugging off attention.
"Whatever you like." Martha looked off, still feeling bad she'd been insensitive for a moment.
"By the way, you'll be needing this." The Doctor held up a TARDIS key that dangled off a chain. Martha's face brightened as she gasped.
"Really?"
"Frequent flyers' privilege." Martha cupped her hands as the Doctor let drop into them, an amazed look on her face. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it. Oh, no! Mum!" Martha suddenly exclaimed, grabbing for her phone. She moved off to make a call, leaving the Doctor and Selene alone in the console room. The Doctor glanced over at her with a small smile on his face.
"Another one down," he said. She giggled softly and nodded.
"Another one down. Now, if you don't mind, I think I'll pop down to the pool for a swim; my skin is so dry I feel like flour," she said with a laugh.
"I'll join you in a bit. It's been a while since I've had a good swim," he told her, still smiling. They stood there for a moment, just smiling at each other before Selene looked away with a blush; she placed her hand atop his and gave it a squeeze.
"Thank you, again. For saving me. I think that's the most danger I've ever been. And I was scared," she admitted softly. The Doctor raised her hand to his lips and gave it a kiss, a cheeky little twinkle in his eyes.
"Anything for you."
Afterword: There you have it! The episode I wrote based off of a single idea that kept me pushing through to the end! And it worked! HA-HA! I hope you enjoyed and I hope you're EXCITED because HUMAN-FREAKING-NATURE IS THE NEXT EPISODE! AHHHHHHH! I have planned that episode since the first day I started writing the story! I'm gonna have soooo much fun with it!
REVIEW REPLIES!
grapejuice101: It's finally here! I hope that it makes you feel better since you've been sick :( And Human Nature is up next so AHHHH SO EXCITED! Thanks again!
The Yoshinator: Yes, the Master is coming! Dun-dun-dun! I was waiting so long to write that ending and I'm glad it went over well and had the desired effect XD I hope to see you next chapter! Thanks again!
dream lighting: Jealous Martha may start to diminish soon :P and I have plans for Human Nature, don't worry! And I quite like the 12th Doctor, he makes me laugh :) Thanks again!
ShadowTier: The Master has plans for Selene alright, just a few more episodes till we finally meet him and find out what he wants! Hope you stick around! Thanks again!
NicoleR85: I've had plans for the Master and Selene for a while as well and I look forward to writing his episodes; and I really like Peter Capaldi as the Doctor––in fact, I love him as the Doctor. :D Thanks again!
: I'm super happy I made the Lazarus Experiment exciting for you to read, especially since you said you weren't a fan of it; and the next two episodes I get to write ohmygod I can't wait! Thanks again!
acrossdimensions: I'm glad that you enjoyed the ending and I smile to hear that you read to your sister who then squealed! Just the reaction I wanted :D And your idea about Selene getting possessed by the sun monster… brilliant; thank you so much and I credit you for that idea because I used it and it was brilliant! Thank you for suggesting it, you're a lovely person! :D And don't worry… they'll be together soon ;)
Snowflake888: I hope you enjoyed this chapter like you did the rest! Thanks again!
Momochan77: I'm glad you find Selene interesting, I often worry I write her as flat; and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Thanks again!
Neeky-chan: The Master certainly does spell out bad news; like you said, he always does. And he always will. I hope you keep on reading! Thanks again!
Kam74: I did say big kiss soon didn't I? Well… let's just say you'll be very happy very soon ;) And I cannot wait for you to read next chapter because if you were excited about last chapter, the next one will make you (and me too) explode with joy. Hope you keep on reading, thank you again!
Squidtastik: Thank you! I hope you keep on reading! :D
And thank you to those who have added this to favorites/follows it means a lot to me!
Well guys, that's it till the next squeal inducing chapter: Family of Blood. It's gonna get cute and emotional and all that good shit :D But for now, I am off to rest my aching fingers and prepare for the Once Upon A Time season premier tonight and hope I don't get any more ideas for OUAT fanfic, like I already do :) See you all next time, lovelies! Thanks again!
~Mary