I don't own Doctor Who
I feel so mean to Sofia
"So, any ideas on how to escape?" Rose asks River Song. They are now past the trust issue [1].
"Let's see, they took my sonic blaster, and my vortex-manipulator, and my lock picking kit..." River trails off.
"Lock picking kit?"
"Birthday present from Sofia, for my 14 birthday. She regretted it after my usage of her gift landed me in jail a few times."
"You're no 'spoilers' rule is slipping." Rose teases.
"Damn!" Dr. Song changes the topic, "Can you call the Doctor?"
"I can try, but right now I believe he and Sofia are locked up in a death chamber, so I don't know how much help they'll be..."
Rose's phone begins to ring.
"It's the Doctor!" Rose exclaims after checking the user id.
"Please tell me Sophie and you have escaped the death chamber and are coming to get me!" Rose pleads.
"No such luck" a familiar Northern accent responds. "But, that's how you answer the phone? No, 'how are you's, or any, 'I'm so glad that you're so alive'?"
"Sorry, 'how are you' and 'I'm glad that you're still as annoying as ever,' is that better?"
"Dying, and no, that's not better!"
"Did you have a reason for calling me?" Rose inquires.
"Yeah, I don't really know how to say this, but..."
"But, what?"
"I think that Dalek in Utah had a point..."
"What?!"
"Rose Tyler, (and I've got full permission from your sister to say this)..."
Rose's phone picks that moment to die on her.
"Stupid phone!" Rose rants.
"Aside from Mickey, do you have any friends?" the Doctor asks tentatively.
"I had this one friend, Zoe." Sofia remembers, "We used to do everything together..."
"What happened to her?"
"She was a foreign exchange student from America, Zoe had to go back. At the time neither of us had a way to keep contact across the pond. She was my best friend"
"You must miss her."
"Yeah" Sofia turned this around, "What about you, 900 years old, Rose and I can't possibly be the first people to ever travel with you."
"I don't like to think about them."
"Surely there must be a point where you can get past grieving and move on to remembering them fondly."
"Remember fondly the people I've pushed away, to stop them from getting to close?"
"Maybe that's the problem." Sofia mused.
"What?" the Doctor is confused.
"Maybe it's not the fact that you miss them, and it hurts to remember, but the fact that you kept pushing them away, and you don't like to remember them, because you keep wondering what if, and you're full of regrets."
"You're too wise for your years."
"I think that's a complement..." Sofia gives a quick grin, "But you should stop holding back."
"I don't appear to be holding back with you at the moment."
"I meant with Rose."
"What!?"
"I've seen the way you two look at each other. Rose is never going to make a move, because she's too afraid that you're going to reject her."
"Her life, even if she lives her full life time potential, will be like a blink of an eye in comparison to mine!"
"All the more reason to make your move sooner than later, tell her how you feel, and make the most of your time with her, so that one day, you won't look back and remember Rose with regrets and what ifs. Mind you, going back to the life time thing, based on our current situation, she's probably going to outlive you... us."
"What should I do?"
"Do you have a cell phone?"
"Yes, why?"
"Call her you idiot!"
You, the readers, already know how that phone call went.
"What if we wait for some guards to come with food and rush them!" Rose proclaims.
"If they bring food for us; that could work," River plays Devil's Advocate.
"Do you have a better idea!"
"..."
"I didn't think so... ...How long have you been here?"
"Before you showed up? About half a day...ish"
"And since I showed up?"
"About six hours."
"Fantastic"
"We've been here for nine hours." The Doctor tries to break the silence.
"My 15 birthday is tomorrow."
"What?!"
"I've been keeping track of how long I've been on the TARDIS with a calendar. Based off of that, I'll be fifteen years old tomorrow, and Rose will be twenty in exactly two weeks from my birthday."
"Were you planning on mentioning that?"
"Maybe, if I had, I wasn't expecting anything big for it anyway."
"Why not?"
"Well, since mum died, I haven't really gotten anything more than a cupcake; most of the time from Zoe, until she left."
"That's crazy!"
Sofia just shrugged her shoulders in response.
"How much longer until you think they'll kill us?" Sofia inquires.
"I have no idea." The Doctor responds.
"In that case, I have no desire to die of boredom until they decide to kill us. Do you have any good stories that you're willing to share?"
"Well..."
Five hours, and several stories later; Sofia was starting to nod off. [2] About a half hour earlier, Rose and River had successfully gone through with Rose's escape plan. Let's catch up with them...
"First, let's try to locate my blaster and vortex-manipulator." River says.
"Second, we ought to try and rescue the Doctor and my half-sister." Rose continues.
"Third, I leave before they see me, because they're not supposed to meet me yet."
"Timey-whimey, wibbly-wobbley?" Rose is slightly mocking River's earlier word choice.
"Can we focus on stage one?"
"Fine, any ideas on where to go?"
The pair of 'R' named blonds sneaks their way around the compound in search of River's things. It takes them over an hour to find the room, but when they get there, Rose insists on stopping for a nap. River sighs, she had forgotten that Rose was human, and that humans needed far more sleep than Time Lords and Ladies. River allowed Rose to have a two hour nap before River woke Rose up.
The Doctor looks at the sleeping form of Sofia Tyler, quite fondly. 'Like a daughter, or a sister' he muses. 'Or a sister-in-law' an annoying voice whispers in his head.
Three hours after she fell asleep, the Doctor smells something different in the air. 'Poison Gas!' He concludes.
"Sophie, wake up" the Doctor shakes the fifteen year old in a panic.
"Wha?" she says groggily.
"I think they just turned poison gas on!"
"Maybe it only affects Hondas?" all sleepiness leaves Sofia.
"Maybe, we still have seven hours until the 24 are up."
Sofia starts coughing, severely.
Shortly after being woken up, Rose makes her way out of the room with River. Within five minutes, they are caught, and this time the pair of blonds are brought to high command. To the commander of the Calkacs, River explains that they are not Hondas. Upon hearing this, and triple checking, the Calkac commander requests the two women's help in ending the war. Rose demands a full explanation of situation. Hours later Rose and River manage to create a full peace treaty between the two fighting groups.
"Good-bye sweetie" River says right before she uses her vortex-manipulator and disappears.
"The Doctor!" Rose remembers, "And Sofia! The two people I arrived with, someone said that they were being lead to the death chamber!"
With that announcement, the Calkacs rush the death chamber to find it open, the 24 hour mark had just passed.
The prone figures of the Doctor and Sofia lay on the floor of the chamber.
"No!" Rose rushes over to the Doctor. "Wake up please wake up!"
"Well, since you said please..." the Doctor teases.
"You're alive!"
"Nice to see how concerned you are about me." Sofia's bitter voice cuts through the air. "As it turns out, the poison gas doesn't affect Time Lords or humans... that much."
"Right," the Doctor interrupts, "Let's head back to the TARDIS, and get you" he points at Sofia, "to the med-bay and fix up that arm of yours."
[1] Don't ask how, I have no idea
[2] For those of you who won't/can't do the math, that means that the Doctor and Sofia have been in the death chamber for 14 hours at this point