Egyptian Tahtib: Aftermath

Gulping in the sudden silence, Rose turned to Jared. "OK... what just happened?"

Climbing gingerly to his feet, then reaching a long arm to help her up beside him, Jared flicked on his sonic – not that he really needed to, this time. "Apparently... it's all been hyper-miniaturized. The whole thing. Including the Cybermen."

"Are they still alive?" she asked, her voice full of trepidation.

He glanced at her once, then shook his head matter-of-factly. "No. Nothing could survive that." Suddenly he shushed her, cocking his head and listening intently. His eyes, flying open wide, sought hers for a moment, then he gulped, flicked a new setting on the sonic, and buzzed it again, straight down past their feet. The look stealing across his face afterwards was priceless.

"What?" Rose would have snorted if she hadn't been seriously alarmed.

"Um... Well... you know how up ahead, in our time, there isn't much oil around? That's why we rely on zeppelins, and mass transit? And the Middle East never developed into an oil superpower in Beta?"

"Yeah..."

"Well...," he took another deep breath, then the words came tumbling out in a rush. "That's because it's all been hyper-miniaturized, too."

Rose stared at him, as guilt spread across his face in the visible flush. "The accident," he stressed the word, "must have set off a positive feedback loop that worked back through the pipeline to the Middle East oil fields," he said defensively, trying to radiate innocence.

She interrupted him with the previously-delayed snort, then burst out laughing hysterically. A beat or two later, he joined her, till they had to hold on to each other to keep upright. Tock sat and lolled his tongue at them, grinning his uncomprehending doggy grin, just happy that his humans were happy.

Finally, Jared pulled himself together. "Come on," he said, taking her hand again in their habitual clasp. "We still have to shut that thing down and make it go away," he explained, pointing to the precariously-canted black pyramid.

"Hang on a tick," she replied, digging in her heels and holding him back. "I want to show you something."

"What?" he asked curiously as he stepped back again beside her.

She gestured towards the pit. "Look at that." Turning to face him squarely, she said earnestly, "You did that."

He didn't get her meaning. "Yeah, I know – " he began guiltily, but she cut him off.

"No, you don't understand. Jared..." she faltered, then went on. "You saved the planet. Again. No Cybermen messing up Beta's history, enslaving the world." She let that sink in for a moment, then waved her hand, brushing his denials away before they even formed on his lips. "It doesn't matter that you only have one heart. It doesn't matter that you can't regenerate. Or that you don't have a TARDIS.

"You're still a bloody genius.

"And you're still a Time Lord."

He stared at her, mesmerized by the gift she was offering him, that of her belief in him. After months of frustration, of feeling diminished, less than, here was proof that maybe... he wasn't less than after all.

After several (single) heartbeats, he tore his eyes from hers again, turning and gazing at the pit, and she turned, too, mirroring him. "Ei bine, eu presupun..." He stopped cold, a puzzled look crossing his face as the words penetrated his own ears. Rose bit her lips and looked down to hide a smirk.

"That was Romanian," he finally said, almost accusingly.

"Oh, is that what it was," she replied sunnily, radiating nonchalance.

He looked sideways at her. "I've been doing that a lot, haven't I?"

She nodded. "Yup," she confirmed.

He took a deep breath. "Rose," he began. "I have a confession to make."

Uh-oh. Rose kept her eyes on the horizon.

"Back in Suez, before all this happened..." He took another quick breath and then blurted it out. "The TARDIS was there. – I didn't see her," he added quickly. "Or... him. But I felt her. She contacted me. And I told her to take him away, that we didn't need any help. And she did. But before she left, she... gave me back the common Earth languages."

Rose waited, biting her lips, but that seemed to be all. "I know," she said, not looking at him, even as he turned to stare. She took her own deep breath. "I did see her. And him. And I told them to get lost, too. And..." She dared to take a quick peek at him under her eyebrows. "I really did slap him," she admitted sheepishly. Once again, she buried the knowledge of her request to the TARDIS on his behalf deep inside, vowing to never tell him, since the ship apparently hadn't.

Jared was still staring – but his mouth was twitching at the corners. "Do you have any idea how much I would have given to see that?" he finally asked, laughter just a breath away.

"Sorry. No time to send out invites," she grinned, and he giggled, the most precious sound in her universe. One of them, anyway.

Again, he started forward, but again, she held him back. "I choose you," she said simply.

Tears stinging, he wordlessly gathered her in his arms and held her tight.

^..^

Half an hour later, Jared put the finishing touches on his handiwork. He'd laid the bricks of hyper-oil around the edges of the portal chamber, dismantled what he could of the portal's circuits, and set a countdown timer on his rigged trigger device.

"Sixty seconds," he announced as he stood, uncurling his long limbs, and turned to take her hand and dash outside and away from the impending explosion.

And froze. A Cyberman stood in the outer doorway, dented and scuffed, as if he'd crawled out of hell. Tock dropped into a crouch in the corner, growling menacingly, low in his throat.

"YOU WILL RESTORE ME." The Cyberman spoke English, but with a decidedly French accent showing through the flat, inflectionless tone coming from his speaker grille. "I COMMAND IT." He clomped a step towards them, facing Jared.

"I can't," Jared replied simply, shaking his head. "I'm sorry."

"YOU MUST."

"I can't. No one can. In all of time and space, all throughout the future, no one has EVER figured out how to extract a brain from a cyborg and return it to living flesh. Besides, your body is gone." Panic was warring with sorrow in Jared's voice and heart. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But it cannot be done. It's impossible."

Without warning, the Cyberman lunged sideways, more quickly and adeptly than either human would have believed. Before they could draw breath, one metal arm was around Rose's neck, and he staggered on a few steps, dragging her towards the Portal opening.

"YOU MUST RESTORE ME. THIS IS NOT MY FATE. I AM DESTINED TO BE EMPEROR OF FRANCE, OF THE WORLD. YOU WILL RESTORE ME."

With those words, the identity of the victim inside the metal casing seared across Jared's brain. "Napoleon!" he gasped. Rose's gasp echoed his, her eyes locked on his face.

"Napoleon, let me go!" she squeaked.

"EVEN YOU KNOW WHO I AM. YOU KNOW I AM DESTINED FOR GREATNESS. YOU WILL RESTORE ME." He didn't seem to hear their protests, locked into a downward spiral of madness caused by the realization of what had been done to him. Two more sideways steps, turning to keep facing Jared, and they were in front of the Portal.

"Napoleon!" Jared cried. "Stop! Please, stop! All right! I'll help you! Just let her go!"

"YOU WILL RESTORE ME?"

"Yes!" I'll deal with lying later. Or maybe somewhere in Beta's future there is an answer.

Napoleon paused, as if trying to detect Jared's truthfulness with whatever passed for Cyberman detection devices. Jared and Rose held their breath.

Finally, finally, Napoleon's arm dropped a scant few inches, and Rose scrambled out of his grasp and stumbled back into Jared's arms.

And the wolf cub struck.

Out of the corner, silent and deadly, Tock launched himself at the monstrosity that had dared to threaten his beloved human mistress. His teeth had no power against the metal arm, but his jaw locked around it anyway, and his weight knocked Napoleon backwards.

Through the Portal.

Metal man and dog disappeared into the Void.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Rose screamed, and tried to run after them, but Jared grabbed her around the waist and jerked her back. Realization of the countdown screamed through his temporary distraction, and he knew they had but seconds left – not enough time to disable it. Tock was gone, irretrievably. He pulled Rose around and launched himself and her towards the outer door, tumbling down the steps and on, across the sand. Rose moved her feet in autopilot, stunned, functioning only physically, in response to years of conditioning into running headlong alongside his familiar frame, her hand locked once more in his.

A few scant yards away, the blast from the explosion sent them flying through the air, and they landed, still clutching each other's hand, a hundred feet further on. Even as the roar ripped through the air around them, it was overtaken and swallowed up by a gigantic SCHLOOP –

– and just as suddenly, complete and utter silence reigned once more.

Spluttering, spitting out sand, they sat up and turned around. Jared knew what he'd see even before he managed to squint through the blaze of the setting sun. The pit was still there, gaping at their feet.

But the pyramid was gone, as if it had never been.