A/N I'm sorry if your disappointed that I'm not writing the whole of series 4 in, but I have two reasons. First, I wanted to condense the main parts of the series into 2 simple chapters. These chapters are the among the most important parts of the story, and I'm not spending too much time writing out series 4. It took me ages to do the series 3 finale with the Master.
Second. I don't have series 4. Easy. Sorry if you think I'm lazy, but I want to structure the story like this and deal with the important parts so then there's more impact.
The Stolen Earth.
The Doctor stood next to the console, staring at the console monitor so then he didn't have to look at Donna Noble, who was glaring at him accusingly and looking prepared to show the slaps she'd given him the first time they'd met would be a tap in comparison to what she'd do to him next. The Doctor couldn't say he blamed her that much, after all they'd been through she was right, he'd never once given up. The tandoka scale had brought them here, of all the places in the cosmos, why did it have to be at the Medusa Cascade? That was one thing he couldn't understand, why did the Earth suddenly stop here, at an old space time rift? What about the other planets, the 26 planets stolen before Earth? Where did they fit in? Who was doing this, and why?
The Doctor remembered when he, Romana and Donna had arrived at the Shadow Proclamation, and he'd said that someone had tried to move the Earth once before. He should know, he'd been there. Back in his 1st incarnation, he'd stopped the Daleks from ripping away the magnetic core of the Earth and replacing it with a giant engine to pilot the planet around the cosmos like a giant spaceship. It wasn't impossible if you had the means, and the Daleks had done their homework, but they'd underestimated the sheer power of the Earth's magnetic energies. The Doctor wondered if his old enemies were behind this one, and he was convinced they were, but why?
What am I gonna do? He asked his wife, who was looking as subdued as he was.
Romana started when he spoke telepathically. I dunno. We're stuck near a temporal rift, with no sign of the Earth or those other planets. Are you sure we shouldn't have brought others.
The Doctor shook his head slightly so then Donna wouldn't notice it. When she was pissed Donna noticed things others didn't, and she was highly observant, that time on Messaline for instance where Donna, and not Romana, himself or Martha had noticed the date plates all over the colony. Not until we know what's happening. Besides, what can the Judoon do about this? Our people might be able to do something, but I want answers. I just need to think about what to do next.
We're not going to do that sitting here, Romana pointed out bluntly.
The Doctor gave a mental sigh, you think I don't know that? Romana felt bad about her bluntness, but she couldn't think of anything to do. The Doctor suddenly checked something on the console.
" What're you doing?" Romana asked aloud for Donn'a benefit.
" Running a check on the walls of reality. I'd meant to do it when...when Donna saw Rose in that parallel world. I've been curious about what she's done recently." The Doctor replied. Romana shuddered. It was impossible not to shudder when she thought about the recent trip Donna took to that parallel world and met Rose Tyler. She could see what the Doctor meant.
The Doctor looked up from his work and regarded the screen as though a reincarnation of Kroll had appeared in front of him followed by Daleks and Cybermen. " Look at this." He said to his wife.
Romana came over at once. She saw what had made the Doctor so distraught. The walls of reality were fractured, like glass, and judging from the size and scale of the fracturing the walls must've been under intense pressure from another reality for sometime.
" Why didn't the others notice this?" Romana asked aghast.
The Doctor shrugged. " They've got their hands full, rebuilding Gallifrey, rebuilding the Time Lords. It's gonna take years for our people to reach even a shadow of what we'd had years ago."
Donna was getting sick of the byplay. " Alright, I've lost my home and you two are going on about walls and Time Lords. What's happening?"
The Doctor jumped when he heard Donna's whiplike voice. " The walls of reality are fractured Donna, that's because Rose has been coming through. If these jumps don't stop then your world will be the least of our problems."
Donna was struggling to understand. " I thought Rose coming back was a good thing."
Neither the Doctor nor Romana had really gone into much detail about the last time Rose had entered their lives, and the Doctor hadn't wanted to confuse Donna about the nightmare Rose had been apart of during the year that never was with the Master. Whilst she was aware that the Time lords were still around, albeit in a minute number than before the Time war, she still wasn't sure about the byplay between the Doctor and Romana. She was aware the two were married, and she'd been surprised since the Doctor had only just gotten over the shock with Rose's sudden and abrupt departure.
What Donna didn't know was that the Doctor had been stunned but not overly saddened by Rose leaving, especially since it meant he wouldn't be putting his life into terrible danger just to get her out of trouble, and to leave behind her overbearing attitude.
" Not if we die when the universe collapses, even I can't stop that from happening." The Doctor whispered, wondering how they were going to deal with this, plans and counter plans going through his head at warp speed. Romana watched her husband, and rubbed her belly where the new life was growing everyday. The Doctor's eyes caught the movement, and joined his wife, wrapping his arms around her pregnant belly. She was 3 months pregnant, and another 9 to go. He buried his face in her shoulder, smelling her vanilla scented hair. Romana had discovered vanilla scented shampoo after Leela had left some in the TARDIS, and she'd experimented with it, and discovered it smelt nicer than the rubbish other Time Ladies put in their hair. It was a curious thing, but nearly every Time Lady experimented with Earth shampoos. It was one of those great universal mysteries that still surprised him, and would drive you mad when you tried to figure out why. The Rani, Susan, Romana...they all loved earth shampoos, and so did he because the scents sent his hearts into near cardiac arrests, except his granddaughter of course.
He felt his child, feeling the kick. The telepathic connection between him and Romana extended to their children, and the Doctor hadn't felt a connection like this since his first children, but those bonds had broken when the harpy left him.
Donna's eyes softened at the sweet image she was getting. It was one thing to discover that the Doctor had gotten over Rose, but had now gotten married to someone he'd known from long ago, but was now an expectant father. She remembered Jenny, and how Romana and her had been on the verge of getting along with each other before General Cobb shot her.
Suddenly a phone rang, breaking the sweet moment between Time lord husband and Time Lady wife, and Time lord junior or lady. The Doctor started into action, grabbing Martha's phone.
" Martha, is that you?" He asked, but he didn't receive a reply, " It's just a signal." He muttered, taking out his stethoscope. " Can we follow it?" Donna asked.
The Doctor, now his old optimistic self, replied. " Just watch me." He put Martha's phone on the scanner and put his stethoscope ontop of it, listening to the signal before he jumped into action, racing around the console and throwing levers and switching switches.
" Got it, locking on." He threw the master lever, and the TARDIS console room jolted as the walls went red. Donna and Romana, the latter holding on to the rail and the pilot seat and holding her belly protectively. The Doctor was holding onto the console for dear life. " We're travelling through time." He grunted as the TARDIS tried to buck him and loose his footing, but he held on out of sheer stubbornness. " One second in the future. The phone call's pulling us through." A fire had started in the console room, and the TARDIS was under too much stress for the automatic fire suppression system to kick in. Finally the rocky journey started to reach it's peak, and the TARDIS rocked and groaned like she was about to explode, and Romana dimly recalled the time with the Pirate planet Zanak, when the planet tried transmatting around Earth. The Doctor called out, " Three, two, one!" All three of them yelled at the same time as the TARDIS shook even more.
The TARDIS tore through the temporal pocket, and the missing planets appeared on the scanner screen. The Doctor let go of the console when the ship returned to its usual mode of travel, stepping back and staring wide eyed at the image. " Twenty seven planets." Donna said, then she pointed at the screen. " And there's the Earth. But why couldn't we see them?" The Doctor breathed in awe at the scope of this hiding place. " The entire Medusa cascade has been put a second out of sync with the rest of the universe. Perfect hiding place. Tiny little pocket of time, but we found them!"
" We should release a beacon to keep the pocket open so we don't go through that again," Romana suggested, folding her arms and giving the Doctor a look only wives could achieve. Meekly, the Doctor released a beacon to keep the pocket opened.
The scanner screen blurred, and Four images appeared. One was Jack, and surprisingly Susan as well. Another was Martha and Francine, and Harriet Jones, who they hadn't expected to see, and Sarah Jane with a teenage boy at her side. The fourth and final box was empty. " Some sort of subwave network." The Doctor remarked as he flicked switches to clear the screen.
" Where the hell've you been? Doctor, it's the Daleks!" Jack shouted.
But the Doctor only had eyes for Susan. " Susan, what the hell are you doing there?"
" I wanted to visit Jack, then the planet was yanked away."
The Doctor nodded. " We're in the middle of the Medusa Cascade. What're the Daleks doing, we'd only just landed on Earth before it was taken. We've been all over looking for you. What are they doing?"
" That's just it, we don't know. They've got a massive ship in the middle of the planets, and they've taken people to their ship." Susan replied. The Doctor nodded, thoughtful. Then he remembered. " Jack, we have other problems. The walls of reality have been cracked, and Rose might be here on Earth."
Francine reacted at once, she grabbed hold of Martha and hugged her daughter to her chest. " That bitch?" She shouted, surprising Harriet and to an extent, Sarah. It was then the Doctor saw what Martha was wearing. " Martha, what is that on your back?" He asked. It looked like a futuristic harness with a back pack.
Jack replied before Martha. " Project Indigo. An experimental teleport, UNIT made it after salvaging technology from the Sontarans. It's not safe, it's got no stabilisation, or co-ordinates."
The Doctor couldn't believe it. " Martha, get rid of it. You don't know what your playing with. It could kill you, or worse."
Martha shook her head. " I can't."
Jack went on. " She's also got something called the Osterhagen key."
The Doctor's horror hit new levels. He'd stumbled across the Osterhagen procedure during the Year that never was. A few members of UNIT had managed to activate the stations, threatening to destroy the planet. A series of nuclear warheads under the crust, all ready to be set off. The Master had managed to stop it, and retrieve the weapons in that now redundant timeline.
" Martha," he said at last, keeping his voice as calm as possible. " Don't do it. Please, don't."
" I have to, to stop the Human race by suffering." Martha replied, her voice soft and regretful. Romana was glad that Martha would follow her duty, but her attitude reminded her of Rassilon and his ultimate plan to destroy the universe to win the Time War, but the difference between Martha and Rassilon was because one was a madman who cared only for himself, and Martha because she was desperate to save her people. That was what humans were, they focused on the relevant and ignored the petty.
" By destroying them?" The Doctor asked. " Martha, it's never an option. Anyway, we've got more important things to worry about than some stupid human's doomsday plan. What are the Daleks doing here, and where did they come from?"
Still shaken from the Doctor's open contempt for UNIT's orders, Martha made a suggestion. " Could it be Dalek Caan?"
Most of the people on the screen and inside the TARDIS were aware of the Doctor's last encounter with the Daleks, most specifically the Cult of Skaro and how their leader, Dalek Sec had tried to create a new Dalek race by splicing humans with Dalek DNA. The attempt failed because Sec had experienced positive human emotions in contrast to the more negative ones.
Caan had escaped when his fellow Daleks had been destroyed via emergency temporal shift.
The Doctor nodded, " Maybe, but I've met other Dalek survivors. This lot could be one of them. It might be Caan though."
" But wasn't the Cult of Skaro unable to create new embryos?" Martha asked.
" You're forgetting something, Martha. The Cult of Skaro had escaped to the 1930s, forcing them to rely on the primitive technology there. If they had access to more and better sources of energy then they would've been able to create new embryos easily. Dalek cloning's very power intensive, and since there was no nuclear energy, Sec got desperate." The Doctor replied.
Suddenly the screen showing his friends disappeared. " We've lost them," Donna exclaimed, yeah, we'd noticed thanks.
The Doctor adjusted the screen, willing an image to reappear. Then he realised something, a lock on on the comm system. A Dalek frequency. So the Daleks wanted to talk.
" There's another signal. Hello?" He asked.
From the screen there was still static, then a voice issued from it. " Your voice is different and yet it's arrogance is unchanged."
The Doctor and Romana exchanged a look, a look filled with horror as they recognised the voice.
The screen cleared, and Davros appeared.
" Welcome to my new empire, Doctor. It is only fitting that you should bear witness to the resurrection and the triumph of Davros, lord and creator of the Dalek race."
The Doctor subtly pushed Romana out of sight. Davros may've met two of Romana's past lives, but there were other concerns. If Davros found out Romana was pregnant then the repercussions were beyond incalculable. For a long time the Doctor and Davros had nursed an enmity, and the Dalek creator hated him with a passion. The Doctor had no intention of letting Romana get within a centimeter of Davros.
" I wish I could say it's good to see you again, Davros," The Doctor began. He cocked his head as he finished his sentence. " But as we both know that would be an utter lie. How did you come back? You were destroyed in the very first year of the Time War. I saw your command ship fly into the jaws of the Nightmare child. Stupidly, I tried to save you. Wish I hadn't bothered now." The Doctor added as an afterthought. Romana agreed with him.
Davros wasn't touched or bothered. " It took one stronger than you. Dalek Caan himself." he said blandly.
As if on cue a voice said in the background, and depicted in a beam of light was a shattered Dalek casing wrapped in chains. The Doctor could see the creature, and he found it hard to believe a rational and emotionless creature could sound so insane.
" I flew into the wild and fire. I danced and died a thousand times." A voice that sounded like a Dalek, though an insane type the Doctor had never heard of before said, sounding like it was almost drunk.
Davros broke in, stating the obvious. " Emergency temporal shift took him back into the Time War itself."
" How? The war is timelocked." The Doctor replied. His earlier thoughts that Rose may have been responsible starting to look less likely. Rose could've been partially responsible, but was she? Or was her time as the Master's wife clouding his judgement?
Davros chuckled dryly, " And yet he succeeded. Oh, it cost him his mind, but imagine, a single simple Dalek succeeded where emperors and Time Lords failed. A testament, don't you think, to my remarkable creations?" Out of sight Romana quirked an eyebrow. The way Davros had said the word emperor was as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. Davros didn't like simple Daleks jumping up and usurping his authority.
The Doctor nodded, " What about the Daleks with you, did Caan bring them out of the war as well?" As he was speaking, his thoughts on Rose changed. Before he'd been convinced that she was responsible, but now he wasn't too sure. There was something niggling at the back of his mind...something more than a simple dimensional crack.
" No, Doctor. I created my new empire here. I gave myself to the Daleks. Literally. Each one grown from a cell of my own body. New Daleks, true Daleks." As Davros had been speaking, he'd unfastened his tunic and showed his mutilated chest. The skin had been torn from the bones, leaving only the lungs, ribs and heart. The Doctor heard Romana gasp silently, and wished she hadn't seen it. She didn't need the stress. Romana walked away from the console, and leant against a wall, rubbing her belly gently and breathing deeply but slowly. He could feel her discomfort and horror through their bond, and he cursed Davros for putting Romana through all this.
Davros carried on, uncaring about his own health or about how the people watching him reacted to his self mutilation. " I have my children, Doctor. What do you have -?" The image was cut off and the original faces seen before Davros appeared came back onto the screen. The Doctor blinked, in another time and reality he might've said that he was expecting children, real children, not the nightmares Davros created on a daily basis, but instead of the insane Kaled scientist, he saw instead Susan's long dark hair and solemn expression. He could see the horror in her own eyes, but she was calm about it.
" Don't worry grandfather, I've rerouted the frequency to random. They can't track us." She said.
" I hope your right, Susan." The Doctor replied. He put his face in his hands. " Right, all of you. Now we know Davros is here, what do we do about it? What's he planning?"
" I thought he'd died when we fought him on Skaro." Sarah Jane said.
" So did I, but I met him later. His chair contained a secondary life support system that kept him alive for thousands of years." The Doctor replied. " Sorry I didn't tell you, but I thought he was back in the war."
" Do you think Rose has something to do with it?" Jack asked.
The Doctor sighed. " I dunno. I thought I was, but not now. Something else could've happened. Listen I'm coming in."
The TARDIS rematerialised in Torchwood hub. The Doctor, Romana and Donna stepped out. " Susan, how did you switch the frequencies of the subwave network?"
Susan pointed at her TARDIS connected to the controls of the hub. " It took me a while to rig the connections, using the rift as a booster. That's how I broke through the temporal pocket and create a pathway."
" Does he know about you?"
Susan grinned, " You mean about me being a Time Lord? No. If they did then they would've attacked Cardiff ages ago, that is if they're aware of Torchwood."
" Oh, I think they are." The Doctor remarked, explaining for his wife's benefit. " Dalek Caan and the cult drained the mind of a Torchwood employee, and he was quite high up, so its likely he knows about Cardiff."
" What about your TARDIS?" Susan asked. " I hope you bounced the TARDIS here."
" Of course I did," The Doctor replied indignantly, not liking his granddaughter point out the obvious.
" Bounce?" Donna asked.
" I used that trick with the extrapolator to bounce the TARDIS from one point in space time to here, like I did when we were dealing with the Rachnoss." The Doctor replied.
Susan walked over to Romana, wrapping her arms around her step grandmother. " How're you feeling?"
Romana glowed like a new mother. She took Susan's hand, placing it on her belly. " I'll feel glad when this pregnancy's over. Your grandfather's overprotective, stopping me from coming out of the TARDIS."
Susan chuckled. The Doctor went with Jack to check the monitors. The Dalek ships parked close to Earth were stationary. A small number of the ships were on the planet, and they had been there a while. The Doctor leant over the controls.
" What're you doing?" Jack asked.
" Checking your logs. The rift vibrates like a spiders web whenever a time distortion, like a TARDIS or that space hopper thing you Time Agents use, but interdimensional crossings create a larger scale vibration. If I can just - aha! Found her! Actually she's been popping in quite a few times recently for the past few months. Donna, when you met Rose in that parallel world, you said that the stars were going out?"
" Yeah."
" Did she bother to say why, instead of me wasting my time, she didn't bother calling me in the TARDIS? Her phone's like yours, with universal roaming. Why couldn't the stupid girl phone?" The Doctor asked.
Donna shook her head.
The Doctor focused on the screen. " She's in Chiswick. I think she's with your grandfather and mother."
Donna was confused. " Why?"
" If you were looking for someone where would you look and ask, especially if said person had friends?" Romana asked, coming over, Susan standing with her. Susan glanced at the screens. " The Daleks aren't coming closer. I think they're waiting for you to make a move."
" Right then," The Doctor said, putting his hands inside his pockets. " What do we have? We have Davros, who's created a new Dalek empire, but he's created that empire using planets taken from around the universe, and he's taken Earth. He hasnt moved outside, and he's instead sealed himself and the Daleks inside a time pocket to hide. Donna, did the same thing happen in that parallel world?"
Donna shook her head. " No, but I saw the stars go out, like a candle or a lightbulb go out."
" Earth wasn't moved?" Romana asked, frowning. " What's changed?"
" What planets were taken?" Jack asked suddenly.
Surprised by his contribution, the Doctor told him. Jack frowned. " Can I borrow your TARDIS computer, Doctor?"
" Yeah, sure," The Doctor replied, watching bemusedly as Jack took out his own TARDIS key and opened the door. Romana sidled up to him, rubbing her pregnant belly against his side without her knowing it. " What's he doing in there?"
" I dunno, but I'm gonna check." The Doctor replied, stalking towards the TARDIS, Romana, Donna and Susan trailing behind. When they got inside they found Jack studying the monitor.
" What've you got Jack?" Susan asked in her welsh accent.
Jack paused, " When you said that Earth hadn't been taken in an alternate timeline and that here we are now, I got wondering about what these worlds have in common, and I think I've found it. Each of the planets have a sort of psychic technology."
Romana frowned. " Telepathy?"
" Yeah, so I did some checking. Woman wept, psionic communications net. Pyrovillia, psychic shields. The lost moon of Poosh, psychic warp shooter. In all these planets, something psychic connects them, and Earth has..."
The Doctor sighed, " The Archangel network, of course. A telepathic signal inside a satellite network, created by an evil Time Lord, boosted by the telepathic circuits of a TARDIS."
" A Time Lord did this?" Donna asked aghast. " I thought you guys were supposed to be good."
" Individual Time Lords vary like humans do, Donna," Romana replied quietly. " Just after you left the Doctor, he found me and later on a Time Lord who wants to control the universe. He managed to escape, but it looks like without him Earth wouldn't have moved."
The Doctor was looking at the screen, a myriad of feelings in his mind. " Ok, but we still don't know what they intend to do."
" Stars are going out," Romana whispered, rubbing her belly in concern. The idea of Daleks destroying everything wasn't doing her pregnancy any wonders. Physically Time Lords were stronger than humans, but stress was a big no, no for pregnant Time Ladies, and Romana was no exception. Susan and the Doctor saw and felt Romana's discomfort, and they embraced her, Susan hugging her around the middle, gently sending gentle and calming thoughts to the babies.
Romana embraced her husband and step granddaughter in thanks.
When they stepped out of the TARDIS, they saw a flash of light, and a blonde girl appeared, holding a very big gun. When Romana got a good look at the girl's face she wanted nothing more than to storm over there and break her in half in case she tried anything. It had been a long time since Romana had last seen her, but she'd never forgotten Rose Tyler.
As soon as Rose saw the Doctor, she dropped her gun, and rushed over to him, almost pushing Romana aside, uncaring that she was pregnant. The Doctor was so startled that he didn't move, but when he saw Romana stumble slightly, he jumped out of Rose's amorous arms, and rushed towards the pregnant Time Lady.
" Are you alright?" He asked in concern. She didn't look good, it looked like she was trying to stop herself from being sick after being on a carousel.
Romana breathed in deeply, trying to get her centre of balance back. " No," she gasped. " This is what I hate about being pregnant, having a problem with my balance. When she pushed me I couldn't stay still..." she whispered, and the Doctor wrapped her in his arms.
Rose was looking at the scene with some hurt and some anger. " Doctor, what's going on? Why's that girl pregnant?"
The Doctor didn't reply. He'd seen the size of the gun. Instead he called for his granddaughter, " Susan, can you take Romana back to the TARDIS, make sure she's alright?" At once Romana protested, saying she was alright, but the Doctor wouldn't have it. He needed to speak with Rose without Romana being present.
When the two Time Ladies had left, the Doctor turned towards Rose, noticing the gun in her arms, and he glowered. It seemed that some things would never change. " Could you not see she was pregnant? You could've endangered her life, and the life of the twins?"
Rose had by now guessed that Romana was pregnant with the Doctor's baby, but when he said the word twins, she was furious. She saved herself for him! " Twins? You mean you made her pregnant?"
The Doctor didn't even try to deny, and at once Rose went off into one of her unbearable jealous rants. " I save myself for you, for years, but no. Instead of waiting for me you run off and get that little slut pregnan- AH!" Her hand flew to her now stinging cheek, looking at the Doctor in stunned amazement. The Doctor breathed in hard, his hand stinging from where he'd slapped Rose. There was no way in hell he would let Rose get away with calling the love of his lives a slut.
" Tell me something, Rose, if we were an item as you think we were, then answer me this. When did we ever share a meal between us? Go out to the cinema together to watch a film?"
" We would've done that anyway, you just needed time -" Rose tried to say, but the Doctor interrupted. " No, Rose. We had plenty of time, I had plenty of time to show you that you were nursing an obsession. An obsession that only grew worse during the regeneration I had. I love Romana, have done for years."
Rose's aggression came back quickly. When she'd discovered that the Doctor had travelled with people before her she'd hit the roof, but the Doctor had ignored her.
" So, she's another Sarah - Jane, another reject you decided to pick up and fuck?" The moment the words were out of her mouth, Rose wished she'd kept her mouth shut. The Doctor towered over her, his lanky form filling her frame of mind, then he calmed down. " You're lucky Rose, cause we've got more important things to worry about than your childish little crush."
