Chapter Thirty: The Midnight Sky
Rose was on the massage table when she first felt the prickle under her skin. She turned her head to catch the massage therapist's eye. "What kind of oil are you using?" she asked, wondering if it was something she was allergic to. The therapist showed her the bottle, and she didn't see any ingredients she was sensitive to, so she handed it back with a nod.
But a few minutes later, the prickle had worsened, and having someone touch her felt like her skin was being rubbed by sandpaper. "I'm sorry," she said regretfully, "but I think I need to end the session early."
The therapist took her hands off Rose's back, and Rose heard her step away from the table. "Is there something about my technique that isn't agreeable to you?"
Rose shook her head; she'd finally recognised the source of her discomfort, and it wasn't physical in nature. "No, not at all. And don't worry—I'll still pay you for the full sixty minutes."
"Thank you, ma'am. I'll leave so you can get dressed."
The tag on her blouse scratched unpleasantly on the back of her neck, but thankfully, the rest of her clothes didn't bother her. Rose left a tip in the jar—it wasn't the therapist's fault she suddenly had to bail out of her session.
Alone in the lobby, she focused on the sharp excitement with a hint of fear the Doctor was feeling. There was something unexpected going on on the tour bus.
She rubbed absently at her neck. And whatever it is, it's got my time senses going haywire.
She tried not to hover over the Doctor, but as soon as he had a free moment, he focused on her. My tour isn't exactly going as planned, he explained.
She sighed. Of course it bloody wasn't.
In fact, they've sent a rescue vehicle and we'll be back at the resort in… oh, three hours?
Well, you broke your cardinal rule just before boarding, she pointed out, hiding her disquiet behind cheek. You asked what could possibly go wrong.
The Doctor's wry amusement cut off abruptly, and Rose got the impression that one of the passengers was badgering him with questions. Better let them know a rescue is on the way.
When he spoke to the person standing in front of him, Rose jumped up and started pacing. There was… time was… and the Doctor…
She blew out a loud breath and focused on the bond, paying enough attention that she could follow the drift of the conversation going on around him. Time was swirling in eddies around him, and watching it from a distance was almost torturous.
"Mum?"
Rose jumped when Jenny rested a hand on her arm. "Don't touch me," she requested sharply.
Jenny, bless her, wasn't hurt by her tone. Instead, she dropped her hands to her sides and looked at Rose. "You seemed upset," she said, tapping her temple, "so I ended my massage and had someone get Donna."
"You didn't have to interrupt your own massages," Rose protested, even though she was grateful not to be alone.
Donna came out as Rose was talking. "What's the point in getting a massage when the world could be ending?" She untwisted her hair, letting it fall out of the bun into a long ponytail. "Though I have to ask, can't we even go to a resort without running into trouble?"
Rose felt a smile creep across her face. "Apparently not," she said with a sigh. She opened her mouth to tell Jenny and Donna what little she knew, then remembered she was in a full waiting room with staff hovering nearby. "I think there was a cafe up front—I could go for a cuppa right now."
Donna snorted. "You could always go for a cuppa," she said as they walked out of the salon.
"Yeah, well I really could today," Rose countered.
When they were seated at the cafe, steaming cups of tea in hand, she took a breath and let it out slowly. "There's something going wrong on the bus," she said, careful to keep her voice quiet so the other guests couldn't overhear. "It's stopped, and they've called for a rescue vehicle, but… I'm worried."
"What about?" Jenny asked.
Rose pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to find the words to explain the amorphous feeling of something lingering just out of reach of her time senses. "There's just something…" She thought of the telepathic presence she'd felt earlier, and the way the timelines felt right now. "I just have a feeling something's about to happen."
oOoOoOoOo
"What did they say? Did they tell you? What is it? What's wrong?"
The Doctor blinked at Sky, taken aback by her barrage of questions. He hadn't expected to be interrogated as soon as he returned to the main cabin, so he didn't have a lie ready.
Before he could open his mouth to repeat Driver Joe's lie about the engines stabilising, Rose whispered, Better let them know a rescue is on the way.
The Doctor frowned slightly; of course that made the most sense, despite Joe's admonition to keep the truth from people. "I'm afraid the engines have stopped," he said, choosing his words carefully. "But they've called for help—a rescue truck is on its way."
Sky shook her head and wrapped her arms around her chest. "I don't need this. I'm on a schedule. This is completely unnecessary."
Anniqua glared at the Doctor and then looked pointedly at his empty seat. "Back to your seats, thank you." Sky huffed and sat down, and the Doctor smiled at her, then took his own seat.
Unsurprisingly, Hobbes did not take this further deviation from the typical tour of Midnight well. "This is my fourteenth time taking this tour, and this has never happened!"
The Doctor shrugged. "Well, I suppose that means they were about due to have an incident of some sort," he said reasonably. "The law of averages and all." Hobbes pressed his lips into a thin line and settled back in his seat.
"Well how long are we going to have to sit here for?" Biff groused. "I didn't pay for this tour to sit in a bus for hours on end."
The door between the cabin and the cockpit slid open and Val waved Anniqua over. "If I'm going to sit here for another hour or more while we wait for this rescue vehicle to reach us, I expect my wine glass to be kept full."
Anniqua's back stiffened. "Of course, Mrs. Cane," she replied, and the Doctor could hear the way she was gritting her teeth in her strained voice.
A moment later, the Hostess turned and glared straight at him. Ah. She knew Driver Joe asked me to lie. The Doctor shrugged unapologetically, and the woman spun on her heel and stalked into the galley.
"There you go," the Doctor said, trying for a cheerful tone. "We'll all have some wine, tell a few more stories, and be back at the resort in time for a late lunch. I can guarantee you everything's fine."
He didn't even have time to regret breaking his rule again before something hit the bus, thumping twice against the hull.
"What was that?" Val demanded.
Professor Hobbes looked at the bus' ceiling, then at Val. "It must be the metal. We're cooling down. It's just settling," he said, but he was grasping at straws and they all knew it.
"Rocks," Dee Dee suggested. "It could be rocks falling."
Biff sat up in his seat, trying to make himself look larger and more intimidating than he really was. "Well I can tell you one thing for sure," he growled in annoyance, "as soon as we get back to the Leisure Palace, I'll be asking for a full refund!"
Two more thumps sounded on another part of the hull. Everyone jumped, and even Jethro dropped his disaffected attitude to pull his legs up into his seat.
Sky followed the progress of the thumps with her gaze. "What is that?" she asked, staring at the wall where the most recent ones had come from.
Val was staring at the spot, too. "There's someone out there."
"Now, don't be ridiculous," the professor scoffed.
Dee Dee licked her lips and tried to offer her very reasonable explanation for the second time. "Like I said, it could be rocks."
"We're out in the open," the Hostess argued, gesturing to indicate the open space surrounding the bus. "Nothing could fall against the sides."
The Doctor winced. He was normally all for clearing up erroneous ideas, but in the current climate, he wouldn't have been so swift to discard a possibility that might make people feel a little bit safer.
They heard two more thumps.
The Doctor looked at the wall of the bus. He could feel a twisted knot in the timelines getting closer, and despite the obvious danger, he was intrigued to find out what was coming.
"Knock, knock," he murmured.
"Who's there?" Jethro said, completing the second half of the ancient Earth joke.
An ominous beat seemed to vibrate through the bus, like a drum they could feel, but not see. The Doctor was aware of Rose's tension as she focused on the bond, trying to catch as much of what was going on around him as she could, and he opened up to the bond a little bit more so she could hear the conversation in the bus.
"Is there something out there?" Sky's voice went up an octave. "Well? Anyone?" Two more thumps sounded in answer to her demand, and her whole body quivered. "What the hell is making that noise?"
Professor Hobbes got to his feet and heaved an aggrieved sigh. "I'm sorry, but the light out there is Xtonic."
The Doctor walked away from the professor as he gave his wholly unhelpful and frankly unbelievable reassurances. There was something out there, and he was determined to find out what it is, and ascertain if it carried any threat.
"That means it would destroy any living thing in a split second," the professor continued. "It is impossible for someone to be outside."
And yet there is, Rose countered. Be careful, love.
The Doctor nodded absently as he scanned the hull of ship with his eyes, trying to guess where the next thump would come from.
Sky gasped and glared at the professor, who kept insisting nothing could survive on Midnight. "Well, what the hell is that, then?"
The Doctor reached into his pocket as he walked quickly to the part of ship where they'd heard the most recent thumps.
"Sir, you really should get back to your seat," Anniqua hissed.
He ignored her, pulling out his stethoscope and pressing the bell to the interior wall, right next to a window. "Hello?" he asked, hoping for some kind of answer.
And he got one, in the form of two more thumps, coming now in a faster rhythm. He straightened and his gaze moved to the back of the ship, behind the galley, where the thumps had come from this time.
"It's moving," Jethro said, sounding a little less amused and a little more scared.
The emergency exit rattled, and while the Doctor wanted to chalk that up to a coincidence, he knew that door was on heavy hydraulics. No amount of wind or pressure could make it move accidentally.
Val pointed at the door and stumbled back a few paces. "It's trying the door."
"There is no it," Professor Hobbes insisted. "There's nothing out there. Can't be."
The emergency door rattled a few more times, they they heard two thumps on the roof, followed by two more thumps on the main entrance.
Val whimpered in fear. She was closest to the door, and she jumped away from it and spun around. "That's the entrance. Can it get in?" she cried, pointing at the door.
Dee Dee shook her head. "No. That door's on two hundred weight hydraulics."
"Stop it," the professor ordered. "Don't encourage them."
"What do you think it is?" Dee Dee countered, finally sounding a bit exasperated with him and his narrow view of the universe.
Biff reached for the door, and Val grabbed his arm. "Biff, don't."
"Mr. Cane. Better not," the Doctor advised, remembering Anniqua's warning not to touch the seals around the doors.
Biff shook his head. "Nah, it's cast iron, that door." He knocked on the door three times, and immediately, three thumps came back.
Sky gasped in fear and backed away from the door. Even the professor seemed to be perspiring under the collar of his Oxford shirt, belying his calm insistence that nothing could be outside.
"Three times," Val said, her voice getting shrill as she looked around at the group. "Did you hear that? It did it three times."
"It answered," Jethro said.
"It did it three times!" Val repeated.
The Doctor narrowed his eyes; he was honestly more concerned with the disproportionate fear rolling off his fellow passengers than whatever was outside. He pushed his way between Val and Biff to stand in front of the door, holding his hands up to placate the quickly unravelling group of humans.
"All right, all right, all right. Everyone calm down."
Sky gestured to the door with shaking hands. "No, but it answered. It answered. Don't tell me that thing's not alive. It answered him."
Whatever was outside pounded on the door three more times, drawing a few shrieks of fear from the humans shaking on the bus.
Any thoughts, Rose? the Doctor asked.
They're spiralling, Doctor. I know you're curious to know what's out there, but those seven people standing around you are panicked, and you know how dangerous that is. Do whatever you can to calm them down.
Anniqua stepped forward and tried restore order in a situation that was already beyond her control. "I really must insist you get back to your seats," she shrieked.
"No, don't just stand there telling us the rules," Sky yelled. "You're the Hostess. You're supposed to do something."
The Doctor looked at the two women, Sky red-faced and angry and Anniqua, shoulders heaving as she quivered in fear. Neither of their reactions were what he would have expected of them, and he filed that fact away as he stepped in between them.
"Sky," the Doctor said, keeping his voice low and quiet. "Take a deep breath. I know it's scary, but—"
Four loud thumps interrupted his reassurance, and Sky's eyes were wild with fear. "What is it?" she moaned. "What the hell's making that noise? She said she'd get me," she added, and the Doctor suddenly understood how withdrawn the woman had been, and her terrible fear.
"Stop it. Make it stop. Somebody make it stop. Don't just stand there looking at me. It's not my fault. He started it with his stories," she said, pointing to the professor, then her finger moved to the Doctor. "And he made it worse!" Her chest was heaving. "Why didn't you leave it alone? Stop staring at me. Just tell me what the hell it is."
Her words came faster and faster as she dissolved into a full-blown panic attack. The Doctor wanted to offer her some kind of comfort, but as the rest of the passengers watched Sky, they slowly advanced on her without realising it, and all he could do was stand in between them, hoping it made Sky feel moderately safe.
"Calm down!" Dee Dee moved her hands in a calming gesture, and it might have worked, if the thumping hadn't started again, moving across the roof this time, towards the front of the bus.
"It's coming for me. Oh, it's coming for me," Sky moaned, backing up as the thumps got closer and closer to her. "It's coming for me. It's coming for me. It's coming for me." Her back hit the cockpit door and she screamed.
Each thump was louder and harder than the one before, and the Doctor suddenly realised they might actually be able to beat their way through the hull. "Get out of there!" he shouted, reaching for Sky.
Before he could grab her and pull her away from the cockpit, one final massive impact sent the whole shuttle rocking from side to side. Sparks showered down on them as the electrical wiring was shredded, and then the bus went dark.
oOoOoOoOo
The longer the situation on the bus went on, the more Rose's time sense grated at her. They were teetering on the edge of a "what must not be," and the Doctor was right in the middle of it—not even tea could calm her.
The TARDIS hummed urgently in her mind, and Rose tapped nervously on the table. I know dear, she thought, trying to sound as soothing as possible. But he can take care of himself.
Before the ship could respond, the Doctor's tense demeanour erupted into full-blown fear and confusion. Rose pressed her hands to the table, barely restraining the urge to leap to her feet and run to the TARDIS.
"What is it, Rose?"
She took a deep breath and shook her head, trying to steady her nerves. "Things are getting worse," she muttered. "Come on," she said, pushing back from the table and jumping to her feet. The food had been billed to her room, so they didn't need to worry about paying before they left. "It's time we asked a few questions of management."
Get information before making a choice. It was the right thing to do—it was looking before she leapt, like the Doctor always wanted her to do. But the urge to just go rescue him was hard to resist. She ground her teeth together, then reached out for her bond mate. If he were injured, she would skip the information gathering and go straight to the rescue she was already planning in the back of her mind.
Doctor! Are you okay?
She waited impatiently while he took a physical inventory. Arms, legs, neck, head, nose. I'm fine, Rose. I promise.
Rose sagged in relief and set off for the front desk. Please be careful, love. For once, the brush of reassurance the Doctor passed over the bond did not actually reassure her.
oOoOoOoOo
When the shaking finally stopped, the Doctor was on the floor, wedged in between two rows of seats. The bus was almost pitch dark, and it was only his superior vision that enabled him to see the shadowy figures of his fellow passengers slowly getting to their feet. And to add to the overall disorienting atmosphere, the power going out had rebooted the entertainment system and they were listening to the music video again.
Doctor! Are you okay?
Rose's concern demanded his full attention, and an honest answer. He sat up gingerly, running his hand through his hair first to make sure he didn't have any head injuries, then taking inventory of his limbs. Arms, legs, neck, head, nose. I'm fine, Rose. I promise.
Please be careful, love.
The Doctor sent her as much reassurance as he could manage as he got to his feet and looked around at his fellow passengers. "Everyone all right? How are we?"
"Earthquake," Professor Hobbes grunted as he righted himself. "Must be."
Dee Dee shook her head and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. "But that's impossible. The ground is fixed. It's solid."
The Doctor nodded. Unlike most planets, Midnight's surface was not comprised of tectonic plates that could shift against each other. Midnight didn't have a core and a crust, either. It was solid diamond the whole way through, making an earthquake technically impossible.
"We've got torches," Anniqua said, her voice winded. "Everyone take a torch. They're in the back of the seats."
They all obeyed, and a moment later, five narrow beams of light were bouncing around the cabin, some of them hitting the Doctor in the face.
Most of the passengers stayed in their seats, still trying to catch their breath. But as soon as there was a bit of light in the cabin, Jethro stepped into the aisle and strode towards the front of the bus.
"Oh, Jethro," Val cooed. "Sweetheart, come here."
"Never mind me." Jethro leaned against a seat and shone his torch at the cockpit door. "What about her?"
They all followed his gaze to where he was pointing.
In the midst of the rubble of the front row of seats, Sky sat with her head in her hands. It was the same position she'd been cowering in a few minutes ago, only pushed into a seat instead of backed against the wall of the bus.
The Doctor took his own torch while Val and Biff commented on the state of the seats and wondered what had happened to them. He was more concerned with the woman sitting there than the upholstery, so he ignored their questions. The fact that he didn't have any answers would only ignite the panic once again, anyway.
He knelt beside Sky and put a gentle hand on her back, not wanting to trigger any flashbacks to her abusive ex with a touch too sudden or heavy-handed. "It's all right, it's all right, it's all right," he whispered soothingly. "It's over. We're still alive. Look, the wall's still intact. Do you see?" He nodded up at the cabin hull, which had large dent bulging inward, but maintained its integrity. "We're safe."
"Driver Joe, can you hear me?" Anniqua cried over the intercom. A moment later she ran to the front of the cabin, fear practically vibrating in waves off her. "I'm not getting any response. The intercom must be down."
She pressed the yellow button, and the cockpit door slid open. But instead of the dimly lit cockpit the Doctor had stood in just five minutes before, painfully bright light flooded the cabin. The Xtonic radiation alarm the Doctor had heard before sounded, and the Hostess managed to press the button again, getting the door to close before they were all vaporised by the rays of Midnight's poisonous sun.
"What happened? What was that?" Val asked.
"Is it the driver?" Biff said. "Have we lost the driver?"
Anniqua staggered back from the door, her mouth hanging open in shock. "The cabin's gone."
That's not possible, the Doctor thought as he used the sonic on the panel, but he didn't voice it out loud. Too many impossible things had already happened today.
"Don't be ridiculous," Professor Hobbes said, and the Doctor rolled his eyes. "It can't be gone. How can it be gone?"
"Well, well, you saw it," Dee Dee snapped.
With his back to the group, the Doctor was able to hide the smirk Dee Dee's sass brought to his face. There we go—there's the woman who's going to find the Lost Moon of Poosh one day.
"There was nothing there," Anniqua stammered, "like it was ripped away."
Biff shone his torch in the Doctor's direction. "What are you doing?"
"Ah, that's better," the Doctor said cheerily, as if Biff had meant to help. "Little bit of light. Thank you. Molto bene."
Val sniffed. "Do you know what you're doing?"
Her harshness made it hard to sympathise with her, but the Doctor could hear the fear beneath the strident tone. He reached into his pocket for the psychic paper, thinking quickly to come up with a single lie that might satisfy as many needs as possible—he couldn't go flashing the paper around in front of multiple people and have it read something different each time.
It only took him a second to settle on a name and title, and he handed the wallet to Val. Biff sidled over to her and read over her shoulder. "Doctor John Tyler, PhD Xenobiology, Anthropology. Expert in alien races and cultures."
The Doctor took the paper back from Val and put it away. "Plus, lots of applied skill in mechanics and electrical wiring," he added. "The things you get into when you're on an expedition… It's best to know how to take care of yourself."
He finally managed to get the panel loose, and what he saw confirmed what Anniqua had said. "I didn't think it was possible," he said, staring at the severed wires dangling from the panel. "Any rupture in the hull should have sealed itself off. But something sliced it off. You're right, the cabin's gone."
"But if it gets separated?" Anniqua asked desperately.
The Doctor shook his head slowly. "It loses integrity," he said, trying to be as gentle as possible. He stood up and looked back at the rest of the passengers and the Hostess. "I'm sorry, they've been reduced to dust." Anniqua sobbed, and the Doctor remembered that Joe and Claude were her coworkers, people she might have known well. "I'm sorry," he repeated, looking directly at her. "Joe and Claude are gone."
The words landed in the small tour bus with the impact of a ticking time bomb. Five terrified humans stared back at him, and he realised immediately that he needed to say something, anything, to get their focus off the tragedy and onto the hope of their own survival.
"But remember, they sent a distress signal." He stood up and willed everyone to trust him, to believe they would be fine. "Help is on its way. They saved our lives. We are going to get out of here, I promise. We're still alive, and they are going to find us."
oOoOoOoOo
When they reached the main lobby, Rose pushed the doors open. The concierge's broad smile faltered slightly when she strode across the room and put her hands down on the desk.
"Excuse me, I was wondering about the tour to the waterfall."
The woman's expression shuttered, and Rose narrowed her eyes at her.
"My husband is on it, and I can't remember when he said he'd be back."
The concierge's eyes darted down to the screen in front of her, and quick as a wink, Rose grabbed the tablet and read the message. She growled softly in displeasure when it didn't tell her anything she didn't already know: they'd been stopped, and a rescue vehicle was on its way to pick them up.
"How long until the rendezvous?" Rose asked curtly as she handed the tablet back.
"Sixty minutes," the woman snapped. Then she took a deep breath and a moment later, her expression was serene again. "We'll be giving an announcement over the tannoy when the rescue vehicle returns to the docking bay. If you listen for that, you should be able to meet him upon his arrival."
Rose wanted to snarl that she wouldn't need an overhead announcement to let her know when the Doctor was close, but she swallowed the words. "Thank you," she managed, then turned back to Jenny and Donna and motioned for them to leave the lobby.
Jenny and Donna exchanged a glance as they followed Rose through the resort in the direction of their rooms. Donna nodded from Jenny to Rose, then made a "come on" motion with her hand when Jenny was silent.
Oh. Jenny took a deep breath, then came up alongside her mother. "What now, Mum?"
Rose looked at her, then over her shoulder at Donna. "I told you the bus had stopped, but something just attacked them and managed to sever the cockpit from the rest of the vehicle." She took a deep breath. "I know Midnight is supposedly uninhabited, but something is out there, and it's already killed the driver and the mechanic." She brushed a strand of hair back over her ear. "That's why we're going to get the TARDIS and go get them."
Jenny could feel the fiercely protective instinct guiding her mum's decisions. Rose's eyes glittered gold for a moment, and Jenny almost took a step back.
"They've got a rescue vehicle going out there, don't they?" Donna said.
Rose blinked, and the gold was gone. She shook her head quickly. "You heard the concierge—the rescue vehicle won't get to them for another hour." She pressed her lips into a thin line. "They don't have that long. If we don't get those people off of that bus soon, it will be too late."
A hint of a premonition, just the feeling that something was lurking just out of sight, teased the edges of Jenny's time senses. The utter wrongness of it made her shiver, and she met Rose's gaze head-on.
"Let's go."
oOoOoOoOo
The reminder of the coming rescue quieted the passengers. In the absence of six voices all talking over each other, they could hear how still things had become.
"That noise from outside," Jethro whispered. "It's stopped."
"Well, thank God for that," Val spat out.
He shook his head. "But what if it's not outside anymore? What if it's inside?"
Val's eyes turned white with fear. "Inside? Where?"
"It was heading for her." The beam from Jethro's torch landed on Sky's back. "Why won't she turn around?"
Five more torches were directed at Sky, casting her silhouette on the wall of the bus. She remained hunched over, apparently unaware that she was the centre of attention.
The Doctor turned to Anniqua. "Have we got a medical kit?"
She took a shuddering breath and straightened her shoulders. "Yes, of course. I'll go get it." Her eyes were still wide with fear as she walked past him to the galley, but she looked more collected than she had before the bus had stopped.
Sky still hadn't moved, and the Doctor approached her carefully, as if she were a frightened animal. "Sky?" he asked once he reached her side. His voice was low and soft. "It's all right, Sky. I just want you to turn around, face me."
Sky's right hand dropped, then her left. With the shadow on the wall copying her motions, the scene was eerily reminiscent of classic horror films. Judging from the increased respiration he could hear from the other passengers, the Doctor wasn't the only one who'd noticed the similarity.
Her right shoulder moved towards them as Sky turned slowly, and even the Doctor found himself holding his breath. A moment later, she raised her face to look at them, and the beams from the torches became a makeshift spotlight, illuminating her sharp features.
Pale blue eyes looked at the Doctor first, then shifted rapidly from one passenger to another. Disquiet stirred in the Doctor's mind when he watched the way her eyes moved. It wasn't… as much as he hated to think it, it wasn't human.
The Doctor shifted closer to her, and suddenly, those pale blue eyes were looking at him again. He tilted his head, and she mirrored him, tilting her head in the opposite direction so they were still eye to eye. In fact, she copied every move he made, refusing to let their eye contact break.
Feeling the tension in the group behind him, the Doctor drew a breath and focused on the woman in front of him. "Sky?"
"Sky?" Her voice sounded… hesitant, untrained, like she didn't know how to form words and was learning as she went.
"Are you all right?" The Doctor leaned closer, giving her a quick once-over to see if she'd suffered any cuts or bruises.
"Are you all right?" she repeated, sounding a bit more like her old self now.
"Are you hurt?" he elaborated.
"Are you hurt?" Her voice was soft and child-like.
Thinking maybe she had a head injury so severe that she'd forgotten her own vocabulary, he said, "You don't have to talk."
"You don't have to talk."
"I'm trying to help," the Doctor explained.
"I'm trying to help."
The constant repetition was both putting him on edge and giving him a slight headache, so the Doctor said the one thing he didn't think she would echo.
"My name's the Doctor."
"My name's the Doctor."
Doctor!
Rose's telepathic voice was so loud and shrill that the Doctor took a physical step backward. "Let's take a break for a moment," he said for the benefit of everyone in the bus.
"Let's take a break for a moment," Mrs. Silvestry repeated.
The Doctor ignored her, focusing on Rose instead. What is it, Rose? He pressed a hand to his temple to massage away the ache.
Sorry. I didn't mean…
He got the sense that she was running through a corridor, her arms pumping as she raced back to the TARDIS. But her elevated heart rate and respiration was a result of her fear, not her exertion.
I know you didn't, love, he assured her. Now calm down, and tell me what's wrong.
There was a brief pause, and when Rose spoke again, she felt noticeably less agitated. Be careful talking to Mrs. Silvestry.
The Doctor glanced at the woman. She hadn't moved from her seat at the front of the bus. The other passengers were still talking to her, trying to get her to stop copying them. As Sky mimicked them all perfectly, a shiver of unease ran down the Doctor's back.
Exactly, Rose said. There's something… I felt another telepath on the planet before, while we were sunbathing. And I felt it again when the pounding on the bus started.
The Doctor thought about Rose's suggestion as he looked at Sky. So far, everything she'd repeated had been simple words, ones that were already part of her vocabulary and knowledge base. But what would happen…
He stepped back into the group and Sky's gaze immediately locked onto him. "The square root of pi is 1.772453850905516027298167483341. Wow."
Sky copied him, just five or six digits behind him the whole time. When she echoed his "wow," a glint of vicious amusement flickered in her eyes.
The Doctor rocked back on his heels, trying to put some distance between himself and Sky. Even without that fleeting glimpse of an alien personality, he would have known Rose was right. Sky had echoed his words faster than a human mind could have processed and repeated them, which meant there was a telepathic element to what was going on. The only way you could repeat someone so perfectly and so quickly was if you were actually in their head as they spoke.
"But that's impossible," Professor Hobbes said, using his favourite word again.
Dee Dee didn't argue with him this time, though. "She couldn't repeat all that."
The Doctor stared at Sky, wondering if she was still alive in there somewhere, or if the alien had killed her when it had taken her over. "Tell you what," he said, taking a step back. "I suggest we all stay quiet for a few minutes." He stepped away from the centre of attention again, until he could discreetly scan the woman with his sonic screwdriver.
Instead of staying quiet, as he'd suggested, the rest of the passengers quickly filled the void his absence created. The Doctor clenched his jaw as he listened to the clamour of voices fill the bus while he finished his scans.
He'd just slid the sonic into his pocket when the lights on the bus came back. "That's the back-up system," Anniqua said—and Sky did not repeat.
Biff let out a loud gust of air. "Well, that's a bit better," he said, and it was unclear if he meant the sudden silence, or having the overhead lights back.
"What about the rescue?" Val lowered her torch and took a step towards Anniqua. "How long's it going to take?"
"About sixty minutes, that's all." Anniqua smiled placidly at them as she walked down the aisle.
"Then I suggest we all calm down," Professor Hobbes said, although his shuddering breaths certain didn't give the impression of calm. "This panic isn't helping. That poor woman is evidently in a state of self-induced hysteria. We should leave her alone."
"Doctor," Jethro said, and there was another voice there too, quiet and in the background.
The Doctor nodded, staring at Sky with wide eyes. "I know."
Professor Hobbes frowned at him. "Doctor, now step back. I think you should leave her… alone…"
Only he wasn't speaking alone. Sky was talking with him, in perfect time.
She was no longer copying. Now she was speaking in unison with every voice on the bus.
