Chapter Thirty-five: The Darkness is Coming

Every single sign and banner on Shan Shen said the same two words: Bad Wolf. Rose spun around and looked at the TARDIS. Instead of "Police Public Call Box," it too said Bad Wolf.

The ship sang in Rose's mind, and a gold haze obscured her vision. For a moment, the typical tapestry of timelines disappeared, leaving one solid gold line pulling her forward. She saw her hand reaching for something on the TARDIS console, and the pull of the moment was almost enough to carry her through time into her own future.

She reached blindly for the Doctor's hand. Feeling his strong fingers wrapped around hers anchored her in reality, and after she blinked a few times, she could see normally again. The vision was forgotten as soon as it faded, leaving only a sense that something was coming.

The light spilling out through the door they'd left ajar was red instead of the typical blueish green. The TARDIS' concern called to Rose, and she pushed the door all the way open.

"Rose?"

The Doctor's worry dampened the music, and she looked up at him.

"Let's wait right here for Jenny and Donna. They shouldn't be long."

"Yeah, of course," Rose agreed, even though she was itching to get inside and let the TARDIS take them where they needed to go.

Thankfully, Jenny and Donna ran up to them a moment later. "Why do all the signs say 'Bad Wolf?'" Jenny asked breathlessly as they ran in through the TARDIS' open doors.

The cloister bell tolled ominously in the background as the Doctor slammed the door shut behind him and ran to the console. "It's the end of the universe," he said tersely.

"So, more of the same really." Donna sat down on the jump seat and rolled her eyes.

"No, not more of the same," Rose countered. She and the Doctor were spinning in opposite directions around the console, trying to get the coordinates set. They were going to Earth, in Donna's time. "I got a message from a parallel universe, which should be impossible. Mickey told me the stars were going out, which should also be impossible." She looked up at Donna. "Whatever this is, it's bigger than anything we've dealt with before."

"What do you mean, parallel worlds?" Donna questioned.

Rose shook her head quickly. Her time senses were buzzing with something she'd never felt before, and right now, touching the console, it was all she could do not to look at it—even though she knew instinctively that it wasn't time yet.

"We don't really have time to explain multiversal theory right now, Donna," she said, the tension putting an uncharacteristic bite in her voice.

The Doctor looked up at her, but Rose just grabbed the lever and threw it. "Allons-y," she muttered.

The cloister bell stopped as soon as the time rotor started moving, but the light shining around them was still a dangerous red colour. Rose grabbed onto the console as the ship shook and rattled its way through the Vortex to Earth. Jenny stumbled into her, then hooked her elbow around the railing to keep from being thrown to the ground.

When they landed with a dull thunk, the Doctor tore around the console to the door and flung it open. Rose started to follow him, but she was momentarily distracted by a blue leather jacket that had appeared on the coat rack. Unique as the colour was, she knew she'd seen it before—recently, even.

She shook her head and grabbed the jacket, pulling it on as she left the ship. In the process of shoving her arms into the sleeves, she missed that the Doctor had stopped dead and ran smack into his back.

"Sorry, Rose," he said absently, shifting over so she could stand beside him.

Rose braced herself for whatever had caught him so off guard. They already knew something was very wrong, but…

She blinked and looked up and down the street. It was just… England. On a typical grey, English day. The wind blew a strand of Rose's hair into her face, and she pushed it back as she looked around.

"It's fine," she mumbled. But she'd left a message for herself, and Bad Wolf wasn't needed on ordinary days.

"I know," he agreed. "Everything's fine."

The timelines stretched tighter. "But how can it be fine?"

The Doctor's sleeve brushed against her arm as he stuck his hands into his pockets. "I don't know, but nothing's wrong."

They looked at each other uneasily, then Rose spotted the milkman across the street. "Hiya!" she called out. "Can you tell us what day it is?"

The man looked at them as he climbed out of the truck, and Rose could easily imagine him rolling his eyes at the nonsense question. But one milkman thinking she'd had too many the night before was the last of her concerns, so she waited for the answer.

"Saturday," he sneered.

"Saturday," the Doctor repeated. "Good. Good, I like Saturdays."

When they turned around, Jenny and Donna were standing in the doorway, waiting anxiously. "Well?" Donna snapped.

"Nothing," the Doctor said absently as he pushed past them, heading straight for the monitor on the console. "It's Saturday."

Donna snorted. "Oh, is that what you discovered? It's Saturday? I'm so glad it's not Sunday, or that would blow your "Sundays are always boring" theory out of the water."

The Doctor rocked back on his heels and pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth. "All right, time for a quick explanation," he said. "Within the multiverse, there are parallel universes—different Earths with different Donnas who maybe made different choices. And it's supposed to be impossible to get from one parallel world to another, but Rose's friend Mickey is apparently managing it somehow."

Rose jumped in. "And if he's made it back here, that means the walls of the worlds are breaking down, which means everything is in danger."

"But…" Everyone turned to Jenny, who'd been silent through the whole conversation. "Mum, if the parallel worlds are breaking down… does that mean your family can come back?"

Rose couldn't stop the smile from spreading across her face. "Yeah. I mean… maybe. I hope."

The idea thrilled her, and she could feel a ramble worthy of the Doctor coming on. Before the words could pour out of her mouth, the TARDIS shook violently, knocking all of them to the floor.

"What the hell was that?" Donna cried out.

"Don't know," the Doctor said, his voice a little wheezy. "It came from outside."

He jumped up and ran to the door while Rose gave Jenny and Donna a hand. The solid wave of shock he projected a moment later had her spinning around to follow him though, and then all four of them were crowded around the door, staring out at open space, littered by asteroids and smaller bits of space debris.

"How can we be in space?" Jenny asked. "The TARDIS didn't move; I'm sure of it."

Rose nodded as she ran back to the controls. "I don't think she did either, but…" Her jaw dropped slightly when she saw the coordinates. "No, she really didn't."

The Doctor left Jenny and Donna staring into space and joined her at the monitor. "She must have," he protested. He ran his hand through his hair when he saw the coordinates. "We haven't moved. We're fixed," he agreed. "It can't have," he muttered before running back to the door.

One look out at the surrounding stars and he knew the computer wasn't lying to them. He could pick out the constellations as well here as he could have if they were stargazing in Britain—because for all intents and purposes, they were.

"No. The TARDIS is still in the same place, but the Earth has gone. The entire planet. It's gone."

He rubbed his hand over his face. "First the stars are going out, then an entire planet is just… stolen," he mumbled as he strode back to the console. "This is just… this doesn't happen." His fingers flew over the keyboard as he ran every report he could think of, trying to find an explanation.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Donna approach him slowly. "But if the Earth's been moved," she began, "they've lost the sun. What about my mum? And granddad?" Her voice trembled, and she took a deep breath. "They're dead, aren't they? Are they dead?"

Rose stepped in front of Donna and put her hands on her shoulders. "Calm down, Donna," she said, her voice kind but firm. "We don't know anything yet. I know that's scary, but it means there's a chance—a good chance even—that the worst hasn't happened."

Donna sniffed, then set her jaw. "That's my family. My whole world," she emphasised.

The Doctor looked at her over the top of the monitor. "I know. I know, and I wish I could tell you something more. But Rose is right. We really don't know anything for sure yet."

Jenny pulled Donna into a hug, and Rose joined him at the console. Anything? she asked, looking down at the monitor with him.

He tugged on his ear and willed the computer to tell him something that would actually make sense. "There's no readings," he said in a low voice. "Nothing. Not a trace. Not even a whisper." He straightened up and ran his hand through his hair. "Oh, that is fearsome technology," he muttered.

Rose put her hand on his elbow, grounding him. "So what do we do?"

"We've got to get help." If the Earth was gone and the stars were going out, this might actually be the end of the universe. And he couldn't fix it without knowing what had happened.

"What kind of help, Dad?"

The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck and took a deep breath. There was only one place to go, despite his reluctance. "I'm taking you to the Shadow Proclamation. Hold tight."

He grabbed the lever and pulled, knowing the TARDIS had reached the same conclusion and had set the coordinates for him. As the ship sailed through the Vortex, he held onto the console with one hand and Rose with the other and hoped fervently that the Shadow Proclamation had a better idea of what was going on than he did.

oOoOoOoOo

The air compressed around Mickey, then eased up, letting him come back through to his own universe. He blinked against the inky darkness; as far as they'd been able to tell when they'd set the coordinates, it should have been midday.

Then he looked up at the sky and understood.

The sky that should have been filled with stars and a solitary moon was instead filled with an array of planets of various sizes and colours. It was a stunning picture—he knew Malcolm would love to see something like this—but it also meant he'd gotten here just in time.

He adjusted the hold on his gun and smiled grimly at the horizon. "Game on," he muttered. Then he walked past a milkman staring at the shattered remains of his cargo, eager to get to the centre of the action.

Ten minutes later, he shook his head as he looked up and down a busy street. When he'd said the centre of action, he hadn't been thinking of Chiswick High Road. But it was as good a place to start as any, he reckoned as he shifted his gun to hang at his side and started walking.

Alarms pierced the air, but he kept walking. Looting was inevitable in a situation like this, and he needed to get to the Doctor and Rose as quickly as was the best way to get things back to normal.

A crowd of terrified people ran screaming up the middle of the street. "Yeah, good luck finding a place to hide from that," Mickey said under his breath, looking up at the sky again.

A car roared down the street on his left, with drunk, frightened idiots hanging out the windows and sunroof, shouting at the audience and the planets in the sky. Mickey shook his head and kept walking, until a drunk staggered out of a pub right in front of him.

"The end of the world, mate," he said, gesturing vaguely at the sky and the planets and the chaos around them. "End of the stinking world."

"Yeah?" Mickey nodded, a smirk on his face. "You'd better have another then."

The sound of shattering glass caught his attention, and he spun around, quickly spotting two hoodies breaking into an electronics shop across the street. "Oh, no you don't," he muttered, shifting his hold on his weapon and striding across the street. Stopping a robbery about to happen was different from trying to chase down every hoodlum carrying stolen goods.

The thieves were packing laptops and other equipment into their bags when he reached them. Mickey leaned against the door with one hand resting on his gun.

"Way I see it," he said casually, hiding a smirk when their heads snapped up, "you've got two choices. You can put that stuff down, or you can try your odds against my gun here."

Their eyes widened, and a second later they bolted past him, out into the street. Mickey chuckled for a second, then he noticed one of the televisions was still on.

"Right," he said, taking a seat in front of it. "Time to see if anyone has figured out what's going on yet."

He watched the news report impatiently. Planets in the sky, spaceships approaching… He was just about to switch it off and see if he couldn't find a better source of information when the news anchor pressed his finger to his ear, clearly getting a message from his producers.

"Hold on," he said, listening and nodding. "I've just learned that we are receiving a message from the spaceship. We're going to try to patch it through now. It's audio only, I understand, but maybe this can tell us something more about who's done this."

The breath Mickey was holding whooshed out of him when a familiar, grating cry echoed in the small shop. "Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate."

Daleks.

They'd known that whoever was making the stars go out was most likely not an ally of Earth. But there was a difference between suspecting a shadowy enemy was plotting against you, and learning the shadowy enemy was an entire Dalek fleet.

Mickey stepped out of the shop and looked up at the sky, where a Dalek ship had just broken atmosphere. The saucer spun around, letting the weapons array take aim and fire at Chiswick landmarks.

"Daleks," he said, still hardly able to believe it. How many times had the Doctor and Rose defeated them, wiped them out completely… and yet they still came back.

After a moment, he set his shoulders and walked away. He'd found the right Earth and the right time. Now it was time to find the TARDIS.

oOoOoOoOo

"Hold on, Doctor," Rose said as they tried to stay upright. "I thought the Shadow Proclamation was like… an interstellar treaty or something."

The Doctor shook his head quickly. "It's the name of the governing body that wrote and enforces the treaties and agreements." He grunted when the turbulence sent him into the console. "Posh name for police, really. Outer space police."

The TARDIS shuddered when she hit the materialisation barrier that protected the Shadow Proclamation from invasion via teleportation, and the Doctor punched the button that would send them through anyway. "Here we go."

As they materialised, the external monitor flickered on. They'd landed at the end of a long white corridor, so bright it almost looked pale blue. And standing in front of the TARDIS…

"Judoon," the Doctor groaned, wrinkling his nose at the rhino-faced space thugs.

He jogged around the console and put his coat on, then looked seriously at Rose, Jenny, and Donna. "Judoon have no sense of humour," he warned. "We've broken one of the rules of the Shadow Proclamation by landing without proper clearance." He pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth. "Well, I say without clearance, but really, I have permanent clearance. But they'll be testy with us regardless, so just… let me do the talking."

It was a testament to how grave the situation was that not one of the ladies offered a snarky comment about what typically happened when he did the talking. Instead, Rose came around beside him and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Let's go save the Earth."

The trust in her eyes shone just as vibrantly over the bond, and he thanked her silently.

The console room was silent as he swung his coat around his shoulders. Then he drew a deep breath and pulled the door open, stepping out with Rose at his side and Jenny and Donna right behind them. The Judoon immediately primed their weapons, and he and Rose raised their hands so they would see they were unarmed.

The captain, the only Judoon not wearing a helmet, addressed the Doctor directly. "Sco bo tro no flo jo ko fo to to." Are you the Time Lord?

The Doctor nodded. "No bo ho sho ko ro to so." He paused, then rattled off the code word that would confirm his identity. "Bokodozogobofopojo."

Every Judoon lowered their weapon and came to attention. The Doctor relaxed and dropped his hands, then tilted his head down and looked straight into the eyes of the captain, giving a single-word order.

"Moho."

The guards did an about-face and marched off, and the captain straightened and spoke again, this time in English. "Apologies, Time Lord, but we could not take any chances. I will take you to the Shadow Architect now."

Rose took the Doctor's hand again as they fell in step with the Judoon captain, and he glanced over his shoulder to make sure Donna and Jenny were following. Both women nodded once, and he faced front again.

What was that all about? Rose asked.

They're a bit on edge, the Doctor explained. Understandable really—wouldn't you be if you were in charge of peace in the universe and a planet went missing? So I had to confirm that we were who we seemed to be, and now they're taking us to see the Shadow Architect.

The captain led them into the main conference room. Two Judoon stood guard by the door of the empty room. While they waited for the Shadow Architect to arrive, the Doctor cast a sweeping gaze around the room. It had been remodelled since the last time he'd been there, taking on the same cold, unwelcoming atmosphere as the rest of the complex.

His keen ears heard soft footsteps approaching, and he straightened up as a tall albino woman entered the room. Her black dress and black snood against her pale skin and white hair made her look otherworldly. It was, he knew, a tool she used to keep her opponents off guard.

She sniffed as she paced along the head of the table. "Time Lords are the stuff of legend. They belong in the myths and whispers of the higher species." She stood still, and the train on her gown fluttered around her ankles. "You cannot possibly exist."

"Yeah." The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets—that pointless posturing reminded him why it had been so long since he'd been back here. "More to the point, I've got a missing planet."

She shook her head, and for the first time, he saw a glimmer of emotion—anger—in her face. "Then you're not as wise as the stories would say. The picture is far bigger than you imagine. The whole universe is in outrage, Doctor. Twenty-four worlds have been taken from the sky."

"How many?" The Doctor jogged around the glass table so he could look at the computer terminal on the other end, leaping over a bench that stood in his way. "Which ones? Show me," he demanded as he put his glasses on.

"Locations range far and wide," she said, tapping in a command that brought up the list, "but all disappeared at the exact same moment, leaving no trace."

The Doctor leaned down and read the list. "Callufrax Minor. Jahoo. Shallacatop. Woman Wept. Clom."

"Clom's gone?" Rose said as she joined him. "Who'd want Clom?"

The Architect's nose thinned. "Who is the female?"

The Doctor wiped his mouth to hide his smirk as he stepped back, letting Rose speak for herself. Rose tilted her head back, and even though she was a good two inches shorter than the Shadow Architect, the proud way she held herself made it look like she was looking down at the other woman—who happened to be one of the most powerful politicians in the universe.

"I'm Rose. Rose Tyler. Other half of the Stuff of Legend." She looked over her shoulder at the Doctor, an eyebrow arched. "Blimey, they're a little behind the times around here, aren't they?"

"Apparently," the Doctor managed to say without laughing.

Jenny stepped forward and put her hands on the table. "And I'm Jenny Tyler. I'm their daughter."

"Yeah, I notice you didn't ask about us." Anger glinted in Donna's eyes. "I'm Donna, by the way. I'm a human being. Maybe not the stuff of legend, but every bit as important as Time Lords, thank you."

The Shadow Architect turned to the Doctor, tight lines etched around her mouth. "You travel with an entourage, Time Lord."

"Oh, I'm just the chauffeur," the Doctor said blithely. "Now, tell me about these planets."

Her nostrils flared, but she nodded and looked back at the monitor. "All different sizes. Some populated, some not. But all unconnected."

"What about Pyrovillia?" Donna asked hesitantly.

The Doctor's eyes widened. He hadn't thought of the Pyrovile in months, not even when they were faced with missing planets, once again. He nodded at Donna over the Shadow Architect's shoulder, and she straightened slightly.

"Way back, when we were in Pompeii, Lucius said Pyrovillia had gone missing."

"Pyrovillia is cold case," the Judoon captain grunted. "Not relevant."

The Doctor and Rose both shivered as they felt timelines buzzing around the room. The Judoon was wrong, but how?

"What's a cold case?" Jenny asked.

"The planet Pyrovillia cannot be part of this," the Shadow Architect explained impatiently. "It disappeared over two thousand years ago."

Rose crossed her arms over her chest and leaned her hip on the table. "That's not the only missing planet we've run into recently though," she countered. "What about the Adipose breeding planet? Miss Foster said it was lost, and that was why the Adipose royal family hired her to seed Earth."

"Yeah, but that would have been a long time ago, too," Donna countered.

Time! The one missing piece of information that had puzzled the Doctor slid into place. Planets didn't just go missing. Even if you could move a planet, it would leave a trace—a trail of some kind you could follow. But he'd been unable to track Earth, and obviously the Shadow Proclamation had been unable to track the rest of the worlds.

"That's it!" He pointed at the ceiling. "Donna, Rose—brilliant." He looked at the Shadow Architect and explained quickly. "Planets are being taken out of time as well as space." He adjusted the controls on the computer, asking it to pull up a simulation of the missing worlds. "Let's put this into 3D."

So that's why we couldn't find Earth? Rose said as holograms of the twenty-four missing worlds appeared over the table. Because it's out of sync temporally?

He nodded as he quickly added planets to the model. "Now, if we add Pyrovillia and Adipose Three." It was still just an assortment of planets, though. The Doctor tapped his fingers along the edge of the monitor. "Something missing. Where else, where else, where else?" he whispered. Missing wasn't the right word, though. "Where else lost, lost, lost, lost?"

The memory clicked. A brilliant young graduate student and her paper that had led to her being on the Midnight tour. "Oh! The Lost Moon of Poosh." A wave of vindication swept through him as he typed in the name; at least his misadventure on Midnight had had one positive result.

As soon as the 3D model of the Lost Moon of Poosh appeared, the planets shifted. "What did you do?" the Shadow Architect said, a hint of accusation in her voice.

"Nothing." The Doctor walked into the middle of the projection and looked up at the twenty-seven planets, now acting like cogs in a machine. "The planets rearranged themselves into the optimum pattern. Oh, look at that. Twenty-seven planets in perfect balance. Come on, that is gorgeous."

"Yeah, it's beautiful Doctor," Rose agreed. "But it's also really bad news, isn't it?" The Doctor turned to her, and she held his gaze. "Because if these worlds can arrange themselves into a perfect pattern like this, it means they were taken for a purpose. Someone is using Earth, and Woman Wept, and even Clom, to do something."

And that's why the stars are going out, she added silently.

The Doctor nodded, agreeing with both the stated and unstated parts of her theory. "All those worlds fit together like pieces of an engine. It's like a powerhouse. What for?"

"Who could design such a thing?" the Shadow Architect asked, not unreasonably. It would take a brilliant scientist to come up with something like this.

The notion triggered a very distant memory in the Doctor's mind. "Someone tried to move the Earth once before. Long time ago." He dismissed the thought almost as soon as it occurred to him. Davros was gone—he'd witnessed his destruction at the jaws of the Nightmare Child himself. "Can't be."

The Shadow Architect angled her body towards the Doctor, effectively sliding in between Rose and the Doctor. "What is it, Doctor? A new possibility has occurred to you, I can see it in your eyes."

Rose narrowed her eyes at the woman's back and was half-tempted to push her way back into the conversation. Then she saw Jenny and Donna standing awkwardly at the other end of the room and changed her mind.

"Well," she said drily as she joined them, "it seems I'm not quite legendary enough for my input to be sought after. Come on, let's sit on the steps like the peasants we obviously are."

Jenny chuckled as they all sat down on the glass staircase. "I think Dad would rather you stayed with him."

Rose met the Doctor's gaze and gently redirected his attention back to figuring out what had happened to Earth. That was more important than her pride. She knew he valued her opinion, which mattered more than someone she'd never met before and likely never would meet again.

"Doesn't matter," Rose said breezily.

Then she looked at Donna, who very uncharacteristically had not said a word. "Have you tried calling them?" she asked quietly.

Donna nodded. Rose saw her mouth moving, but a sudden swell of music made it impossible for her to focus on what her friend was saying. The song was like the TARDIS, but wilder, more untamed. She'd heard this version before…

"Rose!" Donna shook her.

Rose blinked a few times, then realised a servant, a young albino girl, was trying to hand her a drink.

"You need sustenance. Take the water, it purifies."

"Thanks." Rose took the bowl and noticed that Donna and Jenny had already been served.

"It is almost time," the girl said. "The wolf will howl again."

Rose froze, then slowly lowered the bowl and looked up at the servant. "How do you know that?" she asked, her voice low and hoarse.

The albino's red eyes seemed to stare right through her. "It must be you, no matter what he says."

Then she bowed suddenly and scurried away.

"What was that?" Donna asked once they were alone.

Time swirled around Rose, and for a moment, she was in the TARDIS again, wearing this coat but with her hair down. The console room was on fire and sparks fell around her as she hung onto the jump seat for dear life.

The Doctor was suddenly in front her, crouching down so he could look into her eyes without her having to crane her neck up. "All right, love?" he asked quietly.

Rose nodded. Like the vision on Shan Shen, the details vanished as soon as she was pulled back to the present. "Just timelines." She took his hand and squeezed, and after a moment, he squeezed back.

The Doctor shifted and sat down beside them, looking over at Donna. "Donna, help me out. Was there anything unusual happening on Earth before you left with us? Electrical storms, freak weather, patterns in the sky?"

"Well, how should I know?" Donna snapped, then she took a deep breath and wiped a tear from her eye. "Um, no. I don't think so, no."

"Oh, okay, never mind." The Doctor sighed and stood back up.

"Although, there were the bees disappearing," Donna said as he started down the stairs.

In the arch of the Doctor's eyebrow, Rose could see the rude dismissal forming on the tip of his tongue. She shook her head quickly. Be gentle. Her whole family…

The Doctor pressed his lips together, and then said, "Right… the bees disappearing. You mentioned that…" His eyes widened suddenly. "The bees disappearing!" he crowed as he spun around and ran back to the computer terminal.

Rose, Jenny, and Donna exchanged a look, then all three of them jumped to their feet and followed him. They knew that victorious cry too well.

"How is that significant?" the Shadow Architect demanded.

"Bees are this Earth insect," Rose explained.

"Yeah, and they've been disappearing," Donna continued. "Some people said it was pollution or mobile phone signals."

"Or," the Doctor said as he typed feverishly, "they were going back home."

"Back home where?" Donna asked.

"Planet Melissa Majoria."

"Wait." Jenny held her hand up, and her eyes glowed with excitement. "Are you saying Earth has alien insects?"

The Doctor grinned up at her, then looked back at the monitor. "Yup! Not all bees are aliens, but if the migrant bees felt something coming, some sort of danger, and escaped? Tandocca," he declared, pointing up at the Shadow Architect.

"The Tandocca Scale," she said, finally sounding a little bit impressed.

For once, the Doctor explained without being asked. "Tandocca Scale is the series of wavelengths used as a carrier signals by migrant bees. Infinitely small. No wonder we didn't see it. It's like looking for a speck of cinnamon in the Sahara, but look, there it is." He pointed at the screen, where a trail of tiny specks was following a large dot. "The Tandocca trail. The transmat that moved the planets was using the same wavelength—we can follow the path."

Donna spun around and started running back to the TARDIS. "And find the Earth?" she called out over her shoulder. "Well, stop talking and do it."

"I am!" he shouted at her back.

The Doctor, Rose, and Jenny all ran after Donna. The TARDIS had unlocked her door and they piled into the console room. Rose stood guard by the door they left ajar, while the Doctor ran straight for the computer terminal.

Come on, old girl. We can do it. Twenty-seven planets are counting on us today.

"We're a bit late," he warned as he shifted the wavelength the scanner was tracking. He held his breath as the TARDIS searched, not letting it out until the trail appeared on the monitor. "The signal's scattered, but it's a start."

He ran back down the ramp and stuck his head out the door. "I've got a blip," he told the Shadow Architect, who'd followed them back to the TARDIS with Judoon in tow. "It's just a blip, but it's definitely a blip."

Her eyes glittered in excitement. "Then according to the strictures of the Shadow Proclamation, I will have to seize your transport and your technology."

Rose took half a step towards the open door, but the Doctor reached for her shoulder and squeezed. I know you want to burst through the doors and take her down a few pegs, he told Rose while they waited for an answer, but we don't have time. Can you get the TARDIS ready to leave?

She sighed, but a moment later, he heard her behind him, adjusting the controls so the ship would follow the trail they'd picked up. Confident that they'd be ready to leave momentarily, he looked at the Architect. "Oh, really? What for?"

The Shadow Architect and her Judoon guards were none the wiser to the private conversation. "The planets were stolen with hostile intent," she said, lifting her chin defiantly. "We are declaring war, Doctor, right across the universe, and you will lead us into battle."

You were right, Rose—their files are definitely out of date and inaccurate. Not even UNIT would try to get me to use the TARDIS as a weapon.

"Right," he said out loud. "Yes. Course I will. I'll just go and get you the key."

He slid back into the ship and softly closed the door, then tossed his coat over a strut as Rose hit the dematerialisation lever.

"Let's go find some missing planets," he said as he raced up the ramp to join her.

oOoOoOoOo

Mickey tried Rose's number for the twentieth time, but once again it went straight to voicemail. "Where are you, babe?" he muttered as he crept through the streets of Chiswick.

If you'd told him that one day, he would be ducking and hiding as he ran down a quiet residential street in Chiswick of all places, he would have laughed in your face. But he'd just barely managed to avoid a Dalek patrol, and he definitely did not want to be caught.

"Halt. You will come with me."

Mickey froze, then slowly snuck forward. The Dalek was just around the corner, and it sounded like it might be alone. He could handle one on its own.

"Will I heck," a man growled, and then Mickey heard a splat that sounded like a paint ball hitting something.

"My vision is not impaired," the Dalek said.

"I warned you, Dad," a tearful woman said.

"Hostility will not be tolerated."

Mickey set his jaw. That was his cue. He gripped his gun tighter, and as the Dalek started crying, "Exterminate," he wheeled around the corner and shot its head off.

On the other side of the smoking Dalek remains, an elderly man blinked up at him. "Do you want to swap?" he asked, holding up what was indeed a paint gun.

Mickey chuckled. "Nah, I'm good, mate," he said. Then he looked sternly at the man and his daughter. "Listen to me, both of you. Go back home and lay low. Daleks don't take resistance kindly. We're hopefully going to get rid of them, but until we do, you cannot draw attention to yourselves. Got it?"

The woman nodded fiercely, then tugged the man down the street. "Come on, Dad," Mickey heard her say as they jogged off. "I don't want to die tonight."

Mickey shook his head as they left, then he looked at the Dalek remains. Seeing it up close and personal brought back memories of working at the Torchwood in this universe, and the last time he'd seen the Doctor and Rose.

Torchwood. Suddenly, he knew where he needed to go. It was time to get help from an old friend.

oOoOoOoOo

The TARDIS' wheezing slowed as she took them out of the Vortex back into space. The time rotor pumped up and down a few more times, then stopped with a jaw-rattling thud. Rose and the Doctor looked at the monitor, then frowned at each other; there were no planets anywhere nearby at all. Certainly not twenty-seven of them.

"It's stopped," the Doctor said. He twisted a dial, but the ship remained where she was. The trail ended here.

"What do you mean?" Donna moved around the console to look at the monitor with them. "Is that good or bad? Where are we?"

"The Medusa Cascade." He hit a button on the monitor and the computer report detailing their location was replaced by the feed from the external video. Donna sucked in a breath at the glorious cloud of colours, and Jenny came up on his other side to see it.

"Oh, it's beautiful!" she whispered, touching the monitor where navy blue faded into brilliant violet. "It reminds me of the painting hanging over your bed," she added.

The Doctor and Rose exchanged a smile, remembering the last time they'd seen this wonder of the universe. "Yeah, that painting is a picture of the view of the Medusa Cascade from a nearby planet," he told Jenny. "We've been here before. Well." He tugged on his ear. "I've been here a few times. Back when I was a kid, it was the centre of a rift in time and space."

Jenny nodded, then bit her lip and peered more closely at the monitor. "But… I don't see any planets," she said after a moment.

The Doctor sighed and stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. "We followed the Tandocca Trail, but it stops dead. End of the line."

They were close; he could feel it. He just needed a bit of time to figure out how to actually find the planets.

Donna's eyes widened and she shook her head. "So what do we do?" She looked at the monitor, then back at him. "Doctor, what do we do?"

Rose stepped around the Doctor to grab Donna by the shoulders. "Donna, listen," she said, making her voice as gentle as possible. "We are going to find the Earth, do you hear me? We will find your mum and granddad. But you need to calm down, all right?"

"But how?" Donna asked, a hysterical edge in her voice. "I've tried… I've tried calling, and no one answers. And…" She swallowed. "This was our one chance, and it didn't work. The planets aren't there. They aren't anywhere."

Rose shook Donna gently. "Do you remember UNIT? Maybe you can't get through, and maybe Wilf can't call you, but our friends on Earth will be trying to reach us, and they have better technology than your basic mobile phone." She opened a drawer and pulled out her phone. "We just need to wait for them to find us."

AN: If you're reading any of my other WIP stories, they are all on hiatus at the moment. I hope to be able to come back to them before too long, but I desperately need a break. This story will continue with weekly updates as planned.