AN: Guys. You have no idea how excited I am for this chapter. I loved coming up with a solution to the Daleks that was original and fit the restrictions I'd placed on the story-Bad Wolf, but not with the Vortex power. I can't wait to hear what you think!
Chapter Thirty-nine: Time and Relative Dimension in Space
When Jack had first started crawling through the ventilation ducts, his wrist comp had indicated a large group of humans gathered together in the Crucible. A moment ago, the device had beeped, and he'd watched those dots—those indicators of life—flicker out.
Before helpless rage could set in, he realised there were still three human dots left outside the Vault, and they were close by. "Right," he muttered to himself as he shimmied through the shaft to the closest access point. "You three are about to become my new best friends."
He popped the access panel open and rolled out onto the floor. Flat on his back, he blinked a few times, then shot a cheeky grin at the familiar woman smirking down at him. Jack leapt to his feet and snapped a salute. "We meet at last, Miss Smith."
He glanced at the couple standing behind Sarah Jane, and his eyes widened. "Jackie Tyler! You are honestly the last person I ever expected to meet onboard a Dalek stronghold."
Rose's mum frowned at him for a moment, then her expression cleared. "Oh, I remember you! You visited with Rose and the Doctor once, back before he changed his face." She gestured to the man at her side. "This is my husband, Pete."
Jack quickly shook Pete's hand, then scanned the small group. "We've got to do something to help the Doctor."
Sarah Jane nodded. "There is something we can do."
She took a shuddering breath, and Jack had a feeling that whatever she was about to suggest was of the last resort variety.
"You've got to understand," she said hurriedly. "I have a son down there on Earth. He's only fourteen years old."
Pete put a hand on her shoulder and nodded when Sarah Jane turned to look at him. "You don't need to explain to us, Sarah Jane. We have a son, too. Whatever you want to do, if it will save the people down there on Earth, and on our Earth… we're in."
Jackie nodded in agreement.
Sarah Jane's jaw tightened, and any hesitation she'd displayed disappeared. "I've brought this." She pulled something out of her pocket, and when she unclenched her fist, a sparkling gem fell from her hand, dangling from a chain. "It was given to me by a Verron Soothsayer. He said, 'This is for the End of Days.'"
She handed it to Jack, and he looked from the stone to Sarah Jane and back again. "Is that a Warp Star?" he asked, hardly daring to believe what he was holding. She nodded quickly, and Jack sucked in a breath. They might just have a chance, after all.
Jackie Tyler crossed her arms over her chest. "Someone mind telling the rest of us what a Warp Star is?" she snarked.
Jack couldn't take his eyes off the weapon as it spun and sparkled in his hands. "A warpfold conjugation trapped in a carbonised shell. It's an explosion, Jackie." Reluctantly, he looked at Sarah Jane again. "An explosion waiting to happen."
Blowing up the Crucible was a last resort, as he'd suspected. But compared to some extreme measures he'd been forced to employ over the years, there was very little moral ambiguity in this plan. Destroy the Daleks, save reality. It was as simple as that.
His conscience pricked at him, and he knew there was one more thing the Doctor would want him to do before he blew up the space station. They had to give the Daleks a chance—a chance to leave and let them all live.
oOoOoOoOo
Martha fidgeted with a pen she'd found on the desk. Osterhagen Station Four had come online only a few minutes after she'd sent out the call, but the bloke manning the station was tight-lipped and grim-faced.
She tapped the pen on the desk while she waited for a third station to come online. She had a plan, but since the Osterhagen Keys only worked when three of them were activated, she couldn't implement it until another operative joined them.
A burst of static caught her attention, and she looked up as the feed from China went live. "This is Osterhagen Station Five. Are you receiving, Station One?"
"I've got you." Martha glanced at the two live screens. "That makes three of us, and three is all we need."
"My name is Anna Zhou. What's yours?"
"Martha Jones." She looked right. "What about you, Station Four? You never said."
The officer in Liberia shook his head. "I don't want my name on this, given what we're about to do."
"So what happens now?" Anna asked, filling in the awkward silence following that grave pronouncement. "Do we do it?"
Martha shook her head. With three keys in place, they had the leverage they needed to possibly convince the Daleks to leave. They might have to use the Osterhagen Key in the end, but first…
She turned the square key over in her hands. "No. Not yet."
Anna frowned. "UNIT instructions say, once three Osterhagen Stations are online—"
"Yeah, but I've got a higher authority, way above UNIT," Martha cut in. She looked at the disk that would activate the nuclear warheads. "And there's one more thing the Doctor would do."
She'd thought of a way to give the Daleks a chance. Whether or not they took it would be up to them.
oOoOoOoOo
Bad Wolf felt like she was floating as she danced around the TARDIS console. Each movement she made was so automatic and sure, it was like she'd practised it a hundred times over.
"Davros gave us the key to his own downfall," she mused. The timelines she'd sensed when he showed them his own skeletal body made sense now.
The TARDIS hummed in agreement as Rose keyed the carefully chosen coordinates into the navigation panel.
"He created the Daleks out of his own genetic material, which means…" She tapped a few buttons to test her theory and grinned when the TARDIS confirmed that genetically, every Dalek on that station was identical to each other and their creator. This plan would work.
Bad Wolf jolted slightly when she felt another mind connect with hers. She'd become so completely connected with the TARDIS as they'd worked on their plan to defeat the Daleks that every other telepathic connection had been almost forgotten.
Rose?
The name felt… wrong, somehow. Incomplete. But before she could correct the Doctor, the part of her being that belonged to Rose Tyler asserted herself. Bad Wolf remembered that while she was Bad Wolf, she was also Rose and the TARDIS, individually.
Yes, Doctor?
He hesitated for a second. Am I talking to Rose, right now? Or to Bad Wolf? I mean. I know Bad Wolf is Rose, but they're also not Rose and I would like…
His ramble and frustrated sigh brought a smile to Rose's face, and she reached for the bond. Bad Wolf watched as she gave the Doctor an affectionate telepathic caress that seemed so familiar. A moment later, they felt the Doctor relax under the soft touch.
If you have a plan, love, now would be an excellent time to set it in motion.
The obvious indication that they were on borrowed time brought Bad Wolf back to the front of Rose's mind. Davros and the Daleks were threatening her Doctor. A glint of gold filled her vision as she typed the final command into the TARDIS terminal, and a moment later, her sonic screwdriver beeped as it received the software update.
She slid the device into her pocket, then pulled his sonic out of his coat on impulse and put that in her pocket as well. We'll be there soon, she promised the Doctor. I'll keep you safe, my Doctor.
oOoOoOoOo
The Doctor's eyes widened when he recognised the voice of Bad Wolf. Rose still used that endearment, but he'd never heard it spoken with quite the same intonation as she'd used that first time—until now.
She was still Rose; that hadn't been a lie. But her typical pink and gold telepathic aura was now shot through with a deeper gold as the TARDIS connected her to Time.
He'd worried before that Rose's… well, Roseness—the essence of what made her Rose—would be subsumed if she ever merged with the TARDIS again. But in that brief conversation with her, she'd felt just as much like Rose has she had in four years of telepathic conversation. And then the reminder of the imminent danger had brought Bad Wolf to the fore, and Bad Wolf had been completely Bad Wolf while still being completely Rose.
The dynamic state of being two things at once had flummoxed Christian theologians for millennia. And now, having experienced it, he couldn't explain her dual nature, not even with his big Time Lord brain. He could only shrug and say, as theologians did, that it just was.
The view screen turned back on, interrupting his existential musings. The Doctor straightened up when he saw Martha's face onscreen.
"This message is for the Dalek Crucible. Repeat. Can you hear me?"
"Put me through," the Doctor ordered the Daleks.
"It begins, as Dalek Caan foretold," Davros said.
Propped up in his open casing, Caan giggled softly. "The Children of Time will gather once the Wolf has been silenced."
Even though he knew Rose was fine, those words still aggravated a wound that was too fresh to be picked at. "Stop saying that." He looked at Davros and made his demand again. "Put me through!"
"Doctor!" Martha said, and the Doctor felt a rush of relief that they could see each other. Her eyes shifted from right to left, and he tensed in anticipation of her next words. "Where's Rose?"
Davros rolled forward. "We took the TARDIS and Rose Tyler, and we destroyed them together." He rubbed his hands together gleefully. "The Doctor was powerless to help her."
Martha blinked rapidly and opened and closed her mouth a few times. Then she tilted her head and looked at the Doctor. "She was with the TARDIS?"
He nodded, and he hoped he was the only one who could read the relief in Martha's posture. Like Jack and Mickey, Martha knew enough to find a grain of hope in that fact.
"Enough chatter," Davros interrupted. "State your intent."
Martha held up something, and another rock landed in the pit of the Doctor's stomach when he recognised an authorisation key for a missile.
"I've got the Osterhagen Key," Martha said grimly. "Leave this planet and its people alone or I'll use it."
"Osterhagen what?" the Doctor sputtered. "What's an Osterhagen Key?"
Martha's shoulders lifted and fell as she drew a breath. "There's a chain of twenty-five nuclear warheads placed in strategic points beneath the Earth's crust," she explained. "If I use the key, they detonate and… the Earth gets ripped apart."
It was exactly the kind of ridiculous last resort weapon humans would invent. And of course UNIT wouldn't tell him about it, because they knew exactly what his response would be.
"What? Who invented that?" The Doctor shook his head. "Well, someone called Osterhagen, I suppose. Martha, are you insane?" He regretted the words as soon as he said them, but this just sounded so un-Martha like that he couldn't even comprehend what she was saying.
She set her jaw. "The Osterhagen Key is to be used if the suffering of the human race is so great, so without hope"—she nodded a few times, because they were almost to that point, and they both knew it—"that this becomes the final option."
The Doctor shook his head violently. "That's never an option." He'd destroyed his own planet—he knew the weight of that choice. Even though he knew it had been a choice between Gallifrey and the universe, he still wondered if he could have found a way to save them all.
"Don't argue with me, Doctor!" Martha shouted. "Because it's more than that. Now, I reckon the Daleks need these twenty-seven planets for something. But what if it becomes twenty-six?" She held the key up, a feral smile on her face. "What happens then? Daleks?" She looked over at Davros. "Would you risk it?"
The Doctor blinked; now that sounded more like Martha.
"She's good," Mickey said, and the Doctor raised an eyebrow at the blatant admiration in the other man's voice.
A second screen suddenly split off from the first, this one showing Jack, Sarah Jane, and—the Doctor gaped—Pete and Jackie. "What?" he mumbled, though really, by this point in the day, he should be beyond feeling shocked by anything.
"Captain Jack Harkness, calling all Dalek boys and girls." Jack was holding a bundle of wires up in front of the camera. "Are you receiving me? Don't send in your goons, or I'll set this thing off."
"He's still alive?" Jenny gasped, staring at Jack. "And… Who's that, behind Sarah Jane?"
The Doctor glanced over at his daughter, then at his mother-in-law onscreen. "Well. That's… that's your gran and granddad."
He winced when Jackie shrieked, silenced almost immediately by Pete's hand over her mouth. Off to the side in his own holding cell, Mickey chortled.
"Captain, what are you doing?" he asked Jack, choosing to focus on the universe ending and not the fact that he'd just given Jackie the biggest shock of her life. At least, he assumed meeting your alien grandchild trumped learning aliens existed.
"I've got a Warp Star wired into the mainframe," Jack said, and the Doctor finally recognised what was holding the tangle of wires together. "I break this shell, the entire Crucible goes up."
"You can't—where did you get a Warp Star?" the Doctor asked, momentarily distracted by that curiosity.
"From me," Sarah Jane interrupted, shaking her head behind Jack. "We had no choice. We saw what happened to the prisoners."
Davros wheeled closer to the screen. "Impossible. That face. After all these years."
Sarah Jane moved to stand in front of Jack. "Davros. It's been quite a while. Sarah Jane Smith. Remember?"
"Oh, this is meant to be," Davros breathed rapturously, and a muscle in Sarah's jaw twitched. "The circle of Time is closing. You were there on Skaro at the very beginning of my creation."
"And I've learnt how to fight since then."
There was a bite to Sarah's words that caught the Doctor by surprise. He looked from her to Martha, and he started to understand. They were making a stand, all of them.
Sarah Jane pressed her lips into a thin line, and when she spoke, every word was measured and sharp. "You let the Doctor go, or this Warp Star gets opened."
"I'll do it," Jack promised. "Don't imagine I wouldn't."
"Now that is what I call a ransom!" Donna crowed.
The Doctor pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth. This wasn't how he would have chosen to challenge the Daleks, but he couldn't help but be proud that none of his friends were cowering at home. They were all doing something, whatever they could.
"And the prophecy unfolds," Davros gloated.
The Doctor blinked. "Prophecy?" he repeated. "What prophecy?"
"The Doctor's soul is revealed," Caan sang. "See him. See the heart of him."
Davros leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers together, a vengeful smile creasing his sunken cheeks. "The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth, Doctor. You take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons. Behold your Children of Time transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this."
The Doctor watched some of the fire go out of Martha, Jack, and Sarah Jane, and he shook his head quickly. "Not murderers, Davros. Defenders. Defenders of the Earth." He nodded at Dalek Caan. "Caan was right. This shows you who I am. Not one of my friends was willing to just sit at home when you tried to take over the Earth." A memory Rose had shared with him once came back to him, giving him the words to explain. "They didn't give up or let things happen. They're making a stand."
He looked at all of his friends, now standing straight. "Would I have done things differently?" He shrugged. "Possibly. But I'm proud of all of them."
Davros paused for a moment, and the Doctor knew his response hadn't been what was expected. And not too long ago, he would have been lost to guilt.
"Would you still be proud of them if they gave their lives for you?" Davros challenged. "Your wife is not the only one who has sacrificed herself today, for their beloved Doctor. The Earth woman who fell opening the Subwave Network."
"Who was that?" the Doctor asked, his stomach knotting as he braced for the answer.
"Harriet Jones," Mickey told him.
The Doctor sucked in a breath. He'd barely thought about Harriet Jones of Flydale North since he'd had her removed from office almost four years ago.
"She gave her life to get you here," Mickey added.
"How many more?" Davros goaded. "Just think. How many have died in your name?"
The Doctor looked at his friends, and he could see the truth in their eyes. They loved him, and they were here because of him, but not for him. They were here for the Earth, for their families, for all the people who didn't have anyone to defend them.
And there were so many people who had made the same choice in his travels, the choice to put themselves in the path of danger to save a life or a planet. Their loss hurt, as it always did, but he couldn't remember them without also remembering the people they'd saved. He wouldn't cheapen their sacrifices by letting the guilt overwhelm him.
But Davros took his silence for guilty agreement, and he cackled. "The Doctor. The man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself."
Over the bond, Rose pulled him close.He felt a comforting warmth envelope him, as if she'd wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tight. For a moment, they both remembered the friends they had lost—Anita, Morvin and Foon and Banakafalata, Solomon, and so many others who had sacrificed their lives to save others.
But Davros is right, love, Rose agreed. He's shown you how you change people, how you give them the strength to be the best people they can be. She pressed a kiss to his cheek. And he's shown me how much you've changed. I'm so proud of you for understanding the truth.
The silence hanging in the Vault was heavy with emotion, but the Supreme Dalek didn't let it sit long. "Enough. Engage defence mechanism zero five," he ordered abruptly.
The Doctor's eyes widened. He knew what that meant, even if his friends didn't.
Onscreen, Martha stood up, holding the missile key in her hand. "It's the Crucible or the Earth," she said, delivering her ultimatum.
"Transmat engaged," a Dalek said, and blue light engulfed Martha.
"No!" she shouted. The Osterhagen Key fell useless to the ground as she was transmatted to the Crucible.
On the other screen, Jack, Sarah Jane, Jackie, and Pete disappeared as well. They reached the Vault at the same time and almost the same place as Martha, and when Martha stumbled into a rolling landing, Jackhelped her to her feet.
"I've got you. It's all right."
"Don't move, all of you," the Doctor warned his friends. "Stay still." He reached for them, then silently cursed the containment field that was in his way.
"Guard them!" Davros cried, pointing at the newcomers. "On your knees, all of you. Surrender!"
Martha, Sarah Jane, Jack, Jackie, and Pete all looked to him for guidance, and the Doctor nodded his head quickly. "Do as he says."
A Dalek slowly rolled towards them, and Jackie was the first to get on her knees with her hands behind her head. Pete was right behind her.
Mickey put his hands on his hips and glared at Pete. "I can't believe you brought Jackie."
Pete rolled his eyes, and the Doctor could guess the truth before he said it. "She came on her own."
Jackie tilted her head back and scowled at the Doctor. "Good thing I did, or I wouldn't know I had a granddaughter."
"The final prophecy is in place," Davros purred as he rolled towards them. "The Doctor and his children, all gathered as witnesses."
Jack and the Doctor exchanged a glance—Jack questioning, the Doctor trying to reassure him without words that there was a plan in place.
Davros looked up at the main level of the Crucible above them. "Supreme Dalek, the time has come." He pointed victoriously at the ceiling. "Now, detonate the Reality Bomb!" he shrieked, the words echoing through the Vault.
The floor vibrated as the mechanism was set in motion. At the same time, the Doctor felt the TARDIS shift into the Time Vortex.
"You can't, Davros!" he insisted, continuing to play his part. "Just listen to me! Just stop!"
Davros threw his head back and laughed, sounding every bit like the mad scientist he was. "Nothing can stop the detonation. Nothing and no one!"
The Doctor couldn't hide his smirk when he heard the first hint of the familiar sound of the TARDIS engines, a second before anyone else caught it. Dalek Caan giggled, and the Doctor shot him a quick glance, still unsure exactly what role the insane Dalek had played in the events of the day.
Wind rushed around them as the outline of the TARDIS appeared. "But that's the TARDIS," Donna said. "I thought… and Rose…"
Mickey shook his head. "Rose Tyler in the TARDIS? That's a hard combination to beat."
Jenny's blue eyes sparkled with excitement. "Oh, I knew it!" she crowed, clapping happily and bouncing lightly on her toes.
The TARDIS materialised on the edge of the room, and Davros rolled back a few feet. "Impossible," he whispered.
The Doctor rocked back on his heels, with his hands stuck in his pockets. "Oh… I learned a long time ago that nothing's impossible for Rose Tyler."
oOoOoOoOo
After kissing the Doctor's cheek and letting him know how proud she was of him, Rose pulled back enough from the bond to focus on the details of her rescue. That moment with the Doctor had served a second purpose. She'd been able to see the Vault through his eyes—important, because the success of the next part of the plan was largely dependent on the selection of her hiding place.
She'd just settled on a small corner tucked away behind a computer terminal when the image on the monitor flickered and then changed to show the arrangement of planets glowing again. Her eyes widened, and she took a deep breath and looked at the time rotor.
"Are you ready, old girl?" Out of everything they'd planned, this was the part that seemed the most incredible to Rose. Bad Wolf knew it would work; Rose Tyler thought it was almost impossible.
I am part of you, my Wolf, just as you are part of me, the TARDIS reminded her. We don't need the power of infinite Time to travel through time and space.
Rose nodded. "All right then. Let's do it." The time rotor moved up and down, and at the same time, the console room faded from Rose's sight as she sent herself separately into the Vault.
Rose had used a Vortex Manipulator before, but that was nothing like travelling through the Vortex as one who belonged there. Time whipped around her as she crossed the short distance, until she rematerialised behind the computer terminal, exactly as she'd planned.
The gold haze was still clearing from her vision when Rose peeked around the edge of the computer terminal to assess the situation. In addition to everyone who had been in the TARDIS, Martha and Sarah Jane were there along with—Rose had to press her hand to her mouth to stifle her gasp—her mum and Pete.
Every eye was focused on the TARDIS, who had positioned herself on the edge of the room. Hidden safely from view, Rose watched the Doctor. He was rocking back on his heels with a smug grin on his face.
"Oh… I learned a long time ago that nothing's impossible for Rose Tyler," he told Davros, in response to a comment Rose hadn't heard.
For a moment, Rose's grin matched his. Then a mad glint entered Davros' eyes and he pointed a shaking hand at the Doctor. "Exterminate him!" he shrieked, angry spittle gathering on his chin.
Daleks rolled towards the Doctor, chanting, "Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate."
With the threat to their Doctor, Bad Wolf once more moved to the front of Rose's mind. Her fingers danced over the controls on the terminal until she found the ones she needed and pressed them gleefully.
A low hum echoed around the room as every single Dalek weapon was rendered useless. The Daleks circling the Doctor looked down at their death rays, like children whose favourite toys had been taken away.
"Weapons non-functional," they croaked morosely.
Rose straightened up so they could see her. Gasps echoed around the Vault and her mum cried her name, but Rose focused on Davros, whose hollow eyes glared at her balefully.
"Yeah, did you really think I was going to let you kill him?" she demanded. "I might not be able to stop your laser bolts in midair anymore, but I can still shut all your weapons off thanks to this handy terminal that lets me into your mainframe. So you might as well just point those egg beaters somewhere else, because they aren't going to do you any good."
The Doctor blinked rapidly. "How did you get over there?" he asked, looking from her to the TARDIS and back again.
Rose winked at him. "Bad Wolf means I'm both me and I'm the TARDIS. Anything the TARDIS can do, I can do. Such as disappearing from one place and reappearing in another."
The Doctor opened and shut his mouth a few times before finally shaking his head. "Of course you can," he said, a smile stretching across his face.
Flush with the success of her first task, Rose jumped when the Supreme Dalek started the final countdown to detonation. She'd almost forgotten about the Reality Bomb. Davros turned the view screen back on, and they all watched the energy being channelled through the twenty-seven planets.
Davros steepled his hands together and a malicious grin stretched his face unnaturally. "Your mate is alive, your TARDIS is here, and yet you are still helpless, Doctor."
"Detonation in twenty rels," the Supreme Dalek announced over the tannoy.
"Stand witness, Time Lords," Davros whispered as the Supreme Dalek continued the countdown. "Stand witness, humans. Your strategies have failed, your weapons are useless, and—Oh." His lips twisted into a mocking smile. "The end of the universe has come," he said as they all watched the glowing planets.
Rose rolled her eyes. "Or, I don't know." She pushed another button on the terminal, and the ominous buzz of energy building in the weapon faded as the Z-neutrino relays were shut down. "Maybe not?" she said nonchalantly when the view screen turned off.
The Doctor laughed as an alarm sounded through the Vault. Davros and the Daleks were rolling around, completely baffled, but he knew exactly what had happened.
"System in shutdown," said one Dalek.
"Detonation negative," another announced.
"Explain. Explain. Explain!" the Supreme Dalek demanded.
"You'll suffer for this," Davros cried and pointed his finger at Rose.
The Doctor frowned; what exactly did Davros think he was going to do by just pointing a finger at Rose? Then he saw the bolt of energy travelling down the scientist's arm, and his gaze flew to Rose.
Rose just smirked and pushed a button on her computer terminal, and the electrical bolt that was travelling down Davros' finger reversed and he electrocuted himself, instead of Rose.
Davros shrieked in pain when the electricity engulfed him, and the Doctor laughed again. "Hoisted by your own petard, Davros."
"Seemed fitting," Rose said, her tongue peeking out behind her teeth.
"Oh, I absolutely agree," the Doctor said. "Bad Wolf, saving the day single-handedly."
Rose raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, you could help if you wanted. Why're you just standing over there?" she asked. The Doctor tapped the side of the holding cell, and she nodded quickly. "Oops! Sorry, Doctor." She bent over the terminal for a moment, then smiled up at him. "That should do it."
He saw the containment field shut off and ran over to her while she pressed another button that sealed the Vault off from the rest of the Crucible. "Rose Tyler," he breathed as he pulled her into his arms, unable to resist a quick hug. The golden energy he could see fluctuating beneath her skin sent a charge through him when he touched her. "You are so impressive, love."
She spun out of his arms and shot him a cheeky grin. "Oh, I know," she promised him. "And now I think it's time to send some planets home. We've stopped the bomb—let's completely dismantle it."
"Stop them!" Davros ordered hysterically. "Get them away from the controls."
Rose rolled her eyes and worked quickly at the terminal. "You're so fond of those holding cells; why don't you spend some time in one yourself?"
The Doctor rubbed his hands together gleefully as the blue energy walls of the containment fields lowered. A large wall separated Davros and the bulk of the Daleks in the other half of the room, where they couldn't do any damage. The rest she trapped in groups of two or three.
I don't know why you wanted my help, Rose. You seem to be handling them by yourself just fine.
Rose looked back at him over her shoulder, one eyebrow arched seductively. There are lots of things I can handle by myself that are more fun with your help.
The Doctor choked on his laughter and tugged on his tie. You'll have to show me later.
Oh, I will.
He laughed when Rose winked outrageously before bending over the computer terminal. Her lips moved as she muttered to herself, and he rocked back on his heels to watch her work. All teasing aside, she really did have things nicely handled all by herself.
The sound of Daleks spinning in helpless circles caught his attention, and when he looked away from Rose, he saw their entire family watching them. Jenny, Donna, Jack, Martha, Mickey, Sarah Jane, and Pete and Jackie—all alive because of Rose.
The Doctor frowned when Jack broke away from the group and ran into the TARDIS. What is he up to?
Jack had to hand it to Rose; so far, every one of her plans had been flawless. She'd arrived at the perfect moment, eliminated the Dalek threat, stopped Davros from blowing up all of reality… He scanned the Vault, his eyes never settling in one place for long. Things were going perfectly, and it was his job to make sure there were no hidden surprises.
Unlike everyone else, he hadn't laughed when Rose trapped the Daleks behind the containment fields. Rose had taken care of the Dalek threat in the Vault… for now. But these weren't the only Daleks around, and he was under no illusion that the Supreme Dalek and his pals upstairs would let them ruin all their hard work.
He shook his head and ran into the TARDIS. The guns he and Mickey had brought with them were just inside the door, and he grabbed them and ran back out.
"Mickey!" His friend spun around, and Jack tossed the second weapon to him.
"What are you doing, Jack?" the Doctor demanded as Mickey caught the gun handily.
Jack shook his head. "Just being prepared for the worst," he explained. "Rosie here seems to have everything well in hand, but… well, I'd rather not be caught off-guard."
Bad Wolf felt a wave of affection and appreciation for this human she had condemned to eternity. There were reasons for that, reasons that he wouldn't fully understand until he used his last breath to offer the Doctor and Rose a warning they wouldn't understand until it was too late. But despite the fact that Time had insisted on this path, her humanness deeply regretted the pain it had caused him.
The Doctor opened his mouth to protest, and Rose put her hand on his arm and smiled up at him. "It's fine, Doctor. Now. We've got twenty-seven planets to send home. Activate magnetron."
"Stop this at once!" Davros cried futilely from the other side of the containment field.
She snorted. "You're not really in a position to be making demands," she pointed out. Then she turned and looked at the Doctor, one eyebrow raised. "Ready to finish this?" she murmured.
The Doctor caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingers. "I'm always ready to save the universe at your side."
He took his place on the other side of the terminal. They each reached for a pair of rods that would demagnetise the planets and send them home where they belonged.
"Off you go, Clom," the Doctor said. "And back home, Adipose Three."
Rose's fingers tingled as she pulled on her controls. "Shallacatop, Pyrovillia, and the Lost Moon of Poosh. All back where you belong."
The power meter dipped, and Rose tossed the Doctor his sonic screwdriver. "Can you take care of that?"
He caught the tool handily, with a toothy grin on his face. "I'm on it." He bent down and shifted a few settings on the terminal, letting them reroute power from areas of the Crucible that didn't need it.
During the brief lull in activity, Jenny jogged over and wrapped Rose in a hug from behind. "I thought you were dead for a little bit," she whispered.
Rose squeezed Jenny's hands, then pulled her around to stand beside her. "But I'm here now," she said softly.
"Yeah, about that," Donna started. Then she stared at Rose and blinked a few times. "You're… glowing," she said. "I mean, never mind the rest of it—how you survived the Z-neuron energy or whatever it's called, and how you even got here… Your skin is glowing, Rose."
Jackie left Pete standing with Mickey and walked over to them. Rose winked at her over Donna's shoulder, then said, "I get my youthful glow from my mum."
Jackie snorted. "Oh, don't even try it. There's no beauty creme that can do that." She took Rose's hand and held her arm up. "You can see the light shifting, look. So, come on then—what's this mean, you're part you and part TARDIS?"
The Doctor straightened up from the terminal and exchanged a grin with Rose. "Well, for one thing," the Doctor drawled as they continued sending planets back where they belonged. "You know how you and Donna are always teasing me about Rose being a better driver than I am, Jenny?"
"That's because she is, Dad," Jenny said frankly.
"Oi!"
Rose giggled as she sent Woman Wept back to its home system. "And this is why. I promise we'll explain it better later when we have more time, but the short version is that I can… merge with the TARDIS."
"My daughter is part spaceship," Jackie said faintly.
Donna looked from the ship back to Rose, who nodded, encouraging her to continue. "And while the ship was landing, you materialised over here, just like she does."
"Exactly!" Rose bobbed her head. "You're brilliant, Donna."
For once, Donna didn't argue.
Just as the Doctor was congratulating himself and Rose for handling that complicated explanation, Jackie narrowed her eyes at him. The Doctor stared back at her with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Well, that's one question answered," she said. "But I've got another one. How long has it been for you two, if this is my granddaughter?" She pointed to Jenny and lifted her chin in challenge.
The Doctor winced when Rose looked up at him, her eyes wide. "You told her?" she hissed.
"It just slipped out!" He pulled his rods again and sent Callufrax Minor and Jahoo back. "And Jackie, it's not like that," he continued. "Jenny is…"
Don't you dare tell my mum your daughter isn't mine! Rose ordered.
And just in time. The Doctor snapped his mouth shut when he realised exactly how that would have sounded to Jackie. "Um… it's complicated," he said, his voice weak.
Thankfully, Davros started talking again, interrupting any other questions Jackie might have had. "But you promised me, Dalek Caan." He spun in his chair to look at Dalek Caan. "Why did you not foresee this?"
Dalek Caan cackled, confirming the Doctor's suspicions. "Oh, I think he did. Because someone was there the whole time, making sure we got the information we needed. Who made sure that fortune teller on Shan Shen would target Rose, so she'd get the glimpse of the alternate timelines and dream of Mickey telling her the stars were going out?"
"This would always have happened." Caan waved his tentacles. "I only helped, Doctor."
"You betrayed the Daleks?" Davros asked incredulously.
Caan's single eye glared at Davros. "I saw the Daleks," he corrected hotly. "What we have done, throughout time and space—I saw the truth of us, Creator, and I decreed, 'no more!'"
A shudder ran through the Doctor. He had used those words once too, to declare an end to the Time War. They'd beat a steady rhythm in his head through those final days of the war—no more.
He felt a hand slip into his, and he looked over at Rose, who'd left her side of the console to offer him this little bit of comfort.
A hatch opened in the ceiling, and Jack lifted his weapon when the Supreme Dalek slowly lowered himself into the Vault. "Heads up!" he called out.
"Davros, you have betrayed us," the Supreme Dalek said ominously.
"It was Dalek Caan," Davros protested.
"The Vault will be purged. You will all be exterminated," the Supreme Dalek said, then fired a laser bolt at the control panel, sending Donna and Jenny to the floor.
Jack shook his head and primed his weapon. "Like I was saying, feel this!"
He'd turned the energy blast up all the way, and the broad beam was powerful enough to blow the top off the heavily armoured Dalek.
The Doctor barely noticed Jack dispatching the Supreme Dalek. As soon as the blast had sent Jenny and Donna flying, he'd ducked around the computer terminal to check on them.
"You all right?" he asked in a low voice as he helped them to their feet.
Donna put a hand to her forehead and shook her head slowly. "Fine, Spaceman. I think I might have a bit of a headache later, though." She gestured at the terminal. "Go on, finish up here so we can go home."
"Easier said than done," Rose said. "That blast destroyed the magnetron. We managed to get every planet back where it belonged first… except one. And guess which one that is."
The Doctor turned and looked at her. "If the Earth is the only one left, we can use the TARDIS to take it home."
Rose stood up from where she'd crouched behind the terminal, and for a moment, the Doctor thought he saw a glint of gold in her eyes. "You take care of the Earth, my Doctor. I will take care of the Daleks."
The Doctor looked at her, then at Davros. "I'm on it," he promised. Then he reached up into the mass of wires dangling over the computer terminal. Rose could see the plans in his mind as easily as those in her own, and she knew he was stabilising the atmospheric shell around the Earth so it would remain in place while they pulled the planet back to the solar system.
Bad Wolf looked at Davros, who was now cowering in his chair after seeing the amount of firepower Jack carried. The TARDIS had nearly lost her Thief and her Wolf to this race too many times to count. She knew this would not be the last time they were a threat, but it was time to end this round.
"The prophecy must complete," Dalek Caan said.
Bad Wolf nodded and pulled her sonic screwdriver out of her pocket, then carefully checked the setting.
"Don't listen to him," Davros ordered.
At the same time, the Doctor pushed a wave of confidence and trust towards her. Do what needs to be done, Rose, he said as he jogged into the TARDIS.
Dalek Caan didn't seem to be bothered by the Doctor's sudden disappearance. "I have seen the end of everything Dalek, and you must make it happen, Bad Wolf."
The sympathy Rose felt for this one Dalek brought her mind to the forefront. She nodded. "You'll be alone," she warned him. Well. At least until the station breaks down completely from the pressure of having a wormhole open up in the centre of it.
Dalek Caan waved a tentacle at her, and she knew he understood his fate. "I will die, Bad Wolf. And I am ready. Are you?"
In answer, Rose flipped the switch on the computer terminal that turned off the containment fields. Then she held up her sonic screwdriver and depressed the button. The air rippled at the centre of the Vault, then like a curtain on a play, it parted to reveal a shimmering wormhole.
Davros was the first to be pulled into the wormhole. His chair skidded over the floor as he worked with his joystick frantically, trying to stay on the Crucible.
"You, Bad Wolf!" he shrieked as he reached the event horizon. "Never forget that you did this!"
Rose crossed her arms and watched as the Daleks were pulled into the wormhole one by one. She wouldn't forget she'd done this, but she wouldn't regret it either—not if it meant saving the Doctor and the Earth and all of reality.
A loud cracking sound warned her that the power of the wormhole was already damaging the integrity of the station, and she turned to her family. "Get into the TARDIS," she hollered as the computer terminal caught on fire.
When everyone else faltered, too confused and overwhelmed to move, Jack pushed Donna and Jenny towards the door. "Come on, you heard the lady." His words prodded the rest of them into motion, and less than a minute later, they were all safely on the ship.
Alone on the Crucible, Rose watched the steady stream of Daleks flowing towards the black hole. No Daleks escaped the trap. Just like what had happened at Canary Wharf, the pull was powerful enough to draw in every Dalek on every Dalek ship and from anywhere on Earth.
The Doctor came up beside her and took her hand, and together they watched in silence as the last of the Daleks was sucked through the wormhole. There was no manic energy this time, no joyful, "Pulling them all in!" Instead, they shared the quiet conviction that they'd done what had been necessary to save the universe.
The air rippled again as the wormhole closed, leaving the Vault in silence. "You must go," Dalek Caan ordered, his voice warbling. "You must go, and I must die."
The TARDIS knew to the second how much longer the Crucible would remain intact, which meant Rose did too. She nodded at Dalek Caan and turned to go back to the TARDIS. When the Doctor remained stationary, she paused and frowned up at him.
He squeezed her hand once, then let go. I'll be right behind you, love, he promised. Rose nodded, then spun around and ran into the TARDIS.
The Doctor looked at the naked form of the Dalek, struggling to reconcile his ingrained hatred with his gratitude for what had just happened.
"Thank you," he finally told the Dalek in a low voice.
The Dalek simply waved his tentacles at him. "This was what time foretold, Time Lord. Now go!"
A beam fell from the ceiling right in front of the Doctor. He stumbled back a few steps, then turned and ran for the ship. As soon as he shut the doors behind him, Rose threw the lever and took them off the Crucible, less than a minute before the explosion they both knew was coming. The time rotor started moving with a loud churning noise, and they held their breath until they felt the ship slide through the Vortex, then materialise on the other side of the Earth, safely away from the explosion.
Rose blew out a loud breath. "Well, that was cutting it a bit closer than I anticipated."
"What exactly did you do?" Martha asked. "You just… pressed a button on your screwdriver, and suddenly a giant hole opened up in the middle of the room."
Rose rocked back on her heels and put her hands in her pockets, and the Doctor knew he was the only one who could see the melancholy lurking behind her confidence. "We just opened a wormhole between the Crucible and the heart of a black hole."
The Doctor sucked in a breath at the perfection of the plan, and Rose flashed him a smile before continuing.
"And we set it to lock onto their shared genetic structure—kinda like the black hole was the positive side of a magnet, and their DNA was the negative side. They couldn't escape getting pulled in."
Their friends stared at her, and Rose's eyes glinted. "It's the perfect prison," she stated confidently. "They'll never be able to get out of a black hole."
The Doctor squeezed her hand. "And a perfect prison, even an endless one, is better than genocide. You found a way to remove them from reality without killing them."
His thumb brushed against hers. I'm proud of you.
Thank you, Doctor.
Mickey shook his head. "Yeah, it's a brilliant plan. That's not why we're all looking at you like you grew another head. You opened a wormhole?" he repeated.
"You heard me say Bad Wolf is part TARDIS, yeah?" Mickey nodded, and Rose raised an eyebrow. "Well, what does a TARDIS do?"
His confused frown smoothed out. "They open wormholes."
"Anyway!" the Doctor said, before their family could bury Rose under the deluge of questions he imagined they had. "I think we still have a planet to get home, don't we?"
"That's right!" Sarah Jane exclaimed. "The Earth is still in the wrong part of space."
He grinned at her and pressed a button on the terminal, calling Torchwood. "I'm on it. Torchwood Hub, this is the Doctor. Are you receiving me?"
The TARDIS monitor turned on, showing an industrial-looking room and a frightened but determined woman. "Loud and clear," she said. "What did you do to the Daleks? One of them had almost gotten into the Hub, and then suddenly it went flying through the air and disappeared."
The Doctor glanced up at Rose. "Let's just say Rose sent them packing on a one-way trip." Rose rolled her eyes at his Aladdin quote, and he giggled happily.
"Oi!"
The sharp retort came from the Welsh woman, and the Doctor felt his ears get hot. "Yes. Sorry." She seemed awfully familiar, to both him and to Rose. "Jack, what's her name?"
"Gwen Cooper."
An idea tickled the edges of the Doctor's mind. "Tell me, Gwen Cooper, are you from an old Cardiff family?"
She blinked and nodded. "Yes, all the way back to the eighteen hundreds."
"Ah, thought so." He looked at Rose and they shared a grin. "Spatial genetic multiplicity."
"Oh, yeah," Rose agreed, sharing the memory of another Gwyneth from Cardiff with him.
"Yeah, it's a funny old world," the Doctor said, then forced himself back on track. He'd arranged for the atmospheric shell around the Earth to hold for little bit longer, but it wouldn't stay forever. "Now, Torchwood, I want you to open up that rift manipulator. Send all the power to me."
A sharply dressed man stuck his head in front of the monitor. "Doing it now, sir."
"What's that for?" Donna asked.
The Doctor looked up at her as he placed another call. "It's a tow rope. Now then, Sarah, what was your son's name?"
A bright smile crossed his old friend's face. "Luke. He's called Luke. And the computer's called Mr. Smith."
"Calling Luke and Mr. Smith. This is the Doctor. Come on, Luke. Shake a leg." Sarah Jane had her hands clasped in front of her, and he could easily understand her anxiety.
But there was no need to worry. Luke ran into the video frame, a wide, hopeful smile on his face. "Is Mum there?"
"Oh yeah, she's brilliant," Rose assured him.
The Doctor enjoyed the matching smiles that lit up mother and son's faces. Sarah Jane danced in place and cried out "Yes!" a few times as he explained what he needed to Luke.
"Yeah, we all made it out," he told Luke. "Now, Mr. Smith, I want you to harness the rift power and loop it around the TARDIS. You got that?"
"I regret I will need remote access to TARDIS base code numerals," the computer answered, his voice smooth and unemotional.
The Doctor straightened and raked his hand through his hair. "Oh, blimey, that's going to take a while."
"No, no, no," Sarah Jane said, pushing him away from the monitor to talk to her family. "Let me. K9, out you come!
K9 teleported into the room beside Luke. "Affirmative, Mistress."
The Doctor laughed gleefully. "Oh! Oh ho! Oh, good dog!" he praised. "K9, give Mr. Smith the base code."
"Master." The antenna probe in K9's forehead extended as he rolled towards Mr. Smith. "TARDIS base code now being transferred," he said as he pressed the probe to a port in the computer. "The process is simple."
While everyone else was distracted by the robot dog and the activity at Sarah Jane's house, Rose pressed her hands to the console. The Doctor watched her carefully and realised almost immediately what she was doing. The two strands of his bonds with Rose and the TARDIS separated, and the golden light pulsing under her skin flowed out of her hands and back into the TARDIS.
When Rose was alone in her body again, he wrapped an arm around her waist so no one else would notice the way she slumped. She leaned into him and took a few deep breaths, then she straightened and smiled up at him. Thank you, love.
For a moment, the Doctor got lost in the gold flecks still glittering in her eyes. The reminder of the power she could wield—the power that came most readily to keep him safe—awed and humbled him. He returned her smile. Anything for my Bad Wolf.
"We're ready," Luke said.
The Doctor blinked, then looked at the monitor. "All right Luke, thank you. I'm going to end the call for now. Your mum should be home in less than an hour, all right?" Luke nodded, and the Doctor turned the monitor off.
"What now, Dad?" Jenny asked.
The Doctor pushed back from the console. "Well, now we fly the Earth home." He hustled Sarah Jane back to her earlier position and pointed at a lever. "Sarah, hold that down. Mickey, you hold that," he added, pointing to a dial. "Because you know why this TARDIS always is always rattling about the place?"
On the other side of the console, Rose was showing Martha, Donna, and Jenny which controls they could use. Then she took the last place, one hand resting the velocity dial and the other on the dematerialisation lever. She looked up and winked at the Doctor, and he grinned back at her before finishing his rambling lesson on TARDIS flight.
"It's designed to have six pilots, and Rose and I do it with just two. But not any more. Look at you, flying her like she's meant to be flown." He patted a strut. "We've got the Torchwood rift looped around the TARDIS by Mr. Smith, and we're going to fly Planet Earth back home."
Rose picked up on her cue and threw the lever. The time rotor moved slowly, with the weight of an entire planet behind the ship, but without the clunky chugging sound that usually accompanied their flight. Mickey was doing his job then with the stabiliser. That was a nonessential step in the flight manual that the Doctor simply didn't have hands to handle, but feeling the smoothness of their flight, he was starting to think he ought to find a way.
Pete and Jackie were standing behind the jump seat, looking uncomfortable and out of place. The Doctor circled the console and smiled awkwardly at them. "No room for us at the console, though."
Jackie stared at Rose. "That's my daughter."
The Doctor nodded. "Yes, it is."
"And she's… She just looks like she belongs here."
Pride beat through the Doctor's hearts as he watched Rose operate her own controls, while also helping Jenny and Donna, who stood on either side of her. He stepped forward quickly to adjust Sarah Jane's hold on her lever, then looked back at Jackie.
"I know this isn't the life you imagined for Rose when she was a girl, but I've never met anyone in a thousand years who belonged on the TARDIS as much as she does." He rubbed his thumb over his wedding band. "I lived this life without her for centuries, and she just makes everything so much better."
To his surprise, Jackie suddenly threw herself into his arms. "Thank you," she whispered into his suit jacket.
The Doctor blinked at Pete over her head, then shrugged and hugged her back. He could feel Rose gaping at them from the other side of the console.
"What are you thanking me for?" he asked his mother-in-law.
Jackie pulled back and wiped her eyes."I knew you loved Rose, but I still thought she was just your assistant. Regular Rose, I mean—when she's not all glow-y and getting rid of Daleks. But the golden light is gone, and you're still treating her like your partner."
Ah.
The Doctor shook his head. "Bad Wolf is Rose's story, so I'll let her explain when she's ready. But for me…" He looked over his shoulder. Rose was leaning over Jenny's controls, reaching for another dial. She felt him watching her, and the tongue-touched smile she gave him in reply made his hearts skip a beat. "Rose has always been my partner."
The TARDIS hummed in his mind, and he realised they were almost to the end of the line. "Excuse me, Jackie."
Rose already had her hand on the lever when he joined her at the console, and she arched her eyebrow when he purposely wrapped his hand around hers. The Doctor returned her smirk with one of his own.
What was it you said earlier, love? There are lots of things I can handle by myself that are more fun with your help.
Their laughter echoed around the console room as they threw the lever together, putting the Earth back right where she belonged.
