He had been in the Vortex, hanging in time, when the message came.
Feeling the whisper of awareness that told him to check his psychic paper, he withdrew it from his jacket pocket and read the words, called out across time and space, a desperate plea for aid.
Please don't leave me here alone.
"You hear that, old girl?" he asked the TARDIS. "Time to make a house call."
He flipped a switch and turned several dials. A series of buttons lit up and he pushed them in sequence, dashing about the console pulling levers here and pulling knobs out there. The TARDIS wheezed loudly and shook, spiralling off through the Vortex.
The TARDIS rematerialized a moment later. The Doctor checked his navigation monitor and furrowed his brow. He whacked the side of it with an open hand, but the circular writing did not change.
"There's no way that's right," he muttered to himself. He strode to the door, sonic in hand and pulled it open. "No..."
His wide, surprised eyes adjusted quickly to the bright light outside. Red grass stretched out before him as far as the eye could see. In the distance, a flat-topped mountain rose from the plains, outlined sharply against the orange horizon. A red sun blazed brightly high overhead, whilst a yellow orb rode low in the sky to the south.
"This is not possible," he said to himself. Eyes wide, his head turned left and right. He spun around, taking in the sight of a very familliar world that could not exist.
Mount Perdition, scarlet grass clinging to her sides, reached upward, breaking the flat line of the distant horizon. The Doctor reached out and grasped a handful of the tall, swaying grass in his hand. He crushed it in his fingers and lifted it to inhale the familiar, beloved sweet and spicy fragrance.
He closed his eyes and listened, the tiniest thread of hope creeping to life in his breast, but there was nothing.
Gallifrey turned slowly beneath his feet, her suns warmed his skin, the galaxy around him spiraled onward about its black hole, but there was still only silence where the minds of billions of Time Lords should have intersected with his own.
Except… there. A flicker of awareness calling out into the aether. A quiet desperation. To the west.
He ran back into the TARDIS and adjusted the ship's bearing. A moment later, the ship wheezed into nothing and breathed itself back into existence a thousand miles away.
When he stepped out this time, his hearts stopped.
A few steps away stood something that shouldn't exist on a planet that couldn't be here. Surrounded by the towering formations of naturally growing TARDIS coral, stood a mirror image of the one from which he had just exited. Except this one was red; as red as the wood of the shining trees and the grass that went on forever. The windows were flat expanses of wood, not glass, and there was neither handle nor telephone box on the doors. He circled the structure, looking for a key hole or any sort of indication that there might be a way to gain entry, but he found none.
Deciding to try something new, he stood in front of the doors and raised his hand. Adopting a confident stance, he snapped his fingers loudly. The door did not open.
The Time Lord ran his sonic over every side of the box, around the edges, along the seam of the door, over each window, and down to where the apparent TARDIS was fused to the coral that grew all around them, almost as if it had melted to the ground, or grown out of this very spot. The sonic told him nothing. It detected the presence of a wooden box and nothing more.
Utterly confused, and deciding it was his best option for getting answers, he raised his hand and knocked. After a moment, he pressed his ear to the door and listened.
He could hear shuffling within, and a muffled voice he was unable to make out. He straightened, surprised. There was someone in there.
Tony woke, stiff and uncomfortable, to a knocking at the door. The boy froze in terror. Had they miscalculated with the Quorosi ship would travel by this system for its monthly trips, or had they jumped ahead in time?
Bile rose in his throat as alarm claimed him. He turned to Rose and put his hands on her shoulders and shook. "Rose, come on, wake up. Rose I need you. There's someone here. Please, Rose!" his voice was high and panicked.
The TARDIS hummed reassuringly around him, but it did not calm him.
"ROSE!" he hissed urgently in her ear, shaking her as hard as his young muscles would allow. The knocking at the door sounded again.
"If you don't let me in, I'm coming in anyway," said a muffled male voice from outside.
"You can't come in!" Tony shrieked. "Go away!"
"A child?!" the voice outside said, alarmed.
"Go away!" the boy screamed. His eyes were wide and his breath burst from his lungs in ragged gasps.
Something heavy rested against the door of the TARDIS. "Are you alright in there?" The voice was soft and sounded worried.
Tony shook Rose desperately. Tears dripped from his cheeks onto her shirt, and still she didn't move.
"She's hurt," he sobbed loudly. "She's hurt and it's my fault and she won't wake up." His voice broke and the tears came with a renewed vengeance.
"I'm coming in," said the man with determination. "I'm not going to hurt you," he added. There was shuffling and a heavy thud followed by a muttered curse.
After a minute, Tony heard a soft scraping at the door, which was hidden from his sight by the console, and then it pushed open with a soft whoosh. He pressed his face to Rose's shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. He shook with sobs and terror, snot and tears soaking the neck of Rose's shirt.
He felt a hand on his shoulder which withdrew quickly. Tony turned and looked up into a very shocked face. Tony launched himself at the lean man, throwing his arms around him and clinging tightly as relief flooded him.
"John! Help her! Please help her!"
Bowled over by the weight of the child, the man fell backward onto the floor with a thump as the words registered. He looked over at the unconscious person on the floor and his face paled. He shook off the boy and rolled to his hands and knees. He reached a long-fingered hand to the woman's face and reverently caressed her cheek.
"Rose," he breathed, the word a prayer in its solemnity.
Eyes wide and confused, he looked back at the boy. "How about you tell me who you are and how you got here and what the hell Rose Tyler is doing in a TARDIS on a planet that shouldn't exist?"
As joy and panic and abject terror warred within his mind, a few pieces fell into place for Tony.
"Doctor?"
"Do I know you?"
"No but I know you. Can you help her? I'll tell you everything, but please, help her."
The tall man rose without taking his eyes off of the woman's face. "Is there anywhere better we can lay her down?" The boy nodded. The Doctor bent and reached a hand under each of her shoulders, shuffling her head so that it rested on his forearms. "Can you take her legs?"
Tony moved quickly and stood between Rose's knees, wrapping an arm around each of her legs. Together, they lifted the unconscious woman and Tony led the Doctor to Rose's bedroom.
Tony returned to the console room to fetch the bowl of water and the cloth. When he came back to Rose's room, the Doctor was seated at her side, gently stroking her cheek with one hand as he waved his whirring sonic screwdriver over her, a worried expression on his face.
He examined the reading and some of the worry faded. Tony set the bowl on the small outcropping of coral that served as a nightstand in Rose's room. "I think she's in a recovery sleep," the Doctor said gently. "Sleeping very deeply, she's done this before, and I expect it has something to do with why you are here."
"It's my fault," Tony said. His eyes went wide as he remembered his well-ingrained manners and extended his hand. "Tony Tyler, by the way. Hello."
The Doctor's eyebrows leapt up towards his hairline while he shook the boy's proffered hand firmly. "Pete and Jackie's boy?"
"Yep," he said, popping the P just as John always did. "I've heard a lot about you. From you."
The Time Lord ran a hand along the back of his neck and cringed lightly. "Suppose I should be worried, then." Tony noticed that the Doctor's hand was resting on Rose's own, and he smiled. The gesture appeared unconscious on his part. "Where am I, then? My other me? Did I not come?"
"John. John died." Tony's voice was very small and sad. He hung his head as memories swept over him. "They're all dead. Mum and Dad and John. S'just me'n Rose now."
A wave of sadness washed over the Doctor's face and he reached a hand over to place on the boy's thin shoulder. "I am so very sorry to hear that, Tony Tyler."
The Doctor watched as Tony took a few moments to pull himself back from the edge of grief. John was over a year gone now, and Jackie and Pete more than six months. Time had dulled some of the sharpness of the pain, but it still lanced through his heart when he thought of them. "S'been a while," he said quietly. "Just us for a long time now."
The man who looked so much like John pulled Rose's thin blanket up to her chest and carefully adjusted it to cover her. "I think Rose'll be alright soon enough. Let's go get some tea, eh? Do you have any tea?" Tony nodded, and led the Doctor to the small galley.
The Doctor sat on one of the cushions Tony indicated to him and the boy set about gathering the tea things. He fetched down the cups, their very last box of Twinings tea bags, and the pitcher he used for heating water. Pulling his sonic out from his pocket – and missing the extremely surprised look on the Doctor's face – he swept his finger down the side to choose the correct setting and pointed it at the pitcher, boiling the water in a few seconds.
A minute later, he presented the Doctor with a cup of tea, and sat down with his own. "No sugar or milk, sorry." He blew across the top of the steaming beverage and inhaled the familiar aroma.
The Doctor took a sip of the scalding tea and set the cup down on the floor to allow his tea to cool, as there was no table to place it on. "So, Tony, what happened?"
The boy stared into his tea as if it held all the answers, and weighed what to say. Deciding on the truth, he began mechanically, rushing through a simplified explanation. "Torchwood. They turned on dad and killed him, and they came after Rose and mum and me. I saw them show up at the house. Rose got us out – she knew something was going to happen. Mum… mum died saving us." Tony swallowed the thickness that tried to choke his voice.
"John – that's the other you – and Rose had made some plans and so when everything went wrong, we left Earth. John died a year ago, but he left these books for us. Had all this information about growing a TARDIS and using the Schism to get back to Rose's universe, where we'd be safe. So we did that."
The Doctor looked at him evenly as his very simple explanation of a very impossible occurrence, running a hand over his face in a habitual gesture of surprise and exasperation.
"Did we make it?" Tony asked uncertainly. "Where did we end up?"
"Well, you're in the right universe, that's for sure."
Tony smiled tightly. They did it! "Where, exactly?"
The Doctor's expression was dark when he responded. "Well, that's the question, isn't it? You're on a planet that shouldn't be here."
"Which planet?"
"Gallifrey." The word was laced with sorrow and confusion.
Tony's smile grew. "You mean we brought the planet with us?"
"You what?" He had a look of shock and confusion on his face.
The boy was grinning now. "That explains why Rose is so tired. We didn't just go through the Vortex, we pulled the whole planet along too! Oh that's brilliant!"
Tony jumped up from his seat and ran to the TARDIS doors as fast as his legs would carry them. He threw open the door and looked outside.
It was the same coral clearing he had last seen, only this time, a few feet away stood a blue police box. The TARDIS he had heard hundreds of stories about. He ran over to the blue box and ran his hands along the wood reverently, the grain rough under his fingers. A moment later, he realized the Doctor was behind him. He turned to the tall man, his face split in a wide grin.
"We made it, and you found us." A laugh bubbled up from within him and a moment later he was consumed by manic laughter. The Doctor watched him, concerned, but didn't speak. "I can't believe it." Tony shook his head in amazement and walked back into his own TARDIS.
"How did you find us?" he called back over his shoulder as the Doctor stepped in behind him.
The Doctor pulled out a small leather wallet and handed it to Tony who flipped it open.
Please don't leave me here alone, it read. The words he'd said to Rose when she wouldn't wake.
"Psychic paper. It catches… distress calls now and then," the Doctor said, taking it back from Tony's small hands. "And I was very surprised that it lead me to my home planet, which I know for a fact isn't here anymore. I have no idea how you two did what you just did. Sucking an entire planet through the Time Vortex. That shouldn't be possible."
"But it is, isn't it? When the Daleks made that bomb thing? Before John and you got separated? John told me they pulled planets out of time and space."
The Doctor's eyebrows shot up in surprise that the boy had any sort of understanding of what should or could be possible. "Yes, they pulled some planets out of time and space, but not through universes. That shouldn't have been possible."
Tony shrugged. "Well, it was. You've been wrong before."
An amused smile on his lips, the Doctor reached over to ruffle Tony's hair. "I suppose I have. I should know by now not to tell Rose Tyler something's impossible."
"Wouldn't be the first time she jumped dimensions to find you and prove you wrong," Tony said, smiling.
"This is true," the Doctor agreed. "Stubborn woman, that Rose Tyler, eh?"
Tony nodded emphatically. "That's putting it mildly. I'm going to go check on her." He turned and left the console room, the Doctor close behind as he made the short walk to Rose's bedroom.
"What did you mean when you said it was your fault?" the Doctor asked as he watched Tony carefully apply a cold compress to the blonde woman's forehead.
"I meant it's my fault. We were just going to jump back to where the TARDIS was before. It sort of came to us a little while ago. Yesterday, maybe? I don't know; hard to keep track of time here."
"Not for me," the Time Lord added haughtily, a playful smile on his lips.
"Yeah, well, for us anyway. But yeah, the TARDIS just moved for the first time yesterday, when something happened at the Vortex."
"What, exactly, happened?" The Doctor leaned forward, his expression intent. "Tell me exactly what happened."
Tony drew his lips into a thin line. "I'm not sure I can describe it. We were going to measure it and I looked at it and I just saw it, and I got stuck. Like I couldn't look away, and there was, like, this crack that was just wrong and it hurt." He shook his head to clear it. "It really hurt. Rose pulled me away, and when I woke up, the TARDIS had moved."
"You looked straight into the Time Vortex?"
"Yeah," Tony said softly, cringing as the memory of the pain echoed in his head. "Never done anything that hurt so much."
The Doctor sat up straight again and ran his fingers through his hair. "I know. It's been over nine hundred years for me and I still remember that pain." He let out a long breath. "I think I understand what happened. There was a disruption in a fixed point recently – a point in time that can't ever change." Tony saw a pained look pass over the man's eyes, and filed away the information to ask about later. "That's probably what allowed you to pass through. Least that's the best I can come up with."
Tony put the cloth he'd been using to cool Rose's face back in the bowl and returned it to the nightstand. "So did we get sucked through because of a disruption? I thought it was because I was telling the TARDIS to come here."
"Tony," the Doctor said seriously, his voice calm and even. "I don't think you could have forced the TARDIS through the walls of the dimensions no matter how hard you tried, not if they were intact. If it's anyone's fault that Rose got hurt, it's mine. That crack you saw, it's a fixed point being altered. It tears the fabric of reality itself. It," he paused, his expression darkening further. "It reverted. The timelines went back, but there were still changes. That leaves a bit of a scar."
Tony nodded his understanding and turned his eyes back to the sleeping woman. "Is Rose going to be okay?"
"I think so," the Doctor said softly, returning to his earlier seat at her side. "Did she go all golden light-flaming aura-vengeful goddess thing?" He mimed an aura with his hands, circling his head in exaggerated motions.
The boy blinked in surprise at his word choice. "You mean Bad Wolf? I think. Maybe. It was all kind of bright and shaking and loud. Kind'a hard to remember, to be honest, but it was bright."
The Doctor smiled. "Well, she should wake up on her own before long, if that's the case then. I'm not reading anything wrong with her. Took her probably twelve hours the first time she did it. The TARDIS would've done most of the work of pulling you guys through; she probably just tapped into Rose's connection with my TARDIS."
Tony patted a wall. "Not bad for a baby TARDIS, eh? Good girl." He muttered the last to the ship in an undertone.
The Doctor smiled widely at him, all straight white teeth. "Good girl, indeed. Maybe a little too enthusiastic, to pull a whole planet along for the ride, but she didn't destroy the whole of creation, and she brought you guys to me so I can't complain too much I suppose."
Rose murmured softly and her eyes flickered open a moment. Tony rushed over and leaned over her. "ROSE!" he cried happily, leaning down to hug her tightly. "I'm so happy you're not dead."
"Me… too," she muttered sleepily, barely conscious. "Where's the lorry that hit me?" she joked.
"Back on Earth, where there're no Zeppelins and Torchwood isn't evil. Well, mostly not evil. Well, I say mostly…" At the sound of the Doctor's voice, Rose's eyes snapped open and fixed on his face. He met her gaze and his words trailed off into silence.
"John?"
"No."
"Oh my God."
"Not quite."
"Doctor?" her voice shook on the syllables of his name.
"Yes."
Her eyes fell closed and she took several deep breaths to steady herself. The Doctor reached over and pulled her into a tight embrace. He buried his face in her hair, his chest heaving as he tried to breathe through the tightness in his ribs.
"You found us," Rose whispered.
"No, you found me."
A/N: *Credit to Moffat and Gatiss for a joke I shamelessly stole from Sherlock, but which seemed to fit just too perfectly in this chapter. "Oh my God."/"Not quite." Is from S03E01.