AN: In case any of you are wondering why you should be interested in Mickey & Martha's baby considering the fic is set to end very soon (the wedding is the finale) – yes, you WILL be seeing the baby after it's born and when it's older, and then I'm sure it'll be very interesting to re-read these early pregnancy chapters after you actually get to know the kid (who is great and features in many drafts, btw).

Ðorh Þam Scræfe

Rose

There were craters, and then there were craters. They were right in the middle of an enormous carving in the landscape, as though a giant had scooped up the dirt and rocks and then burned all the trees to the ground for good measure. There were charcoal-like pieces of debris – stones and branches – out there in the valley of ashes, and suddenly the rainstorm seemed to increase in severity with the dense woodland obliterated. At least the empty landscape assured them that there weren't any more zombies, but it did pose another problem; the fact that they were dead in the centre and there didn't seem to be any alien objects nearby.

"But-!? You-!? That's-!? How-!?" Emmett DeLacey stared at Rose with horror, "You teleported us! Without any kind of equipment!" Rose felt a pain in her head, akin to a great burning on the inside of her skull, a boiling bleed in the brain. By showing Emmett DeLacey her powers, she had begun to change history. The sensation was a warning to rectify what she had inadvertently done. She held up her hand towards him.

"I didn't," she said firmly, "You teleported us, with the vortex manipulator." Emmett got a glazy look in his eyes, then blinked, frowned, accepted this new truth. The pain in Rose's head disappeared instantaneously. She whispered to Martha while Emmett processed his altered memories, "No powers."

"Are you serious!?" she hissed, "There's zombies out there and you're saying I'm not-" Rose shushed her aggressively when Emmett regained his composure. It was a lucky thing Martha trusted her. She could imagine if it were Amy Pond she were with she would end up being interrogated, having to reveal all and effect greater and greater manipulations of Emmett DeLacey's memory – and memory was a fragile thing. She knew the risks of modifying it. But she also sensed that if he were to find out about her temporal abnormalities, it would mean dire changes to his own future – and Emmett's future was intertwined with Jenny's, and Jenny's with who-knew how many thousands of lives.

"Let's just think logically about this," Rose tried to get them back on course, because she didn't want to stay there in the rain and the wind and the frost for any longer. She had been sopping wet for at least the last two hours and it was really beginning to bother her.

"Well?" Martha prompted, "What have you so 'logically' been thinking about?"

"I was hoping one of you might have a suggestion. Of a logical nature."

"Okay, well," Emmett began, lifting up his wrist so that he could point the vortex manipulator at the epicentre they were standing in, "Say something did crash here, it's obviously not here now, so someone's moved it."

"Or something," said Martha, "I'm sure wolves haven't gone extinct in the UK yet in this century. They might take something back to their den. There might be zombie wolves, too."

"That's a nice idea," Rose glared at her. As if zombie humans weren't bad enough, zombie wolves were much worse. Unless the zombie wolves only wanted to kill and eat other wolves – after all, Ravenwood could only survive by drinking human blood, none of that Twilight-esque 'vegetarianism.' She'd just die of malnourishment.

"Let's assume that it wasn't wolves who moved it because tracking down wolves is harder than tracking down people – and when I say harder I mean it involves looking for shit, and then examining shit, and sometimes piss, too," said Emmett, scanning the ground around them.

"So, we're saying humans moved it?" Rose asked, "Probably… because they thought it was valuable, right? What if it was back in the village?"

"Definitely not, I searched that place before the zombies found out I was there," Emmett said, "They'll have hidden it somewhere else, with so many Viking raids. Where would you take something if you wanted to hide it from pillaging Vikings?"

"Bury it, or take it to a cave, or something," Martha suggested.

"Exactly," said Emmett.

"Oh, you're joking. You expect us to wander around aimlessly out here looking for a cave? It could take days to find whatever specific cave whatever crashed might be hidden in. We don't even know what we're looking for," Martha argued. "There must be an easy way to do this. Can't you just track it? Just do a scan for technology?"

"With this?" Emmett nodded at the vortex manipulator, "Love to, but it's… okay, I was supposed to take it in for repairs the last time I was back at base, but I got sent here so quickly, as we already discussed at length because I'm wearing a ridiculous outfit. And they're really more about monitoring your own vital signs than doing anything else."

"You don't have any, like, scanner for alien objects?" Rose asked.

"Scanner for-!?" he almost laughed, "Trust me, that's… it's borderline impossible."

"What about for technology in the past, then?" Rose was a bit annoyed. "Basically all you time agents do is stop time being altered by rogue technology."

"Which we do using our investigative skills," he said, "What do you think we do? Stop advanced technology from falling into the wrong hands by bringing with us even more advanced technology? Gadgets let you down. Any secret agent can tell you that."

"What about James Bond?" Martha interrupted, "He had loads of gadgets."

"Yeah," Rose agreed, "Or Inspector Gadget."

"That's ridiculous," said Emmett, "Inspector Gadget is a police officer, and James Bond is a highly unrealistic franchise which I personally don't have the time for. Look, all we have to do is head southeast from here back in the direction of the settlements and we'll probably come across whatever cave they hid the debris in along the way." And he set off walking towards the edge of the crater, tracking through the mud and leaving them alone in the rain for a few moments, until they hastened to catch up. Well, Rose thought, she had said to think logically.

"Why is your sword purple, then?" Martha asked once they had reached Emmett again, "I've never seen a purple sword."

"I said, it's made from an asteroid. Very high-quality sword, wish I had an inkling of how to wield it. Now, if you wanted me to cook something with it, I'd blow your mind. I'm a phenomenal chef." Though Rose knew that Emmett had only known Jenny for a brief period of time, and not yet in his own chronology, she was distinctly reminded of Jenny when he said that. Maybe he had got it into Jenny's head to learn how to cook. "I did think about naming the sword, but I'll probably end up returning it to requisitions after this is over."

"What were you gonna name it?" asked Rose.

"Hadn't thought that far ahead."

"You should call it Jenny," she suggested.

"Why?" he asked. She shrugged.

"No special reason." Emmett merely frowned at her and continued on his path. Martha was also perplexed – without the time vortex, perhaps she had not worked out the significance of who they were talking to. Rose turned her attention back to Martha. "You haven't thought anymore about names, have you?" The rain continued to hammer down upon them, weak thunder rumbling above, but Rose was too distracted watching her footing to notice any lightning.

"No."

"You've just never talked or even thought about having kids before?" Martha didn't reply, a silence Rose took to have a meaning of its own. "So you have."

"Mickey always said he wanted to call any boy we had Michael. Or, Michael Jr, I suppose it would be." They left the rim of the crater, crawling steadily uphill, and the trees which had been destroyed by initial impact began to return as they re-entered the dark forests.

"Really? That's hard to believe, I called him Michael once when I was having a go at him for something and he freaked out. I honestly forgot that was his name until you said it now. He got revenge by calling me 'Rosie' for a week just because my mum used to call me it when I was about seven." Martha laughed at that anecdote.

"Rosie," she copied.

"Don't you start," Rose warned loudly over the high winds.

"We could name it Rosie if it's a girl."

"You better not."

"Honestly, we haven't talked about it. I feel like we've barely talked about anything, and all we've been doing is talking," she sighed, "Haven't even decided who we want to be the godparents yet, since mum will insist on having it christened." Rose gasped.

"Oh my god! Please can I be the godmother?"

"Of your ex-boyfriend's baby?"

"That was, like, eight years ago, come on. It's not like I'm hung up on him – I'm getting married to another man, for the second time," Rose pointed out, "Can I?"

"I don't know."

"Martha! I love this kid!"

"It's not been born yet!"

"Well, I will love it."

"If I promise to talk to Mickey about it and say we'll think about maybe asking you to be the godmother, then will you please stop asking me questions and going on about this unborn foetus?" Martha pleaded. Rose grinned very widely but said not a word, thrilled with the mere prospect of being considered for the role of godmother to Mickey and Martha's offspring.

"I hate to break up the baby love party," Emmett interrupted, "But I think that could be a cave down there." He pointed out a trench gouged naturally in a small clearing of trees, mud and silt pooling at the bottom from the storm. But at one edge a formation of stones clearly revealed a dark mouth, a chasm which could be very shallow or could stretch for miles.

"What if that's a wolf den?" Martha asked. "Or bears? Zombie bears?"

"Could you stop suggesting random zombie animals?"

"Zombie foxes? Zombie squirrels?" Martha continued.

"Or maybe there's some zombie badgers who could give us zombie TB and then we can all die of zombie lung failure." Emmet jumped down into the pit and the mud, getting all of his soaking wet neon-Lycra filthy. With no alternative, Rose and Martha were stuck following him, jumping down and also getting themselves even dirtier than they had been before.

"Eurgh, this is gross."

"Tell me about it," Rose muttered as Emmett went to climb up the stones to get into the small cave mouth, "I wish I could just change my clothes to be from an earlier point in time when they were clean and dry."

"You can do that?" Martha asked. They heard an echoing splash from inside the cave, and Emmett had vanished from sight.

"I could if we didn't have to stop this one from finding out who we are and who we know," she said, but then Emmett was calling for them to follow so she couldn't explain to Martha who he was. Rose clambered up the low rocks in his wake and peered into the gap. There was a light coming from within as she crawled through the gap.

"It's quite a drop," Emmett warned. He was right, it was, straight into cold, dirty water; the cave had become flooded during the rain. It came up to her knees and was incredibly unpleasant – didn't people normally wear special suits when they went caving?

Rose stepped out of the way as Martha dropped down from above. The light was coming from Emmett's vortex manipulator, which apparently did have more special features than he was letting on. The screen glowed brightly and illuminated what appeared to be a complex cave system, certainly larger than it appeared from outside. A good place to hide an artefact from Viking raiders. Rose and Martha both took out their phones and turned on the torches. Any lurking wolves would probably have left when the cave began to fill with water.

"This water isn't good," said Emmett, "Water is what channels the ghosts, makes them stronger."

"It is?" Rose asked him.

"Itrux explained to me," he said, "That's why she lives in the bog."

"With her creepy bone charms," Martha muttered.

"I think it was Arthur C. Clarke who said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," quoted Emmett, beginning to wade through the water to progress through the cave. They followed him and the ripples he made in the muck. "I guess whatever century you hail from still isn't advanced enough to account for the Zuar." Martha scowled in response to that. "They make a solemn vow to help any and all species and people they come across."

"Except Time Lords," said Rose.

"Well – there's a lot of history behind that," said Emmett, "The Zuar were under siege by the Sontarans – you know the-?"

"Yes," said Martha.

"They hate medicine, being a medic is an insulting demotion, preventing honourable deaths on the battlefield. Even more they hated the Zuar using their superior medicine to heel the Rutans who asked them for help. The Sontarans aimed to eradicate the Zuar, and the Time Lords did nothing to help when the Zuar begged them, because of their non-interference policy. Well, that's not completely true, I heard that one renegade Time Lord abandoned Gallifrey's isolationism and went to stop the Sontarans."

"Which one?" asked Martha.

"The Doctor. I suppose he couldn't let more doctors die. It's because of him that the Zuar aren't extinct." Rose smiled to herself when she heard that. Of course the Doctor had more honour than to just ignore the Zuar when they were in need. Everyone could trust the Doctor. "Do you know him?"

"Just the stories," Rose lied.

"I'd like to meet him someday," said Emmett. His wish was almost going to be granted – Jenny was the next best thing compared to her father.

The water sloshed around them as they progressed, the ceiling covered in stalactites and getting lower as the passage narrowed. Soon enough it was too difficult to try and talk, as they were all focusing so intently on walking, sideways, down the tunnel, very awkwardly having to duck and dodge the precarious rock formations. Rose had never been a fan of caving. She had gone caving on a school trip once, a lifetime ago, and had got stuck while crawling on her belly through a small slit she thought was going to collapse and crush her at any moment. She hadn't really been stuck, just unable to move from fear, though it had never quite evolved into claustrophobia. The memory was returning now, however, and left her feeling unpleasant. That, coupled with the threat of zombies, flooding and ghosts, was making her itch to escape the dank cave.

"I once dated someone who went spelunking as a hobby," Martha said. Already, this was a superior anecdote to Rose's, though Rose had not shared hers. "Long time ago, when I was getting my degree. Made me do it once, it was a nightmare – I didn't know how long we'd be in there because he didn't say. Anyway, long story short, I ended up peeing myself."

"You what!?"

"Okay, when you've been neck deep in water in a cave for four hours desperate for the loo the whole time, you really stop caring about whether you pee yourself or not."

"Can't believe you're having a baby."

"Oi!" Martha splashed water at her like they were children in a swimming pool.

"Hey!" Rose exclaimed, "I'll have you for that." And then she splashed Martha in return, only, she employed a great deal of her superhuman strength, creating a verifiable miniature tidal wave which crashed down over Martha. In the dim light of her phone, Rose saw her glare.

"Are you two fighting?" Emmett asked from Rose's other side. Rose laughed. Martha spat out some water.

"Your face."

"It's not funny."

"It's great."

"It's not!" said Martha, but she was beginning to smile.

"Just get revenge on me later when we're out of this cave."

"Oh, you know I'll get revenge, mark my words…" Rose turned to continue and was faced by a judgemental expression from Emmett in the light of the phones and the wristband.

"Are you done?"

"Yes, thanks." He shook his head dismissively and continued. The tunnel they had been sandwiched inside steadily began to widen again, much to Rose's relief who had become increasingly worried that they would wind up in a dead end, maybe even stuck forever. An entirely irrational fear, of course, because she could teleport and so could Emmett's vortex manipulator, and she could phone her fiancé and have him just come and get them and worry about erasing Emmett's fragile memories later on.

The tiny gap opened its mouth to what could be described as a room by someone being liberal with their words, in a vague shape somewhat similar to a circle. It was not so large, and the ceiling stayed low and oddly threatening with the stalactites, but Rose felt more able to breathe. The problem was that it was her feared dead end; she could see no way forward. No obvious way, at least.

For a brief few seconds it looked like they were going to have to turn back and continue to trawl the woods, until Emmett DeLacey in all of his impeccable, Time Agent wisdom stepped out into the room with his confidence overflowing just a trickle, and was swallowed up by the water. It happened so quickly Rose didn't understand what had happened right away, almost like he had vanished.

"Oh my god!" Martha exclaimed, splashing forwards to his aid. But Rose held her back as bubbles appeared on the surface and then, panting and heaving, Emmett burst through the surface, floundering, unprepared for the fact he had to swim. He got close enough to Rose and Martha – who did not want to proceed because they didn't know where the floor of the cave disappeared into a chasm – that they could drag him back to his feet.

"It's deep in there," he coughed.

"Did you have a nice dip?" Rose asked. He continued to cough. "So, we're going back, then?"

"Going back?" he questioned.

"Well… it's a dead end. Is it… not a dead end?" Please don't tell me I have to swim, please don't tell me I have to swim, she thought to herself relentlessly.

"Rose, look," said Martha, pointing into the water. Emmett stepped away and turned to face the water himself and saw what they saw.

A vibrant blue light had appeared in the pool, which steadily formed the image of a glowing, pale face in the disturbed surface: a ghost. Itrux was right about them being stronger in the water, especially during the rain in the middle of a lightning storm. The face vanished and only a blueish orb was left, an orb which descended like a bathysphere into the water, illuminating the deep pit Emmett had fallen into. And also illuminating a wide passage which it floated in front of.

"That's the way we have to go," said Emmett, nodding at the water.

"You're kidding me," said Rose, "I'm not a strong swimmer. And Martha's pregnant. Pregnant people can't swim."

"You just made that up, there's nothing wrong with swimming when you're barely a month gone," Martha told her sharply. "Look, let's just… get it over with."

"…But it's cold," Rose mumbled. Emmett didn't care to listen to them, he just dove right in. Very impressive, considering he was wearing chainmail and carrying a sword. Martha looked at her expectantly. "You go first, so I can check you get there okay and aren't left behind." Martha raised her eyebrows. "What? You're pregnant with my godchild."

"It's not your – fine, just to get away from you, I'll go next." She took a deep breath and descended into the water in pursuit of Emmett, and Rose watched from above until Martha – who actually seemed to be a good swimming – was almost through the narrow hole in the underwater wall. Then she herself followed, thinking about how useful it would be to have brought Mickey the water-breather along with them, but finding it not quite as difficult as she thought.

Yes, having to try and see where she was going through gallons of dirty cave-water was not remotely pleasant, but at least if she was swimming she could use her superstrength, which meant she could move much faster and easier than either of the other two. She followed Martha and the strange orb came with them, lighting up the way now that Rose was sure her phone and Martha's were both defunct. She could repair them later via her 'timey-wimey powers' (as Ten would say), but not in the presence of Emmett.

Holding her breath, she pulled herself through the circular hole, which rested at the base of the pit now flooded with the rain, and followed Martha until the floor began to rise to the point that she was crawling out of the freezing water and gasping for air. Martha helped her to her feet.

"See? Wasn't too bad." The ghost, still not in a human form, hung in the air above them, but now it really did seem like the end of the line. The phantom hovered above a corpse, slumped against the wall with dead skin and rotten eyes. Emmett, hands on his hips, stood in front of it. Rose pushed her wet hair out of her eyes, shivering and staying as close to Martha (who was giving off a considerable amount of heat) as she could.

"What?" Rose asked him.

"It's, uh, holding something," he said, pointing, "See?" Rose squinted and saw something silver and shiny with, unmistakably, a blinking, electronic light.

"That must be what we're looking for," said Martha, "If the ghost showed us it."

"Yeah."

"Are you going to grab it?"

"Well… what if that corpse is… you know. A zombie."

"You've got your sword," Rose reminded him, at which point he sighed and drew his unusual, purple sword, making to step towards the body.

As Emmett approached steadily, holding the sword aloft and ready to strike in one hand while preparing to make a grab for the device with the other, the blue spectre vanished without warning. They were left with no source of light, Emmett's vortex manipulator now switched off and both Rose and Martha's phones almost certainly broken. And then, horrifyingly, they heard a dull groan in the darkness.

"Uh-oh," said Emmett.

"Was that-?" Martha began. They could hear movement.

"Crap, crap – I can't get the wrist-strap to work."

"My phone's broken," said Rose, fumbling with it after managing to get it out of her pocket blindly. It did not come on.

"Mine too," said Martha. The groaning grew louder and Rose stepped backwards until she was walking into the water again. "Rose-" Martha began.

"It's too dangerous," Rose warned.

"Us dying is also dangerous!" she protested.

"If you two can do something I'd really appreciate if – SHIT!" Emmett's shout of panic was Martha's cue to produce fire from her skin on both her hands, lighting up the room and revealing that Emmett was being pounced upon by a hungry zombie. His sword clattered to the floor and slid towards the water as he struggled to use both his hands to try and push the monster away.

Rose wasn't expecting the moment when the zombie's leg inexplicably exploded, which was almost certainly Martha's accidental doing, sending out a wave of bone fragments, congealed blood and viscera towards them, kicking up quite the stench. With one leg gone it fell to the floor, clinging to Emmett and changing its attention from his head and neck to trying to tear through the chainmail and rip out his guts.

In a horrific moment, Rose saw it happen in the back of her mind along with a migraine-like pain: if she did not do something in that moment, the zombie was going to rip Emmett apart, feast on his intestines like spaghetti and use his rib cage as toothpicks. It was with this in mind that she ran for the fiend, swinging her hand in a devastating punch. Her knuckles collided with its skull with as much strength as she could muster, which was a considerable amount of strength. Her fist absolutely pulverised the head of the zombie, and the momentum took her crashing into the cave wall and punching a large hole in that, too. She hoped it wouldn't cause a cave-in.

Headless and legless, the zombie body continued to writhe on the stone before them, until Martha finally summoned the strength to blast a handful of flames at it. The rags and leather it was wearing caught fire instantly, and made the smell even worse.

"How did you do that!?" Emmett stared at them as he went to retrieve his sword first, device second.

"Because… we're mutants," Rose lied eventually, looking at her bloody hand. Well, it wasn't really a lie, she supposed.

"Like X-Men," Martha added quickly, "Genetic virus, gives us… abilities."

"…That makes sense," he nodded, "Going by your clothes and phones I'd say you're Twenty-First Century, so you're Manifests?" He did know his history, even if he didn't know how to use a sword.

"…Yep," said Rose, shaking her hand to get rid of the brain mulch stuck to her skin. As long as they didn't mention that they knew the Doctor or that she had time manipulation abilities, she wasn't getting alarm bells from the time vortex.

"We need to go," said Martha, eyeing the burning body, "It's going to fill with smoke in here."

"Okay. Just let me…" Before the flames completely overcame the cadaver, Emmett stooped down and hacked off a few of the fingers from one hand. They both stared at him. "It's for Itrux. If she can make a charm and talk to the ghost, we can find out exactly what happened with this device."

"Great," said Rose, "Then let's hurry up and get out of here."