1x14 Terror in the Deep (3/3)
Title: Terror in the Deep
Author: wotcher_wombat
Pairing: Ten II/Rose
Summary: Time’s running out for the creatures at the bottom of the sea. Looking to save the day, Rose and the Doctor discover a plot that might destroy the entire planet.
Rating: PG
A/N: Thanks to Debbie for the beta and Lisa for the science-y advice. Also thanks to shinyopals for the britpickery and her endless patience.
Episode 14 of the the_altverse following The Taste of Fear.
Virtual Series Masterlist
The TARDIS materialized on the shore of Woman Wept. Night had fallen, and the stars flickered in shades of green. The light reflected eerily on the dark frozen waves. Carefully and quietly, two figures dressed in black snuck from the police box and towards a particular shimmering bit of the shoreline.
“I don’t see why we had to dress in all black,” grumbled the Doctor.
“You said we might have to sneak into the place,” Rose hissed in reply. “We don’t want to be seen.”
“We’ve snuck into plenty of places before-and we’ve always gotten to wear our regular clothes. These pockets aren’t even bigger on the inside.”
If Rose had turned back to look at her husband, she knew she would find him pouting. “Oh, be quiet. My trip, remember? It’s fun. Like ninjas.”
“You know, real ninjas didn’t dress in all black. I should know as I’ve seen them. That all black thing was just a theatrical convention from-”
She rolled her eyes and turned back to kiss her husband on the cheek. “Now shush,” Rose whispered. “They can probably hear us.”
The Doctor nodded and put his finger to his lips. She tried not to laugh at the sight.
The shimmering was stronger than ever, and Rose thought she could see the faint outline of a tent at this close of an angle. She saw now that it wasn’t just one tent, but rather a network of tents. She turned to the Doctor who gave a sharp nod and a wave of the sonic, and together they reached forward and lifted up the bottom of the nearly-invisible tent.
Inside was some kind of habitation, and it was hardly unoccupied. A handful of cots were set up in orderly lines with masses of electrical cords running underfoot. Two people were lying down inside cocoons of blankets and orange sleeping bags, but back in the corner one person was still up writing in a journal at a frantic pace. She looked up at the intrusion and raised her purple eyebrows in surprise.
“What are you doing here?” Tarina Cornelius-Feng whispered. She put her journal down and rushed over to help the Doctor and Rose inside. “Come on, you’re letting in all the cold air. How’d you get past our security shields, anyway?”
“Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that,” the Doctor muttered, shoving the sonic screwdriver deeper into his regular-sized pocket.
The scientist bent down to check the seal at the bottom of the tent, seemingly surprised to see the shields still in place. “I didn’t think you’d be back-certainly not so soon. Did you find whatever was making that flash?” Tarina asked.
“Oh yes,” said Rose, the image of the octopus boy very clear in her mind. “And your coworker was wrong, by the way. There is indigenous life on this planet-for a little while longer, at least. We got to meet them, and we want to save them.”
“Indigenous-you mean that you-how could-” Tarina sputtered. “So you’re saying that there is life on this planet?”
“Yep,” said the Doctor, popping his p. “Whole society of them-well, a little grey about the gills right now. We found them at the bottom of the sea living over a hydrothermal vent. It’s closing up, and we’re going to find them a new one.”
“Amazing,” whispered Tarina. “D’you mind if I record this in my journal? It’s only-”
“We don’t have time for that,” interrupted Rose. “The people down there-they’re dying. Literally starving to death. We’ve got to do something for them.”
The Doctor nodded. “And we’re going to need your equipment.”
“The equipment?” Tarina looked troubled. “I don’t know about that. If we get caught by Professor Ussick, then-”
“Don’t worry,” the Doctor said with a wink. “We’re very sneaky.”
“It’s not just that.” Tarina looked over to her sleeping team members and dropped her voice until she was barely audible. “There’s something strange going on with our machines. I noticed it in the first week, but it’s only gotten worse. This evening’s shift was absolutely insane. It doesn’t matter how I try to fix it, either, the readings make less and less sense. At first Jounnate said I was crazy, but now he agrees with me. I think even the Yacs Ma people are starting to notice.”
“What ever the problem, I’m sure the Doctor can fix it,” said Rose loyally.
The Doctor gave her a grin and turned to Tarina. “Let’s have a look.”
Tarina nodded. “All right, just follow me. And try not to draw attention to yourselves…” She gave them an appraising look. “Well, try at least.” She led them from the sleeping tent through a maze of enclosed walkways. At last they entered what looked like the biggest tent of the compound. It was stuffed full of technology and several bleary-eyed scientists who were hard at work.
“Who’re they?” asked an elderly man hunched over one of the Yacs Ma machines. The other scientists working in the tent looked up to see Rose, the Doctor, and Tarina step through the entrance flap. In the back of the tent, Jounnate Sasmira looked up from his station and pushed his glasses up his nose with a grin.
“They’re just here to perform some maintenance,” Tarina explained. “Hopefully, this will fix our equipment so we can get some real data before we go home.”
“Then why are they dressed all in black like they’re going to burgle us?” laughed one of the team members. The other scientists smiled appreciatively.
The Doctor shot a smug look at Rose as if to say “I told you we should have worn our regular clothes.” Rose gave a subtle shrug of her shoulders and tried not to snicker.
“Maintenance uniforms, standard issue for this sector,” Tarina lied easily. “Now we’re going to need you lot to clear out while we sort this mess. Take a thirty minute break, stretch your legs, get something to eat, relax. You’ve all earned it. Good work, everybody.”
The team let out a collective sigh of relief and exited the tent. Jounnate lingered in the back until the last of the scientists had gone. “I take it you’re not really from maintenance,” he said with a smirk.
Rose smiled. “Decidedly not. How’s your husband?”
“Haven’t heard,” Jounnate said with a grimace. “Professor Ussick banned all communications after my first call this afternoon. She confiscated all our handhelds-said we’d lost that privilege. It seems I ruined it for everyone.”
Tarina rolled her eyes. “It had nothing to do with you. Ussick’s just on a power trip, and now I think she’s getting paranoid. She started checking all our communications logs.”
Rose frowned. “That does sound paranoid.”
“Tell me about it,” Tarina muttered, and Jounnate nodded in agreement. “We think she’s worried that we’re secretly communicating with that rival company-that 05 Opop, Gnits Division. Of course, she’d blow her top if she caught us talking to you two-much less letting you at our equipment.”
“Speaking of which…” The Doctor whipped out his specs and set to work examining the machines before him. He furrowed his brow. “This is rather old equipment for your day and age, isn’t it?”
“It’s loads better than what they used out here before,” Jounnate protested with a hint of wounded pride. “It might not be the shiniest out there, but it does the job.”
“We’ve had a nightmare getting this funded. Yacs Ma stepped in at the last minute-the whole expedition was about to be scrapped,” explained Tarina. “We’re lucky to be out here at all-even if it’s only for a little while. This is the best technology we could get.”
“Hmm… Something’s wrong,” the Doctor muttered. “It’s like the equipment isn’t getting through to take measure of the environment-like there’s something in the way.” He bent down and started to take apart the bottom of the machine.
“Don’t break their stuff,” Rose teased.
The Doctor looked highly affronted. “If I can fix it, then I can use it to find the other vents on the sea floor.”
“So tell me more about the life forms you found,” said Tarina with an earnest enthusiasm. “How did you find them? What were they like?”
“Well, that flash I saw was a message,” Rose said. “We followed it to the bottom of the ocean and found this whole village of sea creatures. It was…” She shook her head, unable to adequately describe the experience. “It was something else.”
“I don’t understand,” muttered Jounnate. “If there was life on this planet-anywhere on this planet-then our scans should have picked it up. How is this possible?”
“I’ve got the answer right here,” said the Doctor, holding up a mess of wires. “Your machines are not set up to study the environment. They’re not set up to study anything. It’s a dummy system-a decoy-a placebo.”
Jounnate looked disturbed, but Tarina didn’t look surprised at all. She opened her mouth to reply, but a booming voice sounded through the compound.
“CORNELIUS-FENG! Come and speak to me right this instant!” bellowed the voice of Professor Ussick. “How DARE you release an entire shift for a break-on company time! EXPLAIN YOURSELF!”
Tarina grabbed her coworker’s hand. “We can’t let her get in here-Ussick can’t see them,” she whispered to Jounnate. She gestured to Rose and the Doctor. “You two keep working. We’ll hold her off.”
The pair bounded out of the room to face Professor Ussick. The Doctor and Rose could hear the sounds of their argument fading into the distance as they led Ussick down the walkway. Not wanting to waste any time, Rose and the Doctor set about making sense of the scientists’ dummy machines.
“All right, I think I’ve gotten through. Any change in the readings up there?” asked the Doctor a few minutes later. He was sprawled beneath the Yacs Ma equipment in a pile of hardware, flipping through the settings on his sonic screwdriver.
Rose checked all of the monitors in the front section of the room. “No, nothing-wait. The numbers are decreasing-10,000-9,340-7,000-and dropping fast. Also, the little red arrow is pointing down, if that means anything.”
The Doctor bolted upright. “The little arrow is pointing down?” he asked. “That means the core is losing heat.”
“We already knew that, Doctor.” She shook her head. “It’s hardly helpful.”
“But-but this is wonderful!” the Doctor said.
“What? How so?” Rose asked, still not understanding. “The core of the planet is cooling and there’s no way to stop it. I don’t see how this could be a good thing.”
“Oh, it’s cooling all right.” The Doctor pulled forward something that looked like a large, complicated motherboard. “It’s being made to cool, and the reason for it is all right here. These machines have been stealing the heat from the core of the planet.”
“So, it’s not natural causes?” Rose asked, her heart filling with hope. “We can stop it-and save all those people down below?”
“Oh yes!” cried the Doctor, springing into motion. He grabbed her hand and bounded to the entrance of the tent in a fluid motion.
Suddenly, an alarm sounded through the complex.
***
The air was filled with the sound of spaceships leaving the atmosphere, the alarm shrieking, confused scientists bumbling about in the compound, and in the next tent they could hear a woman yelling at the top of her lungs.
“You can’t leave me! You can’t leave me behind!” screeched Professor Ussick.
Rose and the Doctor skidded around the corner into a very different sort of tent. Unlike the tents filled with clunky, outdated machinery designated for the scientists, this space had several sleek, streamlined computers and electronics. Most of the equipment was half-boxed up, as if someone had tried to pack in a hurry. In the corner, Tarina and Jounnate were gagged and tied to a pair of chairs. They started to struggle more when Rose and the Doctor came into view.
“You’ll regret this,” Ussick threatened to no one in particular.
“No, I’m thinking that you’ll come to rue this more than anyone else,” said the Doctor. He gave a wave of the sonic screwdriver and the bonds around the scientists fell away.
“It’s a scam! Yacs Ma is a scam!” Tarina said as soon as she could talk. “We heard it all-this whole time they were stealing the heat from the planet’s core!”
“Quiet, you.” Professor Ussick pulled herself up to her full height in what she thought must have been an intimidating posture.
Rose was not impressed. She walked directly behind Ussick, then grabbed both of her arms and secured them behind her back in a split second. Ussick didn’t seem to know what had happened to her. “Jounnate, could you please bring me those bonds?”
“Yes-of course,” Jounnate stuttered, taken aback by Rose’s command of the situation.
She tied Ussick to a chair with strong, secure knots. “Right, so what exactly have you done?” she asked.
“As if I’d ever tell you,” sneered Ussick.
“I’m not so sure it matters anymore,” said the Doctor. “Your team has left you.”
“Perhaps. But they’ve hardly left me defenseless.” Ussick threw back her head and began to shout, “ACTIVATE PROCEEDURE 87, ACCESS CODE-MMFH!”
Rose held her hand over Ussick’s mouth. “Now, there’ll be none of that,” she warned in a calm voice. “If you decide to pull these stunts, I’ll have to gag you-and I’m sure we’d both rather not. Do you understand?”
Ussick looked at her with hatred, but she nodded.
“All right,” Rose said as she withdrew her hand. When Ussick didn’t start screaming again, Rose smiled and repeated herself. “Now, tell us what you’ve done.”
Ussick rolled her eyes. “Are you deaf, or merely stupid? She just told you.”
“Don’t insult my wife,” the Doctor said in an informative tone. “It’s not going to win you friends here-particularly after you’ve been stealing from this planet.”
“It’s a victimless crime,” Ussick spat.
“Victimless?” Rose repeated in disbelief. “Don’t you realize that there’s life down there-an entire civilization down there in the water-and when you stole their heat you started to kill them.”
Ussick shrugged. “What, the fish? Not my department, not my problem.”
Fury erupted inside of Rose. “But you’re murdering them!”
Ussick seemed unmoved. “It’s just business. That heat energy goes for a fortune.”
“I don’t understand, though. Why hire the scientists at all? Why go through with the charade when all you want to do is steal the planet’s resources?” asked the Doctor. “It’s got to be risky keeping that many inquisitive minds right next to your main operation.”
Ussick wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Someone has to take the fall, don’t they? It keeps the police off our tails. By the time they suss out what’s happened, Yacs Ma Corporation is long gone.”
“And you kept the scientists busy so they wouldn’t see what you were doing in the next tent,” the Doctor said. “No wonder you’ve been so unpleasant. One person strays out of bounds, bumbles into the wrong room whilst heading for the loo in the middle of the night, and the jig is up. You’ve got to make everybody miserable in their own encampment-work them until they’re too exhausted to ask questions.”
“It’s worked so far,” Ussick spat.
“Ah, but it’s not working so well, is it?” The Doctor gestured to the half-packed operation. “By the looks of all this packing, you were on the run.”
“And that’s why you wouldn’t let them make any phone calls,” Rose supplied. “You knew the authorities were after you-that they might be able to trace the communications. And that’s why you’re leaving here to soon. This sector is too hot.
“The 05 Opop-that rival company-they’re the police, aren’t they?” Tarina asked, stepping boldly forward. “They’re with the Shadow Proclamation.”
Ussick narrowed her eyes. “How long have you known?”
“Not long,” Tarina admitted. “I suspected it for a while, but when these two showed up out of the blue I knew they had to be with the authorities. I’ve helped them in any way I could-and now, you’re just one phone call away from going to prison.”
“Good luck with that!” Ussick cackled. “I’ve destroyed all communication devices, not an hour ago. They’re incinerated. You’ve got no transport, and there’s no way you could reach them in time. The authorities won’t even know until the Yacs Ma Corporation is safely away with the plunder! They fly further and further as we speak. It’ll be weeks until the police get here.”
“Eh, that’s not a problem,” the Doctor said with a shrug. “Rose and I, we’ve got a phone box just down the beach. A police box, actually, a great little ship. And we’ll have the police here in a jiffy to take care of you and all your other coworkers from Yacs Ma.”
Ussick’s amusement soured. “Do that, and I’ll destroy the world,” she threatened. “We’ve got the core primed and ready for teleport-and it’s still operational. We can steal it right out from under you-all I need to do is utter a simple voice command. The planet’s shell will collapse under the weight of its own gravity, killing everything and everyone on it.”
Rose laughed. “You probably shouldn’t have said that.”
“It doesn’t matter what I say when you’ll be dead soon, along with all your little precious fishies,” Ussick countered.
Rose’s eyes glimmered with amusement. “Ah, but now we know there’s a teleport we have to disable-and my husband’s a whiz at breaking malicious machinery-aren’t you, love?”
The Doctor looked at Rose like she was the sexiest thing in the universe. It sent a shiver down Rose’s spine. “Absolutely,” he chimed in, setting to work with the sleek electronics.
“And we also know that there’s no way off the planet. Not for you,” Rose explained. “You’re hardly going to kill yourself just to get at us. You are not a threat. Your ships are long gone. They’ve left you behind.”
Ussick looked murderous. “They’ll come back for me. They will!”
Rose shook her head sadly. “But even if you won’t kill yourself destroying the planet, there’s nothing to say that your team won’t remove the core-once they’re out of the range of impact. So, that teleport needs to go down as soon as possible. How’s it coming, Doctor?”
His glasses were slipping down his nose, and he had his tongue sticking out in concentration. “Almost-”
“You can’t take it down!” shrieked Ussick. “I won’t let you! ACTIVATE PROCEEDURE 8-UMF!”
Rose tied the gag at the back of Professor Ussick’s head. “I told you what would happen if you decided to pull those kinds of stunts,” she sighed. “What was that, Doctor?”
“Almost there,” he muttered, his body tensed in concentration. “Tarina, Jounnate-take down that firewall will you?”
“Of course,” said Tarina, springing into action. She and Jounnate started typing away on the intricate keyboards. The atmosphere in the room was tense, the silence broken only by Ussick’s murmurs of displeasure and the subtle sound of keystrokes.
After a moment, the Doctor jumped up. “Teleport system going down…. now!” he exclaimed as a large screen on the wall went dark.
“We did it!” cried Jounnate. “We saved the world!”
“Not yet,” said the Doctor. “We’ve still got to find a way to return the heat to the core-or else everybody on the bottom of the ocean is going to die.” He looked back at Rose with admiration. “And we can’t let that happen. My wife made a promise to an octopus, and I’m not about to let her break it.”
Rose felt the insides of her body start to flutter, and it was very hard not to run across the room and snog the Doctor senseless.
Ussick started to laugh again, and it pulled her back to the moment. Rose turned her gaze to their prisoner. “What do you know?” she asked. Ussick grunted smugly around the gag, and Rose frowned as she untied it.
“Only that you’ll never do it,” Ussick replied once her mouth was free, her eyes darting all around the room. “The heat is contained in five specialized tanks-and they’re loaded onto the cargo of our spaceship! You’ll never get them back!”
“No,” Tarina whispered, looking crushed. “All those wonderful creatures.”
Rose narrowed her eyes. “She’s lying. The tanks are still here.”
“Ignorant girl!” said Ussick, her voice shaking. “Why would Yacs Ma leave without the prize we’ve spent a year collecting? There’s no way.”
“They left it because criminals are all the same to an extent. I saw this all the time at Torchwood,” said Rose with a calm smile. “The authorities were hot on your trail and you would need to make a clean get-away. Your team couldn’t have evidence like that on their ship. Maybe, if it’s possible, they’ll try to swing back and pick up the loot once the area isn’t so closely watched. But even that works in our favor, since they won’t have gone too far.”
Ussick glowered, but it seemed she had nothing more to say. Rose stepped back to her husband, leaning down so she could see the same equipment he and the other scientist were studying.
“Anything holding in that amount of heat must have an incredibly high energy signature,” mused the Doctor. He tried twisting a handful of wires together, and when that didn’t work he pounded them against the ground. “That’ll do it. And if we change the isometric readings of this screen like so…. Aha! Lit up like a Christmas tree, there they are! Aren’t they beautiful?” He gave a little wave to the screen, and Rose was compelled to do the same. They gleamed at each other over their shared amusement.
“What do we do next?” Tarina asked.
The Doctor tore his eyes away from Rose with seeming difficulty. “Now all we have to do is destroy the tanks to release the stored up heat, and then conduct that energy back into the planet’s core.”
“Impossible,” said Jounnate. “There’s no way to transfer the heat back into the core-you need some kind of conduit-and even then, it would melt all the ice. Either way, the planet’s destroyed.”
“But whatever drew the heat out did it without melting the ice,” said Rose. “Couldn’t you just reverse the process with whatever safeguards were used in the first place?”
The Doctor winked. “That we might be able to do. Now we just need a way to get rid of those tanks.”
“Oh, I know a way,” said Tarina with a smirk. “We’re going to blow them up.”
The Doctor looked at her for a moment, as if he wanted to argue, but then he gave her a nod. “You’re right. Anything that can hold that much energy-it’ll be almost impossible to open. An explosion is our best hope.”
“There’s leftover explosives from where they started drilling a year ago,” Tarina offered. “I know where to find them.”
“Oh, you won’t have to look far,” said Professor Ussick. She rocked back in her chair, threw her head back and bellowed, “ACTIVATE PROCEEDURE 87, ACCESS CODE 2115Z7A!”
They heard the high-pitched whine of explosives about to detonate. On instinct, Rose staggered back to the edge of the tent, the whole situation feeling all too familiar. Ussick laughed and hurled herself and the chair to the ground.
“Everyone get back!” the Doctor roared. He pulled the woebegone scientists as far away as he could.
The blast wasn’t powerful, but it did knock everyone there off their feet. The sleek computer equipment exploded to create a barricade of rubble, trapping Rose on one side and the Doctor and the scientists on the other. Parts of the tent had caught on fire, but the fires weren’t very large.
“Is everyone all right?” Rose asked, remembering too clearly another explosion. Her voice trembled. “Doctor, are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered immediately. Relief flooded Rose’s body, making her heart beat strangely in her chest. “We’re all fine,” the Doctor continued. “It’s just going to take us a bit to dig out from all this.”
“What about the fire?” Rose asked. “Do we need to-”
“The tents are flame-fending,” Jounnate explained. “They’ll go out on their own.”
“It looks like the explosion was designed to destroy the machines in here-not much else,” said Tarina. “The biggest problem is moving all this so we can get out.”
Rose nodded, wanting nothing more than to see her husband again. Then she heard a rustling noise and the snap of breaking wood. She turned in time to see Professor
Ussick make her escape.
***
“Oh, no, no, no!” Rose cried, her frustration mounting.
“What’s wrong?” the Doctor asked from the other side of the rubble, a panicked tone to his voice.
“Ussick’s getting away,” Rose replied, already moving. “I’ll be back,” she called over her shoulder.
Hoping that the Doctor and the scientists would be able to dig themselves out, Rose dashed after Ussick in hot pursuit. They tore through the walkways of the compound, and Rose was thankful that Ussick wasn’t thinking to hide or mislead Rose in the labyrinth of tents; it seemed Ussick only wanted to get out of the enclosure as soon as she could.
When they reached the outside, Ussick made a bee-line straight for the police box in the distance. Rose ran after her, steadily gaining ground. Daylight was starting to spill over the shoreline and in the early light Rose could see that Ussick had managed to pick up a gun of some kind in their chase. Rose did her best to quicken her pace as she saw Ussick try the doors of the TARDIS. When she couldn’t get inside, she turned to Rose with her weapon raised.
“Let me in,” Ussick demanded.
Rose reached her, panting for breath. “Why? What do you think you’re going to do in there?”
“That man-he said it was a ship,” she said, gesturing back to the invisible compound. “I’m going to use it to get off this hunk of ice, what do you think?”
Rose laughed. “You think you’re going to fly it?” It was all she could do to keep from breaking into hysterics.
Ussick could not see the hilarity in the situation. “Let me in, or I’ll-I’ll-”
“Fine then,” said Rose. She pulled out her key and unlocked the doors, deciding there was no harm in letting her inside. In a universe that had never had a Gallifrey, a common criminal like Ussick had no chance whatsoever of understanding and using the TARDIS.
Once inside, Professor Ussick stared at the console with a look of deep confusion on her face. She barely turned her head to acknowledge Rose’s entrance, but she did hold her gun at the ready. “How do you fly it?” she asked.
The corner of Rose’s lip twitched in short-lived amusement. “You’re asking the wrong person,” she said. “I can’t fly her.” Rose chose to omit the pre-programmed disks from the conversation.
Ussick glared at her. “It flew in here-it can fly me out! Now tell me how!”
Rose gave her a commiserating look. “Sorry. I just can’t do that.”
“Can’t do it, or won’t?” Ussick narrowed her eyes.
Rose shrugged. “Both.”
“THE WORLD IS ENDING AND I’M SCARED. I’M SO SCARED,” said the octopus boy’s message, still repeating inside the console room. Ussick jumped in surprise and fired a shot at the containment field around child’s message of flesh and blood. The laser blast got trapped inside the blue sphere and didn’t even faze the message.
She might have been startled that Ussick actually fired her weapon, but Rose’s Torchwood training immediately kicked in. She had to keep Ussick calm. “It’s a message from the people dying at the bottom of the ocean,” Rose explained, sidling up to stand closer to Ussick. “Heartbreaking, isn’t it?”
“Stop trying to play to my sympathies and tell me how to fly this thing out of here!” Ussick demanded, her whole body trembling. She was clearly at the edge.
Rose shook her head. “Give it up,” she said gently. “You’ve had a good run, but it’s over now. There’s nowhere for you to go. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do to help you escape.”
“You don’t understand! They’ll take me in-they’ll arrest me, and I’ll spend the rest of my life in jail,” Ussick shouted, her voice at the edge of tears, the gun trembling in her hand. “I won’t go! I won’t!” She raised her weapon and pointed at Rose. “You can’t stop me!”
Rose held her hands up in the air, willing herself to keep calm. “I think we both need to take a breath, hmm?” she said. In the back of her mind, she could feel the TARDIS panicking. The grating trembled beneath her feet. She inhaled. “Let’s just slow down, all right?”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” screamed Ussick, aiming right for Rose’s heart.
Too much happened in the next moment.
Rose heard a deafening bang as the gun fired. Her eyes widened in shock. It was a shot aimed straight for her in point blank range. She knew she was dead. She thought of her mother, of Tony and Pete, of her friends at Torchwood, of Mickey and her other friends left in her first universe-but mostly she thought of the Doctor, of how much she loved him, of what he would find when he returned to the TARDIS-a thousand thoughts and colors and sounds flying through her mind in an instant. She would leave her husband alone, and the very thought of it burned. Her stomach clenched and she prepared to fall backwards by the force of the blow.
The moment passed.
Rose did not fall backwards. She blinked and waited, uncomprehending. She felt across her torso, and when she raised her hands, they were not stained in blood. Her eyes glanced around the TARDIS in confusion, taking in nothing but a blur of colors. What had happened?
“Save us. Please…” said the octopus boy’s message, but the sounds were fading now. Rose forced herself to look, and at the bottom of the console she saw a slimy, translucent mess on the floor. The boy’s words faded as the message dissolved into a gelatinous goop.
Rose looked back to Professor Ussick, and finally let go of the breath she’d been holding. Ussick was crumpled down on her knees, most of her torso covered in an swelling blue substance that extended all the way out past the end of the gun-and there at the end of the gun was the deadly bolt of light intended to kill Rose, trapped inside the blue matter. If she watched closely enough, she could see that light flicker.
Suddenly Rose understood. Ussick and the gun were trapped inside the same containment field they’d used to hold the octopus boy’s message. Somehow, the TARDIS had moved it in a split second, stopping the blast and saving Rose’s life.
Rose stepped out of the line of fire, and dropped to her knees. She ran her hands along the floor, along the walls, touching every bit of the TARDIS that she could reach. “Oh you wonderful, wonderful ship,” she whispered joyfully, almost at the verge of tears. “Thank you.”
In the back of her mind, she felt a slight humming in reply.
***
It didn’t take the authorities very long to arrive once Rose contacted them from the TARDIS. They hauled away Ussick, still frozen in the containment field, and then sent a team to investigate the evidence left behind by the Yacs Ma Corporation and to interview the confused and innocent scientists. The investigation was nice and official, but it seemed to take too long. Rose was impatient to find her husband.
She searched the rubble from the explosion, to find it all cleared to one side and the remains of that tent empty. She dashed through the place looking for the Doctor, and was starting to get worried when she heard a familiar voice babbling just from outside the compound.
“Well, I say a simple matter-not that I mean matter, of course-heat works a little bit different than other things, like, say, marmalade-”
“But did you return the heat the core?” asked an exasperated sounding official.
“Oh yes!” exclaimed the Doctor. “We didn’t even need to use those holes drilled into the planet for observation-well, it wasn’t really observation, was it?”
“Yes, but how did you do it?” The official exhaled noisily. “I need to take your statement.”
“You know, I’m not terribly fond of this part,” said the Doctor. “I’d really just like to find my wife, if you don’t mind. If you want explanations, I recommend you have a chat with those two remarkable scientists over there-Tarina Cornelius-Feng and Jounnate Sasmira. See them? Right over there? They’ll have all the answers you need.”
Rose turned the corner. As soon as she saw her husband, her face broke into a wide grin. She ran towards him and threw her arms around him. The Doctor laughed and gave her shoulders a squeeze.
“Oh it’s good to see you,” she mumbled into his chest. Everything seemed right and triumphant when they held each other like this. She didn’t think she would ever have enough of this feeling.
“We got out of the rubble,” the Doctor said.
Rose giggled. “I noticed.”
“And we restored the heat to the core of the planet,” he continued, his words ringing in jubilation. “All the vents should open back up on the sea floor. It’ll take them a while to rebuild, but now they can. They’re saved.”
Rose nuzzled closer to her husband. “I knew we would fix it.”
“Yes you did,” the Doctor said proudly. “How were things on your end?”
“Oh, a lot of running, capturing the bad guy, calling in the local authorities, you know how it is,” she said evasively. “I had to chase her all the way to the TARDIS.”
The Doctor ran his hand up and down her back. “Another day in the life.”
“Excuse me.” An officer walked right up to them, clipboard in hand. “You’re the one who called us in, aren’t you?” he asked, looking pointedly at Rose. “I need to take your official statement, if you don’t mind.”
The Doctor grumbled. “I hate clean-up.”
Rose turned her doe eyes on the officer. “Oh, of course, sir,” she said, letting her voice go faint. “It’s just been such a terrible experience, and I’m so-so-overwhelmed. Could I have a few moments rest first?” When the officer didn’t look persuaded, she added a desperate, “Please?”
The officer sighed. “All right. I’ll give you half an hour, but then I’ll really need to talk with you.”
“Yes, of course,” said Rose, giving him a tragic smile. “Thank you so much, sir.”
As soon as he was out of sight, the Doctor started giggling. “You are brilliant,” he said, leaning down to kiss her.
Rose looked around the crowd. No one seemed to be paying them any mind. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
She took the Doctor’s hand and led him back to the TARDIS, waving goodbye as they passed Jounnate and Tarina. Since they were the only scientists in the crew who knew anything about what had happened, the two coworkers were surrounded by a large crowd of investigators. They didn’t wave back, but Jounnate gave a subtle nod of his head and Tarina shot them a dazzling smile.
Rose and the Doctor reached the TARDIS without any other confrontations. Rose closed the door behind her with a sigh of relief, happy to shut out the chaos of the investigation. It was good to be home.
“What’s this?” asked the Doctor. He prodded the mess by the console with the toe of his shoes.
“That’s the boy’s message,” Rose explained.
“What happened to the containment field?” he asked, running his hand through his hair. “It shouldn’t have just busted like that-”
“It didn’t,” said Rose. She hesitated. Her first instinct was to hide the fact that she’d nearly died today. She didn’t want to worry the Doctor. However, after a moment, she abandoned the idea. She couldn’t keep something like that from her husband. She told him what had happened, watching him carefully and with baited breath.
He didn’t seem angry. He stepped over the mess and pulled her into a crushing embrace. He kissed the top of her head, her temple, along her jaw, her shoulder-any part of her that he could reach. “Oh, Rose,” he sighed. She could feel his hands shake as he stroked her hair.
“But it’s okay,” she said, turning her head to look up at him. “Really, I’m fine.”
He smiled sadly. “Yeah, but I’m not.”
“Am I supposed to kiss you to make it feel better?” she teased.
“Maybe.”
After they’d both made each other feel better, they decided to take one last trip to the bottom of the ocean. They wanted to make sure that everyone was okay down there, and they felt they should at least say goodbye to the octopus boy. The TARDIS didn’t seem too happy with the trip since she groaned and creaked the whole way down, but they materialized at the bottom without incident.
Rose stood before the doors and looked back to catch one more glimpse of the Doctor before he doused the lights. “Are you ready for this? Maybe you should hang back here, and I’ll describe it to you later,” she teased. “It must be awful to eat humble pie.”
He bumbled his way to her in the darkness. “Not in a million years,” he replied, his hand finding a way into hers. “I love it when you’re right-usually because that means you agree with me. But even here-especially here-I’m glad you’re right.”
Rose felt a blush creep up on her cheeks, and she was glad the Doctor couldn’t see her face. Without further ado, she opened the doors. The arrival of the TARDIS had not escaped notice, and when the doors opened, Rose and the Doctor were greeted by a flurry of colors and lights as the crowd cheered.
“You came back! I knew you would!” cried the octopus boy. The fins on the sides of his head flapped so quickly that they looked like an orange blur. “You promised, and I knew you’d come back!”
The crowd shouted and twirled with fervor. Some in back of the assembly cheered, “Thank you!” Others declared the foreigners heroes, and even some named them “Vent-Savers.”
Their gratitude was so earnest, it made Rose choke up. “It was our pleasure,” she said, something stuck in her throat. “We were glad to help.” The Doctor gave her hand a squeeze.
After a long moment of unbridled celebration, the village’s last elder swam forward. The long green streaks down her side flashed with a bright intensity as she spoke. “You have restored our vents. I was wrong to doubt you,” she said with a restrained nod. “I must ask, though. How long will it last?”
“Oh, that’s the best part,” said the Doctor. “It’ll last indefinitely-ad infinitum-for years and years and years. You’ll never have to worry about this again in your lifetimes-nor your great-great-grandspawn’s lives. I doubt anyone is going to mess with this planet in quite a while.”
The elder sounded relieved. “In that case, I thank you. I thank you on behalf of our village, I thank you on behalf of those passed before us, and I thank you on behalf of those yet to be born into our midst. Your assistance will not be forgotten. We shall record it amongst our most sacred histories.” The elder turned to face her people. “And now, in honor of our revered foreigners, we shall perform our most jubilant songs.”
The aliens began a song, but to Rose’s eyes, it looked more like a dance. The bioluminescent creatures began an intricate series of movement and a beautiful, unearthly music filled the TARDIS. The show was hypnotic, and it gave Rose an idea. She felt her way back to their bedroom and brought out a bundle of blankets. She spread them on the floor before the doorway, and together she and the Doctor snuggled up to enjoy the spectacular.
“It’s beautiful,” Rose said after watching the dance for several minutes. The light at the top of the TARDIS didn’t flash, and she was relived that the ship wasn’t translating for the moment. “What a night,” she said as she nuzzled closer to her husband. “We saved the world, you know.”
“Well, us and a couple of scientists,” the Doctor corrected.
Rose reached up to run her fingers through his hair. “I guess they didn’t get to do any studies while they were here. What a shame.”
“I wouldn’t worry about them. With the publicity they’ll get from catching the Yacs Ma people almost single-handedly-I doubt they’ll lack any funding in the future.”
“Hmm.” Rose considered her own experience. “I suppose taking out the bad guys is one surefire way to get yourself noticed-for most people, that is.”
“And you were the one who took down the bad guy in the end,” whispered the Doctor. “That was scary-maybe after-the-fact scary for me, but… yeah, still scary.”
Rose felt bad, and reached out to pat her husband’s hand. “I’m fine, though. I promise.”
Suddenly, the Doctor sat upright. “Not that I don’t think you can handle yourself!” he said, his voice cracking. “You’re perfectly confident and capable and brilliant and-”
Her heart swelled with affection, and she laughed. “Thank you. And you won’t hear me denying that it was scary. It was, but a lot of what we do is scary. That’s the life we’ve chosen. And it’s wonderful.”
“Right,” he said, sneaking one arm around her shoulders.
“It’s strange though,” Rose mused. “I mean, it was a split second. There was no time-and then, the containment field was suddenly over Ussick. How could the TARDIS do that?”
“Well, I won’t deny that it’s a strange circumstance. That’s never happened before,” the Doctor admitted. “I think it was a combination of things that saved you. First of all, you were both inside the TARDIS-even if you’d been two feet out the door, I don’t think it could have worked. Plus, we already had a containment field in use-and it was sitting inside the console room right next to you. You were in a life-threatening situation, and our little TARDIS was clever enough to realize it. Most importantly, it was you.”
Rose gave him a skeptical look, knowing he couldn’t see it in the dark. “That doesn’t make sense.”
The Doctor laughed quietly. “Have you honestly never considered that we are as important to the TARDIS as the TARDIS is to us? We’ve grown her from scratch. We’re all she knows in this universe. She doesn’t just have a bond with me from all our years of traveling. She’s got a powerful bond to you, too.”
“Yeah, but I can’t pilot or read Gallifreyan or anything like-”
He silenced her with a kiss. “Don’t you know this by now?” he whispered, his lips barely parted from hers. “You’re my match, Rose Tyler. In this life, we are equal. And it seems that the TARDIS thinks so, too.”
She wrapped her arms around the Doctor and closed the infinitesimal gap between his lips and hers. Outside the TARDIS doors the dance continued, throwing glints of colored light over their entwined bodies.
***
“So, heading out!” exclaimed the Doctor. He steered the TARDIS into orbit around the planet. “Onwards! Upwards!”
“Lots to see, lots to do,” Rose agreed, taking her place at the console.
The Doctor beamed at her. “Any ideas of where we should go next?”
“Somewhere… warm and sunny?” she offered.
“We could go to Space Florida? Or maybe somewhere a little less tourist-bound?”
“As long as it’s with you.” Rose grinned and blew a kiss over the console to her husband.
He laughed and looked down at the monitor. He gave it a double take and his eyes widened in surprise. “I don’t believe it,” he muttered. “Rose, come look at this.”
She skipped around to the Doctor’s side of the console. She followed his gaze to the screen and saw the official listing for the planet below. She started to laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me! Lady Laughed?”
“The planet’s called Lady Laughed here,” the Doctor echoed. He ran a hand through his hair, looking delighted. “Different universe-always full of surprises!”
“I guess it was always destined to have a happy ending, then.”
Rose smiled and together they took the TARDIS into the Vortex. As the ship disappeared, the woman-shaped continent on the planet below looked out to the frozen sea with joyful serenity, her laughter reflected in the shining waves.
Author: wotcher_wombat
Pairing: Ten II/Rose
Summary: Time’s running out for the creatures at the bottom of the sea. Looking to save the day, Rose and the Doctor discover a plot that might destroy the entire planet.
Rating: PG
A/N: Thanks to Debbie for the beta and Lisa for the science-y advice. Also thanks to shinyopals for the britpickery and her endless patience.
Episode 14 of the the_altverse following The Taste of Fear.
Virtual Series Masterlist
The TARDIS materialized on the shore of Woman Wept. Night had fallen, and the stars flickered in shades of green. The light reflected eerily on the dark frozen waves. Carefully and quietly, two figures dressed in black snuck from the police box and towards a particular shimmering bit of the shoreline.
“I don’t see why we had to dress in all black,” grumbled the Doctor.
“You said we might have to sneak into the place,” Rose hissed in reply. “We don’t want to be seen.”
“We’ve snuck into plenty of places before-and we’ve always gotten to wear our regular clothes. These pockets aren’t even bigger on the inside.”
If Rose had turned back to look at her husband, she knew she would find him pouting. “Oh, be quiet. My trip, remember? It’s fun. Like ninjas.”
“You know, real ninjas didn’t dress in all black. I should know as I’ve seen them. That all black thing was just a theatrical convention from-”
She rolled her eyes and turned back to kiss her husband on the cheek. “Now shush,” Rose whispered. “They can probably hear us.”
The Doctor nodded and put his finger to his lips. She tried not to laugh at the sight.
The shimmering was stronger than ever, and Rose thought she could see the faint outline of a tent at this close of an angle. She saw now that it wasn’t just one tent, but rather a network of tents. She turned to the Doctor who gave a sharp nod and a wave of the sonic, and together they reached forward and lifted up the bottom of the nearly-invisible tent.
Inside was some kind of habitation, and it was hardly unoccupied. A handful of cots were set up in orderly lines with masses of electrical cords running underfoot. Two people were lying down inside cocoons of blankets and orange sleeping bags, but back in the corner one person was still up writing in a journal at a frantic pace. She looked up at the intrusion and raised her purple eyebrows in surprise.
“What are you doing here?” Tarina Cornelius-Feng whispered. She put her journal down and rushed over to help the Doctor and Rose inside. “Come on, you’re letting in all the cold air. How’d you get past our security shields, anyway?”
“Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that,” the Doctor muttered, shoving the sonic screwdriver deeper into his regular-sized pocket.
The scientist bent down to check the seal at the bottom of the tent, seemingly surprised to see the shields still in place. “I didn’t think you’d be back-certainly not so soon. Did you find whatever was making that flash?” Tarina asked.
“Oh yes,” said Rose, the image of the octopus boy very clear in her mind. “And your coworker was wrong, by the way. There is indigenous life on this planet-for a little while longer, at least. We got to meet them, and we want to save them.”
“Indigenous-you mean that you-how could-” Tarina sputtered. “So you’re saying that there is life on this planet?”
“Yep,” said the Doctor, popping his p. “Whole society of them-well, a little grey about the gills right now. We found them at the bottom of the sea living over a hydrothermal vent. It’s closing up, and we’re going to find them a new one.”
“Amazing,” whispered Tarina. “D’you mind if I record this in my journal? It’s only-”
“We don’t have time for that,” interrupted Rose. “The people down there-they’re dying. Literally starving to death. We’ve got to do something for them.”
The Doctor nodded. “And we’re going to need your equipment.”
“The equipment?” Tarina looked troubled. “I don’t know about that. If we get caught by Professor Ussick, then-”
“Don’t worry,” the Doctor said with a wink. “We’re very sneaky.”
“It’s not just that.” Tarina looked over to her sleeping team members and dropped her voice until she was barely audible. “There’s something strange going on with our machines. I noticed it in the first week, but it’s only gotten worse. This evening’s shift was absolutely insane. It doesn’t matter how I try to fix it, either, the readings make less and less sense. At first Jounnate said I was crazy, but now he agrees with me. I think even the Yacs Ma people are starting to notice.”
“What ever the problem, I’m sure the Doctor can fix it,” said Rose loyally.
The Doctor gave her a grin and turned to Tarina. “Let’s have a look.”
Tarina nodded. “All right, just follow me. And try not to draw attention to yourselves…” She gave them an appraising look. “Well, try at least.” She led them from the sleeping tent through a maze of enclosed walkways. At last they entered what looked like the biggest tent of the compound. It was stuffed full of technology and several bleary-eyed scientists who were hard at work.
“Who’re they?” asked an elderly man hunched over one of the Yacs Ma machines. The other scientists working in the tent looked up to see Rose, the Doctor, and Tarina step through the entrance flap. In the back of the tent, Jounnate Sasmira looked up from his station and pushed his glasses up his nose with a grin.
“They’re just here to perform some maintenance,” Tarina explained. “Hopefully, this will fix our equipment so we can get some real data before we go home.”
“Then why are they dressed all in black like they’re going to burgle us?” laughed one of the team members. The other scientists smiled appreciatively.
The Doctor shot a smug look at Rose as if to say “I told you we should have worn our regular clothes.” Rose gave a subtle shrug of her shoulders and tried not to snicker.
“Maintenance uniforms, standard issue for this sector,” Tarina lied easily. “Now we’re going to need you lot to clear out while we sort this mess. Take a thirty minute break, stretch your legs, get something to eat, relax. You’ve all earned it. Good work, everybody.”
The team let out a collective sigh of relief and exited the tent. Jounnate lingered in the back until the last of the scientists had gone. “I take it you’re not really from maintenance,” he said with a smirk.
Rose smiled. “Decidedly not. How’s your husband?”
“Haven’t heard,” Jounnate said with a grimace. “Professor Ussick banned all communications after my first call this afternoon. She confiscated all our handhelds-said we’d lost that privilege. It seems I ruined it for everyone.”
Tarina rolled her eyes. “It had nothing to do with you. Ussick’s just on a power trip, and now I think she’s getting paranoid. She started checking all our communications logs.”
Rose frowned. “That does sound paranoid.”
“Tell me about it,” Tarina muttered, and Jounnate nodded in agreement. “We think she’s worried that we’re secretly communicating with that rival company-that 05 Opop, Gnits Division. Of course, she’d blow her top if she caught us talking to you two-much less letting you at our equipment.”
“Speaking of which…” The Doctor whipped out his specs and set to work examining the machines before him. He furrowed his brow. “This is rather old equipment for your day and age, isn’t it?”
“It’s loads better than what they used out here before,” Jounnate protested with a hint of wounded pride. “It might not be the shiniest out there, but it does the job.”
“We’ve had a nightmare getting this funded. Yacs Ma stepped in at the last minute-the whole expedition was about to be scrapped,” explained Tarina. “We’re lucky to be out here at all-even if it’s only for a little while. This is the best technology we could get.”
“Hmm… Something’s wrong,” the Doctor muttered. “It’s like the equipment isn’t getting through to take measure of the environment-like there’s something in the way.” He bent down and started to take apart the bottom of the machine.
“Don’t break their stuff,” Rose teased.
The Doctor looked highly affronted. “If I can fix it, then I can use it to find the other vents on the sea floor.”
“So tell me more about the life forms you found,” said Tarina with an earnest enthusiasm. “How did you find them? What were they like?”
“Well, that flash I saw was a message,” Rose said. “We followed it to the bottom of the ocean and found this whole village of sea creatures. It was…” She shook her head, unable to adequately describe the experience. “It was something else.”
“I don’t understand,” muttered Jounnate. “If there was life on this planet-anywhere on this planet-then our scans should have picked it up. How is this possible?”
“I’ve got the answer right here,” said the Doctor, holding up a mess of wires. “Your machines are not set up to study the environment. They’re not set up to study anything. It’s a dummy system-a decoy-a placebo.”
Jounnate looked disturbed, but Tarina didn’t look surprised at all. She opened her mouth to reply, but a booming voice sounded through the compound.
“CORNELIUS-FENG! Come and speak to me right this instant!” bellowed the voice of Professor Ussick. “How DARE you release an entire shift for a break-on company time! EXPLAIN YOURSELF!”
Tarina grabbed her coworker’s hand. “We can’t let her get in here-Ussick can’t see them,” she whispered to Jounnate. She gestured to Rose and the Doctor. “You two keep working. We’ll hold her off.”
The pair bounded out of the room to face Professor Ussick. The Doctor and Rose could hear the sounds of their argument fading into the distance as they led Ussick down the walkway. Not wanting to waste any time, Rose and the Doctor set about making sense of the scientists’ dummy machines.
“All right, I think I’ve gotten through. Any change in the readings up there?” asked the Doctor a few minutes later. He was sprawled beneath the Yacs Ma equipment in a pile of hardware, flipping through the settings on his sonic screwdriver.
Rose checked all of the monitors in the front section of the room. “No, nothing-wait. The numbers are decreasing-10,000-9,340-7,000-and dropping fast. Also, the little red arrow is pointing down, if that means anything.”
The Doctor bolted upright. “The little arrow is pointing down?” he asked. “That means the core is losing heat.”
“We already knew that, Doctor.” She shook her head. “It’s hardly helpful.”
“But-but this is wonderful!” the Doctor said.
“What? How so?” Rose asked, still not understanding. “The core of the planet is cooling and there’s no way to stop it. I don’t see how this could be a good thing.”
“Oh, it’s cooling all right.” The Doctor pulled forward something that looked like a large, complicated motherboard. “It’s being made to cool, and the reason for it is all right here. These machines have been stealing the heat from the core of the planet.”
“So, it’s not natural causes?” Rose asked, her heart filling with hope. “We can stop it-and save all those people down below?”
“Oh yes!” cried the Doctor, springing into motion. He grabbed her hand and bounded to the entrance of the tent in a fluid motion.
Suddenly, an alarm sounded through the complex.
***
The air was filled with the sound of spaceships leaving the atmosphere, the alarm shrieking, confused scientists bumbling about in the compound, and in the next tent they could hear a woman yelling at the top of her lungs.
“You can’t leave me! You can’t leave me behind!” screeched Professor Ussick.
Rose and the Doctor skidded around the corner into a very different sort of tent. Unlike the tents filled with clunky, outdated machinery designated for the scientists, this space had several sleek, streamlined computers and electronics. Most of the equipment was half-boxed up, as if someone had tried to pack in a hurry. In the corner, Tarina and Jounnate were gagged and tied to a pair of chairs. They started to struggle more when Rose and the Doctor came into view.
“You’ll regret this,” Ussick threatened to no one in particular.
“No, I’m thinking that you’ll come to rue this more than anyone else,” said the Doctor. He gave a wave of the sonic screwdriver and the bonds around the scientists fell away.
“It’s a scam! Yacs Ma is a scam!” Tarina said as soon as she could talk. “We heard it all-this whole time they were stealing the heat from the planet’s core!”
“Quiet, you.” Professor Ussick pulled herself up to her full height in what she thought must have been an intimidating posture.
Rose was not impressed. She walked directly behind Ussick, then grabbed both of her arms and secured them behind her back in a split second. Ussick didn’t seem to know what had happened to her. “Jounnate, could you please bring me those bonds?”
“Yes-of course,” Jounnate stuttered, taken aback by Rose’s command of the situation.
She tied Ussick to a chair with strong, secure knots. “Right, so what exactly have you done?” she asked.
“As if I’d ever tell you,” sneered Ussick.
“I’m not so sure it matters anymore,” said the Doctor. “Your team has left you.”
“Perhaps. But they’ve hardly left me defenseless.” Ussick threw back her head and began to shout, “ACTIVATE PROCEEDURE 87, ACCESS CODE-MMFH!”
Rose held her hand over Ussick’s mouth. “Now, there’ll be none of that,” she warned in a calm voice. “If you decide to pull these stunts, I’ll have to gag you-and I’m sure we’d both rather not. Do you understand?”
Ussick looked at her with hatred, but she nodded.
“All right,” Rose said as she withdrew her hand. When Ussick didn’t start screaming again, Rose smiled and repeated herself. “Now, tell us what you’ve done.”
Ussick rolled her eyes. “Are you deaf, or merely stupid? She just told you.”
“Don’t insult my wife,” the Doctor said in an informative tone. “It’s not going to win you friends here-particularly after you’ve been stealing from this planet.”
“It’s a victimless crime,” Ussick spat.
“Victimless?” Rose repeated in disbelief. “Don’t you realize that there’s life down there-an entire civilization down there in the water-and when you stole their heat you started to kill them.”
Ussick shrugged. “What, the fish? Not my department, not my problem.”
Fury erupted inside of Rose. “But you’re murdering them!”
Ussick seemed unmoved. “It’s just business. That heat energy goes for a fortune.”
“I don’t understand, though. Why hire the scientists at all? Why go through with the charade when all you want to do is steal the planet’s resources?” asked the Doctor. “It’s got to be risky keeping that many inquisitive minds right next to your main operation.”
Ussick wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Someone has to take the fall, don’t they? It keeps the police off our tails. By the time they suss out what’s happened, Yacs Ma Corporation is long gone.”
“And you kept the scientists busy so they wouldn’t see what you were doing in the next tent,” the Doctor said. “No wonder you’ve been so unpleasant. One person strays out of bounds, bumbles into the wrong room whilst heading for the loo in the middle of the night, and the jig is up. You’ve got to make everybody miserable in their own encampment-work them until they’re too exhausted to ask questions.”
“It’s worked so far,” Ussick spat.
“Ah, but it’s not working so well, is it?” The Doctor gestured to the half-packed operation. “By the looks of all this packing, you were on the run.”
“And that’s why you wouldn’t let them make any phone calls,” Rose supplied. “You knew the authorities were after you-that they might be able to trace the communications. And that’s why you’re leaving here to soon. This sector is too hot.
“The 05 Opop-that rival company-they’re the police, aren’t they?” Tarina asked, stepping boldly forward. “They’re with the Shadow Proclamation.”
Ussick narrowed her eyes. “How long have you known?”
“Not long,” Tarina admitted. “I suspected it for a while, but when these two showed up out of the blue I knew they had to be with the authorities. I’ve helped them in any way I could-and now, you’re just one phone call away from going to prison.”
“Good luck with that!” Ussick cackled. “I’ve destroyed all communication devices, not an hour ago. They’re incinerated. You’ve got no transport, and there’s no way you could reach them in time. The authorities won’t even know until the Yacs Ma Corporation is safely away with the plunder! They fly further and further as we speak. It’ll be weeks until the police get here.”
“Eh, that’s not a problem,” the Doctor said with a shrug. “Rose and I, we’ve got a phone box just down the beach. A police box, actually, a great little ship. And we’ll have the police here in a jiffy to take care of you and all your other coworkers from Yacs Ma.”
Ussick’s amusement soured. “Do that, and I’ll destroy the world,” she threatened. “We’ve got the core primed and ready for teleport-and it’s still operational. We can steal it right out from under you-all I need to do is utter a simple voice command. The planet’s shell will collapse under the weight of its own gravity, killing everything and everyone on it.”
Rose laughed. “You probably shouldn’t have said that.”
“It doesn’t matter what I say when you’ll be dead soon, along with all your little precious fishies,” Ussick countered.
Rose’s eyes glimmered with amusement. “Ah, but now we know there’s a teleport we have to disable-and my husband’s a whiz at breaking malicious machinery-aren’t you, love?”
The Doctor looked at Rose like she was the sexiest thing in the universe. It sent a shiver down Rose’s spine. “Absolutely,” he chimed in, setting to work with the sleek electronics.
“And we also know that there’s no way off the planet. Not for you,” Rose explained. “You’re hardly going to kill yourself just to get at us. You are not a threat. Your ships are long gone. They’ve left you behind.”
Ussick looked murderous. “They’ll come back for me. They will!”
Rose shook her head sadly. “But even if you won’t kill yourself destroying the planet, there’s nothing to say that your team won’t remove the core-once they’re out of the range of impact. So, that teleport needs to go down as soon as possible. How’s it coming, Doctor?”
His glasses were slipping down his nose, and he had his tongue sticking out in concentration. “Almost-”
“You can’t take it down!” shrieked Ussick. “I won’t let you! ACTIVATE PROCEEDURE 8-UMF!”
Rose tied the gag at the back of Professor Ussick’s head. “I told you what would happen if you decided to pull those kinds of stunts,” she sighed. “What was that, Doctor?”
“Almost there,” he muttered, his body tensed in concentration. “Tarina, Jounnate-take down that firewall will you?”
“Of course,” said Tarina, springing into action. She and Jounnate started typing away on the intricate keyboards. The atmosphere in the room was tense, the silence broken only by Ussick’s murmurs of displeasure and the subtle sound of keystrokes.
After a moment, the Doctor jumped up. “Teleport system going down…. now!” he exclaimed as a large screen on the wall went dark.
“We did it!” cried Jounnate. “We saved the world!”
“Not yet,” said the Doctor. “We’ve still got to find a way to return the heat to the core-or else everybody on the bottom of the ocean is going to die.” He looked back at Rose with admiration. “And we can’t let that happen. My wife made a promise to an octopus, and I’m not about to let her break it.”
Rose felt the insides of her body start to flutter, and it was very hard not to run across the room and snog the Doctor senseless.
Ussick started to laugh again, and it pulled her back to the moment. Rose turned her gaze to their prisoner. “What do you know?” she asked. Ussick grunted smugly around the gag, and Rose frowned as she untied it.
“Only that you’ll never do it,” Ussick replied once her mouth was free, her eyes darting all around the room. “The heat is contained in five specialized tanks-and they’re loaded onto the cargo of our spaceship! You’ll never get them back!”
“No,” Tarina whispered, looking crushed. “All those wonderful creatures.”
Rose narrowed her eyes. “She’s lying. The tanks are still here.”
“Ignorant girl!” said Ussick, her voice shaking. “Why would Yacs Ma leave without the prize we’ve spent a year collecting? There’s no way.”
“They left it because criminals are all the same to an extent. I saw this all the time at Torchwood,” said Rose with a calm smile. “The authorities were hot on your trail and you would need to make a clean get-away. Your team couldn’t have evidence like that on their ship. Maybe, if it’s possible, they’ll try to swing back and pick up the loot once the area isn’t so closely watched. But even that works in our favor, since they won’t have gone too far.”
Ussick glowered, but it seemed she had nothing more to say. Rose stepped back to her husband, leaning down so she could see the same equipment he and the other scientist were studying.
“Anything holding in that amount of heat must have an incredibly high energy signature,” mused the Doctor. He tried twisting a handful of wires together, and when that didn’t work he pounded them against the ground. “That’ll do it. And if we change the isometric readings of this screen like so…. Aha! Lit up like a Christmas tree, there they are! Aren’t they beautiful?” He gave a little wave to the screen, and Rose was compelled to do the same. They gleamed at each other over their shared amusement.
“What do we do next?” Tarina asked.
The Doctor tore his eyes away from Rose with seeming difficulty. “Now all we have to do is destroy the tanks to release the stored up heat, and then conduct that energy back into the planet’s core.”
“Impossible,” said Jounnate. “There’s no way to transfer the heat back into the core-you need some kind of conduit-and even then, it would melt all the ice. Either way, the planet’s destroyed.”
“But whatever drew the heat out did it without melting the ice,” said Rose. “Couldn’t you just reverse the process with whatever safeguards were used in the first place?”
The Doctor winked. “That we might be able to do. Now we just need a way to get rid of those tanks.”
“Oh, I know a way,” said Tarina with a smirk. “We’re going to blow them up.”
The Doctor looked at her for a moment, as if he wanted to argue, but then he gave her a nod. “You’re right. Anything that can hold that much energy-it’ll be almost impossible to open. An explosion is our best hope.”
“There’s leftover explosives from where they started drilling a year ago,” Tarina offered. “I know where to find them.”
“Oh, you won’t have to look far,” said Professor Ussick. She rocked back in her chair, threw her head back and bellowed, “ACTIVATE PROCEEDURE 87, ACCESS CODE 2115Z7A!”
They heard the high-pitched whine of explosives about to detonate. On instinct, Rose staggered back to the edge of the tent, the whole situation feeling all too familiar. Ussick laughed and hurled herself and the chair to the ground.
“Everyone get back!” the Doctor roared. He pulled the woebegone scientists as far away as he could.
The blast wasn’t powerful, but it did knock everyone there off their feet. The sleek computer equipment exploded to create a barricade of rubble, trapping Rose on one side and the Doctor and the scientists on the other. Parts of the tent had caught on fire, but the fires weren’t very large.
“Is everyone all right?” Rose asked, remembering too clearly another explosion. Her voice trembled. “Doctor, are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered immediately. Relief flooded Rose’s body, making her heart beat strangely in her chest. “We’re all fine,” the Doctor continued. “It’s just going to take us a bit to dig out from all this.”
“What about the fire?” Rose asked. “Do we need to-”
“The tents are flame-fending,” Jounnate explained. “They’ll go out on their own.”
“It looks like the explosion was designed to destroy the machines in here-not much else,” said Tarina. “The biggest problem is moving all this so we can get out.”
Rose nodded, wanting nothing more than to see her husband again. Then she heard a rustling noise and the snap of breaking wood. She turned in time to see Professor
Ussick make her escape.
***
“Oh, no, no, no!” Rose cried, her frustration mounting.
“What’s wrong?” the Doctor asked from the other side of the rubble, a panicked tone to his voice.
“Ussick’s getting away,” Rose replied, already moving. “I’ll be back,” she called over her shoulder.
Hoping that the Doctor and the scientists would be able to dig themselves out, Rose dashed after Ussick in hot pursuit. They tore through the walkways of the compound, and Rose was thankful that Ussick wasn’t thinking to hide or mislead Rose in the labyrinth of tents; it seemed Ussick only wanted to get out of the enclosure as soon as she could.
When they reached the outside, Ussick made a bee-line straight for the police box in the distance. Rose ran after her, steadily gaining ground. Daylight was starting to spill over the shoreline and in the early light Rose could see that Ussick had managed to pick up a gun of some kind in their chase. Rose did her best to quicken her pace as she saw Ussick try the doors of the TARDIS. When she couldn’t get inside, she turned to Rose with her weapon raised.
“Let me in,” Ussick demanded.
Rose reached her, panting for breath. “Why? What do you think you’re going to do in there?”
“That man-he said it was a ship,” she said, gesturing back to the invisible compound. “I’m going to use it to get off this hunk of ice, what do you think?”
Rose laughed. “You think you’re going to fly it?” It was all she could do to keep from breaking into hysterics.
Ussick could not see the hilarity in the situation. “Let me in, or I’ll-I’ll-”
“Fine then,” said Rose. She pulled out her key and unlocked the doors, deciding there was no harm in letting her inside. In a universe that had never had a Gallifrey, a common criminal like Ussick had no chance whatsoever of understanding and using the TARDIS.
Once inside, Professor Ussick stared at the console with a look of deep confusion on her face. She barely turned her head to acknowledge Rose’s entrance, but she did hold her gun at the ready. “How do you fly it?” she asked.
The corner of Rose’s lip twitched in short-lived amusement. “You’re asking the wrong person,” she said. “I can’t fly her.” Rose chose to omit the pre-programmed disks from the conversation.
Ussick glared at her. “It flew in here-it can fly me out! Now tell me how!”
Rose gave her a commiserating look. “Sorry. I just can’t do that.”
“Can’t do it, or won’t?” Ussick narrowed her eyes.
Rose shrugged. “Both.”
“THE WORLD IS ENDING AND I’M SCARED. I’M SO SCARED,” said the octopus boy’s message, still repeating inside the console room. Ussick jumped in surprise and fired a shot at the containment field around child’s message of flesh and blood. The laser blast got trapped inside the blue sphere and didn’t even faze the message.
She might have been startled that Ussick actually fired her weapon, but Rose’s Torchwood training immediately kicked in. She had to keep Ussick calm. “It’s a message from the people dying at the bottom of the ocean,” Rose explained, sidling up to stand closer to Ussick. “Heartbreaking, isn’t it?”
“Stop trying to play to my sympathies and tell me how to fly this thing out of here!” Ussick demanded, her whole body trembling. She was clearly at the edge.
Rose shook her head. “Give it up,” she said gently. “You’ve had a good run, but it’s over now. There’s nowhere for you to go. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do to help you escape.”
“You don’t understand! They’ll take me in-they’ll arrest me, and I’ll spend the rest of my life in jail,” Ussick shouted, her voice at the edge of tears, the gun trembling in her hand. “I won’t go! I won’t!” She raised her weapon and pointed at Rose. “You can’t stop me!”
Rose held her hands up in the air, willing herself to keep calm. “I think we both need to take a breath, hmm?” she said. In the back of her mind, she could feel the TARDIS panicking. The grating trembled beneath her feet. She inhaled. “Let’s just slow down, all right?”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” screamed Ussick, aiming right for Rose’s heart.
Too much happened in the next moment.
Rose heard a deafening bang as the gun fired. Her eyes widened in shock. It was a shot aimed straight for her in point blank range. She knew she was dead. She thought of her mother, of Tony and Pete, of her friends at Torchwood, of Mickey and her other friends left in her first universe-but mostly she thought of the Doctor, of how much she loved him, of what he would find when he returned to the TARDIS-a thousand thoughts and colors and sounds flying through her mind in an instant. She would leave her husband alone, and the very thought of it burned. Her stomach clenched and she prepared to fall backwards by the force of the blow.
The moment passed.
Rose did not fall backwards. She blinked and waited, uncomprehending. She felt across her torso, and when she raised her hands, they were not stained in blood. Her eyes glanced around the TARDIS in confusion, taking in nothing but a blur of colors. What had happened?
“Save us. Please…” said the octopus boy’s message, but the sounds were fading now. Rose forced herself to look, and at the bottom of the console she saw a slimy, translucent mess on the floor. The boy’s words faded as the message dissolved into a gelatinous goop.
Rose looked back to Professor Ussick, and finally let go of the breath she’d been holding. Ussick was crumpled down on her knees, most of her torso covered in an swelling blue substance that extended all the way out past the end of the gun-and there at the end of the gun was the deadly bolt of light intended to kill Rose, trapped inside the blue matter. If she watched closely enough, she could see that light flicker.
Suddenly Rose understood. Ussick and the gun were trapped inside the same containment field they’d used to hold the octopus boy’s message. Somehow, the TARDIS had moved it in a split second, stopping the blast and saving Rose’s life.
Rose stepped out of the line of fire, and dropped to her knees. She ran her hands along the floor, along the walls, touching every bit of the TARDIS that she could reach. “Oh you wonderful, wonderful ship,” she whispered joyfully, almost at the verge of tears. “Thank you.”
In the back of her mind, she felt a slight humming in reply.
***
It didn’t take the authorities very long to arrive once Rose contacted them from the TARDIS. They hauled away Ussick, still frozen in the containment field, and then sent a team to investigate the evidence left behind by the Yacs Ma Corporation and to interview the confused and innocent scientists. The investigation was nice and official, but it seemed to take too long. Rose was impatient to find her husband.
She searched the rubble from the explosion, to find it all cleared to one side and the remains of that tent empty. She dashed through the place looking for the Doctor, and was starting to get worried when she heard a familiar voice babbling just from outside the compound.
“Well, I say a simple matter-not that I mean matter, of course-heat works a little bit different than other things, like, say, marmalade-”
“But did you return the heat the core?” asked an exasperated sounding official.
“Oh yes!” exclaimed the Doctor. “We didn’t even need to use those holes drilled into the planet for observation-well, it wasn’t really observation, was it?”
“Yes, but how did you do it?” The official exhaled noisily. “I need to take your statement.”
“You know, I’m not terribly fond of this part,” said the Doctor. “I’d really just like to find my wife, if you don’t mind. If you want explanations, I recommend you have a chat with those two remarkable scientists over there-Tarina Cornelius-Feng and Jounnate Sasmira. See them? Right over there? They’ll have all the answers you need.”
Rose turned the corner. As soon as she saw her husband, her face broke into a wide grin. She ran towards him and threw her arms around him. The Doctor laughed and gave her shoulders a squeeze.
“Oh it’s good to see you,” she mumbled into his chest. Everything seemed right and triumphant when they held each other like this. She didn’t think she would ever have enough of this feeling.
“We got out of the rubble,” the Doctor said.
Rose giggled. “I noticed.”
“And we restored the heat to the core of the planet,” he continued, his words ringing in jubilation. “All the vents should open back up on the sea floor. It’ll take them a while to rebuild, but now they can. They’re saved.”
Rose nuzzled closer to her husband. “I knew we would fix it.”
“Yes you did,” the Doctor said proudly. “How were things on your end?”
“Oh, a lot of running, capturing the bad guy, calling in the local authorities, you know how it is,” she said evasively. “I had to chase her all the way to the TARDIS.”
The Doctor ran his hand up and down her back. “Another day in the life.”
“Excuse me.” An officer walked right up to them, clipboard in hand. “You’re the one who called us in, aren’t you?” he asked, looking pointedly at Rose. “I need to take your official statement, if you don’t mind.”
The Doctor grumbled. “I hate clean-up.”
Rose turned her doe eyes on the officer. “Oh, of course, sir,” she said, letting her voice go faint. “It’s just been such a terrible experience, and I’m so-so-overwhelmed. Could I have a few moments rest first?” When the officer didn’t look persuaded, she added a desperate, “Please?”
The officer sighed. “All right. I’ll give you half an hour, but then I’ll really need to talk with you.”
“Yes, of course,” said Rose, giving him a tragic smile. “Thank you so much, sir.”
As soon as he was out of sight, the Doctor started giggling. “You are brilliant,” he said, leaning down to kiss her.
Rose looked around the crowd. No one seemed to be paying them any mind. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
She took the Doctor’s hand and led him back to the TARDIS, waving goodbye as they passed Jounnate and Tarina. Since they were the only scientists in the crew who knew anything about what had happened, the two coworkers were surrounded by a large crowd of investigators. They didn’t wave back, but Jounnate gave a subtle nod of his head and Tarina shot them a dazzling smile.
Rose and the Doctor reached the TARDIS without any other confrontations. Rose closed the door behind her with a sigh of relief, happy to shut out the chaos of the investigation. It was good to be home.
“What’s this?” asked the Doctor. He prodded the mess by the console with the toe of his shoes.
“That’s the boy’s message,” Rose explained.
“What happened to the containment field?” he asked, running his hand through his hair. “It shouldn’t have just busted like that-”
“It didn’t,” said Rose. She hesitated. Her first instinct was to hide the fact that she’d nearly died today. She didn’t want to worry the Doctor. However, after a moment, she abandoned the idea. She couldn’t keep something like that from her husband. She told him what had happened, watching him carefully and with baited breath.
He didn’t seem angry. He stepped over the mess and pulled her into a crushing embrace. He kissed the top of her head, her temple, along her jaw, her shoulder-any part of her that he could reach. “Oh, Rose,” he sighed. She could feel his hands shake as he stroked her hair.
“But it’s okay,” she said, turning her head to look up at him. “Really, I’m fine.”
He smiled sadly. “Yeah, but I’m not.”
“Am I supposed to kiss you to make it feel better?” she teased.
“Maybe.”
After they’d both made each other feel better, they decided to take one last trip to the bottom of the ocean. They wanted to make sure that everyone was okay down there, and they felt they should at least say goodbye to the octopus boy. The TARDIS didn’t seem too happy with the trip since she groaned and creaked the whole way down, but they materialized at the bottom without incident.
Rose stood before the doors and looked back to catch one more glimpse of the Doctor before he doused the lights. “Are you ready for this? Maybe you should hang back here, and I’ll describe it to you later,” she teased. “It must be awful to eat humble pie.”
He bumbled his way to her in the darkness. “Not in a million years,” he replied, his hand finding a way into hers. “I love it when you’re right-usually because that means you agree with me. But even here-especially here-I’m glad you’re right.”
Rose felt a blush creep up on her cheeks, and she was glad the Doctor couldn’t see her face. Without further ado, she opened the doors. The arrival of the TARDIS had not escaped notice, and when the doors opened, Rose and the Doctor were greeted by a flurry of colors and lights as the crowd cheered.
“You came back! I knew you would!” cried the octopus boy. The fins on the sides of his head flapped so quickly that they looked like an orange blur. “You promised, and I knew you’d come back!”
The crowd shouted and twirled with fervor. Some in back of the assembly cheered, “Thank you!” Others declared the foreigners heroes, and even some named them “Vent-Savers.”
Their gratitude was so earnest, it made Rose choke up. “It was our pleasure,” she said, something stuck in her throat. “We were glad to help.” The Doctor gave her hand a squeeze.
After a long moment of unbridled celebration, the village’s last elder swam forward. The long green streaks down her side flashed with a bright intensity as she spoke. “You have restored our vents. I was wrong to doubt you,” she said with a restrained nod. “I must ask, though. How long will it last?”
“Oh, that’s the best part,” said the Doctor. “It’ll last indefinitely-ad infinitum-for years and years and years. You’ll never have to worry about this again in your lifetimes-nor your great-great-grandspawn’s lives. I doubt anyone is going to mess with this planet in quite a while.”
The elder sounded relieved. “In that case, I thank you. I thank you on behalf of our village, I thank you on behalf of those passed before us, and I thank you on behalf of those yet to be born into our midst. Your assistance will not be forgotten. We shall record it amongst our most sacred histories.” The elder turned to face her people. “And now, in honor of our revered foreigners, we shall perform our most jubilant songs.”
The aliens began a song, but to Rose’s eyes, it looked more like a dance. The bioluminescent creatures began an intricate series of movement and a beautiful, unearthly music filled the TARDIS. The show was hypnotic, and it gave Rose an idea. She felt her way back to their bedroom and brought out a bundle of blankets. She spread them on the floor before the doorway, and together she and the Doctor snuggled up to enjoy the spectacular.
“It’s beautiful,” Rose said after watching the dance for several minutes. The light at the top of the TARDIS didn’t flash, and she was relived that the ship wasn’t translating for the moment. “What a night,” she said as she nuzzled closer to her husband. “We saved the world, you know.”
“Well, us and a couple of scientists,” the Doctor corrected.
Rose reached up to run her fingers through his hair. “I guess they didn’t get to do any studies while they were here. What a shame.”
“I wouldn’t worry about them. With the publicity they’ll get from catching the Yacs Ma people almost single-handedly-I doubt they’ll lack any funding in the future.”
“Hmm.” Rose considered her own experience. “I suppose taking out the bad guys is one surefire way to get yourself noticed-for most people, that is.”
“And you were the one who took down the bad guy in the end,” whispered the Doctor. “That was scary-maybe after-the-fact scary for me, but… yeah, still scary.”
Rose felt bad, and reached out to pat her husband’s hand. “I’m fine, though. I promise.”
Suddenly, the Doctor sat upright. “Not that I don’t think you can handle yourself!” he said, his voice cracking. “You’re perfectly confident and capable and brilliant and-”
Her heart swelled with affection, and she laughed. “Thank you. And you won’t hear me denying that it was scary. It was, but a lot of what we do is scary. That’s the life we’ve chosen. And it’s wonderful.”
“Right,” he said, sneaking one arm around her shoulders.
“It’s strange though,” Rose mused. “I mean, it was a split second. There was no time-and then, the containment field was suddenly over Ussick. How could the TARDIS do that?”
“Well, I won’t deny that it’s a strange circumstance. That’s never happened before,” the Doctor admitted. “I think it was a combination of things that saved you. First of all, you were both inside the TARDIS-even if you’d been two feet out the door, I don’t think it could have worked. Plus, we already had a containment field in use-and it was sitting inside the console room right next to you. You were in a life-threatening situation, and our little TARDIS was clever enough to realize it. Most importantly, it was you.”
Rose gave him a skeptical look, knowing he couldn’t see it in the dark. “That doesn’t make sense.”
The Doctor laughed quietly. “Have you honestly never considered that we are as important to the TARDIS as the TARDIS is to us? We’ve grown her from scratch. We’re all she knows in this universe. She doesn’t just have a bond with me from all our years of traveling. She’s got a powerful bond to you, too.”
“Yeah, but I can’t pilot or read Gallifreyan or anything like-”
He silenced her with a kiss. “Don’t you know this by now?” he whispered, his lips barely parted from hers. “You’re my match, Rose Tyler. In this life, we are equal. And it seems that the TARDIS thinks so, too.”
She wrapped her arms around the Doctor and closed the infinitesimal gap between his lips and hers. Outside the TARDIS doors the dance continued, throwing glints of colored light over their entwined bodies.
***
“So, heading out!” exclaimed the Doctor. He steered the TARDIS into orbit around the planet. “Onwards! Upwards!”
“Lots to see, lots to do,” Rose agreed, taking her place at the console.
The Doctor beamed at her. “Any ideas of where we should go next?”
“Somewhere… warm and sunny?” she offered.
“We could go to Space Florida? Or maybe somewhere a little less tourist-bound?”
“As long as it’s with you.” Rose grinned and blew a kiss over the console to her husband.
He laughed and looked down at the monitor. He gave it a double take and his eyes widened in surprise. “I don’t believe it,” he muttered. “Rose, come look at this.”
She skipped around to the Doctor’s side of the console. She followed his gaze to the screen and saw the official listing for the planet below. She started to laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me! Lady Laughed?”
“The planet’s called Lady Laughed here,” the Doctor echoed. He ran a hand through his hair, looking delighted. “Different universe-always full of surprises!”
“I guess it was always destined to have a happy ending, then.”
Rose smiled and together they took the TARDIS into the Vortex. As the ship disappeared, the woman-shaped continent on the planet below looked out to the frozen sea with joyful serenity, her laughter reflected in the shining waves.