The Sacrifice 2/2
Story: The Sacrifice
Author: WMR
Characters: Ten, Rose
Rated: PG13
Spoilers: up to Tooth and Claw
Summary: “It’s like something out of The Mummy. Or is that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Hmm, I don’t know, really. That one does have a temple. But does it have virgin sacrifices?”
With thanks, as always, to my lovely and encouraging BR,
dark_aegis.
Chapter 1: The Circle of Isis
Chapter 2: New New New Doctor?
But she doesn’t have a choice. Two of the crazies are at her side, grabbing her arms, dragging her away. “Tainted,” one of them repeats.
She doesn’t take her eyes off the Doctor the whole time. And he doesn’t take his off her.
He’s being restrained, but he stands tall and resolute. His expression tells her again to go. He looks almost calm, not at all as if he’s on the verge of becoming a sacrifice to some long-dead goddess from a planet billions of miles from here.
She could almost believe that he really does have a plan for getting himself out safely. Except that she knows him too well.
He’s too good at pretending. At lying. And he’s lied to her before, so she knows he’ll do it again without even blinking.
He’s also died before, and although he’s never told her, never answered her questions about it, she’s pretty sure that she had something to do with it. If she’s right, he died to save her life. He’s done that before. Does that mean he’d do it again?
Has he sent her away, intending to die and regenerate?
Her captors drag her, kicking and protesting the whole way, through the temple, out into the courtyard and back to the main entrance. They dump her in the street, shoving her so she falls to her hands and knees, and, before she can scramble to her feet and make a run for it to go back inside, to try to get to the Doctor, they’ve slammed the doors. She hears the sound of bolts sliding home.
“No!” She won’t let this happen. Won’t leave him.
She shoves and pulls and pushes at the door. It doesn’t budge.
She starts to run around the outside of the temple compound. There has to be another way in. There are other doors, but they are all locked securely too. They don’t even move when she kicks at them. She’d climb over the wall if it wasn’t at least twenty feet high, with nothing that she could use for hand- and foot-holds. She searches, too. But the stone is smooth.
There’s no way in. And every minute she delays means those crazies could already have killed the Doctor.
No. Not already. It’s been about five minutes, and they’ve got their rituals to perform yet. She probably has about ten minutes left, at most. And she can’t afford to waste one second.
So. She can’t get in on her own. She needs help.
Help. The town. Is there anyone here she can trust to help her?
Wait. The police. The Doctor said human sacrifices are illegal. The police must be able to help.
She whirls, starts running back to the town. Stops the first person she sees and asks directions to the police station.
No police station. Here, order is kept by soldiers - some kind of martial law? But that’s irrelevant. What matters is finding someone who can help her free the Doctor.
The army HQ is just a couple of minutes away. She runs the whole way and arrives, breathless, at the door.
A soldier standing at the entrance, weapon in hand, gives her a suspiciously questioning look. Quickly, she says, “My friend’s in trouble. I need help or they’ll kill him!”
The soldier’s expression is sceptical. “Who will kill him?”
“The temple,” she explains. “Isis. They... want to sacrifice him.”
He lowers his weapon. “The Circle of Isis?”
They’d called themselves that. “Yeah.”
“Wait there.” He holds up a hand in what seems to be the universally-recognised halt signal.
She waits. The seconds tick away. And with every one she knows, she just knows, that the Doctor’s life is ticking away.
What’s keeping that bloody soldier so long? she wants to scream. Doesn’t he know how urgent this is? Doesn’t he realise that any delay could be fatal? That every second counts?
And all the time she’s thinking. Imagining. Visualising.
They’ll have him tied to the table now. Pinned down by ropes to his arms and legs and across his head so that he can’t move. They’ll be marching around the table, chanting. And, soon, they’ll stop and they’ll all line up along one side of the table, and one of them will hold that brutal-looking knife over his heart.
Hearts. He has two.
They’ll chant again. And then... oh god, and then he’ll lower the knife and plunge it into -
Footsteps. Her head shoots up. The soldier is coming out.
Finally - though she knows that, in reality, it was less than two minutes. And he’s accompanied by others. At least twenty. And all armed: some kind of guns, as well as knives and axes and other weapons she can’t put names to.
“Leave this to us, woman,” the soldier she spoke to says. “Wait here.”
No way. She says nothing, though. She just walks along with them. They ignore her. And in a couple of minutes they’re back at the temple.
The soldiers go to a side entrance, one she’d seen but found tightly barred.
A weapon is fired. And the door swings open.
The soldiers march inside. She hurries in with them, trying to explain where the Doctor is, where the table - the altar? - is, but they’re not listening to her. They’re just marching towards the inner temple. Well, okay. They’re going where she wants them to go anyway.
They should be in time. She hopes so, anyway. The Doctor won’t have made it easy for them, despite stating that he was a willing sacrifice. He won’t just lie there quietly and let them murder him. On past performance, he’ll talk and talk, making it impossible for them to ignore him. Maybe, just maybe, they won’t even have got to the tying-up stage by now.
Maybe. On the other hand, these crazies are pretty determined. Maybe they just won’t listen to him. Maybe they overpowered him quickly. They could easily have stuffed something in his mouth to prevent him talking. If they’ve done that, then...
He could already be dead.
No. No, she won’t think that way. She can’t. He’s the Doctor. He’s never been outwitted that easily.
And anyway, he does have two hearts. If one of them stops, does he still die? Maybe... maybe that’s how he thought he could get around the whole being killed thing. But, surely, if they see he’s still alive, they’ll stab him again until he’s dead?
Maybe. Oh, god, she has to get in there. She has to find him. Rescue him.
The soldiers are at the temple entrance. Now, they’ll go in, they’ll stop this farce of a sacrificial ritual and the Doctor will be free. Everything’s going to be all right. It has to be. Because anything else is just too horrible to contemplate.
They don’t go in.
Instead, they start piling something up against the walls of the temple. What? What are they doing? What are they waiting for?
She runs to the soldier who’d been on guard outside the barracks, grabbing his arm. “What are you doing? We need to go in! He’ll die if - ”
He shakes her off. “We are putting an end to this once and for all.”
“How?” she demands. “Look, my friend’s in danger! You’ve got to get inside and free him!”
“Out of the way, woman.” His tone is curt, and he turns his back on her, getting back to his task.
They’re not going to help her. They’re not going to save the Doctor.
Okay. So she’s on her own. Won’t be the first time.
While the soldier’s attention is distracted, she seizes his gun, pulling it out of his belt, and is running off before he can react.
She doesn’t need them, anyway. She can save the Doctor.
As long as she’s still in time...
She runs to the entrance. But, as she gets there, someone grabs her and lifts her off her feet. The people on this planet are strong.
“Let me go! My friend’s in there - ”
“Your friend’s dead,” the soldier who’s holding her says. “It’s too late. They’ll have killed him by now.”
“You don’t know that!” she protests. “Let me go!”
Because he can’t be dead. He’s the Doctor. He doesn’t go down that easily. He can’t. He won’t.
“You want to die too?” He drags her off, back, away from the temple.
Does she? She wants to save the Doctor. That’s all that matters. She struggles, kicks, but to no avail. His arms are like bands around her. She can’t get free.
Someone else shouts, “Clear the area!” And the soldiers are all running... away from the temple.
And, while her mind is just beginning to process what’s going on - the things the soldiers were putting at the temple walls, everyone running away - it happens.
A massive explosion shakes the area. The boom is followed by a huge rumbling sound. She swings her head around just in time to see the temple start to crumble and collapse.
It’s ruined. Not one single wall is left standing.
And, without a miracle, there’s no way that anyone inside could have survived.
***
She just can’t believe they did that. Even if the crazy Isis-worshippers didn’t deserve any kind of a warning before being blown to death, there was an innocent man in there. And the soldiers knew that.
They blew the place up without caring that the Doctor would be killed, too.
“You bastards!” she yells. “You killed him!”
The soldier who pulled her away glances at her. “He was already dead.”
But he isn’t. That’s the problem. Even if the crazies had already killed him, he’d have regenerated. And these lunatics will have killed him a second time.
The soldiers are ignoring her now. They’re converging on the ruins, which is where she wants to be, too. She runs to the side of the ruins which is, as far as she can tell, next to where the table was. They ignore her, too, as she starts digging through the remains of the temple with her bare hands.
He’s in there, somewhere. And she’s not going to leave here without him.
The problem is, she realises suddenly, that she’s not going to recognise him.
Because, one way or another, he’s died. And he’ll have regenerated, or he’ll be in the process of regenerating.
Oh, god. He might have gone from his tenth life to his twelfth in a matter of minutes. And it’s all her fault.
And, even worse, if he’s trapped under the rubble he could die again. Permanently, this time.
No. No, she won’t let herself think that. If she dwells on all those possibilities she’ll start to cry and she won’t be able to stop. The important thing is to find him. To get him out of here.
Find him...
If he’s regenerated - no, because he will have regenerated - she’s not going to recognise him.
Oh, god. He could be anyone. He could look like anyone. He’s shown her pictures of some of his previous regenerations, after all. There was nothing in any of the photos that would have shown her that they were all the Doctor.
They’re all - the soldiers and her - tearing at the rubble. From what she can tell, they don’t care that they’ve just destroyed a historic temple. It was worth it, they say, to stop the Circle of Isis once and for all.
They’re looking for bodies. They don’t expect to find survivors, either.
Oh, Doctor!
Why did he do it? Why force her to leave and stay in her stead? Why give himself up willingly to those murdering crazies?
He should never have done it. And, if he does get out of here alive, she’ll kill him for it.
Maybe she should have followed his cue and told the soldiers he was her husband. Given the patriarchal attitudes in this place, they might have taken it more seriously then. On the other hand, maybe now they’d just expect her to throw herself on his tomb and be immolated with him.
There’s blood now, splashes of crimson on some of the stones. And then, as she drags more rubble out of the way, more than blood. An arm, crushed and torn.
The Doctor? No, please, no... She tears frantically at the rubble and stones, revealing more of the body. And then sighs in relief as she recognises the robe the man is wearing. He’s one of the crazies. Dead, of course. But she has no regret whatsoever about that. He - all of them - deserve it.
Clothes...
Of course. She will know the Doctor, even if he has regenerated. Because he’ll still be wearing her Doctor’s clothes. Just as he was still wearing her first Doctor’s clothes when he changed on her in the TARDIS.
A soldier is beside her now, digging out the cult member. She moves aside. The Doctor’s not where she’s been digging.
Oh, Doctor, where are you?
She rips away at some more rubble, throwing the shattered stone out of her way. She notices another splash of red on one piece of stone, and searches for the source of the blood. Another body? Another cult member? Or... the Doctor?
And then she realises that the blood is from her own hands. They’re torn and bleeding.
But that doesn’t matter. She doesn’t care about that. All that matters is finding the Doctor.
She has to blink suddenly; there’s something in her eye and her vision is blurry. A drop of moisture falls to her hand. She must be sweating. Maybe the sweat’s trickling down into her eyes. She’s not crying. No. She isn’t.
She has to keep searching. That’s the only thing she can do. Tear at the rubble, dig beneath it, look for any trace of a brown suit. Because that’s all she’ll know him by.
“What does your friend look like?” One of the soldiers is standing next to her. She glances up. It’s the one who prevented her from running into the temple. The one who told her the Doctor would already be dead.
What does the Doctor look like? Now, she has to swallow a lump in her throat. Because she just doesn’t know what he’ll look like now.
“He’s...” She swallows before her voice cracks. All she can do is describe his clothes. “He’s wearing brown - a suit.” They might not know what a suit is, she realises; it’s nothing like the standard dress on this planet. So she tries again, describing trousers, a shirt, a tie, a jacket. And then, when he pushes her on a description of the Doctor’s physical appearance, she’s as vague as she can get away with. Because he’ll look completely different now.
She’s interrupted, though, before she has to explain too much. “We got another one!”
Her heart skips a beat. Another body? She looks over. And sees that the soldier who called out is holding something brown.
Oh, god...
She scrambles to her feet and runs over, tripping and stumbling over rocks and debris on the way, but she doesn’t care even when she falls and jars her knee painfully. Because she recognises that brown fabric.
It’s the Doctor’s coat.
Or part of it, anyway. The rest is still buried.
It’s dusty and smeared with dark streaks of what can only be blood. The Doctor’s blood?
But he can’t be dead. He’s a Time Lord. He regenerates.
She falls to her knees, ignoring the pain in her injured one, and scrabbles away at the rubble hiding the rest of his coat. He’s buried under there. He might still be alive. He might just be waking up from regenerating. She’s not going to risk hurting him, or worse, by being careless now.
Bit by bit, more of the coat is revealed. But there’s still no sign of him. Nothing that even resembles a body or a body part. But he has to be here. He has to be.
“Doctor?” She pauses in her digging, leans down, gets her head as close to the rubble as she can. If he’s alive under there, he’ll hear her. “Doctor? Doctor, can you hear me?”
There’s no answer. All she can hear is the sound of the other soldiers working, digging in the ruins, talking among themselves.
Someone finds another body, another of the cult crazies. The body is crushed and almost unrecognisable. Oh, god. Can the Doctor regenerate if his body is that badly damaged?
“Doctor?” She has to try again. “Doctor?”
Moisture is streaming down her cheeks now. Sweat again. Has to be. She’s not crying.
But there’s a lump in her throat which she has to swallow before she can call him again. “Doctor?”
And then there’s a voice she never thought she’d hear again. “Looking for me?”
Her head shoots up. He’s standing just a few feet away, in his suit but without the coat, his hair slightly ruffled, but otherwise looking completely unharmed.
And exactly the same as she saw him last.
Same hair. Same eyes. Same nose. Same body.
Exactly the same.
He didn’t die. He hasn’t regenerated.
He’s all right.
She scrambles to her feet and runs to him. And, before he can catch her in his arms, she has her fists ready.
“You bastard! I thought you were dead!” And she pounds her fists against his chest.
***
He catches her hands in one of his and wraps his free arm around her, holding her tightly to him. His hand slides up and strokes through her hair.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his face close to her ear. “I’m sorry you thought that.”
“Wha’ was I s’posed to think?” she mumbles into his neck. She’s soaking the collar of his shirt, but he so deserves it.
“That I’d do what I told you I would?” he suggests. His hands move to her shoulders, setting her back from him a little, his gaze meeting hers. His face is blurry. “I told you I’d be fine. Didn’t I? I’m sure I remember telling you to go back to the TARDIS and I’d meet you there. Hmm? Hmm?”
She shrugs. Doesn’t yet trust herself to speak. He’s a bastard. He’s such a bastard.
His eyebrows raise. “You didn’t believe me?”
And then the words come, fast and furious and unstoppable. “Believe you? Why would I believe you? Last time you told me to wait for you in the TARDIS you lied to me! You never intended to come back. You sent me away an’... an’ you went back to die!”
He blinks. And, for an instant, there’s actually shame in his expression. But it’s gone just as quickly. “I had to do that, Rose. And you know why. But this time I meant it. Look!” He frees one hand and gestures to himself. “See? All here. Alive and well. And I went back to the TARDIS. You weren’t there.”
“Right. An’ how was I s’posed to know you meant it this time?”
“Um.” He gives her what she knows he knows is his most charming smile. “Because you trust me?”
“Trust you?” She laughs, completely without humour. “Not unless you promise me you don’t have any more of your stupid emergency programmes all set up ready to go!”
His smile fades. “You know I can’t do that, Rose.”
“Right.” She pulls away from him. “You can’t. How many more of ‘em do you have? An’ if you had died whose voice would I’ve heard sayin’ sorry this time?”
His hands fall to her shoulders again and pull her back to him, against her resistance. “Mine, Rose. Only ever mine.”
“Yeah, but which you?” She knows she sounds sulky. She also knows that it’s the first time in weeks she’s thrown his regeneration back at him or even hinted that she misses the old him. But he so deserves it.
“Me.” His voice is soft now. “This me.” He pulls her closer, and now she lets him. “I have to have ways of making sure you’re safe if something happens to me,” he adds, his tone gentle but firm. “But that wasn’t gonna happen today.”
“Like I was supposed to know that. I thought you’d decided to die, Doctor! I thought...” She blinks away the new tears that are starting to come. “I thought you’d decided to let them kill you instead of me because you can regenerate...”
“No.” His hand moves in soothing circles over her back. “No, Rose. Not that. Not that I wouldn’t,” he adds quickly. “If there was no other way. But, I promise you, I’m not planning on losing this regeneration any time soon. That was never the plan.”
And how was she supposed to know that? But she releases a long, shuddering sigh and just subsides against him. And he holds her.
***
After a while, she stirs, and his embrace loosens. “You all right?” he asks.
“Yeah.” She is now. Because he is.
He lets her go, but keeps hold of her hand. “Time to go, I think.”
She hesitates. “You haven’t told me. How are you alive? I thought they’d killed you...”
He shakes his head. “You’ve really got to start believing me when I tell you things’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, right.” She shakes her head, glaring at him. “Given all the times you lie about that, not a chance, Doctor.”
He looks as if he’s about to argue, but then he subsides. “This time I meant it.”
“Right. An’ I was jus’ s’posed to know that?”
“Course you were.” He grins at her. “As for how I got away - did you notice what I did earlier? To get you free?”
She nods. “You did something with time, didn’t you? Manipulated it?”
“Yeah.” He looks pleased that she knows. “Slowed it down. That meant I could do things at normal speed while time went past slowly for everyone else.”
“That’s amazing.” She shakes her head.
He grins. “Time Lord.” And he winks, clicking his tongue at the same time. “It’s not just a title, you know.”
“So I see.” She studies him, this amazing man - no, Time Lord - she’s fortunate enough to call her best friend. “Some day, you’ve got to tell me more about what you can do.”
He grins. “Nah. I think I prefer impressing you.” Again, he winks. “Though I’m impressed by you, Rose Tyler. Not many people would’ve realised what I was doing back there. I made a mistake, though,” he continues, his tone more serious. “I stopped controlling time once you were free because I thought we could make a run for it while they wouldn’t be expecting it. Should have kept manipulating it for a little longer and just carried you out of there, then we’d have been fine.”
It makes her feel better to be reminded that the Doctor does make mistakes. “So, you slowed time again so you could escape?”
“Yeah.” He gives her an approving smile. “Easy, really. That’s why I said I’d be fine once I didn’t have you to worry about as well. It’s a long time since I’ve held anyone else outside time with me, and the best time to try it isn’t when our lives are depending on it.”
“Makes sense,” she agrees.
So, all the time she was going frantic thinking he was dead or dying, he was safe. Probably walking back to the TARDIS at the same time she was pacing outside the barracks waiting for that soldier to come back.
Bastard. But he’s alive, and that’s all that matters.
He bumps his shoulder against hers. “So, ready to go? Oh, and just what were you doing over there?” He nods towards the rubble. “And how exactly did that happen, anyway?”
She explains. He winces as she relates how the soldiers blew up the temple with the cult members inside. She finishes with the discovery of his coat.
“Blimey, you found that?” He shakes his head. “They made me take it off. No idea why, but it gave me breathing space to focus.” He frowns and glances over at the ruins. “Think we can get it back?”
Before she can reply, he’s lifting her hand and examining it. “I’m an idiot,” he mutters. “You’re hurt. And it’s all my fault. I should have realised you wouldn’t know I’d be safe.”
Now he’s sounding like he used to. Which, oddly enough, makes it easier for her to forgive him. “I’m okay.”
“You’re not.” He takes both her hands in his and studies her palms. “I don’t know why I didn’t notice before. I’m an idiot.” Freeing one hand, he rummages in a pocket, and then binds both her hands with white cotton handkerchiefs. She knows that, as soon as they’re back in the TARDIS, he’ll insist that she lets him sort her out in the med-lab. And she will - her hands do hurt, but she knows, too, that he’s feeling guilty now.
“Come on.” She takes his hand in one bandaged one. “Let’s get your coat, and then let’s get out of here.”
He holds her hand loosely; she knows he’s being careful because of her injuries. “Good plan.”
But, before she can take a step, he’s moving closer to her. His free hand cups her cheek. “Thank you for rescuing me, Rose Tyler.” And, even though it doesn’t really make sense, she knows what he means. If he hadn’t saved himself, she would have saved him.
She’s about to tell him that he’s welcome, but before she can his lips brush hers. Just gently, and just for a fraction of a second. But that, and the warmth in his gaze as he pulls back, is enough.
It’s a thanks and an apology. And, she thinks, it’s also a promise.
END
Author: WMR
Characters: Ten, Rose
Rated: PG13
Spoilers: up to Tooth and Claw
Summary: “It’s like something out of The Mummy. Or is that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Hmm, I don’t know, really. That one does have a temple. But does it have virgin sacrifices?”
With thanks, as always, to my lovely and encouraging BR,
dark_aegis.
Chapter 1: The Circle of Isis
Chapter 2: New New New Doctor?
But she doesn’t have a choice. Two of the crazies are at her side, grabbing her arms, dragging her away. “Tainted,” one of them repeats.
She doesn’t take her eyes off the Doctor the whole time. And he doesn’t take his off her.
He’s being restrained, but he stands tall and resolute. His expression tells her again to go. He looks almost calm, not at all as if he’s on the verge of becoming a sacrifice to some long-dead goddess from a planet billions of miles from here.
She could almost believe that he really does have a plan for getting himself out safely. Except that she knows him too well.
He’s too good at pretending. At lying. And he’s lied to her before, so she knows he’ll do it again without even blinking.
He’s also died before, and although he’s never told her, never answered her questions about it, she’s pretty sure that she had something to do with it. If she’s right, he died to save her life. He’s done that before. Does that mean he’d do it again?
Has he sent her away, intending to die and regenerate?
Her captors drag her, kicking and protesting the whole way, through the temple, out into the courtyard and back to the main entrance. They dump her in the street, shoving her so she falls to her hands and knees, and, before she can scramble to her feet and make a run for it to go back inside, to try to get to the Doctor, they’ve slammed the doors. She hears the sound of bolts sliding home.
“No!” She won’t let this happen. Won’t leave him.
She shoves and pulls and pushes at the door. It doesn’t budge.
She starts to run around the outside of the temple compound. There has to be another way in. There are other doors, but they are all locked securely too. They don’t even move when she kicks at them. She’d climb over the wall if it wasn’t at least twenty feet high, with nothing that she could use for hand- and foot-holds. She searches, too. But the stone is smooth.
There’s no way in. And every minute she delays means those crazies could already have killed the Doctor.
No. Not already. It’s been about five minutes, and they’ve got their rituals to perform yet. She probably has about ten minutes left, at most. And she can’t afford to waste one second.
So. She can’t get in on her own. She needs help.
Help. The town. Is there anyone here she can trust to help her?
Wait. The police. The Doctor said human sacrifices are illegal. The police must be able to help.
She whirls, starts running back to the town. Stops the first person she sees and asks directions to the police station.
No police station. Here, order is kept by soldiers - some kind of martial law? But that’s irrelevant. What matters is finding someone who can help her free the Doctor.
The army HQ is just a couple of minutes away. She runs the whole way and arrives, breathless, at the door.
A soldier standing at the entrance, weapon in hand, gives her a suspiciously questioning look. Quickly, she says, “My friend’s in trouble. I need help or they’ll kill him!”
The soldier’s expression is sceptical. “Who will kill him?”
“The temple,” she explains. “Isis. They... want to sacrifice him.”
He lowers his weapon. “The Circle of Isis?”
They’d called themselves that. “Yeah.”
“Wait there.” He holds up a hand in what seems to be the universally-recognised halt signal.
She waits. The seconds tick away. And with every one she knows, she just knows, that the Doctor’s life is ticking away.
What’s keeping that bloody soldier so long? she wants to scream. Doesn’t he know how urgent this is? Doesn’t he realise that any delay could be fatal? That every second counts?
And all the time she’s thinking. Imagining. Visualising.
They’ll have him tied to the table now. Pinned down by ropes to his arms and legs and across his head so that he can’t move. They’ll be marching around the table, chanting. And, soon, they’ll stop and they’ll all line up along one side of the table, and one of them will hold that brutal-looking knife over his heart.
Hearts. He has two.
They’ll chant again. And then... oh god, and then he’ll lower the knife and plunge it into -
Footsteps. Her head shoots up. The soldier is coming out.
Finally - though she knows that, in reality, it was less than two minutes. And he’s accompanied by others. At least twenty. And all armed: some kind of guns, as well as knives and axes and other weapons she can’t put names to.
“Leave this to us, woman,” the soldier she spoke to says. “Wait here.”
No way. She says nothing, though. She just walks along with them. They ignore her. And in a couple of minutes they’re back at the temple.
The soldiers go to a side entrance, one she’d seen but found tightly barred.
A weapon is fired. And the door swings open.
The soldiers march inside. She hurries in with them, trying to explain where the Doctor is, where the table - the altar? - is, but they’re not listening to her. They’re just marching towards the inner temple. Well, okay. They’re going where she wants them to go anyway.
They should be in time. She hopes so, anyway. The Doctor won’t have made it easy for them, despite stating that he was a willing sacrifice. He won’t just lie there quietly and let them murder him. On past performance, he’ll talk and talk, making it impossible for them to ignore him. Maybe, just maybe, they won’t even have got to the tying-up stage by now.
Maybe. On the other hand, these crazies are pretty determined. Maybe they just won’t listen to him. Maybe they overpowered him quickly. They could easily have stuffed something in his mouth to prevent him talking. If they’ve done that, then...
He could already be dead.
No. No, she won’t think that way. She can’t. He’s the Doctor. He’s never been outwitted that easily.
And anyway, he does have two hearts. If one of them stops, does he still die? Maybe... maybe that’s how he thought he could get around the whole being killed thing. But, surely, if they see he’s still alive, they’ll stab him again until he’s dead?
Maybe. Oh, god, she has to get in there. She has to find him. Rescue him.
The soldiers are at the temple entrance. Now, they’ll go in, they’ll stop this farce of a sacrificial ritual and the Doctor will be free. Everything’s going to be all right. It has to be. Because anything else is just too horrible to contemplate.
They don’t go in.
Instead, they start piling something up against the walls of the temple. What? What are they doing? What are they waiting for?
She runs to the soldier who’d been on guard outside the barracks, grabbing his arm. “What are you doing? We need to go in! He’ll die if - ”
He shakes her off. “We are putting an end to this once and for all.”
“How?” she demands. “Look, my friend’s in danger! You’ve got to get inside and free him!”
“Out of the way, woman.” His tone is curt, and he turns his back on her, getting back to his task.
They’re not going to help her. They’re not going to save the Doctor.
Okay. So she’s on her own. Won’t be the first time.
While the soldier’s attention is distracted, she seizes his gun, pulling it out of his belt, and is running off before he can react.
She doesn’t need them, anyway. She can save the Doctor.
As long as she’s still in time...
She runs to the entrance. But, as she gets there, someone grabs her and lifts her off her feet. The people on this planet are strong.
“Let me go! My friend’s in there - ”
“Your friend’s dead,” the soldier who’s holding her says. “It’s too late. They’ll have killed him by now.”
“You don’t know that!” she protests. “Let me go!”
Because he can’t be dead. He’s the Doctor. He doesn’t go down that easily. He can’t. He won’t.
“You want to die too?” He drags her off, back, away from the temple.
Does she? She wants to save the Doctor. That’s all that matters. She struggles, kicks, but to no avail. His arms are like bands around her. She can’t get free.
Someone else shouts, “Clear the area!” And the soldiers are all running... away from the temple.
And, while her mind is just beginning to process what’s going on - the things the soldiers were putting at the temple walls, everyone running away - it happens.
A massive explosion shakes the area. The boom is followed by a huge rumbling sound. She swings her head around just in time to see the temple start to crumble and collapse.
It’s ruined. Not one single wall is left standing.
And, without a miracle, there’s no way that anyone inside could have survived.
***
She just can’t believe they did that. Even if the crazy Isis-worshippers didn’t deserve any kind of a warning before being blown to death, there was an innocent man in there. And the soldiers knew that.
They blew the place up without caring that the Doctor would be killed, too.
“You bastards!” she yells. “You killed him!”
The soldier who pulled her away glances at her. “He was already dead.”
But he isn’t. That’s the problem. Even if the crazies had already killed him, he’d have regenerated. And these lunatics will have killed him a second time.
The soldiers are ignoring her now. They’re converging on the ruins, which is where she wants to be, too. She runs to the side of the ruins which is, as far as she can tell, next to where the table was. They ignore her, too, as she starts digging through the remains of the temple with her bare hands.
He’s in there, somewhere. And she’s not going to leave here without him.
The problem is, she realises suddenly, that she’s not going to recognise him.
Because, one way or another, he’s died. And he’ll have regenerated, or he’ll be in the process of regenerating.
Oh, god. He might have gone from his tenth life to his twelfth in a matter of minutes. And it’s all her fault.
And, even worse, if he’s trapped under the rubble he could die again. Permanently, this time.
No. No, she won’t let herself think that. If she dwells on all those possibilities she’ll start to cry and she won’t be able to stop. The important thing is to find him. To get him out of here.
Find him...
If he’s regenerated - no, because he will have regenerated - she’s not going to recognise him.
Oh, god. He could be anyone. He could look like anyone. He’s shown her pictures of some of his previous regenerations, after all. There was nothing in any of the photos that would have shown her that they were all the Doctor.
They’re all - the soldiers and her - tearing at the rubble. From what she can tell, they don’t care that they’ve just destroyed a historic temple. It was worth it, they say, to stop the Circle of Isis once and for all.
They’re looking for bodies. They don’t expect to find survivors, either.
Oh, Doctor!
Why did he do it? Why force her to leave and stay in her stead? Why give himself up willingly to those murdering crazies?
He should never have done it. And, if he does get out of here alive, she’ll kill him for it.
Maybe she should have followed his cue and told the soldiers he was her husband. Given the patriarchal attitudes in this place, they might have taken it more seriously then. On the other hand, maybe now they’d just expect her to throw herself on his tomb and be immolated with him.
There’s blood now, splashes of crimson on some of the stones. And then, as she drags more rubble out of the way, more than blood. An arm, crushed and torn.
The Doctor? No, please, no... She tears frantically at the rubble and stones, revealing more of the body. And then sighs in relief as she recognises the robe the man is wearing. He’s one of the crazies. Dead, of course. But she has no regret whatsoever about that. He - all of them - deserve it.
Clothes...
Of course. She will know the Doctor, even if he has regenerated. Because he’ll still be wearing her Doctor’s clothes. Just as he was still wearing her first Doctor’s clothes when he changed on her in the TARDIS.
A soldier is beside her now, digging out the cult member. She moves aside. The Doctor’s not where she’s been digging.
Oh, Doctor, where are you?
She rips away at some more rubble, throwing the shattered stone out of her way. She notices another splash of red on one piece of stone, and searches for the source of the blood. Another body? Another cult member? Or... the Doctor?
And then she realises that the blood is from her own hands. They’re torn and bleeding.
But that doesn’t matter. She doesn’t care about that. All that matters is finding the Doctor.
She has to blink suddenly; there’s something in her eye and her vision is blurry. A drop of moisture falls to her hand. She must be sweating. Maybe the sweat’s trickling down into her eyes. She’s not crying. No. She isn’t.
She has to keep searching. That’s the only thing she can do. Tear at the rubble, dig beneath it, look for any trace of a brown suit. Because that’s all she’ll know him by.
“What does your friend look like?” One of the soldiers is standing next to her. She glances up. It’s the one who prevented her from running into the temple. The one who told her the Doctor would already be dead.
What does the Doctor look like? Now, she has to swallow a lump in her throat. Because she just doesn’t know what he’ll look like now.
“He’s...” She swallows before her voice cracks. All she can do is describe his clothes. “He’s wearing brown - a suit.” They might not know what a suit is, she realises; it’s nothing like the standard dress on this planet. So she tries again, describing trousers, a shirt, a tie, a jacket. And then, when he pushes her on a description of the Doctor’s physical appearance, she’s as vague as she can get away with. Because he’ll look completely different now.
She’s interrupted, though, before she has to explain too much. “We got another one!”
Her heart skips a beat. Another body? She looks over. And sees that the soldier who called out is holding something brown.
Oh, god...
She scrambles to her feet and runs over, tripping and stumbling over rocks and debris on the way, but she doesn’t care even when she falls and jars her knee painfully. Because she recognises that brown fabric.
It’s the Doctor’s coat.
Or part of it, anyway. The rest is still buried.
It’s dusty and smeared with dark streaks of what can only be blood. The Doctor’s blood?
But he can’t be dead. He’s a Time Lord. He regenerates.
She falls to her knees, ignoring the pain in her injured one, and scrabbles away at the rubble hiding the rest of his coat. He’s buried under there. He might still be alive. He might just be waking up from regenerating. She’s not going to risk hurting him, or worse, by being careless now.
Bit by bit, more of the coat is revealed. But there’s still no sign of him. Nothing that even resembles a body or a body part. But he has to be here. He has to be.
“Doctor?” She pauses in her digging, leans down, gets her head as close to the rubble as she can. If he’s alive under there, he’ll hear her. “Doctor? Doctor, can you hear me?”
There’s no answer. All she can hear is the sound of the other soldiers working, digging in the ruins, talking among themselves.
Someone finds another body, another of the cult crazies. The body is crushed and almost unrecognisable. Oh, god. Can the Doctor regenerate if his body is that badly damaged?
“Doctor?” She has to try again. “Doctor?”
Moisture is streaming down her cheeks now. Sweat again. Has to be. She’s not crying.
But there’s a lump in her throat which she has to swallow before she can call him again. “Doctor?”
And then there’s a voice she never thought she’d hear again. “Looking for me?”
Her head shoots up. He’s standing just a few feet away, in his suit but without the coat, his hair slightly ruffled, but otherwise looking completely unharmed.
And exactly the same as she saw him last.
Same hair. Same eyes. Same nose. Same body.
Exactly the same.
He didn’t die. He hasn’t regenerated.
He’s all right.
She scrambles to her feet and runs to him. And, before he can catch her in his arms, she has her fists ready.
“You bastard! I thought you were dead!” And she pounds her fists against his chest.
***
He catches her hands in one of his and wraps his free arm around her, holding her tightly to him. His hand slides up and strokes through her hair.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his face close to her ear. “I’m sorry you thought that.”
“Wha’ was I s’posed to think?” she mumbles into his neck. She’s soaking the collar of his shirt, but he so deserves it.
“That I’d do what I told you I would?” he suggests. His hands move to her shoulders, setting her back from him a little, his gaze meeting hers. His face is blurry. “I told you I’d be fine. Didn’t I? I’m sure I remember telling you to go back to the TARDIS and I’d meet you there. Hmm? Hmm?”
She shrugs. Doesn’t yet trust herself to speak. He’s a bastard. He’s such a bastard.
His eyebrows raise. “You didn’t believe me?”
And then the words come, fast and furious and unstoppable. “Believe you? Why would I believe you? Last time you told me to wait for you in the TARDIS you lied to me! You never intended to come back. You sent me away an’... an’ you went back to die!”
He blinks. And, for an instant, there’s actually shame in his expression. But it’s gone just as quickly. “I had to do that, Rose. And you know why. But this time I meant it. Look!” He frees one hand and gestures to himself. “See? All here. Alive and well. And I went back to the TARDIS. You weren’t there.”
“Right. An’ how was I s’posed to know you meant it this time?”
“Um.” He gives her what she knows he knows is his most charming smile. “Because you trust me?”
“Trust you?” She laughs, completely without humour. “Not unless you promise me you don’t have any more of your stupid emergency programmes all set up ready to go!”
His smile fades. “You know I can’t do that, Rose.”
“Right.” She pulls away from him. “You can’t. How many more of ‘em do you have? An’ if you had died whose voice would I’ve heard sayin’ sorry this time?”
His hands fall to her shoulders again and pull her back to him, against her resistance. “Mine, Rose. Only ever mine.”
“Yeah, but which you?” She knows she sounds sulky. She also knows that it’s the first time in weeks she’s thrown his regeneration back at him or even hinted that she misses the old him. But he so deserves it.
“Me.” His voice is soft now. “This me.” He pulls her closer, and now she lets him. “I have to have ways of making sure you’re safe if something happens to me,” he adds, his tone gentle but firm. “But that wasn’t gonna happen today.”
“Like I was supposed to know that. I thought you’d decided to die, Doctor! I thought...” She blinks away the new tears that are starting to come. “I thought you’d decided to let them kill you instead of me because you can regenerate...”
“No.” His hand moves in soothing circles over her back. “No, Rose. Not that. Not that I wouldn’t,” he adds quickly. “If there was no other way. But, I promise you, I’m not planning on losing this regeneration any time soon. That was never the plan.”
And how was she supposed to know that? But she releases a long, shuddering sigh and just subsides against him. And he holds her.
***
After a while, she stirs, and his embrace loosens. “You all right?” he asks.
“Yeah.” She is now. Because he is.
He lets her go, but keeps hold of her hand. “Time to go, I think.”
She hesitates. “You haven’t told me. How are you alive? I thought they’d killed you...”
He shakes his head. “You’ve really got to start believing me when I tell you things’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, right.” She shakes her head, glaring at him. “Given all the times you lie about that, not a chance, Doctor.”
He looks as if he’s about to argue, but then he subsides. “This time I meant it.”
“Right. An’ I was jus’ s’posed to know that?”
“Course you were.” He grins at her. “As for how I got away - did you notice what I did earlier? To get you free?”
She nods. “You did something with time, didn’t you? Manipulated it?”
“Yeah.” He looks pleased that she knows. “Slowed it down. That meant I could do things at normal speed while time went past slowly for everyone else.”
“That’s amazing.” She shakes her head.
He grins. “Time Lord.” And he winks, clicking his tongue at the same time. “It’s not just a title, you know.”
“So I see.” She studies him, this amazing man - no, Time Lord - she’s fortunate enough to call her best friend. “Some day, you’ve got to tell me more about what you can do.”
He grins. “Nah. I think I prefer impressing you.” Again, he winks. “Though I’m impressed by you, Rose Tyler. Not many people would’ve realised what I was doing back there. I made a mistake, though,” he continues, his tone more serious. “I stopped controlling time once you were free because I thought we could make a run for it while they wouldn’t be expecting it. Should have kept manipulating it for a little longer and just carried you out of there, then we’d have been fine.”
It makes her feel better to be reminded that the Doctor does make mistakes. “So, you slowed time again so you could escape?”
“Yeah.” He gives her an approving smile. “Easy, really. That’s why I said I’d be fine once I didn’t have you to worry about as well. It’s a long time since I’ve held anyone else outside time with me, and the best time to try it isn’t when our lives are depending on it.”
“Makes sense,” she agrees.
So, all the time she was going frantic thinking he was dead or dying, he was safe. Probably walking back to the TARDIS at the same time she was pacing outside the barracks waiting for that soldier to come back.
Bastard. But he’s alive, and that’s all that matters.
He bumps his shoulder against hers. “So, ready to go? Oh, and just what were you doing over there?” He nods towards the rubble. “And how exactly did that happen, anyway?”
She explains. He winces as she relates how the soldiers blew up the temple with the cult members inside. She finishes with the discovery of his coat.
“Blimey, you found that?” He shakes his head. “They made me take it off. No idea why, but it gave me breathing space to focus.” He frowns and glances over at the ruins. “Think we can get it back?”
Before she can reply, he’s lifting her hand and examining it. “I’m an idiot,” he mutters. “You’re hurt. And it’s all my fault. I should have realised you wouldn’t know I’d be safe.”
Now he’s sounding like he used to. Which, oddly enough, makes it easier for her to forgive him. “I’m okay.”
“You’re not.” He takes both her hands in his and studies her palms. “I don’t know why I didn’t notice before. I’m an idiot.” Freeing one hand, he rummages in a pocket, and then binds both her hands with white cotton handkerchiefs. She knows that, as soon as they’re back in the TARDIS, he’ll insist that she lets him sort her out in the med-lab. And she will - her hands do hurt, but she knows, too, that he’s feeling guilty now.
“Come on.” She takes his hand in one bandaged one. “Let’s get your coat, and then let’s get out of here.”
He holds her hand loosely; she knows he’s being careful because of her injuries. “Good plan.”
But, before she can take a step, he’s moving closer to her. His free hand cups her cheek. “Thank you for rescuing me, Rose Tyler.” And, even though it doesn’t really make sense, she knows what he means. If he hadn’t saved himself, she would have saved him.
She’s about to tell him that he’s welcome, but before she can his lips brush hers. Just gently, and just for a fraction of a second. But that, and the warmth in his gaze as he pulls back, is enough.
It’s a thanks and an apology. And, she thinks, it’s also a promise.
END