Notes: I'm not happy with the way I wrote some of this, but I fiddled about with some of the paragraphs so many times, it got a bit silly, so I've left it before I do more harm than good. XD

“Daleks,” Hope murmured again, the name seeming to be part of her heritage, engrained into her very genes from the moment she was conceived. She had seen the Daleks often throughout her life, both in her dreams and also during her waking hours, where they appeared to her as ghosts, and stalked her every footstep. Perhaps she should have been afraid but, being five years old, any spates of fear this might have arisen in her soon passed.

Hope looked down and opened her hands and stared upon the shiny casing of her father’s sonic screwdriver. She wondered how it worked, remembering back to the first time she had met her father, when he had been using the screwdriver, and it had led him to her. It had been all blinking blue lights and whirring noises then, but right now it was neither - it was just dead in her hands.

She didn’t really know why she’d taken it from him, if she were honest; something about it had called out to her and demanded to be plucked from her father’s pocket. It was as if something inside of her knew that she would need it very soon, like a message beamed down to her from future, giving her a glimpse of what was yet to come, and how best she might prepare for it.

She knew that something major was about to happen because her body was tingling all over with that terrible, cold sensation that always came with her every vision, every nightmare, and even with the Doctor himself. It felt stronger than ever right now, as if all the years of inexplicable emotions and visions in her life were to cumulate in one significant instant, which would send her over into either immortality or oblivion.

Of course, Hope didn’t understand these eerie instincts or impulses that drove her on, or the visions from the future or the past. Like any young child, she had little capacity for suspicion, and she thought that whatever she felt the impulse to do, she had no reason to doubt it; if she was imbued to do something by the mysterious forces which had so far governed her life, then she would do it, simply because there was no reason for her not to.

So when Hope got up and pointed the screwdriver at the inert telephone, knowing instinctively how to work it, flicking a switch on the device and causing the telephone to ring, she felt no qualms or reservations about what she was doing - she just did it because she somehow knew that she had to.

She then stepped away from the phone and watched as her granny walked towards it.

There was more than a little apprehension on Jackie’s face as she traversed the room (the phone was ringing during a power cut, after all), but what she didn’t realise was that this momentary distraction gave Hope the opportunity to slip away. As Jackie picked up the head set, Hope was walking down the hallway toward the front door; when Jackie said “Hello? ” into the phone’s mouth piece, Hope was stealing out of the door; and when Jackie dropped the phone and ran after her precious granddaughter, Hope just closed the door on her with a slam of finality. With a further flick of the sonic screwdriver, Hope then welded the lock shut, and Jackie was trapped inside her own flat.

Hope could hear her grandmother’s shouts and screams from the other side as she stood staring at the door for a moment, watching the woodwork vibrate as Jackie’s fists pounded desperately against the wood, but she did nothing except turn and walk away, the sonic screwdriver clasped firmly in her hand. It was as if she were wholly possessed by some ethereal force…

So Jackie was left alone, both panic-stricken and afraid, powerless to stop her grandchild disappearing into the chaos beyond. She tried desperately, time and again, to open the door, and even tried to break the wood, just praying that Hope would come to her senses and return to free her, but it was all to no avail. She could only think that everyone she held dear was somewhere out there, fighting a losing battle, and all because the Doctor had dared to walk into their lives…

There were people screaming not far away. Rose could hear them. It was a necessary ingredient to every one of the Doctor’s adventures, it would seem, the obligatory people-in-peril, who often lost their lives, and though she had experienced more death than she cared to admit, it never became easier for Rose to hear those shrieks of terror. She felt that there was simply nothing worse than hearing a person’s death cry.

She and the Doctor had by now made it to the London Eye, and Rose was currently waiting as the Doctor tried to get them back into the derelict pit below. The hatch was causing him some trouble, and Rose was beginning to wonder whether or not to offer him some help, but he was in his single-minded, solo-mode, and she therefore thought it better not to intervene. This left her alone with her thoughts whilst more noises of the Dalek offensive reached her ears, followed by the screams.

“People are dying,” she said, more to herself than anything, and watched as the Doctor finally managed to heave open the lid of the hatch.

“I know,” he replied frankly, not looking up, and saying no more on the matter. He kept his eyes facing downwards as he clambered into the hole.

Rose inhaled a deep breath and followed suit. She dreaded to think what they might find below in the darkness - they hadn’t left the place in very good condition, if she remembered rightly, so what on earth the Doctor had up his sleeve was beyond her.

It was indeed quite dark below and the air smelt of ash and burnt plastic. Rose coughed and squinted in the gloom. “This had better be worth it…” she grumbled. She could barely see two feet in front of her, so she was glad when the Doctor took her hand and led the way.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

His tone was strange, not the kind she was used to hearing at all; it was both gentle and ill at ease.

“Yeah, ‘course,” she replied.

“Something’s wrong,” he added out of the blue.

“Don’t say that already.”

“But it is… I can feel it…”

Rose sighed. “You and your spider sense.”

“Who said anything about spiders?”

They climbed over a few fallen pipes and treaded carefully across the rubble. Bricks, cement and dirt covered the area, which Rose was very glad she could hardly see.

“Doctor, please clue me in… why are we here again?”

“Mind your head.”

There was a clunk as Rose proceeded to knock her forehead on a low beam, and swore in the same instant. “Thanks,” she then grumbled, rubbing the smarting area.

“I did warn you.”

“Two seconds too late!”

“You weren’t concentrating.”

“Well, gee, I wonder why! Not much pressure on us right now, is there?”

The Doctor’s grip on her hand tightened as he guided her round the edge of what seemed to be a deep pit. “Take it slow,” he told her.

“I am.”

He looked at her. Rose knew this even though she couldn‘t see him very well. It was just that instinct, that knowing; they were keyed into one another in ways that many other people weren’t, knowing innately when the other was upset, excited, depressed, or uneasy. It was one reason why they worked so well together, and why they had fallen so easily in love.

“You’re very on-edge,” the Doctor deduced.

Rose gave him a look of disbelief. “There’s a Dalek invasion happening, and my daughter and mum are sat back at home in the middle of it. It’s not hard to figure out why, Sherlock.”

“First Spock and now Sherlock?”

“It could get worse. Trust me.”

The ground shook for a moment, the foundations of the dilapidated underground building trembling in aftershock. The Doctor and Rose froze, waiting out the disturbance and watching for any further falling debris. Rose prayed that the whole framework wouldn’t cave in on them, and clutched the Doctor’s hand even harder.

“The Daleks are getting into the swing now, I think,” the Doctor murmured.

“Thanks for that comforting notion.”

The Doctor glanced at her again, attempting a faint smile, before he slowly started to continue on his way, guiding Rose along a small gangway, and then down deeper into the abyss.

“The Nestene Consciousness set up shop here,” he explained as they descended down an uneven stairway (which seemed to be missing far too many steps for Rose’s liking).

“But why?” the Doctor pondered aloud. “Why would it do that?”

Rose coughed as the heavy dust in the air lodged itself in her throat. “Wasn’t it to use the wheel?” she replied when she could, spluttering in-between her words.

“Yup - but what for?”

They reached the bottom and the Doctor helped Rose down as her eyes continued to struggle to become accustomed to the gloom. She wished she could share his apparently superior senses once in a while.

“They wanted to turn it into some kind of transmitter, right?” she recalled.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“But right, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She blinked at him. She could just make out the slight shine of his eyes in the dark. “So, why are we here again?”

He walked a little way across the floor and Rose attempted to follow him, tracing him by the mere sound of his footsteps.

“I hope you brought a torch or something…” she mumbled.

“Me too…” he concurred.

Rose lost track of him for a while until she walked right into his back.

“Well done, you found me,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, fancy that.”

She could then hear him patting his jacket, looking for something.

“What are you gonna do?”

“A bit of rewiring. Take the Nestene’s idea and remodel it.”

He continued to search his pockets.

Rose reached out and began to help him - she quite wondered if his pockets used the same technology as the TARDIS, and were bigger on the inside than the out, because he could fit so much rubbish in them. “What have you lost?” she asked.

“Nothing… I never lose stuff.”

“Right, you just skilfully misplace it - hide it so well you forget where you put it, right?”

“Spot on.”

She gave up after a minute or two of fruitless searching, and backed off to let him continue his rummage alone. “So, rewiring…?” she asked in the meantime.

“Yeah,” he replied, “Rewiring. Gonna turn this wheel into a transmitter again.”

“Riiiight.”

“You sound unconvinced. Don’t sound unconvinced. I need someone to tell me how amazing I am.“

She laughed a little. “Yes, that would be my job, wouldn’t it?“

“Of course.”

Rose thought that she saw him throw her that charming smile of his which she loved so much, the one which made her want to fall into his arms and stay there forever. She couldn’t be sure, but was sure he had, and it infused her with a little more confidence.

“I’m gonna send out a wave from this wheel that’s so powerful,” the Doctor continued to explain, “it’ll wipe all of those Daleks off the map.”

“Wipe them out? Just like that?”

“In theory. It’s called a Delta Wave.”

“Delta Wave?”

“I’ve just got to hope that the transmitter is powerful enough, and that I can get it to work again, and that I can refine the settings, and… well, you get the idea.”

“Wasn’t the transmitter pretty well done-in? I mean, we did bring the ceiling down on it and all, didn‘t we?”

“Yeah, but that was more the Nestene Consciousness’ doing than ours. I certainly didn’t bring the ceiling down. Anyway, this is our only hope…” He was patting his pockets more vigorously now. “WHERE IS IT?”

Rose sighed. “What have you lost?”

“My screwdriver!”

Rose stepped in front of him and brushed his hands aside, conducting another more thorough search. “And this ‘delta wave’,” she continued quietly. “I mean, if it’s so powerful it can knock out a Dalek, what’ll it do to us?”

The Doctor didn’t answer but Rose knew that he was looking at her, and the words he failed to utter hung heavily in the air, as clear as brass.

“You can’t do that,” she told him simply.

“Then give me a better idea,” he replied, his voice but a whisper in the darkness.

She shook her head, but returned her attention quickly to the situation at hand, where she found that the screwdriver seemed to be eluding her search as well. “It’s definitely not here, Doctor,” she groaned.

“But it must be!” the Doctor insisted. “It has to be, I can’t do without it, I --” And then realisation struck, and the air became thick with a sudden, heavy unease which was quite palpable to Rose.

“Doctor?” she asked.

“I said that I thought something was wrong…” he whispered. “And I was right.”

Rose felt her stomach do a somersault. “What’s wrong?”

But her question was met with nothing but silence. All she could hear was the sound of the Doctor’s breathing, and the distant pounding of war from the surface above.

“Doctor?!” she demanded.

He grabbed her hand and ran back the way they had come, leading her without caution over the uneven and dangerous terrain. When they reached the decrepit stairway, he urged her up in front.

“Go, quickly!”

“What is it? Tell me!”

“Hope… it’s Hope!” he shouted.

Rose turned and confronted him. “What about Hope?”

But he just gave her a firm nudge. “Rose, GO!”

She stared at him a moment longer, recognising the frantic, horrified aura in his manner and voice, but made her choice; she was going to hold her ground on this occasion. “No,” she said, “not until you start talking to me. You can’t do this all the time, you can’t keep things to yourself!”

“We don’t have the time for this, Rose.”

“Ironic that, considering the company,” she retorted. “I’ve been stuck here for six years without you, Doctor. I’ve raised a daughter that sometimes I don’t even understand - I don’t know what she sees, what she feels, or how to help her - and I thought that, when you came back, maybe you could make her life easier - but you can hardly help yourself!”

“Rose…”

“Tell me what’s wrong!”

He took a few breaths then said, “Hope’s in trouble.”

“Trouble? What do you mean trouble?”

“I don’t know… but I can feel it. I can sense it.”

“Well that’s all very well and good, but it’s gonna take us a long time to get back since we cycled here!” She glared at him. “If any harm’s come to her --”

The Doctor ground his teeth together and grabbed Rose by the arms, holding her steady and staring her in the eyes. “Listen, do you know why I left the TARDIS behind? Do you know what the TARDIS was doing, sat up on your block of flats?”

She stared into his eyes, seeing up close how they burned with anger and rage. Part of her wanted to be afraid and shy away, but she somehow knew that none of this was directed at her - it was for himself.

She swallowed and gently freed her arms before she put a hand to either side of his face and tried to soothe him. “Tell me,” she asked quietly.

The Doctor gently pulled her hands away from his face and said, “The TARDIS was protecting Hope. I set up a shield to hide her, one that went right over that building, and I’d hoped that it would be enough.”

“And it wasn’t?”

He paced around and tried to collate his thoughts. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I just know that something’s happened.” He looked directly at Rose once more. “We have to get back. Fast.”

“So much for your delta wave…” Rose sighed, suddenly even more afraid than she had been to begin with, and wasted no time as she rushed on ahead, back toward the surface.