Notes: *feels her mind imploding* Oh, there’s so much going on, and so much jargon in the next two parts, that I can feel my mind overheating. If all of this somehow makes sense, I’ll be amazed. It might be best to park your disbelief at the door! XD I lied to you, as well - there’s now 23 parts, not 22. This chapter did an amoeba-thing, and split in two. :)
Part 18 - To The Rescue
It took the Doctor and Rose far too long to return to the estate, though no period of time could have been short enough. Matters hadn’t been made any easier by the fact that they’d only got so far on their return journey before Rose had hit some debris and punctured a tyre. The Doctor had then attempted to carry her on the back of his bike, which he hadn’t found easy (in fact, Rose had seriously wondered at one point whether or not they were going to get going again), but he had been adamant that he could do it. And he had been right, or he managed to find his centre of balance and pick up a surprising amount of speed in a relatively short space of time. Rose could only think that he was as anxious as she was to find their child safe…
As they had finally scooted into the deserted estate, Rose had leapt off the bike first and charged straight toward her tenement, completely ignoring the fact that there was a fire burning in the block of flats behind her. When she was about halfway there, though, the Doctor somehow managed to overtake her, his turn of speed astounding, and beat her into the stairwell. She lost sight of him somewhere up the stairs, and drove herself on as fast as she could so that she could meet him up on the colonnade as soon as possible, but she hurtled so quickly through the doors and round the corner toward her flat that she didn’t realise the Doctor had stopped short. She thus ran straight into his back.
“Oomph,” she sighed, stumbling backwards onto the floor with a thud. She shook her head as she tried to collect herself before she peered past the Doctor’s legs towards her front door, she saw Mickey stood there - with a fair-sized axe in his hands!
“Mickey!” she yelled in panic, wondering what on earth was happening now.
Poor Mickey was equally shocked, having practically jumped out his skin when he laid eyes on the pair, and wasn’t sure whether to be overjoyed or terrified. He quickly realised how outlandish the scenario appeared, though, and, giving the axe a mortified glance, lowered it by his side. “Rose,” he smiled, then with a curt nod, “Doctor. It’s not wot it looks like. She’s stuck - locked in. I’d come round to, y’know, help you out, offer you a lift, perhaps, but - the door, it’s jammed. Sealed.”
Rose returned to her feet and slid past the Doctor. “Say it again” she asked.
Mickey took a couple of deep breaths, but was half afraid to carry on, owing to the Doctor’s dark countenance and visibly exhausted state, but this all changed when Rose touched him on the arm, giving him the courage, with just this simple gesture, to ignore the Doctor and answer the question.
He swallowed again. “Your mum’s stuck inside, Rose. She can’t get out. She’s been screaming and shouting in there for ages. It’s the lock, summit’s bin done to it. It’s sealed tight.”
“And Hope?” the Doctor demanded before Rose could even get a word in.
Mickey looked back at him and shook his head. “I dunno,” he replied.
The Doctor surged forward and pushed Mickey aside. Rose gave him a scolding look, but he wasn’t paying attention. With a superhuman kick, which should have left his leg well and truly shattered, he managed to break down the firmly sealed door and splinter the lock. He watched it swing back on its hinges to reveal a scared and shaken Jackie stood within, her face tear-streaked and covered in the dregs of her mascara. The Doctor had no time for her, though, and didn’t listen to a single word she blurted at him as he marched inside and frantically checked every single room for his little girl.
“Doctor!” Rose shouted after him, time and again, but he persisted with his search. He looked in the lounge, went through to the kitchen, then quickly returned to Rose’s room, demanding, “Where is she?”, his hearts pounding, the panic rising. “For God’s sake, where is she?”
“Doctor!!” Rose hazarded another time, grabbing him en route to the bathroom and staring him straight in the eyes. She waited until she had his full attention, before she whispered, “She’s not here.”
Her fingers were not so much gripping his arms, but stroking them, as she tried to not only instil some comfort in him, but in herself, too, and the Doctor knew that he should have stopped for a moment and given her a hug, then told Jackie that this wasn’t her fault, and thanked Mickey for his concern, but he was too far gone for civility. He tore out of the flat again at a running pace and was charging up the stairs toward the roof before anyone could stop him. He heard Rose’s voice behind him, trying to ground him, and bring him back from the edge, but it was to no avail.
He came to an abrupt halt as he bolted out onto the roof and turned around several times on the spot before he was satisfied that his beloved TARDIS had also gone. “No…” he murmured to himself. “No, no, no, no, NO!”
Rose was with him seconds later and halted his ravings by seizing him from behind and swinging him about to face her. “Doctor!” she yelled once more, looking into his wide eyes again until she knew she’d gotten his attention.
He breathed heavily for several moments, still catching his breath from his long cycle ride, until he rasped in a hoarse tone, “They’ve gone… both of them. They‘ve gone.”
He tried to swallow, but it was painful, a great knot having built up in his throat.
“Where’ve they gone?” Rose asked, hoping he knew the answer. “Where’s the TARDIS? What’s Hope done?”
The Doctor stared at Rose for a long time, putting off the inevitable answer for as long as he could until, with a slow but definitive arch of his neck, he turned his head to the skies and stared into the belly of the Daleks’ mother ship.
Rose’s grip turned rigid and she held onto him tight. “No…” she gasped in denial. “She wouldn’t, she--”
“She would,” the Doctor stated. “She’s my girl.”
Their eyes lowered to look into one another’s again before, both sensing an intrusion of their privacy, they turned left to see Mickey and Jackie stood there, glancing between them.
“Would someone mind telling us what’s going on?” Mickey asked, the axe hanging limp in his hands.
The Doctor looked from him across to Jackie and saw his would-be mother-in-law in a frame of mind he’d never dreamed possible; her empty eyes rose to meet his and she shook her head in utter shame. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “I couldn’t stop her, I just…”
Rose left the Doctor’s side to go across to her mother and give her a much needed hug, whilst the Doctor just shoved his hands into his pockets and turned away, wondering how things had gone awry so quickly. He could feel his control of the situation slipping with each passing second, leaving fewer and fewer paths of resolution open to him, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
“So, what now, Doctor?”
He glanced up as Mickey interrupted his reverie, the young man now stood right next to him, and saw in his eyes the usual mix of envy and aversion.
“Do you think you can save us this time?” Mickey continued.
The Doctor straightened up, daring Mickey to contradict him. “Have I ever let you down?” he asked, perhaps a little imprudently.
Mickey managed to hold his ground, staring directly back at the Time Lord. “Not me, no,” he resolved. “But Rose… you let her down. For six years.”
“That wasn’t my fault.”
“What wasn‘t? The kid, or the six years?”
The Doctor’s brow knotted and he gave Mickey a harsh glare, but could think of no reply.
Mickey nodded, as if he’d expected such a response. “Rose deserves better.”
“I didn‘t ask for this to happen,” the Doctor asserted cuttingly. “It just did.”
Mickey just made another bleak nod. “That’s exactly what Rose said - but what happens next, eh? You save the world and then what? Are you gonna stick around, or keep running?”
The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut off by the deafening sound of thrashing propellers. He turned to see a massive military helicopter thrust itself above the edge of the block of flats, and then just hover there, sending a huge gust of wind across the roof, which everyone did their best to brace.
“Don’t tell me…” the Doctor groaned, squinting as he tried to make out whether it was exactly who he thought it was in the cockpit…
And his query was soon answered as the man he had in mind jumped down from the craft with his trademark audacity. He had a massive machine gun slung across his body, and sauntered over the roof as if there was nothing amiss.
“Captain Jack Harkness,” the Doctor muttered.
Jack marched over, giving everyone a jolly wave. “Hi,” he shouted above the noise. “I wondered if you guys wanted a lift?”
Rose and Jackie were staring, dumbfound, whilst Mickey looked as though he had never expected anything less from a man like Captain Jack. The Doctor, meanwhile, just looked thoughtful, as though something about this mildly irked him.
“How’d you do that?” he asked over the noise. “Manage to arrive at just the right moment? It’s sorta clichéd.”
Jack gaped and gave him a look of disbelief. “Does it matter? Are you coming or not? Dwight and I can’t hang around here forever.”
“Dwight?” the Doctor rejoined, before regretting doing so as Jack pointed out the man piloting the craft, and waved at him. Dwight waved back.
The Doctor might have rolled his eyes had the situation not been so desperate, but he resisted the urge and gestured for Rose to join him. She quickly came running, leaving her dumbfound mother and Mickey behind, and he then turned to give Mickey one final glance before following Jack and Rose into the craft. He didn’t forget the look he saw on Mickey’s face, though - ‘They deserve the best,’ it had said, 'Don’t forget that.’
“So, where’re we heading, Doc’?” Jack asked loudly, sitting in the seat next to the pilot whilst the Doctor and Rose were thrown back into the seats behind as the helicopter lurched up and away.
“The Dalek mother ship,” the Doctor instantly replied.
He knew that he shouldn’t have been surprised to see Jack grin at that, but he was. “Yes sir!” the Captain affirmed, before turning to Dwight to give him directions, whilst Rose merely looked over at the Doctor and smiled weakly. He caught her eyes and they stared at one another for a while, saying nothing, until he reached his hand out toward her, and she took it, clutching it tightly.
“You look uneasy,” she said to him.
He nodded. “I am.”
“Why?”
The Doctor’s eyes picked out Jack. “Something’s just not right. I knew he had… ‘friends’ in high places, if you will, but this is kinda pushing it.”
“What, the helicopter?”
“No, the knowing we’d need him right now, the knowing we’d be here and not somewhere else… everything. It’s as if he’s had access to something I’d rather not think about.”
Rose looked confused. “You sure you’re not just paranoid?”
“After all I’ve ever been through, I have free license to be paranoid.”
Rose couldn’t disagree with that, and she smirked at him, before she leant forward over Jack’s seat and asked, “How’d you get the helicopter, Jack?”
Jack shot her a know-it-all grin. “Well, I have friends in high places, you know.”
Rose resisted a glance back at the Doctor. She knew he was wearing his ‘I told you so’ face. “No, I don’t know,” she continued. “Tell me more.”
“Sorry girl, I can’t. It’s top secret.”
“Top secret?” Rose questioned. “Have you been keeping things from us, Mr. Harkness?”
“Captain,” he reminded her. “You don’t think I’ve been on earth for six years and done nothing, d’you?” He chuckled. “You should know me better by now.”
Rose was still confused as she sat back again with the Doctor, and begged him, with her puzzled expression, to pick up the enquiry from where she left off, but he didn’t. He had always had suspicions about Jack Harkness, but for now, he trusted him, and was much more concerned about his daughter’s welfare than of Jack’s honesty or covert ventures.
“I guess we should be grateful,” Rose resolved at length, and he could only agree.
Everyone remained silent for the rest of the flight as they continued to rise higher and higher into the sky, heading for the gigantic Dalek mother ship. When they reached it, Dwight proved himself to be both a skilled pilot and an extremely daring man, managing to bring the helicopter in heart-stoppingly close to the ship’s hull, from where the three time travellers had to then pray for the best and leap out of the craft onto the metallic surface below.
Jack didn’t even have time to wave Dwight goodbye as they all landed and began sliding down the ship’s exterior, groping for a hold, whilst trying to put out of their minds the small fact they were thousands of feet up in the air!
The Doctor managed to find a grip first, and Rose and Jack soon joined him, after which he led them across the blustery exterior and down into one of the many open shafts, which were conveniently large enough for them to stoop in. (They also didn’t require the use of the sonic screwdriver to get access to, which was fortunate.) It was unclear as to whether these shafts were ventilation ducts, or exhaust pipes, or something else entirely, but it didn’t matter; the important thing was that they were inside, and it was from here that the trio would begin their steady infiltration of the great Dalek armada, like ants creeping into a termite nest.
Whether or not Dwight managed to get away safely after his heroic feat remained unknown.
By now, Rose had had quite enough excitement for one day, but she knew that the journey was no where near over yet. She quite wondered how the Doctor knew for certain that Hope and the TARDIS were here, but she didn’t question his judgement; he had an uncanny natural intuition when it came to these sorts of things. It did appear, though the Doctor had said nothing to confirm it, that Hope had taken his sonic screwdriver on top of going AWOL, which made the state of affairs seem even more curious. It was as if Hope and the TARDIS and joined forces and decided to take on the might of the Dalek invasion all alone…
Rose wished she could understand this situation better, and felt as though she had somehow, as a mother, let Hope down. But what else could have been done to safeguard the child? It had been beyond her ability, and her comprehension. Even the Doctor seemed to have been pushed to the limit, caught utterly off guard by his prodigious daughter.
Rose looked ahead to the Doctor as they all continued to amble down the exhaust tunnel, stooped over like hunchbacks. She was unable to see his face, since his back was turned to her, but she believed him to be as on edge as she was. She thought about taking his hand, but since it was hard enough to walk through this duct as it was, she decided not to.
The tunnel they were in was less than five feet in circumference, which meant that none of them could stand up straight, so they were forced to scuttle along in a rather uncomfortable manner. Both Rose and Jack were following the Doctor since they had no idea where they were headed. He had an extraordinary sense of direction, and they were almost led to believe that he had done this before as he guided them left, then right, up through a hatch, across a viaduct, into another exhaust tunnel, and so on and so forth, until they were quite disorientated; they just hoped that he could remember the way back, because they certainly couldn’t.
Their journey continued in this manner until they stopped beneath a hatchway, which led up into a large hallway, currently over their heads. Once the Doctor had ascertained that the area above was well and truly clear, Jack dislodged the metal grille which separated them from the space above, and the three of them then pulled themselves up through the cavity. They were now exposed, stood out in the open, and playing in Dalek territory.
“Well, that was… different,” Rose murmured when she thought it safe, and tried to tidy her windswept hair, which kept falling in her face.
“Tell me about it,” Jack concurred. “I’m thinking a ball of string would have done us well before entering the labyrinth, don’cha say, Doc’?”
The Doctor ignored him. If truth be told, he was feeling rather lost without his sonic screwdriver, but he had done without it before, and he would have to do so again. He straightened his jacket, rolled back his shoulders, and glanced either way down the large corridor. The place was bristling with typical Dalek design, just as he expected, and the telltale hum of the ship’s engine could be heard pulsating up through the floors and out of the walls. These were the images and sounds that haunted his nightmares, and it made him tense, though he hoped this didn’t show.
Brushing this all to the back of his mind, he looked back to Rose and Jack and said, “Are you ready?”
They each nodded in turn.
“Right. Let’s go.”
TBC…