The TARDIS materialised with a sick wheeze. The Doctor made a confused and concerned face and stepped out the doors. Rose and I shared a look and followed. I could only get halfway out the door, the space we landed in was so tight.

"I don't know what's wrong with her," the Doctor said. He ran his hand over the side of the door. "She's sort of queasy." I froze. "Indigestion, like she didn't want to land." I could feel it too, but I wasn't sure if it was my own fear or residual TARDIS that was currently turning my torso into puree.

The Impossible Planet. I rubbed my tired eyes and took a deep, quiet breath, which only helped a little with the sick feeling in my stomach. No way I swung it, this was not going to be a horror story.

"Oh, if you think there's going to be trouble," Rose started, a slow smile making its way across her face. "We could always get back inside and go somewhere else." The Doctor and Rose burst into loud, wheezing laughter. I let out a not-as-weak-as-I-had- feared laugh in return. Rose turned around, still smiling, but clearly worried.

"Katelyn, you ok?" she asked.

"Yeah, just cold," I half-lied. It was cold. "I'll just grab a jacket, then I'll catch up with you guys." I ducked back in the TARDIS before they could say anything and half shut the doors.

"Anyway," the Doctor said, sounding mildly concerned. "I think we've landed inside a cupboard. Come on."

"Open door 15," the computer said.

I ran over to the console and stretched to place my hand on the time rotor in the middle. "It's gonna be ok," I promised. I don't know if I could really comfort an entity that existed across all of time and space, but I wanted to try. "It's gonna get really bad, but he'll find you, I promise." The TARDIS hummed comfort back, reminding me to take care of myself too. I nodded, grabbed a jacket from my stash of clothes under the console, and ran out after the others.

"Human design. You've got a thing about kits!" I heard the Doctor say. "This place was put together like a flat pack wardrobe, only bigger." A pause. "And easier."

"Is it sturdy enough?" I asked, to let them know I was there.

The Doctor nodded at the ceiling. "Seems to be holding up well enough.

"Open door 17."

We stepped into a step down room with a table and some chairs. This whole base looked dirty, like it was a bit old and had seen better days. I kept my eyes as far away as I could from the writing on the opposite wall.

"Oh, it's a sanctuary base!" the Doctor said, sounding a delighted. "Deep Space exploration. We've gone way out. And listen to that-" The Doctor paused so we could hear the rumbling. "-underneath. Someone's drilling."

"What for, do you think?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the floor.

"Welcome to hell," Rose said before the Doctor and I could get into a debate.

"Oh, it's not that bad," the Doctor said.

"Yet," I whispered.

"No," Rose laughed. "Over there." She pointed, so I couldn't avoid looking any longer.

The words "Welcome to Hell" were spray painted in block letters. Underneath it, in neater script, were the symbols that wouldn't translate. They almost hurt to look at, like they were lashing out at me.

"Hold on," the Doctor said, face slowly shifting to concern. "What does that say?" He jogged over. Rose stopped smiling and followed. "That's weird, it won't translate." I followed too, slowly. The less the words hurt as time passed. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

"But I thought the TARDIS translated everything, writing as well," Rose said. "We should see English." I blinked hard, groaned, and the pain stopped.

"Katelyn?" Rose asked. The Doctor was transfixed on the writing.

"I'm fine. Didn't get much sleep last night. It kinda looks like Haraxian," I deflected. I had to keep blinking and refocusing my eyes, like there was a perception filter over the symbols. "Probably runic…"

"Shame you wanted to waste your life with Archaeology," the Doctor muttered, a reflex of an old joke. "You'd have been a brilliant Linguistic Anthropologist."

"Well, I don't usually get much time to practice before the letters become English," I said, similarly transfixed.

"You might as well get some practice in now, since it's not translating," Rose said.

"It's not working," the Doctor muttered, in his own little world. "Which means this writing is old. Very old. Impossibly old."

Old as balls, my brain provided, unhelpfully.

"We should find out who's in charge," the Doctor said, standing quickly and walking to the door opposite the one we'd come through. "We've gone beyond the reach of the TARDIS' knowledge. Not a good move."

"I thought the translation circuit worked through you," I said.

"Well-"

We all jumped back when the door opened to reveal three Ood. They were fairly creepy in person, but knowing what they were, what their species had gone through to be here instantly cancelled out my fear. I wondered what it was like inside their heads. Could I reach in and save them? Did I have the time?

"Right!" the Doctor said. "Hello. Sorry. Um…" He looked around. Rose and I stayed frozen. "I was just saying, ah, nice base."

"We must feed," the Ood said in unison, their translators lighting up.

The Doctor took a breath like he was ready to launch another line of bullshit, then what the Ood said sunk in. "You've got to what?"

"We must feed," they repeated.

"Yeah. I think they mean us," Rose said. We started stepping back as the Ood advanced. Rose grabbed the Doctor's hand and pulled him toward the door we'd come in.

"We must feed," the Ood kept repeating. "We must feed."

Just when we got to the door on the other side of the room, it opened to reveal more Ood. We backed up from that door too. The Doctor reached for his sonic. Rose picked up a chair. I found a loose metal rod that I had no intention of using. But hey, I had to keep up appearances. If the Doctor and Rose found out I knew what was going on here and hadn't tried to get them right back in the TARDIS, then I'd have hell to pay.

We backed ourselves into a corner. The Ood stopped advancing.

"We must feed," the lead Ood said. It - he?- shook and tapped its translation. "You, if you are hungry."

The Doctor stared for a second, then dropped his arm. "Sorry?"

"We apologise," the Ood said. "Electromagnetics have interfered with speech systems." Rose set her chair down, and I set the metal on top of it. "Would you like some refreshments?"

"Open door 18."

Three humans, all armed, walked in the door and stopped dead. "What the hell?" the lead humans said. "How did-?" He walked forward, and the Ood parted to let him through. He looked us over, completely bewildered. We stared back, only marginally less confused. The human raised his wrist-comm. "Captain, you're not going to believe this. We've got people." He never looked away from our faces. "Out of nowhere. I mean, real people." The Doctor ran his hand through his hair and Rose looked ready to say anything to get this man to shut up. "I mean three… living… people, just standing here right in front of me."

"Don't be stupid," came a voice from the wrist-comm. "That's impossible."

"I suggest telling them that," the man said.

"But you're a sort of space base. You must have visitors now and then," Rose reasoned. "It can't be that impossible." The man started to look less amazed and more suspicious. The two humans behind him exchanged a worried look.

"You're telling me you don't know where you are?" he asked.

"No idea. More fun that way," the Doctor said, grinning maniacally.

"I keep telling them it's a bad idea," I added.

"Stand by everyone," a woman's voice said in the overhead speakers. "Buckle down. We have incoming." The man immediately ran for the door we'd tried to go through earlier. "And it's a big one. Quake .5 on its way." He threw the door open.

"Through here, now." We didn't move fast enough for him. "Quickly, come on! Move!" The Doctor shoved Rose in front of him. The other humans came up behind me.

Making our way through the hallways to the control room was slow going. Much slower going than my sanity was comfortable with. The floor kept shaking underneath us, and more than once a pipe broke and sprayed steam at us. The alarms were not helping my headache or my dread.

I'd never wanted to run so much in my life.

The alarms quieted a bit when we stepped down into the control room, probably because people needed to be heard in there. For a few seconds, the other people in the control room just stared. The Doctor, Rose, and I stared back, offering unsure smiles.

"Oh, my God," the man who I remembered being the captain said. "You meant it."

"People!" said the girl who dies. "Look at that, real people!"

"That's us," the Doctor cheered. "Hooray!"

"Real and in the flesh," I agreed.

"My name's Rose," she said, the only one of us to be good at remembering this was weird for other people. "Rose Tyler. She's Katelyn Laurin." She gestured to me. "And-and this is the Doctor." We smiled awkward smiles again.

"Come on," a new guy said, walking in front of us. "The oxygen must be offline. We're hallucinating. They can't be real!" I pinched his hand. "They're real!"

"Come on!" the captain barked. Everyone snapped to attention. "We're in the middle of an alert! Danny, strap up." The man I pinched walked back over to his work space. "The quake's coming in! Impact in thirty seconds!" He never took his eyes off the countdown. "Sorry you three, whoever you are. Just hold on, tight."

"Hold on to what?" Rose said, looking around for an obvious place.

"Anything," the captain sighed. "I don't care. Just hold on." The Doctor and Rose moved to grab the same bar, fixed to the ground. I grabbed the one across from them. "Ood, are we fixed?"

"Your kindness in this emergency is much appreciated," it said by way of answer.

"What's this planet called, anyway?' the Doctor asked, looking around for whoever would be willing to answer him.

"Now, don't be stupid," the woman who went down ito the pit with the Doctor said. "It hasn't got a name. How could it have a name?" The Doctor made a face that said 'well, why wouldn't it?' The woman's smile disappeared. "You really don't know, do you?"

"And impact!" the captain shouted.

The room shook around for a few seconds. It wasn't too bad. A lot like a particularly rough TARDIS landing, if I was being honest.

The Doctor let go of his bar and stood up. "Oh, well, that wasn't so ba-".

The room started shaking again, much more violently and for much longer. The Doctor was thrown back, but Rose and I managed to get a good enough grip on his shoulders to keep him from banging his head too hard. Spark flew. A couple of the computers caught on fire.

Then it stopped, as suddenly as it started. I tried to reach for the TARDIS, but she was so far away. She wasn't gone, seeing as how I wasn't in crippling pain, but she wasn't within reach either.

We were stuck.

"Okay, that's it," the captain said. "Everyone all right?" The guard ran over and extinguished the fire on one of the desks. "Speak to me. Ida.

"Yeah, yeah!" said the pit woman.

"Danny?"

"Fine," he said.

"Toby?"

"Yeah, fine," he said, looking at us. Oh poor Toby. Was it already too late to save him?

"Scooti?"

"No damage," the woman who dies reported.

"Jefferson?"

"Check!" the guard shouted.

"We're fine, thanks, fine," the Doctor complained as Rose and I tried to get him upright. "Yeah, don't worry about us."

"You didn't give him any time to," I said.

"The surface caved in," the captain read off his monitor, oblivious to us. "I deflected it onto storage five through eight. We've lost them completely." He sighed. "Toby, go and check the rocket link." Toby looked incensed.

"That's not my department," he said.

"Just do as I say, yeah?" the captain said. Toby sighed and went, pushing between me and the Doctor and Rose. Part of me wanted to go with him, but what if it was already too late for him? Where did that leave me? The beast couldn't get in my head, not when I already knew how to defeat him. I mean, I'd let Cassandra in, but she wasn't an ancient and unknowable evil now was she?

"Oxygen holding," Ida read out. "Internal gravity 56.6. We should be okay." Rose stared at the ceiling, face growing increasingly concerned when the 'storm' didn't get quieter.

"Never mind the earthquake," she said. "That's, that's one hell of a storm. What is that? A hurricane?"

"You'd need an atmosphere for a hurricane," Scooti said. "There's no air out there. It's a complete vacuum." Rose frowned.

"Then what's shaking the roof?" she asked. Ida stood up.

"You're not joking. You really don't know," she whispered. "Well, introductions. FYI, as they said in the olden days." She put her hand on her chest. "I'm Ida Scott, science officer." She pointed to the captain. "Zachary Cross-Flane, acting Captain, sir." She pointed to the guard. "You've met Mister Jefferson, he's Head of Security." The guy who I pinched. "Danny Bartock, Ethics committee."

"Not as boring as it sounds," Danny defended instantly. We all smiled.

"And that man who just left," Ida continued. "That was Toby Zed, Archaeology."

"It's your people," Rose whispered.

"I hate you," I sighed.

"This is Scooti Manista," Ida said, putting her hands on Scooti's shoulders. "Trainee maintenance. And this?" Ida walked over to the wall and flipped a switch. "This is home.

"Brace yourselves," Zach said, sounding tired. "The sight of it sends some people mad."

The overhead shutters pulled back slowly. The Doctor, Rose, and I walked closer to the middle of the room. Above us (relatively) was the black hole. It was beyond terrifying. I couldn't look away. It was like… polished citrine on fire. It was like the eye of some great eldritch monster, staring at us, watching and watching and watching, never blinking.

"That's a black hole," Rose said, after several moments of stunned silence. She looked to the Doctor, but he was still fully focused on the black hole.

"Eat your heart out, Lovecraft," I whispered, staring back.

"But that's impossible," the Doctor breathed.

"I did warn you," Zach said.

"We're standing under a black hole," the Doctor said, only slightly louder.

"In orbit," Ida confirmed.

"But we can't be."

"Are we inside the event horizon?" I asked. I had vague memories of my college Physics professor saying it was possible to orbit anything from a certain distance, but I did not remember nearly enough from that class.

"We're orbiting on the event horizon," Ida said. "Just far enough away."

The Doctor finally tore his eyes away from the black hole. "But we can't be," he insisted.

"This lump of rock is suspended in perpetual geostationary orbit around that black hole without falling in," Ida explained sounding a little annoyed that she couldn't understand it herself. "Discuss."

"And that's bad, yeah?" Rose asked quietly.

"Bad doesn't cover it," the Doctor said, going back to staring at the black hole. "A black hole's a dead star. It collapses in on itself, in and in and in until the matter's so dense and tight it starts to pull everything else in too." The Doctor looked away from the black hole to Rose. I still couldn't look away. "Nothing in the universe can escape it. Light, gravity… time. Everything just gets pulled inside and crushed."

"So, they can't be in orbit," Rose summed up. "We should be pulled right in."

"We should be dead," the Doctor agreed.

"And yet here we are, beyond the laws of physics," Ida said. "Welcome on board."

I finally managed to tear my eyes away from the black hole. The control room had been fully stabilized and everyone was milling around as if today were completely normal.

"But if there's no atmosphere out there, what's that?" Rose said, pointing to all the debris around the black hole.

"Stars breaking up. Gas clouds." Ida sighed. "We have whole solar systems being ripped apart above our heads, before falling into that thing."

"So, a bit worse than a storm, then," Rose said, clearly in an effort to lighten the mood a little.

"Just a bit," Ida agreed.

"Just a bit, yeah," Rose repeated.

The room shook again, an aftershock. Everyone grabbed something to stay upright (the Doctor's thing being Rose), except me. I fell right on my ass. The Doctor helped me back to my feet.

"You alright?" Rose asked. "You seem a bit-" She gestured to her head. "Out of it."

"Well, no sleep and a black hole," I dismissed.

"Could you pull up the information on the black hole?" the Doctor asked. Ida closed the roof and we all gathered around the central computer.

"Close door 1."

"The rocket link's fine," Toby grumbled, apparently still mad they'd made him check.

Zach pulled up a hologram. The Doctor slide on his glasses, and Rose and I leaned closer. "That's the black hole, officially designate Gen 5," Zach explained.

"In the scriptures of the Falltino, this planet is called Krop Tor," Ida explained. "The bitter pill." Rose and I smiled. "And the black hole is supposed to be a mighty demon. It was tricked into devouring the planet, only to spit it out, because it was poison."

"The bitter pill," Rose said to me. "I like that."

"Evocative imagery," I agreed. "I'd love to meet the people who wrote that."

"We are so far out," the Doctor said, not indulging Rose and I's banter. "Lost in the drifts of the universe. How did you even get here?"

"We flew in," Zach said simply. He hit a button and our view changed to a holo-map of the planet and a red tunnel. "You see, this planet's generating a gravity field. We don't know how. We've no idea. But it's kept in constant balance against the black hole. And the field extends out there as a funnel. A distinct… gravity funnel-" Zach was talking like he didn't believe the words he was saying. "-reaching out into clear space. That was our way in."

"You flew down that thing?" Rose said, smiling. "Like a rollercoaster."

"By rights, the ship should have been torn apart," Zach said. "We lost the Captain, which is what put me in charge."

"You're doing a good job," Ida assured gently.

"Yeah," Zach scoffed. I frowned. "Well, needs must."

"I happen to agree with Ida, if that means anything," I said. Zach shrugged.

"But if that gravity funnel closes, there's no way out," Danny said from across the room.

"We had fun speculating about that," Scooti teased.

Danny rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah. That's the word." He hit Scooti with the roll of paper he was holding. "Fun."

"But that field would take phenomenal amounts of power," the Doctor said, still staring at the diagrams. "I mean not just big, but off the scale! Can I?" He gestured to a calculator Ida had in front of her.

"Sure," she said, tossing it to him. "Help yourself."

I turned to Rose. "Ok, those are scary big numbers if the Doctor needs a calculator." Rose nodded.

"Better leave him to it," she agreed.

"'I just calculated Pi to the 18 hundreth decimal point, and you want to go shopping?'" I teased in a poor imitation of the Doctor's voice. Rose frowned.

"Your Doctor impression could use some work."

An Ood came over and gave Rose a plastic cup. "Your refreshment," it said pleasantly.

"Oh, yeah," Rose said as she took the cup. "Thanks. Thank you. I'm sorry, what was your name?"

"We have no titles," the Ood said. "We are as one." I scowled. With how fucked up those translators were, I had to wonder if it had given a real name, and the translator had just changed it to that. Our chance to free the Ood couldn't come fast enough.

Well, considering everything that had to come before we did that…

"Um, what are they called?" Rose asked Danny. He frowned.

"Oh, come on. Where have you been living?" he said. "Everyone's got one."

"Well, not us-" We smiled. "-so, what are they?"

"They're the Ood," Danny explained simply.

"The Ood?" Rose asked.

"The Ood," Danny confirmed, nodding.

"Well that's... ood," Rose joked, looking at me. I rolled my eyes fondly.

"Five outta ten, seven on a bad day," I said.

"Very ood," Danny said, giving me a look that told him he agreed with my assessment of Rose's joke. "But handy. They work the mine shafts. All the… drilling and stuff." He shrugged. "Supervision and maintenance. They're born for it. Basic slave race."

Rose did not look happy, quite suddenly. "You've got slaves?" she demanded.

"Some ethics committee you are," I snapped.

"Don't start," Scooti sighed, passing by. "They're like one of that lot. Friends of the Ood," she mocked. I felt a little bit less bad that I wasn't sure I could save her.

"Well maybe we are, yeah," Rose said. "Since when do humans need slaves?"

"But the Ood offer themselves," Danny insisted. I clenched a hand at my side to avoid spilling secrets. "If you don't give them orders, they just pine away and die." An Ood walked over as if we'd summoned it. Rose turned to it.

"Seriously, you like being ordered about?"

"It is all we crave," the Ood reported. I purposefully relaxed my hand just so I could clench it again.

"Why's that, then?" Rose asked.

"We have nothing else in life," the Ood said.

"Yeah, well, I used to think like that," Rose said quietly. "A long time ago."

"There we go," the Doctor announced. Rose and I went over to him. "Do you see? To generate that gravity field, and the funnel, you'd need a power source with an inverted self extrapolating reflex of 6 to the power of 6 every 6 seconds."

Rose blinked. "That's a lot of sixes," she said.

"A disturbing number of sixes," I agreed.

"And it's impossible," the Doctor said.

"It took us two years to work that out," Zach said, looking both impressed really, really confused.

The Doctor sniffed. "I'm very good," he said simply.

"But that's why we're here," Ida explained, sounding more excited by the second. "This power source is ten miles below through solid rock. Point Zero. We're drilling down to try and find it."

"It's giving off readings of over 90 stats on the Blazon scale," Zach explained. The Doctor's expression didn't shift. I shot Rose a look, but she clearly also had no idea how impressed that should have made us.

"It could revolutionise modern science," Ida said.

"We could use it to fuel the Empire," Jefferson said.

"Or start a war," the Doctor said, testing. Jefferson nodded. Test failed.

"It's buried beneath us," Toby said. "In the darkness, waiting."

"What's your job, chief dramatist?" Rose teased. The Doctor smiled fondly at her, his first smile since we'd gotten here.

"Archaeologist, same thing," the Doctor teased. I buried my face in my hands.

"Toby, I'd like to submit a formal apology on behalf of my friends." I looked up at him. He was studying me with eyes that didn't feel quite human. I suppressed a shiver. "They tease me about it all the time, and I didn't even finish my degree."

"Well, whatever it is down there is not a natural phenomena," Toby insisted, pulling us back on track. "And this, er, planet once supported life eons ago, before the human race had even learned to walk."

"Well, it did take us a while," I mumbled to myself.

"We saw that lettering written on the wall," the Doctor said. "Did you do that?" Toby nodded.

"I copied it from fragments we found unearthed by the drilling, but I can't translate it."

"No, neither can I," the Doctor said. "And that's saying something."

"There was some form of civilisation," Toby said. "They buried something. Now it's reaching out, calling us in."

How could you be sure that's a good thing? I wanted to ask. But I knew the answer. It didn't matter. I would have come too, in another lifetime.

"And you came," the Doctor said with pride. Rose smiled at me behind his back. Oh, we'd heard his 'aren't humans brilliant' speech enough times to know when it was coming.

"Well, how could we not?" Ida said.

"So, when it comes right down to it, why did you come here?" the Doctor asked, still smiling that 'humans are brilliant' smile. "Why did you do that? Why? I'll tell you why. Because it was there. Brilliant. Excuse me, uh, Zach, wasn't it?" The Doctor stood.

Zach straighten up. "That's me." He didn't sound very enthusiastic about it.

"Just stand there," the Doctor said. "Because I'm gonna… hug you. Is that all right?"

"I suppose so."

"Here we go," the Doctor said, opening his arms. "Come on, then."

"He could not have made that any weirder," I whispered to Rose. She laughed quietly.

"Oh, human beings," the Doctor said, still hugging Zach. "You are amazing! Ha!" He let go and walked back over to Rose and I. She was smiling in that way you do when someone you love is being themselves. "Thank you."

"Not at all," Zach dismissed.

"But apart from that, you're completely mad," the Doctor said. "You should pack your bags, get back in that ship and fly for your lives."

"You can talk," Ida sassed. "And how the hell did you get here?"

"Oh, I've got this um-" The Doctor looked and Rose and I. I shrugged. "This ship. It's hard to explain," he decided. "It just sort of appears."

"We can show you," Rose said. My heart sank into my shoes. "We parked down the corridor from er. Oh, what's it called? Habitation area-"

"Three," the Doctor said.

"Three," Rose agreed.

"Three," I whispered, already tearing up. She's safe. He finds her. We escape.

"Do you mean storage six?" Zach said, like the words were sour in his mouth.

"Ah, It was a bit of a cupboard, yeah," the Doctor said, not quite catching on yet. Zach exchanged a nervous look with his crew, who all looked a bit sad for us. "Storage six. But you sa- You said storage five to eight."

The Doctor turned and bolted out the door, barely waiting for Rose and I to catch up. I had to go with them, otherwise they'd know I knew, and they'd ask why I hadn't stopped it. And I wasn't entirely sure I had a good explanation.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Rose shouted as we ran, for once in our adventures being the last to observe something. We kept running, tearing the doors open as fast as we could, as if someone that would save her.

She's safe. He finds her. We escape.

"Door 16 out of commission," the computer reported.

"It can't be," the Doctor insisted.

"What's wrong? What is it?" Rose demanded. The Doctor opened the porthole in the door and looked through, his face the picture of dejection. "Doctor, the TARDIS is in there. What's happened?

"The TARDIS is gone," he said quietly. He backed away from the door, looking lost. I felt a pulse through the telepathic field, knew he was reaching along his bond with the TARDIS to try and feel her. I also knew she was too far away. "The earthquake," he explained. "This section collapsed."

Rose shook her head. "But it's got to be out there somewhere." Rose looked through the porthole in the bulkhead door.

"Look down," he said. Rose stared for a second, then backed away in horror.

I walked between them and grabbed their hands, offering what silent comfort I could. With all the negative emotions running through me, it wasn't much.

"My bond's not broken," I said quietly. She's safe. He finds her. We escape.

"No," the Doctor whispered, grabbing Rose's hand and completing our little circle. That on its own was a small comfort. "Nor mine. She's not dead. We can get her back."

...

When we got back to the control room, the Doctor immediately rounded on Zach. "The ground gave way," the Doctor explained, sounding panicked and demanding, neither of which were ever good things. "My TARDIS must've fallen down right into the heart of the planet. But you've got robot drills heading the same way."

"We can't divert the drilling," Zach said. Rose and I exchanged uneasy looks. The Doctor watched Zach walk away.

"But I need my ship. It's all I've got," the Doctor argued. "Literally the only thing."

"Doctor, we've only got the resources to drill one central shaft down to the power source, and that's it," Zach snapped back. "No diversions, no distractions, no exceptions." He paused, sounding apologetic. "Your machine is lost. All I can do is offer you a lift if we ever get to leave this place, and that is the end of it." The Doctor just stared as Zach left, eyes flicking everywhere, completely lost.

"I'll um, put you on the duty roster," Ida said quietly. "We need someone in the laundry." Then she left too. We were alone, except for the one Ood still walking about. Rose looked scared, properly scared in a way I hadn't seen her in a long time. Probably not since the Game Station, since the Doctor's regeneration. She looked down when the Doctor turned around, not letting him see her panic.

"I've trapped you here," he said quietly.

"No, don't worry about me," Rose answered gently. The entire building shook with the force of a small quake. The others looked at the ceiling with worry. "Okay, we're on a planet that shouldn't exist, under a black hole, and no way out. Yeah, I've changed my mind. Start worrying about me." Rose finished with what she'd probably meant to be a laugh, but it didn't quite get there.

The Doctor pulled her into a hug and glared at the ceiling over her shoulder, daring the universe to take her from him too. I looked down at my boots.

I'd thought about this a lot, whether it would be better to tell them we got out or not. So much of this relied on split second decisions. So much of this was fear response and incredible bravery. Could I take that away from them?

"Katelyn?" the Doctor asked after a while.

"Oh, don't worry about me," I said without looking up. "I do enough worrying for this whole base."

I'd thought about this a lot. I'd thought about it too long. I was out of time. If they asked, I decided in that moment. I'd tell them if they asked. I'd have to. "I think I'm gonna go walk around a bit," I said. The Doctor and Rose both nodded, still hugging, and let me go without argument.

I did just wander for a couple minutes, but then the need to help started to itch. I'd gotten accustomed to being able to do some good. I needed to help. I needed to save someone.

I started walking with purpose, determined to find Toby's room. Maybe if I helped him, I could block the Beast somehow. At the very least I could watch him, keep Scooti from being a victim.

"Open door 37."

The laws of Time are mine, and they will obey me!

I stopped with my hands on the wheel that opened door 38. I felt like I'd just been punched in the gut. It was hard to breath. Some long buried and impossible instinct told me I could never go through this door.

I turned the handle. I had to help.

That's who I am. The Time Lord Victorious.

I let my hands slide from the handle.

"The Time Lord Victorious is wrong," I quoted. I blinked back tears and stumbled back from the door. "Oh, Toby, Scooti… I am so, so sorry."

...

The Doctor had decided he'd had quite enough of sitting and went back to Habitation 3 to translate those letters. If he didn't already know it and the translation circuit didn't offer any help, then he would do this the old fashioned way. Rose sat with him for a while, but left when he'd said nothing for nearly five minutes. A record, that was.

"Danny, check the temperature in Ood Habitation," came Zach's voice over the intercom. "It seems to be rising."

"Open door 17." The Doctor looked over. Katelyn walked in looking… wrong. He couldn't quite place the emotions she was trying to mask, but he was sure they weren't good. At a glance, Rose was distracted getting food, which meant it was his job to confront Katelyn.

"Katelyn," he called across the room. She started walking over. "Any chance you could help me with this?" He nodded at the writing.

Katelyn sat down next to him and tilted her head, considering. "I said it was runic, and I stand by that. Probably less lettering and more symbols," she said after a moment. He handed her the notepad he'd been writing in, not that he'd accomplished much. She glanced at it, reading quickly. "I mean, the…" She tapped her fingers on the notebook. "What did Ida say? The uh-"

"The scriptures of the Falltino?" the Doctor offered, frowning. It was not like Katelyn Laurin to forget mythology.

"That's the bitch," Katelyn said, snapping. Well, that was decidedly like her. "If that's the only culture recorded with a name for this planet, I'd say their alphabet would be where to start."

"You said it looked a bit like Haraxian," the Doctor offered.

"Yeah, I did." Katelyn sighed. "But it also looks like Hylian and that's not a real language." She paused, looking off into the distance. "Well, I mean, it is a real alphabet, but it just uses the Japanese spelling of words and has no established grammar rules and is certainly of no use to us here, so God only knows why I just spent 10 seconds talking about it."

"Are you alright?" the Doctor asked. Katelyn went back to studying the words.

"I'm always alright." The Doctor and Katelyn both tensed as soon as the words were out of her mouth. That was his tell, what he said when he was certainly lying.

The lights flickered, and they both turned toward the ceiling.

"Zach?" Ida said into her wrist-comm, standing from her seat. "Have we got a problem?"

"No more than usual," he said. "Got the Scarlet System burning up. Might be worth a look." Ida looked back and forth between where the Doctor and Katelyn were sitting and where Rose had finished eating.

"You might want to see this," she said, resting her hand on the roof lever. "Moment in history." The shutters opened slowly, revealing the sight the Doctor couldn't get out of his mind, this time with a streak of red flowing in from deep space. "There. On the edge." Ida pointed to the streak. "That red cloud. That used to be the Scarlet System. Home to the Peluchi, a mighty civilisation spanning a billion years, disappearing forever. Their planets and suns consumed." The red streak disappeared. "Ladies and gentlemen-" Ida sniffled. "-we have witnessed its passing." She reached to close the shutters.

"Uh, no, could you leave it open?" the Doctor asked. Everyone turned to him, looking slightly concerned. Except for Katelyn, who just kept staring at the black hole. "Just for a bit. I won't go mad, I promise."

"How would you know?" Ida teased. The Doctor smiled. Ida stepped away from the lever. "Scooti, check the lockdown. Jefferson, sign off the airlock seals for me." They all left.

The Doctor walked over to Rose. Katelyn followed, never taking her eyes off the ceiling.

"I've seen films and things, yeah," Rose said as they approached. "They say black holes are like gateways to another universe."

"Not that one," he sat down across from Rose. Katelyn sat on the table to his left. "It just eats."

"It's weirdly beautiful," Katelyn said. That got both Rose and the Doctor to turn away from the ceiling and look at her. "I mean everywhere we've gone, everything we've seen, and we still all end up there." She took a deep breath. "We are but stardust, drifting through."

"Long way from home," Rose said, sort of in agreement.

The Doctor studied both girls faces. They were blank, but deep down he could tell that they were both terrified. His brave girls, sitting under a black hole with no way home. "Go that way," he said, pointing. "Turn right, keep going for um… about, uh, five hundred years, and you'll reach the Earth." Katelyn smiled and finally looked away from the black hole, which was more of a relief than the Doctor was entirely sure he understood.

Rose's phone beeped. "No signal," she said. "That's the first time we've gone out of range. Mind you, even if I could-" Rose paused and looked around the room. "What would I tell her?" There was silence. The Doctor went back to watching the black hole. "Can you build another TARDIS?" Rose asked, then laughed a nervous laugh.

There were few times in the Doctor's life he'd more wanted to say yes. "They were grown, not built," he had to say. "And with my home planet gone, we're kind of stuck."

"Well, it could be worse," Rose said cheerfully. "This lot said they'd give us a lift." The Doctor gave Rose a sceptical look.

"And then what?" the Doctor asked.

Rose shook her head. "I don't know. Find a planet, get a job. Live a life, same as the rest of the universe."

"Gross," Katelyn whispered, having gone back to watching the black hole.

The Doctor blew out a long breath. "I'd have to settle down. Get a house or something." He scowled, and hoped the girls knew it was mostly for show. "A proper house with, with doors and things. Carpets. Me, living in a house." Rose laughed, and Katelyn chuckled, so he was pretty sure they knew. "Now that, that, that is terrifying."

"You'd have to get a mortgage," Rose sing-songed.

The Doctor let his face fall close to horror. "No."

"Oh, yes," Rose shot back.

"I'm dying," he decided, while the girl laughed some more. It was brilliant sound, them laughing. "That's it. I'm dying. It is all over."

"What about me?" Rose laughed. "I'd have to get one, too. I don't know, could be the same one. We could both, I don't know, share. Or not, you know." Rose looked away and the Doctor ducked his head. He could practically feel Katelyn holding in her laughter. "Whatever. I don't know. We'll sort something out."

"Anyway."

"We'll see." They paused in awkward silence before Rose turned to Katelyn. "What about you?"

"I'd get my own place, I think," Katelyn said, leaning back on her hands on the table. "Bachelorette pad, so I don't have to sit through awkward moments like these ever-" Her hand stopped halfway through a dismissive motion.

"What?" Rose asked.

"It's just…" Katelyn stared at one of the walls. "I've never lived alone before. It just occurred to me." She shook her head. "It was my family, a roommate, you guys."

"Neither have I," Rose realized. "It was Mum, then Jimmy, then Mum again…" The Doctor's hearts hurt for her.

"I promised Jackie I'd always take you back home," he said. Would have promised the same to Katelyn's parents, if that had been at all plausible.

"Everyone leaves home in the end," Rose dismissed.

"Not to end up stuck here," the Doctor said quietly.

"Yeah, but stuck with you," Rose said without hesitation. "That's not so bad."

"Yeah?" the Doctor said, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips.

"Yes," Rose agreed immediately. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, and for just a second, he thought maybe they'd all be ok in the end.

Then Katelyn and Rose's phones rang simultaneously. They answered at the same time, shooting each other concerned looks. Katelyn put hers on speakerphone.

"He is awake."

Oh, the universe just loved proving him wrong, didn't it?

...

"Evening." The Doctor took the steps down two at a time, but Rose and I walked like sane people.

"Only us," she said.

"The mysterious trio," Danny called as we approached. "How are you, then? Settling in?"

"Yeah. Sorry, straight to business," the Doctor said, not sounding even slightly apologetic. "The Ood how do they communicate? I mean, with each other."

"Oh, just empaths," Danny dismissed. "There's a low level telepathic field connecting them. Not that that does them much good." I scowled, although I'd never been far from scowling today. "They're basically a herd race. Like cattle."

"This telepathic field," the Doctor continued. "Can it pick up messages?"

"Because I was having dinner, and one of the Ood said something, well, odd," Rose added.

"Hmm. An odd Ood," Danny said, clearing not picking up on our moods or tones.

"And we got something else on our, uh, comms," I added.

"Oh, be fair," Danny dismissed again. The Doctor frowned, and I was right there with him. "We've got whole star systems burning up around us. There's all sorts of stray transmissions. Probably nothing." We gave him a skeptical look. Danny sighed. "Look, if there was something wrong, it would show. We monitor the telepathic field. It's the only way to look after them. They're so stupid, they don't even tell us when they're ill."

"Monitor the field. That's this thing?" the Doctor said, walking over to the computer without waiting for an answer.

"Yeah. But like I said, it's low level telepathy," Danny said. "They only register basic five."

"Except that says basic ten," I said as it continued to go up. I pulled my shields tighter, just in case. "Twenty. Basic thirty."

"But they can't," Danny said.

"Doctor, Katelyn, the Ood," Rose said. We turned where she was looking. Over the railing, in the place where the Ood sat, the had all lifted their heads and were staring at us. I shivered. "What does basic thirty mean?" Rose asked.

"Well, it means that they're shouting, screaming inside their heads," Danny explained.

"Or something's shouting at them," the Doctor added.

"Yeah, that helps," I muttered, even though I knew he was right.

"But where is it coming from? What is it saying?" Danny turned toward us. "What did it say to you?"

"Something about the beast in the pit," Rose said.

"What about your communicators?" Danny said. "What did that say?"

"He is awake," I said

"And you will worship him," the Ood all said.

Danny spun toward the Ood. "What the hell?"

The Doctor stood up straighter and squared his shoulder. "He is awake."

"And you will worship him," the Ood repeated.

"Worship who?" the Doctor demanded. "Who's talking to you? Who is it?" The Ood did not answer. The base suddenly shook under our feet, much more violent than even the second quake. Rose and I fell right onto our asses, but the Doctor and Danny managed to stay upright.

"Emergency hull breach," the computer reported in repeat.

"Which section?" Danny screamed into his wrist-comm.

"Everyone, evacuate eleven to thirteen," Zach answered. "We've got a breach. The base is open!" Zach kept talking but we were already running. It wasn't our sections that were at risk, but far be it from Team TARDIS to run away from people who needed help.

Everyone was safe, just this side of the door into section 10. Some were standing, some were on the ground. Toby, or maybe just a remnant of him, was on the door, panting and sweating.

"Everyone all right?" the Doctor demanded. Rose went straight to Toby, who was shaking on the floor. "What happened? What was it?"

"Hull breach," Jefferson reported. "We were open to the elements. Another couple of minutes and we'd have been inspecting that black hole at close quarters."

"That wasn't a quake," I said.

"What caused it?" the Doctor asked. Jefferson shrugged.

"We've lost sections eleven to thirteen," Zach reported. "Everyone all right?"

"We've got everyone here except Scooti," Jefferson responded. My blood ran cold. You couldn't stop it, the internal voice that sounded a lot like Erika's reminded me. Time told you to run away. "Scooti, report. Scooti Manista? That's an order. Report."

Nothing. Silence. Star dust.

"She's all right," Zach said after a moment. Everyone breathed the sigh of relief that was stuck in my lungs. "I've picked up her biochip. She's in Habitation three. Better go and check if she's not responding. She might be unconscious." I glanced at Toby, who was staring at his hands. So there was just enough of him left to be terrified. "How about that, eh? We survived."

"Habitation three," Jefferson confirmed. He clapped me on the shoulder as he walked past. "Come on. I don't often say this, but I think we could all do with a drink."

While the humans walked away, the Doctor crouched in front of Toby. "What happened?"

"I-I don't," he stuttered. "I don't know. I was working and then I can't remember. All that noise. The room was falling apart. There was no air-"

"Come on," Rose said, grabbing Toby's arm and pulling him to his feet. "Up you get. Come and have some protein one."

"Oh, you've gone native," the Doctor teased.

"Oi, don't knock it. It's nice," Rose defended. "Protein one with just a-" She clicked her tongue. "-dash of three."

...

We gathered in Habitation 3, the various crew reported where they hadn't found Scooti. I couldn't look up, I couldn't make myself.

"Zach?" Jeffesron said after checking in with everyone and receiving negatives all around. "We've got a problem. Scooti's still missing."

"It says Habitation three," he repeated. The Doctor looked up, and I finally made myself.

"Yeah, well, that's where I am, and I'm telling you she's not here," Jefferson insisted.

"I've found her," the Doctor reported. Everyone followed our gaze up and through the open shutters, making various noises of horror and covering their mouths.

Scooti's body drifted slowly, caught between the artificial gravity of this impossible planet and the unyielding pull of the black hole. She was just in her clothes, frozen and blue.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said to no one in particular.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered up to Scooti.

"Captain. Report Officer Scootori Manista PKD, deceased," Jefferson reported. "43 K 2.1."

"She was twenty," Ida whispered, closing the shutters. "Twenty years old."

"That's…" I choked on the words. That was how old Rose and I were. God, but we were children, weren't we?

"'For how should man die better than facing fearful odds?'" Jefferson quoted. "'For the ashes of his father and the temples of his Gods'."

The drill got louder for a second before it fell silent.

"It's stopped," Ida whispered.

"What was that?" Rose asked, walking to stand between the Doctor and I.

"The drill," we said.

"We've stopped drilling," Ida confirmed. "We've made it. Point Zero."

...

The drill room was utter chaos. Zach ordered the Ood to containment. Ida checked the capsule and reported it good to go.

The Doctor had disappeared, and only when he reappeared did I realize why. I nudged Rose and pointed. It was too loud to hear what he was saying, so we just watched the Doctor debate and, if I'm being honest, charm his way into being allowed on the expedition. Eventually, Zach gave in with a sigh.

"Positions!" he commanded. "We're going down in two. Everyone, positions!" We let the crew finish their checks and walked over to the Doctor.

"Oxygen, nitro balance, gravity," he read of his wrist-pad, grinning. "It's ages since I wore one of these."

"That's a story you're gonna have to tell," I said, crossing my arms to hide how my hands were shaking.

"I want that spacesuit back in one piece, you got that?" Rose commanded.

"Yes, sir," the Doctor said, lifting the helmet on.

"It's funny, because people back home think that space travel's going to be all whizzing about and teleports and anti gravity, but it's not, is it?" Rose said quietly. "It's tough."

"I'll see you later," the Doctor said a little loudly, like the helmet made it hard to hear. He nodded at me. "Both of you." I gave him a little two finger salute, then recrossed my arms.

"Not if I see you first," Rose teased, laughing a little. Her smile faded for a second, but she hid it behind the kiss she left on the Doctor's helmet. He didn't seem to notice, grinning as he was. I rolled my eyes, but smiled for them. Little moments, the lights in the darkness.

Everyone moved to position. Zach went back to the control room. Danny left for the Ood. Ida and the Doctor boarded the capsule. Rose and I stood in front of it.

"Capsule active," Zach said. "Counting down in ten, nine…" Jefferson closed the door and saluted. Rose waved with a nervous smile. The Doctor waved back, reassuring, but from how tightly Rose was holding my hand, I don't think she was soothed. "...three, two, one. Release."

The capsule started lowering. Rose watched until the window was out of our view, then we ran over to the computer that tracked the progress. Everything was ok, but every foot the capsule sank, my stomach sank with it. The Doctor needed to be down there, that wasn't it, and Rose would be fine with or without me. But I couldn't remember who else died, which meant I couldn't save the,.

"You've gone beyond the oxygen field," Zach said after a very tense minute. "You're on your own."

Rose picked up the microphone in front of us. "Don't forget to breath," she said, unable to hide the slight shake in her voice.

"Breathing's good," I agreed. I could just hear the Doctor chuckle.

"You two, off the comm," Zach commanded. We rolled our eyes.

"No chance," we said.

The capsule started falling a little faster without air resistance. Rose held my hand so hard it hurt, which was fine because I needed something to ground me in reality right now. The fear was starting to make things fuzzy.

Just before the capsule hit the bottom, it dropped in a complete free fall. The whole planet shook when it hit the ground.

"Doctor? Doctor, are you all right?" Rose shouted into the mike.

"Ida, report to me," Zach said in a much calmer voice. "Doctor?"

"It's all right. We've made it," the Doctor said through the comms after a brief pause. Relief spread through the whole crew. "Getting out of the capsule now."

Rose let out a shuddering sigh. I nodded in solidarity. "What's it like down there?" Rose asked.

"It's hard to tell," the Doctor said. "Some sort of cave. Cavern. It's massive."

"Well, this should help," Ida said. "Gravity globe." There was a pause. Ida's gasp came through loud and clear. "That's… That's… My God, that's beautiful."

"Rose… you can tell Toby… we've found his civilisation," the Doctor said. "Katelyn, you'd love it down here."

I know, I thought. But the dying is going to happen up here.

"Oi, Toby," Rose said turning around and smiling. "Sounds like you've got plenty of work." He muttered under his breath. I took a deep, quiet breath to keep from shaking. Rose was still holding my hand. She'd know.

"Concentrate now, people. Keep on the mission," Zach said.

"Oh yeah," I muttered. "The Doctor's all about staying on track." Rose laughed quietly.

"Ida," Zach continued. "What about the power source?"

"We're close," she answered. "Energy signature indicates north north-west. Are you getting pictures up there?"

"I wish," Rose sighed, finger off the comm button so only I heard.

"There's too much interference. We're in your hands," Zach said.

"Well, we've come this far," Ida said. We could hear the crunching of gravel through the comms as she started walking. "There's no turning back."

"Oh, did you have to?" the Doctor whined. "No turning back? That's almost as bad as 'nothing can possibly go wrong', or 'this is going to be the best Christmas Walford's ever had'."

"Are you finished?" Ida interrupted before I could.

"Yeah. Finished."

"Knew I liked her for a reason," I teased. Rose chuckled again.

"Captain, sir," came Danny's quiet voice over the comm. "There's something happening with the Ood." My blood ran cold again. It was starting.

"What are they doing?" Zach asked. Rose and I exchanged uneasy looks.

"They're staring at me," Danny hissed. "I've told them to stop, but they won't."

Zach sighed. "Danny, you're a big boy. I think you can take being stared at."

"But the telepathic field, sir. It's at basic one hundred," Danny said. "I've checked. there isn't any fault. It's definitely one hundred."

"But that's impossible," Zach said.

"Oh, never say impossible," I groaned.

"What's basic one hundred mean?" Rose asked into the comm.

"They should be dead," Danny explained simply. Rose's eyes went wide.

"Basic one hundred's brain death," Jefferson added.

"But they're safe. They're not actually moving?" Zach asked.

"No, sir," Danny confirmed.

"Keep watching them," Zach ordered. "And you, Jefferson? Keep a guard on the Ood."

"Officer at arms!" Jefferson ordered to a crewman behind him. That crewman who confirmed and hoisted his gun.

"You can't fire a gun in here," Rose argued. "What if you hit a wall?"

"We're firing stock fifteen. It only impacts upon organics," Jefferson explained. "Keep watch. Guard them." He nodded at the other guard who aimed her weapon at the three Ood standing nearby. My instinct was to jump in front of them. It wasn't their fault. It was never their fault.

"Is everything alright up there?" the Doctor asked.

"Yeah," Rose lied.

"Yep," I agreed.

"It's fine," Zach said.

"Great," Danny said.

There was a pause, probably because the Doctor was trying to figure out if we really thought that'd work. "We've found something," he said eventually. "It looks like metal. Like some sort of seal. I've got a nasty feeling the word might be trapdoor. Not a good word, trapdoor. Never met a trapdoor I liked."

"The edge is covered with those symbols," Ida said, deciding to be the adult in the room.

"Do you think it opens?" Zach asked.

"That's what trapdoors tend to do," the Doctor said.

"Trapdoor doesn't do it justice," Ida breathed. "It's massive, Zach. About thirty feet in diameter."

"Any way of opening it?" Zach asked.

"Why do you want to?" I asked.

"I don't know," Ida said. "I can't see any sort of mechanism, and I'm very curious."

"I suppose that's the writing," the Doctor said, a slight note of caution in his voice. "It'll tell us what to do. The letters that defy translation."

"Toby, did you get anywhere with decoding it?" Zach asked.

Toby didn't say anything, didn't move. Just sat with head between his knees. That's when I knew he was already gone.

"Toby, they need to know that lettering," Rose tried. "Does it make any sort of sense?"

"I know what it says," Toby muttered in a voice not quite his own. I stepped around Rose, trying subtly to keep her away from the danger.

"Then tell them," Rose said.

"When did you work that out?" Jefferson asked.

"Toby," I whispered as he raised his head. He was covered in those symbols, and his eyes were red. "I'm so sorry. There was nothing I could do."

"These are the words of the Beast," Toby's body growled, standing. "And he has woken. He is the heart that beats in the darkness." Jefferson stepped around Rose and I. "He is the blood that will never cease." I pulled Rose back further, ready to run. "And now he will rise." Jefferson aimed his gun.

"Officer, stand down," he ordered. Toby's feral grin faded. "Stand down. Officer, as Commander of Security-"

"He's come out in those symbols-" Rose was saying into the mic.

"I order you to stand down-"

"-all over his face-"

"-and be confined."

"-They're all over him."

"Immediately!" Jefferson finished. The Beast tilted Toby's head. His neck cracked.

"Mister Jefferson," he growled. "Tell me, sir. Did your wife ever forgive you?"

Jefferson's eyes widened and he lifted an eyebrow, but made no other sign he was affected. "I don't know what you mean," he said.

"Let me tell you a secret," Toby continued anyway. "She never did."

Jefferson swallowed hard. "Officer, you stand down and be confined," he insisted.

The Beast smiled. "Or what?"

"Or under the strictures of Condition Red, I am authorised to shoot you." Jefferson lifted his gun.

"But how many can you kill?" Toby said. He opened his mouth and screamed. His eyes glowed red. The symbols slowly floated off his skin and to the Ood. They jerked to attention. Toby's body collapsed.

"We are the Legion of the Beast," the Ood droned in imperfect unison. "The Legion shall be many, and the Legion shall be few."

"It's the Ood," Rose said into the comm.

"Rose, I don't think that's working-" I tried

"Sir, we have contamination in the livestock-" Jefferson reported

"Doctor, I don't know what it is. It's like they're possessed," Rose continued anyway.

"They won't listen to us!" Jefferson said.

"He has woven himself in the fabric of your life since the dawn of time," the Ood continued. "Some may call him Abaddon. Some may call him Krop Tor. Some may call him Satan or Lucifer." I started pulling Rose back, but she refused to let go of the comm, still trying to explain everything to a Doctor who couldn't hear. "Or the Bringer of Despair, the Deathless Prince, the Bringer of Night."

"Sounds like a drama queen," I said. I'd wanted my voice to be a lot steadier than it ended up being. Rose squeezed my hand.

"These are the words that shall set him free," the Ood continued.

"Back up to the door!" Jefferson commanded. Rose dropped the comm.

"I shall become manifest."

"Move quickly!" We ran.

"I shall walk in might."

"To the door! Get it open!" Jefferson shouted, gun still trained on the advancing Ood. Rose tripped. I held her upright as best I could.

"My Legions shall swarm across the worlds."

The whole planet started shaking again. We were forced to move slower.

"I am the sin and the temptation and the desire," the Ood kept saying. "I am the pain and the loss and the-"

"Get that door open!" We turned the handle as fast as we could, but it didn't feel fast enough.

"I have been imprisoned for eternity. But no more."

"Door sealed," the computer said cheerfully. The handle stopped turning. I'd never felt so much panic all at once. Some of it was my own, but not all of it.

My shields were slipping. Something was trying to get in, and that something was succeeding.

"Come on!" Rose screamed

"Door sealed," the computer repeated.

"The Pit is open. And I am free!"

(A/N: RIP to The Idiot's Lantern. It's one of my favorite episodes, but in this story what happened was:

Doctor, sticking his head in the room: Katelyn! Rose and I are gonna go out.

Katelyn, upside down on a couch in the Library, rereading Good Omens: Ok, have fun on your date.

Doctor, leaving: It's not a date!

Katelyn, shouting after him: You're in denial!

And Katelyn wouldn't realize it was that episode until Rose came back in the poodle skirt, and she's like "shit". From a writer's perspective, I did sort of storyboard the ep, but it's an 'everybody lives' situation, so it was basically just the episode with some witty one-liners.

On to business. I can't promise these will get out every other Saturday, but I will try. I'll also try to tell you if it'll be late.

Thank you for reading!)