A/N: Back! T'was slightly longer than I'd hoped but err, better late than never, right? :D

This is the next in the series of Destiny/Memento, previously ...

The Doctor, Jack, Leah, and Theo arrive at the most prestigious hospital in the universe run by an incredibly sophisticated machine known as Panacea - an impressive AI interactive supercomputer capable of diagnosing and dealing with nearly all known types of disease in the universe. The Doctor books himself in as a patient to try and fix his paralysed arm, but wonders why in all his travels he's never heard of Panacea. The Doctor, still traumatised by Rose's actions against him and their son, continually has separation anxiety with Leah and Theo, and refuses to tell Leah the truth about her mother. Jack convinces him to tell her and the Doctor explains to Leah that her mum is now dying of Lanwa's disease, without any known cure for her. As a consequence, Leah resolves to help her dad, and starts her own research into the disease as Jack discovers the existence of a floor which claims to rebuild the images of dead loved ones holographically, known as the Celene.

After surgery for his arm, weakened and now with a metal exoskeleton arm known as an exotronic, the Doctor recovers slowly in their quarters, and Jack visits the Celene. He is confronted by a woman who asks to speak to the Doctor. Before Jack can act on the information, the Doctor's condition significantly worsens, and he spirals down into terrifying nightmares of Rose and hallucinations of Daleks. Once his head clears, the Doctor realises the disease almost succeeded in taking him over while he was asleep.

The Doctor visits the Celene and discovers it's projecting the form of a gallifreyan girl and old schoolmate of his, Millennia, whom he assumed had died a very long time ago. She begs him to save her by transferring her consciousness - stuck inside Panacea's systems - into a body she's grown herself. The Doctor is unsure about her validity and motivations, but agrees to help. Meanwhile, Leah reveals to Jack her intensive research of the disease has unearthed a potential cure in a region of space known as Tuvala, but it's in an area known as 'split space', which people don't return from. The Doctor silently struggles with the seemingly impossible notion of entering Tuvala, before going to see Millennia. He confronts his part in her death, before telling her what happened to Gallifrey. Millennia breaks down, and in the furore of emotion they kiss. The Doctor, confused, runs away, and realises that he still loves her from his childhood crush.

Leah has a nightmare and the Doctor realises that the disease has now infected her too. With renewed vigour, the Doctor knows he has to confront his past head on and tell Millennia about his part in the Time War, to request her engineering expertise to get to Tuvala. Millennia is angry at his revelation, but eventually agrees to help. On his way back to their room, a power cut causes the lift to jam and all systems to go offline, leaving the Doctor trapped in a lift with a heavily pregnant alien. She goes into labour, and with no other option to save her water-breathing child, the Doctor floods the lift and drowns. He wakes up in a dreamworld with the Master, an inaccessible Rose, and a corrupted version of his Dream Guardian self, and realises the Lanwa has established a telepathic network between those it has infected.

Back in the real world, Jack identifies the Lanwa has taken the Doctor over, and on a promise made to the Doctor he threatens to kill the Doctor's body. Snookered, the Lanwa gives up and allows the Doctor to return. They rescue Millennia and hijack a ship, but on docking at the arrivals moon the Doctor discovers the Lanwa has massacred everyone there. She gives the Doctor a chance to kill her, but he refuses to shoot Rose's body. In the piles of the dead, the Doctor finds the baby he saved in the lift - the only survivor of the massacre, with her dead mother holding her. He takes her back to her father. They return to Torchwood, where the Doctor confirms Millennia's health in her new body, while diagnosing the presence of the disease in Leah. He resolves to mend the situation, and experimentally tries a few UNIT-concocted drugs to prevent him and his family from dreaming. Unsuccessful, the Doctor has a nightmare, which results in him becoming blind. With no cure, the Doctor realises he won't get his sight back until the disease has gone, and just how vulnerable he is.

Helped by Jack, the Doctor concocts a detailed plan to adapt the TARDIS to enter Tuvala to get the cure.

In case you're new and couldn't tell, this is a post-JE A/U extended universe, which utilises every facet of extended DW lore in an unashamed TenRose Doctor Who/Torchwood/SJA crossover mammoth hybrid. There's a link a doc containing extended summaries for every story so far (yes sir, all thirteeen) and also my gallifreyan dictionary.

Anyway that's enough yammering from me, allons-y!


Chapter 1: The Things Out of Sight

It was dark.

Through his severely impaired vision, the Doctor could only see the extremely vague dark blurs of the other eleven people around him, gathered together in the Torchwood meeting room waiting for him to instruct them on what they were going to do next.

He couldn't see them, but could certainly hear them. He was blind, and without being able to see barely anything his gallifreyan biology had quickly compensated as his hearing was now on a completely different level. He'd always had sharp hearing as a biological bonus over humans, but it was now so acute that he could hear everyone's breathing. Including his own, he could count twelve sets of breaths, each with their own individual pitch, rattle, and rhythm unique to the person. His sense of smell had sharpened too, with the distinct scent of perfume and deodorant emanating from all directions. The musky odour of Torchwood was also battling for his attention in his nostrils, along with oil and burnt fuse plugs.

This most certainly wasn't an ideal situation for him to be in considering what they were about to do. But he was going to have to get used to it.

'So, as you're all probably aware, thanks to Leah, we know where the cure is for this disease,' the Doctor began, hands on the table. 'So, we'll be going there. Unfortunately, it's in Tuvala, which is one of several regions in the universe we call "split space"`. Basically, split space is where there's been such a massive amount of damage, usually through war, which had shattered space and time within it. It makes passage through it really, really difficult, and to top it off these places are near uncharted because they're so inaccessible.'

'You don't know what's in them?' Martha asked.

'I've got some vague ideas just from hearsay,' the Doctor said. 'But what I do know is there are five, err, slightly inconvenient problems with flying into split space. First, we've got time distortions, which isn't anything that we'd feel, but to the Tardis it's like driving in a sports car across a bumpy Devon field while the field's on fire. We've also got gravity distortions, again, not really going to affect us, but the Tardis is going to have some problems in telling a black hole from a piece of dust.

'We've then got icaron particles. There are two types of icaron particles, both extremely unpleasant - the first will make the Tardis explode on contact and the second type will make us all psychotic and probably try and kill each other.

'Then there's unreality pockets. To be honest, unreality pockets are so varied, there's no telling what they might do to us or the Tardis.

'Then last, but by no means least, are all other unknown factors. There's no research or case studies that I know of for split space, mainly because no one ever goes there - I certainly haven't. So we're probably going to encounter some things no one's ever seen before, but we need to prepare for those as well.'

'So when you said "slightly inconvenient", you really meant it,' Seth mused.

The Doctor nodded. 'Well … I'll be honest, it's not ideal. But in order to get around these things, we're going to be heavily modifying the Tardis to give ourselves the best chance, and for that, we need some parts. We've got two places for that - there's an engineering deck in the Tardis full of a whole load of stuff I've picked up over the years, and there's also a junkyard I go to a lot. Which leads me to … Jack?' he prompted.

'Yeah, I've got a list of parts,' Jack said to the gathered group, accompanied by the rustle of paper. 'We're going on a scavenger hunt. Everyone's got about twenty items to find, with descriptions and pictures. First one back gets a prize.'

Everyone laughed.

'We're split into two groups,' Jack continued. 'Me, Mickey, Ianto, and Martha'll be in Tardis engineering, and the Doctor, Millennia, and Seth will go into the junkyard. Jackie, if you could handle the kids.'

'But …!' Leah interjected from the Doctor's left.

The Doctor looked in the direction of the voice of his six-year-old. He tried to picture her - the long, wavy brown hair and a slightly rounder version of her mother's face. His intelligence and Rose's bravery harmonised as one. Those big brown eyes, always curious, and nearly always looking at him like he was an idiot. He often was.

The Doctor put his hands in the air. 'Before you start, don't worry. I've got a special job for you, Leah.'

'Really?'

'Really. We'll have a chat after.'

'I come?' the youngest gallifreyan asked from the Doctor's right.

The Doctor looked in his direction, mentally picturing his 15-month-old boy sitting there. Messy blond hair not unlike an electrocuted version of this fifth self, with familiar brown eyes and the softness of Rose's skin combined. A complete overabundance of energy and the Doctor's own prydonian talents for language blended into a somewhat problematic two and a half foot tall version of himself. 'No,' he said. 'It'll be a bit too dangerous.'

'Da!' Theo complained.

'No.'

'But go with you, Da,' Theo complained.

'I said no,' the Doctor interrupted swiftly. 'Stay with Gran.'

'Whyyy?' Theo railed.

'Because we're going to need spacesuits for the junkyard because it's airless, and I don't actually have one in toddler size. Besides, knowing you, you'll run off and we'll spend the next month trying to find you.'

'Whyyy?'

The Doctor sighed as he heard the crowd around him giggle a little.

'Theo, do what Daddy says,' Leah ordered her little brother.

'Oh, 'kay,' Theo replied almost immediately.

The Doctor lowered his eyebrows, confused. 'How do you make him do that?' he asked his daughter as everyone laughed again.

'We'll be leaving in around twenty minutes, so get ready and meet in the Tardis console room,' Jack announced.

'Leah, you're with me,' the Doctor added.


While everyone prepared, he let Leah lead him back into the TARDIS console room so it was just them, where she was keen to discover what her special assignment was.

'Right, so what's the one rule I have about the Tardis?' the Doctor asked her.

'Err, don't swing from the beams unless Mummy's out,' Leah replied in a mantra.

'What?'

'You said, "get down Leah before Mum sees you, don't swing from the beams when she's here".'

'What? Oh, err, no. The other rule,' the Doctor amended.

'Don't use the console to turn the floors into trampolines unless it's Trampoline Tuesday.'

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. 'Wait. I made that a rule?'

'You said, "Leah, you nearly broke mum's neck, we only turn the floors into trampolines on a Tuesday not Fridays".'

'Err … the other other one?'

'Don't talk to the wall on the 645th floor cos it doesn't like it.'

He'd made up a lot more rules than he'd thought, the Doctor mused. 'Err, the other other other one?'

'It's okay to go to the Tardis zoo but don't feed the dodo any chocolate muffins again.'

The Doctor sighed. 'Okay, no. The one about the Attic.'

'Oh! Yeah, don't go anywhere near the Attic,' Leah confirmed.

'Right, well, the time has come to change the rules,' the Doctor said.

'All of them?'

'Just the Attic one. Although actually I do like the sound of Trampoline Fridays,' the Doctor mused.

'I'm going into the Attic!?' Leah asked, delighted.

'Yes. There's a part in there we're going to need, and I can't get it myself,' he said, gesturing to his eyes. 'Far too dangerous.'

'What part?'

'It's an unreality field generator. We can't try this without it. I'll wire it to the Tardis to give us a little reality bubble to fly in.'

'Can I go now?' Leah asked, excited.

'We'll go after we've salvaged all the other parts,' the Doctor told her. 'So for now, just wait in the Tardis and once I get back we can go there together.'

'Mmkay,' Leah said. 'Can I start reading about split space in case there's anything?'

'Good idea,' the Doctor said approvingly. 'The phenomena section of the library might have something in it. Before you do that, though, I'll need your help to fly the Tardis.'


Twenty minutes later everyone was ready, and Leah could barely contain her excitement.

Seth and Millennia had donned spacesuits, ready to venture out into the planet-wide junkyard. Everyone else was poised, prepared to follow Uncle Jack to the engineering deck. Leah was bouncing from foot to foot, almost contorting with the sheer excitement of her first full lone flight of the TARDIS.

'Right, this'll be Leah's first unaccompanied full flight where I can't see anything, so it'll probably be a bit bumpy,' her daddy advised everyone standing in the console room. 'In short - hold onto something.'

'Like it wasn't bumpy before?' Uncle Jack joked, and Leah watched as everyone obligingly braced, leaving her and her daddy by the console. She looked up at him, waiting for the order.

'Leah, go for it. Navigational input,' he commanded, leaning forward on the console with his hands resting on the navigational lock lever, feeling it out.

'Okay!' She bounced forward to the geographical and interstellar destination controls, and began to program the coordinates.

'Tell me what you're doing,' her daddy said.

'Um, putting in our current and destination spatial and temporal coordinates.'

'And what are they?'

'Vector 77, quadrant 55, 4536983 spatial location, and 7345 temporal location, and destination is 12 24 9724330 2199.'

'Good.'

With flair, Leah punched in the coordinates, making sure she was doing everything exactly right. 'Done it,' she announced proudly.

'So what next?'

'You can lock in the navigational locks now, Daddy, you're by the button.'

Her daddy promptly did it, and the TARDIS gave a loud jolt. 'Sounded like a very good thunk, she's calculated the epsilon coordinates,' he noted. 'Right, what's stage two?'

'Ummm … We need to tell the Tardis to feed the coordinates into the course acceptance unit using the input bar.'

'Brilliant, go on, then,' her daddy encouraged.

She eagerly reached up to the input bar and did just that. There followed a satisfying beep.

'Stage three?' he prompted.

'I need to activate the Vortex Primer with the transit switch, then the booster switches. Then I need to push up everything.'

'Yep, but careful you don't overrev. We need to find the biting point. You'll get a feel for it eventually but for now you can watch the monitor.'

'Okay!' Leah said happily, looking between the switches and the monitor.

'Tell me when it's green.'

'Err … now!'

'Max all the switches. Done?'

'Yeah.'

'Right, what next?'

'Master dematerialisation switch,' Leah said, bouncing around to it. 'Can I do it now?'

'Wait. Final checks. No error messages?'

'Um …' Leah checked the monitor briefly. 'No.'

'All lights green? Does she sound okay?'

'Err, no lights and um … I dunno.'

'Listen,' her daddy said, closing his eyes with his finger in the air. 'What can you hear?'

She listened. 'Umm … nothing?'

'Listen harder.'

She did. After a few moments, very faintly, she could hear a strange high-pitched humming that was slightly different to the usual background noise.

'What is that?' Leah wondered, looking up at the central column where the noise seemed to be emanating from.

'That's a happy TARDIS,' her daddy told her. 'Bit like a cat purring.'

'What you on about?' her granny suddenly complained, 'I can't hear nothin'.'

'It's telepathic and attuned to gallifreyan frequencies,' her daddy informed her.

'So that means everything is okay?' Leah asked.

'Yep. Anything other than that exact noise then something's wrong, and everything should be reset before trying again.'

'Okay.'

'Right, activate the switch.'

She did. There was a clunk.

'Just the handbrake to go.'

'Can I?' Leah asked eagerly.

'Go for it.'

She stretched up - only just about managing to reach it - and flipped. There was a very loud clunk, and the rotor promptly began to pulse with the familiar sound of ancient engines throbbing and warping. Everyone reaffirmed their grip to steady themselves.

'Right we're in the vortex, now,' her daddy said. 'For the most part it'll automatically take care of itself but keep a hand on the anti-collision control and watch the monitor so we don't hit anything.'

'Okay,' Leah said, fixing her eyes on the monitor. Ten seconds without incident passed, before the TARDIS jolted and clunked in the sure signal she'd landed. Leah beamed.

'Check the monitor, where are we?' her daddy prompted.

'Err … yeah. Altruvia Junkyard,' Leah confirmed.

'Readouts?'

'Err, 5% oxygen, 15% gamma radiation, 67% helium. It's a Tuesday evening at about 10 o'clock in the evening.'

'Excellent,' her daddy said happily. 'I like Tuesday evenings. That was perfect.''

She beamed, as proud as punch. He dropped to her, holding out his arms. She ran into them, hugging him tightly. Theo decided to join in for good measure in a family hug as everyone around them applauded.

'Right, Millennia and Seth - get into spacesuits,' her daddy ordered when the moment was over.

Leah looked at them both - they were already changed. 'Daddy, they're already in spacesuits.'

'Ah, then I need to get into a spacesuit,' her daddy corrected, running a quick hand over himself as if to check he wasn't wearing one already. 'Err, Jackie? Could you …'

'Sweetheart, I ain't got the faintest idea how you put on a spacesuit,' her granny told her daddy.

'I'll do it,' Uncle Jack said, and moved forward to take her daddy's arm. 'This way. You guys get out there and start hunting.'

'Je?' Millennia asked in gallifreyan, somewhat confused as to what was being said in the language she couldn't understand.

'Paa'sashia ce'sitiknia oli, tera eon'i'ber rio,' Leah told her in gallifreyan.

Daddy is putting the spacesuit on, but you can go now.

'Kinok,' Millennia replied, smiling.

Thank you.

She and Seth put their helmets on, and in sync they locked them in place with a deft and decisive click, before heading out of the TARDIS doors to the junkyard outside. Intrigued, Leah ran to the door to take a look, peeking around the edge to the sight of piles and piles of junk stretching seemingly forever. It was dark and still, and it didn't take long until Millennia and Seth disappeared into the murky night together, clutching their lists.

'I'm going to the library!' she announced once her curiosity was sated, and ran past the group of people to go into the depths of the TARDIS and begin her research.


'Okay, breath in,' Jack ordered.

'Jack I know I haven't worn a spacesuit in a long time but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be this - ah - tight!' the Doctor complained.

Jack ignored him. 'Y'know, you're perfectly capable of putting this on yourself if you just tried, you're not suddenly completely useless just cos you're blind. You're actively choosing not to do this.'

'I know, I just … need my first day to be an easy one,' the Doctor confessed.

'Don't suppose your vision's got any better?' Jack wondered.

'Nope,' the Doctor said, and yelped as Jack pulled on another strap so hard the Doctor swore nearly dislocated his shoulder. 'Wow, you're rough.'

'Yeah, I can be pretty rough,' Jack joked flirtatiously.

'Jack,' the Doctor warned lowly.

'Oh, come on,' Jack protested. 'Hey, Leah did well. She's pretty good at flying.'

'She is,' the Doctor agreed. 'Sickening, isn't it? Took me ages to learn.'

'Some would argue you still haven't,' Jack jested, and pulled particularly hard on another strap on the spacesuit.

'Ow!' the Doctor moaned.

'You're really focused on getting her to learn all this, aren't you?' Jack said, ignoring him again.

'Yeah. She needs to know everything. Because she'll survive - I'll make sure of that - but there's a very real possibility I might die. And if I do, the Tardis physically and biologically becomes her's. The Tardis needs to know that Leah isn't going to hurt her. I need them all to take care of each other after I'm gone.'

Jack uncharacteristically fell silent for a moment, pausing his adjustments on the spacesuit.

'Jack?' the Doctor prompted.

'You're not going to die,' Jack said eventually.

The Doctor didn't answer that directly. 'I've got to prepare for the possibility.'

'I thought we talked about this? You giving up is just about this worst thing that can happen, Doc.'

'No, I'm not giving up,' the Doctor said quickly. 'I'm being pragmatic.'

'Right.'

'Jack, we're about to fly into one of the most hostile regions of space blind, both physically and metaphorically. I'm riddled with a disease that will kill me if I can't cure myself. I'm really, really going to try not to die because being alive is one of my favourite pastimes, but there is a very huge chance that I'll be dead in three months and I'm not leaving the kids or any of you behind without a clue what to do next.'

Jack paused again, and then sighed. 'Okay. I get it.'

'Do you?' the Doctor wondered.

'Yeah. I do, actually. Sorry, you're right. I've just realised. This is your version of a will.'

'Yes.'

Jack resumed doing up the straps. 'Well, do what you gotta do, but I've spent the last eight years saving your butt, and that's what I'm gonna keep on doing.'

'Wouldn't have it any other way.'

'All right, you're suited,' Jack said, and handed him the helmet. 'I'll take you to the door and get the others to the engineering deck.'


The Doctor finally emerged out of the TARDIS onto the junkyard planet. He couldn't see anything in the complete lack of light. He tapped the side of his helmet to activate the communication channel. 'I'm here, where is everyone?'

'In front of you,' Seth's voice came back through the channel, and half a second later there came the beeping of a proximity alert in his helmet to signify two people were within a metre of him.

'Good. Millennia?'

'Here,' her voice replied.

'What's that beeping I can hear?' Seth wondered.

'Proximity alert - goes off when there's something organic within a metre of you. We rejigged it last night to go off if there's an item on your list nearby to try and compensate for the dark, too. Oh, and watch out the security bots, they don't like scavengers. Just hide if they get near you.'

'Wouldn't it have been easier to come here when it's light?' Seth posited.

'Couldn't, the sun's radiation would penetrate our spacesuits in the daytime,' the Doctor explained. 'But we've got eight hours of oxygen, so should be more than enough. Just listen for your proximity alert, and did Jack give you the map?'

'Yeah,' Seth replied.

'He should've marked out areas where you'll find what's on your list,' the Doctor said.

'Yeah, first one's close, actually. I'll go have a look, see you later.'

'Good luck.'

One of the beeps of the proximity alert disappeared, leaving just one - Millennia.

'Go together?' Millennia proposed.

'Oh, definitely,' the Doctor agreed with a grin, reaching out. She obligingly took his hand and they slowly began to walk together. The Doctor felt out the controls on the side of his helmet to turn off the proximity alert for her to get rid of the constant beeping, and adjusted his communication channel so they were speaking only to each other. 'So, how are you finding it?'

'It?'

'On the Tardis,' he clarified.

'Oh, yeah, it's been amazing,' Millennia said happily. 'Everyone's been really welcoming. I just really need to learn some Earthish.'

'English,' the Doctor corrected.

'What?'

'They're speaking in English,' he clarified. 'Earth has around … six thousand five hundred languages.'

'Really? What's their population?'

'Err, 2016 … around seven and a half billion.'

'Wow. Gallifrey had nine billion and we only had eight.'

He laughed. 'Humans love language.'

'But yes. I'd like to be able to speak to them. I don't know anything of what they're saying half the time, I just nod and smile. Leah's been translating a lot for me.'

'Oh, she'll do that,' the Doctor mused.

She laughed. 'She's very smart. Can't believe she came out of you.'

'Me neither,' he agreed.

They laughed, and there was an ensuing brief pause. 'Sorry can I ask an awkward question?'

'Awkward questions? Love 'em. Fire away.'

'How did you get the kids I mean, did you use a loom?'

'Err … no. All natural.'

'Rose birthed them?'

'Well, that's up for debate, but essentially yes,' the Doctor confirmed.

'Sorry for all the awkward questions, but it's just so '

'Weird?' the Doctor completed.

'Well yes.'

'Oh, I know,' the Doctor assured her. 'It's really not lost on me just how weird this all is.'

'You've really got into all this human stuff, haven't you?'

'What can I say? I've been trying to escape for 800 years but they keep dragging me back,' the Doctor replied jokingly.

'But you've actually fallen in love with Rose?'

'Yes.'

'I mean, I'm talking to the boy who wrote a treatise on the chromosomal origins of romantic love to prove that every part of the experience is explained and predicted by chemicals and genetics, aren't I?'

He smirked. 'Yes, you are.'

'But I suppose you're not him anymore.'

'Is that a bad thing?'

She paused briefly. 'No. Definitely not,' she said softly.

The ensuing pause was just slightly too long.

'There's some strange stuff here,' Millennia said. 'Oh, that looks odd.'

'What are you looking at?'

'It's a sort of big cone-shaped thing with a stalk on the top and a whisk and a plunger attached to the body.'

The Doctor froze. She was describing a Dalek. 'Is it moving?' he asked quickly.

'No. Looks like there's something inside it though '

'Don't touch it,' the Doctor said quickly, anxiously. 'Back away.'

'Why, what is it?'

'A Dalek.'

'A what?'

'Too much explanation for the time being, just … leave it be,' the Doctor warned. 'We need to evacuate right now.'

'Nei'Veeto, it's dead, don't worry,' she said.

'Are you sure?'

'Yes. Whatever's inside is rotten.'

He relaxed a little. 'Okay.'

'What's a Dalek?'

He swallowed. 'Remember I told you about the Time War?'

'Yes?'

'The Daleks were on the other side.'

'Oh.'

That ended that particular avenue of conversation. 'Is the casing intact?' he asked.

'Not completely, but a good amount.'

'Are there some bumps on the casing?'

'Yes.'

The Doctor pulled out his sonic from a pouch on his spacesuit, holding it out for her to take. 'See if you can get a few of them off. At least five.'

'Okay,' Millennia replied as the sonic was plucked from his fingers. 'What are they?'

'Sense globes. They've got a really powerful containment field capability which could be useful.'

He couldn't hear anything in his spacesuit, but in his extremely partial sight he glimpsed a bit of blue light as Millennia set to work.

'Got one,' she announced. 'Oh, they're lighter than they look. I'll put them in my bag.'

'How are you finding having a body again?' the Doctor wondered as she continued harvesting the sense globes.

'Bit strange,' she confessed. 'I've remembered the basics. All that washing and brushing your teeth. Don't really need to do any of that when you're part of a computer.'

He grinned. 'Suppose not. Anything you need?'

'No, I'm fine,' she said.

'Sure?'

'Well ... could do with some clothes.'

'Ah. Just check the wardrobe and use whatever fits,' the Doctor told her. 'We should …' He stopped himself as a proximity alert suddenly rang out in his helmet. He frowned. 'My proximity alert's going off but it can't be an item on my list.'

'I can't see anything nearby.'

The beeping continued. 'It's still going. Someone's here. Seth?'

No answer.

'Let me just get my torch out and '

Millennia suddenly stopped talking, and there was complete silence.

'Millennia?' the Doctor asked quickly.

No reply.

'Millennia!' the Doctor cried more urgently as his hearts began to pound.

Nothing.

He forced his eyes wide - trying to see - but it was a complete sea of darkness. With his suit on he couldn't hear anything either, and there was no dull blue light of the sonic to follow. He threw out his hands, trying to feel for her, and eventually found something. An arm.

There was a loud electric buzz and Millennia's voice came back. 'Whoops, sorry, I tripped over something and took out the communicator.'

He breathed a sigh of relief, for a moment just holding onto her arm before he pulled it away, slightly embarrassed at just how much he'd panicked. 'Got 'em yet?' he asked quickly to distract her.

'Oh, yes, I've got seven of them,' she replied.

'Oh good, more than enough,' he said. 'Right, busy busy busy. Better keep searching. My proximity alert is still going.'

'Must have short circuited,' she reasoned.

He held out his hand to receive the sonic, and adjusted the settings by touch. He quickly did a burst on his comms and the proximity alert stopped.

'Fixed,' he said. 'Let's make a start on the lists.'


Jack had led his group to the engineering decks of the TARDIS, which looked like a warehouse - a huge space lined with rows upon rows of shelves for as far as the eye could see, stacked with all manner of strange-looking parts in a cacophony of mess.

'How the hell are we supposed to find anything in all this?' Mickey asked.

'Hold on,' Jack said, moving forward. 'Doctor said there's a search terminal somewhere.'

He quickly spotted the terminal on the right, and approached. As soon as he was within a metre it burst into life, with the gallifreyan letters flickering for a moment before blurring and switching to English. After a moment of digesting the system, Jack keyed in the reference map for each person's list.

'Right Mickey, you're in section 12a, Martha it's 8b, and Ianto you're in 14z,' Jack reeled off.

'What happens if we get lost?' Ianto wondered seriously,

'Doctor said if you keep on the lines you can follow the green one back to this entrance,' Jack said.

They collectively looked down at the floor, where multicoloured taped lines were running from their feet and snaking through the shelves, clearly rough enough to have been done by the Doctor's hand rather than a machine. 'He's put down tape?' Martha said, laughing.

'He said he once got lost in here for three months and ended up having to eat some putty in the walls,' Jack told them. 'Then he put down the tape after.'

Martha sighed. 'I really wish you were joking.'

Jack smirked. 'Right back here in three hours. Good luck.'

They all nodded and left their separate ways, following the signs. He then keyed in his list to get the map reference, but half a second later the screen froze, and was replaced by some block of red text in gallifreyan.

He dug out his communicator. 'Hey Doc?'

'Hello?'

'I'm at the terminal in the engineering section and it sorta, froze and crashed and now it's got a red alert message on it in gallifreyan.'

'What does it say?'

'How the hell would I know?'

'Good point. Hold on.' The Doctor fell silent for a moment, before his voice came back. 'Send an image to my relay, I'll see if I can project it to Millennia.'

Jack obliged, taking the picture with his phone and sending it over. It took a few seconds.

'Millennia says it's just crashed. Press the button on the right-hand side of the screen - looks a bit like an hourglass - and it should reboot.'

'Okay.' Jack briefly panned the keyboard and then hit the indicated button. 'How goes your easter egg hunt? Good?'

'Oh yes, got a few bits and pieces,' the Doctor replied.

'Good. No problems?'

'Not too bad the proximity alert keeps going off when there's nothing there like I'm surrounded by ghosts, I've tripped over a few times and nearly impaled myself on a bit of old ship, oh, and there's a Dalek.'

Jack didn't quite know what to pick apart first in that sentence. 'You … there's a Dalek?'

'It's dead.'

'I figured. What the hell's a Dalek doing there?'

'I've got no idea. Could be useful though, it's got these ah!'

The Doctor cut himself off with a yelp.

'Doc!?' Jack asked urgently.

'Eon'fola ' Millennia's voice came through. 'Eon'alok?'

'Shii,' the Doctor finally said. 'Ow.'

'What the hell happened?'

'Tripped over again.'

Jack sighed. 'You all right, though?'

'Oh, peachy, thanks,' the Doctor replied. 'We'd better get on.'

'Okay. See you in a couple of hours. Don't fall off a cliff.'

'Aye aye, cap'n,' the Doctor replied incincerely, and Jack switched off the communicator.