I love Susan and she's been slept on by New Who, so I'm fixing it. As with all time lord regenerations from what we can tell, while she is essentially the same, there are slight differences to her personality and interests. She is still the Susan Foreman/Campbell we all know and love, just... new.

Doctor Who is owned by BBC and... whoever the writer was at this point. It is not mine and I do not make money off of this. I get my transcripts from Forever Dreaming ( . ?f=53). They are not my work.

Thank you all for reading. 3

Susan woke up to the feeling of another quake. While this wasn't an uncommon phenomenon, it certainly wasn't appreciated. She had been up late last night translating and desperately needed the sleep. She heard her comm crackling and grabbed it. Before Zach - as that was surely who it was - could even get a word in edgewise, she called out, "I'm fine. Woke me up, but no damage to me or my area as far as I can tell."

The man gave a weak laugh at her snippy (but expected) response. "Well, if you're up already, would you care to come down to the control room. There's something here you may want to see."

She sighed, hoisting herself back up, "Fine, but if you all are simply gonna have me see how long I can stare into that stupid thing, you're all gonna be sorely disappointed."

The shut off her comm to the sound of Zach's laughter and stood. She ran a hand through her untamable, firey hair, pulled her suspenders back onto her shoulders, affixed her goggles on her face (because like it or not, she was terribly sighted this time around), grabbed her notebook, and head out.

The walk to the control room was quick. Inside, she saw - oddly enough - two people. They were talking with Zach and Ida about the craziness of the planet.

"That's the black hole officially designated K-three-seven Gen five," Zach said.

"In the scriptures of the Falltino, this planet is called Kroptor. The-"

"Bitter Pill." Susan walked up to the group, grinning at Ida. "Sorry to interrupt, but this is sort of my specialty." She glances at the two newcomers. "As I was saying, it's called the Bitter Pill. The black hole was supposedly a mighty demon who was tricked into eating the planet, but it spit it back out because it was poison. So, here it remains." She stuck a hand out. "Susan Campbell, Resident Historian and Chief Anthropologist. I work with Toby."

The female of the duo - a pretty blonde - smiled and took her hand. "The Bitter Pill. I like that. And, Rose Tyler. Pleasure."

The man, however, seemed too caught up in his thoughts for small talk. He stared at the hologram. "We are so far out. Lost in the drifts of the universe, how did you even get here?"

"We flew in. You see," Zach changed the hologram, "This planet's generating a gravity field. We don't know how, we've no idea, but… it's kept constant balance against the black hole. And the field extends out there. As a funnel. A distinct… gravity funnel, reaching out into clear space. That was our way in."

Rose was grinning. "You flew down that thing? Like a rollercoaster."

"That's one way to put it," Susan griped.

"By rights, the ship should've been torn apart. We lost the Captain… which is what put me in charge."

Susan placed a hand on his shoulder as Ida said, "You're doing a good job."

"Yeah, well, needs must."

"But," Danny piped up, "if that gravity funnel closes, there's no way out."

Susan rolled her eyes. "You didn't need to bring it up again, Dan."

Scooti, meanwhile, commented, "We had fun speculating about that."

"Oh, yeah, that's the word." Danny swung at Scooti's head with the scroll he held. "'Fun'."

Susan moved to the side to stand next to Danny as the new man (who's name she has still yet to learn) started talking science. She, of course, understood it, but - in her mind at least - it was just a headache and an existential crisis waiting to happen.

She watches with interest as Rose receives her drink from one of the Ood (Ood seven Gamma sixty seven) and attempts to make conversation. She even asked for their name. It was something she had never seen a human outside of the Friends of the Ood do. It was because of this that she perked up a little when the girl approached Danny.

"Uhm, what are they called?" Rose gestured towards the Ood.

Danny looked shocked. "Oh, come on. Where've you been living? Everyone's got one!"

He quickly got an elbow to the side and a sharp, "Watch it, Danny." Susan then looked at Rose. "They're called the Ood."

"The 'Ood'?"

Susan laughed. "Yes, the Ood."

"Well, that's… ood."

"Very ood," Danny piped up, "but handy. They work the mine shafts. All the drilling and stuff. Supervision, and maintenance! They're born for it. Basic slave race."

Susan bit her cheek and clenched her fist at that assessment, but didn't say anything. She knew it wouldn't make a difference. The use of Ood labor and the view of the Ood as tools was something so ingrained into this society, there was very little that a less than four-hundered-year-old Time Lord without a TARDIS could do about it.

Luckily for her, it seemed that she didn't need to do anything this time.

"You've got slaves?" Rose looked, to put it simply, pissed.

"Don't start, she's like one of that lot. Friends of the Ood," Scooti called from the side.

"Well maybe I am, yeah. Since when do humans need slaves?"

"But the Ood offer themselves," Danny retorted. "If you don't give them orders, they just pine away and die."

As an Ood walked towards her, Rose frowned. "Seriously? You like being ordered around?"

Susan's hearts wept as it responded, "We have nothing else in life."

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

Susan offered her a smile just as Rose's companion finished his calculations.

"There we go. D'you see? To generate that gravity field, and the funnel, you'd need a power source with an inverted self-extrapolating reflex of six to the power of six every six seconds."

Susan murmured the numbers to herself as the man recited them. She had done the math way back when they had first arrived. She knew it was impossible, just as much as he clearly did. Yet, here it was.

"That's a lot of sixes," Rose commented.

"And it's impossible."

While Zach let out a surprised, "It took us two years to work that out," which wasn't entirely true, Susan simply retorted, "According to Sherlock Holmes, the fact that we're standing here means you're wrong."

She got an odd look from the man, but he responded cockily to Zach. "I'm very good."

"But," Ida butted in, "that's why we're here. This power source is ten miles below through solid rock. Point Zero. We're drilling down to try and find it."

The crew began to grow excited at the concept of it. "It's giving off readings of over ninety stats on the Blazen Scale."

"We could revolutionize modern science."

"We could use it to fuel the Empire."

Then, the man spoke up. "Or start a war."

Toby scoffed. "Oh, don't start. You sound just like Campbell."

The man glanced at her, an eyebrow cocked. She just shrugged and crossed her arms in front of her, trying to pass it off as a casual motion than her holding herself. "All evidence says that it was placed there. No one puts something in a place like this without reason."

The man nodded.

"Whatever it is down there is not a natural phenomenon. And this, er, planet once supported life. Eons ago, before the human race had even learned to walk."

The man perked up. "I saw that lettering written on the wall. Did you do that?"

Toby nodded. "I copied it from fragments we found on earth by the drilling, but I can't translate it. That has always been Susan's thing."

She blushed and rubbed at the back of her neck. "I'm no linguist, so it's not that quick going, but I have more than nothing."

The man nodded and grinned at her. "I'd love to take a look at it, if I could. Maybe I could help. I don't recognize it, but maybe with a basis to work off of"

"I'll take it if you think you can help."

"There was some form of civilization,": Toby added. "They buried something. Now it's reaching out. Calling us in."

The man grinned. "And you came."

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

The man's grin was fond as he spoke. "So, when it comes right down to it, why did you come here? Why did you do that? Why? I'll tell you why. Because it was there. Brilliant. Excuse me, ah, Zach, wasn't it?"

He nodded. "That's me."

"Just stand there, 'cos I'm gonna hug you. Is that alright?"

Susan gave the man an odd look - much like the rest of the crew. There had been no real prompt for the hug, but still, the man was asking for it.

"I s'pose so."

The man walked forward, arms open. "Here we go. Coming in." Then, he clutched the Captain close to him, grinning like a child on Christmas. "Ahh, human beings, you are amazing. Ha! Thank you."

As Susan frowned, the other crew members and Rose grinned. The man released Zach and Susan instinctively edged just a bit closer to the new man. She had to hold herself back from probing into his mind. Had they been anywhere else, she likely would have, but with all the Ood around, she doubted she could tolerate any more of their soulful, lost songs. Still, his comment about 'humans' was enough to keep her on edge.

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

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

"Oh, I've got this, uhm… this… it's hard to explain, it just sort of appears."

Rose spoke up. "We can show you, we parked down the corridor from, uhm… oh, what's it called? Uh, Habitation Area…"

"Three," the man supplied.

"Three. Three."

Zach frowned, and so did others as they caught onto what was happening. "Do you mean storage six?"

"Uh, it was a bit of a cupboard, yeah. Storage six, but you said…" It was painful to watch the horror dawn on him. "You said… You said storage five through eight."

Then, he ran down the hall, frantic. Rose followed after him, looking confused. She was shouting, "What is it? What's wrong?"

The others milled around awkwardly. They all couldn't help but feel bad. He may have been technically a trespasser, but now he was a forced crew member. It wasn't fun to get stranded places. She knew that all too well.

Susan walked over to Zach and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm gonna go get some more work done. I think I'm onto something. Remind him that if he wants to help, now that he's stuck here, that he can feel free to stop by the office."

Zach placed his hand over hers and squeezed. The young human knew enough about her past to know why she was taking her leave. "I'll do that. Try not to work yourself too hard. I know that you haven't been sleeping much these days."

Her confusion must have been visible, because he laughed. "You forget to dim the office lights."

She smiled. "Good to know. I'll make sure to do that next time."

They both laughed and she stepped away. She got a few smiles from her crewmates as she left the room, the computer announcing her departure.

She peeked her head into the office. "Toby? You in here?"

When there was no response, she walked fully into the room and glanced around. If she didn't have her Time Lord memory, she might not have noticed the missing scroll from the collection on the main desk.

That, along with the ever nearer power source, meant that he had likely retired to his room for the day, to puzzle over the older scroll until he fell asleep. She made a note to stop by his room that evening to drag him into his actual bed in an attempt to save his back.

She chuckled and made her way to the desk. She pulled out her notebook, one of the old scrolls, and went back to work.

The scrolls were all over the place, at best. The pictures made very little sense and she still didn't understand the language. With no understanding of the syntax or vocabulary of the language, it was impossible to decipher what it could possibly mean.

With her light humming softly, she let herself fall into a trance-like state as she tried to work through one of the hardest puzzles of her life.

She had been working for a few hours when her comm buzzed to life. It was Zach again. "Hey, we've got the Scarlet System out the window if you'd like to head down."

She rubbed at her eyes, squinting still from staring at text for hours. "Yeah… Yeah, I'll be right there."

She pulled a bit of 'food' from a small chest she kept under her bed and made her way down to the canteen. By the time she was finished with her food, she stepped into the large room as the window opened and the room was bathed in a soft red light.

She pinpointed it as she joined Ida and Rose and her friend in the center of the room. She stood beside Rose and pointed out into space. The girl jumped as Susan's hand entered her peripheral vision and the Time Lord chuckled. "There. On the edge."

There was a red light, a cloud of dust, being pulled into the black hole. It was beautiful if you didn't think about the fact that it was once an entire solar system.

"That red cloud… that used to be the Scarlet System. Home to the Peluchi, a mighty civilisation spanning a billion years… disappearing." Her voice was heavy with emotion. As she stared at the bright red light, she couldn't help but think of beautiful fields of red grass, of two brilliant suns shining in the sky, reflecting off the silver leaves. "Forever. Their planets and suns consumed."

Ida stepped forward on the other side of the group, staring in fascination. "Ladies and gentlemen… We have witnessed its passing."

Ida went to close it, as Susan pulled her arms around her and lowered her head, but the man stopped her. "Er, no, could you leave it open? ...just for a bit. I won't go mad, I promise."

"How would you know?" Ida asked, but she left it open. "Scooti, check the lock down. Jefferson, sign off the airlock seals for me."

As she gave the orders, the crew members went off to do as told. The human woman stopped next to Susan and squeezed her arm. "You'll be alright?"

Susan nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Fascinating sight, just… sad, is all."

Ida nodded and left her. She took a few moments to calm herself as the two new people talked quietly among themselves.

As she got a glance at the time, she figured it was as good a time as any to get Toby into bed properly. She gave the two a wave and took her leave.

As she stepped into the bedroom, she felt something off immediately. For one, it was empty. Sure, things had gone a bit crazy that day, but it wasn't like Toby to be off doing something late at night other than obsessively studying. The other thing was the file places on his desk. She walked over to it and picked it up.

"An expenditure…? Wasn't Scooti giving these out…?"

She winced as her own voice seemed to cause a spike of pain. 'Oh, great,' she thought. 'A headache. Just what I need.'

She rubbed at her temples and pulled her goggles down around her neck. This was what she got for spending so long staring at those scrolls, she supposed.

She sighed and placed the file back down, but just as she was making to leave the room to find Toby, the entire base shook. She was almost thrown to the ground as the computer screeched in its terrible, electronic voice, "Emergency hull breach. Emergency hull breach."

Her comm flared to life with Zach's voice. "Everyone, evacuate 11 to 13, we've got a breach!" Her eyes went wide as she bolted from the room and towards safety. "The base is open. Repeat: the base is open."

As she was running, she barely thought when she saw Toby, simply grabbing him by his sleeve and dragging him along with her. They found Jefferson and let themselves be led away to where everyone else seemed to have been gathering together. As Toby stumbled through the threshold, she didn't let go quickly enough and found herself tumbling to the ground.

As the computer relayed status reports, the new man was frantic. He raced over to them. "Everyone alright? What happened? What was it?"

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

"That wasn't a quake. What caused that?"

As they all talked, her headache flourished to new heights and she could barely keep track of all the conversation. She vaguely remembered Rose helping her and Toby to their feet. As Toby gets his bearings again, Rose puts an arm around her. "Are you alright?"

What comes from Susan's mouth at first doesn't quite make sense. It's a jumble of languages; various Earthen, Alien, and Dead languages come together to make a load of nonsense. She winced, then nodded her head slowly. She focused on her words as she spoke, "I'll be fine. This isn't my first study-induced migraine."

She chuckled a little, then decided against it when another burst of pain flew through her head. For now, she would actively ignore how the migraine she had now was nothing like the little aches and pains she could get sometimes from studying for too long. There were other things to worry about. Scooti, for one, who - if she had heard correctly - hadn't been found yet.

Rose nodded, but it was clear she didn't entirely believe her. It didn't take a psychic to tell that (though it may have helped). Rose kept her arm around Susan while offering a bent arm to Toby. "Come on. Come and have some Protein One."

They linked arms and started walking down the corridor, walking at a slow pace to compensate for Susan, whose state Toby had only just noticed.

"Oh, you've gone native."

"Oi, don't knock it. It's nice. Protein One with just a-" She snapped her fingers softly, much to Susan's delight. "-dash of Three."

When they got to Habitation Three, Susan took the chance to sit down while everyone bustled around her, trying to find the missing Trainee Maintenance. Whatever was happening to her was psychic, she had figured that much out. It felt as if something were shouting in her mind. Her carefully constructed mental blocks were being torn down bit by bit by something much more powerful than her and that was terrifying.

As she focused internally, she almost missed the revelation happening around her. Almost.

"I've found her."

Susan glanced up, trying to see the young girl, and followed everyone's gazes up to the window.

She wanted to vomit.

Floating there, in the vacuum of space, was the body of Scooti Manista.

"Oh, my God…" Rose gasped.

The man looked around to the rest of them. "Sorry. I'm so sorry."

As Jefferson reported her death to Zach, Susan stared out the window. She wanted to say she felt some deep, immense pain, but really… She felt nothing. Nothing but the ink bleeding another name onto the list of all she had lost. The only thing Susan could think was that Scooti was among some great names on that list.

"She was twenty… Twenty years old." Ida walked over to the controls and closed the shutters, blocking their view of the last of Scooti Manista, Trainee Maintenance.

"For how should Man die better than facing fearful odds?" Jefferson intoned. "For the ashes of his father… and the temples of his Gods."

Susan winced, but opened her mind briefly and hummed a funeral rite from Gallifrey. (What she failed to notice was the man - the Doctor - reacting briefly to it before deciding that it was simply his imagination.)

The room fell into a stifling silence. The crew members paused, listening to the nothingness.

"It's stopped," Ida said.

There was a crash in the distance, prompting Rose to ask, "What was that? What was it?"

"The drill," the man replied.

"We've stopped drilling. We've made it. Point Zero."

They were quick to prepare for the mission down. Susan tried to argue that she should be going down with Ida, but they all could see that she was in no shape for it. Instead, they all found the other suit occupied by the new man.

"Reporting as a volunteer for the expeditionary force."

"This is breaking every single protocol. We don't even know who you are."

"Yeah, but you trust me, don't you? You can't let Ida go down there on her own and Ms. Campbell is in no condition to go down there. Go on… look me in the eye… yes you do, I can see it. Trust."

Zach sighed, looking defeated. "I should be going down, then."

The man sighed. "The Captain doesn't lead the mission. He stays here. In charge."

"Not much good at it, am I?"

Although the man didn't respond, Susan but out a, "Bullshit," through the pain.

"Positions! We're going down in two. Everyone, positions!"

Zach began shouting commands to the crew as Susan curled up on herself. She could feel her headache lessening and dared to stand. She was wobbly, but it was enough to move forward to the rest of the group. Toby shot her a concerned glance, but she waved him off. They all stared at the screen as it indicated they reached Point Zero. She couldn't help the shiver that went up her spine.

There was talk between Rose and whoever was on the Comms, but she was too caught up in her head. While the headache was gone, she swore she could hear something telepathically. Not screaming, but… whispers.

"Oi, Toby, Susan, sounds like you've got plenty of work to do."

Susan responded just as Toby did, vague and distracted.

There was more talking around the room. Something about Basic 100, a trap door, and engravings. Susan wasn't paying that conversation, though. Instead, she was focused on the conversation she could hear in her head. Or, rather, someone else's head.

Whoever was receiving the conversation was clearly not a skilled psychic, as they were projecting it all over the place. She couldn't recognise the voices - they were too quiet - but she could just make out the words. It took a few times through (it was repeating, which really should have tipped her off from the beginning), but eventually, she could understand what it said.

Over the Comms, Zach asked, "Susan, Toby, did you get anywhere with decoding it?"

Toby didn't seem to hear, so Rose asked again, "Toby, they need to know, that lettering, does it make any sort of sense?"

She could hear his words before he said them, his thoughts still projecting from his spot in the corner as Susan's eyes widened. Instinctually, she spoke them aloud just as he did.

"I know what they say."

The scene, with the overlapping voices, was something out of a horror movie. Rose, however, didn't seem to notice the panic on Susan's face. "Then tell them."

It was Jefferson who noticed something off. "When did you work that out?"

"It doesn't matter," Rose argued, "just tell them."

Susan lurched forward towards them, desperate to stop them, but Toby stood and turned, speaking the words that echoed in her head. She almost fell to the ground in agony from the feedback loop.

"These are the words of the Beast. And he had woken. He is the heart that beats in the darkness, he is the blood that will never cease. And now he will rise."

Jefferson turned his gun on the vessel. "Officer, stand down. Stand down."

"That's not Toby anymore, Jefferson," she offered, weakly. "He won't listen to you."

He just kept going, though. "Officer, as commander of security, I order you to stand down and be confined. Immediately!"

As Rose reported what was happening to her companion through the Comms, "Toby" looked over them all and smirked, his eyes landing on Jefferson. "Mr. Jefferson, tell me, sir… did your wife ever forgive you?"

"I don't know what you mean," Jefferson lied.

"Let me tell you a secret," the possessed boy grinned a wide grin. "She never did."

"Officer… You stand down and be confined."

"Or what?"

"Or under the jurisdiction of Condition Red, I am authorized to shoot you."

"But how many can you kill?"

His eyes lit up and something shrieked in Susan's ears. A black smoke curled off him, taking the odd symbols with him. This smoke flew towards the Ood, who Jefferson pointed his gun at. They began to speak in unison. "We are the Legion of the Beast."

The words echoed in her mind, making her wince and almost fall over, if it had not been for Rose.

"The Legion shall be many. And the Legion shall be few. He has woven himself in the fabric of your life since the dawn of time. Some may call him Abaddon. Some may call him Kroptor. Some may call him Satan. Or Lucifer. Or the Bringer of Despair. The Deathless Prince. The Bringer of Night. These are the words that shall set him free."

She could feel herself being pulled away as the Ood approached, but she was too occupied with the words being projected into her head and into the air.

"I shall become manifest. I shall walk in might. My legions shall swarm across the worlds. I am the sin and the temptation. And the desire. I am the pain and the loss and the dead will come. I have been imprisoned for eternity. But no more. The Pit is open. And I am free."

It laughed.