Once the four were all back onboard the TARDIS, Vairë guided the ship back to Earth. She didn’t know what she was expecting to find. She hoped to find the Doctor waiting for her with a detailed explanation of what had happened with Donna and what he meant by saying ‘Bad Wolf.’ She also wouldn’t mind a declaration that he thought she’d done a great job, an explanation of why the hell she had never been able to reach him in France, full acceptance of Koschei as her brother and all around decent fellow, followed with maybe, just maybe a request for her forgiveness and an offer to cook dinner for her for the next century or two. She could feel the TARDIS agreeing with her in her mind. The ship was ready to be reunited with her erstwhile pilot but also wanted some explanations and apologies for the lengthy absence as well as why the ship had never been able to sense him clearly from the moment he rode through that mirror on the back of that bloody horse.
Vairë dashed out of the TARDIS as soon as they landed. She looked up and down the street. Everything seemed to be normal. It was morning. The milk man was making his deliveries. Querying the TARDIS, Vairë sighed. The ship could not sense the Doctor anywhere nearby at all.
“Excuse me,” she called out to the milk man. He looked at her in confusion. “What day is it?” she asked.
“Saturday,” he shouted back.
“Good, I like Saturdays,” Vairë muttered. Koschei and Donna were making their way out of the TARDIS. Vairë knew that her brother was not fond of returning to Earth on such short notice. After all, his alter ego Harold Saxon was still quite well known these days.
“So, I just met the Doctor,” Donna said flatly.
“Yeah,” Vairë said quietly. Where was the man? “Koschei, anything?” she asked. Maybe as a fellow Gallifreyan, her brother would be able to sense the other Time Lord’s presence.
“Nothing,” he sighed. “He’s not here.” The two siblings shared a look of mild shock and panic. The Doctor wouldn’t send a warning for no reason. He wouldn’t have said those words unless something dire was about to happen.
“The thing is, Vairë, no matter what’s happening, and I’m sure it’s bad, I get that but, you’ve finally found the Doctor,” Donna said calmly. “Isn’t that good?”
“Yeah,” Vairë said softly as she ducked back into the TARDIS. The other two followed her, closing the doors behind them. She placed her hands on the console and sent a telepathic request to her brother to join his mind to hers and let her try to amplify his native Gallifreyan connection with another Time Lord through the ship to try to find his old friend. No sooner had they started working on it than the TARDIS began to pitch wildly. All four of her passengers were thrown to the floor. When the shaking stopped, Vairë was the first to regain her footing. Rushing to the doors, she flung them open and stared out in empty space. Only a few rocks and motes of dust hung where the Earth had been.
“But we’re in space,” Donna gasped as she looked over Vairë’s shoulder. “How did that happen? What did you do?”
“Nothing. We’re fixed. The TARDIS is still in the same place but the Earth is gone. The whole planet. Just. Gone,” Vairë whispered hoarsely.
~*~*~*~
Back on Earth, the populace was trying to grasp what had happened. Those who had been awake going about their normal daily routines stared up at a dark sky filled with strange planets. Those who were on the night side of the Earth were slower to notice the change. Martha, in New York with UNIT working on Project Indigo, phoned Jack to see if he had any idea what was going on. She’d tried calling Vairë but had been unable to get through at all. Something was blocking the signal on that end. UNIT was currently tracking two hundred objects headed towards the Earth and had stood up to Condition Red. She let loose a breath of relief when Jack answered the phone.
“Martha Jones,” he grinned. “Voice of a nightingale. Tell me you put something in my drink.”
“No such luck, Jack,” she replied. “Have you heard from Vairë? Or the Doctor?”
“Nothing,” he sighed. “Where are you?”
“New York.”
“Oh. Nice for some.”
“I’ve been promoted to Medical Director on Project Indigo.”
“Did you get that thing working?” he asked anxiously.
“Indigo’s top secret,” Martha muttered. How did the Captain know anything about it?
“I met a soldier in a bar,” Jack bragged. Someone on his end must have given him a look. “It was strictly professional.”
“We’re receiving some kind of communication from the inbound objects,” Martha muttered. She could hear a woman saying much the same on the other end of the phone. Jack ordered her to play the communication. When Martha heard the metallic voice shouting “Exterminate,” she froze. It couldn’t be! Vairë had killed them! Several times!
Within minutes, the entire world was in chaos. The Daleks descended on the world and began taking out every military installation. The Valiant was lost. They headed towards New York. Martha could hear Jack shouting for her to get out of there. Instead, she was being led by her superior officer to the room where Project Indigo was kept in storage.
“Put it on. Fast as you can,” she was ordered over her own protests that it hadn’t been tested. In her ear, she could hear Jack shouting at her not to do it.
“Don’t use Project Indigo. It’s not safe!” he begged.
“You take your orders from UNIT, Doctor Jones. Not from Torchwood,” her superior reminded her.
“But why me?” Martha asked. This certainly wasn’t how she wanted to die.
“You’re our only hope of finding Vairë Carter. But failing that, if no help is coming, then with the power invested in me by the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, I authorize you to take this. The Osterhagen Key,” he said as he handed her a computer chip. Martha paled. She could feel clammy sweat forming on her palms as she took the Key. “You know what to do, for the sake of the human race.” Just then, the Daleks entered the corridor. “Doctor Jones, good luck.”
“Bye, Jack,” she whispered into the phone as she pulled the cords on the device and vanished in a flash of light. Jack’s voice ringing in her ear was the last thing she heard.
~*~*~*~
The Doctor appeared in a street that looked like something out of a Hollywood apocalypse movie. The sky was dark and filled with strange planets. People were going crazy, breaking into shops, looting, driving around and getting drunk. At Mickey and Pete’s insistence, for the first time in centuries, he carried a weapon. It was designed to fight Daleks – the only creatures capable of the level of technology that they were facing now that the Time Lords were gone. The off-chance of running into them was the only thing that could drive him to carry a weapon at all.
“Now we’re in trouble,” he muttered as he walked along the street. He felt something on his wrist and glanced down to see the Vortex Manipulator he’d been wearing for so long vanish. Despite the insanity around him, the Doctor smiled and laughed in relief. Rose. He would finally be able to get back to her and the TARDIS now.
Steeling himself for what might be about to come, the Doctor walked through the streets, looking for some place where he could get access to a computer terminal.
~*~*~*~
Back onboard the TARDIS, controlled panic ruled the day. Vairë was trying to remember exactly how to get to the Shadow Proclamation and Lucy was demanding that they take her back to Galliterra so she could be with her children. Koschei also wanted to return to Galliterra and alert the guards there to be on the look-out. Whatever had torn the Earth out of its position could very well be heading for them next. Vairë decided to take her family back home and see them safe before she tried to figure out exactly where the Earth might have been taken. The TARDIS, using every scan she had and some that she and Vairë were inventing on the spot, could find no trace of the missing planet.
“But if the Earth’s been moved, they’ve lost the Sun,” Donna worried. “What about my Mum? And Granddad? They’re dead, aren’t they? Are they dead?”
“I don’t know, Donna. I just don’t know. I’m sorry, I don’t know,” Vairë replied.
“That’s my family. My home world,” Donna said in disbelief.
“There’s no readings. Nothing. Not a trace. Not even a whisper. Oh, that is fearsome technology,” Koschei growled angrily.
“So what do we do?” Donna asked.
“We’ve got to get help,” Vairë answered.
“From where?”
“Donna, after I drop Lucy and Koschei off home, I’m taking you to the Shadow Proclamation. Hold tight,” Vairë said quickly as she placed her hands on the console and began to sing.
“I’m not letting you go off with only her,” Koschei muttered. “Lucy, alert the guards when you get back. Tell the kids that we’ll be home soon.” Lucy started to protest but then quieted. “I promise you, my love, we will all be home for dinner. My word on it.”
“See that you are,” she whispered. The TARDIS landed and she rushed out the doors. Then it dematerialized again, taking Vairë, Donna, and Koschei to the Shadow Proclamation.
“What is the Shadow Proclamation?” Donna asked.
“Posh name for police. Outer space police,” Vairë muttered as they materialized near the Shadow Proclamation’s outpost. The gravity generated from the headquarters drew them in and the ship dematerialized and reappeared safely inside.
“Here we go,” Koschei muttered as Vairë stepped outside the doors. Donna heard the report of guns being cocked. She stepped out and raised her hands like Vairë had. Koschei followed suit.
“Sco bo tro no flo jo ko fo to to,” one of the Judoon, the commander, said.
“No bo ho sho ko ro to so. Bokodozogobofopojo,” Vairë answered. The entire platoon went to attention. “Moho.”
The three were led to an open area. A woman with pale white skin, tightly-curled white hair, and red eyes sat before a table. Vairë and Koschei gave a brief explanation of who they were and why they were here.
“Time Lords are the stuff of legend. They belong in the myths and whispers of the Higher Species. You cannot possibly exist,” she muttered, staring at Koschei.
“Yeah. More to the point, I’ve got a missing planet,” Vairë interrupted. She had little desire to get into a contest of wills with the Architect of the Shadow Proclamation. They’d come here for assistance, not arguments.
“Then you’re not as wise as the stories would say. The picture is far bigger than you imagine. The whole universe is in outrage, Weaver. Twenty four worlds have been taken from the sky,” the Architect said dramatically.
“How many?” Vairë stammered. “Which ones? Show me!” she said as she walked behind the desk to stare at the Architect’s monitor.
“Locations range far and wide, but all disappeared at the exact same moment, leaving no trace,” the red-eyed woman said.
“Callufrax Minor. Jahoo. Shallacatop. Woman Wept. Clom. Clom’s gone? Who’d want Clom?” Vairë muttered. Koschei came to stand on the other side of the Architect. Donna wandered about aimlessly, worried about her own family still on Earth.
“All different sizes. Some populated, some not. But all unconnected.”
“What about Pyrovillia?” Donna asked, remembering what she’d heard in Pompeii.
“Who is the female?” the Architect demanded.
“Donna. I’m a Galliterran. Maybe not the stuff of legend but every bit as important as Time Lords, thank you,” she snarled at the Architect. “Way back, when we were in Pompeii, Lucius said Pyrovillia had gone missing,” she reminded Vairë. The blonde looked thoughtful.
“Pyrovillia is cold case. Not relevant,” the Judoon commander barked.
“How do you mean, cold case?” Donna pressed.
“The planet Pyrovillia cannot be part of this. It disappeared over two thousand years ago,” the Architect answered.
“Yes, yes, hang on. But there’s the Adipose breeding planet, too. Miss Foster said that was lost, but that must’ve been a long time ago,” the Galliterran woman muttered.
“That’s it! Donna, brilliant!” Vairë shouted. “Planets are being taken out of time as well as space. Let’s put this into 3-D.” She began fiddling with the input controls on the computer. Over the table, holograms of the missing planets appeared. “Now, if we add Pyrovillia and Adipose Three. Something missing. Where else, where else, where else? Where else lost, lost, lost, lost. Oh! The Lost Moon of Poosh,” Vairë said, snapping her fingers. She added in the missing moon and the planets suddenly rearranged themselves in the display.
“What did you do?” the Architect asked.
“Nothing. The planets rearranged themselves into the optimum pattern,” Koschei answered.
“Oh, look at that. Twenty seven planets in perfect balance. Come on, that is gorgeous,” Vairë said with a soft grin.
“Oi, don’t get all spacegirl,” Donna growled. “What does it mean?”
“All those worlds fit together like pieces of an engine. It’s like a powerhouse. What for?” Koschei explained as he studied the display. Vairë looked just as lost.
“Who could design such a thing?” the Architect wondered.
“Someone tried to move the Earth once before. Long time ago,” Koschei said quietly, sharing a glance with his sister.
“Can’t be,” she protested.
“What?” Donna asked.
“No, it can’t be,” Vairë insisted as she continued to study the display.
~*~*~*~
Wilf and Sylvia made their way quietly through the street next to their own. The Daleks were rounding up the people on this street but for what, Wilf didn’t know. He knew that the aliens always seemed to want the women and children but Sylvia had refused to stay put inside their house. Instead, she was following him through the street.
“All humans will leave their homes. The males, the females, the descendants. You will come with us. Resistance is useless,” one of the Daleks ordered coldly.
“Where are you taking us?” one of the men demanded.
“Daleks do not answer human questions. Stand in line.”
“Dad, please, come home. They’re leaving our street alone,” Sylvia whispered in terror.
“Yeah, I’ve got a weapon,” Wilf said, hefting his rifle.
“It’s a paint gun,” Sylvia pointed out.
“Exactly. Them Dalek things, they’ve only got one eye. A good splodge of paint, they’d be blinded.”
“We’re not going,” one of the men shouted at the Daleks. “Do you hear me? Laura, get back inside the house. Simon, get inside. Go!” he hefted a brick from one of the ruined houses and hurled it at the Dalek, hitting it and leaving a ding on the creature’s metal shell. “Get back in the sky! Get back where you came from and leave us alone!” he shouted as he ran back into the house with his wife and son.
“Dalek attack formation seven,” the Dalek ordered his brothers. “Maximum extermination.” Three of the Daleks turned and fired their weapons at the house. It blew up, raining debris down on the rest of the people in the street.
“They’re monsters,” Wilf snarled.
“Please, Dad. Come home,” Sylvia pleaded. Wilf nodded and let his daughter lead him away. He only had one shot and there were too many of those creatures for him to risk wasting his shot here. As he and Sylvia made their way towards their street, they stopped in fright when they saw another Dalek staring at them, blocking their path.
“Halt. You will come with me,” the Dalek ordered.
“Will I heck,” Wilf muttered as he fired, hitting the creature right in the eye. For a second, the elderly man was elated. Then the paint boiled away and the creature began readying its weapon.
“My vision is not impaired,” the Dalek replied.
“I warned you, Dad,” Sylvia moaned.
“Hostility will not be tolerated. Exterminate. Exterminate. Exter…” just then, the shrill discharging of a weapon filled the air followed by the explosion of the Dalek’s armor. Wilf looked over the smoking remains to see a tall, thin man in a pinstriped suit looking at him. He was holding a large energy rifle in his hands. His brown eyes were dark with disgust as he glared at the creature.
“Do you want to swap?” Wilf asked hopefully, holding up his paint gun.
“You’re Donna Noble’s family, right? I’m the Doctor, and I need you,” the man said calmly. Wilf nodded at him and gestured for the man to walk with them while they made their way back to their own house. The house was in disarray. Most of their belongings were in boxes while they waited for Vairë and Donna to return and pick them up. Sylvia had put it about that Donna had recently met a rich gentleman who lived in the Caribbean and that they were all going to stay with him for a while. She’d enjoyed dolling up the tale, talking about how they would get to see the world, traveling about in his private airplane. She just hoped that Donna would go along with it. Right now, Sylvia was the envy of all her friends.
“I’ve tried calling her, but I can’t get through,” Wilf said once they were back inside the house. He handed his phone to the Doctor. “But she’s still with Vairë, I know that much, and the last time she phoned, it was from a planet called Midnight, made of diamonds.”
The Doctor looked at the phone carefully. It hadn’t been modified at all. Reaching for his sonic, he made some adjustments and then tried calling the number listed for Donna. Nothing. He sighed and ran a hand through his chestnut hair. “You’re my last hope. If we can’t find Donna, we can’t find Rose. Where is she?” he wondered. She should have gotten his message and been here on Earth waiting for him. “Don’t keep me waiting forever,” he grimaced. He could sense the TARDIS but it was distant and fuzzy as if something were pulling him or his ship slightly out of sync with each other. Focusing on that, he tried to send a message to his ship, praying that Rose and Donna would be onboard and able to join him soon.
~*~*~*~
“Donna, come on, think. Earth. There must’ve been some sort of warning. Was anything happening back in your day, like electrical storms, freak weather, patterns in the sky?” Koschei asked as he walked around the holographic display, trying to make heads or tails of what the thing was doing.
“Well, how should I know? I’ve been gone a while,” she grimaced, thinking. “Er, no. I don’t think so, no.”
“Okay, never mind,” Koschei said pleasantly. He didn’t mean to be so hard on her but he was worried.
“Although, there were the bees disappearing,” Donna muttered.
“The bees disappearing,” Koschei repeated, deadpan.
“The bees disappearing,” Vairë said thoughtfully.
“The bees disappearing!” the two said together, looking at each other with excitement.
“How is that significant?” the Architect demanded.
“On Earth we had these insects. Some people said it was pollution or mobile phone signals,” Donna explained, wondering where to start.
“Or, they were going back home,” Vairë said as she fiddled with the controls again.
“Back home where?” Donna asked.
“Planet Melissa Majoria,” Vairë replied.
“Are you saying bees are aliens?” Donna scoffed.
“Don’t be so daft,” Koschei snorted.
“Not all of them,” Vairë said, speaking over her brother. “But if the migrant bees felt something coming, some sort of danger, and escaped? Tandocca.”
“The Tandocca Scale,” the Architect said in awe. Donna looked confused.
“Tandocca Scale is the series of wavelengths used as a carrier signals by migrant bees. Infinitely small,” Vairë explained. “No wonder we didn’t see it. It’s like looking for a speck of cinnamon in the Sahara, but look, there it is. The Tandocca trail. The transmat that moved the planets was using the same wavelength, we can follow the path.”
“And find the Earth? Well, stop talking and do it!” Donna laughed.
“I am,” Vairë muttered. She finished whatever it was she needed to do on the display and then ran back into the TARDIS. Donna and Koschei followed on her footsteps. “We’re a bit late. The signal’s scattered, but it’s a start,” Vairë muttered. She shoved her fists in the air in triumph when the TARDIS picked up the signal. Ducking outside, she reported her findings to the Architect. “I’ve got a blip. It’s just a blip, But it’s definitely a blip.”
“Then according to the Strictures of the Shadow Proclamation, I will have to seize your transport and your technology,” the Architect said triumphantly.
“Oh, really? What for?” Vairë asked curiously.
“The planets were stolen with hostile intent. We are declaring war, Weaver, right across the universe, and you will lead us into battle!”
“Right,” Vairë said hollowly. “Yes. Course I will. I’ll just go and get you the key.” She ducked back into the TARDIS and closed the door behind her. Placing her hands on the console, she began to sing, directing the ship to where the signal ended. She could hear the Architect ordering her to stop as the TARDIS vanished from the building.
~*~*~*~
The Doctor liked Wilfred Mott but he was about ready to shout at Sylvia Noble. The laptop showed him a meeting between Martha Jones, Jack Harkness, Harriet Jones, and Sarah Jane Smith. The four of them were coordinating their efforts to send a signal through to the TARDIS. He himself was concentrating so hard on his bond with the ship that he wondered why it hadn’t already materialized nearby. He could sense the TARDIS but it kept flickering in his mind. The Daleks had somehow isolated this area of space, bringing it out of sync with the rest of the universe. Focusing all of his energy on the bond, he tried again and again to pull his ship through to him while the others sent their signal out using the Subwave Network.
~*~*~*~
Donna stared at Vairë. The blonde was slumped over the console. Any other woman would have been weeping for frustration but Vairë had just gone limp. Her eyes were unfocused as she tried to figure out how the signal could have stopped dead here in the Medusa Cascade. The TARDIS was quiet as well, as if she were concentrating. Vairë knew that her sister was picking up something but that it kept flickering, making it difficult to pin down. Vairë, through her own bond with the ship, could sense it as well. Whatever or whoever it was, they were calling out to the ship and to her at the same time.
“Find me,” the voice whispered. “Find me.”
Just then, the silence on the ship was shattered by Martha’s phone ringing.
“Phone!” Vairë shouted, jumping to her feet. She answered it, not recognizing the number that was calling. “Martha, is that you?” she pulled the phone away and looked at it, her eyes lighting up. “It’s a signal!”
“Can we follow it?” Donna asked. Vairë shared a look with her brother.
“Just watch me!” she laughed. The TARDIS began to shake violently as the two older Galliterrans worked to patch the signal through the navigation and use it as a tow-rope to pull themselves through. “Three, two, one,” Vairë shouted. The ship bucked violently and then grew calm. On the display, they could see the twenty-seven planets coming into view around them.
“Twenty seven planets. And there’s the Earth. But why couldn’t we see them?” Donna wondered.
“The entire Medusa Cascade has been put a second out of sync with the rest of the universe. Perfect hiding place,” Koschei explained quickly, moving to the other side of the console and checking some of the read-outs.
“Tiny little pocket of time. But we found them. Hold on, hold on. Some sort of Subwave Network,” Vairë muttered as she and the ship patched it through.
“Where the hell have you been?” Jack demanded when the signal came through. “Rosie, it’s the Daleks!”
“It’s the Daleks. They’re taking people to their spaceship,” Sarah Jane said over Jack. She hadn’t seen the blonde in ages but she was quite familiar with the story. She had visited the memorial at Canary Wharf and wondered just what had happened to Rose and the Doctor.
“Look at you,” Vairë whispered. “All you clever people.”
“There’s Martha!” Donna said excitedly. “And who’s he?”
“Captain Jack. Don’t. Just don’t,” Vairë laughed. “It’s everyone except the Doctor,” she muttered. Then the signal was interrupted, intercepted by someone else. “Doctor?” Vairë breathed.
“We have heard of your coming, Weaver,” a cold voice said over the Subwave Network. Vairë moved back, staring hard at the screen when a craggy, grey, wrinkled face filled it. Whoever it was, he had some kind of machine in his head. It looked like a Dalek’s eyestalk. His own eyes were nothing but wrinkled flesh. His teeth were yellowed with age. “So many titles for such a little girl. Weaver. Mandos’s wife. She who brings just battle. Peacegiver. Lawmaker. Mother of the Multitude.”
“Mother of the Multitude?” the Doctor muttered. All of them who had heard the Subwave conference could hear the interrupter. The Doctor even recognized the voice.
“It is fitting that you should bear witness to my resurrection and triumph, Weaver of Time’s Tapestry. The resurrection and the triumph of Davros, creator of the Dalek race.”
“But you were destroyed. In the very first year of the Time War, at the Gates of Elysium,” Vairë protested hoarsely. On Earth, the Doctor stared at the blank screen. How did she know that? “The TARDIS was there…she saw your ship fly into the jaws of the Nightmare Child. The Doctor tried to save you.”
“But it took one stronger than him,” Davros replied. “Dalek Caan himself.”
“That’s impossible,” Vairë spat. “The entire War is time-locked!”
“And yet he succeeded. Oh, it cost him his mind, but imagine. A single, simple Dalek succeeded where Emperors and Time Lords have failed. A testament, don’t you think, to my remarkable creations?” Davros taunted.
“I flew into the wild and fire. I danced and died a thousand times,” the Dalek cackled, waving his tentacles wildly. “The Wolf will howl and all will come to darkness. She is howling! She is howling!”
“And you made a new race of Daleks,” Vairë snarled.
“I gave myself to them, quite literally. Each one grown from a cell of my own body,” Davros said, unfastening his leather tunic to show his skinless chest. Vairë could see his internal organs nestled under his rib cage. He drew his tunic back over his chest and began refastening it. “New Daleks. True Daleks. I have my children, Weaver. What do you have?”
Vairë swallowed hard. She was not going to give away the secret of Galliterra. It was obvious that Davros knew only what Dalek Caan had known. He could not know about Galliterra. He could not know why she was called the Mother of the Multitude. He assumed it was just another one of her titles. Taking a deep breath, Vairë glared into the monitor. “After all this time, my sister and I have only one thing to say to you. Bye!” she shouted as she sent a silent command to the TARDIS to head for a safe location on Earth. Davros’s image blinked off as the monitor went dark. Then the TARDIS began singing in Vairë’s mind. She had found the Doctor!
“Land us near him, sister,” Vairë said quietly to her ship. “Let’s see what he has to say.”
~*~*~*~
Vairë stepped out of the TARDIS onto an empty street. It looked like something out of a warzone. Cars stood abandoned all over the place. Signs of panicked flight were strewn about the road and sidewalks. And yet, there was no sign of the Doctor. The TARDIS had insisted he was here. Had he run off again? Now that she was faced with actually seeing him after so long, Vairë felt a firestorm of emotions. She was excited, angry, terrified, sad, hurt, and confused. It had taken all of her willpower to step out of the TARDIS and even look up and down the street. And he still wasn’t there! Was she still abandoned, left alone, set adrift through time and space?
“Like a ghost town,” Donna muttered. Koschei had elected to remain in the TARDIS and back down the hall from the console room a bit. He figured that his friend Theta might need some explanation before Vairë let the two of them stay in the same room.
“Sarah Jane said they were taking the people. What for?” Vairë wondered. “Think, Donna. When you met the Doctor in that parallel world, what did he say?”
“Just, the darkness is coming.”
“Anything else?”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Donna said gently, looking over the top of Vairë’s head as the man from that parallel world began walking down the street. Vairë turned, her face a mask, and stared up the road. It was him. He looked no different than he had the last time she’d seen him. He wore the same pinstriped suit, the same long brown jacket. Just as Vairë was about to start walking towards him, a flash of light in the middle of the street stopped her. It was Jack! He fired his gun at something that was lurking in an alleyway just ahead of the Doctor. Vairë shuddered when she realized just how close she’d come to seeing the Time Lord forced into another regeneration at the hands of a Dalek.
The world began to spin crazily around her. Her head was swimming. Vairë leaned back against the TARDIS, her fingers gripping the cool wood exterior while she tried to keep her legs from turning to water. She didn’t know if she wanted to laugh, scream, cry, or throw up. All she could think was that the Doctor was running towards her. He said something to Jack who threw his head back and laughed as he joined the Time Lord in a sprint towards the TARDIS. She opened her mouth to try to say something. A greeting. A joke. A few choice words that would have gotten her in trouble when she was younger. She closed her mouth when she realized she was gaping like a fish.
“Rose,” the Doctor said, looking down at her with those gorgeous brown eyes she had missed so much. “Rose?” he asked when she just stared at him, her face completely devoid of expression. “Rose, are you all right?”
“I think…I’m going to be sick,” she whispered in Galliterran as the world pitched on its axis and the ground rushed up to meet her.
Donna moved quickly and caught Vairë before she landed face-first on the street. Jack hurried over as well, helping Donna carry the woman back into the TARDIS. The Doctor glared at them but said nothing while the two of them got Vairë laid out on the jump seat. Donna grabbed the long, black leather trench coat from the railing and laid it over her friend before smoothing her blonde hair out.
“Shock,” Jack muttered. “We should get her some water and prop her legs up.”
“Oi, Protector!” Donna roared, knowing that the man was hiding out in the corridor. “Go get some water for Vairë and a few pillows so we can put her feet up.”
“Protector?” the Doctor muttered.
“Yeah, her brother,” Donna replied. “I take it you’re the famous Doctor, then?”
“I am.”
“Good. When she comes back around, maybe you ought to tell her you’re happy to see her and that you’ve missed her. God knows that this woman is half-convinced she’s nothing to you.”
“Nothing to me?” the Doctor sputtered. “Rose Tyler is everything to me!”
“Don’t call her that. It tends to set her off,” Donna growled. “Her name’s been Vairë for ages now. She’s got a truck load of other titles but Vairë what she goes by back home.”
“Back home?” the Doctor repeated. Just then, the Protector walked into the console room. He had several pillows tucked under one arm and a glass of water with a bendy straw in his other hand. The Doctor glared at him. “You!” he snarled.
“Oi!” Donna shouted, putting herself between the Protector and the Doctor. “Don’t go fighting with her brother!”
“Brother?”
“Yes, Theta, my old friend,” the man who had once called himself Master said, “I am Vairë Carter’s brother. We adopted each other after she saved me from madness and worse. She gave me a new home, a new life, and a new purpose. I cast off the title ‘Master’ and took up the name ‘Protector’ then. We have much to discuss, you and I,” he sighed, “but for now, my sister needs help.”
The Doctor bit back his protests when his old friend handed Donna the glass of water before kneeling and putting the pillows under Rose’s knees. Her face regained some color, then. He gritted his teeth when Koschei placed a hand on Rose’s temple, speaking with her telepathically. When Rose opened her hazel eyes and smiled at his old friend, it was all the Doctor could do to keep himself from pulling the other man away completely.
“Here, Vairë,” Donna whispered, pushing the end of the straw against the blonde’s lips, “take a few sips?”
Vairë sat up on her elbows a bit and drank half the glass of water before falling back on the jump seat. “I had the strangest dream,” she muttered.
“It wasn’t a dream,” Donna replied softly. “He’s here. The Doctor. You fainted!”
“I haven’t slept in a week,” Vairë grimaced. “Of course I fainted! But wait, he’s here? On the TARDIS?”
“I’m here, Rose,” the Doctor said calmly. “Or Vairë or whatever you prefer.”
“Doctor,” she whispered, pressing her fingers against her lips. She tried to sit up but her face went pale again. Koschei put an arm around her shoulders and helped her to her feet. “How have you been?” she asked when she finally managed to stand on her own.
The Doctor studied her. She was weak and tired. She was pushing herself beyond anything that would be considered reasonable. That was very her. The Rose he remembered would have died before admitting she was tired. How many nights had he watched her rub lotion onto blistered feet, never complaining? Three hundred seventy-four nights the TARDIS whispered in his mind. He could sense a slight chill in her words. Clearly his ship was still put out with him.
“I can’t complain,” he said slowly, weighing his words carefully. “I mis…”
Just then the TARDIS went dark. Vairë screamed and fell into her brother’s arms. “She’s out cold!” Koschei shouted.
“They’ve got us. Power’s gone. Some kind of chronon loop,” the Doctor muttered. He moved over and looked at Rose. She seemed to be just as affected by the chronon loop as the TARDIS was. “What the devil?” he asked.
“I’ll theorize and explain later,” Koschei growled as he laid his sister back on the jump seat. “For now, where are we going?”
“There’s a massive Dalek ship at the center of the planets,” Jack sighed. “They’re calling it the Crucible. Guess that’s our destination.” Koschei studied the man. He could sense the raw sensuality rolling off the human but knew that Vairë was immune to his charms. That was a relief. The only man she’d ever been attracted to was the Doctor. For his part, the Doctor was hovering near the jump seat, uncertain what to do with himself. Koschei could sense the war within the other Time Lord. The Doctor wanted to take Vairë in his arms and hold her and kiss her until the universe ended. He also wanted to fight every male around her to establish that he had first claim on her heart and soul and that anyone who wanted her would have to kill him first.
“Prot, back at the Shadow Proclamation, you and Vairë said these planets were like an engine. But what for?” Donna asked, trying to keep everyone’s minds on the situation before them. There would be time for romance and other extraneous matters later.
“Theta, you’ve been in a parallel world. That world’s running ahead of this universe. You’ve seen the future. What was it?” Koschei asked.
“It’s the darkness,” the Doctor replied, his eyes never leaving Rose’s pallid face.
“The stars were going out,” Donna prodded.
“Yes. One by one. We looked up at the sky and they were just dying. Basically, we’ve been building this, er, this travel machine, this, this er, dimension cannon, so we could. Well, so I could…” the Doctor trailed off, kneeling next to the jump seat. He ran a gentle finger over Vairë’s lips.
“What?” her brother asked.
“So I could come back. Shut up,” the Doctor said, glaring up at his old friend who was beaming down at him like the cat who caught the canary. “Anyway, suddenly, it started to work and the dimensions started to collapse. Not just in our world, not just in yours, but the whole of reality. Even the Void was dead. Something is destroying everything.”
“In that parallel world, you said something about me,” Donna whispered. Vairë was starting to whimper softly as if she were in pain.
“The Dimension Cannon could measure timelines, and it’s, it’s weird, Donna, but they all seemed to converge on you,” the Doctor explained, never taking his eyes from Vairë. Instead, he leaned over her and pressed his lips to her forehead. Vairë sighed softly in response.
“But why me?” Donna wondered. Just then the TARDIS shuddered to a halt. Jack sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“The Dalek Crucible. All aboard,” he sighed. Rose was still unconscious. Through the doors, he could hear the Daleks ordering them out of the TARDIS. “We’ll have to go out. Because if we don’t, they’ll get in,” the Doctor sighed.
“Vairë told me nothing could get through those doors,” Donna protested.
“The TARDIS has extrapolator shielding,” Jack added.
“Last time we fought the Daleks, they were scavengers and hybrids, and mad. But this is a fully-fledged Dalek Empire, at the height of its power. Experts at fighting TARDISes, they can do anything. Right now, that wooden door is just wood,” the Doctor grimaced.
“What about your dimension jump?” Koschei asked.
“It needs another twenty minutes. And anyway, I’m not leaving,” the Doctor replied, his voice clipped. “What about your teleport?” he asked Jack.
“Went down with the power loss.”
“Right then. All of us together. Yeah. Donna?”
“What about Vairë?”
“Leave her here. They know she’s in here. We’ll tell them that she’s unconscious. That might buy her some time to get back on her feet and figure something out,” Koschei sighed. The Doctor growled at him but he couldn’t fault the other Time Lord’s thinking. Together, the four of them walked out of the TARDIS to face the Daleks.
~*~*~*~
The Doctor tapped the holding cell that locked him in place. A few feet away, Koschei was trapped in one identical to his. Rose and the TARDIS were gone – the Daleks had dropped them into the heart of the ship, destroying them both. Or so they thought. The Doctor could sense the TARDIS was still alive. Whether Rose had survived, he didn’t know. He prayed that she had and that she was waiting for just the right moment to make her appearance. After dumping the TARDIS and killing Jack again, the Daleks had led the Doctor, Koschei, and Donna down to the vault. That was the only bright spot the Doctor could see. Clearly Davros wasn’t running the show. He was more like the Dalek’s pet. Davros had a few taunts to trade with the Doctor but all the Time Lord could think about was Rose and the TARDIS. Where were they? What were they waiting on? Or was he deluding himself and the two of them really had perished in the ship’s core?
Then came the calls from Martha and Jack. The Doctor watched in stupefaction as Martha threatened to destroy the Earth to stop the Daleks and Jack threatened to blow up the Crucible. However, their threats came to nothing as they were transmatted directly into the vault. The Doctor was not surprised to see that Jackie and Mickey were with Sarah Jane and Jack.
“Where’s Rose?” Jackie asked anxiously.
“She and the TARDIS perished in the heart of the Crucible,” Davros said coldly. “The Weaver of Time is no more.”
“Doctor?” Jackie asked, her voice quivering. “It’s not true, is it?”
“Jackie, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” the Doctor whispered.
“Activate planetary alignment field,” the Supreme Dalek ordered. Jackie shuddered. She’d seen what this bomb of theirs did. It was horrifying to watch it make all those poor people turn into dust. “Universal Reality detonation in two hundred rels.”
“You can’t, Davros! Just listen to me! Just stop!” the Doctor pleaded.
“Ah, ha, ha, ha! Nothing can stop the detonation. Nothing and no one!” Davros cackled. Behind him, Dalek Caan, the last survivor of the Cult of Skaro, laughed and screamed about the wolf howling. The Doctor glared at the creature. He wished it would stop saying that!
Then the most impossible thing happened. Later, the Doctor would wonder over it. It was brilliant and beautiful and terrifying. It was her. It was so very, very her.
~*~*~*~
Vairë groaned and coughed. Smoke filled the console room and small fires were breaking out everywhere. She felt weak and dizzy but knew that she had to get them out of where ever they were before it killed them. Feeling her way to the console, she sang softly and felt the TARDIS dematerialize and then rematerialize somewhere safe. Working quickly, she and her sister were able to extinguish the fires and vent the smoke out. Then Vairë stumbled back to the jump seat and tried to catch her breath.
“What happened?” she asked. “Where are the others?”
They are aboard the Crucible. The Daleks cast us into the heart of their ship. It was a core of z-neutrino energy. It was tearing us apart.
“Good thing we got out of there,” Vairë muttered. “Now we just need to figure out what to do. Obviously the Daleks can take your defenses out and can knock me out in one go.”
It was the chronon loop. Since you’re part TARDIS, a temporal prison will render you unconscious.
“All the more reason to avoid having that happen again. Let’s just sit quiet and see what the Daleks are up to.”
Vairë checked the monitors. They were floating in space just outside the Crucible. Then, the planets began to glow fiercely. “Single string Z-neutrinos compressed. No way,” Vairë muttered, realizing what it must be doing. “That’s why the stars were going out in that other world. Christ, do the Daleks never stop to think about what they are? About the future? I’ve got to stop them.”
How? The Daleks are as time blind as any race I’ve ever encountered, sister. Many say that humanity is short-sighted but the Daleks can make the most ignorant human look like a prophet.
“Well then, maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s time we forced them to see the future they’re after,” Vairë growled. “Maybe it’s time for the Bad Wolf to howl. One. Last. Time.”
Together, sister?
“Together. Forever and always,” Vairë whispered as the TARDIS opened her heart to her once more and the Time Vortex rushed into her mind. “To the Crucible,” Vairë said, careful to keep the resonant power out of her voice for now. She had to make them see. She had to give them this one chance. And then, if they didn’t take it…well, they’d face what the Emperor faced. Vairë pulled on her long coat and then took the sword from its scabbard on her back as the TARDIS vanished and reappeared in the vault of the Crucible. She fished some sunglasses from one of her pockets and slipped them on. After all, it wouldn’t do for them to see too early that Bad Wolf had arrived with her wolfsong that would send them into the realm of death and destruction.
~*~*~*~
“But that’s…” the Doctor trailed off. He’d recognize that sound anywhere.
“Impossible!” Davros shouted as the TARDIS materialized across the room from him.
“Brilliant,” Jack breathed in awe. The doors of the TARDIS flew open, shining a blinding white light into the dark vault. Davros wheeled himself around and prepared to face whatever it was that would step out of the ship. Jack blinked, his eyes watering at the brilliance of the light. When he could see again, he saw Rose calmly stepping out of the ship, a sword in her hand. She was glaring at Davros and looked faintly disgusted. Walking slowly, she began advancing on him. He raised his hand, pointing at her.
“Don’t!” the Doctor shouted, his voice filled with fear. Electrical energy shot from Davros’s metal hand like a bolt of lightning, racing straight for Rose. She lifted her sword and deflected it calmly. Davros attacked her again and again she blocked it, never wavering in her slow advance towards him. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack thought he saw Donna, forced to kneel with the other humans, crawl towards the computer control console. What was she doing?
“Activate holding cell,” Davros shouted. A wave of energy surrounded Rose, stopping her where she stood. She poked at it with a finger, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “It seems I was wrong about your warriors, Weaver. You are…pathetic.”
The Doctor shivered. He felt Time grind to a halt. It was as if they were in some kind of time lock. But they couldn’t be. Could they? Looking around, he could see that the Daleks outside of the vault were frozen. And that Rose was smiling. A feral smile that was little more than a bearing of teeth. She tapped the holding cell again. “But all the clocks in the city began to whirr and chime,” she said “O let not Time deceive you, you cannot conquer Time.” Taking a step, she walked through the energy prison. Golden dust fell in her wake as she continued to advance on Davros. “In headaches and in worry vaguely life leaks away and Time will have his fancy tomorrow or today.” Davros was wheeling back, trying to get away from her. He looked terrified. Absolutely terrified.
“Who are you? What are you?” he demanded.
“I am the Weaver. I am the Lady of Just Battle. I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself.”
“You cannot stop the detonation!”
“Do you really want to destroy reality? To have only the Daleks left?” she asked softly. “What is a Dalek without life to exterminate? Tell me!” Davros appeared at a loss. The Doctor looked around in amazement. The Daleks seemed…uneasy. What was Rose doing? “Shall I show you? Shall I show you the future of your Dalek Empire after the Reality Bomb is detonated?”
“You are an abomination!” Davros screamed.
“An abomination who cowed the Lord President Rassilon himself,” she replied in that too-quiet tone that sent chills down the Doctor’s spine. “Come, let me show you the future,” she said. The Doctor blinked. He looked around in shock. The Crucible was gone. Instead, the Dalek ships were firing on each other. Cries of “Exterminate!” filled the air. And then…then there was nothing. Just burned out Dalekanium shells and smoke. “What are the Daleks if there is nothing left to kill?” Rose asked as reality reappeared around them all. “I’ll tell you what they are – they are nothing. They will turn on themselves. Some will consider themselves more Dalek than the others. They will fight and exterminate each other until none are left. And you, Davros of the Kaleds from Skaro, brother of the Thals, you will be the first to fall to your own creations. And then, all of reality will be dark and cold and quiet. Where once life, warmth, and song filled the universe, there will be nothing. Not even the Daleks.”
“No! No!” Davros shouted, clawing at his own face. “You lie!”
“Do I? Then consider this. The Daleks can change. They can evolve. Dalek Sec did once, so very long ago. I offer you this one opportunity. Adapt or die. The choice is yours.” Time reasserted itself. The Daleks began to move.
“Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one,” the Supreme Dalek counted down. Then the klaxons began to blare. The Doctor looked around in confusion. Rose just smiled down at Davros.
“Mmm, closing all Z-neutrino relay loops using an internalized synchronous back-feed reversal loop. That button there,” Donna laughed as she fiddled with the controls on the console. Rose threw her head back and laughed.
“System in shutdown!”
“Detonation negative!”
“Explain! Explain! Explain!” the Supreme Dalek roared.
“You’ll suffer for this,” Davros threatened. He ignored Vairë and pointed his hand at Donna. When he tried to send a burst of energy at her, he screamed as it fed back into his own body, shocking him badly.
“Oh, bio-electric dampening field with a retrograde field arc inversion,” the redhead chuckled as she adjusted more controls.
“Exterminate her!” Davros ordered the Daleks. Vairë took a step back, shaking her head and laughing. The Daleks tried to fire their weapons only to find them useless.
“Phwor. Macrotransmission of a K-filter wavelength blocking Dalek weaponry in a self-replicating energy blindfold matrix,” Donna sneered.
“How did you work that out? You’re…” the Doctor said in disbelief.
“Galliterran,” Koschei laughed. “She’s Galliterran.”
“Holding cells deactivated. And seal the Vault. Well, don’t just stand there, you skinny boys in suits. Get to work!” Donna said, looking at both the Doctor and Koschei. The Doctor looked on dumbfounded while Koschei and Vairë ran over to help Donna.
“Stop them! Get them away from the controls,” Davros shouted.
“And spin,” Donna taunted, twisting a dial and making the Daleks turn helplessly in circles. The Daleks, mighty exterminators of many races, cried out for help. “And the other way,” she laughed.
“What did you do?” Koschei asked.
“Trip switch circuit-breaker in the psychokinetic threshold manipulator,” she explained.
“But that’s brilliant!” the Doctor said, moving over to stand near them.
“Why did we never think of that?” Koschei asked.
“Because you two are just Time Lords, you dumbos, lacking that little bit of human. That gut instinct that comes hand in hand with Planet Earth. I can think of ideas you two couldn’t dream of in a million years,” Vairë nodded at Donna in pride. The woman had learned well. “Now, let’s send that trip switch all over the ship. Did I ever tell you, best temp in Chiswick? Hundred words per minute,” she said, waggling her fingers. “Come on then. We’ve got twenty seven planets to send home. Activate magnetron. Ready? And reverse!” Donna said as she pulled on some levers.
“Off you go, Clom!” Koschei shouted.
“Back home, Adipose III!” Vairë laughed. She could feel the Vortex trying to burn through her but she pushed it back. She had a few more minutes. Then she would see if the Daleks would take her offer or if she would have to end the Time War once and for all.
“Shallacatop, Pyrovillia and the Lost Moon of Poosh. Sorted!” Donna crowed.
“We need more power!” Vairë muttered, jumping up on top of the magnetron and whipping out her sonic to alter the power feeds.
“Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” the Doctor asked, somewhat miffed at not knowing.
“Donna is Galliterran,” Koschei explained while his sister continued to modify the magnetron. “She’s been given the equivalent of an education that would put her oh…about twenty years from graduating from the Academy back home, Theta.”
“Not to mention that Vairë got me up to scratch on Dalek technology. I got bored a few times and figured out how to reverse engineer it to do all kinds of crazy things.”
“That she did,” Vairë said absently as she sonicked a few parts. “I really like the spinning bit. That’s just icing on the cake.”
“So that’s why the time lines were converging on you!” the Doctor said. “Because if you weren’t here, we all would have died! No wonder you’re the most important woman in all of creation.”
“Don’t go getting a big head though, Earth girl,” Vairë muttered. “Still have a ways to go yet. Now, back to work!”
Quickly, Vairë, Koschei, and Donna sent back the rest of the planets until only Earth was left. Then the Supreme Dalek made his way to the vault and shot out the magnetron, sending Vairë flying. Jack fired on the Supreme Dalek but it was too late. The magnetron was gone.
“Oh, we’ve lost the magnetron!” Koschei sighed. “But there’s only one planet left. Oh, guess which one. But we can use the TARDIS!” he said, running into the ship. Vairë moved back and sighed. It was now or never.
“So, Davros. Will you and your Daleks take my offer? Evolve or die. You will have bodies again. You will be taken to a planet far away from everyone else and forced to struggle to survive. You will mate and breed. Love and hate. Lose and mourn. But, when you finally rejoin the rest of the space-faring races of the universe, you will be wiser. You will know compassion and mercy as well as hatred and revenge.”
“Never!” Davros snarled. “That is not existence. That is disease!”
“The Wolf will howl! And then everything will end! She is howling! She is howling!” Dalek Caan shouted.
“Then you leave me no choice,” Vairë sighed.
“Rose! What are you doing?” the Doctor shouted.
“Fulfilling the prophecy,” she answered. She pulled off her sunglasses and tossed them aside. Her irises were swirling golden vortices. Her voice reverberated with the power of Time itself. “I am the Bad Wolf. I can see all of time and space. Every single atom in existence. And I divide them.”
“Rose! No! You can’t! You’ll burn!” he screamed as he ran towards her. Koschei grabbed the Doctor around his waist and held him back. “Let me go! I have to save her!”
“I’ve seen her draw on the Vortex before,” Koschei whispered. “She does what the rest of us cannot. Everyone,” he said, raising his voice, “into the TARDIS! Now!” Mickey, Jack, and Sarah Jane ran in, eager to be off the Dalek ship and not wanting to see what might happen. Donna ducked inside with Martha close on her heels. Jackie was torn. She wanted to go to her daughter but, at the same time, she was afraid to move any closer. Koschei threw the Doctor inside the TARDIS and then ran and pulled Jackie inside as well. He returned to the doors, standing just outside. The Doctor fought his way free until only Jack held him back. He was standing behind Koschei watching as Rose lifted her hands and waved them at the Daleks.
“The Time War ends,” she shouted. “The Time War ends! Never again shall the Daleks threaten the whole of creation! Never again shall they rise! From dust they were created and to dust they return! It ends! The war that destroyed Gallifrey, that destroyed Arcadia and Skaro, the war that killed the Gelth, the Time War ends!”
The Doctor watched as, just as had happened on the Game Station, the Daleks dissolved into golden dust until only Davros and Dalek Caan were left. Davros screamed as his body dissipated around him.
“She is howling,” Dalek Caan said reverently. “The Mother of the Multitude sings the Song of Death and Creation grows still.”
“Caan, my brother,” Rose said, winking out of existence to reappear on the platform next to him. She gathered the Dalek in her arms. The Doctor winced. How could she bear to touch the thing? “Will you grow? Or would you rather sleep, my brother? The only one of his kind to see the future?”
“I have seen the end of everything Dalek, and you must make it happen, Mother,” Caan said softly, his eerie voice carrying through the empty vault.
“Then listen to the Song of Eternity, little brother, and let it carry you into the Undying Lands,” Vairë whispered. She began to sing. The Doctor had never heard a song so beautiful, so poignant, so filled with sorrow and grief, with love and life, as this one. It was the most terrible and wonderful thing he had ever heard in all of his nine hundred years. It was even more beautiful coming from Rose’s lips. He watched in fascination as she cradled Caan in her arms, rocking him as she might a child, stroking his head until his single eye closed. “Into the west, my brother. I will join you there.” She laid the dead Dalek down on his armor and then jumped lightly off the platform.
“Rose!” the Doctor shouted. “Let go of it!”
“I am so tired,” she whispered, staggering. She stumbled and fell to the floor, her hands splayed to keep her from falling on her face. “So very, very tired.”
“Rose, please,” the Doctor pleaded. “Please. Don’t leave me. I have so much to tell you. So much to apologize for. So many things to make up to you. Please, Rose. Please don’t do this. Let it go. Come back to me. Come back with me.”
“Home,” she sighed as the golden light surrounded her. “I want to go home.”
The light pulsed three times and then she was gone. Only her sword and a pile of dust remained. The Doctor wrenched himself free of Jack’s hold and shoved his way past Koschei until he was standing in front of where Rose had been. Tears rolled down his cheeks and great sobs came from his throat as he fell to his knees. “Rose!” he screamed, gathering up the sword and then taking handfuls of the dust and bringing it his lips. “Rose, you can’t…you can’t be dead. You can’t be!”
“Rose!” Jackie shouted from inside the TARDIS. She pushed her way free of the ship and ran to where the Doctor was kneeling and weeping. “Rose?” she asked.
“Oh, Gods,” he sobbed. “Jackie, I’m sorry. I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t stop her.”
“She’s not…she can’t be…” her mother protested. She gathered some of the golden dust in her own hands. “No, not my daughter! Not my daughter!” She threw her arms around the Time Lord kneeling next to her and buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing. “Not my Rose!” she wept.
“Forgive me, Jackie. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Doctor,” Jackie replied. “You loved her, too. It’s not your fault.”
Suddenly, rough hands were pulling the human woman and the Time Lord to their feet. “We’ve got to get out of here,” Donna growled. “The Crucible is shaking itself apart.”
“How can you be so cold?” the Doctor snarled. “Rose Tyler just died and you’re acting like it’s nothing!”
“Theta, calm down,” Koschei said in Gallifreyan. “Let’s get the Earth back where it belongs. Then we can decide if it’s time to mourn or not.” The Doctor stared at the other Time Lord with pure hatred. Rose was gone, burned in the Time Vortex, and the other man made jokes? Koschei said something to Donna in a language the Doctor felt he should understand but couldn’t. Then, everything went dark.
~*~*~*~
“What the hell did you do to them?” Mickey demanded when Donna and the other man dragged Jackie and the Doctor onto the TARDIS. Both of them were out cold. “Couldn’t you let them say goodbye? That’s Rose’s mum! And God knows that the Doctor was mad about Rose as well, the stupid git.”
“Is Vairë dead?” Martha asked in disbelief. “I always thought she’d go on forever. She can’t be dead, can she? Not Vairë!” Martha sobbed. “Not her!”
“I’ll explain everything later,” Koschei said quickly. He really didn’t have time for this. Earth was losing atmospheric stability by the second. “We have to get Earth back where it belongs. Then, I swear, I will explain everything to all of you!”
“You’d better,” Jack growled angrily.
“Then off we go,” Koschei said, activating the dematerialization circuits so that the TARDIS left the Crucible and reappeared in orbit around Earth. He could sense the ship tolerating his actions. She wanted to get back to her sister. She was very impatient. He winced at a spark that stung him and held his peace.
“But what about the Earth? It’s stuck in the wrong part of space,” Sarah Jane asked. She felt terrible about Rose dying. She wasn’t close to the young woman so, out of all of them, she was the most clear-headed at the moment.
“I’m on it. Torchwood Hub, this is the Protector. Are you receiving me?” Koschei said, tapping the monitor.
“Loud and clear,” a human woman with dark hair and grey eyes said. “Is Jack there?”
“Can’t get rid of him,” Koschei sighed. “Jack, what’s her name?”
“Gwen Cooper,” Jack answered coldly.
“Torchwood, I want you to open up that Rift Manipulator. Send all the power to me,” Koschei ordered.
“Doing it now, sir,” a well-dressed man said as he gently pushed Gwen out of the way.
“What’s that for?” Jack asked. He did not trust this other Time Lord at all.
“It’s a tow rope,” Koschei explained as he turned to Sarah Jane. He remembered her mentioning a son back on Earth. “Now then. Sarah, what was your son’s name?” he asked politely.
“Luke. He’s called Luke. And the computer’s called Mister Smith.”
“Calling Luke and Mister Smith,” Koschei said. “This is the Protector. Come on, Luke. Shake a leg!”
A teenaged boy, scrawny and gangly, all knees and elbows and still not used to the growth spurt, appeared on the monitor. “Is Mum there?” he asked, his soft eyes filled with worry.
“Oh, she’s fine and dandy,” Koschei laughed. “Now, Mister Smith, I want you to harness the Rift power and loop it around the TARDIS. You got that?”
“I regret I will need remote access to TARDIS base code numerals,” the computer replied.
“Oh, that’s going to take a while,” Koschei sighed.
“No, no, no,” Sarah Jane said excitedly as she ran over to stand in front of the monitor. “Let me.” Koschei stood aside and let her take control. “K9, out you come!”
“Affirmative, Mistress,” the metal dog said as it appeared on the screen. Koschei laughed happily. The Doctor had loved building those things.
“K9, give Mister Smith the base code,” he ordered.
“TARDIS base code now being transferred,” the dog said happily. “The process is simple.”
Once everything was ready, Koschei sent a telepathic command to Donna. The two of them, communicating with the TARDIS, began working the controls. Vairë had flown the ship by feel and instinct, melding her will with the will of the ship until the two were like one being. However, anyone else who wanted to fly the TARDIS would need to resort to more manual means. Even the Doctor. The TARDIS had only one sister and Vairë wasn’t available. “And now,” Koschei sighed. “we’re going to fly Planet Earth back home!”
The TARDIS lurched as the weight of the Earth pulled against the “tow rope.” Then, gathering its strength, the ship began to pull the Earth through space. Soon, the Earth was back in the Solar System with the Moon orbiting it as it made its own orbit around the Sun. Everyone aboard the TARDIS was celebrating. Only the Doctor and Jackie were silent and only because they were still out cold.
“Now then,” Koschei said. “Does anyone have someone they absolutely must check in on back on Earth?” he asked.
“I should check on my son,” Sarah Jane said quickly.
“I need to pick up Granddad and my mum,” Donna muttered.
“Great. Let’s go get them and then it will be time for one more trip for all of you.”
“A trip?” Martha muttered. “What happened to Vairë? Where is she?”
“Where?” Mickey asked.
“It’s time you saw our home – Vairë’s home,” Koschei replied. “It’s time you saw Galliterra and everything she worked to build. After all, that’s what she would want, isn’t it?”