Scotland's Mist

Chapter 11

To Rose, they fell through the blackness for several hours. It felt like years, and the only thing stabilizing her existence was the Doctor's hand in hers.

The Doctor, however, knew that they only fell for about thirty seconds. He enjoyed the feeling of Rose's body heat being the only thing accompanying the wind as they were forced downwards.

Contrary to Rose's belief, they did not land in the center of the Earth, but rather in a giant mound of moss and leaves.

Both of them let out a cry of surprise as they hit the pile. Rose's hand was wrenched from the Doctor's as the force of gravity threw her down the pile to a metal floor. She sat up and touched her head, dazed.

"Are you alright?" The Doctor asked, crawling to her side and cradling her head in his hand.

Rose nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'm fine," she assured him, and he stood, pulling her with him and taking her hand again.

The pile of foliage they had landed in was right up against a wall. Had they fallen even a few inches back, they would've run their heads along a steel wall all the way down. There was a bit of room on either side of the pile, where Rose had fallen instead of hit a wall.

Now, they stood before a long hallway that went on for so long that it seemed to fade into oblivion. It made Rose feel a little dizzy. The lights that led down the hallway were certainly not of Earth.

"Aliens for sure now, yeah?" Rose asked, turning to the Doctor.

He seemed to be studying the hall. "Yep!" He said, popping the 'p' so loudly that it echoed down the corridor before them. "Definitely alien, but..." he chewed his bottom lip, "I don't know about going down that hallway."

"There's no where else to go," Rose protested.

The Doctor paused for a moment, "It's definitely not safe. A hallway that long? Never trust corridors, Rose, it's almost most definitely a trap."

"You think?" She asked, arching a brow. "But what could they possibly want with a hallway like that? What's at the end?"

"Curiosity killed the cat," the Doctor warned.

"And satisfaction brought it back," Rose retorted.

The Doctor turned to her, a shocked and admiring look on his face. "Rose Tyler, are you contradicting me?"

She grinned and moved a little closer to him and pressed up against him. "I absolutely am."

"You being that close to me is erasing all traces of logic from my very big brain."

"Maybe that was the point," she purred.

Their banter was cut off by a loud clang at the back of the hallway, jolting them to attention. The end of the corridor was still out of sight, and Rose squinted to try and see what was there.

"Can you see?" She asked, her voice hushed.

"No, I can't," the Doctor replied. "We need to go back up."

"I thought we needed to investigate," Rose pointed out. "How are we going to do that if we don't go forward?"

"How are we going to do that if one of us gets cut in half?" The Doctor retorted.

Rose clenched her jaw for a moment, mulling that over. "Well, we can't go back up. It's too high."

"That's an illusion, Rose. How long do you think we were falling?"

Rose paused and tried to recall exactly that. She lifted a shoulder. "felt like hours," she admitted. "Like forever, or something."

The Doctor nodded, having anticipated an answer like that. "Do you want to know how long it actually was?"

Rose furrowed her brows. "How can you tell?"

He tapped his forehead. "Time sense. It was only about thirty seconds."

He tugged her back towards the moss and pointed up through the hole they had fallen through. They could clearly see the sunlight shining down through the top of it, and climbing back up was definitely doable.

"How is that possible?" Rose asked, shocked. "Did it get in my head, like the TARDIS?"

The Doctor made a non-committal sound. "It's possible that the soil here is sentient. Very possible, in fact. But we can still climb back up. You saw when we were digging, it's very soft."

Rose laid a hand on the dirt and noticed that he was right. She could get a very strong handle on the soil and pull herself up, but that thought made her rather nervous. She bit her lip and fidgeted next to the Doctor. "I don't know," she said, sounding nervous.

"I want to see the mist another night," he said firmly. "If we're missing something, I want to find out this evening." He turned to her, his gaze turned soft. "That alright with you?"

She smiled at his willingness to ask her opinion. "I guess since you asked so nicely," she said teasingly.

He nudged her forward. "I'll climb up right behind you, alright?"

She nodded as he helped her take the first foothold in the dirt. "Alright."

She moved slowly, and managed to shift herself upwards. "Let's go, then."

Sensing her nervousness, he brushed the hair away from her neck and let his fingers trail all the way down her back. "Trust me," he said quietly. "I won't let you fall."