ignite ➝ Doctor Who¹

XXXVIII

"Did anyone get an anal?"
— Ida, The Satan Pit

"You want voices in the dark?" Penelope's breath hitched, she was scared. Scared for him and the other people on this planet. Scared for Rose, and for Scooti who was still unconscious behind her. She was - concerningly - not scared for herself all that much, knowing that if what the devil said was true she would survive this. But not everyone had that idea, luckily that's where the Doctor came in. "Then listen to mine. That thing is playing on very basic fears. Darkness, childhood nightmares, all that stuff."

"But that's how the devil works." She heard Danny scoff over the monitor, and resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"Or a good psychologist." She could vaguely hear Ida over the pounding headache that had started to come on.

"Yeah, but how did it know about my father?"

"Okay, but what makes his version of the truth any better than mine, hmm? Cos I'll tell you what I can see. Humans. Brilliant humans. Humans who travel all the way across space, flying in a tiny little rocket right into the orbit of a black hole, just for the sake of discovery. That's amazing! Do you hear me? Amazing, all of you. The Captain, his Officer, his elders, his juniors, his friends. All with one advantage. The Beast is alone. We are not. If we can use that to fight against him-" There was brief screaming and then it cut off, Penelope started to panic and rush Zach to find out what happened.

"Comms are down."

"Rose! What happened?"

"The cable broke. Are they there?"

"I've still got their life signs, but we've lost the capsule." Rose started shouting down the comms system, but Penelope blocked it out, gripping Zach's arm.

"Are they-" The surrogate captain couldn't even look at her, fearing the look on her face.

"There's no way out. They're stuck down there." Feeling her grip loosen, he dared to look over and she had the most heartbreaking look on her face. It was as if he had said they had died, and it felt like they had already. "I'm sorry."

"You- uh- you couldn't have known it- it would happen. I'm- I'm-" She stumbled over her words and fell backwards onto the seats behind her.

It hadn't really gone through to her, it hadn't hit through her worried subconscious that there was no way back. That the person she had grown so close to was stuck in a giant pit in a planet orbiting a black hole. He wasn't able to get back. The cable snapped, there isn't any more.

"He might not be gone." She looked up to Zach, he was aware of the tears streaming down her face, she was not. She felt oddly limp, it wasn't nice, was she floating? She felt like Cassandra had taken over her again, she didn't have control of herself.

"He said he would be back." The captain watched her sadly, not knowing how to comfort this woman in the slightest. She wasn't part of his crew, this is the first time they have ever met and he didn't know how to deal with this heartbreak.

"Penelope-"

"He was coming back up." She was starting to get angrier now, and he could see it, and there was a chilling coldness behind her eyes, abnormal. It froze him to the core, the tips of his fingers had gone cold and it was creeping up his arms, what was she.

"Penelope."

"No. He said he was coming back. The stupid capsule was already moving. Why couldn't he have just kept his damn mouth shut until he got back. He doesn't always have to fucking intervene."

"The voice-"

"We could have been fine. He doesn't know that anything would've gone wrong. He should have just kept quiet until he was back up here. He didn't-" She took her first breath during the whole thing, it was shuddery and painful. It brought her back to where she was and, carefully, her head lifted and Zach finally met her gaze. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." There was life in her eyes again, although cold and broken, it was there. Zach didn't know why he was so scared of her for a moment. She's just a distraught person, everyone grieves differently, this was just an outburst from the loss.

"It's okay, you grieve however you want." They were quiet, and Zach slowly leant over to the comms button, hoping that no one else had heard that, but was stopped when she looked up again.

"He wouldn't have kept quiet. He knew we were panicking. If I were in his position I would've said something too. He's so good. He- He was-" She looked up to the screen, frowning at something. "Zach the comms are off, they've been calling you. Something about the Ood." One of the doors began to spark and the captain got serious, turning the comms back on.

"Where the hell have you been Captain? Situation report?"

"It's the Ood. They're cutting through the door bolts. They're breaking in."

"It's the same here at door 25, basic frame should hold for ten minutes." There's a moment of silence in the static before Jefferson's voice came through again. "Eight." Rose cut into the room and a shiver went through Penelope's body, relieved that the younger girl was okay.

"You heard the Doctor. Why do you think that thing cut him off? Cos he was making sense. He was telling you to think your way out of this. Come on! For starters, we need some lights. There's got to be some sort of power somewhere." Zach looked panicked and Penelope wiped her face as dry as she could and stood up. She can't grieve now, there are people that need her, the helplessness in her chest is going to have to be worked on later. She needs to act like everything is okay for the people around her.

"There's nothing I can do. Some Captain, stuck in here, pressing buttons." Penelope nodded and looked over the console, taking everything in. He looked at her, unsure how stable she was, but that smile was so damn convincing.

"That's what the Doctor meant. Press the right buttons."