As Brittle As Quicksilver (Fourth in The Creators Saga)

The Stolen Earth

Final day in Paris is spent relaxing. Which means . . . ta da! :D And 8.5 thousand words . . . that might be a record for this series.

Rose gets back to the correct universe (yay!), everyone gets back together (yay!) and the Alchemist is dying ( . . . not so yay).

Enjoy "The Stolen Earth!"

***

The Doctor and Donna both stumbled out of the TARDIS, just barely finding their footing. The Doctor, not needing as much sleep as Donna, was still going mostly strong, though if one truly knew the Time Lord, they would be able to tell he was exhausted. Donna, on the other hand, was trying to stay upright. They had been up for hours on end trying to stabilize the Alchemist after she had fainted. She was breathing well for now, but if the Doctor's scans were right . . . she didn't have much longer than forty-eight hours.

And that scared Donna more than this Bad Wolf thing. But she was determined now more than ever to stick with her little brother through it all.

"It's fine," the Doctor said in disbelief, looking around the street. "Everything's fine. Nothing's wrong, all fine. Excuse me!" he called to a milkman. "What day is it?"

"Saturday," the milkman answered, giving him an odd look.

"Saturday," the Doctor repeated, nodding. "Good. Good, I like Saturdays."

"So I just met Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith?" Donna asked, just to clarify. Her mind was still trying to cope with the idea of the Alchemist possibly on her deathbed.

"Yeah," the Doctor nodded.

"But they're locked away in a parallel world!"

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded, helping her back into the TARDIS. "If they can cross from their parallel world to your parallel world, then that means the walls of the universe are breaking down, which puts everything in danger. Everything." He shook his head, closing the door. "But how?"

"The thing is, Doctor, no matter what's happening – and I'm sure it's bad, I get that – but . . . Rose and Mickey are coming back," Donna walked up to the Doctor as he worked on the TARDIS console. "And even if the Alchemist is dying – " He flinched, and she placed her hand on top of his. "They'll be here for her, too," Donna whispered. "And isn't that good?"

The Doctor managed a small smile. "Yeah."

A loud bang rang out, and the TARDIS shook, sending both siblings into the console. "What the hell was that?" Donna shouted.

"Don't know," the Doctor shook his head, pulling himself up. "It came from outside!"

He ran to the doors, opened them – and spent a good few minutes just staring outside.

"But we're in space!" Donna did a double take. "How did that happen? What did you do?"

The Doctor went back to check a scanner. "We haven't moved," he answered, surprised, as Donna kept staring out into space. "We're fixed. It can't have!" He checked the other scanners. "No, the TARDIS is still in the same place . . . but the Earth is gone." He ran back, still unable to believe it. "The entire planet . . . it's gone!"

***

"Give me a sit rep right now!" a voice called out as Martha Jones lifted her head, shaking it to try and clear everything. The last thing she remembered was falling to the floor of the UNIT headquarters in New York. "Confirm all stations still online. Can anyone hear me? Have we got contact with UNIT base Geneva?"

"What was that?" Martha mumbled as she looked around. "Was it some sort of earthquake or . . . Jalandra?" she found one of her coworkers. "You all right?"