Stuff of Legend

Chapter One

"Ah! Entering clear space. End of the line. Mission closed," the Doctor announced over the comm-link.

He was still in his orange space suit, adjusting the controls to materialize the TARDIS inside the cargo hold of the escape rocket, having just pulled it from the event horizon of the black hole.

Well, not really pulled as such, it was more of a falling towards the TARDIS. A conical gravity distortion was produced behind the TARDIS and the escape rocket was falling into the well at the same velocity that the TARDIS was moving away.

Ida Scott, Krop Tor base science officer, was in the med-bay connected to the hyperbaric oxygen. She had been hypoxic when the Doctor had found her, her suit oxygen exhausted. But the scans showed there was no permanent brain damage. Her memory would be a little 'fuzzy' about the events that had occurred in the mine shaft.

Danny Bartock, the ethics committee representative, had shown Rose down to the small cargo bay where the TARDIS just managed to squeeze in between a large drill bit and some other cutting tools.

She gave him a peck on the cheek and said goodbye before running into the TARDIS and up the ramp into the arms of her... What...? Friend? He was more than that. Companion then? No, that sounded very Victorian and prudish (She'd seen the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn't looking). A suitor maybe? She wasn't sure exactly what a suitor was, but it felt right.

He lifted her off the floor in a long, giggling, sighing hug.

Ida had been returned to the cockpit of the escape rocket and was sat in her jump seat. Zach Cross Flane, the acting captain and Danny, were asking her about the events down in the pit and her journey in the TARDIS.

"I don't know. I can't remember," she told them.

"Well, it looked like a box," Danny said when Zach asked about the Doctor's ship.

"What do you mean a box?" he asked in confusion.

Danny shrugged his shoulders. "Well, down in the hold. A big blue box. It just appeared. I don't know."

The Doctor's voice came over the comm-link. "Zach? We'll be off, now. Have a good trip home. And the next time you get curious about something... Oh, what's the point? You'll just go blundering in. The human race," he said with a 'tut' in his voice.

Ida was desperately trying to remember what had happened. "But Doctor, what did you find down there? That creature, what was it?"

The Doctor looked at Rose. "I don't know. Never did decipher that writing. But that's good, Day I know everything? Might as well stop." He closed the comm-link for a moment.

"What do you think it was, really?" Rose asked him. She was worried. If he didn't know what it was…? Well, there was no telling what could have happened.

"I think we beat it. That's good enough for me." He tried to sound upbeat to lift the mood.

"It said I was going to die in battle," she told him, not sure if it was telling the truth or just trying to scare her. If it was the latter, then it had succeeded.

"Then it lied," he told her with conviction. She was not going to die in battle. Not on his watch. He opened the comm-link again. "Right, onwards, upwards. Ida? See you again, maybe."

"I hope so." Ida's voice came back over the speaker.

"And thanks, boys!" Rose shouted back.

"Hang on though, Doctor," Ida called. "You never really said. You two, who are you?"

Rose looked at him. 'Good question' she thought, 'who are we?'

He could see the question in her eyes. In Habitation 3, when they had lost the TARDIS, they had talked of living a life, perhaps together.

"I don't know. Find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe," she had said.

He'd have had to settle down. Get a house or something. A proper house with, with doors and things. Carpets. Him, living in a house. Now that; that would have been terrifying for him.

And Rose had told him he'd have to get a mortgage. He didn't know if he could live like that. But then Rose had selflessly offered him a life. Her life.

"What about me? I'd have to get one, too. I don't know, could be the same one. We could both, I don't know, share. Or not, you know. Whatever. I don't know. We'll sort something out," she had told him.

He'd promised Jackie that he'd always take her back home. "Everyone leaves home in the end." Rose had said, but not to end up stuck here.

And then Rose had said it. "Yeah, but stuck with you, that's not so bad."

He gave her one of his special smiles and answered Ida's question.

"Oh, the stuff of legend," he said and closed the comm-link.

'I can live with that' she thought. 'The stuff of legend'. That held a promise of things to come. Conversations to be had, wishes to be fulfilled, actions to be taken. Yes! She could live with that... For now.