Touch The Sky: Doctor Who/Studio C [Book 3]

Midnight (Part 1)

Midnight

(Originally: 04x10, 'Midnight'; aired June 14, 2008)

The rest of their time in Utah crept by. With such short notice, the 'baby shower' was, again, less of a party and more of a quiet get-together. As expected, this time the Doctor didn't show and was eagerly waiting in the console room when they got back.

"Right!" he exclaimed. "Time for some rest, relaxation, and 'rithmetic—wait, that's not how it goes." With the typical flourish, he spun around the console. "Anyways! Bit of luxury, bit of sightseeing, lots of good food. It'll be grand!"

"Where are we going again?" Mallory asked.

"Midnight!" the Doctor exclaimed. "A planet made entirely of diamond." The TARDIS jolted and he hooked one foot over the console. "Poisonous diamond," he added, hopping around on one foot. "The sun puts out x-tonic radiation so powerful it would vaporize any living thing in an instant. All that beauty and it can never be touched."

"And they just... put a resort there?" Matt asked with raised brows.

"Yup!" At their odd looks, he added, "Don't worry, it's perfectly safe."

"Uh huh," Donna said.

Their reservations lessened when they stepped out into a luxurious, fully enclosed resort with impossibly thick roofs of domed glass. It was practically a city in itself, though from the outside it looked almost like a raised donut on stilts.

"Right!" the Doctor said. "All sorts of things we can do! Sightseeing, restaurants, the spa..."

"Spa," Donna said firmly.

"But Donna," the Doctor said. "There a waterfall made of sapphires. A sapphire-fall, if you will."

"Okay, that does sound interesting," Matt admitted.

"It's only four hours away," the Doctor added.

Donna gave him her patented 'are you kidding me' stare. "Only four hours, he says." She rolled her eyes, then repeated, "Spa."

"Sightseeing!" the Doctor said again.

"Okay, I say spa," Mallory said, then gestured to her stomach. "And I count as two people, don't I?"

The Doctor glanced at her, his face only describable as a pout.

"Or, we could—wild idea—split up and do what we each want to do?" Matt suggested.

"Yes," the Doctor said. "Brilliant."

Despite his assertion, less than an hour had passed before a young man was handing a robe-clad, lounging Donna a phone.

"I said no," she told the Time Lord, rolling her eyes and glancing over at a similarly attired and relaxed Mallory.

"Sapphire waterfall," the Doctor told her again from where he was standing at what looked surprisingly like a payphone, for all they were in the distant future. "It's a waterfall made of sapphires."

"I told you you weren't gonna convince them," came Matt's voice distantly.

"...this enormous jewel the size of a glacier," the Doctor continued, ignoring him, "reaches the Cliffs of Oblivion and then shatters into sapphires at the edge. They fall a hundred thousand feet into a crystal ravine."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," Donna teased.

"Oh, come on, they're boarding now," the Doctor whined, glancing over at what amounted to a futuristic space bus enclosed in a station of the same thick glass as the rest of the resort. "Four hours, that's all it'll take."