Struggling To Adjust (Book Three of The Bad Wolf Chronicles)

Utopia

"Cardiff!" Jessie cheered happily as the TARDIS landed again. "Again!"

"Cardiff?" Martha repeated incredulously.

"Ah, but the thing about Cardiff," the Doctor told her. "It's built on a Rift in time and space, just like California and the San Andreas Fault - "

"California and the San Andreas Fault? Really?" she asked.

"But the Rift bleeds energy," the Doctor continued with a wink at her. "Every now and then, we need to open up the engines, soak up the energy, and use it as fuel."

"So it's a pit stop," Martha translated.

"Exactly," the Doctor agreed. "Should only take twenty seconds. The Rift's been active."

"Wait a minute," Martha said slowly. "They had an earthquake in Cardiff a couple of years ago. Was that you?"

"Bit of trouble with the Slitheen," Jessie replied nonchalantly. "A long time ago. We were way different back then." She frowned, looking up. She swore she could hear footsteps getting closer . . .

"Finito!" the Doctor cried happily. "All powered - "

There was a bang as the TARDIS door swung open, and Jessie's gaze flew up to the redheaded woman storming in, a blond man behind her, both of them in familiar uniforms. "Nat?" she gasped. "Clint?"

"All right, Doctor," Natasha Romanoff growled, taking the gun from the holster at her waist and aiming it at him, dangling a Yale key from a chain in her other hand and tossing it to Clint, who caught it. "Get out - "

"That lever there!" the Doctor shouted in her mind, along with an image, and Jessie quickly flipped it.

The TARDIS rotor started, and Clint looked up. "What're you doing?" he shouted.

"Martha, the door!" Jessie shouted.

Martha ran for it, ducking behind Clint and closing it. There was a bang on the console, and it jerked hard. "Whoa!" she shouted as Jessie and the Doctor maneuvered around the console to try and control the TARDIS. "What's that?"

"We're accelerating into the future!" Jessie shouted back, flipping a monitor around. "The year one billion . . . " She blinked. "Five billion . . . wait, five trillion." She blinked. "Fifty trillion?"

"Doctor, you take us back!" Natasha shouted from where she was hanging onto the railing. "You take us back right now!"

"The year one hundred trillion!" Jessie shouted, ignoring her.

"What?" the Doctor shouted. "That's impossible!"

"Why?" Martha asked. "What happens then?"

"We're going to the end of the universe!" was the reply.

The TARDIS thudded, and Jessie and the Doctor careened back into the captain's chair. "Holy - !" she yelped.

"Well . . . " the Doctor grunted, sitting up. "We've landed."

"Well spotted," Jessie grumbled before blinking when she saw the two guns aimed right at the Doctor's face. "Oi!"

"OK," the Doctor said slowly, raising his hands as he looked up at the stormy gazes of Natasha and Clint. "I'm guessing this has something to do with Canary Wharf."

"You damn well know what this has to do with," Clint snapped at him.

"Give us one reason why we shouldn't shoot you right here and right now," Natasha demanded.

The Doctor's gaze flicked around. "Well, other than the fact that I'm the only one that can get you home . . . " He shrugged. "I don't have one."

Natasha glared at him before huffing and holstering her gun. "And you'd better get us home."