The Doctor's Nemesis

The Girl in the Fireplace -part five-

The mantel spins to a stop in the spaceship, the open room as it was only moments ago; yet the absence of our companions weighs heavily in the air. My Bonded sighs, annoyed yet not surprised as he steps away from the fireplace, me close to his side.

"Rose!" He calls, his voice echoing back to us.

"Mickey!" I also call, even though I know they're long gone, I don't want Mickey to feel left out if they were close enough to hear. I would usually not care, especially since they are just humans, but as I used to be a lonely human I find it difficult doing nothing if I know someone could also be suffering from missing out. I cuss myself out, I know I'm getting soft, yet it's hard caring when I have my soulmate's presence in my mind.

"Every time." My soulmate groans, still looking around. He grabs my hand again, leading us outside of the room. We start exploring to halls, looking for our humans. "Every time," he mutters to himself, "it's rule one. Don't wander off. I tell them," he looks down to me as if trying to validate his claims, "I do."

"Maybe," I say slowly, "just maybe, they don't like being treated like children?" He replies with a harrumph.

"There could be anything on this ship." Is the reason.

We continue down the halls, a clip-clop following us. I turn around to see a beautiful white horse with his bridle and saddle on.

"Yeah," I scoff, not liking his warped logic, "you said they were safe. Maybe," I give a parody of a laugh, "if you told them you weren't sure of their safety, they would listen. Self-preservation and all. Oh," I smile up at him, "there's a horse following us."

He slows briefly as he looks behind us, mumbling a small 'where did he come from?' under his breath. Quiet voices travel through the long hallway, wherefrom I have no idea.

"Rose?" The Doctor speeds up, also hearing the voices; I walk briskly beside him, my footfalls covered by the sound of the horse's hooves.

I stop, the Doctor stopping a second later when he realised I was no longer next to him, "Why are you following us, hmm?" I hum as I pat the gentle beast if you could call it that. "Where you come from, horsey?" I'm purposely stalling, giving the Vortex time to analyse the wooden door that I can hear the ambient sounds from, it detects that this is another Spatio-temporal hyperlink behind.

"There's another hyperlink behind that white wooden door," I speak up from beside the horse, my Bonded turning around to look at the uncharacteristically white wooden door, it being surrounded by the monochromatic grey walls of the spaceship.

"Hmm," He hums, "probably where the voices are coming from."

I grab onto the horses' bridle, this is the first time I've ever seen an Earth horse in my human and Gallifreyan life. As an orphaned human, I was never privy to most of the things children were able to do as they grew up, I never left the city unless it was a school trip, which seldom happened. I didn't get to go into the countryside and see the farmland that would stretch endlessly, I was confined in the four walls of my room. Now, back as a Time Lady, I don't really care about my human life, only confused by how I actually did grow up as a human and not assume a fake identity, but I still do feel a slight excitement at seeing the legendary Earth animal.

My Doctor walks up to the doors as I lead the horse next to me. Opening them, I momentarily have to close my eyes and blink a few times to adjust them to the bright sunlight that invaded my sight. "Rassilon," I curse, having to rub my eyes a few time, "that's bright." He just sends agreement over the bond.

"So," My Bonded starts saying, patting the horse's face, "this is where you came from?" We both walk into the bright garden, a castle is seen faintly in the distance, the horse refuses to follow me through the narrow doorway so I just leave it. Looking around, I am able to see two well-dressed women walking a little ways away, a familiar laugh travels across the distance into our ears.