Hanabi: A Ninth Doctor story by Sharon Kemmerer

Rose bit her lip against her smile as the tardis began its wheezy groany sound like an old man going down stairs. Funny how times changed. It wasn’t too long ago that she had been standing in a shop, folding shirts and smiling at customers and wondering if that was all there was to life. And now look at her! She spread her arms in front of the mirror. The sleeves of the cream and flower patterned—

“Yuuukata,” she murmured to herself, hoping to get it right. –fell delicately and the dark red colored ‘obi’, which was easier to pronounce, set off all the red and gold flowers that splashed around the robe. She’d managed to do her hair up too with the little flower comb he’d found randomly in his pocket. To do something with, he’d said. If she wanted. No use letting it just lie about any which way. Not when they were going to a festival.

She’d seen bits of New Years festivals on the telly and such, all dancing dragons and sparklers and lights everywhere. She wondered what kind of food there would be, what kind of people she would meet, what kind of trouble they’d get into. Even if they just looked around, it would be amazing. The closest she’d ever been to any part of China was the Chinatown Gate—and now look at her! Going proper! Well, sort of.

There was the thump and the faint rumble of the ship landing and her grin went wide as the thrill went through her. It was all she could do not to skip to the control room. Actually, in fact, she wasn’t even going to power walk to the control room. Instead she’d come in all solemn and mysterious, just because.

She started from the wardrobe, walking at a stately measured pace, not even picking up speed when the Doctor’s voice floated down the corridor.

“You coming or what?”

She couldn’t help but grin at him being rude even if she wanted to smack him in the shoulder. Somehow between here and there she managed to smooth the smile from her face and went to stand in the entrance of the control room. She watched him as she waited to be noticed, his broad hands fiddling with this or that control, his blue eyes intensely focused on some monitor, then intensely focused on her. She found herself being stared at. Stared through.

“Patience is a virtue,” she said cooly as she could manage. A grin broke across his face like the sun coming out and he huffed a laugh.

“Too much virtue and we’ll miss the fireworks. Come here and hold this switch down, would you? Don’t let go.”

“Right.” Rose made her way over and pressed the silver switch down. “What are you doing?” She asked as he continued to dance around the control panel.

“Little jiggery-pokery. It’s bad luck for anything blue to be present at the festival. The chameleon circuit is still a bit dodgy but with a little bit of luck and ingenuity…” He pulled out a small neon green spanner from his pocket and wiggled it at her. “I can change the color for a few hours.” And he ducked out of sight under the console.

“So what is this place anyway?” Rose said after a moment. “Somewhere like Beijing or Taiwan or something?”

“Wot?” His head popped up over the console reminding her of some big eared gopher. She tried not to laugh. “First of all, Rose Tyler, this is Tengu-yon. It’s based on Japanese culture, not Chinese and is nowhere near Earth, not to mention about fifty-five thousand years in the future. Okay?” And he ducked down again.

“Okay,” Rose muttered. A knot of annoyance tightened in her chest. She liked him alright, she really did, but she really hated being lectured like she was some delinquent at the back of the class. What difference did it make what culture it was? It was still alien and alien was alien. Only… Maybe it made a difference to them, she thought.

“And the culture is important… Cos’…it’s like…when Americans try to do British accents, yeah?” she said. “Like that one in Mary Poppins.”

“Exactly. In fact, that accent is so universally reviled that on Grove Seventeen Alpha Two, actors around the country reenact it so people can throw tomatoes at them.”

“Really?” Rose blinked, then laughed. “You’re so full of it!”

“Sort of, yeah.” He popped up behind the console with a grin. “Now one more thing to get this all sorted. You might feel a bit of a shock.”

“What?”

But too late. He banged the scanner against a panel and she yelped as a jolt ran through her fingers.

“Ow!” She shook her hand out. “Think you can give me a little warning next time?”

“I did.” He tossed the spanner and caught it neatly before putting it back in his pocket.

“Oh yeah, like two seconds.”

“Stop whining.” He looked at her and pressed his lips together as if he found something funny. It was really suspicious when his face got all serious a seconds after. “You ready?”

“Yeah.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you laughing about.”

“Whose laughing?” All innocence. She didn’t believe it for a second.

He offered his leather clad arm and she took it. They paused before the door and she took a deep breath as the anticipation built in her. What kind of world would… Tenn gu go… be? What kind of place? In a second she’d be where she’d never been before.

“Care to do the honors?” He gestured at the door.

“Ta!”

“Least it’s not blue” She giggled. Not that she thought the Day-Glo orange was an improvement. “Maybe you should keep it that way.”

They were in an alley, wooden buildings pressed so close to either side she was surprised the tardis had even managed to fit. She could see bright warm lights of the street beyond it though and people in yukata milling back and forth. The smell of something delicious cooking floated in the air and she lifted her head to take a good whiff.

It looked amazing.

“If this isn’t a New Year’s Festival, what kind of festival is it?”

“A New Centennial Festival. Century of the Fruit Bat, I think. Now. Let’s see how that worked.” He stepped out and wheeled them around to face the tardis. Now it was Rose’s turn to smile as the Doctor’s smile dropped.

“Least it’s not blue” She giggled. Not that she thought the day-glo orange was an improvement. “Maybe you should keep it that way.”

“No,” he said brightly, then there they were, striding out of the alleyway and into the festival proper. It was even more amazing out on the street in the middle of it. Paper lanterns were everywhere, painted with symbols she couldn’t hope to understand. Booths lined either side of the street, hung with colourful paper flags and cheerful attendants who beckoned people to come eat or play or buy. Some people even wore masks.

What should she do first? Where should she stop? It was impossible to choose! She looked this way and that, taking in everything. A chorus of excited squeals erupted behind them and she turned to see a flock of children laughingly run away from a—Well she wasn’t sure what to call it. It was a creature, man shaped and red all over, with a giant long red nose like a sausage and large black wings that it flexed up and down.

“Doctor? Who are they?” She gestured with a nod, figuring it would be pretty rude to point.

“The people here call them tengu,” the Doctor said. “They used to be bitter enemies, but now tengu are considered peaceful guardians. Local legend has it the tengu saved them from the wrath of Shinjushitsu-hime.”

….Right. She wasn’t going to even try to pronounce it.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?” He raised his eyebrows at her. He was going to make her do this, wasn’t he? She wrinkled her nose at him. His eyebrows rose higher. She puffed. Fine.

“What’s…” She took a breath and carefully sounded it out. “Shin…ju…sheet…su himay.”

He grinned and she did too, guessing she’d got it right.

“See for yourself.” He looked up. She did too and gasped. They were looking down on a giant planet, swirling with white clouds. The only way she could tell it was a planet at all and not just clouds was that if she leaned back, she could see an endless void of stars. Rose soon learned that doing that gave her a wicked case of vertigo so she dropped her gaze to the planet again. Every once in a while blue lightning flickered from one cloud to another.

“We seem really close.” Not that she was worried, but it did seem strange.

“Meant to be. We’re in what used to be a low orbit research and observation satellite. A sort of weather slash botany station. There’s an antenna on the very bottom that was used to send and receive signals from the ground in order to get the most accurate recording of the weather. Useful for terraforming.”

“Terraforming?”

“Changing the planet so its habitable for a certain species. In this case, humans. They succeeded for a while. Maybe a handful of generations until something went horrendously wrong. As I heard it, this place went from near Earth-like conditions to toxic gas and screaming twelve hundred kilometer winds in the space of two hundred years. Seconds in planetary time.” He folded his arms. “Some people say the planet took herself back.”

“They lost their home…” Rose murmured. Funny how she knew how that felt now. Watching everything you had ever known being torn away and floating dead in space. “Now they’re just… drifting around looking down at it. At the ruin of it…” It didn’t seem fair somehow. It seemed almost too painful to think about. The Doctor’s cool hand slid against hers and squeezed her fingers comfortingly. She squeezed back, swallowing hard.

“That was centuries ago.” His voice was warm. “They’ve done what humans always do, survived. Thrived even. Look…”

And she looked down, seeing the street again packed with people and life and color.

“They’ve made it home.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said, meaning it. It really made her feel alive and somehow grateful… Grateful to be here and see this…

The Doctor shook their joined hands and began to walk.

“Come on,” he said. “We don’t have much time and lots to still see. I think I see a sakanami stand down the road. They’re fun to catch. By the way, don’t look to your left.”

She did automatically. A woman was standing in front of a mirror, admiring herself in a short coat. Rose could just see herself in the reflection over the woman’s shoulder and squawked as she realized, both hands going to her hair. It had frizzed out in all directions, probably due to the static shock she’d had earlier. Only the flower pin was keeping her from looking really bizarre.

“You jerk!” she swatted his arm, her cheeks hurting from grinning. “When were you going to tell me, huh?”

“Think I just did. Ow!” He rubbed his arm as she smacked him again. “You’re such a violent person.”

“Well you deserved it.” She stuck her tongue through her teeth at him. Then reared back her head and pointed. “Now take me to the…” She could do this. She could! “Sakanami!”

“Your wish is my command.” A mock bow and they were off, hand in hand, walking down the street. She leaned her head happily against his arm for a moment, frizzy hair and all. It was good to be here with him, she thought. Or anywhere at all.

~~****~~

Rose wasn’t sure if she was impressed or disturbed by the sakanami. She held it up in its little bag and watched it swim around. It was a fish of a beautiful yellow gold color with flashing scales and a translucent red tail. It would have been absolutely gorgeous if not for thousand tiny eyes clustered at the top of its head in a big bubble. She shuddered.

“Having fun?” The Doctor asked with a grin, hands deep in his pockets.

“Sort of. I just… I can’t stop looking at it. Even if I kind of want to.”

“That’s monkey brains for you.”

“Yeah, well, at least these monkey brains were brave enough to go see. You didn’t even go near the tub.”

“Not much of a fish fan, me.” He shrugged. She didn’t buy it but didn’t want to press either. Things had been nice so far. Loads of fun. Her arms were absolutely drenched and her sleeves would have been too except the children at the stand had shown her how to tie them back with a strip of cloth. They’d taught her how to catch them too with little paper nets that broke all the time. It was all part of the game and she had laughed and laughed just trying it out.

Now she was on the hunt. One of the children had said if she found the gold winged tengu and gave him the fish, she would get a special prize. On one hand, she’d worked hard for this fish. On the other, it seemed kind of cruel to take it with her when she didn’t know where…or when! She was going next. It would definitely be nowhere like it was used to. But a special prize, she could get behind.

There were more tengu around now, too, making the search both easier and harder because most of them tended to keep their wings behind them. It was strange, she thought, how they all got on, humans and tengu. She could get used to the idea of tengu as guardians or whatever, or even like those costumed mascots they had at theme parks. But it wasn’t like that at all. The tengu actually seemed part of everything. There were some at stalls, selling or buying. There were humans tutting over fluffy winged tengu babies. There was even a couple, human and tengu, standing underneath what looked like a real tree with twists of paper tied around the branches like leaves. She remembered what Cassandra had said about meta-humans and proto-humans and humanish and wondered if there were any of them about.

…And wondered how she felt about it.

Then she watched the human man lean up, and, laughing prodded the tengu’s nose aside so he could give her a proper kiss. She laughed too before it landed. Rose looked away before she got caught, knowing for good and all exactly how she felt about that.

“It’s kind of amazing,” she said. “I mean when I first saw the tengu, they were like monsters out of a fairy tale and I thought, that’s all they were really. But they’ve really made something here, humans and tengu. Something bigger than different species living together, or even enemies knocking eachother about. They’re just…people living with people.” She looked up, caught by his expression. “They’re like people.”

“Yup,” he said with a grin. His gaze seemed to pin her in place. “I always said you were clever.”

His tone was joking but…

“Thanks.” She looked away just in time to see a gold winged tengu practically broader than he was tall striding down down the street. Rose grinned. Target acquired.

“I have a short date with a hot blonde,” she said.

“Wot?”

“Be right back!” Of course she could tell him what was going on and probably would, but it was nice to have secrets of her own, she thought. Also, blimey, maybe the golden winged tengu was the fast tengu because it took her a moment to catch up with him. He disappeared around a corner and she hiked up her yukata a bit with one hand to try and catch a little faster, finally ducking round the corner herself.

“Excuse me!” she said then: “Oh my God. Look at that!” The first was a black temple sort of thing with gold rooves, sunk into some sort of weird depression in the ground--and that was pretty interesting, but beyond it the view opened up in a dizzying way and she could see the planet again. Only this time there was a nest of wriggling blue in the white, lightning flickering in and out between the clouds but always to a central point.

“Do you mean the Tengu Shrine or the Lady’s Flower?” said the tengu with a voice like sandpaper.

“Um… if the Lady’s Flower is that huge storm we seem to be floating toward, yeah, that’s what I mean.”

“It’s incredible, isn’t it? Beautiful beyond expression” said the tengu. “We have passed over it countless times , but it has never bothered us—and will not do so this night.”

It was really hard to take his word for it, given how violent that storm looked. Except, well, she wasn’t about to argue with the natives.

“Well, alright.” She smiled. “My name’s Rose, by the way. I er…brought a fish?”

“Ookami Warui, and I thank you for your gift.” She handed the bag over to him and he tucked it against his belt from which a cluster of other bags hung. Then he reached into his black and gold yukata to present her with a bracelet of pale yellow-brown beads, draped with a black tassel and a bat charm. Century of the Fruit Bat, she remembered, amused.

“It’s beautiful, thank you so much!” She slipped it on and held it up to examine the bat charm. It seemed to be grinning at her and she couldn’t help but grin back.

“Your companion… Is he with you?” said the tengu.

“Erm…” Rose looked back the way she had come. “Yeah, somewhere maybe. I left him back there.” She waved a hand. “Only he tends to wander off.”

Ookami took a deep breath through his nose, like the kind someone did when about to say something big or important. What could he say? He didn’t know the Doctor, did he?

“You are not the same,” he said and she was a bit disappointed. Even if it was kind of a weird thing to say.

“Er… I suppose not?” She wasn’t sure what he meant exactly. That they had different attitudes? That she was blonde and he wasn’t? Shorter? “In what way?”

“You should tell him to leave,” said Ookami.

“What?” She was so blindsided by this she wasn’t sure what else to say.

“It invites bad luck to be unwelcome to visitors during the Festival of Years. We cannot. If you should tell him to leave, it would be a favor. We do not want one of that here.”

“One of what?” Rose could feel her hackles rising. “There’s nothing wrong with him.” Then the bad luck comment struck her and she got it. Or thought she got it, but hoped she was wrong. “Is it ‘cos he’s got blue eyes and blue is unlucky is that it? If it is, that’s absolutely ridiculous and if you’re just kicking him out based on looks, then maybe you should look in a mirror, mate.”

He looked at her instead, heavy black brows narrowed. A transparent lid slid over his eye and back again.

“By the morning,” Ookami said, voice a low growl “You will no longer be visitors.”

~~****~~

By the time Rose got back to the Doctor, she was in a hell of a mood. Even the weather seemed to reflect that, the air flashing blue overhead with stabs of lightning. Her mood grew worse as she saw him standing there just about where she’d left him, hands in his pockets and watching the sky. Now that she’d thought about it he’d been like that all evening, standing back, standing away, not exploring or talking to anyone. He knew he wasn’t welcome here. He knew and he hadn’t cared to tell her.

“Right.” She came to stand in front of him, arms folded. “Out with it. Is it because of the color of your eyes?”

“What?” He looked genuinely confused but she wasn’t about to let it go that easily.

“The reason why some big nosed bloke just told me to make you leave.” By the shifting of his expression, she knew she’d been right. “I can’t believe you knew about this and brought us here. That you didn’t tell me. That you let me bang on about everyone having a home together and they want to boot you out because of something you can’t help.”

He sighed as if put upon.

“It’s not my eyes, Rose.”

“Then what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me!”

He folded his arms, gaze to the sky, muscle in his jaw working. Rose didn’t half want to strangle him. Even though she hadn’t known him long, she knew that pose. Whatever it was, he had no plans of telling her. She got it. She did. He had far more going on with him than just being blue because a match got cancelled. She just hated being so thoroughly shut out.

And she hated being made a fool of, even if she knew he hadn’t meant it that way.

Ugh. Fine. Rose moved to stand beside him, mimicking his pose on purpose. She knew he was rolling his eyes even though she couldn’t see him but that was fine. Monkey see monkey do, right? She was tempted to stick it to him and ask for a banana but—

Instead she sighed and let it go. She focused on the Lady’s Flower. They were almost right on top of it now, or getting close. It was as beautiful as it was terrifying, all that lightning hitting again and again and again. Some bolts even seemed to fork out toward them but the Doctor didn’t seem worried so she wasn’t either. She leaned over a bit and bumped her shoulder against his.

“That’s called the Lady’s Flower,” she said in an exaggerated grumble. “It’s what happens when ladies get cross.” And if he made a crack about her not being a lady, then…

“Good to know.” His voice was a bit softer too. “I’ll make sure to avoid it in the future.”

No, he wouldn’t, but she’d known that for a while now. Instead she said:

“It’s beautiful.”

“Some ladies are,” he replied.

To her horror she found herself blushing. He hadn’t meant her and if he had meant her it was a joke and even if it wasn’t joke he was entirely too old for her and not her type anyway. It was like she was thirteen again and was half convinced that every boy who was nice to her had a crush.

“It’s likely why the color blue is considered so unlucky this time of year. Nobody wants to attract her wrath,” the Doctor said. Rose winced as a flash lit up most of the sky, practically in her face. It was a bit strange not to hear thunder, but she didn’t have to hear thunder to be concerned.

“So… a storm that big…it’s going to be alright for us here then. Won’t it?”

“Don’t worry,” said the Doctor. “We’re too high up for that. It would take about a thousand years for that kind of charge to build up and even then we’d have to be right over it.” He grinned as another splinter of blue light arched out. “Fantastic.”

But Rose was suddenly feeling far from fantastic.

“Do you think these people know about it?”

“Probably not. This hasn’t been anything but a home for hundreds of years. Nothing’s even activated except for the automated systems.”

“So…” Rose pressed her lips together, thinking. Hoped she was wrong. “So here we are, right above the storm at the New Centennium Festival?”

“Yup!”

Rose stared at him. Did he really not get it? She was about to smack his arm when she saw that grin melt away and something like horror enter his eyes.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh! What are we going to do?” A stab of lightning ripped by so close the ground shuddered beneath them. There were yelps of surprise up and down the street and even more as the lights flickered. Rose had such a bad feeling about this.

“Good question. First of all, we should find someone to talk to, Maybe they know more about this than we do. Maybe they were even prepared. It isn’t likely, but no use making up a plan if they already have one in place.”

“Are you sure we’ve got time for that?”

A cluster of lightning flew so thick and fast it was like being in a strobe at a club The Doctor was casting a worried look above and Rose didn’t know if she dared look but she did and the Lady’s Flower looked more like a massive scribble.

“We should be fine,” said the Doctor. “We can take a hit or two so long as the central core isn’t struck—”

There was a flash and a tremendous CRACK. The ground shook so hard that the only thing that kept her upright was clinging to the Doctor. She opened her eyes to pitch black, which was soon replaced by hazy blue of lights that ran along the floor and up the side of the buildings. There was the haze of acrid smoke in the air, the sound of people chattering in fear, babies crying.

“—because if that were to happen,” the Doctor went on in an angry tone. “We’d lose all forward momentum and be pulled into the planet’s gravity. Good thing the-” and he said a word which she had never heard and would never be able to pronounce but knew it was a bad one “—ing antenna array won’t act like any sort of lightning rod. Well done, Doctor.”

“Right.” Rose straightened and took a moment to loosen the yukata so she’d have plenty of leg room. Then she let out a breath, keeping in a yelp as the ground shuddered again. “What do we do? How do we fix this?”

“We can’t,” the Doctor said in a hollow sort of way. His gaze was flickering back and forth, taking in all the sadness and pain and fear around him, she knew. It was reflected in his own face, in the tight, hopeless expression. “The central core is what houses the mainframe, the… brain of this entire place. With that gone there’s nothing thinking, nothing to tell the station what to do.”

It sounded terrifying. Only…

“Well something’s got to be thinking, right? I mean the lights came on.”

“No, that’s—” And then the light came back into his eyes. “—brilliant! If we’re lucky, they’ll have had backups on a different grid! They won’t be much but if we can link them up and speed up their processing power, we might be able to change our trajectory.”

“Yeah? Great!” She even understood a little what he was talking about.

“Now all we have to do is to find the control room headquarters. Squat building, centrally focused, low to the ground, maybe even in a depression of some kind.”

“I know the way if you’ve got the time,” Rose said, presenting her hand with a tongue touched grin. At least she thought she did. If nothing else that Tengu Shrine was a start. The Doctor matched her grin for grin.

“You’re two for two you are.” He took her hand. “Lead on, Rose Tyler.”

And then they were running, dodging people through the narrow street and various bits that had fallen from during the shaking. Lightning flashed over head and the road thrummed under her feet and danger lurked just around the corner with wolf sharp teeth, but Rose felt like she was flying. This was the best part. Running to save the day, to fix things, to make someone’s world a little bit of a better place.

Even better it seemed to be the right way because a handful of other people were pelting in that direction too, just ahead of them. No one too old or too young or frail looking, no one running for shelter it seemed—Just a whole clot of people running with a kind of desperate silence. Don’t worry, Rose thought at them. We’ve got you.

They followed the people down into the shrine. A series of steep metal steps had opened up and she let the Doctor go so he could dive ahead of her, keeping up with him as best she could. They came out in a great round room, the lighting was dim here but normal, save for the flashing blue warning lights on the ceiling. In the center sat a big blackened hulk of what might have been a control thing once. An thin acrid smoke curled from it, and made her eyes sting and tear.

“It’s no use,” moaned a woman. “It’s completely fried.”

“What are we going to do?” cried a man.

“Right,” said the Doctor. There was a terrific roar and something yanked her back so hard she stumbled and fell hard on the metal floor. Her ears rang with the crash.

“Oi!” she cried, opening her eyes and then: “What d’you think you’re doing?! Let him go!”

One of the tengu, Ookami, she realized, had slammed the Doctor up against the wall with a huge clawed hand around his throat, lifting him up in the air. The Doctor grimaced and struggled, pulling at the tengu’s wrist.

“You’re not welcome here!” Ookami snarled. “I will not let you take this place.”

“I’m not--” the Doctor wheezed. “I’m--” But then he winced as that fist tightened about his throat.

“Hey! Let him go! Did you hear me?” Rose struggled to pull that arm away but it was like a steel bar. She jabbed her fist against his side, kicked him in the shin, even gave his wing a sharp tug, but Ookami’s grip only tightened. Frustrated the turned to she glare wildly at the others, humans and tengu, who sat blinking stupidly.

“He’s here to help! Aren’t you going to do anything?”

“Boss—” said one of the tengu.

“Lift your nose,” Ookami growled. “And come to Remember. We tengu will never forget this stench, even through generations. We will never forget.” The hand tightened more, knuckles turning a pale pink color. “We will never forgive.”

The other tengu lifted her head and took a breath—and a black look settled across her features. The ground underneath them shook and a small whining thrum started under their feet.

“Stop!” Rose cried, tugging at that arm again. “I don’t know what happened or why you hate him but he really is here to help! Why would he be down here otherwise? He’s always helping. That’s all he does. Even if it’s stupid half the time. So let him go. Please.” Another hard tug. There was a wrenching metallic sound as if something, somewhere, had been pulled away.

“Or we’re all going to die…” she said. The Doctor gave her a single startled look. Ookami snarled once more, but dropped him. The Doctor staggered, coughing, massaging his throat. Rose tried to reach out to steady him, but he held up a hand.

“Right,” he said again, voice hoarse. “Let’s get to work.”

~~****~~

Rose stood against the wall, hands folded behind her, trying her best to stay out of the way. Wires and tubes and things coiled around the room. The Engineer Corps picked their way deftly through the gaps to prod at open panels in the walls which occasionally sizzled or sparked. The Doctor sat at the middle of the wire nest by what she guessed was a computer that was hooked up to another computer. He’d tap frantically at the keyboard for a few moments and then give it a frustrated gesture before tapping again. And here Rose was, standing useless against the wall.

At least she wasn’t the only one. Ookami was there too, standing by the door, arms folded, wings bristling and glowering. He still had the fish, too, she realized, swimming helplessly in their little bags, unable to do anything but watch. Rose kind of knew the feeling. Maybe they could stand uselessly together. He didn’t hate her after all. At least she didn’t think so. That in mind, Rose sidled up to him against the wall, making things a bit silly so he wouldn’t tense up. She stopped when she was at a polite distance and, to his raised eyebrows, said in a gruff voice.

“Wotcher.”

“Wot…cher?”

“What’s up?” She nudged her elbow gently against his side. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” He lifted his head, any faint trace of humor gone. Then, after a moment: “Do you even understand the one whom you are traveling with?”

“Never.” Rose shook her head, then a slight smile. “Sometimes. Rarely. I know he’s a good man, though. Tries his best. Is stubborn as all get out and I want to shake him to pieces now and then. But good.”

Ookami snorted. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

No, she didn’t. She didn’t know much about him really, even now. All she knew was that something terrible had happened and he was part of it. It was like that time with the plastic blob thing, the gelth. Pity the gelth, she thought. Or not! But even then she did a little. So many planets torn up. So many homes destroyed.

“Our colony nest,” Ookami said. “Almost our entire species, were obliterated. We all live now on six meager satellites. The last of our kind.”

That was coming up a lot too. The last. She remembered how that felt, even if she’d only felt it for an instant. The last human-y human anywhere in the universe. The last and only one of her.

“But he didn’t do it, did he.” Because she knew he hadn’t. Even then she felt guilty for relaxing when the tengu gave a great heaving sigh and shook his head.

“He is still an enemy. His scent is still bitter as gall in the mind of my ancestors.”

“The humans were an enemy too once, weren’t they?” She watched as a tengu took a human’s hand and helped him gingerly step over a mess of important looking tubey things.

“Yes, though that was different. We fought for many grueling years…Only when the humans saw how desperate we were, how much we needed, they—” He trailed off. His wings drooped and tucked behind him, his head bowed a bit. “—helped.” A glower. “But it’s not the same thing.”

Rose fought to hide a smile. It really wasn’t the same thing, she knew, even if the Doctor was helping them right now even after having been choked. And while she did understand some of it, the shock of losing your home, the shock of being the last—it was only the very thinnest understanding. At the end of the day she could go back home to Earth and Mum and everything she’d ever known and loved.

“It’s a hard thing, isn’t it? To be angry at someone.” She leaned back against the wall, palms flat against the warm metal. “I feel like I was angry for years back then. Didn’t want to be in school. Didn’t want a dull life. Hated being trapped and just being…normal.” Which seemed really petty in the face of everything the tengu had gone through, but the emotion felt the same. “And then my boyfriend ran off with my mate after everything I’d done for him and oooh—I could have bit an iron bar in half, I’ll tell you that.”

“I have no doubt,” said Ookami with a sort of laugh. “You are small but fierce.”

“Thanks!” Rose grinned at him, then bumped her shoulder against his arm saying: ‘no hard feelings’. “Anyway I was in a right stew. Had to go right back to being normal. Right back to living with Mum. And she said: ‘That kind of anger isn’t going to give you anything but lines. You’d do better to let it go and be cheerful about what you’ve got.’”

“Easier said than done.” The tengu’s hands were at his belt now, fingers hooked against the fabric as he looked down at the floor.

“I know it,” Rose said with a chuckle. “I stormed right out after she said that. Crashed with Mick and refused to leave for a week. Only…” A shrug. “I think she was right, you know? You don’t have to forgive and forget… and you definitely shouldn’t stop fighting for what you think is right. For the greater good and all but… I guess… it feels a lot better to be hopeful about the future than angry about the past.”

Ookami was watching her. She couldn’t read the expression in his black eyes, but she hoped it was a good one. A violent shake went through the floor and Rose stumbled. Only the tengu’s massive hand on her shoulder kept her from sprawling on the floor. She smiled a thanks at him and then looked quickly away so he wouldn’t catch her expression.

She could use a bit of hope for the immediate future about now.

Come on, Doctor, she thought, pouring all her mental energy onto him. He was hunched over now, typing furiously, sweat dotting his temples— It must be close to done, or maybe too far from done, as the Engineer Corps had stopped what they were doing and were watching anxiously.

Then the Doctor stopped himself, his fingers hovering, flexing. Rose chewed her lip. Was it a good expression? Bad expression? Hard to tell. He was definitely worried about something. But then he said:

“Fantastic.” With a hard grin and hit a button.

Rose’s heart jumped in excitement. Only nothing happened. The room remained dim and smoke filled as usual. The ground shuddered underfoot like before. The Doctor got up, setting the computer on a console and then turned to face them.

“Everything is set in place, all it needs is a little jolt to get it going. Then the programs should run like normal. It’s set up to match the ones you already have in place and I’ve left a more or less detailed manual about how to fine tune the settings you may not know about—you’re definitely going to have to go in for repairs but this should last you the next few days or so.”

Okay… It sounded good, but why was she still worried.

“The only thing left to do is to pull that lever.”

On the far side of the wall was a fairly large lever with more characters she couldn’t read. Only she didn’t need to be able to read it to know a danger sign when she saw one. The skull and crossbones underneath it painted a clear enough picture. As well as something that looked like a lightning bolt.

“We don’t have any grounding equipment on us,” said one of the Engineer Corps. The Doctor was picking his way toward the lever. Was he going to pull it? Tell her he wasn’t going to pull it.

“Maybe we should go find some,” she said.

“No time,” said the Doctor and as if to prove it the hum grew to a steady whine and a low steady tremble began.

“You have to know, the feedback will kill you,” said the other tengu.

The Doctor didn’t seem to have heard.

“You can’t be serious!” Rose said. “Let’s go and look!” Why was he always doing this? Why was he always putting himself right in harm’s way? Then in a flurry of wings, Ookami burst across the room, picked the Doctor up by the lapels and threw him into the wall.

“Doctor!” She glared at Ookami and started to pick her way toward him. Enough was enough! She wasn’t going to let him—

“Don’t!” the Doctor cried. She stopped on instinct and then realized he wasn’t talking to her as Ookami reached up and wrapped a hand around the lever. “Stop! It doesn’t have to be you.”

“We of Tengu-yon are made strong. Are made to endure. Are made to survive,” Ookami said, looking around the room. Talking to the Engineer Corps, Rose realized. His people.

“You’ll still die,” the Doctor said, getting to his feet.

“Then I go for the sake of my home.” Ookami’s gaze settled on her. “And the future.”

Rose swallowed, nodded, understood.

Ookami pulled the lever.

“Yuuukata,” she murmured to herself, hoping to get it right. –fell delicately and the dark red coloured ‘obi’, which was easier to pronounce, set off all the red and gold flowers that splashed around the robe. She’d managed to do her hair up too with the little flower comb he’d found randomly in his pocket. To do something with, he’d said. If she wanted. No use letting it just lie about any which way. Not when they were going to a festival.

Rose watched the fireworks slide across the sparkling dome of Tengu-san, blossoming in flowers and pinwheels. There was even the boom crackle sound of real fireworks as, what the Doctor had called, colored pixels, slid across the sky and faded to nothing. The universe hung beyond, filled with stars. Tengu-san had turned its back on the planet, Takako, the other tengu that had been in the control room had told her. Out of respect. Instead, Tengu-san pointed to where the tengu colony nest had been once.

The Doctor stood beside her, hands in his pockets, staring up at the sky. Or maybe beyond it. She wondered if he was looking for the nest. Or maybe his own planet. Or maybe nothing at all. She wanted to too. To forget the fireworks and stare at the black. In her chest was a hard knot, a cold one, something she couldn’t easily shake. Maybe she shouldn’t. And maybe they should go. Find another place. Another world. It would feel colder though, she thought.

A wave of laughter came from the streets, jarring her, feeling out of place. Rose looked down again, annoyed—but that feeling was swept away at what she saw. A group of kids throwing darts at a stall. A flock of old ladies hobbling their way down the street and chatting merrily. A tengu throwing a human baby in the air that squealed with laughter. The future, she thought with a smile, was happening all around them. And they were missing it.

“Come on, Doctor.” She nudged his hand from his pocket and laced her fingers through his. “We don’t have much time and lots to still see.”