Chapter 5

[seren_ccd]

By Invitation Only

Chapter 5

Rose walked into the temple and looked around for Jack and the Doctor. It was cool and smelled like the cathedral Rose visited on a school trip when she was a kid, old and almost damp. The walls had the same interlocking circles pattern that was on the outside of the temple. She realized that the small room she was standing in was an entryway of sorts. She could hear the Doctor and Jack in the room right in front of her. She draped the Doctor's jacket over her arm and hugged it to her chest for just a second. Then, she walked under an archway and into a larger room with vaulted ceilings and more engraved circles on the walls. Looking up, she saw various holes in the roof that spilled bright circles of light onto the walls. The Doctor and Jack were studying a set of markings on the wall illuminated by one of the light circles. Rose walked over.

"Here's your jacket," she said softly.

The Doctor tore his eyes away from the wall and grinned at her.

"This place is fascinating," he said happily, taking his jacket from her. The shouting match from the bridge obviously forgotten. Rose stared at him for a second, then let out a little laugh and smiled back,

"And just how is this place fascinating?" she replied, moving to stand between him and Jack.

"This was a temple that worshiped the passing of time," the Doctor explained as he pointed to etchings on the wall. The main one seemed to be a crowd of figures watching the movement of the sun through the sky. "The race that inhabited this planet held ceremonies that focused on watching time."

Rose frowned. "How can you watch time? That doesn't make sense."

"What about that leaf we saw?' Jack reminded her. "That was watching time. It was going through its cycle of life right in front of us."

"Something on this planet is causing time to move faster," the Doctor said with a frown. "Or not, time exactly, more like..."

He broke off and ran across the room to another set of drawings illuminated by the sun. Jack and Rose followed him.

"More like Life!" he said. "Look at this!"

Rose and Jack leaned close to the wall. A crowd of figures surrounded a smaller being, like a baby. The next set of figures surrounded the same figure but it had grown in size. The drawings repeated itself until the figure in the middle was obviously full-grown.

"Whoa," Jack said.

"Wait," Rose said furrowing her brow. "Let me... Does this mean...?"

She frowned, trying to understand.

The Doctor smiled at her. "Come on," he encouraged. "You know it."

Rose looked up at him. "This means that life was somehow...speeded up, accelerated? People lived and died at a faster rate than normal?"

"Yep!" the Doctor said with a grin. "The reason we haven't run into any natives is most likely because they no longer exist. Whatever is on this planet that caused those leaves to live and die so quickly, must have eventually done the same to the inhabitants. At some point they must have been living and dying so quickly they were never able to reproduce. Knew you'd get it."

Rose smiled a little, not sure if she should feel proud or insulted.

"So, these people," Jack said. "They ended up suffering the effects of whatever it is that speeds up the life cycle. Do you think it will affect us?"

"I have no idea," the Doctor replied a bit too cheerfully. "I have a feeling that this is all tied up with that Degero ring we are supposed to find of course. But what it is and how it works I have no idea." He frowned again. "And that worries me a little."

"You'll figure it out," Rose said simply looking at him. "You always do."

The Doctor looked at her and then at Jack. At their trusting faces and reassuring grins. He grinned back.

"Right then," he said. "Let's get this first instrument and be on our way."

***

After wandering through a few more rooms and looking at more etchings depicting the passage of time, Rose finally had to ask.

"So what are we looking for exactly?"

"Well," Jack said. "The map gives a clue. We are looking for 'That which symbolizes the Seconds of Time." Whatever that is."

"What," Rose said. "Like a clock or something?"

"I doubt they had clocks here," the Doctor replied. "No Mickey Mouse wristwatches for you."

"Hey," Rose said defensively. "Mine was a Tigger thank you very much."

Jack sighed. "I always wanted a Daisy one. Now that was a duck with curves and an appetite for sex."

Rose and the Doctor stared at him.

"What?" he said. "Everyone knows that Daisy was a nympho, why else would she put up with Donald?"

The Doctor shook his head and walked on. Rose just gaped at Jack.

"You know, you have single-handedly ruined my childhood beliefs," Rose accused him before following the Doctor into another room.

"What?" Jack asked again. "This is common knowledge I'll have you know. Silly 21st century prudishness."

He shook his head and went into the last room.

The three of them looked around. Absolutely nothing jumped out at them.

"There's nothing here," Rose said. "And we've looked in every room. We must have missed something."

"No," the Doctor said. "This is it."

Rose looked around at the bare room.

"How do you know?" she asked.

The Doctor removed his backpack and walked over to the far side of the room. Then he just stared at the wall.

"What is missing from this room?" he asked.

Rose shrugged. "I don't know. Everything. It's completely bare."

The Doctor grinned. "Exactly. Bare. No altars, no windows, no drawings," he lifted his hand and using his index finger began to draw. "No circles."

Rose and Jack watched from the doorway as the Doctor traced circle after circle on the wall. Rose was mesmerized as he moved his finger around and around the wall, drawing a pattern that only he could see. As he was completing his seventh circle, a loud click reverberated the small room. Rose grabbed onto Jack's arm as the walls began to shake. The Doctor just stood still, facing the wall.

"Doctor!" Rose shouted and made a move to go to him.

"No!" he said sharply, finally looking back. "Stay there!"

Rose just stared at him helplessly. Jack looked up and his eyes widened.

"Hey, Doc! You'd better..." but Jack was cut off as a large circle in the middle of the ceiling opened up and a cascade of sand poured out into the room. Jack pulled Rose out of the way of the sand, but the Doctor wasn't quick enough. The sand hit him with such a force that he was knocked down and the room was filled within seconds. Then all was quiet except for the sound of rivulets of sand running down the huge mound in front of them.

"No!" Rose cried out.

She and Jack ran to the mound of sand and began scooping it away hurriedly. Throwing sand this way and that, Rose finally just thrust her arms into the pile of sand. Sand flew into her eyes, she felt the sting and ignored it. Suddenly, she felt cool fingers close around her wrist.

"I've got him," she yelled.

Jack reached over and helped her pull the Doctor out. One final yank and the Doctor emerged from the sand. The three of them fell back under the weight and collapsed in a tangle on the floor. The Doctor began to cough and gasp for air. Rose got up and knelt beside him.

"Jack get his water," she ordered. The Captain jumped up and went to the backpacks. Rose brushed the sand away from the Doctor's face. He tried to open his eyes.

"Don't," she said softly. "It'll sting if you do that. Just let me..."

The Doctor sat there, still catching his breath, as Rose delicately brushed sand from his forehead, his nose, and cheeks. He almost found himself at a loss for breath again when he felt her breath lightly dancing across his eyes as she blew away the sand.

"There," she said. "That should do it."

He opened her eyes and blinked a few times. Rose rested on her knees in front of him, an anxious look on her face.

He wanted to grin and crack a joke about the sand he felt in all the wrong places on his body.

He wanted to say, 'See! This is how I felt when I thought you drowned! See how dangerous this is! This, whatever it is!'

He wanted to ask her to bathe with him in the clear, blue lagoon outside and wash the sand away from both of them.

But, he didn't.

The Doctor just stared at her. Then smiled.

"Guess we found the instrument," he said with a scratchy voice. He coughed and took the offered water bottle from Jack. He took a big swig.

Jack chuckled. "Yeah, guess we did.

Rose looked at the two of them, horrified. "What do you mean? All we got was a roomful of sand!"

The Doctor laughed and then coughed. He took another drink. "Look up."

Rose looked up. She frowned.

"Oh," she said.

"Yeah," Jack said. "This room is just one big hourglass."

He took a spare bag from his pack and filled it with sand. "The 'Seconds of Time'."

***

They decided to sleep by the lagoon. After a day of swimming, falling sand and two near-misses, they were just too tired to keep going. The trio wandered out of the back of the temple and lowered a small bridge to the beach across the way. The Doctor put up no argument about who was going to start the fire. He was too busy shaking out his beloved jacket and jumper.

Rose began to laugh from her spot on the ground. He looked over at her with a wounded expression.

"What? I'll have you know that I have sand everywhere and I mean everywhere," he told her.

"Then just jump into the water," she said innocently. "Just bathe off. It'll do you good."

The Doctor looked at her startled. Was she offering...?

Rose rolled her eyes. "Don't worry. I won't look," she reassured him. Then she grinned. "Can't say the same for Jack though."

"I am the perfect gentleman," Jack said as he removed the kettle from the fire. "I only peek when you're getting dressed, not while you're actually bathing."

"Creep," Rose muttered affectionately.

The Doctor shook his head, displacing more sand. Then he sat down and began to drink from the mug Jack put in front of him.

The three of them sat in silence, drinking from their mugs and watching the fire. Jack was the first to say good night.

"You two are the most accident-prone people I have ever met," he said as he laid down. "A guy could get a heart attack trying to keep up with you."

Rose smiled and continued to watch the fire. Her eyes becoming heavy as the crackling and popping of the wood soothed her.

"Sleep, Rose," the Doctor said softly as she lay down in her sleeping bag. She was asleep in seconds, breathing normal and steady.

The Doctor watched her a bit longer, then focused on the fire, until he also felt the need to lay down. And slept. And dreamed a dream of blue light and water, where soft fingers and sweet breath caressed his face.