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Chapter Text
Trollesund, Norroway, Earth, Omega Tau Universe
It was midnight in winter in Trollesund, and the townspeople with any sense at all were nestled in their beds under bundles of fur, retreating from the Arctic chill.
In one house near the harbor, the windows were still flooded with light. A young woman sat at a simple wooden desk, her head bent over a thick volume. Coiled around her neck was a lithe little creature, a pine marten, staring with equal concentration at a small dial that might have appeared, to the casual observer, to be a golden watch.
Out of the corner of her eye, the young woman noticed a silhouette flutter past her window. She looked up from her reading and watched the door expectantly. The pine marten followed her gaze.
The knock on the door was barely audible over the roar of the fire in the grate. “Come in.”
A fair woman stepped into the house, a pine branch clasped in her hand. Despite the bitter cold, she was clad in nothing but a few scraps of black silk and a garland of red flowers. She looked out of place in the small, modest house, like a leopard in a kennel. “Greetings, Lyra,” she said.
“Hello, Serafina Pekkala.” For any other guest, Lyra would have pulled up a chair, but Serafina had no need for such gestures.
“I came to check on your progress with the alethiometer.” Serafina Pekkala gave the barest nod toward the dial on Lyra's desk. “Even now, Kaisa is in council with the elders of the clan. They say that there is only a little time left before the new star disappears and the prophecy takes effect.”
Lyra stared out the window, where a single star blazed brighter than all the others. “It's been tricky. I've only had a few months, and the alethiometer's answered my questions very…cryptically.” She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. “They're coming from Will's universe, Serafina. The three travelers. I thought it was impossible. The walls are sealed.” Her fists clenched and unclenched. “It's just not fair. If they can cross between worlds, why can't I?” The pine marten dug his claws into her sleeve, and she flinched. “Ouch, Pan.”
“Pantalaimon is right. This is not your prophecy to fulfill,” said Serafina sharply. “You know the consequences if you cross over. Now, what else have you learned?”
“I asked the alethiometer what the result will be of the events to come. What they lead to. I've only just worked out what it said, but it doesn't make any sense. I double-checked, cross-referenced, but I keep getting the same answer.” She held up the alethiometer so that Serafina Pekkala could see the thirty-six symbols painted around the dial, and pointed to two of the symbols as she spoke. “The needle stops once at the serpent, then indicates the 28th meaning of the owl.”
“So what does it mean?”
Lyra closed the alethiometer and frowned at it. “Bad wolf.”
Cardiff, Wales, Earth, Alpha Universe
“So, why aren't you helping him work on the TARDIS, then?” said Rose.
“I dropped a laser spanner on the cross-dimensional circuits. He started going on about primitive humans who can't tell a laser spanner from a rock hammer. Decided I'd be better off out here. Besides,” said Jack with a grin, “I never pass up a shopping trip. Ooh!” He rummaged through a sales rack and pulled out a brown dress with gold trim and a neckline that made Rose flush. “What?” he said. “Nothing wrong with showing off your assets.”
Rose laughed and smacked him gently on the shoulder. “If you buy me that, the Doctor'll dump you on the nearest uninhabited planet.”
“Nah, he'll be too distracted,” said Jack, eyes alight with mischief. He tugged meaningfully at the neckline, and Rose felt her cheeks turn even pinker. “Besides, he'd miss me too much. The TARDIS would be an cold, empty place without my charms.”
In retaliation, Rose grabbed a giant, floppy hat off a shelf and jammed it on Jack's head. He struck a pose. “How do I look?” The brim of the hat flopped down over his eyes. Rose giggled. “What? I think it brings out my – ”
Jack's chatter was interrupted by gasps and screams from the shoppers around them. Rose pulled the hat off and pointed out the window.
There was a hole in the sky. From the hole, shadows were falling across Cardiff.
“Jack, what are those things?” said Rose, indicating the shadowy figures. “They look like…ghosts.” As the shadows fell, they dissolved into the air, like snowflakes falling on a fire, vaporizing against the smoke.
“No such thing,” said Jack, half-whispering, his eyes still fixed on the hole in the sky. He took her gently by the hand. “Let's get back to the TARDIS.”
The streets of Cardiff were in turmoil. Rose held onto Jack as tight as she could so she wouldn't get swept away in the confusion. Someone was standing on an overturned crate, shouting about the end of days. “Repent!” came the cries over the hysterical throng. “The time has come to judge the souls of the living and the dead!”
Jack squeezed her hand reassuringly and guided her through the crowd. “Come on, Rose. I bet the Doctor's already figured out who's responsible and written a nice angry lecture about the error of their ways,” he said with a rakish smile, fitting his key into the TARDIS door.
The almost subliminal hum of the TARDIS was a welcome respite after the noisy confusion of the Plass. The Doctor was watching the screen on the console and scowling. “You lot,” he said, and Rose could just hear him rolling his eyes. “The most superficial resemblance to one of your old myths, and you think it's the end of days. Typical.”
“Hey, we're not the ones worried about the end of the world,” Jack pointed out. “I consider a day wasted if I haven't prevented at least one apocalypse.”
“He's in one of his 'lesser species' moods. No use arguing with him.”
“Oi!” said the Doctor, without looking up from the screen.
“It's the truth.” Rose sidled up to him. “So, what's going on? What are those things in the sky?” She sensed Jack drawing up to the Doctor's other side.
“According to these readings,” said the Doctor, eyeing a series of interlocking lines and circles on the screen that the TARDIS either couldn't or wouldn't translate, “that hole in the sky is a portal to another universe.”
“But that's impossible,” Jack said.
“Impossible? Why?” demanded Rose.
The Doctor looked up from the screen at her. “Pick a number. One or two.”
Rose was confused, but she could tell from the set of his jaw that he wasn't playing games. “All right. Two.”
“At the moment you made that choice, the universe split off. Somewhere out there, there's a parallel universe in which you chose one. Now, that universe probably won't be much different from ours. But there are so many choices, so many places where the path splits, that there are infinite parallel universes to ours, some of them more different than you can imagine.” He turned back to the screen and spoke in a muffled tone, pretending to be preoccupied with the streams of data. “Once upon a time, my people could travel between realities in our TARDISes.” The only visible sign of his grief was the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed, hard. “Now the walls are sealed off.”
Rose put her hand on the Doctor's forearm. Jack studied the lines of his face, but left a hand's-breadth of distance between them. “So…why's there a hole between them now?”
“I don't know.” He jerked upright, as if suddenly awoken from deep sleep. “But the portal's moving, and fast. The rate it's going, it could destabilize the wall between this universe and the one it connects to. We need to follow it. It's accelerating.” The screen switched to a map of Cardiff, a glowing blue dot indicating the portal's location. It was zigzagging crazily across the city, too fast for the eye to follow.
Rose frowned at the image. “It wasn't moving like that when we were outside. Something's changed.”
The Doctor blinked in surprise, then sprang to action, turning dials and flicking switches with frantic purpose. “Help me lock the TARDIS to the portal's coordinates, Jack.”
Rose stood and thought for a moment as her two friends dashed around the console, hands and mallets flying. “Do you think it's got something to do with the Rift?” She could feel the TARDIS dematerialising, and grabbed onto a coral strut just as it began to jolt from side to side.
“It's not part of the Rift, or it couldn't move beyond the boundaries of it,” said the Doctor, tilting and swaying to keep his balance. “But the portal should be drawn to weak spots between universes.”
“Doctor! Look out!” cried Jack. The Doctor felt the man collide into him, sending them both into the rondeled wall. He felt rather than saw the sparks showering from the console. His time senses screamed in unison. Reality itself shivered. Jack gasped. Rose had fallen on top of him, knocking the breath out of him.
The lights dimmed to blue. The Doctor's eyes fluttered shut. There was nothing he could do, but sitting by helplessly while the TARDIS sang confusion and shock was the worst thing of all.
The console flared with searing light. Rose threw up her arms to cover her eyes, but she could see the flames even through her closed eyelids. The TARDIS shuddered to a halt, then went cold and dark.