"Chan, it's working, tho!" Chantho eclaimed as the two of them gasped, looking around surprised at the lights and the noises the generators were making.

"But how did you do that!" Yana marveled at him. "You are brilliant!" Nina cringed at the word.

"No, no," she stepped in. "Don't say that. It goes to his head," she told Yana, a smirk on her face. The Doctor gasped in fake shock, a hand over his chest.

"What?!" He yelled out. "I would never let anything go to my brilliant head!" Nina shook her head and scoffed, rolling her eyes. He laughed at her reaction before going back to work on the rocket's commands.

They all worked together as the alarms roared, telling the troops to retreat and the humans to start bowarding the ship. They worked in silence until the Doctor found out that the combustible material that was mainly powering the thing was food.

"You are a genius!" The Doctor praised him.

"Says the man who made it work," Yana shot back, his ears red in humility.

"Ooh... it's easy coming in at the end but... you're stellar," the Doctor affirmed. "This is... this is magnificent. I don't often say that 'cause... well, 'cause of me," the Doctor bragged. Nina scoffed, glaring at him. He really did let it all go to his head.

"Well, even my title is an affectation," Yana denied. "There hasn't been such a thing as a university for," he looked up, trying ti recall. "Over a thousand years. I've spent my life going from one refugee ship to another."

"If you had been born in a different time, you'd be revered," Nina affirmed. Yana didn't believe her, that's for sure. He even chuckled at her comment. "I mean it. Throughout the galaxies," she assured him.

"Oh, those damned galaxies. They had to go and collapse. Some admiration would have been nice. Just a little. Just once," he sighed.

"Well you've got it now," Nina reminded him, a soft smile on her lips. "But that footprint engine thing. You can't activate it from onboard. It's gotta be from here. You're staying behind," Nina guessed, though it sounded more like a statement, like she already knew he was staing behind.

"With Chantho," Yana confirmed. "She won't leave without me. Simply refuses."

"You'd give your life so they could fly," the Doctor said, his face sympathetic.

"Oh, I'm a little too old for Utopia," the professor dismissed. "Time I had some sleep." Nina smiled sadly at him, but completely understood. She, too, was too old.

"Professor," a voice called through the intercom. "Tell the Doctor we've found his blue box." The Doctor let out a childlike laugh and put his hand for Nina to high-five him, which she did. Jack called them over to a screen where the TARDIS could be seen.

"Professor, it's a wild stab in the dark, but I may just have found you a way out," the Doctor told him, but Nina barely heard it because from her spot behind Jack, his voice was muffled. She didn't know why until she started to hear it again, the drums. Her face went blank as her head began to flood with this unknown rhythm that for some reason, wouldn't leave her alone. Before she even knew it, the Doctor had ran off, and the noise of the TARDIS reappearing in the room.

"Extra power!" He yelled, pulling an enourmous cable out fo the TARDIS and connecting it to a cable from the rocket. Nina took a step back and leaned over a counter, placinf her hands behind her to support herself. This was the seconf time she felt like she was about to pass out. "Little bit of a cheat, but who's counting. Jack, you're in charge of the retro-feeds."

At the same time, Martha and Chantho walked back into the room, both holding some boxes and containers int heir hands.

"Oh, am I glad to see that thing," Martha sighed in relief when she saw the TARDIS parked in a corner of the room. It was only then that the Doctor realized Nina was still standing there, her breathing rapid as she tried to keep herself up. He immediatly ran to her, releasing his grip on the cables he was working on.

"Nina, what is it?" He asked her, worry filling his voice. Nina hated this. She hated having him constantly over her, worrying, being over protective. But it wasn't his fault, she wasn't okay, there was something wrong with her. And she absolutely hated it.

"I'm fine," she tried to say with a smile, but her voice wavered. The Doctor immediately shook his head and took her face in his hands.

"No. No, don't do that," he almost begged. He knew she wasn't alright. He knew something was wrong.

"What do you mean?" She asked him, trying to keep the subject away from the fact that she was almost losing consciousness right there.

"Because," he started, cutting himself off. He noticed how the corners of her mouth lifted up, but her eyes kept still. His eyes scanned her face, which was turning red. She quickly turned her head, avoiding his gaze. He scoffed, amused at her reaction, and turned her head back toward him, locking their eyes. There was so much that went unsaid.

By then, their foreheards were resting against eachother. Nina's breathing was still quick and heavy, but it wasn't really for the same reason as it once was. Nina bit her lower lip, and appareny, that was all it took. The Doctor reached down and pecked her lips, sending a warmth throughout their bodies. Almost as if he had realized his mistake, he quickly pulled back, only for Nina to grab the collar of his shirt and pull him back in for another kiss, and he was quick to respond. This one wasn't like a closed-mouthed kisses like you do when you're in sixth grade, this was a full on passionate kiss, like they had been dreaming about this moment for years.

They only broke the kiss when they heard metal clatter on the ground. The Doctor quickly turned around, Nina poping her head from behind him, and they saw Jack clumsily trying to grab the piece from the ground. The Doctor raised his eyebrows at him, and he obviously got the message. He had interrupted their moment. Jack raised his hands in surrender, a guilty look on his face that made Nina giggle. The Doctor quickly turned around and smiled softly at her.

"There it is," he said, throwing his arms around her neck. "Now tell me, what is it that's bothering you?" The Doctor mumbled in her hair. He pulled back to look at her as she answered.

"It's just.. this Professor Yana kind of creeps me out," she bately whispered. She didn't want Yana to hear because it was probabbly all in her head and Yana was probanly completely fine, so it would sound extremely rude. The Doctor raised his eyebrows at her.

"Yana?" He asked, his tone mirroring hers. "What did he do?" Nina shook her head and sighed.

"Nothing," she reassured him. This was so infuriating. She had this feeling about Yana, but she couldn't exactly explain it. It was like... he sounded familiar. He felt familiar, but... she didn't know from where. And how could she tell the Doctor that without him thinking she's even more crazy than he already does. "It's just a feeling," she uttered.

"The thing you said earlier," the Doctor echoed, a grimmace on his face as if he was trying to connect the dots in his head. "About having heard something," he continued. "It wouldn't, by any chance, have been the sound of drums, would it?"

Nina felt her blood go cold as she kept looking at the Doctor, a blank look on her face. By the expression he had on, he had gotten the message.

"How--"

"Yana just told me he contantly hears drums in his head," he murmured. "He's had it his whole life." Nina thought about it. The only two times she heard the drums were when Yana was standing dangerously close to her. She frowned.

"Why would I be hearing it now?" She asked even if she knew he didn't know the answer. He shrugged.

"I have absolutely no idea," he revealed.

"Professor Yana, are you recieving me?" A voice spoke through the computer. Nina and the Doctor shared a look before approaching him. They silently decided to simply an eye on the man, but subtly enough to make him suspicious, so they both walked to different control panels and started doing their work to help the rocket fly.

"I'm here! We're ready! Now all you need to do is connect the couplings. Then we can launch," Yana exclaimed. They heard him groan in frustration once the connection with the man called Atillo was lost. "God sakes! This equipment! Needs rebooting all the time!"

Martha approached him slowly, offering her help. Yana intructed her to press a button every time the image would go out. She ageed and they saw Atillo come back onto the screen. Yana told him he was clear to send his man inside, leaving Nina wondering where a man was being sent to.

"He's inside," atillo said. "And good luck to him."

They all watched as a man in a white full-body suit stepped into a room that was illuminated by red lights alone, flooding everyone with a sense of danger. Yana walked to Jack and pointed at some levers, telling him to keep the levels bellow the red.

"Where is that room?" The Doctor decided to ask.

"It's underneath the rocket," Yana revealed. "Fix the couplings and the footprint can work. But the entire chamber is flooded with stet radiation."

"Stet?" The Doctor asked, confused. "Never heard of it."

"You wouldn't want to. But it's safe enough. We can hold the radiation back from here," Yana explained.

They all stood in silence as the tension grew. The suited man walked inside the room and Atillo sealed the door shut behind him. They watched him put in a complicated pin number on a cylindrical object with a 'unit 1' tag on it. The top of it opened and the man slowly reached inside to turn and pull a lever. Immediatly, an alarm started to sound.

"It's rising..." Yana exclaimed. "0.2, keep it leveled," he told Jack.

"Yes, sir," Jack nodded.

They watched the man quickly open unit 2, and he turned the lever. Nothing else happened, and Nina saw the look of relief on the young man's face through the monitor. He looked so scared.

merry christmas <3