The air on Platform One tastes fake and filtered — too clean. It's as if someone has edited out the realness of it.
Rose stops as soon as she sees the viewing window. Below us, Earth hangs, blue, white and small, floating in an endless black emptiness. Seeing it from up here feels wrong when one of me grew up under that sky. It's wrong, and yet it's also beautiful.
"That's... that's home," she whispers, barely loud enough to hear.
"Yeah," I say, keeping my voice soft too.
The hum of machinery can be heard behind us. Doors glide open and shut. Alien voices blend into the background, making it sound like some weird intergalactic train station. The Doctor is practically bouncing on his heels, grinning like a child seeing presents under the Christmas tree.
"Welcome to Platform One," he beams. "Host of the greatest show in the galaxy. The day the sun expands and swallows the Earth. And we've got front-row tickets."
Rose turns in a slow circle, her eyes wide as she takes everything in. Staff in blue uniforms. Giant heat shields. Those big red 'DO NOT TOUCH' signs are everywhere. Everything looks just as I remember it — like the TV episode brought to life, but messier and sharper and way more real.
I can feel the heat pulsing steadily and low in the distance, like a drumbeat in my bones. There are also around a hundred safety violations buzzing around this place —Gallifreyan standards would have a meltdown.
"Right," I mumble, scanning the room. "Note to self: don't get killed by a dodgy thermostat."
Rose glances at me. "What?"
"Nothing," I say, brushing it off with a wave. "Just me being paranoid. Engineer stuff."
The Doctor is already heading towards the steward, ready to charm him. Introductions start flying. I let him handle the talking. That's his job.
Mine's different.
I lean against a railing, trying to look casual.
I know what's coming: spiders in the vents. Spiders in the air vents. Sabotage. Cassandra and her dramatics. I remember it all.
The real question isn't whether I remember, but what I'm actually going to do about it.
I watch as Rose presses her hand against the glass, the curve of Earth catching in her gaze. The Doctor is watching her, too. For a second, something complicated flits across his face.
The TARDIS sits far behind us, silent but firmly in place, as if listening in.
I didn't come here to be the main character. I came to fix the ship, not hijack the story.
But here I am.
"Okay," I think. "End of the world. Let's see how much I can fix without wrecking the timeline."
Enhanced integration purrs in my head, picking up new details: alien technology, heat signatures, security gaps and familiar faces that seem to have been pulled straight out of TV and dropped into real life.
***
The reception line feels like somebody threw a sci-fi convention at the end of the world and forgot to invite normality.
There are aliens everywhere: shimmering and floating; wrapped in silk; stuck in tanks. Some resemble nightmare costumes, while others look like forgotten leftovers at the back of a student fridge.
Rose stands between me and the Doctor. Her eyes are wide and she is trying and failing to act normal.
I nudge her, grinning. "Don't stare. Just smile and look polite."
"I'm trying," she whispers back, "but there's a difference between not staring and not staring impolitely."
The Doctor is in his element, striding ahead with one hand in his pocket and the other holding out the psychic paper. The steward, with his blue skin and spotless uniform, rattles off names as though he's announcing a music festival lineup.
"...the Moxx of Balhoon... the Face of Boe... the Adherents of the Repeated Meme..."
"Not creepy at all," I mutter.
Rose elbows me, grinning. "You're the space expert. Tell me if I should panic."
"I will," I promise. "Right now you're at 'mildly concerned.'"
"Good."
"I'll let you know when it's time for 'oh no'—like if something catches fire."
She laughs, and honestly, so do I.
At the front, the Doctor flashes the psychic paper, grinning wide enough to light the place up.
"Doctor," he declares. "Plus two. Me, her, him." He points at himself, Rose, and me in turn.
The steward frowns at the paper, then at us.
"Doctor... and the Engineer," he reads slowly and suspiciously. "Representing... 'our continued incompetence in matters of time travel, health and safety, and basic diplomacy'?"
The Doctor blinks. "Really?"
I clear my throat. "Well, that's not entirely incorrect," I say. "Just... not exactly flattering."
The steward shrugs, decides this isn't his problem, stamps us through, and waves us on.
The gift ceremony begins immediately, with species after species stepping up to present their offerings. There are gravity globes, atmosphere samples and even a literal jukebox. They are all trying to outdo each other.
When it's the Doctor's turn, he steps forward with Rose and takes a deep breath.
"For my gift," he says, "air from my lungs."
He breathes into a device, hands it over with a dramatic bow.
The attendants look confused. A few polite claps ripple through the crowd.
Rose leans in, voice low. "Is that just him breathing?"
"Yep," I say.
"That's rubbish."
"Give him a few minutes," I say. "He'll turn it into poetry."
Then it's my turn. The steward gestures at me.
"And your gift?"
I pause, feel a dozen alien eyes on me, and decide to give them what I've got: what I do best.
"Diagnostics," I said. "On the house. Full structural scan of your station and heat shield, just to make sure we all live long enough to get bored."
A few people actually laughed. The rest just looked confused. The steward, definitely in the second group, looked like I'd just insulted his entire bloodline.
"Our systems are fully compliant," he said, sounding as stiff as a board. Despite the fact that he had been inspected fourteen times, he was still irritable about it. "Certified to Exoglass Standard Seven-Nine."
"Of course they are," I said. "That's why nothing ever goes wrong."
The Doctor shot me a look—dialed up to "you're enjoying yourself too much"—and I just gave him one right back. You invited me, I thought.
Before the steward could kick us out, the next guest showed up.
Or, well—floated in.
The last human.
Lady Cassandra O'Brien dot Delta Seventeen. Honestly, she looked like skin and wires stretched on a rack. Maybe a trampoline had lost a fight with her, hard to say.
"Moisturise me," she snapped.
Her little attendants spritzed her down. Rose actually gagged.
"You're joking," she whispered. "That's a person?"
"Technically," I said.
Cassandra launched into her speech, just as smug as I remembered her. Essentially, she was saying, "I'm human; you're all aliens", which was about as subtle as a car crash.
Had I not already known she was the saboteur, I would have suspected her on principle alone.
While she performed, I let my mind wander — but not too far. Villains deserve an audience, if only for once.
Cassandra's spiders were already on the move. Those elegant little killers. With their metal legs and tiny power cores, they were the epitome of perfect engineering, albeit wasted on murder. Jonathan had some vague memories of "CGI", but that word meant nothing compared to seeing the spiders crawl in real life.
Small metal shapes scuttled through the vents. In another life, I would have called them cheap props. Now, however, I could sense their power and feel their code humming. The real thing is always scarier than TV. The station's security didn't even notice them. They were too weak.
But not too weak for me.
I pushed the thought out of my head. There was no point in worrying about it for now. Besides, it was the Doctor's scene anyway.
***
The shine wore off fast for Rose.
After one awkward conversation about money and class with the Moxx of Balhoon and another with Cassandra about 'being authentically human', Rose looked ready to cry or punch something.
The Doctor didn't help. He was just... the Doctor. He was always joking around and avoiding anything that felt real.
"You lot all died," he tossed it out, as if it were trivial information. "Hundreds of years before this. This is just a show."
Rose's face shut down.
I stepped in, because if I didn't, someone was going to say something they'd regret.
"Come on," I said. "Let's take a field trip. Engineer's tour."
She hesitated, but followed me out of the main hall, down a quieter corridor with windows facing the swelling sun.
"You okay?" I asked.
She crossed her arms. "No. I'm five billion years in the future, my planet's about to get toasted, everyone's acting like it's a circus, and that—" she jerked her thumb at the hall "—that stretched tea towel keeps calling herself the last human. So, no. Not okay."
"Fair enough," I said, trying not to laugh.
We walked in silence for a minute.
"For what it's worth," I said, finally, "this isn't the first time I've watched a planet die."
She stared at me.
"Yeah, real cheerful. You always know just what to say," Rose said, deadpan.
I laughed, mostly at her sulking. "I mean back home," I told her. "When I was still fixing TARDISes. Solar flares, resource collapse, politicians—same story. People ruined things and blamed the weather. It all happened slower than this, but somehow it was uglier."
"That's not helping," she said.
I shrugged. "Look, my point is, this version? It's cleaner. Kinder, in its own way. Earth had its time. People moved on and scattered everywhere. Their descendants are everywhere. They are all over down there—" I nodded at the guests "—even the ones that look like cacti."
She snorted.
"So this isn't... disrespect?"
"Oh, it is," I said. "Just not how you think. They're not disrespecting Earth; they're mocking each other. It's about who's more important and who got the best seat when the world ended."
She gave a half-smile. "Yeah, that does sound like us."
We both watched the planet spin for a while in silence.
"Okay," she said finally. "End of the world, then." She set her shoulders, bracing herself. "Let's go show them how wrong they are about humans."
I grinned. "Now you sound just like him."
She shot me a look. "Don't say that. One of him's enough."
We headed back.
***
The first explosion was barely noticeable — just a slight tremor underfoot, the lights flickering and a warning beeping from a console that none of the stewards reacted in time.
Then the second hit, bigger and closer. The station did that awful thing where it acts like everything's fine, but if you pay attention, you just know it isn't.
The Doctor was already in motion. "Something's wrong with the shield," he snapped, eyes darting over the readouts. "It shouldn't be this hot in here yet."
I could feel it, too — a key junction overloading and heat leaking where it shouldn't.
At the same time, a faint alarm sounded on the periphery of my awareness. Spiders. Lots of them. They were swarming a maintenance hub.
He went after the big fire. I went after the little ones.
"Doctor," I said, "take the steward and Jabe, follow the heat. I'll check out the wiring buffet."
"You sure?" Rose called.
"Spiders and vents? That's my territory."
The Doctor gave me a look—half warning, half question.
"Don't get killed," he said.
"Working on it. You too."
We split up and ran.
***
The maintenance hub looked exactly as you would expect: metal grilles everywhere, dim lighting and awkward corners.
Inside, three members of staff were already panicking over the blank screens. One more was lying on the floor with a scorched chest and was not moving.
"Out," I barked, skidding into the doorway. "Now. All of you."
"We need to fix the filters," one protested. "The stewardship—"
"Is already up in flames," I snapped. "Someone's sabotaged your controls. Those little robots in the ceiling?" I pointed. "Definitely not standard issue."
Right on cue, a spider dropped from a vent onto a control panel and skittered across.
The staff screamed and bolted. Good.
I stepped in, slammed the door, and locked it behind them.
"Okay," I muttered, rolling up my sleeves. "Come on then, you cheap murder-Roombas."
At least a dozen of them were crawling around, jamming their legs into ports and connectors. On their own, they weren't much of a threat. Together, however, they were tearing holes in the station's defences.
Enhanced integration and centuries of experience with machinery came in handy. I could visualise the entire system — this circuit cut, that relay forced open, feedback loops rerouted.
I grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and buried the nearest row of panels in foam.
The spiders hated that. Their legs got stuck, their tiny motors whining. Two of them sparked and straight up stopped working.
"Yeah, that's right," I said. "Welcome to risk assessment, baby."
One of them jumped at my face. I caught it, smashed it to the floor and stomped on it until it was flat. Another one tried to burrow into a junction box. I yanked off the cover, rewired the access point and delivered four hundred volts of 'nope'.
It was messy, improvised work, but it slowed them down.
Nevertheless, I couldn't catch them all. A few of them slipped into deeper access tunnels and headed straight for the shield controls.
By the time the last spider twitched and died under my boot, I had stopped the worst of it on this level. The temperature dropped slightly, but enough to buy us time.
I hit the intercom. "Doctor?"
Nothing but static.
Fine. Plan B.
I pulled up the station schematics and followed the main heat control trunk to track the spiders' routes. They all headed down to the main shield maintenance area, where the Doctor and Jabe had run.
I ran after them.