FireOpal Comments:- Right, before I begin, I want you all to know that the title of this piece is annoying, and therefore I resorted to the almost cra-movie style of naming things. I spent hours thinking of this, so no complaints.
I know that several people stated quite clearly that "I reckon that's perfect on its own" and "Please keep it on it's own, doing a sequel would kill such a masterpiece!" But the bug caught me, and I liked it. If you enjoyed 'Species' and do not wish to read the sequel, I cannot and will not inflict it upon you, but I think this will be quite good!
Dedicated to Hana AKA EbonyBeach, because she's amazing. 'Nuff said.


Chapter One.

From Last Time

DNA strands merging…

New life form being created…

Now the adventure continues...

The first sign Rose had, about a week after their newest arrival's rescue mission, was the headaches.

OK, at first Rose put it down to the loud and arrogant tones of their new companion, 'Captain' Jack Harkness. She took paracetamol, she drank cups of tea, she went for discreet 'lie-down's. The Doctor didn't notice – was too busy tinkering and ruffling his feather's with the new boy. Well at least he saved the day, this new one, instead of leaving her to the Daleks. Shame he wouldn't, or couldn't see that.

But anyway: that was entirely beside the point, especially, she noted, as the pains seemed to be getting worse. Gradually, but surely, rising unexpectedly in her temples and reaching down behind her eyes to grip her brain in a wringer (or so it felt).

Together, they walked on foreign planets made of ice, where the waves and foam were continually frozen. They sat beneath three suns – three! Jack eased up, opened up. Laughed more, smiled truly, and stopped strutting around the place like he was some sort of king. But then, that could've been something to do with the TARDIS' initial reaction (locking him out of the only spare bedroom), and the Doctor's glares, as opposed to an actual change in character.

But it was on Ceravarious Three, a planet on the outer rim of the Sirius solar system, that they first noticed. Well, she would've been surprised if they hadn't. The three of them, had, yet again had been taken captive by the local tyrant/freedom fighters/disgruntled shopkeepers. She had lost count as to which. Sat in a semi-lit cell, each of them sat, taking a corner to themselves, and occasionally lifting their eyes to reassure themselves that the other two were there. If the Doctor glanced more at Rose than at Jack, then that was probably because she was the one in most danger, being the female. The insectoid race of Ceravarious Three was rather primitive in comparison to other races, and prized their beautiful females higher than their currency.

Rose felt the on-coming headache and mentally rolled her eyes. Talk about bad timing. As the first icy fingers stabbed through her skull, she winced, and raised a hand to rub her temple gently, trying to relieve the pain.

"Rose?" the Doctor was beside her in an instant, thankfully keeping his voice low, even if his concern was obvious. Jack raised his head from his arms, his blue eyes anxious.

"Nah, I'm fine." His gentle fingers moved hers from her forehead, and probed the skin carefully. "Honest, just a headache." She grimaced again involuntarily as the pain increased, and closed her eyes.

"That doesn't look like just a headache, even from here." Jack said softly, his accent thick.

"No. You haven't eaten anything funny recently?" the Doctor said seriously, sliding his fingers down to her neck, checking her pulse.

"What, other than your cooking?" Rose joked weakly. "Nah. Not after that time with the, wossisname… the thing that was a sort of yucky blue and neither of you ate…"

"Bajebian Mothma," Jack put in, smiling slightly to reassure her, and moving slowly across the floor.

"Your pulse is fine. Feel sick, anything else?" the Doctor said, ignoring the joke.

"Nah, I told you – just a headache."

"Hmmm." The tall alien thought deeply for a second, then shrugged off his jacket. Rose, opening her eyes slightly, saw the movement.

"Oi, I'm not sick…"

"I did not save you from the Autons, megalomaniac trampolines and Raxacoricofallapatorians just to have you get a cold. Imagine what your mum would do." He gently positioned the now unresisting blonde into a more relaxed position, placing the rolled up jacket beneath her head to cushion it from the stone floor. "Try and get some rest."

"Doctor…" Rose said sleepily, her eyes flittering shut.

"Go on Rosie, sleep." Jack said tenderly, shooting the other man a serious look. Within a few minutes, she was asleep, snoring lightly, the only sign of the earlier pain in a slight frown marring her forehead. The Doctor motioned for Jack to follow him, and the two crept as far to the other end of the cell as they could to ensure their talk wouldn't disturb her.

"So, what's up? That was no headache." Jack said, sitting cross-legged while the taller man crouched, his elbows on his knees.

"I'm not sure. I could feel a lot of tension in her temple, and her pulse was just slightly faster than normal, nothing untoward. I'm at a loss, especially without the TARDIS."

"How could she help?" Jack asked. "I mean, it's a great ship an' all, but-"

"I could take a blood sample and run it through the database. The old girl's used to this kind of thing. But here," he gestured around at the cell, "here I'm useless." His gaze turned to the door, and he glowered for a second. "Damned revolutions. I thought we'd be fine, but the Time War must've messed up their timeline too."

"It's not your fault." Jack said, resting a comforting arm on the Doctor's arm.

"Rose is my responsibility." The Doctor said stubbornly, turning his gaze back onto the ex-Time Agent. "And I'm going to get you both out of here."

Four hours later, a guard came to the door, its front pincers clicking with menace and delight.

"Come with me," it said, showing a long, agile tongue, with which it cleaned a tarnished spot on its exoskeleton.

Getting up from his position on the floor, where he had sat for the best part of three hours, occasionally getting up to check on Rose, the Doctor glanced at Jack. The other man was getting up slowly, placing himself between the thing and Rose almost subconsciously. The Doctor crossed to Rose, who was still sleeping, and shook her awake. Luckily, the migraine from earlier had descended into a dull ache, and, wearily, she sat up.

"Come!" the insect commanded impatiently, earning a glare from the two overprotective males. Helping Rose to her feet, he passed her over to Jack, who ignored her attempts to swat him away, and took her arm.

"You're staying with me, Rosie." He said seriously, and Rose was tempted to roll her eyes. However, she stopped herself doing so, as just then the Doctor turned, his blue green eyes as serious as she had ever seen them. He had that expression on his face, the same one as when they where both in 10 Downing Street, as if he was trying to tell her something in his intense gaze.

I will get you out of here.

Frowning slightly as she wondered where that thought had come from, she watched the Doctor turn swiftly back to their captor.

"Right," he said with false cheerfulness so weak you could push it over with a feather. "Take us to your leader, and lets get this whole mess sorted out." The overgrown brown grasshopper narrowed its faceted eyes at him, and its tentacles quivered.

"Get going." It growled, gesturing with its pincers to the door, butting the Doctor's torso with the blunt end so forcefully that he fell forwards slightly.

"Hey!" Rose exclaimed, trying to move forwards, but was restrained by Jack.

"Not now." He whispered quickly in her ear, reinforced when the Doctor half-turned, quelling her with a firm gaze. Glaring at the towering alien, Rose was escorted out of the room by Jack, who seemed highly reluctant to let go of her arm. The creature followed, making sure they kept pace and went in the right direction, its metallic pincers too large a threat to ignore.

They walked in silence, the Doctor marginally in front, leading the way down the barely-lit passage, his gaze sweeping over the walls, examining the architecture and technology with an experienced eye. Strange, dimly-lit panels were embedded every so often into the organic-looking walls, presumably some sort of computer, Rose thought. Though she was surprised to see few doors, and fewer linking corridors crossing their path as they strode on, their direction barely altering.

Presently, the corridors became lighter, the wall computers more complex, and even a few official looking Cervarians, who stared as they came past. However, when a rather small and obviously infantile insect stopped and looked at them with wide eyes, tentacles behind its back in a awed posture. Rose half-smiled, despite their situation, and waved, hoping it might have some sort of positive effect. The creature cocked its head at her, and tenuously waved a feeler back in a similar gesture.

Suddenly, the guard noticed them. It growled incomprehensibly, and the smaller Cervarian cowered, before running off without a backward glance.

"Keep moving!" it said to them, and Rose glared at it again, before turning to face in front of her, her brown eyes stormy. Really, this was not improving her mood.

Finally, just when Rose's feet where beginning to protest, despite the extra-comfy running-away trainers she had on, they stopped. To their left stood a large set of metal double doors, with a strange auburn net-like framework tracing across it. The effect was like someone had taken a large brown plastic spider's web and glued it onto the doors, presumably as decoration. There was another guard standing at the doors, looking, to Rose, practically identical to the one that had led them there.

"Prisoners to see the Mwugab." The gaoler stated, gesturing at the three humanoids. The doorman nodded, turned around and pressed a panel with the end of his feeler. The two doors opened slowly inwards, and the first Cervarian prodded them through into a large open-plan room.

It was large, impressively so – both tall and wide. Rose felt her eyes drawn upwards as soon as she entered, and her eyes opened wide as she surveyed the space above her. All around the top of the room, and thriving balcony ran, overflowing with chittering and chattering Cervarians, their pincers scraping against each other and their vocal chords producing a range of noises even the TARDIS had difficulty translating for her. When she looked down, she saw that Jack was leaning gently on her arm, trying to pull her forwards. Giving him an apologetic glance, she moved to stand beside him and the Doctor in the centre of the rectangular room, right in front of a raised platform on which sat the smallest and oldest-looking of all she had seen so far. Judging by the revered glances and the way they were paraded in front of it, this was some sort of leader. After a few short minutes, it bent forwards slightly and muttered something to a younger, obviously attending insectoid, who walked forwards as pompously as a creature can manage with four legs, menacing pincers and eyes in every direction.

"The Mwugab asks for silence!" It called in a grating voice, which effectively silenced the room from loud chatter to the level that Rose could suddenly hear her heart beating in her ears. There was a pause while the announcer stood back, and the elderly Mwugab leant forwards as if to peer at them.

"These are the prisoners?" it asked, its voice surprisingly strong for one so small and weak-looking.

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor interjected brightly. "And this is-"

"Silence! Silence in the presence of the Mwugab!" The pompous announcer shouted, stalking forwards again.

"Leave them be, Faladeh. I wish to hear them speak." The Mwugab said reprovingly.

"Thanks." The Doctor said, with a grin. "Anyway, as I was saying, I'm the Doctor and these are my companions, Jack Harkness and Rose Tyler." Jack and Rose smiled respectively.

"And what is your business on our planet?" the elderly Cervarian inquired.

"My lady, it is obvious! These are Petatoris spies, come to trade secrets in our long-standing war with the religious scum!" the hotheaded announcer cried, anger flashing across its many faceted eyes.

"Calm yourself Faladeh, or your presence will not be required." The leader retorted sharply. "Continue, Doctor."

"Thanks." The Doctor repeated, nodding his head at the leader, who inclined its own head in response. "We're just tourists, you know – see the universe sort of thing. But we got a bit lost and ended up here." He spread his arms wide in gesture. "If you would just let us go, we won't give you any trouble."

"But you were in the main security compound; only those with security clearance can enter there." The leader pointed out calmly, eyeing the Doctor seriously. He grinned sheepishly.

"Well, my ship isn't that accurate to be honest. Tends to get lost a lot. We didn't even know where we were until your guards came along and stunned us."

"Its true." Jack put in, eager to back up the story. The elderly Cervarian's gaze switched thoughtfully to him for a few seconds, then to Rose, and back to the Doctor.

"What form does your ship take? Is it something to do with the strange blue box we confiscated?"

"You found it! Great!" the Doctor said. "That's my TARDIS – Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Where is she, can I see her?"

"That is your craft?" another, less elderly Cervarian piped up from the sidelines. "What is it made out of? We cannot identify the substances."

"Yeah, that's my ship. She's made of wood." The Doctor said helpfully, and the creature nodded, obviously thinking this through.

"You cannot say you believe these spies, these outlanders!" Faladeh shouted scornfully, removing itself from where it had crept against the wall. "They were found in the top security vault with a strange blue box they claim is their ship, and the body of Oskaa!" Rose closed her eyes, sighing to herself. Really, this was definitely getting old. Sure, go round the universe; see planets and times she could only imagine, save the world, get trapped in metaphorical red tape.

Her headache was coming back, swiftly edging up behind her eyes. She tried to ignore it, more important things were happening, but it refused to go away. The leader-thing was yelling again, some other Cervarians were shouting too, two trying to restrain Faladeh, others trying to help him. Her vision was dimming at the edges, joined by a sudden kick of nausea to her stomach, which made her legs go limp and sent her crashing to the floor. The last thing she remembered was clutching Jack's arm as he tried to hold her sudden weight, and the Doctor turning at his call, blue eyes shocked. Then she was falling into blackness, not feeling the hard floor as she collapsed onto it.

Reviews will be adored. Reviewers will be hugged and treated to a new chapter.

Responses to 'Species' reviews:

Hana (EbonyBeach) - No Dr/Rose babies, but more fun soon!

Kat - I quite agree - bring back the TimeLords!

Enelya Aldarion - Yup! Here it is, hope you like it...

Ayiries - No idea if you're reading this, but thanks for reviewing!

Vampirehelsing - Hello again! Hope you like this.

Avelynn Tame - If you're reading, I'd love to hear your opinion! Glad you liked 'Species'.

Jillybean - Hi, and thanks!