The Doctor and The God

A Marvel/DoctorWho Crossover Fan Fiction

By Kathrin Louis

Rose stared absentmindedly toward the TARDIS' center console: the Doctor's white converse squeaking as he tweaked little levers and bounced around the controls as he usually did when in flight. He threw a last switch and sighed contentedly. He looked over at Rose. Something was bothering her, he could see.

"Rose?"

She jerked back to her present reality. "Sorry?"

"Deep in thought?"

"Oh… Do you think it's true?"

"What?"

"What the beast said…"

"That you will die in battle? No. I don't. I think he was trying to scare you."

"But he was right about everything else…"

The Doctor stopped messing with dials and fixed her with a gentle, conciliatory look. "I told you this when we left. He...it… whatever that thing in the pit was… it lied. Don't keep dwelling on it. That will only let it win. And I thought we beat it, didn't we?" He turned back to the monitor and flicked a few more switches.

Rose smiled, wanting to believe what he was telling her, but still partially unable to.

"Come on, let's go somewhere we haven't been." He grinned that grin that always made her feel so happy and threw another lever. The TARDIS groaned as she rematerialized.

"Where are we?"

"Haven't you stopped asking that question yet?"

He bounded to the door and opened it for her.

She stepped outside. The world was one similar to earth, though not quite as familiar. There was an extra sun and two extra moons (one waxing and just risen, another full and at the apex of the sky, and the third waning and nearly lost beyond the horizon) in the sky. Yet somehow the weather was not hot, nor the climate arid, as one would expect.

"It's a dwarf star and a red giant," the Doctor explained. "The dwarf is near enough to give heat, but is too small to make the planet habitable. The giant would bake this planet if it was any closer, but its distance makes it so that it alone could not sustain life either. This planet lives only because of the precise placement of both suns, and it could not have life without one or the other."

She looked at him knowingly. He could never say things straight out, but she wouldn't want it any other way.

"There's a settlement not very far that way. Allons'y?"

She took his arm and they headed toward the smaller sun.

A gloved hand touched the side of the TARDIS. It curled into a shape as if it were holding a tennis ball and the faint ghost of a blue orb appeared in the hand. A voice chuckled victoriously. It clenched on the orb, but it had no substance. A pair of sharp green eyes glared after the couple, arm in arm, only just still in view.

The trees thickened as they walked. Out of the corner of her eye, Rose caught a glimpse of what must have been a buck, or some animal of the like, but with golden horns. For some reason, the thought that she should not point the interesting creature out to the Doctor crossed her mind and she acquiesced.

A small village appeared as they reached a clearing in the now quite thick forest. There was a large church -Rose would call it a church that is- in the center of the square, taller than all the rest of the buildings. If Rose had payed better attention in her history classes, she might have recognized the rune on the steeple, where a cross would have been, as Wunjo, a rune sacred to Odin. The Doctor did recognize the rune and found it somewhat strange. He perhaps should have pointed this out to Rose, but he merely "hmmm"ed and sped up, dropping Rose's arm. Rose paused, looking back into the woods, once again spying the golden horns disappearing behind a clump of trees.

The creature with the golden horns watched the pretty girl and her eccentric companion as she turned again away and trotted after him. A gloved human hand reached to his golden horns and removed the horned helmet from his head. A mischievous look came into his piercing eyes, and his green and gold armor melted into a simple black business suit and grey riding coat -not unlike the clothing this particular version of the Doctor so much preferred to wear. He ran his finger through his long black hair and stepped out of the shadows.

"Doctor?" Rose called after him.

He spun around, his brown coat swirling around him. "Allons'y, Rose! Can't you hear it?"

"Hear what?"

He merely waved for her to hurry up, without an answer.

The man silently followed the pair to the edge of the village. Just as Rose sped up to catch the Doctor, he slipped into an alleyway between two thatched cottages. He feigned a cry of pain, leaning against the wall and rubbing his knee.

Rose turned at the noise. She saw the very-human looking man, apparently injured, in the alleyway.

"Hello?"

He looked up at her as she quickly ran to his aid, as Rose so often did. "Oh, hello. Don't worry about me. I'm fi-i-i-ine," he cried out as he put weight on his 'injured' leg.

"No, you're not. Let me help you." She offered him her shoulder as a crutch and he wrapped his arm around her. She looked at the ground as she took his weight on her shoulder. Had she been looking at his face, she might have noticed a pernicious half smile ghost across his lips. With her help, he managed to step out of the alleyway.

"I have a cabin in the woods. I was returning there when my knee gave a turn. It is not far, I would greatly appreciate it…" He gave her a sweet imploring half-smile, his penetrating green eyes begging her with more charm than a baby kitten.

She could not tear her eyes from his, and an innocent smirk crossed her face. "Just let me let my friend know where I've gone. And he might be able to help you too."

"And where might this friend be?"

Rose looked around. The Doctor had vanished after whatever it was that had drawn his attention. "Right… And he tells me not to wonder off…" She turned away towards the forest and helped this rather charming man walk home.

"I'm Loki, by the way. What's your name?" The name was familiar to her, but she couldn't think why. His piercing eyes burrowed into hers. A thought that perhaps this man was more dangerous than he seemed came to her but another thought, almost external -if a thought can be external-assured her that this could not be the case. His eyes softened into a comforting smile, and she could not help but find him terribly attractive.

"I'm Rose, Rose Tyler."

"Nice to meet you, Rose Tyler." He smiled at her, a shy smile, giving her the sense that this was the start of something, and he forgot to wince as he put weight on his 'injured' leg. The external thought prevented her from noticing.

They reached his cabin. It appeared rundown, a chord of wood haphazardly chopped rested beside the steps up to the door. The thatched roof looked as though a light rain might put it on the cabin's floor. However, this was not what Rose saw. Her eyes envisioned a grand hunting lodge, the kind in which a prince might spend a summer. Even a footman stood by the door.

There was a faint clanking coming from a shed behind the cabin. Rose was concerned at first. The noise was neither regular in speed nor natural. Her first impression was that someone was banging cuffed wrists against a metal pipe and attempting to shout through a gag. But this concern lasted only a moment as that strange external thought pushed it out of her mind.

Loki stepped away to open the cabin door, his injury a thing of the past. It was a simple, one room house, with a bare-minimum kitchen, and a bathroom with nothing more than a tub and a sink. Rose saw a magnificent hall with gold fixtures and a Persian carpet on the floor. She took no notice of Loki's vanished injury. Her senses were no longer her own.

With a flourishing wave of his hand, the cabin door closed itself. Unknown to Rose, from the outside, the cabin was no longer visible, in its true nor its embellished state.

The Doctor stood before the front door of the church, staring curiously at the rune. He had an unusual device in his hand, from the depths of his bigger-on-the-inside pockets, of course. It looked much like a miniature golden harp but with only one strand of what looked like unicorn hair. As he turned it in his hand the hair glittered with a rainbow. He held it close to his ear. He heard what he was trying to hear. It was a faint mechanical hum, not something native to this rather medieval village. He pocketed the tiny harp as one of the locals passed him by on his way into the church.

"Hi, hello there!" The Doctor called. The man turned and seemed to hesitate before ultimately choosing to respond.

"Fair met, sir."

"Can you hear that?"

The man politely listened for a moment. "I hear nothing out of the ordinary, sir."

"Yes… well, it might be a sound you recognize now if it's been around as long as I think it has."

"What is it that you hear, sir?"

"A vibration…." He had a theory, but he didn't want to lead the man to what he was thinking.

"I believe what you hear is the physical manifestation of the protection our God, blessed Odin, emanating from His house." The man gestured like a priest in a Christmas pageant.

"Odin? As in the Norse God?"

"I do not know this 'Norse' description."

"Could you tell me…. Where I am?"

"This is Midgard. Why do you not know where you are?"

"Well, I'm not from around here, exactly…. Well, really not even close…. I'm a traveler of sorts… it's what I do… travel… But Midgard? I was sure I'd landed on Kallack..."

"Ancient scholars claim that once it was known by that name. But he is a fool who defies the laws of our God and reaches back before He created time."

The Doctor frowned. He knew that could not be right. Midgard was the name of Earth in Norse mythology. In all his knowledge of the universe, which was quite a lot, he knew that there was no other place by that name. The myths were based on fact, as many are, and the people of Asgard had visited Earth in ancient times. Primitive humans would have seen their advanced technology as god-like power. But this was not Earth, and the fact that this man believed his home to be "Midgard" concerned him, more than a little.

"What can you tell me about your little village?"

"This is our home, Odinsheild. We work daily and worship nightly, as anyone would expect. This is all we require."

The Doctor looked back up at the rune. For only one fraction of a moment the rune appeared nearly upside down. Almost as if the triangle were a flag that had fallen to nearly the bottom of its flagpole. Then in a flash it was back at the top where it was expected to be. Anyone else would have forgotten it as a trick of the eye, but the Doctor knew different. In that instant he knew what was going on. The inverse of the rune Wunjo was the Thorn Bush Rune, Thurisaz, often times used by Loki, the god of mischief, as his sign. This worried him, as he had met the supposed son of Odin -truly a Jotun shape changer- and he knew Loki was worse than his legends described.

The last time they had met, the Doctor was in one of his previous incarnations. He thought perhaps Loki would not recognize him if they were fated to meet again, but he knew it would not be prudent to rely on this unlikelihood. He was what many races would call a god, or at least demi-god, with very strong powers of persuasion, illusion, and the ability to change his shape almost completely at will.

Sure, the Doctor could change his face-his whole physical being-but that was only when his present body was at death's door as a manner of preserving his consciousness, memories, knowledge and soul. But it was most certainly not at will. Though perhaps a Timelord could refuse to let the regeneration occur, and in so doing, die as any human would.

He had dealt with chameleon types before, but Loki was more than a shape changer. His powers of illusion over lesser beings were devastating. He could not 'read' minds as such, but he could over power them, force them to do his bidding. He had seen an entire civilization destroyed -its people turned against one another- all because Loki thought it would be "a bit of fun." Wars started because of a trick. But that was not what worried the Doctor. That last time they had met, the Doctor had defeated the great and powerful demi-god by ending his control over the people who believed him good. He had taken, simply enough, his source of power.

Of course, Loki was still dangerous without it, he did not need it, per say, to have his godly powers. But in order to rule over millions of people, he required this particular object. In human terms, it was a transmitter and an amplifier. It spread his illusions over massive physical distances and made him far more powerful. The Doctor knew that if Loki heard of his presence here, and knew him to be the same man, he would not rest until vengeance had been wrought. Rose was in danger, if they stayed any longer.

"Rose," The Doctor suddenly said aloud. The man who had so kindly answered his questions was still standing there, staring at the odd stranger.

"Sir? Is there anything else you would like to know?"

"Yes, my friend: the young girl I came to town with, have you seen her?"

"I saw you with no one else."

"Ah. Right… I'll have to see a man about a dog, as they say…. If they have a dog."

The man blinked, not familiar with the expression.

"Never mind. Ah, but if you could keep an eye out, she's blond, about yay high, wearing a rather attractive asymmetrical pink leather jacket, pretty -yes, I supposed I could describe her as pretty… which of course she is...?"

"Of course, though I don't know how much help I may be, it is about prayer time. All the village will soon be here to thank our god for his protection."

"Yes…" The Doctor grimaced with worry, and headed back out of the village. "Rule one… don't go off on your own." He sped up. "Rose!"

Rose sat on a luxurious couch, staring at a magnificent stained glass window, with the sunlight streaming through in dazzling colors. Loki stood nearby, watching her wave her fingers through imagined rays of sunlight as she sat in darkness. He smirked at the power of his illusion, completely bewildering the mind of this simple human. She is a pretty one, this Rose, he thought. That Doctor does know how to pick them. Simple and pretty.

But Loki hadn't chosen Rose just for her looks; this was vengeance. The Doctor would pay for what he took. And if it was the last thing he did, he would get into that ship of his and take his power back. He balled his fist and made it turn momentarily blue, his true lineage shining through. He thought of how he had left Asgard, thwarted by his brother in an attempt to destroy his birthplace. Vengeance: best served slowly and with many entrees. First he would seduce the Doctor's lover- companion, whatever. So he won't admit even to her that particular truth, he thought viciously. He had heard their conversation as they left the TARDIS, and could divine better than Rose the Doctor's true meaning. But of course this would only make the vengeance sweeter. He would seduce the girl, breaking the Timelord's heart as she chose another man over him, then take her key to steal the TARDIS. He was a god after all. No piece of technology from any world could deny him. Finally, he would leave the girl dead at the Doctor's feet. Leave him without his little blue box on a tiny forgotten planet whose own history was lost and their prospects forever eradicated. He can die like a human in a world where he has no power. He might change his face a few times, but he would soon realize there was nothing he could do but let himself die, alone and forgotten: finally ridding the universe of the plague of his protection.

"Loki?" Rose called him back from his callous thoughts. She spoke with a haze to her voice.

"Yes, my darling Rose?" he piled on the charm, sweetening every word as if making love to each syllable.

"Your leg, it's better then?"

"Oh, yes, of course. It must have only been twisted, the walk back here seems to have worked it out."

"There's something about you…" she began. Loki slipped into his own illusion, sharing the world she saw, and sat beside her on the big comfy couch. He easily slid an arm along the back of the couch, enticing her closer. "I don't know if I should fear you, or love you."

"What would you ever have to fear?" He brushed her hair behind her ear. "I could never harm you, my dear."

Her thoughts were struggling to make sense. This was a man she met in an alleyway, on a strange medieval planet with two suns, in a village so small it shouldn't have alleyways. He clearly faked injury, to lure her to him. No, the external thought reminded her, it was never fake. He was truly injured and in need of my help. Even the tone and cadence of the thought was not hers. Her own mind fought to hold on to that and push the obtrusive thought out.

So, not such a simple mind, I see, Loki mused. He could feel her resisting his control. He acted quickly, pulling her out of her thoughts and back into his world. He caressed her check with his hand.

"Rose, my love. You have nothing to fear. I am your protector. You will never want for anything."

These words were laced with more than a little hypnotic suggestion. Her thoughts were not merely reshaped, but silenced altogether. He pressed his lips to hers with all the passion of years of love-not merely the acquaintance of a few hours. He ended the kiss with a soft touch upon her chin. As she looked at him she saw, and was not surprised to see, the Doctor before her, looking deep into her eyes. His tousled hair wild and spiky, just the way she liked it. She wrapped him in another embrace, kissing him as she had longed to do for more time than she would admit.

Loki grinned a wicked grin as she pushed him back onto the couch, running her fingers through his hair.

"Rose!" The Doctor called. He was wandering aimlessly in the forest. Not something he tended to do, at least not outside of the TARDIS, but for the first time in a long time, he didn't know where to start.

Not a single villager he met had seen a blond girl. None of them knew that their god was actually the trickster and did not recognize his description either. Long black hair, tended to wear green and gold and a huge horned helmet. Loki had certainly never shown himself to his worshippers in that guise. He wondered if he even chose to show himself to them at all. Perhaps he pretended to be a villager like them and merely perpetuated the legends of Odin.

That did not strike the Doctor to be Loki's way though. He was the type of man who wanted to be worshipped. He would enjoy standing above a crowd of kneeling people and saying, "I am your god. Do as I command." Much the type that the Doctor so often ventured to defeat. But still, the Doctor could find no help. No one even seemed interested in helping him look. This was not the way he usually found things to be. There was always someone willing to help him when he needed assistance.

Worse still, the Doctor felt that his usually hyper attuned senses were failing him. He could not smell Rose on the wind, and that tingly feeling associated with what other cultures would call magic remained elusive -and he was sure there was magic at play here. He stopped and closed his eyes. Perhaps he could hear something that might lead him in the right direction.

It was very faint, as if through a sound barrier, but he was sure he had heard it: a clanking, or tapping. He bolted in its direction.

Rose rested on the couch, naked under a blanket, asleep. Loki opened the shuttered window and stood looking out, only half redressed. He could hear the Doctor running toward the cabin, though he was still a good ways away. He was sure that his defenses were strong enough to defeat the Doctor, yet something was drawing him here. Then he heard the clanking that Rose had noticed.

"Damn." He swore with an almost bored tone. He picked up his white dress shirt from the floor and pulled it on, fastening only two or three buttons, striding out the door and toward the shed out back.

A man was bound with a gag in his mouth and his hands cuffed in heavy metal shackles. He had managed to somehow get his hands in front of his body-Loki had lashed them behind his back-and was rapping the shackles against a metal water trough. The man stopped and stared resolutely as Loki entered the shed.

"Oh, why did you have go and make all this racket? I would have let you go once I had my power back."

"Thn mwy?" The words were garbled and unintelligible due to the gag, but he shook the chains on his wrists, and Loki knew what he was communicating.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I can't understand what you're saying. Could you speak a little clearer?" Loki mocked, chuckling cruelly. "I chained you in this dingy little place, because I know you. I know all about you."

The man looked away form his tormentor.

"You, who live here in the middle of the forest, avoiding my control. The rest of the villagers are held in my sway. They won't ever know it, but you figured it out. Somehow your mind pushed me out. So, you are the only person on this planet who would help the Doctor."

He raised an eyebrow to say, is that name supposed to mean something? But he recognized the name, though he could not think of why. Should not "doctor" simply mean a medical physician? But The Doctor… this meant something. If only he could remember what.

"Oh good…" Loki jeered, "I see I still have some little power over you."

The man's thoughts jumped around in his head. Of course he knew the Doctor. He had traveled with him. But Loki was forcing the memories out of his head. He turned his eyes on Loki and jousted with him, using whatever power his mind had used before to push him out to do so again.

"You will lose." Loki knew exactly what the man was attempting, but Loki was superior of mind and body. He was a god after all.

The man suddenly began to chuckle, which grew into a powerful laugh, despite the gag.

"What is so funny?"

He winked in response. Loki sighed and vanished the gag with a vexed wave of his hand.

The man moved his jaw around as if about to go on stage before he looked back at Loki, a knowing grin shot across his face and he sardonically taunted, "You think you're a god? Well maybe I am too." He laughed derisively.

Angered suddenly, Loki dropped the attempt to beat this man mentally and chose instead to end this game. He lunged at the man, conjuring a knife to his hand, and put it to his neck.

"You think you could ever truly match me?" Loki sneered, crouching above him.

The man spat in Loki's face. His eyes twitching, enticing Loki to try it. Do it, he thought, kill me… see if it will work this time...

With one quick movement Loki slit the man's throat. He let him slump to the floor as he stood up, standing victorious above the little man who dared to fight a god. With a twist of his hand, the bloody dagger vanished in flash of blue light. A victorious grin enveloped his face. He turned and left the shed.

Just as the Doctor had reached a clearing in the trees, the clanking suddenly stopped. He slowed momentarily, but believed he could still find the source. Then he saw a strange thing. There was a haze in the air before him, but it was not any kind of natural haze. It appeared distorted, as though the light was being bent around something. He walked slowly forward, his hands tingling from the 'magic' of the distortion.

Loki was pleased to see that the Doctor was not rushing to the door of the cabin. But he could not understand what the Doctor was looking at. Surely there was no sign marking a hidden building. He decided it was not yet time for open confrontation. Instead, he waved his hand in the Doctor's direction, and went back inside the cabin.

Rose was awake. She smiled as he walked in, still seeing him as the Doctor.

"Get dressed, my love. It is not safe here," Loki warned her. She looked out the open window to where the Doctor stood. She saw instead Loki -wearing his armor and the horned helmet. He had a murderous look in his eye and she was sure that he could see them.

"Do you have your key to the TARDIS? Mine seems to have fallen out of my pocket."

Had her mind not been overthrown by Loki, she would have found this suspicious. As it were, while she redressed, she pulled her key from her trouser pocket and handed it over to him without question. Loki grinned maniacally as he held the key before his eyes. It was a rare thing for anyone other than a Timelord to possess the key to a TARDIS. And he had managed it without really even trying. He looked passed it at Rose, now fully dressed and waiting for him. His plan was working perfectly.

The Doctor heard a door close and looked towards the sound. Rose and Loki -dressed in the black business suit and grey riding coat- appeared from no where.

"Rose!" The Doctor called. He stepped towards her, expecting her to run toward him. She backed away and took Loki's hand, hiding behind him. Loki smirked victoriously at the Doctor before they turned and ran from him.

The Doctor was sure there was an illusion at fault, and it had Loki written all over it. He was about to follow them when he heard the clanking resume. He looked around the hazy disturbed air in front of him. He carefully walked through it to see if it still had physical form, and was merely invisible. He was correct. He could still see nothing, but he found the chord of wood by tripping over it. From there he was able to find the side of the cabin, and follow it back behind to the shed. He felt for the handle and entered the shed. The interior was instantly visible.

"Well, hello, Doctor."

"Jack."

He was, of course, Captain Jack Harkness.

"You're looking young…" Jack observed, and the point disquieted him. "When was the last time you saw me?"

"After Rose erased the Dalek fleet."

"Understood." Jack nodded. He knew he could speak of none of his past experiences with the Doctor. In the Doctor's timeline, they had not happened yet. His eyes expanded as a thought came to him. "Is Rose here?"

The Doctor returned a stony face. He knew Loki was tricking her some how, but he couldn't completely throw off what he had just seen.

"Oh, you wouldn't happen to have your screwdriver on you?" Seeing that this was for some reason a sore topic, Jack changed the subject.

"I always have my sonic screwdriver," The Doctor replied, somewhat offended as he recalled the first time they had met. He pulled it out and unlocked Jack's shackles without even moving towards him.

"Something has your knickers in a twist." The British idiom sounded so strange with Jack's American accent. He stood, rubbing his wrists.

"How long have you been here?"

"In this shed? About 5 hours."

"We'd have just landed. Though I meant this planet."

"About 30 years. My vortex manipulator is busted again."

"Again? I disabled it, and it should have stayed that way."

"Sorry… timelines and such…"

The Doctor looked at Jack. The last time he had seen the Captain, Rose had just brought him back from the dead. "Rose."

"I assume we have to go save her?"

"You assume a lot."

The two men left the invisible shed and headed toward the TARDIS. The Doctor had a feeling that Loki was after it more than Rose's heart.

Rose and Loki reached the TARDIS with little trouble. He fingered the key, proud of this victory over the Doctor. The door unlocked without a fight. He had a small suspicion that the TARDIS would recognize that he was not the Doctor, but was pleased to find this not the case. Of course the TARDIS did know, she just knew better than to inform the impostor at this point in time.

Rose felt strange being in the TARDIS after what she'd done with the Doctor. For some reason, she thought the TARDIS was angry with her for it. Then her perception changed. The TARDIS was not angry, she was helping Rose reject Loki's reality and see the world as it was. Loki had reached the center console and was fiddling with buttons, trying to find one that would deadlock the door against even the Doctor's key. Rose stared at him. She could see him as he had appeared to the Doctor, dressed much like him, but not the same. She put her hand in her pocket, realizing she had handed a fraudulent Doctor her key. With horror, she recalled everything that had happened, and, falling to her knees on the grated floor of the console room, wretched.

Loki looked up at the noise, "Rose?" He still believed that he appeared as the Doctor to her.

She looked up at him again, which caused a second wave of sick.

"Who are you?" She finally managed.

He started toward her, and she recoiled with a look of utter loathing.

"You know who I am-the Doctor-"

"No you're not! I can't believe... oh God!" She collapsed again on the TARDIS floor, heaving but with nothing left in her stomach to be sick.

He knew then that his illusion was broken. He straightened himself, tall and proud, his armor reappearing as he menaced down at her from where he stood, and it seemed as though the golden horns of the helmet were growing out of his head. He had found the switch he believed correct and threw it. The Cloister Bell began to gong and the room was suddenly bathed in red light. Loki frowned. That's not supposed to happen, is it?

"What did you do!?" Rose cried out. The last time she heard that noise, the TARDIS had fallen through the Time Vortex into another dimension and the Doctor had thought her dead. The red light was new though.

"I locked the door, he can't get in! The TARDIS is mine now-and so are you!" He thundered toward her, pulled her roughly from the ground by the arm and held her against him. She tried to resist but could not free herself from his grasp.

"He certainly does like the pretty ones." He dragged her down a corridor and threw her into an empty room, locking her in.

A loud crashing noise brought Loki's attention back to the console room. He heard voices from outside.

"Hold off, Jack, I've got the key!"

The crashing stopped.

The Cloister Bell continued its warning and Loki could hear a key in the lock. "You're ship is mine, Doctor! You stole my power- now I've taken yours!" He cackled.

"Ghengis Khan couldn't get through these doors," the Doctor calmly commented through the closed TARDIS door. "The Daleks couldn't get close enough to even touch these doors. But you see…" The door opened and the Doctor stepped through, brandishing his key, his sonic screwdriver waiting in his other hand. "They weren't me. I'm the Doctor. And this is my TARDIS!"

Jack stepped in behind him, pointing his sonic blaster at Loki.

"DOCTOR!" Rose screamed from behind the locked door as she pummeled it in an attempt to either free herself or be at least heard by the real Doctor.

"You haven't got the power to defeat me, Loki. I'm a Timelord-the Last of the Timelords- and if anyone in this room has the power of a god, it's me." The Doctor pointed his screwdriver at the console.

"Oh, what are you going to do, Sonic me? You are powerless against a true god, Doctor!"

"I'm not pointing this at you." The side of the center console sprang open, as it had with Margret the Slitheen, and a bright light enveloped Loki.

"Is he going to turn into an egg?" Jack muttered to the Doctor.

"You didn't grow from an egg, did you?" The Doctor enquired quizzically.

"What?" Loki looked confused.

"Never mind."

"What is going on?" Loki implored, perhaps even with an amount of genuine fear in his voice.

"This ship is not merely a ship. She was grown, not built. She is as alive as you and me. Maybe not Jack… maybe not you, come to think of it, but as alive as Rose and Me-"

"You certainly do talk a lot."

"Yes, well…"

Loki began shaking and an anxious look covered his face. He held up his hand to make sure the Doctor could see. He looked from the light to his hand and then to the Doctor. Then he tilted his head sideways and grinned.

The Doctor frowned.

"You always fall for that- just like my useless brother." The voice came from behind Jack and the Doctor. The Loki beside the console melted away, nothing more than an astral projection. The real Loki stood behind Jack and the Doctor, who turned to face him with shock on their faces. "And you were supposed to be dead." Loki conjured a samurai sword into his hands and once again laid poor Jack to rest on the floor of the TARDIS, running him through.

"He's just going to come back again."

"He is no god, how does he manage it?" He spoke conversationally, as if they were friends having coffee. He stepped over Jack's lifeless body toward the Doctor.

"Rose."

"Her? She's nothing special, how could she-"

"Bad Wolf." Rose had broken free of the locked room and stood behind the real Doctor, her arms crossed.

Afraid she might be thinking of taking the heart of the TARDIS again, he whispered to her, not taking his eyes off Loki, "Don't… don't do that, again… I rather like this face."

"I don't need to," she responded at full volume. She did, however, walk to the console, which was still open and bathing the room with the bright white light. She carefully selected the lever that would take them into the Time Vortex. The TARDIS jerked about.

Loki had never travelled in this manner before. Something about it-or perhaps what he thought Rose might be thinking of doing-worried him.

"Have you ever heard the Earth saying, 'Hell hath no fury…'" Rose inquired, strangely calm.

"As a woman scorned? Ah...yes…"

She loured at Loki as she flipped a number of switches.

"Rose?" The Doctor began, "how are you flying the ship?"

She pointed at the bright light issuing from the console. "She's telling me what to do. Jack, would you mind…?" She pointed at the TARDIS doors.

Loki spun around to stare at Jack. "Why won't you stay dead?"

"Didn't we already explain this to you?" Jack opened both doors as instructed. They had somehow managed to materialize within the Time Vortex. It swirled like a flaming red tornado as they passed through time and space.

"'Bad Wolf?' And that was supposed to mean something to me?"

"I brought him back to life." Rose stated matter-of-factually.

"And now I can't die." Jack completed, as he took hold of the bewildered Loki.

"I am a God!" Loki cried, much like an unruly child being sent to his room. "You cannot do this to me!"

"I get the feeling you say that a lot," Rose mused, looking daggers at him.

Jack had Loki standing at the edge of the doorway. Loki turned his head to look out behind and below him. At a look from Rose, Jack tapped the distracted Loki on the shoulder and he lost his balance. He feel into the Vortex and vanished.

The Cloister Bell ended its alarm and the lighting returned to normal.

"Will he survive?" Rose asked, not sure what she wanted his answer to be.

"More than likely. He may not be a god in the sense that you think of God, but his race is one that can withstand a lot that humans can't. Very difficult to kill. I heard that not even the vast vacuum of space could kill him. He'll likely find himself out of his time and hopefully powerless. Though with Loki… he's even more dangerous without his power."

"What did he want from you?" Jack inquired as he closed the doors.

"Besides revenge?" The Doctor went to a compartment under the grated floor of the console room. The edge was marked with an L. He sonicked the lock and opened an old hope chest. "Let me see… oh look, Lumic's ear pods."

"Those are deactivated right?"

"Of course… Here it is: Loki's power amplifier." He held before them a small blue ball full of what appeared to be a tiny, angry storm cloud.

"That's it?" Jack scoffed.

"It's really just a piece of technology designed to …" the ball began to glow.

"Doctor?"

"I…." Suddenly the glowing orb popped out of existence.

"Umm…" Rose blinked.

"Thanks…" Loki's voice, faint but clear, floated through the air. They looked worriedly at each other. Maniacal laughter followed, ringing sharply before fading into the ether.

Far away, on a dead rock floating in space, Loki stood before a dark cloaked figure.

"I have retrieved it. The key…. To the Tesseract…"

The dark figure took the glowing orb from Loki's hand and placed it in a golden scepter.

Loki grinned mischievously.

On the TARDIS, Rose and Jack sat on the seat beside the console, closed now and no longer issuing the bright light. The Doctor, fervently as usual, was bouncing around, flinging levers and pushing buttons.

"How did you end up on that planet, Jack?" Rose asked suddenly.

"I….can't say. Sorry."

"Why not?"

"I'm not in the right time."

"What do you mean?"

"You and the Doctor meet me again, in your future, but my past. I can't say any more without unraveling the laws of time."

"Ah."

"Here we are!" The Doctor smacked one last switch and the TARDIS groaned to a halt.

"Where are we?"

"A place I think you've wanted to be for 30 years." The Doctor opened the door.

"A pub! Oh, brilliant, thanks Doc!" Jack joked, clapping him on the back and he strode to the door.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry, Doctor. You'll be seeing me…" He saluted.

"Don't tell me that."

"Just…. Fill up the tank, when you need to." He winked and stepped outside, the Doctor closing the door behind him.

Rose raised her eyebrow. "What did he mean?"

"I'm sure we'll figure it out, one day." He turned toward her, and suddenly realized this was the first time he had made eye contact with her since he'd watched her hide from him behind Loki. She looked away, embarrassed.

He touched her face gently, in the same manner that Loki had done in the cabin. It reminded her of him and she shuddered.

"He's a trickster. The trickster, you could call him, and the worst. Don't blame your-"

"Make me forget." She looked into his eyes.

"What?"

"I know you can, the TARDIS told me. Make me forget today. I don't want to remember any of it."

He brought her into a hug. She buried her face in his chest. He placed his thumbs and forefingers on either side of her face, closing his eyes as he slipped inside her mind. He saw the events of the day…. He opened his eyes….. She suddenly, with a happy expression, pulled out of his embrace.

"Where next?"

He bottled up the thoughts rampaging through his mind and smiled reassuringly. "London 2012?"

"Hardly the future."

"Yeah, but it's the Summer Olympics. Just a passing fancy, I suppose."

"It's an idea," Rose popped around to the other side of the console. For some reason, she felt she knew what the levers and buttons were all supposed to do now. She vaguely wondered why, but passed it off as her growing familiarity with the ship. She looked across at him and smiled happily. He looked at her, then back at was he was doing.

I can never forget. With this thought, he understood that Loki had won, this time.

The 10th Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness belong to the BBC, Russell T Davis, David Tennant, Billie Piper and John Barrowman.

Loki belongs to Marvel Studios, Paramount Pictures, Marvel Entertainment, Joss Whedon, Kenneth Branagh, Stan Lee and Tom Hiddleston

This is a work of fan fiction, intended to entertain the fans of each character, not to claim the creation of the characters. No money was made from the distribution of this short story.