The Doctor and Clara had allowed themselves to be captured again. It really was the best way to dismantle things, from the inside out. But it was Rose's task to run back to the TARDIS for some equipment that the Doctor needed to disable the weapons the aliens had built. He could have detonated them in a place that would cause the least damage, but someone could get hurt in the process.

Rose was currently on her way to the ship, running through the dark, London streets that were all too familiar to her. This had been the area where she lived with Jimmy as a teenage drop out. That was a dark part of her life that she was happy to have left behind centuries ago. But it seemed like old ghosts were haunting her when she heard a terrifying voice behind her shout, "Rose!"

She froze in place instantly, her mind going blank in panic. She could feel her husband reaching for her, frantically asking what was wrong, but she couldn't even process that much as she stared at the towering figure of Jimmy Stone approaching her.

"What the fuck are you doing here? Thought I told you to get back to the flat an hour ago!" he shouted at her angrily.

She should fight him. She should shout back. She should at least run. But Rose found that her muscles were seized in fear from the traumatic memories of her time living under his fists. She could smell the alcohol on his breath as he came close enough to grab her arm.

"Stupid bitch. Since you're here, you can help me with this," he demanded as he pulled her hard against his crotch.

Finally, Rose managed to get her body to move, desperately trying to wrench her arms free from his grip, but he only grasped harder. He twisted her arm behind her back painfully and dragged her to a nearby alley where he could shove her against the wall.

"No! Stop! Please!" she begged, tears making their way down her face. Had she been wearing as much makeup as she used to in this time period, they would have made black rivers on her cheeks, but this should have been long behind her; shouldn't affect her like this. She couldn't put together a coherent thought, but relayed what was happening to her husband in the disjointed thoughts and images as they came. She could feel his fury and frustration, but couldn't focus on his response at the moment.

"No?! Don't you dare say no to me, you fucking cunt!" he growled and slapped her across her face. "Was just gonna have you suck me off, but if you aren't going to cooperate, I'll just have to take what I need."

He pushed her face against the rough brick, holding her hands painfully behind her as he unfastened her jeans and yanked them out of his way, tearing her knickers in the process. He pulled the lacy remains off of her harshly and unfastened his belt. Rose closed herself off, retreated to the dark corner of her mind that she had created so long ago to hide from this very person when he came home drunk and angry about his lot in life. Everything had been blamed on her. She had left this life behind centuries ago, to travel the universe with her adoring husband, who made her feel precious, intelligent, and universally important. All she could manage from her mind was to desperately plea, "Doctor! Please, Doctor! Help me!"

Jimmy grunted like the animal he was as he thrust into her from behind. Drunk as he was, he didn't even notice the nearby rumble of explosives destroying at least one nearby warehouse. He sighed in satisfaction as he released into her and pulled away. Rose collapsed defeatedly on the filthy pavement and sobbed uncontrollably.

"What's the matter with you?" Jimmy questioned, never having seen her show this kind of reaction before.

"How dare you," the Doctor snarled behind him and in an instant, Jimmy was against the wall. The Doctor's arm was pressed into the man's throat in a way that was sure to kill him in minutes. "You worthless ape. How dare you defile my wife!"

Jimmy's eyes opened wider as he glanced at Rose on the ground. He was incapable of voicing any arguments in his current position, but tried to shake his head.

"Yes, my wife. Rose Tyler is the most incredible woman in any universe. You were never worthy to breathe in her direction. And I'll make sure you never do again," he snarled, tightening his grip on the young man's throat.

"Doctor!" Rose called to him from where she still sat, half naked on the ground. She shook her head to tell him that she never wanted him to kill anyone like this, even after what happened. "Just take me home. Please."

The Doctor looked at her adoringly as he dropped the now unconscious Jimmy, and rushed to pick his wife off of the ground. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her back to the TARDIS. He brought her straight to the infirmary, where he cleaned every cut and scrape, and used some advanced technology to destroy all of the semen from the attack before any life could be created from it. He knew that Rose would never abort a baby, no matter its origins, should it happen, but he couldn't allow this tragedy to go that far.

Once all of her injuries had been healed, he brought her to their bath and filled the tub with soothing bubbles before settling in the water with her. The Doctor refused to let her out of his arms, caressing her telepathically as they both tried to calm down.

"Why didn't the Wolf protect me, Doctor? I felt so helpless," Rose questioned softly, breaking the silence that had fallen over them.

"I wish she had, my love. All of the times that the power has surfaced, have been to protect me or our family and friends. But it never seems to work to protect yourself. When I had those few minutes to talk with the Bad Wolf, before the Cyberplanner took over again, she said that when your mind was ready to handle seeing all that is, was, and will be, you would be able to call on the power willingly. I don't know how long it will be before you are ready for that. It's been over three centuries since you looked into the time vortex. And even then, she only said you'd be able to call on her, not control the power yourself," he told her, stroking her arm and kissing her shoulder lovingly.

"You think, because I hid myself away, instead of fighting hard enough..?" she asked, turning to look at him with eyes reddened from too many tears already.

"No, Rose. Who knows what would have happened if you fought harder. He may have hurt you even more. May have broken bones or worse. What I'm saying is that if you want to learn to have some control over the Bad Wolf, to use it when you want to instead of allowing it to surface unexpectedly, we can try to figure that out. As much as the paradox would be worth going back in time to prevent this..," he insisted.

"You can't do that," she denied, shaking her head. "I will survive this. It certainly isn't the first time Jimmy Stone did something like that to me. Just never thought it could happen again. I don't know why he scared me so much tonight. It's been hundreds of years, and I've faced monsters far worse than him."

"It's been even longer for me since the war, but you know how the nightmares still haunt me. Some things stay with us, no matter how much we wish they wouldn't. That conditioned response that you had to his voice, his presence, took over your instincts. Yes, you have faced far worse than him and won, darling girl, but you were also fighting with your own mind," he explained, rocking her softly in his arms.

"What's the date? When are we?" Rose wondered.

"September 19, 2003," he replied.

"I left him. Tomorrow. He didn't come back to the flat that night. Thought he was off shagging some girl from the club and I finally left. I thought it was so strange that he didn't come after me. He always said that if I tried to go anywhere, that he would find me, but he didn't even try," Rose told him, wondering at the timing of it all. Did this horrible turn of events have to happen in order to allow her younger self to escape alive?

"Can I drop him on a deserted planet somewhere? I want him to suffer for what he did to you, my precious girl," he pleaded, squeezing her tightly.

"I know, Doctor. If you were to ask seventeen year old me, I would have said yes, in an instant. But it's over now. I can't let old ghosts haunt me forever. Nor do I want you to have that on your conscience," she insisted.

"With all the blood on my hands, he deserves it more than any of them," he argued.

"Should we press charges? Put him on trial? What good would it do? What happened, happened," she told him.

"Did he do it again? Do you know? Did he lure some other young lady into the same trap after you were gone?" he demanded. He knew that she wanted to move on and leave it behind, but there was a reason that criminals were locked away.

"I… I don't know," she admitted.

He sighed, sorry that he was arguing with her when she had been attacked so horribly earlier. He gave her a sweet kiss and a telepathic apology before picking her up from the water and setting her down on her feet. Rose wobbled a bit, but managed to dry herself off and climb into their large bed.

"I'll be back soon," he promised with a kiss to her forehead. "Get some sleep."

Walking into the console room, he found Clara sitting nervously on the bench. She looked up at him with wide eyes as he entered.

"I'm sorry, Clara," he mumbled.

"Is she alright? What happened?" she asked.

"She will be. Your gran had a run in with someone from her childhood. She was in an abusive relationship and he found her. He attacked her and it was already too late by the time I could get there," he explained, his own tears finally flowing after having stayed strong during his wife's crying earlier.

"Did you kill him?" Clara asked, knowing how much her granddad would do to protect his wife.

"No. Rose stopped me. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to just let him go and do the same to someone else," he told her, heading for the doors.

Clara followed him. She didn't think that he would go against Rose's wishes that he not kill the creep for whatever reasons, but she felt that someone needed to be nearby when he was blind with anger. She watched him pick up an unconscious man by the back of his collar from a nearby alley and drag him back to the TARDIS like a rag doll. The Doctor dropped him unceremoniously by the doors and began to pilot the ship to a new destination.

"Where are we taking him?" Clara asked cautiously.

"Trial," he replied curtly as he landed the ship and stormed back to pick up the bastard again. Dragging him out the doors, they came face to face with an Atraxi. The Doctor knew that they were in command of a prison serving that sector of space, despite the Earth not being actively spacefaring for the moment. They had methods of telepathically scanning criminals for a full record of their offences and intent at the time of the crimes committed. The seriousness of the accusations and a voluntary telepathic sharing of his experiences as a witness, gave them authority to scan the man with or without his consent.

Clara watched timidly from the doorway of their ship. Before long, Rose was standing beside her, watching as Jimmy Stone was arrested and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in an alien prison with no real memory of how he got there.

The Doctor returned to the TARDIS wordlessly and piloted them away from the prison.

"Thank you, Doctor," Rose sighed, hugging him tightly.

"For all I know, the only reason he didn't come after you when you were younger was because I dealt with him now. What would the two of you say to a relaxing day on the TARDIS?" he suggested.

"Sounds good to me," Clara agreed, planning to try and get her grandmother to talk about it a bit. She wanted to be there for her and help however she could.

"That sounds lovely. How about a picnic in the butterfly room?" Rose replied.

"You two grab a blanket and I nice spot while I go pack us some snacks," the Doctor told them as he flipped the lever that would send them spinning into the vortex, where nothing in the universe could reach them for now.