"Rose! Rose, it's no good! Go and hit the third green button from the right!" the Doctor yelled over the sounds of their impending explosion. He tapped two wires together, flinching away from the sparks it created, until the cloister bell finally quit clanging at them. "That's better!" he piped with a manic smile, before they both lurched to the ground as the ship threw them sideways."Rose?"

"I've got it!" she hollered, pulling herself back to her feet. A small drawer flew open beside her when she pushed the button (which was actually the third from the left), revealing a slim, metallic wrist brace. She picked it up, turning it over in her hands. "Doctor?"

He was at the storage bay which housed their baby TARDIS, all hooked up to their space craft, basking under a sun lamp, doing what she could to give them as much Space as she could manage, for the time being. Rose watched him step away and something about his demeanor frightened her.

It passed too quickly for her to say anything and he was flying to the controls of the alien ship, punching in commands, shoulder to shoulder with Rose – it really was a very small ship. "Rose, put it on. Is it on? Now type in one, two, zero, five, one, double nine, six." He looked at her, looked back to his controls, then he did a double take and let out a frustrated sigh. "Rose, you have to open up the interface panel!" He reached across to grab her hand, laughing when she said, "Well, it's not like there was any button said 'open here!'" before he tapped a panel open. In her defense, the design was practically seamless, he noted, proud of his own handiwork. His fingers flew over the now-exposed number pad, typing the code in. "There we are! Come on, quickly!"

Still holding her hand, he propelled them both towards the back of the ship, bursting at the seams with the desperate need to stay ahead of what was coming. Rose, ever attuned, caught his frantic energy and offered an uncertain smile. He flashed her his most brilliant grin. "Fancy a space jump!?" he laughed, grabbing hold of her head to yank her closer. He smashed his lips against her forehead in a loud, smacking kiss, and he hugged her, probably too tightly but he only had a very little bit of time, if this was to work. When she wrapped her arms around him, he listened to the whir of the wrist brace, nearly ready, and pulled away. His smile held. "Wait here," he told her. "I'll just grab the TARDIS."

He only moved after she'd nodded her agreement and had taken hold of one of the emergency handles hanging from the low ceiling of their little space craft. Then he ran. He ran to the storage panel, where the dying, baby TARDIS valiantly fought to hold them together just a little longer.

He looked back at Rose and saw the questions in her eyes. Sharp was his Rose; she knew too well when he was about to get up to something. He moved past the storage room, ignored Rose's question, and yanked out the lever to release the hangar doors. He heard Rose shout but he pulled it down – there wasn't time for an explanation. The doors opened and both passengers grabbed hold of anything they could to keep from being pulled outside. The wrist brace chimed, cheery in spite of the goings-on; charge complete. "Emergency protocol: EXEMPLAR," he shouted, and the wrist brace chimed again, whirring as it engaged the program.

"You can shove your emergency protocols!" Rose was shouting, and he smiled at her, his heart falling to pieces. "No! Not again! I won't do this again!"

"I'm sorry," he said, too softly to reach her, as he freed one hand to pull out his sonic. He aimed it at the handle she was gripping, white knuckled. She screamed protests. "It's alright!" he shouted, above the roar of the open doors and engines and the space ship behind them, much too close and still firing at them, but slowly – so very, very slow, thanks to the TARDIS's interference. "He'll catch you!" His sonic whirred. The handle released and she was yanked out the back of the hangar. In a flash of light, she was gone.

The Doctor shoved the lever back up, and in, and the hangar doors closed. He held on a moment longer and put the world right-side up as best he could, forcing too-recent memories back, and stemming the rise of panic. When he trusted his legs again, he moved into the TARDIS' storage room, slipped inside with the still growing coral, and closed the door behind him. "I only see one, good way out of this one, darling. Well, I say 'good' ..." He laid a hand on the rough surface. "I'm so sorry. I need you to do just one more thing. Can you do that for me?" He fiddled with the settings on his sonic, scanning the would-have-been ship. "'Course you can," he gushed. "You're brilliant, you are. A message. Just one, short message, a straight shot through to the other TARDIS, just follow the bouncing Rose" he narrated while he sonicked the coral, fussed with the wiring, and he soon found a newly formed button for his troubles. The lights inside the tiny chamber flickered. "There we are!"

He pressed the button and held it in. "Now you need to listen to me, and don't mess up! I'm not at all who you think I am!" He ducked, instinctively, as something overhead crashed, another piece of the ship flying away into the unknown. He raised an arm to block a shot of sparks from burning his face. His sonic caught the worst of it, and sparked itself. "Well," he began, cringing when the sonic popped. Wait! Not who he was thinking? Hadn't he spent the last four years convincing himself and Rose that that was exactly who he was!? Doctor the tenth! And- He shook his head. Never mind, now. It didn't matter, anymore. "No. No time for particulars. Short version, I'm your fighting hand, and you need to catch Rose." He swallowed, listening to the enemy ship picking up speed. Of course. The TARDIS wouldn't be able to hold a temporal anomaly /and/ relay a cross-dimensional recording; not in her current state. "Do not miss. Do not be late. Do not stand there lecturing at me – I'm only a recording and it's already done." God help him, he'd already done it, consequences be damned, and he hoped with all his heart that his counterpart would still be the kind of man who would drop anything for Rose. Why wouldn't he be? Oh, all sorts of reasons, if you thought about it. He refused to. Never mind! Keep it short!

"The coordinates are on screen." He tried to sonic the TARDIS. Nothing happened. He hit the screwdriver on the heel of his palm. "They should be." He shook it and tried again. Nothing. He threw it to the floor and laid both hands on the small coral, pressing his forehead hard against the rough surface, willing the coordinates through. "I hope they are," he said, and didn't notice the break in his voice.

"I've sent her through as best I can, but you'll need to work out the rest. It's a-" How to describe the bracelet, quickly, without detail? "well, it's a Void, Vortex…" He waved his hand in the air, frustrated, until an image ofJack's device popped into his head. "Manipulator!" What, then? "Voidtex…" Vorpoid? Vex? The ship lurched, and he was tossed against the wall. "Never mind!" Naming the thing was the least of his concerns, just a distraction! "But it wasn't finished and she doesn't have a capsule, so go!" Time travel without a capsule, never mind VOID travel – Don't think about it. "Now…" He should tell the Doctor so much more! Tell him why he was sending her! Tell him not to send her back! Tell him to take CARE of her, the way he should have done from the start, damn him and all his Time Lord angst, but the engines of his space ship guttered, and the TARDIS was fading. "I haven't got-" He scoffed at the irony of the situation. Bitter. Frightened. "I haven't got time…"

That was it. The TARDIS finished the broadcast (he hoped) and he yanked his hand away from it. She was gone. There was nothing, nothing left but empty coral. He lurched to his feet, desperate to get out the room.

He didn't leave himself time to think about what he was about to do. He just stumbled to the control panel of the space ship and started pressing buttons, not quite at random. The ship behind him was coming on fast, now, already opening a gaping maw to swallow the Doctor's tiny-in-comparison ship. He wouldn't allow those monsters access to a TARDIS: even a dead one could jumpstart a science program. And he certainly couldn't allow them access to a Time Lord, even one that wasn't quite. And he would not, under any circumstances, for any reason, allow them the chance to continue their pursuit of Rose Tyler.

He stressed his engines to the point of overloading and then he ejected them. Of course the pilots in the other ship caught on and they tried to avoid it, but they wouldn't be able to. They were done for, exactly as he'd planned. The ensuing explosion was massive, and the Doctor sank into the pilot seat, bemoaning the primitive sciences of lesser species – if he'd had his own TARDIS, this never would have happened. As it was, the saving grace was that his own, superior intellect and foresight had got Rose to safety. He closed his eyes. Of course he'd done that much. And of course the other Doctor would catch her. It was always about Rose, he thought, secure in the truth of that.

Then the explosion swallowed his ship, too.


Somewhen in the universe, a light on the Doctor's TARDIS appeared. Just a tiny little button that blinked away, off and on, for weeks, until the Doctor thought to tend to it. It would need a signal boost and more than a little coaxing, but the message would eventually come through, along with the coordinates.

The strained voice of his tenth incarnation blasted into being. "Now you need to listen to me, and don't mess up!

"I'm not at all who you think I am!" he went on, and in the background, there were obvious signs of distress. Sparking and pops, nearing an explosion.

"Well," he drawled, but he caught himself (miraculously). "No. No time for particulars. Short version, I'm your fighting hand, and you need to catch Rose. Do not miss. Do not be late. Do not stand there lecturing at me - I'm only a recording and it's already done.

"Coordinates are on screen. They should be. I hope they are," he said, a dark note of concern choking his voice. "I've sent her through as best I can, but you'll need to work out the rest. It's a - well, it's a Void/Vortex manipulator. Voidtex- never mind. But it wasn't finished and she doesn't have a capsule, so go. Now. I haven't got -" He laughed, as something else burst, in the background. "I haven't got /time./"

The message cut.


Author's note: Hello! First fanfic up! No need to be gentle, but no outright flames, please. I really would appreciate reviews. I don't have a beta. I don't know how to get one, but if anyone would like to apply, please be fabulously motivational and willing to prod. Thanks so much and I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Doctor Who.