Alien

by mythluver241

Rogue is a young, homeless British child, who is severely malnourished, but somehow manages to ignore it. She has felt inhuman all her life, or at least, what she remembers. She can't recall her life before being a London street rat. She estimates that she is about twelve, but she can't remember ever being anything else. She meets the Doctor, or Doc, and her new adventure begins.

Hi again. You may have noticed that I have quite a few different story topics when you take this one into account. It's because I'm a nerd, don't judge. Now, it may seem a bit long, but the next chapter (if you want another chapter. Tell me by reviewing. Thanks) should be shorter because I won't need to introduce the characters or their personalities. Thanks ya'llz, and remember to tell me what you think. JJJ

Episode 1

The Christmas Invasion

Rogue sat by a garage, listening to a song that repeated the phrase "Merry Christmas" on the radio, hidden from passersby by a broken down car. She was relaxing, enjoying her luck at coming across the Christmas music even if she had nowhere and no one to celebrate it with. She felt that maybe she could finally feel like any other twelve year old kid would, minus all that Santa crap. She had learned at a young age that no one was looking out for you, no matter what you believed.

A disturbance in the song brought her back to her senses. A sound like brakes or a whooshing sound or something along those lines, and she ignored them, but they continued. Someone inside the garage yelled, "Hey, turn that down! Turn it off, Stevo, turn that off! John, shut up!" Then a black man in work clothes rushed out of the car garage, running flat out down the street.

Rogue, being Rogue, wanted to know what was going on. She knew that curiosity killed the cat, she had seen the evidence scattered in the middle of the city street, but she was bored and she knew how to avoid being seen. The secret was the fact that people didn't want to be reminded that poverty still existed, that they were better off, that their problems were nothing more than problems compared to others. They wanted an excuse to complain, not a notice that blasted a message of their selfishness in bright neon letters. She could live with that, she didn't want pity.

The man met up with a lady whose hair was bright blonde and yelled excitedly at each other.

"Mickey!" Mickey? Rogue thought, as in the mouse?

"Jackie, it's the Tardis!" Mickey said in a typical London accent that drove her nuts.

Alright, Rogue thought, these people are either crazy or just drug addicts.

"I know, I know, I heard it," Jackie said fervently, "She's alive, Mickey! I said so, didn't I? She's alive!"

"Just shut up a minute," Mickey said, silencing Jackie for a couple seconds. They both looked up at the sky expectantly.

When nothing happened except for the noise becoming steadily more annoying, Jackie voiced the already obvious question. "Well, where is it then?"

Suddenly a blue box burst out of a vortex in midair. Rogue's eyes nearly popped out of her head as it bounced off of the wall of one of the flats, another, and a third, before narrowly avoiding a nasty collision with a post office van and finally crashing into a small group of trash barrels. Rogue backed up, scared, and watched a man in a leather jacket that somehow didn't match his face pop out of the blue box like a caffeinated puppy.

"Here we are then, London. Earth. The Solar System." he said quick and over excited, and also making no sense at all to Rogue and the other two as well. Mickey wondered who the hell this man was and Jackie relatively the same, "We did it. Jackie. Mickey. Blimey! No, no, no, no, hold on. Wait there. I've got something to say. There was something I had to tell you, something important. Wat was it? No, hold on, hold on. Hold on, shush, shush, shush. Oh, I know! Merry Christmas!"

He buckled and fell through the arms of Mickey and Jackie, who looked down at him confusedly. A blonde woman who resembled Jackie very closely peeked out behind him. Rogue wondered what they had been doing in that tiny box, it didn't look like it could fit two people no matter how thin the man was, but of course Jackie and Mickey knew better than to suspect anything.

"What happened?" she said in the same accent as Mickey.

"I don't know, he just keeled over. But who is he? Where's the Doctor?"

The what?

"That's him, right in front of you. That's the Doctor."

Rogue didn't think he looked like a doctor. More likely he needed one. Jackie knelt down and checked his pulse, "What do you mean, that's the Doctor? Doctor who?"

Rogue couldn't help but feel the same confusion, which gave her something to ponder as she ran like hell away from the magical box and the doctor that required medical attention.

Rose watched the Doctor as he lay in the bed dressed in some striped pajamas her mom had somehow managed to find. Jackie walked in with a stethoscope and Rose wondered where on earth she could possibly have gotten it.

"Here we go. Tina the cleaner's got this lodger, a medical student, and she was fast asleep, so I just took it. Though I still say we should take him to hospital."

"We can't," Rose insisted, "they'd lock him up. They'd dissect him. One bottle of his blood could change the future of his human race. No! Shush!" Rose took the stethoscope out of Jackie's hands and sitting down on the bed. She checked both sides of his chest and sighed in relief. "Both working."

"What do you mean, both?" Jackie asked, confused.

"Well, he's got two hearts."

"Oh, don't be stupid," Jackie said.

"He has," Rose said exasperatedly.

Jackie looked at him curiously, "anything else he's got two of?"

"Leave him alone," Rose ordered.

Jackie left and Rose followed, but not before looking wistfully at the Doctor, and then entered the kitchen. Rose looked through the fridge.

"How can he go changing his face? Is that a different face or is he a different person?" Jackie asked.

"How should I know? Sorry. The thing is I thought I knew him, Mum," she said, unable to keep the sadness and uneasiness out of her voice, "I thought me and him were-and then he goes and does this. I keep forgetting he's not human. The big question is where'd you get a pair of men's pajamas from?"

"Howard's been staying over."

"What," Rose asked, "Howard from the market? How long's that been going on?"

"A month or so. First of all, he starts delivering at the door and I thought, that's odd. Next…" Rose tuned her out, a talent that she had learned young from all of her mother's frequent rambling.

Something on the television caught her attention, "Is that Harriet Jones?" Rose went to the living room, eager to see the familiar face. Her mom huffed in irritation. "Why's she on the telly?"

"She's Prime Minister now. I'm eighteen quid a week better off. They're calling it Britain's Golden Age. I keep on saying my Rose has met her."

"Did more than that," Rose said, reminiscing about that specific occasion with the Slitheen, "stopped World War Three with her. Harriet Jones." She fixed her gaze on the television.

A man appeared on TV to talk about some sort of space stuff. After all of her travels she couldn't help but wonder how people could be so excited about a simple probe, but decided that it would be rather exciting for the rest of the human race. She felt like such a spoiled brat, thinking herself better than any other person.

The man, who was apparently named Daniel Llewellyn, started speaking about the probe and Rose found herself listening, "Prime Minister, what about those calling the Guinevere One Space Probe a waste of money?"

"Now, that's where you're wrong," Harriet responded, completely dignified, "I completely disagree if you don't mind. The Guinevere One Space Probe represents this country's limitless ambition. British workmanship sailing up there among the stars." Rose had to admit that the slight bout of rudeness was actually rather empowering to hear, considering it had been so well placed.

A Narrator spoke in the background as the screen became an image of a space probe nearing the orange streaked planet of Mars, "This is the spirit of Christmas, birth and rejoicing, and the dawn of a new age, and that is what we're achieving fifteen million miles away. Our very own miracle. The unmanned probe Guinevere One is about to make its final descent. Photographers of the Martian Landscape should be received by midnight tonight." Rose couldn't help but feel curious about how far the human race could go.

Rose and Mickey walked down the street surrounded by other late Christmas shoppers. Rogue always hated being homeless during this time of year. So many people walking around, displaying money everywhere. Spending so much for other people. The idiots, they should be more careful with their money.

Rogue had decided to follow them the minute she had seen them hop out of their taxi. It was easy to follow people in a crowd, mainly because of the fact that if someone went into the same store as you, it wasn't all that strange, and the flow of movement went all the same way.

Rogue got closer to them as they stopped at a kiosk in the street, conversing.

"So, what do you need?" Mickey enquired, "Twenty quid?"

"Do you mind?" Rose asked, "I'll pay you back." Rogue sighed, hating her at that moment. She was barely able to survive, her physical build was proof enough. Her veins were clearly visible over her bones, her skin stretched over her skeleton like a sheet of wax paper. Her auburn hair was deliberately drawn over one eye, while the other one was displayed willingly in all its dark, animalized glory. She had often wondered who her parents had been to produce such a failure of a human being, but she couldn't remember any of her life before nine years old, which was when she had somehow ended up on the streets.

She was wearing a large trench coat in relatively good shape that she had found in a pile of rubbish down an alleyway and that she now used when she didn't want to be seen as a near-death street brat. She even tied a few rags around the mysterious manacles on her wrists, ankles, and neck so that she didn't stick out so much. She had no idea whatsoever where she could have gotten them, only that they had been attached to her as long as she could remember. They were silver and thin but incredibly strong. In her entire three years of street life she had never been able to get them off. They were seared to her flesh, she didn't know how they had gotten there.

"Call it a Christmas present," Mickey told her. Rogue hated hearing people talk about Christmas presents. She had never gotten one, or at least, she couldn't remember ever receiving one, and that was enough for her to dislike the very mention of spending precious money on useless gifts for others. She would kill for enough money to buy herself a sandwich that wasn't half eaten or maggot infested.

"God, I'm all out of synch," Rose said, "you just forget about Christmas and things in the Tardis. They don't exist. You get sort of timeless." Rogue guessed that the Tardis was the little blue box, but she couldn't guess how you could forget Christmas in a telephone box that flew. Funny, she hadn't really registered the flying part until now. Maybe her mind just didn't want to bother with it. Like it couldn't handle it or something.

"Oh, yeah, that's fascinating, because I love hearing stories about the Tardis. Oh, go on Rose, tell us another one because I swear I could listen to it all day. Tardis this, Tardis that."

"Shut up," Rose said, annoyed. Not that Mickey wasn't.

"Oh, and one time the Tardis landed in a big yellow garden full of balloons!" Mickey said, ignoring her remark.

"I'm not like that," Rose insisted.

"Oh, you so are."

"Mm, must drive you mad," Rose said distractedly, "I'm surprised you don't give up on me." Ah, Rogue thought, a relationship.

"Oh, that's the thing, isn't it? You can rely on me. I don't go changing my face." Rogue didn't understand what that meant. She assumed that it was some sort of term referring to the other man who had been in the box with his girlfriend, which did seem rather suspicious.

"Yeah," Rose said. Then a sudden thought seemed to strike her and she said hastily, "What if he's dying?"

Mickey sighed exasperatedly, "Okay."

"Sorry!" Rose said quickly.

"Just let it be Christmas. Can you do that? Just for a bit. You and me and Christmas. No Doctor, no bog monster, no life or death." Rogue sure hoped that she didn't have to bother with bog monsters, or the Doctor ever again.

And maybe not life or death any more than she already did.

"Okay," Rose said.

"Promise," Mickey asked hopefully.

"Yes!" Rose said. It was her turn to be annoyed. Why was Mickey acting so jealous? She loved him, didn't she? Well, didn't she? She suddenly felt doubts about her relationship with Mickey compared to her relationship with the Doctor. But then, what relationship did they have? Friends? Companions? Lovers? Asked a tiny voice in the back of her mind, the sly one that she could only hope was wrong. She didn't feel that way about him, did she? She definitely didn't. And he certainly didn't feel that way about her, so why bother. She had a loyal boyfriend, who had waited for her for a year, she believed. Mickey loved her, and she loved him. End of story.

"Right!" Mickey said, unconvinced. Then he subtly changed the point, "what're you going to get for your mum?" he asked as they walked around the market. "I'm round there all the time now, you know. She does my dinner on Sunday, talks about you all afternoon, yap, yap, yap."

Rose noticed that the asked band had begun to follow them. She looked towards them over her shoulder, dismissing them as a simple band going where they liked.

Her first mistake.

Rogue saw the band move but didn't register it as suspicious or anything. Not until the burst of flame issued from the trombone. Rose screamed and Mickey jumped and Rogue swore to the Lord above. She hated trombones in general. Now a flamethrower trombone, she could tolerate, if she wasn't on the receiving end, which she was.

Rose yelled, "It's us! Their after us!" from their hiding place behind a stall before it blew up in her face, due to the tuba, another instrument she highly disliked, firing a blast like a bomb.

Rose and Mickey ran for cover as the band of evil Santa Clauses turned toward them. The Tuba fired of another blast which directly hit the giant tree Rose and Mickey had been using for cover, and unfortunately for the Tuba man, it fell down in all of its jolly, holiday glory and crushed him.

The other band members ran for it as Rogue laughed and a couple people turned to look at her, as if she were some of manic - which was always right around the corner for her – and then turned back to the screaming mass of humans in panic. Rogue searched for a bit before catching sight of Rose and Mickey's retreating heads sprinting down the road. Rose called for a taxi, and that was the end of eavesdropping for Rogue.

But not the end of following.

Rose sat in the taxi, scared out of her wits, but with just enough sense to call her mom to make sure that she and the Doctor were okay.

"They're after the Doctor!" she told Mickey as she fished around her pockets for her phone, dreading that she had forgotten it.

"I can't even go shopping with you," Mickey said angrily, "We get attacked by a brass band." Rose sighed with relief as she pulled her hand out of her back pocket with the damn thing in her triumphant clutch. "Who're you phoning?"

"My mum," Rose said as she finished dialing and held the phone up too her ear. The tone went off and she filled with anxiety. When it went off five more times she feared the worst. "Get off the phone!" she hissed, though she knew that Jackie wouldn't hear her.

"Who were those Santa things?" Mickey asked.

"I don't know. But think about it. They were after us. What's important about us? Well, nothing, except the one thing we've got tucked up in bed. The Doctor!"

Rose and Mickey dashed out of the Taxi and ran up the stairs, hurdling through the door to her flat.

"Get off the phone!" Rose yelled.

"It's only Bev," Jackie said, frustrated, "she says hi."

Rose yanked the phone out of Jackie's hand, "Bev? Yeah. Look, it'll have to wait." She hung up and looked at her mom, "Right, it's not safe. We've got to get out. Where can we go?"

"My mate Stan, he'll put us up," Mickey said helpfully.

"That's only two streets away. What about Mo? Where's she living now?"

"I don't know," Jackie said, "Peak District."

"Well, we'll go to cousin Mo's then."

"No, it's Christmas Eve! We're not going anywhere! What're you babbling about?" Jackie asked angrily.

"Mum?" Rose asked, turning her attention for the first time to the tree, "Where'd you get that tree?" It was green, not white like the last one had been, "that's a new tree. Where'd you get it?"

"I thought it was you."

"How can it be me?" Rose asked suspiciously.

"Well, you went shopping," Jackie said, "There was a ring at the door, and there it was!"

"No, it wasn't me."

"Then who was it?" Jackie asked apprehensively.

Rose stood back, holding an arm out to shield her mom and Mickey as the lights blinked on slowly and Jingle Bells began to play. "Oh, you're kidding me."

The sections of the tree started turning, faster and faster in opposite directions like spinning razors. Rose and Jackie yelled as it sawed easily through one of their coffee tables.

"Get out! Go, go! Get out!" Mickey yelled as he picked up a chair and faced the chair legs towards the tree while Jackie and Rose ran for the door. Rose turned dashed into the Doctor's room, Jackie looking at her confusedly.

"We've got to save the Doctor!" Rose yelled over the din of the killer Christmas tree as it rudely sawed through her walls.

"What're you doing?!" Jackie asked.

"We can't just leave him!" she insisted.

The chair in Mickey's hand began to demolish as the tree of death smashed it into pieces. "Mickey!" Rose yelled and he turned and dashed inside the room.

"Get out of there!" Jackie shouted at Rose, but she refused to leave. "No, leave him. Just leave him!" Jackie shouted once more, begging Rose to abandon the Doctor, something she couldn't do.

Mickey sided with her, "get in here!" Jackie did as she was told as the Christmas tree from Hell demolished the wall behind her. She and Mickey shut the door and barricaded it using the wardrobe. The door shook and Mickey tried to keep it from bursting open, but it didn't look like it was going to work. Rose fished around in the pocket of his coat and pulled out the sonic screwdriver, placing it in his hands as if it would revive him or something. It didn't, and the tree blew through the door as though there hadn't been any extra precautions.

"I'm going to be killed by a Christmas tree!" screamed Jackie, pushing herself against the wall in a failed attempt to put as much distance between her and the death tree as possible.

One final blip of inspiration popped into Rose's brain, and she bent down and whispered in the Doctor's ear, "Help me."

The change was instantaneous. The Doctor shot up into a sitting position as if he was spring loaded and aimed the sonic screwdriver, which was active and glowing green, directly at the demon tree, which exploded in one final hurrah and stopped. "Remote control," the Doctor said, as if he had been awake the whole time and hadn't just destroyed a Christmas tree that had demolished half of the Tyler's flat, "But who's controlling it?"

And with that he pulled on a dressing gown, looked at Rose, and then purposefully led them out of the door.

Rogue was just losing hope that she would ever find Mickey and Rose again when the man from before burst out of a door down the balcony on the building to her left, wearing a dress robe and pajamas, and walked quickly down the hall, followed by Rose, Mickey and Jackie.

"Damn," Rogue swore, "wrong building."

She had followed the taxi Rose had been in to this area, but hadn't seen where she had gone afterwards, only just able to see the taxi from her position. They had gotten out and then she had lost sight of them, guessing that they had run into a flat, but not knowing which building. It was almost luck that she had such a good spot to watch them from her location on the roof opposite them, shielded from light by the overhand of the roof where she sat, crouched low to the ground, listening to the events unfold.

She barely noticed the brass band from before until Mickey and the rest turned and gazed at them. She could have sworn that she had seen the stranger's eyes flicker to her, but even if he had looked at the roof, he wouldn't have seen her. She had always been good at finding decent hiding places.

"That's them," Mickey said, regarding the doom Clauses angrily, "What are they?"

"Shush," Rose hissed, and Rogue watched the Doctor guy raise a small metal object and point it threateningly at the band from Hell. The Santas clumped together into a triangle and Rogue couldn't but think illuminati, before they did some sort of beamy, blue teleportation crap and Rogue sighed. Enough with the magic shit, she felt like yelling, but controlled herself. She had heard about some pretty weird crap going on all over the world, particularly Europe. Space ships and aliens and stuff. Just last Christmas there had been and attack of plastic manikins that had killed a few people, though she had avoided them rather efficiently.

"Pilot fish," said the man that she had elected to be called Doc, just because of how they had addressed him in the beginning.

"What?" Rose asked him.

"They were just pilot fish," he said, and Rogue saw him glance at her, catching her gaze and focusing on her eye. Then he yelled and buckled, obviously in pain. She jumped a bit, it had been so sudden. He convulsed and fell back against the wall and window behind him. "You woke me up too soon! I'm still regenerating! I'm bursting with energy," he gasped, and golden light flowed out of his mouth, floating in wispy tendrils into the sky. "You see?" Doc asked, "The pilot fish could smell it a million miles away. So they eliminate the defense, that's you lot, and they carry me off. They could run batteries on me for a couple of –

He gasped in pain again and fell to the railing, where Jackie bent down in front of him. "My head!" he panted, "I'm having a neuron implosion. I need-

"What do you need?"

"I need-

"Say it. Tell me, tell me, tell me!" Jackie interrupted him.

"I need-

"Painkillers?"

"I need-

"Do you need aspirin?"

"I need-

"Codeine? Paracetamol? Oh, I know, Pepto-Bismol?"

"I need-

"Is it food? Something simple. Bowl of soup. A nice bowl of soup? Soup and a sandwich? Soup and a little ham sandwich?"

Rose and Mickey just stood and watched, probably unable to react. Personally, Rogue wanted to slap the lady named Jackie, but refrained because no one could make the jump from one roof to the other.

"I need you to shut up," the Doc hissed, and Rogue internally applauded him.

"Oh, he hasn't changed much, has he?" Jackie said indignantly.

"We haven't got much time," Doc said, standing up and walking in front of Rose, almost against the other wall again, "If there's pilot fish, then – why's there an apple in my dressing gown?" The abrupt change of conversation was apparently due to the green apple the Doc had just found fishing around in his robe. Rogue glanced at it and felt her mouth water and her stomach rumble in hunger, but the Doc just dismissed it as nothing more than an annoyance.

"Oh, that's Howard. Sorry," Jackie told him, matter-of-factly.

"He keeps apples in his dressing gown?"

"He gets hungry."

"What, he gets hungry in his sleep?"

"Sometimes."

The Doctor snarled almost like an animal and sunk down, in obvious agony. "Argh! Brain collapsing!" he focused determinedly on Rose, who sat next to him, and he spoke directly to her, "the pilot fish…the pilot fish mean that something…something..." on the third attempt he tried harder and finally got some words out, "something is coming."

Rogue silently got to her feet, frightened at this statement, and caught the eyes of Doc pierce her own one more time, before they closed at last and he passed out, leaving her and the others to ponder what that outburst may have meant.

Rose and Mickey supported the Doctor, helping him inside, unaware on the dark eye that followed their movements and took note of the door they entered. They were too busy with their job to look back, and Jackie didn't because she was simply mindless in the area of stalkers.

When they got inside Rose put the Doctors arm around her shoulder and heaved him off of Mickey, who went to fetch his laptop. She dragged the Doctor into the bedroom and tucked him in, the grabbed a rag and mopped his brow worriedly. She heard Mickey ask if he could use the phone line, and at her mother's consent, she imagined that he went off to google to probably try to figure out what all of that had meant.

She grabbed the stethoscope off of the bedside table and used it to check the Doctor's heartbeat, sighing in frustration as only one side of his chest was responsive. She got up and, leaving the stethoscope on the table, walked out of the room just as the bells of big ben began to chime.

"It's midnight," Jackie said, "Christmas day. Any change?"

"He's worse. Just one heart beating," Rose told her.

She turned to the television as a reporter said, "Scientists in charge of Britain's mission to Mars have re-established contact with the Guinevere One space probe. They're expecting the first transmission from the planet's surface in the next few minutes."

Then the man from before, Llewellyn, appeared on a pedestal surrounded by news reporters, "Yes, we are. We're…we're back on schedule. We've received the signal from Guinevere One. The Mars landing would seem to be an unqualified success."

"But is it true that you completely lost contact earlier tonight?"

"Yes, we had a bit of a scare. Guinevere seemed to fall off the scope, but it…it was just a blip. Only disappeared for a few seconds. She is fine now, absolutely fine. We're getting the first pictures transmitted live any minute now. I'd better get back to it, thanks." And with that, he rushed out of a side door, bombarded by flashes of cameras.

Rose wrenched her gaze away from the TV as Mickey called her attention elsewhere, "Here we go, pilot fish," Rose went over to look at what he had pulled up. A miniature video of a fish swimming along was all that she was rewarded with, "Scavengers, like the Doctor said. Harmless. They're tiny. But the point is, the little fish swim alongside the big fish."

"Do you mean like sharks?"

"Great big sharks," Mickey confirmed, "So, what the Doctor means is, we had them," he pointed to the picture of the tiny fish, "Now we get that." A shark burst into the picture menacingly.

"Something is coming," Rose muttered to herself, "How close?"

"There's no way of telling, but the pilot fish don't swim far from their daddy."

"So it's close?" Rose asked, barely noticing the television.

"Funny sort of rocks," Jackie said, and Rose turned to look.

"The first photographs," said a newsreader.

"That's not rocks," Rose muttered, looking closely at the television screen.

On the screen, the image became clearer, and what had looked like rocks began to move. Rose heard her mom gasp in surprise as when the image sharpened and the four strange looking creatures were to be seen, with strange bone-like faces and lava red robes, with red bug eyes. They growled and gurgled at the screen in deep gritty voices.

"This image is being transmitted via mission control, coming live from the depths of space on Christmas morning," said a newsreader said in the background, "On the 25th of December, the human race has been shown proof that alien life exists. These remarkable images have been relayed right across the world."

Meanwhile, at the Tower of London, Llewellyn was being escorted from the press conference by a group of fierce looking soldiers. They had piled him into a black car and drove him off to what they had been calling 'Unit HQ'. He had no ideas what Unit was, but he supposed that it was some sort of government branch.

When they arrived at the apparent destination, a man got out and opened the door for him. He stepped out, a little flustered at all of the curtesy, not used to such behavior. When he stepped out he was immediately greeted by the fiercest looking man around. He wore army green and the badges all over his suit and hat. He had dark chocolate skin, with dark, dangerous eyes and a stiff posture. He told Llewellyn that his name was Blake, then walked him in, say as he went, "This way, sir."

Sir? Llewellyn thought, I could get used to this.

They entered the basement, level 11, full of a hive of workers, scientists and workers. He looked around but could barely tell who was who or what was what or where one person was from here to there and back again. He was then dragged into another, quieter room, where he was met by a woman whom he recognized instantly.

Blake introduced him to her, and she flashed him her ID. "Harriet Jones, Prime Minister."

"Oh. Well, yes, I know who you are," he stuttered, stating the obvious, "I suppose I've ruined your Christmas."

"Never off duty, "she stated, taking a cup of coffee from a younger looking boy with tannish skin and dark brown hair, "Now, have we put out a cover story Alex has been handling it."

He spoke directly to her, "We've said it was a hoax. Some sort of mask or prosthetics. Students hi-jacking the signal, that sort of thing."

"Alex," she said, gesturing to the boy, "My right hand man. I'm not used to having a right hand man. I quite like it, though."

"I quite like it myself," he responded, nodding obediently.

"I don't suppose there's any chance it, uh, was a hoax," Llewellyn asked hopefully.

"That would be nice. Then we could all go home," Harriet said, "I don't suppose anyone's offered you a coffee?"

"No," Llewellyn said distractedly.

"But, no, the transmission was genuine. And this seems to be a new species of alien. At least, not one we've encountered before," Harriet continued, handing him a cup of coffee.

"You seem to be talking about aliens as a matter of fact," Llewellyn said confusedly.

"There's an Act of Parliament banning my autobiography," she said straightforwardly.

"Prime Minister?" Blake asked, walking up to them into the room.

"I'm with you," she said quickly, walking briskly beside him with the air of authority as they walked into the main room.

"Miss Jacobs can explain," Blake said, gesturing to a blonde young woman who was standing at attention.

"I don't think we've been introduced. Harriet Jones, Prime Minister."

"Yes, I know who you are," she said, a temporary break in her professionality, before going back to her whole science-y attitude. Turning back to the screens, Sally said, "The transmission didn't come from the surface of Mars. Guinevere One was broadcasting from a point five thousand miles above the planet."

"In other words," Blake continued for her, "They've got a ship and the probe is on board."

"But if they're not from the surface, then they might not be from Mars itself. Maybe they're not actual Martians," Llewellyn said.

"Of course not," Blake said in his deep, commanding voice, "Martians look completely different. We think the ship was in flight when they just came across the probe."

"And they're moving. The ship's still in flight now. We've got it on the Hubble array," Sally said importantly.

"Moving in which direction?" Harriet asked.

"Towards us," Sally added.

"How fast?"

"Very fast," Sally said.

"What was your name again?" Harriet asked her.

"Sally."

"Thank you, Sally," she said.

At the Tyler's flat, Mickey was seeing everything that they were on the screen of his computer. "Rose, take a look. I've got access to the military. They're tracking a spaceship. It's big, it's fast and it's coming this way."

"Coming for what, though? The Doctor?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's coming for all of us." A clearer image appeared on the screen, a picture of four of the strange aliens from before. "Have you seen them before?"

"No," Rose said, puzzled. The creatures all began growling in strange voices, gruff and raspy. "I don't understand what they're saying. The Tardis translates alien languages inside my head, all the time, wherever I am." Mickey didn't like the idea of some blue telephone box inside his girlfriend's head.

"So, why isn't it doing it now?" Mickey asked. Why did Rose have to get all caught up in the spacey, timey stuff? He wondered.

"I don't know," she said, "Must be the Doctor. Like he's part of the circuit, and he's-he's broken."

"I'm getting demands from Washington, ma'am," Blake told Harriet, "The President's insisting that he take control of the situation."

"You can tell the President, and please use these exact words, he's not my boss, and he's certainly not turning this into a war," she said briskly, not really thinking. She walked over to Alex, who was holding their translator aloft in his hands. She wondered secretly if that was the proper way to address the ruler of a country, but decided to worry about it some other time. "What have we got?" she asked, ignoring her previous thoughts and going back to the current topic.

"Nothing yet. Translating an alien language is going to take time," Alex said, glancing up at her before looking back down at the translator.

"How far is the ship?" Blake asked.

"About five hours."

"I don't suppose we've had a Code Nine?" Harriet asked hopefully, walking away from the group with Blake, "No sign of the Doctor?"

"Nothing yet," Blake informed her, "You've met him, haven't you? More like the stuff of legend."

"He is that," she said, thinking again about her the rather unpleasant yet life changing occasion when she had been trapped in a building by a large and rather gassy family of Slitheen. "Failing him, what about Torchwood?"

"I-

"I know I'm not supposed to know about it, I realize that. Not even the United Nations knows. But if ever there was a need for Torchwood, it's now," she said hastily, flapping her hands around in the air like a bird of some sort.

"I can't take responsibility-

"I can," she insisted, "See to it. Get them ready."

Alex walked up to her, calling, "Prime Minister!"

"Has it worked?" she asked immediately.

"Just about," he replied, staring back down at the screen. Harriet peered curiously at the screen as the unnamed aliens began to growl in their native tongue, and to her surprise, the screen began translating. "People," Alex read, "That could be cattle. You belong to us. To the Sycorax, they seem to be called Sycorax. They seem to be called Sycorax, not Martians. We own you. We possess your land, your minerals, your precious stones. You will surrender or they will die. Sycorax strong, Sycorax mighty, Sycorax rock, as in the modern sense, they rock," he finally finished, taking a breath and looking up at them expectantly.

"They will die," Llewellyn pointed out, "Not you will die, they will die. Who's they?"

"I don't know," Alex admitted, "But it's the right personal pronoun. It's they."

"Send the, a reply," Harriet said, "Tell them, this is a day of peace to the Sycorax." Then a thought struck her and she added, "And then tell them, this planet is armed and we do not surrender."

With that Alex and Llewellyn walked off to join Sally, who had been beckoning to them from back near the computers. They looked outside to see dawn breaking. She turned to them, "They got the message. Here comes the response."

They all turned back to the large screen at the front of the room, awaiting the Sycorax response. But instead of anything verbal, the creature in the front raised its sharp, claw-like hand, and Harriet stared in puzzlement as blue tendrils of light flickered across its hand. She didn't know what it was, but was sure that it wasn't going to be good. She barely noticed the same blue light as it flickered around the faces of Sally, as well as many other workers and scientists in the room.

"Maybe it's a different form of language, some sort of ideogram or pictogram," Llewellyn wondered aloud, not noticing the blue lights surrounding the heads of his fellow scientists. He suddenly turned as Sally started walking towards the exits. Two more girls and a man got up from their chairs with the same energy flowing around their heads. "What the hell? It's the light! It's the same light! Sally, what are you doing?! Sally?!" He tried to restrain her, to hold her back, but she just kept trying to go forward in a trance of some sort.

"Oh, leave her! You'll just hurt her!" Harriet insisted.

"Let them pass!" Blake ordered the ones who were unaffected, and they stood back, looking on with frightened and worried looks upon their faces. "Where are they going?" Llewellyn asked with the same alarmed expression reflected on his face.

Rogue awoke to the yells of a crowd on the streets outside her hiding place. She yawned and looked over the ledge of the roof. Clusters of zombielike people trudged down the street, followed by other, more active companions. Family members, she realized. There were mothers and fathers crying as their partners and children to come back inside.

"Alan, come on, now stop this. It's not funny anymore. Come on, Alan, come back inside the house. Katrine. Katrine, listen to mummy! You come back inside now! And you, Jonathan. You come back in with mummy. You're scaring me now! Come on! Alan, help me out here, please!"

Rogue watched a police man reporting for duty, hollering into his walkie-talkie in a higher pitched voice than normal. Rogue heard movement behind her and turned around to see people swarming up through the hatch and clambering to the edge. She was being pushed off, and so decided to get out before she fell and died. She slid down the waterspout and landed with both feet on the ground, her coat billowing behind her. When it was no longer alive with wind, she allowed the cloak to fall about her shoulders, and she set off. It was about time for her to give a shit.

She set off for the government building, far in the middle of the city, dashing through the streets around shrieking people in the streets and quite the opposite at the edge of the rooftop. She didn't stop until she reached the building, and noticed the amount of people standing at the top of the building, both trancelike and not so. She scaled the side of the building in minutes, clinging to the wall and climbing up ledge by ledge. She finally made it to the top and discovered that there were people flooding onto the rooftop.

"Sally, stop it. It's Danny Llewellyn. Daniel Llewellyn! Sally, just concentrate. Listen to me. You're being controlled. We need you! Stop it, Sally!" called a brown haired young man trying to pull a blonde woman back from the edge, standing in front of her and holding her shoulders to try to block her. Rogue sighed. There was nothing for her here.

She slid back down the side of the building and took of sprinting back to the blue box. Just as she made it to the box, a blast from above and the shattering of every window in the complex exploded into existence. Rogue looked up, trying to stay balanced against the telephone box and saw to her amazement, a giant, rocklike ship descending from the heavens over their city. She gasped as a piece of glass pierced her side, and hoped that the cut wasn't too deep. Fortunately, it had barely even embedded itself in her flesh, and had fortunately missed any major organs.

She looked up as she heard a door behind her crash open and the destressed yet still carrying voice of Jackie Tyler yelling, "What're we going to do in there?!"

"Hide," came Rose's response.

Obviously they were referring to the telephone box, but for some reason she couldn't figure out how three people could possibly fit in such a small box. She got that it had flown out of the sky, that there had been two people already, but they were pretty thin as well, and the box could fit two if they were, well, interlocked maybe? She shoved that unpleasant image out of her mind and went back to trying to stay still and silent, despite the constant pinging in her side.

"Is that it?" Jackie asked.

"Mum, look in the sky. There's a great, big, alien invasion and I don't know what to do, all right? I've travelled with him, and I've seen all that stuff, but when I'm stuck at home, I'm useless. Now all we can do is run and hide, and I'm sorry. Now, move. Oh, lift him up," Rose said, and Rogue heard her voice crack with sorrow. Holy shit, Rogue thought, four people? In a box? Wow. She peered around the side of the box to see Rose and Mickey struggling to lift Doc down the stairs and into the box. Jackie followed behind, laden with bags of food. "Mum, will you just leave that stuff and give us a hand?"

"It's food! You said we need food!"

"Just leave it!"

Rose and Mickey finally got Doc inside, and that was when she lost them. She could here talking, but couldn't make out what they were saying. They were moving around, which she couldn't understand at all. She wanted desperately to look inside and see what was going on, but before she could, something changed.

A golden light surrounded the box, and her as well. She felt a turn in her stomach, as the box disappeared into thin air with her clinging onto the back for dear life. She heard Jackie hollering for her daughter, as they all vanished to who knows what. She gasped as the breath left her lungs and she was pushed back against the little, blue box. She closed her eyes against the blast of air pressed against her, and a skip into silence and out. And then the silence was broken by an outcry of demonic yelling.

She opened the one eye not covered by hair and saw red. Red everywhere. Her sight sharpened slightly and she saw that all of the red was actually a rock wall and a giant cavern. She glanced around the side of the box and gasped again. A crowd, hundreds of strange looking creatures, were standing in applause in the huge coliseum. She heard people up front, talking to each other, and she decided that it was about time that she moved. She walked out from behind the box to see two people standing out in front of the box. She recognized Harriet Jones, Prime Minister, and the young man who followed her around all the time. She didn't know his name, but right now she was more concerned with the big question.

Where was she?

The other two didn't even look up at her. Granted, she was being pretty quiet. Habit, she supposed. She was noticed, however, that the strange and skeletal something dressed in glorious red robes. It was humanoid in size, adorned in strange decorations of bone and gold, and it carried a staff in one hand and what appeared to be a whip in the other. It hissed at her, "What are you doing here?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," she sighed. It turned its head to one side and glared at her.

"It asked what we're doing here?" the boy told Harriet importantly, tapping a screen that seemed rather unnecessary.

"It brought us here!" Harriet said, annoyed.

"I'm not an it!" the thing growled angrily, and Rogue took a step back.

"I don't care what you are, you son of a bitch, only that you send us back!" Rogue growled at whatever it was.

The other two finally turned to face her, and Harriet's eyes widened. "What are you doing here?!"

"I'm not here on purpose. I don't even know where here is!" she yelled.

"The Sycorax ship, little girl, but I wasn't talking to you anyway. I was talking…" Harriet gestured to the box, "…to the Tardis!"

"I'm not a little girl! I'm twelve!"

"I don't care!" Harriet hissed, "I don't care who you are, why you're here, or anything else! Just SHUT UP!"

Rogue opened her mouth, than closed it, deciding to shut up rather than keep fighting with the Prime Minister. She took a few steps back, turning away from the box to face the crowd instead. And right than, all hell broke loose.

All hell meaning Rose stinking Tyler. Rogue turned around immediately to see Rose being snatched by two of the 'Sycorax'. "Get off! Get off me!" Mickey ran out, and Rose looked back at him, "The door! Close the door!"

Mickey ran back and shut the door, before being dragged away by more aliens. The Sycorax were cheering excitedly and the sound hurt Rogue's ears. She made sure her hair was covering her eye, as she looked down submissively, rolling her eyes, annoyed at how dumb Rose was being. Sure, run into the crowd of evil aliens, see what happens. Idiot.

Harriet looked at her happily, shoving Rogue out of the way and cupping Rose's head in her hands. "Rose. Rose! I've got you. My Lord. Oh, my precious thing," she moved a bit closer and whispered in Rose's ear, something Rogue couldn't hear and wasn't particularly interested in.

"No, we're on our own," Rose said sadly.

"The yellow girl," growled the alien, "She has the clever blue box. Therefore she speaks for your planet." Alex repeated it, looking over his little blue pad and reading whatever showed up on the screen. Rogue wondered what they could possibly be doing with that pad when the monster was speaking perfect English, but decided to dismiss it as just another stupid government being better occurrence, just like every other life threatening situation that she had seen so far. They always tried to help, and they always made it worse. Rogue just had to sit back, relax, and watch them fail, like they always did.

"But she can't!" Mickey argued.

"Damn right she can't," Rogue growled under her breath.

"Yeah, I can," Rose said defiantly, casting a dirty look in Rogue's direction. She just rolled her eye more obviously and sighed, annoyed.

"Don't you dare!" Mickey said threateningly.

"Someone's got to be the Doctor."

"They'll kill you!" Harriet said worriedly.

"Never stopped him," Rose objected, "I, er, I address the Sycorax according to Article Fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation. I command you to leave this world with all the authority of the Slitheen Parliament of Raxacoricofallapatorious, and, er, the Gelth Confederacy as er, sanctioned by the Mighty Jagrafess and, oh, the Daleks! Now, leave this planet in peace! In peace?" she finished lamely. After that spout of nonsense, Rogue decided that there was something going on. Maybe a prank that she had been caught up in? No, this was too elaborate. Maybe it was actually happening. She was rather worried now, but she had nothing to lose.

There was a moment of silence, and Rogue could swear that she could hear crickets chirping from way down on the face of the earth. Then there was an explosion as the entire cavern of Sycorax burst out in a chorus of laughter from every corner of the room. Rogue knelt and covered her ears, clenching both eyes tightly in a failed attempt to rid herself of the terrible noise.

"You are very, very funny," the Sycorax leader chuckled, "And now you're going to die!"

"Leave her alone," Harriet yelled, stepping in front of Rose protectively.

"Don't touch her!" Mickey yelled.

"Leave her alone!" Harriet repeated. Finally Harriet and Rose were restrained by more Sycorax.

"Did you think you were clever with your stolen words? We are the Sycorax, we stride in darkness. Next to us, you are but a wailing child. If you are the best your planet can offer as a champion then your world will be gutted and your people enslaved!"

Alex stopped translating halfway through and looked up at the Sycorax leader, a surprised look upon his face. "Hold on, that's English!"

"He's walking English!" Harriet said.

"You're talking English!" Rose added, as though further explanation were needed.

"He was always talking English," Rogue mumbled, annoyed.

"I would never dirty my tongue with your primitive bile!" the Sycorax leader growled furiously.

"That's English. Can you hear English?"

"Yeah, that's English," Mickey added.

"Definitely English," Alex said, as if it wasn't obvious enough that it was 'talking English', which even Rogue the street brat knew wasn't proper grammar.

"I speak only Sycoraxic!" the chief snarled.

"If I can hear English, then it's being translated. Which means it's working. Which means…

Everyone turned simultaneously to the 'Tardis', including Rogue and the entire audience of Sycorax. And then, and Rogue hated herself for feeling slightly excited and relieved about this, the doors burst open and the Doc man stepped out of the doors. "Did you miss me?"

The Doctor stepped out of the Tardis, grinning and looking about like a curious puppy. Everything was a bit of a blur, all blended together and such. He saw tons of red rocks and strange looking aliens he instantly recognized. And there were Harriet Jones, some other boy with her, Mickey Smith, and-Rose Tyler! He nearly skipped over the little auburn haired girl, but still registered that she was the same one that had been on the roof. Watching them.

Finally he looked back up at the chieftain, who cracked his whip threateningly. He caught the end of the whip, annoyed, and wrenched it out of the Sycorax grip, saying as he did so, "You could have someone's eye out with that."

"How dare-

The Doctor grabbed a club from one of the soldiers and broke it across his leg. "You just can't get the staff," The Doctor sighed, "Now, you, just wait. I'm busy." The Sycorax leader looked like he was about to speak, but The Doctor cut him off, turning and exclaiming, "Mickey, hello! And Harriet Jones MP for Flydale North! Blimey, it's like This Is Your Life. Tea!" he finally said, turning to Rose, "That's all I needed, a good cup of tea! Superheated infusion of free radicals and tannin. Just the thing for healing the synapses. Now, first thing's first. Be honest," he said, suddenly going serious, "How do I look?!"

"Er, different," Rose said, unhelpfully.

"Good different or bad different?" the Doctor asked.

"Just different."

"Am I ginger?" the Doctor asked hopefully.

"No, you're just sort of brownish-

"I wanted to be ginger! I've never been ginger. And you, Rose Tyler, fat lot of good you were. You gave up on me. Oh, that's rude," he said, "That's the sort of man I am now, am I? Rude? Rude and not ginger."

"I'm sorry. Who is this?" Harriet asked Rose confusedly.

"I'm the Doctor," he said.

"She's the Doctor," she said.

"But what happened to my Doctor?" Harriet asked as though he were a possession, "Or is it a title that's just passed on?"

"I'm him," the Doctor said, "I'm literally him. Same man, new face. Well, new everything."

"But you can't be!"

"Harriet Jones, we were trapped in Downing Street and the one thing that scared you wasn't the aliens, it wasn't the war, it was the thought of your mother being alone."

"Oh my god," Harriet gasped.

"Did you win the election?" asked the Doctor politely.

"Landslide majority," Harriet told him modestly.

The Doctor glanced over at the girl shrouded in the trench coat, and saw from the one eye that wasn't shielded by auburn hair that she was debating whether or not he was mentally ill. He smiled at her and her dark eye widened. She backed up and he saw the flash of a boney hand move outside of her cloak. He wondered for the first time where she could possibly have come from. She had been watching them, of course, but aside from that, he had no ideas. She was just a kid.

He walked over to her and knelt down to look her in her eye. "Hello there!" he said excitedly. She flinched, and her animal like eye shut. He backed up, "Hey, it's okay, I'm not going to hurt you!" he said quietly, but she just glared at him.

Finally, she said, "Get lost, Doc!"

He recoiled and raised both eyebrows. "And they say I'm rude."

"If I might interrupt," the Sycorax leader hissed.

"Yes, sorry," the Doctor said, standing up and backing away from the mean little girl, looking at the Sycorax chief the whole time, "Hello big fellow."

"Who exactly are you?" the Sycorax leader growled, also rather rudely.

"Well, that's the question-

"I demand to know who you are!" the chieftain yelled.

"I don't know!" the Doctor yelled, making the little girl bounce back and the rest of the party flinch, "See, there's the thing. I'm the Doctor, but beyond that, I just do not know who I am. It's all untested. Am I funny? Am I…sarcastic? Sexy?" he winked at Rose, "Right old misery? Life and soul? Right handed? Left handed? A gambler? A fighter? A coward? A traitor? A liar? A nervous wreck? I mean, judging by the evidence, I've certainly got a gob." He finally took a break and looked up at a glowing red button elevated on a platform up a staircase. The girl's eyes flickered from him to the button and back, worriedly. "And how am I going to react when I see this, a great big threatening button. A great big threatening button which must not be pressed under any circumstances, am I right?" He dashed up the steps, two at a time, ignoring the growls of the Sycorax and the objection of his friends. "Let me guess," He said, "It's some sort of control matrix, hmm? Hold on, what's feeding it?"

He bent down and carefully removed a small section of the pillar under the button. "And what've we got here?" the Doctor asked, sticking his finger into a liquid in the control matrix, "Blood?" He licked his finger, "Yeah, definitely blood. Human blood. A positive, with just a dash of iron." He stuck out his tongue disgustedly. "Ah, but that means…blood control. Blood control! Oh, I haven't seen that in years! You're controlling all the A Positives. Which leaves us with a great big stinking problem. Because I really don't know who I am. I don't know when to stop. So if I see a great big threatening button which should never ever, ever be pressed, then I just want to do this!"

He raised his hand above the button, despite the yells of, "NO!" which burst in unison from the mouths of both Harriet and Rose. He gave one more glance in the little girl's direction, only to see a bored look on her face as she glanced around the room. He almost felt like he had to impress her, like he did everyone else. He knew he impressed people, he always did. But this rude little kid just seemed to blasé with everything he did, like it wasn't very important. That felt like an insult, coming from a mystery child with a bad mouth. Children were supposed to be in awe at everything he did, not bored with him.

And with one more grin in Rose's direction, he slammed down on the button with all of his strength.

He sensed the screams of billions of tiny humans on the face of the earth. And then they stopped. Well, he thought, thank god that worked. He sighed in relief, just as the boy yelled, "You killed them!"

"What do you think, big fellow? Are they dead?" the Doctor asked, choosing to use the idiocy of the humans as an opportunity for education.

"I will allow them to live," the Sycorax leader growled.

"Allow?" he scoffed, "You have no choice! I mean, that's all blood control is. A cheap bit of voodoo. Scares the pants off you, but that's as far as it goes. It's like hypnosis. You can hypnotize someone to walk like a chicken or sing like Elvis. You can't hypnotize them to death. Survival instinct's too strong."

"Blood control was just one form of conquest. I can summon the armada and take this world by force," it growled in its gravelly voice.

"Well, yeah, you could, yeah, you could do that, and of course you could," the Doctor admitted, "But why? Look at these people," he gestured to Rose and Harriet and Mickey, but somehow passed over the boy and the kid, "These human beings. Consider their potential. From the day they arrive on the planet, and blinking step into the sun, there is more to see than can ever be seen. More to do than can-no, hold on. Sorry, that's The Lion King. But the point still stands. Leave them alone!"

"Or what?" the Sycorax chief snarled.

"Or…" the Doctor started, swiping a sword from one of the aides and running back towards the Tardis, "I challenge you!" The entire coliseum burst out in bucket loads of laughter, like that screechy, nails on chalkboard noise that he found as actually quite therapeutic. "Oh, that struck a chord. Am I right that the sanctified rules of combat still apply?"

"You stand as this world's champion."

"Thank you. I've no idea who I am, but you just summed me up," the Doctor said, grinning energetically. He tossed his dressing gown at Rose, who caught it and smiled at him hesitantly.

"So, you accept my challenge? Or are you just …" he thought for a second, for a worthy Sycoraxic insult, and then burst out, "a cranak pel casacree salvak?"

The entire crowd growled angrily and he heard a gasp from the little girl. He looked over again, wondering how much more crazy she could take, for her sake, but saw that her eyes were wide in surprise, rather than the smirking kind. She somehow understood what he was saying. Well damn, more bad words for the badmouthed child. She mouthed the English translation and raised an eyebrow skeptically. He turned his attention back to the leader and grinned even wider.

"For the planet?"

"For the planet," he responded darkly.

And then they fought.

Rogue gasped, thoughts whirling through her head. There was a new swear, a sword fight, and a thought of getting out of the way. She watched the swords clash, and listened to the angry banter, and then watched them burst out of the enclosure and into the light of the sun. She watched everyone else dash out and decided to follow them, speeding off behind them on her feet, quite adept at running.

The Doctor was driven back towards the edge and Rogue's heart beat picked up a bit. She hadn't realized how tense she was until now. Maybe it was how because of how climactic the entire ordeal was at the moment. She walked up to the wall and leaned against the side, looking on as Doc battled the alien freak the good old fashion way. With metal.

She listened to the clanging. Doc was being out fought, and Rose looked like she was about to interfere, but, "Stay back! Invalidate the challenge and he wins the planet!"

Ha, take that Rose!

Doc was knocked back, his head and shoulders hanging over the edge. The sword was flung out of his hand and plummeted to earth, causing the Doctor to look up worriedly. Rogue didn't see why until she noticed the other bit that went with it. The sword wasn't the only thing the Doctor had been disarmed of. His hand was plummeting to earth alongside the weapon. Not much blood, but this guy was a weirdo, so no worries there.

She took one step forward, to further examine the empty air around his severed wrist. She laughed out loud, earning pointed looks from the other humans present. She caught a glare from Doc, which then turned into a bit of a smirk. "You cut my hand off!" he said, stumbling to his feet with the look of a mesmerized puppy. The Sycorax cheered, and the leader raised his hands in triumph, but…

"And now I know what sort of man I am," escaped from the grinning mouth of the Doc, "I'm lucky. Because, quite by chance, I'm still within the first fifteen hours of my regeneration cycle, which means I've got just enough residual cellular energy," he paused, raising his arm, "…to do this."

His hand regenerated in a burst of magical golden energy and Rogue was forced to finally admit that this was either quite an elaborate hoax, or actual magic. She had encountered magic before, but never in such close proximity. She remembered that one instance with the gun manikins attack on the city, but had been far, far away from the invasion force, reclining on a chosen rooftop to watch the mayhem unfold.

But this time, there seemed to be much more panicking, much stranger occurrences, more people involved. More lives at stake. Of course, so far no one had apparently died, which was quite boring, but maybe there was still hope.

"Witchcraft," the Sycorax growled.

"Time Lord."

"Doctor!" Rose called after the pause, tossing his another sword at Doc, who caught it quickly with his new hand.

"Oh, so I'm still the Doctor, then?"

"No arguments from me!" Rose yelled, smiling.

"And want to know the best bit?" Doc asked, turning back to his opponent, "This new hand? It's a fighting hand!"

Swords clashed once more in new fury as the two battled back and forth. Finally, the Sycorax was disarmed by a swift move with Doc's wrist, and Doc took the opportunity to whack him twice in the abdomen with the both hilts. The Sycorax fell to the ground in much the same position Doc had been barely one minute ago, and Rogue gasped at how quickly Doc had turned the tide.

"I win," he said, resting the tip of the blade against the neck of his adversary.

"Then kill me."

"I'll spare your life if you'll take this Champion's command," Doc said, "Leave this planet, and never return. What do you say?"

"Yes," the Sycorax said submissively, glaring up at Doc angrily.

"Swear on the blood of your species!"

"I swear," the Sycorax snarled darkly.

"There we are, then," Doc said, removing the sword tip from the throat of his foe, "Thanks for that. Cheers, big fellow."

"Bravo!" called Harriet as Doc turned back to them, and Rogue saw her eyes flicker to her for less than a second. She glanced back to the Sycorax leader and listened to the conversation, curiously.

"That says it all," Rose called, "Bravo!"

"Ah, not bad for a man in his jim-jams. Very Arthur Dent. Now, there was a nice man," he stuck his hands in his pocket, "Hold on, what have we got here?" he pulled his hand back out to look at the orange clutched in his hand, "A satsuma. Ah, that friend of your mother's, he does like his snacks, doesn't he? But doesn't that just sum up Christmas? You go through all those presents and right at the end, tucked away at the bottom, there's always one stupid old satsuma. Who wants a satsuma?"

Rogue was walking toward the Sycorax, hurriedly but carefully, to take a closer look at the alien. She bent down a few feet away and tilted her head to the side to examine her current point of interest. She shut her eyes to breathe in the fresh air on her face. It was really quite refreshing.

She heard a clang of metal and her eyes flashed open to see the Sycorax clutching his sword in fury. In a split second, she was forced to make a choice. She sighed, wondering if it was worth it. She would be fine. And besides this would be interesting. She sighed one more time, as the creature got up and began to run towards the back of the Doctor's head.

And then she pounced. She grabbed the Sycorax around the waist and locked her elbows in the crook of its hips. She tackled it back to the ledge it'd been lying on, but it was no longer there.

She tumbled over the edge, and tried to bounce off of the Sycorax body. Maybe she would make it up to the shelf. But then the son of a bitch grabbed her bone of a leg, dragging her down. Her coat whirled around her as she attempted to fling the alien off. It let go but the coat fell of as well. She spread all of her limbs out and felt herself slow down, but not much. She sighed again and flipped herself over to face the city below. It was coming up fast. She heard yells from up above, something like, "NO!" and she flipped back over to see people swarming the edge. She couldn't make out their faces, but soon they turned away, probably not wanting to watch her bones crack and splatter against the pavement. She couldn't blame them.

She closed her eyes, straitening herself out as though she were standing, and pressed her arms in. Her legs stayed together, but they were blown up by the wind into more of a crumpled. She dipped her head in one last prayer, as well as in acceptance that she wasn't going to make it. With one more sigh, she allowed her spirit to exit her body. She felt her consciousness slipping as a prickly feeling played across her shoulder blades. Her head slumped down and her eyes shut automatically. Soon she felt the falling finally come to an end, and she slumped.

There was no ground under her feet, and she felt a light, precarious feeling in her gut that suggested floating. She wondered if this was what hell was supposed to be like, or if there really was no hell like she had expected.

She opened her uncovered eye curiously and gasped.

Rogue was floating in midair, with wind blowing about her ankles. She was about fifty feet off the ground, hovering up and down with powerful thrusts from her back or something. She spun around with ease, faster than she had expected, meaning to look behind her but instead did a three sixty. She was more used to friction when walking, moving, or anything like that, but there was none. She was airborne, of course there was nothing to stop her.

She looked up, but saw nothing but the huge ship casting a hulking shadow that fell across the city. She looked down and saw the bleeding body of the Sycorax spread out on the ground. She laughed out loud, "Finally, someone died!"

Then she felt her stomach turn as out of nowhere, she burst upward toward the sky. She tried to stop, but all she could do was close her eyes and clench her teeth and try to curl up. In five seconds she had shot up through the clouds, a little above the ship. Everyone looked up sharply, and she said the first thing that came to mind.

"What's up, Doc!?"

"NO!" the Doctor yelled, as he watched the human girl bound off of the ledge. She had tackled the Sycorax leader, meaning for it to land on the ground near the edge, but it was too late. He had already thrown the fruit, and there was no stopping the girl. He watched in horror as the floor where she was pouncing towards disappeared and she fell over the edge. "NO!" he hollered again, dashing to the edge and looking over the side, searching for any way to save her, but he could barely see her.

He sighed, stepping back from the rim, head bowed in his hands. He couldn't believe that he had let an innocent child die. She had only looked twelve or thirteen, and probably had a family looking for her. He hated himself for allowing this to happen. She may have been rude, but she had also been nothing more than a young new life, full of infinite possibilities.

Suddenly he felt a gust of wind upon his linen clad back, causing him to shiver slightly. He spun around, to see what caused it, and he gasped. His eyes popped as he was confronted by an unbelievable sight.

The girl was flying, hovering a few feet off of the ledge, with beautiful white wings beating powerfully behind her, creating gusts of wind that caused mini tornadoes to form in the red sand of the space ship. He felt elated in her presence, as if he were inside her head.

Ignoring the huge silvery wings, which, in itself was enough to stun a normal person, he was astounded by how incredibly thin she was. Her ribs pushed visibly against her thin layer of flesh, and a little bit lower, her stomach was flat and thin, putting even more of an enunciation on the slimness of her chest. Her clothes were ragged and torn, and he could just make out silver manacles around her wrists and ankles, and her neck as well. He felt the puppy dog curiosity flicker into existence behind his eyes.

"What's up, Doc?" she asked.

"You apparently," he chuckled, looking at her inquisitively.

"Yes, and I'm safe, you can let me down now."

He stared at her, as did the others, he sensed, and she looked back at them, confusedly, "Then who is?" She must not have been aware of the huge, eagle like wings attached to her back.

"Look behind you," he said, pointing a little behind her. She did, turning so that he could not see her other eye under her auburn hair. He wondered what species she could be, obviously not human, but she did not appear to be aware of her differences.

She let out a shout of surprise and dropped a few feet. Speaking of feet, hers were bare and claw like, and covered in dried blood. He doubted she had any shoes, and so ran and walked everywhere, which would no doubt split open anyone's feet. Her legs were boney, as were her arms, which were also bloody in some areas.

"HOLY SHIT!" she howled, in excitement rather than fear, and spun around. She did so again and added in cartwheels and circles in the air. She seemed like she was showing off, at least to any normal person, but he could tell that she was just testing her limits. She dropped in a sec and then rose again, and repeated again and again. He found it almost inspiring to watch the girl test her strength and dexterity unrestricted. It seemed a little bit like a metaphor. He was even willing to ignore the foul language.

He finally turned back to see the crowd of confused and angry Sycorax howling in fury to see their leader defeated by a pajama clothed man and then killed by a flying child. The Doctor yelled for silence, and faced them, "By the ancient rites of combat, I forbid you to scavenge here for the rest of time. And when go you back to the stars and tell others of this planet, when you tell them of its riches, its people, it's potential. When you talk of the Earth, then make sure that you tell them this," he called, "It is defended!"

With that, they were beamed away, back to the face of the earth.

The girl flew back down to meet them, landing slightly clumsily at his side. He looked down at her confusedly, "What are you still doing here? Get back to your family. They'll be missing you."

Her smile broke and her expression turned livid in an instant, "I hope for their sake that I never meet them, and for my sake, I hope that they are dead."

The Doctor stared at her in surprise as her wings disappeared and she breathed out in exhaustion. "So you never knew them, then?"

"I never knew of any family or caretaker," she said in a smaller voice than normal, "though I can't seem remember any of my life before a few years ago, and as far as I can tell, I haven't changed since the first time I woke up in some alley in the city. I swear, I have felt like twelve or thirteen or something since I became conscious."

He gazed at her with even more intensity than he had done even when she had first appeared with the wings that had now disappeared from her back. What was she? A puzzle. He was definitely going to be a tough one, too. "Where are we?" Rose asked, interrupting his reverie.

"We're just off Bloxom Road," Mickey answered her, "We're just round the corner, we did it!"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," the Doctor said, moving his eyes up from the girl to the ship, but thankfully, it flew away.

Mickey and Rose cheered happily and the girl at his hip smiled again as well, and he wondered why she didn't run away. Not that he wanted her to, but she seemed more like the type of kid that would prefer to pilfer your purse and dash away. Then the Doctor realized that she still thought that he had had something to do with the flying, and the entire ordeal to begin with.

"My Doctor," Harriet said, glowing.

"Prime Minister," the Doctor nodded, and they hugged.

"Absolutely the same man," she said, smiling joyfully, "Are there many more out there?"

"Oh, not just Sycorax," the Doctor told her truthfully, "Thousands of them. And the human race is drawing attention to itself. Every day you're sending out probes and messages and signals. This planet's so noisy. You're getting noticed more and more. You'd better get used to it."

"Rose!" called the great almighty Jackie hustled over to meet them.

"Mum!"

"Oh, talking of trouble," the Doctor said sarcastically, in a low voice that only the girl next to him could hear. She laughed, and sounded for the first time like a normal middle school age child.

"Oh, my God! You did it, Rose!" Jackie chirped, and then she saw the kid. She gasped, staring at her stomach, limbs, and ribcage. "Oh my-how are you-who are you?" she finally finished, still gaping.

"I'm Rogue, and yes, I'm still alive," Rogue told her coldly, glaring right back at her with her dangerous black orb, causing Jackie to back off and avert her eyes.

"And," the Doctor said, leaning down to look her in the eye, "What exactly are you?"

"What-? I'm a human girl!"

"Are you sure?"

"Ye-no," she said, sudden realization striking her animalistic features as it dawned on her that she had no idea whether or not she could be human. She had told him that she didn't remember anything since a few years ago, which he had duly noted. He made sure that he would remember to scan her with the sonic screw driver when he was able to finally find it in the Tardis, to see really how old she was.

"Is it him though?" Jackie asked Rose, "Is it really the Doctor?" It appeared that they had been having a separate conversation. Then Jackie's eyes moved to… "Oh my God, it's the bleeding Prime Minister!"

"Come here, you," the Doctor said benevolently, and they embraced. The Rose and Mickey joined, but Rogue hung back, examining their display of affection, as though wondering what on earth or the heavens above they were doing. He beckoned to her, "It's called a hug?"

"A what?" she said, raising at least one eye brow, (the visible one was the only one that he could account for) doubtfully. He walked over and hugged her, feeling her squirm a little, but not enough to convey any fear or need to escape. She did not, however, hug him back, which made him wonder if she had ever had any friends, either.

"There, was that so bad?" he asked.

"I've felt worse," she said through clenched teeth, "I fell out of a window, once."

"Well, if you ever want a hug, I open," he sighed, and then he turned away just in time to see five bright green blasts fly into the air, and hit the ship. His eyes widened as the ship exploded into a million particles of grey dust.

"What is that?" Rose called, "What's happening?"

The Doctor felt fiery bubbling up inside his chest, and he turned wrathfully to the Prime Minister, Harriet Jones, who could now add 'destroyer of the honorable race of the Sycorax' to her resume. "That was murder!" he roared. Not true. That was genocide.

"That was defense," she retorted, as though it justified her actions, "It's adapted from alien technology. A ship that fell to Earth ten years ago."

"But they were leaving!" he snarled.

"You said it yourself, Doctor, they'd go back to the stars and tell others about the Earth," Harriet replied coolly, "I'm sorry, Doctor, but you're not here all the time. You come and go. It happened today. Mister Llewellyn and the Major, they were murdered. They died right in front of me while you were sleeping. In which case. We have to defend ourselves."

"Britain's Golden Age?" the Doctor quoted scathingly.

"It comes with a price," she said, making more excuses.

"I gave them the wrong warning," the Doctor spat, "I should've told them to run as fast as they can, run and hide because the monsters are coming. The human race."

"Those are the people I represent. I did it on their behalf."

"Then I should have stopped you."

"What does that make you, Doctor?" Harriet growled, "Another alien threat?"

"Don't challenge me, Harriet Jones," he threatened darkly, "Because I'm a completely new man. I could bring down your Government with a single word."

"You're the most remarkable man I've ever met, but I don't think you're quite capable of that," she scoffed.

His gaze shot to the kid, Rogue, once more, to see her gazing mesmerized up at the explosion, which was reflected in her dark black eye. "No, you're right," he said, and Rogue's gaze shot to him, as if she was wondering what he was doing, what he would say next, "Not a single word, just six." Rogue smiled, and her teeth and eye glinted humorously.

"I don't think so," Harriet said, though he saw fear behind her eyes. Rogue crept closer to her, examining them curiously, and then looked back at him expectantly.

"Six words," he said, more for the kid's amusement than exaggeration, and he was glad to hear her child like laugh once more.

"Stop it!" Harriet protested, though maybe more to her than him.

"Six," he insisted, holding up six fingers, and with that, he walked over to the information boy, and bent over to whisper in his ear, "Don't you think she looks tired?"

Rogue laughed, apparently having heard his little sentence. He smiled at her, beckoned, and then walked away, listening to Harriet yell in distress, "Doctor! Doctor, what did you say?! What was that?! What did he say?! What did you say, Doctor?! Doctor! I'm sorry." The Doctor just sighed, almost regretting his decision to threaten her, but he knew that she had become corrupt in her power.

He and the others, save Rogue, separated as he walked over to the parking lot to find some new clothing for his new form. When he found the Tardis, he turned back once more and turned back to look her in the eye. "You can go now," he said, "Nothing to see here."

"You're a terrible liar," she said, sounding bored, "So what's in the box?"

He grinned. No shaking this kid, she was too curious. Much like himself, he realized. She just needed to learn a little tact, that was all. "Fine," he laughed, "Come on in, but don't go mad or anything."

"Why would I go mad?" she asked calmly, "When a few minutes ago I was flying around above the city like a bird. And by the way," she said, "Are you sure you didn't have anything to do with that? Nothing at all? I don't think I did anything."

"I did nothing. To be honest, I thought you were dead."

"Oh ye of little faith," she chuckled, then walked around the side of the Tardis to glance at the door. "I don't see anything weird, it's just a box."

"Oh ye of little faith," he snickered, repeating her words back in her face. She smiled excitedly and followed him inside.

The minute she entered, she looked around for a second and immediately turned back around and walked out the door. She stood there for a second, holding her head with one hand, while her other rested on her hip, as she tapped her foot. After a couple minutes, she came back inside and looked around again.

"What was that?" the Doctor asked her with an amused expression plastered upon his face.

"My way of coping," she sighed.

He just laughed, "Go on, say it. Everyone does."

"Say what?" she asked, genuinely confused.

"You know," he said, and then going into a more high pitched voice, he said, "Oh my gawd! It's bigger on the inside! Amazing! Incredible! Doctor, you're so awesome!"

"Are you sure people say that?"

"Completely."

"Sure…" she said, rolling her eye. She suddenly perked up, "May I go exploring."

"Maybe some other time," he told her, "It's almost time for dinner, and the Tardis goes on infinitely, so going "exploring" could last for eternity. You'd probably die in here if you got lost." He looked back at her face and stepped back. Her skin was white as a sheet, and she was staring at him as though he had gone mad.

"Dinner!?" she stuttered, as though it were the most terrifying thing in the world, "As in, like, real food? At a-a table?!" She sounded horrified.

"Well, what do you expect?"

"Um," she groaned, and her stomach growled, "I haven't had a 'decent' meal for more than a few months," he was feeling worried for her health, and even more so when she continued, "In fact, I don't remember ever eating anything that wasn't from a dumpster."

"Well, come on," he said, "Go outside while I change." He shooed her out the door and she went without fight.

He turned back to the Tardis and clambered down the stairs to the Tardis's little clothing alcove. He walked down a hall and into a room full of racks of clothes. He looked through a few, held up a red coat with gold thread against his chest, and then put it back. He searched through a few more outfits, but found nothing fashionable. Finally, he pushed aside a few and finally found a nice, pinstriped suit, and with a little more digging, a long, brown coat. He smiled and set the pair aside, then went back to probing for some clothing a little more formal.

He changed into a nice black suit and tie, and walked out, shutting the door behind him. He looked up and saw Rogue sitting with her legs dangling over the edge. He supposed that she had been testing her flight stuff some more, and he was proven correct when she unfurled her newly discovered white wings were revealed behind her back as she hopped down, a forty foot jump.

"Ready to go?"

"Umm…"

"What are you so freaked out about? It's just a dinner?"

"Just a dinner!?" she asked incredulously, "This is the first real dinner I ever remember having! At a table! I've never eaten at a table!"

"Never?" the Doctor asked, "Are you sure you're not exaggerating?"

"Well, does a crate count?"

"Sure, I guess," he said, even more worried for her health.

She walked away, not bothering to turn back. "I'll see you after your 'dinner'. Now I'm gonna go fly around and scare tourists."

"That's not necessarily a good idea."

"Don't care," she said, and walked away, "See you later." He sighed and watched her go, wishing that she could have come to eat, but he accepted how tough it must be to trust someone you'd just met, and especially when you didn't trust anyone anyway.

He suddenly realized that she had been speaking as though she was going to stick around. As in, Tardis travel stick around. He wondered what it would be like to have a kid on board. That would be interesting, he established. He was beginning to hope that she would decide to stay. She reminded him of himself at her age, whatever age that was.

Rogue watched the Doctor walk away in his black suit, and she wondered what he was. Obviously not human, of course, but she couldn't think of what it could be. He'd said Time Lord, but it didn't sound like an actual thing, just a title or something.

She realized that she was thinking of all that crazy magic shit as though it was completely normal. Heck, she was planning on flying around the city and terrorizing passersby, as though it were just another part of daily life. She supposed she should probably not, considering that the government was right in the area and they didn't seem like they were too hot on aliens.

To hell with the doctor, she thought, what was she? She had never been able to fly before, she'd never even felt like she could. She'd always been a great climber, and never lost her cool in high places, but she didn't think that much ease in flight. She sighed. All of this confusion was beginning to hurt her head. She scrambled up the water spout of the same building she had sat on the night of the death Santas, and lay down to rest. She could see the Doctor, Rose, Jackie and Mickey all sitting around a table, eating, laughing, and trying on silly paper hats.

I'm glad I'm not in there, she told herself, I don't belong with other people. The Doctor may be a different story, but the rest would just consider me a nuisance. I might stick with him, though. I don't think he'd mind, and besides, he seems to know more about me than I do. Maybe I do have parents. I hope so. That means I'll get to kill them myself.

She looked around, hearing people, and noticed that a couple still standing on the roof, gazing bewilderedly up at the sky. One of them startled and stared at her when her knee accidentally knocked against the drain pipe and she cursed. "Hey there," she waved, trying to act natural, but the truth was she wanted to get the hell away from these people.

"That's her, Alan!" the woman said, pointing and whispering behind her hand to who appeared to be her husband. Rogue could hear every word they said, and she didn't much like their expressions. Pitying. She glared at them, drawing herself up to her full height and baring her teeth, trying to look intimidating. The couple backed off slightly, and Rogue saw behind them two young children, a girl and a boy, gawking at her from behind their parents. Rogue let out a sigh, relaxing, and then turned to the parents.

"What is it?" she asked, "What did I do?"

The woman looked taken aback by her sudden change in posture. Rogue raised her eyebrows expectantly, and the man, Alan, cleared his throat. "You, um, well, Mira was just telling me, uh, did you fall out of the sky earlier?" he finally forced out, sounding choked as though he were afraid to ask the question.

Rogue tilted her head to the side, considering the question. It didn't sound like they meant any harm to her, so who was she to deny them the opportunity to gasp in awe upon her presence. "Yes, as a matter of fact I did. Why, did I do something wrong?"

"No, sweetie, not at all," the woman, whose name appeared to be Mira, said, her voice changing completely. She sounded gentler and more motherly. "You look hungry," she gestured, "Do you want something to eat?"

"Naw, thanks."

"You sure?"

"You know," Rogue hissed, "I've been subject to enough kidnappings in my life, and this is seeming a lot like one. So why don't you leave me alone."

Mira's face paled and she walked away with her children. Alan stayed. "You know," he began, "The government will lock you up. You and the rest of the freaks. Someday soon. You'd better watch your back, because they're coming for you, and when they find you, we'll finally be rid of you."

"You idiot," Rogue sighed, "You really think I'm going to have any trouble eliminating those fools?" And with that, she fell off the building.

She spread her wings a little late, and her knees skimmed the asphalt, causing her to growl and slow down. She knew she needed to get better at that, but while the government was out there, she figured she'd have to keep quiet. She landed on her feet and ran off to the Tardis, where she had decided she'd wait until further notice.

"Hey kid, quite loitering!" yelled a cop from the street.

Rogue swore at him and slunk off, going around the phone booth and walking towards the garbage to go find something to eat. A few hours later, she had eaten a bit and taken a few walks around the city. When it had gotten dark, she had decided to test out her flight. Her legs were now covered in scratches because of it. She just couldn't seem to get the timing right. She was lounging in an alley near the Tyler's flat, waiting for the Doctor to come out, when a flake of something white fell from the sky. Snow, she wondered, really?

People began to come outside to enjoy the spectacle, and Rogue peeked around the corner to see if the Doctor was with them. He was, so she walked over to him, ignoring the gasps. She had forgotten to find her coat, and people were staring at her rib cage, legs and arms, which were almost entirely bone, with barely any skin. She sighed, hating herself for not going to get it immediately, but the fact that she was impoverished had slipped her mind.

"Doctor!" she yelled over, waving. He looked over at her, "Any idea what this stuff is?"

"Well isn't it snow?" Rose asked through her vest.

"No, it isn't cold," Rogue told her.

"Yeah it is!" Rose insisted, "How are you not freezing to death?!"

"I don't freeze, nor do I die, apparently," Rogue yawned, stretching her arms up to the sky.

"It's ash, actually," the Doctor told them both, "the debris left from the ships explosion. Oh, and before I forget," he added, pulling out a strange, almost stylus shaped something, that appeared to be made of metal, "I wanted to check your age."

"With that?" Rogue asked, raising one eyebrow as if to say yeah right.

"Yes with this, it's a sonic screwdriver. It open's things, scans things, and who knows what else." He flipped a switch and the tip of the small rod lit up in a blue color, and emitted a high pitched, almost static noise. She blinked, scrunching up her face against the sound. He moved it up and down and all around her, and then looked at it.

"Well, what does it say?" Rogue asked, while Rose rolled her eyes. Rose didn't seem to like her.

The Doctor didn't respond. "No, that can't be right," he muttered, looking up at her and then back to the sonic thingy, "no way."

"What?" Rose and Rogue asked in unison.

"Well, it says," the Doctor gulped, "It says that you're six thousand years old. It doesn't even know the species.

"What!?" Rogue yelled, staring at him, "That's a lie! There's no way! NO!" She ran for it, and as she ran, she felt a weight lifted. She stopped short and stared at her legs. The leg cuffs were gone. She looked down behind her and saw them gleaming on the ground, slowly being covered in ash. She walked back to them and picked them up, staring at the engravings. She then handed them to the Doctor. "Can you identify where these come from?" she asked.

"Sure," he said, looking worriedly at her as he did so. He then checked the meter, and his eyes widened even more than last time. "T-time Lord!" he gasped, "These are Time Lord made!"

"But I'm not a Time Lord."

"I know!"

"Alright, it's settled than," she nodded, speaking calmer than before, "I'm coming with you."

"What!" Rose hissed, "No way! We can't bring a kid! Not a chance!" she looked at the Doctor imploringly, "Right Doctor?!"

"I think it's a good idea," he told her, patting Rogue on the shoulder, "We can help her discover who she really is."

"But it's too dangerous!" Rose whined.

"I'll be fine," Rogue insisted, glaring angrily at Rose.

"Come on then, both of you, it's about time we left." And with that one, final sentence, the trio made their way into the Tardis, the Time Lord, the human, and the unknown.

Yeah, not going to lie, this took about a month to write. It's over 15,000 words, which is way too much for one chapter, but no worries, it should keep you readers busy. Thanks again.