Author's Notes: The idea of the Doctor running into a weapon that could destroy him wouldn't let me go. I wrote a few paragraphs and somehow it morphed into this story. I started this before Last of The Time Lords and I didn't know anything about the gun Martha was supposed to put together then. I debated quitting the story when that episode came around, but now I'm glad I didn't. For your information, no, I'm not from France. I did spend some holidays there though. Also, this is a Tenth Doctor and Rose story, but I really tried to keep it gen.

Disclaimer: The characters of Doctor Who belong to the BBC. This is a non-profit story, written pure for fun.
Beta: The amazing Starsky's Strut.
Proofread: My good friend Bluebird.
Rating: A very high T, because of the whump.
Warnings: Doctor whump, spoilers up to and including Doomsday.
Setting: This story follows immediately after "The Satan's Pit"
Characters: The Doctor(10th), Rose Tyler, OC's.
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Gen.
Words: 29.375
Summary: "What I'm looking for… is a Time Lord."

PIRANHA

Kreek©March2008

Prologue

He stood upon a small hill overlooking the lands that were once his.

Gone…

Everything he'd worked for. Every investment he'd made, the dreams he'd had.

Visions of the past haunted him, when all he had to do was reach out a hand and touch the power he'd possessed: The hapless maid running chores for him, the butler doing his bidding, huge factories, tons of money, groveling workers, and above all the thrill of being feared. He'd owned agencies, used them to optimize the company's profit.

War was good for business, after all.

The people on this planet owed him. He'd made their economy thrive, placed them on the map.

Who was the Doctor to interfere, to judge what was right and wrong, to take away his life's work, his magnificent weapon factories?

And turn it into… this.

Banana groves as far as his eyes could see.

Chapter 1

"The killer of his own kind"

The demon's words echoed in the Doctor's head and mingled with other voices from his past, voices he longed to forget.

"Move, move, move! If we stay here, we're dead!" He shouted at his friend. They scrambled over toppled walls, circumvented smoking holes and poisonous pockets of air until they reached the huge concrete field where the TARDIS was parked. Beams of white light split the dark of night with a loud whine and impacted near their feet.

"Doctor!"

The panicked yell made him look around. The beams were too close. "Firenni! Come on!" His hearts beat in his throat, and his skin burned with numerous cuts and bruises from his flight through the ruined district, it had been a long time since he'd been this scared.

So much was at stake.

A white beam creased him, singeing his clothing. He could feel its tendrils losing power before it touched the skin. Nevertheless it left him weaker than before. He looked at Firenni, a blond with a slender build.

The only one he had left.

"I can't! I-" Firenni's sentence ended in a gut wrenching cry as a light-beam hit him square in the back. The only sound drowning out his death throws, was the Doctor's own scream of denial…

Snapping his mind back to the present, the Time Lord quenched the unwanted memory and straightened his face, careful not to show his inner distress to the girl who saved his life in more ways than one.

Sensing his stare, Rose looked up from one of the seats stationed around the TARDIS's console. "Are you okay?" She asked, genuinely concerned.

For a second he could've sworn she was telepathic. Rose sure had the potential. Only her insecure voice betrayed her age. She was so tuned into to his feelings and visa versa; he shouldn't have been surprised at her question.

"Yeah." He made a conscious effort to sound more cheerful. "How about some peace and quiet for a change?" He opted while performing the necessary tasks to keep the TARDIS in motion.

She relaxed upon hearing his plan; her genuine smile showing the Doctor how tired she must feel. "Sounds wonderful. I don't know 'bout you, but I need some fresh air."

He agreed wholeheartedly. The past event had taken its toll and it felt like a cold stake had been driven right through his soul. The quake of the moon's surface beneath them, the destruction of half the mining facility… It hadn't just left him and Rose stranded.

As he'd watched from behind the safety of the air tight door at the widening fissures where his ship once stood, the reality that his people and all their achievements, their identities and their knowledge were gone, drove home with force. He'd looked at the event in horror, feeling much like the moon's rocky surface looked. As if someone had raked his skin with a huge claw and had ripped it open, causing his innards to spill like a bleeding wound and leaving him stripped bare of the one thing that defined him: His TARDIS.

It had fallen deep into the satellite's core.

Unreachable.

Even for a Time Lord.

Maybe it was the feeling of loss wracking his system, an emptiness he'd tried so hard to repress ever since the loss of his planet, that caused his other senses to heighten. For when he'd hugged Rose, the one person who didn't let him forget who he was, he'd felt it: Time in motion, the turning of the centuries, the past and the future. Shoved into an overwhelming feeling that something was coming.

"I had to get her back," he mumbled, silently navigating the ship.

"The valiant child, who will die in battle so very soon." The demon had said. Maybe it lied, like he'd told Rose. But the mere existence of the creature within the moon's core only added to his disconcerted feelings, his vague awareness of a disturbance ahead. They'd be torn apart, him and Rose. He felt it and had known he needed the TARDIS to stave off the dark clouds accumulating above them.

Rose studied him. "I know," she answered. "And, whatever it is you found down there, I'm glad it's gone now."

"So," he spoke in an attempt to lighten the mood. "Fancy a trip to France?"

Rose frowned. "Versailles?"

The Doctor couldn't help but grin at the transparent jealousy flashing briefly across his companion's features. She hadn't forgiven him for that little stint with Madam the Pompadour. "Nope, I'm gonna take us to the countryside. There's this guy I know. Owns me a drink. We can relax, pick a terrace or two."

"When?"

"Right now."

"No I mean, what century? I'm really not up to playing the nice servant girl while you go strutting about with the fancy folk in the year eighteen hundred something."

The doctor smiled, thinking of the France courtesans, their dance and their… night life. "Oh but the French are so good at-" The look she shot him instantly killed his trail of thought. "Um, two thousand and six?" He quickly acquiesced and with an exaggerated motion pulled a lever. The TARDIS' engine died. "We're here."

Rose stayed put, her immobility proving that she didn't have much faith in his ability to get them where he wanted them to go.

"I promise!" He exclaimed. "It's summer, two thousand and six. A few weeks after we've last seen your mother. Now go on!"

The twinkle in her eyes was only matched by her huge smile that lifted the worry from his hearts. Jumping off the chair, Rose passed him in a flurry of excitement and dashed outside.

Upon hearing her yelp of surprise, he followed her through the doors. The sun stood high in the sky, basking him in a comfortable temperature. His sense of time instantly told him it was around noon.

Rose had run a few meters away from the police box. All around the Doctor, fields of lavender filled his vision. Except for the odd tree here and there, the TARDIS was the only object of measurable height within sight.

The air was overwhelmingly fresh, earthy and relaxing. Rose fell to her knees and stuck her nose into one of the bushy shrubs to breathe in the heavy scent of the purplish flowers. "It smells heavenly." She sighed in contentment and let herself fall onto her back.

The Doctor plunged down beside her, the ground feeling warm to the touch. A soft breeze ruffled his hair. "Well? What did I say? Nice and quiet?"

"It's wonderful! I've never been to France, well, except Versailles, but that was nothing like this." She stared up at the clear blue sky and closed her eyes, drinking in the lavender's sleep inducing aroma. "I so needed this," she spoke. "After that mining facility, it's good to be on Earth again.

The doctor nodded. "Traveling in time and space can leave you… bottomless. Places like these keep you grounded, remind you of where you're coming from." For a second a huge mountain range passed his inner mind's eye… He stopped talking as he tried to push Gallifrey's unwanted images away and abruptly stood up. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"There's a vineyard. I know the owner… and when I say know, I mean knew… Well, I mean, I know him, but he might not necessarily recognize me anymore."

"'Cos you changed bodies." Rose simply stated, referring to his ability to regenerate when he died. She stood up and brushed the dirt from her jeans.

He shrugged. "Oh, don't worry about it. I'll think of something. Besides, his wife's a great cook and we could do with some lunch." A wave off dizziness suddenly hit him. He staggered backwards to keep his balance. It only took a moment, then it was gone. That was weird.

Luckily, Rose hadn't noticed. She put a hand on her brow to shade her eyes from the bright sunlight and studied the horizon. "Yeah, I'm starving, and no offense, Doctor, but the TARDIS isn't the world's best restaurant and you're a lousy cook."

The Doctor scowled. "You sound like Jack."

"Now that man could cook. God, I'd give anything for one of his pastries right now." She started walking.

Trying to hide his discomfort, the Doctor took his jacket off and strolled beside her into the direction where he knew the vineyard was located. He felt unwell, like he was walking on a set of clouds. Recent events must have had a bigger impact on me than I thought. Maybe Rose's right and all I need is a good hearty meal.

The soft purple of the lavender fields slowly changed into the hard green of the vineyard, soon dominating the countryside. They'd walked for half an hour when in the distance, the Doctor could make out the small estate that was the winery. To his left, the buildings of a nearby village took shape.

As the minutes progressed, he felt steadily worse. Balls of cotton seemed to clog his head and he had trouble thinking straight. He removed the sweat from his brow and staggered a little.

"Are you okay?" Rose's concerned voice penetrated his fogged mind.

"Yeah, just… give me a moment." Standing still, he closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath, but a feeling of vertigo made him sway on his feet. Unexpectedly, he felt like he was choking. For a second, he panicked, as he couldn't get enough air into his lungs. Suddenly, the unease passed and the dizziness lifted. Still breathing erratically, he found he was able to think clearly again.

"Doctor?"

He felt a hand on his arm and found Rose looking worriedly into his eyes. Hiding his moment of weakness with experience, he abruptly straightened and smiled. "Right, sorry about that," he answered cheerfully.

"Don't give me the 'all is well' routine! And don't tell me you got a touch of the flu, 'Cos I'm not buying that."

He studied her briefly, then gladly let go of his façade. "I just felt… sick all of a sudden."

"You never get ill, not unless you regenerate or something." Alarmed, she pulled back her hand. "You're not-"

"No." He spoke seriously. "No, at least, I don't think so." Strange that I can't tell. Regaining his strength, he took a few steps forward and looked up at the sky. "There's something in the air," he spoke softly.

Rose came to stand beside him. "You had trouble breathing?"

He nodded. "Still do. Come on, we need to get to the vineyard. It's closer than the TARDIS and we might get a decent meal there." He didn't tell her the whole story. Like the reason he was able to walk around was because his respiratory bypass system had kicked in. I need to rest, and soon, he thought.

But Rose wasn't fooled. She watched him, obviously trying to gauge how off he really felt. "You look horrible, forget the food, first thing I'm gonna ask for is a bed."

He gave her an honest smile and cocked his head. "Oooh, a bed sounds really good right now."

XXXXX