Author's Note: Hello! Thanks very much to everyone who reviewed since the last chapter was published - MayFairy, SawManiac211, EmmaMarie, Theta'sWorstNightmare,TheWickedHeart, Imorgen, silentnight, mericat (x 3), and MountainLord-92 (x 2).

To silentnight: Thanks so much for the review, very happy to have made you smile. Yeah, things could have been very different for Tejana if the Doctor had told her the truth back on Satellite Five. Now that would have been a whole different story :)

This chapter is for Theta'sWorstNightmare, who reminded me I should be getting on with it XXX

- CHAPTER FOUR -

Tejana watched her father walk over to the edge of the nearest cliff, where he stood silhouetted against the cold, dark sky, his long brown coat swirling in the breeze. His hands were still casually in his pockets, but his back was tense and rigid. All his mental barriers were up, closing his mind tightly against her, an unmistakeable and pointed message that he was angry with her and didn't want to talk.

How much of that was about losing Rose, and how much was down to the fact that he knew his daughter was right and he had treated Jack badly, she didn't know. Tejana had been miles and miles away from Canary Wharf the day Rose had fallen into the alternate dimension, but she had still felt her father's anguish and shock, shooting through the psychic link like a razor-sharp arrow. Since then, he had always refused to talk about it and she had never pushed him. She and Rose had never been friends, and it felt much too hypocritical to trespass on his grief by trying to offer him any sympathy. Most of the time, he bottled it up and carried on, as if nothing had happened. But every now and then, like now, something would remind him of his loss, and his pain would leak out around the edges, usually in the form of an explosion of irrational, directionless anger.

Seeing Jack again has to be as potent a reminder of Rose as he could get, Tejana thought. Despite her fury at him for what he had done, she felt her hearts twist in compassion. Whatever else Rose had been, she had been the Doctor's salvation from the darkness and blood-lust of the Time War. It was no wonder he was still reeling from the shock of losing her. He had done a terrible thing in abandoning Jack, but in the end, he had paid a very heavy price of his own.

She walked over to stand beside him. He was staring unseeingly out over a deep canyon, his eyes dark with loss. Carefully, making sure she didn't intrude on his psychic "keep-out" signs, she brushed her mind delicately against his, a mute gesture of conciliation, the mental equivalent of taking his hand in hers. His head turned and he looked at her, recognising the olive branch for what it was. Then he smiled, one eyebrow raised, the edges of his mouth quirking ruefully. It was the expression she privately called his "puppy-dog" look. She had seen it often enough before. It was the one he reserved for when he knew he had done the wrong thing but didn't want to admit it. Knowing her father as well as she did, Tejana guessed that this was all the apology she was going to get for his lies to her.

"Is that a city?" Martha's voice interrupted behind them. She had followed Tejana over to the edge and was now gazing down into the depths of the yawning chasm.

Tejana was momentarily distracted by the prickly sensation of Jack moving up to stand close beside her. Fighting back the dizziness his mere presence still evoked, she forced herself to concentrate on the astonishing vista spread out below them. The walls of the canyon were honey-combed from top to bottom with doors and windows, expertly carved out of the stone, obviously representing level after level of residential dwellings. Thin rock bridges networked back and forth, connecting the different sections, fitting the city together into a compact and efficient whole. The place was brilliantly designed and looked as if it should have been bustling with life. However, there was no sign of movement anywhere. Everything was dry and covered with dust, and there was no sound except for the wind whistling eerily through the empty doors and windows.

An involuntary shiver feathered over Tejana's skin, a gut-reaction which had nothing to do with the icy chill in the air. This haunted place may once have been a city, but now it was nothing more than a home for ghosts.

"A city or a hive. Or a nest. Or a conglomeration," the Doctor speculated. "Looks like it was grown." He pointed towards the fragile stone bridges. "But look there. That looks like pathways...roads. Must have been some sort of life. Long ago."

"That's so sad," Tejana murmured. "Everything they were, all that they achieved...all their hopes and fears, all their successes and failures, all their victories and defeats...just gone, as if they never existed in the first place. And nobody left in all of time and space to remember them."

Like Gallifrey. The bitter comparison rose unbidden in her mind, the desolation of the Time War still as fresh to her as if it had all happened just yesterday. A billion years of history, of intellectual supremacy and dominance, and where is she now? Where are her people? Just the two of us left. Out of so many, just two, to remember and to grieve. And when we're gone, who will remember the Time Lords then? No-one...no-one at all.

She felt the Doctor's eyes moving to rest on her face. He didn't need the psychic link to know what she was thinking – probably because he was thinking it too. This time, it was his mind that brushed hers, softly and fleetingly, a tiny nudge of comfort.

"What killed it?" Martha asked, oblivious of the emotional undercurrent between the two Time Lords, her tone hushed in awe.

"Time. Just time," the Doctor said. "Everything's dying now. All the great civilizations have gone." He looked up into the black sky. "This isn't just night. All the stars have burned up and faded away...into nothing."

"They must have an atmospheric shell," Jack commented. "We should be frozen to death."

The Doctor shot him a sidelong look. "Well...Tejana, Martha and I, perhaps. Not so sure about you, Jack."

Tejana saw Jack flinch a little at the acute observation, but he didn't reply. She couldn't help wondering how much the Captain knew about his own condition. He had to have figured out by now that he couldn't die. Aside from the obvious fact that he wasn't aging, a man like Jack couldn't live through nearly one hundred and fifty years without taking some risks. Going by the harsh, wearied look she had seen in his blue eyes earlier, she'd be willing to bet he'd already 'died' and come back any number of times, over and over again. The question was, did he know why it kept happening? Did he know he was a fixed point in time? Since the Doctor hadn't exactly stuck around to explain it to him, probably not. It wasn't the sort of thing a human would be able to figure out on his own, even an extraordinary human like Jack. Which meant he had no idea why it was suddenly so hard for the two Time Lords to be around him.

Oh Jack, she thought painfully. What have we done to you?

The Doctor had been right about one thing – if he had told her the truth on Satellite Five, nothing would have stopped her going back to Jack. And at least then, he would have had some help understanding and dealing with what had happened to him. Without the Doctor's interference, things could have been very different for all of them right now. For one thing, they wouldn't all be standing here in this cold, dead place at the end of the Universe.

"What about the people?" Martha was asking, wrapping her arms around herself in an attempt to keep warm. "Does no-one survive?"

"I s'pose...we have to hope," the Doctor responded with his usual indomitable optimism. "Life will find a way."

Jack gave an ironic snort. "Well, he's not doin' too bad!"

Startled, they all looked where he was pointing. Down below, a young, dark-haired man was running like the wind along one of the abandoned pathways, hotly pursued by a howling crowd of creatures brandishing flaming torches. Faintly, they could hear the word "HUMAN!" being screamed again and again, like a call to war.

"It is just me, or does that look like a hunt?" the Doctor snapped. "COME ON!"

With that, he charged off at a rate of knots, his white Converse trainers flying as he sped down the rocky hillside, obviously intent on going to the young man's assistance. What exactly he expected the three of them were going to do against such a ravening mob, Tejana had no idea.

Oh gods, she thought in exasperation, beginning to sprint along in his wake. Here we go again, always with the running!

As she raced along, she couldn't help thinking, not for the first time, that her father always tended to find it much easier to involve himself in the business of strangers rather than confronting the uncomfortable relationship issues sitting on his own back doorstep. Even here, at the very end of the Universe, he still managed to find someone who needed his help.

Jack must have caught the resigned look on her face, because he gave a great shout of exultant laughter as he ran beside her, his back-pack bouncing madly on his back. "Ha-HA! Oh, baby, have I missed this!"

As competitive as ever, Tejana tossed her head and automatically increased her speed, trying to outdistance him, but his teasing grin merely widened, his long legs easily keeping pace with her. Martha, somewhat hampered by her high-heeled boots, was left to bring up the rear, lagging a fair distance behind them.

Finally, they reached the bottom of the canyon. The young man, whom Tejana could now see was not much more than a boy, was running directly towards them, his face distorted in fear. Proving that he had only been playing with her before, Jack put on an extra burst of speed and easily pulled ahead of both Tejana and the Doctor, reaching the fleeing fugitive first and catching him firmly in his arms.

"I've got you!" he said reassuringly, forcibly drawing his target to a halt.

But the panicked man merely struggled harder, trying to pull away. "We've gotta run!" he screamed into Jack's face. "They're coming! They're coming!"

Sure enough, the pursuing horde was bearing down on them like a savage tidal wave, their flaming torches glaring in the darkness. As the creatures came closer, it was possible to see that they were humanoid in form, dressed in rough animal hides, their skins liberally decorated with dark tattoos, their hair long and wild and shaggy.

Jack's expression hardened, his blue eyes suddenly cold. Without hesitating, he smoothly thrust the young man into the Doctor's arms, before pulling out a revolver and expertly aiming it at the oncoming savages. From the ruthless look on his face, Tejana had no doubt that he was more than prepared to kill as many of them as he had to.

The Doctor obviously saw it too, because he immediately yelled, "Jack! Don't you dare!"

Jack jerked his head in frustration, but then raised the gun into the air, firing three quick shots in succession. The sharp, staccato sound tore through the air like a clap of thunder. The swarming creatures all stopped dead in their tracks, their eyes fixed on Jack, hovering warily, as if unsure whether or not to risk continuing their charge.

"What the hell are they?" Martha hissed across to Tejana.

"I don't know," the Time Lady responded tautly. "But I have a pretty strong hunch we shouldn't hang around to find out!"

The young man's eyes were wild with terror. "There's more of them!" he burst out, his voice hoarse and frantic. "We have to keep going!"

"I've got a ship nearby," the Doctor told him. "It's safe. It's not far, it's just over there..." He gestured back up the rocky slope they had just run down, only to see an even larger horde of savages pouring over the crest of the hill, effectively cutting them off from the sanctuary of the TARDIS.

"Or...maybe not," Tejana breathed.

Jack shifted back and forth, aiming his gun at each group in turn. Each time he moved, the group he was not covering crept closer, hungrily closing the gap between them and their prey. It was like a bizarre game of 'Statues', one which had lethal consequences for the losers.

"I can't hold them off forever, Doc!"

"We're close to the silo!" the young man gasped. "If we can get to the silo, we're safe!"

The Doctor looked urgently at his companions. "Silo?" he queried.

"I'm voting silo!" Tejana said emphatically.

"Silo!" Jack agreed.

"Silo for me!" Martha squeaked.

The Doctor released the young man and he tore away, frantically running in the same direction he had been heading before they interrupted him. Tejana, Jack, the Doctor and Martha all followed him as swiftly as they could, each of them spine-chillingly conscious of the feral whooping that erupted behind them as the savages enthusiastically resumed the hunt, this time with five prey in their sights instead of just one.

Pebbles rolled and skittered under Tejana's feet on the uneven path and her breath hung in great, frozen clouds of condensation every time she exhaled. They seemed to be running down some sort of makeshift road now, formed from huge tyre tracks, deeply and repeatedly scored into the mud. Their pursuers swarmed behind them, moving with frightful rapidity, gaining on them more and more every second. Up ahead, she could see the tyre tracks led to a tall wire-mesh gate, flanked by high, square watch-towers. There were black-dressed figures moving behind the mesh, all of them carrying what appeared to be semi-automatic machine guns. The ground in front of the gate had been churned by many feet into a boggy, sticky mess, providing clear evidence that the tribe of savages had visited here before.

Still in the lead, the young man made a bee-line for the armed encampment. "It's the Futurekind!" he shouted desperately. "Open the gate!"

"Show me your teeth!" the guard answered fiercely, pointing his weapon threateningly at them. Then, as they hesitated in incomprehension, his voice rose in urgent demand. "Show me your teeth! SHOW ME YOUR TEETH!"

The young man whirled on them. "Show them your teeth!" he cried.

Obediently, the four time-travellers bared their teeth, displaying them to the guard. Beside them, Tejana realised the young man was doing the same, his mouth stretched into a wide, grinning rictus.

"Human!" the guard called, lowering his machine gun. "Let 'em in! Let 'em in!"

Slowly – much, much too slowly for Tejana's taste – the huge gate slid open and the five of them ran inside.