AN: Once more, we get a taste of the Eleventh Doctor's own personal Bad Wolf in this chapter, as well as a further hint at the secret if the Bad Wolf Complex. I really enjoyed writing the interaction between the two main characters in this chapter. The banter and attitudes are partially based of of Peyton Halliwell's Tenth/Twelfth Doctor interaction in their story, "The Key to Time." If you've read that story, you may even recognize a few lines from there. Sorry, Peyton Halliwell, I intend no disrespect to your awesome scene. This chapter takes place several years after the previous two, most certainly after Cleo has been dropped off on Earth.

AAN: In case you haven't noticed, I'll be doing a chapter introduction from here on out, just for fun.

The Bad Wolf Paradox - Part 1

Rose just couldn't help it, she wouldn't ever understand the Doctor. Here he was, walking through a beautiful, green, peaceful Central Park in spring, 2023, and he wasn't even remotely enjoying it. Rose figured that unless something was getting blown to smithereens, the Doctor would never be happy. They had come to New York on the trail of an unusual electronic signal, which the Doctor explained shouldn't exist on Earth for another four hundred years. They hadn't had much success. To put it bluntly, they hadn't found anything remotely interesting, except for six hotdog stands, four car accidents, and one rather good view of the New World Trade Center. And the Doctor was once more in one of his moods.

"Why don't you just do a scan for alien tech?" Rose asked, linking her arm through his.

"I have," he snapped in return. "The signal's coming from underground."

"Doctor," Rose sighed, exasperated. "This is New York. Isn't this place supposed to have the largest underground system in the world?"

"Not anymore," he answered, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "New York stopped using their underground two years ago."

"But the tunnels are still there," Rose said. "Perfect place to hide some alien tech."

The Doctor's face lit up. "Fantastic!" he exclaimed, grabbing Rose's hand and dashing down the sidewalk. "Rose Tyler, you're brilliant."

"I'm surprised you didn't figure that out all on your own," Rose muttered, following the Doctor. He arrived at a crosswalk and waited for the light to change before crossing the street.

"Well, in about three years, most of those tunnels will be converted into other things," the Doctor explained. "There'll be a whole subcity in the Underground before long. Housing, shops, the whole shebang." He hurried to a subway access stairway and used his sonic screwdriver to force open the grating. "One tends to get a little confused around this era, so much happening all at once." He pulled up on the grating and descended down the stairs, shining his screwdriver around like a torch.

"It's dark down here," commented Rose.

"Dark… and dangerous…"

--

Several hours later…

Rose stopped in her tracks, holding her torch out so she could better see in the darkness. The noise was growing louder, and it seemed to be coming this way. At first, she thought it was the Doctor, but whatever it was was much smaller than her Time Lord friend. Not to mention, it sounded decidedly robotic.

Suddenly, there was a crash behind her. Rose whirled and pointed her torch in that direction, the light landing on an old metal door, upon which was spray-painted the words "Bad Wolf" in bright blue lettering. Rose approached the door, fully aware of the robotic humming growing steadily closer behind her. When Rose was a few feet from the door, it suddenly slammed open to reveal a boy, clad in a pair of loose blue jeans and a camo T-shirt. He had brown hair that was so dark, it was nearly black, and a wide grin that reminded Rose immediately of the Doctor.

"What're you doing here?" he asked, a roguish London accent highlighting his voice.

"I…" Rose was cut off as a small orb-like robot hovered into view behind her, shooting a deadly bolt of electricity in their direction. The boy pushed her aside and aimed a small device at the robot, hitting it with some sort of orange light, causing it to blow up.

"What's that?" Rose asked, confused.

"Sonic screwdriver," the kid answered, pocketing the device. Just then four more robot orbs flew around the corner. The kid grinned like a maniac before grabbing Rose's hand.

"Run!" he said, taking off down the corridor, Rose in tow.

--

The Doctor leapt aside as six more robot orbs flew past him, spinning wildly in an attempt to kill him with their wing-blades. Frowning, he ducked as two of the orbs turned and came at his head. Then without warning, one of them exploded, sending shards of metal flying all over the place. The Doctor whirled to see a man standing up on the subway platform, holding out a sonic screwdriver toward the robots threateningly. He wore a pair of dark brown cargo pants and a light blue button-up shirt. The man had long ginger hair pulled back in a handsome ponytail.

"Are you just gonna stand there gawking?" he asked, using his sonic screwdriver to blow up another robot. "Or are you gonna come here?"

The Doctor shook his head and pulled himself up onto the platform beside the man, who blew up one more robot before turning on his heels and leading the Doctor through a nearby door.

"Where are we going?" the Doctor asked.

"I dunno," the man answered, locking the door with his sonic screwdriver. "I'm just making it up as I go." As soon as the door was locked, the man headed off down the hall, followed by the Doctor

"Do you have any idea what those things are?" the Doctor asked.

"Whatever they are, they're a paradox," the man answered. "They're from a future that no longer exists. Which means they were probably either in the Void, or stuck in the space-time vortex during the Time War," the stranger paused for a split second, as if thinking. "Geez, I'm talking a lot."

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked, halting in his tracks.

The stranger continued to walk down the hallway, leaving the Doctor behind. "Now he finally asks the question. Took him long enough." He halted and turned, arching his brows at the Doctor. "Are you just gonna stand there?" The Doctor hurried to catch up. "I'm you," the man continued. "Number Eleven."

"What happened to Ten?" the Doctor asked.

"Too busy tracking down the Master," Eleven answered.

"The Master?"

"Long story…" the Eleventh Doctor said. "Not to mention, you and the talker probably wouldn't get on too well."

"Oh."

They continued marching down the corridor, rounding the corner and almost crashing into the TARDIS.

"Hey," said Nine, "It moved."

"No it didn't, you dimwit," Eleven snapped, taking his key from his pocket. "This is mine."

"Oh."

The Eleventh Doctor opened the door and allowed his younger self to enter first before following. Dashing up the ramp to the controls, both Doctors operated the levers and buttons until the Ninth Doctor laid his hand on a small lever covered in duct tape.

"No!" exclaimed Eleven. "I changed that after… well you'll find out, I guess. That's a sonic detonation holdout mechanism."

"Ah," Nine removed his hand from the lever. "Better not then."

"Nope," responded Eleven, flicking a few more switches. The engines engaged and they vanished from the timeline, hovering just outside of time and space, on the edge of infinity.

"What's the plan?" Nine asked.

"Tell me, Nine," the Eleventh Doctor leaned against the control console, crossing his arms. "What do you remember about Teshian Energy?"

The Ninth Doctor paused. Soon a smile spread across his face. "Fantastic plan…"

--

Rose watched as her strange companion pulled two things from his pocket. One was his sonic screwdriver and the other was… well, she wasn't quite sure what that was, but it looked pretty high-tech.

"What're you doing?" Rose asked.

"I dunno," answered the boy, "I'm jus' doing what Dad told me to do." He pulled a bunch of wires from his boxy technology-thing.

"So you don't know the plan?" Rose asked.

"Other than it has something to do with Teshian energy, nope!"

"Well, that's just great," Rose sighed.

"Hold this," the boy handed Rose the end of a wire while he took the strange box and attached it a big generator-like thing that sat on the ground in front of him. He pointed the red sonic screwdriver at the generator and opened a panel in the side.

"So," he stuck his head in through the opening. "How long have you known D… the Doctor?"

"'Bout a week," answered Rose. "How'd you know I was with the Doctor?"

"Lucky guess." The boy pulled his head out and surveyed his work with a critical eye. "Something's not quite right." He reached up and smacked the top of the generator with his fist. The light glowing in the machine's belly changed from a healthy green to a rather sickly yellow. The boy took the wire Rose had been holding and stuffed it into the opening in the generator's hull.

"There we go!" he replaced the cover on the generator and stood up. "Now all we have to do is wait."

"Wait for what?" Rose's question was punctuated by the unmistakable groan of the TARDIS engines.

"For the Calvary!" exclaimed the boy. He dashed to where the TARDIS was materializing and waited for it to become solid.

--

"Don't look at me like that!" Nine exclaimed, holding his sonic screwdriver in one hand and Eleven's broken one in the other.

"Argh!" Eleven almost threw the paperweight he was holding at his predecessor. "First Jack, then Martha, then that stupid ape-y thing, then Cleo tries to make the universe's largest stack of pancakes…. How many bloody screwdrivers does a bloke have to go through before he finally gets one he can keep?"

"Sorry?" Nine tried, vainly trying to make his future happy.

"What would I be if I killed you?" Eleven gritted his teeth. "Suicidal or homicidal?"

Suddenly, the TARDIS started beeping at them, ending the argument. Eleven hurried to the monitor and read the information he was given.

"That's my boy!" he exclaimed, hurriedly working the controls of his TARDIS.

"What about Rose?" Nine asked, crawling out from his position beneath the grating.

"I'm getting two life signs down there," Eleven answered. "One is most definitely human."

A second later the TARDIS materialized. Nine rushed down the ramp to the door and opened it wide. Outside the TARDIS stood a young boy, thirteen or fourteen by the look of it, next to him was Rose Tyler, a very confused look stuck on her face.

"Come on!" the Doctor exclaimed, gesturing for them to hurry inside. The boy rushed past him and up to the control console, helping the Eleventh Doctor work the controls furiously. Rose was only a split second behind him.

"Doctor, what's going on?" Rose asked.

"I've been asking my companion that very question for some time, Rose," Nine answered, hurrying up to the console as the engines engaged.

"I told you," answered Eleven. "It's a paradox."

"Yeah, I noticed that, thanks," said Nine.

"Not that paradox!" exclaimed Eleven, ponytail flying as he turned to face the man behind him. "Two universes are colliding. Pretty soon, there'll be nothing in either one. No Jackie, no Pete, no Mickey, no Sarah Jane, nothing. Only upside to the whole thing will be no more Cybermen either."

"If only," muttered the boy.

"But how?" Rose said, having only caught the fact that two universes were about to hit with a big bang.

"Those robot things, they belong to the Faction Paradox," answered Eleven, glancing only marginally at his soon-to-be/once-was wife.

"They were destroyed in the War," Nine said.

"Yeah, that's the Paradox," said Eleven. "They're from a future that was destroyed in the Time War, thus they cannot exist, otherwise they'd rip the universes apart."

"But, Dad?" the boy spoke up suddenly. "Why Granddad's world? Why that universe over any other?"

"It's close," shrugged Eleven. "That, and there's the fact that the Bad Wolf exists in both worlds." He glanced meaningfully at Rose. "It's a connecting point."

--

Silence hated one thing more than all else; silence. Ironic in a way, that a man named Silence would hate silence. He liked noise, people talking, cars running nearby, or a few fistfights in back alleys. The noise reassured him, made it feel like the universe was still running.

That was why this strange quiet unsettled Silence, it felt like the world was coming to a halt. And a dead world was no world at all.

Silence knew what was causing the pause in universal life; it was the Bad Wolf Paradox. Something that had captivated the whole of space and time in its endless web. No one knew where it had come from, it was just there. The Paradox couldn't be undone, battled, or defeated, it was merely meant to be lived with. Silence just shuddered, pulling his black trench coat closer around his lean frame. The Faction was hurrying forward with its plans, and Silence had to stop them…