Wow, it's been a while. A very long while. And for that I apologize. I promise, I will be posting the rest of this story and its sequel. The sequel of the sequel, I'm not so sure about. I've been very stuck on Sherlock for a while and fics I've been writing for that. Maybe I'll work on that sequel later, but for now it's paused. Don't worry though, the sequel stands enough on its own with the ending.

Sorry again about the extremely extraordinarily long wait. I'm just a horrible person.

"Right. So. We need to get from here . . . to there," the Doctor stated, pointing to the TARDIS, which was resting on the other side of the hanger, about as far is it could be from the pile of crates he and Rose were crouched behind, which were piled high in a corner on the opposite side of the room. A multitude of workers bustled about busily and, to make matters even worse, a group of what seemed to be scientists were gathered about the TARDIS, inspecting it.

"Should be pretty simple, yeah?" Rose replied, eyeing the hanger for any hiding places, of which there were surprisingly few. There were stacks of crates like the one they were hiding behind piled in each of the room's four corners, but that was about it for the optimal hiding places. Scattered about the room were spaceships of different size, color, and shape, but there were so many workers moving about that unless they were able to get inside the ships, they would provide no protection.

Rose was just about to suggest providing a distraction with the sonic screwdriver when, simultaneously, all of the workers began filing out of the hanger, holding fingers against the headsets they all wore. When the building was empty, Rose raised her eyebrows. "Well, that's . . . weird. You thinking trap? 'Cause I'm thinking trap."

"Oh, most definitely," he answered. "They obviously know we're here and are trying to lure us out."

"Well, that's a cheerful thought," Rose said. She glanced over to see that the Doctor was looking at her pointedly. "You don't think it was Jack?" she asked in surprise.

"The thought occurred to me," he answered. "Tell me, did he ever say what happened to the Kripnallenes?"

"He said . . . they released an infestation of krelt and the town had to evacuate," Rose answered, puzzled.

He raised his eyebrows, hinting at something that Rose was refusing to see. Finally, when she didn't connect what he was trying to say, he asked, "And did you see any krelts those two days we spent searching the town?"

Rose's eyebrows converged together as she caught on to what he was saying. "But . . . he told me –"

"He told you what you wanted to hear," the Doctor interrupted, somewhat gently. "Now, I don't know what happened to them, but my guess is they aren't coming back."

Rose let that sink in. An entire town, a thriving community, all gone because of Jack. Was it possible that she had been that wrong about him? Should they even have trusted him? If they were captured, the Doctor would be dissected and studied, the TARDIS dismantled, and all because she simply refused to believe that this Jack was so completely different from her Jack. "And . . . we're gonna save them, right?" she asked hopefully.

The Doctor stared at her, his eyes cold in a way she hadn't seen since he'd regenerated. "No. We're going to get as far away from here as possible."

With that, the Doctor pushed away from her, heading for the nearest spacecraft in a crouched run, leaving Rose gaping behind him. She sat there for a few seconds, processing his refusal to help the Kripnallenes, then took off after him.

"Doctor," she said when she slid next to him, leaning against a large, black, onion-shaped spacecraft. "You can't just abandon these people. In any other case, on any other planet, you'd be coming up with a plan to take down the entire corporation right about now, not running away. These people need our help!"

"Rose," he almost growled, impatiently glancing back at her. "They're gone. There's no one to save. I don't know what they did to them, but when the Time Agency makes an entire town disappear, there's no saving them. Trust me, I've tried before."

"Then stop them from doing anything else! It's not like you haven't stopped entire organizations before. What makes this one so different?"

He sighed, grabbing her hand and leading her to the next ship as he tried to explain. "The Time Agency is . . . a fixed point in time. It needs to exist until it eventually destroys itself, about 30 years from now. There's nothing I can do."

"So . . . what?" The Doctor pulled on her arm to lead her across to the next ship, but Rose pulled him back. He turned slightly to face her. "You're just gonna leave them to kill who knows how many more people? Just, 'Oh, it's not my problem,' and off we go?"

He sighed, an apologetic look crossing his face. "Rose, you know I would do something if I could. How many times have we just left people who needed help? Never. But there's nothing I can do. It's out of my control."

He tried to pull her along with him again, but she yanked her arm out of his grip. She stared at him, hardly recognizing the man standing in front of her. She stepped back, accusation reflecting in her eyes. "What happened to you?" she asked disbelievingly. "The Doctor I know wouldn't give up this easily. Even when things seem completely, utterly hopeless, he doesn't give in. He stands up for what he knows is right, no matter what might happen to him. He sacrificed his own life in the Cabinet room to save the world. He sent his best friend back home to protect her from a pointless death at the hands of the daleks. He jumped through a mirror on a horse, knowing he would be stuck there with no way to get back, to save a woman he hardly knew." She shook her head in disappointment. "That's the man I knew. That's the man I left everything I ever knew for. That . . . is the man that I fe-. . . ." Fell in love with. "That I care for," she amended. "And I don't know who you are," she said bitterly, hesitating slightly, "but you're not him."

"Rose," he said, trying to make his tone reasonable. He started to take a step forward, but she leaned away and he paused. "Rose," he said again, his voice softer, almost pleading. "I'm still that man. You know I am." He started forward again, more slowly, more carefully this time. Rose didn't move, but eyed him strangely, as if she had never seen him before. "I want to help. I'm burning to take down the Time Agency. But I can't, for the same reasons I can't go back and save my own planet. It has to happen. And nothing I try to do is going to stop them until it's their time to be stopped. And that time isn't now." He held out his hand invitingly as a peace offering to her, and yet simultaneously an apology for what he can't do. "Please, Rose," he pleaded, his eyes sincere in his apology. "Just come with me, and I'll explain it all when we're safe in the TARDIS." She didn't move, glancing between his outstretched hand and his eyes, an unreadable expression on her face. "Please," he added once more.

She sighed and reluctantly took his hand. He smiled softly, gratefully. Perhaps she wasn't being fair to him. He'd never let her down before. He was always willing to sacrifice everything to save the world. Any world. Maybe he deserved a pass on this one. "I still don't understand."

"I know," he said, gently pulling her along after him as he moved from spaceship to spaceship. "I've never explained it to you. But I will. I promise."

"I'll hold you to that," Rose said with a half-smile.

She gently squeezed his hand as an apology. He smiled back at her to reassure her that he understood. He knew why it was hard for her to accept. It was hard for him, too.

They crept along in silence the rest of the way. When they finally reached the TARDIS, the Doctor dropped her hand, digging inside his pockets for the key. He extracted it and unlocked the door, pushing it open to let Rose inside first. She nearly bolted inside, not paying attention to the darkness inside. It wasn't the first time the TARDIS had powered down for what Rose thought of as a power nap. She tried to keep walking, but she was startled when she ran into a wall that shouldn't be there. She whirled around and tried to push the Doctor out, but it was too late. He had followed her in right away and before Rose could say anything the door slammed behind them with a click that was unmistakably the sound of a lock.

"I told you it was a trap," Rose stated, pressing her hands against the close walls of the blue police box. Time had passed, although she wasn't sure how long. There was no light inside the small blue box and no way to tell time. She didn't have her phone on her; she'd left it with her jeans on the real TARDIS. The Doctor had spent a good thirty minutes trying to figure a way out, but the door was deadlock sealed and the walls seemed to be reinforced with some sort of hard metal, so breaking their way out wasn't an option. She sighed and leaned against the back wall. She'd sat for a while, but her legs had very quickly cramped up, so she'd stood again and tried to stretch, but there wasn't much room.

The Doctor, who was much taller that she was, leaned against her shoulder, his head lying on hers at an awkward angle. She supposed that was as comfortable as he would get in this tiny box. His legs were too long to sit in this cramped space, and he was just too tall to be able to stand straight up.

"I didn't disagree," he responded, not meanly. He shifted his body slightly, his shoulder bumping into hers.

"But you didn't suspect that it was a bit weird that they would let us get into the TARDIS?"

"Well, they don't know how it works," he said defensively. "Maybe they thought if I got in, they would be able to come in after us. Maybe they thought they could surround us, trapping us inside, and wait us out. They don't know we've got endless food supplies in there and that we can leave from anywhere."

"Right. Sorry," Rose said, and she was. "It's just. . . . We got captured two days in a row, now. And I need a good shower."

"Well, I didn't want to say anything. . . ."

"Oi!" she laughed, elbowing him lightly in the ribs.

He chuckled, then groaned, shifting against her again. "God, my legs are starting to ache," he moaned. "I can't feel my toes. And my neck hurts. And my back. And . . . pretty much everything."

"Oh, you're worse than Mickey when he's got a cold," Rose groaned. Rose pushed away from the wall, turning in the tight quarters to face him. "Come on, there's got to be some way we can both sit somewhat comfortably."

After much finagling and squirming, the Doctor and Rose did indeed find a position that worked for both of them. The Doctor sat leaning against the back wall, his legs splayed and bent at the knees. Rose nestled between his legs, resting her back against his chest. The Doctor's arms curled instinctively around her waist and she smiled, tilting her head back under his chin.

Rose broke the amicable silence that had arisen between the two of them. "So," she said hesitantly. "What makes this any different?" she asked.

The Doctor took a deep breath and began to explain to her, in terms that an average human – not that Rose was average in any way – could understand. He said it was a bit like when she tried to save her father. It created a paradox because she'd been directly affected by her father's death, so in saving him she was effectively completely trying to change her entire life. If she had gone back in time to save her father, she wouldn't have grown up without him. Thus, Rose-With-A-Dad never would have had to go back to save him, so he would die again anyway, creating a long, confusing, paradoxical chain of events. In the same way, she and the Doctor had been directly affected by Jack, who had been directly affected by the Time Agency, so they wouldn't be able to end them without changing Jack's future, which would change their past.

"And on top of that," he explained, "there are certain fixed points in time, which I've mentioned to you before. I can see everything, Rose. Everything that is, or was, or ever could be. What must not be. What has to be," he said, echoing her own words from Satellite Five. "And the Time Agency is a fixed point. It absolutely, under no circumstances, must not be destroyed before its time. If it is . . . you and I . . . we both die on Satellite Five. Jack isn't there to tell me that all the people who are voted off the shows are just teleported. I never find you and the daleks kill you after extracting information out of you about my whereabouts. They come and kill me, and everyone else on that satellite. They succeed in what they never could before. They conquer the universe, and all life, save for dalek-kind, is exterminated."

Silence fell between them. Rose's eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open, her eyebrows raised with disbelief and shock. She shook her head slightly, unable to express how that chain of events terrified her. "I'm sorry," she finally whispered. She leaned forward away from him, folding her knees up to rest her chin on them. She winded her arms around them, folding herself into a tight ball. She felt incredibly small at that moment, unable to see beyond the here-and-now to understand that all actions have consequences, no matter how well-intentioned they were.

"Rose, I told you, you don't need to apologize. You didn't do anything wrong."

"What I said to you, though. That wasn't fair." She hugged herself tighter, her voice sad, reflecting her shame. "I should have known you had a good reason. You always do."

The Doctor shifted his weight, leaning forward slightly. He gently placed a hand on her back, rubbing softly. "You couldn't know," he said. Without thinking, he gently wiped her hair off her neck and pressed his thumb into the tense muscles in her shoulders, tracing circles to ease the stiffness and tension. Rose sighed, easing back into his hand, her shoulders relaxing. "Honestly, I would have been a bit worried if you hadn't called me on it." He smiled softly. "You're so stubborn, Rose, and you aren't afraid to stand up for what you believe in. It's one of the reasons I love you."

It didn't sink in right away. It wasn't until the Doctor noticed Rose's back stiffen that he realized he'd said something he hadn't meant to. It's one of the reasons I love you. He froze, his hand slipping off Rose's back to fall into his lap. "I. . . ." he started, but he had no idea what to say. He could easily turn that phrase around. It didn't have to mean what he'd meant. "I. . . ." But . . . why pretend anymore? He'd made up his mind – or rather, his previous regeneration had made it up for him. Now was as good a time as any to tell her. Although he had wanted the mood to be a bit more romantic and less I'm-probably-going-to-be-dissected-while-they-torture-you-for-information-about-me-esque.

Rose twisted her body around, and the Doctor could just make out her face. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open slightly. She looked up at him silently, expectantly, and he knew that the mood didn't matter. The beautiful woman sitting in front of him was what mattered – the only thing that mattered – and he couldn't believe he'd gone so long without saying how he felt about her. "I love you," he declared, his mouth breaking into a grin.

She returned it happily, joyously, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "I love you, too," she answered.

An adorable little giggle escaped her lips, and the Doctor couldn't help but chuckle. He pulled her into a tight hug, burying his nose in her hair. That signature scent of hers – that mixture of flowers and lemon – swept into him and he breathed deeply, grinning even further.

Rose began pulling away and their cheeks brushed against each other. With that one touch of skin, Rose felt something start on fire inside her, an inferno that couldn't be quenched and her vision was filled with that same blinding golden light that she had seen the night they had slept together. She tilted her face towards his, just as he did the same, and their lips met, gently at first, but then the blaze grew and so did their passion. Rose pressed up against him, his strong arms wrapping around her waist and clutching her, bringing her even closer. She deepened the kiss, opening her mouth slightly to invite and entice the Doctor in. He obliged, his tongue meeting hers in a dance that both seemed to instinctively know the steps to. Rose slid her hands up into his soft hair as his slipped beneath the large sweatshirt she still wore, trailing fire up her back.

Suddenly, there was a large jolt, and the Doctor and Rose were thrown to the side, their embrace broken. "What the hell?" Rose breathed, as another jolt sent them tumbling to the other side of the police box.

They were both breathless and disheveled – not merely due to being tossed around – when, after a few more jolts, they heard the creak of the police box door opening and light, blinding due to the length of time sitting in darkness, blasted into the box. Rose and the Doctor squinted at the blurred silhouettes standing in the doorway.

A deep, male voice spoke, his tone matching that of someone giving a factual lecture. "Rose Marion Tyler, born 27th of April, 1987 by Old Earth years in London, England. Parents are Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler, née Prentice, and Peter Alan Tyler, deceased the 7th of November, 1987."

Rose backed away, the Docter simultaneously pulling her behind him. "What d'you want?" she asked warily.

The man ignored her. He continued, "Unemployed due to an explosion of unknown causes at last place-of-work. Records show she was £800 in debt at that time."

"Oi!" she shouted. "I asked you a question. What d'you want? How do you know all this?"

Again, he ignored her. "Went missing for 12 months on the 26th of March, 2005 and presumed dead until her sudden return on the 16th of April, 2006. This date coincides with the first documentation of the man known as the Doctor in that form. After this date, there are no further official records of Rose Marion Tyler." The man looked up, holding out a device that emitted a line of blue light. He passed it over her, then held the screen up to his face, examining the results. "DNA scan confirms that this is Rose Marion Tyler. Take her." He stood aside and three men, dressed in what looked like some sort of military uniform, squeezed past and into the police box.

"What d'you think you're doing?" Rose asked, panic in her voice as they came towards her.

The Doctor stood in front of her, fury rolling off him in nearly tangible waves. "Don't you dare touch her," he growled.

Rose pushed herself onto her feet and gritted her teeth, ready to punch and scratch and bite and claw these men if they tried to take her. However, rather than going straight for her, all three grabbed the Doctor and wrestled him aside, smashing him against the wall and holding him there. He grunted as he hit the wall and shouted, "Let me go! Don't you touch her!" Rose could see the Doctor struggling against them, but the combination of the three men holding him back was too much and he couldn't break free.

Rose backed away as far as she could until her back pressed against the wall of the police box. Suddenly, the support on her back was gone and she fell backwards as a hidden door was whipped open. Rose shrieked as she stumbled back and immediately strong arms grabbed her, wrenching her upright roughly. "No!" she screamed, fighting with all her strength against the two men who were pulling her away from the police box, away from her Doctor. "No! Doctor!"

They yanked her back until she could no longer see him, but she could hear him yelling after her, shouting and cursing them. "NO! Rose! Don't you hurt her! Do you hear me? Don't you bloody hurt her!" Then Rose heard him shout in pain and she watched helplessly as they slammed the back door shut, locking it.

"Doctor!" she cried, her voice filled with fear and longing and worry.

She heard more grunts as she was being dragged away, then finally, "Rose, don't worry! I'll save you! I'LL SAVE YOU!" Then there was a final grunt of pain, and the three men who had been holding him emerged from the police box, shutting the door and locking it behind them.

"NO!" Rose screeched. She managed somehow to wrench one of her arms free and she took no time in reaching up and clawing the face of the man who was still holding her. His grip loosened as he shouted in pain and Rose slipped out of his grasp. She bolted back towards the police box, dodging a few of the arms outstretched to capture her, but as she got closer, they got more numerous and soon she was being held down by five men.

She struggled against them, but they held her down firmly. Her eyes widened in panic as a different man stood over her, donned in the white coat that globally indicated that the wearer was a doctor. This man, though, stood over her, his lips sneering as she continued to struggle. He pulled a small, thin box out of one of his pockets and extracted a syringe full of a thick, yellowish liquid.

Rose screamed, fighting against the men holding her down, but there were simply too many of them and they were too strong. She could barely move her arms and legs. She suddenly felt hands grasp her head, tilting it to the side and holding it firmly in place. She could do nothing but watch as the white-coated man – who she simply could not refer to as a doctor – leaned down, placed the needle against the side of her neck, and push it through her skin, pressing down on the plunger.

Almost immediately Rose felt her muscles relax and her strength diminish. Her vision blurred and her limbs went first limp, then numb. Her eyelids drooped, growing so heavy that she couldn't possibly keep them open, so she let them fall closed. Seconds later, her breathing and heart rate slowed. She quickly gave in to the sleepiness that had swept over her body like leaves being blown across the street on a windy autumn day, and she knew no more.