A/N: Two chapters in one day ... this doesn't happen often.
Meh, got in the swing of it, couldn't stop ... although I had to ... multiple times in fact. But it's done.
I hope you enjoy this additional little tiny chapter ... Now that we have the Doctor's girls in the picture, stuff can happen ... Whoot whoot!
~~oooOOOooo~~
The Doctor had to admit: The circuit board and its purpose were pretty damn impressive. In fact as he looked around he couldn't help but take in the impressiveness of the entire set up that Professor Yana had created. This man had no real assistance and very few supplies to aid him in his research, yet he'd been able to put together an absolute marvel of technology.
His expression held awe in the man as he lifted a cord to his nose and inhaled deeply. He held it down to Gallifrey to allow the youngster to take a sniff for himself.
"Is this…?"
"Yes," Yana replied as if anticipating the question. "Gluten extract. It binds the neutralino map together."
"But that's food," the Doctor remarked with a tightness in his expression. "You've built this system out of food and string and staples." He shook his head in disbelief. "Professor Yana, you're a genius!"
Yana grinned a smile of self-pride and then amusement as he watched the Doctor snatch the cable away from Gallifrey, who had taken it upon himself to lick it. "Says the man who made it work."
"Oh," the Doctor sang with a husky voice. "It's easy when you come in at the end. But. Well. But you're stellar. This is…" He inhaled a breath of awe. "This is magnificent."
Gallifrey chuckled. "Coming from you, that's saying something, Dad. What with you being all clever and brilliant."
Jack let up a laugh. "Oh the kid's got your number, Doc."
The Doctor merely grinned.
"Well," Yana began ruefully. "Even my title is an affectation. There hasn't been such a thing as a university for over a thousand years. I've spent my life going from one refuge ship to another."
"I know that feeling," Gallifrey remarked with a huff. "'Cept me and mum went from one refuge house to another." He heard his father peep sadly at that and quickly curled around his side. He looked up at him with an adoring grin. "But we're home now, yeah. No more running."
The Doctor swallowed hard enough that it locked his jaw and dimpled his cheek. In short time, he shook off the regret and looked back to the professor. "If you'd been born in a different time, you'd be revered." His expression lengthened to surprise when Yana chuckled. "I mean it. Throughout the galaxies."
Yana huffed. "Oh, those damned galaxies. They had to go and collapse." He smiled a weary smile toward the Doctor, who was wordlessly showing his son the circuit layout. "Some admiration would have been nice. Just once. Just a little."
The Doctor winked at his son and then looked up at Yana with a warm smile. "Well you've got it now." His brow twitched lightly. "But that footprint thing."
"Imprellor, Dad."
"Quite right, Flubble," he said with a smile. "The Footprint Imprellor. You can't activate this from onboard, can you? It's got to be done from here." He swallowed thickly. "You're staying behind."
Yana nodded, his expression suddenly unreadable. "With Chantho." He shifted his eyes toward his assistant. "She won't leave without me. Simply refuses."
The Doctor looked to Chantho with soft eyes, and then switched his look back to Yana. "You would give your life so they could fly."
"You say that like you wouldn't do the same," Yana said with a touch of a smile. His eyes fell to Gallifrey, who was now up on his toes to closely scrutinize the circuitboard. "for him. For your wife." He looked up. "It wouldn't even be a question, would it?"
The Doctor shook his head.
"Would be if me and mum have anything to say about it," Gallifrey muttered without looking up. He kept his focus on the circuit board, but managed to poke his father in the chest. "So don't even think about it. 'Kay?"
Yana chuckled lightly. "I think I might be a little too old for Utopia," he admitted. "Time that I had some sleep."
There was a crackle over the communications line. "Professor. Could you tell the Doctor that we haven't been able to find his blue box."
The Doctor's eyes widened. "Hold on, what?"
"We were able to pinpoint the original location of the box," the voice continued. "There was a deep imprint in the ground from where we believe the box to have been, but it's been taken away."
The Doctor shook his head. "No. That's impossible." He leaned down to the mic. "Look again. Please. You can't give up."
"I'm sorry, Doctor," the voice answered somewhat solemnly. "There isn't much we can do. If the Futurekind have it, then I doubt you're going to get it back in one piece even if you did find it."
"You don't understand," he warned on a low and dark tone of voice. "I have to get that box back." He panted lightly. "I need it back!"
"Then I'm sorry, Doctor. You'll have to continue looking for it on your own. It's far too dangerous for any of us to stay out here any longer." The voice seemed to shift. "Professor. We're on our way back."
"No!" the Doctor yelled as his fists came down hard on the table. "You can't give up. Another half hour. Please. I'm begging you."
"I'm sorry, Doctor."
The doctor inhaled sharply and brought both hands to his head to clutch painfully at his hair. "No," he moaned to himself. "This isn't happening. This can't be happening."
Gallifrey tugged on the bottom of his blazer. "Dad. What about Mum?"
Jack stepped forward to take hold of Gallifrey's shoulder. "Now that I'm not making you projective vomit all over the place, why don't you hang out with me for a bit. Let your dad think it over."
Gallifrey looked first to Jack, and then to the Doctor. "Dad?" His voice was meek, and full of terror. "Dad please tell me we're gonna find mum."
The Doctor released his hold on his hair and looked down to his child. He managed to project as much confidence as he could as he lowered himself to a crouch and looked up into his son's face. "Flubble. I promise you I'm going to do everything I can to find her, okay?" He swallowed hard. "But right now, can you please go with Jack and Martha, and let me run through a few options?"
"I can help," he whimpered. "Dad, please?"
"Gallifrey," the Doctor whined back with as much apology as there was order. "I need you to just…"
"Don't shut me out," Gallifrey growled.
"What?"
"I said don't shut me out," he repeated with a curl in his lip. "Cause if you're thinkin' of leavin' me here and going out there by yourself, it ain't happening. You got it?" He jabbed his thumb into his chest and rose to his full height. "That's my mum and sister out there. Remember that." He folded his arms across his chest. A shimmer of gold passed by his eyes. "I'm Mum's protector. Always have been an' always will be."
The Doctor snatched him into a tight embrace. "I'm so sorry that you think you have to be, Gal. But not anymore. That's my job now. You, your Mum, and little Tia." He smoothed his hands over his son's hair. "We'll get them back in one piece. I promise."
"Tia?"
The Doctor smiled. "Tialistrelemlungbarrowmas. It means warm sunlight. What do you think? You like it?"
"Love it, Dad." Gallifrey's eyes watered and he sniffed wetly. " They're gonna be okay, yeah?"
"Of course they are," the Doctor assured him. "With you and me heading out after them? You betcha."
Jack adjusted the waistband of his pants and joined the pair. "I'm in, and I'll bet Martha's gritty enough to insist on joining us as well. So get your head together and think of what we need out there."
A soft wind started to kick up inside the laboratory, which made the Doctor reach out to take hold of his child once again. He exhaled a breath of disbelief as the cry of time called out to invite the whine and wheeze metallic keening of a time ship's engines to join in the song.
"It can't be," the Doctor whispered to himself.
Gallifrey struggled from his hold. "Dad! That's the TARDIS!" he shoved himself free of the Doctor and jogged into an open space. His eyes were alight and his smile bright as he swiped the tear tracks from his face. "Come on, auntie TARDIS! Come to your little Timelord!"
Yana's eyes shot wide as he palmed down some papers on his desk and looked with fear around the room. "What is happening, Doctor?" He looked toward the end of the room, where a blue shape was fading in and out of reality. "What is that?!"
The Doctor drew himself to his full height. He brushed off his thighs and looked with a wide grin toward the slowly materializing TARDIS.
"That, Professor, is my ship." He thrust his hands into his pockets and rocked back slightly on his heels. The TARDIS groaned and wheezed her way into existence with her lights brilliantly blinding everyone who looked at her. "My beautiful ship. The TARDIS."
Yana's focus faltered into a trance once more as he slowly repeated the word.
The front door of the Time Ship burst open the second that the TARDIS had fully materialized. Rose Tyler stumbled out with absolutely no grace or coordination. She quickly closed the door behind her and spun to check the condition of The TARDIS' wooden exterior.
"Oh, sweetheart," she cooed apologetically as she ran her hand over a particularly nasty pair of long indents that spanned across both doors. "What'd they do to you? Are you okay? Does it hurt?"
"Mum!"
Rose barely had time to register her son's voice calling out to her before he was upon her. She was fast enough to open her arms for him and to ground herself to stop the both of them from collapsing to the ground.
"Hey little man," she cooed softly when she noticed he was crying against her belly. "What's gotten into you then?"
"Rose."
It was the Doctor's voice. Thankful and relieved. She lifted her head to him in question.
"What happened to him, Doctor?"
He didn't answer her. Instead, the Doctor glided across the floor toward her and snaked his arms around her to sandwich little Gallifrey between them both. He ignored the presence of all others and lowered his mouth to hers in a fierce kiss that very quickly curled her toes.
"Dad," Gallifrey moaned with disgust from in between them. "Eww. Really?"
The Doctor merely dipped his head lower to kiss his wife a little deeper.
"Therapy, Dad. I'm gonna need it if you keep that up while I'm here…" He wriggled to free himself. "Eww. And more eww." He pulled himself free and made a dramatic show of shuddering and gagging. He looked up to Jack, who was leaned up against a wall with a grin on his face. "That is something I'm never gonna engage in. Just putting that out there."
Jack scruffed at his head. "Don't knock it till you've tried it, kid."
"You know where cooties come from, yeah?"
Jack let out a laugh and curled his arm across Gallifrey's shoulder. "Oh. That's a list that's long and varied."
Rose finally found release from the Doctor's mouth, but not without having to strike the back of her head against the TARDIS doors. She winced just slightly, but touched her forehead to the Doctor's chin when his arms curled protectively around her back.
"Now that's a greeting," she said with a light pant. "Is everything okay?"
"We thought we'd lost you," he admitted on a graveled voice. "They couldn't find the TARDIS, and we thought the Futurekind had gotten to you."
"Futurekind?" she queried with distaste. "You mean the monsters that attacked the old girl?" She looked up into his face. "I have to admit, I thought they'd gotten you and Gal."
He kept his eyes on hers and shook his head. "No. We all made it here before anyone could get their hands on anyone."
"Am I going to have to yell at you for getting our son into trouble?"
He chuckled and pulled her tighter against him. "I think you'll find that most of the time it's going to be him getting the two of us into trouble."
Rose could feel the tension inside the Doctor. She could also feel it quickly subsiding. "I'm okay, Doctor. TARDIS protected me." She touched his face and lifted her brows, speaking to him as though he was a frightened child. "I tried every trick in the book for her to let me go out and look for you, but she refused."
"She's a good girl," he whispered softly.
"I didn't think so at the time."
He inhaled hard enough through his nose to draw up his lip into a curl and finally released her. "So how did you end up here?" he asked, all business.
Rose shrugged. "I don't know. I figure it was one of your security protocols going into effect."
He dropped a frown toward her. "I don't have any protocols in place that would send her to me like this, Rose." He looked at the door. "Certainly none that would activate without me giving the order."
"Pre-existing flight plan, maybe?"
He shook his head. "I'll take a look at her a little later."
"Sounds like a plan," Rose said with a bright smile and a scratch at her belly. "So? What's on the plate here, then? Anything I can help with?"
Yana called across the room with obvious frustration in his voice.
"Would you care to tell me just what we have here, Doctor?"
The Doctor spun on his heel and hooked his arm across Rose's back. "Professor. Yes. Sorry." He let a grin spread across his cheeks. "Allow me to introduce you to the love of every one of my lives." He dipped his cheek down toward the top of her head. "Rose. This is Professor Yana. Professor, this is my wife, Rose Tyler."
Rose wriggled her fingers in greeting. "Hello."
Yana gave her a brief smile of greeting. "Yes. I assumed she was your wife based on your rather inappropriate display against the Box." His eyes flicked toward the TARDIS. "Now. Can you explain to me what that is?"
The Doctor lifted his brows and looked toward his ship. With a smile slowly spreading across his cheeks, he looked back toward the old man. "Professor. This might be a wild stab in the dark, but I believe that my blue box might just be your way out."
He suddenly released Rose from his hold and threw open the doors of his beloved ship. He quickly jogged inside. "This is the TARDIS, and she's clever. So very clever." He called out from the inside. "The best space and time ship in the entire universe." He popped his head out of the doors and gripped at the doorframe with both hands as he grinned a manic grin. "And she's going to make sure that you all make it to Utopia. All of you. Every last one of you! Isn't that fantastic?" He pulled back up from the doorway and went back inside. "Of course it's fantastic. It's brilliant. Wonderful. Molto Bene!"
Yana didn't respond. His eyes were once again glazed and his mind in a trance as he slowly mouthed the word TARDIS over and over again.
His trance broke only when he heard the shocked cry of disbelief from Rose Tyler.
"Jack?!"
