A/N: Holy fast and awesome reviews! How completely stellar that you guys commented so quickly. You don't have any idea how awesome it makes me feel to hear from you … things like extra chapters end up getting posted.

This is just a bit o' fluff I guess … I'll probably look at it again tomorrow and moan painfully because I muffed it up (It's after midnight here, and as a mum I'm usually exhausted and in bed by 9 …)

Happy Mother's Day to the Mums out there. You are all awesome and amazing women! We love out mums!

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Kraddaw Leader took a fairly long moment to analyze the man in front of him. All pinstripes, scruffed hair, sandshoes and youth, he almost doubted that this man could be one of the Time Lords. Had it not been for the acrid woody odour that permeated out of each of his Gallifreyan pores, the Kraddaw leader would have passed him off as Human.

He quickly raised pointed hackles on the back of his neck and hulked low thick in front of them. "Time Lord," he snarled.

"I thought we'd already established that. Well. At least Jack and Rose had identified me as such. I don't believe that I had actually confirmed to you that I was Gallifrey-born." He flicked open his jacket and thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. "Or loomed, if you want to get particularly specific. Which I know you lot tend to do." He shrugged. "But anyway. I'm here. I'm Time Lord. And I'm just a little bit … no … make that a lot annoyed that you have decided to detain and threaten my intended bond mate and her best friend." His lips pursed dramatically. "Which means he must be my friend, too, by default."

"Gee. Thanks Doc."

"Moreover," the Doctor continued. "Why? Why would you start swanning about and scaring the Humans? You have to know how fast they freak out and what level of stupidity comes from that."

"I'm going to take offence to that on behalf of my entire planet," Rose muttered as she folded a petulant cross of her arms across her chest. "And I'm not your intended anything."

"Ahh yes," he breathed. "That's right. Casual Acquaintance only, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"But with a gifted tongue that you like to snog for genetic transfer purposes?" He watched her nod and gave a short one of his own. "Okay then." He looked back to the Kraddaw leader. "Where were we, then? Ahh yes. Scaring the Humans. Why?"

"The why isn't important," he snapped in response. "What is important is that we now have you, Doctor, in our clutches. Victory over Gallifrey and the Time Lords is ours."

"I see," The Doctor muttered with a rub of his chin. He walked toward Jack and Rose and offered them a smile and a wink as he moved in to stand between them before turning to regard the Kraddaw once again. "Could the reason that it isn't so important be because you ended up on a class 3 planet by mistake?" He bust out a laugh at the sheepish and guilty expression that crossed the face of their captor. "It is! Oh that's just brilliant. What in Rassilon happened for you to make a mistake that ended you up here?" He laughed a breathy laugh and thumbed either side of him to Rose and Jack. "And then. Then. Then you get schooled by a pair of Humans with hand guns." He continued to laugh as one of his hands moved into his trouser pocket and the other dropped to take Rose's hand in his. He was relieved to feel her fingers quickly mould themselves around his. "I wonder what the War Council of Kraddaw will think of this little escapade?"

"These aren't your average humans," the Kraddaw leader suddenly hissed. "In all of my travels throughout all solar systems where Humans have made themselves at home, not once have I seen what burns within them both."

The Doctor smiled a thin line of a smile as he slowly lowered his chin to glare toward the Kraddaw leader. "You're right. They aren't your average human. Jack is an immortal human born of the Planet Boe, and Rose." He looked to her with a longing expression. "Rose is the brilliant woman who saved a Time Lord, who continues to save him even as she breaks his hearts in four." He drew his hand from his pocket and lifted it to cup affectionately at her cheek.

The next series of words that fell from his lips were in a language that no man in the room understood. They were soft and melodious, rhythmic and powerful. One didn't have to understand the words to recognise that whatever he was saying was something to be shared only between two.

Jack noted the watering look inside of Rose's eyes as the Doctor spoke to her. She bit at the right side of her bottom lip as she hung on each word. Her brow furrowed and her eyes fluttered shut as the Doctor's words moved toward their apex, and she nodded with a whimper. She continued to nod and focus on his words as he spoke, not opening her eyes until she was required to respond, and when she did, both Jack and the Doctor hitched in deep breaths as she spoke in the same melodic tones as the Doctor.

I was clear to Jack that her response hit at the Doctor hard, with the Time Lord's subtle dip in his stand from weakened knees. He didn't comment, nor did he query the Doctor's state of mind. Instead he kept his eyes on the Kraddaw soldiers, who seemed to stand respectfully quiet.

Finally, English fell from the Doctor's lips as he pulled Rose against his chest and pressed his forehead against hers. Their lips didn't touch, but their breaths were hard.

"Do you understand," he asked her on a whisper as he stroked at her hair and puffed his breaths against her mouth.

"Yes, Doctor," she answered with a sigh. "I do."

"And?"

"I will."

He clutched her tightly against him and spoke quietly against her ear before he pulled back and turned to readdress the Kraddaw leader. "My apology. I was reaffirming…"

"Yes," he snarled. "And I find it incredibly distasteful that you would find it necessary to do that at this very point in time."

The Doctor shrugged and passed a look back to Rose. "Well. If I am to be defeated at your hand – which will invariably involve execution enough to exhaust my regenerations, then surely you will excuse a man's need to ensure that his beloved is made very well aware of the feelings I harbour for her deep within my hearts."

"If that is your final wish."

"My final wish is that they are both unharmed and returned to their own time and place in this universe."

"Then you will come with me," he grunted. He then looked to Jack, who stood stoically at Rose's side as she wept into her hands. "Your humans can remain with your TARDIS and will be returned to Earth once we have you secure." He looked to his men. "Keep him well covered. Even contained a Time Lord cannot be trusted."

The Doctor held out his wrists to allow himself to be cuffed. He passed a look back to Jack and gave him a slow nod. "Protect her, Jack. I'm trusting you to keep her safe."

"This isn't how it ends, Doc," he warned. "Not at all."

"Good bye, Captain Jack Harkness. We were something else, weren't we?" He gave a startled yelp as a Guard gave him a shove against his right shoulder to push him out the door.

Slowly the remaining Kraddaw's left the room to leave Jack and Rose alone. Jack moved to comfort his weeping field partner, but was stunned when she very quickly straightened up, stopped her weeping, and wiped at her eyes.

"Right," she began shortly. "In the TARDIS. The Doctor's got some schematics on the TARDIS monitors, and he's got her prepped to get us, and him, out of here when we finalize his plan."

Jack jogged to catch up with her determined walk as she moved to the back of the room. "What up a minute. What plan? How did you know he had a plan?"

"Doesn't he always?"

"How do you know what it is?"

She smirked with a shake of her head as she stepped up to the blue doors of the TARDIS and lovingly ran her hands along the wooden surface. "What else did you think we were talking about, Jack? How he feels about me? Really?"

"You mean all that…?" He pointed back into the now empty room. "That was all faked?"

"Not faked," she corrected softly. "At least not completely. He did say that he intended that I become … well … more than just a casual acquaintance with snogging rights." She cleared her throat and then bit at her lip. "But the rest was definitely about what he had planned, and what parts you and I have to play in it." She pushed open the door of the TARDIS, sighing at the squeak she'd missed so much. "Hello my beautiful girl. Miss me?"

"Wait wait," Jack pressed as he followed her onto the ramp. "How much more than more is this intended more of his?"

Rose deflected quickly with a hard clearing of her throat. "We have new mission parameters, Jack. Let's focus on that, shall we?"

He grinned as he leaned his hand into the console's edge and watched Rose call up the information the Doctor had told her to retrieve. "When did you learn Gallifreyan?"

"Hmmm?"

"That's what the two of you were speaking, right? The language of the Lords?"

"Oh. Yeah," she answered somewhat dismissively. "TARDIS played a hand in that conversation," she said with a wink to the Time Rotor column. "Finally she lets me understand Time Lord babble spoken in Arcadian." She looked up at the monitor with much the same upward focus that the TARDIS' usual pilot did. "Oh. Such a clever boy, aren't you, Doctor?"

Jack leaned down beside her and looked up at the screen and at circular images that meant absolutely nothing to him. "Looks like he's put you in the command chair, honey?"

"TARDIS," she asked gently. "Can you translate for Jack, please?" She pressed her finger gently to her lip and finished in a whisper. "I promise I won't tell your thief."

"Who's the Thief," a familiar voice coyly queried from the doorway to the TARDIS corridor. "Where's the Doctor?" Nancy looked down at her running shoes hidden underneath a pair of tight yoga pants. "Will this be okay to wear out there?"

Jack puffed out an annoyed breath. "Tell me he has something in his notes regarding how we're to deal with the Princess."