A/N: Thanks, oh thanks, for all of your kind words and reviews! I'm so very thrilled that so many of you are enjoying this! I hope you continue to. I really do.

Still busy, but covertly worked on this one today ….

~~oooOOOooo~~

It wasn't possible that Jack Harkness was completely and absolutely immortal. No. There had to be at least one way to kill him. Surely there was. There absolutely positively had to be at least one way to kill an immortal man.

…and she would find it.

Oh yes. Rose Tyler would most definitely call upon any level of intelligence that she had – probably query TARDIS and the Doctor too while she was at it – to find that one invariable weakness of his and exploit the shit out of it to put him six feet under. No. Not only six. His death would be so swiftly dealt and precisely executed that they'd have to bury him at twice the normal depth in respect to her murderous brilliance.

..Yes. Yes they would, and then they'd write stories and sing songs about it all across the universe.

Rose slid an annoyed glance toward the flat ironed, manicured, pedicured, facial-loving princess walking at her side. The voice wouldn't stop, neither would that incessant flicking of that long ponytail from one shoulder to the next. Rose had long ago tuned out the non-stop babble from the woman walking beside her. Nancy had nothing of importance to add to their current situation, and Rose really didn't feel like tutoring her on things not pertinent to helping get the Doctor out of trouble.

Oh. But she wouldn't shut up.

Rose rubbed tiredly at her brow as she allowed her mind to wander back to thoughts of homicide against Jack. And considering he hadn't actually even technically been born yet, would it really be homicide?

"Are you even listening to me, Rose? Have you heard a word I've said?"

Rose pressed her lips together in a thin line as she shook her head and kept her gaze to the corridor ahead of them. Their only means of defense, Rose's Torchwood handgun, hung to Rose's right side, and her fingers itched against the trigger.

"Rose! I said…"

"Yes," Rose snapped finally along a low and hoarsely whispered breath. "I think this entire ship is hearing you."

"Oh," Nancy muttered with a frightened look around her. "Do you think that they might know we're here?"

"Oh, they know we're here," Rose said with another quiet mutter. "But they'd be less likely to identify our current position if you'd consider shutting your mouth and staying quiet."

Nancy coughed disgustedly as the two of them entered into what appeared to be a control room. "Well. You're being slightly rude, aren't you?"

Rose paused in place. She counted to five in her mind. She counted to five again. She then turned toward Nancy and took a step closer to her. She licked her lips before she spoke, if only to make sure that she chose carefully the next words.

"Nancy. I apologise if you think that I'm being rude. I really do. But the Doctor is currently in the clutches of an enemy that wants to destroy him; an enemy that is highly evolved, much more technically advanced than you and I and about 90% of the entire universe, and very much aware of how to very quickly dispatch a Time Lord of Gallifrey." She sniffed threateningly. "We don't know how long we have until they decide to kill him."

"Why would they want to kill him?"

Rose angled her head to one side and found herself taking a step backward. "How long have you travelled with the Doctor?"

"About four or five months."

"And in that time just how many times has the TARDIS landed the two of you in a hostile destination?"

She shrugged her shoulder up to her ear. "Never, actually. Our trips are always quite pleasant."

Rose's mouth opened to speak, but quickly shut again as a shocked look crossed her face. "What? Really?"

"Really," she answered with a surprised look. "Why? Did you and him get into trouble sometimes?"

"All the time." Rose's eyes were wide as she shook her head in disbelief. "All the bloody time. I can't really remember too many trips where we didn't end up running for our lives." She tucked her hair behind her ear and tried to shrug it off as she moved toward the main console and took a moment to familiarize herself with the controls. "I guess you got lucky."

"Travelling with the Doctor," Nancy breezed with a smile. "I definitely got lucky."

"Then never let him go," she advised softly. "The Doctor is the greatest man you will ever meet. Hold his hand tight and learn everything he wants to teach you about." She dipped to pull a small set of screwdrivers from her cargo pocket. "He's capable of great passion, great love, even greater compassion. There's no one like him."

"You're in love with him, aren't you?"

Her motion of unscrewing the panel to the side of the console paused momentarily. She cleared her throat and gave a nod. "He's an easy man to fall in love with him." She snorted a laugh and went back to the panel. "Daft alien that he is."

"He loves you, too, you know."

Rose's focus on the panel tightened. "Anyway," she said quickly. "I need to make sure that I can bypass the nav signal through the TARDIS so that Jack can set this thing on a magical mystery tour of the universe."

"You need to do what now," Nancy commented as she checked the varnish on her nails in a rather bored manner.

"Never mind," Rose muttered with great effort as she pulled out a nest of wires and frowned at them. "Oh, this is not going to be as easy as the Doctor made out it will be." She tugged harder to pull them into a much more comfortable length to view them properly. "Why me? Surely Jack is a better jiggery pokery kinda person than me."

"Because I believe in you," the Doctor's scratchy and sleepy voice from a darkened room off to their rear. "My Rose Tyler. So smart. She can do anything."

Both Nancy and Rose let out a gasp and shot their attentions to what looked like a small cell burrowed out of a wall in the corner of the back of the room. The Doctor sat on the floor against black metal bars with his hands bound in front of him and his eyes drooping with tiredness.

Rose launched from her position on the floor and darted toward the cell. She dropped to her knees beside him and clutched at the bars with a grip so tight that her knuckles whitened.

"Doctor," she breath worriedly as she looked between both of his eyes and noticed the lazy, unfocused movements of his eyes. "What've they done to you?"

He gave her a weak smile as his eyes slowly trailed from her shoulder, up her neck and to her face. "Oh. They just gave me a little something to keep he calm and maliable."

"They drugged you?" she screeched incredulously.

He closed his eyes and pressed his finger to his lips as he nodded. "Shhh, my Rose Tyler. I'm okay. I'll be okay. Always okay, doncha know?" He let his arm drop and rolled his head on the wall and added a shift in his hips to face himself toward her. "Seems that a Time Lord is a tricky beast to contain. And it appears that an itty bitty little bit of diazepam, which is from the family benzodiazepine, doncha know, is a really effective way to put down a man of Gallifrey. Well. When I say put down, I don't mean that in a sick pet that has to go to sleep kind of put down. I really mean that it …" He moaned and rubbed at his face before he faced her again. "I really don't want to babble right now. Is that okay? Will you still believe that I'm me and I'm okay if I don't break out in babble?"

"Of course," she whispered softly in response. She threaded her hand through the bars to stroke at his head, smiling when he closed his eyes and … was that a purr?

"Are you sure you're okay," she queried gently.

"I'm the King of Okay," he answered with a roll of his eyes. "I thought you knew that."

"Ahh. You assumed."

"No. I think I've actually said it to you several times throughout our friendship." He moved his head to press his forehead against the bars. He smiled at her. A lazy grin full of cheek. "Haven't you been listening to me, Rose? My sweet Rose. My perfect little bud. Tight little petals of red and pink that capture the rainbow of colours and the full spectrum of light on the smallest of dew drops in the morning."

"You sound like you're drunk."

"Time Lords don't get drunk," he chided lightly. He moved closer to the bars and pressed himself close enough that he would be sure to have red indents from the bars in his forehead and on his cheeks when he pulled back. "I'm just a little drugged right now. But that's fine. I am already metabolizing it at a rate far greater than the Kraddaw gave me credit for, and so in – oh – an hour or so I might be back to normal… Well, normal as normal is for me."

"Is there anything I can do to help you in the meantime?"

"Oh," he answered with a smile. "You're already doing it, Rose. Just finish what I asked you to do, and get off this ship. TARDIS will take you. She really likes you, you know. And I'm more than happy to know that my lifelong companion will be in really good hands."

Rose shuffled closer to the bars, pressing herself against them to move as close to the Doctor as she could. "Please don't talk like you're not going to get out of this."

He lowered his head on the bars and looked up at her with a terrifically heartbreaking wounded puppy look. "I just might not."

"I won't leave you here."

His eyes flicked toward Nancy, who hadn't moved from her position beside the console with her hands covering her mouth in shock. "But you still have to get her out of here, Rose. Remember, my companions and their safety should always come ahead of mine."

"Bullshit," she whispered softly as she pressed her forehead into the bars across from his. "You're just as important, maybe even moreso, than any of us."

"Not to me." He shifted his chin to have his nose brush gently against hers. "There's nothing in this universe more important than the people who choose to travel at my side. I'm just the pilot, Rose. It's all of you who hold the magic."

"Don't be a daft shit," she challenged. "Me'n Jack. We're going to get you out of here."

"I know," he admitted with a light shift in his seat for comfort. He kept his head against the bars and kept his head low so that he could always look up at her with wonder, awe, and sheer longing. "My most loyal companion. My beautiful Rose Tyler."

"Shut up," she breathed in response. She thread her hand through the bars to try and reach for his, bound together in his lap. She smiled as he danced his fingers to capture hers in his. "You'll be okay, yeah? You an' me, Doctor. We'll get out of this and …"

"I love you," he blurted suddenly. "You know that, don't you?"

"Of course," she answered with a soft smile. "You love all of your companions."

"No. Not like that. Rose," he urged gently. "Look at me. Please."

She let her eyes drift up to his. "What, Doctor?"

"I love love you," he whispered. "That kind of love that you read about in your trashy novels. A girl. A boy. A desperate emotional passion to be one with each other, marriage, kids, dying together." He took a breath. "Except here we have a Time Lord and his beautiful Human girl, pushing each other away instead of succumbing to their needs and expressing both physically and emotionally their love for each other."

Rose chuckled lightly. "You need to ease up on the Diazapam, I think. It makes you say silly things."

"It makes me tell the truth," he assured with a slightly hurt look on his face. "When I called you my intended bond mate, I wasn't kidding around. It's a want. A need." He smiled weakly. "It's … oh … I dunno," he sighed as he rolled his head off the bars and leaned back against the wall of the cell. "Call it instinct, I guess, me calling you my intended back there. My whole being wants to align with you. It does. I do."

Rose shushed him quickly. "Doctor. How about we save conversations like this for when you aren't high as a kite on narcotics."

"Might be a good idea," he agreed.

"It's a very good idea," she confirmed.

"But you'll be there for the conversation, yeah?" he pressed desperately. "I mean, you won't just up and leave me again."

Rose winced at the horrifically pained look he gave her. A look of pure desperation that was so very un-Doctor that it made her feel slightly ill. "We have to find a way to minimize the effect of this drug, Doctor. You're scaring me, you really are."

He chuckled with a shake of his head. "It scares you to know that I'm in love with you." He sighed. "Well isn't that just brilliant?" He rolled his head to look at her again. "Usually I'm the unrequiter. It's a different feeling to be the unrequitee."

Rose considered that for a moment. With a flare in her eyes, she shook her head. "Oh it's not unrequited, Doctor. Not at all. It is most definitely a requited love. I haven't been shy in expressing it to you." She breathed out. "I'm just worried about you, that's all. The drugs. You know."

"Oh they need it," he answered her with a sigh and a writhe against the wall. "Regeneration is a tricky thing for them to counter, so they've pulling out everything in their arsenal that might prolong regeneration long enough that they can kill me properly." He shrugged. "Slow me down and drug me just might be the ticket." Another shrug. "Or not. Who knows. At least in this state I can't escape, right?"

"You have me, Doctor. You'll get out of this." She thread her hand through the bars and clutched his hand. "We can do this, yeah? Even with you all loopy Time Lord puppy dog, we'll get you out."

"I can increase my metabolism, flush it out of me faster," he offered with a still tired look. "Or, I can always try and shock it out of me. That can work. Superior Time Lord physiology and all that – a sudden shock, in comes the flight or fight, out goes the lazy sleepy. Could work I guess, if you're capable."

"Shock? Yeah. I reckon I'm more than capable of giving you some of that."

He nodded. Then he laughed. "Oh. I don't think that you're actually capable of shocking me, Rose Tyler. There is nothing you can do that will shock me."

"Oh no?" She challenged as she let go of his hand and let it fall to cup lightly at the front of his trousers. She gave a light squeeze. "How's that?"

He lazily looked down and then turned to her to give her an even lazier smile. "That doesn't exactly shock me, Rose Tyler, but it does bring about a rather spectacular amount of aching desire. And if you shift your hand just slightly more centre, then you'll probably illicit a sound from the back of my throat quite unlike you've ever heard before."

"I'm almost tempted to take you up on that suggestion," she said with a giggle. "But instead, come here," she urged softly as she shifted her hand to his face to draw his ear to her mouth. She spoke a whisper against the shell of his ear, a hand full of words that immediately had his eyes fire open wide.

He jerked back suddenly, his eyes wide and his mouth gaped. "You're not serious."

She nodded. "I am."

The centre of his brow knitted tightly together. "No. You can't be telling me the truth. Not with. With … You've told me things, Rose. Things that would make what you're saying to me very unlikely."

"I promise you, Doctor. What I just told you is the absolute truth." She tucked her hair behind her ear and moved in a manner that suggested she was going to stand and leave.

Although bound together, both of his hands shot through the bars to grab at her arm. "Please. Rose. You can't drop a bomb like that on me and just walk away." He pressed his forehead hard against the bars. His eyes were clearing very quickly, and the sloth in his movement had definitely vanished. "What you've just told me. Are you sure?"

Rose rolled her eyes. "It's not so much a matter of me being sure about it, Doctor. I know it to be a fact."

"But, with …"

"Didn't happen."

"Oh but surely …"

"Not there, either."

"Really?"

Rose rolled her eyes and drew herself to a stand. "As I stand here today, I do promise you, Doctor of Gallifrey, that it has never ever ever happened. Never. Never ever."

The Doctor clutched both hands on the bar and looked up at her standing over him from across the bars. That ethereal quality he always saw in her, that brilliant light that drew the most sensational sense of pride and awe and love and desire from him … well, in the last thirty seconds that had shot up in brilliant intensity. He quickly slid his hands up the bars and pulled himself to a stand. "But if we… You and me?" He flicked his fingers between the two of them. "If?"

"Yes," she answered quickly with a nod of her head. "Without a second thought."

He tugged on the bars. "Okay. Now I have to get out of here." He blinked several quick blinks at her. "You can get me out, yeah?"

Rose winked and thumbed toward the console. "Well. I have something that it more pressing to deal with right now. You seem to be back to normal now."

He panted lightly against the bars. "Normal as normal is," he muttered as he rolled his forehead along one of the bars of the cell. His eyes were locked on her as she walked back to the console. "But. I still might need some help from you to get out of here."

"Need incentive?"

"What?"

"Tell you what," she joked with a wink as she dropped down onto her hands and knees to crawl under the console. "If you can make it out of that room in less than three minutes, then I'll take you up on your offer to once again fly at your side in the TARDIS. One trip, maybe two. Three perhaps."

There was enough time for her only to inhale before the Time Lord was out of the room and in a crouch beside her. "TARDIS will be thrilled, you know that?"

Rose actually jumped with shock at his voice beside her. "What the? How?"

"Do you need some help down there," he asked with ignorance to her question. "Budge over and let me get in there with you."

"Perfectly fine by myself," she countered with a sing song voice. "You stay up there and continue detoxing." She whistled. "Or you can get on the computers there and reprogram a few things on my behalf."

"What," he muttered, "because you got distracted from your parameters by a handsome Time Lord?" He grunted and winced a tight crease in his face as her foot collided with his shin. He dramatically held his shin as he hopped toward the computer. "By Rassilon, was that necessary?"

"Oh yes. It was."

"So this is what I'm setting myself up for," he groused as his focus went to the keyboard and monitor and he quickly reprogrammed each change he'd originally assigned to Rose.

"What was that, Doctor?" Rose queried as she moved to another nest of wires.

"Marrying you," he answered. "I'm setting myself up for kicks and slaps and all of the joy and wonder of a Tyler woman's punishment."

"Right. I'm done," she chirped, and then squeaked as the Doctor grabbed her ankle and tugged her out of the cubby hole sliding on her back. "Thanks. And. What? Marriage? Who the hell is talking about marriage?"

He dropped his hand to help her to her feet and shrugged with a roll of his eyes. "Just stating my intention, that's all." He kicked his Converse along the floor. "If I'm going to court you I just want to make sure that you're aware that there is intention of commitment."

"I don't think all the drugs are out of your system yet," she accused with a cut-eye glare at him as she moved with a lean over the keyboard to check on the Doctor's programming. "Jack should be up any moment now. Schedule indicates contact inside of seven minutes, twenty seconds." She looked down to the keyboard and then back up at the screen, ignoring the ever so slight sweetness of the Doctor's breath against her cheek as he looked over her shoulder.

He pointed at the monitor. "Jack's complete. Look at that new data string."

"Clever little immortal." Her breath hissed in an inhale when she felt his hands ever so lightly touch at her hips.

"I think we're all done here," he advised with a chirp in his tone as he used his hold on Rose's waist to spin her around. He looked up at Nancy, who had by now taken to sitting in the captain's chair, sideways, with her legs over the arm rest, checking out the latest on her Facebook news feed. "Good to go, Nancy?"

She jumped up quickly from the chair and smoothed out her clothing with a little more stroking of her body than was truly necessary. "Are you two finally done with your awkward declarations of love?"

If she was chewing gum, then she would likely have snapped it, blown a bubble and snapped her mouth again. Rose closed her eyes and counted off to five. When she opened them again to look at the Doctor, she couldn't shield the question of why in her gaze.

The Doctor simply shrugged in response to her silent question.

"If I'm coming back on board," she warned darkly without finishing her demand.

The Doctor understood completely. "The TARDIS thanks you. She's been making the same demand now for months."

"Next time, listen to the women in your life." She lifted her arms to pull her hair back into a taile and tied an elastic around the handful. Her head was dipped as she looked toward the Doctor. "So? Get Jack, return to TARDIS, say buh-bye to evil Time Lord hatin' aliens?"

"Sounds like a rather viable plan to me," The Doctor crooned with a smile. He looked back up to Nancy. "Come on, you. Time to get going."

She rolled her eyes and strode quickly ahead of them to the doorway of the room. "I'll get us there," she moaned with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Let me do something here."

She walked face-first into a Kraddaw guard's chest. He gave a derisive snort as he shoved the muzzle of his gun into her stomach and pulled back on the trigger. The bright light, and the scream of Nancy filled the room brightly. The Doctor hollered the young woman's name in absolute panicked horror and launched forward to catch her as she fell. Rose was a half step behind him.

Before the could reach her, both Time Lord and human found themselves similarly engulfed in a soupy, thick wall of sponging, bulging time. Their hearts hammered heavily inside their chests as they struggled to breathe, and they felt their bodies get drawn backwards.

Although her feet fight against it, Rose felt herself be returned to her place beside the Doctor.

"Sounds like a rather viable plan to me," The Doctor crooned with a smile. He looked back up to Nancy. "Come on, you. Time to get going."

Rose coughed to hear him repeat those words. Her eyes flared wide and horrored as she suddenly leapt forward into a run before Nancy could break out in front of them.

"No!" The Doctor yelled, realizing what Rose was doing. "Don't you dare, Rose! Don't!"

Rose rushed forward, with her hands braced in front of her and collided hard with the Kraddaw chest that appeared at the door. She looked back at her Doctor as she felt the searing, burning agony of the blaster ripping through her lower abdomen.

"Doctor!"