…Just don't mention the date ok? I know it's (very) late and well…yeah

Disclaimer: If I owned the sheer wonderfulness that is Doctor Who, do you think I would have let Rose leave so soon? Hmm? AND I would have given him a different suit then the one they have for the third series. It's blue! Euurgh! Never thought I'd say this but – brown pinstripes all the way!

O0O0O0O0O0O0O0

10 – Godspeed

--- Year: 1761 ---

A muffled groan announced the Doctor's return to consciousness. It was muffled due to the fact of his head being buried in the pillow and his lazy unwillingness to shift it. This changed the instant his mind worked its way up to speed; his eyes flying open as he ran a quick mental checklist. First in line he was relieved to notice no lingering after-effects from the psychic attack – everything felt perfectly normal, except for the over-abundance of energy he now had. That was caused by him sleeping too much, or plain sleeping at all. Oh well, he could put his liveliness to good use and find the reason for his blackout.

This goal in mind, the Doctor reached for the door handle and the way out, running a hand through his distinctly stuck-up hair as he did so. Ah, the perils of stopping for a nap.

Arthur was overjoyed to see him up and about again and showed this by positively bouncing around him. The Doctor allowed the horse a few moments but halted the animal abruptly after a few too many over-enthusiastic nibbles and head butts.

Swinging himself up, the Doctor nudged Arthur out of the small village and back amongst the trees. He was actually trying to trace the route he'd been taken in by. If he could find the spot where he'd been knocked unconscious it might be possible for him to trace where the attack had come from. Or at least, that was his theory.

He let Arthur do most of the job of selecting their path as the horse had been the only one of them conscious when they'd taken it. There was nothing for a good ten minutes while they picked their way through the over-grown forest before they began to near the place where he'd collapsed.

It started gently, a whisper threading through his mind – a slight uncomfortable buzz that promised much more. How he'd failed to notice the signs the first time round really was quite embarrassing. It was lucky that he had no companions around to tease him. Verbally at least.

Stopping Arthur dead, the Doctor dismounted and backed up a few paces until the mental pressure was perfectly bearable. The only problem was that he couldn't get any closer, not without a repeat of before. And he couldn't really ask Arthur to go and fix the problem as it needed someone with hands. This meant…he heaved a sigh as he realised that he was going to have to use the girl who'd helped him. She was the only human close enough that he felt any justification at all in asking, he did feel guilty but the job had to be done.

After impressing on Arthur the wish that the horse return to the village for Marie, the Doctor mentally explored the sensation in his mind. It was beating against his senses in an implacable, almost machine-like fashion. For this reason, the Doctor didn't believe the waves of psychic power were emanating from an alien. Rather, an alien had perhaps set the system up and then left it to its own devices. But for what purpose?

By the time Arthur returned, Marie on his back, the Timelord had figured out an answer to his conundrum. Hopefully it was the right one, because otherwise he'd be sending an innocent girl into a potentially dangerous situation.

"Okay," he started, gazing up at her "I want you to take Arthur and go in a straight line in…" he spun before pointing a finger decisively through the vegetation "That direction and you should come to a –err…ummm… a box. About so (he gestured) high and I want you to look inside the box. Don't touch anything that looks like lightning, it'll bite. But there's a …err… a ball, about the size of an apple and I want you to take it out – you can touch that. And then I'll come and deal with it, got that?"

Marie looked confused, although it wasn't at his explanation

"But…milord, why would you want me to do this?" she was genuinely puzzled and her face held only innocent perplexity.

"It's …complicated. Put simply: it hurts me because I'm not like you. It's why you found me passed out, too much pain if I get too close and…" he trailed off, but he'd said enough for her to draw her own conclusions.

"Of course," she breathed "Beings of pure good cannot touch something which radiates absolute evil; you are not entirely of this world, are you really?"

"Well, umm, you've got something right, now if you would?" the Doctor nodded in the direction he'd pointed out, in a hint for her to get on with her mission.

As Arthur picked his way carefully past the stationary Timelord, he snapped a quiet, last-minute instruction to the horse:

"Future technology, make sure she doesn't do anything…human," with that he was left staring hopelessly after the departing pair, unable to follow them because of being something other then human. Actually, it was because he was a little bit psychic that he'd been attacked. It wasn't that the machine discriminated – it was just that having something feed off his psychic energy hurt whereas a human wouldn't, didn't even notice it.

Their psychic auras could be completely removed and not one of them would even register the loss. A shame, but this fact had protected them in this instance. It also meant that he could use a human to get close enough to disable the device while he was stuck back here with only his imagination for company. Oh, and the ever-present waves of mental power beating against the inside of his head, however reduced they were. If Marie could just remove the combined power source-psychic repository then he would be able to move closer and do something permanent to the unit.

An indeterminable period of time passed before he got his wish; the flux of energy was abruptly gone between one emission and the next. Letting out a whoop of relief that he'd deny later, the Doctor leapt into a sprint in the direction he'd indicated the attack had emanated from. His coat flapped around his ankles from his speed, revealing the snow-white angelic lining to any potential witnesses. It was perhaps a good thing for him that the forest was deserted.

Tearing through some of the denser undergrowth, about five minutes later the Timelord reached the clearing where Marie and Arthur were waiting. The white horse was standing off to the side; his head tilted as he glared indiscriminately at the poorly-concealed, obviously-alien contraption, the young French girl, and the item she had cupped protectively in her hands. Marie herself was totally entranced by the small glowing white sphere that she was holding up close to her face.

From where he was, the Doctor could practically see all her unusable psychic energy (which was every bit of it, her being human) streaming into the orb. Well, in a sense he could. It was rubbing one of his senses (one that humans didn't have) raw with the sensation of something being drawn out of her. If it had been happening to him it probably would have killed him already.

Shuddering at the thought, he walked up behind her; producing the sonic screwdriver as he did so. She was so entranced that she didn't even register his presence until he was kneeling next to her, poking the sphere with it and being careful not to touch the orb with his skin. Even without the boosting matrix the object was still dangerous to him; its area of effect was just sharply limited. To touch. For the item to drain him of his psychic energy, he needed to physically hold the thing in his hand. And he wasn't quite stupid or suicidal enough to try it. Not today at any rate.

"What is it?" Marie breathed, her eyes still locked upon the steady white glow.

"Oh? It's called a Kiienyin globe. Psychic power source." They were in fact, exceedingly rare items and would sell for a weighty sum on the black markets of any number of shady planets and space stations.

"It's beautiful," she whispered, unwilling to look away from its light.

"Also remarkably captivating, if you're not prepared for them. Now, put that away," the Doctor waved a hand loosely at her pockets "And don't let anyone know you have it, or they'll want to take it off you."

Stung by the notion, Marie hastily buried the ball in several folds of her dress and looked up at him. A few moments later her gaze turned to puzzlement

"Angel? Aren't you going to take it?" her voice held an element of worry; she really didn't want her new-found toy taken off her. However, she also realised that it wasn't hers to keep – but that didn't stop her from wishing. Producing the sphere again, the young French girl gripped it tightly before offering it up to him. The Doctor stuck his hands firmly into his suit pockets to ensure he wouldn't accidentally bring his skin into contact with the item.

"No, I told you I can't. I'm giving it to you and your family for a while; feel you can look after it? Think of it like a temporary heirloom – I'll be back for it one day."

"Of course, milord," the globe vanished again, as if she'd never held it out to him "But for how long do you wish me to keep it?"

He blinked and thought hard about the question, a hand rising subconsciously to rub the back of his neck "Oh, umm about…say about…two hundred and…forty years? Ish?"

Marie was completely taken aback but after a second or two recovered enough of her composure to give a deep curtsy and murmur "The will of the Lord," before picking her way carefully through the undergrowth.

"Don't worry!" he called after her retreating figure "I will be back to check on you in about…a decade! Remember not to let anyone know!"

A few minutes later and she was gone, heading back to her house and whatever chores Arthur had interrupted her performing. This left him alone with the alien booster matrix and a horse that was silently giving him a piece of his mind.

He understood the animal's concerns, understood and sympathised completely: it was wrong and dangerous of him to entrust something like that to a mere human child. The number of things that could go wrong and escalate into a full-scale disaster was absolutely staggering and multiplying for every second that she held it.

However he didn't truly have a choice in the matter – if he had taken it, if he'd even touched it for a second he'd be dead right now. Or if he wasn't, he'd be wishing with all his might that he was. He could do nothing to keep Marie and her family out of danger except trust to the one thing which was more capricious then the laws of his own people: sheer dumb luck.

Fortune had always served to keep him alive when he'd run out of master plans and yet never failed to land him in the worst of trouble. He could only hope that the Lady Luck would be kinder to Marie Collet and hers.

Collet… he mused, how appropriate. The word was French and literally translated to mean a snare or a noose. The family had ensnared him, guaranteeing his return and he could only hope they wouldn't turn out to be a strangling noose around his neck.

He would eventually find a use for the Kiienyin globe, something deep within his mind was absolutely positive of that fact. This meant that he couldn't destroy it and had to sort of know where it was – thus he'd hit upon the idea of entrusting it to humans. Materialistic creatures that they were, the Collets would never give the sphere up, not when they could safely say that no one else in the world had one like it.

Sparing a final look round, he gestured to Arthur and then pointed at the conduit of alien technology that was only waiting for the return of the orb to become a fully functioning weapon again.

The white horse whickered, positioned himself and then speedily dismantled the mini-console with one hard kick. A semi-contemptuous sneer lifted a corner of the Doctor's mouth – if he'd built it, it would be able to stand up to more then one kick. But that was beside the point. His work done, the Doctor swung himself up on to Arthur's saddle and nudged the horse away from the village of Bailly.

He'd remember this village and this family and he'd be back. But right now, the Doctor was getting the itch to be on the move again, to not let the legend of the angel catch up with him if he could help it.

--- Year: 5058 ---

It had been four days, nineteen hours and fifty-three minutes since they'd been abandoned and the pain was almost as fresh as the instant she'd realised that he wasn't coming back. She'd adjusted enough to understand and see it from his point of view – the saving-the-universe way of seeing it, but that didn't really help the pain of desertion. Not much at any rate.

It had also been about thirty minutes since Rose had legged it into the TARDIS, the blue box providing a haven away from the reality of the broken translation circuit. If there was no one talking to her, she wouldn't have to face up to the fact that she couldn't understand them. In here, she could pretend that everything was okay and that any moment now, the Doctor would waltz in (not literally, although if he'd had enough sugar he might) and ask her why she was looking so gloomy.

Any… Moment… Now. …Now.

…Now? Blinking back tears before they had a chance to fall, Rose grimly faced up to the truth that she was really stuck this time. And worse, there was no Doctor around to un-stick her. The translation, or lack of, would prove a massive hurdle to overcome; unless he'd gotten himself out of whatever fix had caused it.

She ought to have more faith in him: he was a 900 year-old-plus alien and he'd been around enough, surely he could look after himself? Wincing, Rose thought back to their many adventures together – most of which had been started by him doing exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time in front of the wrong people. Okay, so maybe she couldn't rely on him to fix this problem; not if he was hurt enough to break the translation circuit.

Pulling herself together, Rose rested a hand on the TARDIS door in preparation to open it. She needed an update, even if it was just to find out that she still didn't understand the Cheynu and probably never would again. She needed to know.

Slowly pulling the pseudo-wooden door open, the time traveller poked her head out and carefully scanned the cargo bay for a suitable test. Her eyes lit upon three of the female Cheynu – the secondary pilot looked to be having an argument with both of the specialised mechanics. Or at least she was facing them semi-aggressively and flailing her tentacles around in seeming frustration.

As the pilot, Drazaylikkit-Cheynu (Kit for short) had her back to where the TARDIS was parked; Rose could currently catch no more then hummed murmurs on the absolute edge of her audible range. Edging closer, Rose strained her hearing to listen to what they were saying - if it would resolve itself into English for her.

"…telling you they gave out on me again! This would never have happened if you'd installed the stabilisers beforehand. Then the wiring would have been the right way round, and the stupid things wouldn't keep getting crossed and shorting out!" Kit was clearly in full rant mode but Rose had never been happier to hear a shouted argument in her life.

She could understand what they were saying. Alright, that wasn't strictly true – she had no idea what Kit wanted the mechanics to do. But to her ears, they were speaking English and therefore the translation was back up and running. Which meant that the Doctor was better, or well enough to function as part of the circuit again.

This solved a lot of problems that only now began to manifest themselves in her mind. She and Mickey appeared to be totally cast off, left on their own to cope in the universe. But still, they were utterly dependant on the Doctor, or at least upon his wellbeing. If something permanent were to happen to him…Rose blocked that unwanted thought out of her brain. Not something she cared to consider.

--- Year: 1764 ---

(Yes, skip three years)

It was nearing the end of March before his brain decided to remind him about the date. Or rather, what date it would be soon.

Completely and hastily abandoning his tour just over the border of Belgium, the Doctor whirled Arthur around and made a beeline for the Palace of Versailles. It wasn't too late he told himself fiercely, he could make it before April.

He'd just realised that Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, better known as Madame de Pompadour, better known to him as Reinette had less then three weeks left to live. The date of her death was fixed in history and couldn't be changed, not by any outside event and certainly not by him. Too well did he know the consequences of trying to keep a person past their appointed time, so it was left for him to reach her before the set date of her death. Reach Versailles before April the fifteenth.

In fact it was April the ninth when he finally reined in at the open palace gates. Even without knowing about the immanent departure of one of its most loved inhabitants it was easy to tell that something was wrong.

The atmosphere of the building was entirely different, even from when he had last been there – there weren't any servants happily gossiping in the midst of their chores. The only people he could see hurried about their business with their heads lowered and a pallor of gloom and despondency upon their faces. The mood of the place was distinctly sombre and the cloud of her death hung almost visibly over the citadel, tinting its beauty with a darker, more sorrowful side. For an instant he fretted that he had come too late and she had already passed away. But then the Doctor kicked himself; history dictated the day of her death and she would survive until then.

Notwithstanding of course repair droids from the 51st century trying to take away her brain.

Sliding nimbly off Arthur's saddle while the horse was still moving, the Doctor raced towards the entrance without bothering to visit the stables. Arthur was sufficiently intelligent to cope on his own long enough for the Doctor to reassure himself that this time he wasn't too late, and he still had time to say a proper farewell.

Charging past the multitude of servants and attendants trying to intercept him, the Timelord launched himself up the staircase, overcoat streaming out behind him. Any who saw the lining pressed themselves tightly against the walls, so as not to block the angel's path. Previous wanders around the rambling building came in extremely useful as he knew precisely where to find the room Reinette had designated 'her' bedroom. It was the most likely place to find her if she was seriously ill.

Later, he thought it had been one of the most attention-commanding entrances he'd ever made. Certainly everyone in the room had noticed him. Without pausing, the Doctor had burst through her doors, inadvertently slamming them open, and then checked sharply on the threshold to her room, his eyes instinctively seeking hers. Totally ignoring King Louis, he searched her features to set his mind at rest that he really wasn't too late and that, for the moment, she was still alive.

Total silence reigned in the sickroom for about two minutes as he took in the fact that, although she was still in this world her health was nowhere near what it had been the last time they'd met. She appeared shrivelled, a mere shadow of what she'd been and seemingly unable to leave the bed where she lay. She'd withered in a mere three years, embodying what he'd always maintained about human fragility. But she was still here, for the time being at least.

Taking a deep breath and clearly using a lot of effort, Reinette spoke:

"My lonely angel… you came back for me,"

"You can't get rid of me," he joked, forcing one of his usual smiles into place. It was so challenging to maintain the aura of nothing being wrong when she was in this condition, but for her he would try his hardest.

"My angel, I wrote you a letter…just in case you didn't make it in time," turning to the king she asked in a small voice "Could you…?"

Without a word, Louis fished in a small drawer on the other side of the room, before removing a single wax sealed sheet of paper. Stiffly, the King of France handed this to the alien his mistress had fallen in love with.

Not even sparing the disgruntled monarch one glance, the Doctor worked his fingers under the seal and shook the paper out, scanning the short paragraph written on it:

My dear Doctor,

The path has never seemed more slow and yet I fear I am nearing its end. Reason tells me that you and I are only likely to meet again for one final time and I am afraid that time draws close. I do not fully listen to reason though, and I wish to touch the stars, or just to see them a little closer. For I have seen the world inside your head and know that allthings are possible.

Hurry though my love, my days grow shorter now and I am so very weak,

Godspeed my lonely angel

While he scanned the words for the third time, Reinette somehow indicated to the king that she wanted a moment in private with the new arrival. Somewhat huffily, Louis left, shutting the door slightly more firmly then was strictly necessary.

As soon as he had definitely left, she drew another laboured breath and managed to ask:

"Tell me Doctor, how long do I have left? Speak truly for I would know this,"

He blinked, completely floored for a moment before replying with a too-bright smile "Oh, ages yet I should think,"

Reinette's look sharpened, clearly telling him how poor his acting ability was

"Umm," he said eloquently "A week at least," Her glare did not let up as she silently demanded more from him.

"Maybe less then a week?" he managed, wilting under the wattage of that stare "Uh…six days?"

There was a long pause while Reinette drooped at the knowledge she'd pressed out of the Doctor and he realised that, effectively, he'd told her the future.

"You, umm, can't tell anyone that, you know. Especially not the king. You have got to try and not let it affect you in any manner whatsoever," Even as he delivered the warning, he knew how impossible she would find it to obey. Humans, they really were all the same.

O0O0O0O0O0O0O0O0

He did manage to remain at the palace until Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson passed away, trying to provide what comfort he could for the French aristocrat by his mere presence. Every single time he saw her, he was struck by how much a few years had changed her completely, and not just her appearance.

After her death the Doctor discovered that she had done even more for him – in her will she'd left a sizable amount of gold to 'her angel', under the condition that he attend her funeral – something that didn't even truly need to be asked. The money would effectively cure all of his financial difficulties for…well at the rate he used it, a lot more then 200 years. After receiving her gift and watching the entire funeral ceremony dry-eyed, the Doctor vanished as quickly as he could. He'd been way too public and visible around the royal courts and he needed to disappear long enough for his presence to dim in people's memories. He needed a vacation.

With his rushed disappearance, the Doctor missed the clause of the will concerning a certain portrait and its destruction. Reinette's maidservants, the only ones to know of the painting's whereabouts, argued amongst themselves whether or not that particular clause had been a mistake. For they knew that she had loved that portrait and sometimes had spent hours just staring at it. Surely she couldn't truly wish for it to be destroyed?

With the best of intentions, the servants did not destroy the picture – they merely removed it from its place in her private gallery and transported it to storage. From there it gradually slipped their minds until no-one remembered its existence. It was found years later and because of the date originally proposed to be displayed in a museum. But then they noticed the style of clothes in the painting and it was thought to be a hoax. An unusual, time-wasting hoax that no-one could see the reason behind.

And so it was moved to Torchwood's storage. Where, eventually it became the job of a certain Jack Harkness to search through and catalogue the contents of these extensive storerooms. And still the subject of the painting did not know of its existence.

O0O0O0O0O0O0O0O0

I've realised I ought to start getting a move on – I had 249 years to write at the start and I've only managed about a grand total of 6 so far.

I'm not giving up on this story though; I'm just a slow writer at times. Review and encourage me?

Tai