Rom smacked his brother in the back of the head. "Shuddup about hotdogs, will ya? I need ta know the rest of the formula."

Rose grabbed the older boy's hand, restraining him from whacking again. "Roman—you're in trouble when this is all over. Branden, we'll get you something to eat in a minute. What else did the Doctor say about accessing the tunnels?"

She leaned against the hatch door that they couldn't get through, letting out a tired breath. Gwen mercifully took Rom's hand, so she didn't have to worry about restraining her eight year old.

The scrawny little one huffed and scratched his cheek, looking very much like a blonde, miniature version of the Doctor. "Uh, three X seven squared, but I don't know what X is. Three X five. Three X thirteen and…oh yeah, seven. Equals the pulse ratio of the locking mechanism. Er sumthin' er other. Gotta solve for X. Anyways. SO, there's, like, a fifth tunnel that goes, like, down to the nerve clusters."

Rose nodded, finally understanding what the Doctor had been trying to say earlier. "And then we force a physical dump of the other ship. Just solve for X and toss the cargo rooms. Just like that—everything solved." She rubbed her bulge; half-glad she wasn't trying to manage this crisis with an infant in arms, but wondering if it'd be easier to think clearly without an agitated pre-born trying to fight his way out.

Kids. Their whole purpose was to torture parents. The Doctor's theory was that they were so adorable with their big heads and tiny limbs so you didn't kill them for doing the things kids did. Of course the Doctor had also sent a four year old to do his job, so it wasn't like her companion was getting many points in that department.

Even though the Doctor being free and able to help would have been the quickest solution to the problem, she wasn't sorry Branden was awake. The boy didn't need to see those things he'd described. The universe could be a very ugly place indeed, and the Doctor and Violet had both seen a good share of it. The Doctor, moreso, but it seemed that the last decade had not been uneventful for her daughter.

It made Rose regret that they had lost contact. It had been a long time for her, far longer than it had been for Violet. Twenty-four years, in fact, to her daughter's ten. Could she have said anything over those ten years, to make it go easier for her child? Any sort of wisdom or comfort she could have provided, even long distance, to make the universe seem like a less cruel place?

Well, at least she'd had her grandparents. Jackie had been the best mother in the world, and Rose was sure she could trust her mum not to let Violet get away with anything. Pete had also proved himself in the parenting department. While she regretted not being there, she knew her daughter wasn't entirely abandoned in another universe to figure out the trials and tribulations of early adulthood on her own. That was one thing—she didn't miss that time in her life when everything seemed so uncertain, and it seemed like she was reinventing herself on a near-daily basis. Hopefully her daughter had faired better in that respect. Hopefully she'd get a chance to ask her, when this was all over.

Rose smiled and tried to wave off Gwen's concerned glances as she tried to regain her footing. Taking in a few steadying breaths, Rose stood up straight and turned back toward the hatch they were struggling with. They needed to get on with this. Before Owen's fears for her children came to pass. The man was a pig, but she'd heard the breathy certainty in his voice when he was explaining the potential neurological damage due to continued exposure to the psychic fields generated by mating TARDISes. "Lets get this thing open before anything else happens," she told her entourage, gesturing for Gwen to help her with the rusted handle again.

Why couldn't anything ever be normal? Not too normal—that was taking the bus to a job where she folded shirts all day and trying to avoid the dirty old letch up in men's suits. She didn't want normal-normal. She just wanted to eat a meal with her family—her entire family—without something strange and alien and universe-shattering happening.

Some day.

Maybe.

XYZ

Violet's hand instantly went for her head and she moaned, trying to roll onto her side. A hand held her on her back, on some hard surface. "Easy. It's going to hurt for a bit. I had to do something…a bit on the rotten side."

Without thinking, her hand dug into the fabric of the Doctor's jacket, fingers twisting comfortingly around the material. "Ung?"

His hand slid under her neck and he let her sit up a little. "Hadta use the psychic energy from your flashback to break through the field the TARDIS is generating to get Branden out of here. All of the excess energy got funneled back into your consciousness. Sorry."

Blinking her eyes, Violet tried to focus on him, but it was all a terrible blur. It was bright and he was simply a dark blob in her line of sight. "Where's Greg? He was mad--" She was so used to being able to feel him, to at least glean his higher emotions at a distance. It was like having a hand to hold, even in her mind.

Sighing, the Doctor, still crouching beside her, helped her to a sitting position, then pulled her eyelids back, giving her the once-over. "We're still stuck in here. Greg's with Jack, so he's fine. You're the one I'm worried about."

Shifting uncomfortably, Violet tried to pull away, but he kept a tight grip on her upper arm. "I'm fine. Other than having someone's consciousness funneled through my brain, that is. That little kid's weird. I think I'm going to have nightmares forever about his sweet little dreams of pirates and processed meats."

With just one finger, he turned her head toward him, the same way he used to when she was small. "Vi, I saw what made you leave Earth. And I think we need to talk about it."

Eyes finally focusing, she blinked a few times, looking around at the sterile, entirely white room. "It's not important. It was a long time ago. And we have other things to worry about. We can talk about my tortured disappointment with my mother's people when we're out of this mess." She pressed her lips together with a touch of finality, seeming to be saying 'and not a minute before.'

Sighing, the Doctor shook his head. "The avoidance thing was cute. When you were eleven. Not so much in your mid-twenties."

Violet's eyes narrowed as she slid her hands under herself, trying to get enough balance to get to her feet. "It's over and done with."

She was about half-way up when the dizziness overcame her and the Doctor had to grab both of her arms to keep her from going down. "Does he know what they did to you?"

Her nose flared with anger and she tried to turn away, but he wouldn't let her. "He was there. He saved me. He knows."

"All of it?"

Eyes meeting his, Violet's lips curled. It was somewhere between a painful snarl and an ironic frown. "It isn't any of his business." There were things that she didn't tell him. But there were things that he didn't tell her. Sometimes, it was better that way. She suspected it was how both of them lived with themselves on occasion.

His cool hand came to rest on her neck. There was something reassuring and right about that feeling. "Oh Vi. Don't pick up my worst habits."

Putting her hand over his, she partook of the comfort he was offering, despite the uncomfortable nature of their conversation. "I don't lick the console." Closing her eyes she remembered all of the hugs she'd ever received before bedtime, that last squeeze before bed that told her everything was going to be alright, despite the trials of the day. Too bad she was too old for such things. "Look—we're happy. It's fine. Everything's fine. I've had a wander in your head. Don't act like you tell mum everything that happens on a daily basis."

The Doctor's thumb brushed her cheek. "Vi—that's different, and you know it. Listen to me—I know you two are happy together. Any idiot can see that. But YOU aren't happy. I know that feeling. It's not a good one."

Violet began looking around the room for a door. There didn't seem to be one. "It's not your business. I'm not picking apart your life just because I've seen inside your head. Maybe I should tell mum that you figured out Gallifreyan reproductive cycles years before you admitted you did, because you just didn't think you could handle it. Fifteen years is an awful long time to travel with someone, knowing what she wanted, and to just let her keep thinking you had no idea how I happened."

She was hoping that would shut him up. Sadly, she was mistaken. "Would it make you feel better if I came clean about that with her? Because believe me—you're carrying around something far worse, for no reason at all. He loves you. I don't know what you think--"

Her chest shuddering with repressed tears, she spun around, pointing a finger in his face. "Like he doesn't keep things from me? There are things I just don't ask him, because I don't want the answer. It's mutual. He doesn't want to know what else happened to me, there. It would just upset him."

"Or it would have upset you," the Doctor pointed out calmly.

Face twisting in anger, she turned her back upon him again, not knowing what would come out of her mouth if she kept looking him in the eye. "I should have been able to stop it," she said coldly. "And I won't tell him that. Ever." Drawing in a few deep breaths, she managed to steady herself. "Now that you've dredged up something I'd really rather not have relived, can we get the hell out of here? Please?"

Folding his arms across his chest, the Doctor remained impassive. She despised him his calmness when she'd come so very close to falling apart just now. "Branden's on the job. We should be out of here in no time at all."

He said it too casually, though. Of course—considering the ridiculousness of the statement, they were leaving it up to a four year old to make sure their brains weren't fried and they eventually made it back to their own minds and memories, instead of wandering through his funhouse of projected forgotten thoughts.

Great, she thought. They were doomed.

XYZ

Jack was right about one thing, Greg decided as he bounded up two flights of cement steps. He was too reliant on the TARDIS. Yes, he lacked patience with these types of situations where he couldn't DO something. Or wasn't being allowed to do something. He hated the feeling of incapacitation.

He slowed on the dark, slightly slimy cement steps, wondering what had become of his life. Once upon a time, he'd been thrilled to death and had been feeling quite grown-up that his parents had let him go backpacking for two weeks before the start of his first year of university. He hadn't seen his mother or father since he stepped out of the house that day, bag in hand and his mother's magenta lipstick smeared on his cheek. His father had slipped him an extra twenty, in addition to the money he'd saved for the previous year for the trip, and that had been that.

A missed train, a collision with an alien that looked like a cross between a viper and a pig, and a narrow escape aided by two quirky yet pleasant humanoids later, and he was saying yes to gallivanting across time and space for a year with them.

Somewhere along the way he'd grown attached to the younger of the two, a temperamental hormonal beast of a girl who was convinced that she was right and everyone else, including the Doctor, was wrong. He'd given up his family for her on the spur of the moment, following only the aching in his chest and the pain in his loins that told him he'd regret it forever if he chose the safe and pre-determined path that his life was supposed to follow. Better to regret something you've done than something you've not.

It had been a long eleven years since that day on the train platform, waiting for something that'd never happen.

A year with the Doctor and Violet, ten years in a separate universe, three and a half with her family and another seven just out there, continually looking for some place that wasn't home to be home-like. Some place for them both to forget the thing that had made them leave Earth, just as soon as she was healthy enough to talk to the TARDIS again.

They'd had a long decade. He was tired of it all, really. That was true. He loved travelling. He loved travelling with her. They still laughed and ran and did all of those things that they did. He didn't have a problem, per se with the whole getting into the thick of things part that came into being with Violet. It was just…she was doing those things out of duty now days. Her duty as a Time Lady to keep reality in one piece, constantly following up on errant time streams, slips in the fabric of reality, those sorts of things. Not because adventure appealed to her in any sort of way any more. It made him tired.

He hated doing stuff, too. Well, doing it without her. It made him seem pretty lame (perhaps more than seem) but this was his life. He hated talking to people; he hated dealing with them lately. He was hating the constant problems and jeopardy.

It wasn't because he was bored, or anything like that. Mickey had eventually just gotten tired of the hassle and opened a bar on a beach where he had nothing to do all day but look at white sand and scantily clad pretty girls and exotic sunsets. Not a bad life—they visited when Greg could drag her back to Earth and a place that wasn't her grandmother's house. Mostly he'd play the 'we nearly froze to death on that last trip, and I need to warm up' card. There were worse things in life than sitting in the sun drinking booze and trading tall tales that just so happened to be true.

Violet would always sit there with a drink in her hand, never actually touching it, sitting sideways on the stool, looking out at the sand while pretending like she was listening.

Basically, Greg was tired on Violet's behalf. And if they all lived through this without her brains being turned to mush and the world not ending, he wanted to stay home for a little while.

He grabbed the railing as he spun around to the next landing. Half a flight above him, the door opened and Jack blocked his path. "I don't know what you're planning, but you can't do it."

Greg grimaced. He thought of all people, Jack should understand him. "I have to do something."

Jack folded his arms over his chest. "We aren't out of options."

Greg stopped a few steps from the top. "But we are out of time."

He heard the gun before he saw it—Jack was just that good. The thing was cocked before it was even pointed at him. "Here's how it's going to go—my way, or nothing at all."

Pulling himself up onto the next step, Greg fearlessly closed the distance between them just a tad more. "And your way IS nothing at all. So far I haven't seen much." He genuinely liked Jack, he really did. That's what made this suck so damned bad. "Look, I just want this over-with."

"And just what the hell do you think I want?" Jack stepped forward, to the very edge of the first step. There was no way in hell he'd miss if he fired now. "You're not going to mess this up by jumping the gun."

A bitter laugh erupted from the younger man. "I'd point out the irony of that statement, but it'd be a waste of oxygen. I have no way up there anyway. You'd probably have me gunned down or restrained before I could use your rift converter to transmat myself up there. Tell me, what've you got? Then I'll tell you if I am serious or not."

Jack actually lowered the gun with that. "You know, I kind of miss the kid who was at least apologetic about killing me." Sliding the thing into his holster, Jack took a step backward. "Does she know what you've done?"

Greg took the remaining few steps two at a time, then walked past Jack without an explanation.

Following through the double doors, Jack grabbed his arm. "Seriously."

The young man looked at the hand on his sleeve, then pulled away. "She doesn't need to know."

The look Jack gave asked if he really thought that.

Catching Owen's eye, Greg wound around a railing and made his way up a catwalk toward Toshiko's workstation. "I do this stuff so that she doesn't have to." She'd live so long, and he'd live so little—it was better that for the time they were together, he did these things. It meant there were a few less blemishes and stains of guilt upon her soul. He'd carry it for a finite period. She'd carry it forever. "What're we doing?" he asked loudly.

Owen leaned against the railing, looking down at both of them as they approached. "Well, while you two have been figurin' out who's dick is longer, I've got them to grant access for one Torchwood liaison. It's probably a trap, but they need to keep us pacified until their entire invasion force is in place. So, there ya have it."

The young man held up the device he'd been holding. "Four hundred metres of pure molecular destabilisation-y goodness."

Jack pushed the hand away. "No. It's not enough to destroy the entire fleet. We kill the four in the system, the hundred waiting just outside the system swarm in. Look, I learned how to talk from the best. Let me have a crack at handling this semi-peacefully."

Greg nodded. "You're right. Not my Earth. Any more. Not my call. Do you really think you can solve it?"

Nodding, Jack gave the young man a taught smile. "If I can get up there, I can have a chance. No use saving the Earth now only to have it blown up in another two hours in retaliation, right?"

Toshiko spun around in her chair. "Transmatting in five, four, three, two…"

On instinct alone, Greg flung himself forward, wrapping Jack in a bear hug.

Everything felt cold, then hot and he felt like he was being torn apart from the inside, out, and then they materialised in a ship very similar to the one they'd already been on earlier in the day.

Once their bodies stabilised, Jack shoved him backward. "What the hell are you thinking?" the older man hissed.

Before Greg could explain himself, he heard a hollow growl behind them. "We said one liaison, not two. What sort of treachery is this?"

Slowly raising his hands in the universal gesture for surrender, Jack frowned at the other man. "Remind me, when this is over, to kill you."

TBC…