A/N: Why do you all tempt me so?! I will NOT TenRose! I MUST not! I am strong, like bull! :o

Chapter 13 – Meet The Ancestors

It had been three days since Rose had joined the aliens, and there had been absolutely no word from the Doctor whatsoever. She was trying to be positive – trying to act like it was nothing – but with every hour that passed Rose knew the aliens were becoming less and less trusting of her. And the less they trusted her, the more likely she was going to be either shot or thrown out into that horrible world outside.

She also had no idea where her mother was. For all Rose knew she could be dead. But that wasn't a very positive thought, so she had to really force it out of her mind and try to make herself assume that she was okay.

Rose was the only one who knew for certain that she was telling the truth. The Doctor could contact her. But these aliens might eventually presume from his lack of contact she was lying, and that she was useless to them. Though in all honesty, she was less worried about herself, and more about the Doctor. If he hadn't contacted her, that could mean he was in trouble.

But he was the Doctor. He'd be okay. He was always okay. Right?

So she forged on, staring out of the window praying with all her heart that a little paper aeroplane would come swooping towards her... But it didn't.

There was the sudden sound of static across the room, and Rose turned to see it was Tex – or rather, coming from her tech-pad.

Tex reeled from the screen, her eyes wide. "Whoa, someone's doing a frequency search..." she said quickly, and began tapping the keyboard again.

"Quick, receive it," Vanaj ordered.

Rose scrambled forwards as she realised... "It's probably the Doctor!"

"Hope so," Vanaj replied, glancing at her before looking back at the screen. "Tex, pick it up!"

"Two seconds," she assured him, and finally a voice came on the comms. But it wasn't the Doctor.

"Hello, this is Captain Jack Harkness, if anyone can hear me please come in..."

Rose's heart shot straight to her throat. "Jack!" she gasped. "Tex, can you communicate back?"

Tex glanced at Vanaj, who eventually nodded and gestured for Tex to carry on. A few more taps and Tex gave a thumbs-up to Rose.

"Hello, Jack, this is Rose, are you receivin' me?" She spoke clearly and precisely.

"Rose!" his voice rang back, absolutely delighted. "Oh, voice of an angel. It's been a while. No time for a catch up... Where are you? Are you with the Doctor?"

"No... He got... Well, long story, all right? D'you know what's happened here?"

"Yeah, I've been listening in on comms – sorry, guys. Where are you?"

"I'm in Coventry with the aliens, they're lookin' after me."

"I'm near London, I'll come to you."

"Jack, it's not safe, there are a lot of dangerous people here..."

"My favourite kind. Where in Coventry are you?"

"No, Jack. Please find my mum."

"Your mum?"

"She got dragged into this, we just got separated. She'll probably be at the human base at Buckingham Palace. Please, Jack, she can't really handle herself."

"All right. What's her name?"

"Jackie Tyler. She's blonde and wearin' a pink hoody and jeans. Plus if you say you're a friend of the Doctor she'll probably slap you."

Jack laughed. "Okay."

"Just get her somewhere safe, me and the Doctor are fine for a while, yeah? I'll sort this out. Where's Sarah?"

"Cardiff. I told her to stick there in my base, she'll be fine."

"Good... Wait. Base?"

"Long story. You just focus on the Doctor. I'll find your mum."

"Thanks, Jack."

"Good luck. Keep this channel open, okay? Over and out."

The communicator went dead, and all of the aliens stared at her expectantly. This had been very badly timed. She'd just received a communication from a human and, knowing full well the aliens couldn't understand her, she had had a conversation. For all they knew, she had just told the humans exactly where they were.

Suddenly she had absolutely no idea what to say.

"It was..." she began, slightly nervously as her brain raced desperately to try and think of what to say that wouldn't make them even more suspicious. "It was Jack. He's a friend of me and the Doctor. I... I asked him to find my Mum for me and get her somewhere safe."

There. She'd said it. No lies. She wanted to close her eyes as they were staring at her so intently.

There was the pause to conquer all pauses, before Jux finally spoke up. "Vanaj, I think we should move base," he muttered, still gazing at Rose.

"You could be right," Vanaj agreed quietly, also not moving his gaze.

"Do we just leave her here or shoot her?" Tex wondered quietly.

"I'm not lyin', I swear, I'm not lyin'," Rose said quickly and desperately, hands in the air. "I promise that's the truth..."

Vanaj narrowed his eyes. "I think you'd better give us a really good explanation."

"Okay, look, I'll tell you everythin' I know," Rose said anxiously. "Everythin' is true, I promise. I'm nothin' to do with the humans. I come from the year 2006 on the real Earth..."

She began to explain in as much detail as possible about her, the Doctor, and how they came to be on this world with her mum, Jack and Sarah. She described finding the dead bodies, crashing the car, the first meeting with Leo when the Doctor had been shot, how the Doctor had communicated with her and how Leo had found the letter.

"I don't care about your war, I just wanna find the Doctor, my mum and my friends, and go home. I haven't seen the Doctor for days, and he's my best friend, and... I... I just miss him and I wanna go home."

All of the aliens had been listening intently to her story, occasionally nodding as it went on. When it had reached the end Vanaj just turned to the others, and had a quiet discussion for a few minutes. When he finally looked up, his expression didn't give any indication as to his thoughts.

"All right, we'll believe you, but if he doesn't contact us within 24 hours..." he trailed off, not finishing that particular sentence. He didn't need to.

Jackie Tyler was seriously starting to question whether what she was currently doing was even a remotely good idea.

She was asking herself this, because these past few days had been utterly nothing but completely unproductive and miserable. She'd failed to think in advance, that was her problem. She had no idea where she was going, she had brought nothing with her, she had no idea where Rose was, and she also had no idea what she was going to do if one of those weird creatures here jumped out at her. All of this made her terrified.

She was walking through the streets of London in no particular direction, knowing it was a very bad idea but also knowing that going back wasn't exactly an option either. Firstly, because she couldn't stand Leo and secondly because Rose could be in serious danger, and she couldn't exactly just abandon her... could she?

So she had gone onwards. She was so scared she had actually become completely numb to the fear. She was stuck in this crazy, blood-filled, senseless world with a missing daughter and not much guarantee of a way home.

If she ever found the Doctor again, she was going to kill him.

"Hello?" a man's voice suddenly asked from the darkness.

Jackie went into instant panic mode, stopping dead in her walk. "What... Who's there?!"

"Me, it's okay," the voice said, and a tall, muscled, black-haired and rather good looking man stepped out of the shadows. "Are you Rose Tyler's mum, Jackie?" he asked, looking her up and down.

"Yes...?" Jackie replied very defensively.

"I'm Jack, Jack Harkness," he said quickly, putting his arms in the air to show he was holding no weapons.

"And?!"

"Umm... I'm a friend of the Doctor..."

True as Rose's word, within two seconds Jackie had fumed and slapped him right across the face.

"Well you can tell that bloody friend of yours I'm sick to death of all this, I wanna go home right now and if he doesn't show 'is face and sort this all out I'm gonna rip 'im a new one!

Jack winced at the thought. "Look, I don't know where the Doctor is, Ms Tyler, but Rose is fine. She..."

Jackie's jaw dropped. "Where is she?"

"Coventry. She's with the aliens..."

"WHAT?!" she shrieked.

"Hold on!" Jack interrupted quickly. "She's fine, she said they're looking after her. She asked me to find you and get you somewhere safe."

"But... But I can't leave her!" Jackie protested.

"I'll take you to Cardiff. Once you're safe I can go and find Rose and the Doctor so we can get the hell out of here. Please come with me."

"How can I trust you?"

"You can't," Jack admitted, shrugging. "But it's true, I promise."

There was a brief moment of silence as Jackie took that in, considering.

"Or, if you'd rather I left you here..." Jack began seriously.

Jackie looked at her surroundings, then at Jack, and very quickly decided which one she would like more.

"All right," she conceded. "But we're not leavin'. We're gonna find my daughter."

"Bob the builder! Can we fix it? Bob the builder! Yes, we can! Scoop, Muck and Dizzy, and Roley too! Lofty and Wendy, join the crew!"

Bob the Builder rose the Doctor from his sleep, but the Time Lord wasn't quite sure how. He opened his eyes slowly and gradually, anticipated several faces staring down at him – but he was, for once, alone.

"Bob and the gang, have so much fun! Working together, they get the job done! Bob the builder! Can we fix it? Bob the builder..."

"Yes, we can," the Doctor sang quietly to himself, frowning slightly. He turned his head back and forth, finding Bob the Builder was in fact playing out of a tiny mounted speaker on the wall. A wall of a room that was generally quite generic and uninteresting – some sort of office – so as a result he had absolutely no idea where he was.

He could tell from his current need to eat and drink that he was in an energy deficit from being in a healing coma. It was only then he realised his headache had considerably receded, and his body was a lot more happy to be moved by him again. The coma had certainly done its job.

How long had he been in the healing coma? He couldn't even tell. His time sense was completely backwards in this world. He couldn't even remember going into it. He could remember being picked up by the giant, but from then to now he couldn't for the life of him recall what had happened to him. Had he passed out and inadvertently slipped into the coma? Or had all his head injuries induced amnesia? Either way, he needed to get a message to Rose – right now.

His leg braces were gone, but his clothes were on the far chair. So once again he had to make the journey on his front across the room, dragging his completely unfeeling legs behind him.

It took a good two minutes before he reached the chair, and dug in the pocket for the TARDIS key. To his absolute relief it was there along with the sonic screwdriver. Next, he had to find some paper, and very conveniently there was a stack of it and a black marker pen on the table near him. He wrote the message, this time in the Universal language of Uniuxian so the aliens would be able to read it – providing they had done what he'd told them to and found Rose, anyway.

It was a little more difficult to make the journey to the window and open it, but it only took around three minutes until the little paper aeroplane was flying across the landscape, swooping and diving until it disappeared off into the distance.

Now to focus on him.

Without his leg braces, he was really quite useless. So he decided to yell instead.

"Hello?" he called. "Hello?"

He waited, listening. Nothing.

With a sigh, he dragged himself back across the carpet to his clothes on the chair, and eventually managed to get dressed before he tried yelling again.

"HELLO?" he tried a little louder. "HELLO!"

The only thing that answered him was a little voice on the speaker, which the Doctor could hardly understand. What language were they speaking in? How was it even possible that it wasn't translating or that he didn't even know what it was?

Then a large bell started ringing, loud and deafening over the speaker. He could only assume something had happened and that maybe he should move, but he couldn't – not with his legs. Where were his braces?!

Before he could begin to think of any form of solution for this, the door burst open to reveal a tall, bulky hominid man with long hair and a beard and a slightly shorter hominid woman that was covered in hair. They were both staring at him.

The man yelled something at him in that strange language and made a gesture, probably something about running, the Doctor could at least assume.

"I can't," the Doctor tried to explain, gesturing at his legs and shaking his head. "I can't walk."

The man gruffed in that language again.

"I can't move them," the Doctor desperately tried to explain, poking them with his finger and shrugging.

Finally the man seemed to slightly understand what he was saying, and moved forward to pick him up to. Slinging the Time Lord over his shoulder with ease, he then he began to run.

The Doctor got an upside-down, jarring view of his surroundings as the corridors flashed by, until he finally processed enough to realise he was in a radio station of some kind. That made sense. A lot of sense.

Within minutes the corridors were gone and they were out into the open – but not for long. They went underground into a tunnel and eventually into a system of caves, where the Doctor was finally placed gently on the ground and he found himself in the centre of a menagerie of hominids of variating height and body hair amount.

They were trying to talk to him again. He still couldn't understand them, so instead of trying to tell these people that he didn't understand them in a language they wouldn't understand, he instead just listened. He tried to make out the words to see if he could learn it a little bit. It was only then he realised that it was actually English, but a forced combination of Old English, Modern English and Uniuxian. The words were mispronounced and out of place in a complete mish-mash of a language, but with a little thought he managed to pull a few key words out of their speech in the context, and then a few more.

"Can you understand me?" he tried in what he thought could be understandable in their language. They all suddenly stopped talking and stared at him.

"Aye, fréawine. But we not know way fréawine talks," the one who had carried him said slowly, puzzled.

Even though the Doctor was trying to translate it the order of words were formed in a very strange way and it was really throwing him off the scent of fluency. "Keep talking. I'm trying to learn it."

"Talk of what?" the hominid wondered.

"What's your name? Where am I? What happened?"

"I have name of Aelfric. We watch fréawine; watch fréawine for days. We send giant friend when fréawine in trouble to save fréawine. Here, fréawine safe from evil outsiders."

"The giants are your friends, Aelfric?"

"Aye, fréawine."

"But why did we run?"

"We monitor metals. We detect evil outsiders. We run to cave, while giant friends scare off."

"What species are you all, then?"

"Species?" the man repeated, confused.

"... You don't know?"

"Species, what?" he asked again, even more confused.

The Doctor frowned a little. "So... You were born here?"

"Aye, fréawine."

"Wait a second..." the Doctor muttered, raising his sonic from out of his pocket and raising it to Aelfric. Aelfric flinched, staring at the sonic screwdriver with wide eyes.

The Doctor caught his expression and offered a reassuring smile. "It's not a weapon. I just need to find out what you are."

After a moment the sonic beeped like Morse code, three dashes, a dot, and a dash. The Time Lord's jaw dropped instantly to the ground in complete shock.

"What?" Aelfric asked.

"You're... You're a Neanderthal," he breathed.

"I what, fréawine?" Aelfric questioned, confused.

"You're... no, sorry, never mind," the Doctor said quickly as he realised Aelfric had probably never even heard the word. How was this possible? Unless... "How long have your family been here?"

"Generations, fréawine. We speak of tales passed from ancients."

"Oh no..." the Doctor muttered, looking a bit more intently at the crowd. Homo erectus, homo habilis, even the short unmistakable forms of tiny homo floresiensis – not to mention more, more that were so mixed race of the known hominids, the hominids that had developed with evolution and the extra bit of alien DNA that had most likely found its way into them from interspecies reproduction. Most of these species didn't even have names.

Suddenly the situation was a lot more serious than he'd originally thought. The issue with the malfunctioning shifter wasn't a recent thing. It had been malfunctioning for millions, even billions of years. It had been bringing through all these species since the age of the dinosaurs. They had all been able to survive the periods that should have wiped them out by working together, and from alien intervention. The sauropod dinosaurs had survived through being domesticated and cared for by the Ingensias Colossus giants and through the lack of fighting for food on a deserted world.

And this was only England. What about the rest of the world? What about life on the other continents? This was their world; the world they had evolved in, that their ancestors had been forced into to survive in. This was a world completely in its own right. An Earth 2, with its own population of civilisations.

Absolutely none of these races should exist, and if he used the Switch, he would be killing all of them. An entire planet's population, wiped out in a second.

He couldn't do that. Not again.

The Switch could not be used under any circumstances.

A/N: "And then the Doctor and Rose snogged"...

No, Laura! NO! :o

... This isn't going to end well.