A/N: Right, so that hiatus didn't really go as planned. I have apparently decided that schoolwork is overrated. As a result, here's a chapter.

"We really should get going," the Doctor said as if nothing had happened. He turned heel sharply and strode into the TARDIS, leaving a rather stunned Amy sitting on the edge of the colonnade touching her lips and wondering if she'd imagined what had just happened.

She stood up and followed him into the ship, far from done with their conversation, and feeling resolute in getting an answer as to what had just happened. The Doctor was sprinting around his console in a huff, not meeting Amy's eye at all. In fact, he seemed determined to do anything but that. She stalked him closely with her eyes. There was no way he was going to distract her from her goal.

"Apalapucia is wonderful that time of year, but wait until you see number three on the list! It's got the most gorgeous water you've ever seen, and they have gravity globes all over the place so you can actually walk on water, would you believe it? And the fish there make you wish you could breathe underwater just to get a closer look. Their scales have miniaturized rainbows in them, I swear. There's nothing like one up close, in the yellow waters," the Doctor was rambling, and Amy knew it. And she knew he knew it too. Her eyes narrowed as she watched him running around his TARDIS like a madman, spewing information about a place Amy couldn't care less about.

"Are you done yet?" Amy asked in exasperation. The Doctor gave her a look of entertainment, but still did not meet her gaze.

"Hardly! Number four on the list might just truly be the best, you know. It's a planet made up entirely of shoes. Actual shoes from all different species across the universe, well, any species that wears clothes that is. Earth contributed quite a lot, I'll have you know. You should be proud. And-" Amy cleared her throat loudly.

"Not what I wanted to hear about." The Doctor coughed lightly and twisted his bow tie around, still pressing down levers and pulling controls that Amy was sure did nothing but occupy his hands.

"What do you want to hear about, then? We could go to the bottom of the list," the Doctor suggested. But it was a half-hearted attempt at best. Amy shook her head once, and the Doctor knew there was no escaping it. He opened his mouth to direct his companion to the next topic of interest that came to his expansive mind, but Amy was faster.

"I want to hear about what just happened on Apalapucia. And no, before you start, I don't want to hear about the sunset, or how it works, or how those silver things were made. You know what I'm asking about." A nervous swallow. There was the question, and what a difficult one to avoid. The problem was, the Doctor hardly knew the answer to that question himself.

The two Time Lords sat down next to each other on the stairs leading up to the main console, just inches apart from one another. Here it goes, the self-forbidden conversation that the Doctor has dreaded. What had he done that for? He hadn't meant to slip up like that, but it had still happened, and Amy would not let the topic drop.

"You kept talking and I… had to shut you up." Amy stared at him with skepticism.

"To shut me up? I know you better than that," Amy scoffed.

"It was nothing, just sort of… happened." Now the look in the redhead's eyes turned to derision.

"What? I'm sorry, but what?" There was the Scottish temper. "You kissed me and then say, 'Oh, it was nothing! Just a little thing to shut you up!' Yeah, not gonna fly," Amy fumed. The Doctor subconsciously backed up a few inches but he didn't leave the step he was sitting on. The Doctor not responding for several moments led Amy to continue. "You can't push me away because I'm human, or because you don't get older, or because you're dangerous, or, or, because I'm engaged. None of that matters anymore." The Doctor licked his lips with a bit of anxiety.

"But this reality-"

"Is the only one you've got," Amy cut him off clean. And in that moment, the Doctor felt something much like anger bubble up inside him, fighting to escape. It wasn't directed at Amy, but more so at more abstract concepts, like the universe and everything around him.

"You don't understand! I was supposed to be wiped from all memory. I'm not even supposed to exist right now." The anger was building in pressure, waiting to explode out of him. Not yet, but he could feel it. Maybe Amy sensed it, since she softened her gaze.

"But I remembered meeting you as a little girl," she spoke quietly. The Doctor had been thinking about that, but he hadn't been able to come to a conclusion.

"Exactly. And Torchwood had files on me still, which means… oh. Oh. I didn't alter all of reality, just erased from memories in minds. All that I've done… well, that stayed. Just, no one could remember me specifically, but you, you did and that's because you grew up with a time crack in your wall, at least in the other reality, and you're a time traveler. So only you could remember any meeting of me." The and River part of his sentence was kept safe inside his mind for the time being. It was too complicated to explain to his companion: River being Amy and Rory's daughter, the possible romance he was supposed to have with her in his future…

"So basically what you're getting at is that when you rebooted the universe, the program you used, the Pandorica, used all the resources it could, including you. But it couldn't bring you back all the way without more power, the living power of a human mind with a strong connection to you," Amy guessed. The Doctor's jaw almost dropped; Amy had just explained to him the reason he still existed using a computer analogy. If it wasn't for the awkwardness that had ensued earlier due to similar events, he would have bloody kissed her.

"How did you come up with all that?" In response, Amy tapped the side of her head with her index finger.

"It's not all thoughts of skirts and flirting up here," the ginger replied.

"You sure?" This time it was the Doctor filled with skepticism.

"Well, only sometimes, when I'm not…" Amy looked the Doctor up and down. "Distracted." The Doctor cleared his throat and stood up, ignoring his fellow Time Lord's obvious remarks and turning instead to the controls.

"Hate to break it to you, but I've got a different type of distraction for you. The Persephone galaxy! Well, that's how it was named- will be named- by the humans when they discover it. Big into Greek mythology with their astronomy, those humans are. Love a human. But anyway, we've got a mission, or have you forgotten that we need to go house shopping?" The Doctor skipped around his console in a fervor of sorts.

Amy laughed at his antics, and he was glad of it. Not for the first time, the Gallifreyean man had dodged a bullet in conversation and was completely unsure of how. He'd actually managed to get Amy off topic and talking about the Pandorica and then back to flirting. The last part though, he had to admit, was fairly easy. Besides, he had a planet to explore and make into a home for him and the rest of his species. With a flick of a switch, the Doctor sent his TARDIS into flight.

"Geronimo!"

*DW*DW*DW*

"Welcome, agents of Torchwood. Would you care to explain why I sparkled orange and turned into a blonde?" the president asked with his arms crossed. Rory sent a sharp look to Jack and the second man shrugged, indicating he would leave that loaded question to Rory.

"Well, you're a Time Lord," Rory stated. Jack rolled his eyes almost imperceptibly leaned forward toward his partner.

"Way to lead him in slowly there," Jack whispered with sarcasm. Rory ignored the man and continued on.

"This means that, yes, you can regenerate. It's a Time Lord's way of cheating death. When you're about to die, your body registers that and sort of restarts. As far as I can tell, it changes just about everything about you physically and slightly mentally too. You also should have two hearts, a more capable brain, and possibly other traits that aren't human." Rory paused, watching as Ricardo's eyebrows rose higher and higher with every word. "And I basically sound like a walking textbook," Rory added dryly. Jack laughed, but Ricardo and his guard seemed less amused.

"I'll take this. The upsides- practical immortality and more brains. The downsides- you may get ugly after regeneration and you're not human. Oh, and you can't run a country anymore," Jack said with a nonchalant smile. Ricardo's eyebrows lowered, but not quite back to normal.

"So you two gringos expect me to believe that I'm an alien?" Ricaro asked rhetorically. "But yes, I suppose you do. Dios mío. I do have a, ah, heart murmur? So that would be two hearts, right. And I just got proof of the regeneration part. And I guess I can't rule my country any more because they wouldn't recognize me as Ricardo Martinez anymore. Alejandro and a few other of my closest people only believe me because they saw it happen. But what now can I do? Where do I belong?" The man appeared to be a large and independent man, but here he was asking where he belonged in the universe, just like everybody else on the little lump of rock called Earth. It was fairly comforting to Rory.

"Actually, that's why we're here. Two of our… associates are currently searching for a planet for Time Lords to reside on. Temporarily, we strongly suggest you come with us for protection and eventually moving in day," Jack answered, emphasizing that though he may have said the words 'strongly suggest', he'd meant it wasn't really an option.

Ricardo sighed and sat down behind his desk, not looking nearly as intimidating when he was sitting down. Alejandro however, the guard, still looked like a lethal force as he stood stock still next to the president's desk. Rory and Jack took a few steps closer to the desk. This was going to be a complicated extraction of a Time Lord since he was a public figure. It wasn't just like taking a homeless guy off the streets or an aboriginal in the jungle- this was a well-known man in charge of running a country that was already in a bad state. That meant there was a lot of work for Torchwood to do, specifically for Jack and Rory. Well, if Rory was honest, the work was mostly for Jack. Jack knew more about how the bureaucratic systems of the institute worked and more of the recently instituted protocols about the removal of someone. He also had connections that could help him get the job done. Rory was mostly there for assistance and as sort of the Doctor's liaison, even though Rory had only known the alien man for about a day.

"You need to tell us exactly what happened when you were shot," Jack commanded of Ricardo. The blonde president nodded wearily, clearly still feeling the aftereffects of regeneration.

"And Alejandro, you should probably tell us how much of his story has been relayed to the press," Rory added on. He was glad to receive the approving look from Jack for his contribution to the investigation.

"Okay. Well, there's not much of a historia. I was going to go meet with a man named José Guerrero. José recently took over for his second cousin, the man responsible for one of the rising drug cartels in the area north of the capital. You see, he didn't originally want to be in that life, but it's family, you know? It's hard to get out of it, and he had a lot of pressure to take over when his cousin died. But one of my men knew José from childhood, and my man convinced him to set up a meet with me in secret so we could work out a way to sabotage his cartel without his people knowing it. Alejandro was driving me to the meet, and the next thing I knew, a bullet hit me in the head. After that, I blacked out for a bit, and when I woke up, I was glowing orange, so I called Torchwood because I'd heard of you from a friend in America. After that, I blacked out again. Lo siento, that's it." Ricardo shrugged and turned to his guard.

"I was driving. I turned to see him sparkle and explode. Then he was blonde. The press thinks he died," Alejandro spoke in a voice with a much thicker accent and with more basic words. It was obvious that he did not know as much English as Ricardo.

"Thank you both," Jack nodded in gratitude, so Rory copied his motion. "Ricardo, we'll be taking you with us to Britain where you'll be staying at the Torchwood Institute until we can safely move you to the Time Lord's new home. Alejandro, we're going to let you take care of the press here in Mexico. Continue telling them that he's dead; we can't have it getting out that he's still alive. Oh, and try to keep an eye on whoever's president next," Jack handed out the orders like he was born ready for these situations. Rory wished he was the same way, but he was getting along pretty well for still being the new guy.

"Very well. Take care of our country, Alejandro," Ricardo bade his guard farewell. The Hispanic man left the building with the two Torchwood agents, not knowing how much more interesting things would get for them by the time they returned to Torchwood.

A/N: I can't stop writing this story, so it's coming back, haha. This chapter had a lot of explanations, so I hope that answered a lot of questions for you. And as for the question of River, don't worry, the answer's coming.

I still can't believe I have to wait until Christmas for Doctor Who… Must resort to more fanfiction!