A/N: Ok, so first off, I have to say I was BLOWN away when I went to my inbox after posting my last chapter and found FORTY messages—all reviews and alert adds! I can't tell you how much that means to me, guys! Thank you all so much! Even if you don't review, the fact that you add me to your alerts is so kind!

When I get so many reviews like that, I really try to update as fast as I can, and I'm deeply sorry for the time this one took—university is getting in the way!

Thanks especially to: elvespiratesandcowboysohmy, Namesake, Kirsten, Kelkat9, angelthree117, SciFiGeek14, Team Guy of Gisborne, Ingrid, WeepingAngel123, Enceludus, Crowded Mind, pipinheart, Lady Caitlin of Illinois, Whirlwind421, Kirsten-Korona, and Snguine Ink.

This might border on M, just to warn you.

This is my favorite chapter so far, I hope you guys like it too!

Previously: The Doctor's nose twitched as the warm scent grew stronger. Incense burned straight under his nose and his brain grew more difficult to control. Charlotte hovered over him but all he could see was the faint blur of a woman.

She caressed his face tenderly.

"Hush. I'll take you somewhere more comfortable, don't worry now."


Chapter 14: Gambit

The Doctor fought to keep his eyes open, but even as the guard grabbed him at the biceps and hauled him brutally to his feet, he could feel his eyes closing and his weak limbs begin to give up their feeble attempts to fight. His legs would not hold him, however, and the guard was forced to half drag, half carry him from the cell.

Something heavy fell from his pocket and Charlotte picked it up curiously. "Electromagnetic anomaly detector?" She asked the Doctor.

"That's right." He wheezed. The left side of his ribcage was obviously very badly injured from Mickey's beating and the guard's jostling caused the pain to flare up even stronger. He took a rasping breath, preparing to talk, only to find out that his lungs were filling with liquid. "You've created a wormhole—" He stopped short and allowed a cough to rip through his chest. He tasted blood.

Charlotte threw the device on the floor and it shattered. "My dear, you are not well. Never mind. This won't take long, and then you can go on your way."

The guard led him into a small room and let go of his arms. His drugged legs would not hold him and he stumbled into the room and fell on to a cushion of large, thick blankets.

The room was small and dimly lit. Incense burned in the four corners of the room and a few candles placed in the room revealed the heavy purple smoke they created. A small pool of water lay in the center of the room in an ornamental basin. Most of the floor was covered with layers of blankets.

The Doctor coughed, his throat constricting as the smoke penetrated his lungs. He could feel something liquid trickle into his lungs but he did not want to think about it. The incense made his head dizzy and he blinked when his vision began to blur. The shape of Charlotte drew closer to where he lay, propped on his elbows. The burred form of her white draped body grew very close and he suddenly felt a weight on his hips as she straddled him. She bent forward and lay her hands against his chest. Her face drew very close to him and she rubbed her nose against his neck.

"Didn't think it would be enjoyable, but I was wrong." Her whisper ghosted over his neck and down his back, raising goosebumps on his flesh. She rubbed her face up to his ear and bit the lobe gently, pressing her body firmly against him. She eased him out of his jacket slowly, and the Doctor's weak arms could do nothing to stop her.

"That's not going to work on me." The Doctor slurred. The smoke was gradually making him feel more loopy and all he could do was hold on to his self awareness as much as possible. He had to remember who he was, where he was, and who he was with. If he lost his grip, he shuddered to think what might happen.

"It already is." Charlotte reached a hand down and the Doctor cursed. The drugs were causing his body to betray him.

He stopped breathing.

Charlotte drew back and put a hand on his chest. "You can't hold your breath forever."

No, I can't. He thought furiously. But I'd be damned if I didn't try.

Charlotte returned her hand under his fly and grasped a little too hard. The Doctor whimpered in pain, his eyes watering, and his stomach lurched sickly. Completely at her mercy, he remained as still as he could, fearful of the pain she could cause if she wanted to. He scanned his foggy brain for some kind of fact to distract her.

"Perthclo?" He managed to push from his lungs. "You're humans… year 2032 of New Milky Way, specifically of planet Perthclo. That means it would be 4040 on Earth."

Charlotte nodded as she shifted her hands to undo his tie. The confirmed knowledge seemed to clear his head a bit.

"What happened? Perthclo was a very technologically advanced planet. Blimey, you guys invented the aero particle collider for interstellar mapping! You're brilliant! Who brought the bacteria to you, who infected you? What caused you to go underground?"

Charlotte withdrew slightly. The knowledge of the planet's name stimulated the Doctor's mind and the more he thought, the more his head cleared. He took a breath, replenishing his respiratory bypass. The drugs were affecting him less and less.

"Never mind that, please," She begged, and fumbled at his trousers. "I have to do this."

As the Doctor's vision cleared, he was stunned to see tears glistening on Charlotte's cheek. He felt strength begin to return to his limbs. As swiftly as he could in his injured state, he pulled Charlotte's hands away and lifted her by the hips. He slid her off his lap to sit beside him and he sat up with a spasm of pain as his broken ribs protested.

"Tell me what happened," He gasped, "I can help."

"I need to… for the planet, Doctor. If I don't conceive a male, they will take me from my thrown, and they will…. They will…" She gasped and put a shaking hand to her mouth. "Doctor they will lynch me if I don't do this. I promised them I'd bring an end to it. I promised them I could figure something out, find men so the planet doesn't die out…"

"But you over shot when you created that wormhole." The Doctor said, shrugging his jacket back on with difficulty. "You reached through time as well as space. It can't have been far off year 2000 on earth when I went through that wormhole." He stood gingerly and strode to the wall. He put a hand on the edge of the shelf that protruded from the wall to steady himself, then threw the burning incense into the water.

"I know." Charlotte whispered. "I knew it would be dangerous, and it was a random year I found, but I had to do something."

"You moved underground." The Doctor continued as he limped to the next wall. Charlotte flinched as he threw the next pot of incense into the water with a splash. "Is everything underground, or are there people out there on the planet, somewhere?"

"We are the first underground. It's an experiment. We went into the desert to be far away from the ruins of the cities, but they are dying up there." She pointed a finger to the ceiling. "I had to do this. All men are bastards. They're destroying our world and turning us into animals."

"Men can be bastards, yes." He said, as he tightened his tie and looked as though he were seriously considering the description. "But I wouldn't say all men are bastards. Avoid generalities... they'll get you in trouble one day."

"The men on this planet are bastards." Charlotte amended with a contemptuous snarl.

"Oh, yeah, men are from Mars. We-ll, in this case, men are from Earth, women are from Perthclo. Not as catchy."

Charlotte glared at him. "You are a bastard."

The Doctor raised his hands. "Maybe I am, maybe I'm not, but having a penis doesn't make me a bad person, nor does it mean the sane men you have trapped and drugged in cells like animals are bad people." He throw the third pot of incense a little too hard, caused the water to spill over the edge of the basin.

Charlotte looked ashamed. "If you had seen what I have up there, you'd know why I don't trust men."

"What does the old Milky Way have to say about what's happened here?" The Doctor couldn't help the sympathy in his voice as he walked to the final pot and tossed it into the water.

"Earth has abandoned us. We are in quarantine. They won't even communicate with us, they've cut us off completely." She spat, furious tears leaking from her eyes.

"Ahhh." The Doctor let out his breath slowly as realization sunk in. He regarded her sharply. "So you didn't over shoot, did you? You meant to connect to Earth's past. They abandoned you, so you decided to get back at them, eh? You go back in their time line before they've even started settling other planets. They wouldn't have any way of detecting it because they don't have the sophisticated technology that you have. But oh!" He pulled at his hair, his eyes wide. "you'll create a paradox!"

"No, it's only in an ocean on earth, we only get the humans that cross directly through it—their boat will sink, and they are brought here. That's all it will do. It's harmless."

"Wormholes are two way!" The Doctor yelled and instantly regretted it when Charlotte recoiled.

"Please, don't hurt me."

He sighed, looked at her sympathetically, and spoke gently. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not infected. You and your society have learned to fear men, I understand that. The fear has caused you to go to extreme measures to control them. The more people you bring through that wormhole though, the bigger it will tear. Eventually the bacteria will get through…it's only a matter of time, and Earth will be infected. You'll create a paradox and your world will disappear."

Charlotte swallowed as she looked up at him. "I thought it was working. The men who wash up in the birth pool go to the holding cells, the woman to another location."

"Birth pool?"

"It's what we call the water with the wormhole."

"'Death pool' seems more appropriate, or 'pool of time and space fluctuation and eventual enslavement to all who pass through'. Doesn't have quite the same ring I'll admit it needs a bit of work, but nonetheless, this experiment has to end. Take me your laboratory, now."

Rose sunk to the bed. The Doctor had been taken from the cell an hour ago. She wanted to scream, to rage against the wall and demand to see the Doctor, to threaten them, to curse everything about the place, but instead, she weakly lay back on the bed.

Her baby was killing her. The words rang in her mind when she thought them. She loved it, but it was killing her. It was growing too fast, and the Doctor was not with her.

When she closed her eyes, she saw the Doctor being tortured and raped. When she opened them, she saw the locked door and her impending death while the baby leached her of her life force.

Just as the despair began to settle over her, a very familiar sound buzzed faintly outside her door. She leapt from the bed just as the door swung open. "Doct--!" Her face fell, but then she grinned when she recognized Mickey's features. "Mickey."

He tossed the sonic screwdriver fondly and caught it again. "Took me long enough to find the right setting… may have blew something up in the cell."

She lunged into his arms. "How did you get past the guards?" She said breathlessly in his tight arms.

"Stronger in numbers!" Was Mickey's response. "I released all the cells."

Rose looked over his shoulder and recognized the man, Rob, and behind him, a large group of men. She drew back from Mickey and took Rob's offered hand.

"I don't think we had a proper meeting last time, name's Rob."

"Rose." She said, and looked around at the other men. "I'm Rose," She said to the crowd. "And the Doctor's going to get you all out of here."

The Doctor entered the laboratory and quickly scoped it out with his highly trained eyes. The room was extremely large and filled with equipment. He paused to cough up the liquid that had pooled in his lungs while he had talked to Charlotte.

"Very tidy, I'm impressed." He choked with a nod and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "But then again, it is controlled by women… much neater than men—oh, that was sexist. Never mind, great big laboratory--molto bene." He bounded to a twelve foot high cylindrical machine, drawing his glasses from his breast pocket and perching them on his nose with a flourish. "Oh, what's this? Am I on the right track?" He ignored the pain in his body as his enthusiasm for the gadgets lent him strength.

Charlotte was not looking at him. Her hand was to her head as though she were kneading a troublesome ache. She sniffed and stared at the ground.

The Doctor's eyes lingered sympathetically on her for a second before returning to the machine. It was composed of two large glass cylinders and connected at the top with a metallic bridge. Beneath the glass each cylinder contained several braided wires that seemed to hum with energy. The underside of the bridge sported tangles of wires and what looked like a shower head. Another receptacle was positioned at the bottom directly under the bridge and pointing back up at it. A gossamer yellow line of light connected them.

"Oo, here we are." He said, his hands around the cylinder as he gazed up at the light. "This is really quite exquisite, Charlotte, you are brilliant." He said with admiration, running his hands along the glass shell. "But, unfortunately, I have to destroy it." He reached under the lower receptacle and closed his hand around the wire.

The sudden silence in Charlotte's direction caused him to look up and he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

"You… keep a gun in your laboratory?" He said slowly and gulped. "I really don't like guns." He said, half groaning.

Charlotte's hands trembled around the gun. "I can't let you destroy my work, Doctor."

He raised his hands and slowly stood from his crouched position. "I can help your planet, I promise, but first, I need to destroy this machine before it destroys earth and the entire future of the human race." He hesitated, then took a step to her.

She stumbled back. "Stay where you are!" She shouted.

The Doctor froze. "Charlotte... listen. You need me, you know you do. Not only for your sordid purposes, but for the bacteria. I can reverse the effects in the brain. I know I can, because I already have."

"I don't believe you."

"Charlotte, you are clever, almost as clever as me. Just think about the paradox you're creating just for a tic." He gazed at the gun for a second, then bravely turned his back on it to face the machine. "You shoot me." He said, glad his unconvinced face was hidden from view.

"I've put too much in to this project." The gun clicked as it set and the Doctor swallowed and closed his eyes. He tightened his grip on the wire, and mentally counted to three.

A/N Probably Only a couple chapters left!

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