2030

Temptation can lead a person to do truly awful things. Anger could lead a person to do something unspeakably cruel. Fear could lead a person to do something incredibly dangerous. But love was by far the worst.

Love, as they say, knows no bounds.

Harry loved his husband enough to do anything to save him. He loved his son enough to bend and break every rule he had ever known to keep him safe. In ways, he loved J.J. too, and the boy had waited too long to be fed.

"It's good," J.J. murmured between mouthfuls, greedily ripping more meat free before he'd even finished chewing.

"That's because it's fresh," Harry answered.

He sat stiffly on his stone seat, trying to keep his suit clean from the muddy filth of the riverbank, with J.J.'s clothes folded neatly on his lap. The pool of blood had stretched towards him at first, but quickly sank into the earth before reaching his polished leather shoes.

"Have you ever eaten one?" J.J. asked, his voice sounding young and innocent even as it joined the sound of flesh ripping. "It's better than rabbit or deer. Not as good as duck though."

Harry felt himself twitch uncomfortably and gazed off into the trees. "Yes, I've tried it and I'd have to agree."

"Did you want some, sir?"

Harry turned back to see J.J. crouched in the moonlight, chin raised in submission, holding out a dripping strip of muscle. His golden eyes glinted and reflected eerily in the dark and the blood on his long fangs cast back moonlight and shone. Right now he looked more animal than man. The look suited him well.

"No, thank you."

Harry had felt temptation the day that he met Joshua Stern—when that vicious, smug little man stood in Harry's office and threatened to expose him. He had felt tempted to snap his pathetically weak neck and watch the light go out of his eyes. But Harry was not that man anymore, and Josh hadn't been the first person that would rant about aliens hidden in plain sight to the world.

He felt anger the day that the Doctor reported meeting the same man, and was given the same threats. He was angrier still when Ganbri called with a slightly panicked voice, asking his Tokrah to pick him up because some strange man was following him. A lunatic in his face was nothing but an amusing inconvenience, but one who was following his family was a threat. The police were called but, apparently, they could do nothing more than question him.

He felt fear when the Doctor did. Mr. Stern's determination was beginning to cross lines he shouldn't have even been approaching. Ganbri was uncomfortable going out alone and would often wait until someone else was leaving the house to tag along. Donna called them up and said some man had been prowling around her house too, scaring Annabelle half to death and nearly getting in a fistfight with Shaun. Josh was threatening their children and it didn't seem that his threats were idle.

It was after that day that he learned where Mr. Stern had come from. A year ago, the Doctor had been taken captive by a group of bounty hunters, looking to trade him in for the infamous Master, earning the last pay day they would ever need. The Doctor sabotaged their life support systems, and they suffocated in the Earth's poison atmosphere.

Joshua Stern was the last. A human who had been taken by mistake and allowed to join the crew. He had no ship, no plan, no partners, and no way of reaching any sort of galactic authority, but he still had his heart set on that pay day.

Finally, Harry felt love so strong that it hurt on the day that he found the Doctor with the Beast. The Beast was still dormant and asleep, its black skin slowly rippling with waves of grey and blue. But the Doctor was visibly shaken and afraid, touching his fingers to the dark skin in search of comfort.

"He grabbed Ganbri today," the Doctor had told him. "Actually grabbed him. Ganbri had to fight him off. Why would he do that? What if he was planning to take him? What will he try next time?"

The Doctor's love would drive him to waken the Beast again if something wasn't done. Harry's love wouldn't allow that to happen.

And so it was that he sat beside a lazy river in the middle of the night. Stern had somehow gotten the idea that he would be safest to camp in the woods until he had come up with the next step in his plan. Considering that Stern seemed convinced that he knew of every trick up "Saxon's" sleeve, Harry was a bit surprised that he hadn't guarded himself more against telepathic influence.

Stern had been warned. As Harry was telepathically convincing Stern that camping would be a good idea, he was verbally telling him that if he understood who Harry was, then he understood the kind of danger he was facing. There were billions of humans on Earth, Harry told him, and they go missing all the time. This was fair, Harry decided.

J.J.'s only question was, "Is he armed?"

When the body was eventually found, it would simply look like an animal attack. Even if someone was a little too good at their job and started digging around, the truth was so bizarre to humans that it would never stick.

J.J. went for a swim when he had finished his meal, washing the blood from his skin and hair in the river. He would carry no evidence with him when they left, except for the contents of his stomach.

The boy had no shame as he emerged from the water, carefully stepping from stone to stone so as not to leave footprints in the mud. He didn't bother to cover himself. He didn't bother to hide the way he stared at the body with a look of longing. He moved through the woods with an easy grace, as though he were more comfortable there, naked and freshly fed on hot blood, than he had ever been clothed in a house with bread in his belly.

After a short distance, there was a rock big enough to stand and move around on, and it was there that J.J. chose to get dressed. The wet footprints he left on the stone's face would dry up soon enough, but footprints on the ground may have hung around until someone else came looking.

"Are there more?" J.J. asked, pulling his shirt over his head.

"Not as far as I know."

The boy nodded with approval. "Then the family is safe."

Harry nodded slowly in return. "The family is safe."

"We can't tell any of them. They can't handle this sort of thing," J.J. said casually as he slipped his watch over his wrist. "A dog bites somebody and gets killed. A bear gets too comfortable in the city and gets killed. As soon as it's a human that needs dealing with everybody gets all jumpy, even Jack sometimes."

Harry nodded slowly, wishing he could think of it so simply. He would never be able to explain it like that to the Doctor if he ever found out. He would never be able to explain to Ganbri or Jack. Part of him reminded himself that it had been J.J.'s idea and Harry had simply agreed, but it wasn't good enough.

This was his own decision, he knew. He chose for Joshua Stern to die this way, no matter what excuses he made. But if he hadn't made that choice, the Doctor would have, and the darkness that had slowly been infecting him since he first controlled the Beast would grow. Harry would gladly carry the burden on his own conscience and the black mark on his already stained soul, if it meant that the Doctor wouldn't have to.

"We can't tell them," Harry agreed. "This never happened. And it never happens again."

J.J. looked at him oddly for a moment, a ghost of a smirk on his lips. "Why was he after you?" he asked, leaning forward and whispering as though it were a secret. "You only tell us that you made mistakes, but I've seen you fight. I've seen people who are terrified of you. What did you do?"

Harry looked straight into those golden eyes with a hard glare and nodded his head in the direction that they had left the body. "What did you do?"

J.J.'s smirk widened slightly and he pushed a button on his watch. With a flicker of light, the fangs had disappeared and the golden gleam had gone his eyes. A human man looked at him now, with nothing remarkable about his brown eyes or freckles.

"Not a damn thing," J.J. answered. "Sir."