Author's Note: Well, what can I say? It's been a heck of a long absence I've taken and I've practically slid this story under the carpet to collect dust. However – That does not mean I've become bored or tired of writing. On the contrary, my muse hits me at most unexpected times (mostly when I'm at work). But now I'm at home, and it's knocked on my mind at 'just' the right time. So yes, my writing may be rusty and it might be rigid, but hey… A chapter is just a muddle of words right? Make of it what you will my friends…

The Doctor and the FBI…

"You honestly have no idea what you're getting into! You need to let me-"

A shallow breath escaped the narrow gap between lips as he gathered every little ounce of strength he had to refrain from letting out a bloodcurdling holler. Now, it was common fact that the Doctor was a man of intelligence and intellectual strength, and with intellectual strength came the will to fight against this… This torture. However that will was slowly crumbling as each brick had slowly crumbled within each painful and staggering day he endured.

Just how many days had he been in here anyhow? Two… Three? To be honest he had lost count, but the good old Doctor was still battling on. Well, he was trying…

What had once been a man who stood proud in his suit, tie and disastrously sized overcoat was now a man slumped and strapped down in a chair. That comical, whimsical nature about him had been stripped and the core of the man was so, so vulnerable. He was bloodied, he was bruised and with a split bottom lip and a rather patchy black eye, he was the poster boy for torture. "I know you're doing this from orders, and I know you think that this technology could benefit you… But you're being misled… " His eyes further glanced up into the dark brown pools of the agent before him. "A single… Ounce of that technology placed into the wrong hands could-"

"Wrong?" The agent flashed a brief smirk before giving his head a playful cock to the side while his hand stroked the handle of his gun, firmly strapped to his side belt. "Who said we were the wrong hands? I'm sure you didn't because…" He tapped the gun with his fingernails, making an audible sound echo throughout the interrogation cell. "I have a little friend here that says otherwise. Now, I'm sure you wouldn't want to upset my little friend here, right?"

While his hearts had weakened and his spirit had almost cracked, the Doctor struggled to lift his head and the stare of the oncoming storm pierced the eyes of the oppressor. "I said, you're wrong."

Big mistake. Big, BIG mistake, but the Doctor stood his ground. He hated guns, and firmly disliked the use of them for any particular reason. There was always another solution, even if that solution was never found. Unfortunately, the gun appeared useful in this case it was yanked right out of it's holster and firmly swiped across the Doctor's cheek with a loud 'TWACK', causing the Doctor's held to jolt painfully to the side where he then spat a small pool of blood from his mouth, splattering on the concrete floor below.

"Now, we've been doing this all week and still you choose not to give us the information…" The Agent said while placing his gun back down in his holster.

"We give you food, we give you water and you give us 'absolutely' nothing in return. Do you think this is being kind? Of course not, because you're not returning the favour…" He pretended to 'walk' with his fingers as they travelled from his gun to his tazer.

"I'm authorized to do anything but kill you, but there's only so much pain a man can take before he cracks… Although!"

He cranked his head around and shot the Doctor a playful grin. "You're not a man, are you? Which throws the Bill of Human Rights 'completely' out the window! So that leaves me with my next point… For your safety, I'd suggest you tell me what we need to know before this little electric device ends up on various parts of your body…"

His hand clutched the tazer, and waved it in front of the Doctor's face while the Doctor's eyes simply replied back with a menacing glare. "Your face…" The agent teased, moving it towards the Doctor's nose, and then he moved it further down towards his chest. "Your hearts? I'll bet a double heart attack must be a real kick in the pants, right?" And then, he moved it one step down, towards his groin.

"You aliens, you have the same junk down there as we do, right? I'm sure this must be absolutely excruciating… How about we give it a go?" The agent slid his finger onto the activating button, allowing a live electric stream to run through the tazer. All this time, the Doctor could feel his hearts quicken up the pace, yet he wouldn't crack. He absolutely refused to crack. There was no way in Gallifrey that he'd ever allow the TARDIS to end up in the wrong hands, and if he had to go down because of that, then that was a risk he was willing to take.

"I hope you enjoy this as much as I do…" He grinned, bringing the electric stream a mere inch from the Doctor's lower half, and they were about to touch….
So, so close…

I suppose pain is just another biological function…

I've been here for a week and they haven't gotten to me, so why start now?

I guess House never really got the message…. But I can't expect him to perform a rescue on me anyway, and UNIT don't really 'need' to rescue me. No doubt they're got bigger things on their hands. Oh well, I suppose this is what happens when one loses hope…

"Agent Markus, a word?" A demanding voice boomed following the large metal door that creaked outwards. A man dressed in a black suit stepped in, and lay his hand down onto the shoulder of the agent.

"Step down agent. That's an order."

The agent, keen to continue his torture with the time Lord had a look of disappointment in his face, yet he kept the beam running and ever so closely to the Doctor's sensitive area. His hand trembled for a moment, yet he continued to stay where he was, seemingly unable to follow his superior's command.

"Agent, I gave you an order!" The stranger barked. "Do you want me to explain to the white house as to why our prisoner is in a critical condition with a burnt crotch with you as the cause?"

"Sir… I'm close to getting an answer. If you'd just let me continue I know we can find the location of the time machine. It's possible if you would just give me a little more time…"

"You've had a week and we still aren't any closer to our goal…." The middle-aged stranger adjusted his heavily tinted shades, and then gave an unfortunate sigh. "We've had orders from the White House to let him go."

A heavy silence followed the room, and the Doctor managed to interject the conversation with a stumbling answer. "W-What?"

"What?"

The Agent switched off his tazer and shoved the device in his pocket before spinning around to face his superior. "Sir, this must be some sort of a joke. We can't just let him go? He's an alien, and he has the technology that would allow us to traverse time and space… Even you said so yourself! To let him go would be no worse than Newton walking away and ignoring the apple that fell upon his head…." He waved his arms furiously in the air as if to prove some sort of point, and then he balled his hands into trembling fists.

"This is a joke…" He snarled. "Ridiculous… So why the sudden change of heart then?"

"The information is classified, even to me." The Superior said coldly before gesturing over his shoulder to two men behind him, clad in some sort of traditional militaria uniform with red berets'. Without words, they swooped in past the FBI suits and began to unclasp the Doctor from his confines. They didn't dare speak, and even without access to keys and swipes they were still able to unlock the restraints that kept the Doctor confined to his chair with some sort of 'blue light' technology that appeared to unlock the devices upon impact.

"Sir, who are they?" The Agent didn't appear to be accepting the fact that after a week worth of torture, he was no closer to gathering any facts about this alien stranger that they had imprisoned, beaten and bruised. Also considering that he was a man quite dedicated to his job he could feel his heart twisting and wrenching, and his pride being sledged slowly and painfully with a hammer and a bright red and white strip of tape labelled 'confidentiality'. No, there was no way he would accept this.

He couldn't.

He refused!

"NO!" He snarled, and lunged forward at one of the UNIT men with his hands in a grasping fashion. He wasted no time as he clutched a shoulder of one man who didn't appear quite as surprised as the rogue agent had hoped, and the agent pulled back his fist and shot it forward for a punch.

Now, the normal scenario would have appeared as followed: The man would get hit, cower down with a split lip and clutch his jaw painfully while the other UNIT soldier and the FBI superior stepped in to break up the fight, yet it didn't even get to that. Instead, the UNIT soldier deflected the punch with a quick and swift move, and then grabbed hold of the fist with his free hand and began to twist the rogue agent's arm.

"H-Hey!" He yelled, feeling the pinch as his arm threatened to pop out of it's socket. "HEY!"

"Enough. Continue and be quick; we have orders." The other UNIT agent spoke, causing the one 'in battle mode' to release the grip on the man's fist and return to the Doctor. Fortunately by now, the Doctor had been released from his inhumane shackles and had both arms slung around the shoulders of the UNIT men as they carried him from two rather surprised FBI suits, appearing to be in a state of shock. It had all happened so quickly, yet silence had filled the room once more while the barely conscious Doctor limped and lightly dragged his feet across the floor as the men 'lifted' him to safety.

"Here, take this." One of the UNIT men paused momentarily before reaching into his pocket and handing a business-type card to the wounded FBI agent whose pride had been absolutely shattered to every extent.

"What's this?" He glared at the red-capped stranger and waved the card in his face, which appeared to be blank.

"It's a blank card…"

"And? It's blank!"

"Exactly, which is how much respect I have for gents like yourself, and did you honestly think we'd give you any information?" The soldier scoffed slightly before continuing his slow pace out the doors of the interrogation room where other UNIT members were waiting with a gurney. Of course, attached to that Gurney was a small pack of jelly babies that a member of UNIT had taken the courtesy to throw in. Although the Doctor could feel his hearts quicken with excitement, he was so, so tired and so, so weak. He felt comfort and safety as he felt his head rest onto the gurney pillow but found himself to be quite incoherent while people chatted away above him. Seconds turned into minutes and minutes rolled away at the clock as the wheels rolled beneath him, and the next thing he knew… He was in an ambulance with the sirens blaring and a gent standing over his face while continuously saying 'Doctor, Doctor'.

Back at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital….

He wasn't able to make out the face, or who it was… But whoever it was kept tapping him lightly, almost to the point where it was an incessant slapping? Now who could possibly be that annoying? If only he wasn't so tired…

If only…

Those minutes had flipped over on the clock faster then the Doctor's hearts could ever beat at full excitement. They turned into hours, and hours turned into days while he lay in his bed with 'round the clock care. He was back at Princeton Plainsboro all right, but under continuous guard from the UNIT soldiers under orders to protect him. And despite being a ridiculously and most brilliantly fast healer, the damaged he had sustained in a week was going to take a fair few more days to heal if he was going to divert the option of regeneration. Occasionally he'd come to and hear fragments of brief conversations being held beside him, or hear the constant noise of rubber tubes and metal fastenings of bandages knocking against the side of his hospital bed, but he'd just fall back into a regenerating coma once more.

From an outsider's perspective, he was being held in a secure and private intensive care room, with all sorts of monitors being connected to his body. He was bandaged and various dressings covered his wounds, along with stitches that held the more severe wounds together. His eyes were black and blue along with 80% of those colours covering his body in forms of boot and fist shapes. But out of everything that he gone through, the man was surviving…

"Doctor… Doctor…"

Oh there's that voice again….
Calling my name, yelling to me. Why are they calling me?
Is there really a need to answer?
Perhaps… Perhaps it's time to leave this never-ending dream….

"Doctor… Doctor!" The voice called again, and the Doctor found himself slowly nearing the voice as it drew him further towards it. The closer he got, the louder it became, and the brighter the light shone.

"Doctor… DOCTOR!" In his mind he reached his arms out towards the light, barely grasping what he could barely see, but he was so close now. That constant shouting for somebody who needed him, and he had to answer!

But that voice… It was starting to sound so familiar?

"DOCTOR!"

"I'm back! ALLONS-Y!" Upon touching the so-called 'light' that flooded his unconscious state, he sprung up into a sitting position and stared into the deep, concerning eyes of…. Wilson?

"Wilson! James! What do I call you?" He laughed, yet still in a semi-delirious state as he clutched Wilson's cheeks and stared at him with an intense gaze for a moment. "Wilson! What day is it? How long have I been out? Clearly the 28 stitches are still holding fine… Argh, I can feel every single one of them though…" He rubbed his abdomen painfully, before resting his back down on the bed.

"House must have come through! Brilliant, absolutely brilliant… And please tell your co-workers I really don't hold a grudge. Well, I'm a little tiffed at the fact that they handed me into the hands of tyrants bent on getting answers 'but'!" He raised a finger into the air and then paused to take note of Wilson's seemingly solemn expression. "Oh no, don't tell me something could possibly be worse than the Vernax, the FBI and this?"

"Did you see House there? At the compound?"

The Doctor narrowed his eyes and shook his head, matching the concerned mannerisms of Wilson. "Wilson, where's House?"

"Are you sure?"

"Wilson, where is-"

"Are you absolutely, positively sure?" Wilson looked as though he had hit a cracked nerve, and for a brief moment his eye glistened with a tear that was forced to retreat back behind his eyes.

"I didn't… " He bit his lip lightly, but gave a silent yelp when he realised that his lip had two stiches from being belted across the face with a gun. "How long?"

"A day before you were admitted back into intensive care… So about two days from now-" He paused solemnly. "The house was in shambles, the police had found blood on the floor… And a card. They found a blank card?"

Is this some sort of cheap revenge?
Is this honestly what they'd play at…

"Wilson, I'll need to leave. Forget the discharge papers, just need my clothes and the various amount of items that may or may not have fallen out of the never ending depths of my pockets." The Doctor reached out towards Wilson, as if to gesture for his hand. "Help me up?"

"Are you kidding me?" Wilson scoffed. "You've got more stitches in you than a rag doll and you're more blue than skin. You're under 24 hour guard for your own protection… No, not now. The police are looking for House as we speak, but you need a few more days. A week if that!"

"House might not have a few more days, and if I'm right then this is far beyond the police…" The Doctor said coldly, his expression going grave. "He might have gotten me back but there are people out there willing to put the price high up enough to make a trade, and if I'm the subject of that trade then perhaps the trade needs to be followed through before anybody else is hurt…"

"Are you honestly saying what I think you're saying?"

"They can act like they can handle it but take away the thing they need the most, and they get extremely nasty. And to think, this is all for the sake of getting their grubby and greedy hands on technology. My technology, although quite amazing… But technology nonetheless…" He sighed. "Wilson, he doesn't have much time…"

These people… They'll never leave me alone, will they?

Authors note: AND DONE! Now, I know the thing is quite sloppy and rusty and so on and so forth, but it's been quite a bit since my last chapter. But feel free to rip and tear at it all you'd like. The more you take off to chew, the more I learn so I can fill those holes with new and exciting tips and tricks! :D I'm back guys, I'm BACK!