Oh, god.

Yes, I'm back.

And I am so so sorry. I know everyone on here who neglects a story for far too long says that, but there's not much else I can say.

I didn't really have writer's block. I knew where I was going with this story, and how I was going to get there, but I just couldn't get the words out properly. It always ended up not even being fanfiction anymore, so I'm sorry.

And this chapter isn't particularly good. It's not at my usual standard and it's horribly short, but I thought that I'd give you this now, instead of keeping it and slowly writing more over the next month.

This isn't even all that I was going to put in this chapter, but I just had to leave it there.

You probably don't even remember what this story is about by now, that happens to me if someone doesn't upload for only two weeks or something.

Quick Summary

- The Doctor visited everywhere he went with Rose to remember the times they had.

- He finds that the SS Madame de Pompadour is up and running and the clock droids have been rebuilt. Their leader Nefaro thinks that the ship no longer needs a brain to run it, but a heart to lead it. He decides that the most compassionate heart that he knows of is Rose Tyler's and sets up the Time Windows to follow her life.

- The droids discover the Doctor on their ship and push him through a Time Window to prevent him from ruining their plans.

- The Doctor lives in Pete's room in Rose's apartment as Rose grows up. He follows her to school, makes sure she's okay, goes to parties with her, etc.

- He discovers a future version of himself on New Year's, 2005 and is very confused.

- He tries to escape Rose's life through a Time Window that appears while his ninth incarnation is saving Rose from the Autons in the shop.

- He is pushed back into Rose's life by the droids again, and has to live through everything again and avoid the past version of himself.

- He discovers that he is not the future version of himself that talks to Rose on New Year's, and that there are three version of him running around at that point.

- He recruits Captain Jack Harkness to help him escape Rose's life, though this Jack doesn't recognise him at first, because he hasn't been through the year-that-never-was yet.

- They travel to Cardiff and steal his ninth incarnation's TARDIS while Nine, Rose, Mickey and a past version of Jack are inside a cafe.

- They take this TARDIS to the Valiant in 2007, and the Doctor leaves Jack on the TARDIS while he sets out to find the Paradox Machine so they can steal it.

- Jack escapes from the TARDIS to explore the Valiant and encounters a Toclafane.

- The Toclafane kills Jack.

So, again, I'm sorry that this chapter isn't very good and it isn't very long. But I've decided that my chapters are going to have more dialogue from now on, because no one really likes reading through very long paragraphs of nothing.

Dashing by Rose Kelvin

As we dash by in a blur,
Just a fleeting glance.
Breadcrumbs fly everywhere,
But down which trail shall we advance?

Short and seemingly useless,
We are quite imperceptibly cunning.
Spheres and lines and crossed wires,
And an awful lot of running.

But look carefully within the race,
Stop to smell the Roses.
Because aren't we forgetting something?
Something right under your noses...

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, it belongs to the BBC and etc.

XXIII

Dashing

The Doctor ran down corridor after corridor of the Valiant as he searched for Jack. The only time he slowed was whenever he heard the marching footsteps of approaching guards. He easily avoided encounters with the guards by running off in a different direction or hiding behind the steaming machinery which seemed to dominate every corridor on the sky-ship. The Doctor thought about calling out once or twice, but knew that would draw the guards to him immediately.

He was rounding another corner when he saw a wire-mesh holding cell, identical to the one he'd been held in earlier. He crept forward but then stopped when he realised that inside the cell, held in chains, was Jack.

"Jack!" he called out in surprise. Jack looked up and grinned at the Doctor, his teeth looking brilliantly white against his grubby face. His clothes were torn and wrecked and his hair was limp and greasy. The Doctor frowned, feeling that something wasn't quite right…

The guard slumped in front of Jack's cell looked up and saw the Time Lord approaching confidently. He unfolded himself and stood up, raising his gun to point at the Doctor. The guard cleared his throat, and the Doctor stopped.

The Doctor looked from the guard to Jack and back to the guard again. "Hang on a minute…" his eyes widened in realisation, "Oh. Oh, right. Sorry, Jack. Better be off. You're not who I'm looking for." He turned and walked back the way he came.

Jack called after him, "But Doctor…wait. What?"

The Doctor didn't reply and soon he'd rounded the corner and disappeared. Jack sighed. The guard looked bemused but just shrugged and sat back down in front of the cell.

The Doctor continued searching the Valiant for Jack. The right Jack. Thankfully he'd realised that the Jack in chains was the future version of Jack before he'd released him, otherwise he could have seriously altered the timeline. He began running again, determined to find the right Jack before the Captain got himself into too much trouble.

"Urrggh," Jack groaned as he sat up, rubbing his forehead. He looked down at himself and pursed his lips as he observed the bloodied state of his clothes. He glanced up to see the Toclafane hovering hesitantly a few metres in front of him.

"Now look what you've done," Jack chastised. "This was my favourite shirt."

Jack didn't know if the Toclafane didn't hear him or just had no reply because it just continued to hover. He patted down his front to see that all his wounds had healed before he slowly stood up. Apart from a headache, he seemed fine.

"Why are you still alive?" the Toclafane finally asked.

"Believe me, spherey, I often ask myself the same question," Jack replied.

"You will make a good play-mate then. If you never die, we can play forever and ever and ever."

"Yeah, that sounds great and all, but I've got some other stuff I've gotta do."

"Like what?" it asked.

"Kill you," Jack replied without missing a beat, drawing his sonic blaster out of his pocket and firing it at the Toclafane.

It crashed to the ground with a thud but remained intact. A few lights still blinked on it so the Captain shot it a few more times for good measure.

He stepped over the sphere and towards the raised dais on which the laser screwdriver rested behind a series of crisscrossing laser beams.

"Now, let's see what you were guarding, spherey."

The Doctor was running down yet another steaming corridor of the endless sky ship. He rounded a corner and ran straight into Jack – the right Jack this time. They both fell, and there was a noise like something metal skidding across the floor. The Doctor patted down his suit pocket to check that his sonic screwdriver hadn't fallen out and didn't notice Jack reach out and pocket something.

They both stood up and brushed down their clothes of some imaginary dust.

"What happened to you?" the Doctor asked, gesturing to the bloodied state of Jack's shirt.

"Oh, errr…" Jack hesitated. "Ran into one of those spherey things," he said, truthfully enough.

"A Toclafane? I didn't think they were roaming about. I didn't see any."

Jack just shrugged.

"Right, well, I'm taking you back to the TARDIS. I told you not to come out. There's another you running around, you know. Weeelll…not exactly running around."

"Did you meet me?" Jack asked as they walked back to the TARDIS. "What am I like? Dashing as ever?"

"Yeah, sure," the Doctor muttered distractedly as they narrowly avoided some guards. "You won't get me to say anything. You are none of your business."

"Come on, Doctor, please. I just want to know."

"Jack, we're in a delicate enough situation as it is. It's only because of the Paradox Machine that I can bring you here at all, and very soon, the Paradox Machine will be dismantled by you yourself, so I have to make sure that during the time that it's dismantled you stay out of the way."

"But you're here too, aren't you?"

"Yes, but it's a past version of me. So it won't be as dangerous if I run into myself, because he knows nothing that I don't."

"But you know stuff that he doesn't. So it'll be just as dangerous for him," Jack said intelligently.

"Yeah, well, I'm not going to allow it to happen anyway, so it won't matter," the Doctor said dismissively, ending the matter and didn't speak again until they reached the TARDIS.

I know, it's really short and quite horrible, but I just wanted to get something up after all this time.

Do you like having more dialogue, or do you prefer long paragraphs?

And should I change the summary to make it more interesting?