Hello again! I really should be studying. But I'm not. MWAHAHA.

Disclaimer: My ninjas have failed me, so… no. :/

SIAPNIAN: I'm not sure if I've said this before or not, but I shall say it again: I really, honestly have no idea how you got past the first few chapters. –cringes- Not that these ones are much better, but… still. Agh. (Speaking of, I apologise for the last one. I don't think it made very much sense.)

Non-Warning: Betaed by Aelita Madeline.

-BAD WOLF-

For exactly five seconds, neither one breathed. When nothing immediately life-threatening occurred, respiration resumed its normal routine.

"The monitors are still on," Rose said, confused.

"Yes," the Doctor replied. "Which means… they only cut out the lights. Why did they do that first? Why not just take the whole system out?"

"Maybe it was just the first thing they came across," she suggested, looking at the ground in a worried fashion.

"Maybe. Or maybe they were trying something else." He glanced at her. "You can get up now, if you want. They can't move."

She did so, and was reassured by the lack of resistance the substance showed. She decided she wasn't swimming for a very long time after this. "What did you do?"

"The reason they can move in unison is because they're all telepathically connected," he explained. "I hacked into the ship and told it to broadcast a specific, anti-telepathic frequency inside itself. Severed the connection. They can move, just… not together."

"And even if they could," Rose realised, "they wouldn't."

He nodded slowly, the motion barely visible in the half-light from the torn-apart console.

"So that's it, then?" she inquired, starting to make her way across the bridge to him. Her heart was still thudding unevenly from the events of the previous few minutes, and it was with a kind of ineffable relief that she finally curled her fingers around his. He was here, he was holding her hand, and everything would therefore be alright.

"Almost," he said, squeezing her hand lightly and walking with her to the console she had just abandoned. Deftly manipulating the controls with his free hand, he continued to speak. "I'm just going to set a course for the nearest uninhabited water planet, reverse the teleport…" He smiled briefly at her before returning his eyes to his work. "And then we can go home."

"We're not leaving until my mum sees you, you know," she said, grinning a bit.

"Do we have to?"

Rose wondered if he knew how profoundly whiny he sounded, and decided he probably didn't. "She makes a point of inspecting all the Time Lords I run off with," she replied with mock solemnity.

"You make a habit of this?"

"Only with you," she said instantly, and startled herself. "Well… you and… other you. You know."

He raised an eyebrow at her, amusement mixed with something she couldn't name, and she bit her lip. She hadn't meant to lump them both in with each other. Technically, they were the same person, but…

She felt unaccountably guilty, and then confused, and then somehow both, and decided not to think about it anymore. She was travelling with this Doctor; the other one was… very far away, and unlikely to come back for her. Never to come back for her, actually. Impossible usually wasn't for him, but she had the nagging suspicion that just this once, there was no way.

Unless this Doctor knew something—no. He wouldn't. There was no need to get her hopes up about that, and there was also no need to make him feel like she was travelling with him only because of some vague chance that he could get her back to her original universe. That was just rude.

Besides, she told herself firmly (and not for the first time), if he'd known of a way to get her back, he would have before he even asked her to come with him. There was no telling what kind of damage a non-native could do to a universe while time-travelling through it. He wouldn't have asked her if…

Well. He might have. But he wouldn't have asked her to come with him if he could have just returned her to where she came from. That made absolutely no sense.

Besides, she wasn't supposed to be thinking about this in the first place. It made her feel distinctly odd. It wasn't as if she was betraying her original Doctor…

"And now," said the Time Lord in question, blissfully unaware of the chaos of her thoughts, "we have about five minutes before we're out of teleport range, so I suggest we run before we get stuck here for all eternity. What do you think?"

She nodded. "Sounds like a plan," she replied.

Unfortunately, the plan was slightly harder than expected to carry out; while visibility had been minimal on the bridge, it was practically nonexistent in the corridor.

"I don't suppose you've got a light or something?" Rose inquired hopefully.

"I gave it to you," he said, startled.

She thought for a moment. "I dropped it," she said sheepishly. She had also, she realised, dropped the other one when she teleported; a horrific oversight on her part (or, rather, two), but she had been distracted.

"Humans," he muttered good-naturedly. "Can't trust you with anything."

"I wasn't the one who nearly got himself killed because he left the screwdriver with the person they weren't even attacking," she said.

"And," he retorted, "I wasn't the one who didn't chase all the water off the bridge before attempting to rescue the person who wasn't going anywhere without them having the controls."

She stuttered for a few moments. "I wasn't exactly thinking about what they were going to do to me at the time," she finally managed to say. "Considering that you were kind of in mortal danger at the moment and you're… And besides, none of that would have happened if you'd just taken the screwdriver with you in the first place," she finished, somewhat snappishly.

"Technicality," he muttered back. "For future reference, though," he continued, pausing for a moment before picking a direction, "you are more mortal than I am. It's slightly more important for you to be out of danger than me."

She glared at him. "I'd rather you not have to regenerate again, though," she informed him, "if I had a chance to stop it."

"And I'd rather regenerate than have you killed for my sake."

She didn't reply to that; she wasn't entirely sure how. "You know where we're going, right?" she said instead.

"Yes."

"You can see in this?" She gestured vaguely to the dark surrounding them. She couldn't even see her own movement; were it not for his hand still holding hers, she would be completely lost by this point.

"There are other senses than sight, you know," he said a bit testily. "Who says I'm not using one of them?"

"Right. And are these 'other senses' that are magically letting you retain your sense of direction while wandering around a dark, abandoned spaceship available to humans?"

A pause. "No."

She smiled. His grip on her shifted as he crouched briefly to retrieve something from the floor.

"But that's not the point," he said. "The point is this." And, quite suddenly, with a deft flick of his wrist, he pulled her off-course; she collided haphazardly with his side as he let go of her hand and put an arm around her shoulders, folding her against his chest.

She blinked.

"Hold on," he explained. "Once I reverse the teleport network, this entire place will flood." A pause. "More than it already is, anyway. And I'd rather we not get separated."

"Right," she said, hesitantly, and awkwardly shifted so her hands were clasped behind his back. His jacket was slightly rough against her cheek, the faint honey-ish aroma she'd learned to associate with him there despite his current damp state. There was, she told herself, absolutely no reason for the sudden flash of warmth that jarred her skin—oh, sod it. There was every reason for it.

His narrow chest jerked slightly as he inhaled. "Ready?" he asked her.

She swallowed. "Yeah."

There was a brief buzz from the screwdriver, and the world exploded.

-BAD WOLF-

Fantastic. That is just… fantastic. Really. As if it wasn't bad enough that that stupid Doctor is developing exactly the same kind of infatuation with her that his predecessor did, I have to somehow stop her from doing the same? I tried telling her, I did, and she just… She didn't listen to me. Me. Of all the people not to listen to, of course you would choose the one person you know who happens to be able to see (and control) the entirety of time and space!

Yes, I know he's technically a Doctor. Yes, I know she's Rose and therefore susceptible to Time Lords. But this… this… This is ridiculous. He won't let her go until the universe shatters around him and she's just fine with that and won't even… She could at least ask! It's not like he would pretend not to know.

…right?

Gah. Whatever. If he refuses to see the kind of damage he's doing, I'll make him see it. Sometimes even Time Lords need to be reminded of what happens when you try and force a universe to accept someone who doesn't belong there.

And if he doesn't listen to that… well. I'll just have to be a bit more drastic. But one way or another, I will make him understand.

Or shatter the universes trying. But let's hope it doesn't come to that, shall we?

-BAD WOLF-

It was slightly disorienting, suddenly being thoroughly underwater when there had previously been nothing of that magnitude on the entire ship. He had hoped that the transfer would be a bit slower, or at least not quite as bad with this particular teleport module; however, neither had happened, and it therefore took him a moment to make sure he hadn't lost anything before he could start working on getting himself and Rose home. Miraculously, the screwdriver, the module itself and his companion were all more or less where they were initially; and after a brief sonicking, a familiar blinding light heralded their return.

The warehouse was still quite damp, the creatures themselves having been the ones transported and not necessarily all the water they inhabited; but it was reduced to a comparative puddle, perhaps two inches deep. He grimaced at it; admittedly, the concentration had been high in that area given the location of the teleport, but… even so.

Rose let go of him, retreating a step and attempting, again, to wring out her hair.

"Is that all of them, then?" she asked.

"Should be. Hang on." He fiddled with the screwdriver for a moment before flicking the switch and scanning her with it. She stood patiently and dripped, but the only water she shed was the fault of gravity. "Yep, that's all of them." He pocketed the screwdriver and grinned at her.

"Good," she said happily. "How'd you manage that?"

"Stopped the teleport focussing on smaller organic targets. Normally they wouldn't have gotten through it at all, but they played with the system a bit." He sniffed. "I fixed it, and it only let us through. Simple."

"Why are we still wet, then?" she asked.

The Doctor started making his way to the door. "Water's not an organic target, Rose."

"Right," she said, feeling slightly stupid, and followed him. "I forgot about that."

"Understandable," he allowed.

She skipped a bit to catch up to him, grabbing his hand and looking up at him. "Where to next, then?"

"We're not going to your mum's?" he asked hopefully.

"I meant after that," she said, rolling her eyes a bit.

"Ah." He paused to inhale. "I dunno, really. Your choice, I suppose. Anywhere but a water planet."

She grinned. "I think I can handle that."

-BAD WOLF-

The TARDIS was always very quiet at this time of Earth night. He supposed it only made sense that the ship would follow a human schedule, considering the prevalence of that species amongst his… comrades? Guests? Whatever. He wished she would ignore that habit when there wasn't a human on board, though; the quiet unnerved him somewhat once it went on for too long.

The meeting with Jackie had gone about as well as such an introduction could go, he supposed; she had hugged him by the end of it, which he hadn't particularly liked, but the rest of it was okay. He'd come out the other end alive, at least.

After that was over and done with, though, it had somehow been arranged that Rose would spend the night in the house, forsaking the room in the TARDIS she had occupied for the previous two weeks. And as a result, the old ship was almost painfully empty.

And that was why he was completely ignoring the need to finish the healing trance—his chest ached abominably, even though it felt a bit better than it had a couple of hours ago, and he wasn't entirely sure his brain was working right. Instead, he had opted to recalibrate the less important parts of his vessel, hoping that he would be able to keep going until he felt a little less alone.

It was ridiculous, really, refusing to go to sleep just because there was no one else on the ship, but he decided to blame the mental oddness that necessarily came with a failed trance and not his own loneliness. It wasn't as if he'd never been alone before, after all.

It wasn't as if he'd never be alone again.

Every scrap of his being shrieked defiance at that thought, and he stilled, startled by his own denial. That didn't make sense, he thought. He'd be alone again, certainly; Rose would leave or die or forget him or a thousand other things, and he'd be on his own, and that was fine. He'd be fine. Rose was no more permanent than any other.

And yet… he couldn't quite let himself think that. She'd be there. She had to.

As if on cue, the door creaked open and the very creature occupying his thoughts stepped into view. "Hi," she said quietly.

He swallowed. "Hello," he replied, trying to ignore the faint excitement that was starting to tinge the edges of his mind, simply as a result of her presence. "You're supposed to be asleep."

"You're supposed to be healing."

He glanced at her sharply. "How do you know I haven't finished already?"

She gave a faint huff of amusement. "You're such a bad liar sometimes," she commented as she walked up to him.

He blinked at her, confused as to what she was trying to do, but not feeling the need to protest their proximity.

"You see, right here," she continued, touching the skin just to the side of his eyelid, "you're all tense. The rest of you looks normal, but just there…"

There was a breathless moment in which neither one moved. Her eyes were slightly unfocussed as she traced his face with her gaze; and he watched her, fascinated with the delicate human before him, wreathed in the faintest glow of alien time. He could understand with a painful clarity why his parallel had loved her so much, despite all of the reasons why it was a bad idea. It would be so easy, he found himself thinking, to just—

Suddenly, she seemed to remember herself; she jerked in a breath and retreated. Startled and more than a bit disoriented by the loss, he could do little more than give her a slightly puzzled stare.

"It means you're in pain," she said, somewhat sharply, "and it's bad enough that you're pretending it's fine."

He blinked at her, scrambling for a reply. "But the TARDIS," he said eventually. "She sprained her kitchen, don't you remember? I had to fix it." It wasn't a total lie; he had started with the damage from her little hovering stint. Just because he'd gotten distracted didn't mean there weren't actual things wrong with the ship.

Rose sighed at him. "I know you, you could have fixed her in a few minutes if you weren't avoiding something. You always do, when she really needs it. This—" she gestured at the half-open state of the console and the various bits of semi-rubbish he'd scattered across the floor—"is fiddling."

That was cheating, he thought, annoyed. She already knew so much about him and he'd only just met her a couple of weeks ago.

"But I don't like sleeping," he muttered, and noticed with alarm that his tone of voice was shifting dangerously towards "whiny". "It's a waste of time, really, when you think of all the things that you could be doing—"

"And normally," she said quite patiently, "I would let you stay awake, except for the fact that you're hurt and need to go back in your… trance… thing."

"And what about you?" he inquired. "Why aren't you asleep? You're human, you need it more than I do."

She gave him a slightly embarrassed smile. "Couldn't," she said. "'S too quiet out there, without the singing."

For a stunned moment, all he could do was stare. "You can hear her?"

She looked alarmed. "Should I not be able to?"

He shook his head a little, marvelling. "It's not quite unheard-of, but… She doesn't usually delve too deeply into her occupants' minds." He gave her a fondly amazed smile. "You, Rose Marion Tyler, are extraordinary."

Her cheeks darkened almost imperceptibly and she looked down, abashed. "Why I'm here, innit?" she asked. "Seem to remember you saying you only took the best." As soon as the words left her mouth, she flinched, her expression closing.

Did she really have to go around quoting things he hadn't said in front of himself? he thought sulkily.

"Exactly," he informed her quietly, trying to pretend he was totally unaffected by the latest in the slowly lengthening list of her slip-ups. It was getting rather annoying and he didn't want to think about why.

She nodded faintly, looking around before seeming to snap abruptly into forced cheerfulness. "Come on, then," she told him. "No more fiddling until you've properly healed, yeah? The poor TARDIS is probably sick of it anyway."

He glared at her, affronted. "No more so than when you were having her fly around under her own power."

She winced slightly and glanced up at the console. "I am sorry for that," she said. "I'm not a spaceship, myself, so I didn't realise…"

The TARDIS thrummed kindly at her, lights flickering, and the girl looked up at the ceiling. Eyes sparkling from the console's light and the faintest of smiles tracing her lips, she gently reached out and pressed her hand against the central column, petting it affectionately for a moment.

She looked at him again without warning and frowned. "What?"

The thought suddenly came to him that he'd been staring. "I—Nothing," he told her. "Nothing at all." He hesitated. "So… you're going to sleep now?" He felt incredibly repetitive, but it was better than not talking at all.

Her eyes narrowed. "Only if you go back in your healing thing."

There was no reason to refuse her.

The TARDIS was always very quiet at this time of Earth night, but at least this time he wasn't alone in the silence.

-BAD WOLF-

When in doubt and lacking nine hundred words of nattering, write more fluff, I say!

Just a notice for you—I have all of this series planned (well, I say all… The episode after next is giving me some problems, but we can ignore that), I have the enemy for series 2 figured out, and everything is very exciting. …to me. No idea what it is to you, but it's making me quite happy. XD

Also, unless a literal miracle happens, I will be relocating in what may perhaps be a very short time. Which will, needless to say, disrupt the update schedule again, but I'll try and find a way to make it up to you. :)

And yes, I was initially going to insert the Altie (yes, that's what we're calling him now)/Jackie meeting properly, but… when I actually got to it, I found that I had no idea what to write. So I just kind of ignored it. For which I apologise. –apologises- I might revisit it if I even manage to figure out what happened…

So… uhh… yeah. That's me. Being me. And… yeah. That's about it, really. Be well, everyone! And I will see you… later this week, with the cute little mini-chapter of the next… thingie.

Fairfarren!