A/N: Sorry about the cliffhanger yesterday ... Things about cliffhangers and me, is that if you get one it's because I ran out of time and had to cut myself off somewhat abruptly...

This chapter doesn't exactly seem to move things along much. Maybe about five minutes or so... Buuuuuut, it's all I had time for today.

And on a funny note: Did you know there is this thing called the Splat Calculator? Yeah SPLAT calculator ... love it. I happened to stumble on it after a google search to find out just how fast a body might fall...

Heh. Anyhoooooo ... I'm very rusty on old Ten, and so I hope I kind've got him a little bit right. I know I wrote a tonne, but I also removed just as much... I hope I kept the right parts.

As always, thank you all so much for your comments! They are a great inspiration and let me know that you're still with me!

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Eighth Doctor's TARDIS was silent, aside from the gentle hum of the machine, when the group arrived back at what they were terming "Home Base".

Tom was seated on the armchair, with a napping four year old sprawled across his lap. Atop the youngsters hip, he supported a Gallifreyan tome. A novel, the Doctor noted, that was a translation to H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. Fitting, he mused to himself, as he strode across the floor and gently laid his precious furry bundle on a rug on the floor. He then walked toward the armchair and gently picked up his child from the soldier's lap.

"An interesting tale," he said quietly. "Albeit it fantastic and unrealistic."

Tom moaned softly at being able to move, and set the book aside as he drew himself to a stand. "Escapism," he agreed. "If one can ignore the inaccuracies."

"Suspension of belief," he offered. "As is the purpose of fiction."

"Indeed." He stretched and looked toward the rug with a pinch in his eye and a curl of unease in his lip. "Your Dahrama, is she alright?"

"She will be," he said along a breath. "In time."

He looked at the group, noticing with horror that they were missing a member. His head flicked to the Doctor, his eyes full of worry. "And Rose?"

"Taken," he answered shortly. "We were too late."

Tom let out a Gallifreyan swear that the TARDIS refused to translate and scratched at his hair. "We will have to notify the Cardinal. He can arrange a search party."

The Doctor shook his head. "We have enough Time Lords and TARDISes here already. I really don't want to alarm the residents of this town by having an entire search squad materialise." He pointed at the soldier's hip, and his empty holster – his weapon on the coffee table beside the chair. "With guns and brute force. Now if you will, please secure that weapon before my son wakes up and decides to play with it."

Tom gave a nod and did as asked. He looked toward Martha, who looked quite visibly shaken. "Beautiful, are you okay?"

She bit at her lip and shook her head. Right now, she was tucked in to Jack's side, his arm over her shoulder in a supportive manner. Her hands were held tightly underneath her chin. She looked to the Doctor, who held his son tightly against him and lightly swayed. "How long until your brother arrives?"

"Not long," he cooed gently, using a voice that wouldn't rouse his child. "He has to retrieve Soliarn and secure him first." He inhaled deeply enough that it lifted his lip. "I knew I should have brought him along with me. Why didn't I bring him along?"

"Because I said: not in my Capsule," Tom said with a sniff.

The Doctor's eyes flicked sharply toward him. "I should have pushed for it," he huffed.

"Coulda, shoulda, woulda, but you didn't," Jack muttered. "No sense in dwelling on what you didn't do. We have to worry about what we need to do now to get Rose back."

A howling wheeze seemed to answer to Jack's command, and in a second a flickering image of a cylindrical capsule began to materialise into their reality. The Doctor stood close to the landing point in impatient wait for the materialisation to complete. He huffed and sniffed with each pulsing whine, becoming more agitated as the seconds wore on.

"Oh do hurry up," he muttered finally.

"In its own time," Tom warned him. "That one's a 70, it's a little more cautious than most when materialising."

There was a shrill cry that seemed to fall in from another dimension, and then the machine became silent. There was no attempt by the capsule to blend in and change her form. Inside less than five seconds, the doors opened, and Braxiatel stepped out. Beside him, the male Dahrama, Soliarn, tethered by a thick leather leash walked with a cautious lift of it's head to sniff the air.

"Brax,' the Doctor greeted with what sounded like relief in his voice.

"Thete," he answered somewhat flatly. He readied to expand upon that, but instead let out an undignified yelp as Solairn launched into a run, tugged hard on the leash, and pulled the Time Lord forward. He had no choice but to release the animal. "By the Curse of the Pythians," he managed out. "What's gotten him all…" His eyes widened at the still furry body lying on the rug. "Oh no."

The Doctor winced as the wolf bolted along the floor, dragging the strip of leather behind him, to get to his mate. His breaths escaped him as whimpers and worried huffs as he dropped down onto his hunches at her side and nuzzled at her face.

"She'll be okay," the Doctor assured him. In his arms, his son was beginning to stir, and he juggled him slightly. "Hello sleepyhead."

Mark rubbed at his eyes and yawned. "Papa. Did you find mama?"

"Not yet," he breathed out with disappointment. "But we'll find her soon." He looked to his brother. "Can I ask you to take him back with you to Gallifrey?" He winced a little as he set Mark's feet on the ground. "I'd really prefer that he was as far from here as possible over the next while."

"No need for you to ask," Brax assured him with a nod of his head. He held out his hand to the boy. "I was going to insist upon it." He wriggled his fingers to the young lad. "Come now, young Time Child. Auntie Romana is waiting for you back at Arcadia. She wishes to accompany you to the zoo."

Mark's eyes flashed excitedly. He looked to his father with a jump in his step. "Papa, please? Oh pleasepleasepleaseplease."

He gave him a nod and crouched down with his arms open for a hug. "Be a good boy for your uncle. Your mother and I will see you soon." He held the youngster against his chest. "You are in my hearts, Mark. Remember that."

"And you are in mine," he answered with a quick kiss at his cheek. "Can I ask Aunty Romana to buy me a present?"

"No you cannot."

Braxiatel chuckled. "He won't need to ask, Thete. Romana will probably just go ahead and buy him one anyway." He sighed and shook his head. "Like she always does." He petted Mark's head. "Now in you go, young Time Child. I have to have a quick word with your father and then we can be off. Be a dear and please don't touch anything."

Mark squealed and skipped, and then disappeared into the capsule. He popped his head out, only to wave at the others and say a quick goodbye, before he was gone again.

The Doctor looked pained. "Sometimes I think Mark prefers excursions with Romana than he does hanging about with Rose and me."

"Probably because she spoils him rotten," Braxiatel said with a shrug. "The young ones do tend to favour those who buy them pretty things." He dipped his hands into his trouser pockets and walked across the floor toward where the female wolf lay. His face creased at the sight of her, and of her mate whimpering at her side. "I smell Lindos," he remarked with a look toward his brother. "You used regeneration energy to keep her alive?"

The Doctor nodded. "I figured I had some to spare," he said with a shrug. "She got hurt trying to protect Rose. She's more than worth sparing some Lindos for."

"Indeed," he said with a rub of his chin. "So where are we in terms of being able to locate your mate? Are you confident in Soliarn's ability to find her?"

The Doctor dropped to a crouch beside his wolf and scratched at the devastated animal's ear. "More than confident," he affirmed. "We don't have a large search area."

"I have teams on standby if required."

He nodded. "I've no doubt you do."

"I don't have to explain to you just how important it is that you find her…"

"Of course I know," he boomed out angrily. "We are talking about my mate. Rose's importance to Gallifrey is far less than her importance is to me. That alone should assure you that I will do all in my power to find her safe and very sound." He rolled his shoulder, wincing at the whimper of alarm from his wolf. "Right now the timelines are stable. I sense no reason at all to go into panic."

"Unlike the previous two weeks where panic was your default setting," Braxiatel murmured with annoyance. He let out a hard breath. "You have twelve hours from now to confirm that you've safely retrieved your mate," he warned. "I am instructing the Captain to keep me apprised as to your progress inside that time frame. If there exists a danger beyond your control, then I will override your request on behalf of the President and send teams to intervene." He lifted his eyes to Tom. "Am I understood?"

Tom gave him a firm nod of understanding. "Yes, Sir." He caught the glare from the Doctor and returned one of his own. "I am immune to your attempt to intimidate me, Lord Doctor, so don't bother wasting one of your looks on me."

The Doctor slowly drew himself to a stand. "It really isn't my look you should be concerned about," he warned indignantly. "Prydonian, remember. With a gift far greater than what our founders gave your kind."

"I'm sure," he drawled.

Braxiatel shook his head and let out a breath. "Dissent within the ranks. I can see how this is going to end up in Gallifrey's favour." He turned to leave, pausing to bow lightly to Martha and Jack, who till now had watched the scene without saying a word.

"Martha. Captain Harkness. Please excuse my hurry, but I do have a four year old inside my capsule who has proven quite remarkably that he knows how to put a Capsule into flight. I must be off before we end up on Skaro back when Davros was a child." He smirked as he walked toward his capsule. "Which might not be an entirely bad thing, perhaps we can ensure the brute is never born to begin with."

"Take care of my son," the Doctor ordered firmly. "We will be back on Gallifrey – his mother and I – in a few hours."

"You better hope that you are," he called without looking back at his brother. "Rassilon be with you, Brother."

The Doctor's lip curled as he listened to the capsule depart with his child. "Rassilon can damn well sod off."

"For once," Tom said with a sniff. "I actually agree with you." He walked toward the Doctor and the wolf, keeping his hands inside his trouser pockets. "So. I expect you intend on using your male Dahrama to track the scent of whomever attacked him to find your mate?"

The Doctor's brows pinched and he looked to Tom with curiosity. "How did you know?"

His nose turned up distastefully. "I can smell the putrid aroma of the Bounty Hunter Family on her," he answered. "Sensed it as soon as you walked in." He blinked slowly. "The best trackers in Kasterborous are the Dahramas. Put two and two together…."

"And got Six," Jack said with a snicker. "Now. You got a gun for me, or what?" He looked to the Doctor, who grunted with disapproval. "You might not want to go in armed, Doc, but I sure as hell do. Rosie's important to me as well, and if you need back-up, I'm going to make sure you've got it."

~~oooOOOooo~~

John Smith looked upon a bound and tied Rose Tyler being held high up above him, at the cab of an almighty mine vehicle almost three storeys above him with a sense or horror. Even as far below her as he was he could see the blood on her wrists from the this ropes that held them. How could he miss the stark red against almost luminous white skin and creamy-yellow ropes. God, it could well have been only a few drops of blood, but it seemed like a litre. One half of him wanted to step forward with a snarl of threat and demand her release, the other half of him wanted to drop to his knees and beg for the same.

When he saw the swell and bruising on her jaw in the shape of a thumb and a length of a finger, he felt heat roar across the backs of his eyes. One eye gave an involuntary twitch. A dimple appeared in his cheek as his teeth ground together.

"Oh look," Father of Mine said with a laugh from high above him. "He knows who she is, doesn't he? Not just a friend, is she, Time Lord?'

Oh, he knew who she was, alright. And she was definitely more than just a friend. She was quite literally the woman of his dreams. Dreams that were so vivid and real that there could be no doubt at all that this man called the Doctor was so much more a part of him than just a dream….

…Best to play along for now, though.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he seethed out through gritted teeth. Any confused frustration and annoyance he may have had were swiftly being replaced by sheer unadulterated fury.

"John," Rose called down to him. "You need to get out of here. Please, John. Run."

He heard the desperation in her voice when she told him to run. His head slowly began to tilt to one side. Low. His shoulders stiffened and set back to straighten him up.

To his side, Steve laughed. "Oh he already ran," he called back up to her with a taunt. "Hid like a coward. "But we found him, didn't we?"

"Leave her alone," John warned him quietly. His eyes hardened, but they remained on Rose rather than flicking to the one he was issuing the order to.

"Come out and play, Time Lord, and maybe we will," he taunted within song.

His eyes slid toward Steve, one time a friend, now a cruel enemy. "I am not a Time Lord." At least not right now I'm not.

Rose still urgently warned him to run. "You heard me, John," she yelled. "Run!"

"Run," he breathed out long. That one small three-letter word held significance higher than any other word in any other language. He felt a shift in his shoulders and a swirl inside his mind. "One word," he said as he lifted his head to look toward her with all of the fierceness of his Ninth self. "Just one…"

Father of Mine growled with frustration. "Oh for the love of … I've had enough of this." He gave Rose a shove in the back. "You won't come out voluntarily, so how about we force it." He grinned as he released his hold on the rope and let her fall off the edge of the platform.

As her feet struggled and then fell from the platform to have her fall fast to the concrete below, Rose cried out a long and desperate cry for the man inside his dreams that she loved so deeply.

"Doctor!"

At that moment, with the cry of that name, John Smith ceased to exist. There was no longer an inner war between two entirely separate halves. Now there was a front runner, a complete victor. He may have been missing a heart, and his pitifully inferior brain burned from inside-out, but the Doctor emerged with all the fury of the Oncoming Storm. He said absolutely nothing as he burst from where his coward Human self had stilled and took off toward the Haulpak before Rose's feet had left the platform.

She was at least 25 feet high, and weighed around (Rassilon please don't tell her he assumed this) 140 pounds. That gave him approximately 3.94 seconds to get to her before she hit the ground. To be safe and meet her part way … 2.5 seconds.

He jumped to kick off a discarded Haulpak tyre … 1 second … and then used leverage from a high tool cabinet to boost him yet higher … 2 seconds. He opened his arms to spend that last half second to pull her against his chest and brace the back of her head with one hand. They collided hard, knocking the wind right out of him, but he had enough propulsion left in him to spiral them together enough that he could fall on his side, his extended arm catching their fall to roll them along the concrete. He ended up on top of her, his hips between her legs. His hand still held the back of her head, and he used the other to prop himself up slightly to look down at her with concern.

"Rose," he panted. His wildly flared eyes searching her face with panic. "Rose?"

She shuddered underneath him, her hands caught painfully in between their bellies. "You. You caught me," she managed with more surprise than relief.

The expression that crossed his face was one of incredulity. "Of course I did," he said as though there was never any doubt at all that he would. "I told you, I will always catch you."

"Time Lord!" a voice boomed from behind him. "There you are!"

His eyes narrowed and his lips puckered a second. "Do you think if we ignore them, they might go away?"

She gave him a look of pure incredulity. "What?"

There was a kick at his foot. "Get up, Time Lord. Get up and face us."

This time, rather than fury, the Doctor simply looked annoyed. He lifted his head to look over his shoulder at Steve. "Do. You. Mind?" He gestured toward Rose underneath him. "Can't you see that I'm busy right now?"

"Excuse me?"

He pointed at him. "You can wait a moment." He tipped his ear toward Rose and then turned his head to look into her face. He winked and gave her a cheeky smile "It's been a while since we've been in this position, hasn't it?" His smile fell when he saw the bruising on her jaw. He traced a fingertip along it. "I'll fix that," he said softly. "When we get back to the TARDIS."

"Time Lord!"

The Doctor let out a huff of annoyance. He pressed both hands into the ground to lever himself upward. "Do excuse me a moment," he breathed out. "Let me sort them. I'll be right back." He then dropped to press a small kiss to her surprised mouth, which elicited happy sound from the back of his throat. He licked his lips and then dropped to draw a much deeper connection from her.

She turned her head from him before he could make that connection. "Please, don't."

"Right," he breathed out with disappointment as he lifted up off her. Disappointment fell toward embarrassment when he realised that he had completely neglected the fact that she was completely bound and tied. He winced at that. "Yep," he popped out with a wince. "In my eagerness to kiss you I might've forgotten about that…"

"Are you at all ready yet, Time Lord?" Steve huffed impatiently.

The Doctor looked at Rose, who shook him off. "Just go deal with them. I'm not goin' anywhere."

"Glad to hear it," he breathed out as he pushed himself to his knees, and then leapt up onto his feet. He wiped his hands against each other as he walked toward the small group of bounty hunters. "Sorry 'bout that," he chirped with a wide grin and a forced laugh. "Just had to take a moment to catch up with the missus. You know how it is." His eyes rolled dramatically and his voice lowered. "He elbowed Steve in the ribs. "If you don't take the time to greet them properly, then you end up with an angry mate and have to spend the next century sleeping with the dogs. Am I right?" He grinned. "So. Where were we, then?"

Bob growled with annoyance as he leapt down the remaining stair rung of the haulpak. He rushed toward the Doctor with a curl in his lip and fire in his eyes. "Time Lord!" he ground out with almost glee as he grabbed him by the throat and shoved him backward into Steve's chest.

The Doctor allowed himself to be accosted, and didn't much react when he founf himself picked up by the throat and thrown into the chest of the once-was-a-teacher. He growled a little, but didn't attempt to fight back. He did show an expression of discomfort and disgust when the old man sniffed like a dog against his throat and face. "Really. Do you mind not doing that?"

Bob's eyes flicked to his son. "I thought you said he was the Time Lord."

Steve nodded quickly. "He is." He coughed and pointed toward Rose, who was lying on her back and panting toward the ceiling. "You saw what he did; how he changed when he thought she was in danger. He is the Time Lord."

"He is not the Time Lord," Bob growled in reply. "He doesn't smell like a Time Lord."

"Well," the Doctor sang in, his face half creased with second hand embarrassment toward both men. "You're both right, and you're both wrong."

Both men snarled identical expressions of annoyance toward him. "What?" Steve snapped.

The Doctor shrugged, slipped his hands into his trouser pockets, and rolled back onto his heels. "See the thing is this: Yes, I am a Time Lord," He scratched at his sideburn, his eyes wide. "Am usually a Time Lord. Plan to become one again very shortly. But, right at this juncture, right now. Here. At this very moment in time, I'm actually very much a Human." He held up an arm to Steve. "Here, take a sniff. No Artron or Lindos to be smelled at all." He pushed his arm up again, with more urgency. "Go ahead. Take a sniff."

"But your mate," Steve said. "We almost killed her. The Time Lord should have emerged."

His lips puckered as he took a look toward Rose, still laying on the floor. He slowly raked his eyes across the room to look at Steve, and then at Bob. "Yes, you did. Didn't you. And that is something that we are going to revisit very shortly." His face fell to absolute silent fury. "Because no one threatens the woman who holds my hearts and gets out unscathed." Fury quickly shifted to friendliness, and the Doctor became quite animated. He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "As for the emergence of the Time Lord. You had it half right. The wrong half for your purposes, I'm afraid, though."

He walked around them, his hands back into his trouser pockets. "You see, when we – the Time Lords – make the change to another species using the Chameleon Arch, the essence of the Time Lord is set aside and locked in a nifty little bio receptacle provided to us by our capsule." He let out a breath. "And so what that means is…" he ran his hands down along his body in presentation of himself and gave a wink toward Rose. "While this is a fine example of the Homo Sapien Sapien form, it is, well, it's Human, isn't it? Nothing else. Literally, nothing more than that. Just a meat sack of inferior biology, one heart, small mind, no respiratory bypass." He looked toward Bob with an upward tilt in his shoulder. "Oh, you can try and bring about the Time Lord consciousness using the rather maleficent and nefarious means that you did, but all you're going to get is a rather poor carbon copy of the real Time Lord."

He walked around both Bob and Steve and clicked his tongue. "Your actual best bet would have been to find the receptacle that housed my Time Lord self than to try and harm my mate to draw me out." His lip curled and all his apparent giddiness fell away. "When you did that, you made a very stupid mistake. Because not only did you draw out my consciousness, minus the life giving essence that you were actually looking for, but you also managed to make me angry. Very, very, very angry…."

His head lowered deep into his shoulders, that were set high and hunched. "Because if there is one thing you don't ever do – it's threaten the mate of a Time Lord…"