A/N: This chapter half killed me. Seriously.
Nothing I was writing over the past three days worked AT ALL. I wrote, then I dumped. Then I wrote again. Then dumped all that off as well. Seriously, it was three days of ... what the hell am I doing? I tossed out about 6,000 words of useless writing...
Ultimately I settled on this. I didn't even cannibalize a single line of dialogue, or even a word from the dumped off chapters.
That all said: I really, truly, absolutely, hope that you like this... It took a lot out of me for sure... (and it wouldn't bloody end!)
Tomorrow will be easier ... I'm back on Gallifrey ... it's always easier on Gallifrey...
~~oooOOOooo~~
"What do I want?" The Doctor asked as he walked toward his younger self and turned to face him. His expression was one of thoughtfulness as he thrust his hands inside his trouser pockets and lifted his chin to look down at him. "First and foremost, for you not to listen to our wife's last instruction to you. Don't, under any circumstances, find someone brilliant and move on."
"I never intended on doing so." He sniffed with a look at his hands. "I admit that I find it repugnant that you refer to Rose as our wife, when it is quite clear she's not actually mine." He looked to his younger self with a glare of accusation. "I don't know what you've done along the bond to take her from me like this, Doctor, but you're a Woprat for doing it." He looked away from him. "I know I'm the territorial sort. Don't like to share my playthings with anyone." He snapped a glare toward him. "But I never thought myself such a pitiful selfish fool as to deny myself…"
"You think this is my doing?" he gaffed with insult. "Do you honestly believe I'm so low that I'd do something like that?" He scratched at his head. "Even if I knew how to tamper with a bond like that, I wouldn't even consider anything so vile."
"Well obviously you did," he charged angrily. "I can't kiss her, I have to be wary in how I hold her. Rassilon, man, if I tried to make love to her, I'd kill her." He slapped his chest hard. "She's supposed to be my mate, my bonded partner, and right now she's anything but."
"I really don't know what to tell you," he admitted along a sigh. "This is as much a shock to me as it is you."
Ten let out a breath and scratched at his sideburn. His voice was soft. "Despite what you think of me, and how much I want to do it, I won't wreak havock across reality to try and get her back from you." He looked to his with a shake in his head and a pinch in his eye. "If Rose returns to me it has to be at her choice, not mine."
"You'd take her back if she did?" he asked gently. "Came back looking for you, I mean."
"Without a second thought," he answered quickly. He smiled, huffed, and looked down at his knees. "But really, what can I offer her in the way of affection if she did? She left me once because of my inability to show her how much she means to me, and that was before the threat that I could literally kill her if I tried to get intimate with her. Now I'd need to wear a damn hazmat suit to protect her from my need to touch her…" he looked up toward the building across the field and let his focus hang on the orange bag rack at the door. "She won't leave the comfort of your arms and your bed to have an unaffectionate existence with the Ice King."
Eight gave a chuckle. "It's the coolness of us that she hungers for," he admitted with an almost prideful grin. Pride fell to reverence and he sighed. "As it's her heat that I crave."
"Took a bit to get used to that," Ten admitted with a shrug in his shoulders. "I remember after Downing street, when we first coupled…" he gave a short laugh. "Thought I'd burned the damn thing off she was so hot. Conversely, of course, she told me she thought she got frostbite down there." He swallowed thickly. "Awkward, but ultimately … brilliant."
Silence fell over the pair for a short moment, neither of them really comfortable with continuing with that particular line of discussion. Finally Ten let out a sigh.
"Still," he drawled out. "Gone now. No point in dwelling on it." He looked to his younger self. "She's yours, now. I can't see her wanting to return to me as I am right now."
Eight licked at his lip to hide a gulp and took a seat on the bench beside his elder self. He lowered his head to look at his open hands much like Ten had done only moments ago. "Something tells me,' he said with a light croak in his voice. "That her leaving me isn't going to be by her choice…" He lifted his head to look into the sky. "But it's going to happen."
"What makes you think that?"
"And I'm terrified about that," he admitted without acknowledging Ten's question. He inhaled deeply and there was a waver in his voice. "Something's coming, Doctor. I don't know what…"
"I do," he offered. He then lowered his head and gave it a light shake. "And if I know you – which I'm fairly certain I do…"
"Apparently not if you think I'm capable to ripping apart our marriage bond," he argued lightly.
Ten held up his hand. "Point taken, but do let me finish." He swallowed and inhaled deep, holding onto that breath for a long moment as he considered what was safe to say without having to force him to forget this conversation. "What's coming is It's unpleasant. Well, I say unpleasant, but what I mean to say is that it's abject torture. A long few centuries of some of the worst heartbreak you'll ever experience."
He gave him a look of utter incredulity. "Well that's made me feel so much better, Doctor, thank you for that."
He held up his hand in a dismissive gesture and curled a lip. "You get through it in one piece, never you mind."
He stared straight ahead, unable to look at himself when he chokingly asked his next question. "And … and Rose?"
Ten lifted his brows and widened his eyes, an expression that told his younger self that he had no way of knowing the answer to that question. "I really don't know." He maintained that expression. "I don't remember her or the kids being part of it. Which is, quite frankly, a relief as I wouldn't want them to be." His expression then fell into puzzlement. "The fact that I don't remember that part at all is deeply concerning. Terrifying, really. I should have full knowledge of what happened to them; whether or not I got them all out safe. Rassilon. We should have left ourselves something, anything, to give us some form of hope that when it was all over, she and our kids were safe in the arms of an older me, and I'd see them again." His lips pressed together and he shook his head. There were tears in his eyes and a waver in his voice. "But there's nothing. And that … that's terrifying."
"Then we need to work together to work out why?" Eight said firmly. "So I can find a way to head it off…"
"Considering we're having this conversation right now," Ten snapped, "means that we weren't able to."
"So then it's up to you to find out," he growled in reply. "And find them. Because there is no way that I will allow them to come to harm, and if what terror your describing is on it's way, then there is nothing in this universe that will stop me from getting them clear of it." He huffed. "I promise you this: if Rose and the children end up apart from me for any reason, they will not end up alone. Not while I'm still alive in some incarnation. Remember, they're your responsibility as much as they are mine."
"Well thank you for pointing that out to me, Doctor," he snipped facetiously. "I never – for a single moment – considered myself responsible for anything I did in a previous body, including being a husband and a father."
Eight dropped his head into his hands and let out a long groan. "You know. This might be a very good time for us to set our grievances aside for a moment and try to work together to get this sorted out." He lifted his head which dragged his hands down his face toward his mouth. He pivoted his hands to cradle his chin rather than cover his mouth. "I'll go through the texts in the Capitol, see if there is any precedence at all to this."
"I think we can safely say that there isn't," he cut in with a sigh and a wince. "We do typically tend to the be original case study, so to speak, for most of the texts in there."
That made Eight chuckle. "True. Very true."
"What do we know about marriage bonds to this point?"
Eight's face fell into a rather dumb and whimsical smile. "That it's simply amazing," he said with a sigh. "More intimate than lovemaking, and better than witnessing the birth of a new galaxy…"
Ten coughed with annoyance. "Do you really think that's an appropriate response given that the right to a bond with the woman my hearts beat for has been so cruelly denied to me?"
He shook himself. "Yes. Right. Sorry." He cleared his throat and sat up straight in his chair. "Bonds." His faced winced into an almost embarrassed expression. "We didn't do all that well in our classes on the topic back at the academy," he admitted with a shrug.
"Mostly because we never thought we'd find ourselves in a position to want to have one," Ten replied shortly. "Figured we'd just end up in an arranged marriage, obediently donating the required TNA to loom an heir and a spare…" he shrugged. "Like the rest of our ilk."
"Yeah," he agreed on a breath. "So what was the point of the study?"
"Exactly," he sighed. "But, such as all study deemed ridiculous and pointless to the masses, at some point we will actually need that knowledge for some cataclysmic reason."
Eight slouched backward into a lean. "I may have to recruit Romana's assistance."
Ten scoffed. "And admit to her that she might be more knowledgeable on a topic than we are?" He slouched. "Well that's it, then. Universal collapse. May as well just give it all up."
"I did," Eight said with a flat look. "Gave it all up for her – for Rose."
"Oh you know what I mean," he snarled. He leaned back on the bench with a long stretch of his legs, and slouched far enough that he was able to put his hands in his trouser pockets. He crossed his legs at the ankle. "If I recall the studies correctly, there really exists only one way to sever a bond…"
"Death of a spouse," Eight agreed with a nod of his head. He pressed his lips together and shook his head, a look of distaste in his eyes. "And in this case it would indicate not only the loss of my spouse, but also of our children." He looked to his other self. "And if that was to happen, then there's no way I'd end up as you." He looked back out to the front of him. "I'd simply refuse to regenerate the next time it came up."
"Frankly, we'd never allow harm to come to any of them," Ten affirmed with a shrug. He was still in his slouch, hands still in his pockets. "Rassilon, can you see Rose allowing it to happen?" He smirked. "I can see her going all Mamma Bad Wolf if someone even thought about going after Mark."
He nodded his head with a smile through lips that were pressed tightly together with his teeth. "You have no idea. She can seem to want to give that lad his own free reign to figure things out on his own, but she's always got an eye on him and is ready to lever the worst kind of stormfront on anyone who even looks at him wrong." His smile fell and he turned slightly in his seat to look to his elder self. "Speaking of Bad Wolf…"
"I'm not going there," Ten interrupted sharply. He lowered further into his slouch, enough that he was leaning with only his shoulders on the table. "You don't need to know about that. You've got a whole incarnation in between you, and the man who encountered that particular entity."
"And if I tell you it's already come up?"
"A man and a half from where you are," he repeated.
He shook his head. "No, Doctor. I've had encounters twice already with this so called Bad Wolf entity."
Ten straightened up. "I'm sorry, what?" He held up his hands. "No. No no no. No. Bad Wolf didn't come up until after I'd met Rose." His eyes narrowed and he actually found himself leaning a little bit closer to his younger self. "That's not a power she has anymore, so…"
"Now you hold on," Eight barked out. "Power? What do you mean when you say: power?"
Ten's eyes widened and his brows lifted high. He blew out a breath as he remembered the moment that Rose walked out of his TARDIS as the glowing goddess of all Time. "The power of the vortex," he whispered more to himself than in answer to the question. He lifted his hands to look at them. "The power of time running through her. Existing across all time and space in one moment." His brows knitted together and his shoulders shuddered. "If I wasn't already in love with her at that moment, Doctor, I would have fallen hard at that moment and never gotten up again."
"I don't understand," he stammered in reply. "How?"
Ten dropped his hands. "The how isn't really any of your concern," he said roughly. "But Bad Wolf was an entity that existed across all of reality for one moment…"
"The Moment," Eight interrupted, "Was one of my encounters."
Ten held back from snapping a terrified look at his younger self. Instead he widened his eyes on the ground at his feet. "You haven't been near the Moment to this point," he stated worriedly. "It's locked away in the Omega Arsenal."
"It was on the Dalek ship," he corrected. "On Askola, they had the weapon left unattended in a storage room."
Ten shook his head. "It can't be."
"It was," he assured him.
His head shaking stopped, but the look on his face suggested that he wanted to keep shaking that head with disbelief. "The only contact we have with the moment. Well. It's only once, and it stands out as the worst day of our entire existence." He sighed. "One that we will never forget, no matter how many years we continue to live on.'
"It was there, I'm sure it was," Eight said quickly. "The weapon, and it's power, it's not something you can mistake."
"In this case I believe that you did," Ten offered with a shake in his head. "Because as I said, we don't encounter it for, oh, for a few hundred years and at least one regeneration from where you are right now."
"It exists beyond a single plane," Eight muttered. "Where it needs to be at that moment, drawing power…"
"True." He looked to his left, and to the man seated with worry in his features. "Tell me. Did you activate it?"
"I touched it," he admitted quietly. "Oh, it was an accident, of course. I didn't intend on it, but it happened." He gulped at the pained sound emitted from the man seated to his right. "I don't believe I activated it, although …" He sighed with a crease in his face. "I don't know, Doctor. It sang to me." He softly sang the song that the chorus of invisible young children sang to him that night four years ago.
Ten gasped quietly. He blinked a couple of times. His face fell into a wince. "Bad Wolf," he breathed out.
"And of course, that's after the initial introduction to Bad Wolf," Eight continued. He licked at the roof of his mouth and then swallowed with a look up to the sky. "I wasn't there. I was at the hospital pulling an emergency shift." He let out a breath. "Rose, she was pregnant with Mark a the time. She went for a walk with the wolves, I guess headed toward the Cascades for an afternoon in the waters."
Ten smiled at the memory of Crystal Cascades and his escapades there in his youth. The smile quickly fell. "Go on."
"Well." He smiled ruefully. "Our wife being the jeopardy friendly girl that she is, she witnessed a ship crash landing just off the forests." He looked down. "Went to investigate, to see if she could help. Didn't realise it was a Dalek craft…"
"Hold on, a what?" Ten shook his head urgently. "No, that can't be right. The Daleks don't arrive on Gallifrey until way into the … ehm … into your next incarnation."
Eight flashed him a look. "They make it to Gallifrey?" He queried worriedly. "In what kind of numbers?"
"Moving on," he peeped out with a wince. "You'll be ready for it when it comes."
"Uh-huh," he managed slowly. He blinked to clear that expression of that new and deep seeded worry. "Rose was alone, and under threat by a ship of Daleks." He closed his eyes, the video feed of the encounter flashing up into his consciousness. "She would have been exterminated," he admitted with a wince. "If she hadn't lit up gold and shot out an explosion that disintegrated the entire ship of them."
"Reduced them to dust," Ten finished quietly.
He looked to his elder self and nodded. "You remember that?"
He shook his head. "No. No I don't." He winced a tight contorted expression of horror. "Bad Wolf did the same when I was the past me." His expression lengthened. "To save me, and then ultimately kill me to save her." He let out a long growl and shot to his feet, raking his hands into his hair to clutch handfuls of it. "This can't be. It's wrong. I took that power from her, all of it. I made myself die to save Rose from that power." He spun in the dirt to look at his younger self. His hands were still holding at his hair. "I can't have missed any…"
"Rose has no such power that any of us can tell," Eight assured him. "She was in the hospital for a couple of days following that incident. I administered a multitude of tests while she was unconscious, and I couldn't find anything out of the ordinary." He shrugged. "Even with what we saw, I couldn't find any elevated Artron levels at all."
Ten nodded. "So it's a hidden menace, then."
"Hidden to serve a purpose," Eight suggested. He stood up and paced slowly, his hands in his trouser pockets. "A being spread across all space and Time." He shook his head. "Manipulating her, manipulating us."
"Manipulating every single move we make," Ten breathed out almost angrily. He blew out a long growled breath. "Ohhhhhh. Well things are now becoming clear."
Eight looked at him with a pinch in his eye. "How do you mean?"
He curled his hand in front of his face. "Think about it," he breathed out through gritted teeth. His eyes were wide and almost wild. "Bad Wolf is Time's pet," the final word was almost spat out. "Sent out across all time and space in search of a host that will serve it's purpose." He thrust his hands into his hair and began to stalk. His voice was seething as he made his deductions. "Time has no purpose if there's no reality in which to rule over. The Time War risked all of reality, didn't it?" He spun to his Eighth self, who watched him with wide eyes of horror. "Oh yes, you weren't supposed to know that, were you? Ah. Never mind, easy to make you forget that bit." His eyes twitched. "But right now, and the manipulation of our lives, Rose's life, to … oh …"
"My love for our wife is not the result of any manipulation," Eight challenged. "My love for her, our love, is real."
"Of course it is," Ten snatched out almost impatiently. "That was never in doubt." He spun to face him again. His head tilted down to one side and he held up a hand that he curled into a fist. "But, think about it. No Time Lord would have fallen to the actions that released the Bad Wolf from where it had been held in wait for so long. No respectable member of our class would have half the courage to do what Rose did to save us. None. Not even you nor I. But, oh, Time saw it, didn't she? She saw the love a Time Lord had for a brave, brave human, and the love she had in return for her Time Lord." His eyes narrowed. He still spoke through his teeth. "And what lengths Rose would go to to protect and save us."
"And in turn…"
"What lengths we would go to to protect her." He looked angry, but was actually borderline impressed by it. "A Human is the perfect host, don't you think? Easy to manipulate because, frankly, they don't know any better. They can't control it."
Eight stalked around his elder self, watching him as he worked through the information in his mind to create a wild and quite unlikely – but probably entirely accurate – scenario. It was a terrifying thought, and he wanted to know as much as possible before he could outwardly and honestly react.
"If Bad Wolf was in my past, then the future would have known, and therefore…" He stopped dead in his tracks. His excited rambling slowed as realisation dawned. "And therefore could manipulate everything and everyone to make sure it all went the way it was supposed to go – including the actions of one to destroy another and send them away." He dropped his hands, and his entire demeanour seemed to fall. "Not being able to love her, despite being made for her," he breathed out sadly, "was the manipulation. Is the manipulation." A tear rolled down his cheek. "She was taken from me, she didn't leave of her own free will."
Eight dropped his head to try and make sense of all that his elder self had deduced. It made no sense, yet at the same time made absolute perfect sense – if everything he said was truly at the will of Time.
Ten looked at his younger self, and his questioning expression, and let out a long breath. "She was sent to you – specifically you – because you are the one of us most capable of falling that headlong into a love so undeniable …" He paused to growl a hiss through his teeth. "The less obnoxious, most attractive, most attentive." He shook his head. "How could she not fall in love with you? The men before you, well, aside from the blonde one who was well and truly already on his way to hearts for Tegan…"
"We were never…"
"Oh, we were as close to achieving that with Tegan as we were with Romana," Ten corrected sharply. "I'm you, remember, don't try and deny it."
He nodded for Ten to continue. Which he did.
"You are also the closest to the point that it seems Bad Wolf needs to be," he remarked with a purse in his lips. "If it's correct that the Moment is looking to use the Bad Wolf as it's mechanism…"
"Based on my own interaction with it, Doctor, I'm confident that's the case."
Ten nodded. "And so, Bad Wolf manipulated you, manipulated me, and worst of all manipulated the purest heart in the entire universe: Rose." He looked to his younger self with pain in his eyes. "She's making sure that Rose has everything she could ever possibly want: A home, children, the love and reverent devotion of a man who would move Heaven and Earth to ensure her safety to make sure she's in the right place at the right time…" He actually laughed, but it was a pathetic pained sound. "Rassilon, Doctor, you even have a pair of dogs. How could Rose ever want for anything else?"
"I gave her that," Eight argued with a shake in his hear and an angry glint in his eye. "Not this Bad Wolf thing. I was the man that gave her all of that. Me."
"The eternal traveller," Ten challenged. "The man who doesn't stop running…"
"Until I found reason to do so," Eight growled. "And in her, I found it." He pointed angrily toward his elder self. "And you won't convince me otherwise, Doctor. I have no regrets, and no second thoughts. I'm happy. For the first time in all of my lives till now, I'm truly happy and content."
"Until you aren't," Ten snarled.
"What in Omega is that supposed to mean?"
Ten sniffed. "Because somewhere, you lose that happiness. Your home, your children, your wife, and even your damn pets." He stepped toward him, poking a finger into his chest. "You spend one hundred years fighting a war that can't be won without making the ultimate sacrifice, then end up alone – completely alone – wishing that you'd fallen in the war with the rest of them." He laughed painfully. "The only saving grace you have is that you don't remember what happiness you had before it all went to hell."
Eight's voice caught in a gasp filled with devastation. He couldn't hold back the pain in his chest and in the back of his throat as he stifled that pesky sob that was stuck there.
Ten saw his tear as it fell from his lashes. "And then one day you end up here, having this conversation and wondering what actually happened to the ones we had all of that happiness with – if they're still alive, if they're alone, if they remember any of it at all…"
"That…" He gulped with horror. "That's a terrifying thought. What has happened to them in your timeline?" He watched his elder self open his arms to shrug and shake his head in a silent answer that he didn't know. He immediately rushed to him, gripping onto his lapels with a tight, desperate grasp. "You have to find them," he demanded with as much sadness as urgency. "They can't be alone, they can't be!"
Eight snapped away from his elder self, raking his hands through his hair. He grabbed fistfuls of his chestnut curls and yanked hard as he stumbled in place, shaking his head. "Rassilon. How do I go on right now if I don't know?"
"By giving her the best of you now," Ten growled from his place almost ten feet away. "You don't deny her anything. What Rose wants, Rose gets. Love her, Doctor. Love her more than you have until now, and more than all of us combined could love her. Make her know every single day that she is the single most important person in your entire existence."
His hands were still in his hair when he shot a look toward him. "What do you think I do now?" he growled. "I know what you did to her, how insecure she was at your side." He let his hands fall from his head. "I leave no doubt in her mind how much my hearts beat for her." He slapped at his own chest with one hand. "I am more insecure about the state of us than she will ever be."
"Trust me," he said vehemently. "You have nothing to be insecure about. Rose will give you more than just her heart; you've got her soul. I know it. I've felt it. She gave it to me as well and even after I stomped all over that, she was still able to fall in love with you." He blinked a tear from his eye. "You will never understand just how jealous I am that you have that…" He looked away. "…that I just threw it away like that."
"Find her," Eight croaked out meekly. "Doctor, please find them."
"Leave it with me, Doctor," he answered with a nod. "I'll search the entire universe, every single timeline there exists. If it takes me a thousand years and a lot of grey hair, I'll find her."
"And in the meantime, I'll try and figure out just what it is that this Bad Wolf needs from her."
"Best you don't," Ten breathed out with a gulp. "Your job – your only job from here - is to give her all you can of you…"
"How can you say that?" he barked.
"Because what needs to happen has already happened … is going to happen … and there is nothing you can – or even should do – to change it." He rubbed at his brows. "You can't destabilise any timelines right now. Even a small ripple can make me forget it all, and I won't know what I'm searching for."
"Then make me forget," he ordered firmly. "All of it. This entire conversation."
"You want me to do what?"
"Make me forget it," he repeated. "I can live what time she and I have left together with this bomb hanging over my head." He flicked his hand at him in a lazy gesture. "I'll put my trust in you to start searching for her with your promise that you will hold her and our children in your hearts and never let any of them down again." He swallowed. "Give up your life of running and settle down for as long as you need to. Ten years, twenty, the rest of your damn life."
"Or the rest of hers," he said sadly.
"We have a home on Gallifrey," he advised gently. "At the Magnolia orchard under Mount Lung. As long as you're there, and barring any accidents, she'll live as long as you do."
Ten blinked. Sadly, that wasn't a possibility. He did offer a smile, though. "A home on Gallifrey…"
"Gallifrey ends up being a planet worth living on when she's there to remind us just how beautiful it really is," Eight said with a smile. "She won't let you take it for granted."
"Sounds perfect," he breathed out.
"Oh," he said with a frown. "It might be wise for you to work out the problem with your side of the bond, and see just how you can circumvent whatever fracture has been placed on our side that prevents you being intimate with her." He thumbed to the shed. "The Cerulean in there claims to be an expert on the bonds, perhaps he can help you with that one."
"That chapter are known for their eagerness to bond and claim to understand it more than the rest of us do," he said with a shrug.
"Just be warned that he and your companion, Martha." He huffed out almost angrily. "Despite my warnings, the two of them have initiated an imprint-bond."
"For the love of Rassilon," he growled. "When did that happen?"
He flicked his hand at him. "When you were being all Human and doing Humanly things," he answered with a sniff. "I've been assured that it hasn't been taken any further than – how did she put it – a damn decent snog that felt a bit like she'd gone face first into a bowl of icecream." He grinned. "The look on his face at that descriptor actually made it worth her disobeying me and therefore forcing me to offer a good chiding for it."
Ten snorted. "I suppose this means I've lost another companion to one of those prowling Gallifreyan soldiers. We really need to keep those lads away from my TARDIS."
Eight shook his head. "No, actually. She insists that she wants to stay with you. Incidentally, so does Jack."
"Harkness," he replied with as much fondness as derision. "He's going to take some getting used to again."
"He's a good man." He gave a half smile. "If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have found her and Mark, and chances are we would have lost them to the family."
"Not while I'm here," he corrected. "It wasn't you that came to her rescue, remember that."
"And you'll be running to her rescue when you leave here as well, won't you?"
"The three of us will," he confirmed with a nod. "I make this promise to you: If they are to be found, I'll find them." He thumbed at his nose. "Any chance that you could help me with remembering anything about the two of us during your time together?"
His eyes pinched. "You don't remember, despite our conversation tonight?"
He shrugged. "All I know is that you and her are together, and happy. That we have a child, and one on the way – congratulations by the way."
Eight smiled with pride. "Well. I only actually gave her my seed a couple of hours ago. While conception is considered a guarantee with a full ejaculate climax, I'll wait for confirmation back on Gallifrey before I get too excited about the prospect. Although I accept your congratulations with a mighty chuffed: Oh yes!"
"Far too much information, I'll have you know, but yes. Good for you." He tapped his temple. "So? Memory transfer?"
He shook his head. "It's already in there. After our last meeting, I did fill that particular void with my memories to then, although I suppose may need to plant a bit of an update as that package is four years old."
"Then why can't I access the memory?"
"Because I locked it," he said simply. He then smiled. "Which works well in my favour, I suppose. The only way it can be unlocked is if our name is spoken in a voice that isn't our own. As only Rose and Brax know that little snippet of information, and Brax prefers Thete to our real name, only Rose can unlock it. Find her, get everything. Sounds like a good incentive."
Ten looked at him with disgust. "I truly hate you." He let out a huff and flicked his fingers with invitation for him to walk over. "Right. Let's get this over with. I'll remove the memories of this discussion, and you provide me with an update."
Eight walked toward him. He paused only a foot away from him. "Promise me, Doctor. Promise me you'll be there for them."
"I'm insulted that you think I have to make that promise," he gruffed with a roll in his eye. "But yes, I promise you on the tomb of our father that I will find her, and I will be there for them." He wiggled his fingers as he lifted his hand. "Now, if you will. Contact?"
"Contact."
Both men gasped as they severed contact at the sound of voices from the shed. They stumbled away from each other with a shake in their heads.
"Did we interrupt an important telepathic discussion?" Tom asked with a lift in the brow. His hand was in Martha's soft grasp. Jack had hold of her hand on the other side.
"Yeah," Ten answered with a shake in his head and a blink in his eyes. "Had to clear up a few things, eliminate a few revelations between incarnations. You know the drill."
Eight cleared his throat behind the back of his fist. "I take it you've share your goodbyes with Rose, and the two of us are good to head back to Gallifrey?"
"Snogged her well and good," Jack answered with a smirk. "She's currently passed out on the jumpseat."
"Knowing you in the manner by which I do," Eight remarked with a tightening of one eye. "And in as little time as I do, I'm honestly of two minds about that. She may well could be…"
"She's fine, Doc," he assured him with a grin. "Sadly, all I got was a hug and a kiss on the cheek." He sighed dramatically. "Oh for the days when I could get a toe-curling smooch out of her."
"Never happened," Ten argued with a roll in his eyes. "Past me would have thrown you into the vortex without a second thought."
"Jealous I didn't give one to him, you mean?"
"Yeah," he drawled slowly. "That's it." He looked to his Eighth self. "Are we good?"
He nodded. "I don't anticipate having to meet you again, Doctor. Not this you anyway. Do take care of yourself."
"I will," he said with a smirk. "Oh, and before you go. If you wouldn't mind, I have a message for Rose."
He turned to face him. "And that is?"
He walked forward and leaned toward his younger self's ear. In smooth, untranslated Gallifreyan, he whispered what appeared to be a rather long and detailed message. The more he spoke, the more the look of shock and discomfort spread across the younger man's face, until his eyes finally widened and he half shoved the other man from him.
To the side of them both, Tom's eyes were wide and his face devoid of any colour at all.
Ten grinned and let a happy sound rumble in the back of his throat. "Did you get that?"
Eight looked at him with a draining expression. "I – I think so. Are you really sure about that?" His face creased. "I mean, really sure about that. All of it?"
"Oh yes." A surprised look cross his face. "Hold on. You mean you've never…?"
His eyes were wide as his head shook slowly. "Ehm. No. It's never really … oh … ehm. Really? Are you sure?"
"Without a doubt." He let out a laugh. "And you had better make sure she knows it's from me."
"Yeah," he said with a nod. "I'm not going to make claim to that one, so the blame will be all yours." He deflated his eyes and tipped a lazy salute to all of them with three fingers pressed to his forehead. "Anyway, I best be off. Must run and rescue my son from the spoilage that will be imposed upon him from his besotted aunt, and then the inevitable hell we shall endure when he's handed back to us full of sugar." He stepped back with a respectful bow. "It's been a pleasure…" He pointed to Tom. "Except you. I'm still quite angry at you."
"What did I tell you, Doctor," Martha warned him. "My life, my choice, yeah?"
"Indeed," he said with a smile. "You are a remarkable woman. I can't wait to get the opportunity to meet you in my future." His eyes shifted to Jack. "And you. Are something else. Thank you, for caring about her."
"Love her, you mean," he corrected. "And yeah. Tell that girl to keep in touch, alright?"
"Will do." He gave a final wave and turned to walk toward the shed. Behind him he heard his elder self clap his hands and let his gathering know that they were getting something to eat and then had things they needed to discuss…
…Whatever that was, he didn't know. Quite frankly, he didn't care. He had his beautiful wife waiting for him in the TARDIS. They were – for now – child free … best to make a stop in the vortex and take some advantage of that.
There was a whistle on his lips as he stepped across the threshold of his machine and gave a smile to his beloved. She skipped over to him, threading her arms around his waist and purring against his chest. "So, Doctor," she breathed out cheekily. As he threw up the dematerialisation lever.
"Yes, my Hearts?"
"Mark is with Brax and Romana," she half sang with a light sway in her body. "So I was thinking…."
He scooped her up in his arms and laughed as he walked toward the grand staircase. "Funny that, so was I." He gulped as her mouth latched onto his neck. "And. I have a message for you from my elder self."
She hummed thoughtfully. "Hmmm? What's that?"
His brows creased and he let out a strange sound. "Uh. Wait till we get upstairs…"
