A/N:

Summary: Three Doctors and one Rose ... You don't want to know what I'm thinking right now. ... Though you probably are

Notes: No chappy yesterday as I had another day where I just couldn't get the chapter to work at all. Slept on it, made a decision, then went back at it today.

I can't possibly have three Doctors all in the same place and not have fun with them all, right? I believe that's what was holding me back..

I am still within the criteria originally set forth by our beautiful Lego artist ... and her main criteria is still going to be met. I just couldn't resist a little something something first...

Gosh, I've missed Eight...

I very much hope you enjoy.

And just what could Brax's big secret be that he doesn't want Thete to know? Many possibilities there...

~~oooOOOOooo~~

At the sound of the Northern accent of his previous self, the Doctor – the Tenth incarnation of himself – let out a long groan and covered his face in his palm. He really didn't want to see just what expression would cross his wife's face, whether or not her face would lengthen into that wide open, hopelessly in love look she often gave him in that body, or if it would be filled with frustration and disappointment that, yet again, he'd cocked up their landing…

"Hello Doctor," he heard her say with gentle fondness toward his younger self. "Would love to catch up, but there's something I need to address with your older self first. Could you give me a moment?" There was light humour in her tone, which was a positive of sorts, but he wasn't yet prepared to remove the palm that covered his face just yet.

The sniff and snort he heard from his younger self was immediately recognisable to him and he didn't need to look at him at all to know what he was thinking or was expression he had on his face. He was that man once; he knew each and every possible expression of reaction that old face could manage. He would bet a regeneration that that old face was set in a bit of a smirk hidden by a light scowl of disappointment in himself. There would be the slightest and almost imperceptible shake in his head as he folded his arms across his chest and propped his forearms down on the railing in front of him in a lean.

So with his hand still over his face, he held up the finger of the other to him. "Not a word from you," he muttered around his wrist. "Not one word."

Nine hummed. "Got more'n one in mind, Doctor."

"Oh I don't doubt it," he replied with a deep sigh as he finally let his hand fall from his face. He looked to Rose with hopelessness in his posture. "Rose…"

Whatever emotion Rose was experiencing right now, she had it carefully shielded behind a neutral façade. Her posture was only slightly more readable than her face, but not by much. She was still seated at the table, in perfect view to his even younger self – should he feel so inclined to watch – which was likely. Her arms were folded and leaned on the tabletop much like the man standing over the railing beside her. Her head was slightly tilted in a rather curious manner.

"So, Doctor," she began gently with little to no emotion in her voice. "Back on Estrail, Brax suggested that it might be a good idea for you to take a bit of a refresher course on how to correctly use the time travel feature on the TARDIS."

"Actually," he corrected with a light slouch. "It wasn't a suggestion at all. He was being facetious in an attempt to counter off my own rudeness – "

"Because you were trying to get rid of him," she finished with a huff. "Yes. I know. But you know what they say: Many a true word is spoken in jest…"

"I don't know that Brax has ever actually spoken a true word in any of his lives," he defended indignantly.

"Ahh," she breathed with a nod. "So, when he says that me and the kids are in his hearts that's not true?"

"You know what I mean…"

"Hold on," Nine injected quickly into the conversation. There was definite curiosity in his voice as he straightened up, gripped at the top of the railing and climbed over the top of it. His lanky form was able to clear the top of the hip-height railing easily enough, but there was the slightest of stumbles as the lower hem of his jacket caught on a decorative post topper in between railing panels. He recovered with a side smile and a roll in his eyes as he released his jacket from the bauble. "Dignified, that was."

"Very," Rose said with a chuckle as she gestured toward a spare seat at their table. "Do sit. Grab a coffee and a croissant with us."

"Please don't," Ten said with a deep, huffed, sigh.

"Don't mind if I do," he remarked with a wink and a smile. He dragged the chair out with his foot and flopped heavily into it. He skidded the chair across the floor to seat himself a little closer to Rose than his elder self was and thread an arm across the back of her chair around her shoulders.

"So?" he began with a look toward Rose. "Did I hear you mention the name Brax?"

She let out a sound that indicated she had just realised she made an error and looked to her current Doctor with apology in her expression. "Sorry. Wasn't thinking…"

"It's okay," he assured her with a wave of his hand. "I don't actually remember this part of my timeline, so I suspect I forced myself to suppress the memories of it." He looked to his younger self and let out a sigh. "So I can count on you to…" He rolled his eyes. "Forget?"

"Will it hurt the timelines if I don't?"

"Might make you less grumpy," Rose said with a snicker as she leaned into him lightly.

"But you like me all gruff and grumpy, don't you?" he teased with a snicker and a light lean in toward her. "This one…" He gestured toward his next incarnation with a flick of his ear toward him. "Has he got the gruff and grumpy, too?"

She hummed a happy sound. "Oh, he's more excitable puppy." Her lips pursed. "With a really nasty bite if you step on his tail…"

Ten rolled his eyes with affront and indignance. "As you are so very prone to saying, Rose: He is over here. If you want to ask about me, then ask me." He then looked to his younger self. He gave him a glare and gestured to the fingers of the hand that was toying with the wisps of hair that had escaped Rose's messy bun. "Now if you don't mind. You have your own Rose, so keep your hands off mine."

"Speaking of," Rose queried with a look around. "Where am I?"

Nine slumped back in his seat. He stopped playing with Rose's hair but didn't remove his arm from the back of her chair. "Visiting your mother," he admitted with a shrug and sight disdain in his voice. "It's Bev's birthday or somethin', and I didn't feel like attendin' any parties where I'm the only bloke in room with a bunch of single women on the prowl." He held back his shudder and thumbed at the edge of his mouth. "We're running low on bananas, so I decided to drop by here and pick up a shipment." He winked at her. "Best bananas in the universe, right here."

Rose's brows were high on her forehead and she looked to her husband. "Seems like this is the place that has the best of everything."

Ten shrugged. "As I said, Kucails is a merchant planet. Can't be wholly successful if your products aren't up to scratch." He reached across the table to take her hand in his. His thumb stroked across the large diamond that graced the fourth finger of her left hand. "Was hoping to pick up something to match this," he admitted softly. He lifted his eyes to hers and there was the shiest of expressions within his gaze. "To celebrate, you know…" He smiled instead of finishing the thought.

She hummed a small giggle. "Well. If I knew it was that easy to get new jewellery…" She lifted just slightly up to lean across the table. Her hand cupped at his cheek to draw him closer to her. "I don't need presents, Doctor," she breathed out against his mouth. "Just love me, yeah? Me and the kids. That's all I ask."

"In that case, your wish is my very eager command," he replied with a smile. He stood to close the distance between them, to press a kiss to her lightly puckered lips, but managed only to kiss the air as she was pulled back rather forcibly by his younger self. His eyes flashed wide with anger to see the stunned look in his wife's eyes as she fell back heavily into her chair. He snapped a glare toward Nine. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Two things," he answered somewhat gruffly, irritation in his tone. "One: Stopping myself from vomiting. And two…" He had Rose's wrist in his, and although he looked to be rough, his hold was really quite gentle and tender on her. "Amongst the many questions I have right now – and there are a lot – I'm going to start with: where'd you find this? I hunted for this thing for months to give to her. Thought it gone for good."

"You manhandle our wife," Ten snarled angrily. "And you want me to answer your questions?" He pushed himself up to a stand with a slap of his hand on the tabletop. "What I should do is put you on the ground."

"And therein lies another question," he stated with his brows high. Those brows fell to a frown. "And I didn't manhandle her. I merely guided her to a seat." He looked to Rose, who looked a mix between amused and stunned. "I wasn't rough with you, was I?"

"Ehm, no," she half stammered. "Not as such. But you did startle me." She looked up to Ten and raised her hand to ask calm. "It's okay, Doctor. I forgot how possessive you could get when you were him."

"That isn't possessive," Ten argued, his ire still high. "That's just…"

"Is there a problem here?" a new voice smoothly entered into the conversation. There was protectiveness in this tone, although not necessarily one that held any familiarity toward the one he was trying to protect. The Eighth version of the Doctor looked toward Rose with an expression that told her he was ready for whatever level of chivalry she might desire. "Are these men being a bother to you?"

Rose held back the whimper that was seated in the back of her throat. His stormy blue eyes, his smooth and kind voice, and that look that said he'd destroy universes if she dared shed a tear at all, it took her back to Gallifrey faster than any trip in a TARDIS ever could…

…even if it was piloted by a Time Lord who had a clue about where he was actually going...

"I'm okay," she assured him with a weak smile. She pulled her phone from her hip pocket and sighed as she thumbed to the messages screen and opened her message log to her Brother in Law.

"Are you quite sure?" he pressed with a slow look at each of the two men seated with her. "I heard arguing, and I see that you seem to be in the very thick of it."

"I usually am," she admitted with a sigh and a long-suffering smile. She offered him a more genuine smile as she did a rather short panoramic scan that included the three of them. "Say cheese."

Ten's eyes narrowed at her. "What're you doing, Rose? Who are you sending that to?"

"Nothing, Doctor, and no one," she groused as she typed in a five- word message to add to the photograph. She gave him a look and pressed send. With a welcoming smile she set the phone face-down on the table, looked toward Eight, and gestured toward the only remaining vacant seat. "Please, Doctor, take a seat. Join us.?"

"I would be delighted to," Eight said affectionately as he accepted the invitation and took a seat next to Ten. "If only to protect you from the brute seated next to you." He looked toward Nine with a somewhat displeased expression. "And just how far ahead of me are you, then?" He held a finger up to Ten when he made a pained sound but kept his eyes on Nine. "And at what juncture do we stop being a gentleman toward the fairer sex?"

"Not sure that we ever actually were what one could call a gentleman," he answered with a shrug. "And callin' them the Fairer Sex kind've proves that, don't you think?" He made a gesture with his hand that was like a boat atop a wave. "I can feel the tremor moving along the lines of the feminist movement heading in a tidal wave toward the Doctor for his benevolent sexism."

"Oh, don't start," Rose warned with a sigh. She gave him an affectionate smile. "Especially when you're the most chivalrous of the three of you."

"How very sweet of you to say," he replied with a small smile and an extension of his arm across the back of her chair. "But, please, don't ever say that again." He straightened a little and gave her a wink. "I have a reputation to uphold, after all."

Ten snorted. "Oh yes. Many, many reputations…"

"Just remember," Nine warned him with a lift of his finger. "Any reputation I have belongs to you as well. Might be good of you to remember that if you want to take that particular pathway of snark on this encounter of ours."

Rose chuckled with a shake of her head and looked toward the man who had loved her so much that he'd made her his wife. Her smile was warm and genuine but held back the sadness she felt toward their parting. She held out her hand to him. "I'm Rose," she introduced gently. "Future companion."

He took her hand in his, but didn't shake it. Instead he held her fingers in his hand and analysed the vivid blue Gallifreyan diamond that sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight. He hummed a curious sound and shifted his stormy blue eyes toward hers. "Something tells me you are very much more than just a companion." His eyes fell to the diamond once more. "This was my mother's ring, gifted to her by my father when he requested their bond."

She had expected him to drop her hand at that point and drop the matter, but he maintained a tender hold of her fingers. He drew the pad of his thumb along the top facet of the diamond. "I have been looking for this. Well, that is to say that I had been looking for it. About twenty of so years ago when…" He paused when the eldest version of himself cleared his throat with urgency. He looked toward him and caught the warning in his eyes and the slight and almost perceptible shake of his head.

"When what, Doctor?" she pressed without looking toward her current Doctor.

"When my brother asked for it," he answered slowly, his eyes still on Ten.

"Brax?" Rose confirmed with her brows high. She couldn't think of any reason he'd want it. He was the one who told the Doctor to give the ring to her in the first place.

Eight smiled and finally released her hand. He leaned his forearms down on the table and waggled his brows just slightly with curiosity. "You've met him?"

"Met him?" she answered with a sigh and a smile. "Oh, Doctor. Practically lived with him over the past few years." She lifted her eyes to the sky. "Well, in my timeline at least." She lowered her eyes again to his. "He's my best friend."

Eight seemed slightly taken aback by that. "Brax is friends – with a human?" He looked to his eldest self with question inside his wide eyes and was greeted with a smirk and shrug that displayed the same level of confusion on that. He frowned slightly at it and looked back to Rose. "I don't know that I completely buy into that. Sorry to say this, Rose, but he has no time or care at all for your species."

Boney M's Daddy Cool sang out from Rose's phone. She smirked and held it up to Eight's questioning eyes. A wallpaper picture of her first incarnation of Brax adjusting his cuffs standing in the hallway of her home on Gallifrey took up the full screen. "Speak of the Devil."

He breathed out a long word of the negative when she winked at him and pressed the little green button to connect the call. She held the phone to her ear. "Hey Brax. Got my picture?"

"Of course," Ten moaned out with a petulant roll in his eyes. "You sent it to him. Why am I not surprised?"

Rose's eyes widened with shock at the voice on the other end. "Oh. Romana! Sorry, I thought you were Brax…" She felt three sets of curious eyes on her and shrank just slightly under their varying stares. "Ehm. So, where's Brax?" Her shrink shifted to amusement. "Oh. Okay. Regeneration coma, yeah, right. Is that what you're calling it now?"

She bellowed out a laugh at the response and rose to a stand. "Excuse me," she said with apology to the three men at the table. "I'll take this over here."

All three men watched with wide eyes and an odd-kind of silence as Rose took her phone conversation to a quiet place around the corner. Once she was out of earshot – but still within sight – both Eight and Nine shot questioning glances toward their eldest self.

"I imagine you both have questions," he said with a sigh. The sigh shifted to a shrug as he set his own phone on the tabletop, face up to show that he'd covertly sent the message that prompted the call to Rose's phone. He leaned forward with his elbows and forearms on the table. "Which I'll answer, but for now." He exhaled. "If we're doing this happy incarnations get together thing, I need to lay down some ground rules."

"Since when have we needed rules?" Nine said with an indignant sniff. "And since when has it ever been a happy get together when we cross paths?"

"Since saying the wrong thing will upset our wife," he answered shortly. His eyes flicked to the youngest of the three of them. "And the biggest rule of them all is: Don't mention Charley. At all. Not a hint, and not a whisper of her name. Am I understood?"

"Not really," Eight answered with a pinch in one eye. "As this is my first meeting of the woman who in my future becomes my wife…" He stumbled to a stop at a strange sound from the eldest of them. His words became slow. "I will expect that she understands that she is not my first love." He thought about that. "Not even my second, nor my third, if I'm being honest about my hearts to this point in my lives."

"Three?" Nine questioned with wide eyes. "Is there one I've forgotten about?" He looked to Ten. "Do you recall…?"

Ten shook his head, his expression as confused as his younger self. Eight merely shrugged. "I've got a sense of something," he admitted. "More than just Phen and Charley…" he squinted as he thought hard about it. Then shuddered with a shake in his head. "I don't know. Shoddy incarnation this one for the memory. Feels like there should be someone in between, but, who knows?"

"He's right," Nine admitted with an equally perplexed expression. "I feel it, too. Like I'm missing something … or someone ... from that incarnation." He shrugged. "Bit of a romantic in that incarnation, I suppose. Perhaps a dalliance that was against the will of the universe."

"A married woman?" Eight questioned with a lengthened face. He quickly closed up to a grimace and shook his head. "No. Wouldn't do that knowingly." He rubbed the flat of his hand in between his hearts. "Though I do feel something in here."

"Best you don't dwell on it," Ten warned with worry. Thinking back, he was felt the same sense inside him for much of his Eighth incarnation. He understood it now, but back then …?

Nine slouched back heavily in the chair. Once again, his arm spread across the back of what was Rose's chair. "Care to fill me in on how Rose knows Romana and Brax?" he asked. "For rather obvious reasons, I'd think that was impossible."

"Impossible why?" Eight queried.

"No reason that's important to you," he answered with a warning look.

"Think it might be important to me," he shot back. "Curious to understand why you think not being able to reach out to my brother or one of my best friends doesn't concern me at all."

"Right now, it doesn't." He looked toward Ten. "So?"

"They're family," he answered with a shrug. "Rose is my wife. Why wouldn't they meet?" He flicked up a finger in warning. "He's not there, yet, so be careful."

"They survived," he breathed out with hope in his eyes and a lengthening of his face. "Brax and Romana. They survived."

"Oh Doctor," he breathed out with a single shake of his head and a smile on his face. There was genuine thrill and happiness inside his eyes. "They did so much more than just survive." He looked to the corner, where Rose was still on the phone. "And Rose. Our hearts." He looked back to him. "You'd be so damned proud of her. She's magnificent."

"Didn't need you to tell me that," he answered with a goofy smile. "I already knew that. If there's one thing in all of my lives I am truly glad for, it's that I met her."

"Oh," he agreed with a smile. "I know."

Eight looked between the two of them with a slightly discomforted expression and posture. Like the third wheel not privy to the private joke, he let out a sigh. "Well. I didn't think I'd ever quite see myself end up in this state."

Ten flicked him a look. "And just what state is that?"

"Like the pair of you," he breathed out in reply. It was clear he wasn't entirely comfortable with it. "Hopelessly in love and not being ashamed to admit it." He shook his head. "Next you'll be telling me we have a pair of children, a couple of dogs, and a home in the suburbs with a picket fence."

"It's not a picket," Ten replied with his eyes lifted to the awning above them. There was a smirk of teasing on his face. "More a stone design, really."

"I really hope you're jesting," he said worriedly.

Ten pressed his lips tightly together, hummed and lifted his brows. How much he wanted to spill the beans that in his timeline, the Eighth Doctor already had all of that – happily so – and lost it.

Perhaps that was why he seemed so aghast and against domesticity of that nature. Subconsious at play, perhaps?

Whining in the voice of his wife captured his attention and he looked her way as she slowly made her way back to the table.

"Oh, come on, Brax. Please?" she begged into the phone. "You have to let me tell him. Pleasepleasepleaseplease? Pleaaaasssseeee." She slumped and then grunted at the answer she was given. "Fine. Be that way, then. Spoil sport. Yeah, yeah. I love you, too." She pouted when she thrust the phone across the table toward her husband. "He wants to talk to you."

"Why me?" he queried with a look of utter distaste toward the phone. "I thought you were talking to Romana?"

"I was," she said with another thrust of the phone. "But then Brax woke up and wanted to tell me something. And really, would you rather get a chiding from her or from him?"

"What do I need a chiding for?" he answered with one brow lifted and the other slammed down over his eye. He rolled his eyes in defeat when she gestured toward his two younger selves. "Fine." He snatched the phone and held it to his ear. "Before you utter a single word, Braxiatel, it might be important for you to note that I just experienced the displeasure of two of you in one timeline less than three days ago. So that said: Don't you dare give me any admonishment at all about spending any time with another incarnation of myself, you hypocritical woprat." His eyes widened and his indignant argument fell immediately from his countenance. "I see," he drawled darkly. "Yes. We're on Kucails. And, you're sure? A single CIA operative? Narvin's quite certain of this?" The expression in his eyes darkened as quickly as his voice had, and he turned from the table to look across the sea of people milling around the marketplace. "Brilliant."

Rose took a seat and slumped down in her seat. Her expression was one of juvenile petulance as she put her elbows on the table and cradled her chin in both hands.

"So?" Nine purred with amusement as he leaned in close. "Old Brax said he loves you?"

"Technically, he said I'm in his hearts," she corrected with a sigh. "Close enough to it, I guess."

"Little more than that," Eight offered with a curious tilt of his head. "It means he sees you as family. Someone he truly cares about." His eyes flicked to Nine and back to Rose. "Rather odd for him, really. I'm his brother, and I don't believe I've ever heard him say that to me."

"I've heard him say it about you," she said with a softening of ger gaze. A smile spread across her face. "Of course, it's usually said with a but that includes you being insufferable, or how you infuriate him."

"I see," he drawled as an unreadable emotion shifted across his eyes. It was gone quickly however and replaced with cheeky curiosity. "So. What didn't he want you to tell me?"

She whined out pathetically and dropped her chin from her hands to lay her arms across the table in front of her with her nose on the tabletop. "I can't say, and it's so damn juicy, too." Her feet ran on the floor underneath the table like a small child really really wanting to do or say something. "He is so mean sometimes!"

Eight had a grin on his face as he folded his arms onto the tabletop in between the light play of her arms and leaned down with his chin on his wrists. He was as close to her as he could get and wondered what strategy he might employ to get out of her what she sorely wanted to divulge to all of them. "We won't tell him," he assured her softly.

She lifted her head slowly and gasped at his proximity. Those sparkling blue eyes and small cheeky held her in place.

"You shouldn't be expected to keep a secret from your husband, now, can you?" he pressed gently. "Come on, Rose. You can tell me."

Well that did her in. The eyes and the husky tone of voice she saw and heard only inside her dreams for the past three and a half years; the eyes and voice she missed so desperately; they called to her in a way that shattered her heart inside her chest. Her vision blurred with a sudden wash of tears that she refused to blink free. She breathed out the first two syllables of his Gallifreyan name combined with words of love and affection spoken inside his language – words only ever shared between soul-bonded mates and very rarely spoken outside the marital bed.

The phrasing, and the manner in which they were spoken by her gave him pause. His cheeky smile fell and his breath shuddered out through parted lips as he felt a stutter inside the beats of his hearts.

Rose pulled her arms back and covered her face in her hands. More words fled past her lips, these ones full of apology for her forwardness – spoken in an almost ceremonial manner of atonement. Phrasing she'd heard from her Brother in Law spoken toward his wife on many occasions.

"You speak my language," he stated with quiet, curious surprise. His language was by no means an easy one to learn. It would take years of study for the human tongue to be able to work its way around the trills and lilts of Gallifreyan. More years atop that to truly understand the words being spoken…

…But she couldn't be any more than twenty?

"How?" he asked her gently.

"I taught her," Ten interrupted harshly. He looked toward his wife with an expression of apology and urgency. "Rose, we've got to go."

She wiped at her eyes with the hem of her sleeves. "But we haven't gotten breakfast yet?"

"I'll do a run to the bakery back in London," he promised her. "But right now, we've got to leave."

Nine sat up straight in his chair. "What's goin' on?"

"Nothing that concerns you," he answered sharply. "They're not after you."

"Who?"

"The CIA," he answered him with a huff. He looked to Rose and held out his hand. "Narvin sent warning through Brax. We've been tracked, and an agent is on route." He exhaled. "Come on, we should get home."

Eight narrowed his eyes and quickly drew to a stand. "Why are the CIA after you?"

Nine expanded on that. "And how? The CIA doesn't even exist anymore."

Rose ignored both men and quickly stood up. "But Doctor," she asked worriedly. "If they've managed to track us here, then we can't go home. They'll find us there, as well." Her hands flew to her mouth. "The children. Doctor, what if…?"

"Mark and Aly are safe. Brax and Romana are on their way back in London and will have them protected until we get back." He gently laid his hands on her shoulders and looked into her fearful eyes. "All of the capsules at home are shielding, and Narvin's providing additional interference from Gallifrey." He exhaled. "He just didn't get back to the Capitol in time to shield the TARDIS from the scanners." He looked up and into the crowd. "I should have known they'd track us via the old girl's systems."

"And having three of them here right now does put off quite a powerful signature," Eight offered with a low growl. "Having three of us here gives of a much more vivid signature."

Nine was a mixture of confused, angry, and stunned. "I have far too many questions," he muttered. "But right now, you need to leave. I'm sure the two of us can send the …" he paused. "Just which type of agent is on your trail?"

"Assassin," Ten said darkly. "Rassilon wants to get his hands on Rose and needs to get through me and Brax to do that. The easiest way of doing that, is by a kill-order."

"Yeah, right," Nine answered on a drawl. "You two aren't going anywhere until I get the answers to about two dozen questions I have for you."

"Really?" Ten asked him incredulously. "The need to sate your curiosity outweighs the safety of our wife?"

"No," he growled. "The need to make sure my wife is safe and that this assassin is neutralised so he or she can't go after you again outweighs everything else – including your current need to scarper like a tafelshrew." He exhaled hard. "And if I heard you correctly, we have two children that need to be protected as well. Knowin' that, if I am not absolutely assured that this assassin is erased from the timestream I'll be following you home in my TARDIS to meet 'em at the door myself."

"And I'll be right behind him," Eight assured firmly. His eyes were on Rose, who stood surprisingly tall despite the situation. He caught her gaze and offered her a tender smile.

Before he could speak, however, a loud rumbling sound thundered in from the centre of the marketplace. He spun in place to look toward one of the ships that was parked in the centre of the court, and the thick throng of leather-wearing aliens that were filing down along a ramp.

"Calgeil?" Nine muttered with surprise speckled with disgust. "Oh don't tell me the Calgeil are the new CIA. They are the filthiest, most ruthless brutes on the whole Thinute constellation. Criminals."

"The CIA aren't really all that much better," Eight growled. "Makes sense."

"No," the Tenth Doctor huffed out. "I can confirm beyond all reasonable doubt that the CIA would never ally with the Calgeil. The CIA is – and always will be – Gallifreyan." He swallowed thickly. "This looks to be unrelated to the warning I received."

"Fantastic," Nine drawled slowly. "What do you think they're here for?"

The front runners of the grouping each held a large firearm in each hand. They lifted their weapons high in the air and called out a warning about a full market takedown by order of the Calgeil people, and that everyone was to surrender, immediately. To punctuate their order, they fired their weapons into the sky.

"Guess that answers your question," Rose muttered with a moan. She looked up to Ten. Despite the tone she used, there was a small smile on her lips. "Never just a small thing with you, is it?"

~~oooOOOooo~~