A/N:

Summary: The Madness with the Calgeil continues. Eight has a truly bad sense of timing. The Doctor(s) make(s) a discovery that will very likely upset old Narvin, and will definitely piss off Brax.

Notes: I was relentlessly harrassed today. RELENTLESSLY harrassed. And over the past hour of writing harrassed even more to finish up.

So that said: This may be jumpy. I don't have time at all for a reread... (then again, since when do I?)

Short on time, so a short chappy. Sorry about that.

I sincerely hope you enjoy...

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Eighth Doctor had his head held high and his eyes wide as he watched the two gigantic wolves launch in perfect synch from the beams at his elder self's command. He imagined the sight must be terrifying from where the Calgeils were standing, but from this vantage point, it was a spectacular view. Judging by the sigh and whimper from the woman in his arms, Rose had the same sense of awe flowing within her.

"They're beautiful," he offered in a whisper against her ear, then flinched when the wolves hit ground and began their attack. "Well…" He closed his eyes with a wince and turned his head enough that his nose was in Rose's hair. "Oh."

"The most beautiful things in the universe are often the most dangerous," she offered. "And the kids are definitely beautiful."

"As are you," he breathed softly against her hair. "Does that mean you're dangerous as well?"

"D-Doctor," she warned with a light stammer as the puffs of his breaths against her neck drew a shudder down along her spine. "Don't do this. Not now." It was tempting to turn her head toward his, to further enhance the light connection they had right now, but she held herself from doing it. She made to with turning herself just slightly to face him a little more comfortably. She sat sideways to him now and used the press of her hand against the centre of his chest to lever herself away from him. "We should do something to help."

"Keeping you safe is help enough," he offered with slight disappointment in his tone. "My elder self expects me to keep you out of that. That is my role today."

She looked down at the cement at her knees and let out the smallest of chuckles at that. "Oh, Doctor."

"Yes, Darling?"

She lifted her eyes to his ignoring the shudder that his endearment rippled down her spine. "The man who married me knows me far better than that." She shuffled backward on her hands and knees. "Which is why he felt it very necessary to assign to me someone he thought might be able to stop me." She smirked. "Unfortunately, he chose someone who doesn't know me at all." She looked to the pup and quickly launched to her feet. "Neroli, come!"

His eyes flashed with growing frustration and anger to see her run with a small white cub snapping close at her ankles. He let out a low curse as he rocked forward onto his knees to launch off after her. "Rose!" He growled out with order. "Get back here!"

~~oooOOOooo~~

As magnificent as he knew the sight must be, Ten didn't bother looking upward at his two wolves launching in attack. The shadows that moved quickly across the tarmac was image enough for him. He bolted forward, curling around a terrified Calgeil soldier with a strike of shoulder against shoulder. He barely stumbled at the awkward strike, but did have to straighten himself out to leap over a cowering Kucails native on his way to the ramp.

"Tell me you disabled the weapons," he yelled toward Nine as he ran heavily up the ramp. "Because if anything happens to those wolves, Rose'll kill all of us."

"Question number fourty-three," Nine said with a low growl from beside a metal support pole. "And, yeah. 'Course I did. Their weapons are just pretty little light shows for now."

"Good," he replied through his teeth. He grabbed at the shoulder of Nine's jacket without stopping his run to pull him after him. "We're not done yet."

Nine didn't have the dignity of remaining completely on balance. He stumbled to almost a complete fall under the tug of Ten. He managed to shrug himself free and ran forward in a very awkward forward lean with his arms flailing awkwardly to the side as he struggled to remain on his feet. "You're leaving that lot to them?"

"Dahrama," Ten reminded him sharply. "Protecting one of their pack. They don't need Time Lord assistance, trust me on that. We're safer staying out of it."

"You sure they're capable of filtering out the bad guys and won't take out the innocents?" he grit out as he finally found his balance to run with a little more dignity at his elder self's side. "We don't need collateral damage here, Doctor."

"They're smart," he answered with a slow in his run as they approached the main control room. "They'll only attack if someone attacks them. And if an innocent is stupid enough to take on a Dahrama that is obviously there to help, then there's really not much I could have done to stop them anyway."

"In case you've forgotten the general nature of people, Doctor, they do tend to act like idiots when they're frightened."

He grunted with frustration as he approached the main communications console. "Fine then." He thrust his arm toward the door. "If it's such a concern to you, then off you go. Bring yourself face to face with an irate Gallifreyan wolf." His fingers flew quickly over a wide 150-key keyboard filled with the symbols and commands of an alien planet. "Right now, I've got bigger things to worry about."

Nine folded his arms across his chest and drew himself tall as he let his eyes quickly scan through the glyphs of the Calgeil. "Such as?"

"Rassilon," he answered shortly.

"Wouldn't waste your time worrying about that fool," he said with a huff. "Double his brain size and he'd still be less than a halfwit. You'd think council might have found a better vessel than Valerian to resurrect him."

"Had little choice in the matter," Ten said with a shrug in his shoulders. "They needed a direct descendant. Someone who could be elevated to President and would be willing to sacrifice themselves for the honour."

"Memory serves, Valerian wasn't all that willing." He took a step forward and released the fold of his arms. He pressed his hands into the edge of the console to support himself in a curious lean forward. "What's going on with the old idiot that's got you all in a huff, anyway?"

Ten exhaled as he continued to race his fingers across the keyboard to pull up as much information as he could. Shame that the bulk of what he was finding was completely irrelevant. "The Calgeil Commander. He has a little too much knowledge about something he shouldn't. I need to know how he got that information – and just how many of the other nefarious species across the universe know the same."

"That information being?"

Ten exhaled hard as his fingers stilled on the keyboard. Purposeful tapping became mere light finger touches on the keys. "Bad Wolf," he said quietly after a moment. "They're looking for the Bad Wolf."

"I see," he drawled slowly in reply. He deepened his lean over the console. "So we figured out what this Bad Wolf thing was, then?"

"Not a what," Ten answered on a whisper. "But a who." He sniffed and shook himself. "And the identity of Bad Wolf really isn't your concern right now. So, let's just leave it at that for now, yeah?"

"Well, then what's so special about this Bad Wolf, then?" he asked with a shrug and a tightening of his gaze on the information now paused on the monitor ahead of them. "And how does it involve us and Brax?"

Ten shifted his head to the side to look at Nine with a pinched expression of question. "How did you know…?"

Nine jutted his chin upward in a gesture toward the screen. "CIA Directive from the Presidential office. Looks like we're under a kill order. This is approval for them to use the Regeneration inhibitors on their firearms." His head jerked back just slightly. "Well. I know we've always upset council a little here and there, and they've put a forced regeneration on us – but to take them away completely." He looked to him. "What did we do?" His brows lifted. "Or more importantly, what did Brax do that we managed to get the blame for?"

"You're a clever boy, apparently," Ten huffed out. "You've already gotten all the clues, time to work it out for yourself."

Nine looked off to one side in thought. His mind ticked back to the plaza, the table, the phone call, and his eyes flashed wide with realisation. He shot an almost panicked look toward his elder self. "Bad Wolf is Rose?"

"Yeah," he drawled out along a slow breath. "She is." He swallowed with a wince. "And now, Rassilon wants her."

"Those words," he said with a worried sigh. "They've followed us like it's a dire warning across the universe." He looked toward Ten. "Just what is it about her that has Rassilon so damn excited to take her from us?"

"It's not something that matters in your timeline," he answered. "Right now, with you, Rose is just Rose: the wonderful human girl who saved our lives and stole our hearts. That's all you need to know."

"No," he growled with threat. "That's not all I need to know."

"It is," he corrected sharply with a lift of his eyes. He exhaled hard to push that answer a little harder, then shifted his eyes back to the monitor. "It's all you need to know."

He exhaled a growl. "Don't you tell me that – "

Ten held up a finger to ask a moment, and then let it drop back to the keyboard. With swift keystrokes he quickly pulled up another window to fill a second screen. "We have a bigger concern right now."

He moved a stride closer to stand at Ten's side. He looked up at the monitor and flicked his eyes between both screens. "Oh. That's not good."

Ten shook his head slowly. "Narvin is going to have a conniption over this." He went back to the keyboard and more furiously sped across the keyboard. "And he's going to want to know just how this communication was intercepted from Gallifrey. No one is supposed to be able to hack into the CIA systems. The security protocols were designed by Braxiatel. No one can hack through his security – not even us."

"Yeah, Brax operates at a gear higher in ruthless stealth and covert untrustworthiness than the rest of the CIA," he admitted with a sniff. "Would've been a perfect operative for them."

He snorted with a shake in his head as he continued on the keyboard. "None of them trust him enough to give him that level of covert power."

"So they gave him Council powers instead." He gave a light shove of his shoulder against his elder self and took over on the keyboard. "Let me hook in the TARDIS to this system to keep an eye on it. See if they're sharing the information – or at least what their source is. Codes should still be running in yours, so I trust you to make sure Narvin's well aware of the breach so he can close it up." He sniffed and smirked. "After he's had his signature meltdown of course."

"Meanwhile," Ten muttered with a wipe of his hands on the lapels of his jacket. "Let me find a way to mess about with their flight systems a little. Navigation error in their autopilot, perhaps. Send them to Skaro." He smirked. "Perfect holiday destination for them, don't you think?"

"Straight to Gallifrey, I would suggest," Nine offered instead. "Land them on top of the CIA tower. With a big neon sign on the hull: Here you go, Narvin! Did the job for your Chronic Incompetency Agency as usual. You're welcome." He sniffed. "And P.S. Tell Rassilon better luck next time."

Ten chuckled and let his head dance just slightly with amusement as he ducked quickly underneath the console, sonic screwdriver in between his teeth. "Keep your eyes open, yeah? This might take a minute." He ducked his head out for a brief moment. "Any chance of you hijacking the communications to have the TARDIS looped in to anything they receive going forward?"

"Already done, though it might make for pretty boring evening reading for you," he said with a shrug. "Not a single Pornhub or single ladies that love you long time email message in this mess."

"Really?" he scoffed incredulously from underneath the console.

He rolled his eyes at himself. "Sorry. Linked into Mickey's laptop the other day to send him a birthday message from Rose. Hit a slight detour in the programming and accidentally ended up in a section of that hard drive I never hope to see again. Still recovering."

There was a light chuckle from below. "Good ol' Mickey."

"Guess, yeah." He folded his arms across his chest. "You know, we could do an auto forward of these systems to the Shadow Proclamation. This is right up their alley, and saves you having to wade through it."

"Nah," he drawled as he slipped back underneath the console. "This is a Gallifreyan matter. More specifically, the CIA. The Shadow Proclamation wouldn't go near CIA activities." He blew out a breath and after the buzz of his sonic, pushed himself out from underneath the console. He waggled his brows and smirked a cheeky smile. "It also involves us."

Nine held his hand down to help his elder self back up to his feet. He spoke through his teeth as he took his weight and lifted. "Good point."

On his feet, and smirking like a Cheshire cat, Ten gave him a tilt of the head instead of a cheeky wink. "Looks like their final destination is Shada, with a brief detour through the Capitol. I'll have Brax send a message to Narvin to give him a heads up. I'm sure they'll appreciate the armed guard of honour the Chancellery Guard usually put on for us when we materialise on Gallifrey."

"Meanwhile," Nine said with a light and very facetious bow and a sweep of his arm in the air toward the room. "Shall we head on out and see just what level of carnage your murder dogs have left behind?"

~~oooOOOooo~~

The cub at her ankles should have granted her a hindrance, but Rose Tyler flawlessly navigated her way around the patio railing, fallen chairs, cowering bodies, and random bits of debris left behind by fleeing market-goers. The Doctor did his best to make chase, but unfortunately he didn't have the same nimble stride as the woman he was pursuing. He grit his teeth and focused as much on his path that he could whilst maintaining a watchful eye on Rose.

"For the sake of Rassilon, Rose, will you get back here where I can protect you?"

Rose did a balletic pirouette twirl to evade a blue-skinned, three-armed man, and broke out of the spin quickly to rush toward where one of the wolves had it's jaws around the wrist of a man still able to hold a large weapon in the captured hand. He fired round after round in an uncoordinated blast that she dodged and weaved from. "Tiallu!" she called out hurriedly as she twisted and turned from the beam. "Where's the Doctor? Where'd he go?"

The gunman fired off another round that Rose realised far too late that she was unable to duck from, but as she stumbled into a fall and waited for the painful strike, she felt a set of powerful arms come around her. "I've got you," he growled as he spun them both to put his back in the way of the lazer.

"Doctor, No!" she cried out as the blast struck home. "You can't!" She ended her words with a scream of panic that he'd been hit.

She expected him to cry out with the pain of the blast. She expected the two of them to be thrown violently forward with the power of the hit, but to her surprise, he simply made a sound of surprised curiosity.

"Well, that is interesting, isn't it?" He murmured curiously. He looked down into an absolutely terrified pair of brown eyes with a smile. "That didn't hurt at all. I guess one of me managed to neutralise the weapons while they weren't looking. How very clever of me."

She panted in his hold. That smile, and the twinkle in his blue eyes that would normally have had her fall into a puddle of swoon and happiness on the ground only served to aggrieve her at this moment. Her expression hardened and she slapped hard at his shoulder. "You unbelievably stupid, infuriating, reckless man!"

"Now, Rose…"

"Let go of me!" she ordered him sharply with a shove of both her hands into his shoulders. She let out a grunt of frustration when he refused. "Let me go!" she demanded again. "I have to find him!"

"I'm getting you out of here," he growled in reply as he rocked his shoulders far enough backward to lift her feet an inch off the floor. "To the TARDIS with you, come on."

"I am not a child," she seethed into his face. "I don't even treat my own like this."

"And which one of me fathered them?" he asked boldly. "Was it me?"

Resigned to be restrained, she slumped to give him the heaviest possible weight of her. Something her daughter taught her during one of her many anti-bath tantrums. "You know, for a Time Lord, you have the worst possible timing." She sniffed and glared into his face. "In case you've missed it, Doctor, there's mayhem and carnage all around us, my husband is missing…"

"Your husband is right here," he corrected her.

"…and all you seem to be concerned with is the competition of which one of you got to me first."

That was exactly as crass and deplorable as he thought it was to hear, and he winced at the notion that she believed that his concern was borne of competition and nothing else. Oh, she couldn't be more mistaken about that. He opened his mouth to chide her for that belief, but only managed out a yelp at the firm grip of a small wolf's jaw around his ankle. Immediately he released the woman in his arms and staggered backward for freedom from the cub. The little thing let go of his ankle and yapped up angrily at him. "What in the name of…? Get away from me!"

"Good boy, Neroli," Rose said with a cheer as she immediately broke into a run. "Gonna give you all the treats when we get back home, little one. Now, let's find your granddad, yeah?" Her eyes shifted with tight focus as she searched for any sign of brown pinstripes in amongst the thinning crowd of people. She barely even registered that the only people still even remaining in the courtyard were the black-suited bad guys that were currently being herded by a stalking pair of Gallifreyan wolves into a tight pack of leather wrapped luncheon meat ready for packaging. Her entire focus was on finding the Doctor and making sure he was safe and still in one piece. She cupped her hands around her mouth and called out to him.

With each call of his name, her heart fell lower inside her chest. She felt her eyes water and her heart ache with each second that ticked by without him. She could feel the presence of the man who had made her his wife behind her, and although he had abandoned any effort to try and restrain her – for her own safety – he was keeping pace close enough behind her that he could rush in as her protector if necessary.

"Doctor!" she called out with a shaking breath. "Please, Doctor. Where are you?"

He finally appeared at the top of the ramp that led into the Calgeil ship. His head dipped to dodge the low doorway and he looked to her with surprise on his face. "Rose?"

Nothing else in the universe mattered to her in that moment but to get to him. She hiccupped with thankfulness and broke into a run toward him. It was only very slightly surprising to her that he started to jog, and then run toward her. Tears of relief blurred her vision, and she gulped in air to suppress the happy sob that wanted freedom from her throat.

She didn't even make it to the bottom of the ramp before their romantic lovers-run toward each other was thwarted by the curse of the universe that seemed intent on haunting them both. She felt a sudden and painful snap of an arm around her throat and let out a strangled yelp as she was pulled into the chest of a man much shorter, but obviously much stronger than her.

"Stand back, Time Lords," the Calgeil commander warned the Doctors that stood either side of him. He waved a weapon familiar to the both of them. It wasn't a Calgil firearm, this was clearly a CIA-issued staser and was more than capable of dropping them exactly where they stood. "The weapon is mine, and you will step back in surrender and let my men go, or I'll kill you both."

Rose's eyes were wide with horror and she clutched at the forearm that was across her throat with both hands. She looked with desperation toward Ten. "Doctor?" she pleaded with fear.

"It's okay," he assured her. "Rose, it's okay. It'll be okay, I promise you." Both his hands were held up in surrender and he walked sideways down the remainder of the ramp to stand beside his younger self. He grit his teeth and seethed through them. "You were supposed to keep her safe."

"Which is a task much more easily said than done," he seethed in reply. "She's bullheaded, that one."

"You have no idea," he agreed with a huff. He lifted his chin to the man who held his wife. "Let her go, Commander," he warned. "This is the only warning I'll give you on that."

"And what do you plan to do about it?" he laughed in reply. "Send in more of your attack dogs?" He sniffed and thrust the staser underneath Rose's chin. "Do that, and I'll kill her."

Rose panted with terror in his hold. The warm, flat, rectangle of the weapon's muzzle dug sharply into haw jaw and she winced at the sting of it. She could feel the slick filth of the Commander's uniform pressed up against her thin cotton shirt, each sharp button and zipper pull. Certainly not the last sensations she wanted to feel before she was stasered to death.

"And then what?" she heard her husband growl out. "Kill her, and what good will that do you? You can't taunt Rassilon and the Lords of Time if the weapon they're hunting for is dead and completely neutralised, can you? No riches for you in that, is there?"

Rose felt a shudder down her spine at the Doctor's words. The implications were utterly terrifying, abducted by filthy criminals and then sent to Rassilon to become his little experiment? Her breath hitched into a pant and her eyes flashed open wide to look down at him. She knew he had to have a plan in mind or he wouldn't be so calmly taunting from several feet away from her. That didn't provide her an immense amount of comfort, however, not when this man held a weapon on him that she knew could provide a lethal shot to any Time Lord.

"Let them go," she said softly, her eyes locked on her pinstriped Time Lord at the base of the ramp. "I'll come with you."

"You're coming anyway," he said with a laugh against her ear. "This isn't a matter of choice for you."

Her vision shimmered into a tunnel of brilliant amber and she felt her muscles energize and buzz as she turned her face toward her shoulder to address the man standing behind her. Her amber-rimmed eyes remained on Ten, and her mind called on his strength and will to keep her grounded and brave in the face of this. That bravery was hard to find to see the drop-jawed look of question and horror on the face of the youngest of the Doctors. Her own Doctor looked at her with a firm expression and a nod in his head. Slowly his hand rose to touch in between his hearts.

"This isn't' about my choice," she said finally to the man with darkness and danger in her quiet voice. "It's about yours. And I'm givin' you that choice right now."

"I really don't think you understand the gravity of the situation you are in right now, young lady."

"No," she corrected as she turned to him fully and let him see the swirl of the vortex in her eyes. "I don't think you understand." To the rear of the man, she could see the dark and looming figure of the Ninth Doctor making a stealthy approach. There was no expression that she could see, but she heard the hitch in his breath that gave her a fair idea of his reaction to her. She exhaled as she looked back into the eyes of the Commander. "Brax calls me a ticking time bomb. Uncontrollable and ready to blow at any minute. So, tick. Tick. Tick."

There was a bellow of the Time Lord's name from the base of the ramp, an order from the man in pinstripes for the one in leather to act. In a blinding move of speed, Nine had pulled Rose free of the Commander, and had relieved him of his weapon. He held his arm around Rose's waist and the gun up in aim toward her attacker.

"Thing about Time Lords," he began with a sniff and a roll in his shoulder. "Is that we're a sneaky, tricky bunch. Even when you think you have one contained; you have to make sure you've got an eye out at all times." He gave a hard kiss at Rose's temple. "And never, ever, try to go after the mate of one. We tend to multiply into packs when that happens."

"That's really bad," Rose huffed out with secondhand embarrassment reddening her cheeks. "Like, awkwardly so."

"Might be," he admitted with a shrug as he put the staser into his jacket pocket and picked her up in his arms and carried her to the edge of the ramp. "Oi, Doctor. Catch!"

Her eyes flashed wide with horror to feel him dip his knees in preparation to toss her down more than a whole storey to the ground. "No! Doctor, don't!"

"Oh, he's got you," he assured her with a wink. "And I've got to finish up with this idiot. See you shortly, love."

He lifted his arms to toss her upward, then pushed out to make sure she cleared the edge of the ramp. She let out a short and panicked yelp as she felt the release of his arms and fell through the air to the hard ground below. It was a short fall, but it felt an eternity before her back and legs fell perfectly into the cradle of velvet and silk that were the arms of the Eighth Doctor. He stumbled only lightly at the impact and let out the smallest of grunts as he gripped tightly to protect her from the sharpness of his knee as he contracted underneath her.

"I've got you," he said through his teeth as he caught his strength and slowly rose back up to full height. He released her enough to let her feet touch the floor and cupped at the side of her face to check that she was unhurt.

"You. You caught me," she breathed out with relief.

"Of course I did," he said in a breathy voice of incredulity that she'd believe he wouldn't. "I will always catch you."

"A-And if you can't?" she ventured over a quickly drying tongue.

"Then I'll fall with you," he vowed firmly as he closed the distance between them, let his eyes flutter closed and pressed his lips to hers.

~~ooooOOOOoooo~~