Gwen, Rose and Owen followed Jack inside the pub, all of them flicking their torches on as they spread out to look around.

"Looks well used. Mostly clean, no dust," Rose muttered as she wove her way between tables and chairs, watching Owen approach the bar that Gwen was standing behind.

"Pint of your best, please love. And, er, yeah, get one for yourself," he joked, and Rose shook her head at the man's antics, but it seemed to give Gwen an idea and she moved to open the till.

"There's money in here, so where the hell is everybody?" she said, and Rose bit her lip, continuing to cautiously make her way through the building, placing her feet carefully and stepping lightly to keep any sounds of movement to a minimum. They still didn't know what they were dealing with.

"Weapons out?" She asked Jack, and he nodded as they split up. Gwen followed Jack, and Rose moved to cover Owen as they went up to the second floor, methodically checking each room as they passed.

Between the two of them, Rose and Owen cleared the second floor, but when they heard a clatter below they quickly headed back down. They found Gwen first, standing over a sink and gagging violently.

"That burger come back to haunt you?" Owen asked as he moved past her, but Rose stopped, placing her gun-free hand on the woman's back.

"Oh my god," she heard Owen mutter from the next room, just as a door slammed near the front of the building.

"Rose!" Jack called as he dashed past Gwen, and she was on his heels in an instant, trusting Owen to take care of their friend while she and Jack ran back through the pub, searching for whatever, or whoever, had slammed the door they'd heard.

One thing was certain, however, and that was they weren't alone in the village. They kept their communication strictly to hand signals and stepped out of the front door to the building in unison, Jack going left, Rose lifting her weapon to scan right, shoulders together, guarding each other's backs.

She scanned her surroundings, but saw nothing, and waited for a signal from Jack that would tell her there was an enemy in his direction, but nothing came.

When Owen and Gwen came barrelling out of the building after them, both her and Jack's weapons spun on them, and the pair narrowly avoided getting shot at.

They'd found nothing, and nothing had attacked, and very slowly, Rose and Jack both lowered their weapons, adrenaline making Rose pant for breath, even as Gwen bent over to throw up all over again.

Rose moved to her side, holstered her gun and pulled Gwen's hair out of her face, trusting Jack and Owen to watch their backs for a moment.

"Was there another body in there? she asked gently, and Gwen nodded, gasping for breath, her eyes wild.

"Jack... Jack, please. Tell me what's going on here?" Gwen pleaded, slowly standing straight again, and Rose released her hair, but the Captain just shook his head.

"Come on," he said instead, gesturing at the next building along the street, a small house, "let's look in here."

Rose took one look at Gwen before rounding on Owen.

"Stay with her, keep watch out here," she ordered, before following Jack. He gave them a silent countdown before they both entered the house, eyes and weapons scanning for anything hostile.

Rose advanced through the house, Jack at her back, but just before she stepped into the kitchen at the rear of the house she froze. Bloody bones on the floor drew her attention, but she forced her eyes to scan as much of the room as she could see, interrupted only by the soft sound of frustration Jack made behind her.

"What is it?" He whispered.

"There's another body in the kitchen," Rose murmured, her voice tightly controlled as she backed up a step. She heard movement behind her, and glanced over her shoulder, only to find Gwen standing in the front door, Owen at her back with his attention still turned out onto the street.

"Same as the others?" Jack asked, and Rose nodded.

"Yeah."

"What did this, Jack?" Gwen asked, her voice filled with panic and unshed tears, "'Cause whatever it is, it can't be human. How far's it going to spread?" She pleaded, but the Captain didn't have any answers for her.

"Stay focussed," he ordered, and Rose shot him a glare before indicating for them to swap places.

With Jack's gun on the kitchen and back door, and Owen's weapon focussed on the street outside, Rose flicked the safety on her own weapon and tucked it away to focus on Gwen.

"I should be at home having dinner with Rhys. What am I doing here with you?" Gwen muttered, eyes wide and wild. "Don't you ever get scared, huh?" She demanded and Rose offered her a sad smile as she placed her hands on Gwen's shoulders.

"All the time," she promised, "but I turn it into something useful. I'm scared right now, but giving into it isn't going to help us get back home," she told Gwen gently, and the woman reluctantly nodded, taking several deep breaths and calming herself down.

"There's another two houses," Owen said a moment later, once Gwen seemed steadier, but his voice was dark. "We'd better take a look."

Rose nodded, and after checking on Gwen once more, she let the woman go with a final, reassuring squeeze to her shoulders and drew her gun again as all four of them left the house together.

"You two, check that one," she ordered, sending Owen and Jack into the next house, and she stuck with Gwen. She led the way over to the final house in the row, both her and Gwen pressing themselves either side of the door frame.

Taking a breath, and checking to make sure Gwen was ready, Rose tugged on the handle but the frame seemed warped and swollen, and the door was stuck.

"Locked?" Gwen whispered, and Rose frowned, tugging on the door again. It came loose, but she could hear the sound of a chain rattle on the inside and gave Gwen a nod of confirmation.

She gave Gwen the same countdown Jack had given her, and pulled hard on the door, letting herself feel a brief moment of success as the chain tore through the rotting wood.

The first thing she saw inside the house was the terror on the face of the teenage boy perched on the stairs as she aimed her gun at him. The second thing she saw was the shotgun aimed back at her, but then she was moving on instinct.

Rose turned her body to the side to present a smaller target, and she stepped back to try and get out of blast range even though she knew it was too late, her free hand stretching out to push Gwen back and away from the door as a bang exploded through her ears.

Fire erupted along her left hip and arm as the shotgun spray burnt its way through her clothes, and scattered against her skin. The blow knocked her off the doorstep sending her flying through the air and crashing against the rough, gravelly street.

She heard Jack yelling for her, and Gwen shouting into the building, and when Rose forced her eyes open she could see Gwen waving her own gun at the terrified kid, blurry through tears of pain that were blocking her sight.

Rose felt her hand press against her bloody arm, and where had her gun gone? She heard a sharp cry of pain before she realised it had come from her throat. She knew she was trying to speak, but through the shock and agony flaring across her body she couldn't tell what words were making it past her lips.

All Rose knew was that she didn't want anyone to kill the kid for this. The feat she'd seen in his eyes before he'd pulled the trigger...

"Rose! Rose!" She heard Jack shouting for her, but couldn't force herself to focus through the pain yet to respond, and when Owen dropped beside her, medical gaze seeking out her injuries, Jack moved to back up Gwen.

"Gwen, what happened!?" She heard him shout, and her eyes spun to stare at the cloudy grey sky as she gasped for breath, adrenaline and fear and pain mixing in her mind.

"A kid with a shotgun—"

"Are you hit?"

"A few pellets—"

Snippets and snatches of conversation, and then Jack was back beside her.

"We need to get her somewhere I can work to stop the bleeding," she could hear Owen explain, and the pain that had slowly been receding to a muted agony flared to life like wildfire across her skin again when Jack tried to carefully slide his arms around her to pick her up.

"It's okay, I've gotcha Rose, I've gotcha," he muttered against her hair, and she tried to relax, knowing that tensing would only hurt more, but she could feel herself shivering from shock.

She didn't know where Jack and Owen were taking her, she just concentrated on riding out the pain and letting her throat issue sounds of agony whenever it needed to, only becoming aware of her surroundings again when Owen swept a kitchen table clear and Jack placed her on it gently, fingers wiping away tears she'd not realised she'd been shedding.

"I'll check upstairs," Jack said, "Gwen stay here. Watch Owen's back while he works on Rose, and let him check our arm as soon as he can," the Captain ordered, pulling his gun as he left the room and Rose whimpered.

"I thought I was done having to look after you, blondie," Owen griped, and she choked out a pain-filled laugh.

"Jeopardy friendly, tha's me," she gasped, half trying to cradle her injuries, and half recoiling from the agony she knew her touch would ignite.

"Alright Rose, now listen to me. Listen!" Owen snapped his fingers, drawing her gaze as she blinked rapidly. "I need to look at your wound now, okay? Stay calm and try not to move."

Rose couldn't stop a whimper escaping, knowing how much it was going to hurt, but she nodded and let her right hand clasp the edge of the table to keep herself from striking out at Owen.

He didn't bother trying to peel her hoodie off her frame, just cut up the sleeve to get at the pellet marks on her upper arm. He checked the few that had gotten past her arm to settle into the flesh of her hip too, but after a moment he nodded, calming slightly.

"Okay, it could have been much worse," he told her, unwrapping a sterile pad and pressing it against the wounds scattered across her arm.

"I need you to hold this and apply pressure while I work on your torso, alright? The pellets are lodged near the surface. You've been bloody lucky. If he'd have got you straight on—"

Rose nodded frantically, pressing the pad against her bleeding arm and groaning in pain, "I know, I know. I turned," she gasped out, and Owen shook his head.

"You are somethin' else," he muttered, digging through his bag and pulling out a needle. "You want a quip about feelin' a small prick?" he asked her, grinning, and Rose choked out another laugh as a fresh round of tears left her eyes but she shook her head.

"I'm sure your patients must've loved you," she muttered as he injected the local anaesthetic into her arm and waist.

"Let's get these pellets out, eh?" He said, ignoring her comment easily. "There's gonna be a certain amount of residue, so just relax, lie back an' think of Torchwood," he teased her gently as he exchanged the needle for a pair of tweezers and peered intently at her injuries.

Laying on the kitchen table, Rose let herself relax as the anaesthetic kicked in, and she tried not to shiver as the shock seeped from her body leaving her cold and feeling more than a little shaky.

After a few minutes, when the pain was blocked enough for her to confidently feel like she could form full sentences, she let her head roll to the side so she could watch Owen work.

"Why'd you stop being a doctor?" Rose asked softly.

"Excuse me, I still am a doctor," Owen grumbled, and Rose grinned. That hadn't been what she meant, but if he didn't want to tell her why he'd joined Torchwood, she wasn't about to push the man pulling lead pellets out of her skin.

"You know what I meant, why no more patients?" she asked, letting Owen lead the conversation's direction, and he sighed, glancing up at her for a moment, before shrugging and returning to his work.

"I've never been a people person. I'm sure you've noticed," he admitted, "not dealing with the patients anymore, that's ideal. It was always the bit I hated, but medicine?"

Owen let the sentence go unfinished, and Rose let her eyes shut as her breathing settled into a slow, smooth rhythm.

"Ah, you beauty," Owen muttered, and when Rose opened her eyes he was holding a small shotgun pellet before her in a pair of tweezers and grinning.

"Medicine, I'm good at," he told her, and Rose couldn't help but grin back as he returned to her side to work on the next pellet.

She heard Jack come back down the stairs but forced herself to stay still and keep her breathing steady so that Owen could work.

"What's taking Tosh and Ianto so long," he muttered as he came back into the room, but Rose could hear the concern in his voice.

"Jack, give them a chance. It might be locked up or under guard," Gwen said, her hands starting to shake a little now that her adrenaline was fading and her own pain was starting to kick in.

"Or they could be dead!" The kid who shot her exclaimed tearfully, "Everyone else is!"

"Sit down and tell us what happened here," Rose heard Jack growl at the teenager, but he was in no position to defend the kid. She heard the stranger drop into a seat and opened her eyes to see Jack bent before him, desperate now for answers.

"Tell us what happened?" he asked, shaking the teen again, his voice was only fractionally calmer and Rose tensed, her first instinct to get up and try to calm the situation.

"It's not human!" The kid all but shouted, trying to rise to his feet and run, but Jack grabbed his arms gently, and Rose forced herself to relax again, letting Jack deal with the terrified teen.

"Look, my mum won't know what happened. They're only expecting me back for the weekend—"

"Listen, we'll get you home, okay?" Jack tried to calm the boy, and Rose focussed on the methodical progress Owen was making, starting near her hip and digging out pellets up to the edge of her ribs.

"What are you going to do? You can't fight them! They're too strong!" The kid shouted, "The only thing we can do is barricade the door—"

"No, we'll make base at the pub. Like Rose said, it's a stronger building with more resources that we can make use of," Jack decided firmly, and Owen pulled away from her waist, pressing a fresh gauze pad over the still bleeding wounds.

He moved along and gently took her hand and the blood-soaked pad away from her upper left arm, calmly moving onto the next bleeding section of her body to repeat the process.

"What about Tosh and Ianto? Should we go after them?" Gwen asked, but Jack shook his head a moment later.

"Not until we know what we're dealing with," he decided.

"What if it's too late by then?" Gwen argued, but Jack had made up his mind, and Rose couldn't help but think that it was the best option. Splitting up further only made them easier targets.

"They're not children. They know what to do," Jack said, before rounding on Owen. "Can she be moved?"

There was a moment of silence before Rose opened her eyes again, and saw Owen nod slowly.

"If we're careful, I think I've got all the pellets out of her side, but any rough movement's gonna aggravate the wounds and restart the bleeding," he explained. "I can get the rest of the ones out of her arm once we're settled in the pub."

Jack moved to pick her up again, but Owen shook his head, "As much as I hate to admit it, you're a better shot than me. I've got her," the doctor said and Jack nodded.

Rose let out a shuddering breath as Owen threw his equipment back into his medical bag and slung it over one shoulder before turning back to her.

"Ready?" He asked, and Rose nodded. Part of her wanted to stand and walk on her own, but she could still feel trails of blood leaking from her skin and knew that they at least needed to stop the bleeding properly before she tried anything that might tear the wounds open further.

Jack pulled out his gun again and moved outside, checking that their path was clear, as Owen gently scoped Rose up and she bit back another sharp whimper of pain.

"Come on," Gwen ordered the teen, checking her own weapon as the group went to barricade themselves into a building with a door that still locked.

"There's no point in chromosomal grafting, it's too erratic," the Doctor explained to Dalek Sec. He'd swiftly looked over what they'd tried before, and mentally processed a replacement treatment.

Now, as he ran between lab stations, he was trying to explain the process to Dalek Sec so that the hybrid would understand what he was doing.

"You need to split the genome and force the Human-Dalek sequence right into the cortex."

"We need more chromatin solution," Dalek Sec ordered, and the pig-men were quickly instructed to bring in the supplies the Doctor needed.

The Doctor spotted Laszlo amongst the other pig-men, and let a tendril of his mind spin off to begin working on that problem too.

"These pig slaves," he questioned as Sec moved to stand beside him, watching the Doctor work on the new solution. "What happens to them in the grand plan?" he asked, and Sec shook his head.

"Nothing. They are just simple beasts. Their lifespan is limited. None survive beyond a few weeks," he explained, before turning to the pure Daleks to begin issuing more orders, and the Doctor cautiously moved over to Laszlo who'd been listening to his fate.

"Laszlo, I'm sorry," the Doctor whispered, "I can't undo what they've done to you, but they won't do it to anyone else," he promised, and Laszlo met his eyes, brave and determined.

"Do you trust him?" The man asked, and the Doctor found his throat tightening because the answer he wanted to give was a resounding 'no'.

"I know that one man can change the course of history," he said in the end. "That the right idea, in the right place, at the right time is all it takes. I've got to believe it's possible," he admitted, shrugging one shoulder and after a moment Laszlo nodded his acceptance of that, and the Doctor quietly returned to processing the solution needed for the new breed of Dalek's.

"The line feeds are ready," came from one of the Daleks a few minutes later, and the Doctor spun around from the lab equipment and ran across the room.

"Then all systems go!" he exclaimed, filling a tube with his concoction.

"The solar flare is imminent, the radiation will reach Earth in a matter of minutes," Dalek Sec announced and the Doctor could feel a buzz of excitement running through his veins.

So far, so good.

"We'll be ready for it," he reassured Sec, grinning as he slammed the syringe-like tube he'd filled into a giant vat of the template DNA from Sec.

"That compound will allow the gene bonds to reconfigure into a brand new pattern. Power up!" He shouted, a small part of his mind reeling that he was issuing instructions to Daleks and they were being followed without question.

Laszlo and another of the pig-men threw the power switches and the Doctor watched the blue solution travel through the tubing system to each of the husks above them, his tongue pressed to the back of his teeth anxiously before he was forced to smother a grin.

"There goes the gene solution," he announced, and Sec's response bordered on awe.

"The life blood..."

A klaxon sounding off was like a bucket of ice water over the Doctor's head and he spun on his heels, staring around the room for the source of the problem, even while his gut told him exactly where he needed to look.

"What's that?" He demanded, hoping he was wrong, but Dalek Sec had barely begun to respond when he saw the problem.

"What's happening?" Sec demanded of the Daleks, "Is there a malfunction? Answer me!"

"No, no no!" The Doctor cried, hands grabbing at his hair as all his hopes came crashing down again. "The gene feed! They're overriding the gene feed!" He cried, running to the controls and trying desperately to reverse whatever the Daleks were doing to disrupt the process.

"Impossible," Sec scoffed, "they cannot disobey orders."

"The Doctor will step away from the controls!" one of the Daleks shouted as it approached, and the Doctor raised his hands, stepping back, knowing he had no choice left as he reversed so that the Dalek could advance, its weapon primed.

"Stop!" Sec ordered, "You will not fire!"

"He is an enemy of the Daleks," said another, and then the one with its weapon still aimed at the Doctor took over and the Time Lord felt his hearts sink.

"And so are you," it told Sec firmly, and their weapons twitched to encompass the hybrid as well.

"I am your commander. I am Dalek Sec!" The hybrid shouted at them, and the Doctor put a hand on the hybrid's chest to stop him from lunging at the Daleks surrounding them, but they ignored his words. The three pure Daleks had clearly decided his fate already.

"You have lost your authority."

"You are no longer a Dalek."

"What have you done? What's going into the gene feed?" the Doctor demanded. Trying to determine whether or not Sec was still a Dalek wasn't going to help him stop the three that had turned on them.

"The new bodies will be one hundred percent Dalek," they answered him, and Sec lost all semblance of control, still new to the emotions now running through him.

"You can't do this!" He cried, but the pure Daleks were unconcerned with Dalek Sec's wishes.

"Pig slaves, restrain Dalek Sec and the Doctor," they ordered, and the Doctor was relieved to find Laszlo behind him. His ally grasped hold of both his arms and the Doctor knew that if there was a way out the man would be running with him.

If he could only find the right moment for them to make a break for it.

"Release me! I created you! I am your master!" Sec ordered the pig-men, but it seemed that they, too, no longer recognised Sec as a Dalek.

"There's the lift," Laszlo whispered in the Doctor's ear, and he let his eyes settle on their only chance as he sighed softly.

"After you," he muttered back, and together they turned and dashed for it. Laszlo pushed the other pig-men aside and the Doctor held the sonic screwdriver ahead of them to make sure that the lift doors were open when they reached them.

"The Doctor is escaping! Stop him! Stop him!" The Daleks cried and the pig-men advanced, but one more burst of the sonic closed the doors in their faces, and the lift began ascending to the top floor of the Empire State Building.

"We've only got minutes before the gamma radiation reaches the Earth," the Doctor rambled his plans aloud as he slipped the sonic back into his coat. "We need to get to the top of the building— Laszlo, what's wrong?" The Doctor asked, frowning as he studied the man who'd all but collapsed against the wall of the lift.

His skin seemed clammy and he was gasping for air, and the Doctor could feel the waves of heat coming from him, but Laszlo waved him off.

"Out of breath," he gasped, shaking his head, "it's nothing. We've escaped, Doctor, that's all that matters," Laszlo told him.

The Doctor frowned but didn't press him. He knew Laszlo was lying, but there was nothing he could do for the man. Not while there were Daleks and a wave of gamma radiation heading directly for Earth.

He let his hand fall on Laszlo's shoulder gently, and they shared a quiet moment as the lift rose through the building, releasing a sharp ding as the doors opened to reveal Martha, Frank and Tallulah.

"Doctor!" Martha cried, and he couldn't help but grin at her as he stepped out, relief that she'd figured it out and found her way there giving him just enough energy to feel playful.

"First floor perfumery," he quipped, but no one was listening as Tallulah advanced on Laszlo beaming, and Martha beckoned him over to the plans of the building.

"We've worked it out. We know what they've done," she told him, and he ran from the lift to peer at the plans she was indicating.

"There's Dalekanium on the mast, and it's good to see you too, by the way?" She teased and he turned his eyes from the paper to her smile, and grinned down at the young woman.

"Oh, come here," he said, scooping her up into a hug and lifting her from the floor, spinning them both in a circle, thrilled for one moment that they were both still alive, that she'd been clever enough to save him some time and solved half the puzzle, and then the lift made its sharp ding sound again and he dropped Martha in a panic and dashed for the closing doors.

"No, no, no, no!" He shouted as he slammed hard into the now sealed lift doors and sighed, bringing out the sonic to try and reverse its direction, before shaking his head with a growl.

"See? Never waste time with a hug," he muttered before he slammed his hand against the wall in frustration and put the sonic away. "It's deadlock sealed. I can't stop it."

"Where's it going?" Martha asked, and the Doctor answered without thought as his eyes scanned the room and his mind ran ahead of him.

"Right back down to the Daleks, and they're not going to leave us alone up here. What's the time?"

"Uh, eleven fifteen," Frank told him and the Doctor cursed mentally.

"Six minutes to go. I've got to remove the Dalekanium before the gamma radiation hits," he muttered to himself, ignoring Tallulah's questions as Martha grabbed at his coat and dragged him over to the edge of the building.

As they approached, he found his footsteps slowing, and his hands raised to brace against the steel bar above his head.

"Oh... that's high. That's very— Blimey, that's high," he muttered, eyes wide and he swallowed hard. If he fell from here, he wouldn't get a chance to regenerate.

"We've got to go even higher," Martha told him, guiding him to a wooden ladder and pointing up at the rest of the tower, surrounded by metal scaffolding that went up at least another five floors.

"That's the mast, up there, look. There's three pieces of Dalekanium on the base, and we've got to get them off," she told him, and he stared at the scaffolding as lightning flashed in the sky above them.

His body cataloged the temperature of being up so high at night, in November, in New York, and then his mind factored in the wind chill from the brewing storm, and he shook his head and turned back to meet Martha's determined gaze.

"That's not we, that's just me," he told her, watching her shoulders stiffen in indignation.

"I won't just stand here and watch you," she snapped and the Doctor shook his head as he turned.

"No, you're going to have your hands full down here anyway," he told her. "I'm sorry, Martha, truly sorry, but you've got to fight."

He wasn't going to let her argue with him, but as soon as she realised that he needed her to rally the others, Martha reluctantly agreed to stay behind, and the Doctor started to climb.

The temperatures were freezing, so he focussed on regulating his body temperature to combat the cold, but there was only so much he could do, even as a Time Lord.

He ignored the spiralling path that the workmen had built, and used the strength in his wiry body to climb up the actual structure of the Empire State Building, racing against time itself to reach the mast with enough time leftover to remove the Dalek's addition before the gamma strike.

Once he reached the mast, the Doctor was forced to crawl across to the Dalekanium and wrapped his arms around the piece he was working on so that the winds didn't blow him to an early death.

He struggled against the below-freezing temperatures and, slowly losing, he pulled out the sonic and began the glacial process of unscrewing the bolts that were keeping the alien metal in place.

He worked as fast as he could, but the ever-present clock in his head was telling him that it wasn't fast enough, even as he pulled the first panel of Dalekanium off the mast and flung it to one side so that there was no chance of the gamma strike spreading it through the building.

He moved to the second of the three pieces and shook his head. He had less than two minutes left but all he could do was keep going, and hope that he thought of something. His fingers were numb from the cold and in a split second the sonic had slipped from his grasp and fallen through the scaffolding.

The Doctor dove for the device, but knew before he'd even moved that he had no chance of catching it and cursed loudly in Gallifreyan, the words disappearing into the storm as he wasted several seconds watching the sonic vanish into the dark.

He still had two panels to remove. No time, and no sonic, and he suddenly found his hands pulling at the metal as though he could tear it free with his bare hands. He cried out in frustration, but the Dalekanium wouldn't give way and he released it with another shout of fury and anger.

Backing up so that he could think, he ran his achingly numb hands through his hair as he desperately wracked his mind for some solution, some alternative, and not liking anything he came up with.

Desperate times, though, he thought, breathing deeply as he eyed the mast and fear settled into his hearts, but he knew there were no alternatives.

With less than ten seconds before the gamma strike, the Doctor climbed the base of the mast and wrapped his body around it, breathing heavily as his whole system anticipated the pain to come.

He had no guarantee that this would work, and no way to be sure he'd come out the other side, regeneration or not, but there was a chance, a small chance, that the introduction of Time Lord DNA before the gamma radiation hit the Dalekanium could change the new Daleks just as effectively as Human DNA had changed Dalek Sec.

No matter how small the chance, it was now the Doctor's only option, and he drew panicked breaths through his teeth as he mentally counted down the seconds left until the gamma strike.

His frame tensed as he clung, with everything he had, to the metal mast. The lightning hit and screams were wrenched from his body as electricity scorched through his every cell.

Between his screams, he sobbed, and mentally begged for the relief of death, but he refused to unclench the muscles in his arms and legs that held him in place as his whole frame shook.

'If the Daleks took over the Earth in nineteen-thirty, he would never meet Rose,' his mind whispered, and a warmth settled over him, detaching him from the agony that was rippling through his every cell.

His throat screamed and his eyes cried and his muscles tensed and clenched and spasmed as they held their position, but for the first time in days his mind was quiet, and the Doctor sank into his memories of her.

Her tongue-in-teeth smile. Her soft hoodies. Her bright, easy laughter. Her love of running and vanilla-scented soap. Her waves of golden hair.

He let himself remember the feel of her hand in his and the way she tucked her face into his shoulder when they hugged. He let himself remember the first time he hugged her, and the first time he took her hand and told her to run.

The Doctor remembered the first time she'd fallen asleep against his shoulder in the media room, and he remembered when she'd come back to save him.

Bad Wolf.

"I want you safe, my Doctor."

He blacked out then, muscles relaxing as he fell to the mast platform below, landing hard and unconscious with nothing but golden memories filling his mind.