"I'm sorry what?" The Doctor asked as the Ood all filed into the TARDIS, completely oblivious to the looks that they were getting from the rest of the companions.
"We have seen what happens if she is not retrieved." Ood Sigma left it at that, and the Doctor was slightly glad for it, because he knows. Emma had told him once that she knew he would make the right choice and he hadn't had the heart to tell her that he wouldn't make the right choice. That he would pick her every single time, that it didn't matter if he ruined the universe if he still had her.
And that wasn't even considering what would happen if there was a weapon that was biologically their child running around the universe. He'd lost children to war and he was not going to let Emma go through that under any circumstances.
"What does that mean?" Mickey asked with a slight frown and his knuckles went white around one of the controls on the console.
"There are stories about Emma in just about every universe. Stories about The Girl Touched by Time and how she broke The Doctor's heart." He shook a rough laugh out of his lungs. "She died. Emma died in every single alternate and parallel universe. And I refuse to let that happen in this one. It means I don't care. I don't care about what it takes to keep her."
"Doctor," Martha started, and he just looked up at her because he knew exactly what she was going to say.
"I know Martha. I know." Time Lords and selfishness don't make a good combo. Ood Sigma tilted his head towards the Doctor thoughtfully.
"You are both Lovers of Legends. Legends whose endings have not been written yet. The Girl Touched by Time changed the song for the Doctor. There is no reason why the Doctor cannot change the legends for The Girl Touched by Time." The words were somehow comforting, and the Doctor nodded thankfully at Ood Sigma before looking around the console room.
"Anything else?" This was another scenario where Emma would have elbowed him for being rude if she were here. Jack shook his head.
"I got everything I need to know," he said before he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Did you throw out all my guns?"
"Somehow Jack they just kept cropping up," the Doctor said, and Jack clapped Mickey on the shoulder before they headed into the TARDIS. Tense silence permeated the console room as soon as they left, and the Doctor looked over at Martha from underneath his fringe. "I'm sorry Martha."
"When I met you, you were head over heels for Rose, but not once in my travels did you ever seem to contemplate breaking the rules for her."
"I couldn't become what the Time Lords almost became during the War."
"But Emma? She's worth that?"
"I saw what- who I became in another world where I lost her. I've spent a long time with low regard towards myself but looking at that other me was something else. I hated myself Martha. I hated that that man was so agonized by all the things he'd lost since losing her that he chose to forget." The Doctor ran a hand over his face. "I love Emma so much that it scares me. It scares me to think that I would throw it all away for her, that I can't be sure I would make the choices she would want me to if it came to that."
"You would," Martha said quietly as Jack and Mickey came back in bearing more weapons than the Doctor had thought was on the TARDIS. She rested her hand on his forearm. "You would because you wouldn't be able to face her afterwards."
"I don't ever want to have to make that choice." Her hand tightened around his arm in a comforting squeeze.
"No one ever does," she said before she stepped away and swung up a gun into her arms. The Doctor sent a small frown in their direction.
"Mickey what have you been teaching Martha since you got married? I can't say I approve," he said, feeling more like himself than he had in what felt like forever.
"She taught me everything I know. You can thank UNIT for that," Mickey said before he leaned in to kiss his wife. Jack leered at them and leaned in towards Mickey as soon as they parted.
"Is it my turn now?" Jack asked playfully and Mickey shoved him away.
"I just finished kissing my wife," Mickey said. Jack wiggled his eyebrows at them both.
"I'll kiss your wife too." Martha laughed.
"So, Doctor what's the plan?" Jack asked.
"They're going to be assuming that we're coming. We distract the army they probably have, get me through to His Eminence the Pope and Madam Kovarian. Then we get Emma back, we destroy their technology and we leave," the Doctor said. Mickey frowned.
"Seems like we might be missing a couple steps there, Boss," he said, and the Doctor cracked his neck slightly as he reached up to adjust his tie once the TARDIS had landed.
"Emma has informed me I do my best work when I'm making it up. And this has to be my best work," he said, and Jack shrugged and hefted his gun pointedly.
"I've heard worse plans." The Doctor let out a rough laugh at that before taking a deep breath and heading towards the door. He threw the doors open and stepped out into the large gathering area, pasting a bright grin onto his face at the sight of all the guns being pointed at him.
"Ah good. I was concerned that my early arrival would cut off the welcome wagon," he said as he took a few steps forward to allow his friends to step out behind him. "I hope you don't mind that I brought a few extra guests."
"Is that what you're calling them?" A general asked from within the sea of soldiers.
"Yes. After all this doesn't need to be a war, I'm just here to seek an audience with his Eminence," the Doctor said.
"You are unworthy," A voice called out and he snorted.
"We'll see about that," he said before he lifted his sonic and plunged the room into darkness and went running for the door that was directly behind the TARDIS, since she would have done her absolute best to get as close to Emma as was possible. He flung the door shut behind him and followed the sound of orchestral music down the hallway until he threw another door open to the office of the Papal Mainframe, where Madam Kovarian and His Eminence were sitting.
"Doctor how good of you to join us," Madam Kovarian said.
"Charmed I am sure," the Doctor said. "Would you care to tell me what you have done with my companion?"
"Safe and secure I assure you," she said.
"Tell me then why now? Why take Emma instead of any companion who has come before?"
"The Papal Mainframe may not put much stock in legends, but even we have heard of the powerful Girl Touched by Time," His Eminence said. The Doctor felt his anger flare up at that, but he managed to keep it contained.
"Imagine our surprise when we tracked her down and discovered the stupid girl was in love with you," Madam Kovarian said.
"Do Not Ever say that again," he snapped out between clenched teeth.
"Touchy touchy, Doctor," she taunted while His Eminence leaned forward slightly.
"How could we let this opportunity pass us by? Finally, the Papal Mainframe could achieve the ability to help those who need it most." The Doctor laughed darkly at that.
"The Papal Mainframe would never so passively use something like what I know you are trying to create. You took her to make a weapon to return to being little more than a dictatorship."
"Strong words from the Time Lord," Madam Kovarian said.
"But there's also a poem I've been told recently, one that echoes through time. Demon's Run when a good man goes to war. Night will fall and drown the sun, when a good man goes to war. Friendship dies and true love lies, night will fall, and the dark will rise, when a good man goes to war."
"You consider yourself a good man Doctor?"
"I have not considered myself a good man since the last war that I fought in. But the legends and stories about me, Last of the Time Lords? They consider me a good man. And there is always some truth to legend isn't there?"
"And speaking of stories there's something you didn't consider when you kidnapped Emma. Something that is very important to those stories about her. Something that would have changed your actions if you had, because otherwise you never would have dared," he said, and His Eminence leaned forward while benevolently shaking his head.
"We may not have considered everything Doctor, but God has," he said and Madam Kovarian leaned forward in a vaguely threatening way.
"What didn't we consider?" The Doctor can tell with her question that he's shaken her slightly though she's trying not to show it and he grinned in a way that would make Emma shoot him a worried look if she were here.
"You didn't consider that The Girl Touched by Time gets her power because of the fact that I love her." Shock appeared on both of their faces, but he barrelled onwards because he was letting himself be angry now, truly properly angry, like he hadn't been since the last time Emma was in serious danger. "I love her more than anything else in this universe. I would burn it to the ground if she asked and let me be clear that if you have harmed her, if there is so much a hair out of place on her head, I will do the same to you. You took her from me and that is clearly an act of war. And I am so good at war. So good at it that I avoid it unless I can't and there is one thing that keeps me in line."
"And you have put yourselves between her and I."
"You and what army?" Kovarian asked. An explosion rocked the ground, and everyone stumbled except for the Doctor who grinned again.
"That army," he said as Jack came running into the room with a blaster in either hand. "Now tell me where you're keeping Emma." He could tell from Kovarian's face that she would never tell him, but he also knew that His Eminence was about to give everything up.
"She's just down there. We haven't harmed her I swear!" He pointed a shaking hand down the hallway and the Doctor flashed him a bright grin just because he could.
"Thank you. Jack keep them contained! Whatever it takes!" The Doctor said as he started heading towards the door.
"Careful Doctor. You may find she prefers the world we've made for her," Kovarian taunted and the Doctor paused.
"Another thing you haven't considered, I'm selfish," he said and took off down the hallway. His anger had lessened and turned to panic. His Eminence may have said they hadn't harmed her, but who knew what Kovarian considered harm or what she had actually told him. The Doctor threw the door open and most of his panic rushed out of him in a breath as he saw Emma laying in some sort of stasis tube, obviously doctored to measure her genetics and create the output to make the baby. There were several electrodes attached to her forehead, either monitoring her brain waves or keeping her in whatever world Kovarian had talked about.
"Emma, my love it's time to wake up," he said softly as he cupped her cheek in his hand, like he did when he was trying to wake her up in the morning without making her think it was an emergency. He didn't get a response, not that he was expecting one, so he gently opened their psychic link.
And it felt like slamming face first into a brick wall which sent his panic sky high again because even with Mr. Fear Bubbles he'd still felt something that he hadn't been able to grasp. He reached up shakily and gently pulled on one of the electrodes on Emma's forehead and just as it peeled away from her skin, he got a flash of what she's seeing inside her head.
She's pregnant. She's pregnant with their baby and the Doctor's heart lurched with how much he wished her visions were true. He sucked in a breath before he released the psychic connection as he reached for the next electrode because Emma might accuse him of martyrdom sometimes, but he wasn't a masochist and dangling that life he wants in front of himself is exactly that.