"Maybe you should remember whose ship it is."

My ears twitched, just barely catching the tail end of what the Time Lord had been saying. I grumbled from my perch, casting a glare towards the fellow Gallifreyan.

"Oh, I do. She was gorgeous." My human said with a grin, "like I told her – be back in five minutes."

Rolling my eyes, I shook my head. I had given him quite the earful for that stunt, he could have gotten us in a lot of trouble. It took a while for me to forgive him and stop giving him the cold shoulder.

"Don't you start Khaz." Jack warned, having spotted the wrinkling of my snout. I met his warning gaze with my own challenging one.

"You talk to her like she's a human." Rose observed.

"Well, she's not exactly your average dog. Take a look at her collar, completely different technology. Not to mention she's smart."

I dropped the dirty looks and beamed at him compliment. I hadn't even thought about him even noticing the difference with the collar, didn't even realize he was paying that much attention. My heart warmed up a little as my tail began to thump the bed. Then, of course, he had to go and ruin it.

"Sometimes, too smart for her own good."

I let slip a growling bark, lunging towards him a tad bit.

"This is the chula ship." Doctor interrupted, having been ignoring our conversation. Or at least it seemed that way.

"Yeah, just like the medical transporter. Only this one is dangerous."

Doctor snapped and sparkly particles appeared. They flew around his hand as he moved it this way and that.

"They're what fixed my hands up. Jack called them, uhm - "

"Nanobots? Nanogenes?" The Time Lord supplied.

"Nanogene, yeah."

"Subatomic robots," he began, "There's millions of them in here, see?" He lifted his hand up. "Burned my hand on the console when we landed. All better now." He grinned. My head tilted and I began to feel a spark of admiration for the Time Lord. He just seemed to be so full of information! From within I felt a surge of disgust and loathing and could only think of the Voice within me, wondering if it was her dislike of him. I couldn't imagine why, he didn't seem like that bad of a guy. I wonder if I had a chance of being assigned to a Time Lord such as himself.

Probably not. I'm a failure...They don't assign those to important Time Lords.

"Take us to the crash site. I need to see your "Space Junk"."

"Soon as I get the Navcom back online." Jack said and turned to all the buttons and gadgets. "Make yourself comfortable. Carry on with whatever it was you two were...doing."

"We were talking about dancing." The Time Lord said.

"It didn't look like talking, did it Khaz?" I met his gaze as he looked over his shoulder and barked in agreement.

"It didn't feel like dancing." Rose said.

We all turned to look at Doctor, ganging up on him. It didn't go completely unnoticed, but instead of saying something he merely rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation as he mumbled something about humans. I assumed it was an insult of some kind. I snorted at his reaction, finding this whole scenario quite entertaining. It's been a while since Jack and I have had a lively night like this!

Suddenly Doctor 's gaze met mine and my panting, as I am canine and I'd been panting on and off for most of the night, ceased. My head tilted as I let slip a whine. He had this look that he was calculating something, about me maybe? Had it finally clicked?

"Where did you say you found her?" He asked, his eyes never leaving my own.

"I didn't." Jacks voice was distracted, for obvious reasons. He was rather immersed in all his gadgets over there. "I found her all alone causing trouble." I rolled my eyes. Yeah, causing trouble, that's what I was doing the day we met. Not saving his sorry butt at all. "I took her in, planned on fixing her up and sending her on her way. She turned out to be quite the asset, though. I promise you won't meet any dog like her." He turned to look over his shoulder, turning a little more serious. "Trust me when I saw you never want to piss her off." I saw the cringe and had no doubt that he'd been remember the time I had first bitten him.

"What do you mean?" Rose asked.

"She has a fire within her, and I don't mean that figuratively."

"That collar, where did it come from?" He walked a few paces closer and out of pure instinct I snarled a warning. Time Lord or not, he was still a strange man.

"Careful Doctor, she's known to bite, and her bites leave burns." But it was too late.

To be fair, I had warned him. And I'm not entirely sure my lunging toward him was all me...

I can't say what exactly happened next, just that I was really nervous about him coming closer. I felt a presence within my mind that made me so confused. Never had my Voice actually made herself present in such a way, I didn't even think it was possible! It was like there had been this barrier and she briefly slipped through it. Something told me things weren't going to be the same again after this.

The snarl that came out of me was not my own, it was more primal and haunting. I swear my fangs grew as I chomped down on his hand, making sure it was a deep wound. Why I wanted it a deep wound I wasn't quite sure.

My head hurt something fierce as another growl was released, only I swear I felt it in my mind as it started in my chest. It made my whole body shiver and my hackles stand on end.

"Doctor, what did you do?" Rose asked, her voice somewhere between horrified and accusing.

Letting go of his hand I felt myself glancing around the room without ever remembering doing the movement myself.

'How dare he think he can just walk up to me, to us.' The voice bounced off everywhere in my head and hurt so much. I whined, in obvious pain, however I also growled again.

It took me a minute to understand that it was the Voice. Despite the flood of emotions and her somehow taking over my body enough to bite the Time Lord, I still couldn't talk to her through my mind. I was furious with this.

"I didn't do anything! She's the one who bit me!" Doctor shouted as he quickly rushed to stand in front of Rose, fearing that we would tear into her.

'Oh Time Lord, it's not her I'm after.' The Voice said, sounding oh so hateful.

More emotions seemed to slip through whatever had been holding her back. I don't know when it had happened, but I was on all fours and prepared to pounce on him. Or well, the Voice was. A name whispered through the barrier.

'Your name is Aspen?' I thought it...and I know she heard it. I know it wasn't just a thought anymore, I had said it too her. I had sent the thought into her mind.

She was coming into mine too much. She had to be stopped.

"Jack talk to her!" The Time Lord demanded.

"Wha- what?" I couldn't really see him, things were a little fuzzy at the moment, but I could hear the bewilderment.

"Just do it!"

My body took another step. 'Don't you dare, Aspen. Back off.'

'But...he's so close.' She practically whined.

I felt the pain she felt, but still didn't know why. I was curious and wanted to search her mind, but I was afraid to leave her unattended with my body. She was hell bent on killing the Time Lord before us. Already we were stalking closer to him, if a little jerky as I fought for control.

"Jack...convince her...fight it." I think I heard Doctor say that, I couldn't be sure. My hearing was a bit off, to say the least. It sounded rather muffled and like I was picking up half the sentence being said.

'It wouldn't take long, I'm sure even your silly little form can do some serious damage to a Time Lord.' Her voice sent more shivers down my spine. 'I didn't think you would be so easy to control, I'm barely passed the barrier.' She was laughing at me, having fun with this. What the hell was inside me?

The voices around us flooded in full clarity, as if to tease me.

"Jack, she'll only listen to you. For whatever reason, she won't hurt you."

"How do you know?"

"Because you'd be dead for getting in the way."

'Poor little man. It was a shame I had to hurt the human, he's handsome.' She said, tossing a look to Jack. He had a gash on his arm that was obviously canine marks. It seemed to be trying to heal though, courtesy of those Nanogenes.

'How dare you hurt my human.' I snarled, rage of my own replacing her hate for the Time Lord. 'I don't know who you are, or why your stuck inside me, but you better get your furry ass back beyond that barrier.'

I felt my control flood through me as I somehow mentally forced that crazy creature back through whatever crack was made in the barrier that had been blocking her all my life.

'I underestimated your control over yourself. You better watch out, little Vaihtaja, because the moment that barrier is completely gone is the moment you will be stuck right here where I am, forever. The Hounds will rise again.'

Those were her last words before she let herself slip beyond my reach. I was so confused. One moment she's kind and caring, almost motherly, and then next she's this murderous thing trying to take over and kill everything.

She'd mentioned the Hounds, though. I'd been warned about them, but for the life of me I couldn't remember what about them. Now was so not the time to be thinking about it.

"Jack, whenever her eyes turn red like that, you have to step in and bring her back. If not, you'll lose her." The Time Lord all but exploded on Jack. "You can't freeze up like that!"

Whoa, whoa wait, my eyes changed?

I felt a hand on my head and found it was Doctor's. I flinched away from his touch, afraid of the beast hidden in me somewhere. It was needless, for she was quiet for now. I looked up at him with a terrified whine, for his gaze was both knowing and grim. "You're a long way from home, aren't you?" He asked with a soft tone.

I merely looked away from him, I certainly didn't want to be thinking about my Uncle abandoning me at a time like this. In looking away, I found Jack. I had to know he was okay, that Aspen hadn't hurt him too much.

I walked over to him, afraid that if I was too fast he would flinch away from me. I didn't want him to be afraid. I wasn't going to hurt him, Aspen might, but I would never. As I thought this I all but crawled up to him and whine pathetically, wanting to make things right.

My worries were needless, as he offered a crooked smile and scratched my ear. "Your hiding a lot of secrets in that pretty little head of yours, aren't you?" His tone was soft, but his eyes were mixed with worry. I swear I saw a flicker of fear and I hated myself, especially Aspen, for putting that fear there.