A/N: First of all… I'm so, so, so SORRY that it took me this long to update! It's been two months, hasn't it? (winces) I had a bit of a… writer's block, I guess. (Aka my head jamming totally.) BUT, now I'm back on track AND, what's more, I know exactly where this story is going; what'll happen and how it'll end.

THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart, for your reviews, listings, love and support! They're what's kept this story from sinking into the ocean of abandoned fics. You guys are more precious than you could ever imagine! (Gollum so ruined that word for me, heh!)

Awkay, because I'm a bit nervous about kick-starting this story again… Let's go! I REALLY hope that this turns out worth the wait.

Tiny Problems

One of the more positive traits of his biology, arguably at least, was John's ability to regain consciousness quickly. That's why he swam out of the gray hue that the Doctor pushed him into impressively fast. Instead of opening his eyes immediately, however, he stole a few moments and just listened. Careful to spot any signs of trouble or threat.

He did hear shouts and growls from a distance. And he did smell a Dansheé, quite a large number of them. But this presence held no threat.

Slowly, slowly he opened his eyes. Just in time to see someone opening the door of the closet he'd been hidden into. What he encountered was a Dansheé with stunningly familiar blue eyes. He had to blink a couple of times.

The last time they actually met he was an intern and he was a terrified, lost boy who came to him with several broken bones and questionable bruises. Both sensed what the other was. But instead of enemies they found allies. Since then hundrets of phone calls, e-mails and text messages had been passed back and forth. The most recent one of them not too long before… well, this unfortunate situation.

/ 'It's time, and I'll need your help.' /

"The Doctor decided that I shouldn't be involved", he groaned an explanation to the arrival, up before the words were out. There was fire in his veins and in his eyes. "Did you get the team gathered?"

The other man nodded sharply. "It was on a short notice." A degree of irritation and a load of adrenaline thickened the Welsh accent. "But yes, I did. And one of us was already with Sherlock and Mary."

John couldn't quite hide his surprise. Irene Adler…?! Well, perhaps he should've known. And it wasn't even relevant at the moment. He nodded. "Right. Now let's bring an end to this. I have to find Sherlock and Mary before they get in the way of your team. You, go and find your sister."

"I already know where she is." Those blue eyes darkened significantly. "The Doctor took her to the ruins."

In the meantime Sherlock, Mary and Irene were making their way through the long ago closed school. All of them tense. Prepared for just about anything.

"How did you find us?" Sherlock demanded in the end, mistrust and something else restrained but evident in his voice.

Irene smirked and winked at him. "Oh, Sherlock… Did you really think that I'd let you slip away from me all over again? Especially after your heroic stunt in Karachi."

There was no reading the expression that appeared to Sherlock's face. Did the man blush? It was a bit too dark to tell.

Mary groaned, just quietly enough to make it safe. "While it's very entertaining to listen to you… flirting, or whatever the bloody hell that is… We may have a problem."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Well. I'd say that much is obvious."

Mary gave the detective a sharp, borderline murderous look. "Aside the obvious", she hissed. There was a brief pause, during which her jawline tightened. "I'm… having these sharp twinges every few minutes. I've been monitoring them for hours and they're growing closer and closer together." Seeing that her companions weren't getting it she continued. "I'm pretty sure that I'm in labour."

The Doctor knew all too well that it was quite possibly a fruitless effort. A feeble, doomed to fail attempt of reaching out to a troubled soul. But he had to try.

And so, in what wasn't much more than a blink, he stood with Cadi on the rooftop of an apartment building. Looking down at an area they both knew entirely too well. Both of them fidgeting under the weight of the memories.

It was the place where she and her kind were held captive upon crashlanding to Earth, all those years ago. A lifetime ago. It was the arena of most of her darkest memories.

"Why the hell did you bring me here?" Cadi hissed like a wounded beast.

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Because I need you to see. To understand."

He saw those horrors, too, when he came across the place only days after it was shut down. He saw the blood. The hastily covered bodies. The pain and devastation, the near destruction of a species. He smelled death. But the traces of it were gone now.

Instead he saw a playground. Swings. Laughing and playing children. Instead of blood and tears the wind carried the scent of flowers to him.

"What you and your kind went through… It was an injustice that nothing can replace or make right. But you survived. And life… It goes on." He gave her a swift sideways glance. "I know exactly how you feel right now. That guilt and helpless rage. Yet your path of revenge and destruction will only lead to more death. I've tried it, I've seen it." Quite futilely he attempted to swallow down the bitter memories those words brought to life. "All those people who lost their lives… They wouldn't want you to get lost as well. They wouldn't want to see you get swallowed by the past."

For few seconds Cadi stared at him. Then scoffed. "What life can I have in a world like this? In a world where people refuse to learn from their mistakes, instead hide them with playgrounds and flowers?" Her eyes flashed. "I promised, on the corpses of my siblings, that I'd make the world that killed them burn! And I'll fight to keep that promise until I die!"

The Doctor's lips opened but he was stopped by the sounds of approaching footsteps. They were soon followed by a male voice. "You've already shed enough blood in my name, Aime."

They both turned their heads to see a man in the shadows. They couldn't quite see his face. The Doctor, however, felt his blood run cold at the sight of a very familiar Torchwood symbol. And clearly he wasn't the only one who recognized it.

Cadi's eyes narrowed hazardously, full of venom, disbelief, hurt and something close to horror. "You…!" she growled. The sound was something decidedly not human. "You. My own brother. You became one of them? One of Torchwood?"

The man stepped into the light, his blue eyes ablaze and not betraying a thing at the same time. "I was lost, like you. Separated from my kind. But instead of James Moriarty I found something else." The Welsh accent was smooth although the words and facial muscles were tense. He gritted his teeth. "I needed to find you because you're the only real family I have left. Torchwood… They were the only ones with the necessary data."

Cadi's eyebrow arched and a snort slipped through her lips. "So… You're telling me that they'd hire an alien?"

The man shrugged. "You know how persuasive I can be. They needed someone with inside information and I volunteered. They agreed and kept me on a tight leash." He swallowed hard, like trying to gulp down something particularly unpleasant tasting. "I almost found you. And then Canary Wharf happened. All the data and all the traces of you were lost. But so was most of the data about me." A new name. A new start.

Cadi, or perhaps she should've been called by her real name, stared at the man for the longest time. Recognizing and staring at a stranger at the same time. "Jaunos…"

And at that very moment pieces clicked together in the Doctor's head. The force was enough to make his eyes widen, just a little bit. He'd never seen this man he'd heard so much about but now… Now he finally knew.

/ "Jones, Ianto Jones." /

Jack was right. Ianto Jones really was good at keeping secrets. Terrifyingly good.

"Doctor." Ianto's tone was firm and clipped. Were those fangs beginning to show? "This isn't your war. Our kind… We fight our battles." Sharp blue eyes met his. "There's nothing you can do without risking too much. So walk away and make sure that those who are supposed to be safe stay that way." The Dansheé children. Sherlock. Mary. Greg. They had no part in this entire mess.

The Doctor wasn't one to walk away from a war. But Ianto was right. This wasn't his to fight. And so he gave a stiff nod, then turned away and began to move on although absolutely all of him screamed against it.

For a one more time, for a beat, Ianto's voice stopped him. "And Doctor? Jack… Whatever happens he'll never know about any of this." There was definitely genuine emotion, there, no matter how hard the newly exposed alien attempted to hide it.

"If he already doesn't he won't", the Doctor promised. In some other situation he might've found a hint of humor from it all. Trust the mighty Jack Harkness to capture the affection and fire of a pure blooded Dansheé.

As soon as they were left alone the siblings slipped to their native language. One that neither had used in a very, very long time. "I… I thought that you died", Cadi nearly whispered. "With the others."

"I should've died, a lot of times", Ianto admitted. He took several steps closer, resulting to them circling around each other. Their postures stiff, neither trusting. "I don't know why but… I'm still here. And I'm willing to do anything to save you. Even if it's from yourself."

Considering that he was an actual genius it was amusing how blank sheer shock wiped Sherlock's face. Like the detective's brain had simply tilted. It took what felt like an eternity before the man spoke. "What do you mean, in labour?"

Under different circumstances Mary might've chuckled. As it was all she could do was emit a rather harsh, violent noise, along with very vulgar words in several languages. "Exactly… what I… said", she snarled. Loudly. She focused on breathing for a few moments. In, out, nice and even. It soothed the ache a little but she knew, all too well, that it was merely calm before the storm.

She would've most definitely screamed out loud if she hadn't been worried about arousing unwanted attention.

"We need to get you out of here", Irene murmured. There was just a hint of genuine softness in her eyes, traces of the maternal instincts that were foreign to the Woman. "Preferably before you'll go into a shock."

Mary cast a sharp look at the other woman. The wave of annoyance was enough to distract her from the newest twinge of pain. "I'm not… going into a shock."

Irene gave her a small, wry smile. "I wasn't talking to you, love."

Sherlock didn't seem amused. Didn't seem to hear at all, really. With that they all focused on finding their way out of a battle.

After what felt like ages, especially with the snarls and other worrying noises that seemed to be creeping closer, they found what looked like a door to freedom. They opened it eagerly. Only to freeze to the spot.

Yes, it might've been an exit once. But it'd been modified since the school was shut down. There was a room that'd been divided by what appeared to be a window. They could, however, instantly tell that it only opened a view for them. Their rapidly forming theory was supported by the splatters of blood on the floor and the battered, equally stained wooden chair. Chills went through them all.

Interrogation room.

They'd stared for the total of three seconds until on the other side of the window a door opened. In walked a person they all knew better than well, eyes firm and a gun held in a just as tight grip. He walked in like a well trained agent, inspecting each corner before daring to relax marginally.

"John…!" Mary and Sherlock gasped almost simultaneously.

Since meeting the Doctor Donna had found herself from a lot of… bizarre places and situations. But never, even her wildest imagination, had she pictured herself playing a babysitter for nine hysterical alien children. The whole situation was so surreal that if she hadn't been so worried and terrified she might've laughed.

Her mother had been pestering her about having children – if only she'd see her now…

Donna was currently busy trying to calm down a crying five-year-old girl who clung to her so tightly that it hurt. She jumped a little with startle when her cell phone began to ring and winced when her reaction made the alien child cry even harder. She didn't have to look at the caller ID to know who it was. "Where are you?" she snarled. "If you're planning on dumping me with…!"

"Donna, listen!" The Doctor's tone was enough to make her obey, no matter how little she liked it. "The children… You need to get them to safety, alright? Get them to Baker Street. Greg and Mrs. Hudson should be there."

Donna couldn't say that she was very pleased with the plan. She gritted her teeth. "And how, exactly, do you imagine that I'd get nine panicked alien kids all the way there? I don't even have a bloody car that'd be big enough!"

She could almost see that all too familiar grin. "You're Donna Noble. I'm sure that you'll find a way."

Donna wasn't quite as optimistic. She was about to tell him as much until her eyes scanned through the small, shadowy room around her and widened. Did she just say nine children? Because she could only see eight.

She gulped. "Doctor? We may have… a problem."

There was a small pause that felt torturously long to her. "Yeah… We do." And then there was an explosion that nearly made her drop the cell phone.

Donna's heart was pounding painfully hard and her eyes were ridiculously wide while she waited for something, anything. "Doctor?" No response. "DOCTOR!"

Mary and Sherlock stared at John in something close to disbelief, both trying to fully process the situation. The doctor seemed alive and well. So close. Yet so far.

"John!" Mary shouted as loudly as she could. Without pausing to wonder if it'd be of no use she made her way to the glass and banged, hard. "John!"

He couldn't actually hear her, of course. But perhaps he could smell her, or maybe he merely sensed her. But whatever the case was he made his way closer to what he assumed to be a mirror or possibly a wall, peered at it with a frown. Most likely without even thinking he placed one hand to the cool surface, clearly trying to see through.

Mary, ignoring the pains of her constantly progressing labour, mimicked his gesture. She gulped thickly. "We're here, John. Right here."

John's frown deepened and he pressed his hand even more tightly. With such force that it was easy to imagine it melting right through the glass. For quite a long, stilled moment the elevated breathing of Sherlock and Mary was all the noise in the room.

And then it all began to fall apart.

Mary emitted a small cry and Sherlock stiffened to what had to be a painful extend when the door right behind John opened soundlessly. In sneaked three Dansheés, approaching the former soldier who was too distracted to catch their scent. Fully in their beast forms, ready to attack.

"JOHN!" the two cried out almost simultaneously. Their usually masked tones colored by such an amount of sheer terror that it would've stunned anyone. Their hearts racing in fear of losing the one they'd fought so very hard for.

"Turn around!" Sherlock snarled almost desperately.

But it seemed that whatever connection they'd had broke, there. Because John didn't hear them. Didn't turn around to face the approaching threat.

Sherlock, Mary and even Irene were also missing the obvious. Because directly behind them a door opened. And without making even the slightest bit of noise two Dansheés sneaked their way in, fully ready and willing to kill.

TBC

A/N: Oh boy! Now THAT'S what I'd call intense. (gulps) Soooooo any good, at all? Or deletion material?

Like I said, I've got a FIRM structure for the rest of the story. There'll be less than five / five chapters left. Would you be willing to stick around through those?

In any case, thank you so much for still staying with this story! Who knows. Maybe I'll see you again soon?

Take care!