Next chapter. A better one, in my opinion. Oh, and I don't own Doctor Who. Wish I did, really – I'd be forever flying around, screwing up history in the TARDIS with the Doctor. Man, wouldn't that be great?

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Exchanging a glance with Mickey, Rose crept forward to the centre, her gun still in a defence position. But there was nothing there. Rose stepped into the centre of the stones and looked pointlessly around as Mickey joined her. "Well?"

"You guess is as good as mine, Mickey-boy."

They were both still standing, guns lowered before the bigger, inner arches when Rose heard something. It was quiet, like an inhaled breath, but she heard it clearly – and from the look on Mickey's face, he had too. "Did you…?"

"Yeah," Rose whispered in reply, casting a careful glance around her. She could see nothing, still…but what had made that sound?

Mickey grabbed her arm, a stunned expression across his face. "Rose…"

Rose turned back, to see the gap between the two archways before them beginning to glow a bloody red. She could see shapes across the other side, through a red haze, and backed away with Mickey as they began to get clearer. Something, or things, were coming through.

Mickey and Rose hid behind the stones and watched five creatures come through the red glow. They were humanoid (that is to say, two arms and two legs), wearing long robes so their bodies were covered. Three thin claws were at the each of each arm – supposedly on their version of a hand. Masks of some kind, complete with silvery visor and breathing apparatus, covered their faces. All five held mean looking weapons: rather large and bulky guns (Rose guessed they were guns), and their claws seemed to be weapons alone.

But what did they want?

They seemed to be confused, looking and pointing at the stones. Rose couldn't understand their speech…there was some translation software in the jeep…but it was outside the stones. If they moved, they might be seen. Were these aliens friendly? There was always that possibility. Travelling with the Doctor, Rose had learned long ago not to judge a book by its cover. These terrifying creatures might be friendly. Might.

Mickey nudged her as one creature dropped what it had been carrying. Rose almost made a horrified noise as she saw what it was – Chris, their fellow agent. Clearly dead, slash and blaster marks attributing his demise to the same beings that carried him. As the carrier dumped his body unceremoniously on the ground, another reached inside its robe and drew out a long, thin rod. It stabbed the rod through Chris's body, and unfurled something from it. It was a pennant, silver with a green symbol in the corner. Mickey and Rose swapped a look and spoke together.

"Flag."

Mickey shook his head, watching the aliens. "I think it's safe to say this is an invasion?"

"Not enough soldiers. Might be a scout group or something. Or maybe more of them through that…well, whatever it is."

"We need to get back to the jeep. Contact Torchwood – Pete. Get back up, get help."

Rose nodded, standing slowly with Mickey. "Get ready…now!"

They turned and ran, through the stones, back towards the jeep. As they did so, a harsh roar split the air and a voice yelled.

"Spy!"

"And another!" A blaster shot went over Mickey and Rose's heads and crashed into the ground before them, causing them to run in another direction. They threw themselves behind some of the stones, drawing their weapons as they did so. Mickey shot her a look.

"They're talking English. They weren't before."

"Maybe they're bi-lingual." Rose took a breath to calm herself, before shouting to the waiting aliens. "The Torchwood Institute demands you identify your species and purpose of being on this planet!"

There was the sound of grating laughter from the centre of the stones. "We will only speak to those we can see."

Rose nodded to herself, before pushing herself off the stone she was leaning on and walking out from its cover to face the visitors, Mickey hissing warnings behind her. "The Torchwood Institute demands you identify your species and purpose of being on this planet."

More laughter. The leader (or at least the one who seemed to be the leader) stepped forward, flexing his claws threateningly. "It does, does it? We are the Ardexa. We have come to take you planet. You will bow before us, as you fall to the might of the Ardexian Empire!"

Rose's face became stony. "It's amazing how many people come here and say that. Well, you'll have to go through me. And everyone else like me. Not to mention everyone else who isn't like me." She revealed her gun, which had been concealed behind her back during the short conversation. "And I don't go down easy."

The Ardexian's looked at her gun warily. "You will die, girl."

"I don't care. This is our planet. We will not be taken over without a fight!"

"Yeah," said Mickey, stepping out beside Rose. "Two against five. Gotta admit, I like those odds."

The Ardexians growled again, raising their own weapons. There was a silent moment between the invaders and the defenders, before one fired at Mickey and Rose and they split up, dodging behind stones, firing as they went.

The air was suddenly full of the sound of gunfire and yells. It was Mickey shed first blood, catching one of the scouts on the shoulder and knocking out one of his tubes. He went down like a stone, a green smoke-like gas leaking out of the disconnected pipe. The remaining four yelled in anger, firing back at Mickey, who narrowly avoided loosing a hand. Rose raised her own gun, firing around one of the stones at the group of aliens, who were looking for Mickey. One of her shots hit an Ardexian in the shoulder, and the wailing alien sank to the ground in pain. After that, with one of their own down, one wounded and nothing to show for it, the remaining Ardexians came after the two of them into the stones themselves.

It became a giant game of cat and mouse. The stones provided an almost comical chase, as alien and human both attempted to catch the other. Rose ran around, trying to be as quiet as possible, straining her ears for any sound of alien breathing or running. She fired a few stray shots from her blaster as she ran across an open space, but nothing came of it. After many traded shots with no result, Rose found herself backing away from three of the remaining four aliens, her blaster raised as they closed in. One was the alien she had wounded earlier. She knew she wouldn't be fast enough to shot them both, so the best she could do was kill one and die trying to get the other two. Death was no longer a worry to her – she had been in many life-threatening situations (both with and without the Doctor, and then many more situations after he left), and had realised it was just he way it went. If she was to die fighting aliens, so be it.

She backed into something that wasn't stone. Seeing as she wasn't shot dead, it couldn't be one of the Ardexians, yet she could still hear Mickey taunting the remaining alien. So who…?

There was the sound of movement. A small metal tube with a glowing blue tip appeared next to her, held out by a very familiar hand.

"I thought you said that it can't hurt, kill or maim." Her voice shook slightly.

"It can't. But it can screw up breathing aparatieses. Aparatusus. Aparati. Apar…oh, you get the idea." The Doctor flicked the sonic screwdriver on, and his face twitched in a slight smile as the breathing tubes disconnected and the alien they were connected to dropped where it stood. Rose took this as a cue and pulled the trigger of her blaster, her shot hitting an Ardexian in the face. It, too, went down, and the remaining one took off, back into the mists between the stones.

Rose lowered her smoking gun, pausing for a moment before she looked around at the man who had helped her, who she had dreamed of, waited for. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could a yell shattered the silence, and both her and the Doctor ran off in the direction of Mickey's voice. The mists had descended lower now, so visibility was impaired, and Rose didn't see the Ardexian leap out at her from between two stones – nor did the Doctor, who was a little way ahead of her because she hated running with a gun.

After she fell, the Ardexian on top of her, it rolled off and struggled up. She had lost her gun – it had flown out of her hands as a result of the surprise of the impact, and now was lying lost in the mists. She noticed the Ardexian, too had no gun. She didn't like hand to hand. This could get very bad.

The Ardexian ran at her again, and Rose had only a split second to react, leaping to the side to avoid contact. The Ardexian hissed at her and came again, its claws bared. Rose didn't move fast enough and felt the claws rip at the top of her arm. She involuntarily yelped in pain, her hand feeling blood through the material. Rose drew her combat knife from its sheath, dimly registering two things in the heat of battle. One, Mickey was okay, running next to the Doctor towards her. And Secondly, the Ardexian was coming at her again to try and kill her.

This time, Rose met the assault head on; swiftly stabbing forward with the knife as the Ardexian's claws lightly raked the side of her neck. It stopped, the power of its attack now gone, and as Rose withdrew her knife it slid off the blade to the ground. She stood above the body for a moment, before she wiped the blood from the blade and returned it to the sheath on her belt. She turned.

Mickey looked pale, and blood was trickling from a gash on his forehead. He was smiling at her, though. That was a good sign. And next to her…the figure Rose had dreamed about for the past two years. The man who had left her alone on a desolate Norwegian beach; the man she had fallen in love with. He was smiling too, a smile that she remembered so well.

She reached out an arm to each of them, smiling herself. She felt so tired. Maybe it was battle fatigue; maybe shock; maybe overwhelming relief. Either way, she felt exhausted, couldn't make sense of the world. She just let the two guys, whom she loved and trusted more than any others, take her back to the jeep, while they talked over her head. Rose was only dimly aware of their conversation.

"You gonna to come back to Torchwood?"

"Yeah. It'd be great to see everyone again. The TARDIS is pretty safe, I'd bet, and that portal ain't going anywhere."

"What was going on – on the other side?"

"Same really, just more of them. Why it came through to here I don't know. The other side is at Stonehenge, too. But on Earth – your original Earth, that is. There's also a ship there. Took care of it."

"Oh yeah? How?"

"Dissolved it, Mickey-boy."

It was around here that Rose stumbled. She couldn't think right. Couldn't walk right.

"Rose? What's wrong with here, Doctor?"

"It's just the venom on those claws. Ardexian claws have venom, which dulls the mind and the senses – the prey (or Rose, in this case) slowly falls asleep, allowing the Ardexian to win an unfair fight. She'll be asleep for about four, five hours. After that, she'll be fine."

Rose felt herself being guided onto something soft – the backseat of the jeep. She slid into sleep listening to the voices of Mickey and the Doctor. He was back…

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Yeah, he's back! Can't really do a reunion fic without bringing him back, I guess. Or getting Rose to him. Whatever… heh, hope you're enjoying it so far.