A/N: I bloody HATE this chapter, took long enough to write but it bridges another gap. I've spent half the time I haven't been writing redoing my brother's room now he's moved out (AND TOOK MY TEKKEN 5 WITH HIM!!! HE DESERVES TO DIE IN HEEEEEEEELL!) from the crappy mucky dark, dark, DARK blue colour to multicolours. I am not joking, really, my mum said to me when discussing colours: "We thought it should be - dare I say it - 'TARD-ish'..." so now I've just sat down in a totally new room, TV in accessible distance for the first time ever with looooads of posters aorund the room. I have 2 DW ones, a Muse, South Park, Midnight Club, Hitman, Simpsons and Linkin Park posters. I would've got Torchwood but they weren't selling. £4.50 a poster! Can you believe that?! Still, I'll pay anything if I'm desperate...

Also got the four Doctor Who: Decide Your Destiny books, and I'm in love. So far (I've only read two at the moment) Alien Arena is the best. The Storybook 2008 should be arriving soon and...my God I can rant on.

Anyway. Hate this chapter. Thanks for sticking with me...promise it'll get gory :D

Chapter 13 – 'In-cape-a-ball Has-been'

"My blossoming Rose…blossoming…pronounce the syllables…my blossoming Rose."

The Doctor was holding the single piece of paper infront of him where he'd written a couple of lines of his vows, pacing back and forth through Jackie's living room wearing a hole in the carpet and repeating them over and over.

"My blossoming Rose, a glowing…glow, glowing red ruby in the heart of a sun." A sun? The sun? A, definitely.

Why was he finding it so difficult to learn these lines? Anything else he could practically memorise first read, but he was doing so much nit picking on such a small paragraph he was solely confusing himself – an extremely rare occurrence.

"Wait…my blossoming…red Rose?" No, that would imply she was constantly red-faced. The Doctor cleared his throat slightly, glancing around the deserted flat and hoping no one had somehow sneaked in without his knowledge and heard him. He pulled his tie loose a little more, carrying on, "my blossoming red…no, blossoming Rose, a glowing…shimmering? No, glowing red ruby in the heart of the…a sun."

Satisfied with his first sentence he nodded to himself, running a hand back through his already worried-ruffled hair and frowning at he stared down at the next line he'd written.

"If these are my vows to be, then forever let them stand."

Forever? Was that long enough when you were talking about travel the entirety of space? He could say 'for an eternity', but then that would imply only one eternity…though eternities were awfully long…

He groaned loudly to himself, running a thoughtful hand down his face. He took another worried glance at the paper, just about registering the fact that it was all he'd written. He groaned again, dropping down into the sofa and putting his head in his hands.

He didn't know how long he remained there, staring at the floor with a sheer mass of blackness currently shrouding his brain. Rose had gone out for her last wedding fitting today and Jackie had taken Rory with them, mainly so the Doctor could sort himself out without interruption though partly because she didn't want to have to come home to a chocolate bombed flat again. The Doctor had lowly warned Rory that showing his granny his arm bandage would be a seriously bad idea to which Rory had acknowledged. It was the day before the wedding at 9:00pm and nervous energy had hit its peak throughout the Tyler family connection.

The Doctor for one thing seemed to be getting increasingly jumpy, and that wasn't wholly because of nerves. The other eighty percent was the attitude of his soon to be mother-in-law, taking every open opportunity to remind him finding a creature that wanted to take over the Universe would be a very, very bad thing the day before his wedding for both his relationship with her and his physical well-being.

The woman in question, Jackie Tyler, was finding being frantic a great pastime otherwise. Rose was getting more and more worried, Mickey was getting more and more jealous, Howard was trying to be as supportive as possible and Rory didn't really seem to give two monkeys about the entire thing.

Every guest had been phoned, the arrangements were in place and now he sat alone in the flat, staring at an old coffee stain spilt on the living room carpet. With another groan, the Doctor dragged his hands down his face and looked up, instead staring at the mirror on the wall across the painted room. He could see the kitchen doorway in it, still and silent save for the purple clad woman standing in its centre.

His eyes adjusted instantly to the figure, and he fixed his eyes to stare unblinkingly at the sleek purple outfit the person wore. If he blinked she disappeared, so he kept his eyes resolute, examining every inch of her to imprint into his memory.

She was a pale white woman with two eyes, two arms, one nose, one mouth, two ears…basically, humanoid in structure. She had what looked like strings of black hair floating out around her head like a halo. She had an immaculate flowing long purple dress that covered her feet well, making it appear as though she wasn't stepping, but hovering. Maybe she was.

She was magnificently beautiful, yet at the same time it felt like if you did love this woman…thing, you would immediately be cursed for even daring to set eyes on her. She fixed him with a stare, raising her right arm and lifting it infront of her, merely a metre from him. He wanted to turn around and demand some answers from this woman, but he knew he couldn't even dare to try that. Wind was blowing all around the room making ornaments and pictures topple to the floor.

"Who are you?" he asked.

She didn't answer, that right hand of hers still extended, the fingers assuming a position as if ready to click.

"Who are you?" the Doctor repeated, but not really expecting an answer. She didn't give one. She gave him a fleeting smile instead as her fingers clicked, and suddenly the Doctor found himself collapsing back against the sofa in a dead faint.

Slowly and gracefully, she glided around the sofa until she hovered but a foot away from him. She lowered her hand to him and gently caressed his cheek – lovingly, tenderly.

"At last you're mine, Doctor…" she whispered, gesturing upwards with her hand and almost magically the Doctor's unconscious body lifted into the air, shrouded in an aura of purple. She was just set to fizzle them both out of existence when she heard a sudden scream of a voice from the front door. In a blur of panic she let go of the Doctor who fell to the carpeted floor, clicking her fingers once more and fizzling out of existence, the wind finally dying down.

"Doctor! We're back!" Rose called from the doorway, but her fiancé couldn't hear her. She entered the sitting room, expecting to find him pacing up and down in the same spot he'd been that very morning, but instead coming upon an extremely unnerving site.

Jackie moved in behind her, staring open mouthed around the room.

"Four hours we leave 'im! Four hours!!!" she fumed as she stared around at the windswept room, marching across the carpet to see if he was hiding behind the television in fright – but instead her hand flew to her mouth as the Doctor's still form registered in her mind, hiding just out of sight behind the sofa.

"What?" Rose asked, still holding a very tired and bored-looking Rory's hand. She moved with him around to see what Jackie was gaping at, before letting out a small scream of surprise of her own at the sight of the Doctor.

Within seconds she was down next to him, brushing back his hair and checking for a pulse to find one, going strong and constant. She gave him a small shake and kissed his cheek, hoping it would somehow bring him around.

"What the 'eck 'appened?" Jackie asked, kneeling down with a cushion in hand, slipping it under his head, before turning to check whether anything had been stolen.

"Daddy?" Rory asked from next to his mother, poking the man in question hard in the chest. He moaned slightly, hand rising to his heavy head as he slowly roused to consciousness.

"Doctor," Rose called again, and his eyelids fluttered open to look straight up at her. He looked confused for a moment, pushing himself onto his elbows and looking around the room.

"Where's…" he started, but then trailed off as he realised what must have taken place.

"Nothin's taken – Doctor what 'appened?" Jackie asked the disoriented Time Lord, who raised a hand, pointing to the mirror.

"I saw her…" he said, swallowing slightly as he recalled the power she had that overwhelmed him. "I tried to talk with her but she clicked her fingers and…I must've passed out."

"Her…" Rose repeated, frowning slightly. "You mean her, her?"

He nodded, and for once Jackie looked more than a tad confused.

"'Er?"

The Doctor waved his hand vaguely as he used Rory to get to his feet. "It's complicated."

"Thought we'd been burgled and they smashed your skull in then," Jackie admitted, ignoring his secretive manner. "Still, we can always 'ope."

It was Rose's turn to ignore her mum now. "Doctor if she can control you that easily then what's to stop her comin' back a second time and…doing whatever she want to do?"

"Nothing," he admitted ruefully, before raising a grin and conveniently changing the subject. "So, you got the dress?"

"It was so boring daddy," Rory suddenly answered loudly for the three. "Mummy and granny kept on asking me what I thought but they all looked the same…"

"No they weren't sweetheart…" Jackie started again, but Rory cut rudely over the top of her.

"Granny wouldn't let me go explore even though mummy said I could and granny said called you an 'in-cape-a-ball has-been' daddy," Rory beamed, proud he'd remembered the long words. "Then mummy said you weren't and granny argued back you were so I snuck off anyway and they didn't notice."

The Doctor ruffled his hair fondly. "Good boy, I do it all the time."

"Spent the last 'our lookin' for ya! D'you know 'ow worried we were?"

Rose shrugged. "I wasn't."

Rory extended his arms to his dad, who picked him up and hugged him.

"Daddy told me how to look after myself."

Jackie, for once, could not argue with that. For once she was wordless, staring at the Doctor as she strived to find a suitable phrase.

"Go to bed," she said shortly as more of a command than a proposition, and the Doctor wasn't about to argue. "Bad luck to see each other the night before, obviously you don't 'ave that in your weird alien rituals…"

The Doctor sighed, kissing Rory on the forehead before setting him down on the floor. He crossed to Rose, gently cupping her chin and dabbing a kiss on her cheek.

"See you tomorrow, Miss Tyler," he muttered, and turned to leave the flat. She smiled, knowing the next time she saw him she would be within minutes of being his wife.

"You gonna be alright?" she asked anxiously. He turned one last time, giving her a smile.

"I'm always okay." He grinned, and fled before she could answer.

The flat door clicked shut.

A/N: I'll reply to all (if any) reviews this time, promise! I'm writing a sequel to Lector Manor, should be up in a matter of nanoseconds. I'll finish the western one and for anyone bothering to read the postDD one, err...do you mind it being gory yet love tragedy? As in "Let's smash the Doc's head in reeeeeeeeal bad..." though, with a purpose, of course. I don't torture him for fun, y'know. Well...ish.