Warning: While not detailed, there is content in this chapter that may upset some readers.
The Doctor lead them into the medbay once Tim was able to leave the bathroom, and Amy had calmed down from the hysterics that overwhelmed her.
Rose wasn't sure what to expect, the Doctor not giving any explanation before bring them down. So seeing twelve occupied beds, children of all sizes laying unconscious in them, was a bit of a surprise. Monitors were beside each bed, attached to each one, and something that looked quite a bit like the shade to a desk lamp hovered above each of the children's heads, drawing out tiny gold flecks.
"No one but Rose can approach any of the beds." The Doctor cautioned, his voice betraying how tired he was. "It's not even entirely safe for me to be near them."
"What's happening to them?" Amy asked, a bit of a quiver in her voice.
"I'm releasing the huons from their systems." He said. "These precious little humans were barely hanging on when they were just … tossed there. A quick flash and there they were." He reached into his trouser pockets and pulled out something that looked like a tiny wrist watch. "They were all wearing these. One way vortex manipulators. Returns them to the right planet, right time, but not likely the right place. I went back to where we picked up on the reading before, waited for days. As long as I could. Each child that came through …."
"There were eighteen missing." Tim said, voice steady despite the tense jaw. "So the other six?"
"Afraid so," The Doctor sighed. "Weaker of the lot, my guess. These ones … it was close. Every time, it was so close. Seconds away from life or death." His eyes grew stormy, everything about him tensing. "I'm not even sure I understand what the point is." He snapped. "Why dose children with huons when even the smallest amount can be lethal? What can possibly happen other than killing these innocent little ones?"
Tim shook his head.
Rose moved toward them. There was a surprising amount of small children, less than half looking to be older than six years old. "What happened with the ones that didn't make it?" She asked.
She felt a pang of grief through their bond before the Doctor cleared his throat. "I ensured they were returned to their parents for a proper burial. I made sure there were no traces of huons to possibly poison or interfere with the future, and … well, you don't need to know the details." He said, though flashes of what looked like a church came through the bond before he closed off his end again. "It's been a long week for me."
"You've been gone a week?" Rory asked.
"Yes." The Doctor said. "I wanted to make sure I had an accurate count before returning to a point in time where I wasn't properly sure how many were left to be taken. Hopefully no more."
"And how are we going to do that?" Tim asked, and Rose turned to see him confronting the Doctor as if he were the enemy. "'Cause I have a feeling I know what you're going to say, and I'm telling you right now, right here and now that you are not putting Olivia up for bait!" He spat out.
"How else can we figure out who is taking the children, and why, if we don't have some way to follow them?" The Doctor countered. "Normally I would send Rose in, but I think she's a bit old to pass for a teenager of thirteen."
"So your solution is to send in my three year old daughter?" Tim countered.
"Well it's not like I can go up to random people and ask if they'd be willing to let their child be called away or whatever." The Doctor raised his voice, gesturing toward the beds. "How many more, Tim? How many more tiny people do I need to bring in here, sedate so they don't wake from the intense pain pulling those particles from their small bodies would cause? I would never let anything happen to your little girl, not a thing. We would never let her out of our sight."
"Doctor, be reasonable." Rory stepped between the two of them, hands raised in front of him. "You're asking him to willing put Olivia in harms way. If it were your daughter…."
"He'd let her." Tim snapped. "Or what's worse, she'd volunteer."
Rory looked over his shoulder at Tim, pleading with a glance for him to calm down and remain silent. Tim relented, rubbing at the bridge of his nose under his glasses and turning away.
Rory then looked to the Doctor. "Would you put a little Jenny in this situation?"
The Doctor looked like he wanted to say yes, but his squared shoulders sagged seconds after stiffening, and he looked away.
"No." He admitted.
"So why would you even think to consider Livie?" Tim asked, exasperated.
"Because Livie is a stronger telepath than Jenny is, for one. I could form a link with her, have a connection with her …."
"Do not, under any circumstances, form a mental link with my daughter. Don't enter her mind, don't even glance at it." Tim warned.
"I would never hurt her." The Doctor assured.
"I know." Tim said honestly. "But that's not the reason you can't form a link with her." He turned and walked out of the medbay, his footsteps fading as he headed down the corridor.
The room was silent and tense before Amy asked, "Would you have really put his little girl in danger?"
"I'd never let it get that far." The Doctor replied. "Not at all. Tim is essentially family to us, which means Olivia is as well. I would never let anything happen to her. But I don't know what other way we could possibly figure out how they're taking the children, where they're taking them, and why they're being pumped full of manufactured huons."
Rose looked down at the child to her right. A baby not quite to the stage of a toddler. Her heart clenched at the thought of what the parents of this poor babe must be going through, worried sick, blaming themselves. For as long as this child would live, they'd likely never have a good night's sleep again. There would always be the check in, waking at every sound, terrified every moment the rounded the corner to head to school that they wouldn't come home. Every child in the medbay had at least one parent who would likely go through the same thing, regardless of how old their lost little one was.
Rose looked to the door that one of her dearest friends had just left through, and found herself following. Her husband poked her mind with his, but she ignored him.
The TARDIS hummed, directing Rose quickly to console room where the doors were open, and the light from Tim's flat filtered in.
Heading out, she found he wasn't in the living room. Possibly the bathroom, maybe his room, as both doors were closed, but she halted in her search for him when she noticed Olivia sitting patiently on the couch with her hands folded in her lap. She looked up at Rose, and smiled.
"Lizzy and I hadn't left yet." She said. "She got a call. She's a nurse, she gets called a lot."
"Did she just leave you alone, Love?" Rose asked, moving to sit next to the little girl.
Olivia shook her head. "She saw Daddy coming out of the TARDIS when she brought me back in. They went out into the hallway to talk." She paused, considering something with a pout. "Daddy's always so scared I'm going to end up like Mommy. He doesn't say it, but I know."
Rose frowned. "Is it so bad to be like your Mummy?" She asked, genuinely surprised Olivia knew anything about her. There were no pictures of anyone more than she and her father around the flat, and no mention came up prior.
Olivia seemed to consider this very carefully. "I don't know." She said really quiet. She looked sad quite suddenly, and Rose couldn't fight the instinct she had to wrap her arms around the little girl and hold her close. Olivia crawled up in her lap, resting her head on Rose's chest. Rose in turn hugged her tighter, resting her cheek against the top of the little girl's head. She wondered what was keeping the rest of the lot, the Doctor and their friends, Tim and his girlfriend, counting the seconds by the double thrum of Olivia's hearts beating in her tiny body.
Rose tensed, eyes widening as her breath caught. She leaned back, looked down at the little one who stared back just as frightened. Rose's hands slipped off the little girl's back as she studied Olivia's face for any hint that what she was guessing should have been evident from the start. All she saw was Tim in Olivia's features, and with that uncertainty, Rose put the heel of her hands over both sides of Livie's chest.
Two little hearts raced.
"Don't tell Granddad." She said in a tiny voice that was almost unheard. Rose barely had time to shake her head before the apartment door opened.
Her head shot up, and she met Tim's equally terrified gaze as he remained frozen like a deer in headlights in his doorway.
"Rose." He said, "It's … it's hard to … I mean I can …." He never finished what he was saying as the Doctor's heavy step echoed inside the TARDIS,the Old Girl likely projecting the sound through her still opened doors.
Rose pulled her hands away from Olivia like they burned her, and the little girl slid off her lap and back onto the cushion she had been on before. Tim closed the door quickly, slamming it slightly in the effort to look normal. He wiped his palms on his jeans before coming to stand behind the sofa while the trio left the TARDIS.
"So Rory had a thought. A pretty good one, actually, and it wouldn't really require anything from any of us except to keep watch and be able to run." The Doctor said as he stepped out, clasping his hands together and looking to Rose and Tim sheepishly. "That is, of course, if you can get your girlfriend to stay with Olivia tonight. Olivia who is here and not with your girlfriend like she should be." The Doctor's ears turned red as he seemed to notice the little girl for the first time.
"Lizzy got called to work. She's a nurse. She does important work." Olivia said matter-of-factly.
"Yes, nurses do do very important work, don't they?" Rory said with a slightly puffed chest.
Olivia frowned. "I always thought that you were a …."
"Da, da, da, Livie." Tim interrupted her loudly. He huffed with exasperation, pulling at his hair. "God, you're as bad as your mother sometimes." He mumbled quietly, Rose having only heard him because he was so close.
She felt the spike of shock from the Doctor but did her best to keep a straight face and ignore it. "So what's your plan, then, Rory?" She asked the confused looking nurse.
"Plan, yes, right. Well, see, I was thinking, there isn't an real way to know for sure how they chose which children to take. So even if we were to set a trap, not very likely that anyone would even fall into it. But maybe we could all sort of sit up on a roof, stand at street level near a building, watch for any signs of something off. Scan for alien tech."
"And you think that will work?" Rose then asked the Doctor.
He shrugged, his gaze locked on to Olivia. "Yes." He said flatly. "Rory's right, even if my plan could have been put into action, there was no guarantee it would work. This might be better."
"How are we going to know when there's activity? These people come in and out of people's homes without making a sound. How are we going to track them?" Tim asked.
The Doctor seemed to hesitate, wringing his hands as he continued to stare at Olivia. "Tiny Vortex manipulators." He said. "If they have those, likely use big ones to get to here from where they are. Just need to look for the spike in energy they give off. Maybe if we're lucky, if we run, we can catch them before they disappear."
"And if we don't?" Tim asked.
"I'll have to think of a plan 'c' then, won't I?" The Doctor asked, looking Tim in the eye and giving off a hint of bitterness.
Olivia laid her little hand on Rose's, and Rose did her very best not to let on how long she suspected this day would become.
~DWDWDW~
Elizabeth wasn't available. Not a big deal, of course, as Amy admitted to not feeling much like running and was far more interested in staying with Olivia than hunting down kidnappers who did far worse than steal children. Rose had noticed Rory with her off in a corner, looking as though he was trying to get something out of her and wasn't having much luck. When the sun set, and the time where most children started heading to bed came around, the rest of them took positions. Rory went with the Doctor, waiting in the streets below for to possibly catch the captors at a run, Rose and Tim waited on the roof of his building with a second scanner.
There was a tense silence between them, one that had never existed in all the time that Rose had known the man beside her. There were dozens of questions she wanted to demand answers of, but many she was too scared to ask.
The sky grew darker, stars unseen in London from her pre-Doctor time began to dot the sky, and the scanner in her hand showed no change.
"Remember when we sat up on a roof way back when that never happened?" Tim asked, breaking the silence for the first time in what seemed like hours. "You were about to return to England to save the Doctor, and I was about to die." Tim said as Rose sat next to him. "There are days where I miss that time. Was simpler, less complicated. I could still think what ever future I'd have would possibly involved re-building the Earth, maybe writing the history of what happened so no one could forget."
Rose's mouth went dry, struggling between not wanting to talk about the Year that Never Was, and not knowing how to ask about Olivia.
Tim glanced over, snorted, shook his head with a slight upward pull of his lips. "Ask."
"Explain." Rose replied simply.
"Where do I start?" He countered.
"I don't know." Rose shook her head. "Why isn't she here?"
Tim took a breath. "Jen … Jen and I just didn't …." He huffed a heart heavy sigh. "We planned on forever, my forever. Not long after … an event, yet to come for you, I traveled with her and River off and on. I was injured, and while I was recovering we came to learn a bit about a fiftieth century technology that enhances a life span. Doubling, tripling in some cases. Halts aging. Jenny jumped at the chance to have me around a lot longer than I should have been."
"You did what?" Rose snapped.
Tim scoffed. "Excuse me, what did you do when you were barely more than a teenager? You rewrote your biology, linked your life to the Doctor's, just so he'd never have to be alone. Jen, she took the story of that to heart, and she did the next best thing she could think of to keep me with her." He said quite firmly. He took a breath. "Anyway. River sort of noticed something as we were traveling. Behavioral differences in Jen, like how she ate, her energy levels, little things that we didn't notice because I'm human and I thought maybe she was just assimilating me. Turned out that against the odds, Jen was pregnant."
"Olivia." Rose acknowledge.
Tim nodded. "Olivia. But while I was the typical expectant father: excited, scared, nervous - Jen was nothing. She just sort of shrugged it off. Which, well, we didn't worry about at first, but…." He pulled at his hair, and Rose could see the pain in Tim's eyes build. "Genetic Anomaly. She has the instincts of a warrior, an explorer. She loves with her whole heart, experiences the full spectrum of proper emotions, bit she lacks instincts not programmed into her. She would run head long into danger, and had no maternal need to protect. It was an afterthought."
"So you left her?" Rose asked, confused and a bit hurt on her daughter's behalf.
"We left each other." Tim replied, looking at his feet. "She didn't want to stop running, I didn't want to run with our daughter. She didn't want to be tied down to a life filled with windows and doors, proper homes and good school districts, I didn't want Olivia to see the horrors and wonders of the Universe and think that entirely the norm. Jen didn't have a childhood, couldn't comprehend what that meant. Even the Doctor, as much as he and I didn't get on the best when Jen and I were together, was on my side. I was already in my mid fifties when Olivia was born, dying my hair and saying I was just aging really well while I was home. I couldn't have kept it up much longer, certainly not as Livie grew up, so Jen set us up here.
"She always said that you and the Doctor showed her what real love looked like. And we did, Rose, I swear we loved each other for years. I still do. Probably will for the rest of my life. But it wasn't enough."
When Tim finished, silence fell heavy between them. There were tears on his cheeks that fell silently while his voice remained steady, and he still refused to look to Rose.
"Does she see her? Jenny, does she see her daughter?" Rose asked, needing to clear the tremor from her voice.
"She does love her, Rose. Yes, she sees Livie. Drops by from time to time, brings her gifts from her travels. But she's sorta like … aunt mom. Comes in, spoils her, then leaves. And before you ask, yes, she knows about Elizabeth. Jen, from what I understand, is a bit more … free with whom she spends her time, but I think at this point she's got a few centuries on me, so I can't say I blame her. And who knows, maybe the way she is choosing to be in Livie's life means when Livie grows up she can join Jen as a companion in her own right. Doc mentioned an old granddaughter before that used to travel with him like that."
"So … Jenny's a few centuries old from your perspective." Rose said, chewing her lip. "So how old am I?"
Tim finally looked at her, dead in the eye. "Old" He said flatly. "Ancient, really. You're older than, crip, so many things. There are planets younger than you that have been around nearly a millennium. Babies compared to you."
"Come off it," Rose gave him a nudge with her shoulder and he chuckled. "We're still friends, though, yeah? Know it must be complicated with the whole then involving Jenny, but we still get on, yeah?"
"You remain my best friend in this Universe." Tim said with a nod. "And despite the odds, the Doctor and I are getting along again as well."
Settled for the moment, knowing that they topic could likely be discussed to death and she may never be satisfied with how things come to be Rose let it go. Resting her head against Tim's shoulder, letting him put his arm around her shoulder, she stared out at the skyline.
A flicker of light caught her eye from below, and just as she looked down to see what it could have been, the scanner beeped.
"Oh shit," Tim said, bolting quicker than Rose had ever known him to run. She looked to him, to the scanner, to the spot below where she saw the flicker of light. Tim's place was on the opposite side of the building from where he was standing, so he couldn't have been worried about Olivia.
Could he?
She felt the Doctor's spike of fear a moment later, and from the perspective she saw, the possible disruption would have been roughly around Tim's floor. The Doctor and Rory had seen it, if her image was right, from a couple blocks away.
Without letting any worry come to her, she took off running for the stairs Tim was already fleeing down.
~DWDWDW~
"Farmer Brown was furious," Amy read from the book in her hand for the dozenth time in a row. "No milk and no eggs? How am I supposed to run his farm? He heard the cows in the barn typing away on the typewriter. Click, clack, moo."
Olivia giggled hysterically. For a child that was actually begging Amy to read her Pride and Prejudice, she seemed to be enjoying the simple story as much as she seemed to want to reader the longer one. It made the ginger giddy inside, snuggling with this little girl on her bed, hearing the peels of laughter. Her heart warmed, and it became really easy to ignore the odd, pricking pain she felt in her abdomen. If she let her mind wander just enough, she could imagine the same scenario in the flat she shared with Rory.
They finished the book, and then finished it again, before Amy notice the little one's eyes start to droop.
"Think it's time for shut eye." She said, brushing Olivia's hair from her face.
"Daddy's not home." She protested before yawning.
"Your Daddy's with the Doctor, and Rose, and Rory trying to stop the bad guys from …." She wasn't sure she should continue.
"From taking the kids like Malcolm." Olivia finished in her sleep heavy voice. "Daddy thinks he's keeping it secret, but I know. I have thought things too."
"Thought things?" Amy asked, and Olivia nodded. "What are those?"
"I see what's gonna happen." Olivia replied. "Granddad calls it time sense, but I like Daddy saying it's thought things. I like being more like Daddy than Granddad."
"And who's your Granddad?" Amy asked, though she had her suspicions.
"Not supposed to say." Olivia replied.
Amy glared at the top of her head with a slight grin to her lips, amused by the maturity this tiny person was showing yet how child like she still was.
Olivia's eyes began to flutter shut, and while there was a lot Amy still wanted to ask of her, she let the little brunette slowly fall asleep against her. It was quite late, after all, and there wasn't much light in the room except a well-shaded bedside lamp. The rest of the apartment was dark as well, because as much as the Doctor swore up, down, and sideways that there was no way he was going to use Olivia as bait, Amy suspected he still hoped she was somehow a target to ensure the arrival of someone.
A wave of fatigue overcame Amy as the warmth of Tim's daughter, as well as her soft, steady breathing, relaxed her. Her own eyes started to drift, but she forced them to remain open. She looked about the room, noting some quite alien things on shelves. She recognized the stuff toy tucked under Olivia's other arm as the little fat blob things Rory snapped a picture of during one of his work placements in a London hospital. There was a cluster of pictures pinned over Olivia's dresser, but they were all too far away to see properly.
Sliding off the bed and careful not to wake her, Amy crept quietly toward the make-shift college.
Lots of Olivia with various people. Rose, which was the most common and recognizable person aside from Tim. I nearly equal count to Rose was a gray haired man, a few wrinkles on his face though they were nearly non-existent in the photos where he was smiling. She spotted River in a few, and Jack as well. There was a ginger woman, middle age, that was quite obviously not her. In fact, it actually broke Amy's heart to see there were no photos of her or Rory up on the wall at all. She supposed that maybe she and Rory simply weren't considered as close to Tim as these other people were. Not even Jenny made it in more than one photo, and Amy was nearly positive she and Tim were a thing before this whole stop over. There weren't even any photos of the Doctor, or at least the Doctor she knew, among the lot. Maybe it was the gray haired man? Maybe that boyish face didn't last forever and he wasn't going to age very well? But he didn't look anything like the Doctor now. Not a lick.
Shrugging Amy stepped away to look about the room and at the other strange and wonderful things lining Olivia's bedroom walls.
She was about to handle a fuzzy looking rock when the door to the flat creaked open. Pulling her hand back guiltily, Amy moved swiftly to the bedroom door and went to peek out and see who came back.
Her eyes went wide when the tall, skinny man was no one she knew. She watched from behind the crack in the door, as he pulled something from his trouser pockets and moved it around the room. There was something eerily familiar about the way he was dressed, the dark t-shirt and army fatigues niggling at something in the back of Amy's mind. Something she knew she should know but couldn't recall.
She watched as he moved about, getting closer to where she was, his eyes seeming to glow in the moonlight as they searched and landed on her.
His teeth were visible as his grin stretched, wide and crazed, and Amy wanted to scream but found she had no voice left.
Then the man's head was thrown back, something fell to the floor, and the man was guided to the wall beside the door way with a thud. Someone shorter than the man was pressed up behind him, and the two seemed to struggle with grunts and cries. Amy opened the door a bit wider, making out Rose coming in from the building corridor and darting to where the two others struggled.
She grabbed the man by the throat, the other one letting go, and she slammed him hard enough into the wall that he went limp in her grip. She let go, and he fell to the floor in a clump.
"Daddy?" Olivia cried out, terror in her little voice, and Amy spun around to see her wide awake and nearly in tears.
"I'm here, Sweetheart." Tim replied, and as he stepped into the light from the room it became obvious that it was him who stopped the other guy. He ran to Olivia's side, scooped her up and held her close. "Rose?" He called out as Olivia buried her head in her Daddy's shirt.
"Out cold," Rose said evenly. "Got anything I can …."
"Twenty-first century cable ties in the linen closet." He called back. With a shrug he added, "I'm a bit old fashioned."
"Need a hand," Amy asked Rose, flicking on the overhead light.
"Could use a hand in getting him tied up." Rose replied as she went for the closet Tim indicated.
Amy knelt down, taking the rail thin man's arms and pulling them behind his back. "He's got something on his wrist. Looks like a bigger version of those watch-things the Doctor showed us."
"That would be his vortex manipulator." Rose replied, finding the ties. She came back and knelt down beside Amy, putting a tie tightly around one wrist and then another around the next, looping them together. She then removed the manipulator, looking it over, but not saying anything.
"You weren't hurt, were you?" Tim asked as he came out of Olivia's room, looking down at Amy. She shook her head. "Good. Rose, how long before he wakes up?"
"No idea." Rose replied flatly. "Just know I didn't kill him." She looked up as the Doctor and Rory barged into the room. "Took the pair of you long enough."
"Elevator." Rory panted. "Wouldn't come. Had to run. Fifteen flights of stairs."
Amy stood, moved to comfort him, and curled her nose as she got closer. "Oi, you stink."
Rory looked at her incredulously. "Sorry," he said, his breathing a bit steadier now. "Next time I'll try not to sweat so much."
She smiled, kissing him despite the stink and the sweat, holding on to him like she wasn't terrified only moments before.
"I recognize these clothes." The Doctor said darkly, jaw set and teeth gritting. "Recognize them, Tim?" He asked.
Tim frowned, looking at the man with disdain. "No. Not really."
"Rose?" The Doctor asked, and she shook her head. "Amy, Rory, one of you lot must recognize the uniform. You've all encountered it at one point or another." He said, getting to his feet, pacing about the room erratically. "A menace that seems to be poking about our lives for one reason or another, putting us all to sleep in a dream state or attempting to put me in a bloody box!"
Amy's heart dropped into her stomach. "Miss Smith."
"Yes, bloody Miss Smith." The Doctor growled. "She is involved in this."
"She was right," Tim said, having gone pale at the Doctor's declaration of who was involved. "She really is every when. We might never be truly rid of her."
"So there is an end to this madness?" The Doctor said with exasperation and bitterness, throwing his hands in the air before letting them drop to his side. "What does she want, Tim? Why is she doing this?"
"It's been over thirty years since I've had to deal with anything involving that psycho bitch, do you really think I remember all the little details?" He countered. "I remember the big details, as shitty as that is, and those I can't tell you. But what I do know is is that bastard was here, and he was going after Livie, and I want to goddamn know why!" Tim moved up to the man and gave him a cracking slap across the thing man's face. He came back to consciousness with a start, eyes wide and looking about in panic before he looked at Tim. "What the hell are you doing here?"
~DWDWDW~
The man smiled wide, crazed with a eerie glint in his eye, and chuckled. "I remember you." He said, looking Tim over. "Remember seeing you pass out first." He looked to Rose with an awe that made a shiver rush down her spin. "And I remember you." He said reverently. "Remember you being the last one before the Doctor to lose consciousness. I remember you from the pandorica, too, oh so long ago. Watching you with all that power. She was so mesmerized by you. You transfixed her nearly as much as the Doctor had. She can't understand how he managed to find such a loyal defender." He said all this as if he would irrupt into giggles at any moment.
"And who is She?" The Doctor asked carefully.
"Oh, she doesn't want us to know he name." He said with a shake of his head. "Least not us little lowlifes. Only the uppers know her name. She sends us to do the work."
"Like kidnapping children and killing them with her experiments?" Rose asked him, and the man's smile dropped instantly.
"Oh, She has found what she is looking for, yes. She has. But see, I noticed something on my scanner, something I thought might get me into Her good graces. Doesn't know me, see, she only calls me 'you'. Wanted to impress Her, I did. Wanted to bring her one last child to test." His mouth split into a wide grin, and Rose was certain he was half made. "Wanted to bring her a child that I knew'd cause the Doctor terrible, terrible pain if he were to lose her."
"My kid?" Tim said threateningly.
The man nodded.
"It's because the scanner said she had …."
"I don't care," The Doctor bit out, "what the scanner said Olivia has, or doesn't have, or why you thought it best my companion's child should be part of your mistress's disgusting experiments but you have miscalculated on one thing. And that thing is that it doesn't matter if I know the child or not, any loss of life causes me pain. You and She have already done an excellent job inducing it, so humor me and tell me what she wants? Why's she taking children?" The Doctor demanded, but the man simply continued to smile.
Rose watched him, waiting, wondering if maybe he would break and tell the Doctor the answer to his question.
But there was something that the Doctor and the others seemed to overlook, something that planted a seed of pure dread in her chest.
"You said She found what she was looking for." Rose said slowly. "What was she looking for?"
"A weapon," he replied with glee. "A weapon that would break the Doctor's heart before she killed him." He giggled. "She will make him feel the same pain She has carried all her many years."
"Well," The Doctor said with a put on grin as he stalked toward the man. "I can send you back to your mistress using the return feature on your manipulator, and you can tell her I'd like a word. I would like to know what I have done to wrong."
"You can't." He laughed. "The manipulator has been DNA rigged. Can't be stolen, can't function once I'm dead. And you broke the poison capsule in my jaw. I can taste it, like bad wine and cinnamon, feel it burning in my veins, making my brain go numb." He giggled. "Can you find her, Doctor? Can you find her before it's all too late?" He laughed, pupils dilating more and more before finally the laughter stopped, and the man froze with a wide grin.
The room remained quiet except for a very gentle snore coming from Olivia's room.
"I'm surprised she slept through that." Rory commented.
"Put her to sleep telepathically after she calmed down, made her think of the bunnies in the zoo." Tim replied, looking over to the Doctor with a shrug. "Dad skills."
"What are we gonna do with him?" Amy asked, gesturing to the corpse in the living room.
The Doctor bent down, pulled his sonic out of his trouser pocket, and hovered it over the manipulator. A moment later, in a bright flash, the corpse was gone.
"Let Her deal with it." He said bitterly. "Erased his last known coordinates and sent him back to his home location."
Tim moved to the scanner dropped on the floor, picked it up, and headed to the kitchen. Rose watched as he opened a little compartment, dropped it in, shut it, and pressed a few buttons. There was an awful crunching and grinding sound, then it stopped. "Data deleted, and tracking on it gone." Tim said as he brushed his hands together. "And that way I know you can't get nosy about what he found either." He said pointedly to the Doctor.
"And what would I have found?" The Time Lord countered with a smug grin.
"None of your damn business, that's what." Tim retorted, smirking a bit as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "So what's going to happen now?"
The Doctor eyed him over. "No chance you're going to tell me how it's been thirty years since your last encounter with this woman and yet you don't look like you've even hit your thirties yet?" he asked.
"No." Tim asked. "And before you even ask, Rose won't tell you either. So what's going to happen now?"
"Now," The Doctor said, looking back to where the TARDIS remained parked in the corner of the living room. "I will make sure the children that survived will be drained of the particles, then bring them home. And what about you? Now that you're going to sleep tonight?"
"Not sure I will." Tim replied. "Ever again. She may not be stealing kids anymore, but …."
"We'll stay tonight." Rose reassured. "So you can rest knowing someone's out here just in case."
Tim nodded, slumping against the wall. He looked like there were a dozen different things he wanted to say, but sighed instead, closing his eyes, and looking all the world like he could fall asleep right there.
~DWDWDW~
It took about three full days for the last of the children to be huon free and ready to be returned to their parents. It was also the only time in Rose's very long life she ever knocked on someone's door and ran away. Worth it, though to hear the cries of pure joy from around the corner. New stories of kidnappings and subsequent deaths of the children were soon replaced by happy endings of families reunited. And in those three days, calm and peace seemed to return globally, and there were no longer any signs that more were going to be taken.
And Tim slept, something Rose was grateful for, as she and Amy took turns or sometimes even caring for Olivia together while the Doctor and Rory ensured the health of their patients.
"So where are you all heading off to next?" Tim asked the morning after the last of the children were returned. "Apalapucia is gorgeous this time of year."
"It is," The Doctor agreed. "But I'm not sure that's where we'll be heading, though. Could be Apalapucia, could be Asgard, could be someplace beginning with Z. Who knows, Timothy, where our travels or the TARDIS will take us, but I do know this: where ever it will be, it will be fantastic. And you, little one," The Doctor turned his attention from father to daughter. "Take good care of your ol' Dad, yeah? Because he's been through a lot, and I think he's going to need you more than ever. Got that, yeah?"
Olivia giggled and nodded, making the Doctor grin before he stepped inside the TARDIS and waved.
"Maybe one day we'll meet when there isn't some sort of danger lurking about." Amy said to Tim with a grin.
He smiled sadly. "Maybe," He said unconvincingly, though Amy merely gave him a hug and followed the Doctor inside.
Before Rory could follow after giving Tim a brief wave, the latter reached out and stopped him. "If you need to talk to someone ever, call me." Tim said, slipping Rory a piece of paper.
"Right, okay." Rory said, looking at the paper oddly before offering Tim a smile and heading inside.
"And one day, you're gonna stop being all mysterious with all the things you know of our futures." Rose teased.
"One day." Tim agreed. "Thanks for coming, Wolf Girl."
"Always," She said, giving him a hug before stepping inside he TARDIS. She stopped in the door way, looked down to Olivia, and smiled. "Can't wait to meet you."
"Bye Gram," She mouthed with a little wave, and Rose closed the door.
"I don't know about you lot, but I could use a break." The Doctor declared just before throwing the dematerializaton switch. "Resort planet, with a spa, mostly for you all because I hate spas, but you'd enjoy them. And then, I think, on to our next adventure."
"Spa sounds great," Amy concluded. "Think I'm gonna go pack."
"I'll help." Rory said promptly, moving swiftly to follow his wife from the room.
The Doctor stared after them, hunched over the console looking utterly solemn.
"You think you figured out what's wrong with Amy," Rose realized what the confusion and frustration coming from her husband meant.
"Yes." He said. "But I don't know enough about it to properly fix what needs fixing. And worse, I think I know why she was singled out."
Rose came up to him, looping her arm around his waist as she ducked under one of his propped arms to be closer to him. "Why's that?" She asked.
He looked at her, his overly expressive eyes shining sadly. "Because Amy, proper Amy, is pregnant."
~DWDWDW~
The first TARDIS had barely left the living room when the second started materializing. Tim rolled his eyes, tempted to say something along the lines of his home not being a parking garage, but thought better of it.
When the Time Ship had solidly landed, the doors swung open, and a silver haired man poked his head out and smiled down at Olivia. "Livie!" His thick, Scottish accent greeted before he stepped out with arms open for her.
"Granddad!" She exclaimed excitedly, despite having seen a version of him not five minutes before. But Tim understood that he may have been the Doctor, but it wasn't her Doctor. Not her Granddad.
Rose stepped out a moment later, smiling warmly as the Doctor lifted their granddaughter off the ground. Older Rose had curls to her hair, and did in fact look a a bit older than she had before, though not by much. In a simple dress, if spoke of how quiet their lives were for them at the moment. The Doctor, of course was always in that red lined jacket, so Tim could never discern what their lives were like but his wardrobe choices.
"How's your friend, Malcolm?" The Doctor asked Olivia as he carried her toward the TARDIS. "He feeling better."
"Yes." Olivia said, and started telling him all about it even though she knew he knew.
"We remembered." Rose explained as Olivia's voice faded inside the Time Ship. "Thought after young us left we'd come by and see if you need us. Or just need a little more time to recover."
"Thanks." Tim sighed. "But you know what we could both us? A trip. Think we can swing by and see Donna and Shawn?"
"Sounds like a wonderful idea." Rose replied opening her arm to him, and Tim gladly accepted.
He may not have been with Jenny, but this was still his family.
A/N: An answer to many question that likely spawned more.
Thank you to the readers, favoriters, followers, and reviewers.
AthenaMiddleFiddle, TheKitchenMistress, BadWolfGirl, CupcakeFlake, Darkelvoriplorellion Tyler (perhaps not permanently), Loca8892, DuShuZhi, jackjenfan, Bad Wold Battlemage, debygobel, DemigodDaughterOfTheTARDIS.
Now, before you all ask, this is not the end for Tim and Jenny. I am seriously considering writing/posting a short on them after my "A Good Man Goes to War" (which I'm so excited about).
Back to the canon-ish story line next post.
Until then