"Whah… la bu…huh

Okay, I'm a liar, I'm actually a nice person, sorry ThisPhoenix. I'm in a good mood after plenty of excitement for the new episode and for next episode and Rose coming back next week (Wooo hoooo!!) And for "I've Lost My Profile Page", this is the reaction I've promised. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 2

"Whah… la bu…huh?" the Doctor said, blinking several times.

"Started well that sentence." Rose laughed, hitching an eyebrow.

"It got away from me, yeah." He closed his eyes, shook his head.

"How about we start with "hello" and see where we go from there, shall we?"

"Hello" he replied dumbly.

"Hello" Rose nodded, still smiling.

"Hello"

Rose and Jack tried to stifle their laughter, both remembering another time when the conversation had started like that.

"Sorry, that was hello twice."

Jack and Rose shared a look, grinning.

"Dull, but thorough." They said in unison.

"Sorry, I don't want to interrupt, but who the hell are you?"

"Martha, sorry, I almost forgot," said the Doctor, snapping out of his daze to look at her. "This is Captain Jack Harkness, as you already know, and this is… this is…" he couldn't bring himself to say it. In all his dreams, just as he said her name, he had woken up. He wasn't going o let go of this one.

"Rose Tyler." Rose said, stepping forward and offering her hand.

"Ah, should have guessed!" Martha said, rolling her eyes, "only you could do that," she gestured to the still stunned Doctor, "to him."

"What, d'ya know about me?"

"'Course I know about you. The second I stepped inside that ship he was telling me that I wasn't replacing you, making sure that I knew that I could never compare to the "Great Rose Tyler""

"He talked about me?"

"'Couldn't get him to bloody well shut up about you most of the time?"

Rose looked at the man that been in her every thought for so many years, though not a day of which showed on her face.

"Doctor?"

He looked up at her face, an almost guilty look on his face, dumbstruck.

"What makes me so different? You never told me about all your other companions until I met Sarah-Jane. So why did you talk about me? Or is it that you don't mind telling Martha about other companions, you just didn't with me?"

He never took his eyes from her face as he swallowed, shaking his head. Martha caught Jack's eye behind Rose and mouthed the words; "Who's Sarah-Jane?" Jack shrugged and put a finger to his lips.

"Because …" he swallowed again and licked his lips, "because it was too hard to… to just forget about you."

Rose took a tiny step back, blinking, dislodging the tears that had built therein.

"C'mere!" he said quietly, beckoning her into his open arms as she swallowed back a sob and flung herself into his embrace.

"Oh I have missed you so much!" Rose said, her voice muffled by the Doctor's coat.

"You too!" replied the Doctor, breathing in her scent as he kissed the top of her head.

Padra Shefcaine ran, on and on, hoping that he was goin the right way for the silo, the Futurekind hot on his heels.

The four of them walked on through the cold, dark and wet world that they had landed on, the Doctor holding Rose's hand in the lead, Jack and Martha bringing up the rear, talking among themselves.

"So there I was, stranded in the year 200100, ankle deep in Dalek dust, and he goes off without me. But I had this. I used to be a time agent. It's called a Vortex Manipulator; he's not the only one who can time travel."

"Excuse me, that is not time travel! It's like… I've got a sports car and you've got a space hopper."

Rose and Martha looked at each other before shaking their heads and saying;

"Boys and their toys!" at which they both broke into laughter.

"Okay so I bounced!" said Jack, trying to keep some dignity, "I thought early twenty-first century, perfect place to find the Doctor, only I got it a little wrong, arrived in 1869, this thing burned out, so it was useless."

"Told you."

"I had to live through the entire twentieth century, waiting to find a version of you that would coincide with me."

"But that makes more that a hundred years old." Martha said.

"And looking good don't you think?" Jack laughed modestly, "So I went to the Time Rift, based myself there, 'cause I knew you'd have to come back to refuel, until finally I got a signal on this, detecting you and here we are!"

"But the thing is, why did you leave him behind though Doctor?"

"I was busy."

"Pah!" Rose interrupted, "Is that what you call it?"

"Why, what really happened?" Martha asked.

"Hmmm let's seem shall we?" she started counting on her fingers, "He'd regenerated, neglecting to tell me anything about it beforehand, left me with this" she gestured at the Doctor, "lunatic dancing around the TARDIS, saying stuff about teeth and moles, crashing the TARDIS on Christmas eve in my old estate, leaving me to look after an unconscious man in my mum's bed AND to single handedly stop an invasion of robot Santas and rock faced, blood controlling aliens who'd hypnotised one third of the world's population." She breathed heavily, having successfully stumped the Doctor into silence.

"Sounds fun." Martha after a moment.

"Well, you know, who wants a boring old Christmas, eh?"

"Is that what happens though, seriously. Do you just get bored of us one day and disappear?"

"Not if you're blonde." Jack said to Martha quietly.

"I can hear you ya know Jack!" Rose said over her shoulder.

"Ah ya know I'm only kidding Rosie."

"Yeah you be'er."

"Rosie?" the Doctor asked, quirking an eyebrow, "you never let me call you Rosie."

"You never asked."

"You never said."

"Oh yeah, I'm really gonna bring that up in a conversation; "oh, by the way, can you start calling me Rosie, I'm bored of my normal name?" I don't think so!"

"Are they always like this?" Martha asked quietly.

"Like what?"

"Like an old married couple, arguing all the time."

"Er, pretty much, yeah." Jack nodded, grinning.

"So, come on, where are we then Doctor?"

The Doctor blew through his teeth, looking around "I don't know, if I'm honest."

"Woah, say that again? Usually you at least have an idea, even if it's wrong."

"When was the last time I was wrong?"

"Mmhm" Rose asked, putting her hands on her hips and giving him a lethal look, "tell me, dear Doctor, what happened when you promised me Naples, 1960?"

The Doctor mumbled something inaudible, looking away.

"Sorry, I don't think any of us heard that?"

"Cardiff 1969."

"Lovely!" Martha put in sarcastically.

"Twelve hours. That's how long you said I'd have been away for. Twelve months later Mickey had been accused of my murder and my mum had spent three-hundred and sixty-five days crying. 1979 to go see Ian Dury and the Blockheads at the Top Rank, Sheffield. Where do we land? 1879, Scotland, where we were attacked by a Werewolf and banished from Earth never to return by Queen Victoria, and in so doing, creating Torchwood, which, as it turns out, was the only thing powerful enough to separate us. Need I go on?"

"No, no thank-you, that's quite enough. And anyway, I did warn you not to make her say "we are not amused." Didn't I? Didn't I tell you?"

"Erm, actually, as I seem to remember, you made me raise the stakes to a tenner."

"Well, anyway, I know exactly what year it is! It is the year one-hundred trillion; the end of the universe, so if you wouldn't mind, I'd really appreciate if you would all stop… blogging."

"Erm, in case you've forgotten, Doctor, Jack and I have quite a lot of catching up to do, and I haven't even started on what I've been up to. And before you ask, I'm not gonna start until we're somewhere where you can sit down. I think you're gonna need it."

"What do you mean by that?" the Doctor asked.

"Later!" Rose insisted firmly.

Everyone went silent as they came to the crest of hill, over looking a huge civilisation. It was so beautiful, yet so sad, as it looked as if it was long since abandoned, dust encasing its' entire area.

"Is that a city?" Martha asked in awe.

"A city or a hive, or a nest, or a conglomeration. That thing looks like it was grown, but look there, looks like… pathways or roads. It must have held some sort of life. Long ago."

"What killed it?" Rose asked sadly.

"Time. Just time, everything's dying now." He looked up, pointing as the sheer black sky, "This isn't just night. All the planets have burned up and faded away. Into nothing." He kept looking up, letting his arm drop to his side.

"There must be an atmospheric shell." Jack said looking back down to the others, "We should be frozen to death."

"Well… Rose, Martha and I maybe, not so sure about you Jack." He looked at the ex-time agent, giving a hard, penetrating stare, not noticing his words making Rose look away and shift uncomfortably.

"But does nothing survive?" Rose ventured, clearing her throat.

"I suppose," the Doctor said, giving her a look that could not have been more different to the one he had given to Jack, "we have to hope, life will find a way."

"Well he's not doing so bad." Jack pointed, everyone following the direction of his finger to a man running for his life from a pack of wild men and women who were chasing after him with a plethora of weapons, ranging from daggers to axes, spears to ball and chains.

"Is it me or does that look like a hunt?! C'mon!"

The Doctor lead the way down the hill, Rose still holding onto his hand, Martha not far behind and Jack was bringing up the rear.

"Oh I've missed this!" Jack grinned.

The Doctor grabbed the man, skidding to a stop on the loose, wet rocks. The man hid himself in the middle of the group, trying to escape his hunters.

"I've got you!" the Doctor said, noticing Jack levelling an old revolver at the head of the pack. "Jack don't you dare!"

Jack looked over his shoulder before changing his aim to point upwards and firing three warning shots, bringing the hunt to a stop.

"What the hell are they?!" Martha demanded.

"There's more of them, we've got to keep going!"

"I've got a ship nearby, it's safe, it's not far, it's over there."

He looked up to see thirty more of the savages coming from over the hill where the TARDIS was parked, blocking the way, surrounding them.

"Or maybe not." The Doctor conceded.

"We're close to the silo! If we get to the silo we're safe!"

"Silo?" the Doctor asked, looking around.

"Silo!" Jack said definitely.

"Silo for me!" Martha raised her hand

"And me!"

With that the chase was on, blood pounding every one of their ears, hearts beating feverishly until at last they turned a corner, a blinding spotlight training on them.

"It's the Futurekind!"

"Soldiers!" said a man, running forwards from behind the gate to the silo, raising a machine gun to follow them, "Show me your teeth, show me your teeth!"

The five hunted humans flew against the metal mesh of the fence, the soldier still demanding to see their teeth.

"Show him your teeth!" Padrafesh prompted, baring his own.

"Hardly the time for a check up." Rose said through gritted teeth.

"Human let them in, let them let them in!"

The gates were opened just far enough to allow them through before the soldier commanded "Close, close!"

As the Futurekind got closer the soldier fired his machine gun, bullets peppering the ground at the leader's feet, bringing the cannibals to a skidding stop. He looked at them hungrily, pacing in front of the fence like a caged wolf, his fellows snapping from behind him.

"Humans. Humanie. My feast!" his speech was slurred, hindered by teeth obviously too big for his mouth, overcrowded and uncomfortable.

"Guess that explains "show me your teeth"" Rose said quietly to the Doctor.

"Go back to where you came from. I said go back." The soldier raised the gun threateningly "Back!"

"Don't tell him to put his gun down!" Jack pointed out.

"He's not my responsibility." The Doctor argued.

"And I am" he laughed sarcastically, "that makes a change!"

"Have ones of you." The wild-man pointed at Martha. He looked at everyone behind the fence. "I'm hunge."

He waved his arm, sending his disappointed comrades back to wherever they came from.

"Thanks for that!" the Doctor gasped to their saviour.

"Right, let's get you inside!"

"My name is Padra Shefcaine. Tell me… just tell me, can you take me to Utopia?"

"Yes sir," the soldier beamed. "Yes I can!"

They walked past a huge truck towards a dimly lit stone corridor as another soldier ran to take over the position of their guide.

Still working, the Professor and Chantho looked up as Atillo's voice came through the speakers of the laboratory.

"Professor, we have five new humans. One of them claims to be a Doctor."

"Of medicine?" the Professor asked.

"He says of everything."

"Oh, a scientist! Oh my word!" the old mans heart did a back flip as he flustered, handing what he was doing to Chantho.

"Erm, Chantho just, erm, just, oh I don't know. I'm coming!"

Chantho watched sadly as the Professor left the laboratory, her heart falling as he disappeared from view. She knew that, no matter what she did, however good an assistant she was, she would never be able to spark that fire inside his eyes. She sighed, burying these feeling deep inside her, as she always did, and continued her work.

The soldier had led them into a green-lit room, overhung by stairs, introducing them to a man called Atillo, before going to return to his post by the gate. Atillo had immediately moved over to a microphone and said something into it before handing each of them a transparent piece of either plastic or glass.

"It's a box. A big blue box." That was the Doctor of course, "I'm sorry but I really need it back, it's stuck out there."

Atillo, meanwhile, wasn't paying much attention, instead reciting numbers, presumably those printed on the disks that he was handing them in turn.

"I'm sorry but my family were heading for the silo, did they get here? My mother is Kistane Shefcaine, my brother's name is Belto."

"The computers are down but you can check the paperwork. Creet!" a smudged face, framed by locks of curly blonde hair, appeared around the corner, "Passenger needs help."

"Right, what do you need?"

Padra leapt forward, crouching in front of the boy, telling him his family's names. Martha stared at the boy, brow furrowed. He looked about nine or ten, but that couldn't be right. He shouldn't be working at this age.

Rose, meanwhile, was leaning on a metal table, watching the Doctor holding his disk up to the light, completely content. Even at moments like this it was so much better being here than at home. But… it was a strange feeling brewing inside her. One of her hearts was going so completely mad at being back with the man that she loved, but… the other was pining. Pining for what she had left behind at the place that she had called home for so long. Not that there was much left. Jackie had died just before she found a way through to her old universe, Mickey had moved abroad with Jake –who'd have thought it?- and now only John was left, taking her place as head of Torchwood. But that in itself was a long time ago now. But… now, being even farther from home than ever, brought her memories of her family fresh to her mind.

Atillo's voice broke through her thoughts, bringing her back the present.

"A blue box you said?"

"Big, wooden, says police."

"We're driving out for the last water collection, I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you." The Doctor said sincerely.

"They're not on the list, but we can still have a look. C'mon." Creet said, flipping over the sheets of paper attached to his clip board.

"I'm sorry but how old are you?" Martha asked, curiosity finally getting the better of her.

"Old enough to work. This way." Creet gestured in the direction that he was walking, leading the way.

The Doctor looked at the disk he'd been allocated.

"Alpha-6-grape-dot-2-3-0" he read, putting it in his pocket, "Great. I'm a grape. Would have preferred banana but never mind."

"You're never gonna see that again ya know." Rose said, bemused smile playing across her face as she fell into step

"Whatcha mean?" the Doctor asked, automatically grabbing her hand.

"Those pockets of yours, they're like mini TARDISes. I remember I asked you to look after my purse once. I didn't see it again for a month." She gave him her trademark grin, tongue and all,

"Fair point." It was strange; how quickly they both fell back into their old way of talking, even after all the time they had spent in separate universes.

"How long has it been? For you?"

"Too long." Rose sighed. She wasn't ready for him to know what had happened to her. Not yet. "What about you?"

"About…" he blew out his cheeks, thinking, "Eight months or so."

Lucky git! Rose tried not to think, "What about Martha? How long has she been around?"

"Almost as long. There was Donna, but she turned down my offer of travelling with me, went back home to Chiswick."

Ah Rose thought, that explains something then.

"They were never to replace you, ya know. Nobody could ever replace you."

"It's okay Doctor," she said, trying to ignore the warmth rising in her cheeks as her hearts did a back flip.

"It's okay Doctor, really." His face relaxed in relief, "I never wanted for you to be left alone. Like you said to me all that time ago, you need a lot of things to get across this universe, but most of all you need a hand to hold. I'm glad there was someone to hold your hand at least. Now, if you don't mind," she continued before he realised what she was implying, winking at him and dropping his hand, "I'm going to have a chat with new meat."