A/N: Own nothing…peh! The lyrics at the opening are from Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. Seriously, listen to this song and tell me its not the perfect song for the Doctor and Rose's relationship- it also happens to be a bit of an 'our song' for me and my husband who is the only man I love more than David Tennant!

Don't Give Up

In this proud land we grow up strong,

We were wanted all along

I was taught to fight, taught to win,

I never thought I could fail.

No fight left or so it seems,

I am a man whose dreams have all deserted;

I've changed my face, I've changed my name,

But no one wants you when you lose.

Don't give up,

Coz you have friends,

Don't give up,

You're not beaten yet.

Don't give up,

I know you can make it good.

The walls around the cell were dingy and black with a slime he wouldn't want to guess the origin of. His captor had long since left to seal another bargain with a foolish person hoping to make good from evil. He understood it all now, the Idralas had taken great pains and pleasure in the explanation but it only gave him the fight he needed. The Idralas had a new quarry, a new prey but it would not take her and come what may he would not give up, he was going home and he was going to save her.

XXXX

The scent of vanilla filled the room and the glow of the candles gave everything a hazy glow, setting the scene into soft focus. Rose settled the bed covers around the Doctor, pulling the comforter up to his chest. She felt eyes on her from the door but continued her task nonetheless. She had finally given over to her grief in the library above the Cloister Room, crying into the pinstripe material of his jacket, clutching to him like she could bring him back to life if she just wished hard enough. The Doctor's mother had remained to one side, allowing her to mourn alone for the man she loved. When Rose's tears had dried though her resolve had only strengthened, he would get back to them or she would get to him, they never gave up that easily. It hadn't taken her long to convince her companion to assist her in carrying the Doctor's body down to their bedroom and she had set about putting him to bed, removing his jacket and converse lovingly before fitting the covers around him.

The job done Rose bent over him and pressed a kiss to his forehead, "You just sleep there, I'll find a way back to you."

"Rose?" came the voice from the door.

Rose didn't look up but a small smile quirked her mouth, "I know, but I have to hope. I never thought to ask, what am I meant to call you?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well I'm not one of these who call their potential in-laws Mum and Dad, but I don't know your name or title as that seems to be what your people go by, I can't go on not calling you anything though," said Rose finally looking up at the young woman in the doorway.

"My name would be too difficult to pronounce but I suppose the first two syllables sound like an Earth name, you can call me Dana if you like."

"Dana?" said Rose, "I like it, it suits you. Ok then, Dana. Seems you and me are stuck together and I don't know about you but I know the Doctor never gives up without a fight and I'm not about to either. The question is whether you're gonna help me or not, I'll need some of that Time Lord voodoo of yours to get back if I need to."

"Its not Time Lord," said Dana with a half smile.

"What?"

"My 'voodoo', its not Time Lord and neither am I. I'm Gallifreyan but I'm not a Time Lady, I had no interest in all that. Little one was the only one in the family with any inclination towards time travel."

"Why do you call him that? Little One?"

Dana smiled and looked around the room, "The Doctor," she said, smiling at the term, "Doesn't like people to know his real name, even those he really loves. The TARDIS is translating, it was still connected to you even in the Idralas' realm. Little One is the literal translation of his Gallifreyan birth name and so the TARDIS translates it out. I could say his name as often as I like and you won't hear it."

"I like calling him Doctor anyway," said Rose, readjusting the comforter before straightening fully, "Right then, I know the Doctor has a load of books on the occult in the library and we've got the one in the Cloister Room as well, we'll have to go through them page by page."

"Lead the way," said Dana, "And while you're there you can fill me in on why he regenerated this time. He's got a block that sets up around every regeneration and I can never pick up on them."

"Sure," said Rose, "Library's this way."

XXXX

"So Doctor," came the clipped, mechanical voice beside his cell, "Tell me more about Rose and what really terrifies her."

The Doctor had to shudder as he saw the form of Davros next to him, the Idralas now choosing one of his old enemies to taunt him with. He'd already witnessed a Dalek and borne it with good grace but now he was being spoken to in tones that had always chilled him. He turned his eyes back to his converse, twiddling a piece of straw bedding between his fingers.

"Considering that information is currently keeping her out of your way I'm hardly going to tell you," he said keeping his voice as dead pan as possible, "You won't get her down here again. She thinks I'm dead and so does my mother, they won't come looking."

"But she is so very fond of you, surely you'd hope that she would not give up faith so quickly," said the Idralas, its taunting tone not suiting Davros' voice.

"You won't get to her," said the Doctor, "Now how about we settle the bargain my mother made with you and be over it. I promised you blood, my life is yours to take in their stead."

"You sound so much like her, she came to me with much the same plea. My life for his, he's nothing but a child but by then Doctor you were so much more than a child, much more…succulent and now, through you, I have found Rose. Does she even know what the vortex did to her? Charged her up like a battery I can power off and destroy that worthless universe of yours."

The Doctor chose to stay silent, the conversation having followed the same thread for several hours already. He needed the Idralas out of the way to carry out his plan. He had knew something with regards to his mother was off when she had forced several simple hair pins into his hand when she had hugged him goodbye. He knew now she was being cautious, knowing the Idralas' power and doubting her abilities to defeat it. He was more joyful than shocked at the news of her having lived, grateful that she took such a sacrifice for his safety. The Idralas had though to hurt him with the information, the deceit she had forced upon him but he could only rejoice, his mother lived, his mother who was more than the mere country girl she had shown the world. The Idralas didn't know the danger he was in because despite his assertions to the contrary he knew Rose would not give up on him and now the two women he knew would fight for him with every breath in their bodies were coming for him, he just had to be ready.

Bored with the lack of conversation the Idralas moved off once more, morphing into its smoke light state and continuing through into one of the adjoining chambers. The Doctor pulled the hair pins from his pocket, cursing the mental block that stopped him just manifesting another sonic screwdriver, and began to fashion a skeleton key.

XXXX

Rose watched Dana from the large leather sofa in the library, seeing her sat cross legged on the rug by the fire, books scattered around her and paper and pen in her hand. Rose felt at once the happy twinge of memory and the desperate twinge of grief as she remembered watching the Doctor in the same pose on so many occasions. She was shocked with the resemblances between mother and son considering the regeneration process the Doctor had explained to her in more detail recently, including the number of times it had happened to him. Alongside the similarities to his current form she could still see the old Doctor in her also, the intense blue eyed stare, the elegant long fingers, the deep intelligence although Dana's did not seemed as refined as her son's. Rose had thought that being with Dana would be an odd experience, not only was she the mother of her nine hundred year old companion but also the second to last living member of her species. Rose thought she should feel honoured, humbled even but instead she felt as though she was in the presence of an old friend.

Rose was pulled from her reverie as Dana gave a soft exclamation of pride.

"Yes! Yes! Yes," she said softly, her eyes still scanning the page before her, "This is perfect. Rose, does Little One have a laboratory or a workshop, somewhere with lots of electrical gadgets?"

"This whole place is full of them but there's a room just passed the med suite that he uses whenever he's making anything big," said Rose, "What have you found?"

"Containment spell," said Dana, holding open the book towards Rose and causing her to wrinkle her nose in confusion at the circular script, "Its ancient, older maybe even than the Idralas. It weakens his power, enough to let us contain him."

"How?" asked Rose, getting to her feet and helping Dana to do the same before leading her out of the library and towards the work room.

"Did you notice in the chamber how depressed you felt?"

Rose gave her a quizzical look, "Just a bit, I was a bloody bird and then I got attacked by the guy my Doctor used to be and then…" she trailed off but looked up with a weak smile when Dana laid a comforting hand on her arm.

"Yes I can imagine that was depressing," she said softly, "But the thing is that room would feel depressing even if you were in the best of moods. The Idralas thrives on bad dreams, nightmares, pain; all those things create negative energy or, more pointedly negative ions therefore if we weaken him with a containment spell and then flood the room with positive ions we can then trap him in a space with negative ions that he'll have to retreat to. We seal it with a sub atomic adhesive lid and he can't escape, like a genii in a lamp. Simple."

"Jeez you can tell he's your son," said Rose, rolling her eyes in exasperation, "I understood about three words of that. Could you give it to me in ape please?"

"Ape?"

"Thicko language," explained Rose, "Ape is what the Doctor refers to as plain English, making things simple for us dumb apes to understand."

"You wait till I get my hands on the little upstart," said Dana before returning her attention to the book she still held open, "Simply Rose what we need to do is make a device that can flood a room with positive energy, quite easily manufactured and then something with the opposite energy inside to act as an attractive sanctuary for the weakened Idralas. Seal the lid and he's held nice and tight inside."

Rose pushed open the work room door and ushered Dana inside, again seeing her similarities to the Doctor as her eyes lit up at the gadgets contained inside.

"There is only one problem," said Rose, watching Dana settle down to work, "We can't take our own bodies into the Idralas' realm, how can we take any objects?"

Dana looked up and raised a perfect chestnut eyebrow, her blue eyes flashing with a fire that Rose remembered the Doctor often displaying before his regeneration, "Then we don't go in that way. I still know the co-ordinates for the entrance, it's a spatial anomaly, a bit like a black hole. We fly the TARDIS to the edge, space walk inside and then travel through to Little One, the ionic displacer…ooh I like that name…will help us defuse any nightmares the Idralas puts in our path."

"Did you just say we fly the TARDIS to this spatial wotsit? Slight problem is that I can't, the Doctor never taught me," said Rose.

"What do you think I went knocking about the universe in looking for the Idralas?" said Dana, beginning her work, "I think I can handle the TARDIS and I'll have you to help me. You need to learn Rose that my son may talk the talk but he is no smarter than me, how about a little girl power?"

Rose couldn't help but laugh, "You are so confusing," she giggled, "One minute you're all sedate and time lordy and the next you're talking about girl power! God help the universe I think I've found another Doctor!"

Dana laughed with her before frowning at the wiring she held in her hands. She began hunting on the desk in front of her, tutting about men never tidying anything properly and taking after their fathers, "Rose does the Doctor have anything that attaches wires without me having to route around for a soldering kit?"

"There's the sonic screwdriver," said Rose, "He always has it with him. I'll go…"

Dana looked up and gave her a weak smile, "Just imagine he's sleeping," she said knowing that Rose feared going to the bedroom where the Doctor's body lay and having to see him in that state, "He's still alive Rose, you must feel it."

Rose nodded slowly, "I hope so. I won't be a minute."

XXXX

The Doctor hushed the lock as it clicked free, the sound of it echoing in the expansive room. He carefully opened the door just enough to slip through and began his quest. He had seen on his entrance to the cavern several places where the wall had collapsed, leaving fragments of hard, granite-like stone that could make a crude weapon. He practically crawled to the nearest pile, trying to keep his eyes on everything at once. As quickly as he could he picked up the most substantial stones, stuffing them into his pockets before grabbing one last large on to use as a support as he worked. Scanning the room again he scurried back to his cell and closed the door, making sure to conceal the hair pins in his pocket once more. He stashed the rocks in the dark corner of the room before taking the large stone and several smaller pieces.

His thoughts fell on Rose and how much she would laugh at him for being so very caveman and fashioning weapons out of stone but his mirth was short lived as he muttered a soft wish that she would know he lived and that she would come for him. He set to his work, shaking his head, trusting fate that this would not be the place where he spent the remainder of his days. From the Idralas' tales he could make out that his mother had been captive for nearly seven hundred years by his reckoning in the desolate place he occupied now. He wondered how she found the strength to bear it but then he remembered the strength she had always shown in his youth. Even if the bigotry of his people had not cost her her life as he once though it had still left her being taunted when she was out, cast out of any social group for bearing the children of an unnamed father. For all their culture the Doctor knew his people we still far more backward than other civilisations but he could not hold them to their sins after their fate.

The Doctor cursed loudly as his finger slipped against the sharp edge of the stone. He hissed at the deep cut before searching his pocket for anything to wrap it. When nothing came to him he loosened the bandage around his arm but that only caused the wound on his arm to begin bleeding once more.

"Damn it!" he muttered sticking his finger in his mouth as a loss for anything else and continued muttering through it, "Bloody place! Get a shift on Rose."

Huffing at the unfairness of it all he settled back to his work, slightly more cautious than before.

XXXX

Rose had perched on the bed beside the Doctor for nearly ten minutes before she had even dared touch him or search for the sonic screwdriver. She had first looked in his jacket pocket but they had been empty save for the odd nick nacks he always carried. She knew he sometimes carried it in his trouser pocket but she couldn't bring herself to pull back the covers to take it and so she sat watching him, pretending she could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. Tentatively she reached out a hand to stroke back his hair, wishing for all the world that his eyes would flutter open as they so often did when she woke him of a morning. She imagined the sleepy, chocolate pools that would mist in confusion for a second before softening into a smile as he recognised her. He would always reach up for her, pull her down so she settled against his chest, and press kisses to her hair, bidding her good morning before rattling on about the fabulous place he was going to take her that day.

Rose felt the tear in the corner of her eye as nothing happened but she blinked it away. Steeling herself she pulled back the covers and retrieved the sonic screwdriver from his pocket. She popped it into her own pocket before settling the covers around him. Taking his hands she settled them over the coverlet, one on top of the other. She frowned as she felt something warm on her fingers. She pulled her hand away and looked down at the glistening red blood.

"Ow!" she murmured, feeling no pain but wandering what she had caught herself on. She look for the source of the blood but found none. Her heart fluttering hard she picked up the Doctor's hand and examined it. On the side of his right index finger was a deep, fresh inch long cut.

"How on…?" Rose paused, quickly pulling back the covers and unbuttoning his shirt cuff. She rolled up his sleeve to his shoulder and saw the gash from the floor spikes. Instead of feeling pain for the injuries on his body she felt her heart swell in her chest. While the cut on his arm was healed enough, the mark on his hand was fresh. She sprang to her feet and ran to the door, throwing it open and yelling down the corridor.

"Dana! Dana! Come quick!"

She waited for a sound of someone coming but it didn't come.

"Dana!" she called all the louder, cupping her hands around her mouth to increase the sound. She heard the sound of hurried footsteps soon after and soon saw the young Gallifreyan running down the corridor towards her. Her face was frantic as she reached her.

"What's happened?"

"He's alive!" cried Rose, throwing her arms around the other woman, "The Doctor's alive!"

"What?" said Dana running passed her and into the room. She flew to the bedside and sat down, looking down at her soon, "Little One, can you hear me?...Rose, there's still nothing, no pulse, no breathing. You must have been imagining things my dear."

"No," said Rose, settling the other side of the Doctor, "I know he hasn't woken up but look at his hand, see the cut, the blood? Its fresh and I certainly didn't do it but why would it show up if he wasn't alive."

"By Rassilon I knew it," said Dana pressing a kiss to her son's forehead, "I knew he would stay alive but this means we must work faster. If he is showing any physical marks here that are being inflicted in the realm of the Idralas then we have to hurry, I don't want anything worse happening to him. Did you find the sonic screwdriver?"

Rose pulled it from her pocket and waved it for emphasis, "Right here," she said getting to her feet and making to follow Dana back to the door. She looked over her shoulder and hurried back to the bedside. She pressed a kiss firmly to the Doctor's lips, "I'm coming baby, hold on."

XXXX

The Doctor smiled lightly as his mind fell onto Rose's kisses. He let his mind wander for a second before returning to his work. He lifted the chipped granite to his face, examining the sharpness of the side he had made into a blade. Crude and hardly the best craftsmanship but a rudimentary dagger nonetheless. He was never one for weapons if he could help it but desperate times called for desperate measures and any threat to Rose was what he considered desperate. He hurriedly stashed his weapon in his jacket pocket as he felt the air around him change, signifying the return of the Idralas. It appeared through one of the archways in a form he didn't recognize, almost arachnid in body but human in its face. The Doctor shuddered at the twisted nightmare it must have come from. The Idralas drew a deep breath and altered once more, returning to the Doctor's ninth form. The Doctor bristled at the look.

"I would appreciate it if you'd stop running around in my old incarnations," he said, not getting up from his place on the cell floor.

"I grow used to it," said the Idralas, "And it reminds me how Rose felt beneath me."

The Doctor sat up at this, gripping on to the bars and peering through the gloom at the Idralas as it lounged on a chair that had just appeared, "And what's that supposed to mean?" he hissed.

"Well she was so convinced I was real she couldn't resist me, even when she began to realise things were amiss," said the Idralas, clicking his fingers so a hazy image appeared before him.

The Doctor averted his eyes as he saw Rose, laid out on the lounge room sofa, her top half undone as she moaned in pleasure at the man running almost bruising kisses down her throat. He steeled himself. Rose had never made any secret about her love for his old form and he was almost convinced of the reality of Gallifrey and Reinette, it made sense that she should fall as in love again. His thoughts fought for order in his head; she knew he was the same man, had accepted and loved him as he was now, she had come back to him. He shut his eyes in determination and willed another image to replace that which the Idralas created. He heard his own voice join Rose's in the gloom, one of his favourite memories playing out in place of the falsified image. Him and Rose laughing as they lay on a large four poster bed in a 17th Century Manor House, guests of Louis the Fourteenth. Her face growing suddenly serious as she traced the line of his jaw with a finger and professing her undying love for him.

The Doctor laughed to himself as the Idralas growled and quickly did away with the image. His mirth however didn't last as the Idralas morphed again and Dalek laser fire ricocheted off the cell bars. The Doctor pulled himself back from the bars, the figure before him as terrifying as all his nightmares. He heard the staccato voice ring out in the gloom.

"I could kill you Doctor and I will when I have her. You may taunt and mock but you will see her perish and me rise. Your behaviour before then will dictate the manner of her demise."

The Idralas morphed again to resemble the bull that Rose had herself created to scare herself in the passage way. Its fiery eyes turning squarely on the Doctor and its voice rang out like the crack of doom.

"She could go without pain, or in terror. Your choice Doctor."

XXXX

The work room had never looked so tidy after someone had finished in it, usually Rose would have to be threading her way through discarded gadgets and burned out electrics but today not only was the room hazard free but she was sure it was tidier than when they had started. She examined the two devices before her, one fashioned very much like the gun Jack had used on the Dalek when she had reappeared in the TARDIS after her capture. Rose wasn't sure but she could swear that some of the technology was taken from the very gun he had used. The second device was much smaller, fashioned in what appeared to be a bottle green glass and bronze but Dana had informed her it was much stronger and much more complex than a simple glass jar. The science of both projects was beyond Rose and she had left Dana to her task for several hours as she watched over the Doctor.

Dana had summoned her when the project was completed and Rose stood awaiting her instructions as what she had to do with the items in front of her.

"Right," said Dana, pulling Rose from her examination, "First thing we need is some space suits, we have to park the TARDIS a little outside the anomaly so we'll have to go in on a space walk. Where does the Doctor keep his equipment?"

Rose frowned, "I don't know, we've never done a space walk before. I wouldn't know where to begin."

Dana seemed to ponder for a moment before she brightened and took Rose's hand, pulling her down the corridor towards the control room. She stopped at the monitor and dropped Rose's hand, tapping away at the keys. Rose watched the monitor bring up a schematic of the ship, lights appearing in two rooms.

"Fantastic," cried Dana and Rose had to stifle the giggle that wanted to escape her, there was no denying she was in the presence of the Doctor's mother.

"What have you found?"

"Space walk equipment, including oxygen tanks are kept in an old storeroom on the third level and there is an armoury right next door, hopefully we'll be able to get ourselves something to distract the Idralas while we set up the disruptor," said Dana, "I'll go and get what we need. I need you to go to the library and get the candles and bones from the pentacle. Take them to your bedroom and carve the symbol at the foot of the long mirror, lay out the bones and light the candles but do not, whatever you do get blood on the etching. You do that and you'll get sucked in to the mirror, we need it as an exit not an entry and the symbol is enough."

"But the Doctor will be in there, what if something gets out of the mirror to him?" said Rose, the thoughts of some nightmare daemon harming him as he lay sleeping striking terror to her very soul.

"Nothing will get out, the Idralas will be concentrated on us. We need that gateway Rose, once we've crossed into the Idralas' world the TARDIS won't be anchored and will float. Don't worry she won't be harmed," said Dana, seeing Rose's expression grew more fearful, "But we will struggle to get back if we do not have the gate. Our bodies can pass through and the Doctor will be returned to his body as you were when we got through the last time. No get to it, we need to hurry."

Rose nodded and hurried off to complete her task. She was disappointed with her carving of the pentacle, the lines were slightly askew and it wasn't nearly as neat as the one in the library but it was all there and she hoped that would prove enough. She lit the candles and placed the bones as she had seen the Doctor do before. She looked up at the mirror and saw the slight ripple on its surface. Reaching a hand out to it she felt the water like texture of its surface, her fingers slipping beyond the glass and into the world beyond. She looked at the figure on the bed, so lifeless and her heart broke once again. A stubbornness came to her, dismissing talk of ionic disruptors and capture, she wanted to face the creature who had harmed him head on and destroy it. She got to her feet and took a step towards the mirror.

"Rose?"

Rose turned back to the voice, her dark manner lifting from her instantly and she stepped away from the mirror. Dana smiled in understanding before extending her hand already encased in the gloves of the space suit she wore, still minus its helmet.

"Come on, we should go."

Rose nodded before taking her hand and letting herself be lead back to the control room. She saw her space suit laid out on the chair and a variety of weaponry she couldn't even guess the origin of.

"The Doctor doesn't like guns," said Rose, surveying the collection.

"The Doctor's not using them," said Dana, "My son's principles are honourable and I would keep to them if I could but this thing is beyond even his talents unarmed. We shan't use them unless we have to. Now hurry into that suit while I get us moving."

Rose did as she was told, watching in concern as Dana barely moved from the monitor as the central column worked away, signalling their flight. Rose pulled up the final zip on her suit as the central column came smoothly to a halt.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Nothing," said Dana, "We're there. Pop your helmet on."

"You mean we landed?"

"Well parked in open space by the anomaly yes."

"But we didn't…there was no…" Rose trailed off giggling, "He's not going to hear the end of this one. I'll have him make sure you drive on all our adventures after this."

She noticed an expression she couldn't fathom fall over Dana's face for a second but it was soon replaced by the now familiar dazzling smile.

"Yeah, wouldn't that be something," she said, pulling on her helmet and sealing it, turning on the oxygen supply before helping Rose to do the same. She slung the disruptor across her back and attached one of the guns to her leg, "Pick one."

Rose scanned the guns but then shook her head, picking up the containment jar only, "I can't," she said, "He doesn't like guns and neither do I."

"Ok," said Dana, "Just stay close to me in there then. It shouldn't be so bad this time through, you know what to expect and a quick burst from the disruptor will hopefully dispel the vision. You ready?"

"As I'll ever be," said Rose as they moved to the doors. Rose pushed them opened and gasped at the sight before her. Not a black hole but deep, midnight blue, surrounded by the wispy light she remembered from the manifestations. She felt a chill go through her and as she stepped off the threshold she was sure the blue tendrils twisted into a fingered hand, beckoning her inside.