"So much for swimming," Alba panted, letting her head fall back against the blanket .

"We can still go swimming...," the Doctor replied, sounding equally breathless as his hands skated across her body. He tugged at her night gown, and she lifted her hips to aid him in removing the garment. It was a routine she was becoming accustomed to. "You know...if that's what you'd rather be doing. I seem to remember you inferring something along the lines of me impregnating you, though. Thought I'd maybe take a crack at that first. Practice makes perfect, after all." The rest of the wolfish words were lost as he pressed his lips against her throat and let his fingers trace the curve of her hip. He propped himself back up on his elbows and regarded her with large, curious eyes.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

"Memorising this moment. How beautiful you are. I never want to forget this," he replied quietly, his thumb moving in soft circles across her bare skin. "Don't know that I could if I tried, though."

She graced him with an even softer smile. Alba never would've figured the Doctor to be the sentimental sort, but here it seemed so. He ran his fingers through her hair and lifted it away from her face before planting another soft kiss to her lips. She felt the flush rising back up her body again as he worked his way from her mouth to her throat and back down to her collarbones. The Doctor fluttered a trail of fire from each breast to the apex of her thighs, from which he stopped to pause and look up at her.

"That's generally not how you get a girl pregnant," she teased him lightly, though she suddenly felt nervous. He was switching tact, being soft and sweet with her, nothing like the rough and tumble Doctor she'd encountered that first night in the library. She wasn't sure what to make of him. She wasn't sure he knew what he was doing half the time, least of all right now.

Both of them heard the audible icrunch/i of a branch snapping from the brush at the edge of the beach. Immediately, the Doctor pulled back from her and got to his feet, shielding his eyes from the twin suns to peer back in the direction the sound had come from as a flash of light came from the treeline.

"What was that?" she asked in a startled tone, crossing her arms protectively in front of her breasts.

"Quiet," he hushed her darkly, going still. In spite of the warmth of the sun on her shoulders, she felt pins and needles prickle coolly over her as she watched him stride back toward the foot of the mountain. She heard more rustling, and the Doctor's startled exclamation as a teenaged boy with a camera clutched in his hand came crashing out of one of the trees to the sandy turf below.

"What the bleedin' hell?" the Doctor spat accusingly.

The tow-headed boy looked up at him sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his head. "Hey there...friend."

"Don't 'hey there friend' me you little bastard, you know perfectly well this is private land and I'm willing to bet you know who's private land it is as well!" the Doctor spat angrily, snatching the camera from the boy's hand as he gesticulated.

"Hey!" the boy protested, grasping hopelessly after his camera, which even from her distant view Alba could see was expensive. The Doctor it appeared was scrolling through the images and snorting in disgust. Rather than delete the pictures, he turned and hurled the camera as hard as he could at a nearby boulder. The teenager let loose with a long string of colorful epithets, which the Doctor returned in kind, still gesturing wildly all the way. When the boy made to come after him, the Doctor caught and easily held him in a chokehold. Things had escalated rather quickly. Paralyzed by fear, Alba could only watch from a distance in horrified fascination.

"You know who I am. You know what you were doing. Tell me now why I shouldn't kill you?" the Doctor whispered in a low tone audible only to himself and the boy.

"Can't...can't...breathe…" the boy gasped.

"Too bad. Answer the question. You have one minute," the Doctor warned.

"They...they...made...me...do...it...I'm...sor...sorry."

"Who's 'they'?" he asked the boy in response.

"You..you...kn...know."

He released the boy, who fell to his knees, gasping and choking. When he spat into his palm, there was bright red in it. His gaze turned on the Doctor, the emotion in his eyes was unmistakable rage. The Doctor refused to meet his gaze back.

"Go. And tell the goddamn cowards that the next time they dare to send a child to do their dirty work for them, I won't be so merciful."

The boy didn't hesitate. He limped past the shattered remains of his camera before he disappeared back into the brush on the side of the mountain, presumably back to wherever he had come from. Sprinting back to Alba, the Doctor helped her back into her night gown before hustling her quickly across the beach and carefully into the brush at the base of the mountain forest.

"What the hell just happened back there that you felt the need to threaten a teenage boy?" she asked him, feeling the icy fingers of fear dance across the back of her neck.

"Ground rules, Rose. I ask the questions, remember?" he said, none too gruffly.

"Oh, so it's like that again now?" she asked in bitter disbelief, not completely surprised that he had once again run hot and then cold again on her.

"Yes, it's like that again now," he said, grinding his teeth as he lead them upwards and finally back inside.

She just stared at him. "What is wrong with you? Are you bipolar or something?"

At that statement he just laughed. "There's no such thing as mental illness on Gallifrey, Rose. Or rather I should say we don't believe in mental illness."

"That's not an answer to my question," she said, crossing her arms. "So there is something wrong with you then. That's why you're avoiding giving me a straight answer. And you still won't tell me what the deal with that teenage boy back there was."

"Nevermind mind about that teenage boy, Rose. We have a history that you aren't aware of. His father and I...well, to say we're mortal enemies would be putting it rather mildly. But I think it's quite obvious there's more than a few things wrong with me, Rose," he said softly.

"Are you mad?" she pressed.

"Real crazy people don't know they're crazy, Rose, so what's the point in asking me a question like that?"

"Because you are mad. And you know it," she said evenly.

He was silent.

"This is stupid. You're a chemist. If you're sick, couldn't you just develop a drug or something to make yourself better?"

"If it were that simple, don't you think I would've done it already? Just leave me alone!" he hissed at her, stomping in through the open door that was suddenly there. Numbly, Alba followed after him past the great fireplace into the dining room (so they had come back up a different way than they had gone out). She'd only been trying to help him, and she'd upset him without even meaning to. He flopped dramatically into one of the chairs and laid his head down on the table.

She decided maybe she ought to make them tea. Bustling about the kitchen, she located the kettle and set the water to boil before sitting down at the table across from the Doctor. He lifted his head to look at her, and sighed heavily, scrubbing at his face with his hands.

"How'd that kid find us, anyway? I thought no one knew we were here," she finally asked, breaking the uneasy silence that had settled over the room.

"No one was supposed to know we were here, but I guess somehow they found out. Maybe someone saw us going up the mountain yesterday," he replied wearily.

"Are we going to have to leave?" Alba asked, thinking of the baby book she hadn't yet had a chance to examine in private.

"Maybe. I don't know. I don't know where we're better off now, here or the penthouse. This place was supposed to be private, damnit!" he shouted, thumping his fist against the table for emphasis.

Alba wasn't sure what to say in response to his outburst, so she busied herself fixing their tea. The ritual of it helped to calm her, as the encounter out on the beach had her nerves pulled tight. She knew from experience that the Doctor had a violent side to him, but she's honestly thought for a moment there that he might've killed that teenage boy, and that frightened her to no end. Here, she'd thought they were making progress. Now she wasn't so sure. Setting the tea down at the table, she slid back into her seat and decided to try and coax answers from him once more.

"So that kid's father is your 'mortal enemy'. That sounds pretty intense. What'd he do to become your enemy?" she asked, taking a sip of her tea.

The Doctor just stared back at her, his own mug untouched. Nervously, he ran his fingers through his hair, making it stick up before he decided to answer her question. "He was...involved in the death of my wife and daughter," he said finally, with some resignation.

"Oh," Alba replied. That answered at least one of her questions, though it raised a few more in its wake. "What happened?"

"What difference does it make?" the Doctor retorted nastily. "They're still dead, and they're going to stay that way. Nothing I do will ever change that fact." He stirred his tea viciously, staring down at the table as he did.

Suddenly, an idea popped into Alba's head. She was almost afraid to ask the question on the tip of her tongue, for fear of how the Doctor might react. "What about the vortex manipulator? Couldn't you go back in time and stop them from dying?"

"No," he replied miserably. "The vortex manipulator was created years after they died. It's too late to go back and change things now. Besides, you can't cross your own timeline. If I tried to change the circumstances of their death, it could change everything. Of course I used to think about it, but it's just not possible. Besides, that really would be playing a god."

His answer surprised her. He didn't seem the type who'd mind breaking and bending the rules, considering what he'd done to get her here in the first place. Still, he seemed adamant about using the vortex manipulator to alter the events of his own past. She couldn't help but wonder why, and what would really happen if he tried.

"So now what?" she asked helplessly, at a loss for anything else to say.

"I don't know," he sighed, draining his teacup. "I'm trying to decide whether my threats were sufficient enough as to scare off anyone else who might fancy spying on us. The last thing I need right now is for pictures of us to become front page fodder for that bastard's rag of a news publication."

"That kid was a paparazzi?" Alba asked, finishing her own tea.

"He might as well have been. His father is the editor of the Gallifrey Ledger, and nothing is sacred as far as he's concerned. When my wife and daughter died, he ran a story trying to imply that I'd somehow had a hand in their deaths. As if I could ever hurt them!" he said, shaking.

"That's horrible," Alba said, reaching out for the Doctor's hand. He let her take it, and she squeezed it in gentle reassurance. "I can't even imagine how that must have made you feel."

"Yeah well it was all bullshit, but that didn't stop some people from believing it. He nearly ruined my life, what was left of it," the Doctor said, squeezing Alba's hand painfully tight.

"If we leave now, we let them win," she said simply in return.

"By finding us, he already has won," the Doctor replied, his tone laced with defeat. "I have to believe he's not done trying to get to me."

"Well, we just won't let him," Alba said, but she was unsure of how exactly they would do this.

"You're still so optimistic, after everything I've already put you through. How?" he asked, staring at her imploringly.

"I've been through worse. Jimmy Stone, remember? I thought my life was over, too, when it all happened. But I bounced back, somehow. Please, let me try to help you do the same," she said sincerely.

"I don't deserve someone as good as you," he reiterated.

She blew a raspberry at him dismissively. "Well, you're stuck with me all the same. No use saying you don't deserve me, cause here I am. We'll get through this."

"I hope you're right," he replied, playing with his teaspoon.