Hello! Thanks for the reviews guys! (pssst...would love some more *wink wink* lol) Sorry this update took so long. This is sort of a "blah" chapter. Zee Doctor does lots of thinking...real action comin' up soon! 8D

Rory was somewhat irritated by all the running. For crying out loud, it was ridiculous, they were always running. Running away from monsters and aliens, people and places. However, they weren't running away from anything this time, they were running too something. The TARDIS.

"Come along, Mr. Pond! Hurry up!" the Doctor shouted. He was wearing the fez again; had put it back on the second the others disappeared. He must have thought that Rory wouldn't try very hard to make him take it off, and regrettably, he was right. Rory chose not to respond to the Doctor's irritating words, and simply ran as quickly as he could to try and catch up. The Doctor bounded into the TARDIS, and as soon as Rory shut the door, the grind of the engines immediately started up. The Doctor clapped his hands together, and Rory leaned against the TARDIS consol, fidgeting slightly. Now what?

Why couldn't he have gone with Amy? Or why couldn't Amy have gone with the Doctor, and he could have gone with Rose and Lucy? Rory just had a feeling she would have been safer. He hated the idea of their separation, but it was too late to do anything now. Rory stared into the long, tube like structural center of the TARDIS, (he didn't know what to call it) as he thought about the last hour…no, the last half hour…no, the last twenty minutes. Fifteen. That was more like it. It was incredible, but he supposed that it was just something that came with the job description.

His thoughts were interrupted by something soft and red hitting him in the face. He started a little, and picked up the small, red object, stared at it a moment, and then looked up staring at the Doctor.

"You're joking," he said. "Seriously? What sort of idiot do you think I am?" The Doctor grinned, dashing up to him and patting him on the head as one would a dog.

"Come now Mr. Pond, it's time you got into real fashion," he said cheerfully. He then proceeded to clap the fez onto Rory's head. He wished Amy was here; the Doctor would never act like this with her around. Or maybe even Lucy…or Rose…or Martha…the Doctor only ever seemed to travel with girls, and now Rory was beginning to understand why: because girls were the only ones who could put him in his place. He pulled the fez off his head, and stared at it, partially amused, worried, and irritated.

"Define 'real'," he said. The Doctor grinned, and parked the TARDIS with a shudder, and Rory tossed the fez aside. The Doctor, distracted by wherever it was they had landed, bounded out of the TARDIS, and Rory followed. The moment he stepped outside, he felt a slight jolt in the pit of his stomach. He knew where they were.

"This is the place," he said quietly. The Doctor did not hear.

"I needed to start here," the Doctor said, but it seemed more as though he was saying it to the room at large…well, the plains. They were in the United States; where the Doctor had been shot. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

"Why did we come here?" he asked the Doctor. The Doctor seemed preoccupied, and without looking at Rory, he spoke in a somewhat distant voice.

"That instinct of mine," he said quietly. "I felt like we should be here. Why? I have no idea, but-"

There was a deafening bang, and for some reason, Rory was not at all startled. Especially since the fez now drifted, almost lazily to the ground with a smoking hole through the top. However, the Doctor seemed just as surprised as ever for some reason, but his expression was grim. It had always been a puzzle for Rory; the Doctor and River Song. Of course, she was Melody, his and Amy's daughter, but she was still quite the puzzle. It had been a long time since he'd seen River. Rory turned to face the source of all the noise.

There she stood, some ten yards away, the pistol smoking in her outstretched hand. She was wearing exactly the same outfit she had been wearing on the day the Doctor had been shot; an overload of blue jean.

"Hello Sweetie," she said in a silky voice. The Doctor stared at her a moment, and a slight smile played momentarily at his lips.

"Hello River," he said quietly. She strode towards him, shaking her head.

"Are you ever going to get my message?" she asked him, almost like he was a kid. "I thought I told you never to wear that thing."

The Doctor shrugged.

"I'm the Doctor," he said simply. "And the TARDIS likes the look." Rory snorted. He wondered what she would have said two years ago when she briefly inhabited a human body if the Doctor had put on a fez. River rolled her eyes. The Doctor seemed finished with the previous subject.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her. River paused, and her eyes narrowed slightly. Rory wasn't entirely sure what passed between them, but somehow he knew that from that point on, things between them were going to be different.

"I might ask you the same thing," River said coolly. The Doctor frowned slightly.

"There's something buried in the earth, something dangerous, and we're trying to figure out who put it there," he said carefully.

"Well," said River. "If it's any help, you won't find anything here,"

"How do you know that?" the Doctor asked.

"Spoilers," River said with a grin. The Doctor looked at her, a grin playing on his lips.

"You know sometimes I think you just say that because you don't know yourself, am I right?"

River didn't answer.

"So, since there's nothing here, where do you think we should go next?" asked Rory. All three of them had returned to the TARDIS.

"Well, the most likely places that there will be answers would be places I've been called, or places the TARDIS took me because she thought I needed to be there," he said.

"Well, this wasn't a bad place to start," River said.

"No, but there's nothing here, so where should we go next?" he pondered a moment. Rory watched him for a moment, and suddenly, he had an idea.

"What about that little boy?" he asked. River and the Doctor looked at him.

"What little boy?" asked the Doctor.

"You know, what was his name…George, he sent you a message to save him from the monsters," Rory said uncertainly. The Doctor stared at him, and then grinned.

"Good show, Rory the Roman!" he said with a grin. In an instant, the TARDIS came to life, and they rattled off into time and space, searching for the little boy who was afraid of the monsters.

However, their luck was no better. They carefully avoided themselves (when they had helped George), and searched around the city for anything unusual, but nothing came. They searched the junkyard, talked to the police, wandered the streets, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing, and Rory was really starting to get worried now. What on earth were they going to do? He wanted to find Amy and Rose. And Lucy. For some reason, he didn't like the idea of Amy being with Lucy. There was something odd about that girl, and Rory did not like it one bit.

The Doctor leaned up against the TARDIS counsel, rubbing his face with his hands in frustration. Where on earth could they go? He supposed it could be in 1941 or 1825, but he wanted to be absolutely sure. He was scared for the others, and was really beginning to regret splitting up. How selfish he had been. He wasn't ready to talk to Rose, or Martha, or even Jack, and especially not the other Doctor. The human Doctor. Oh, what he would have given to be him.

So, he had sent them all off on separate jobs, splitting them up and going instead with Rory. He liked hanging around Rory. It was nice to have a guys company for a change. He always seemed to hang around girls. He didn't even really know why. The Doctor tried to think of any other place he had been called that seemed likely, but it was hard. He was staring into the blackness of his eyelids, and then it came to him. It fairly ripped him apart, but it was worth a try. After all, it could have happened any time. What difference was seven years?

"I know where to go," he said quietly. He started up the engines, and the TARDIS seemed to leap into the vortex, and almost effortlessly take him where he wanted to go. She missed it too. She missed it as much as he did, and even though it was painful to go back, he wanted too so badly. He wanted to see those days again, when everything had been perfect, just to prove they were real, and they hadn't all been just a silly dream. But she wasn't a dream.

"Where are we going?" asked Rory; he seemed anxious and a little bit apprehensive. He was worrying about Amy of course. And he should be. The Doctor was worrying about her too. The TARDIS landed smoothly, and with a deep breath, he rushed to the door, followed closely by River and Rory, and threw it open.

His breath caught in his throat, and he stood there, the air was sweet, and the wind blowing gently across the water. The city was the same, well, of course it was. It was that year, that very same year. They had parked some distance from where he had been last time, but close to the hospital.

"Where are we?" asked Rory.

"New Earth, about a billion years on the future, but also around….the year 2006," he said quietly.

"You've spoken of this before," River said quietly. She looked at him through those deep, mysterious eyes, and he looked back. He did not respond. Instead, he ran towards the hospital. Maybe…just maybe he could catch something. No, this was not earth, so nothing was planted here now, he was just using this as a way to get to Earth at the right time period and not overshoot like he usually did.

"Why would we be on New Earth, doesn't this problem concern 'Old Earth'?" Rory asked irritably. The Doctor glared at him.

"Maybe I just fancied a trip here, while everyone else is risking their lives for us," he growled. Rory looked taken aback.

"We're using this spot to get to Earth at the proper time, I was called here by the Face of Boe, and…" he trailed off.

There they were. He tried to conceal himself, but neither would recognize him if they saw him, so there really wasn't any harm in it. He watched as he walked, a spring in his step, the newly regenerated Doctor and Rose Tyler. He had been so happy, so full of life, happier than he had been in a very long time, and then it had been destroyed. Taken away. Lost forever. He missed that face. He had loved being his Tenth regeneration, all cheeky and skinny, with his hair sticking up and all over the place, Rose Tyler at his side. Those had been the best days.

"Hold on…" said Rory. "Are you sure you actually didn't just fancy a trip?"

"Come on," the Doctor said quietly as his older self and Rose disappeared into the hospital. "Let's go find out if anything's happening at home."

They found themselves in London in the year 2006, and immediately the Doctor began investigating.

"River, why don't you go poking around, the London Eye area, Rory, you go opposite of her, and I'll go another way," he said cheerfully. "Meet back here in an hour or give a ring if you find something."

River wasn't to be fooled. He knew that she knew he wanted to be alone for a while, to think about what was going on. Rory seemed slightly confused, but he didn't seem to catch on as well as River did. The three of them parted company, and went off to look in their separate directions.

The Doctor was fairly certain that nothing was here. He had a feeling that he would know if there was, but he still wanted to look anyways. He needed the time to think. He needed to understand what was going on.

However, at the moment, he thought of Rose. It had been difficult to read her expression when he had found everyone together. There was a certain amount of pain in seeing her, as there was a certain amount of joy. He had missed her, oh, how he had missed her, but it also frightened him, seeing her. What if she didn't care about him anymore? What if she liked the human Doctor? Never mind him, she had a man who wasn't going to change his face, who wasn't going to drop her off in a parallel universe and leave her there. He hadn't wanted too, but there had been no other alternative. However, what had surprised him was that as much as she seemed to adore the human Doctor, and him her, the Doctor had spotted no ring, or anything of the sort. He wondered why.

And then there was Martha. They always seemed to part ways, ready to never see each other again, and then they would meet. That always seemed to be how it was. He wondered where Mickey was, it had been ages since he had seen him. Martha, the clever doctor, a real doctor as a matter of fact. It was good to see her again, but he still felt guilty about her.

However, his mind drifted to Donna. She had suffered the worst fate of all, and it was probably impossible for him to ever see her again, or to ever get her to remember without being killed. He wondered what would happen if he were to walk up to her and say hello. After all, she didn't know his eleventh regeneration. Of all his companions, he felt the most terribly for her. She had been a lot like a sister to him; stubborn, irritating, always bickering, but kind when she needed to be. She had been an idiot when he needed her to be, and she had been clever. Oh, she was brilliant at times. He wished he could see her again.

He heard it.

A voice.

Inside his head.

Have you ever heard the phrase, be careful what you wish for?