"I'm sorry." The Doctor grumbled. This was all so new to him. Never, in all his nine hundred years had he ever felt such… wild and carnal need for someone like he felt for Rose now. As each second ticked by, the anguish and desperation within him increased and he begged every and any deity that might be looking down on him to have some mercy and allow things to go his way. Just this once.

He looked in front of him, placing his hand to shield his eyes from the scorching midday sun and onto the vast, green horizon that spread in front of him.

This was truly, unbelievably and utterly ridiculous. Even with Marton's help, it'd take him at least half a day to reach the claste and again, he was no fool, he was well aware that Rose was a beautiful girl with a dazzling smile and fierce character that could charm anyone. He was certain that the male population would waste no time in offering their courtship and Rose, naïve and unaware as she was, was going to make some stupid mistake and accept it.

"Marton, is there any possible way we could get to the villa faster?"

Impatience was bordering on annoyance and slowly shifting to hysteria. He had to get there. He had to make sure Rose got out of there alive and more importantly, untouched. He didn't really care what happened to him. She was all that mattered.

"Well, aye, Doctor, there is, but it's gonna cost ya. There are these transportation devices that that Loony Liam has, they can get you anywhere you want in only a pair of hours, sir." Marton muttered and the Doctor could feel the distaste he felt when he spoke the nickname poor… Liam, apparently, had been given.

"Oh, isn't that just wizard." He grumbled. "It seemed Rose was right after all. I still am a lousy date." He mumbled. He was still as penniless as he was the first time he took her to a "date" in his previous body. His pockets may be bigger on the inside, but he was absolutely certain that no money resided in their trans-dimensional insides. He had already checked.

Still, with a quirky smile and a pat on the shoulder, Marton lead the way in the opposite direction, away from the forest and away from Rose, the Doctor sighing nearly the entire way to their destination.

The town was already in full celebratory mode and the city square was swarmed with people. More then once, a lady or two, dressed in scarce pieces of clothing that somewhat reminded him of the Earth fashion in the 24 century, the lesser, the better, the motto had been… or will be… he supposed, passed his way, with a causal wink or two that he suspected was anything but innocent.

They would bat their eyelashes at him, graze his forearms with their nails, smirk seductively and speak low, sensuous words with a soft, sexual purr. But the Doctor didn't pay any mind to not one of those women. The only face he had in his head was Rose's and the only hands he wished to be touching him, the only hands he would ever allow to touch him, were hers.

As the tenth person for the day had bumped into him, quite forcefully, he had to say, he had already had quite enough. He turned around sharply; ready to pour all of frustration and anger to the maybe-not-so-innocent passer by, when he was suddenly stunned into silence.

The face he saw in front of him was not of someone he recognized, but there was a strange aura of incredible familiarity about it. The person who had bumped into him was a woman, probably in her late twenties or early thirties that had a large halo of messy, curly ginger hair. Her eyes were a soft chocolate shade and her skin tone which was a soft, pale peach definitely distinguished her from the rest of the Dershins. His gaze unwillingly fell to her rosy, plump lips and his eyes, now wide as saucers, registered that she was smirking at him in a way that was far from innocent and far from appropriate coming from a complete stranger.

"Hello sweetie." Her voice had a sensuous, sultry tone to it and the Doctor was just able to comprehend the thick, London accent.

He blinked at her, once, twice, the word 'what' coming out of his lips soundlessly, but when he opened his eyes for a third time, she was no where to be found. His head suddenly spun with the oddness of it all and he twirled around, hoping, but thoroughly failing, thick as the crowd was, to catch a glimpse of the familiar stranger who had acted towards him in a way in which he least expected.

He could somewhat understand the behavior of the female Dershins; the festival was at its peak and the only goal in the minds of every women from this planet was to find a mate as soon and as fast as she could. However, the woman that had bumped into him… the unfamiliar woman who had bumped into him was definitely not a Dershin and she definitely had no reason to treat him the way she did. The smile she had given him reminded him of the kind of smile one gave to their lover and the sultry, needy look in her gaze was one he recognized well easily enough, considering he himself wore it nearly constantly… or better said, whenever Rose was in the same room and she wasn't watching him directly.

The Doctor was fully aware of the time that he had just wasted looking for the ginger-haired stranger; he may be a renegade Time Lord, but he was a Time Lord non the less, before he shook all thoughts of the weird woman who had greeted him with such… familiarity and… closeness that was certainly impossible, and refocused them to Rose, who was probably waiting and depending on him to get her away from that place.

He turned around and groaned when he saw Marton's knowing, smug face and rubbed his face with his hands again, trying to shake the tension that had accumulated within him.

"You are wanted by quite the number of ladies, Doctor. Might I ask…" He began, turning a sharp right in a narrow alleyway so rapidly that the Doctor nearly stumbled to the ground.

The Doctor noticed that this alley led to a somewhat abandoned, darker and more dangerous part of the city, but Marton seemed to have no problems navigating his way around these parts, so the Doctor decided to go along with wherever he was taking him.

"May you ask what?" The Doctor chirped in, feigning cheerfulness whilst nervously tugging in his ear when Marton seemed lost in thought and had forgotten his previous question. He was surprised when Marton simply waved him off and strolled through the deserted alleyways with a look of fierce concentration.

"Come, Doctor. We're here." Marton suddenly stopped walking and stared at what seemed to be an abandoned building, suddenly seeming quite like he was in some sort of a trance. The Doctor searched for any signs or clues, but when he found none, his mind, albeit amazingly slow on the uptake considering that it was Rose's life that was on the line and quite possibly his own, began to ring a deafening warning in his head that nearly blocked out everything else.

"Again I'll ask, may you ask what?" the Doctor's eyes were drawn to several different directions at once, looking for possible means of escape. His brain was quickly coming up with different ways to take Marton out and get away. But he couldn't. He hadn't exactly been cautious of his surroundings when Marton was leading him here. There was no way he could replicate those twists and turns without even a slight sense of where he was going.

"I was going to ask, my dear, dear Doctor, why such a fascination with a mere human girl. There are plenty humanoid girls here that must be able to replace her." Marton's voice sounded hollow and dangerous. It simply served to confirm the Doctor suspicions.

What a bloody fool I am… he groaned inwardly.

"No, sorry Marton, Rose is it for me, I don't want any humanoid, I want her and no one else will do." Granted, the Doctor knew that he was putting his foot in his mouth, but he had been denying his… affections for Rose for so long, that doing it right now seemed near to impossible and he believed it might very well kill him to do so.

"Well, than Doctor, I am terribly sorry. But you are right, your Rose is a fine specimen, so exotic, so… sensuous and innocent, but so full of life." The Doctor growled and whipped around to face Marton, ready to knock the living daylights out of him, when he stopped.

The look in Marton's eyes was crazed and animalistic. His face was blank and there was an unconformable sense of wrongness in the air around him. The Doctor cringed as the cool wind that had replaced the sun's warmth blew around him, seeping through his clothes and chilling his skin.

"So all this time, all that talk and talk… and all this time you knew everything?" the Doctor's voice had gotten a surprised quality to it, even though his mind registered, albeit just a little too late, that this whole thing had been just a little bit too easy from the very get go.

Nothing ever came easy to him. Not anymore. Not for a very long time now.

"All this while… you've been leading me on?" a weird sort of confusion, or quite possibly betrayal crept into his voice on its own accord and the words came out sounding like the fact had truly hurt him deeply.

Which, truth to be told, had gotten to him 'cause this was his Rose he was trying to find and he really, really thought that Marton would understand and that he wouldn't have to do anything truly drastic whilst trying to get to her.

"She will make a nice queen for our people." Marton muttered and shrugged indifferently with his shoulders, before reaching out with his hand to the back of his dress pants.

In the very same moment the Doctor dodged to the side behind some empty canisters of some sort, a loud blast, followed by strong, bright green light that nearly blinded him disturbed the silence around them.

He could feel shards of some sort and debris raining down on him, gluing themselves to his hair, sticking to his skin as he made a desperate attempt to run into the ruins of an abandoned building, which he hoped would prove as a good hiding spot.

Several blasts followed his escape as he made a desperate run for the opposite side of the small plaza they were in, and even more debris followed, this time 'twined with small pieces of glass that landed on him, making small incisions in his skin as he moved faster then he ever had before, trying to reach safety.

"You can run, but you cannot hide, Doctor." Marton's voice bellowed the second the Doctor reached the inside of the ruins and got down to the ground in a long slide that hurt like hell, scratching through the material of his pants and puncturing through the shallow layers of his skin making droplet of deep, red blood come to the surface.

"We have waited for your mate for so long, Doctor. Her beauty has been prophesized by our best oracle, the talents she possesses and all the benefits our people would get once she receives the crown..." his voice trailed off for a moment. "The possibilities are truly endless." Marton's loud voice boomed around the plaza, accentuating every word.

However, the Doctor had stopped listening somewhere right after the fourth or fifth word. Everything after that had been written off as simple noise by courtesy of his mind and sparks and fireworks seemed to explode in his head, blinding him for a small portion of a minute.

"Ma-mate?" He managed to croak even though he knew it would probably give out his position. The concept seemed foreign, familiar, but not quite possible. The idea alone, of having Rose as his mate, the idea that she might even want him that way, sent blood rushing to his private parts, boiling to the point of combustion.

"Well, then you have gotten you information wrong, Marton. Rose and I are not mates and won't ever be." He shrieked in a voice that was definitely not appropriate for a nine-hundred year old male Time Lord.

"Oh no, Doctor, you are the one that's wrong, aye. You are in such denial over you body's natural desires and needs that you failed to recognize what was happening right in front of you." Marton chuckled and there was a brief pause between his words, making the Doctor instinctively roll over thanks to years upon years spent fighting in the Time War, the laser blasts missing him by mere inches. He got to his feet, hunched over, and ran over to the eastern corner when he could also get a clear view of Marton, who was fast approaching.

"You may not know this about out race, Doctor, but we have a keen capability of seeing the timelines of soul mates. We have the capability of seeing the way the familiar strands twist and intertwine with someone else's combining their very essences, their very… souls into one and I had never seen someone be so vulnerable without their other half by their side… as desperate to find their mate as you, Doctor. Never before." He was advancing still. The Doctor knew he was trapped. He had nothing to around him that he could use as a weapon, except for some sharp-edged rocks, but it was not very likely that Marton was going to give him even a chance to use them.

"If you are so certain that Rose is my mate, Marton, than what right do you have to take her away from me? You know what happens to mates so uniquely bonded when one if them is taken away from the other." Even if he still didn't believe what Marton had just told him… it was ridiculous to even be entertaining such a notion.

Then again…

"Oh yes, Doctor, of course we do. But you are missing one vital piece of information. You have been so preoccupied with pushing your own mate away, even though you are absolutely, definitively and utterly aware of just how dependant you are of her, that you never got to chance to complete the mating process, therefore Ms. Tyler will only feel a minor hurt due to your death, which most certainly wouldn't have been the case had you taken her for yourself in the first place, aye." He was inside. The Doctor was trapped.

It was over.

Even though, the enticing images his mind provided him of Rose were more then enough to make him move again, try to get out and find a different way to get her. His Rose… his mate.

The grin that threatened to split his face in two could've powered an entire solar system for centuries on end and the sudden burst of energy he felt helped move his feet across the concrete floor, filled with chunks of large marble and smaller rocks, mixed with branches from the trees that loomed overhead, giving the enclosed space a somewhat darker and more sinister appearance.

"Well then, Marton, that's where I have to disagree with you." He shouted to him cheerfully as he managed to spot a small hole made in a wall, big enough for him to fit through, but not for Marton… he would have to get out from the front of the building. "I, for one, have a strong displeasure when it comes to causing Rose pain and… whether the… um… the mating is finished or not, I simply cannot allow her to feel even the slightest of hurt because of me." Slowly, he walked of the exit and began slipping through as quietly as he could.

"Then that's where we really have a problem, Doctor, aye?" Marton's voice sounded from right behind him, freezing his movements and making his fingers clench painfully around the roughed up edges of the small hole, drawing blood that seeped onto the off-beige surface of the wall.

He turned slowly, his mind disappointingly blank with his hands raised in the air. He gulped hard when his eyes connected to the barrel of the futuristic gun that was aimed directly to his forehead. His thoughts were on Rose and just how unbelievably messed up this day had become in such a short time.

Marton's cold eyes stared at him without a hint of mercy or remorse and the Doctor knew better than to beg this time round.

His eyes shut tight without him even being aware of the gesture and images began flashing before his eyes. However, this time wasn't like before.

Usually, every single time he closed his eyes, he could still see them, hear them. Screaming in his head, cursing him and begging with him, pleading, crawling and shouting for someone to put out the fire. For someone to stop the pain. Billions upon billions of voices shouted and screamed inside his head as their horror-filled faces, expressions frozen with terror and disbelief washed over him bringing him to his knees repeatedly, over and over again.

But it was different now. He had Rose. And she was his own personal guardian angel. She fended off his nightmares, keeping them always at bay, holding his hand and offering him all the comfort and assurance she had to offer from her tiny, mortal, human heart, heedless of whether he deserved it or not. She had handed him her life and her love, putting them in his hands for safe-keeping even when at times he wasn't exactly certain he could protect his own. She was his sun and his night, his moon and his day… his goddess of light and love and time and when she as around, he felt truly at home.

He could no longer actually say that he had two hearts because one of them was completely and totally hers; had been hers for a long time, really, even in his previous body when he was all dark and silent and broody with big ears and a leather jacket.

If he was one to talk, he had never been convinced in the strange concept of death that humans seemed to have and the whole 'your whole life flashes before your eyes' thing, but now, as his mind played out every single day, every single hour he had spent with his precious Rose, he supposed that there was a first time for everything.

The memories played out right in front of his eyes and it felt as if he was reliving them anew, all over again.

The Gelth, Downing Street, the Sycorax, New Earth, the Daleks in Utah, then the Game Station, the parallel world, Satellite Five, Sarah Jane, Reinette…

Names, dates, facts and places ran through his head with lighting speed and yet he felt as if time ran in slow motion. He was able to feel everything he had felt at the moment the memories had been made, but this time he also saw things from a somewhat more different perspective then he had at the time.

When the recollections had stopped and frozen at Madame de Pompadour, the Doctor started. He didn't just reminisce anymore, he was actually there and he could see things he hadn't been able to last time.

Once again, as he weaved his way though the ancient 51st century ship, his hearts constricted with love and happiness and self-deprecation as Rose's loud voice sounded over and reached his ears.

"He knows what he was doing, Mickey, don't you get it. We don't matter. Reinette does…" she was screaming and Mickey was simply grunting in annoyance, scowling every once in awhile at her. The Doctor's eyes widened as he reached the room in which they were in, sitting awkwardly on the ground, Rose's head in her hands, her fingers pulling at the roots roughly. He couldn't see her face, but judging by the hitch in her breathing and the shaking of her shoulders, he could tell that she was crying. And it broke him all over again because he was finally realizing just what he had done.

"Reinette matters Mickey, she matters much more than we'll ever be able to understand." She said softly, tenderly, affection and bitterness clear in her voice as she refused to raise her head and face her ex-boyfriend, the Idiot. "She's the uncrowned queen of France and if he doesn't save her, things can go very, very wrong in our time." Finally, she lifted her face and rested it on her knees, which she had pulled to her chest.

The Doctor wanted to hit himself as his face contorted into a painful grimace at the sudden display of Rose's blood-shot, tear-stained face, her eyes red and puffy, her nose running and her chin quivering, but still looking every bit as dignified and beautiful as the Goddess she was within. Mickey-the-Idiot walked over to her and settled on the ground next to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, pulling her head to the nook of his shoulders, making soft, hushing sounds.

"I love him, Mickey, I'm so, so sorry, but I really do. I love him more than I ever thought that I could love anyone." She whispered softly, her voice muffled. Her voice broke on the last words and she sighed, deeply, tiredly.

"But Rose, he doesn't love you back, does he? I think that he had just proved that by jumping into that bloody window. Sure, he must care for you, but maybe 's not enough to keep 'im with you."

The Doctor's jaw clenched and he suddenly wanted to pummel Rickey unconscious and then prove to Rose just how much he loves her, consequences be damned. Fortunately, Rose seemed to have the thing in mind. Her small fist raised and thumped him firmly onto his chest, making him gasp and widen his eyes.

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious, Mickey; that makes me feel so much better." She growled at him, a cold, icy glare in her eyes. "Rose…"

"No, Mickey, you still don't get it. I can't give this up." Rose raised herself from the ground and began gesturing franticly, her voice turning hysterical. "I can't just get up one day and say 'I've had enough, it's time to go'. It doesn't work like that. I can't leave 'im, 'm not strong enough, Mickey." He followed her up quickly and pulled her into a hug, caressing her hair and whispering something to her that the Doctor could not hear.

"You'll never be strong enough for that, sweetheart. But what are you gonna do, Rose. Let's say, he does come back, what are you gonna do then?" the Doctor found himself listening intently, as if his very life depended on it, which truth to be told, it quite possibly did.

"Nothin' Mickey. I'm gonna do nothin' at all, just like I had done so far. Take what I can get, I've always said." She attempted for a weak smile and failed terribly and the Doctor was unable to move a muscle, except to stare in shock.

"What happens when that isn't enough anymore, Rosie?"

She looked at Mickey, smiling a small, pained, watery smile. "It will have to be enough because I could never settle for anythin' less, and God knows it could never be anythin' more."

The Doctor was rendered speechless. For the first time in a very long, really, he couldn't say anything. Didn't even know what to say, in fact.

The whole thing playing out had felt like it had lasted an eternity, but the sudden solid thump, as weird as that was, told him it couldn't've been more than mere minutes, maybe even seconds.

He slowly blinked, very, very carefully and was stumped even further when he noticed the ginger-haired woman who had acted so intimate with him only half an hour ago, smirking at him, holding the heel of the gun still in the air, standing over the limp, unconscious body of Marton.

"Had a nice trip down Memory Lane, sweetheart?" she smiled knowingly at him and his bafflement turned to annoyance and if there was once thing the Doctor could do when he was annoyed, or angry, or pissed-off, or mad, or caught in a dead-end, was talk.

"All right, who the hell are and from when the hell are you?" all right, maybe he was still suffering from a bit of an aftershock due to what he had just heard.

"Oooh Doctor, that was rude." She chided him, smiling. "That was very, very rude. You've got to work on you manners a bit if you want to keep that foxy body of yours." She smirked again, affection shining clear in her deep, soulful eyes… and the Doctor was rendered speechless… again…

"Anyways, might want to keep this, just in case…" she muttered, her red, full lips puckering a bit as she tucked the gun in the back of her simple blue jeans and covering it with the large blood-red tunic that she had draped over her upper body that was traditional in these parts. "Um, sweetie?" she stopped and raised her head to look at him.

The Doctor started once more. The words he had heard Rose say were twirling around the front of his mind and demanding his attention and the soonest possible moment. He was a step from blocking everything around him, shutting into himself, so that he could analyze them and pick them apart and then put them together just like they deserved.

"Oh, you mean me, don't you? Oh, right, sorry. Why do you keep calling me that, anyway? 'Sides, who are you, you still haven't answered me and just, just, stop calling me that. No one calls me that and I'm not about to let a complete stranger start to..." He rambled distractedly while looking her up and down for any signs as to who she was.

"Still rude, love." She smiled. "Call me River. Professor Doctor River Song." She called out as she pulled out yet another alien… tracking device as if seemed, and began climbing out the small hole in the wall. She stopped talking until she got out and then turned to him, her hands on her hips, a cross expression on her face that had the Doctor's blood run cold for some reason or another.

"Sweetie, didn't you have a mate to save, last I heard?" she questioned him pointedly and the mention of Rose was all it took to get the Doctor springing into action. He climbed out of the small hole in the wall in less than 0.8 milliseconds and had taken to running in a general, unknown direction in the remaining 0.2.

Professor Doctor River Song remained standing in the same spot, a mischievous, wicked glint in her eyes and a small familiar smile obvious on her face, her tongue pointing out between her teeth and all.

A short while after, less then a whole minute in fact, the Doctor returned with a sulking expression on his face and an adorable child-like pout, complete with bunny, wide eyes that could make even the hardest of hearts melt into putty at his feet.

He came to stand in front of River, who immediately dropped the smile from her face and replaced it for a more professional smirk, her eyes twinkling at the man who had once proclaimed himself the Time Lord Victorious… or will proclaim himself in the very least, and is Time's Champion.

The Doctor cleared his throat and extended his hand in a very professional manner as well, the words flowing from his mouth even if his eyes still said that he would rather do this on his own than require help.

"Right then, I don't believe we have been properly introduced. I'm the Doctor, and I like to be called strictly that way as well, thanks," he said, looking pointedly at River, to which she just grinned, apparently amused. "And I believe your name was River, yeah. Professor Doctor River Song, not a bad name a have to say… 'sides a professor and a doctor, that's quite the achievement, though of course it depends what kind of a doctor you are and what do you teach… I mean, have had a PhD in… I mean... well... anyway! Now," he dropped his hand without even waiting for her to extend him the same courtesy and introducing herself formally as well, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and grinning impishly. "Mind showing me the way?" his eyes were glinting and River fought the urge to laugh, but at the same time glower at him, 'cause even after all that time she'd spent with him, his mood swings were still giving her whiplashes.

"We, my dear, dear Doctor, aren't going anywhere." She said, grabbing his hand and lacing her fingers through his. His surprise was evident and his disappointment palpable, but River cleared that up hastily by adding, "We're teleporting."

With a quick press of a few buttons on the Vortex Manipulator on her wrist, the very unusual duo disappeared in a flash of bright, blue light that illuminated half of the small plaza as the night quickly approached and the preparations for the official festivities were slowly, but steadily being brought to their end.