Thanks so much for reading so far, folks :) Please rate and review. Introducing our spiky-haired Doctor number Ten...Allons-y!

Chapter Three
A Rip In Time

"No."

The Tenth Doctor's face was absolute; death was a force which did not control him, and he would certainly not let an Ood dictate his future. His song was not over, nor would it be - not yet.

Pulling the TARDIS screen towards him, he set a course to the future, as far as he could possibly go. Gallifreyan text and symbols flashed at his unseeing eyes, for The Doctor was barely paying attention to his surroundings.

Captain Adelaide Brooke. That was her name. He promised then and there to remember it. She should have died a hero, a legend in history but now, because of The Doctor, she had died because of shame and fear. He hung his head, his spiky brown hair almost touching the console.

"I'm sorry, old girl," he whispered, patting his TARDIS interior. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

The TARDIS made no reply. She was empty, save for her thief and his two broken hearts.

Unbidden in his mind's eye, The Doctor saw the haunted face of Carmen and her warning ringing in his ears:

"Your song is ending, sir. It is returning. Returning through the dark. He will knock four times."

"He will knock four times," The Doctor repeated out loud, sitting down on the sofa next to the console. "What is returning? What is it?"

Perhaps if he had had someone on the ship with him, he could have speculated, even used them as a soundboard, much as he used them as an escape from everything else. He was really lost without them.

"Oh, Donna," he mumbled. "You were right. I shouldn't be alone. Rose. Martha. Even you, Jack. I wonder where you are n-"

His nostalgic mutterings were abruptly disturbed by an almighty clang from the TARDIS console - the cloister bell was ringing alarmingly, and the ship itself had come to a halt. The Doctor stood up immediately, putting on his glasses and staring at the computer screen which was still displaying blurry lines of Gallifreyan.

"What?" he shouted out loud, reading the alien language in front of him. "But…what?!"

Thrusting the screen aside, he grabbed his long brown coat and ran to the TARDIS doors, his face full of panic. Pulling the doors of the Police Box open as hard as he could, The Doctor had to steady himself as he suppressed a scream.

"This is not good. This is very very not good." Placing his hands behind his head with his eyes darting left to right frantically, The Doctor could do little but stare out of his small space ship as the entire time vortex crumbled around him. "What the hell is going on?"

Unwittingly leaving the doors open, he darted back to the console with the intention of landing somewhere - anywhere - but he stopped when he finally looked up at the column.

The entire interior of the TARDIS had turned a bright, blood red - a potentially devastating paradox was about to occur on an enormous scale, and there was nothing The Doctor could do to stop it. He pumped the levers on the console as hard as he could, and he failed to remember a time he had ran this fast around the circular control pod, but in the end he gave up.

"I guess this is it," he muttered, stepping back and running his hands through his hair. With one look at the TARDIS console and one hand on his head, The Doctor attempted to remove his glasses. "I'll find you. I promise," he whispered to the ship, but suddenly the machine crashed against the walls of the vortex, knocking the doors violently against the interior of the ship.

There was an impossibly bright flash of light, a yell of fear and shock from The Doctor, and in an enormous blast of wind, he was thrown through the doors and into the haze of the crumbling time vortex itself.

When The Doctor finally awoke with a groan, his vision was blurred and even without touching anything, he could tell his hands were covered in dirt. Was he dead?

Clearly not. For a start, no knocks had met his ears and secondly, his senses were more or less intact. Looking down at his tattered and faded blue suit, he sighed. "Getting sick of having to replace these." Sitting up and rubbing the back of his head, he nearly vomited as a result of the sudden movements. "Okay. Let's take it slow."

He examined his hands, noting that he hadn't regenerated. "Still as lanky and thin as ever," he observed with a small smile. "I can't have been rolling around the time vortex for long. Okay. Legs. I've still got legs." His vision was still blurry, but it was only when The Doctor removed his glasses that he realised why - they were cracked.

Stowing them in his pockets, the Time Lord finally stood up and took in his surroundings, regaining his balance by leaning on something made of tweed - a jacket.

"Oh, sorry!" he mumbled, stepping backwards and half ignoring the man sitting next to where he stood.

There was no reply, and The Doctor took in his situation. It appeared he was in some sort of trench - a bunker, perhaps - and it was obviously night time, given the darkness outside and the use of a candle inside. Maps, statistics and charts were spread out like leaves on trees on the wall in front of him and for a second, he leaned forward and looked at them.

"July…1916..."

There was something vaguely important about that date, The Doctor remembered, but for the moment it escaped him. Judging by both the written language and the almost barbarian living conditions he was standing in, he determined that he was on Earth.

The Doctor stepped back thoughtfully with his hands in his pockets. His sneakers were covered in muck, and it was only when he looked down at them and wrinkled his nose that he became fully aware of the stranger behind him who seemed intent on staring at him.

"Hello," he smiled, extending his hand. "I'm The Doctor."

The stranger, whose face was half covered in darkness and the other half eerily seen by candle light, did likewise. "Yes, I know," he said mysteriously, and then sighed. The Doctor didn't quite know what to make of this man, but he certainly wasn't a fan of his bow tie. Sitting down opposite him, he decided to take a friendly and cautious approach.

"Do you, er, live here?" he asked. "I'm sort of…new in town…"

"Yes, I know," the stranger grinned, setting the hairs on The Doctor's back on edge. "I saw you materialize right there -" he nodded his head towards the spot in which The Doctor had awoken - "and there was a rather large flash of white light. If I had to guess, I would take a gander that, somewhere, a rift in the time vortex was forced open and your ship - which, I'm guessing again, is bigger on the inside - decided to thrust you out. You yourself have no idea why, how or when this happened. Right?"

The Doctor's eyes furrowed. Something was very wrong here, and his mind was racing. Brave hearts, Doctor he thought to himself.

"Who are you?" he asked, leaning forward to take a good look at the man. He'd never met him before in his life. "And what are you doing here? Where are we?"

The stranger adjusted his bow tie and revealed his entire face in the candle light. His hair, jet black and striking, quivered in a small breeze and The Doctor suddenly felt an increasingly creepy sense of foreboding.

"Who am I?" he said, a small, dark smile curving across his lips as he extended his hands in an imitation of his new visitor's greeting. As he spoke, a howl as though from a beast echoed through the still night air. "I'm The Doctor."

Please rate and review! :) I hope I got Ten's characterization right, I wrote him a little less bouncy and excited because this is him JUST after the very dark Waters of Mars episode.