Warning: This chapter is quite dark, and may scare you, particularly if your view of Ten/Rose is fluffy bunnies, kittens, and rainbows (or if you like to read fluffy things about them. THIS IS NOT FLUFF). So here's a heads-up if that sort of thing is...not your cup of tea...

Rose was hiding.

He wasn't sure he liked that.

She had no right to hide. Not from him.

The TARDIS was trying to dissuade him as he stormed down the corridors, coat billowing around him, footsteps clanging on the metal grating. She presented him to him distracting words, symbols and algorithms. In her almost-maternal instinct she flashed in his mind, blinking red alarm. One of her circuits was damaged. The stubborn Time Lord, however, snorted and brushed her away like dirt on his jacket. His mind was narrowed down to this one thing now.

She wasn't allowed to hide. His jaw tightened at the thought of her doing so. His fingers twitched with something primal, and then he shoved them in his pockets, continuing his mental tirade and angry, stiff step down the corridor.

The doors in the corridor quickly flitted down to the greenish, roundels walls. The Doctor practically ground his teeth in frustration. The TARDIS wasn't telling, and that was never good. He halted, taking a quick glimpse of the serpentine labyrinth of his ship. Time for a talk.

Slowing his hearts and willing his boiling blood to settle, he smoothed a hand over the roundels in what was like the caress of a lover.

"Come on, Old Girl...What's wrong?" His mind was open, golden and sparkling. She saw no resentment, and his tone was music. How could she deny an old friend?

"That's it...Now...tell me...where are you hiding her?" The TARDIS faltered, torn by what was clean and sparkling truth and what she really knew, deep down, in her circuits. And it really was in her circuits...everyone who has boarded her had a psychic imprint...Her Beloved being the strongest, but the Wolf Child almost second.

She's been with him since his youth. Such stricken youth. And she was stricken too. Cast off in the scrapyard.

What kindred spirits, both of them. And she'd seen him rise and fall. When he laughed, she rejoiced with him. And when he wept, she darkened with sorrow and despair.

And, now, the Wolf was in him too. It made her psychic hackles spike up, set her on end. Ripped black and bruised red shone bleakly through the gold. His smile and persuasion flickered for a moment. Then, hesitance.

"Please..." The Doctor was now braced against the wall, and his voice was sultry, vowels elongated in the way he knew made Rose's knees weak around him. But all his Beloved could see was lips that dripped with poison.

The Doctor froze at her denial. It was shaky, hesitant, but it was there. And oh how that made the best inside roar with injustice. He growled and shoved himself away from Her as if burned, reproach and displeasure writ in every tense angle. Fine. He'd just find Rose himself. He wasn't called a Time Lord for nothing. And this wasn't a challenge.It was practically sport. His lip curled into a twisted smirk as he found the very door he was looking for, blank and not really imposing. To anyone else it could have been a spare storage room.

Not this room. After the Time War savaged his precious TARDIS, her circuitry had been heavily damaged, a hair's breadth to being irreparable. Many rooms had been lost, the Zero Room included, in the Time War. Still, this had served for his...less pretty moments.

And that explained why he hadn't been able to sense her. This room had a telepathic dampening console within it. Rose wouldn't have had the slightest clue how to operate it, least understand it, which of course explained his ship. And it was up to full blast. He couldn't feel her mind at all. Not that it worried him in this state. He was just concerned with making his point known to her. And whether that involved blasting the door open...Wait.

Another smirk crossed his features. He could be quiet, sneak in. He was good at being silent; her inferior senses wouldn't even pick up his footsteps. He could quieten his breathing right down, could even halt it completely.

The Wolf inside him was pleased.

The blankness was somehow soothing. Pure and tranquil. She felt safe, cocooned in the warmth. She wasn't sure what it was...but it was comforting. The TARDIS had heard her pleas not to be found and had led her here. A vast white room, seemingly unending, and empty save for a corner littered with some alien-like fabric slats. Those were awfully comfy too...

And now here she was, curled up small in this weird-yet-safe place, legs pulled up to her chest and arms braced on her knees as she replayed the events of the past few days. The Doctor was not himself, that much was clear. At first she thought it was one of his darker quirks. But then came his eerie evasiveness, simmering moods, and the bedroom incident that now made her wince.

Rose had a feeling that those moods weren't some weird Time Lordy PMS (who knew what sort of things his body underwent? it was possible...) She was pretty sure (but it was, admittedly, more of a hope) it was nothing to do with her.

Her head snapped up at sounds outside the door. The shadows of the room reflected in her eyes making them glassy pools. And anyone would have seen fear there if they looked closely enough.

She shook away the thought that it was the Doctor. She was safe, undetectable in here. She hadn't a clue about the dials and switches on the panel near the door, but she couldn't feel the Doctor's mind with what basic telepathy she had. So logic reasoned he couldn't sense her, right? Rose swallowed. She hoped in the TARDIS that her theory was correct.

Anyway, back to musing about a certain Time Lord- but not in that kind of way.

Was it something he'd eaten? Or maybe licked, what with his stupid (wonderful) oral fixation. If not eaten...then ingested? Sniffed? Maybe he'd cut himself, maybe he-

Rose's heart plummeted to somewhere past her ankles. Oh no.

Before terrifying thoughts of the Doctor transforming into some hairy monstrosity (strangely reminiscent of those from B-movies) could even begin to form, the door snicked open. Her body stiffened and she recoiled, eyes fixed on the floor. She didn't even bother searching for his mind. Her barriers went up.

And then there was silence. She waited. And waited. Time seemed to pass fractionally as she sat, and he stood, mute. But despite his silence and the length and breadth of the room, his eyes still bored into her very being.

Would he leave, or would she have to make him? If she honest, she didn't have the emotional ability to do that right now. And if she even more brutally honest...she was scared. He cut her down right to the quick.

Rose hunkered down as he made his turn. His footsteps were soft, yet too loud, and not regular enough. She just wanted it over with.

"What are you doing?" His voice was low, and soft. Yet it carried an intensity that set her blood cold and made her sneak a glimpse.

Bad move. Once he held her eyes, she was powerless to pull her gaze away.

It was well known to her and practically everybody that the eyes were the windows to the soul. And right now she saw it. Darkness and rage and sorrow and blood and ancient time. They were dark chips and his mouth was one long line.

"I'm...thinking". Her voice was a octave higher than normal and she nearly squeaked at the end, feeling her heart pick up speed. The adrenaline was sickening now.

One step closer.

"You had to hide from me to think?" Every word was pronounced clearly and with a soft malice. He barely moved.

Rose hardened her neck against him. "And? You do it all the time."

She could see one hand twitch and clench before being shoved into his coat pocket. "That's not the point, Rose." This time his mouth barely moved.

"What point? I can't see any points other than the point of you bein' like this."

He rolled his eyes as he moved toward her with stealth, and it made her feel like she was nothing to him, a specimen to merely look over, a disgust to him.

"Oh, Rose. Rose, Rose, Rose-"

"Don't come anywhere near me." She had pushed herself to her feet and was rooted to the spot, ready to bolt. His mouth twitched and he did actually stop.

okay, girl, now don't push it.

"An' stop saying my name like that."

oh.

Before she could process it she was shoved back into the wall. A cry of pain fell from her at the impact. The Doctor's long, elegant fingers dug into her arms and his body was pressed into hers. She could feel the slight heat between the layers of fabric that separated them, along with every line. They leant shoulder-to-shoulder, hips, thighs and knees meeting. In any other situation this was her wildest dream come true.

But not like this.

"You don't have the power to say that to me, Rose." His chilly breath fanned over her face and neck. "I'm a Time Lord."

Rose would have tried to stare defiantly at him (yeah, like she didn't know that already) but the angle was awkward, his face practically in hers. She struggled to relieve the dull throb in her forearms as the muscles protested but this only succeeded in him pinning her wrists to the cold alien material behind her.

"You have no idea what you're dealing with." He growled this, and she shivered. She felt his lips curl against her cheek in a demented smirk.

"I could break you oh, so easily." As if to emphasis his point, the grip on her slender wrists tightened, fraction by fraction. Her wrist was being molded into an odd angle by his strong fingers and she sucked in a breath. "One snap...all it would take. Like breaking a twig." His voice grated on the last word, teeth gritted. Rose squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip as hard as she dared without drawing blood as the pressure increased. The pain resonated deep within her and she writhed a little against him. Oh God...he was really going to do it.

Then came a soft burr against her cheek, so polar to the steady vice on her wrists. Once she realized that it was a sickeningly sweet nuzzle, her gorge rose.

She could throw up on him...but in this state she didn't know if even that would deter him. She could at least try. Rose wasn't a London girl for nothing; she'd encountered bastards like this before.

The Doctor sighed and leant back a little. He took his pointer finger and turned her head towards him. "Oh, Rose. Look at me."

Oh, hell no. This was not happening. The Doctor wasn't coming here all moody and blustery and Oncoming Storm, only to pull a Time Lord shagging whammy on her.

He nuzzled again, and then leant in.

And then was shoved back with more strength than he thought of capable of possessing. In his blip of a confused 'What?' he made to move forward again, and was met with a Tyler slap.

"I already said not to come near me." Her eyes were blown, blonde hair framing her face and with her shoulders hunched and body tensed she looked like a caged animal.

The Doctor, for once, was stunned, snapped out of his trance.

"I may be a lowly shop girl, but I have my pride," she hissed lowly. "Now get out!"

"I-"

"Get out!"

For once the Doctor then did as he was told. And he didn't just run, he bolted, carried on a wavelength and hearing her slump to her knees and cry, but not daring to turn back.