I return! I know. What has it been, three, four weeks? I have several perfectly legitimate excuses, most of which I will not bore you with. Long story short, I had several everest-sized piles of homework and a funeral to go to. Then I spent my spring break lying in bed, shaking and coughing, so no writing done there. I managed to finish, though, as soon as I was able to, so I hope you can accept my apology and enjoy this chapter. I promise I will try to be much quicker with the next one.

Ch 2.

The baying of hounds followed the Doctor as he raced towards the open doors of his box, coat flying out behind him. The strange violet landscape echoed with the ferocious snarls and howls. The first of the dogs broke through the fog bank he had come from just as the doors slammed shut behind him. But he had caught a glimpse of his pursuers. Huge, midnight blue wolf dogs, with two-inch long fangs and night black eyes. He recognized them from somewhere…

He racked his brain, trying to recall essential information about his hunters as the TARDIS hummed to life. The words on the screen triggered the memory, the name of their current location. The planet was officially known as JW66, but more important was the constellation, Canes Venatici. The constellation of the hunting hounds. Venatician hounds were one of the most capable hunters in the universe, using a kind of psychic tracking. They picked up the aura, sort of like a scent for earth hounds, of their prey and traced them anywhere in the universe. They traveled through space faster than any spaceship, and were just as capable on land or water. They traveled in packs, and would almost never give up a hunt. They had one weakness and one only. An aura was easier to trace than a normal scent, because it did not need to have something physical to cling to and could not be concealed, so they could track you through the cosmos with ease. But it also wore off faster. While a scent could hang around for quite some time under the right conditions, the trail of an aura would vanish within twenty four hours. If by some miracle the hounds lost the scent for that period of time, you were safe.

The Doctor usually had nothing to fear from the creatures. He had a time machine, and usually he spent at least a day on a planet before he got into serious trouble. But today he had screwed up earlier than usual and now he had to worry about where he had been in the last twenty four hours and if he had had contact with anyone. The hounds were completely without mercy, and would often kill anyone with the aura on them even if they were not the victim.

Uh oh… "Rose." He hissed under his breath. The young girl he had run into last night was the only contact he had had in a while, and now he had to go find her. He leapt to the console. See, this is what happens when you're lazy. You travel along a single time line, and that can never end well.

The TARDIS materialized in its normal place in the park, and the Doctor raced out, eyes glancing at the moon to check the time. He had gotten into his tangle with the hounds about six hours after he left London, and they would probably pick up the trace and arrive within three. Praying he had landed fairly accurately, he was relieved to see that he had at least an hour to go. As it was still dark, he decided that knocking on the front door was probably not the best idea. How in the world he was going to convince a teenage girl to come with him because aliens were hunting her he had no idea, but he was rather good at improvising.

Rose lay in bed, completely silent, tears streaming down her face. She had gotten next to no sleep so far, having been woken up around eleven by pain. It was worse around her midsection, where lighting shot from her ribs every time she breathed and hunger cramps ravaged her stomach. Her face, as usual, had been mostly spared, and the salty tears only stung a little. Some movement had reopened the lashes on her back, old and new, and blood trickled down her side. She found herself wishing, as she often did, that someone would come tonight and take her away from this place.

So when the faint rapping came from her window, she thought it was just her wistful mind imagining things. But unlike normal, the noise didn't stop, and a voice soon joined it. "Rose… Rose, are you there?"

Oh god. Rose thought. I've finally gone and lost my mind. But of course, she was desperate, and would never ignore the slightest possibility of escape. She slowly rose from her bed with a hiss, limping over to her nightstand where she kept an extra shirt. Pulling it on and discarding the bloody one, she walked to the window where the tapping was steadily getting louder.

She pulled the curtains to the side, and nearly shrieked in surprise. Out on her roof, a brown suited man was perched precariously, clinging to the pipe above her window. Rose had absolutely no idea how to react to this. The man had no such issues, however.

"Shh, rose. Don't scream. It's me, from last night. The Doctor?" unsure of what else to do, she nodded. "Ok. This is going to sound a bit crazy, but you're going to have to trust me." And for some reason, she did. He had been the first human to show her kindness in a long, long, while, and she was drawn to him.

"Don't ask how I know, but there are some bad people coming for you. I can explain this all later, but it was because they saw you with me. I need to get you out of here now, will you come?" he said it all very quickly, trying to get the words out. When he had finished, he held his breath and waited for her to go running for help, but to his surprise she stayed. Her head tilted to the side, she surveyed him closely. Then she did completely unexpected.

"Ok."

"What?"

"I said ok. I believe you. God help me, but I believe you."

Just then, there was a creaking from two rooms down. The Doctor cursed to himself. Now he would never manage to help the girl, her parents would not take kindly to a stranger perched outside her window in the dead of night.

"Let's go quickly, then." Seeing his confused expression, she continued, "They might get angry, but they won't worry. I've got a bit of a track record of disappearing in the middle of the night. But if we don't leave now, they will stop me, and according to you that would put me in danger." This was not exactly true, Rose had always been to scared to try and run, but a little lie would hurt no one.

The Doctor gave her another strange look, but at the sound of footsteps gestured her to follow him. He would ask her about this later, right now his priority was getting her to safety.

The night was chilly, so Rose grabbed her jacket and pulled it on as she clambered out the window behind him. Her ribs protested the movement, but she ignored them, even though she knew that would only make it worse later. They climbed over the roof and onto the stairway. She wiped the last tears from her face as she heard Mathew's muffled curses drifting out her open window, and didn't look back as she crossed the street.

The Doctor walked quickly back to the park, glancing back every once and a while to make sure Rose was still following. It had taken him a while to find the correct window, and they were cutting it very short. The TARDIS doors sprung open as he arrived, and he strode inside. He heard the blonde girl's gasp of shock as she stood in the doorway, completely in awe of what she saw. He turned to watch her. He always liked this part.

She slowly stepped forward, gazing up at the console with wide eyes.

"Welcome to the TARDIS, Rose."

"This is amazing…" she whispered. "It's so much bigger on the inside."

Glancing at the screen, the Doctor saw that the hounds were rapidly approaching earth and ran to close the doors. Safe. "We'll be OK in here, nothing can get through those doors." He turned to see Rose, staring him confused. He tried to explain to her without sounding completely mad. "Would you believe me if I told you that this was a spaceship?" she looked around the interior once again before replying.

"Well, That would seem to be the best explanation. It doesn't look like anything from earth I've ever seen. Hang on, does that mean you're…"

"An alien? Yes. Does that scare you?"

"A bit."

"At least you're honest. But don't worry, I'm one of the good ones."

Comprehension dawned on her pale face as she put two and two together. "So the people after me are aliens? Bad aliens?"

"Weeeell…. Not people so much as creatures. They're really after me, but the way they work, anyone I have had recent contact with would be in danger. I can bring you back home in about twenty hours. Or we could jump straight there, if you want to leave now. Or didn't I mention? The machine also travels in time."

At this point, Rose felt the need to sit down. She stared at the array of buttons and levers before her for a few moments before speaking up. "Time machine. That's…wow." The Doctor started towards a switch, and she hastily added, "But if it's alright with you, could I maybe hang around for a little while? I mean, if you can travel in time getting me back should be no problem." She looked at him with hopeful eyes. He broke out in a huge grin. He had been on his own for a long time, and was dying for some company.

"Of course." He spun to face her. "Anywhere in space or time. Where should we go first?"

And there you have it. So please review, It really does make my day, and I love to get any suggestions or constructive criticism.

One last thing. I am dedicating this chapter to my Uncle J.W, who recently passed away at the age of 66, and whose funeral was one of the reasons I had to put off writing this. I felt the need to do something for him, so he gets an imaginary planet named in his honor.

Thanks.