This one is sort of a filler chapter, but it also isn't. This is where a huge part of the progress between Ten and Winter happens so enjoy. P.S, i'm sorry of you think i hate 10, i really dont it's just that he's so easy to shout at sometimes, you know what i mean? I mean 11 is cute when he does something dumb but 10...i dunno i guess its cuz he's older and shouldn't be so judgemental.

i know that seems wrong cuz 11 is older but i dunno. What do you think?

REVIEW SHOUT OUTS!

SurvivorHawke - Well, everyone has their own opinion on what type of stories they like so thank you for it but yes, 10 is making progress so that's good. Also i cant tell you about the Angel thing. You're just gonna have to wait and see.

KatieTheBaka - Lol. I love your commentary. You should become a professional at it. Anyway, Here it is, the next installment. Hope you like it.

skidney - I'm glad you thought the chapter was wonderfull. I love it when people think that about my stories. Yayyy :)

ElysiumPhoenix - Well like i said, it is the turning point - well for 10 at least. We still have to see what Winter thinks. Also, your welcome for the shout out, (here's another ;) lol) and i'm sorry for being mean. i dont mean to write out such big cliffies, they just happen. I only go with the flow.

The Truth Hurts

It had been days before the Doctor had managed to wake Winter up. She had been comatose for hours due to having to restore her depleted energy once again but when the Doctor had examined her, he had noticed that the energy was replenishing itself twice as fast as it should have been.

Eventually, after days in the Zero Room; a room that held no interfering forces that could jeopardise her chances of getting better, Winter woke up.

It had been Donna who had found her. Winter had managed to escape the Zero Room somehow and made her way to the Library. The Doctor had panicked and made Donna help search throughout the whole of the TARDIS and it had taken hours - especially considering Donna didn't know the TARDIS properly yet.

Stumbling and grumbling through one door, Donna's eyes met with the tall metallic walls filled top to bottom with books. Columns upon columns and rows layering rows of different sized books that seemed to have no end and in the middle of all these books was Winter, lying on the ground.

"Winter?" Donna called out but the woman didn't move. With a burst of energy she didn't know she had, Donna rushed over to Winter and kneeled beside her. Now she was closer she could see that Winter was awake and she breathed a sigh of relief.

But the relief didn't last long. Winter's body was racked with sobs as she cried silently on the floor. It was too much. The energy she had used up - though replaced - felt wrong. It wasn't hers but the Angels and all too soon, she knew that it would take over again.

And if that wasn't bad enough, Winter had woken up to a completely foreign TARDIS. Yes she was the same TARDIS in a way, but on the outside…it was different. It was too different and Winter just couldn't handle it.

Some part of her felt Donna's comforting touch and moved towards it and another part of her heard the Doctor's name being called out and she once again broke down. This Doctor wasn't hers. This Doctor hated her. For what seemed to be the hundredth time, Winter's body wracked with pain. Her Bond was trying to bring her closer to her Mate but he wasn't coming.

Something else had layered itself into the pain as well. A kind of betrayal was there. It was small and altogether illogical, because Winter knew that the Doctor couldn't come and get her. The timelines were working their way through their lives, but that wasn't going to be explained to the Bond.

"Doctor? What's wrong with her?" Donna asked once Winter was carefully placed back into the Zero Room. She still needed to rest, something was wrong with her. But whatever that something was, Donna had no clue about it.

"I don't know." The Doctor answered truthfully. "It's almost like -" His eyes widened and suddenly he knew what was wrong.

Timelords and Ladies were not simple creatures. Their biology alone was hard to replicate and what made it harder was that it was the Timeladies that were needed to carry on the Timelord gene. It was harder for a Lady to be born mainly because they were even more complicated than Lords. A Timelady needed to be able to travel through time and space without any internal damage but they also needed to be able to give birth.

It had become clear, looking back through their history that whenever a Timelady was born, there was a small chance she would reproduce another female. That was of course unless she was with her Bondmate.

"Doctor?" Donna asked snapping him out of his thoughts. As he looked at her she could see the confusion clear in his eyes.

"That's not possible," he whispered.

"What's not possible? What's wrong with her?" Donna asked loudly. The Doctor looked down at the woman in his arms that was still shaking - though not as uncontrollably as before.

"She has a Bond! How can she have a Bond? She's not- there aren't any - there can't be."

"What?" Donna was confused. "You're not making any sense. What's a Bond?"

"A Bond is for all intense and purposes, a marriage." Donna gave him a look.

"So? What's so special about that?" She asked not understanding.

"It's so much more than that though. A Bond only happens between two people that at completely right for each other in every aspect of their lives. To have a Bondmate is like being whole. You don't think about anyone apart from them, you love them completely, you put their needs above your own every time." The Doctor said sadly, realizing what had been happening. What Winter had sacrificed for him.

"I still don't get it. What's so wrong with that?" Donna asked, staring at the Doctor. Something had changed, he looked at Winter with understanding and something else as well.

"Because Donna. It only ever happens between Timelords."

Donna gasped. "So that means that Winter is a Timelord?" She asked carefully. The Doctor had mentioned that he was the last. But if Winter was here and she was a Timelord then he wasn't alone anymore.

"But that's the thing. She isn't! I ran every check trying to find out what she was and almost every check came up with the same thing. Human. But she isn't. She can't be!"

"But then how else can she have a Bond? And who is it?"

The Doctor picked up Winter's wrist and looked at the tattoo's on it. He remembered doing the same ting months ago - when he had first met Winter and he remembered what Hope and Elation meant to him. "Oh Winter. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

And just like that Donna knew who Winter had Bonded to. She watched as the Doctor lifted Winter up and gently hugged her to his chest. She watched as the tears formed in his eyes. And she watched as he let them fall. Moving slowly out the rooms, Donna closed the door behind her. But even through the door she could still hear the Doctor's mumbled apologies.

The Doctor didn't even notice Donna walk out. He just sat there holding on to Winter tightly. everything made sense now; why she was in so much pain when he found her; why she had the TARDIS key, why she had protected it with her life. Her body had perceived his as a threat, one that was about to take away the only safe haven she knew.

That was also why she had carried on helping him, even when he had been such a bastered to her. The Bond was taking what it could. He may not have been the original Doctor in her eyes, but the Bond recognised him as a previous regeneration and so used him to stabilize the Bond as much as it could.

They must not have fully Bonded, he thought. Otherwise I wouldn't have been so hostile towards her. But he knew that was horrible excuse for how he had treated her. Winter had given up so much of herself to save him and it wasn't fair.

She was bound by the Bond to feel the way she did towards him. There was nothing she could do because even though she may have hated him, she also couldn't help but love him. And he had told her that she wasn't anyone important to him in his future. I must have broken her heart.

"I'm so sorry Winter. I didn't realize and I know that's a terrible excuse and I know you'll never want to forgive me but I truly am sorry." He whispered in her ear. The silent tears and sobs had stopped as he had held her but she still wouldn't open her eyes.

"I'll do everything I can to make it up to you Winter." He promised her as he stroked her damp hair away from her face.

"You promised me Doctor." She whispered. The Doctor jumped slightly, not realizing she had woken up. "You promised that you would always come back for me but you didn't."

"I know. And I'm sorry." He replied, knowing it was the Bond talking. The betrayal she was feeling towards this regeneration and her regeneration would be affection her so he held her close to him once more. "I'm so so sorry Winter."

"It hurts Doctor. It hurts." She cried, holding on to him. The Doctor wondered if she knew that the Doctor she was holding wasn't hers but quickly pushed that thought away. He wouldn't hurt her any more.

"I know Winter. I'm going to stop it hurting. I promise." He held his hands on her head and closed his eyes. Using the Bond, he poured as much of his psyche into it as he could and as he did so, he felt the Bond grown happier and stronger. Winter wouldn't feel the pain as much anymore and so long as he continued to do so often, she wouldn't have to again.

He watched as her eyes closed and a sigh of relief escaped through her lips. "Sleep Winter." He told her and she quite happily complied.

The Doctor watched her as she finally slept peacefully for the first time in a long time and a sad smile came to his face. He had found the message his future self had left him and he would look through it soon. Right now though, he would make sure Winter stayed asleep.

[][][]

"Is she okay now?" Donna asked the Doctor as he stepped through the door to the Console Room. He looked so sad and almost…angry with himself that Donna almost wanted to ask if he was okay.

"Yeh, she's sleeping properly now. She'll sleep for a good few hours." He moved over to the Console and began pressing buttons. Donna had been with him long enough to know that they weren't the buttons and levers he used to travel somewhere so she let him carry on. If they had been, he would have gotten a piece of her mind.

"Doctor, is she your Bond or mate or whatever she is?" The Doctor paused for a minuet and looked over to Donna before nodding.

"Yes. She is, or at least, she will be."

"Was she like that because of the Bond?" She asked. Again the Doctor nodded. "Then why don't you feel any pain? Why were you so cruel to her that time?" The Doctor didn't answer her for a while and Donna became angry.

"Doctor what did you do?"

"I hurt her okay?" He shouted. Donna took a step back in surprise. "The Bond - at some point in the future, Winter and I Bond! I don't know when or where but what I do know is that it wasn't complete properly. It's unstable and Winter isn't a Timelady, she doesn't know what's going on." His hands flew into his hair in agitation and sorrow.

"Well what is going on?"

"When a Timelady Bonds, her Bondmate has to stay by her side until the Bond stabilizes but for whatever reason, Winter ended up in 1964 without my future regeneration."

"But what does that matter? You're the same people aren't you?"

"No." He said shaking his head. "I mean in a sense we are but Winter needs her Doctor for the Bond to stabilize properly. And because he can't risk crossing the timelines, Winter is stuck here. He hasn't come for her and the Bond is hurting her to get back to him!"

"But there had to be something you can do." Donna urged him.

"I did what I could but I already hurt her. Because the Bond hadn't stabilized I didn't recognise Winter for what she was. I said so many terrible things to her - and that just added extra pain on top of what she's already feeling."

He looked so sad and broken that Donna couldn't help it. She walked over to him and wrapped him in a hug. "You've tried to fix it Doctor. That's what matters."

"I shouldn't have to fix anything. I treated her horribly. That's my fault. She'll never forgive me." He whispered back.

"I think that's for her to decide. Not you."

[][][]

The Doctor looked around the organised chaos that was his room. From his time in the Academy, he had never really bothered to clean his room properly though now the TARDIS complained about it like the mother hen she was.

He couldn't even really remember the last time he had slept in his room - or slept at all really. Whenever he did, his dreams were filled with the cries of his people as The Moment had been used to trap them in their own personal hell.

He couldn't stand the guilt and so he ran from it with every chance he got. He had, after all, been one of the ones to run away and he truly had never stopped. But now he couldn't run away, not this time because if he did, he could only be hurting Winter even more.

Closing his eyes firmly, he moved through Winter's memories and located the message his future self had left for him. Locating it, he opened it. It was now or never.

He was trapped in thoughts, thoughts that were similar and yet so different to his own. He couldn't move but he knew that he was safe. He trusted himself enough to know that while Winter was in his care, he wouldn't be hurt.

"Ah Ten. Long time no see." The voice sounded through. He couldn't see anyone but he didn't try to look either. "Of course, you can't really see me and that's good. If you could, it would be very, very not good. Oh but there I go rambling. You never really lose the rambling I guess."

There was a small part of the Doctor that was glad that the man he would one day turn out to be was somewhat like him - even if he did seem a bit crazier than himself.

"Well, you found the message which means that you've finally come to know what Winter means to us." There was a pause, as if he was trying to find the words to say. "I know why you acted the way you did and believe me, I would do anything to change it but I can't. You have to deal with what you've done now and it will be hard.

"Winter is broken. The Bond isn't finished and you know what that means. But there is more coming. Winter is going to face things that will be incredibly hard on her. I can't tell you when but they will come soon.

"You have to look after her now. You know what she is, you know who she's going to be so don't be scared when the inevitable happens. Winter is good for you. She'll help you but first, you have to return the favor.

"Save her from herself! Because if I find that when Winter comes back to be she is broken - I don't care if I create the largest paradox in the universe. I will make your life hell!"

The words were spoken with so much force that the Doctor felt himself shake. He didn't need to be warned, he already knew what he was capable of. He knew that the males were the more protective of the two Bondmates and that protection would come up against anyone - even oneself it would seem.

But the Doctor was going to help her. He owed Winter that and so much more. He wondered if he would even be alive if it wasn't for her. He just hoped that he hadn't taken it too far.

"Oh and before forget. She will forgive you, just give it time."

And just like that, the Doctor was back on his room. He wouldn't be the one to hurt Winter anymore. This time, he would be the one to protect her.

SO GUYS, only 5 reviews, kinda sad but oh well, life goes on. Anyway i would really like to know what you think because honestly, i find it harder to write for 10 than 11. But heym 11 is my doctor so... anyway, only one person gave me feedback on my other story idea. I would really like to know what you guys think (that is why i put it there ;)) so tell me.

Oh and a little bt of help for writing for Donna - she is my fave companion (apart from Rory and Winter of course) but i find it really hard to write for her in original chapters so? Any help?

BTW next chapter will be another original one so it may take some time.