Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Doctor Who (2005) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler, Bad Wolf/The Moment (Doctor Who), Bad Wolf/The War Doctor (Doctor Who), The War Doctor/Rose Tyler Characters: The War Doctor (Doctor Who), Rose Tyler | Bad Wolf, Bad Wolf (Doctor Who), The Moment (Doctor Who) Summary:

The rare moments in time and space when the paths of the War Doctor and the Bad Wolf cross.

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It's almost dawn and, alas, he finds himself surrounded by yet another group of alien enemies. This time, however, they managed to have him completely cornered in the ruins of some who knows when abandoned building. He doesn't know who they are, but he certainly knows what they want to do. Well, at least to him. The Doctor sighs. He feels old, immensely tired of all the fighting he had to endure recently, and so completely done with yet another unnecessary distraction. 

The leader of the gang takes his time to mock the Doctor, clearly enjoying the process and still riding the euphoria of how the tables have turned. In all honesty, however, all affected seem to lose their minds these days. The war, which Time Lords have started, doesn’t show mercy to anyone. 

The alien points a gun at the Doctor and orders him to kneel while his gang is coming closer to enjoy the execution. These creatures, as the Doctor notices, are of humanoid form, tall and strong with their glistening blue skin and a single crooked horn peeking from behind their heads. He wonders for a fracture of a second what purpose that horn serves in the course of their evolution. The aliens, on the other hand, look quite desperate even now, and the Doctor knows that the main reason for their debauch is an enemy, whose name consists of only two words: Time Lords. And the Doctor just happens to be one of them. He obeys the order with a resigned expression, then looks at the angry lot and gives their lead one final warning to stop and go away while they still can. 

The gang leader, blinded as he is by pure hatred, doesn’t listen, of course. No wonder, they rarely do. He makes a pompous speech about finding his purpose in liberating as many worlds as he can. After all, the whole universe is in chaos and about to perish anyway, so his kind can finally become the force the universe needs to set the things in the right way, which naturally means, in their own twisted way, and not without sacrifices. He briefly mentions the other nine galaxies that had to be wiped clean, and the Doctor slowly starts to lose his patience. In the end, the young man wonders how such a feeble old misunderstanding of a being can be a Time Lord, and asks, eventually, if the dusty old grandpa has some last words to say before he dies in this forgotten ugly place, all alone and without a single soul to mourn him. The grandpa in question perks up at that.

“Me?” the Doctor gives a chuckle and shakes his head in what looks like an amused disappointment. “Oh, dear boy," he rasps, "what in the whole universe made you think I’m alone?” 

The boy is surely a man, and certainly not dear. He knows it, and that is why he switches off the safety on his weapon. His sneer fades as he pulls the trigger and fires a bullet aiming right into the Doctor’s head. 

His eyes, however, grow even wider as said bullet turns out to be stuck in a time loop right in front of the Doctor’s forehead. After a moment of complete silence, the gang leader hears screams of his fellow mates and his eyes catch a moving silhouette a few feet behind the Doctor. Soon he can outline its details: the creature appears to be a rather short female, whose old saggy clothes are so torn they barely stick to her body. Her expression, though, tells a different story. It is tense and utterly angry, her wild eyes are ready to kill with their golden gleam. 

The Doctor looks for a while at the blinking motion of a bullet that makes its rounds in desperate attempts to reach his head but gets immediately thrown back again, and then turns his attention back to the leader.

“Have you met my friend here?” the Doctor says in the most unperturbed voice imaginable. 

The alien points the gun on his new target, but the raggedy creature splashes a wave of golden light that knocks down his whole gang at once. One by one they start dissipating into the piles of dust until the remnants of the last blue-skinned creature are floating down in the dimming light.

The Doctor gets up from his knees without turning to look at the woman.

“Thought you might show up,” he says casually then goes to the pile of dust that used to be a hostile living being just some moments ago, crouches over it, and scoops some grains with his fingers.

“You know, one of those days you might be the one to finally bite it,” the woman remarks, pointedly looking at the dust on the Doctor's fingers as she approaches him. She offhandedly gestures towards the bullet to release it from its little temporal trap, and it crashes into the nearest wall with a final bright sparkle. 

The Doctor considers her words for a while, then looks at her and smiles, “Nah, young lady, I had it all perfectly under control.” He stands up and dusts his hands off.

"Oh, did you now?" she muses. The girl still looks quite menacing with her glowing eyes and messy hair, but the corners of her mouth turn slightly up. 

"Oh, come off it, Bad Wolf girl," he pretends to chastise. "What would you do for the fun of it, if you didn't have to save this old man every once in a while?" 

A part of him still feels like a prey she keeps playing with and expects her to make that deathly leap at any moment. The other part of him just loves her company. 

"You are turning it into a full time job, Doctor", she counters back, smiling.

"Don't call me that," he pleads quietly, his expression earnest, "You know my name." He averts his gaze and starts looking at the morning sun peeking above the horizon.

"I've got to go," she says with a hint of sadness, "Next time, be a darling and try to stay out of trouble. It will be over soon, I promise." That's the only reassurance she can give, whatever "it" or "soon" really means.

The meditative silence that settles is a comforting moment to kick off the day.

"Suppose I am a darling," the Doctor continues after a while, holding his hands behind his back, and squinting his eyes, still stubbornly examining the sun, "would you visit me sometime when I am not at the brink of death?"

She ponders.

"Maybe, one day," she surprises him with her answer, "if you behave, that is."

Now he is ninety-seven percent certain she is mocking him. He shakes his head. After all, he concludes, someone finally finds him amusing for a change.

"I always wanted to go to Barcelona, you know. An interesting planet, they say," he still faces the sun. She nods, then abruptly stops, puzzled, then nods again. 

"Dogs with no noses?" her question sounds more like a statement.

"Dogs with no noses," he genuinely laughs.