Author's note:

Consider this a 'reader's beware' kind of note. Firstly, to those you aren't inclined towards this kind of story, this will be an eventual Doctor/OMC story. For those who are inclined towards this kind of story, same warning, but the emphasis goes on the word 'eventual'. Finally a warning for all: me and updating are not such good friends. Most of my writing and inspiration seems to come when I have an assignment due... such as right now...

If despite all this you're still interested and want to read more, let me know. Reviews = love, people!

Prologue

Rose kissed a stunned Mickey goodbye before turning and running back into the Doctor's bigger on the inside ship, bearing the same grin of exciting and magical possibilities that used to similarly split her cheeks when she was younger, when she woke up and realised it was Christmas day. The same limitless joy from her childhood bubbled through her now as she chased after the Doctor. She came to a halt when she stood before the console that the impossibility amazing man stood beside. He was absentmindedly juggling a bubbly ball of some sort in one hand as though this was an everyday kind of thing, running into bigger on the inside spaceships that could travel in time and space - which, for him, it probably was.

"Right then, Rose Tyler, you tell me. Where do you want to go?" the Doctor asked as she brushed her hair back out of her face. "Backwards or forwards in time? It's your choice. What's it going to be?"

She shook her head quickly in eager disbelief, her smile still firmly in place. "Err, forwards," she decided aloud, both unsure if he could pull it off and hoping she would be proven wrong.

The Doctor set the ball down on the console and flicked a couple of switches. "How far?" he asked her smugly after he'd straightened again.

"One hundred years," she told him, silently challenging him to do as he claimed.

The Doctor met her challenge, spinning a few dials and setting his ship into flight, holding her gaze all the while. He knew how far outside her twenty-first century experience this was, but Rose Tyler had already proven herself capable of handling more than the average human of her era, and he was eager to see the wonder upon her face as he properly introduced her to how fantastic the universe truly was.

He'd always felt that pull for adventure, that desire to explore the universe. It was like a nagging whisper that had been with him since he was a child, encouraging him ever on, goading him ever further, but while that nagging feeling continued to drive him onward in his quest to experience all the universe's most wonderful wonders, he'd long since learned how much more fantastic the experience was when he had someone to share it with. Now, that someone was Rose Tyler.

They held on as the console room rocked around them as they hurtled ahead, and the Doctor grinned at the nervously excited worry he could see on the young Londoner's face. She obviously still couldn't quite believe him, but she was both open minded and she wasn't running away. He would blow her mind.

He parked the ship in place and pointed to the exit. "There you go. Step outside those doors; it's the twenty-second century," he announced like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

"You're kidding," Rose asked him, having thought travelling through time would be harder than he'd made it seem.

"That's a bit boring though. Do you want to go further?" he asked without missing a beat.

"Fine by me," the Londoner agreed with another little shake of her head, still hopefully sceptical about his claim.

The Time Lord set them into flight again, this time pushing his ship to take them a little further. "Ten thousand years in the future," he told her, pointing the way once more. "Step outside; it's the year 12005, the new Roman Empire."

Rose shook her head again, but this time it was at the way he spoke rather than at the words he'd spoken. "You think you're so impressive," she accused with a grin.

"I am so impressive," the Doctor protested in mock outrage.

"You wish," she teased, poking her the tip of her tongue through her teeth as she grinned.

The Doctor's gaze lit up with mischief as he smiled back to her, still pretending offence at her words. "Right then, you asked for it," he told her, his gaze sparkling as he 'punished' her for her lack of faith. "I know exactly where to go. Hold on!"

He sent his timeship back into flight once more, dancing around the controls as he took her to a future no human from her time had ever imagined. As soon as they landed, however, a cold sliver of recognition stabbed through him, and he quickly pulled the monitor before him to confirm they had arrived exactly where he intended. He swallowed. According to all the information his ship had, he and Rose were exactly where he'd planned to land, perfectly safe, but he could feel that there was someone else outside those doors who wasn't so fortunate. Even had this not been his intended destination, he knew he couldn't walk away now. Someone out there needed saving.

"Where are we?" Rose asked, having expected another smug spiel from her driver.

The Doctor hid his disquiet behind a disarming, toothless grin and gestured wordlessly towards the doors.

Rose looked over her shoulder then back to the man with impossible promises. "What's out there?" she continued, unable to hide her own excitement.

The Doctor mutely gestured again, and she ambled across the room, trying to pretend that she wasn't giddy as a schoolgirl at the adventure.

As soon as she had stepped through those doors, the Doctor's grin dropped, and he took a moment to concentrate and confirm what he'd felt, despite already being absolutely positive. He could sense a Claim, a powerful one. A telepathic Claim that had been imprinted on some poor individual out there, like a leash to tie them to the person that had Claimed them. It was a form of slavery that had been outlawed by the Shadow Proclamation and the Church millennia ago, and yet, some powerful telepath out there had deemed themselves above the law and enacted this cruel form of slavery on another.

The Oncoming Storm bubbled just beneath the surface. He would find them. He would free the victim, and he would punish the wrongdoer. He would not let this trespass slide.

The Doctor took a steadying breath, calming his anger, then he stepped out to join Rose on the viewing platform, a carefree grin back in place. He would right this wrong, but he would also wow Rose with how amazing he- the universe was. He would prove to her that he was as fantastic as he claimed!

Chapter 1: Rescued?

"I still don't think this is a good idea," Cameron murmured anxiously to the giant head beside him as he looked about at the roomful of people they were entering. It wasn't the multitudes of aliens that worried him, but one in particular.

'The safest place for you right now is with me, and you know as well as I that this is where I must now be,' the voice echoed softly through his thoughts, drowning out his own introduction to the younger man.. The voice didn't 'sound' deep as it had on the show, it simply was. It was like Cameron's own internal dialogue, his own inner voice whispering to him, except it wasn't, and he, like everyone else, could easily instantly recognise that the 'voice' was someone else's and not his own. In this case, it was the voice of the Face of Boe.

'Although, if you're feeling uncomfortable, we could always retire to my suite?' Boe added with more than a subtle hint of suggestion.

Cameron chuckled as he shook his head. He'd been surprised when he'd first met the Face of Boe at how like Jack he could be, which, he'd had to remind himself at the time, really shouldn't have been so surprising.

However, he understood where the once time agent was coming from in terms of their presence on the viewing station; this was an old argument between them. Cameron had been trapped in this reality long enough now to know that it was real, but that simply made him more determined to avoid the notice of the Time Lord somewhere on the platform. He'd seen and read enough to know that even the slightest interference could drastically disrupt, even destroy, the Doctor's timeline - Donna turning right instead of left at a street corner being the prime example - and he didn't want his own presence in this once fictional universe to cause that kind of devastation. At least with Boe, Jack, being close to the end of his story, and with so little of these years of his life revealed in the show, any interference could be mostly mitigated in terms of the continuation of the universe. He didn't want to break the established timeline any more than he already had, instead needed to do everything he could to ensure it stayed on track. No, it would be better him, for everyone, in every universe, if he was able to escape the Time Lord's notice, to stay at the ancient man's side. He just had to do his best at being as inconspicuous as possible.

However, apparently Cameron had failed before he'd even begun.

As he was gazing out into the crowd, searching for the man he needed to avoid, a hand suddenly took hold of his own from one side, sharply pulling him around. Cameron's breath caught in his throat mid gasp, making him feel like he was being strangled despite there being no attack on or about his neck.

The ninth Doctor stood before him, looking furious as he studied the burn in the middle of Cameron's palm. Cameron was surprised that, of all things, it was the tiny scar he'd received when he was kidnapped that had somehow drawn Nine's attention; he didn't even think it was particularly noticeable if you didn't know it was there, yet the Time Lord had gone straight to it, not even looking up at the young man whose hand held the mark he studied.

Cameron tried to jerk his hand back, but the Doctor's soft grip was unbreakable. He turned Cameron's palm towards the giant head, glaring at his not-yet-friend accusingly. "And what do you think this is?" he demanded angrily in his strong northern accent.

'The Claim was not my doing, old friend,' Cameron heard the calm voice replying. While over the last week, Cameron had been surprised by how much like the old Jack the big head sounded in his choice of words, with the Doctor he suddenly adopted an 'ancient and wise sage' overtone, perhaps disguising himself from when the Time Lord inevitably met his younger self in the London Blitz.

The Doctor shook his head at the giant one before him, radiating fury, and Cameron fruitlessly tried to pull his hand free again. He didn't think the Doctor even noticed him. "This was done by a high level telepath, and you fit the bill perfectly, keeping him prisoner and all. Although-" Cameron could see the frown that lightly tainted the Time Lord's face from side on. "-I'll admit that I'm surprised that you of all people would do such a messy job of it."

"Messy?" Cameron couldn't help but repeat. It was just a little burn, wasn't it? Although he shuddered slightly as he remembered how he'd received it, at the feeling of another mind latching onto his own like vines choking around a tree.

The Doctor finally turned and looked at him properly, and Cameron shrank back as far as he could from those ancient, burning eyes, but he couldn't escape as the owner of that terrible gaze still held his hand.

The Doctor's gaze softened as he looked at the unsettled young man. He looked to be about the same age as Rose, too young for what had been done to him. However, no one was ever too young to be a victim of cruelty, he supposed bitterly.

Rather than answering the young man's question, the Doctor asked one of his own. He had to deal with the immediate threat first, or at least determine if there was one. "Did they do this to you?" he asked gently.

'The boy is under my protection," the soundless voice interjected.

"I was asking him," the Doctor corrected sharply, rolling his head slightly as he glared at the being in the jar.

Cameron shook his head when the other man looked back down at him again, still trying to pull away as far as he could while his hand remained locked in the other's grip. "No," he said, his mouth dry. "He didn't do that. He helped me."

The Doctor continued to stare at him searchingly as though trying to ascertain whether Cameron was telling the truth or not. He seemed to find what he was looking for though, because he suddenly shot Cameron a disarming grin and released his hand.

"No harm done then," the Doctor announced cheerily, but Cameron wasn't deceived. The Doctor's grin reminded him too much of the one he'd given Rose in Boomtown when he tried to pretend that he wasn't concerned about the words 'Bad Wolf' which showed up wherever the two of them visited throughout time and space. The Doctor had noticed him. That was very bad.

"What's your name?" he asked, still looking at Cameron a little to intensely for the young man's liking.

He shook his head slightly as he stepped closer to the giant jar once more. "It doesn't matter," he said softly. Cameron for a moment found himself hoping that the chaos of the episode would start and distract the Doctor, then immediately felt guilty when he remembered just how many people were hurt and killed in Cassandra's destruction.

The Doctor frowned at the young man as he retreated to a place of apparent safety, trying to determine whether the ancient business man had truly helped him or if he was suffering from Stockholm's, being manipulated into believing his enemy was his friend. He was obviously trying to lose the Doctor's attention, to escape notice, which, in the Doctor's opinion, only happened when there was something worth noticing.

"Doctor?" a voice interrupted from just behind him. Rose had finally caught up with him from where he'd marched away as soon as he'd found the source of the Claim that called to him.

Perfect, the Doctor thought, appreciating his newly chosen companion's timing. "Rose Tyler," he greeted, turning and putting his arm around her back and drawing her closer to the group before them. "Allow me to introduce you to the Face of Boe, the sponsor of today's festivities."

"Er… Hello?" the Londoner said nervously, giving a tiny wave in an attempt to make up for her lack of articulation.

"And this is a friend of his. His name's-" He paused expectantly, allowing the young man to fill in the blank.

Cameron glanced wide eyed between the Time Lord and his companion, instantly recognising the trap he'd been caught in. He couldn't refuse to answer for Rose Tyler, could he? The Doctor was already far too interested. He didn't want to come across as even more suspicious. He took a breath and pushed his hesitation aside, wanted to seem like just anyone rather than a someone.

"Cameron," he supplied, trying to quickly come up with some distraction to interrupt the Doctor's disquieting scrutiny. He silently swore at the giant head beside him for not backing him up but forcing him to have to face the Time Lord. When this was all over, Cameron intended to give that giant head a piece of his m- "Oh," he said as an idea came to him and he turned to one of the aides who stood nearby holding a giant platter with lots of crystal ornaments balanced upon it.

"A gift of peace," he said, offering a delicate carved rose to the woman of the same name.

Her jaw dropped slightly at the stemless crystal flower cupped in his hands. "No, I couldn't…"

"Rose," the Doctor whispered in urgent encouragement, nodding towards the gift, and she reluctantly reached out to accept it, feeling like it was too grand a gift for her.

"Gifts, gifts," the Doctor murmured to himself as he patted searchingly on his jacket.

Cameron blanched slightly at the sight. Wasn't he supposed to have come up with a gift idea when talking to Jabe? Did that mean he hadn't met Jabe yet? But he was supposed to have met her first? Would he not meet her at all now? Cameron's eyes quickly search the throng of guests for the group of trees who walked somewhere amongst them. By his very presence in the room he was changing the Doctor's future, which was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid. How much had he ruined simply by being there?

While Cameron's mind raced as he tried to solve the problem he'd unwittingly caused, Boe interrupted the Doctor's search with a gently chuckle. 'I think you will find, old friend, that it is only the invited guests who are expected to give gifts. However, you might not want to draw the other guest's attention by failing to have anything to offer.'

With that closing statement, the Face of Boe turned and led his entourage deeper into the crowd, and the Doctor grinned at the permission disguised as a rebuke he'd been given.

"So you know him then?" Rose asked, still cradling the flower in her palms.

"Never met him before," he answered lightly, his eyes still fixed on the young man at the Face's side. Too many things didn't add up about him. How had a young man whose mannerisms and language matched Rose's so closely ended up with a Claim on him five billion years into the future?

"But he called you 'old friend'," she pointed out, causing the Doctor to turn back to her, smiling proudly. He was right about her.

"Yes he did. Well done," he congratulated warmly. "Time travel. Things don't always happen in the right order. It's usually best to just go with it until you know enough to do something about it, unless it's not," he offered unhelpfully with a cheery voice.

"Okay," she agreed, nodding slowly. "That's clear as mud?" Her wide eyes flowed over the assortment of aliens before them once more before turning back to the man who'd brought her to them, trying to hold onto the shred of normality that remained to her.

The Doctor grinned fondly at the young woman. She was totally out of her depth and yet already instinctively doing just as he'd advised. "Sometimes it's best to pretend you already know what's going on and leave others none the wiser. The Face of Boe; he suggested he'd met me before, but I haven't met him yet. I'll play along, but if he started reminiscing about old times, either I'd have had to change the topic or admit to him that I haven't met him yet. Knowing your future can be a very dangerous thing."

Her eyebrows furrowed slightly. "But, isn't this the future?" she asked, knowing she was pointing out the obvious, but his actions seemed to contradict his words.

"Yes," he scoffed, "but I know what I'm doing." He glanced searchingly towards the Face of Boe and the youth with him once more, but another group of hooded guests was approaching him.

"A gift of peace in all good faith," a robotic voice greeted him as they offered him a silver ball, and the Doctor plastered a grin on his face. He would follow his own advice, pretending, as he always did, that he was exactly where he was meant to be, while finding out everything he could about the boy Boe claimed to be protecting.

~0~0~0~

"I think I should go to the room or something," Cameron murmured to the head beside him. He'd waited until they'd worked their way through a number of the guests, giving and receiving gifts. Unlike that first gift he'd given Rose, he didn't take part in that process. He didn't understand anyone else since parting from Rose and the Doctor, but Cameron had grown used to that in recent days. He did have a small device in his pocket that seemed to function like Google Translate, but their present circumstances made it difficult for the device to work with the speed and accuracy Cameron needed - too many voices and languages overlapping one another, confusing the translator into offering garbled nonsense instead of a helpful translation. He found himself wishing he could simply understand like Rose could with the help of the TARDIS.

'You'd be safer if you remained here with me," Boe pointed out, but Cameron shook his head.

"I've already changed things just by being here. It's not safe," he said. His giant friend understood his predicament. He'd only explained the very minimum that he'd had to but Boe had understood very quickly, perhaps because of his own experience with the dangers of time travel, paradoxes and foreknowledge.

'I have met both Rose and the Doctor in his current regeneration in their futures. You don't have to be afraid here, so long as you are careful to not say what shouldn't be said.'

"Yeah, that's the whole point of me sneaking away," Cameron pointed out dryly. "I figure it's easier to not say anything if I'm not here to say it."

Boe turned his gaze to one of the blue skinned aides standing nearby. Cameron couldn't hear what words the ancient time traveller thought at his employee and didn't under the words blue man offered in return. 'Henaar will convey you to your destination, just make sure you are safe when the time comes," the giant head instructed.

"I will. I'll make sure I'm back here in time." Cameron went to follow his guide, but turned back, grateful and relieved for the help of his impossible friend. "Thanks, Jack," Cameron said softly, trying not to let his voice carry any further than it had to. "I owe you one."

'Careful, or I might call in that favour one day," the ancient man teased in return.

"Oh, don't you wish," Cameron shot back cheekily, and he exited the room with the old time traveller's laughter bubbling through his thoughts.

His good mood evaporated, however, a the soft voice that called out to him from behind as they walked through the halls.

"Hello, sorry, Cameron wasn't it?"

Cameron grimaced slightly then turned to face the Doctor's favourite companion. Rose Tyler, he thought. She was even more beautiful in person than she'd been on the show. He could see why the Doctor fell for her.

He smiled to her. He could see the same slightly pale and overwhelmed look on her face that he'd seen on the show so long ago, an expression he knew well, as he too had worn it when he'd fallen from his own world into one that he knew shouldn't exist, and when he too had been introduced to life beyond the earth.

He knew he needed to be careful, but perhaps being ordinary with Rose could help convince the Time Lord to lose interest in him. Besides, she still looked flighty enough that he thought she could use a kind word.

"Rosetyler," he greeted her, deliberately running her name together as though he too was alien enough to not understand how her name worked. He saw her eyebrows knotting together and her slight hesitation, indicating he'd succeeded, but that only made him feel guilty of his deception.

"No, no, it's just Rose," she corrected him in that gentle voice he remembered from the show.

"Rose," he repeated, dipping his head slightly in greeting. "Are you enjoying the party?"

"Not really," she admitted with a nervous chuckle.

Cameron couldn't help but empathise with her. "No, me either," he agreed, smiling back.

"Is it always like this?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "So…"

Alien, Cameron silently completed for her, but he couldn't say that outloud, not if he was trying to hide that he too was a stranger in this future.

They were interrupted by Cameron's guide. "Oh, sorry," Cameron murmured absentmindedly as he pulled the translator out of his pocket.

"I was asked to deliver you to the Face of Boe's suite," the smooth voice that reminded him of a more succinct Siri repeated in his own tongue. "It is only two doors further down this hall." Cameron looked up to see the blue aide indicating a particular door ahead. Once he'd seen Cameron glancing at the door, the man held out a card to him. "This will grant you access," Siri continued.

Cameron flicked the switch on the side of the translator. "Thank you," he said as he accepted the card, and the device repeated his words in gobblety gook. He turned back to Rose after the aide nodded his head once and took his leave.

"What's that?" Rose asked curiously, stepping closer to inspect the device.

"It's just a little translator," he explained, holding the little palm pilot up and wiggling it in the air. He turned it and looked down at it again. "It helps when there are so many languages out there. You can't know them all," he pointed out casually, knowing the Doctor and his ship were a living contradiction to his words.

"So wait," Rose said suddenly, glancing back up at Cameron. "You're speaking English," she clarified. "Actual English."

Ahh, crap, Cameron swore silently. He hadn't thought of that. "Aren't you?" he asked cheekily, raising his eyebrow, trying to turn the matter into a joke rather than something that exposed him.

He needed to be more careful, he reminded himself. Rose wasn't the Doctor, but she was clever and kind, two attributes that made it easier to get past people's defences, and part of what drew the Doctor to her in the first place.

"I don't know," Rose admitted. "It's hard to keep track of… languages…"

An amused grin touched Cameron's lips, but he didn't say anything. He could understand how it might be hard to keep track of languages if everyone spoke to you in English even when they didn't, but he wasn't supposed to know about the TARDIS translation matrix.

"I dunno, I thought it might have died out by now," Rose continued.

"Why would it have?" he asked lightly, even though he silently agreed with her. After however many billions of years, if the English language still existed surely it would show little to no resemblance to the dialect they knew. Oh, he was in over his head. He needed to stage a tactical retreat. Talking to the Doctor's companion, and Rose Tyler at that, however amazing it was it was just too dangerous.

"I guess," she conceded, but Cameron could see the questions in her eyes she was obviously mulling over. "Wait, does that make you human?" she asked suddenly, then she seemed to realise that her question could have come across as rude and she quickly stammered into damage control. "I-I mean, you look human, but so does the Doctor, but Cassandra said that-"

"You've already spoken to Cassandra?" Cameron asked sharply, the continuity of the episode suddenly catching up with him: Rose Tyler wandering the halls alone after speaking to that bitchy trampoline…

He glanced behind him, remembering how once upon a tv show Rose had walked straight toward the Adherents of the Repeated Meme, never suspecting the danger until it was too late. While he was relieved to learn that this part of the episode had taken place as it should have, would the rest? Had the Doctor met Jabe now? If he hadn't, would he still find out about the Steward? Would he still learn that Rose was in danger?

Cameron felt a sickening sense of guilt about the Steward, and the plumber, Jabe, the Moxx of Balhoon and so many others… So many people would die, or had died already, and he'd done nothing to stop it. Rose, though; he couldn't risk Rose, not her.

"Come on," he said quickly as he spotted the cloaked puppets rounding the corner up ahead. If Rose hadn't stopped to talk to him, she'd have already been taken - yet another thing he'd changed simply by being in a universe where he shouldn't exist.

"Sorry, what-?" Rose began, confused by the sudden change and Cameron's demeanour. He somehow reminded him of the Doctor, going from carefree in one moment to ready for action in the next at some danger only he could perceive. She glanced past him at the group of four, no five - another had just rounded the corner - cloaked figured heading towards them, and she felt the familiar surge of adrenaline that seemed part and parcel of adventuring with the Doctor. He'd even warned her when he first invited her to travel with him that his life was always as dangerous as saving the world from living plastic had been.

Cameron didn't think Rose was reacting quickly enough, and he admittedly didn't know what the death eater-esque puppets were capable of. In the show, they'd caught Rose by surprise, and the Doctor had downed them with a single blow, but Cameron was no Time Lord.

He took Rose by the hand, drawing those wide brown eyes to his own once more, and he spoke that single word he hoped she'd listen to, that risked giving too much away.

"Run!"