AN: I really don't know where this fic is going to go. Well, okay, I have half an idea, but not really. This was written late at night after (starting) writing a report on dietary nutrition and metabolism of sea monkeys, while listening to 'Watch It Burn' by Camo & Krooked on repeat.

I like exploring characters and their development by putting them in situations where they are forced out of their 'normal' zone, and so their normal actions. My fics are usually an exploration of that, and this is no exception. This isn't a 'Rose rejoins the Doctor as she was' fic. This is a 'Rose has had a life and has grown and changed as a person through necessity of the situations she has found herself in, and THEN rejoins the Doctor' fic. More on those situations later.

Rated M for swearing, violence, and Jack.

I don't own anything. Not a thing. I would love to, though. And if I did, it would all be so different.

This is fresh-off-my-brain and un-beta'd.

Too much light in this window, don't wake me up
Only coffee no sugar, inside my cup
If I wake and you're here still, give me a kiss
I wasn't finished dreaming, about your lips

Feet stirred dust long untouched by humans. Breath rasped through chapped and broken lips. The stump that had been her lower arm throbbed in time to each frantic heart beat. Her impromptu tourniquet – her old leather belt – had staunched the bleeding but nothing could be done for the pain. She was still leaving a lovely trail for them to track her with.

Follow the bloody red road, her brain supplied. She bared her teeth without humour. It wasn't like she would be able to hide herself on this God-forsaken spit of land. There was nothing but dirt and sand for miles, and her pursuers were too close behind for her to bury herself.

A bullet whizzed past her head, embedding itself into the ground to her right. They'd finally figured out how to use her Beretta 9mm. She pushed her legs to work harder, darting left and right. It would slow her down a bit, but in the event of them being a better shot than she expected, it might mean missing a head shot.

She didn't know if she could survive a head shot. She really didn't want to find out now.

Everything about the last week had been dumb bloody mistake after dumb bloody mistake. All of them had been avoidable fuck ups, and her only excuse was exhaustion. She had been running for longer than she could remember and, thinking she'd found a deserted bunker, she'd knuckled down for a few days of peace and quiet and blessed rest.

Rose had come to less than thirty minutes ago, restrained spread-eagled on the table in the middle of the bunker. Her ankles and wrists were firmly strapped down. They must have poured gas through the vent shafts and broken in – the door had been smashed in and was in pieces on the floor. There were only three of them in the room. Teenagers, really. Dirty, desperate, vicious, and ruffling through her supplies.

While she watched, one of them approached her with tree loppers. Her eyes widened and her lips clamped shut as he slid the blades around her arm, just above her vortex manipulator. The loppers snicked shut and nerve endings burned. But they'd miscalculated.

She was no longer tied down by her left wrist.

She wrenched herself into sitting position, breaking the restraint on her right wrist with the additional leverage. Before her assailants could blink, she had her Beretta out and fired off three rounds. Three heads with three holes, now three bodies. She thumbed the safety on and dropped the gun between her legs, fingers scrabbling at the restraints on her ankles. She had to get out. If there were three, there would be more, likely on the perimeter to ensure no one else got the loot. They'd have heard the noise. It wasn't exactly a quiet gun.

Feet free, she stuffed her 9mm into her pocket and reached for her other hand, tied to the table. Too late. She could hear the thunder of approaching footsteps. She'd have to get out before they blocked the entrance. She bolted.

Shots scorched the door frame as she barrelled out and into another bandit. She dropped her shoulder and hit him square in the chest, knocking him from his feet and out of her way. Unintelligible cries and shouts rose up behind her as she put as much room between herself and her pursuers. They'd found the others, then. Her hand went to her pocket and, finding nothing, she chanced a look over her shoulder.

Her damn Beretta was in the hands of a kid, and he was pointing it at her retreating back like he knew what he was doing. His look of triumph gave way to confusion as it didn't fire. She smirked and whipped her head back, focussing on escape, away, as far away as she could. Some of the others were already running after her.

As she ran, she fumbled with her belt buckle. She'd done on-the-fly tourniquets enough times to know what to do. Made sure every belt she got would work as one, and made the additional holes herself. She'd never done one while running full tilt, and it was proving to be awkward. Another bullet skipped past her, grazing her hip. Her left elbow bent, allowing her just enough purchase to yank the belt tight and clip it on. That would have to do for now, any further down and the leather would slick up and fall off.

Blood coated fingers dipped once more into her pocket, pulled out a silver bead no bigger than her thumbnail. She pushed it into her mouth, stomach clenched at the thought of it getting lost in the sands, and bit down on it. The bunker exploded, the shockwave yanked at her feet but she managed to stay running. The angry yells turned to screams and howls.

Still, they pursued her. They were young and fresh where she was old and tired and slowly bleeding out.

Her toe caught in the sand and she fell, rolled, used her momentum to launch herself back to her feet. Sand scoured the meat of the stump and flicked into her eyes. Trickled down the back of her shirt to grind into her skin, accumulate in the filth. Teeth clenched, she pushed on, down a slight incline and onto the plains.

The shouts were getting closer. The bolts and bullets whipped past with greater accuracy. Her boots crunched the desolate soil. The nauseating thought that this was it sank into her gut. There was no escape. Even if she managed to get away from these bandits, she'd blown up her vortex manipulator. Her only way out. The chances of scrounging parts for a new one on this rock was negligible.

She stopped. Dug her heels into the sand and spun, arms at her sides and chest heaving. She drew her lips back in a parody of a smile, a feral snarl, and screamed her frustration at the oncoming marauders. The child with the Beretta, her Beretta, stopped and raised his arms, sited her down the length of the pistol, his own lips contorted into a sneer. Such an ugly expression for one so young. He squeezed the trigger.

Time

stopped.

Liquid gold poured down her synapses, danced across her basal ganglia, dripped down her aorta. Fire licked at her kidneys, squeezed down her femoral arteries, tickled each toe in turn. Her eyes breathed light and glory and all things that had been, would be, could be, and could not be.

The 9mm burst into a shower of glitter as time restarted.

"Who is afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" she howled, and the brigands fell to their knees in the sand. Her eyes flashed. She took two steps towards them and disappeared, but her voice echoed back across the sands of time. "You should be."

Like it? Love it? Review it!