Author's Note: Well here we are at chapter four! Sorry for the delay, but the holidays left me pretty creatively drained. Remember to leave a review, they really do help inspire me to keep writing!

The Doctor's hand clutched tightly in hers, Rose sprinted for the door, stashing her pistol in the bodice of her dress to leave her a free hand to operate the handle when they reached it. Taken off-guard by her sudden appearance, the Doctor made a stumbling start to their escape, nearly knocking her off stride, but managed to catch up and match her after a few steps. Rose's bare feet protested as she came to a hurried stop at the door and wrenched it open before dragging the doctor down into the winding staircase, but she ignored them. She knew she'd regret abusing them later, though.

"Lock it!" she panted to the Doctor as the door slammed shut behind them. Luckily, he already had his sonic screwdriver out and was doing just that. It's familiar blue glow and high-pitched buzz brought Rose nearly as much relief as the Doctor's physical presence did.

"We've got to get everyone downstairs evacuated." The Doctor said, his deep voice echoing down the stairwell and drawing her eyes to him. He was looking at her with a frown on his face, one she knew meant he had about a thousand-and-one questions for her that he wasn't quite ready to ask.

"Already done." Rose said as she straightened and fetched her pistol back out of her top, making the Doctor blink in surprise. Much to her delight, the tops of his large ears actually turned pink, though his expression seemed totally un-bothered. The woman grinned and checked the charge on her weapon. She had enough for three, maybe four more shots before the battery was dead and she'd have to put it into recharge mode.

The shriek of tearing metal interrupted the Doctor before he could even ask his first question, making the both of them turn to look at the door behind them. It was bending noticeably.

"Just can't can't catch a break tonight." Rose grumbled, masking her fear with feigned annoyance at their predicament.

"Come on, we've got to get back downstairs." The Doctor said, grabbing her hand and dashing down the stairs, dragging Rose along after him.

For all she was terrified, Rose was grinning like a schoolgirl as she and the Doctor ran down flight after flight of stairs. It was just like old times...well, almost. He had no idea who she was, but for the moment, that didn't matter in the least.

The buzz of her communicator dragged Rose out of her happy, if panicked, place and back into the present "Kinda busy here!" she said, making the Doctor glance at her, his gray eyes flicking between her face and the device on her wrist. Rose just gave him a helpless shrug and a smile as though she'd just gotten an inconvenient phone call in the middle of dinner instead of during the middle of a mad dash for their lives.

"Where are you?" Johnathan's voice crackled worriedly over the little speaker.

"Running for my life, how about you?" Rose asked breathlessly, then yelped as she slipped on a stair and tumbled forward. Her fall was stopped abruptly by a pair of strong arms and a broad chest as the Doctor turned and caught her before she nearly took both of them out. Looking up at him, eyes wide with surprise she managed to say "Th-thanks."

The Doctor's eyes searched hers, and Rose licked her lips nervously under the weight of his gaze. She'd forgotten how tall he'd been before he'd regenerated, though she'd never forgotten just how imposing he could be when he wished it. The Time Lord's hand's tightened around her upper arms, and Rose swore she could feel both his hearts pounding where her hands connected with the flat planes of his chest.

"Who are y-"

The deafening clatter of a steel door being ripped from it's hinges and sent tumbling down a staircase echoed down from above them, cutting the Doctor's words off mid-sentence. The pair shared a look, then took one another's hands and started running once more, neither of them thinking about how natural the gesture seemed.

"Tyler! What's going on?!" Johnathan demanded, startling Rose. She'd forgotten the line was still open.

"Long story short, we've got a Class Four coming down the central staircase, and it's pissed, yeah?"

"A Class Four? Where the hell did it come from?" Alan butted in.

"Oh god, it's Lazarus, isn't it?" Nikki asked, dread heavy in her voice.

"What is this, a com-party?" Rose complained as the Doctor dragged her through a doorway and out into a hallway "Yes it's Lazarus, that machine of his turned him into some sort of monster."

"It's a throwback, some evolutionary possibility that humanity never actually attained." The Doctor explained as they careened around a corner.

"Who the hell is that?" Johnathan and Alan asked simultaneously.

"Friend of mine, never you mind." Rose chided as they came to a locked door and the Doctor dropped her hand and reached for his sonic screwdriver "Oh leave off!" Rose exclaimed as the Time Lord started fiddling with settings. Pushing him to one side, she hiked up her skirt and kicked, landing the blow just below the knob as she'd been taught. The door snapped back on it's hinges with a satisfying crack, and Rose grinned.

Luckily it was just a light weight, faux-wood door or she never would have been able to manage it barefoot. As it was, the Doctor was staring at her as she tugged her dress back down into place "Well come on, don't just sit there!" Rose said. The exasperation in her voice drove the Doctor to his feet. He tucked his screwdriver back into his jacket pocket as he moved past her and said "You and I will be having a very long discussion after this."

"I can't wait." Rose said with a teasing grin, though her stomach churned nervously at the thought. Allowing the Doctor to take the lead for the moment, Rose re-opened communications with her team, only to find an indecipherable torrent of discussion waiting for her.

"Oi! Shut up!" she snapped, making the Doctor glance back at her over his shoulder for a brief moment. She shrugged at him and he rolled his eyes and kept running "Has everyone been evacuated?" she asked tensely.

"Yes ma'am." Johnathan replied meekly.

"Good. Nikki, you're out of the building, right?"

"Yes ma'am." the medic said "The autopsy on Lady Thaw was inconclusive for the most part, but..." she trailed off.

"But what?" Rose asked as the Doctor came to a stop at another door. This one was bigger, and made of metal, but the Time Lord gave her a gentlemanly half-bow and wave of a hand, as though offering her first crack at it.

Rose rolled her eyes and flapped a dismissive hand at him, and for a brief moment, a grin flashed across his angular features. It was completely out of her power to avoid returning the smile, but she only allowed herself to indulge for a moment before turning her attention back to her com as he went to work on opening it.

"But what, Nikki?" Rose prodded again as the sonic screwdriver buzzed behind her.

"But...he seems to have the ability to drain people's life force." The woman replied, sounding meek and more than a little worried.

"What, like he just sucks the energy right out of them? Why?" Rose asked incredulously, her words making the Doctor glance back at her again, eyebrows raised.

"My guess, and it is just a guess, mind you, is that Lazarus is having trouble stabilizing this new form. He needs more energy to keep himself together, so he's stealing it from other people." Nikki explained.

"Nikki, have you gone daft? This isn't an alien we're talking about here." Alan said, voice disbelieving over her com.

And argument ensued, and Rose simply hung up and walked over to the Doctor, who straightened and pushed the door open as she reached him "So, what do you think? Life sucking monster from pre-history seem feasible to you?" she asked, pushing her blond hair back out of her face. Their break-neck run had totally ruined half an hour's careful styling, so she had no doubt she looked a total mess. She couldn't bring herself to care, though, not when the Doctor was giving her that considering look again.

She arched a brow challengingly at him and pushed for an answer again "Look, he's gonna find us any moment and I'd rather have a working theory so we can figure out how to deal with him."

"What makes you think I'd know anything?" The doctor asked, tearing his eyes from hers and pushing through the double doors and jogging down the corridor, his long stride forcing her to run to keep up.

"Shut up, you're a terrible liar." she said with an incredulous laugh that he'd even try after all they had been through that evening. Even if she hadn't already known him from her universe she wouldn't have bought that "I'm not stupid, you know." she remarked as they went through a second set of double doors, unlocked this time, and found themselves in the main reception hall.

"I never said you were!" the Doctor objected, stopping halfway across the room and grabbing her hand to stop her. His voice went up an octave the way it always did when he complained or objected to something. His incredulous expression made Rose laugh, and her smile returned. For a moment, the Doctor seemed to relax, and within her, the Wolf stirred excitedly. He was right here before them; he could be their's again. A few choice words and they could convince him to whisk them away in the Tardis, return them to their life of adventure and discovery...

Rose closed her eyes and reigned the Bad Wolf in. He isn't ours. He's not the same man.

He could be, though, the wolf insisted, quietly now, just a whisper at the back of her mind. Then, in a flash that made her breath catch, a not-yet memory of Lazarus plummeting through the skylight directly above them burned itself into her mind's eye.

Reacting automatically, Rose grabbed the Doctor by the lapels of his jacket and shoved him bodily against Lazarus' machine so forcefully that it drove the breath from his lungs with a grunt of pain. As the Time Lord's chest heaved in an attempt to take in air, or perhaps to shout at her, Rose looked back over her shoulder just in time to see the monster that had once been a brilliant scientist crash through the glass ceiling and land right where they'd been standing. It's landing was not graceful, but the creature wasn't down for long.

"Quick, get in!" The Doctor said, pushing Rose through the door of the machine and into the small chamber within before following quickly after and closing the door behind them.

"Well now what?" Rose asked, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the wall of the chamber as she caught her breath and tried to calm the wild beating of her heart. Silence met her question, though, so she cracked an eye and caught the Time Lord looking away awkwardly "You have no idea, do you?"

"I hadn't quite thought that far ahead yet, no." he admitted reluctantly, and Rose laughed weakly, making him look at her sharply.

"Alright, I'll call my team, we'll see about getting some back-up to hold him off so we can get out of here..." Rose said, lifting her wrist to tap her com. When nothing happened, she frowned and tried again, and then once more "Oh c'mon, you have got to be kidding me." she growled, throwing her head back so that it thumped against the wall "The machine must be interfering with it, I can't get a call out."

"Fantastic. Stuck in a tube like a couple o' sardines just waiting to be eaten."

"Oi, you're the one that shoved us in here." Rose pointed out, raising an eyebrow at the Time Lord.

The Doctor huffed and refused to meet her gaze, making her smile. She'd always loved it when she'd actually managed to get one over on him. Giving herself a mental shake, Rose pointedly reminded herself that this was not her Doctor, and forced herself to apply her thoughts to the situation at hand "Well, at least we're safe for now, yeah? He wouldn't dare destroy his precious machine, so now we've just got to wait for my team to decide to come investigate now that my com's been cut off."

"Team. Why do you have a team?" The Doctor asked, skeptical, but interest obviously piqued as he crossed his arms over his chest and leveled his most unyielding stare on her. He'd heard her talking to them earlier, obviously, but now he actually had the time to ask.

"Why do you have a sonic screwdriver? Had a lot of cabinets to put up, did you?" she asked blandly just to throw him off, her eyes flicking to the breast pocket she knew he'd stuck it in.

"Fair enough." The Doctor said with a ghost of a smile that faded as they heard Lazarus skitter past the machine towards the other side of the room, away from the door.

Eyes wide, Rosed asked in a low voice "Think we could make it to the door?"

The Doctor held up a hand for silence, and Rose cocked her head and listened. Before they realized what the creature had done, there was the quiet hum of machinery, and then a soft hiss of the door sealing itself.

"No! No no no!" Rose cried, throwing herself against the door as Lazarus' plan hit her.

"Lazarus, don't you dare!" The Doctor shouted as he threw himself against the door as well. Even their combined efforts couldn't budge it though.

The former man's only response was a soft chuckle that sent a shiver up Rose's spine.

"Doctor." she said, hating herself for the tremble in her voice when she softly spoke his name for the first time, making him freeze, then look at her intently "Doctor I don't want to end up like him." Rose stated, brown eyes wide as she turned them up to meet his.

There was a tense moment of quiet that was broken only by the humming of the machine as it powered up. Finally, he nodded tightly and said "Right, lets get to work then, shall we?" then ducked down to crouch on the floor, whipping out his sonic screwdriver as he did so.

Shuffling her feet out of his way so that the Time Lord could remove the panel set into the floor, Rose plastered herself against the wall so he would have room to work. When he spoke again, though her eyes snapped open in surprise.

"Your feet, do they hurt?" He asked in a concerned tone that made her heart leap. It was the same tone he'd used when he'd asked if she was alright on the phone, though he had no idea who she was. The same tone he used to use...

"Nah, I'm used to saving the day barefoot." Rose laughed and lied, curling her bare and battered toes up unconsciously. He was asking about the state of his feet, but it hadn't stopped him working. His large hands tore at wires, then rearranged them. The machine whirred louder than ever and Rose could see energy building up around them, felt it in her bones, no...in her very cells.

"No! I need more time!" the Doctor growled as he pushed himself faster than ever, sweat beading on his brow.

"You can do it, Doctor; you always manage it in the end!" Rose insisted as she closed her eyes once more, fighting the panic as energy crackled around them.

More time, he just needed a little more time.

Reaching deep within herself, Rose took a breath and then, for the first time since she'd first united with the heart of the Tardis, she called on the Wolf...and it answered.

Give it to him, give him the time he needs! It can't end here, not now that we've finally found him!

Reaching out, the Bad Wolf pressed her hands to the walls of the transformation chamber. Releasing a long, slow breath, she opened golden eyes and pushed against the flow of time. With eyes that saw beyond the paper thin skin of reality, the Bad Wolf watched time eddy and flow around them. The Doctor was right; time was far from linear, it changed, shifted, and flowed in whatever way it pleased. Fixed points in time were like the center of a whirlpool that ever died, but drew everything in towards it with an undeniable force. Once upon a time she could have stopped it entirely, could have unmade Lazarus with the casual wave of a hand...but for now, the brief drag she caused in the current was enough to buy the Doctor the few seconds he needed to finish rewiring the machine.

"Right, I-" the Doctor sprang to his feet and pulled his sonic screwdriver from his breast pocket. Mid-motion, though, he froze as he locked eyes with Rose, and pushed away from her in alarm.

"Just...do it." the Bad Wolf commanded raising her chin authoritatively, her voice echoing strangely. Before he could respond, Rose went limp as the power left her in the form of a golden mist that escaped her as she sighed.

Grabbing her with one arm, the Doctor raised the sonic screwdriver with the other and activated it. The machine responded immediately, and the energy suddenly reversed, shooting outward in a wave and leaving him breathless, hearts pounding.

The Time Lord closed his eyes and sagged back against the wall, weak with relief, the strange blond woman a dead weight in his arms. As he caught his breath, the Doctor looked down at her with a thoughtful frown on his face.

He had come to this time, and this place in hopes of finding the Bad Wolf and wound up caught in this madness instead. Still, was it possible she had managed to find him first?