A/N: He didn't stay shut up very long… I swear, leaving the Doctor in pain is a bad idea.

Short Summary: Sequel to Dr Who and the Great Eclipse. The TimeWar left him shattered & alone. Experiments left her shattered & open. The tools for revenge also form a web that cannot be broken. 9th Dr, the Tam siblings, Riddick, plus. Dr Who Firefly Riddick crossover.

Summary: The Doctor, reeling from the effects of the TimeWar as the last surviving TimeLord, stumbles into a situation he cannot ignore when the TARDIS lands him inside a ship that is clearly in trouble. After the rescue, he's left with eight survivors that he must somehow get to safety. But the situation is not as cut and dry as he might like. His people may be gone, but the stamp he's made on the universe is still there, and he finds himself caught in a web spun of the choices he's made in the past…

It's 2517. Something in the past has prompted humanity to explode out from their home world. Could the events of 2164 be responsible? Was Earth a myth or was it real? In fleeing Earth-that-Was, humanity scattered to the stars across the galactic arm. Initial survey teams targeted likely planets and systems for habitation and not all of them ended up on the same side of the sector. Blue Sun exists on one side, separated by a patch of 'wild space' filled with exotic binary and triple star systems, from the rest of civilized space.

Few ships brave the route. But luck had it that one ship did. Risking a ghost run, the only contact that the two sides have, the Hunter-Gratzner crashed midway through the journey. Original Port of Departure: Eavesdown Docks, Persephone. Mixed Sino-Anglo culture. Original Port of Call: Tangiers-5. Darkside. Mixed Islamic-Anglo culture. Crew complement: Four. Passengers: Forty. Living 'Cargo': Two. Survivors: Eight plus One

So what happens to Dr. Simon Tam, his brilliant but damaged sister, a convicted murder by the name of Richard B. Riddick, and the other survivors from the crash of the Hunter-Gratzner at planet M-344/G-2 now that they are on their way home? And just how is this related to the TimeWar?

A Doctor Who / Firefly / Riddick cross-over.

Features Doctor 9, Pre-"Rose"; Simon and River Tam, Pre-"Serenity" Firefly episode 1 and the survivors from Pitch Black: Carolyn Fry, William J. Johns, Imam Abu al'Walid, 'Jack B. Badd', Ali Abdullah, and Richard B. Riddick…

Doctor Who and the Ties that Bind.

Part One

Aggravation

The TARDIS sat, rather innocently, in the Time Vortex. Nothing the Doctor did could force her to budge, and the one thing he tried that might have got him zapped for the effort. He made a face at her central column and watched the glowing crystalline pillar move. "All right then, maybe they do need more time to recover from the ordeal. I would just feel better if they were gone, is all." She was being rather silent, like it wasn't personal or anything but perhaps his stopgap measure hadn't been enough. Likely, it hadn't. The feeling of the molten lead brick still existed in his forehead. He knew River still felt like she had planes of fire bisecting her brain. But at least they couldn't pass this horror onto the others. He turned his attention back to the military files and watched the stream of untranslatable characters flicker past.

Sitting in the vortex was her way of refusing to allow the Time Lord pilot, her Doctor, the action of doing something that was really rather stupid. Now, the others on board had no idea what was going on, nor did they care that they could have arrived before they left even. But the Doctor, her Time Lord, had been contaminated with a substance of a unique sort that would, more than likely, cause him great harm once they exited the vortex. So delaying this was her top priority, beyond even getting the other survivors home. Without the bond she had with him she was doomed too.

The human guests could wait.

The harder part of this all was making him take the hints and do the proper research to fight the doomsday agent that flowed through the nervous system both in physical and psychic senses. She could see it, clear as crystal, attacking his green matter with a persistence that only a last ditch weapon could possess. No wonder he wasn't thinking clearly. But how to get him help when he was the last of his kind? Or – was he?

She scanned the others he had brought into her. There was Amadak, brought home again although he didn't realize it yet. Earth to Air, Fire to Water, Aether to Void. One, a girl, was infected just as her Doctor was. This meant that her twin, the boy, could be infected too. Only he wasn't. Ah. The agent was blocked from finding the physical connections it needed to move into him because the Doctor had thought to chemically block it. She tried leaving the hints for him then. Perhaps he'd see the solution. She hummed happily. Not so alone as to have lost everything, after all. Ancient connections forged between them might just be enough.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Richard watched the alien in the main control room; the Doctor slouched over as though the energy he had the day before was all but gone. The ex-ranger was sure that the man knew he was there, but perhaps not. The Time Lord was talking it that musical language; sounding like he was carrying on a conversation that was one sided yet complete. The semi-bright arc of power off the console spurned another verse of words.

He felt this – pull – in the center of his chest, like he was being tugged out of his shadows. Or urged, slightly by some unseen force. It wasn't that he didn't want to go. Rather, the silver-eyed man feared with he might do if he did go. He'd watched the gent shower, watched every move he made, the play of his muscles and tendons under his oh so smooth skin… And he'd been thankful unlike nothing else that he'd been wearing the goggles. And loose pants.

He'd been placated by a caress, a touch. Like it defused the lightning building between them. But it was still there, that tension. And he'd never been so compelled and so frightened in all his life. As he watched the flickering pages of characters scroll across the screen reflected on that chiseled face he could see the temperature rise on the man's skin. He wasn't fixed. Far from it. But how to help him? How to save him from this doomsday weapon that was burning him up inside?

The tug eased then increased. He moved forward, a slight whisper of his shoes on the metal floor the only indication of his approach. "Doctor?"

Music flowed from those lips that were too warm, looking almost pink in Riddick's vision, before he catches a word he recognizes, " – Amadak."

He's struck by the sudden desire to suck those musical words into his own soul, to exist off the other's breath, to give those lips a reason to be warm. "You're – hot – again," Rich says as he instead reaches to run a hand over the man's skull covered with baby soft, fine hair. He's only mildly surprised that the Doctor pauses his reading and leans into the touch slightly. He takes the moment to look at the untranslated characters. Like the spoken version, and their speaker, the characters strike him as beautiful. "I'm worried about you."

"Ah, well… I'm not going to lie, Richard."

"You said you could fix this." He doesn't move his hand away, instead lightly kneading the back of the man's neck, feeling the tingle build and wondering how long he's going to be satisfied with this level of touch.

Intense eyes study him as the Doctor turns his head. "And I can, given the time. Just like I could repair your eyes and restore your color vision, actually."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Yes. You can handle the boys' chemistry lesson today. It shouldn't be too difficult for you."

Richard smiles, "Lucky for you, I liked chemistry." The wink he makes is not a flirt. No... God, how is he going to handle this if he does have his eyes fixed and can ditch the goggles?

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Simon glanced over at River who was slumped over in a plush armchair with some sort of game in her lap. Her brushed hair fell over the top of the strappy sundress she wore that was made of some soft floral lightweight fabric. She was intensely focused on the pale gray ball-like object, although he couldn't tell why she would be. The multi-sided shape seemed to have no interactive spots on it, no real point at all when he first saw it in the Doctor's hands. But the hairless gent had done some sort of demonstration to River that she understood, and now the item tinkled with soft lights and sounds as she 'played' it. Possibly it used psychic impulses to work. If so it was beyond his current ability.

One of her dainty bare feet wobbled in a rhythm that was odd. It took Simon a moment to realize that she was wiggling in time to what was the Doctor's pulse. He also concluded that he wouldn't have picked that up if it wasn't for the fact that he was studying the medical diagrams for the species that the Doctor belonged to. Now, he didn't fancy himself as an expert or anything, but if he was going to be around the gent, he had better know what he could and couldn't do in an emergency. Thus far he'd discovered that certain branches of human medicines were absolutely out. He scribbled down some notes to himself in shorthand on a tablet that the ship had provided him. He'd need to alter his emergency medical supply kit.

Behind him Ali and Jack walked in. "So, why do we gotta do school work, again?" Jack was asking.

"Because you do. Trust me, you'll find this interesting," Riddick said. "It's science, see. Once you have the theory down we can do some experiments in the lab that the Doctor set up for you."

"I liked the last chemistry lesson," Ali prodded Jack, "It was fun."

Jack rolled his eyes, "Because the Doctor is crazy that's why. Who else would make glowing, smoking, gelatin?"

"It tasted like fizzy bananas!"

Simon looked over at the boys with alarm; "You ate that?"

"It was harmless, Doc. Just be thankful the boys didn't serve it for desert last night," Rich sat the two children down with the lesson for the day and got them started on it.

"Harmless? It looked radioactive."

Riddick peered over Simon's shoulder at the diagrams he was looking at, "Nope, not more than normal anyhow. So, what are you looking up?"

"General procedures in case of emergency. I don't want to kill our host when I'm trying to mend something."

The goggled man nodded and focused on something with a frown, "Huh, extra ribs?"

"And double most of the internal organs that humans have, mostly it would seem as a backup for one set failing. But that's not the most intriguing thing, This is," Simon flipped to the previous diagram to show the unusual tri-helix, triplicate design that appears on the cellular level. "Certain standard drugs attack this structure. Willow bark, for instance, would kill him if he ingested it. Yet mercury would be no problem."

Riddick peered at the structure on the screen, "I've see that before, somewhere. I must've been quite young to not place it right away." His face morphs into frustrated puzzlement. "Something about this really bothers me." The bronze skinned man moves back, staring into the air, trying to grasp something that hovers just at the edge of his awareness. "What would happen if this structure was combined with human DNA?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, would it be possible? Or no?"

Simon frowns, "I haven't even looked." He turned back and searched through the database. "The species has a natural genetic ability to adapt to foreign genomes, and according to this can become or adopt any exterior appearance they desire within thirty-nine human hours of -- regeneration? I'll have to look that up. But it appears that if they choose a human-dominant genome set then they could, if they wanted, produce viable offspring with humans, yes. Or any other species." He glanced over at Richard who had a faraway look on his face that was evident even with the goggles on, "You all right?"

" – Fine. Is this showing Male gender dominance?"

Dr. Tam looked back at the data and has to puzzle out what the other man has seen, "Err… Yes, I think so."

Richard laughs, "Not your field of expertise, I know. I wonder how the hell any species can survive with only a two percent chance of a girl being born is all."

"What?"

"Look, it's right there. If any of these genes on this sequence are off, even one, the outcome is male. And even if they are all right to be female the hormones the fetus is exposed to can't vary or the result is male. Biologically, then, the chances of a girl is just two percent."

Simon looked at where the finger was resting on the screen and read the data again, "Oh."

"Mr. Riddick? Can you help me, please?" Ali asked.

The large man rested a hand on the Tam scion's shoulder for a moment before he moved over to assist the boys with their study. It left the medical doctor wondering how a convict would know about genetics.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The redhead is sitting in the clinic/med lab on one of the beds. The Doctor is wiping his arm. "So you're saying that the shiv comes out after I'm clean?"

"Would you rather risk never walking again, William?"

"Of course not. But I can feel it. Ya know? Like it's rubbing the bone raw. That's the reason I started on the morphine in the first place. How can I function like this?" He's clammy, shivering, flushed in the cheeks, and in pain.

The Doctor placed a hand on the man's forehead. "This is the price you pay, young man."

"I ain't no baby, Doc." The glare makes him blurt out, "Bob?" The look doesn't change, "Heh. Sorry. Doctor."

"I'm going to make you sick now." The smile the marshal got was chilling, "But it will speed the process. Day after tomorrow Simon will have the metal out and the scar will be noting but a small white line. Or you can suffer through this the old fashioned way."

Johns swallowed. He backed out now and Rich would give him hell, "I'm ready." He watched the needle slide into his arm with practiced ease, like the man had centuries of doing this behind him, "You sure you're not a real doctor?"

"Oh, I studied a bit. Here and there. Nothing formal like Simon has under his belt though." He eases the redhead down on the bed and slides a bedpan over so he can reach it. "Relax, William. I'm not going to leave you alone to suffer. I'll be here with you."

Not that it makes the badge feel better about puking his guts up for the next few hours…

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Carolyn and Imam are in the kitchen, as it's their turn to fix the meal, although the indications are that perhaps no one really minds making their own, the steady habits of eating together that they started on the planet seem to be something expected here inside the ship. "I don't think I've ever had fresh fruit when in space," the docking pilot says as she slices something that is about the size of her palm, covered with a fuzzy plum toned skin that reminds her of Kiwi fruit, even though the inside is more of a bright yellow than green. "His food stores are fantastic."

"I believe that this produce comes from his garden, Carolyn," says the Imam as he dices some deep bluish-green crunchy leaves for the salad he is preparing.

"Garden? This- wait, really?"

"Yes. I keep asking if it would be possible to take Jack and Ali there to show them some of the plants and insects. The Doctor told me that there's entire biosystems preserved in microclimates. I get the impression however, that he's not totally sure how to reach it."

"How can he not know that?"

"The TARDIS is a living thing, in and of itself. I would guess that if she feels that trouncing through the garden might disrupt something she might hide it." Abu slid the chopped 'greens' into the mixing bowl and reached for another vegetable.

She raised an eyebrow and checked the pasta boiling for the main course. "Amazing. You know, I think these are done." He checked them and nodded. She drained and tossed the handmade pasta with the sauce and garnish for them, finished with the fruit plate, and pulled the rolls out. "The only thing missing is hand churned butter."

"There is some in that cabinet." The dark skinned man pointed at it and then placed the salad on the table, "Should take the others all of a tick and a half to get here, I'd guess."

"Yeah, all but Bill. Poor guy."

True to prediction, the others began to filter in, Simon and River entering first, followed by Jack, Ali, and Richard. The Doctor came in right on the dot, behind the others. "William's sleeping, I placed him a purge isolation bath. You'll need to double check his vitals within the hour, Dr. Tam."

"He's not going to drown is he?"

"Heavens no. If I wanted to kill him there are much easier methods." The Doctor smirks at the dark haired man, "Besides it would be quite a waste now that we've almost gotten him to start acting human again."

"No more black," River says.

Simon looked over at her, "I noticed that too, the aura around marshal Johns has shifted to lighter tones."

"And once he's not in pain, I think you'll notice that his personality is slightly improved too," the ex-ranger adds, "but make no mistake, he's still gonna be a bastard. Billy's got a dark sense of humor and likes to laugh at his enemy's suffering. And he can be very cold blooded."

The docking pilot paused in her chewing, "I don't think any of us are expecting him to become a saint, Rich. No more than you would. But if he's off the hype then at least he won't go fucking things up."

"This is true, Carolyn." Riddick nods at her. "So, Doctor… you said something about undoing the damage I did to my eyes and restoring my color vision. I assume this will be after Johns is out of post-op?"

The Doctor pauses from pulling a roll apart, "Um… I need to scan your eyes and see exactly what was done. But there are several ways to undo it, and your eyes being restored to brown would ease suspicion about who you are. Although, I might not be able to totally erase the sheen in the back of retina." He then dips the part in his right hand into the sauce and pops it into his mouth. Still not good London-style Chips. He's going to have to make a stop there before the craving drives him up the wall.

"No big to me. I don't care if they stay silver. It just might be nice to see in color again." It'd be nice to know what color your eyes are, Snail.