RishiDiams totally saved my life with this and for that I bow down to her and her awesome beta skillz! And I know I suck at answering messages and reviews, but rest assured I am reading each and every one and they all make me feel warm and lovely inside! Thank you all so so so so much!

"She's gone!"

Rose spun frantically, scanning the crowd for her best friend. Martha was nowhere to be found, and she could no longer sense whatever creature she had been talking to. Her heart was racing, her head was swimming, she could barely think let alone act.

"Rose, you need to calm down."

Her gaze settled on Dr. Smith, and her clarity slowly returned. He was standing in front of her, his hands gentle against her shoulders, his deep voice seeming to slow her heart rate and allowing her to finally draw in a breath. "Okay, calm. What now? What do we do?"

Before he could respond, Mickey and Adam came up alongside them. Rose groaned internally. Leave it to her date and best friend to complicate things further. "There you are! Where'd you disappear to? Who's this?"

"God, Mickey, too many questions," Rose told him. "Did you see Martha?"

His face darkened. "Yeah, she went off that way, towards the cemetery. Who was she talking to?"

"Hey, Rose!" Adam piped up, holding Rose's jacket proudly in his hand. He frowned when he saw that she was draped in a leather jacket that was several sizes too large for her. "Where'd you run off to? And who's this guy?"

"Dr. John Smith," he replied for her. "A friend of Rose's. Now you two best get home. Rose and I have work to do."

"Right," she said, meeting his gaze determinedly. "I'll see you later on, Mickey. Come on, Doctor, let's go."

"Wait, where are we going?" Mickey asked, following after the pair, keeping up with their strides easily and Rose cursing his stellar history with the track team. "Is Martha in trouble? Who was that guy? Do you know him?"

"Too many questions again, Mickey!" Rose exclaimed. "You need to go back! Go...make sure Adam is okay or something!"

"He took off with some blonde when he thought you disappeared," Mickey replied. "And you're mad if you think I'm staying behind when Martha could be in trouble!"

"We really need an entourage for this?" the Doctor grumbled behind her.

She turned and glared at him. "I don't have time for the attitude, Doctor! You want to tell him why he can't tag along? Be my guest, but I have a best friend to save!"

"You're letting him just walk into danger like this?"

Rose rolled her eyes. "It's one vampire. You keep Mickey occupied, and I'll go after Martha. What could possibly go wrong?"

"Aaaaaand you've just gone and jinxed us all."

The cemetery was just a block over, and Rose knew they were on the right track when a shrill scream pierced through the quiet night. Rose felt all the blood drain from her face and heart began thumping erratically in her chest. That was her best friend in danger, the girl who had seen her through her worst break-up and who had been there for her, no questions asked, for nearly the last two years. No power on the Earth could stop her from getting to Martha.

"Mickey, stay with Dr. Smith!" she called over her shoulder as she sprinted towards the large mausoleum that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up worse than the others. She heard Martha scream again and, without another thought, she reared back and kicked in the heavy stone door, the solid fixture giving way as easily as if she had shoved her foot through cardboard.

Her entrance must have startled the skater boy, because his head jerked away from Martha's neck and he gawked at Rose. His face had gone demonic, barely recognizable, but she could see the real, almost human, fear in his eyes.

"What...how...?"

"Hi there. I'm Rose. That's my best friend, Martha, and you better get your hands off her." Rose stood her ground, trying her best to look make her five-foot-four inch frame seem threatening while still draped in a man's leather jacket. That was something she'd have to work on with the Doctor.

The vampire didn't seem to buy her bravado. He grinned, showing the mouthful of jagged, pointed teeth menacingly. "Now why would I do that?" he asked, pushing Martha to the ground and advancing towards Rose. "Now that you're here, she can watch me kill you and I can have her for dessert."

"You have no idea who you're dealing with," she told him. "I'm giving you one last chance. Run."

"Oh really, little girl? Or else what?"

He was advancing steadily towards her before he pounced, leaping towards Rose, claws out and mouth open. Rose dodged him easily and, without much fanfare, she tugged the stake out of her waistband and drove it easily into his heart.

It was incredibly satisfying to see the split-second of astonishment on his face before he turned to dust in front of her.

"The Slayer."

Rose turned towards the voice and saw a young, posh blonde woman standing in the doorway of the tomb. She could have passed as elegant, had her face not been contorted into the creature Rose was learning to hate with a bitter passion.

"That's what they tell me," she replied cooly, moving towards Martha, who was still sprawled on the floor, staring at the scene before her in shock and horror. "I'm okay with it. Comes with tons of perks. Sorry, you are?"

"Going to kill you in just a moment. And your friends. But I go by Reinette."

Before Rose could respond, a familiar young man came tumbling through the door, hands pressed against his bloodied neck as he smiled woozily. "Think she just gave me a hickey..."

"Adam!" Martha finally croaked out as the man in question collapsed inelegantly next to her. "Oh, God, what happened?"

"Just a little taste," Reinette replied. "You are all offerings to the Master. So rare to taste...pure blood anymore."

"You're not gonna touch them," Rose stood her ground protectively in front of the pair. "You saw me dust your friend there. Want the same treatment? Just try to get through me."

"I think I just might," the vampire replied, rearing back and sprinting towards her. Rose immediately launched herself at her, calling back for Martha to run now that the exit was clear. She tried to focus on her training, but it was only her instincts that drove the fight, which she seemed to be winning. Every solid blow, every connection was a shock to Reinette, and Rose could tell she was growing more and more flustered with every passing moment.

"My, my," she practically choked out. "You certainly do have style. Who's your trainer?"

Before Rose could answer, a hand seized the back of her neck. Pain erupted up and down her body as she clutched at it, trying to remember how to breathe. She felt her feet lift up off the ground and a deep, grumbling voice muttered, "I don't care," in her ear before hurtling her into a stone wall.

Rose collided with the surface hard, completely knocking the wind out of her. She crumpled to the ground and, as the spots cleared from her vision and she regained her breath, she glanced up to see a huge, solid wall of a vampire smirking down at her.

"You were supposed to bring an offering to the Master, Reinette," he growled.

"They got away," she replied, brushing dust from her designer jacket. "She's strong, Luke."

"Well...I'm stronger," he said, grabbing Rose by her shoulders and hoisting her up into the air. She kicked at his torso and scratched at his hands, but he was completely unfazed. He pressed her back against the wall and held her there, grinning maniacally.

"The Master will be pleased enough with Slayer blood..." he said thoughtfully. "But we will need to take some of the fight out of this one first..."

Rose's eyes went wide and her heart began thumping even more wildly in her chest as the horrible creature descended towards her neck. She screeched out a series of words that would have made a sailor blush and struggled as best she could against his hold, but it was useless. She'd failed already, barely lasting a week as protector of the world.

"Rose!"

Her gaze was wrenched away from the monster in front of her to the mausoleum entrance and hope flared in her chest. The Doctor was standing there, looking terrified at the sight before him. Their eyes met, and Rose nearly smiled.

"Catch!" he called out, hurling something in her direction. She caught it and, in a split second, realized it was a cross and had it pressed against Luke's face.

He screamed out in agony and Rose finally managed to wrench herself free. She kicked him away, the sole of her flimsy ballet flat solidly connecting with his chest and pushing him far enough away for her to sprint towards the door.

The Doctor grabbed her on the way out and pulled her into a brief embrace, and Rose could practically feel the relief radiating off him. "You have excellent timing," she muttered against the soft knit of his jumper.

"It's a gift," he murmured, pulling back and grinning at her. "And I really, really love this jacket."

Rose grinned and was about to come back at him with something witty when Martha's screech broke through the night. Rose's eyes locked with the Doctor's and, oddly enough, they both grinned at one another. He grabbed her hand and they took off towards the sound.

They broke off when the chaos came into sight. A pair of vampires was dragging an unconscious Mickey back towards the mausoleum and a single one had tackled Martha to the ground. Wordlessly, the Doctor took off towards Mickey and Rose instantly pulled the vampire off her best friend. He snarled at her, but Rose was prepared. She dodged his blows and kicked him towards a tree, finally delivering one hard, solid blow that had a conveniently-placed branch piercing through his heart.

"Martha!" Rose called out, running back to her friend as soon as she confirmed that the vampire was now dust. She fell to her knees next to her in the grass and scanned her for any visual injuries. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

"I think I'm okay...Mickey! Is Mickey okay? They tried to take him!"

"He's all right," the Doctor said, helping to carry an unsteady Mickey over to them. Rose sighed in relief when she realized everyone she cared about had escaped the ordeal mostly unscathed, but she felt her body tense with anxiety when she realized that one of their party was missing.

"Where's Adam?" Rose asked, scanning the cemetery. "He was hurt!"

"I don't know what happened," Mickey said, regretfully. "I hit my head on a grave or something. They must have taken him."

Rose's stomach sank. She had just met the man, but he was a fellow human being and no one deserved to meet the fate that he would. As if sensing her unease, the Doctor came up beside her and rubbed her tender shoulders gently.

"It's all right," he murmured. "Let's go back to the department and regroup, then we can think about going after him."

Rose took in a deep breath through her nose and nodded, letting her hand twine with his without much thought. "You both okay to walk?"

Mickey nodded and stood up on wobbly legs. He offered an arm to Martha, who took it seemingly without thinking and pulled herself up to his side. They began walking back towards the university, no one knowing how to even begin talking.

"You called me Doctor," he murmured to Rose.

Rose flushed as she realized that was true. She'd dropped the formality of "Dr. Smith," and had just begun referring to him as the Doctor. "Yeah, well, when every second counts, Dr. Smith is a bit more of a mouthful than just 'Doctor,'" she teased, catching her tongue between her teeth as she grinned at him. "Or I could just call you 'Smith.'"

"Oh, no...just the Doctor is fine."

"Isn't anyone going to explain to us what the hell is going on?" Martha finally broke hers and Mickey's uneasy silence with a slightly hysterical screech.

"So what you're saying," Mickey began slowly. They were back at the Doctor's office, Donna was off making tea for everyone while he and Martha were sitting in one of the more comfortable circles of chairs, trying to make sense out of Rose's new life. She was perched on Donna's desk, icing down her injuries while the Doctor was busy up on the second story of the office, mixing something at one of the many small tables. "Is that Rose is a super hero?"

Rose bit back her smile as she watched the Doctor roll his eyes. "It is a sacred birth right. Not a...comic book plot! Rose, where do you find these idiots?"

"Oi!"

"Be nice," Rose chastised him, shifting her ice pack to the opposite shoulder and sighing in relief. She was stiff and sore, though not nearly as immobile as she thought she would be after being tossed around a crypt like a rag doll. She felt the Doctor come up behind her and her face burned as he shifted the strap of her tank off her shoulder and began rubbing some sort of soothing ointment into her muscle. She practically groaned in pleasure as a pleasant tingling replaced the pain and forgot to be embarrassed as she let her head loll back against his solid chest.

"Magic hands," she murmured.

"Magic salve," he corrected, shifting the ice pack and moving on to the next shoulder.

"Hands aren't too bad either," she retorted playfully, grinning up at him. She noticed the tips of his ears going a pink and her grin widened.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Martha asked in a small voice, interrupting their little reverie. "I mean, we're your friends. We could have helped..."

Rose sighed and hopped down from her perch on Donna's desk. She sat down in one of the free chairs next to Martha. "I wanted to. It's only been a few days since I found out, really. But knowing this...it puts you in danger."

"So you just wanted to protect us," Mickey scoffed. "From the things that could literally jump out and kill us at any moment. Don't you think it would have been good for us to know about this? Vampires and Slayers and...what did you call it...the Mouth of Hell?"

"Slayers don't usually operate...socially," the Doctor interrupted, coming over and perching on the arm of Rose's chair. "When we can identify the potential slayers, they are taken from their families and trained until they are called. With Rose, we barely had any notice. My people...we can read timelines but there are so many possibilities, so many alternatives that things can change entirely too quickly and then we're scrambling at the last second. This is very new territory for us." He glanced down at her with what Rose hoped was a fond expression. "Bloody trouble maker, you are."

Rose made a face at him before turning back to her friends. "I promise, no more secrets, okay?"

Martha nodded and gestured towards the Doctor. "So how long have you two been together then?"

Rose's eyes went wide, but before she could answer, Donna shoved her way into their little corner with a peppy, "Tea!" and plopped the tray down noisily on the table between them all. She sat down in the only available chair and began fixing her cup. "So, what did I miss?"

"Nothing!" Rose and the Doctor practically shouted. He jumped off the armrest of her chair and grabbed the kettle, pouring himself a cup of the tea and wincing at the first sip of the obviously hot beverage.

"Weirdos," Donna muttered before turning to Martha and Mickey. "I'm glad you two are in on it now. We need some new blood around here. I get so tired of this one brooding all the time. Have to say, though, since we found Rose he's been far more tolerable. Finally have a purpose, eh, Doctor?"

"Really, Donna?" the Doctor scoffed.

"Now what are we going to do about Adam?" Rose piped up, changing the subject and hopefully drawing attention away from her and the Doctor's relationship. "Where do we even begin to find him?"

"Well, vampires generally thrive underground. Tunnels, sewer systems...they can get all around town without actually catching any sunlight," Donna offered.

"So what, do we go to the Merryvale building commission?" Martha offered. "Get a map of the underground system?"

"There's no time," Rose muttered, unable to sit still any longer. She stood and began pacing the office floor. "We can't risk anything until daylight, anyway. God, this is so frustrating."

"Don't worry, Rose, I can get the map of the sewer system," Mickey told her, hopping up from his chair and moving over to Donna's desk. "It might take me a while..."

"Don't you dare adjust that seat, mister!" Donna called out as she followed him. "Took me ages to get it just right!"

"I want to help, too," Martha piped up. "Adam's our friend, and if we can find him..."

"Well, you're a medical student, so I assume you're good at research," the Doctor offered. "This Harvest thing has me stumped, and I don't like being stumped. I want to go through the literature, see if anything mentions it. You don't happen to read ancient Sumerian, do you?"

"Um...no, not really..." Martha replied.

"Oh, fine, we'll keep to English for you. Rose, with me? Could do with a hand for the heavy lifting."

Rose nodded and followed him up the short set of stairs into his office, where he seemingly kept most of his collection away from the prying eyes of the university students. "Rose, can you try and find Mystical Convergences: Events and Happenings? It might be of some help to Martha...are you all right?"

"What if he's already dead?" Rose blurted out. "What if it's already too late?"

The Doctor sighed. He stopped rustling around the bookshelves and turned, placing those comforting, magic hands on her shoulders. "Rose, I promise you, if Adam is alive, we will find him."

"Less than a week on the job and I've already failed," she replied, feeling the tears well up in her eyes. "I'm supposed to protect them, and I let him get taken..."

"Rose, you are only one person," he told her. "One girl in all the world with the strength and the skill to hunt the vampires. You cannot be everywhere at once. And if it weren't for you, Martha and Mickey would be dead now as well." He ran his hands soothingly up and down her bare arms, the touch calming her more than she cared to admit. "You've done more good than you've realized tonight."

She took in a deep, steadying breath and met his gaze, unable to keep the small smile from gracing her lips. "Thank you. I needed to hear that."

He squeezed her shoulders gently and moved back to one of the many bookshelves. Rose busied herself with the one closest to her, looking for the book he had mentioned even as her mind wandered. She thought she'd had everything under control back at the tomb, and then everything had gone completely to Hell. She'd been about to stake Reinette easily and then that monster she had called Luke came out of nowhere...

No, she thought with a sudden clarity. Not out of nowhere...

"He came up from behind me," she murmured.

"What are you on about?" the Doctor asked.

"I was facing the entrance," she muttered. "And he wasn't there before...he must have come up from behind me. There must be an access point in the mausoleum!"

"Rose!" Mickey called from outside. "We got the plans!"

"Having the IT major around doesn't seem like such a bad idea, does it?" she told him with a grin, suddenly buoyant as the plan began to form in her mind. "Whoever this Master guy is, he has no idea who he's dealing with."

The Doctor's head snapped up. "I'm sorry...who?"

"I dunno," Rose said. "Luke just said something about bringing offerings to the Master. Why? Does that matter?"

"Hmmm?" he asked, seeming distracted. "Oh, no, probably not. Come on, let's go rescue that boyfriend of yours."

Rose huffed and followed her Watcher out of the office. "God, he is not my boyfriend!"