An Awful Lot of Running [OPEN]

[The Doctor]

In his defense, the Doctor never purposely went looking for trouble.

Trouble just sort of found him.

This was a fact that held true time and time again.

Where there was the Doctor, there was danger.

At least, usually.

For the first time in his long life, the Doctor felt bored. Honestly and genuinely bored. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his blue suit as he strolled down the street, hardly anything seemed out of the ordinary. What a dreary day this was turning out to be. Time, too was moving so... slow. Or rather, from his perspective it seemed slow. Quite possibly due to the fact that nothing interesting was going on presently.

The male kicked at a small rock in his path, musing to himself. The words of Ood Sigma still echoed in his mind. Your song is ending. Ending, was it? Hopefully it would end with a bang. Then again, that probably wouldn't have been as fun as he'd hoped. The Doctor had been running. Running from so many things now, and with each step he moved slower and slower.

He was nine-hundred-forty-five, after all. Not exactly a young man anymore. He was getting old. Very old.

For a moment he paused in his steps, moving to lean on the brick side of a building. He found himself looking up at the clouds above, and wondering... What was she doing right now? He hadn't thought about her or the biological metacrisis in a long time. She was happy, he hoped, with a man who could grow old with her, who could age, who was human.

The male shook his head, shrugging his shoulders as if he were trying to brush off a bit of snow that had gotten on him. Now wasn't the time for such thoughts. He had to focus on the situation at hand; the mutations. History never intended for an event like this to occur. If time was left to proceed in it's current order, it would skew off into an alternate reality. Or perhaps it already had.

The Time Lord reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a small cylindrical device; his sonic screwdriver. Idly he began to scan various things, moving down an alley way and scanning anything in his path. A dumpster, a brick wall, a stray cat. Anything that could present him with some form of information as to how serious the situation at hand was. For as the last of the Time Lords, he felt as though he were duty-bound to ensure the safety of his adopted home planet.

[Adam Young]

Adam slouched along the road, walking Dog on a leash, his shoulders slumped. He looked very, very annoyed - and with good reason. The fireball-mutt that was harassing the other Adam; the one that Adam Young thought was following him, actually fulfilled his suspicions and decided to follow him after all. The man was practically leering at him, calling him 'Messiah' and 'sir' and a whole load of other things that made him feel very uncomfortable. Dog started to growl at him again, and that gave Adam an excuse to pretend Pepper was calling him. It gave him something else to do, and more importantly, somewhere else to be. Somewhere else was good.

He was on his way back to the apartment when Dog, yet again, decided he needed to do his business. While the canine marked his territory on a telephone pole, Adam took the opportunity to look around and make sure the mutt wasn't following him again. No signs of Fireball anywhere...but there was a guy in a blue suit with some weird sort of torch. Adam watched as he pointed it at various objects, and it lit up and made a sort of electronic whirr.

Despite being nineteen and his mother constantly scolding him for it whenever she saw him, Adam never quite got the hang of the whole 'this is rude, don't do this' thing. Especially the part about staring.

[The Rani]

The Rani had been walking to her lab to resume her facade of Elizabeth Becksford when she decided to take an alternate route. She wanted to pick up a gift for Dug. Possibly a bone or a chew toy. It meant a lot to her that Dug had been so loyal to her. Especially since she wasn't exactly a likable type. She knew this well. She hadn't been since the Academy.

She was almost to the shop when she stopped, mid step. She froze. She got the strangest sense that ... No. It couldn't be. It wasn't possible, but it was almost like she wasn't alone.
Not in the sense that she wasn't the only person around, but that she wasn't the only Time Lord in the area.

Her breathing got heavier. Panic began to set in. Who was there? Rassilon? That wouldn't make sense. He never left Gallifrey, even before it was destroyed. Romana? She was in Deep Space. There was no reason for her to be here. The Master? Last she heard, he was dead. Refused to regenerate. The Doctor? ... well, that would just be dreadful. So who could it be?

She slowly began to follow her senses. Surely they would lead her to this fellow Time Lord. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't be so alone. A sense of elation swelled in her chest as she neared the Time Lord.

[The Doctor]

Something was wrong, yes. Something was definitely wrong. The Doctor didn't at all mind the staring of the young man, as he suddenly found himself distracted by something much bigger. He could feel it. That unmistakable presence. Another Time Lord. His hearts skipped a few beats as he attempted to calm himself. He wasn't alone. He wasn't the Last of the Time Lords. But who could it be? His mind never once considered the Time Lady, as it chose to dwell on the possibility that he was alright. that the Master had somehow survived and come back.

He stopped his sonic-ing, putting the device away as he turned, finally taking note of the young man staring at him. Being the childish man that he was, he stared right back. Slowly, very slowly, he raised a hand and waved. Such a reaction would probably make him seem like a bit of a madman. Then again, that's what he was. A madman with a box.

Now wasn't the time to be messing with strangely not-human humanoids. While the boy struck him as interesting [and daunting at the same time], The Doctor wished to locate the presence of that other Time Lord. He moved back down the alley, once more onto the sidewalk, passing by that strange young man and his even stranger canine companion. If there was just a chance... He hoped with all he could that it was someone who didn't want him dead.

Considering how he handled the Time War incident, chances were, it was.

[Adam Young]

Adam continued to stare at the little torch making a whirring noise, wondering what it was. It had to be either magic or some sort of high-class technology, and really, Adam wasn't sure what the difference was anymore. He scratched the back of his head in wonder, then shrugged. Oh. The man waved to him. Adam gave him a little wave and looked back to Dog...

...who had finished doing his business, and now he had to clean it up. He really could never get the hang out of blipping dog poo out of existance, for whatever reason. He pulled a small plastic bag out of his pocket and picked it up in the baggie, tying it at the top and dropping it into a nearby garbage can.

Dog started pulling forward again - Adam guessed he'd wanted to go home and rest. He was being followed by that fireball guy, after all, and Dog did do a lot of barking. He was probably tired. Still, that brought him closer to the man - now he could ask. "Hey!" he said. "What's that torch you have there? 'S really neat."

[The Rani]

The Rani could feel the other Time Lord on the move. Getting closer to her. A sense of anxiety filled her. She wanted to know who it was, but the long list of enemies she had made on Gallifrey made her hesitant to seek him out.

Still, her scientific mind decided that nothing could get done if she did not find who it was. It wasn't like she was defenseless if it was someone hostile. And she DID want to slap the Master, should that be who it was.

Against her better judgement, she continued to follow her senses to the other Time Lord. Out of morbid curiosity if nothing else.

She cut through an alleyway and glanced down the street it let out onto, and she saw him. In an instant, she knew who he was.
Oh good lord. Not him. Only one person could have possibly been more annoying than the Master, and she was looking at him. What could he possibly want HERE? How did he keep finding her? Did he even know she was there?

She stepped into sight and looked at the Doctor. She stared at him until he noticed her. There was a flicker of hate in her eyes. The Doctor was the only other Time Lord left. It HAD to be him that destroyed Gallifrey. That just wouldn't do.

[The Doctor]

The boy spoke, causing the brunette's attention to shift once more. His face was oh so terribly familiar. A voice nagged in the back of his mind, trying to draw attention to the obvious, to just what that boy was. However, being that he was the Doctor, he had about ten thousand similar thoughts running through his head at the same time. Everything from 'did I turn the oven off' to 'why would I even think that, the TARDIS doesn't even have an oven'.

"It's not really a torch, per se...it's ah..." He trailed off. Explaining the physics of a sonic screwdriver was a bit of a strenuous process. He had something else on his mind, after all. Or rather, someone else. That Time Lord was close now, so terribly close. He felt excitement rise up in him once again. He wasn't alone. He wouldn't have to be alone ever again. He could find this Time Lord, whoever they were, and connect again.

Hopefully... if they weren't furious with him about the whole 'Destroying Gallifrey' thing.

The person was behind him now, he spun around completely, seeing her just on the other end of the alley. In an instant, he knew who this was. Someone he thought long since dead. An old friend, someone that he cared for, and yes...even admired a bit. Pity... he also pitied her. He forgave her as well. Just as he did the Master.

"Rani." He muttered, suddenly eager to find a means of distracting the teenage boy beside him. After all, chances were she had somehow found out just where Gallifrey went, and who was behind it.

No sense in getting the boy caught in the crossfire.

[The Rani]

The woman snarled and clenched her fists. At least he had the decency to remember who she was. She took a few steps towards the other Time Lord, rage practically oozing from her.

"Doctor," she hissed. She put a hand on the gadget she kept on her wrist. She pulled something from it and kept it in hidden in her hand. Whatever it was, she'd been saving it for whenever she would come across the Doctor again. And she'd been waiting patiently for this moment for years.

"You've some nerve," she said, getting closer to him. "Why must you always show up right when I'm nearing a breakthrough in my research? Do you enjoy derailing everything I know? Or was the destruction of our home just for sport?"

She paid no mind to the kid, though she was sure he could be a good bargaining chip should her discussion with her former ally go sour. While she could tell something was odd about the boy, she also knew that she didn't care who he was. Just that he was the same as the rest of the scum on this pathetic planet.

[Adam Young]

"So what is it, then?" Adam asked, walking closer to the man with the torch, Dog trotting alongside him, and finally stopped beside him, craning his neck down to see the torch. It definitely looked different - was it glowing blue before? He tried to remember.

He was honestly curious now, especially considering the man had trailed off about halfway through what Adam assumed was going to be his explanation. But trailing off...the man seemed distracted, like something else bigger was going on entirely. Adam moved away from staring at the man's torch to looking around, trying to spot who the man was talking to. Dog, on the other hand, had different ideas. He pulled on the leash, trying to get Adam to walk in the other direction. Adam shook his head, pulling back on the leash. "No, Dog. Heel."

He looked around again. Who was the man talking t- oh. There was a woman across from them - she had to be older than him, maybe in her late thirties. She was very pretty, but looked like she could quite possibly kill you with only her thumb. He turned to look at the man again. "She botherin' you? D'you know her?"

[Kankri Vantas]

Kankri stepped out into the fresh air, hoping for something to do. The weeks before had been rather uneventful; just cashing in checks and running the front desk wasn't his ideal job at a bank. Really, it barely supported him. But at least it gave him something to do.

Now that it was his day off, Kankri slipped past his home and went for a walk. Maybe something interesting would happen. Fortunately, he did notice three people conversing in jittery tones and a boy his age looking a bit clueless. The other two adults looked like they were about to initiate in some sort of battle. Who knew?

Just his luck.

Covering his head with his bowler hat, Kankri wrapped a scarf around his neck and buried his face in it. Hopefully, this way no one would notice his grey skin. At least, people at his job never noticed. He slipped on some gloves as well. There, he was completely covered.

He approached the trio, narrowing his eyes. He could feel the rage just pulsing off the adult female. Something was most definitely wrong.

"Excuse me," Kankri intervened between the three. He glanced at Rani's hand, realizing that she just might be pulling out some sort of weapon. He then turned his glazed-over, pupil-less eyes at the Doctor, as if demanding some sort of explanation.

"I apologize if I'm getting between you three while you are discussing something important, but it looks like trouble is brewing. Perhaps you could kindly explain?" he tried to choose his words carefully, hoping no one would care about his eyes. People always asked about them. He turn to Adam. "Did you get caught in some sort of argument?" he whispered.