Title: Frantic
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Frank Martin
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: Amnesty in January, 5_prompts
Prompt: Cadenza Challenge, Title section -- Frantic
Author's Note: Frank didn't have a last name on the show, so I took the liberty of giving him one. Slight spoilers for Daleks in Manhattan & The Evolution of the Daleks.
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Frank Martin, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

"Frank?" The Doctor's voice was breathless; the name on his lips wasn't spoken nearly as loudly as he'd wanted it to be. He cleared his throat, trying again, raising his voice and calling louder this time. "Frank, are you here? Frank?"

The Time Lord grasped the railings by the steps of the Tardis, frowning as he looked around the control room. If his young lover was here, he obviously wasn't in the control room -- but, of course, there were a lot of other places on the ship that he could be.

His boyfriend didn't usually have the tendency to wander around in the ship, though. He didn't know where Frank could be, or even if he was on the ship. And he'd discovered that the planet they were on might not be the most hospitable place they'd been to.

He'd spent the last hour being chased by creatures that had, coincidentally, resembled the pig-slaves that the Daleks had created on Earth in Frank's time; those things were ruthless killers, much more so than the creation of his enemies that he'd seen on Earth.

If Frank was still out there somewhere .... The Time Lord's hearts clutched in his chest at the thought. His boyfriend didn't have a gun; he didn't have any way to defend himself. He disliked guns as much as the Doctor did, and he didn't want to use them.

He had defended himself and his friends with a gun when they were dealing wit hthe Daleks on Earth, but he'd turned his back on that kind of violence when he'd come away with the Doctor. And now, he might have forfeited his safety because of doing so.

The Doctor swallowed hard, trying to fight down the panic that was quickly rising within him. Frank was his lover, his companion -- his responsibility. He was the one who'd brought the young man to this place, who had put his life in danger.

He had to find his boyfriend and get them out of here. No matter what the cost to himself, he had to keep Frank safe -- even if that required a sacrifice that he didn't want to make. Even if he had to regenerate into a new body because this one was too damaged to go on.

No! every fiber of his being seemed to scream out. You love this body. You can't lose it. Not now, not yet. But he couldn't simply stand back and let his lover be harmed. He could always come back if he was hurt. Frank couldn't.

Should he search the ship first, go through the rooms that he knew Frank was familiar with and call his boyfriend's name? No, that would take too much time. If he was here on the ship, surely he wouldn't have gone into another room while the Doctor was still outside.

No, the Doctor was fairly sure that his boyfriend wasn't here in the ship. Which could only man that he was still out in this world somewhere -- and that he could be in terrible danger. He might even already be dead, or taken prisoner by those .... things.

Far be it for him to dislike a species because of how they looked, the Doctor told himself. But these creatures that had been chasing him -- and had almost caught him once before he'd made it back to the Tardis -- were horrific, much more so than the Daleks' creations.

They walked on two legs, but they were much more beast than man. He'd seen frightening creatures before, but these were near the top of his list for inspiring fear with a single glance. He himself had felt his blood run cold when he'd looked into their eyes.

There was no intelligence there. No sanity. There was only the imperative to destroy, to catch whatever was in their sights and rend it to bits with their tusks and claws. There was nothing more in those minds than the urge to kill.

And Frank could be out there with those things. His hearts clenched again, a wave of panic and fear rising within him. He had to find his boyfriend as quickly as possible, get him into the ship and take them away from here, though he had no idea where to start.

He wasn't usually this indecisive! And he had rarely felt this frantic about a companion before. He always worried about any of them when they seemed to be getting themselves into trouble, but Frank wasn't just a companion. He'd been so much more, right from the first.

Where could he have gone? They had been together for a while, then when those beasts had first gotten sight of them, they'd been forced apart. In his quest to get back to the Tardis, he'd hoped that Frank had headed directly back to the ship.

He'd been sure that he had managed to divert the attention of all those beasts towards himself, and given Frank the chance to make it back to the Tardis in safety. But what if his boyfriend hadn't known which direction the ship lay in?

He could still be lost out there. He could have been killed by this point. Who knew how those beasts had come into being? Even now, he might be facing some kind of horrific experiment to turn him into one of those things, after he'd escaped such a fate on Earth.

The Time Lord placed a hand on his chest, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths. It wouldn't do him any good to think that way. He had to keep himself calm and rational, not let his panic take over and escalate into a frantic, haphazard search.

He would have to formulate some kind of plan to search for Frank. He couldn't just run out of the Tardis, plunge head first into a world that he now knew was rife with danger. Once he found his boyfriend, he'd have to get them out of here.

Which meant that he would have to care for his own self-preservation. If anything happened to him, it was very likely that Frank could be trapped here. He wasn't going to let that happen -- even if that meant he couldn't avoid a regeneration.

"Doctor!" Was that his imagination, or did he hear Frank's voice calling to him? Or was he only hearing what he so desperately wanted to hear? The Time Lord whirled around, going to the door of the Tardis and looking out, his eyes widening at what he saw.

Frank was running towards the ship, being closely pursued by two of those creatures. His boyfriend was so close, reaching out to the Doctor -- but those things were hot on his heels, their clawed hands reaching out for him, to grab him and pull him back ....

He'd never seen such a frantic look in anyone's eyes as he saw in Frank's at that moment. Their hands touched; the Doctor gripped his lover's hand, reaching out to wrap his fingers around his boyfriend's other wrist and haul him through the door of the ship.

He slammed the door seconds before those creatures made it to the ship; he could hear them snorting and pounding uselessly at the door as he bounded up the steps to the console, pressing a few buttons to make the Tardis shimmer into the timestream and away from here.

He released a sigh when he felt the displacement of time and space which meant that the ship had gone into the timestream, shimmering into nothingness in the world that they'd been in. The Doctor slumped over the console, the frantic feeling fading into the distance.

Frank was standing at the steps, clutching the railing with one hand, his eyes wide in his pale face. He looked scared, but otherwise unhurt. And as long as his boyfriend was safe, nothing else mattered to the Time Lord at the moment.

Opening his arms, he took a step towards Frank, closing his eyes as his boyfriend came to him and their arms slid around each other. Frank was here. He was safe. Those creatures hadn't caught him, or harmed him in any way. The two of them were away from that planet.

They stood there for a long time, holding onto each other, not saying a word. The Doctor could feel his fear ebbing away, relief sweeping over him. Hopefully, the next planet they visited would be safer -- and he wouldn't have to deal with feeling so frantic about his lover's safety again.

***