EDIT AT THE BOTTOM!

Again, I'd like to thank my friends who put up with me going over and over this with them, and my beta reader chibivampire1313!

Jason watched the Doctor as he rushed around the center of the TARDIS pressing buttons and going on about how the grass on the mountains they'd be visiting have real emeralds that grew into them because the soil was so rich with the gems, but it shouldn't be physically possible because of some sort of biological fact. Then he started on some sort of food…at least Jason thought it was a food. Kenshin just kept staring at the Doctor, blinking, probably only barely keeping up.

Allowing himself to smile, Jason stretched. He still felt weak, but at least he was standing on his own. The Doctor had apparently already taken the boy they'd found in the cave earlier back to town. He'd make a full recovery.

Suddenly a shudder ran through the ship, throwing Jason to the ground and causing the other two to grab onto the nearest stable object. The glass tubes in the center of the ship moved up and down with the high-pitched, rather unique sound that Jason doubted he'd ever forget, and then it stopped.

"Alright, Kenshin," the Doctor looked over at him then shot a look around. "Where's David?"

"Shut up," Jason muttered as he pushed himself to his feet. "And don't call me that."

"Then come up with a name."

"Whatever," Jason growled.

The Doctor turned towards them, full of anticipation, huge smile across his face. "David, Kenshin, how would you like to see the world?"

"What?" Kenshin asked.

"Really?" Jason's eyes widened.

"Go to the door," the Doctor said, gesturing with his head. That stupid smile never disappeared.

Jason and Kenshin exchanged glances. Jason moved toward the door, but Kenshin was faster. He opened it and jumped back.

"It is true," he muttered, then his mask fell away completely and Jason saw the utter wonder of a child as he looked over and saw the world from an astronaut's point of view; a blue and green jewel backed by a black backdrop and a sea of stars. Jason himself felt his breath drawn away at the absolute beauty of the rare sight.

"This…this is Earth? This is how it looks from the viewpoint of the stars?"

Jason shook his head. "Kid," he said, not taking his eyes off of the site, "we've got a lot to teach you."

"Yes, I can see that," Kenshin said, his voice sounding extremely humble.

"So what do you two think?" the Doctor asked, coming up behind them.

Kenshin and Jason both found themselves speechless.

They were in space. Outer space. Above the Earth. In an alien spaceship.

"How can we breathe?" Jason asked suddenly.

"Breathe?" Kenshin asked.

"The TARDIS is protecting us."

"Why would we not be able to breathe?"

Jason glanced over at the redhead for a moment. "You can't breathe in space."

"Oh."

"And how should he know that?" The Doctor asked.

Jason shrugged and went back to looking at the Earth.

"This TARDIS," Kenshin remarked, "You speak of it as if it lives."

"She does," the Doctor said, sounding slightly insulted. "This is my TARDIS, and she's every bit alive as you are."

Kenshin didn't respond as he blinked up at the Doctor. After a few moments, he turned to look back out on the world, obviously overwhelmed.

"I…don't understand," he said.

"That's okay," Jason said. "I thought I did, but now I don't think I do."

Behind them, the Doctor smiled. "Well, we have time. All the time in the universe."

They continued to stare out of the door to the TARDIS for a few more seconds before the Doctor suddenly ran back to the center of the room.

"Speaking of," he said, "who's up for those Emerald Mountains?"

Kenshin didn't take his eyes off of the world outside, seeming to struggle to take everything in. Jason smiled at him. He liked the idea of the kid finally finding something that could take down that stupid mask he'd been wearing.

"Emerald Mountains," he said, looking back. "Sure. Why not."

"Excellent!" The Doctor grinned. "Close the doors! Let's get going!"

That seemed to snap Kenshin out of a trance. He nodded and reached back to close the door on his side as Jason did the same. He still looked a little overcome.

"Hey," Jason said to him. "You'll get it, don't worry."

"I don't know, Jason-san," he said, then turned his eyes up to look at the fellow assassin. "It's just so—what?" He must have noticed the look on Jason's face, because he cut himself off.

"Your eyes…" he said.

"Oh, the color's back? No problem. It'll wear off." The Doctor said, only sparing a glance at them before going back to rushing around and pressing buttons again.

"Just a few minutes ago, they were blue."

The Doctor looked up from his control console. "Really?"

Just then the ship lurched. Fortunately, Jason already had ahold of the railing, and managed to keep his feet under him. Barely.

"You guys are going to love this," the Doctor said. "And it's just us, a bunch of guys hanging out."

"You're saying it's just a road trip?" Jason asked skeptically.

The Doctor looked at him for a moment, pausing in his rushing around the console. "Yeah," he nodded.

The TARDIS started shaking harder, which prompted the Doctor to go back to the control panel. For a few moments that's all that happened, and Jason felt a sense of anticipation he hadn't felt since his last job. Except this time, it felt…different. It took him a minute to figure out exactly what had changed; guilt. He didn't have the slightest bit of the guilt that had always plagued him before. Back then, he'd just shoved it to the back of his mind, but now there was nothing to shove.

He liked that feeling.

Then the ship lurched again. Hard. And kept lurching. Yet again Jason found himself on the floor.

"Is this normal?" he yelled up to the Doctor, who looked like he was having a hard time staying upright himself, clutching onto the console like his life depended on it.

"No!" he said. "Something's interfering." He reached over with some difficulty and grabbed another knob, giving it a turn. As far as Jason felt, it didn't do a thing. He looked over at Kenshin to find him looking utterly sick and holding onto one of the bars of the railing like the world was ending. As far as he knew, it probably was.

Then Jason noticed something else about the boy.

"Kenshin," he yelled out, annoyed that he couldn't keep all of the panic out of his voice. "You're glowing!"

The Doctor looked over (somehow) and confirmed that yes, Kenshin had started to glow.

His eyes had begun to resemble flashlights, easily the strongest source of light on his body, but the rest of him also seemed to emanate a golden hue.

"Doctor?" Jason yelled over to the console.

"The enzymes from the alien seeped into his skin," the Doctor explained, his voice shaking with the ship. "It's a reaction because the human body isn't supposed to absorb chemicals like that...but," he looked at the screen in front of him. "The interference...it's coming from him!"

"What?" Kenshin asked, now looking paler than ever under the glow.

"I know you're not trying to," The Doctor said, pulling himself along the center of the ship and hitting random things, pulling and turning mechanisms as he went. Whatever he did helped because the ship stopped rocking like someone had stuck them in a pin-ball machine and used them as the ball.

After a few moments, Jason tentatively pulled himself to his still unsteady feet.

"What happened?"

The Doctor stuck his hands in his pockets. "I stopped fighting it."

"Fighting what?"

"Whatever he absorbed is reacting to something. He's being drawn towards it. Because he's in the TARDIS, he's taking us with him," he nodded over to Kenshin, who had also regained his feet and now stared at his hand with a heartbroken expression. "Funny," he continued, scratching the front of his neck and gritting his teeth, "I've never seen such a strong reaction like that to anything but Huron Particles."

"What are those?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Particles that have been extinct for a several millenia."

"Doctor," Kenshin's voice sounded quiet, but the emotion behind that voice (which sounded extremely strange coming from someone who usually masked their emotions so well) caused a knot of worry to form in Jason's stomach. "What's happening to me?"

Jason looked away. He'd felt the way he knew Kenshin was feeling right now all too often. Completely hopeless.

"Let's go outside."

"What?" Jason and Kenshin voiced at the same time.

"We go outside and see what it was that attracted Kenshin, and maybe we can draw it out of him. It'll fade eventually, but if we want to travel anywhere else in time, then we have to find some way to nullify it."

Jason shook his head. "Where are we?"

The Doctor shrugged. "No clue."

"Wait," Kenshin said, "you want to just walk outside, into an unknown situation—possibly hostile—for no other reason than to see what it is that brought us here?"

Silence fell over the group for a second as the Doctor contemplated that.

"Yeah," he said finally, large grin once again splitting his face.

"You can't be serious," Jason said. The very thought went against every single survival instinct he had inside his body.

The Doctor leaned forward onto the railing. "Why did you come along? It wasn't just to sit on this ship and hide from the universe, right?"

"Can't you at least scan it, or something?" Jason asked.

"Scan?" Kenshin cocked his head.

The Doctor shrugged. "Sure, but where's the fun in that?" Then, before either one could stop him, he bounded past them, down the ramp and flung open the doors. They'd just left an orbit around the Earth; a darkness from Space broken only by stars glimmering in the background and the moon off to the side in the distance.

He opened the doors onto a desert. A large, flat expanse, broken only by a few rolling hills and some random cliffs here and there. The wind wasn't blowing too hard, but sand seemed to roll everywhere anyway, and Jason could already feel the heat from the sun.

"Well," the Doctor grinned, "this looks promising."

Kenshin had his hand on his sword, and Jason would be lying if he said he hadn't reached for his gun. They both stood there, braced for a fight.

"What's with you two?" the alien asked, then strode outside. Reluctantly, the other two followed.

"It feels strange, here," Kenshin muttered the moment he followed the Doctor out of the door.

The Doctor turned around. "Oh, that's the five moons in orbit around the planet. Have a gravitational pull that will take you two a while to get used to." Jason followed Kenshin and immediately felt some strange pull that turned his stomach into even more knots.

"How can you tell there are five moons?" Jason asked. "I can only see two."

"I just...can," the Doctor said, walking further out and turning around, surveying the landscape. He stopped when he faced the TARDIS, looking behind it. "Oh, hello."

Jason and Kenshin both peered around the TARDIS to see a town settled next to some cliffs. Now that he looked hard, Jason could see that they'd landed right by a road that lead into said town, which had to be a good mile away.

"I have never seen such a desolate settlement," Kenshin pointed out, matter-of-factly. Jason had to agree that it did look kind of hopeless. Like ruins in Nevada, except a little more western. Maybe more like a ghost town then? Except there were people running around.

Then, just before their eyes, a gush of water shot up in the middle of town. Kenshin and Jason stepped to the side of the TARDIS, surprise plain on their faces. The cheers of a crowd meandered over the dunes, reaching them.

"Hello," the Doctor said again.

"Hello!" A new voice answered. Kenshin and Jason whirled around, both ready for a fight again.

"Will you two calm down?" The Doctor said, rolling his eyes. A man, dressed all in what looked like dark brown leather and blond hair stood in the road, grinning over at them. He carried someone over his shoulder.

Jason knew immediately that this man was not someone to take lightly. He had an air about him that screamed 'dangerous'. His blond hair stood up straight, like he'd done it up with gel, but also had a sort of mussy quality, like he'd just gotten out of a fight.

"Jason-san," Kenshin muttered, "I smell blood."

Jason nodded.

"Hello," The Doctor grinned. "I'm the Doctor. This is Kenshin and David."

"Jason," Jason corrected immediately.

The Doctor scowled at him for a moment, but turned back to the newcomer, beaming. "Who are you?"

"Me?" The blond guy pointed to himself, then grinned. "Um..."

"And why aren't you panicking about the bleeding man on your shoulder?" Jason asked.

The man eyed him for a moment, his face falling slightly. "This is my brother. He'll be alright until I get back to town. I've taken care of that."

"Why do you not wish to make him more comfortable as soon as possible?" Kenshin asked. "In my experience, when a comrade is wounded, that is the best reaction."

The guy rubbed the back of his head. "Well, you see, I'm kind of nervous to go back to town. They don't really care for me there."

"Why not?" The Doctor asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"Well, I kind of have a reputation for destroying things."

Kenshin's look darkened. "Who are you? We told you our names. It is only polite to reveal yours."

The man watched Kenshin for a minute, then sighed. "You're right," he held his hand out to the Doctor. "This is my brother Knives. My name's Vash. Nice to meet you."

And there you have it! :D Woot! Well, no where near as many readers as I have on some of my other fics, but eh. I enjoyed it. :D Do you have any idea how long it's been since I finished a story? Oh gosh, it has to be since I wrote Weakness (Danny Phantom). That had to be two years ago...sheesh! Well, let's hope this starts a streak! :D

EDIT: A friend of mine is doing commissions, so I got one from her, and this is the incredible result! Please check it out!

obi-quiet. deviantart. com /favourites/#/d35tj28 (minus spaces)