#post-je

***

 For several long and agonizing moments it was far too quiet in the little grey room, the infirmary silent but for the sound of the heart monitor’s chipper little beep-beep beep-beeps. The Doctor listened to Jackie’s breaths and counted down the measures of her pulse and scrutinized her from head to toe as she lay on the cot, sure to hang back at a minimum safe distance while the attending physician checked up on Jackie’s vitals, pressing her stethoscope to Jackie’s sternum and stomach. After double- and triple-checking his observations, running numbers and scenarios in his head rapid-fire, the Doctor allowed himself to relax a little.

“How is she, doctor?” asked Rose, gripping the side of the cot hard enough to turn her knuckles white. 

“Eh, blood pressure’s a little lower than I’d like,” replied the Doctor. “Fever’s coming down thanks to the painkillers, antibiotics should help in the case of infection, but of course she’s still got the fluid in the lungs, sounds like a few microliters more than I’m comfortable with, might have to consider a nitrate treatment, maybe dobutamine if things get dicey, but she’s stable enough for the time-being, or appears to be, anyway.”

Rose and the physician both stared at him.

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Right! Medical doctor, lowercase ‘d’. Of course. Got it. Carry on.”

“As he said, she’s stable for the moment,” the physician explained. “It’s a good thing you got her here when you did—a few minutes later, I’m not sure what I could have done.”

“Rubbish twenty-first century medicine,” laughed the Doctor. “One does what one can.”

The physician frowned at him, blinking uncertainly over her surgeon’s mask. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”

“Right! Didn’t exactly have time for introductions earlier, did we?” The Doctor gave a little wave. “I’m the Doctor. Nice to officially meet you. And you go by...?” 

“Sarah Saito, MBBS. Just call me Saito.” Saito peeled off a glove to shake the Doctor’s hand. “Now. The Doctor. Wouldn’t happen to be the same bloke that helped with the Cyberman outbreak a few years back?”

The Doctor beamed. “Indeed I would be! How’d you know?”

Saito gestured to Rose. “Agent Tyler’s mentioned you a time or a dozen. The Doctor would do this, the Doctor would say that—”

“Has anyone else made it to the infirmary so far?” Rose interrupted. “Anyone else presenting symptoms, I mean?”

“Yes, I’m treating another live patient with this condition.”

“How are they doing?” asked Rose.

Saito hesitated, glancing between Rose and the Doctor. Whatever the answer was, the Doctor knew it could be summarized as Not well.

“Let’s focus on our objectives here,” the Doctor said quickly. “Education, containment, prevention. What are we dealing with, where did it come from, how does it spread, how do we keep it from spreading further?”

Rose nodded. “And how do we cure Mum and anyone else who may be sick?”

“And that’s where education comes in. We learn what this thing is, we learn how to stop it.”

“What do we know about this thing so far?” Rose asked Saito.

“Not much,” Saito admitted. “We’ve got security looking into the situation, trying to suss out whether this is a natural outbreak or the byproduct of biological warfare, and the medical field team is upstairs collecting what samples they can. But the quarantine protocols seem to be interfering with our network connection; we haven’t received any reports or updates for a while now.”

“Probably a couple of reasons for that,” the Doctor muttered darkly.

“Point is, we’re in the dark down here until the connection is restored.”

Rose swore under her breath. “What can we do for Mum in the meantime?”

Saito hesitated once more, removing her glasses in a bid for time. Not a good sign, the Doctor knew.

“Agent Tyler,” said Saito, not unkindly. She tucked her glasses in her labcoat-pocket. “Your mother is very ill—”

“I know. What can we do for her?”

“Run some tests,” Saito replied. “Make her comfortable.”

Rose glared at her, then turned to the Doctor. “What can we do?” she asked.

In other circumstances, the Doctor might have felt inordinately pleased that Rose turned to him for help, but—well, no, there was no but, he was just as pleased as he would be any other time, he just had the good sense to hide it at that moment. “If we’re lucky, the antibiotics will take care of everything, just whoosh the whole nasty thing out of her system and usher her straight into healing, but I don’t particularly feel like banking on luck here, and I’d imagine you don’t either,” he replied. “We really need to figure out a way to reverse or at least halt the contagion’s sanguinary alterations.”

“You mentioned that earlier, that this thing was changing the victims’ blood.”

“Exactly. Deoxygenation is our major concern at the moment. The oxygen mask is helping to prevent oxygen-starvation, but ultimately, it’s a plaster, not a cure.” He considered. “Now, if we could devise a method of speeding up platelet production…”

Saito frowned. “What are you thinking?”

“Oxygen enrichment,” the Doctor murmured thoughtfully. “Replenishing the depleted supply, so to speak. Replacing the damaged cells with healthy ones. The problem is, even though the human body is constantly producing new platelets and plasma, it can only manufacture so much so quickly. But! There were some very promising rapid-platelet-production techniques introduced sometime between the twenty-first and twenty-third centuries—you’ve got access to a somatic 3D printer and hematopoietic printing material, right?”

“What about a transfusion?” asked Rose. “Like a blood transfusion. Would that help?”

“Could do, if you had a ready match.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” said Saito. “The blood bank is inaccessible due to quarantine—”

“I’m a match,” Rose replied.

“—and with a direct transfusion, there are too many factors to take into account—”

“How do you know?” asked the Doctor.

“—such as screening for potential disease—”

“Mum’s donated to me a couple times.”

“—which, as you mentioned, we haven’t exactly got the time for—”

Wide-eyed in alarm, the Doctor frowned. “Why?”

“—and I don’t know if I could, in good conscience, endorse or participate in such activity—”

“Occupational hazard. Look, it’s not relevant, all right?” Rose said impatiently. “Do you want my blood or not?”

“Are either of you even remotely listening to me?” asked Saito, exasperated.

“No,” Rose and the Doctor both replied.

Saito huffed. “Of course not. And are either of you licensed medical practitioners, by any chance?”

Fishing out the psychic paper, the Doctor presented it with a flick of the wrist. “Depends. What does this say?”

“It just says you know everything.”

“It’s not wrong,” said the Doctor, pocketing the paper with a grin.

“But you don’t know what this is, what we’re dealing with.”

“Yet,” the Doctor replied cheerfully. “I don’t know yet. But I intend to find out. Hence the aforementioned education. Weren’t you listening?”

Fishing around in his pockets, he found the sandwich generously gifted to him earlier. “You need to eat,” he said, tossing the sandwich Rose’s way.

Rose caught the sandwich, wrinkling her nose. “Did this come from Miranda? Is it safe?”

“It is; the sonic would have picked up on it, otherwise. And you need to eat something if you’re going to give blood.”

“I can’t even begin to list all the ways your proposal violates the Hippocratic Oath,” Saito protested.

“Hippocrates! Great man, decent gambler, still owe him twelve drachma,” said the Doctor, hands in pockets as he waltzed lazily over to the door. “Or is it Euros now? Did they convert in this universe as well? I’ll have to find out. Another opportunity for education!”

“Where are you going?” asked Saito. “You can’t leave the building while we’re under quarantine.”

“Oh don’t worry; I shan’t. Just popping out for a bit of R&R—that’s Research and Reconnaissance, by the way, not Rest and Recuperation, no rest for the wicked, after all—and I’ll be back before you know it. Oh, and you should probably call someone to take care of that little zombie problem up in the cafeteria.”

“Zombies?” Saito asked faintly. “Is that supposed to be some sort of joke?”

The Doctor flashed her a grin. “Nope!”

“Be careful!” Rose called after him.

He spun round at the door. “If you insist,” he said, offering a cheeky wink before he popped open the door and stepped out into the dark.

 **

 Rose’s gaze lingered on the door all through her call with security, her brow furrowed in worry, like if she stared hard enough, the Doctor might waltz back in, smug but safe and sound.

“So,” said Saito, gathering supplies as Rose ended her call. “Still fancy him, then?”

Rose blushed. “Just shut up and take my blood.”

 **

 For some unfathomable reason, for a brief time after she and the Doctor joined company, Donna was obsessed with those ghost-hunting programs, the ones where fellows with tape-recorders and slicked-back hair stroll around empty buildings late at night trying, desperately, to make something out of nothing. Amused to no end, the Doctor would look on and shake his head as Donna watched the programs with rapt attention, her eyes glued to the blokes wandering around onscreen with their green night-vision goggles, playing with tape recorders and radio signals and pulling random words out of the noise and jumping at every little shadow that crossed their path. The Doctor, pages deep in some dusty old tome or days deep into whatever half-constructed project lay strewn about him on the library settee and coffee table, would chuckle and insult the program under his breath, meeting Donna’s protests of Oi, we deal with this sort of thing all the time, don’t we? Who’s to say they’re not every bit as legitimate as we are? with an exaggerated eye-roll and an assertion that no, these programs do not include actually feature any ghosts, at best they’re an incorporeal wavelength lifeform, Donna, terribly common and not at all as exciting as television paints them out to be, and besides, ghosts have much better things to do than make funny noises on radio waves. Sometimes the Doctor would tease Donna dreadfully, trying to convince her with mock-sincerity that that tiny critter on Falbrath IX was actually a paranormal entity or those rattling pipes in that old mansion was actually definitely a ghost, Donna! Quick, let’s take the TARDIS back to 1996 and nab a tape-recorder!

Now, the Doctor suppressed a shudder. Creeping through the darkened halls, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone lurked over his shoulder at that very moment, that the shadows painting the empty corridor were something more than inky darkness pooling in the dim starlight. He said a silent belated apology to Donna—if ever there was a haunted building, late-night UNIT headquarters would be it.

Soon the sounds of scuffling boots and plasticky crinkles and hushed voices in the stairwells informed the Doctor that UNIT had already dispatched a squadron of HAZMAT-suited agents in response to Rose’s call to take care of their little zombie problem, and blimey, that was fast. The Doctor opted to carry out his reconnaissance mission in a calmer area instead, popping open the door to one of UNIT’s communal office spaces with a furtive glance and a buzz of the sonic. He crept quietly through, cataloging everything around him, from the potted plants to the fluorescent lights flickering overhead, from the hardwood floor to the white-tiled cubicles stretching as far as the eye could see. Just your standard posh office workspace, even if a sense of foreboding lay over the place, settling in the walkways and the empty desks, thick like an autumn fog.

The Doctor picked the first computer that caught his eye and sat down, knocking something off the desk in the process. He plucked the something off the floor and chuckled. It was a Yoda bobble-head figurine, of all things. Hideously ugly and completely tasteless. He loved it.

“You and me, then?” he said. “Yoda and the Doctor. Seems fitting, somehow.”

Setting Yoda back on his rightful perch, the Doctor turned his attention back to the computer, aiming his sonic at the screen and cracking the passcode. He bypassed the firewalls to the secure server within moments, easy as rewiring a verteron resistance accelerator. So this sonic was every bit a magic wand as much as the last one, it would seem. Good to know.

(He refused to think of it as the different sonic or the other sonic; it looked and felt and acted the same as his old one, it was the same as his old one, even down to the funny little dent beneath the atomic accelerator. So it was might as well be the same, might’nt it? He wouldn’t even have known it wasn’t originally his, if Rose hadn’t told him. Though that notion opened up another can of worms entirely.)

“Think I’ll ever hear the rest of that story?” the Doctor asked bobble-head Yoda, whose head shook nonsensically in reply. Hardly a helpful response, but then again, Yoda did always have that annoying habit of speaking in opacities.

Fingers flying over the keyboard and eyes darting over the screen, the Doctor located and scanned over every report he could find, everything the medical team managed to upload before their unfortunate transition into zombie-hood. But so little time had lapsed since the beginning of the outbreak that UNIT hadn’t been able to run but a few tests, and what few tests they had managed to run had generated no concrete theories or results. (And of course, there was no mention of zombies or otherwise reanimated corpses to be found. If only the medical team had thought to document their experiences as they were undergoing them. Though the Doctor imagined the reports would probably just read something along the lines of “I was quite warm, and now I’m a zombie; I don’t care for it; mlaaaarggghhg brains.”) The only helpful tidbit the Doctor could filter from the mush was that one or two of the medical officers suggested the contagion could be extraterrestrial in origin, before they themselves contracted said contagion.

“And in their protective suits, no less,” said the Doctor, frowning. If the medical team had contracted the illness even in their suits, then what guarantee did they have that the security and containment team wouldn’t meet the same fate? But no, the Doctor thought; Rose would have told them everything they needed to know, and they would have responded accordingly, taking additional precautions—whatever additional precautions they could, anyway.

“I have to admit, this has me stymied,” said the Doctor. “A mystery contagion, no idea what it is or where it came from or who might have brought it here or why. Or how it reanimates the dead, for that matter. But they’re not technically zombies, not really, unless Sibelius Crow is hiding somewhere nearby and I just haven’t noticed. Which is highly doubtful, to say the least.”

Bobble-head Yoda did not reply, save to bobble his head unhelpfully when poked. The Doctor sighed in frustration. “The only thing in here that’s even halfway noteworthy is a report on the new paint job and some complaints of mold. These reports are literally as boring as watching paint dry, and just as useless.”

(Except the medical team had said something helpful, hadn’t they? Even if they hadn’t meant to, even if they’d been dead when they said it. Give it to us, they’d hissed at him back in the cafeteria, and they’d indicated that Jackie was what they were after. But why?

And if the medical team truly was dead then who was it, exactly, that had been talking to him?)

“I mean, extraterrestrial in origin hardly narrows things down, does it?” murmured the Doctor.

Yoda nodded sympathetically.

“My thoughts exactly,” the Doctor agreed.

Blinking past the blur that threatened to creep over the edges of his vision, the Doctor squinted at the computer screen for several moments before realizing, with no small amount of disgruntlement, that in this new human body he may actually need reading glasses. Well, wasn’t that just wizard. Donna’s faulty human DNA was clearly to blame.

He clicked through file after file after email after report until finally something interesting piqued his attention. He sat up in his chair, eyebrow arching in surprise.

“Now here’s something,” he murmured. “According to this report, none of the blood samples taken from the victims displayed any presence of antibodies. Strange in its own right; your body’s always got antibodies ready to fight off foreign contaminants, extraterrestrial origins or no. Bodies are sort of handy that way.”

He flashed Yoda a cheeky grin, wriggling the fingers of his good fightin’ hand. “Get it? Handy?”

Bobble-head Yoda did not respond.

“You’re right,” said the Doctor with mock-sternness. “This is no time for puns. Though I’m personally of the opinion that most times are good times for puns.

“So despite the unusually high temperatures of the victims at the time of death, we’re not actually looking at a fever here, because a fever is just the body’s way of fighting back, but whatever we’re dealing with completely dismantles the body’s ability to defend itself,” the Doctor continued, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Ergo, it’s probably not a virus or disease of any sort. What it is is something that shuts down the body’s defense mechanisms, spreads alarmingly quickly, and appears to be immune to the usual precautions and even extra precautions. However—and this is worth noting,” he offered to Yoda, as an aside, “it only seems to affect certain people. Rose, for instance, hasn’t begun to suffer any ill effects, and presumably there are dozens of others in the building who are uninfected as well. Is it only a matter of time for them, have they simply managed to avoid contamination somehow, or is there some important physiological difference between the healthy and the infected?”

Bobble-head Yoda was, as usual, silent and withholding.

“Fat lot of help you are,” said the Doctor cheerfully. “But at least now we know our next step: finding the similarities between our various victims. Shall we?”

Easier said than done; a scan of each victim’s personnel file revealed far more differences than similarities. There was Miranda, a not-quite-middle-aged dinner lady, followed closely by the second victim, a more-than-middle-aged nighttime caretaker, and a third victim, an office worker who took ill and died immediately after stepping foot in the building. Then you had the medical team, not one of them alike, and the mysterious second victim in Saito’s care, receiving treatment along with Jackie. Strangely, according to the report, the young man fell ill after being bundled into sickbay with several others, but he appeared to be the only one affected. So far, no one else in sickbay had begun to exhibit any symptoms whatsoever. At least he was still alive, even if his condition was a little dicey; the other victims had all died within moments. The Doctor tried not to think of what that meant for Jackie.

He scowled. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t find a single factor to connect the dots between Jackie and the other victims, not age, not gender, not ethnicity, not vocation nor location nor general health or anything else, save that they all worked in this building, and they were all (presumably) human. Factor in the unusual symptoms, the highly irregular behavior re: antibodies, the likelihood of non-Earth origin, the reanimation of the bodies after death, and the absence of other markers indicating an infection related to viruses, diseases, or bacteria, and you had—

—a Doctor who was still completely stumped, and a Jackie who was running out of time.

“Rubbish,” the Doctor announced. “The medical team just overlooked something, that’s all. Not that I can blame them; I’m certain they were rather busy getting infected and turned into zombies and such. But if you want something done right…”

He pushed back from the desk, offering a brisk nod to bobble-head Yoda. “So long, then. But a word of advice, one supercentenarian to another: 900 years is no excuse to let yourself go.”

Jogging to the office doors, the Doctor quietly pushed them open, sticking his head out into the darkened hallway and glancing both ways. Of course, with the active quarantine in place, the hall was deserted, free of any over-enthusiastic UNIT agent that may attempt to apprehend and re-quarantine him, though something about the faulty fluorescent lights flickering queasily overhead made the Doctor uneasy. He couldn’t shake the feeling of something crawling up his spine, even as he busied himself locating the UNIT floor directory, scanning it for the location of their laboratory.

A click at the end of the hall caused his head to whip round, his gaze sharpening, scanning the area for the source of the noise. But nothing unusual greeted his senses, just walls and ceiling tiles and potted plants and that never-ending flicker overhead. He took a few steps forward and gave a good long look at the door at the end of the hallway anyway, just to be safe.

Nothing. Just a nagging little buzz-hum rattling around the back of his head, probably the cheap overhead lighting. UNIT really should replace it all.

Shrugging, the Doctor turned back to the directory, only to jump back in shock.

Miranda stood there.

 **

 Rose tried very hard not to stare at the other patient behind the glass, averting her eyes as best she could while Saito wheeled in her mother into the observation room and arranged a more longterm setup. (“Technically a breach of protocol, bringing a patient in here for treatment,” Saito had explained moments before, “but this is the easiest way to keep an eye on everyone. That’s what comes of being the only physician on the graveyard shift, I suppose. Desperate times, desperate measures, and all that.”). But Rose’s curiosity got the better of her, and there she found herself. Staring.

The patient lay in the other room all alone, prone atop a hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling through glassy dark eyes; his skin had faded to a papery nigh-translucent white, and his fingernails and lips and eyes were stained utterly black, as if painted with ink. Between the oxygen mask strapped to his face and the tubes plugged in seemingly willy-nilly all over his body, the poor young man looked like a machine more than anything, like a cyborg or maybe Darth Vader peeled halfway out of his protective black shell. He was totally still, save for the stilted breaths that entered and left his body with a watery wheeze; Rose couldn’t help but think he already looked like a corpse. Rose kept glancing through the window at him as she shed her trusty leather jacket and Saito seated her and prepared her for the transfusion. She watched him while Saito prodded at her arm for veins and swabbed the inside of her elbow with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. Even the bite of the needle in Rose’s skin wasn’t enough to tear her attention away.

White skin, watery wheeze, black-stained fingernails and lips and eyes; that poor fellow was knocking on Death’s door, and Death was about to answer.

“So, Agent Tyler,” said Saito, monitoring the transfusion tube as it pumped blood straight from Rose’s arm into her mother’s. “It’s been a while since you last visited medbay. How’ve you been—”

“You don’t need to do that,” Rose interrupted.

Saito shot a glance over her spectacles. “Do what?”

“Distract me, keep my mind off all this. I know it’s part of the routine, but you don’t need to worry about it with me.”

“Agent Tyler—”

“Not Agent. It’s just Rose, now.”

Saito hmphed. “Welp, that answers the question of how you’ve been doing, at least.”

“Yeah,” said Rose flatly. “Been a lot better.”

“Been a lot worse, too. I was actually just getting ready to commend you for going a whole three months without needing stitches or a cast.”

“That you know of,” replied Rose with a faint smile.

She quieted, looking over Jackie’s limp body, at the blank expressionlessness of her face, deceptively peaceful beneath the oxygen mask. “S’weird,” said Rose. “Usually I’m the one on the bed, and Mum’s the one fretting over me. Never knew how hard it was to be on this side of things.”

“Not a role reversal you particularly care for, hm?”

Sighing, Rose reached out with her free hand to push a stray hair out of Jackie’s face. “This is why I told her not to come after me,” she said quietly. “I knew something like this would happen. She’s supposed to be safe, at home, away from all this stuff.”

Her mouth twisted in unhappiness. “Why didn’t she just stay put, like I told her to? I told her.”

“Yes, because the Tyler women are notorious for following orders without question,” Saito replied drily.

The urge to fling a lob of sarcasm swelled like bile in her throat but Rose did not reply, focusing on her mum instead. For several moments all that could be heard in the room was the pulsing of the heartrate monitors. Rose imagined she could hear accusations hidden in their tones, a rising chorus of Your-fault Your-fault Your-fault echoing off the sterile white walls.

Something seemed to soften in Saito’s features as she watched her. “Chin up, Rose,” she said, her voice much gentler than usual. “How many times have you pulled something out of a nosedive at the last second? Besides, your Doctor bloke’s here, isn’t he? And didn’t you tell me a hundred times what a miracle-worker he is? Even if his methods are highly questionable,” she added, rolling her eyes. “But if anyone can help your mum, it’s the two of you. Right?”

Rose hesitated. I think like him, he’d said. Same memories, same thoughts, same everything, he’d told her. Part of her wanted to believe him; it would be so easy to surrender to everything her gut was screaming to be the truth, to believe he could fix everything, just like before.

(That was one hell of a bet to hedge her mother’s life on. Then again, what other option did she have?)

Rose swallowed hard. “Yeah,” she replied quietly.

 **

 “What are you?” the Doctor asked.

Peering out from behind a ragged curtain of matted, oil-slicked hair, Miranda did not reply, or rather, her body did not; it watched the Doctor in silence, blinking just a fraction of a second too slowly, dark lids sliding over dull black eyes. Ichor dripped out of its mouth, trailing a path down, down, down its chin and throat and chest, staining Miranda’s work uniform and filling the air with the cloying stench of damp and rotted things. Its veins were far more pronounced, now, a horror-movie spiderweb of pitch-black lines inked into its face and the tissue-thin paper of its sternum. Its hands hung dull and heavy at its sides, darkness pooling in its fingertips.

Anger flared up in the Doctor’s chest, so burning-violent that his hands balled into fists and shook with the force of it. He fought to tamp it all down. He didn’t have time for that sort of nonsense. More importantly, Jackie didn’t have time. And besides, this wasn’t about him; this was about helping those infected, preventing the infection of anyone else. He could punish himself for his oversights and shortcomings later.

He could punish this thing later.

“The other bodies seemed to understand me. Do you?” he asked, louder this time. “What are you? And what are you doing here? And why?”

“You know who this body is,” Miranda’s body responded, its words slow and thick, its tongue weighing heavy in its mouth.

“I know who it was. Not so sure, now.”

Miranda’s body tilted its head, almost thoughtfully. “The Miranda. This is the Miranda.”

“Except that’s not true, is it? Not anymore.” When Miranda’s body fell silent again, the Doctor heaved a sigh in impatience. “Oh, come on, you know what I’m asking. No need to play coy, we’re all friends here. Well, not friends so much as some sort of invasive contaminant and the person most voted most likely to try and kill it dead, but, you know. Potato, tomato.”

“We need your help.”

“Oh, do we now?” asked the Doctor, eyebrow piqued. “My help, specifically?”

“Yes.”

“Well, isn’t that something,” the Doctor murmured, studying what used-to-be-Miranda’s face, like maybe something in its ichor-darkened features would give its intentions away. “Curiouser and curiouser. Do you even know who I am?”

“Traveler,” Miranda’s body hissed. “Magic-maker. Time-bender. Death-bringer.”

“That last one’s a little melodramatic,” muttered the Doctor. “How do you know all of this?”

Miranda’s body shook its head. “Not important. We need help.”

“Well, why don’t you tell me what we are, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Help us,” it hissed.

“Tell me what you are,” insisted the Doctor.

“Help us.”

“Tell me what you are.”

“Help first.”

“Nope!” said the Doctor cheerfully, and good grief, wouldn’t that horrible buzzing noise overhead ever cease? “You want my help, you answer my questions. That’s how it goes. No other way, no other choice. So one last time before I start to get testy: what are you?”

“Not what,” gritted out Miranda’s body. “Who.”

“Fine. Who are you?”

“We are us. Ourselves. Legion. No name. Can’t tell anything more. Not before help.”

“Oh, but you’ve already told me so much, just now,” said the Doctor, rocking back on his heels. “See, your use of we indicates the plural, moreover the persistent use of we in lieu of any other pronoun indicates a lack of sense of individual self, and that, coupled with your insistence that you’re a who, not a what, yet you’ve got no name—well, that sounds an awful lot like a hive mind, doesn’t it? And it’s clear you’re not local, not unless this Earth has got some very funny little quirks the other one hasn’t; an extraterrestrial hive mind, then. Oh, but what need has an extraterrestrial hive mind got for human bodies, hm? Human bodies, but not human brains. Make that a parasitic extraterrestrial hive mind. A parasitic extraterrestrial hive mind that, somehow and for some reason, has the capability to possess humans—” 

The lights flickered again overhead and the Doctor snapped his fingers in revelation. “Ah, not somehow—telepathy, that’s how!” he said excitedly, pointing to the lights above him. “That pesky flickering, that’s you lot, isn’t it? Interference with the electronics due to a low-level telepathic field. Explains that horrible intermittent buzzing sound, too—actually, anytime you’d like to knock that off would be fine by me, still got that post-regeneration extra-sensitivity and it feels a bit weird in the teeth. Although to be fair, the new teeth always feel a bit weird, so maybe that one’s on me.

“And that explains why you’d know certain things, doesn’t it? Like my identity, all that—your telepathy has granted you access to your victims’ memories. You probably know everything about me that Jackie does. And oh!” he shouted as realizations struck him, one after the other. “Oh, that explains why the protective suits don’t make a difference, as well! Telepathic possession isn’t like an infection or a virus or bacteria or disease, it’s not strictly physical, it doesn’t care if you’ve got antibodies or a protective suit. So you possess your victims, override their consciousness with yours via telepathy, and you mutate their bodies after, killing them in the process. That makes you a telepathic, infectious, fast-spreading, parasitic, zombie-generating extraterrestrial hive mind, with a nasty little side serving of murder.”

He glanced up at the Miranda-thing with a sharp grin, feeling very proud of himself. Certainly Rose couldn’t help but be impressed, if she saw him right now.

“How am I doing, so far?” he asked.

The corpse did not reply.

“So that brings us to the million-dollar question, which is: Why are you doing all of this?” the Doctor asked thoughtfully. “Why are you infecting humans, why are you killing them? Why are you changing their bodies on the molecular level? And why have you only targeted some of them, as opposed to others? Not that I’m complaining—broadly speaking, the fewer people you murder, the better—but why choose one human over another? Or have you even got a choice, or is it something else altogether? Just, why?”

“Wasting time,” rasped Miranda’s body.

“Whose time?”

“Yours,” it replied, its voice a snake slithering through the leaves. “Hers.”

“Now that sounds an awful lot like a threat,” replied the Doctor. He chuckled darkly. “Something you should know about me: I don’t take well to threats.”

“Not a threat. A promise,” hissed the corpse. “Help us, or she dies.”

 **

 As soon as the transfusion was complete, the needle removed and the tube with it and everything swabbed and bandaged and clean, Rose grabbed her jacket and slipped it back on, wrapping it snugly round her frame. Warmth suffused her bones and she sighed in relief; she felt much better with the jacket on, shielding her like a protective shell. Not to mention, giving all that blood had made her terribly cold. And a little sleepy too. Or maybe that was just the overall lack of sleep.

“You feeling all right?” asked Saito, concerned. “You look a little pale.”

“M’fine,” Rose lied.

“If you’re feeling faint or anything, you should let me know.”

Rose pulled her jacket tighter. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about my mum.”

“Agent Tyler—I mean, Rose—”

“What should we be doing for her?” Rose asked.

Saito huffed impatiently behind her surgeon’s mask. “I will continue monitoring her and running tests. You don’t need to be doing anything right now, except having a bite to eat. And maybe a lie-down.”

“I don’t want—”

“Too bad. You gave blood; you need a snack. Doctor’s orders. Two doctors’ orders.”

Rose hmphed. “Fine,” she said, grudgingly reaching for her sandwich. “I’ll eat, and then you’ll tell me how I can help.”

“Eh, truth be told, there’s not much you can do, unless we hear something different from your bloke.”

“He’s not my bloke,” said Rose as she peeled back the clingfilm.

She could tell Saito was struggling not to roll her eyes. “Well, until Not-Your-Bloke gets back, help me keep an eye on your mum, and keep her company,” she replied, peeling off her gloves. “That’s basically all you can do.”

Saito started to stand up, but hesitated. “A word of advice, if I might?”

Rose nodded at her to proceed.

“I’d like to think we have a good shot at saving your mother,” Saito told her. “I’ll do absolutely everything I can to help her. Knowing your family, she may survive out of sheer stubbornness, much as anything. But in my experience, it’s generally wise to hope for the best, whilst preparing for the worst.”

Rose’s hands trembled around the sandwich, clenching squeakily in the clingfilm. She forced them still. “Are you saying I should start planning her funeral?”

“No. But if there’s anything you want to tell her, now would be the time. Doesn’t matter if she’s unconscious. Better to say something now than risk leaving it unsaid.” Pushing up from the stool, Saito laid a gentle hand on Rose’s shoulder. “Take it from someone who knows firsthand, Rose. Regret is a terrible thing.”

Swallowing, Rose nodded again. Saito gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before she left the room, and now it was just Rose and her mother, and an atmosphere thick with uncertainty. Rose watched her mother as she slept, her eyes motionless beneath her eyelids, her mouth parted beneath the oxygen mask, her hands cold and still. She looked nowhere near as bad as the patient in the room beyond, but she was awfully pale, and the blackness in her fingernails had spread. Already, she looked like a ghost.

Your-fault, your-fault, your-fault chimed the heartrate monitors.

Rose clenched her eyes tight against the fear and guilt that threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn’t do that right now. She couldn’t give in. She had to be strong, for her mum. She had to help her fight. She had to help her win.

“Right,” she said, breathing out a shaky exhale. Rose set the sandwich down on the empty stool, scooting closer to her mother. She reached out and grabbed her mum’s hand, flinching when her mother did not respond. Worrying the inside of her cheek, Rose cast about for something to say. Anything. Anything at all.

(But her treacherous mind couldn’t conjure up any words, could only show her the last time she’d held the hand of a body on a cot, and the Doctor’s fingers were stiff and icy between hers, and it didn’t matter how stubborn he was, he was still—)

Rose tightened her grip around Jackie’s hand. She wouldn’t let that happen to her mother. The fact that Rose hadn’t got there in time to save the Doctor was irrelevant. She wouldn’t let her mother die. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.

She gathered her breath and her courage. “So,” Rose said, her voice trembling. “Mum. What do you want to talk about?”

 **

 “Killing one of my friends is an excellent way to ensure you’ll never get my help in any capacity whatsoever,” said the Doctor with a brightness that belied the anger in his eyes. “Now, do you want to try another approach, or shall I levy some threats of my own?”

Miranda’s body blinked lazily, its lips falling open and closed, as if it were considering. “Help us and we will surrender your friend.”

“And she’ll be healthy? No more fluid in the lungs, no more burning up, no more risk of turning into whatever-the-hell-you-are?”

The corpse shook its head. “She will be restored.”

“Excellent!” said the Doctor, clapping his hands. “That’s a little more like it. Now, what can I do for you?”

“Home,” breathed Miranda’s body. “Help us go home.”

“All right. Where are you from?”

“Far away. Very far away.”

“Well, that’s helpful,” the Doctor said mildly. “You got yourselves here, why can’t you get yourselves back?”

“Can’t. Not without help.”

“Why not? What, did you run out of pocket change for the intergalactic Underground?”

“We fell,” said Miranda’s body, and if the Doctor didn’t know any better, he’d think its tone mournful. “There were holes in the world. In the earth and sky. The nothing came, and it ate all the stars.”

“That sounds an awful lot like the Reality Bomb,” the Doctor murmured.

“We saw it everywhere. Stars, gone. Worlds, gone. All of them, lost to the nothing. We fled, to outrun the hunger. To outrun its maw.”

The corpse’s tongue slithered out, running over its teeth, exploring the crannies and jagged edges of them as if, perhaps, considering them for the first time. Black fluid smeared around its mouth and the Doctor grimaced in disgust.

“It swallowed everything,” Miranda’s body whispered. “Nowhere left for us to go. We took refuge in the howling black. We thought we were safe in the dark. But the dark…”

Miranda’s body shuddered. “It eats, too.”

“So you fled to the Void?” asked the Doctor, half-impressed. “How’d you manage to survive that?”

The body twitched, a convulsion borne of memory and fear. “Didn’t,” it rasped. 

“Then how are you here?”

“Heard the song of the Vortex, sung by the magic box. Followed it.”

“Magic box,” the Doctor hummed. “I can only imagine you mean the TARDIS. So you did a bit of extradimensional hitchhiking, then.”

Miranda’s body nodded. “We clung to the box and followed our hope. Searching for safety. But it was too late. Just shadows, now. Desperate to live.”

“And the only way you could survive is by inhabiting the bodies of others,” said the Doctor, suddenly understanding.

“Yes,” whispered Miranda’s body. “An unfortunate necessity. Sins committed so we may survive. But we smelled it, now, the return of the stars overhead. The nothing is gone. So now, we can go home.”

It stepped forward, pleading. “We will claim no one else, if you take us home.”

 **

 A small eternity had passed by, and still, Rose couldn’t think of anything to say. She squeezed her mother’s hand, wishing desperately that Jackie would squeeze back in response.

“I guess I should probably call Pete, yeah?” Rose said quietly, staring at the floor. “So he can come and talk to you too, so that he can—you know. Just in case—”

Her breath hitched in her throat. “Should he bring Tony, too?” she asked, forcing the words out even though they hurt. “I mean—no, he can’t. Neither of them can come, can they? Not with the contagion. Can’t risk them getting sick too, can we?”

Sighing, Rose leaned forward, propping herself up with her elbows on her knees. God, she was tired. Even just thinking was as exhausting as climbing a mountain.

“Video chat could work, though,” she continued. “That way, we can make sure they both get to see you before—you know, if anything—like Saito said, about the worst—just—”

Rose sniffed loudly in the empty room, but Jackie’s eyelids did not flutter, her mouth did not move. Her hand did not squeeze back.

“Just wake up, Mum,” said Rose, and her cheeks felt suspiciously wet all of a sudden; surprised, she reached up to thumb away first one tear, then another, and another and one more. Her vision grew blurry and the pressure in her sinuses grew unbearable and before she knew it, the dam had split and tears were trailing down her cheeks, one after the other, growing fat at the curve of her jaw and dropping onto her jacket with a plasticky splat. Rose bit her lip to hold back the tears, but it was a halfhearted gesture because as horrible as it was to cry, as much as it made her feel like a small and stupid child, god, it was just such a relief.

“Wake up, please,” she said again, sniffling, and tried not to think about what life would be like without her mother in it.

(Would it have felt the same, if she’d successfully stayed in the other universe, and all the paths had sealed shut behind her? Would the realization of Jackie’s loss have struck her like it did now, pounding at her chest until she curled in on herself, until she withered under the weight of it all as the truth fully struck her that she would never ever see her mother again?

Lips pursed shut, Rose inwardly shook herself. No. This was nothing like that. It wasn’t. It just wasn’t.)

“I’m so sorry, Mum,” Rose said thickly through her tears. “I didn’t want to leave you behind. I never wanted to hurt you. Never, ever. But I wanted to get back so badly, and I thought—I don’t know, I thought if I could just get back to the other universe, everything would work out all right in the end, somehow. You know? Like it would fill this hole inside me, the one that’s been growing ever since we first came over here. I wouldn’t feel empty anymore. I wouldn’t feel broken anymore.” 

Pain welled up in her at the thought of those first few months after Canary Wharf, fresh and bleating as the day it happened, so much worse than the throbbing in her damaged fingers, all of it so loud she could barely think past it. But Rose forced herself to continue. “It all just hurt so much, Mum,” Rose said, pleadingly. “Getting stranded here without the Doctor or the TARDIS—s’like, I’d had a purpose before, yeah? When I was with the Doctor, we’d travel all over, righting wrongs, fixing things. Helping people. But I didn’t feel like I could do that properly here. I didn’t—” 

She sniffled, loudly. “I didn’t feel like I could do it on my own. It was like someone had broken both my legs, and I couldn’t walk anymore. But working on the Cannon, working on getting back—not just to get to the Doctor, but to stop the stars from going out overhead, to help people again—it gave me something, Mum. I had meaning again, I didn’t feel so empty anymore. And then I worked so hard, for so long, that it was like everything about me, everything that makes me me, hinged on me succeeding, in getting back to him. Does that make sense?”

Rose swallowed. “I thought everything would turn out all right in the end, somehow. So I just tried not to think about it, yeah? How much I’d be giving up, to be with him again. You know?”

Silence was the reply.

“I should have told you all that upfront,” Rose murmured. “But I was just—I dunno. After Canary Wharf, after Will, after Plymouth—”

Memories of burnt ozone and a room full of screams sliced through her vision and Rose clenched her eyes to close them out. Her lips clamped shut, the words burning her like scalding-hot coffee in her mouth, even now.

“After all that, and everything else,” Rose tried again, her voice shaky, “I didn’t want to let anyone in. I thought it would be easier that way, if anything bad did happen. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, right? But the worst is here, Mum, and it’s not like anything I planned for. Nothing I did made any difference, and now everything’s gone wrong and you’re sick and I don’t know what to do and I’m not ready for any of it, I’m just not ready, I’m not—”

Her face crumpling so hard it hurt, Rose lapsed forward onto the hospital bed, surrendering to the gravity of her exhaustion and sorrow. Clenching Jackie’s hand tight, she sobbed into the mattress. “Please don’t go, Mum,” Rose half-wept, half-choked. Great heaving sobs wracked her shoulders and she cried even harder, gasping for air. “You can’t leave me. You can’t. Please, Mum. Please.”

Jackie did not respond.

Rose wept, and wept, and wept.

 **

 Scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably, the Doctor paused to consider. Even amidst his anger and disgust, he felt a small swell of sympathy for the creatures. They’d done what they felt they must in order to survive. They’d clawed their way past impossibility, banding together in the face of certain death. Theirs were actions borne of complete and utter instinct, the desire to live overriding everything else, leaving only fear and desperation behind.

That didn’t change anything, though. Didn’t reopen the holes between universes; didn’t grant them a way to slip back through.

It didn’t change the fact that they were killers.

“Please, take us home,” said the corpse, reaching a ghostly hand toward the Doctor, palm up. Its veins were black and stark beneath moonlit flesh. A request writ in ink. A plea birthed in blood. “Please,” it rasped again. “Help us.”

  **********

Rose doesn’t respond, except to bite her lip so hard theDoctor can make out its stark white relief even in the nighttime. “I keepthinking maybe that’s why you left me behind,” she says, quieter now. “Theother you, I mean. Like I’m too different, now. Like you could smell it somehow,all that I did. Like I’m a dirty thing.”

And suddenly, like someone just flipped the on-switch, alight comes on in the Doctor’s brain, then, sending half-thoughts and shadowsskittering to the corners. So that’swhy she’s been so strange these last few weeks. Granted, a little bit ofawkwardness was to be expected, what with thebeing-unceremoniously-dumped-back-in-this-universe-without-so-much-as-a-backward-glance,but even keeping that in mind, the tension between them has been unbearable. And it isn’t the things saidso much as the things not said, the way Rose laughs a little too quietly,smiles a little too small, meets his eyes but never for too long. A skillfullyrendered performance to be certain; anyone who wasn’t the Doctor might havemistaken it all as truth. But half-human or not, he can’t help but notice everythingabout her. She’s, well, her.

Silence drags on between them and the Doctor still can’tfind the words he needs. A hundred glimmering lights dance across the inkyblackness of her pupils, reflections from the meteor shower up above–he’smissing it, a once-in-a-lifetime event rendered painfully literal on this slowpath of theirs and he’s missing it, choosing to watch her instead—and hewonders if her eyes are glistening from starlight, or something else.

“Sometimes, I think,” Rose says, and falters, swallowingthickly, “that you would be ashamed of me, if you knew.”

“Doubtful,” replies the Doctor.

“You don’t know anything about it.”

“And you never really knew much about me, but that didn’tever keep you away, did it?”

Rose doesn’t reply.

“Look, tell me what happened, don’t tell me what happened.Whatever you need. It won’t change anything,” says the Doctor. “I trust you.”

Now she glances his way. “Liar,” Rose accuses softly. “Youdon’t trust anyone.”

“Not true. I trust constants, if nothing else. Some thingssimply don’t change. The speed of light in a vacuum, for example. Theelementary charge e, thegravitational constant G, your motherburning everything she tries to bake, your brother leaving his toys preciselywhere I’ll step on them, you waking up in a terrible mood every morning.”

“Oi,” says Rose, with a halfhearted smack to his hand. Herhand lingers, after, and the Doctor wills himself to think past the brush ofher fingers against the hairs on the back of his hand. It’s the most contactthey’ve had since that kiss on the beach, the only time she’s touched him thatwasn’t an accidental bump or glance, sending warmth and a not-unpleasanttingling feeling spreading all throughout, and suddenly it’s very difficult tothink past that alcohol-buzz in his head, isn’t it?

He grabs her hand before she can move it away. (He tellshimself it’s just to counteract the liquor, ignores the sense that she’s theonly thing tethering him to this plane.) Muscle memory coaxes their fingersround each other like a musician playing her favorite instrument and thesensation is still so familiar, even in this new body, that the Doctor’s throatconstricts with the overwhelming tenderness of it.

“I trust that you are impulsive, and a little reckless, andyes, occasionally quite selfish,” the Doctor forces himself to continue, andRose twists her mouth in worry. “But you never act with the intent to harm, youconsistently push for things to be better, and any so-called bad thing you might have done was likelyin service to the greater good.”

“Like what you did on the Crucible?” Rose asks pointedly. “Andbefore, during the War?”

The Doctor hesitates, biting back the urge to argue. But hecan’t, can he? Not if he wants her to believe him. She’s right, anyway; it’s somethinghe’s always known, but knowing something is far easier than believing it.

(It’s a sneaky little tradeoff, the way she demands heforgive his own sins before she’ll forgive hers, but that’s just another thingthe Doctor trusts—that Rose Tyler always finds a way to make things better. Yetanother entry on the list of reasons he loves her.)

“Yes,” he says, his voice so quiet he’ll be surprised ifshe hears it.

White light dances over Rose’s cheeks and her hair as sheturns on her side to look at him, oblivious to the show the night sky plays forthem overhead. “So if I’m not a bad or dirty thing, then you’re not, either.”

“I suppose not,” the Doctor murmurs. “We’re just…human.”

“There are worse things to be,” says Rose with the barestghost of a grin. It’s the closest thing the Doctor has seen to a real smilesince they arrived back in this universe and before he can think better of ithe’s bridging the gap between them, cupping her cheek in his hand so he canpress a kiss to her mouth. Light from the meteor shower pops and flashes behindhis eyelids and he feels her smile broaden against his lips as heat andhappiness flood through him in equal measure, hormones and liquor and reliefand something that feels suspiciously like contentment bubbling up in his skulluntil he’s left lightheaded from it. After weeks of touch-starvation it’salmost too much, the warmth of her body pressed to his, the tickle of herbreath against his lips. He’s shocked to pull back and find that he’s winded, breathsleaving his lungs with a ragged edge.

Rose’s eyes have shuttered, as if in prayer; her tonguedarts out tentatively over the swell of her lower lip, and the Doctor knows she’stasting him there. It does nothing to help his sheer absolute need to kiss her again.

“You won’t feel different about all this later, will you?”Rose asks. “Once you’ve sobered up?”

The Doctor isn’t certain whether she’s asking aboutforgiveness or the kiss, decides it doesn’t matter; both questions have thesame answer, anyway.

“Nope,” he says, and he kisses her again.

But the nail in theproverbial coffin of her emotional sanity was that the object of this mission wasto rescue a (very pretty) young alien woman from being trafficked onto Earth byspace slavers. Rose being Rose, obviously her heart went out to the woman forall she had been through, but—as previously stated—this was not Rose’s bestday. Still, she put on a smile as they escorted the woman back to Torchwood. Itdidn’t help that Jake took the front passenger seat of the company Hummer, theDoctor took the backseat, and the alien woman slid in next to him, leaving thedriver’s seat open for Rose. Never mind that she had the keys, why the hellhadn’t Jake left the front seat for their guest? Rose grumbled internally asshe looked in the rearview mirror at a red light. The alien woman was winkingat the Doctor and saying something Rose couldn’t hear clearly. The drive backto HQ seemed to take hours longer than usual.

She hopped out when theyarrived and marched into the building without looking back, hoping to send amessage to the one person in the vehicle that should notice something off abouther behavior. The Doctor had been a bit shouty and distracted and superior andrude today (all things she loved about him in the right context and directedtoward a deserving opponent), but only, it seemed, toward her on this mission. Tothe model-thin, perky, designer-handbag, flirty victim, he was only too happyto smile and hug and make sure she was all right. And in Rose’s rational mind,she knew nothing was wrong with that and she should be right by his side in thedebriefing room, comforting the alien woman and inviting her to dinner whilethey worked out how to get her home. But Rose’s rational mind was not incontrol at the moment as she gave a tight-lipped smile to her father inresponse to his congratulations on a mission accomplished. All she wanted waschips, Netflix, a blanket, and her Doctor to snuggle.

Instead her Doctor was beingkissed on the cheek by another woman. Of course, the woman kissed everyone onthe team on the cheek, even Pete Tyler. Except Rose, who offered to pull theHummer around from where they had parked it out front to its proper spot in thecar park.

When she arrived back inthe building’s lobby, the receptionist said the Doctor had gone downstairs tocontact the victim’s home planet through the interplanetary communications systemand taken the pretty alien with him. Rose could practically hear him bragging about(explaining with excitement, herrational mind countered) how he’d been so brilliant in hooking it up and howsimple it was to operate (though Rose herself had yet to figure it out, evenwith his help) and the pretty alien lady would probably understand it allimmediately. She was probably a genius like him. Not a drop-out chav he foundon a London estate.

Jake found her just thenand began shouting. It’d been a long day for him too, Rose knew. His boyfriendwas in the hospital and the bags under Jake’s eyes told her he hadn’t beensleeping since. But still, the dressing down echoed off the building’s sterilewhite-and-glass walls, even making the receptionist raise her eyebrows.

“Are you done?” Rose finallyasked when he stopped. He sighed with a shake of his head.

“As your team leader, Ijust can’t have it happen again, Rose. That’s not the first time and you knowit, though it’s usually the Doctor and you together that has been the problem.Going offline during pursuits, turning up missing for hours at a time, causingmore trouble because you don’t follow procedure. Listen, I know you two haveyour own way of doing things, and that’s great when that works out, but try notto muck things up and cause more work for the rest of us, got it?”  

Rose crossed her arms,hoping it looked more serious than insecure, and took off for the lifts. By thetime the lift dinged open at her floor,the tears were filling her eyes. She stormed into her office and threw the doorshut. The latch didn’t catch and it bounced back open with the momentum. Shedidn’t care. She just slid down the wall and hid from the world.

The Doctor was very,very ready to make contact with Helena 86 and for their ship to come quickly. Thealien woman, Zixa, was grating on his last nerve and it was exhausting keepingup his telepathic shields. He never visited their planet in the old universebecause they were very much the opposite of Time Lords in their attachments. The86-ites, as they were called, relished as much telepathic and physical contactas possible with everyone they met. They rarely kept anything to themselves,and Zixa was no exception. She touched and prodded and flirted. He had sympathyfor what she had just been through, but he just wanted some personal space, forcrying out loud! He had recently begun to consider telepathically opening up toRose in the way Zixa wanted, but Zixa was no Rose. Not by a long shot.

The static on theinterplanetary comm line cleared, and the Doctor looked up to find an extremelycharming 86-ite man on the screen, smiling and nodding and followinginstructions to the letter. A ship would be there the next morning, at the verylatest. The Doctor sent the coordinates for Torchwood’s rooftop helipad rightas Pete came in to check on how things were going.

Pete had his assistantarrange for Zixa to stay at a posh nearby hotel so she’d be rested and readyfor the morning pick-up. With that out of the way, and Zixa on her way to her accommodations,the Doctor sighed and raked a hand down his face. He loved people, and timeitself would testify to how unstable being alone made him, but even hisabundant extroversion needed a break from the day he’d had. All he wanted nowwas to shut the rest of the world out as he and his Rose cuddled on the couchand watched a movie. He craved her warm, safe, home-like presence after a daywith an 86-ite. Where was Rose, anyway?  

It didn’t take long tofind her. He missed them at first, but when no one else in the building knewwhere she went, he checked her office again. That’s when he saw them. The white,rubber tips of her pink shoes sticking out from the other side of the filingcabinet. He knocked on the partially open door, but wasn’t surprised when sheonly mumbled “go away” in response.

“Rose, it’s me.”

“What, done with thesuper model already?” she deadpanned. “Ya get her number? Gonna call her up onthat space Skype thing I can’t get to work? Don’t have to worry about me seeingyour call history if I can’t bloody figure out how to turn it on.”

The Doctor sighed, butshe continued.

“Not that it matters, Imean. I don’t have a right to know. It’s not like I’m your… anything.” The pinkConverses fidgeted as she realized what she had implied with her possessiveness.“Call whoever you want, I don’t care.”

“Rose.”

“Yeah,” she sniffed andhe realized she must be crying.

“Can I come in, please?I think we need to talk.”

She didn’t respond for amoment, but then she stood and walked to the door. He was afraid she was goingto push him out and lock it, but instead, she pulled him inside and shut thedoor behind him. She sank down into the small sofa on the front wall of heroffice. He wondered if she knew this would have been a much more comfortable hidingspot than behind the cabinet on the floor. Even though it was more out in theopen from the perspective of inside the room, it was on the same wall as herdoor and thus, she wouldn’t have been seen from the doorway.

“What?” she asked,somewhat rudely. He supposed that was deserved though for how he had yet to askwhat’s wrong. He wisely decided to keep his musings on her hiding places tohimself.

“Well, first off, you’re crying,” he pointedout as he sat next to her. “Can’t have that. Wanna tell me about it? Andperhaps in the meantime explain what you were going on about behind thatcabinet?”

“It’s stupid.” She shookher head, but she knew by now in her life with him that she wouldn’t be gettingoff that easily. “It’s… just me being my stupid self. Can’t do anything right.I’m so useless. To our team, to you, to everyone.” She blinked hard at theceiling, trying to stop her tears and put on a strong façade.

“Now, you know very wellthat’s not true.”

“It is though!” sheprotested weakly. “I’m nothing. Look at me. I dropped out of school, I have ahorrible history with relationships, I hated working in that shop, I causedmore trouble for you than I was worth, I tried to go to uni here and quit, I’man idiot with maths, I can’t help you grow the TARDIS coral, I still don’tunderstand half the things you talk about, and just today, I couldn’t keep upwith the running. Jake yelled at me because I just make things worse and causemore work for everyone else. I’m not even good at my job anymore, Doctor. If Ican’t do this, it’s no wonder you’re looking around.”

The Doctor blinked ather, dumbfounded at her confession. Had she really felt this way all this time?How had he not known? Usually she was so confident. He envied that about her,to be honest.

“Hang on,” he pondered.She exhaled heavily, trying to gather herself for whatever was coming next. Hereyes met his for only a second, but he could read their vulnerability. “Didn’tyou quit your uni program because you’d learned what you needed to for thecannon and were shooting yourself across dimensions to save the multiverse? Andyou mentioned the coral… wasn’t it you last week who figured out we needed filteredwater instead of tap water? And you moved her to the sunlight and she grewtwice as big in a day! Never would have thought of that myself, but that’sclassic Rose Tyler right there. Always adding light to everywhere she goes.”

He caught the littlelift of the corner of her lip, but knew better by now than to call her out onit just yet.

“Sure, you’re average atmaths!” he dismissed. “So what? You’re clever, and quick, and you always askthe right questions to figure out what you need to know. And you know I make uphalf the things I ramble on about. I just like impressing you with my big brain.”He winked in flirtation.

“I knew it,” she teased,still sniffling from her earlier crying though by now her tears had dried. Hehad a way of making everything brighter, even when it was partially him who hadmade her sad in the first place.  

He smiled down at her. Sheblushed and ducked her head, but he tilted it back up gently.

“And there’s one morething I want you to be absolutely certain of. You are worth more to me thananything in the multiverse.” His eyes shone with passion, leaving no doubt asto his sincerity.

She broke eye contactand bit her bottom lip. “What about the flirty alien girl?”

He barked out a laugh. “She’sfrom Helena 86! They… it’s just their culture and species. I had to fight tokeep her out of my mind, actually. She kept poking my barriers with a telepathicstick. I couldn’t wait to be rid of her, honestly. That’s why I was working sohard to help get her home when everyone else left.”

“The rest of the teamwent home? And Jake was too busy having a go at me, and we haven’t replacedMickey yet… And that’s why you were alone with her while I was up here. And thewhole time she was making you uncomfortable…” The pieces fell into place. Roseblushed again, this time in guilt. “I should have been down there helping you.All day, I should have been helping you instead of feeling sorry for myself.”

“’S alright. She’ll be gonein the morning.” He shrugged. “I do have one very serious question though, andI want an honest answer.”

“Yeah?”

“Why couldn’t you keepup? And what distracted you when Jake cast the plasma net instead of you?Despite whatever Jake may have said today, it’s not like you. You’re alwaysseeing things before I do, before any of us. Putting the pieces together first.And I know you’re a faster runner than anyone but me.”

“I…” Rose swallowed. “Imissed them sneaking past me because I was trying to pull my water bottle andmy first aid kit from my pack so I could take a pain killer. I know it was amistake and I should have been more careful, but we’d been waiting so long and…I’m sorry.”

“A pain killer?” TheDoctor’s brow furrowed as he whipped his sonic out and scanned her for injuries.“What happened? I didn’t even notice…”

“No,” she huffed out a humorlesslaugh. “No, you plum. I’m, well, I’m on my monthly. It’s not usually this bad,but the shot you gave me on the TARDIS to make them virtually non-existent woreoff. And since then, it’s been hard to adjust back to having to go through allof this again with the cramps and getting dehydrated and the mood swings andbeing so bloody exhausted all the time… I should have given you some sort ofwarning or whatever. You even have to live with me.” Rose shook her head.  

“I get to live with you,” the Doctor corrected. “Every day we havetogether is a gift. And if one of those needs to be a day off, that’s ok.”

“Even if it means justwatchin’ movies at home insteada chasin’ aliens?” Rose asked, letting heraccent slip out in her timidity.  

“I can’t tell you howgood that sounds right now. Molto bene,” he admitted and dared to sneak a handaround her shoulder and squeeze her to his side.

“Really?” The look inher red, tired eyes told him the small question meant so much more. Really, would you be alright with domesticif it was with me? Really, would you slow down when you have the chance to runso I’m not left behind? Really, do you enjoy the quiet moments in our life asmuch as I do? Really, will you be there at home, day after day, when I need you?

“Yes,” he said simplyand placed a kiss on her hair. “You are the love of my lives, Rose Tyler. I’vehad 900 years of running, and if you need a day off, and frankly so do I, thenlet’s take it. Just tell me next time. It’s alright. You are more importantthan any mission.”

“Doctor,” she almostwhispered, sounding unsure if she was even brave enough to ask. “Why me? Imean, you could have had any woman in all of time and space. A princess or agoddess or a genius or another companion… Even this you could have goneanywhere and done anything, but you stayed here with me. Why love me out of allof those people?”

“Why do I love you?” Hecouldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice.

“Yeah, you say you loveme, but I don’t understand it. I’m…”

“You’re you!” heinterjected just as she said, “nothing special.”

Suddenly, he wasn’ttired anymore. He hopped up off the sofa and gestured wildly as he talked.

“Nothing special?! You’reRose Tyler! You’re… phenomenal! You saved my life so many times, became the BadWolf, saved the universe and everyuniverse. All of space and time is better for having you in it. You built atime machine out of a dying TARDIS and crossed realities and are so much braverand stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. You’ve done what no one else could do!You wonder why I love you? Me? I’m anold traveler with more blood on my hands than I can remember and hardly a sonicscrewdriver to my name, but you’re so gorgeous and clever and witty andcompassionate… oh, your heart is so beautiful. I love your mind, but yourheart, Rose. It’s beyond comprehension how you are so human, even to monsters. Includingme. You’re my best friend. How could I not love you? I’m the one who ismarrying up, out of my league, here, not you.”

Rose was crying now foran entirely different reason, and also laughing because of how he had tuggedhis hair up into the most wild fashion, so it took her a second to catch whathe had said.

“Wait, what did you justsay?”

He played back his lastsentence in his mind and she could spot the exact moment when he realized.

“I meant, well, you know…”he backpeddled and tugged on his ear, defaulting to his other tic now that hishair was sticking up in all directions. “After all, we’re spending our livestogether, not that we have to, make it official or anything, I just thought wecould…”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.

“We’ve only been backtogether for a month, so I understand if you don’t want to. It is rather soon.Or we don’t have to ever. I know that it’s probably old fashioned and I shouldjust forget about it—”

“Doctor!” she cut himoff, then lowered her voice as she stood in front of him. “I said yes. If you’reasking.”

He swallowed.

“I… will. I intend toask you properly. But I, um,” he stuttered sheepishly. “I have much moreromantic plan, if that’s alright.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.”She beamed at him through her now-happy tears. He took her hand and entwinedtheir fingers before pecking a kiss to her lips.

“Oh, and Rose?” Hepulled back before she could deepen it into a full snog. “I was an arse today.I should have checked on you far earlier, and I said some things that I nowrealize weren’t the kindest or mosttactful… Forgive me?”

“What, you rude? Whowould have thought,” she teased. “Yeah, if you’ll forgive me for all, well, allof this.” She gestured to her puffy eyes and stained blouse and messy ponytailand the sofa where she had been questioning her very existence.

“Beautiful.”

“No, I mean…” She took adeep breath and expelled it, trying to find the right words. “I should have toldyou I was in pain and shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about the pretty alienlady.”

“Believe me, Iunderstand. As long as we’re being honest, can I tell you something?” He leanedin and she mirrored him.

“What’s that?” Her eyestwinkled at his conspiratorial tone.  

“Our first week in the office,I watched every man like a hawk to see which ones had crushes on you. Some ofthe women too. You’re very popular.”

She giggled a bit. “Yeah?What’d you do, send ’em that old ‘hands off the blonde’ look like the Northernyou used to do when Jack was around?”

“You saw that?” Hegrinned down at her.

“Yeah, didn’t want mewith anyone else but wouldn’t let yourself have me either. Story of our lives,huh?”

“Mmmm. Not anymore,” he practicallypurred. “One human life and none of it to waste on rubbish Time Lord curses. I’mall yours.”

She giggled again as hewaggled his eyebrows. She kissed him, but backed away too soon for his liking.

“My what?”

“Hm?”

“Well, you said you’reall mine. My what? We love each other and live together, and you aren’tflirting with other women even when they are trying very hard to get you toflirt with them, and you’ve let the cat out of the bag that you plan to marryme, but not until some romantic proposal, so…”

“So…?”

“So what are we?”

“We’re us!” He wasclearly trying to follow her train of thought but was giving her that look whenthey had run into a cross-species miscommunication.

“I mean, like, if I’mintroducing you to someone, you’re my what? We’re not married—”

“Yet!” he interrupted happily.

“We’re not engagedbecause you haven’t proposed—”

“Yet,” he interruptedagain, this time more for assurance and clarification.

“So, what are we? How doI introduce you to people?”

“Hm. Let’s see… 21stcentury British English…” he squinted and wrinkled his nose as he thought. “Boyfriendand girlfriend, I suppose. Hm. Yes, that will do. ‘Hello, nice to meet you all.This is my girlfriend, Rose Tyler.’” He tested it out on his tongue, rollingher name around in his mouth like he always did.

“So when my dad’s filthy-rich sister comesnext month for Tony’s birthday and says, ‘Is that your boyfriend? Finally! It’sabout time. You aren’t getting any younger, Rosie,’ I’ll say…”

“You’ll say ‘You know,Aunt Marge, your posh accent is atrocious and you should keep your opinionsabout other people’s ages and love lives to yourself.’”

Rose laughed at hisimpression of her. “She really does talk like that! You’ll see.”

“More to the point,” hecontinued. “Yes. In fact, I’ll introduce myself to her first. ‘Aunt Marge, isit? I’m the Doctor, Rose’s boyfriend and a 906-year-old part-alien. No, the agedifference doesn’t bother us and yes, we are most certainly a couple in thefullest sense of the word.’”

“Fullest sense of theword, huh?” She licked her lips, wondering what he thought that entailed.

“Oh yes.” He pulled herto him with a hand on her lower back. “In the four weeks until Aunt Margearrives, we are going to be very busy, you and I.”

“Yeah?” Finally, hiseyes slipped down to her cleavage as she pressed her chest to his.

“Just you wait, Rose. We’regoing farther than we’ve ever gone before.”

“I like the sound ofthat!”

He entwined their handsagain and moved to open the door.

“But for now, let’s justgo home.”

She smiled and boundedout the door with him to the lift. When the doors shut, she snogged him thoroughly.They hardly realized when the lift reached the ground floor, but broke apartwhen someone cleared his throat.

“I’m assigning you twosome time off,” Pete announced as they disembarked from the lift. “You’ve bothbeen brilliant since the Doctor arrived here and it’s far past time that Ishould have sent you on sabbatical. Three weeks to go explore the world or restor do whatever it is you two do to find trouble.”

“Dad, we can’t! Whatabout Jake and the team?” Rose protested, trying not to seem too excited.

“They will be fine,” heassured. “You two have hardly had time together. Go show the Doctor around thisuniverse. Take the zeppelin and your passports. But I want you two back hereand ready to work in three weeks. Got it?”

“Yes, sir!” The Doctoraccepted before Rose could turn it down. She hugged her father, and they saidtheir goodbyes.

“And not a scratch onthat zeppelin,” he called out after them. “And call your mother!”

“Got it!” Rose shoutedback over her shoulder. By now, the pain killers had long since set in, plus sheknew their Tube station wasn’t far away, so as soon as they were out the doorsof Torchwood One, she grabbed his hand. Her happiness shone despite herdisheveled appearance. He knew what she was going to say before she even saidit and was ready when she did.

“Run!”    

“Allons-y!” he called asthey disturbed the peace of the city of London. But they didn’t care.

She led them to the source of a fragrant blend of roast and potatoes and vegetables and fish and bread–glorious, freshly baked, buttery soft bread. A chorus of “Welcome!” and “Who have we here?” and “Come! Get some food.” rang out through the wood-paneled room. Retirees, backpackers, college students, and families passed around large serving dishes, filled each other’s glasses, and exchanged stories of their adventures. Most of them had been together for the good part of a week, however, or on the same tours, so they were eager for fresh conversation by way of these battle-weary newcomers. The Doctor and Rose did their best to answer everyone’s questions without revealing too many details.

“Oh my,” one white-haired gran cooed, “your boyfriend sure is a looker, dearie.”

Rose caught his eye just as he inhaled sharply at the comment. Not long before they had been separated, they had stopped correcting people who assumed they were a couple. Would she now?

“Yeah, he’s a bit of alright.” Rose blushed as he broke into a grin. She looked away and bit her lip, but let her eyes wander back to his smile briefly before returning her attention to the gran peppering her with questions.  

The Doctor discovered a sure way to divert the topic when things got too personal was to comment on the sailboat paintings decking the walls. After that, the meal passed relatively smoothly, despite Jackie looking at him like she knew something he didn’t. Which, he supposed, included a great many things about this universe, but this seemed more immediate… more strategic…  

After dessert, guests headed back to their rooms one by one. Jackie bowed out, waving her mobile with an incoming call from Pete, and dropped a single key on the table between Rose and the Doctor.

They watched it fall and exchanged surprised blinks. Oh Jackie Tyler had a plan, that was certain.

“So, what do you want to bet there is only one bed in this room?” The Doctor indicated the key between them.

“Knowing Mum, almost certain of it. That ok with you?” Rose tucked a fallen strand of hair behind her ear.

“Just like old times.” The Doctor winked.

“Oh shut up,” she laughed and shoved lightly at his shoulder.

Just like old times, indeed.

Speaking of old times, this house was ancient. Every floorboard squeaked. The Doctor tried to tip-toe to the en suite, making Rose giggle from the bed. She had already washed up with necessities the B&B had supplied. She was dressed only in an overly large T-shirt with the B&B’s logo on the front. He had been provided a similar one and a pair of grey-stripped lounge pants with a matching miniature version of the logo on the right pocket.

“Remind me why we got the attic room with paper-thin walls?” he asked around a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Because Dad is getting in soon and he’d wake up the whole town with those stairs,” she answered though she knew he hadn’t forgotten. He rinsed out his mouth and bounced onto the bed next to her.

He wanted to tease her with a quip about how it was really her parents making sure he kept his paws off their daughter or they’d hear, but he didn’t know if their relationship was to that point. They hadn’t done much even before they were apart. Now, with years to catch up on, he was even less certain of where things were going, um, physically.

Rose reached over him to turn off the lamp when he just stared happily at her and made no move to do so himself. They settled in, side by side but not touching.

“Rose?” he dared to break the silence.

“Yeah?”

“You called me your boyfriend…”

“I think you’ll remember that Mrs. Jenkins did.”

“And you didn’t correct her.”

“No…” Rose tensed next to him, and he rushed out his point.

“Iwasjustwondering… are you…? Um, would it be alright if… we don’t have to, English is a very limited language after all, and this in no way sums up the entirety of who you are to me, and even though it is a bit possessive, I don’t mean it in a possession kind of way, though mutual possessiveness isn’t a bad thing…”

Rose raised up on her elbow to furrow her brow at him.

“Doctor. Do you want to be my boyfriend?”

“Yes.” He nodded vigorously, hoping the light from the window was enough that she could see it.

“Ok.”

“And I can introduce you as my girlfriend?” His voice squeaked a bit at the end. He wondered if she could see him tugging at his ear in the dark.

“Yeah,” she exhaled and relaxed. “It’s like you said, it’s not perfect, but it… clarifies things.”

He nodded again.

“Don’t think this gets you off the hook though,” she warned. “We’ve still got a lot to talk about.”

He swallowed. “Yeah, I suppose we do.”

When neither of them spoke for a while, they settled back onto their pillows and stared at the ceiling.

“Doctor?” Her voice was suddenly small and pleading. “Can we have a cuddle?”

“Well, of course. What kind of boyfriend do you think I am?” He wrapped his arms around her in gratitude. It had been far too long since their kiss on the beach and every cell of his newly formed body yearned for her touch. Her hand was lovely, of course, but her head on his chest, her arm around his waist, his fingers stroking through her hair… This was home.

They drifted off together, knowing that a much more serious conversation was coming. They just didn’t realize how soon.

The Doctor was already sleeping restlessly, haunted by his usual fears, but he fully woke to the sound of gasping. Rose was rolled over on her stomach, fist gripping the sheet and tears running into the pillow.

“Come back,” she begged in her sleep. “Please come back.”

Doubts jumped to his mind, ready as always to disturb his happiness. He waited.

“Doctor,” she cried, just as he suspected. “Come back! Don’t leave me alone.”

He couldn’t take it anymore. Seeing Rose upset was too much for his double hearts before, and it was no different for his single human one now.

“Rose,” he called. He placed a strong but gentle hand on her back and rubbed soothing circles. “It’s ok, Rose. I’m here.”

She sniffed and blinked open her wet eyes.

“Doctor.” Her lip trembled and she turned on her side to pull him close. She buried her face in his shirt, and he continued to stroke her back. He added kisses to her head now that she was close enough.

She pulled away slightly with a sniff and a hand to wipe away her tears. Her mouth moved for a bit before she could form the words.

“I had a dream. A nightmare,” she began. “You both left me here. You and him… you dropped me off and went away without me.”

“Never, Rose Tyler. I will never leave you.” His voice was fierce, and he gripped her forearms above him. But he need her to know this. “No matter what happens here, I promise.”

“Not even when you get your TARDIS coral grown?”

He was taken aback. They had hardly mentioned the coral since leaving the beach. He had answered a few basic questions: It would take a few years to grow, he would need parts from Torchwood, lucky thing he had a sonic in his pocket, etc.

“Never,” he emphasized. “Not unless you’re by my side. And it’s our TARDIS. You can bond with her too.”

“But… really?” Rose sputtered, still disoriented from her nightmare.

“Yeah, if you want.” There it was again, the uncertainty. But he was committed to giving her a choice this time.

“Yeah… and what if I want to stick with Torchwood? And who knows… maybe you will too?”

“Then we can work for them during the week and take trips on the weekends. Might I remind you, it is a time machine, Rose Tyler.” He slipped into a Northern accent for the last bit in imitation of his previous self, coaxing out a twinkle of her laugh.

She traced a light finger over his brow to his cheeks full of freckles to his sideburns. He suppressed a shiver and tried to keep the lust out of his eyes. He wasn’t entirely sure he was successful.

“Then what?” she whispered.

“We could travel the universe like we used to. Or…”

“Mmhm?”

He licked his lips and summoned all of his courage.

“Or we could get a house. The TARDIS will need a back garden to grow in, after all. And maybe, when we’re ready… someday, when we’ve had time to get to know each other again and build a life all our own... we can get married,” he finished in a rush.

“Oh, yes,” Rose exhaled with a shaky smile. “From a practical standpoint it would help.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He tickled her side briefly before letting her answer.

“No more flirty blondes.” She raised an eyebrow, daring him to challenge her.

“You’re a flirty blonde,” he pointed out.

“Well, exactly. Only me.”

“Only you. I’m yours,” he confirmed with a daring peck to her lips. The kiss was over so fast he didn’t blame her for not knowing how to react. What he expected, however, was more banter. What he got was a full-on snog.

“Yep,” he said when she raised up over him again with a satisfied smirk on her perfect lips. “House, windows, carpets, doors, job, time machine, wife…”

She just giggled and settled back down on the pillow next to him.

“Rose?” He rolled over to his side again, more serious now. “There’s something else I need to tell you about this human me.”

“Yeah?” She still had a playful smile, clearly expecting more flirting.

“If you ever wanted… that is… it’s possible now to… biologically, it wasn’t before...”

She sighed and pecked another brief kiss to his lips.

“What is, Doctor?”

He ran a hand through his hair and started over.

“You know how I said we only have one human life together?”

“Yes…”

“When we, eventually, a very very very long time from now, aren’t around anymore…”

“Oh!” she inhaled sharply as she picked up on where he was going, much to his gratitude. “The TARDIS. Doctor, what’s going to happen to our TARDIS?”

She sat up and gaped down at him until he joined her against the headboard. He took her hands in his.

“We don’t have to. We can train… your brother. Or some very deserving students. Or let her go off to some planet to retire. Or whatever we feel is best at the time.”

“Or…” Hope shined in her eyes. “You were saying something… something that wasn’t biologically possible before but is now that you’re human.”

“We’re compatible, Rose. We’re… we can have a family. If you want. When we’re ready, a long time from now, years, if ever.”

She gasped and covered her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Are those…” he ventured a guess, “good tears or bad tears?”

“Good, you plum!” She slapped at his chest. “Are you serious? You’d better be serious, mister.”

“Yes?” He furrowed his brow, trying to decipher her reaction.

“You’re saying we can have everything?” She shook her head in disbelief. “I’ve got you back and I swear that’s enough, that’s all I wanted, but…”

“But you don’t have to choose anymore, Rose. You’ve got me. And your mum. And your dad. And a job you’re obviously cracking good at if you managed to do everything you’ve done. We’ll grow our TARDIS and get a house with a garden when she gets too big, and if we want to get married and fill that house with kids – however many you want! Or none at all! – we can do it. Nothing’s impossible for us now, love.”

She took a moment to respond through her tears of joy.

“Yes!” she choked out. “All of it, Doctor. I want every bit of that life… If you do?”

“Oh Rose Tyler, I’ve lived nearly a thousand years and nothing sounds like a better forever than building that life here with you.”

“Stuck with me isn’t so bad?” she teased with a flash of her tongue-touched smile, yet, needing to hear it confirmed all the same.