Okay! Hi everyone, I know I said I'd post Chapter 3 of Tick Tock first, but this little story came to me first. Sorry, I'm almost done with Tick Tock's third chapter, I won't abandon the work, I'm finishing it. But I'm close to graduating with my bachelors, so I've been a bit inundated with work and stress. Forgive?

Anyhow, I write this for my bestie/seestra, Rio.

River resembles herself in this fic, there is no bashing, so if you were hoping for that? Wrong place. Bad Wolf!Rose resembles Helena from Orphan Black. If you haven't seen Orphan Black, stop everything you're doing and watch it.

Thank you kindly,

Natural-blues

River was sitting in the hospital room right across from Rose, who preferred to be called Bad Wolf anymore. It made plenty of sense, Bad Wolf had taken over her body chemistry, changing her into something else, and her life span was looking wicked long. Because of her relation to the Tardis, she and River had felt an instant connection. They'd bonded quite quickly, calling each other 'sister' and honestly feeling like family. For River, it was the first actual constant family member she'd had - Bad Wolf, whom she called Big Bad as a nickname, willingly followed her anywhere. She knew she should maybe feel selfish - this life of being out of sync was her cross to bear- but she couldn't tell Bad Wolf not to come with. She wanted her there. She'd come to need her around, she felt like the other half of her. They made each other better

"Come off it, Big Bad and just eat!" River snapped, holding the plastic sporkful of red jello out for her sister. The stubborn head shake made suicide blonde hair fan out. River frowned. "Are you ever going to dye your roots?" Another head shake.

"I don't want to," Bad Wolf said, stubbornly. Her voice had changed since her regeneration into Bad Wolf. Bad Wolf's accent sounded more Slavic, not a trace of the lower class London accent that she'd had previously. The Doctor had been floored to hear it, at first thinking she was joking. She wasn't. Bad Wolf had taken over her mind, and while she couldn't break people down at an atomic level anymore, or bring them back to life by force willynilly, she was still a power to be reckoned with; and the mix of Rose and Bad Wolf had given her a mix of crazy and innocent that River understood on a personal level.

"Why not?"

"It moves like it is alive... I do not trust that food. It wibbles and wobbles."

River rolled her eyes. "So you should like it, because it's wibbly wobbly."

"...I am not your husband, he is the one who likes those."

"Stop being such a meathead." River huffed. As soon as Bad Wolf opened her mouth to protest, she shoved the jello in.

Bad Wolf's eyes were huge, and she chewed experimentally. She made grabby motions, unable to resist the sugary substance, and River smirked. Victory. Bad Wolf used the spork a bit awkwardly, sucking the jello off of the plasticware a little too loudly... but she was eating somewhat cheerfully so River would take it. Living an entire life propelled backward while moving forward could make you really relish the smaller victories in life. She just didn't look forward to the day that she knew was coming eventually. Someday she was going to just be gone - she was going to die. She had no regenerations, and while she was worried about dying for the obvious reasons, now she had another reason. She had a sister who functioned... oddly. How would she function without her? River was the more stable one in this relationship. She shoved the feelings aside and watched Bad Wolf eat cheerfully.

"I have a present for you," Bad Wolf murmured between bites of jello.

River was laying against the hospital bed, just staring up at the clock as it ticked the seconds away. At least it didn't make the noises, the noises would make it worse. She just wanted her sister to wake up. She knew Bad Wolf wouldn't remain dead if she died, due to the power of resurgence that made her up, but she didn't want to see her die again. She'd come back from death the first time changed from her normal personality into this... complete with accent and strangeness. She didn't want to see what another go would do to her.

"Please don't leave... I'm sorry. I'm just sorry, all right? Don't leave." River whispered. "I didn't mean it. When we first met, you know? I didn't mean it. When I was rude, and I thought... well, you know what I thought. I'm sorry for that too. I'm sorry for not knowing you well enough to care the first time you died."

She inhaled a bit, and glanced back up at the clock. Shouldn't she be awake by now? Where were those useless medical workers?! River had lost a lot, considering. She'd definitely lost a husband who knew who she was and trusted her, just by her life continuing backwards as it did. She'd lost her parents already, but they were still available for her to talk to. They just didn't know her. But she got to see them alive and together, and that was what counted, right? She rubbed her temples. It was, it was. Like her sister had told her, it would be good for her to get to know her parents without them knowing who she was. She could get to know them on an actual, real basis - without the cloudiness that could happen when you had a parent-child relationship. Child. Hah.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, feeling that anxiety that sometimes permeated her being begin to rise up against her will. "I should have gone slower. I should have known, I should have stopped. I should have just... been able to feel you there. I should have known. Somehow. I'd never hurt you, Big Bad, you have to know that, surely you know that? I'd hurt everyone except for you before I ever hurt you. You know that, don't you?"

Silence.

"I love you, sweetheart..." she murmured, looking down. A soft, cold hand grabbed her wrist suddenly, and she looked down at the bed, into the wide, semi-innocent eyes of her sister. The cognac orbs regarded her in the darkness, meeting her jade ones and holding their gaze.

"You make me cry, seestra," Bad Wolf whispered, and it said everything.

"Come here, meathead," River responded, embracing the girl on the bed.

River was running into the hospital, the moon on the side of it the first tip-off of where she was. She had her sister's bloody arm around her neck, and was half carrying her, half running with her inside. People saw them and were shocked, making some loud noises of disbelief. Figured... they were on a pacific planet, and likely hadn't seen actual injury in a few decades. They could all piss off for all River cared. This planet spoke Italian as it's first language, English second; a form of New Earth that had been taken over by people from the Mediterranean. She made it to the part of the hospital she needed as she saw the sign flashing Pronto Soccorso. Emergency Room.

She stopped at the desk and glared at the woman who was on her headset, in the middle of a phone call. She let her sister lean deeper against her, using a careful hand to swipe the blood tinged platinum hair out of her face, dinged and dirty. River assumed her face must mirror that, feeling some of the grime from the battle and the day on her body. She knew her pants were absolutely covered in blood and dirt, and her shoes were getting uncomfortable, now that she thought of it. Her white tank top must look a sight, not that she really gave a-

"What is your emergency?" the woman asked, twirling a piece of her mint green hair as she took in the two in front of her.

"My seestra shot me..." Bad Wolf whimpered, her accent making it a bit difficult to understand when she was weak and slurring her words. River felt a deep twinge of guilt that nearly arrested her, and she lost grip on her for only a second. It was enough to nearly drop her, but she caught the girl quickly.

"It was an accident!" She snapped, defensive, sounding more like she was yelling at herself than anyone else. "Help her dammit, before she bleeds out on the floor!"

Bad Wolf's hand was on the front desk, and doctors came out, rushing to put her on a laser gurney. River tried to go with, but was held back as they were taking her into surgery. She ended up pacing in front of the desk, nearly driving the secretary spare. She just couldn't sit still. She didn't want Bad Wolf to die. Death was a horrible look for her sister, and the journey back was not easy. She wondered for a moment if that Harkness bloke could possibly help... she didn't have his phone number, but Bad Wolf did... shit. Her super phone was in her pocket.

She glanced up as a maintenance man went to spray off the bloody handprint her sister had left. She panicked, unreasonably. For some reason it felt like if that bit of her sister's lifeforce was wiped clean, she would definitely die. "Don't!" she said, grabbing the man's arm.

"Miss, I have to clean this! Devo pulirlo!"

"No you don't! You leave it!"

"It is biohazard!"

"...Leave it."

"If you do not allow, I will call carabinieri."

"If you do erase it, you'll need to call a mortician." She growled, knowing she was going against reason. She didn't care.

It ended up getting cleaned off later on, with only mild police interference - they'd had to talk to her to check and see if she'd be a problem, but by then she'd calmed down. She just sat there, feeling useless on the hospital bench. Was there any way that anyone didn't feel useless in a hospital when they just had to wait?!

It'd been thirty minutes. This was the future, on a planet with advanced technology, they should be done by now. Why weren't they done? This was ridiculous. She could hear yelling going on, and knew that voice. Damn, just like she'd worried - Bad Wolf wasn't susceptible to very many medications, just like her. Damn superior genes, it made things very inconvenient sometimes. The pain killers weren't working, so she felt everything.

A few minutes later, she saw nurses running along with something in a syringe. She could smell it. Zydrate. Good. That'd knock her out. Zydrate turned off all nerve endings in the body temporarily, and facilitated a feeling of euphoria.

She looked down at her own phone, pulling the lock screen up. It was a picture of herself and her sister, her laughing and her sister making a funny face, staring up at her. Bad Wolf was older than her, but their dynamic made her feel like the elder sibling. She remembered when the Doctor had seen that picture. That'd been a treat.

She moved her finger in the code to unlock it. Twenty seven texts?! The hell?!

Donna, Donna, Donna, Donna... all Donna, ironically enough. No wait, one from the Doctor, telling her that he was taking her to some singing hills. She'd be happier later. For right now, she had 26 texts from Donna demanding to know why her wife wasn't answering the phone. Now she was saying she and the Doctor were concerned, and demanding to know if her wife was mad at her over... what argument?! What?! ...an argument over her sister's propensity toward only consuming sugary substances instead of actual food. That made sense. She still had to tell Big Bad that consuming the occasional avocado didn't count as a nutrient replacement. Oh great. How to tell her sister in law she accidentally a thing...

Bad Wolf was running down a flight of stairs, on Nuova Terra, a form of New Earth that had been taken over by people mostly from Italy. She made it past the terzo piano, heading down to the secondo piano. Those demonic looking creatures that they were fighting were everywhere, but her sister knew how to take them down. No one was more capable than River. Bad Wolf smiled a barracuda smile as that thought finished going across her mind. Well, no one was more capable than the two of them. She looked up at the demonic creature running toward her and threw a knife at it, hitting the thing in the forehead. River loved guns, Bad Wolf hated them. When River had given her a large set of throwing knives, she'd cried, because it was a way for her to use weapons and fight by her sister's side. She'd returned the favor by buying her a gun on Poosh.

Sisters.

She ran down the hallway, remembering that she had something super important to tell her sister. Something she'd figured out, something that needed to be said. But at this rate, she'd be stuck against these demons non-stop. She threw another knife, embedding in the creature's eye. The secondo piano wasn't as filled with them as the primo piano must be. River was on the primo piano, and she could hear the sounds of gunfire saying that her sister was definitely winning. That wasn't unusual.

She threw another knife, barely making it past the thing in front of her to hit the wires behind him. The lights on the secondo piano went out, temporarily blinding everyone involved. The creatures couldn't see in the dark. But the Wolf could. She smirked, hunting them now. This was what she was now. Half Estates girl, half predator.

By the time she made it down to the primo piano, the gunfire was still happening at a steady drumbeat. She jumped up behind a creature that was poised to attack River, and stabbed him in the neck. He whipped around, trying to throw her off, just as River fired on him. Bad Wolf got tagged four times in the back, and dropped off the creature like a sack of bricks.

River shouted, but she could barely hear her. River pulled her sister out of the way, setting her in the corner. She couldn't help her until every one of those creatures were taken down. She turned her fury on them.

"Big Bad, seriously?!"

Bad Wolf glowered at her sister. It wasn't funny. She stood there, on a stool, wrapped in pink linen covered in pins and stays. The Doctor was smirking, trying not to laugh while leaning against the console and looking at his wife. He obviously didn't trust himself to speak, shaking with the church giggles.

"This not is funny, seestra!" Bad Wolf hissed, looking down at her wife. Donna, for her part, was enjoying herself, humming and reading the book on how to create dresses by hand.

"Oh, I disagree, sweetie..." River snickered.

"Baby, don't move, I don't want to accidentally stick you with something!" Donna snapped, waving her hands. A force of nature, that one, perfect for taming the Bad Wolf.

Donna was fussing with the scraps of linen, trying to make a beautiful pink dress for her wife was proving to be more difficult than originally planned. She tossed a piece of the overlong fabric away, but it only ended up covering Bad Wolf's head. She scowled, looking martyred and put out.

River took a picture with her phone.

"Do not take a picture!" Bad Wolf protested, twitching a bit.

"Baby don't move!"

"Haha, don't move, Meathead."

"Seestra!"

"You don't have to do this," River murmured, looking at Bad Wolf. "You don't have to at all. Why would you volunteer for this?"

"You understand me," Bad Wolf murmured. It had been a rocky start between them, they'd only known each other the six days that River had come back there, to help the Doctor out. River had been quite... standoffish with her in the beginning, because she'd known who Rose Tyler was. She'd thought that her coming back was a way of changing River's own past, to try to end up with the Doctor. River could be quite mercurial in her moods, and instead of actually asking, she'd instead treated the girl... well, not too kindly.

She'd seen Donna kissing Rose on the second day, and on finding out that the two were married, had felt a bit foolish. But her past was something that she was protective of for obvious reasons. Donna had acted a bit strange around Rose, she'd found out. It turned out that the Rose that Donna was married to was very different from the Rose Tyler standing there, with a dimension cannon and a Torchwood gun that she'd gotten to know for two days. That Rose had disappeared, heading off to meet Donna for the first time.

Donna seeing Rose in the prison cell they were supposed to find her in had made River feel sombre. She'd been killed, there had been blood everywhere. She hadn't felt attached to the girl, but even then. She'd died in Donna's arms, while the redheaded woman had howled, holding onto her and rocking her, begging her "Baby please don't leave me, baby don't leave me!" and it'd been hard to watch this woman that had previously been viewed as competition limp in the arms of someone who loved her. She felt ice in her veins as she realized that when she died, the Doctor wouldn't hold her this way. He wouldn't know her.. meanwhile Rose died in the arms of someone who knew and loved her, whom she didn't know or love. Their situations foiled. The Doctor had been beside himself... that had been the worst. His oldest friend dying. The worst. She'd done what she could to comfort him, and Rose had come back from the dead - the power of resurgence, the Doctor had said.

She'd come back a bit... different. River supposed that seeing into the afterlife after seeing into the Void and anything else... it made sense. She'd had a different accent, a different way about herself. It'd been hard for her husband to handle, he hated change as much as he hated endings, but she'd protested his behavior against the girl. "Maybe it's just like regeneration, sweetie... it's not fair of you not to accept her when she accepted your regenerations twice, is it?" she had made a point there. That had sobered him up.

But now, looking at the girl in front of her, they'd gained a connection over the past few days. Easily mirroring each other's movements, coming to an understanding, bonding with each other. River could feel Bad Wolf's mind in hers, on the outside, the way one Gallfreyan felt another. It'd meant a lot, she honestly didn't want her to not come. But it was asking her to give up a lot.

Bad Wolf, for her part, didn't mind it. If she became really connected to the woman in front of her, she still had enough extra power to gift the power of resurgence to one other person, other than Jack. Honestly, it would be a better present for River, because as a Gallifreyan, she wouldn't physically age. She could just come back the way Bad Wolf and Jack did. But Bad Wolf would save that for later, if it came up.

"You are my twin seestra," she murmured. "You know me. I know you. I see a light in you... you feel it, don't you? We are meant to be together in this. I will not let you go alone."

River did know. She nodded slowly. "Come on then, meathead."

"Do not call me this."

Some words -

Primo piano - First floor

Secondo piano - Second floor

Terzo piano - Third floor

Pronto Soccorso - Emergency Room

Devo pulirlo - I have to clean it

Carabinieri - a type of policeman who is gun carrying

The throwing knives and gun are linked on my profile.