Finding the Lost

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Come to bed, don't make me sleep alone.
Couldn't hide the emptiness, you let it show.
Never wanted it to be so cold.
Just didn't drink enough to say you love me.

I can't hold on to me,
Wonder what's wrong with me.

.oO*Oo.

"Bloody hell, this is an opium den?" Martha cried.

"Unfortunately," the Doctor replied.

"What, so they just decide that the best way to make you 'happy' is to… 'set you up' with some random stranger?"

"Not at all," he replied, keeping his eyes somewhere near the ceiling. "It focuses on the thing that you miss the most. Something causing you great sorrow, which if you had back would make you unbelievably happy. Of all the couples in this room, only one of them is real. The other is psychic flesh."

"Something?" she questioned.

"Someone," he amended. "Most usually a lover, or someone that you love, whether they love you in return or not. Sometimes you are reunited with someone you lost, or you are given the chance with someone who never loved you back."

"And they just fall for it?" she whispered in disbelief.

"It's the drug. It confuses them enough that they do not realise that this could not be the person they love. It draws them in and they can think of nothing but that person. Then the parasite feeds of the intense joy. There's a chance that someone with higher functioning brain capabilities might know the difference, but they will still be sucked in, no matter how they feel."

"Oh…" she said quietly. She was a little speechless… This was… she didn't have the words to describe this. She wasn't sure whether - in a strange way - it was nice, giving them back what they had lost, or completely cruel. Looking down to see the body of a dead creature that was yet to be taken away, she decided on cruel.

Suddenly it felt like a stone had been dropped in her stomach as she realised something. She was about to see the Doctor with another woman. It wasn't like he was ever hers… but she was starting to fall in love with him, and it would still hurt.

"Remember," the Doctor said, breaking her out of her thoughts. "Don't let the drugs affect you. If you see someone that you've lost, look away. Don't go to them." Martha nodded. "Now, what do I look like in this incarnation?"

"Erm, well, you're tall and skinny," she told him. "Sharp features. Big, spiky brown hair. Brown eyes. Manic grin. And usually wear a brown or blue pinstripe suit with Converse shoes. He's wearing blue today."

"Alright. I'll look in this direction, you look in that one."

Martha nodded and they split up. She only took quick glances at the faces around her as she carefully stepped around the mass of writhing bodies. Everywhere throughout the dark room were obscene sights. Couples tumbled about in dark corners and on the tables and the ground. Around the room were curtained off areas. She was followed by the constant sounds of moans and whimpers and whispered words of love.

There were couples of all kinds here. Men and women, men and men, women and women, a man and… whatever the hell that was. Some of the stuff they were doing she didn't even know was possible!

As much as she really didn't want to look, she kept an eye out for a wild mop of brown hair. She was just starting to get frustrated when she saw him. There he sat at the back of the room. He had taken off his shirts and shoes, so he was wearing nothing but his trousers. His eyes were so dark she could barely see the brown. And as he looked at her, she found a shiver run down her spine.

He smiled at her and she knew she had to go to him. She couldn't' let him be trapped here. He was hers. Not theirs. But then, as she started towards him, something stopped her.

"Martha!" the other Doctor shouted. "I think I've found him!" No, he couldn't have. The Doctor was right in front of her. It must just be someone who looked like the description she gave him. "Do you know about anyone called Rose?"

Suddenly her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach. Without another look at the Doctor before her, she turned and ran to where the voice had come from. And sure enough, in one of one of the curtained off rooms to the side, she found the Doctor in cream. And there, on the big pile of cushions that served as a sort of bed, was her Doctor and a woman.

The Doctor wasn't quite as bad as the one she had seen before (which she realised, sickeningly, was just the drugs affecting her). He had taken off his shoes and his jacket. His shirt had a button or two undone, was untucked, and the sleeves were pushed up to his elbows. But it was the look in his eyes that was most different.

He was looking at the 'woman' before him in pure wonder and happiness and love… but there was something behind that. A sadness, a deep lingering sadness, like he knew deep down that this was just an illusion. He was caressing her face, taking in the detail as if he thought that he could never truly imprint it to his memory, even if he stared at her for eternity.

She blinked when she saw the woman. She barely looked to be out of her teens. She couldn't be more than twenty. She had unnaturally blonde hair with her light brown, natural roots starting to show. Cheeky hazel eyes stared at him adoringly… they were rimmed in just a little too much eyeliner in her opinion.

She wasn't what she had expected at all. She seemed… ordinary. Sure, she was pretty, but she was just a girl.

"Rose," he whispered to her.

"My Doctor," she replied with a strong London accent. She leant in and kissed him softly. He clung to her desperately as he kissed her back and Martha felt her stomach twist.

She could remember the kiss he had given her. She had thought it was brilliant, that though he said otherwise, it had meant something. No one could kiss quite like that and not have some sort of meaning behind it. What she realised now, was that, perhaps, he had been thinking of Rose in that moment. Because, not matter how nice it was, it paled in comparison to everything that was being shared through this kiss. Even watching, she could tell he was pouring all his love and his pain and desperation into that kiss.

And it made her sick.

Oh, she really didn't want to be a jealous cow. But she had feelings for him, and to watch this…

"You're here," the drugged Doctor whispered reverently to 'Rose'. "I've got you back. I've finally got you back."

"They keep on trying to split us up, but they never ever will," she grinned at him.

"Never ever," he smiled sadly.

"I love you," she chocked.

The Doctor grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her desperately as soon as she said that. "Rose, I…" a tear leaked from his eye and it seemed he wasn't able to say it. Instead he just pulled her towards him again.

"Oh," the other Doctor said in surprise. Love… he had actually fallen in love in the future. And she loved him in return. The conversation was proof of that. "These conversations actually happened," he explained aloud. "Her side at least. The illusion isn't foolproof, hence why he's crying. A part of him knows it isn't real. So to maintain the illusion, they draw on his memories. Everything she says is something he had heard her say before."

Martha swallowed the lump in her throat. "Let's get him out of here," she said shakily.

"We can't," the other Doctor said, his voice full of regret. "He's too deep. Too strong. His best chance is to get him away from here. But if we try to take him away from her, he will not be able to tell us as friend from foe and is likely to kill us so he can stay with her. And even if we could knock him unconscious and take him with us, the effects of the drug will still be lingering with him. The mental pain of her not being with him could be strong enough to kill him, or cause a serious mental break at least. And I don't mean the kind you can recover from."

"Then what can we do?" she worried.

"The only one who can help him is that girl there," he pointed to girl in the Doctor's arms. "Well, when I say her, I mean the real one. If she can get him out of here, and still be here until the drugs get out of his system, he should be fine."

The Doctor on the bed groaned softly… sadly. "Rose Tyler, what have you done to me," he asked. It was like he didn't know anyone else was in the room. They were just invisible. Tyler. So that was her name. Rose Tyler.

The other Doctor grabbed her hand and dragged her away before they could hear 'Rose's' answer.

?...DW…?

Martha looked around in shock at the interior of the TARDIS. It was so white and clean and bare. It was a little smaller than what she was used to, but the lack of anything there made it seem bigger than it really was. It seemed almost emotionless and clinical.

This was the other Doctor's TARDIS. The man in question was typing away furiously by the monitor. She looked over to see what he was doing and blinked in surprise.

"It's in English!" she said.

"Yes," he replied absentmindedly.

"But the monitor is never in English. It's always in Gallifreyan. I didn't think it could do English!"

The Doctor grinned for a moment. "Do you get sentimental in your old age, Girl?" he said patting the small time rotor. "I can't find anything. There are far too many Rose Tyler's in Time and Space. Do you know anything else about her?"

"Erm… well, she has a London accent… so she should be from there at one point or another, right? And I don't think she'd been gone long after he started travelling with me… so, 2006?"

The Doctor typed that in, refining his search to 'Rose Tyler, London, 2006'. He got an instant result… his face fell.

"Oh…" he said forlornly.

"What?" Martha replied. She looked at the screen and drew in a sharp breath.

There, at the top of the page it read 'The Battle of Canary Warf Memorial'. She could see her cousin's name towards the bottom of the page under 'U'. But there, about mid way up with about seven other Tyler's was 'Tyler, Rose'.

"No, but… she can't…" she stuttered in horror. "She's not dead. She can't be. He never talks about her like she's dead. He said she's with her family…" Suddenly she froze as another memory struck her. That time just before they stepped onto New Earth when he had pretended that he could go back to his planet whenever he wanted.

She remembered the look on his face when he had told her that he had been in the battle. He had seemed so sad…

Could he really have been doing that? Was he really pretending that somewhere out there, Rose was still alive so that it didn't hurt so much? The thought that he was broke her heart a little for him. No wonder he couldn't let her go. She hadn't left. He had lost her.

"Well, perhaps we should do some digging then," the Doctor said. "What was this Canary Warf?"

"It was a government building. My cousin worked there. But she always said that she worked for something called… Torchwood."

"Oh, blimey, not that lot," he grumbled.

"You've heard of them?"

"Not much, but they interfere with aliens far too much. I think that by your time, it's all but gone. Only one sector left. Later on it shifts around, eventually dropping the name and becoming something known as the Time Agency. But Torchwood as it is now… Let's go talk to them, shall we?"

He began pressing buttons and soon the familiar graunch of the engines could be heard. But Martha was surprised to find that the ride was very smooth… she didn't even wobble!

"We're here?" she asked. It was a little had to tell without the big crash to signal their landing.

"Yes, we are." He stepped from the TARDIS out into the sun filled plas of…

"Cardiff," she said in disgust and disbelief.

"I know," he rolled his eyes. "But it appears that important things happen sometime in Cardiff. One of which, it becomes the last remaining Torchwood base."

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"Doctor!" They turned at the sound of the shout. A rather handsome looking man with dark hair and a World War II coat and backpack was running full pelt towards the TARDIS. Seeing them, he realised that they might know him. "Have you seen a man?" he panted. He held up his hand to indicate a height. "This tall. Short dark hair. Blue eyes. Leather jacket. Fairly large nose and even bigger ears. Owns this box. Goes by the Doctor."

The Doctor shuddered as he felt it. Something was wrong about this man… he was a fixed point in time. How was that even possible?

"No," Martha replied, "But I've seen two… er, one man who goes by the Doctor. I travel with one in the, er… box, and just met this one."

The man did a double take, focusing on the Doctor. "You're the Doctor?" he said in disbelief.

"The one and only… Well, at this point in time anyway. Clearly with a face you're not used to. Did you know me before I regenerated?" The man just looked at him in bewilderment.

"He's a past version of the Doctor," Martha explained.

"Ah, I see… I thought regeneration was just a myth!"

"Clearly not, as you can see," the Doctor held his arms out in example. "May I ask, what is wrong with you?"

"What?" Martha said in confusion. The man's face just darkened.

"I was hoping you would tell me," he growled. "Ever since the last time I saw you, since you abandoned me alone on a dead satellite, it seems that I can't die."

"No, you're a fixed point in time…" the Doctor mused. "Do you know how it happened?"

"Once again, was hoping you can tell me."

"Well, you'll have to ask the Doctor from your timeline once we've saved him."

"What's he gotten himself into this time?" he laughed. But he fell short when he realised that it must be serious if a past version of him was crossing his own timeline to help him. Also the looks on their faces was not a good one.

"He's trapped in a psychic opium den," the Doctor told him. The man paled. He clearly wasn't from this time if he knew what that was. "We've come here looking for Torchwood. They might have more information on the only person who can get him out of there."

"Well, you've come to the right guy," he tried to grin. "Captain Jack Harkness, head of Torchwood." The smile fell off his face. "But I think I know who you're looking for, and I can't help. She's dead."

Martha noticed the bitterness in his voice and felt sorry for the man. "You knew Rose?" she asked.

Jack nodded. "She was my best friend. I may have been in love with her a little, as a sister, mind you. The Doctor made it very clear I had to keep my hands off the blonde. I was working here at the time of the Battle… saw her name on the list of the dead two days later. He may not admit it, but I know he loved her. You can't spend five minutes with those two and not know it. Without her, there's no other way to get him out."

"Well then, we'll just have to find her, wont we?" the Doctor said. "We could go back in time, right before the battle, find a time when he's not with her and get her to come with us… at least that way if she does remember - I'd have to wipe her memory - it wouldn't be long till…"

Jack gulped and had to hold back tears. "Yeah," he rasped. "She was a good girl. She doesn't need to know that's coming… We have tapes. CCTV footage of what happened. I've never bought myself to watch it. I couldn't… but the recordings are damaged anyway. Too much interference."

"Interference?" the Doctor's head perked up.

"Yeah. Tosh watched through some of it. She mentioned the Doctor and Rose, someone called Pete. Oh, and Torchwood One's director, Yvonne Hartman. She was only really able to pick up a few words, not many. But the important ones seemed to be Daleks - I remember them all too well - Cybermen, breach, void, dimension and jump."

"Jack, there may be hope."

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Whoo! Jack's here. Love Jack. It never really seems like much of a story without him. I've always imagined that Torchwood Three would have video footage of the battle. I think that Jack would have intended to watch it, but wouldn't have been able to do it. Not when he knew that Rose would die. Also it would be very scrambled from the breach and the jumps.

I'm trying to find the right balance for Martha. I want to keep her in character, but I don't want to over do her on the horrid cow part. She does have compassion. And even if she does have feelings for him, I don't think she could actually bring herself to dislike Rose, especially not after this.

Looking to be fairly short at the moment. But it's all good. I know how to get the story in and it will get one story off my chest so I can get on with the rest.

Hope you liked!