Okay, now he's really confused, but his genius mind sets to work on the problem. "You're from another universe? Another universe with another me? How come?"
"Long story," she says, and he can see she's fighting back tears. He wants to comfort her; she reminds him of other spunky women he's known, Sarah Jane, or Grace. Maybe... maybe even Romana.
"Well, I'm not going anywhere," he jokes, and is rewarded by her smile. "Come on, tell me. I'm sure the story is going to be fascinating. And I want to hear all about this other me."
She starts to tell him about a parallel Torchwood, a way between worlds, Cybermen, a Void, a Cardiff Rift... it's a wild and fanciful tale, full of adventure and heroics, just the way he likes it. "Fantastic!" he says. She stops. "What?" he asks.
"Oh..." she says, "well... you regenerated, see, and you... you didn't say that anymore."
"I regenerated?" he repeats, excited. "Am I ginger?"
"Nope, sorry," she laughs, "you're more sort of Science Geek Professor."
He sighs dramatically. "Well, I guess you can't have everything." She's still eyeing him curiously, and he guesses she's comparing him to that other Doctor. It's rather an uncomfortable feeling. "Would you stop doing that?" he says irritably.
"Sorry," she says contritely.
"How did I... die?" he asks. Wow, this is morbid.
"The Daleks were taking over the earth in the far future and you were the only one who could stop them and you tricked me into going home in the TARDIS so I would be safe but I looked into the Time Vortex and... it's all a bit of a blur after that but I woke up in the TARDIS with the Daleks destroyed and you dying from having absorbed the energy of the Vortex, and you regenerated," she says all in one breath.
"Wow," he says. "I like this other me. How was he different from me?"
She hesitates, and he knows she's going to leave out the bad bits. "He had short hair. Do you wear a leather jacket? 'Cos he did."
"Nope," he says, "but I will if you want," and he grins.
"He grinned like that," she continues, "and he said 'Fantastic', and he was the bravest, most amazing man in the universe."
"And what about the bad bits?" he asks, and she looks guilty. "Come on Rose, my planet was blown up, I think it affects me."
"She can tell you later," the Asian woman interrupts. "You should rest now."
"Well, don't panic if it looks like I cop it," he says. "It's just the healing coma. I can lower my body temperature to below freezing," he boasts.
"I'm not going," Rose argues with the nurses. "I'm not leaving him after all this." She still looks like she's going to burst into tears at any minute, and he feels like giving the parallel him a good kicking for leaving her here. That gives him an idea... but then they inject him with something and he loses the idea as everything goes dark.
timewartimewartimewartimewar...
Her cell phone rings. It's not the SuperPhone, of course- that was destroyed, and anyway it was pretty useless without a Doctor to call- just an ordinary cell phone, and when she picks up Jackie's on the other line, and Rose has no idea what to tell her. Her mother has never been fond of Rose's nine-hundred-year-old alien friend, and she probably still wants to slap him.
"Rose, darling, how come you're late?"
The lie comes easily to her lips, because saying the truth would make it real, and she still doesn't quite believe he won't just vanish. "Got held up, Mum. Something came up. I probably won't be home till morning."
"Darling, you work too hard, I've always said so! You can't afford to stay up all night, sweetheart, you'll be tired tomorrow."
"I know, Mum. Sorry." She hangs up before Jackie can say anything more, and goes back to staring at him. The blue-green eyes she used to love so much are closed now, and the screens show he's unconscious. She sits next to him, wishing she was brave enough to hold that familiar hand. I thought I'd lost you forever.
But what does she do now? When he's recovered, will he still want her to travel with him? And could she bear it to be with the man she loves, when he doesn't love her back? Perhaps in time he'll come to reciprocate her feelings.
But can she do that to Jackie, all over again? This Doctor, she knows, is the one Jackie hates. She was beginning to accept the other one, perhaps because he appeared younger, more innocent. This Doctor never looked young or innocent.
Now, though, he just might. He looks as though a great burden has been lifted from his shoulders, like he believes the world is an amazing place. Oh, Doctor, I never realized before just what the Time War did to you.
timewartimewartimewartimewar...
"Yes, that's my ship," he admitted, gazing at the blue police box. The Nestene Consciousness roared accusingly. "That's not true! Yes, I was there! I fought in the War, but it wasn't my fault! I couldn't save your world, I couldn't save any of them!"
timewartimewartimewartimewar...
The Doctor is pretty relieved to wake up. He usually doesn't dream, but that one was frightening and strangely real. Probably brought on by Rose's wittering about how she met the other me.
Rose. He turns, and she's there, slumped in her chair, fast asleep. She must have been there all night. The other Doctor must have really meant a lot to her, he realizes. And now he's got to live up to his parallel self. What has he gotten himself into?
"Rose," he says softly. She opens her eyes sleepily. "Doctor," she says. "You're not a dream, then?"
"No, I'm real enough," he says and takes her hand.
She drops his hand like it's red-hot. "Wh-what did you do that for?" she asks.
He feels hurt. "I dunno, just seemed like the right thing to do."
"Your other self... he held my hand too," she says. "Not as much after the regeneration, though." She looks tentatively at the Doctor, who is sitting up in bed with a bemused expression on his face. "Are you feeling better?"
He does a self-check. "Yup, all better now!" he says. "And once I get back to the TARDIS, she'll make sure I'm good as new. You know about the TARDIS, right?"
"Sure," she says, rolling her eyes. "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. T.A.R.D.I.S. Tardis." She grins. "First thing you told me. Well, after the whole 'it's bigger on the inside' thing."
"Do you... do you want to come with me?"
"I... I don't know," she says uncertainly. "I've got to call me mum. And anyways, you can't just go swanning off, you need to fill out mountains of paperwork!"
"Ah, paperwork," he replies with a careless wave, "it can go stuff itself. If you've traveled with me I'm sure you know I'm not one for paperwork."
" 'Domestics'," she says, like she's quoting the other him. She grins. "Oki-doki, then, I guess I'll just call my mum." She stops. "Unless... you already have someone else with you?" She looks so scared at this prospect it's all he can do not to laugh.
"Nope."
"Right then." She takes out her phone and dials. After a moment she says, "Mum? It's me. I've found the Doctor. If all goes well he'll bring me back to this very moment and you'll never need to hear this message, but, well, we know the Doctor's not very good at that kind of thing." He snorts in indignation. She continues, "so don't worry about me, all right? Give my love to Pete and Mickey. See ya!" She hangs up. "Well, Time Lord?" she asks. "Wanna go somewhere?"
"Let's leg it out of the hospital first," he says, "or they'll drown me in paperwork." They both laugh, and it feels for one instant like he's known her forever. Then the moment is gone, but she's still smiling, and as he gets out of bed and prepares to run away, his hand finds hers and holds it close.
timewartimewartimewartimewar...
Lonelyness. All alone, forever. So lonely.
"You think it'll last forever. The people, and cars, and concrete. But it won't. Then one day it's all gone. Even the sky. ...My planet's gone. It's dead. It burned, like the Earth. It's just rocks and dust. Before its time."
"What happened?"
"There was a war, and we lost."
"A war with who?... What about your people?"
"I'm a Time Lord. I'm the last of the Time Lords. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left travelling on my own, 'cause there's no one else."
"There's me."
timewartimewartimewartimewar...
Rose wakes up to the sound of birds. Wha'? Birds in th' TARDIS? she thinks muzzily. After a few minutes she hauls herself out of bed and realizes the musical sound was coming out of a small speaker next to her bed. "Thanks, old girl," she mumbles.
It isn't her room, of course, not yet, but the TARDIS has willingly obliged her with a brand new pink-and-purple room and a very comfortable bed. An extremely psychic ship could be a good thing, she decides.
She wanders out into the console room in her pyjamas, wondering once again at the strange console room, which appears to have been redecorated. Instead of the green and gold colors it is all blue and mahogany, with a hexagonal console and curving rectangular blue pillars instead of gold coral-like ones. The console room also appears to be much larger than the one she remembers, with strange accessories like oriental rugs on the floor, which appears to be made out of polished wood boards. Racks of ornate candles stand in odd corners. Last night, she remembers, the Doctor explained that he hadn't got around to redecorating yet. She had gathered that he redecorated every couple of regenerations, as his personality changed. Now there's a strange thought.
She hears footsteps and turns to see the Doctor come into the console room. He has a bemused expression and his hair is mussed, and he looks absolutely adorable. "Good morning, sleepyhead," she says affectionately.
The Doctor still looks confused. "I had a dream last night," he says distractedly.
"Wot's so special 'bout a dream?"
He frowns. "Time Lords don't dream. Not the way you humans do, anyways. We recall memories sometimes as our brains sort things out, but..." his frown deepens, "I didn't recognize this memory. I think... you were there. And I felt really... lonely, for some reason." He shrugs. "Then again, it's not that unusual for me to feel lonely, so I s'pose I shouldn't be too concerned about it." He grins. "So, where'd you want to go?"
She shudders. "Nowhere near Satellite Five, trust me."
"How 'bout Betelgeuse Seven? I know a nice little coffeeshop where we can get breakfast, enjoy the scenery..."
"...and get swept into a violent revolution against the ruling class?" Rose interrupts dryly. "Maybe stop an invasion of Cybermen? I know you, Doctor."
"Well... maybe," he admits.
She smiles. "Fantastic."
timewartimewartimewartimewar...
"Hurry up, Doctor," Rose sings nervously. "The mob is getting closer, and some of them are carrying pitchforks."
Her alien friend fumbles at the TARDIS lock for a moment, then pulls open the door and pulls her inside, slamming the wooden panels behind them.
"Would now be the appropriate time for an 'I told you so?' " the human girl inquires. "I didn't even get to finish my coffee."
"Well, how was I to know they were irrational alien haters?" he replies irritably.
"Hey- I'm not an alien!"
"You are to those giant spiders."
She laughs. "God, it's good to be back with you, Doctor," she says. "I missed you so much." She reaches out and touches his hand.
"We'll go down fighting, yeah?" She smiled up at him, and he couldn't help but grin back.
"Yeah."
"Together?"
"Yeah!"
He grabbed her hand and squeezed it.
"I'm so glad I met you," he told her.
"Me too."
"Doctor? Doctor, what's wrong?"
He blinks. "Sorry, I just... nothing. Sorry." He does what he usually does when knocked off balance, which is to grin charmingly and get busy at something, in this case calibrating the TARDIS console. "Soooo, where'dya wanna go next, babe?"
Her answer stops him in his tracks.
"You're sure?"
"Positive."
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