A/N: Chapter two! I just want to thank everyone who has reviewed and favorited! It's really incredible to know people are actually liking and following this story. Fingers crossed you continue to enjoy! Let me know what you think and it'll encourage me to get chapter three edited and posted faster!

As It Must Be

Chapter 2

Rose gasped and moved fully into the TARDIS. Her initial shock was fading quickly into a desperate need to help, to fix. She could feel the pain of the man before her as though he were radiating it forth and there was nothing she could do but attempt to fix it, fix him.

Well, to the best of her ability at least. She had no illusions about what she was being faced with. When she'd recognized the broken man in the console room, facts had snapped into place for her. This was her Doctor and her TARDIS right after the time war. She wasn't sure how she had ended up here, but a large part of her was overjoyed to be just where she was. Ever since she had learned about the Time War, she had wished that she could do something to help. And now here she was, a man to patch up, a time ship to repair, physical things she could do to try and mend some of the immeasurable damage done to the man she loved so completely.

Before she knew what she was doing, she found herself bent over the side of the Doctor. He was breathing and both hearts were beating, so despite the blood seeping from wounds all over his body and the unnatural angles at which his right arm and left leg were resting, she knew the TARDIS was going to have to be her first priority at the moment. The defensive confusion which she had faced when she first entered had not gone away with the waves of love she had sent the ship and nothing was going to get done here if the TARDIS didn't trust her.

She drew in a deep breath and tested out some of what she thought might be telepathy that she had done with the Doctor while she was falling. She brushed aside the concerns that the Doctor had told her – namely that humans were decidedly not telepathic.

Hello? She asked, wincing with a sudden ache in her head from the force of her own push to get the words out of the confines of her own brain.

There was a long moment of silence when even the hum of the time rotor seemed to quiet down. Then, a murmur of actual words in her head. You don't need to send your thoughts to me child. I know it hurts you. You can simply talk and let me do the work.

Rose gaped. Never had the TARDIS spoken to her in full sentences like this before. Feelings, emotions, knowledge, sure. But dialogue, like she was a person – never!

Responding to those unspoken thoughts, the TARDIS showed her a flash of the man lying at her feet. Desperate times. There was a wave of worry edging onto panic.

Rose sympathized entirely with the emotion. "He's going to be okay. I think I can promise. I'm … from his future I think? I was in a parallel universe and I think that the Doctor brought me back, but I came to the wrong time. I mean, he doesn't know me yet."

There was another long pause, then a hesitant, May I? The TARDIS was brushing at the edges of her mind and Rose could feel it, somehow knew exactly what the sensation was.

"Of course!" She said, without even wondering at the ease of the decision. "I trust you completely. Do I need to … do anything?"

The ship seemed almost amused. No, little human. I was just asking to be polite. Rose ignored the insinuation beneath the statement that she would have done it regardless of Rose's response to the question.

She could feel the ship slip inside her mind, feel her flipping through her memories, although Rose chose not to watch the reel with her. She allowed herself a moment of concern, letting the thought come to the forefront of her mind, Shouldn't we be worried about timelines? You shouldn't know all this, right?

The TARDIS was obviously amused this time. I'm a TARDIS. Trust me, there is no need to worry about timelines with me. Now hush and let me watch.

It could only have been minutes, but seemed much longer as Rose waited for some sort of verdict from the ship. The time dragged and Rose fought back her instinctive impatience to ultimate payoff when the TARDIS released her mind with a long mental sigh.

I have seen your memories and I have examined the time lines. I would never have believed it possible, but … you are real. Rose smiled at the fact in the TARDIS's statement.

"I am, yes." She replied aloud. "Although I don't really know what I am. So if you could clarify that, it would be great. But maybe after I …" She gestured to the man still lying sprawled on the ground, whom she had been hyperaware of throughout this conversation. It was only knowledge that she desperately needed the TARDIS's approval that had kept her from him thus far.

Yes, please, help me care for my Thief, pup. Rose was only able to briefly register the (hopefully) affectionate name the TARDIS had bestowed upon her before a door appeared at the closest wall, one which hopefully lead to the medbay. Yes, I'm sorry, I can't manage much right now. Even talking to you is … a strain.

Rose registered just how exhausted the mental voice of the TARDIS sounded, how faint the hum of the time rotor, and how the scorch marks and smoke had only increased since she had entered the ship. "Oh no!" Suddenly she was firm. "Take care of yourself. I promise I will take care of him."

The ship reached out to her mentally again with something akin to awe. She instinctually reached back and when the two telepathic fingers brushed, they seemed to lock together. A blast of love blew through her mind and when Rose had recovered from the overwhelming sensation, she found that there was a golden presence in the back of her mind again, one she hadn't realized just how much she had missed.

My pup. The wonder in the TARDIS's mental voice resonated inside her mind now rather than brushing only surface level. Thank you. For it all.

Rose grinned for the first time since falling through to the parallel universe. "No, thank you. Now get to fixing yourself so that we can both focus on fixing him. I have a feeling he's going to need it."

It was a very strong feeling too, beyond even her knowledge that the Time War had damaged her Doctor in ways he still hadn't healed from as far on as when she had left him. No, she could sense it in the same way she could feel the TARDIS's hesitance the moment she came aboard. She was currently facing a man shattered beyond her comprehension. And she wasn't sure that she had the strength or wisdom to pull him back.

But then, what could she do but try? And with that she began pulling his large body toward the newly appeared door.

Fifteen feet was a far longer distance than it sounded when one was hefting a man twice your size with injuries that looked life threatening. Rose was glad he wasn't conscious, as she was sure he would have been in excruciating pain if he was, especially from those obviously broken limbs.

She did manage to maneuver him to the med bay, finally faced only with the conundrum of getting him onto the bed which awaited him. Mercifully, the TARDIS seemed to be monitoring her progress, hopefully only slightly, and took this opportunity to lower the bed to the ground. Rose pushed and pulled his solid limbs onto the mattress before it raised back to its normal height.

The TARDIS brushed her mind in affection before returning to whatever maintenance she was working on. Rose almost let out a sob at the familiarity of the gesture, realizing with it just how terrified she had been not to be recognized by her beloved ship. But this … perhaps they could resume their usual relationship faster than she had feared.

She regained her focus, not hard, since a large part of her mind hadn't left the Doctor since she had first seen him bleeding on the floor. "What can we do to fix you up, hm?" She asked, with false levity. She couldn't stand the silence, especially with the weakened hum of the TARDIS in the background. And an unconscious Doctor seemed so deeply wrong.

She worked while keeping up a constant chatter, all of it inane and based purely on what she was doing now, what the scans found, what she was going to do next. She was grateful, for about the hundredth time, for all that her Doctor and the TARDIS had taught her over the last year or so about how to work the equipment in their med bay. Useful stuff when travelling with an alien who was injured more often than he could heal himself.

She managed to patch up most of the injuries and mend the broken bones without removing any of his torn clothing, but once all major injuries had been healed, their removal was the obvious next step.

"I know you wouldn't appreciate some random ape taking off your clothes, but it really is for the best. And I'm doing my best to maintain your boundaries …" She really was. She hadn't even brushed his mind, despite the aching pain he was releasing and how much she wanted to help heal that like she was his broken bones and ripped flesh. "But there's really no sense in keeping this up."

She refused to acknowledge even to herself that part of the reason she was eager to remove his clothes was that anything other than leather and dark jeans on this beloved frame seemed wrong. Especially this foppish coat. She spared a moment to mourn the regeneration she had never known who had chosen such a romantic garment. I'm sure I would have liked you. She thought to that version of him.

But this, her first doctor, he seemed unprotected, naked, and wrong in these clothes which were so clearly not his own. "Off we go!" She said, attempting a façade of joviality.

This is not going to be sexual. She told herself with a firmness that she was not feeling. Perhaps if she repeated the sentiment enough, it would be true.

The fact was, as she admitted to herself as she carefully pulled his jacket off of his newly repaired arms, this version of her Doctor had always been so intensely sexual in her mind that it was hard to make anything he did or she did to him less than. With her new Doctor, she could sometimes fool herself into believing that they were just friends, siblings of an intensely close, physical, and rather incestual sort. The sexual tension never went away for her, but with this version of the Doctor … it had been at a whole different intensity really.

It probably all went back to that first time he had told her to forget him. You just couldn't do that sort of thing to an impressionable girl and expect her not to base every sexual fantasy from there on out on you. Or maybe it was the leather. Leather and blue eyes and longing glances. Yum.

"I am getting very distracted." She said out loud, as if stating it to no one would make her pay more attention than scolding herself mentally. "Off we go!"

She was unbuttoning his shirt now and staying removed was more important and more difficult than ever. God that chest … she had longed for so long to see that chest. And she had such vivid memories of undressing him in his next regeneration and while overjoyed to see that body without the clothing of his previous self, she had intensely mourned the fact that she would never see her first Doctor without his usual get up.

Keep it professional, Rose. She moved fingers which were definitely not shaking down his chest to his trousers. And if the tips dragged along his abdomen just a little bit at the end, it was definitely unintentional. She carefully unbuttoned and unzipped him, then began to pull down the material. At first they caught his pants as well and she let out an audible gasp she would never admit to at the sight of narrow hip bones and indentations leading down to something she was sure would be even better than hip bones. She froze and pulled up his black boxer-briefs to cover the obscenely attractive sight.

Down went the trousers again, skimming along legs which were made for running. Well-toned already even though this particular body had done no running at all yet. It was unavoidable that her fingertips stroked all along his legs – she had to get his trousers down somehow! And if her pulse had increased and breath stuttered at the rock hard muscle and course hair which covered him, well he would never know.

She was briefly stymied when she realized he was still wearing shoes, but removed them quickly and then let out a deep sigh at having successfully completed the task of clothing removal with a minimum of inappropriate contact. She congratulated herself as much as she had after stripping the pinstriped regeneration she had just left on Christmas Eve. Then she reluctantly pulled a conveniently located blanket over him and dragged over a chair which had recently appeared so that she could sit next to his bedside.

There wasn't much she could do now. All his physical injuries that she could fix had been fixed. It was now just a waiting game, really. Hopefully the unconsciousness he was now experiencing was just that same sort of healing coma that he had been in the last time (next time?) he had regenerated.

Almost involuntarily, she raised a hand to stroke his hair and face. She had missed this version of him so much. Not that she didn't adore the wild hair and flirty grins of her new Doctor, but this version held a piece of her heart he would never relinquish. Those big ears, flawless cheekbones, incredible eyes … she caressed his face in endless longing to see them open up and smile at her again. That smile! The one that had really only emerged for her.

She tore her hand away as it edged toward his lips. This was very wrong. She was taking advantage of him. He had no idea who she was and she knew that he would never stand for such caressing even if he had known her.

She squared her shoulders, stood up, and spared him one last longing look before removing herself from the med bay. "All right old girl, what can I do to help?" She asked the TARDIS.

A grateful sigh met her request, along with an image of the smoldering boards along her walls. Rose grinned wide. Sure, it wasn't much and she was sure that the Doctor or even Jack would have been able to be much more useful, but god it would be nice to help in anyway during this awful time for both her Doctor and his time ship.

As she reached the console room and began to pull boards off the walls and pile them near the console, she reflected on just how miraculous it was that she was here. Yes, her mother was gone, but she had been in the process of leaving home for years now. And now she could finally help, be there for her Doctor in the time when he had needed someone the most. That was truly a gift.

As if she had been listening in on Rose's thoughts, the TARDIS replied to this monologue with a small glow of warmth. It wasn't anywhere near the affection the TARDIS had begun to send her in her own time, but it was better than anything she had gotten yet. She hoped that was also a sign of the TARDIS strengthening.

She smiled around, tentatively sending the affection right back. "There's nowhere I would rather be!" She said to the ship, feeling only a tiny bit silly for talking to an empty room.

She continued musing because it was nice not to be in silence. "You like that I … care about him so much, don't you? Because I do. I really do. I would do anything for him." She meant it and spent a moment in silence contemplating how complete that statement was. "And I love you too, you know. Or I will. Time travel, it's confusing." She smiled again, then grimaced as she yanked harder on a particularly stubborn board.

Finally the board pulled away and she fell back onto her bum, clutching on to the charred wood. "Whoops!" Her hard landing was made easier by the near chuckles she could sense from the TARDIS. Oh, this was so much better than the suspicion from when she had first come in! She grinned with her beloved ship and stood back up. "Oi, don't laugh at the girl trying to help!"

Upon standing, she was treated to a view of what stood behind the wood she had pulled away. "Oooh, you're beautiful." She cooed in awe and pride. In fact, she would have noticed that her voice rather imitated her second Doctor, if she'd been paying enough attention. Beneath the smoking wood lay the organic gratework that she was used to in her own TARDIS.

"Look at you! Just beautiful. You don't need any of this ugly wood covering this up! You're organic and gorgeous." She brought her hand up to stroke the grating on the wall, almost petting the TARDIS with pure love and affection. She felt her hand met by a pulse of warmth that came simultaneously from her palm and the golden presence in the back of her mind.

The two spent a long moment just contemplating one another. And then she drew her hand down again and cheerfully said, "Back to work!" Before pulling at another board.

She wasn't sure how long it was later, but it must have been quite a few hours, when she was interrupted from her near therapeutic demolition task by a wave of concern from the TARDIS. "What is it, is he okay?" She asked, alarmed for the Doctor.

Child, the voice echoed through her mind again and she almost fell to her knees at the welcome sensation. There was a trace of amusement in her mind and then the TARDIS spoke again. You have done well but you need to rest. And I have reached a point where I can do more without you prodding at my walls.

She frowned, but slowly moved away from the walls. "If you're sure, I guess I'll go check on the Doctor. But let me know as soon as I can help again!"

The TARDIS voiced a wordless denial. No, here, child. I do not want my Thief to wake up while you sleep by him. Rose was blown away by the protectiveness of the message. And protectiveness not of the Doctor from a stranger, but of her from him when he found a stranger in the TARDIS.

Another brush of affection passed over her and then she felt a nudge toward the other side of the console from where she had been working where she found a mattress-like patch worked into the ground accompanied by a lump that would be a serviceable pillow and one blanket.

Her eyes glazed with tears a little at the gesture when the TARDIS had so much other work to do. The gratitude she tried to fling at the ship was completely genuine. It was nothing pup. She responded with a firm negative and gratefully slipped down to the cot. She hadn't been tired when the TARDIS first asked, but now she found that she was dozing off immediately upon lying down. It had been a long day.

Rose opened her eyes what seemed like only moments later, but in a very different state, shockingly well rested. It had been an extraordinarily long day complete with believing she was never going to get back to the TARDIS, so her hum now was more soothing than ever.

She levered herself up and bounced on her heels. This action was met by a questioning nudge from the TARDIS, confused. Why are you awake? The ship asked. Rose started a little, still not used to receiving actual words and sentences from the ship, especially when they resonated through her skull so deeply.

"Not tired anymore! What can I do?" She was eager for more fixing, although now that she thought about it, perhaps she should check on the Doctor first. With how well-rested she was, it might have been a full day since she'd left him in the med bay.

These thoughts allowed her to miss the confusion from the TARDIS, until she voiced her thoughts. Pup, it's only been two hours.

Rose frowned in confusion. "No, it must have been longer, I feel great again!" The ship gave the equivalent of a mental grimace. "Right, time ship. I'm sure you're right, but I feel fine. Must just be the relief of being back here then! Now, what do I do!"

There was a pause, then a mental shrug and she was assigned back to pulling up boards. "Great, now let me just go check on the Doctor first!"

The ship sent a flare of worry, but she could tell it was for her and not the Doctor. "What's wrong with you? Aren't you worried about him too?"

He'll be fine. Just in a healing trance. And I don't want you there when he wakes up my pup. He is so very … instead of a word the TARDIS sent a blast of emotion – rage, grief, violence, despair. I'm sorry for that, she said, as Rose cringed away from the feelings which had faded fast, but I needed you to understand that seeing a stranger right now would be very bad for both of you.

Rose nodded slowly, reflecting on the ship's belief. "I suppose … but I – he's hurt and not going to care for him is just wrong."

The ship gave her another affectionate caress. I am watching over him for both of us pup.

She sighed and turned back to the wall, prying off another board. "Well, you always know best!"

Rose wasn't sure how long things continued in this vein, working long hours in the timelessness of the console room interrupted by sleeping when the TARDIS told her to on the same cot. As days went on her bed because more than a soft patch in the floor, gaining more fluffy blankets, pillows, a bouncy mattress and a thick duvet, but Rose still only needed what the TARDIS insisted was two or three hours of sleep every night.

The progress of time was marked mostly by watching the console room become the way she had seen it when she first stepped onto the TARDIS. "Isn't this a paradox," she mused to the ship one day, "I mean, you've seen what you're supposed to look like in my memories, so you're making it like that. But where did the original layout come from?" The question baffled the TARDIS, and convinced Rose that as human as the ship had come to seem to her in the last few days, their conceptions of time and causality were radically different.

It was a few days later while Rose was tinkering around under the console and reflecting on just how often she had watched the Doctor do just this, when she became aware that the TARDIS was worried. She and the TARDIS still weren't what they had been when she had left her other Doctor's timeline, but they had grown quite close and her feelings were always present as though through a haze in her mind.

"What's up?" She asked, putting down the wires she was trying to connect so that she didn't electrocute herself while she talked to the TARDIS.

My connection to the time vortex has been damaged by the time war. The entire vortex is in upheaval really, so I don't know how the reconnection will go. It will be different after, but … worry suffused the mental tone and the ship almost was babbling like the Doctor would. I've been trying to put it off until the Doctor could assist. But it's become an emergency.

"Can I help at all?" Rose volunteered. She knew she had lots of limitations that the Doctor didn't, but maybe there was something. "How long until the Doctor wakes up? Can you tell?"

The TARDIS was troubled still. I'm not sure. That's why I hesitate, pup. I do not wish to leave you here alone when he wakes up. I think he will be distraught and not act with rationality. He has always been emotional, my Thief, but this. I will not have you hurt pup.

"He won't hurt me." Rose said with a confidence she didn't quite feel. She hadn't seen the Doctor since leaving him in the medbay, but she had never felt the kind of hurt and rage she knew him to be feeling. He might be capable of any number of things right now. "You need to do whatever you have to. You've been expending too much energy on me anyway."

Rose suspected that the TARDIS was infusing her with energy, causing the brief and ridiculously restful hours of sleep she was getting. She knew the TARDIS still felt bad for doubting her at first, especially now that they were so close.

I have no choice or I would not do this. The TARDIS whispered. But I must or risk falling apart and losing you both as well as tearing apart the timeline. I do not know how long it will be until I can focus on what is happening here again. I will go now and hope that he still sleeps when I awake – I would force him to sleep, but I dare not interfere with the healing trance.

"Stop worrying!" Rose forced a grin. Honestly, she hadn't been concerned about the Doctor's reaction until the TARDIS had terrified her with all this. "We're going to be fine. Now go!"

With one last crashing wave of love for Rose, the TARDIS vanished from her mind to a pinprick in the back, much as when she was far away from the ship. She blinked at the suddenness of the sensation and then turned slowly around the console room, suddenly hyperaware that she hadn't actually spoken to or seen anyone in perhaps a week. She spared a longing glance at the door to the medbay, then heeded the TARDIS's cautions and turned away.

Back to work. Maybe she could finish up her most recent task before the TARDIS got back! She slid back under the console and focused back in on wires.

Connecting the wires was a surprisingly engaging undertaking, not one she would ever have anticipated enjoying, but here she was. In fact, she was so caught up that she thought it must have been hours when she was interrupted by a sound. It took her a moment to blink out of the daze of machinery and register what the noise had been, it had been that long since she had heard anything other than herself and the hum of the TARDIS.

But then she did recognize it and scrambled out from under the console. No good hiding, she needed to face the music. Because the sound had been the medbay door opening and closing and then heavy footfalls on the grating.

She scrambled clumsily to her feet and was staring straight into eyes she never thought she would see again. And before she could feel joyous about that, she registered that they were glaring at her with a rage and dark fire which stole her breath.

"Doctor," she whispered, almost involuntarily.