Chapter Three

The Woman in the Mirror

"Rose, honey, wake up. You've got to eat or you'll pass out again."

"Huh?" Rose blinked and opened her eyes. The world was dark, but she could make out the faint outline of her mother on the edge of the bed. "Mum?"

"The Doctor says you fainted in the car on the way home. I knew I should have told your dad to wait till tomorrow. I told him he could do the paperwork tonight when he gets home, but he wanted the Doctor to come in straight away." Jackie smoothed Rose's hair.

"What time is it?"

"It's about eleven. You slept almost six hours. You need to eat; you haven't had a bite all day."

"Mum, I'm fine," Rose mumbled, turning her face back into her pillow. Now that they'd left Torchwood, Rose felt perfectly content to shut out the world and sleep for a few years.

"It's no use, Jackie. She'll do what she wants. Don't get up, Rose," came a familiar voice. Rose started up. The man who looked like the Doctor (but wasn't, Rose told herself firmly) stood in the now-open doorway, carrying a tray.

"D—" She stopped herself and sank back into the bedding, closing her eyes. She heard the dishes rattle when he set the tray down, and the click of the door against the jamb. "Is he going to change out of that horrible suit?"

Jackie sighed. "He refuses to take it off. Says it's fine. Indestructible."

"Rubbish," Rose grumbled. "I'll eat, I promise."

"If it's not gone when I get back, I'll have to feed it to you. And your brother wants to see you, too, but I told him he'd have to wait till morning."

Rose sighed. Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth, had one weakness, her Achilles' heel, the kryptonite of her existence (though, in this world, Superman's weakness was always argonite): Anthony Peter Tyler. It wasn't just because he was a sweet, adorable child, or because he had dimples and freckles and red hair and bright blue eyes. It was mostly because she, Rose Tyler, had loved him immensely from the day he was born. "Is he in bed already?" she asked. Tony was the only person for whom Rose would get out of bed at any hour of the night.

"Sleeping like a rock, thanks to the Doctor." Jackie stood up. "Be back in a bit, love."

As soon as the door shut behind Jackie, Rose realised she was hungry. As she ate, she found out how boring eating actually is when you're alone in the pitch dark with nothing to keep you company. She finished most of the food on the tray, and her stomach felt full enough, but she still had that feeling of incompleteness, like there was something she was missing. She remembered the feeling, back when she'd stayed in that hotel in Norway. She got up—a bit too fast at first, and had to try again—and peeked out the door. She wasn't surprised to see him sitting against the wall on the other side of the hallway, his nose in a book.

"You're actually reading," she remarked, and he looked up. "You used to just pick up books, thumb the pages, and the information went straight to your head."

"Did I?" he asked sarcastically.

Rose blinked. "Well... he did, anyway. Did I really faint?"

He shrugged. "Close enough." His reticence led Rose to believe she probably hadn't just fainted clean away. "I guess it was more like... you fell asleep. Really fast."

Rose nodded thoughtfully. "Hm." She turned away and went into her bathroom, leaving the door open a bit. She made use of the toilet and scrubbed her hands a good long while, trying to get all the dirt off of them and realising she still needed a shower. She looked in the mirror, but the face that stared back at her was not her own. Instead she saw a woman with bushy brown hair and tears on her face. Rose blinked, but when she opened her eyes, the woman was still there. The woman in the mirror mouthed something Rose couldn't understand before she flickered and disappeared. Rose squeaked when the woman disappeared.

"Rose?" asked the Doctor—the human Doctor, Rose corrected.

She opened her bathroom door, and he was standing in her bedroom door, the light from the hallway making his hair glow as it shone past him into her room. "I—there was a woman. In the mirror," she said quietly.

He just looked at her with that face, and she wanted to scream.

"It wasn't me. She had bushy hair."

"Was she moving?"

"She said something, but I couldn't hear anything. It was just an illusion."

"Did you see yourself in the mirror at all?"

"No. Just her. I don't know who she is. I've never seen her before."

"Do you feel tired at all?"

"I'm not hallucinating! This is the third time it's happened in the last two days. I saw something in my coffee—I thought I did—at the hotel this morning, and then there was the thing on the elevator, and now this." She was shaking a little. "What's going on?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. You said she said something. What did she say?"

"I don't know. I told you, I couldn't hear her. And I'm rubbish at lip-reading."

"Do you want me to have a look at your mirror?"

"What're you gonna do?"

"Just going to check for psychic signal residues."

"But you don't have a sonic screwdriver."

"I still have a Time Lord brain, and I can probably pick up psychic signals."

Rose nodded. "'Kay. I'm going to take the dishes to the kitchen while you do that, then."

"No, you're not. You're going to lay down and rest up."

Rose picked up the tray and went to the kitchen anyway. When she came back, she heard a familiar noise coming from the bathroom: the distinct sound of a sonic device. "What're you doing in there, anyway?" she asked.

"Nothing much," he called back. Rose noticed that the sonic noise stopped. "I couldn't pick anything up in there." He made his way to the door, but Rose was quicker. She stood very close to him and raised herself up on her toes, balancing herself with her hands on his chest.

"You just think you're so clever," she murmured into his ear. "But do you really think I don't know?" She reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "Oh, what's this?" she asked, stepping back a bit and holding up the screwdriver.

He looked guilty.

"You stole the sonic screwdriver?"

"Yeah."

"You stole the sonic screwdriver?"

He shrugged. "It's not like he can't get another one."

Rose shook her head. "I can't believe you stole it!"

"Give it back," he said, reaching for the device in question.

"No!" Rose snatched it away. "You can't just steal a sonic screwdriver. I'm confiscating it. Maybe you can have it back later."

"Rose Tyler, give me back my sonic screwdriver."

"'S not yours."

"Yes, it is!"

"No, it's not."

"Rose, come on. I stole the sonic screwdriver, so you're going to punish me by stealing it from me?"

"Yes, I am."

He huffed and walked out of the room.

"And don't you go getting any ideas about stealing it back!" she called after him.

Rose spent much of the night staring at the sonic screwdriver and letting tears soak into her pillow, and didn't fall asleep until just before dawn.