Previously on Nine's World

'Please kill me...' The poor girl muttered. She turned her head to the side to watch something, laying next to her. It didn't take long for him to realise it was him; the doctor. Blood escaped out of a hole that was created by an oldfashioned gunshot. Then he realised it: in this dream he was dead. Rose didn't know that he was able to survive this kind of damage for having two hearts; and it was her dream. So he had passed away by the hands of the sick monster. And she was willing, no, begging to die along.

But why? She looked into his cold death eyes and the Doctor thought to see a faint reflection of her. Just for a second. The pink had turned gray, just like the male in front of her to whom she begged to kill her off. And she cried.

Suddenly everything around her blurred... Her cheeks turned pink again and she was smiling. Was she remembering what already happened in her dream? What had happened?

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There was a loud sound of happy shouting in the air. Everywhere the Doctor looked he saw people taking off a helmet-like kind of metal from their head, revealing their happy smiles. Somehow the costumes reminded him of the Cybermen. Did Rose know about the Cybermen? But how would she? The Doctor shook the thought of her knowing the Cybermen off. It was simply a coincidence. This, reminding him of something told more about him than it did about Rose.

'Good job, Doctor!' Rose grabbed both of his hands and smiled at him. He was confused; So now he walked around in the body of his dreamed self? Honestly, he could live with that. He smiled back.

'It's nothing.' He said shyishly, forced by the laws of her dream. Hey! the Doctor thought while he felt like grinning: That's my copyright!

'It is Doctor; It is.' Rose looked around to the people staring at them. 'You came up with the idea of infiltrating the robots by wearing these metal suits! That's how we destroyed them from the inside!'

'Fantastic!' The doctor turned his smile into this unique huge grin. It was one of the features he had to admit of loving most about the ninth regeneration; the smile. The ironic thing about what just had been said, was that he knew that it was the mind of Rose who had made up this brilliant plan and not him. Yet he got all the honour.

Slowly all the people walked away. Returning to the path they were walking before. And so did the Doctor. He walked away, leaving Rose behind. He couldn't understand it himself, or techniquely he couldn't understand the dream that moved him... the dreamt Doctor. Why was this dreamt Doctor leaving Rose, HIS Rose, behind? He would never do that! Or would he?

Quickly Rose ran after him. 'I'm going with you!' The Doctor looked around and saw how Mickey, who he hadn't noticed until this very moment, turned his face towards the ground. Now he understood; He had thought that she was better off left behind.. left behind with Mickey Mouse, or whatever pleased the Doctor to call the guy. And to be honest, it did sound like the way he reasoned his options.

Rose was just walking closer to him near him when all head turned to a scene close to them. A woman started making weird sounds, as if she was going to throw up. Her pink colours started to fade into gray, as if something turned out the sunlight for her. First it were the lips that switched from a coloured picture to an old grayscale photograph; quickly her cheeks followed. And her eyes looked at him; pierced him with an evil glare. Those were the eyes of a killer. The eyes of a coldblooded enemy. They eyes of an infected one. Whatever that had to mean, it somehow totally made sense to him.

Quickly the Doctor grabbed Rose's hand. He didn't know if it was the dreamt Doctor who was doing this in the end, but it felt like an instict to flee with her; away from danger. It felt natural to run...

And so they started running. The Doctor quickly made them hide under the watersurface of this hidden ditch; their faces above the waterline to observe the area that could be intruded by the enemy. The water wasn't cold. It was more like swimming in a pool when it was raining; warm and somewhat comfortable, if you imagined the fish and waterplants not sharing the same water with you... But it all was for a good cause; their dreamt survival. The sick one might never think of people hiding there; in a disgusting canal of mut, water and unwanted organisms.

The weird sounds of the woman kept on going; now coming closer, as if she was moving to look for them. Rose's body shook of a second, in what the Doctor called a second of unwanted shown fear; a moment of shown weakness. But weakness wasn't a bad thing in his eyes. It was something human; a warning.

'Rose...' The Doctor whispered. 'Come here.' He raised his arms from the water and welcomed her into a comforting hug. He imagined how they both closed their eyes. Her chin rested on his shoulder; her arms wrapped around his chest. Her heartbeat lowered in pace; she felt more save in the arms of what the Doctor imagined to be her fatherfigure. The father she never had had. He was the father she had never had. It was his relief and yet his burden at the same time. How wrong was he to admit to himself that what he felt for her was more than being just a father? That he secretly hoped there was more?

Slowly he noticed how the sound had faded away. Rose tried to talk, but the Doctor silenced her. The disappearance of sound didn't have to mean the disappearance of the source. And so they both kept silent for many minutes before they got up from the slimy ditch.

While Rose brushed the green material of her clothes, the Doctor looked at her; smiling. Without having heard a reason, she was willing to jump into ditches with him. No complaining at all, as if her policy was: Follow first, question later.

'Doctor?' She looked him in the eye. Ah, the Doctor thought, smiling his biggest smile: stage two of her policy was now activated. 'What was going on with her?'

'They knew you were there.' The Doctor explained.

'Who knew?' Rose looked at him as if she was in disbelief. 'The Cybermen? But we destroyed them in the end!'

The Doctor wasn't able to say one single word in a couple of seconds. Had she just said the therm Cyberman?! All he could do was gasping. What was it with this dream? How could she have ever known? The shock that paralysed him from speaking slowly lost his grip on him: 'Yes, the Cybermen. They were aware of your presence. They injected her in order to change all of you into these shadowlike monsters. That's the worst of the whole venom; It makes you want to inject everyone around you too.' The Doctor left a sigh. 'But the venow changed her to late. The very purpose of it's existance is now gone; to protect the Cybermen from being defeated. And now it threatens the whole existance of human kind!'