A/N: Hello again! I come bearing the gift of an update! I realized that my habit of jumping past uninteresting bits might make time and date confusing, and it's a little important to the next couple chapters of the story, so I have added the date & time! I'll reference when the crash happened in the story as well, but it was on 10 September, 12:30pm, so roughly two days have passed since then. As always, enjoy!

~Izzy

Chapter Four

12 September: 5am

A phone rang in the darkness. The Doctor jerked awake. The phone rang again. Mumbling various uncomplimentary phrases, he rummaged around on the night stand next to Rose's bed. The phone rang twice more before he found it and managed to unlock the keyboard so he could answer.

"Rose?" The voice on the phone asked.

He blinked, clearing away sleep from his mind. "No, sorry. It's the Doctor." He frowned. "Pete?"

"One and the same. Look, I need you both at Torchwood, now. We've got a situation."

"What's happened?" The Doctor sat up and shook Rose's shoulder gently.

"I'll explain when you get here." Rose hadn't moved.

The Doctor shook her again, a bit harder. Her body moved limply with his hand, and he realized that her skin was hot to the touch. He foundered for the switch controlling the lamp on the night stand. Bright light blinded him temporarily.

"Doctor, are you there?" Pete's voice sounded suddenly far away.

"Rose?" The Doctor called. "Rose, can you hear me?" No response. He rolled her over on her back. Her eyes were closed tightly and she was shivering with enough force to shake her entire body. Flecks of red peppered her lips and the pillow around her face. His stomach plummeted. Blood.

Images of her pale with death flashed before his eyes and he couldn't breathe. They had come to him before, when he was still on the TARDIS. He wondered sometimes if that was why he didn't sleep—he didn't want to see his companions dead. A thousand different times, a thousand different ways would unfurl in his dreams and he would wake with a jaw sore from not crying-out.

"Doctor!" Pete's voice broke through his panic-induced haze.

"Pete. We've got a bit of a situation here." His hand shook as he held the phone to his ear.

"What? What's going on?"

"It's Rose."

A muscle twitched in the Doctor's jaw as he gripped the steering wheel of Rose's car tight enough to turn his knuckles white. More than anything he wanted to push the gas pedal all the way to the floor and to hell with speed limits, but he knew that getting pulled over would take more time than he had. He glanced over to Rose, who was strapped in to the passenger seat. She was wrapped in a sheet and still unconscious. Every-so-often she would cough weakly and more blood would coat her lips.

He wanted to scream. Time Lord—it was right there in his name. Time was supposed to obey him, not the other way around! He could feel the seconds ticking away like drops of water running down his skin. Or drops of blood. Rose's blood. If he had the TARDIS he would be there by now, or better yet he would be at one of the hospitals from the future. Even those nurse-cat-nuns would do. A low growl of frustration built in the back of his throat.

"Almost there, Rose." He said, half to himself and half to her. "Almost there."

The darkness was palpable. Rose struggled to hold herself together as she fought its pull. Thick, ropy coils of nothing twined around her arms and legs. Tendrils of nothing crawled up her flesh, burning and freezing at once. Oh God not again not again not again. She tried to scream, but nothing filled her mouth and crawled down her throat, choking her. She was drowning in the absolute nothing of the Void. And she was sinking. The blackness, impossibly heavy, was bearing her into the depths of nowhere.

The Doctor jerked to a stop as he pulled into the Torchwood parking garage not entirely of his own free will. A gate blocked the entrance, and a bored-looking young man leaned out from the window set in the wall next to the gate.

"Identification, please." The security guard demanded monotonously.

"Look, it's an emergency," the Doctor began.

"Identification, please."

The Doctor reached for his pocket, but the psychic paper wasn't there. He resisted the urge to reach through his window and strangle the officious idiot in the security uniform.

"I'm Dr. John Smith, Torchwood consultant, and this is Agent Tyler of the Torchwood Institute. She's injured and I need to"

"Sir I cannot let you in the Canary Warf parking garage without proper identification."

The Doctor grabbed Rose's purse and pulled out her wallet. He flipped through the clear plastic card-holders, pulled out her Torchwood I.D. card, and presented it to the guard. "Happy? Now can I please go on?"

The security guard checked the card thoroughly and then handed it back. "Enjoy your visit to Canary Warf, sir."

The Doctor bit back a sarcastic retort, and continued in to the parking garage as the gate blocking the entrance receded into the wall. The lot was almost empty, but as he parked the Doctor spotted Pete's SUV and a handful of other cars clustered around the elevator.

Rose whimpered softly as the Doctor lifted her out of the car, and he winced. "Sorry," he murmured and started for the elevator. The machine gave a soft "ding" and the door opened. Pete and Jake stepped out of the elevator and ran to the Doctor.

"What happened?" Rose's father looked like he hadn't slept at all.

"I don't know." The Doctor admitted. "She was like this when you called."

"It's the aliens," Jake inserted. "It's got to be. You two were there at the crash, and so were all of the other victims."

"Can we talk about this later?" The Doctor snapped. The elevator seemed to take an eternity to reach their destination. They were silent until the doors opened. Noise hit the Doctor like a slap. Voices cried out in pain, in frustration, in question.

"This way." Pete led them down a long corridor to a large, open room. Hospital beds lined the walls—there had to be at least thirty or forty in this room alone. The Doctor wondered briefly why Torchwood needed so many, but he pushed the idea aside. No time for that now. Five people occupied beds.

"She's not the only one?" The Doctor inquired as they settled Rose in an empty bed next to the others.

Pete shook his head. "Jacoby's entire team is down. They responded to the crash. The rest of Rose's team seems to be fine, but they were off duty. They haven't come into contact with anyone who was there."

An older man with black-rimmed glasses and a lab coat approached them. His dark brown hair was touched with gray and although he moved briskly his mouth sagged as if he was exhausted.

"Dr. Michael Kane, I'd like you to meet Dr. John Smith." Pete introduced them.

The Doctor nodded at Dr. Kane. "Just the Doctor, thanks."

Dr. Kane raised his eyebrows, but did not comment. Instead he turned to Pete. "Another five have been brought into the hospital in the last twenty minutes."

"The same symptoms?"

Dr. Kane nodded. "Exactly, and all of them lived within a block of the crash." He glanced at the Doctor for permission, which the other man granted, and began to examine Rose.

"Are we dealing with some sort of biological weapon?" Pete asked.

The Doctor frowned. "The Graxa are peaceful—traders, merchants and the like. They don't have the resources to craft a biological attack that would be so sudden and severe. Not intentionally, anyway." He struggled to keep his wandering mind in check. If they discovered what was making people sick, they could stop it. He could stop it.

"Do you think whatever this is caused the crash?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Rose showed me the autopsy. They were in perfect health, well, as good of health as can be expected after crashing into a strange planet and breathing in smoke."

Pete nodded, his eyes distant. "Toxic chemicals? Fumes maybe?"

"What are the symptoms?"

"It begins with a high fever, proceeds through coughing up blood to unconsciousness, seizures, and death." Dr. Kane said quietly. "Every patient who has exhibited seizures has died a few hours later. Also," he rolled Rose onto her side gently and peeled the back of her shirt up to reveal scabby red blotches marring her pale skin. "They all have this rash."

Tiny gears turned in the Doctor's head. Neurons fired, formed patterns, pathways. He blinked.

"Of course! Thick, that's what I am. Thick thick thickety thick!"

"Doctor!" Pete snapped. "This is hardly the time or the place!"

"Right. Of course. Sorry." He took a deep breath. "It's—well, it's hard to pronounce in English and it doesn't really translate, but it is tied to the crash, and it was an accident."

"Well, what is it?" Pete's patience was wearing thin.

"It's a virus. The Graxa have this disease—it's like chicken pox to them, everyone gets it, but viruses stay alive even after people stop exhibiting symptoms, even after their immune system has fought off the virus. It's like War of the Worlds in reverse. It's alien. No one is immune to it, no one has antibodies designed to fight it off because no human being has ever encountered it before." He ruffled his hair and really wished he had his brainy specs. "Right. Get the doctors respirators and gloves. It's passed on through water droplets from coughing. And you'll want to start people on anti-virals."

"We can treat it?" Dr. Kane looked incredulous.

The Doctor shrugged. "We can try. Maybe something will help, maybe it won't, but it never hurts to try." He turned back to Pete. "You need to seal off the city and ground every plain, boat, and train. No one leaves England."

"What?" Pete blanched.

"If this sickness spreads to the rest of the world then less than a tenth of the human race will be left alive. It'll be worse than when Europeans arrived at the Americas. We're talking about whole communities, maybe whole countries dead within days." The Doctor was completely and utterly serious, almost more serious than Pete had ever seen him before.

Pete squared his shoulders. "Jake."

"Yeah boss?" The agent responded from his position by the door.

"Get the President on the videophone."

The sun beat down mercilessly on her uncovered head. All around her the landscape shimmered and shifted as if she was underwater. The wind battered against her, shoving her forward and howling about her ears. Blood dripped from her cracked lips down her chin and stained her gray shirt. All she could see was sand; endless, unbroken dunes stretched to the horizon in every direction. Her legs shook as she took step after step toward…somewhere. Forward, backwards, NorthEastSouthWest she could not tell. Her lungs burned. She didn't know how long she had been walking. She couldn't remember not walking. Shadows moved across the sand around her. She shielded her eyes and looked up. Birds—vultures.

She stumbled and fell. She didn't even feel the sand scorching her exposed face and arms. She lay there, breathing hard. All she wanted to do was stay down and let the blackness overcome her. Let it pull her into its depths where nothing hurt, not her aching body nor her aching heart.

"Rose." She shut her eyes against the sound. It came again. "Rose." Somewhere, he was calling her. The voice spoke, and this time she couldn't distinguish words, but the tone was so familiar—comforting. Safe. He was calling her. She shifted, pulling her arms under her body, and then with an inhuman effort she pushed herself to her knees. She paused there for a moment, panting, and then unsteadily rose to her feet—and began to walk. Somewhere. Anywhere. He was calling her.

Martha stood in front of Canary Warf, of Torchwood and stared at the revolving doors. The streets were strangely deserted and soldiers stood on every corner wearing respirator masks. Something had happened. The roads out of London were closed. Harriet Jones, the President of Great Britain, was on the telly asking people to remain calm, to stay in their homes, to report any instances of illness (followed by a list of symptoms) to the local police, who would arrange for the sick person's isolation.

She pushed through the brilliant metal door and into the building. The lobby was as empty as the streets. She blinked as she noticed that the same young man from yesterday—Alex—was sitting behind the desk wearing a respirator. He glanced up.

"Dr. Milligan." His voice was muffled. "Can I help you?"

"I'm here to accept Ms. Tyler's offer of a job." Her own voice was loud against the silence.

He furrowed his eyebrows. "Ms. Tyler is…indisposed. Jake Simmonds, her second in command, is handling matters at the moment." He type something on his computer and then handed her a plastic card similar to the one she used the day before. "This will take you to him."

"Thank you." She smiled at him. She could not tell if he smiled back.

Martha frowned as she stepped out of the elevator. The room was empty. The uneasiness that had hovered in the back of her mind since she first saw the soldiers with respirators grew into a hard knot in her stomach. This was wrong. This was very, very wrong. She checked the door-handle. It was unlocked. Slowly she opened the door and stuck her head through. The hallways that radiated out from the room were empty. Silence pressed down on her like a rock on her chest. She licked her lips nervously, and set off in the direction she thought she remembered.

She met no one as she wandered. Twice she came to a dead end and had to back-track, but eventually she made her way to a familiar wooden door. She knocked. The door opened, and a man's respirator-obscured face filled the gap.

"Are you Jake Simmonds?" Martha asked.

The man nodded. "I am. Who are you?"

"Dr. Martha Milligan. I'm here to accept the offer of a job."

Jake nodded. "Right, right. Come in." He opened the door wide enough for Martha to enter. "Sorry about the mess." Papers littered the desk. Three empty mugs were scattered on top of various coasters. A dark jacket lay carelessly across one of the chairs in the corner. "It's a bit of a madhouse in here." 'Madhouse' is not how Martha would have described it. 'Tomb,' on the other hand, was nicely foreboding, and captured the silence of the place. Jake jerked his head up and studied her. "Christ. You were here yesterday, talking to Rose."

"Yes." Martha affirmed. "That's when she offered me the job."

He led her back outside and Martha was confused when they ended up at the entrance. "Go down to floor three and speak with Dr. Michael Kane." Jake ordered. "You'll need to be dosed."

"Dosed? With what?"

He shook his head. "Talk to the doctor."

She recognized this world. After so many trips, so many universes, they started to run together. Bits and pieces dribbled down the sides of her brain and coalesced into impossibilities and strange memories: a face from this world, a building from that, a scar from another. But this world stayed fresh. It was a world that never had the Doctor. It was a wasteland.

She walked through the bombed-out buildings, crumbling monuments to a civilization that was lost—destroyed and forgotten among the rubble. Whispers reached out to her from the shadows, voices of things that used to be human. They watched her with unblinking eyes—bright spots amid the darkness. The gun hung on its strap over her shoulder. She longed to let it fall and leave the heavy weapon behind her, but she didn't dare. It was her only defense. She was tired, too tired to fight. She needed sleep but it wasn't safe. Not with those things around her.

She heard him calling her in her dreams. She saw his face—his brown hair still despite the fierce breeze, his sharp nose and the side-burns he was so proud of, his dark eyes bright with unshed tears. She saw him standing on that beach a million million miles away. "I'm still just an image. No touch." Over and over and over again. "Rose Tyler…" She saw him in her dreams, and that's what kept her walking, moving, trying. The universe needed the Doctor. She could see it clearly, standing in the remains of a ruined city on a ruined planet in a dead solar system.

Lightening flashed. Thunder cracked and boomed above her. The sky opened and rain poured down.

Martha was unprepared for the chaos that waited for her outside the elevator doors. Row after row of hospital-style beds filled the large room and all of them were occupied. A harried looking nurse was moving from bed to bed checking on each patient. Martha realized with a start that she was determining of they were still alive. Even worse—most of them weren't. They all wore white surgical masks, some of which were stained red with blood. She looked around the room, bewildered, until she saw a familiar figure standing off to one side. Dr. John Smith was talking to an older man in a dark suit, who was wearing a respirator. Dr. Smith was wearing a surgical mask, and he looked like a man who hadn't slept in days. His dark blue dress-shirt was untucked and worn over pajama bottoms that were slightly too short. Although he was wearing shoes, he had apparently forgotten socks.

"Excuse me," Martha ventured. The two men turned to face her.

"Martha, Martha Jones!" The Doctor exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"Jake Simmonds sent me to talk to Dr. Kane about getting 'dosed?'" She replied. The Doctor sobered.

"Second door on your left." He gestured to the hallway behind her. "He was catching a bit of a break the last time I saw him." Martha turned to go.

"Go home, Doctor." She heard the dark-suited man say as she walked away. "Get some rest. You need it."

"So do you." The Doctor retorted. "You were here long before I was."

"Comes with the job." The other man replied.

Doctor Kane was pleased to see Martha. He handed her a paper cup with two pills and another that was half-full of water. Martha studied them.

"What's this for, then?" She asked, still eyeing the pills.

Doctor Kane sighed. "I can't tell you."

"I've been exposed to whatever it is! I've got rights!" She snapped at him.

He held up his hands. "I can't tell you because I don't know. We're not even sure that this will work, but it's the only thing we can do."

"What do you mean you don't know?" She was still suspicious.

"It's a virus, but it's…alien."

"As in foreign?"

He shook his head. "As in outer-space."

"You're kidding me!" Her eyes widened in disbelief as he was silent. "You're not."

"I am completely serious." He sat down at the table heavily. "We were unprepared for an event of this magnitude. We have three doctors, four nurses, and four floors of patients. And they're pouring in to other hospitals. The President and the police are doing what they can to keep people at home and minimize the spread of the disease, but I'm afraid that it's all ready too late." He paused and looked down. "London is dying."

Martha swallowed the pills and threw the cups away. She stood in front of him and crossed her arms. "I'm a doctor. Tell me what to do."

He blinked. "What?"

"I want to help. Tell me what to do."

The world exploded around her.

"Get down!" Someone tackled her and threw her to the ground. The mud was cold against her exposed skin and seeped through her clothes. Rose coughed and spit, trying to get the flavor of wet earth out of her mouth. She was unsuccessful. She raised her head a fraction, trying to get her bearings. It was night and the darkness was broken by flashes of light as machine guns fired and bombs detonated seemingly everywhere at once.

"Stay down!" The person next to her shouted. She barely heard him over the cacophony of destruction. It was a terrible symphony—an orchestra of death. It hummed in her bones and for a moment she thought she was going mad, because it was beautiful and terrible and exactly how she felt. She wanted to throw her head back and laugh until she cried. She wanted to howl to this world that the Bad Wolf was here. How did it happen that she always ended up in a struggle? Where was the world of peace and laughter and fluffy bunnies? But no, she was Rose Tyler, Torchwood Agent, Defender of the Earth, soldier. She remembered what he said so long ago, about the quiet life. Sometimes she thought she wanted it too, but trouble always found her.

She reached to her shoulder and slid the gun off as the sounds of gunfire faded. Time to go to work.

The Doctor sat on the bed—Rose's bed, and ran his hand lightly over the drops of dried blood spattered on her pillow. They were stark red against the white cloth. He hadn't wanted to leave her at Torchwood, but Pete threatened to have Jake throw him out, and the Doctor knew that Rose's father meant what he said.

He could feel the sickness coming on. He shivered as goose pimples rose on his arms. His mouth felt dry and his head was pounding. Stupid partially human body. If he had his TARDIS—he forced himself to stop. Moaning about what he didn't have wouldn't fix anything, wouldn't help Rose or any of the hundreds of other people who were sick. It was an accident, an unfortunate happenstance. The universe was not kind.

Proper clothes would help. He needed the comfort his suits gave, the authority his cloth armor conveyed. He was the Doctor. He could fix this. The words seemed silly even to him, and he realized that he didn't know where to begin. He was helpless, stranded here on this tiny, petty planet, stuck in the timeline and watching the woman he loved fight for her life. She shouldn't be ill, well, maybe a cold—something more like what he was experiencing. She travelled in the TARDIS, her immune system was far stronger than that of an ordinary human being.

It was the stress, he realized as he zipped his pants with fingers that trembled—from emotion or from fever he couldn't tell. It had to be the stress of constantly fighting, of spending six long years searching for him. Three years travelling the Void would take a toll on anyone, but Rose had pushed herself to the extreme to find him. Guilt settled over him. It was his fault. She was dying, and it was his fault.

No. He could fix this. He would fix this. He had to. He had nothing else left.