Please R&R am soooo sorry for the length of time between chapters and the pittyful length of the chapters themselves but i have been ill, had exams and family problems so do forgive me and let me know you are still reading by submitting a review to tell me what you like and dont like, also i am looking for a Beta but fear not they would not have much work as, as you can see, I do have a problem with updating my stories but i have a new story in the pipeline and they would be the first to read it!

Chapter 6

Rose blinked twice as her surroundings came into focus. She was in a room filled with humming machinery, one that was attached to her own arm. The TARDIS med.-bay. She felt a warm weight on her leg and smiled down at the sleeping form of the Doctor, muttering incomprehensibly in his sleep. Shifting slightly she felt the tail-tale restriction of bandages around her abdomen and grimaced as her wound re-opened. She wasn't sure whether to wake the Doctor or let him sleep, as to her knowledge he rarely shut his eyes. She gently eased her leg away and swung it out from under the white sheets. Screwing her eyes up at the sudden dizziness and nausea that overtook her she shook her head and placed her feet on the floor.

"Where do you think you're going?"

She jumped as the Doctor moved his head up, hair standing up wildly, tie loose around his neck and his eyes red and blood-shot. He looked awful.

"Cuppa tea?" she said unhelpfully.

He raised an eyebrow, the concern clear in his eyes.

"Well you were asleep so I thought I would just…" she shrugged and gestured to the door. The Doctor rubbed his eyes and smiled.

"Rose Tyler! You never cease to amaze me. You have just been stabbed and you want to make me a cup of tea?"

She shrugged again.

"Well when you put it like that…"

He nodded and pointed his head at the bed.

"Get in," he ordered and held back the crisp white sheets so she could do so. She smiled sarcastically and threw her-self onto the bed, immediately regretting it.

"I can close that up properly in a bit, I couldn't when you were asleep as that part of your brain shuts down." The Doctor explained acknowledging her grimace of pain, she nodded and smiled to her-self again at his appearance.

"You look a mess you know?"

"Oh gee miss Tyler so full of complements, I would say the same to you but you know for a girl you just had a knife stuck in her chest you look pretty good."

She smiled again at him and yawned.

"What happened?" his eyes glazed over and it occurred to Rose that he may have just ignored her.

"Doctor?"

He snapped back to reality and smiled a sad smile at her.

"How about that cuppa then? I'll be right back, you should go back to sleep!" he threw back over his shoulder as he left the room.

Rose sighed and leant back on her pillow, he would have to tell her sometime.

The Doctor sighed and leant his head against the closed door of the mug cupboard. He would have to tell her sometime. He closed his eyes against the burning heat of the real world and slipped back into the happenings of the day. How could such a carefree, fun trip to a maze come out so wrong? When Rose collapsed after being stabbed his whole world had stopped and it made him realise how much she really meant to him. He wasn't ready to go on without her, not yet. But would he ever be ready? How could he tell Rose that the boy that stabbed her believed that it was her time? That the whole shurade of murders and disappearances was to draw them in so that he could take her away from him, the boy had said this when the Doctor had begun to walk away with Rose. He told him how he was sorry about what he had done, but it was the right thing to do, that 'they needed to be together'. As if he didn't need Rose, because he did! He needed her more than anything, she had saved him, more than she would ever know and he couldn't loose her. It was selfish he knew, but it wasn't her time anymore than it was his. He couldn't tell her, not yet.

Rose stared up at the ceiling feeling contentedly warm, heat pulsing from her chest, she was safe, it had been another close call, more close than normal but she knew that the Doctor would sort it. When the warm pulsing feeling did not stay at a warm pulsing feeling, but spread to a scorching heat burning into her skin; it was then that Rose became aware that she was wearing a locket that did not belong to her. She drew breath to yell out but when she did her voice echoed back to her off stone cave walls, not the homely metal of the TARDIS interior. The reassuring white of the med-bay had vanished and she lay on the cold stone floor, the metal of the locket leaving a mark on her neck where the white hot heat continued to pulse. Then the shadows moved, the boy moved into the light of burning embers of a fire and smiled.

"It is time!"