Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who

Previously…

Rose turned around and looked at the Doctor. What she saw made her blood run cold and freeze to ice in her veins.

"Oh my God," she whispered, horrified.

Chapter 10

The Doctor was right. There was something very wrong with his eyes. They'd changed. Their usual deep brown was barely visible, with the colour of the iris and pupils of both his eyes covered with a cloud of swirling white.

"Oh my God," Rose repeated, moving closer to the Doctor. She reached up a hand, as if to touch the side of his face, but then changed her mind halfway and withdrew her hand again.

"God, how…w-what—what happened?" she stuttered, her voice a lot higher than it usually was, "Can—can you see?" But on that question, a very unpleasant thought occurred to her. "Does it… hurt?" she asked hesitantly, her heart tight with fear at the thought of the Doctor in pain.

The Doctor squinted at the dark, hazy shape in front of him that he knew was Rose, "I can… sort of see," he said, "But it's like I'm looking through a cloudy version of that glass you use for bathroom windows and the like. And no, it doesn't hurt… not anymore anyway."

"What d'you mean, 'not anymore'?" Rose asked worriedly, "When did it hurt?"

The Time Lord didn't see any point in lying to Rose. She was smart, and most of the time she always seemed to know when he wasn't telling her the truth. So, he said, "Only about a minute ago. There was just this sharp burning behind my eyes, and then, I couldn't see properly."

Rose looked at the Doctor's eyes. She really didn't want to see them, all she wanted to see was their usual comforting soulful brown, and yet at the same time, she couldn't seem to tear her eyes away. It was like a kind of sick fascination.

"Rose?" the Doctor asked questioningly when she didn't answer.

"I'm right here," Rose answered, trying to pull herself together, "C'mon, we'd better get back inside, or Mum'll think we've gone and killed each other or something."

Then, grasping the Doctor firmly by the hand, Rose led him back inside, careful that he didn't trip over the doorframe on the way. She hated what was happening to him, and couldn't even begin to imagine how helpless he was feeling right now. She only hoped that he wouldn't lose the rest of his sight too.

Inside, Rose steered him over to the sofa, where he sat down, rubbing the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed, and looking generally dejected. Then she called out, "Mum!" wondering where she could've gone.

-------------------------------------------------

When Rose and the Doctor had gone outside, Jackie had gone into the kitchen to put on a cup of tea, hoping that when they came back again it would help to calm things down a bit.

But that wasn't the only reason. It was almost as if she was doing it out of habit, something normal to do. And having just found out that her only daughter was in love with a time-travelling alien…. Jackie definitely felt that she needed something normal to do.

She just couldn't quite take it all in. When Rose had blurted out in her rant that she loved the Doctor, Jackie had hoped that it was possible that it was the sort of love you had for a friend, or even a family member. But the Doctor's last comment to her before he'd followed Rose outside, "Not now, Jackie. Slap me later," had confirmed her suspicions that not only did Rose love the Doctor, but that they'd acted on their love too… their love… that brought another terrible thought to Jackie's already panicked collection. What if the Doctor didn't really love Rose back? What if he was just taking advantage of her?

But as quickly as the thought had appeared, Jackie dismissed it. She had seen the way the Doctor looked at Rose, she had seen some of the things he'd done for her. Rose had explained all about why the Doctor had regenerated and become ill at Christmas, and it had temporarily stunned Jackie into silence.

She'd always known that the Doctor was capable of a lot, especially considering the number of times he'd saved the world. But he'd gone above and beyond board this time. He'd died for Rose, and for that Jackie would always consider herself to be eternally in his debt.

So when she heard Rose's call, Jackie knew that they must've made up, and smiled. "I'm just making some tea," she called back, not turning around, "But if you think I'm going to be cleaning up all that glass, you've got another thing coming."

Rose almost rolled her eyes at her mother's typical response, "Mum, would you just come here a minute?!" she called again, a little more urgently.

"Alright, alright," Jackie said, coming into the living room, "Stop with your shouting. What is it?"

Rose said nothing, but pointed at the Doctor, who was squinting up at them with his almost completely milky coloured eyes, and evidently trying to see them properly.

Jackie took a step back and covered her mouth in shock. What the…?

Trying to straighten out her racing jumbled thoughts, she asked, "What in the hell happened?"

The Doctor was about to answer the question, but Rose beat him to it, saying, "We don't know, he says he felt a sharp pain behind his eyes and now he can't see properly."

Jackie knelt down in front of the Doctor and said, "Let me have a look." Then, ignoring the Doctors mumbles about there being nothing any human could do, she took hold of his chin to stop him from looking away and looked into his eyes.

As soon as she saw them properly, Jackie knew that the Doctor was right. There was nothing she, or anyone else on this planet in this time could do.

But as she looked, the Doctor suddenly flinched back in pain and screwed his eyes tight shut.

Neither of the two Londoners even had time to ask what was wrong before he opened his eyes again, and they saw what was wrong. The whole of the rest of the colour in his eyes was gone, leaving them completely white.

Staring blankly around the room, the Doctor sighed and dropped his head to his chest, "I can't see at all now," he said, in the most defeated voice Rose had ever heard him use.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: I know this is a kinda short chapter, and that it had a lacklustre ending, but I really wanted to update now.

However, the next chapter (which used to be the second half of this chapter, and is about the same length) is really nearly finished, and I'm going to try to update later tonight! But, if I don't get enough reviews, then I won't update for a little while – sound fair?

Now, I'm not sure how many people are going to read this, due to a sad lack of alerts (my inbox is going to overflow when it gets fixed…) so anyone who is, please review!