He walked into the Tardis, fully expecting to have to search for her. As it was, he found her in the console room, sitting on the floor, her back against the console. His coat was still wrapped around her shoulders.

'That can't be comfortable,' he observed, at a loss for anything else to say. When she didn't respond, or even look at him, he sank down next to her, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankle.

'Straightened things out with the Ood,' he said conversationally.

'You're afraid of me,' she said, her voice distant.

'No,' he replied, his tone firm.

'They said you were.'

'And if an Ood says it it must be true. That it?'

'Doctor,' she said impatiently. 'This thing in my head… It's dangerous. I'm dangerous.'

'Nah. You're Rose. You're brilliant.'

'They were afraid of me. No one's ever been afraid of me before. Not really. And they were right, weren't they? I shouldn't be here. Shouldn't have been able to save you. It's too much power. But I would have done anything to get to you. Didn't even stop to think about the universes and all that. I'm dangerous.'

'A loose canon,' he said sagely. When she didn't respond he sighed. 'More dangerous than me? You saw what I did, Rose. To my own people. And I wiped out the Daleks. An entire race. Although that one never seems to stick.'

She drew a shaky breath. 'So did I. I killed all the daleks. Made 'em never exist. Genocide, you said, when you - the other you - did the same thing.'

He wanted to grab her shoulders, make her look at him. Instead, he repeated himself. 'I'm not afraid of you, Rose.'

'Yeah you are.'

'Nope. Bit too much like a fairytale for my liking. Who's afraid of the big Bad Wolf?' She did look at him then, rolling her eyes. 'Sorry,' he offered, only half apologetic. At least she was looking at him now. Oh... maybe not.

She looked down at her hands where they rested in her lap. 'My mum was right. I'm not me anymore. Not Rose Tyler. Not human.' Her last words were spoken in a whisper, as though she was afraid to say them.

He bit down on his irrational anger with Jackie Tyler and kept his voice light. 'When did she say that?'

'Just before... Canary Wharf.'

He regarded the top of her head for a moment, then he reached into his pocket, pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned her face. 'Nope,' he said, switching it off. 'Still human. Just... upgraded.' He winced. 'Sorry. Bad choice of words. Terrible. Still... one hundred per cent Rose Tyler.'

She glanced up at him from beneath her lashes, a slight smile playing around her lips. 'You have a setting for that on your sonic?'

He beamed back at her. 'Oh yes. Setting 1923- check for presence of Rose Tylerness. Very important setting.'

'Use it a lot, do you?' She laughed, then sobered abruptly. 'You were hiding from me. At Donna's wedding.'

'Yeah. Well… Not hiding exactly. Not very manly, is it? Hiding. What I was doing was more like... sulking,' he admitted.

She turned her head to look at him, surprised he'd admitted it. 'Why?'

He suddenly found he was having trouble talking. She was looking up at him, expecting an answer and his throat appeared to have closed. Inconvenient. He cleared his throat and tried again. 'Since you.. Since the Dalek Crucible... I've made mistakes Rose. So many mistakes.' His next words came out in a whisper and he didn't know what they were going to be before he'd said them. 'Its like I can't stop myself.' He shuddered and ran a hand through his hair.

Rose reached up and took it.

'You can't decide what's best for her! For me!' The blue suited Doctor was pacing the small room, watched by his Time Lord counterpart.

'I can.'

'Why? Because you're a Time Lord? So am I!'

'Not completely. Half human. One heart. Not a Time Lord. You're not thinking clearly.'

'She'll never stay with me. Given the choice she's got I wouldn't stay with me. And I am me.'

'You're me.'

The human Doctor stared at his counterpart for a moment, his jaw slack. Then, 'Yes. I am you. And I know what you're thinking. You can't expect me to believe you'll just go. Not after… I wouldn't just go.'

'You're human.'

'Part human.'

The Doctor shrugged. 'Whatever. I'll leave. I have to. I love her too much to keep her here, not when she could have-' he waved a hand at his clone.

Rose opened her eyes and withdrew her hand, staggering to her feet and away from him. His coat slipped to the floor. 'You-'

He pulled himself to his feet, following her. He grabbed both her hands, interlocking their fingers.

Pain. So much pain. Physical pain. Blood all over her face. His face. He was pointing a gun at someone.

'The Master,' he says in her mind. His memory supplies images of the Master. His friend. His best friend. His best enemy. The other Time Lord. Two boys waiting to be taken to see the untempered schism. Sitting in chairs they are too short for, laughing softly together until the stern gaze of their tutor silences them. Fighting. Always fighting one another. Until there was no one else. The Master, dying in the Doctor's arms.

The Master spoke, 'He's to blame, not me! Oh! The link is inside my head! Kill me, the link gets broken, they go back.' The Doctor's hand tensed around the gun. She could feel the metal against her own skin. Wrong. So wrong. 'You never would, you coward!'

He was looking at a woman. Watching as she slowly lowered her hands from her eyes and returned his gaze, a tear sliding down her face.

Fire. Not the fire of Gallifrey burning, although it hurt just as much. The device.

The Doctor spoke, the dark triumph in his voice that had been there too often of late. 'The link is broken! Back into the Time War, Rassilon! Back into Hell!'

'You die with me, Doctor!' The President raised his gloved hand, aiming at the Doctor

Behind the triumph, she could feel the Doctor's exhaustion. Acceptance. 'I know.'

Rose opened her eyes, still seeing the images in her mind, but now confusingly able to see his face, here in the TARDIS. Less than 72 hours after the events playing through her mind. He was watching her intently.

'Doctor-' she began.

'Shh. Not yet.' He cut her off, flooding her mind with new images.

'I'm alive!' He scrambled up slightly, 'I'm still alive.' She could feel his brain working, trying to assimilate the idea.

Then, in the silence, four knocks. Wilf was knocking on the inside of the booth. Trapped. Of course he was. Fixed point in time, this. Had to be. How else could everyone have seen it? Everyone but him.

He was standing in front of the booth, holding his sonic screwdriver. Useless thing. Stupid item. Junk.

'I'm sorry,' Wilf said, 'Look, just leave me.'

The Doctor smiled then, the expression bitter. Twisted somehow. Okay, right then, I will. 'Cos you had to go in there, didn't you? You had to go and get stuck, oh yes!' She felt the moment it clicked in his head. Felt the anger and the resignation build in equal force. ''Cos that's who you are, Wilfred. You were always this. Waiting for me, all this time.'

'No, really, just leave me. I'm an old man, Doctor. I've had my time.'

'Well, exactly, look at you. Not remotely important!' The Doctor raged, wondering if the anger would be enough to let him walk out of this room. To run. 'But me? I could do so much more! So much more! But this is what I get. My reward. And it's not fair!' He began to sob, gasping for breath, already knowing he couldn't leave. He reached over and shoved some papers off a desk. Furious at his own inability to leave.

The pain. The radiation, burning him from the inside. He lay on the floor of the booth, curled up against the onslaught. Rose could feel the pain as if it were shooting through her. She felt her knees buckle as though to allow her to sink to the floor and curl up too.

It stopped. She was standing in the TARDIS, gasping for breath amid the tears that were streaking down her face. She looked down at her hands, realising they were still entwined with his, but didn't seem to be about to produce any more nightmare visions.

Suddenly she was driven back until she was pressed against the console. The Doctor was pressed against her front, his hands dropping hers hastily and skating up over her sides until they were framing her face. He was whispering something, the same words over and over. As he came closer, drawing her mouth up to meet his own, she heard.

'I'm sorry.'

Then his lips were working against hers, his tongue sweeping into her mouth while his hands held her in place.

\/\/