**Notes: Since this website doesn't prompt me for chapter notes, I've forgotten to mention something extremely important! A HUGE thank you to my beta, Elensari. She has been super awesome in helping me write this. It's my first ever thing that I've written since being forced to write stuff in grade school twenty five or so years ago. Please write reviews for me! I could really use the input.**

Chapter Eleven – WHAT?!

As soon as they landed back in their flat, the Doctor laid his wife down on the floor and started checking her over. "Rose! Rose, love, look at me."

"Do...Doctor... it hurts." Her breathing was erratic and he could see that the bullet likely punctured her lung. She was bleeding heavily. There wasn't anything he could do here on the floor. Tears fell heavily from his eyes as he watched the life drain out of his wife. He whispered assurances of his love in Gallifreyan as he stroked her hair and held her gaze. She whispered something back to him and as he strained to listen, his heart skipped a beat. She spoke the phrase of devotion in Gallifreyan that he had said to her their first night in this universe. Just as her eyes closed, a shimmer of golden light started to gather over her skin. His eyes went wide and he carefully backed away from his wife's body.

"It can't be!" She was regenerating! How? Relief that she would live swirled with fear of what this could all mean for their future as he tried to focus on the here and now. They wouldn't be safe here for long with Torchwood after them and if she was regenerating, then the safest place for her to recover would be the TARDIS. In a flash of golden light, Rose's features changed before his eyes. She was taller now and looked a little bit older with darker hair as well. Her new face seemed slightly familiar to him, but he couldn't place it and really, now was not the time for that.

Rose gasped and started looking around frantically trying to figure out what had happened. She wasn't in pain anymore and she could breathe clearly. She felt a thundering rhythm in her chest and her head felt like it was on fire. Shutting her eyes tightly, she grasped her head. "Oh god... what happened? ...Doctor? Doctor, what's the matter with my voice?"

Grasping her shoulders, the Doctor looked her in the eyes. They were still brown, but seemed darker and in more contrast to her pale skin than they used to be. "Rose, love, you've regenerated."

"What?! How could I have regenerated? I'm not a Time Lord! ... Am I?" She pressed both hands up against her chest and felt two hearts beating. "My head is killing me, Doctor." She leaned into his arms and he held her against him on the floor.

"And that settles it. I need to get you to the TARDIS and into the zero room. Hang on, my love, everything will be fine." He made some mental calculations about the timing and where best to land so that they wouldn't be seen by their past selves. He typed furiously into the vortex manipulator, then held her tight against his chest as he pushed the button. Travelling through the vortex without a capsule fresh from regenerating was not a good idea, but if they stayed there, they would be sure to have the mutinous Torchwood employees breaking down the door looking for them.

In a flash of white light and a small thunderclap, they found themselves on the grass in a park near where the TARDIS had landed them during their first trip here. He couldn't hear the TARDIS in his mind, but remembered that he had thought she was dead when her power drained. Watching carefully from the bushes near them, he could see himself and Rose walking off towards the Tyler mansion for the party where the Cybermen would attempt their takeover. Lifting his now unconscious wife in his arms, he quickly ran towards the powered down TARDIS. Getting the key into the lock without dropping her was difficult, but snapping his fingers certainly wouldn't work when he couldn't even feel the presence of her in his mind. He kicked the doors shut behind them and laid Rose down on the jump seat while he searched his pockets for the torch they had brought with them.

With the dim torch light and the weight of his unconscious wife in his arms, the Doctor stumbled a bit on the grating as he made his way through the powered down ship towards the rarely used zero room. The space was dark and with no power to help shield them from everything, gravity was still holding them to the floor. He laid Rose down on the floor and curled up next to her. She was breathing steadily and both hearts were beating strongly. Her clothes weren't fitting her quite right anymore and he considered sneaking down to the wardrobe to find her something else, but he worried about leaving her alone in the dark while he left with the only torch. Best not. They could play dress up later. For now, he cuddled with his wife on the floor and decided to join her in sleeping off the stress of the day. They were relatively safe and he was confident that the TARDIS would keep them safe.

When the Doctor awoke, he saw the soft, white light that he was accustomed to in the zero room and they were floating above the floor. They had embraced each other during their sleep and he snuggled his wife closer. He could feel the TARDIS in his mind for the first time since they had been left on the beach four months ago and basked in the connection that he had missed. His connection to Rose felt stronger now. Of course, as a Time Lady, she was telepathic now too. Her mind felt content being near him and the TARDIS, but he could tell that it would be a while before her new biology would have her waking again. With the limited way that the TARDIS could communicate with him, he felt her reassure him that they were safe from their previous selves' discovery and that she would let him know when it was safe to leave.

Hours had passed and the Doctor was starting to get hungry. They couldn't leave the zero room however, or they would be discovered. The TARDIS produced another door in the room that didn't lead out into hallway. Checking it carefully, he found a small kitchen area and loo that were shielded in the same way as the zero room (except that there was gravity in there). He made some tea and sandwiches while he waited for Rose to wake up. He would have liked to also have access to the medbay to check what had happened to his wife, but they certainly couldn't risk venturing out there. He thought about the timing of their trips around this time. They had spent a few days visiting Jackie after their trip to the parallel universe while he repaired some of her systems, then they went to the coronation when he was trying to get them to see Elvis. He certainly didn't want to exit the TARDIS while they were in the fifties and be stranded there. But then, where did they want to be? He couldn't talk to Jack or UNIT or even his other self until after the mess with the Daleks and the stars going out. He still had the vortex manipulator, but the TARDIS couldn't switch from the vortex in this universe to the one in the other, so this manipulator probably wouldn't even work here. He didn't really want to stay hiding in here until they visited the Olympics in 2012 because he knew there was a rather nasty fall into the centre of a planet orbiting a black hole coming up and he'd rather not be in here during that.

As he was contemplating where and when he would like them to go, Rose began to stir. He rushed to her side and took her hand.

"Doctor? Where am I?" Rose was looking around the white room and he was taking in all the differences in her new regeneration. Her accent would take some getting used to.

"I'm right here, my love. Tell me what you remember and I'll fill in the blanks from there, alright?" He stroked her dark hair off of her face and looked into her frightened new eyes with all the love he felt for her. He sent her feelings of reassurance and calm to let her know that she was safe now.

"I remember that Suzie was going to shoot you and I couldn't let that happen, so I blocked it. It hurt so much. Then, I remember being in our flat and you said that I regenerated... and then waking up here?" She was stroking the back of his hand with her thumb nervously and looking to his face for reassurance that she hadn't lost her mind completely.

"You did regenerate, Rose. That did happen. It seems that you were very busy when you were the Bad Wolf. Along with destroying all the Daleks and making Jack immortal, you also made yourself into a Time Lady. How do you feel, love?" The Doctor wrapped her in his arms as they kept floating around in the soft white light of the zero room.

"Nothing hurts anymore, but everything feels very... intense? Like it's all louder and brighter? And ... wow, she was right! I do feel like I'm beating out a samba! Two hearts will take some getting used to." Rose pulled back from his hug and pressed her hands against her chest over each heart.

"Yeah, like me getting used to only having one. It does make sense that things would feel intense for now. Your senses are definitely heightened from what you are used to and you also have several more senses than you did before. I'll help you figure it all out and you'll get used to it. Our link feels fine to me, stronger in fact now that you're telepathic. Your head doesn't hurt at all?" He rubbed the back of his neck and tried to hide the slight stab of jealousy over her gaining all the things that he had so recently lost. He could tell that she felt it though when she sent him the feeling that she was sorry.

"My head feels fine. It feels really strange to have a different body though... am I taller?" She was grabbing at her hair and looking at the dark brown with a disapproving gaze. "I'll need to buy some hair colour."

"Why don't we go through here, love. The TARDIS gave us a little kitchen and a bathroom where you can take a look at the whole package. Your clothes aren't fitting quite right, but I don't think it would be safe for us to go to the wardrobe room here." The Doctor helped her get back on her feet as they entered the gravity of the kitchen area. She took a few wobbly steps to get used to her new frame, but seemed to get the hang of it fairly quickly.

In the bathroom, there was a full length mirror (it seemed the TARDIS anticipated this need as well). She was taller, less curvy and her hair was definitely darker than even her natural colour used to be. She also appeared to look a bit older than she had before. She frowned into the mirror and her fingers smushed her cheeks as she felt her new face. Her skin looked more pale and her eyes, while still brown were darker than before. ~'Not so pink and yellow anymore.'~

'You are beautiful, Rose. And you always will be.'~ Her husband hugged her from behind and she took in how different even that felt. Being taller, he didn't have to lean down to put his chin on her shoulder now. She looked a little closer to the age that he looked now, maybe mid-thirties?

"Oh my god! Doctor! I'm going to outlive you... but I can't outlive you because we're bonded... but what are we going to do?" This was certainly better than dying on the floor of their flat from a gunshot wound, but they were supposed to have a real forever! They were supposed to live the same length of time now, this was so unfair!

"I'll think of something, darling. You know I will. I won't let you die early because of our bond. There has to be a way to make my lifespan match yours again and we WILL find it. I promise, love." He turned her in his arms to face him and hugged her tightly. "Are you hungry? Do you want some tea?"

"Yes, tea sounds wonderful. The solution to everything, right? Ooh, this new accent is very strange. I sound so posh! What do you think, Doctor?" He smiled at her and kissed her thoroughly.

"I think, my love, that you would get on even better with my eighth self now. But now that we are in the same universe, I'm going to do my very best to keep you away from him." He winked at her and sat her down at the little table in the kitchen area. Bringing the tea and sandwiches that he had made earlier over to the table, he warned her that she might not like her tea the same way she did before.

"Don't you worry one bit, Doctor. You wouldn't get rid of me that easily." Rose smirked at him, "Stuck with me, you are."

He smiled back at her, "But stuck with you isn't so bad."