A/N: Hello readers! Here is the next chapter, and I hope you like it! Tell me if you do, or if you don't! I would love to hear what you think so I could make myself a better writer :)

Once again I want to thank my amazing beta anna1991!

Disclamier: The usual.

The Touch

The TARDIS was completely out of control. All four of them were hanging on the control panel, the Doctor trying everything he could to stop the TARDIS from rattling. Sparks were flying and the TARDIS shook violently, throwing Rose to the floor. She got a glimpse of the Doctor's hand in the jar and saw the liquid bubble much more than it usually did.

"What the hell's it doing?" Donna shouted.

"Controls aren't working!" the Doctor answered. "Rose! Are you okay?"

"What's going on with your hand?" she asked instead of giving him an answer.

"It's very excited about whatever is going on", the Doctor said, half worried, half exited.

"What! You telling me that's your hand? I thought it was just some freaky alien thing!" Donna yelled.

"It got chopped off", Rose said, pulling herself off the floor and thinking how absurd it was to discuss the Doctor's hand while the TARDIS was acting like this. "He grew another one."

"And I asked you about two heads!" Donna shouted over the rattle. "You are completely... impossible!"

"Not impossible, just... a bit unlikely!"

"A bit?" Rose asked.

That was when the TARDIS was shaken by the last explosion and everyone fell backwards, the Doctor hitting the jump seat. Silence fell. They looked at each other for a moment before the Doctor jumped up and ran towards the doors and outside. Rose pulled herself up and followed him. She stopped right in front of the door at the sight she saw. Wherever they were, it looked like a junkyard. They seemed to be underground and everywhere were bits and pieces of something or another and Rose had a terrible feeling that there was a reason for it and they wouldn't like it.

"Why would the TARDIS bring us here..." the Doctor muttered, looking at his ship. Rose walked a few steps forward, away from the TARDIS, and looked with curiosity at the only thing around here that seemed to be not broken. It was a machine of some kind.

"Oh, I love this bit", Martha's voice said.

"Thought you wanted to go home", Donna pointed out.

"I know, but all the same..."

Rose turned to look at the slow smile on Martha's face and knew exactly how she felt. Rose's eyes met the Doctor, who was licking his hand, looking like he hadn't heard anything the two women behind him said.

"It's that feeling you get..." said Martha, who didn't look at the Doctor. Yes, the feeling, Rose thought. The excitement, the strange, wonderful feeling of a different world, the wonder and joy and...

"Like you swallowed a hamster?" Donna offered. Well, that wasn't what Rose would've said, but it was good enough. Martha gave a little laugh. A loud noise carried through the tunnel and Rose whirled around to see what was causing it. Three soldiers were approaching them and Rose's worst nightmares came true. A war. They were in a warzone. She glanced at the Doctor who didn't look happy at all.

"Don't move!" a young soldier shouted, pointing his gun at them. Rose raised her hands in the air. "Stay where you are! Drop your weapons!"

"We're not armed!" the Doctor said loudly and calmly. "Look. No weapons. Never any weapons. We're safe."

One of the soldiers looked at them with curiosity.

"Look at their hands", he said. "They're clean."

He said it like it was a miracle and a good thing, but somehow Rose had a feeling that noth ing good would follow their clean hands.

"Alright, process them!" the first one, obviously the Captain, said. "Him first", he added, pointing at the Doctor.

Two other soldiers leaped forward, taking a hold of the Doctor and dragged him towards the machine Rose had seen earlier.

"Oi, oi! What's wrong with clean hands?" the Doctor snapped, trying to get rid of them. Rose stepped forward.

"Let go of him!" she said.

"Rose, it's okay, I think, don't get all wild", the Doctor said to her as his hand was forced into the machine. He cried out in pain and Rose jumped forward, being stopped by a soldier.

"Let go of me!" she snapped. "Let him go! What's he done to you?"

"Something tells me this isn't about to check my blood pressure", the Doctor said and cried out again. Rose felt her heart skip a beat, and the soldier keeping her still let go in surprise and shock as her eyes flashed gold for less than a second. A gunshot. A flash of blonde hair. She blinked and the image vanished.

"Let him go!" she yelled.

"Everyone gets processed", the captain said calmly, not even bothering to look at Rose.

"It's taking a tissue sample", the Doctor explained as the captain didn't. "It's o- Ow ow ow ow ow ow -kay. And extrapolated it! Some kind of accelerator?" he suggested. The machine let go of him and he stepped quickly backwards. Rose grabbed his hand that had been in the machine. There was a long but clean cut in his hand. It didn't look deep or bad.

"And I thought your hand was being cut off again", she said and pushed the hand away.

"It hurt!"

The machine, which had been whirring since the Doctor got free, turned off and the capsule opened.

"What on Earth?" the Doctor muttered. "That's just..."

Out of the machine stepped a girl. She didn't look older than Rose, had blonde hair and brown eyes and she looked around curiously.

"Arm yourself!" the Captain ordered, giving her a gun. She took like it was the most natural thing to do. Rose stared at her her wide-eyed. Surely she didn't... did she?
"Where did she come from?" Martha asked.

"From me", the Doctor said, his voice shocked and quiet and Rose turned to look at him, hoping he would grin and laugh and tell them they were stupid apes to believe that. He didn't. She swallowed.

"From you?" Donna said. "How? Who is she?"

"Well..." the Doctor said and swallowed and looked from the girl to Rose and back. "She's... well... she's my daughter."

At that point the girl looked up at him, a fabulous grin came onto her face and she loaded her gun.

"Hello, Dad!"

At that moment Rose wasn't sure whether she should cry or laugh. She felt she needed to do both but was suddenly unable to make any kind of noise. What? she kept thinking. What? But it turned out she had no time to ask her question out loud as there was a loud shout and they were told to go hide. Soldiers that looked a bit like fish with legs and hands were running through the tunnel towards them.

"It's the Hath!"

The firing started.

"Stop!" Rose shouted and the Doctor grabbed her, pulling her into cover. "Let go of me! That girl is over there, that... that daughter of yours."

"Rose..."

"What?"

The tunnel started to collapse. She jumped to the side to avoid being hit when the ceiling collapsed entirely. For a moment she saw only black, then yellow, and she heard a gunshot of which she couldn't tell whether she had really heard it or imagined it.

#####

She sat up and looked around. There was a wall of debris that blocked the tunnel. The realisation hit her painfully.

"Doctor!" she cried out and rushed to the pile of rubble, trying to move it aside. "Doctor! Can you hear me? Are you there?"

"Hold on, I've got you", Martha said, and Rose turned to see who she was talking to. "Is it your arm, yeah?"

It was one of those fish people, Hath, wasn't it, and the small tank in the place of its mouth bubbled.

"Is that a yes?"

Rose turned back to the wall.

"Doctor!"

She panicked. What if he had got stuck under it? He would never survive that. She tried to pull away a piece of some pipe, but it didn't move an inch. "Doctor!"

"I don't think he can hear you", Martha said without even looking at her. "Half fish, half human. How am I supposed to know? Is that a shoulder?"

"Doctor!"

"Rose, please be quiet for a while so I can concentrate."

"So you don't care if he's under all of this junk, huh? What if he's dead? What if someone shot him?"

"Shouting isn't gonna help him with that, is it?"

"What if it was Tom in there?"

Martha bit her lips together.

"If the Doctor's hurt, there's nothing we can do for him from this side of the collapse. But there's a injured Hath over here, and he needs our help. So will you hold him down so I can put his shoulder back into place?" she said. While listening to her, Rose realised just how brilliant she really was. She sighed, Martha was right.

"Sorry", she said, kneeled down and took a held of the Hath. "This okay?"

Martha nodded and took a hold of the Hath's arm, but right then several Hath marched in, pointing their guns at them.

"I'm trying to help him!" Martha said loudly. "I am a doctor and he is my patient, and I'm not leaving him!"

Rose had to admit that she was pretty impressive.

"Now, this is gonna hurt", she warned, taking a hold of the Hath's arm again. "One, two, three!"

With a loud crack the shoulder snapped into place and the Hath raised their guns again. With bubbles the injured Hath explained something to his friends and they lowered their guns.

"Now, then. I'm Doctor Martha Jones", Martha said. "And this is Rose Tyler. Who the hell are you?"

#####

They followed the Hath to their base. It was obvious that they were fascinated by them. The nearest Hath came over to touch them like they would've wanted to know if they were real. Rose took out her phone and, wondering why she hadn't thought about it earlier, dialled the Doctor's number. She let it ring for a long time, but he didn't answer. Feeling horrible she put the phone back into her pocket.

"He's not answering", she said to Martha in a low voice.

"Maybe he has other things on his mind right now?"

She looked around gloomily and followed Martha to some kind of hologram that looked a bit like a map. She looked at it carefully. She had always been bad at reading maps.

"Right…" said Martha, who obviously wasn't. "So we're here?"

She pointed at something that looked like a hall. The Hath nodded. Suddenly the hologram turned and changed and got more tunnels on it. Rose sighed in relieve.

"It's him, it's the Doctor", she said to Martha as more Hath started to gather around them, celebrating and tapping Martha and Rose.

"It wasn't us", Rose said, laughing a bit as one of them tapped her cheek. Then, if bubbles could represent yelling and roaring, the Hath started to yell and roar, waving their guns in the air, and marched off.

"Oh no", Rose said. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'm thinking that we just started a war."

"Yep. That's what I was thinking."

Her phone rang and she pulled it quickly out of her pocket.

"You should answer your phone when it rings!"

"How is that a way to pick up when I call you?"

"Shut up. Where are you?"

"I'm with Donna, we're fine. What about you?" there was a small pause and the Doctor sounded irritated. "Yes all right... and, and Jenny... that's the woman from the machine, the soldier... my daughter, except she isn't. She's, she's... anyway! Where are you?"

"What do you mean, she isn't? You're the one who used the word 'daughter' when she first came out of the machine!" Rose said, offended on behalf of the girl.

"Yes, right, but... now's not the time to argue about what she is and what she isn't."

"Yeah, because there's nothing to argue about!"

Martha grabbed the phone from Rose, ignoring her glare.

"Doctor, we're in the Hath camp. We're okay but something's going on. The Hath are all marching off to some place that's appeared on this map thing."

Rose tried to reach her phone but Martha turned around, raising her hand to silence her.

"What do you want us to do?" she asked. Then there came the determined, stubborn look Rose recognised from herself. "But we can help!" A pause, she looked at the phone and put it back to her ear again. "Doctor? Doctor!" she turned to Rose and gave the phone to her. "It cut off."

"What do we do?" Rose asked.

"Well, he wanted us to stay here, but I'm not gonna listen to him. And I guess that neither are you."

Rose grinned.

"Let's go then", she said.

#####

They couldn't leave right away because Martha wanted to know where they were going and how to get there. Rose, who had been ready to go and find the first corridor and look where it would take them, sat down and watched as Martha talked with the Hath she had been helping before. She was very confused. Not just because there had come a girl from a machine that the Doctor had said was his daughter but also because now he didn't seem to think she was his daughter. She couldn't say that she was all happy about this sudden change of their lives but she couldn't stand the idea that the Doctor refused to call Jenny his daughter. She had gone through that phase in the parallel universe when Pete had had difficulties with calling her his daughter because she wasn't his daughter. And it had hurt even though there had been some truth in his words. To Pete she was someone who shared his genetic code but who hadn't come from him. Now Jenny was someone who obviously shared the Doctor's genetic code but hadn't exactly come from him, either. Rose was angry at him for not seeing the obvious. Jenny was his daughter and as weird it was she was ready to accept it. Why wasn't the Doctor? She tried to think about what it would be like if they had Jenny with them on the TARDIS. They would have a daughter. A grown daughter, but still a daughter. That would be... she felt a weird touch in her mind, it was light and she nearly missed it completely and it was gone as soon as it started. What was that?

"If we went up and over the surface in a straight line we'd get there first", Martha said. "What do you think, Rose?"

She turned to look at her.

"What?"

"Go over the surface?" Martha said.

"Oh. Yeah. Let's do that", Rose answered absent-mindedly, drifting back to her thoughts.

"Why not?" Martha said and Rose frowned lightly, hadn't she just said it was okay? But then she noticed Martha was talking with the Hath again. The Hath. Could it be the Hath? She focused on that feeling she had had and got an answer, a very light one but now she was sure she had felt something.

"As long as we're not out there too long..." Martha said. "Rose?"

"Yeah. Yeah. That's fine", she said.

"You okay?"

"Brilliant", she said, trying to make contact with that someone but failing. The connection was off or something. But whoever he was he was able to have contact her without touching. He. Why did she think it was a he? The Hath Martha was talking with was a he, right?

"Come on, then!" Martha said. "Rose, we are leaving!"

She stood.

"Right. Coming."

#####

"Martha", Rose said when they reached the nearest ladder to climb up to the surface. "Have you met the Hath before?"

"No", Martha said. "Why?"

"No reason", Rose said. She looked at the Hath who bubbled and gestured them to go before him. She felt it again, the touch, and she tried to take a hold of it but it slipped away and was gone again.

"Rose!" Martha said. She jumped and looked at Martha.

"Sorry."

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah. I'm always alright."

Martha raised her eyebrows and Rose realised what she had just said. She laughed.

"Sorry. I know how that sounds", she said smiling and laid her hand on Martha's arm. "I'm fine. Just worried."

"The Doctor can take care of himself", Martha smiled. They started to climb.

"I know. It's not the Doctor I'm worried about."

And that was true; she knew that the Doctor could make it on his own, but Jenny... if the Doctor was acting like that with her... she knew how much it could hurt. She just wished the Doctor would realise it as well and that Donna would keep an eye on him. And the other thing that worried her was that touch in her mind. It couldn't be the Doctor because she knew how he felt in her mind. So even if her telepathical abilities would have grown to be able to contact with him without a single touch, she'd know if it was him. But this... she felt it again and while the feeling stayed she got an idea. Her eyes went wide and she stopped climbing.

"Martha..." she began. "How bad is the radiation up there?"

"Not bad if we're quick."

"Okay", she said, thinking whether she should tell her what she was thinking but didn't. The Doctor had said that she had the TARDIS DNA in her and the TARDIS wouldn't die because of a tiny little bit of radiation, and nor would the Doctor, so why would... she shook her head. She was probably wrong, she couldn't be... right? They reached the hatch above them and Martha pushed it open, climbing out and giving Rose her hand to help her up. She stood and looked around. The planet they were on was completely deserted; there was nothing that lived, just black, dead ground. There were three moons in the sky, and a cold wind blew over them. Rose pulled her sleeves to cover her hands.

"Okay", she said. "Looks like there isn't much traffic here. Which way?"

Martha took the lead, followed by the Hath and Rose. It was really hard to walk up there, as the surface was rocky and had secret holes and big valleys here and there. The rocks rolled under their feet, and all of them had nearly fallen into sludge-filled holes several times before Martha really did.

"Martha!" Rose cried out, half running, half sliding down the hill towards Martha, who was standing in the bog that was sucking her in quite fast.

"Help me! I'm sinking! Help me!" she shouted, panicked and horrified.

"Give me your hand!"

Martha tried to reach for her, but her hand was just two inches too far away. There was no other way, Rose jumped into the disgusting mud and pushed Martha back to solid ground. The suction was strong and Rose felt her panic grow. What if she couldn't make it out herself? Martha turned to her, reaching out her hand.

"Come on!" she shouted. "If you drown, how am I ever going to face the Doctor?"

Rose closed her eyes and focused to move one leg at the time, but nothing happened. She couldn't move. The bog reached up to her chest. She gasped, her heart was racing, it was hard to breath. A golden glow wrapped around her, she felt the mud give away as she walked out of it and fell onto the hard shore. A gunshot echoed and the Doctor yelled. She started coughing and felt Martha's hand on her back.

"Are you okay?" she asked over and over again.

"Did somebody shoot?" she asked, eyes still closed.

"No?"

"Yeah. That's what I was afraid of."