Chapter Twenty Six

A/N: No reviewers.

Rose could feel her throat begin to swell, her eyes stinging with tears. All that hope, all the effort they had gone to trying to save her, but it did not matter anymore. Lou was gone.

She was vaguely aware of a figure sitting beside her, laying a hand on her arm. Judging by the tremors in their hands, it was John, and she clung tightly to the sleeve of his shirt, pulling herself closer to him. It was as if by bringing herself closer to her husband, she could bring back the precious one who had been a part of them both.

"Rose?" The quiet prompt came from Sarah Jane, but the blonde woman did not heed it. She would not move away, she would not talk about what happened. She did not want to do anything, not now.

It was wrong. The sense was overwhelming among all those gathered in the room. It was wrong for Louise to have been used as an experiment. It was wrong that she had sacrificed herself in trying to take down the Cybermen. It was wrong that she had died before she ever really got the chance to live. It was wrong that she had died at all.

"Rose, I know you don't want to hear this." The voice was almost identical to her husband's, but that did not make it any easier for Rose to listen to the Doctor. She shook her head gently, willing him to stop, but he continued nonetheless. "Louise was a hero. Your little girl, she just saved the whole wide world without a second thought, even knowing what it might do to her. She was willing to give up her life to save Earth, just like you always were."

"But she shouldn't have had to." Rose stated, her voice bitter and hollow. "She was a child. She should have looked to us to make it better, to save the world for her. She shouldn't have had to die for us; it's supposed to be the other way around."

The weight of the statement hung in the air, almost suffocating in its intensity. The teenagers did not know where to look, while the adults looked to the floor, wanting to avoid the chance of meeting each other's eye and seeing their own agony reflected back at them. It was only Rose who had the courage to look at Louise's face. It was only Rose who saw the girl twitch.

"John." Rose murmured, her brow beginning to furrow. "John, she moved. I just saw her move!"

"It's a trick of the light, love." the man responded, still unable to bring himself to look at his daughter's face. "You're seeing it because you want to see it."

"No, I'm seeing it because she's doing it." Rose argued, pulling on her husband's hand. It took a few seconds for him to summon the strength to look at his wife's face, a dozen or so more before he could do the same for his child. She was so cold, so still. John opened his mouth to contradict Rose. Then he saw it too. Louise's eyelid was twitching.

"She's really moving!" John cried out, crawling forward to sit closer over his daughter. He was tempted to run his hand over her cheek, the same way he had always done to comfort her when she had younger, but he could not quite bring himself to go that far. The metal shell still encased her fragile body, a terrible reminder of the events that had taken place.

Suddenly, a metallic din echoed through the room, as Louise's metal fingers opened and closed repeatedly, testing movement the same way any human would have done. The way she flinched, it was almost like she was trying to escape somehow.

"Doctor, the suit!" Sarah Jane exclaimed, running her eyes over the Cyber unit repeatedly, trying to make sure she was not giving hope where there was none. "Is there any way Louise could just be trapped inside it? Is there any way the wiring could be disconnected?"

The Doctor blinked a couple of times, running his fingers through his hair. "In theory, it's possible. Louise is still in the suit, we can see that, but there's a chance a full conversion didn't take place in the Stratagem. The Cybermen have never done anything like this before."

"So we can get her back?" Rose asked, watching her daughter's face desperately, waiting for a single movement, a single flicker of hope to make everything alright. "The energy pulse she sent through the Cybermen, if we can get her out of the suit, then she might be able to survive it, right? She might be okay again?"

"Only one way to find out." the Time Lord sighed, retrieving his sonic screwdriver from his pocket. The man's eyes flitted upwards for a second. He had seen enough in his many lives that he did not believe in religion, but if there was anything out there at all, he would need all the help he could get.

The whirring of the instrument lasted just a few seconds, the blue light startlingly similar to that of the electrical crackle. But for Rose, it still held the same hope it had always done. The hope that somehow, against all the odds, the Doctor would make everything alright again.

After two minutes of nothing, that hope was beginning to dim, Rose's heart sinking with each passing second. The tears were swimming in her eyes once more, blurring her vision. Her daughter was a Cyber unit, inseparable from the Catalyst. Louise was still lost to them.

"Don't cry, Mum." The voice was quiet, so quiet that Rose thought it was a whisper in her imagination. Her daughter had spoken those words to her many a time, when the young woman had been mourning the loss of a friend she would never name. She had never imagined she would hear them again without a metallic overlay. It was only when she saw John's eyes go wide, his mouth spreading into the widest smile she had ever seen him wear, that she truly believed her eyes.

Louise was smiling at them.

A/N: I know this chapter isn't very good, but I hope you guys liked it a bit anyway! Please review!