Secrets

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"Rose!" the Doctor cried running after her.

Seeing the look on her face had scared him half to death and nearly tore his hearts to pieces. It was such a devastating, maddened look. She was so scared and frantic. In that moment she had looked scared of everything. But worst of all, she looked scared of him, as if he would hurt her or worse.

What the hell had happened while he was gone!

"Rose?" he knocked on her door. There was no reply, but he could hear faint noises from the other side of the door. She was muttering to herself like a madwoman, perhaps pacing about the room too.

Something was very, very wrong. He tried to open the door, only to find it locked.

"Rose!" he cried, really beginning to panic. He banged on the door. The muttering stopped and there was only silence. Beginning to go out of his mind he took out the sonic-screwdriver and tried the lock… but it was deadlock sealed. How could it be deadlock sealed?

The TARDIS. The TARDIS was the only one powerful enough to do a deadlock seal on her own doors. For some reason Rose was hiding, and the TARDIS was helping her.

"Rose…" Still there was no answer. Despairingly he leaned his head against the door.

What could be making her act like this?

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Dejectedly he walked back to the console room. Martha was waiting for him there, a look of concern on her face.

"Is she okay?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said in frustration. "The TARDIS locked me out! You're meant to be on my side!" he called up at the console. He flopped down, defeated, on the pilot's chair.

"Give her an hour or so," Martha reasoned. "She looked absolutely freaked out… Ugh, perhaps you're right. We should have stayed."

"I've never seen her like that," he whispered. "She's faced down Dalek and Cybermen armies and Slitheen and beasts and werewolves… And I have never seen her so scared. The way the she looked at me…" Martha laid a hand on his shoulder.

"How about I go see her?" she said softly. "Maybe what she needs right now is a friend."

"But I'm-"

"The man she loves," Martha cut him off. "And you're a Time Lord. Perhaps she just needs a human friend at the moment."

?...DW…?

Martha waited about an hour while the Doctor looked at the camera to see what had happened. But it would reach the point where they left and Rose collapsed – then it would just be static for two hours until it jumped to about ten minutes before they came back to find her unconscious.

She watched as his frustration grew. But she could do nothing about it.

Finally, when she thought Rose may have clamed down, she walked down to her room. She knocked on the door but there was no reply. Hesitantly she tried the handle, it swung open with ease.

Inside, Rose was sitting up cross-legged on the bed. Her hands were placed on her chest, her face was pale and she had a far off look in her eyes. She seemed oblivious to everything else around her.

Martha took this time to study her friend. There was just something different about her. It was almost as if she had changed somehow. Her hair seemed longer and shinier, yet it didn't show any sign of new growth. Her already beautiful features seemed even more defined. She looked as though she had lost weight - well, she'd already lost a lot recently from the lack of sleep she was getting - but she looked healthier, and it made her already well defined curves even curvier… if that was possible. How could someone go from looking dead, to looking so beautiful in a few hours? Though, looking at her she still looked very sick. But it was the look of someone who was recovering.

"Rose?" she said gently. Rose's head snapped up to her and her hands flew to her sides as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't.

"How – how did you get in?" she asked, her voice sounded raw. But it didn't escape her attention that her accent seemed different. Her words were slightly more articulated. "TARDIS was keeping you out."

"Obviously she thought you needed company," Martha said sitting down beside her. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know," Rose replied honestly. "I don't really know what's going on at the moment. I just feel so different… I don't even know if I'm really me."

"Well, who are you then?" Martha said. She understood what she meant about feeling different, she looked different! But the last part she said had sacred her. She was confused and concerned about the way Rose was talking, but she was keeping an even tone so she didn't freak out again.

"Rose Tyler," she replied, a hollow look in her eyes. "The Bad Wolf."

"Bad Wolf?" she said in worry. She remembered all the times Rose had spoken of Bad Wolf. She had always sounded so worried.

"It's a part of me. I don't have to be scared anymore. Because it is me. A part of me that is more than who I am."

"Is your head okay? You didn't hit it did you?" she tried unsuccessfully to laugh.

"No," Rose finally laughed. "I didn't hit it. It's just so… jumbled! There's so much in there, more than I'm used to. It's confusing."

Martha blinked when she looked Rose in the eyes. Was it just her imagination or had her eyes changed ever so slightly. Her eyes quite often varied in shades of hazel, even going brown sometimes. But now they seemed lighter… like they were flecked with gold.

Subconsciously Rose's hand drifted back up to her chest.

"Are you having heart trouble?" she pulled a stethoscope from around her neck.

"No!" Rose said too quickly, jumping back a little. Martha instantly knew she was lying.

"Rose, I should check…" she put them on and tried to put it over Rose's heart, but she batted it away. "Rose!"

"Martha, don't," she begged. "Please don't!"

"If there's something wrong I need to know." She tried a second time and yet again Rose dodged away. "God damn it, Rose!"

She struggled with Rose for a few minutes trying to reach the heart. They ended up nearly wrestling on her bed; Martha had her mostly pinned beneath her. She almost got close, but Rose pushed her at the last second and she missed. The stethoscope landed on the right side of the chest. It was only on there for a fraction of a moment but she heard it.

A heart beat.

On the right side of her chest there had been a heart beat. Both Rose and Martha seemed to have frozen in place where they were, still halfway through struggling. Rose looked up at her in panic and desperation. Martha looked back down in utter disbelief.

Slowly she placed the stethoscope back down on the right side of her chest and listened. She moved it across to the other to the other side. A second heart beat.

"Rose…" she breathed.

"You can't tell him," she whispered. "Please Martha, you can't tell him. Not yet."

Martha sat back and looked at her sternly.

"Are you going to tell him?"

"I – I'll have to at some point. But – I can't. Right now I can't!"

"Why not?"

"Because – what if I'm wrong? What if he hates me for it?"

"Rose, he couldn't hate you! He-" she paused on the verge of saying that he loved her. "He should know Rose. He may know what – what caused it."

"I know what caused it… I just don't know what I am." She sighed deeply. "I will tell him… Soon I guess… just, not yet. Let me figure out what's going on. Have you ever tried having a mind this big? I can barely make head or foot of anything. No wonder he's always ranting off or getting distracted." Martha smiled at her sadly. "I-I keep thinking this is a dream. A horrible, painful, scary, wonderful dream. It's brilliant, I mean, what if I tell him and…" she stopped just as a smile was coming to her face, the smile faded right away to be replaced with a look of pure anguish. "No, that's stupid. That's… I'm going to go get a good tea," she stated, tears welling in her eyes. "I just spent an hour screaming on the ground, I need something to relax me."

"Screaming…?" Martha said in a horrified whisper. Rose paused as she got up.

"Do you remember what it was like watching the Doctor change into a human… when he locked his Time Lord self in the watch?" Martha nodded silently, shivering at the memory. "I - I think I went through that…" she said quietly.

Then, with one last tired look back, Rose left her room. Leaving Martha stunned on her bed.

She couldn't believe what she had just seen, just felt. Rose had two hearts, like a Time Lord. It shouldn't have been possible; then again, she had seen the Doctor become human. And because he was no longer human, he would not admit that he did love her. Those two had far too many secrets from each other. And all because they were scared.

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Oooh… Now Martha knows all their secrets! Yeah, I can really just see Martha being the confidante and the one stuck in the middle of all the chaos. Kinda makes me feel sorry for her. Oh well, I feel like being evil!