AN: Well, I lied, it's updated sooner than 'a few weeks'. Better AN will be at bottom.

Dedication: For David Tennant, you may not be Christopher Eccleston, but may you be "The Doctor" that we all want. No pressure, and break a leg man …………… or the fans will do it for you.

Chapter 6

It was a solid month before they both wanted to leave everything behind again. They had decided to stay at Roses' mothers until she wanted to go on travelling both the universe and time, though the Doctor distanced himself from everyone, including Rose, by tinkering with the TARDISs' inner workings and wondering around London's streets.

She'd never seen him this despondent, he wasn't cold or rude, but he wasn't the Doctor that she had grown to love, he wasn't her Doctor. He didn't argue with Jackie, neither did he mention anything about Dylan. He just seemed to shut off from the world around him.

After looking for him once again, she saw that he was in a park, sitting on a bench, leaning back, an arm casually thrown over the back of it and just staring at nothing.

"Take me away." Rose stated firmly, standing before him. He blinked slowly and turned his head half-way toward her, as if coming out of a waking dream he replied,

"What?"

"I can't take it anymore," she confessed, "They have nothing but pity. And the constant cups of tea are driving me to drink coffee!" He smiled very slightly,

"I'll take you to Zarania one time, tea is banned there."

She blinked. "Why?"

"It's an aphrodisiac there," he shrugged, getting up and walking, not taking her hand in his like he used to. "They're over populated."

"So...a liquid form of Viagra then?"

"Hardly," the Doctor dismissed, heading for the flat, "it's a female aphrodisiac."

"Got ya," Rose nodded, "don't drink anything that's uncapped."

-0-0-

Everything was packed and ready. Her TARDIS key almost seemed to beckon her towards the retro blue box where she was almost sure that everything was going to be ok, that they were going to be fine with everything and that nothing was going to stop them from living again.

Now they were back within the TARDIS and among her comforting sounds and atmosphere, once more ready to head to a destination that only the Doctor knew about; his mood did seem to improve somewhat as he set about getting the old girl to work for him.

"Hold onto something," He yelled from across the console.

"I am doing!" She received a Cheshire cat like grin in reply as he jumped around pressing dials and pumping who knows what that made the TARDIS work the way she did.

They had decided, with as little communication as possible, that they needed to get away, keep themselves occupied as the best means of, well, not falling into a great pit of despair. At least that's what Rose had assumed. The Doctor wasn't so forthcoming with his own plans of what they were going to continue with, after everything that had happened he still seemed to have difficultly pulling his thoughts together. Today, however, he seemed to grasp something of his old self and appeared genuinely happy with himself as he bounced around the console.

When he had appeared at her flat a few days after she found him in the park, he announced that they were leaving that day; but only if Rose wanted to, though, and do something, ya know, to keep busy. She supposed it had been enough because she'd known exactly what he'd meant, had caught up with him a little while later at that park bench; and here they were, hurtling towards who knows where or what. He said he'd take her somewhere interesting, but not dangerous, exciting but quiet compared to their many past destinations.

Her mum hadn't looked too happy about the idea but had seemed to understand the need to do something, even if it were simply going somewhere else. The need to be very far away from earth had been gripping Roses' head for a good while and she felt a very slight relief, of something, as they travelled away from her home planet.

-0-0-

Things were ok for a while, though not great, the places and planets were amazing as usual and for now they seemed to have avoided any life-threatening situations. But things weren't the same by any stretch of the imagination. There wasn't any fun in their travels, no true laughter, no closeness and nothing of the old way things had been. The Doctor wasn't the Doctor, and if Rose were honest with herself, she wasn't the Rose of old either, not that she'd expected to be, or thought things would be the same, it was just hard to realise that everything was so different and out of whack now she wasn't sure if it hadn't always been this way. Something had been taking hold of them over this time, it crept upon them and seeped into their very beings, becoming a part of them in a way that made Rose afraid they would never be rid of it; but she knew it wasn't meant to be there. The hopelessness, depression, silent misery, call it what you will, she knew they had to overcome it before it choked them; the nightmares, the moods, she felt it worsening each day and felt almost powerless to its will. But while the Doctor seemed to drift away from her, as if he had no strength left, she desperately wanted to find a way to fight it.

For as much as they might be going on, travelling the universe and time together, there was no light, and no living.

-0-0-

She needed to find a way to talk to him, that she knew. She didn't want to leave everything behind her; their pasts would always be part of them. She only wanted him to understand that feeling useless and losing part of you was normal, but his reticence was pushing her already long tried patience. His mood was becoming more unnerving and like lightening; calm and almost normal, then distant and uneasy, almost like he was waiting for something to happen.

He hardly slept at all now, and when he did manage to become relaxed enough, he would wake only a few hours later in sweats and shaking terribly. When Rose asked what was wrong or on his mind, he didn't answer, or would simply say 'nothing' in a half asleep way, then would disappear into the TARDISs' many hiding places and not return, leaving her in a dark room wondering what exactly had happened between them.

Rose also suspected that he was losing weight, but as it was months since they had made love, before Dylan was born, it was hard to tell as he always slept with night wear on. She only suspected this as his normal clothes, including his leather jacket, looked baggier on him. Hardly seeing him eat, even chips with her, worried her to no end.

Sure, when you were the one who wasn't even making an effort with breakfast, only having a cup of tea and making it last until lunchtime and not feeling the need to eat was fine. However, when it came to the ones you cared about everything was different.

Her own suspicions only intensified when she walked into the kitchen one morning and she found his hardly-eaten meal within the sink and him sitting at the table sipping a cup of strong coffee.

"Aren't you hungry?" she questioned quietly.

The Doctors' eyes only flickered towards her. "I've eaten enough."

Sighing, like someone who was at defeats door, Rose swallowed back a comment and instead replied simply but forcibly. "You just look thinner than normal."

"I'm eating enough!" he again replied, his temper still in check, though it looked on the edge, that was where she wanted him.

"Enough to what?" Rose accused suddenly, now slightly angered at his refusal for food and knowing he was trying to avoid the subject entirely. "To stay awake? To stay alive? To make yourself regret that you're the one here while Dylan isn't?"

"You honestly want to know!" he yelled, finally losing his held temper. "It's because I can't, Rose, I can't. I'm physically sick if I even try! It's not as simple as putting food in your mouth and swallowing."

"Why didn't you tell me then?" she asked felling slightly hurt.

"Because I didn't want to, alright?" he snapped irritability and without another word walked out of the kitchen leaving Rose standing there, feeling suddenly lost and without a true explanation of what had just happened.

They would have these brief episodes of confrontation, where their tempers often flared; but Rose could see they were having no success in drawing him out and she was worried it was fast becoming a losing battle. She almost felt like nothing would help now. Still they continued on, sometimes sniping at each other, mostly acting like everything was hunky-dory and though she wanted to get through to him in any way she could, she wondered whether it would just be easier to give up and play pretend as he did.

-0-0-

Not very long afterwards their stop was a planet called something he could barely pronounce so there was no way she was gonna remember it. It was remarkably like earth in many ways, like many planets were as she was finding out. He showed her everything that he usually did on each journey that they undertook, saw the sights and never missed the shops, she assumed that was for her benefit as he'd never loved shopping much. He still didn't take her hand, not once, which just left her feeling more bereft.

He seemed content enough with delving into deep conversation with an alien that looked remarkably like the puppet on TV from years back; Alf, except this one was purple and seemed to know the Doctor from previous journeys.

Although he seemed complacent, Rose noticed he was only half-interested in what was around him, though he did still give them limitless credits to buy what they wanted and needed.

After buying a snow-globe-like object that seemed to have sea-monkey creatures living in it, she wandered back to the Doctor, detouring now and then to take in an object of interest, until stood beside him and waited for his next decision.

He didn't seem to notice her for a few minutes; just standing and staring at nothing in particular. Looking in the same direction as he was staring at, she saw immediately what had his rapt attention and felt her heart sink deeply.

A toddler was standing in the main square of the town they were currently in, crying hysterically for its mother, who didn't look to be anywhere in sight at that particular moment. Fat tears were falling from her sky-blue eyes and onto her red cheeks as she looked around in confused terror for her parent, her small mouth open and drool ribboning from her tiny white teeth, her small half-pleading wails were ignored by passers by. Rose could feel the Doctor tense beside her, and she was torn between seeing what would happen and what he would do.

Nothing happened. Instead a man came rushing from the crowd, picked the little girl up and kissed her gently, hushing her now slowing tears and wiping the salvia away with a violet handkerchief, turned and disappeared into the crowd with the hiccoughing child.

It all had happened in mere seconds, but Rose could have sworn that time slowed down for both of them simultaneously, without the help of the TARDIS or any technology.

Pretending that she hadn't seen or noticed anything, she slipped her hand into his as a way of greeting him from his deep-looking thoughts.

"Hey," she said, looking up at him, still a little breathless from the trudge and from watching the toddler. "Well, I don't know about you, but I got loads of neat things to show . . . you ok?"

Startled slightly, he unknowingly pulled his hand from hers and stuffed them both in his jacket. Blinking, as if he was trying to figure where he exactly was, he just sighed and shrugged. "Umm … yeah, just didn't sleep last night, one of the TARDIS's consoles decided to malfunction."

Not believing him in the slightest, Rose just watched him for a few moments before shrugging. "We better be off, yeah?" she attempted a half-smile, only he was looking back at the middle of busy and toddler-free square. "We got plenty to do, plenty to see and all. You could even catch a few minutes sleep before we head off again."

"Yeah," he replied quietly, only half-listening, "maybe."

They spent the rest of the afternoon wondering around the other bazaars, only Rose could tell the Doctors' hearts weren't in 'playing tourist' and his mind seemed somewhere else, Rose suspected she knew where. Finally deciding that nothing was going to distract him, she again took his reluctant hand and headed back towards the TARDIS.

Hours later Rose found the Doctor in the library, reading a huge novel in a language that she would never have hoped to learn in her lifetime. Sitting on the desk that his feet were currently propped on, she watched him for a few moments. The Doctor was either too absorbed in his reading to notice her, or was plainly ignoring her presence.

"You sure you're ok?" She asked; this wasn't exactly the time or place to beat around the bush. "It's just you've been awfully quiet for the past few days."

"Look, Rose," he replied firmly, closing the book loudly. "I've just been a bit off lately, and I don't need a personal nurse to cover every aspect of my physical well being at this point in time."

"I'm sorry." Rose apologised softly. Knowing that he'd been unfairly harsh towards her concern, he dropped his feet to the floor, placed the book on the desk then took her hand.

"Don't apologise, Rose." The Doctor caught her eyes. "I shouldn't have snapped; you're just trying to help."

She caught the fatigue in his blue eyes as well as his voice, only showing it when he sighed. "Are you sleeping?"

The Doctor laughed humourlessly. "I don't sleep anymore."

She nodded, understanding why, and was just trying to figure out how to word a question to ask him to talk to her about it, about everything, when he stood abruptly and headed for the door, saying something about 'fixing the monitors again', and that was that. He'd made it perfectly clear he didn't want to talk, it also seemed pretty clear to her that he couldn't bear to be anywhere near her.

It all made her so angry; she jumped off the desk and kicked it hard, doing nothing to the desk and almost breaking her toe in the process. "Shit!" She yelled, she did a strange little hop until the pain decreased and only her anger remained. She spun round and grabbed the nearest available breakable object and flung the glass paperweight at the wall. The smashing noise and scattered fragments of glass didn't begin to satisfy her need to take out her anger on something by wrecking it. So she found something else, and then something else. After several minutes of manic throwing, breaking and destroying she took a breath and realised it wasn't really helping; sinking to the floor she held her head in her hands but still refused to let the tears flow. If she did, they probably wouldn't stop; though for what reason she was being strong she didn't know, it didn't seem like it was for the Doctor, he barely talked to her, she wasn't even sure he registered her presence most of the time now.

She shook her head, as if the answers to all this might fall out of the oblivion and into her reach. She stood, once again not feeling the hunger that having no dinner had left her with, and headed off to bed. The Doctor probably wouldn't even try to sleep, but she preferred to escape reality for the little time allowed her; even when this was interrupted by disturbing images and frightened cries that woke her in a cold sweat.

They couldn't go on like this, but the prospect of confronting him was growing scarier by the day, she felt isolated and alone. Going away on their travels again was meant to give them a fresh start but it just seemed to have compounded their troubles; now she wondered how she'd even thought it would help without them having a heart to heart. That seemed impossible now, instead she knew it was more likely all the repressed emotions would suddenly be too much to bear and one day it would all fall to pieces.

How she longed to be near him, feel the closeness like they once shared, feel the love; at least she'd thought it was love. She really didn't know anymore. Everything felt too much and she couldn't stop the sobs that rose in her throat and the tears that now took hold. For yet another night she cried until she had no tears left.

When Rose finally drifted off into a restless sleep, she missed seeing the one thing that would have given her hope; the shadow of the Doctor fell across the doorway as light from the corridor filtered into her room. He watched her sleeping form for a few minutes, a look of longing and sorrow gracing his features.

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AN: Right, well, I'd like to thank all the reviewers (am snubbing the non-reviewers) will name you all at the end of the fic (long way, my good people). I'd like to send hugs and love and simple awe to my co-author 'Becca', who is laughing at this point in time to a parody that will be put up in a while. She wrote 50 of this chapter (I'd say 75 she says 50), and she wrote 100 of the next chapter…… I suck at argu------stops herself … I won't spoil it.

Right, I have my HSC Biology exam on Friday, am stressed as hell and bought a baby rat last Sunday. His name is Jack and his is sooooooooooo cute. Only 8-9 weeks old.

Also to people who think I'm American, I'm not, I'm actually Australian. GO AUSSIES IN SWIMMING! See?

With the title: it's staying. It's from one of my most favourite songs by Fuel called Shimmer. The line that inspired the most part of the fic came from: 'We're here and now, but will we ever be again.', so it stays.

And to 'Steven', where did you find the comment on timeforchips? I'd like to see it.

See ya soon.

Smego and Becca