Thanks to everyone who reviewed so far, and here comes the next chapter in what I hope is a highly anticipated …? Sequel :D. It isn't actually related that much to hell, if that's what you think. Yes. It will be happy. Yes. It will be sad. Yes, it will be as good as I can think and no, it won't be complete as soon as my last one. Sorry. I'm going on holiday for a week soon and won't update all through that time. Then it's my birthday, so I won't be then, either, and then it's likely I'll go to my grandma's house with no internet connection. However there will be days when I update in between so all hope is NOT lost. Anyhow, enjoy it while you can,

StrangePrinciples.

Taking Over…

It didn't take yet. No. It wasn't quite ready for that. It wasn't going to gorge itself, take too much at a time. It was going to go slowly. Unnoticeably. Evade the people of myths and just take quietly… working outside reality… biting, ripping, destroying, possessing…

… Bit by bit…

XXX

Rose looked up contentedly at the wide panelled ceiling, the blankness of the little room where she had awakened in, and she appreciated it. It wasn't much. And it was everything in the world.

It was the third day that Rose Tyler had woke, lying in the TARDIS. Lying in her home. Just four actual days since she had been sentenced to execution, lost all her hope and had it given back to her in the form of one lone figure: the Doctor. The two earrings lying in her ears weren't significant, but Rose treasured one in particular. The one he had fixed especially for her. By hand. Just the day before.

She closed her eyes and just savoured the last minutes of sleep. The old Rose Tyler, the Rose Tyler that woke up every day at the crack of dawn to go to work in a shop, would have begged for five more minutes or slept in all day, if she had the choice. She didn't do that anymore. She just closed her eyes for a few seconds more, and then felt the anticipation of a new day with new adventures sink in.

She opened her eyes.

Just for a moment, it flashed inside her, and it knew she'd sensed something. Whether outside or inside of her she couldn't tell. But it proceeded with caution nonetheless. It couldn't afford for her to find out anything. Not yet.

Blinking, Rose shook the sudden flash of emotion that had blossomed inside her, and raided her wardrobe for something to wear. It still amazed her that garments that had aged seven years in her absence were still there later. The Doctor had kept them in pristine condition. Or someone else. Maybe the TARDIS.

Yes, that fitted.

And so did the top she pulled out. Shrugging it over her shoulders she ran to the door and hauled it open, running to her everyday destination: the control room. Because that was where he waited, and that was where adventures begun their long journeys into the real world, where fantasies were extinguished to be brought by eager eyed beings into the universe of reality. Fantasies allowed people to dream. And whereas reality was oh so much more cruel and dispassionate, it allowed you to live.

"Mornin'," she crowed happily as she jumped on the back of the Doctor as he leant over the control panel. She let go and he turned around and smiled appreciatively. Just a little longer than her healing memory could register from the old days. Then he turned back, but the small gesture was still there, in the back of her head…

"So," he said. "Rose Tyler." Over exaggerating the syllables in Ty-ler. Appreciated. "Where do you want breakfast today?" Flick a lever. Familiar.

Rose Ty-ler smiled, and pointed directly at him. "With you," she said, and poked him in the chest.

"Ow," he said absentmindedly, and then looked confused; incredulous, even. "We've got the whole of time and space at our feet and you just want breakfast with me?" He sounded like he wanted to laugh at it. But there was a real question in there.

Rose faked consideration for a second, but when she looked up, she realised he really was looking for an answer. His face was less happy, as if he doubted her answer. She nearly laughed.

"Yeah," she smiled, "guess so."

There was a silence where a satisfied grin just spread over the Doctor's face as he looked at her, through her. She smiled back. And then, just abruptly, came the inevitable question:

"So, cornflakes or coco pops?"

XXX

It felt her happiness and didn't understand. It just ate away at her being, cut the mesh of her soul. It was making progress. It was close. But it needed to be careful. Always careful.

But it wanted accomplishment of its goal, like a human needs to breathe air…

It ate…

Rose blinked and held her head for a second. She winced as something cut, almost like it was being torn in her head. But it was gone in a second, and she wondered if it really had just been her imagination. Maybe an old memory?

She was ready to dismiss it. But the Doctor had other agendas, because when she opened her eyes, he was looking at her with a suspicious stare. That fixed face that he put on to tell people that he was doing what he was best at. Being Doctorish.

"What is it?"

"Head ache."

"Hmm…"

"Just because I get one twinge doesn't mean it's some kind of alien parasite leeching my brains out, Doctor," said Rose incredulously.

He sighed and put his hands in his pockets. "Whatever you say," he breathed, and turned around. Rose did, too, and took the time to appreciate what she saw before her. She knew that pure luck and circumstance must have favoured her, because one day, not so long ago, she could never have dreamt of seeing this horizon. A few days ago, she could never even have dreamt of seeing another horizon at all.

The sky was velvet, punctured by the gleam of reds and blues and whites; the stars and planets that dotted the horizon. Around Rose the air was warm and brushed against her like a feather might caress the ground as it is caught in the wind. There were trees on this planet; red trees, like the trees of earth as autumn falls. Rose felt an unspeakable happiness rise inside her. It wasn't everyone who could experience this. And now, after years of being away from it, she finally appreciated it. Which made everything that little bit more special.

The Doctor took her hand, and she looked up at him. He gave her one of those mischievous smiles, the kind of smile that said he was going off to look for excitement. She followed after with a returned smile and an increased heart beat. It thumped against her chest, a lump of anticipation in her throat. She was new in the TARDIS all over again, wanting to see how far it could travel, see if the things before her were illusions or not. It had been too long not to check such imperfections, because part of Rose panicked every time she closed her eyes to sleep, in case it was a dream, and as her eyelids closed, the dream would vanish.

But it hadn't. Not yet.

Running through the red trees with him, laughing as she crunched through the carpet of leaves. That was life. Not looking at her phone wistfully, thinking:

If I could just phone them…

No doubt it had the abilities. But what to say…

"Hi, mum. Just to say that I'm not dead, if, er, that's what you think. I actually got sucked back into our universe and nearly got executed, but I'm okay now, because against all odds, the Doctor showed up on that same planet I was on, out of the billions there are, and saved me. Oh yeah, and I died, but now I'm fine. And I can't ever come back to you, I'm sorry. But I'm with the Doctor now, so it's great. I miss you all but this is good bye. Send my love to Mickey. Rose."

It just didn't seem right.

It sensed the hesitation and took the opportunity to, as subtly as it could, sever one of the last ghost-like branches of soul, gleaming gold, so beautiful in the dull light of reality. It was hungry. It would devour…

Another flinch. But Rose didn't think on it, because the next thing she saw managed to take her breath away as the Doctor and her emerged from the trees.

XXX

The Doctor looked at his surroundings and couldn't help smile at the familiarity of what he could see in the sky. An old galaxy. A home galaxy, whole and complete in the sky. Then the deep, wrenching sadness took hold, because what was in there… it wasn't there. It wasn't supposed to… it didn't exist anymore.

He suddenly realised that maybe he didn't want to see it again. He'd wanted to show Rose it, but he didn't have the courage to look up himself. He smiled again slightly when he saw her looking up, almost awestruck. In a way, she hadn't changed at all. She took it all on the shoulders, like always. But now there was the desperation to keep it real inside her, the new awe of seeing things that had been taken from her for a lonely seven years.

Someone broke the looking glass.

"What… what is that?" She asked, looking hesitantly at him, as if she didn't want to tear her eyes away from the sight.

"That," he said, looking up, without the smile. "Is where I used to live."

"..It's home?"

A regretful look. Then a warmth, spreading through him. "No. Not anymore." He looked back through the trees, to his box. His beloved blue box. The only thing he actually possessed.

"Sorry…"

"The TARDIS is home," he carried on, as if he hadn't ever stopped. "This is the present."

"Oh."

There was a moment of silence that threatened to stretch on uncomfortably, until Rose took up his hand again and said:

"Come on, Doctor."

"Where are we going?"

"Home."

"But I said-"

"Home."

Pick up the pieces before it's too late.Seven years passed.They're still lying in the shards.

And now the Doctor could sense something wrong, nagging at him towards the back of his mind. He didn't know what it was – how could he. Just that it was close. He looked to the screen that showed him the outside of the TARDIS, and saw nothing. That was home. Gallifrey had been destroyed. That was home now. No, old home. His home now, like he had said, was the TARDIS. His only possession. But home was also in someone else that he still didn't have the courage to admit it, too. But she was sitting on the sofa near the console, looking distant. Their reunion had been happy. But the road ahead of them was to be enjoyed, and yet it wasn't all going to be a bunch of laughs. Reality was like that.

There was a lot of mending to be done.

"Talk about 7 years bad luck. Try 3000." Your words.your truths.mend it before they break it again.

The Doctor shook his head. All these thoughts in his head, none of them coherent. Maybe it was being here all over again, with the memories. All this time, he had just been showing his weakness, his hearts worst fears. Memories. It's why he'd never tried to get to Rose again. Found another crack. Burned up another sun.

He cancelled the visual on the monitor, hopefully as inconspicuously as he could manage. It was funny, because after all that, Rose didn't really seem to paying attention to anything that was happening.

Which wasn't normal.

7years7years7years7years7years.Eternity will hurt.

He shook off the strange voices in his head. They were like some kind of bit of him that was panicking, but he couldn't tell why. Something did seem to be wrong in the TARDIS. Or somewhere. Some kind of destiny about to be played out before him. It was a good job he still had Rose. He reached out for her hand to hold.

She shook her head, like she'd been in some kind of stupor before, and touched a hand to her head.

"Alright, Rose?"

"Yeah… I'm fine."

And she took his hand.

It was perhaps at that moment that the voices, his former selves, went haywire, screaming inside his head. He took his head in his hands himself, with the pain of all the ear-splitting silent voices, and closed his eyes as he stumbled into the console of the TARDIS, letting go of Rose's hand completely.

X

He put his hands in hers and the final cord was severed, and it leaped free. Rose's world exploded in pain and fire but she persevered. It needed her to. Consumed in her fiery refuge, she felt something pass out of her, into the Doctor. Was that its goal? What did it want that for?

Rose closed her eyes…

X

…and opened them.

Everything in the TARDIS was normal. A nightmare had passed, but that was fine. Rose could cope with that. So she looked up, and what she saw made her heart stop; because in the gleaming glass pillar of the central console she could see a reflection of the floor in the TARDIS.

There was glass everywhere, and nothing had shattered. Panicking, she looked around, to the floor; to the glass everywhere, where shapes moved and flickered.

But one caught her eye, right in the centre. She dared not step on the glass, just in case it was… needed. She gasped when she saw the figure in the glass as he collapsed onto the console of the TARDIS after touching her hand. He looked up after that. Through the glass, as if he knew she was looking.

And then he vanished.

Rose stood in the pile of broken shards, and realised what they were.

They were him. Her Doctor. Pieces, memories. He was… broken.

And she didn't have a clue how it had happened. Or how she was going to restore him.

She stepped backwards almost fearfully, and something crunched beneath her foot. The image, the memory in the glass winked out of existence.

Oh my god…

A/N: Well, Rose, that makes two of us. How are you going to get out of this one, huh? Believe me. I have no clue. We'll see what happens next chapter, shall we? And so will I.

I will be doing my special thanks next chapter when more people review and I have more time.

Thanks, and until then… no, 'cause then I'm going on holiday… until then, good bye, and have a great summer,

StrangePrinciples.