A/N: It's been a while since I've uploaded a new chapter to this one... Sorry about that! Here's a new chapter for you.

I do hope that you enjoy.

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose heard the slight twinge of fear and worry inside the smile and voice of the Doctor … the new Doctor. For a moment she ignored the gulp in his throat and the slight wince on his face so that she could take a second to appreciate and analyse this new him.

His appearance was quite youthful looking. Well. Not too youthful in appearance. He did seem to have that aged quality to him. Perhaps it was the way in which he seemed to stand in an analytical stoop before he'd approached her so warily only moments ago. Maybe it was the slight incoordination in his steps when he finally dared approach her. Perhaps it was the way that he shakily took hold of her head to hold her firmly against him when she stepped into his embrace, and the tender way in which his other arm held her around her back…

..No youngster would be so tender and so passionate at the same time.

She inhaled deeply and drew in a deep breath of him, hoping to still smell the man he was only a few hours ago. He was still there – her pinstriped Doctor – but there was a new scent to him that was so heady, and so powerful, and she shuddered.

"Are you alright?" he asked gently.

"I am," she said with a sigh. "S'long as I'm here with you, Doctor, I'm always alright."

He loosened his hold on her to allow her to pull back slightly. When she looked up into his face, he couldn't help but smile as he let his fingertips trace along her cheek. "As long as I'm not being an insufferable git, am I right?"

A smile broke out wide across her face. "The chance would be a fine thing." She stepped backward and patted her hands slightly against his chest; one hand on each of his hearts. As she watched her hand's movements, she lifted her brows and pursed her lips as she spoke. "But. Well. You and git seem to go together so well. Doesn't matter which body you're wearing."

He noticed with a furrow in his brow that she seemed reluctant to look up at him. Her eyes remained on the unfamiliar outfit that he was wearing, and of the orange-crimson stains that were still damp and sticky.

"Look at me, Rose," he breathed out with urging. "Please."

Her head nodded with tight and short movements, but her eyes didn't lift. She still focused on his chest, and the dirty manicure of her nails. "Gimme a mo."

He closed his eyes and nodded somewhat sadly. Part of him was frustrated that she seemed to be reluctant to accept another regeneration … but most of him understood the apprehension. Regeneration wasn't exactly commonplace in human society. She hadn't been raised with the knowledge of his people … but together they'd already been through this before.

"Rose," he urged again. "Please look up at me. I promise you, it's me."

"I-I know," she stammered with a gulp and a nod of her head. "I believe you, Doctor."

He dipped his chin to speak against her forehead. "Then what's the matter? Why won't you look up at me?" He gasped, panic in his voice. "Am I ugly this time around? Do I have warts, or scars, or horrible deformations?"

Rose's head shot up, and she looked at him with wide eyes. "Oh. No, Doctor! No. No. No." Her voice softened and a smile graced her lips. "You're very young this time around. Young and … well … kind've cute in a teenage heart throb kind of way."

His face froze into a portrait of horror. "Oh. That doesn't sound very good at all."

She nodded eagerly, her eyes as wide as one of those teenaged girls who might fancy him as their heartthrob of the hour. "Oh. It's good, Doctor. Trust me."

One of his brows dropped to offer her a somewhat untrusting and perplexed expression. "Really?"

"Yeah," she said with her eyes still wide as they dropped back to her hands. "Yep. Very good."

He watched her eyes and head fall again to his chest, to focus again on the wriggling fingers of both her hands. He dipped his head again, and tipped his shoulders to try and force himself into her field of view. "Then what's the matter? I can't help but notice that you don't want to look at me." He cleared his throat and winced at how needy he sounded. "You always want to look at me, Rose."

Her eyes didn't lift, but once again her brows did. Her mouth seemed to struggle to speak when she replied, and when she did her words sounded like they were rolling around marbles.

"It's not you, it's me, Doctor." A pinch formed in between her brows.

He winced slightly. His voice was small when he asked the question that he already knew the answer to. "What about you, Rose?"

"My hands," she answered quietly with distraction in her tone. She wriggled her fingers. "They seem. Um. They seem different." She looked up at him with confusion across her brow. "Does that seem weird to you?"

"Not really," he ventured with a tip in his shoulder and a waver in his voice as he wrung his hands together and looked everywhere but at her. "Regeneration, remember? Changing everything about me is pretty commonplace."

"Yeah," she breathed out with a nod as she looked back down to her fingers. "Strange. Because I always through I had short and chubby fingers. Bit of colour, but not much." She lifted her hand to analyse it a little closer. "But now they seem. Oh. I dunno. Long and slim, like I could play the piano with 'em or something."

"Yeah," he agreed on a breath. "There's something that you and I should really sit down and talk about."

She let her eyes wander up her arm. "My arms seem kind've different as well," she muttered more to herself than to him. "Lighter skin. More freckles." She held her arm out ahead of her and rolled her wrist to analyse it closer. "Longer."

The Doctor dropped his head guiltily and cleared his throat, but he said nothing. Rose was working things out on her own, and he wasn't going to interrupt her right now.

Rose finished assessing the length of her arms, and looked down along her belly. She let her gaze wander across the holes in her bodice surrounded by bloody stains and then looked up toward the Doctor.

"I was shot," she admitted curiously. "By a large musket. One that had big balls filled with smaller pellets." She swallowed and tilted her head to one side. The very edges of her eyes pinched. "I felt those pellets, Doctor. I felt the heat of them strike and then pierce through my body."

The Doctor reigned in his fury at her memory, and instead closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes to offer her an apologetic gaze. "Rose," he half whimpered out. "I'm so sorry."

Her head shook slowly. "You don't have anything to be sorry for, Doctor. They attacked me. Not you." She pursed her lips and sniffed hard over the purse of them, and then let her lips fall to narrow with confusion. She shook her head and looked to him with question. "They attacked me, and then shot me."

"Is?" He tried to clear his dried throat, and only managed to be able to croak his question. "Is that all they did to you, Rose?"

"Is that all?" she questioned with a quiet, yet incredulous voice. "I would think that shooting someone in the chest is pretty severe, wouldn't you?"

He swallowed thickly. His voice was incredibly meek. "There are worse things." He swallowed again, and winced over the lump in his throat. "Things that … that …" His wince deepened and he found himself unable to continue to voice his concern.

Fortunately he didn't have to.

Rose's eyes widened as the unspoken completion to his thoughts materialised inside her mind. She shuddered and then quickly shook her head. "Oh. No, Doctor. No. No. No. Threats were made, of course, but they decided to shoot me instead."

He gagged at that, and at the thought that he actually preferred the latter over the former.

"Rose. I'm. I'm very sorry." He took a step closer to her and opened his arms to pull her in against him once more. He didn't hide his look of rejection when she shook her head and took a step backward. He dropped his arms and let his upper body fall into a deep and defeated slouch. "I should have known better. I should have known that this was all going far too smoothly…"

"You couldn't have known," she interrupted firmly. "I fell for it as much as you did."

Anger crossed his features and he shook his head. His voice was low and demanded no argument. "I should have seen it," he growled. "I'm a Time Lord, Rose. I think I've had enough experience over almost a century of travel to be able to see when the people I'm surrounded by are full of nefarious intentions."

Her green eyes widened and she very lightly shook her head. Her voice was almost a whisper. "The day you do that, Doctor, is the day you've lost all faith – all trust in the entire universe." She stepped toward him and pressed her hands over his hearts. Her eyes bored pleadingly into his. "That's not you. It'll never be you."

Her cupped one of her hands in his and spoke reverently. "Your faith in me…" He sighed and lifted his other hand to cup her cheek. "It fuels me, Rose. Please don't ever lose it … and if I do anything that makes you even think to question it…"

"I'll thump you," she interrupted with a smile. "Right good and hard, I will."

"I would expect no less from a woman bearing the Tyler name."

"And don't you ever forget it." She chuckled and looked back down at her hands. A crease formed in her brow as her head tilted away from the cup of his hand. "Doctor?"

He let his hands fall from hers, but held from stepping backward. Her hands where still on his chest, and he found himself pushing just that tiny bit to move closer toward her. He hoped that it would draw a smile, instead her frown of confusion only seemed to deepen. He didn't draw back.

"What is it, Rose?" he asked softly.

"I.." she swallowed. "I was shot."

"I'm sorry," he breathed apologetically.

"I should be dead."

"No," he growled passionately as he took an instant hold of both her hands in his. "No you shouldn't be."

Her eyes widened, but she didn't take them from her hands, now almost hidden inside his. "Yeah, Doctor. I should be. I know that. I get that." Her eyes lifted to his. "What I don't get is why I'm not dead."

He inhaled deeply and held that breath … and said nothing. He lifted a shaking hand to cup at the back of her head and coaxed her to press her forehead up against his. "The universe knows better than that," he admitted gravely on a voice barely audible. "If it took you from me, then – "

He was cut off by Rose pressing the length of her finger across his lips. She shushed him gently. "Don't go about making threats like that, Doctor. The universe is a woman, she'll call your bluff."

"How very misogynistic of you," he countered with a chuckle against her finger.

"Realist," she corrected on a breathy chuckle. "I'd much rather upset a bloke than a woman." She pulled back from him and gave him a wink. "Been there, you know, done that. The worst bullies on Earth are girls." She lifted her arms and hands again to analyse them studiously. Her voice was distracted when she continued. "And bossy. They're so bossy."

He shook his head and watched her resume her analysis. "Present company excluded I expect?"

She smiled, but kept her eyes on her arms. "No. I think I wholly represent all of the above." She quickly twisted her head to look at him with narrowed eyes. "I know," she half cheered. "I'm in heaven, aren't I?"

The gaped look of complete horror on his face made Rose Tyler chuckle. "I'm sorry?"

There was a terrified waver in her voice, but she managed to supress enough of her fear to feign amusement. "Heaven, Doctor. I have to be in heaven." She pursed her lips and nodded as she took a look around the console room. She held the purse in her lips for a long moment before releasing them with a wet smack to speak again. "It has to be. Heaven is a personal construct, yeah? Our own little tiny pieces of Utopia."

"Uh…"

She flicked her hand dismissively at him. "Just go with me on this, yeah?" She twirled a long and slow spin on the floor and properly took in her surroundings. "My heaven wouldn't involve clouds and togas or nothin' like that. No angels with wings and halos playing harps all day."

The Doctor coughed back his chuckle.

"Nope," she continued. "Me? My heaven is all this. Travelling. With you and the TARDIS, all across the universe." She looked back at him, her green eyes wide. "Couldn't think of anything better, really." Her moth stretched into a smile. "There really isn't anything else that could be Heaven to me."

The Doctor's brow flicked high. "I see," he breathed cautiously. "And so a younger incarnation born after being so viciously shot down, and a whole new TARDIS interior? Are you saying you didn't like the original us?"

Rather than an overt reaction to his words, her brows dropped to give a rather perplexed expression. "No," she answered slowly. "That's not right, because I loved that you. I loved how the TARDIS looked." She kept the crease in her brow when she raised her eyes to his. "So I don't understand that part of things." Her expression relaxed and she looked to the ground. "I don't get that bit at all."

He lowered his tone to one of sympathy "Rose…"

She held up a hand to stop him correcting her. "No. Doctor. Don't you dare tell me I'm wrong." Her voice started to waver. "Because it's the only explanation I've got, yeah?"

"Rose…"

"I got shot," she yelled out emotionally. She lifted her bodice and poked both arms through the massive gaping and bloody hole. "Shot, Doctor. I was shot. There was pain, and there was blood, and there was … was…" She sniffed wetly and crumpled slightly for a moment to let out a frightened and confused sob. She straightened up quickly when she heard the swish of fabric that told her the Doctor was moving in to comfort her, and immediately composed herself. She held up her hand to prevent his approach. Her voice was calm and without emotion.

"They held a musket to my chest and pulled the trigger, Doctor. There was no surviving that." She inhaled deeply to maintain her composure. Her eyes widened and she tipped her head to one side to look at him across her cheek. Her voice remained calm and void of emotion. "If these is my dyin' thoughts before I blink out of existence completely, then let me 'ave them."

He stepped toward her again, this time able to take her into his arms. He guided the seat of her head to press her ear against his chest and stroked at her hair. "Is there anything else you need, then, Rose? Anything I can do or say in your last moments?"

She found herself chuckling lightly at his question. "Then this is it, yeah?"

"Nah, Rose Tyler," he answered with a shake in his head. "It's really only the beginning."

"There is one thing," she breathed out as she pulled her ear from the soothing sound of his hearts to look up into his face. "I know this is probably my own imagination and all, so I'm makin' it up myself, but… There is one thing."

He looked down into her face with a smile. "And what's that?"

"Can you tell me your name?" She quickly petted at his hearts with her fingers when she saw his eyes flare and his mouth open to protest. "Okay. Okay. Don't worry about it." She pursed her lips and looked at her fingertips once more. "It's not like it's my last wish or anythin'."

"You're not dead, Rose," he stated coolly. "You're not even dying."

Her face tightened up and she nodded her head. Emotion reared it's ugly head once more and she sniffed wetly before she spoke. "I know, Doctor. I know, and that's what's worryin' me."

"Why?" he queried with worry of his own inside his voice. "You should be thrilled that you're alive." He tightened his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. In a voice much more like his previous self, he hissed through his teeth. "You're so alive, Rose. More alive than you've ever been."

"And different, right?"

He stilled. He swallowed thickly. He shook his head. "You're my Rose Tyler," he affirmed firmly. "Nothing more. Nothing less. You're Rose. Rose Tyler."

"In a different casing," she murmured with a definite waver in her voice.

His breath hitched, but he said nothing.

"S'alright," she managed with a croak. "You don't have to confirm, deny, and try to hide each and every reflective surface of the TARDIS. I kind've figured it out already." She remained in his arms, and even tightened her hold around his hips to bury herself deeper into his chest. "Hard not to, really. I feel different. So different. Like everything's new and untested, and at the same time, I'm the same … know what I mean?"

"Yeah," he breathed out as he dropped his head to rest his cheek in her hair. "I do, Rose. More than most."

"I know what you meant, now," she continued with forced amusement. "You know, when you came out of the fires and the first thing you commented on was havin' new teeth." She sniffed wetly and gave him a moment to comment. When he didn't she continued on. "I've got more'n new teeth, though. It's more than just the physical appearance, isn't it?"

His voice was a whisper. "How do you mean?"

"I mean that I feel more than just a change in package," she clarified. "I feel it in my head, too. New sounds. New feelings. I can hear things I never heard before."

He worried slightly. "Such as?"

"Buzzing," she answered. "And singin' in my head. I know it's not just ambient noise around me that I'm pickin' up, because I'm not hearing it with my ears. I'm feeling it … hearing it .. in my mind." She pulled back to look up at him. "Am I makin' sense?"

He looked down at her and nodded. "Yeah, Rose. You are. I hear the same. All the time." He looked across at the console sadly. "At least I used to, anyway. Back when the Time Lords were alive, that buzzing sound you're hearing was a constant comfort. When they all died, that disappeared. My mind was empty…"

"Even from the TARDIS?" she queried with high brows. She watched his eyes shift back to her and shrugged. "That's her, isn't it? The singing I mean…"

"It is," he confirmed.

"Beautiful," she sang out softly. "Like the sound of birds on a spring day and the wind through the trees. Not annoyin, even though it's constant."

"Until she gets mad at you," he said with a chuckle. "Then it's most annoying." His chuckle smoothed out and his smile fell. "But that buzzing you hear," he said as he hooked her raven hair around her ear and settled his hand lightly around the back of her head. After a moment he pulled her back into his chest. "That's me. That's the sound of a fellow telepath hovering at the edges of your consciousness."

"It's kind've nice," she said with a smile as she nestled in against his chest. "Not annoyin like a mosquito, which I expect you would be if you were buzzing around the edge of my mind."

"Once you're used to it, you'll barely notice," he assured her gently as he brushed his lips through her hair. "I have to say. You're taking this awfully well."

"I'm really not," she admitted with a shudder that raced from head to toe. "But freaking out on you isn't going to help matters, no matter how much I want to." She swallowed and buried her nose into his chest. "I'm scared, Doctor. I'm scared and confused."

"Me too," he admitted. "But no matter how scared and confused either of us are, I'm here, Rose. I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm tired," she moaned pathetically into his chest. "So tired."

"Regenerating will do that to you," he stated on a sigh. "I've been through it eleven times, and I seem to get more exhausted with each change."

"It's just you getting old," she countered softly.

"Probably," he answered with a shrug as he pried the two of them apart, and then hooked his arm underneath her knees to lift her up in a hold against his chest. "Actually, that might be more than likely."

Rather than yelp or react with surprise to being picked up off the floor, Rose merely relaxed inside his hold. "I can walk you know," she chided with amusement.

"I know," he breathed out.

"You're not going to put me down?"

"No." He walked toward the stairs and looked up to the new landing that would take him to the bedrooms. "New TARDIS means new corridors and probably more things to trip over until we get used to it. Best you let me take you."

"So you can trip on something have fall down on top of me like some kind of cushion?"

He chuckled. "Something like that."

"Okay."

He took the new path toward the residential section of his ship and paused at the doorway to her room. "I'll figure out what happened, Rose." He looked down to her face. "I promise you."

"I know you will."

He kicked open the door and walked her toward her bed. "I won't let you down."

"You haven't yet," she said with a smile as he gently placed her atop the crumpled blue duvet of her unmade bed. "I don't expect you're gonna start now."

He lifted his hands to pry her arms from around his neck and frowned when he felt her vice-like grip on him. "Rose?"

"Stay with me?" she asked with renewed fear inside her voice. "You know. Just in case?"

"In case of what?"

"I dunno," she admitted pathetically. "In case this is all just a dream, and I don't.." her words halted immediately when his finger pressed against her lips.

"Don't' say that," he demanded firmly. "Don't you ever say anything like that, you hear me? You're here. You're alive, and you're going to wake up tomorrow."

"Do you promise?"

"On the crest of Rassilon, I vow to you that in the morning you will wake up, I'll still be here, and you'll still be you."

She swallowed and nodded her head. "Okay, Doctor." She whimpered when he moved to pull away. "Please! Don't go."

"I'm not," he promised her. "I'm just going to take off these clothes and get comfortable."

She released him and shifted on the bed to give him room beside her. "Can I ask you a question, Doctor?"

He looked up from undoing his boots and gave her a wink. "As long as it isn't what my name is, then ask away."

"One day you'll tell me," she challenged him. "One day I'll know the real name of the Doctor."

"Yes," he agreed with a smile as he kicked off one boot and worked on removing the other. "One day you'll know my name. But that day isn't today."

"Does that mean you're going to marry me?" she asked cheekily.

He kicked off the other boot and pulled his shirt up over his head. In a moment he was on the bed beside her wearing a smile on his new face and drawing his fingertip down along her new face. "Shouldn't you buy me a drink first, before asking me a question like that?"

She yawned and closed her eyes. "I already bought you chips," she answered with a grin, her eyes still closed. "Back on our first date, remember?" She yawned once more, a wide cracking yawn that seemed to take up her whole face. "An' that was after I moved in with you and all. Makin' me a dishonest woman, you are."

He dragged the flat of his hand down along her hair. "Nope. You're the most honest woman I've ever met."

She chuckled, her eyes still closed, as she rolled over to put her back to him. She unashamedly reached back for his arm and pulled it over her waist to coax him into spooning up against her. "Good night, Doctor."

He moved up against her back and tucked an arm underneath the pillow. His other arm remained firm and secure around Rose's waist. "Good night, Rose."

He felt her body slacked inside his hold as she fell into her post regenerative slumber. He should have been doing the same thing, but his mind was reeling and running a mile a minute. He had no idea what had happened to make his human Rose Tyler regenerate like his people back on Gallifrey.

Once he felt her succumb fully to the healing coma, he carefully pulled himself out of bed and padded quietly toward the door. He stepped into the hallway and looked up toward the ceiling.

"I'm quite sure that this was your doing, and that you know exactly what happened to Rose," he accused the TARDIS, who hummed angrily with denial to his charge. "Don't you even think about denying it, old girl." He looked toward his sleeping Rose, and silently closed the door behind him. Once he was sure she couldn't' hear him, the Doctor loudly clapped his hands and wrung them together as he moved quickly toward one of his many laboratories.

He was going to find out what happened to her.

…And then he was going to destroy old George …