A/N: And, yes, this is AU from the point of TCI, since I forgot to mention that. So… Mickey did not come with them.
Chapter Three
The Doctor leaned against the console for support, staring into the swirling middle.
"Why, old girl? Why did you let her do it?" he whispered, not expecting an answer from the ship. He knew why the TARDIS had allowed Rose to take the time vortex into herself, after all – he had always known why. Neither of them had wanted him to die. When Rose gave herself willingly, the TARDIS had simply taken the opportunity that it was given.
To what end, was the only question that was left to be answered.
Rose was asleep. She had stayed awake for no more than an hour after their return to the TARDIS before declaring herself quite knackered and announced that she was going to bed. More likely, she had gone to her room to try on her new clothes in front of the mirror, and only then gotten into bed.
For three hours now he had thought about the day's revelation. Rose seemed healthy enough – perhaps whatever lingered in her from the time vortex wasn't enough to cause her any harm? She'd been healthy for months now, with the exception of this recent bout of stomach flu. Was there really any reason for him to worry?
She was human. That was reason enough for him to worry about her. She was a human woman that had looked into something that was far beyond her power to understand or survive. Even one of his people could not look into the time vortex; as he had proven when he took it from her. He had held the vortex within him for no more than a minute, but that had been long enough to kill every cell in his body.
Rose had held the vortex longer. The Doctor frowned. And how exactly did that work, then? She had held onto the vortex for long enough that she should have burned. Her fragile human body, as much as he hated to even think about it, should have died long before he laid his lips upon hers and tore the vortex from her. Yet, it was his body that had died after having it for much shorter a time.
Perhaps there were some things that even he would never have the answer for.
He sighed, loudly, and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. The TARDIS needed some tinkering with. It was the least he could do while he tried to make sense of a situation that had never made sense to begin with.
Was it night?
Rose wandered tiredly through the halls of the TARDIS, wishing that she could sleep. Her head was so full of thoughts tonight. Incredibly full. She blamed it on the Doctor. He enjoyed making her learn things. Maybe some time he would take her somewhere where there was nothing to learn – like a beach.
She could be happy on a beach. Cocktail in one hand, lying under the hot sun, her skin getting nice and browned. Maybe she would wear a bikini and the Doctor would look at her like a woman should be looked at.
Sadly, she was more likely to get ogled by the Doctor before a beach appeared in her future. One of these days she was going to learn how to pilot the TARDIS herself – then she would get a nice holiday.
In her mind, Rose pictured herself, at the console, grabbing the levers, pulling the at the knobs and pushing at the buttons. It all made sense for an entire second, and then it was gone.
She yawned.
The halls were rearranging themselves, giving her a path that was both steady and long. An easy track to wander without running into the Doctor. She could have kissed the TARDIS for its thoughtfulness. Too many thoughts and none that she wanted to share. Daydreams of wars and times long gone, places she was sure she had never seen before.
"My imagination's gone mad," she whispered to herself with a laugh. She ran a hand along the wall.
Was it night, she wondered again. Time meant nothing on the TARDIS. Day and night. Mornings and evenings. There was no sun to rise or moon to glow in the sky. No way to measure the hours. She slept when she was tired – like right now. Except, she wasn't sleeping.
A door was open to the left. One that she had never seen before. She peered into the opening. Just a spare bedroom. Nothing more.
But this one had a window!
Rose shuffled to the window. It was fake, of course. There was nothing to see outside of the TARDIS right now, as they floated in between time and space. Through this window, however, she could see a beautiful countryside somewhere with a lilac sky and bright green grass. There was a hill in the distance and a golden glow that crowned it – the last rays of a setting sun.
The glow called to her; memories surfacing and fading, like waves lapping at a shore. She blinked, tried to focus, and failed. Something about this place was comforting and that felt good to her right at that moment. It held her in its peace and serenity, sheltering her from her thoughts.
In the end, there was nothing that he could think to tinker on, and the Doctor had found himself once again staring at the console; before deciding that it was best if he just had a quick lie down. Maybe he would wake up with the answers to what was going on. Maybe he would discover this day had only been some kind of twisted dream.
Maybe the universe would collapse on itself and the entire point would become moot.
The short trip to his bedroom had turned into an even shorter one to one of the guest bedrooms, courtesy of the TARDIS. The Doctor found himself in the doorway, watching Rose. She was dressed in her night clothes, hair rumpled and sticking out at odd angles. Obviously she hadn't looked in a mirror before going for a stroll.
She was standing near a false window, gazing out over a darkened landscape that looked, at least to him, like something from the planet Rigexil. It was a breathtaking landscape and he was rather proud of the TARDIS for giving it to Rose to look at; but it was hardly the type of thing to hold someone so entranced they didn't even realized that they'd been joined by another person.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked suddenly.
"Gold," she whispered. "Golden warmth. Holding onto me. Everywhere."
She shook her head suddenly, blinking at him in confusion, and he knew with some kind of certainty that she had not been thinking when she spoke. That the answer she had given to him was from her subconscious. Those were the truest kind of thoughts, however. Thoughts spoken from the deepest corners of the mind.
And it was because of that that the Doctor found himself returning to the thoughts that had plagued him since their return from their last trip. Gold. Like the light that had surrounded her when she came to save him. Gold – like the time vortex.
"Sorry," Rose smiled sheepishly, leaning against the pseudo-window to look at him through sleepy eyes. "Didn't hear you come in."
Hiding his trepidation, the Doctor nodded. "You were lost in thought."
"Nah. Not really," she shook her head. "Was just admiring the view. It looks real, doesn't it?"
That began a fifteen minute conversation on the landscape she had seen and the planet it came from; a conversation that was more in depth than he would have thought it would be, given that they had never visited it even a single time together. It should have been completely unknown to her, outside of this brief viewing. Every time he would try to show off his superior knowledge with a random factoid, she would one up him, seemingly without realizing she was even doing so. Despite the seriousness of the situation, he found that the conversation was charming and far more enjoyable than it should have been; getting to discuss this with her and have her understand on this level.
It was fantastic.
All that is… all that was… all that ever would be – she had it all running through her head, even if she didn't realize it yet, and it hadn't changed a thing about her personality. She was still Rose – the shopgirl he'd fallen for at first look – just with a little extra something.
Throughout their entire discussion, the Doctor watched her for anything that seemed off other than the extremely obvious.
"Get to bed," he ordered her with mock seriousness after she had yawned for the twentieth time. The wall was holding her up and her eyes had drifted shut. "Wouldn't want you stumbling for your life if we run into trouble tomorrow."
She grinned. "Like that time we were hopping for our life? Oi, you were so full of it, trying to make me laugh with that."
He grinned. "Not my fault you don't remember hopping for our lives."
"Mmm – was it on a planet of bunnies? Were they hopping after us?"
"See! You remember!"
Rose opened her eyes and then rolled them all in one smooth motion. She was grinning right back at him, albeit tiredly.
"Sweet dreams, Doctor."
The Doctor nodded, watching her leave before letting the grin fade from his face.
As enjoyable as their talk had been, it wasn't right.
Gold. Warmth. She was remembering her time as Bad Wolf, when she'd had the whole of the time vortex inside of her frail human body. With that power within her, she had seen things that she was not meant to see. The side effect was, as soon as the energy had left her, she'd lost that information, those memories.
Or, so he had thought before today.
Now, it appeared that he had been wrong. The knowledge had not been lost to her. At least, not permanently.
But what would it mean if and when that knowledge became too much for her to bear once again?
The Doctor waited until he was sure that Rose would have to be sleeping and then made his way to the medlab. He grabbed a few diagnostic tools from the cabinets, shoving them into his pockets.
Rose's room was dark and silent except for her soft breathing as the Doctor entered. The TARDIS, responding to his need, raised the lights just enough for him to see, not enough to disturb the sleeping girl on the bed.
She was beautiful, his Rose. Even with her hair tossed about like she'd been blown 'round in a cyclone. The Doctor allowed himself a moment to watch her sleep. So peaceful.
When she shifted in her sleep, the Doctor forced himself to get moving. Standing around wasn't going to get him any answers; and that was just what he needed right now. Answers to what was going on in Rose's body.
And whether or not it was harming her.
The Doctor ran through a quick series of tests, storing the results in the diagnostics tools until he could get back to the medlab. On the surface, nothing appeared to be wrong with her.
However, the Doctor knew better than to trust surface scans with Rose's life.
He fed the information into the TARDIS' medical computer, tapping his finger to his lips as he waited for them to finish decompressing from the diagnostic tools' memories.
"Well, look at that," the Doctor muttered, leaning in to look at the computer screen. The results were, to be quite honest, "Fascinating."
Cellular decay on a minor level, so far as he could tell. That would explain the nausea. It was as though Rose had been exposed to a very slow acting form of radiation. Except, she had not been near anything that was even remotely radioactive. He would never even have considered putting her in that type of situation, knowing what such exposure could do to the human body.
He could give her anti-radiation medication – that was common place at any time after the 22nd century, but was that going to stop whatever this was that was breaking her system down?
The Doctor pulled a chair up to the computer. He would figure this out.
For Rose's sake, he would figure this out.
END CH-3