Chapter Five... notes/disclaimers in first chapter.

The interior of the TARDIS seemed like the friendliest place on Earth, when faced with what lie outside of its doors at that moment. Rose stood, arms crossed over her chest, staring at the doors, but not really looking at them. Her mind was elsewhere, caught up in the nightmare of the last twenty-four hours.

Dying.

Her.

She was dying.

Pain welled up inside of her chest and Rose pushed it down stubbornly. Not right now. Just… not now.

They would be waiting outside the doors of the TARDIS — her mum…Mickey. Maybe one, maybe both. But definitely at least one. Rose knew that just as sure as she knew that the sky was blue and that the sun would rise and set. They would've heard the TARDIS landing and come running, as usual. It really was a noisy time machine when it was coming and going.

Rose just wasn't ready to go out there and face either of them, let alone both.

"You all right?"

"Yeah," Rose nodded, without turning to the Doctor. She felt his hands on her shoulders, his quiet presence behind her.

This was going to be hard. She knew that already. Going in there and acting like everything was normal with her mum and Mickey. Acting as if there was nothing wrong in the world; that she was still off exploring all of time and space with the Doctor and having a grand old time doing it.

Even at that moment, standing halfway to the doors, Rose wasn't sure how she was going to manage that. It was all fine and good to act like she could pull it off; but there was always the possibility that her mother would see through it. Mothers were good at things like that.

The Doctor, to his credit, didn't offer up any glib assurances that everything would be okay. He also didn't bother saying that she didn't have to do this. They both knew that she did. It wouldn't be right for her to go about her business and never once go back to say goodbye to the people she loved, even if they didn't realize that was what she was doing.

She knew; that was what mattered.

There was a gentle hum in the back of her head; comforting and soothing. The TARDIS, the Doctor had told her when she'd asked if he could hear it, too. Just the TARDIS, trying to lend her support when and where it was needed. Sometimes Rose forgot that the TARDIS was a living creature, like anything else in the universe. She closed her eyes and imagined herself giving the TARDIS a nice, big mental hug.

"They're going to start —" the Doctor paused, the sound of someone knocking on the TARDIS' doors cutting him off. "There they are now. Knocking."

Rose gave him a half-smile over her shoulder. "They're probably wondering what's taking us so long to come out."

"Knowing your mum, she's imagining me doing something wicked with you and planning to slap me."

That made her laugh. All of it. The Doctor would never do anything wicked with her, not in a million years. Not even if she begged him to, she suspected.

And her mum slapping the Doctor was always good for a grin or two.

Rose leaned back without thinking, pressing herself to the Doctor more for reassurance than anything. She waited for a tense moment when she realized the closeness, but he didn't move away. In fact, his hands slid down her shoulders to rub at her arms. Only then did Rose relax against him completely.

She let herself stand like that in silence, enjoying the support that he was giving so willingly. Just when she thought that she was ready to break down, there he was, holding her up. Giving her strength. She appreciated it, even if she knew that eventually she was going to break.

What was she going to say to her mum? Nothing. Not about what was happening to her. She wasn't going to tell her that she could see the future of the Earth if she concentrated on it. That she knew when the next major war was going to start, that she knew when humans would finally succeed in their attempts to navigate space. She knew when time travel would become a part of life; knew when the human race would finally — finally! — get off their collective rears and make that next great leap to spread out amongst the stars, colonize new worlds.

She even knew all about the 'dancing' that the Doctor — the former Doctor — had hinted that humans did when they got out amongst the stars. Wars had been started a few times just because of that — a human being sleeping with the wrong person at the wrong time. Dancing wasn't just dancing to every species. Sometimes it really meant something monumental.

She knew all of that, in the blink of an eye. It gave her a headache if she tried to think about it for too long; tried to force herself to know. Easier when the information just came to her like when the Doctor asked her random questions or when she would just know something that she hadn't known before. That overabundance of information was the only clue she had that something was different about her. She didn't feel any different now than she had hours before when the Doctor'd been running a thousand and one tests on her in the medlab.

That wouldn't last. The Doctor hadn't said as much, but she could read it in his eyes. Besides, the words cellular decay didn't really leave much room for imagination. Her body was breaking apart from the inside. Things would start to fail — it was just a question of what went first and when it would happen at this point. There was no telling when her organs would start failing or which would go first. She didn't need the Doctor to tell her that would kill her long before the cellular decay itself became fatal.

Then again, it really was all the same thing, wasn't it? The cellular decay was causing her organs to slowly breakdown, which would be the thing that ended up killing her. Therefore, no matter how she looked at it, the cellular decay was killing her.

It scared her, yeah. But she wasn't about to let it stop her from seeing and doing all that she could in the meantime.

Why waste one second of the time that she had left?

Pulling away, Rose grabbed one of the Doctor's hands and tilted her head toward the door of the TARDIS. "Shall we?"

The look in his eyes said it was up to her.

It had always been up to her. He was just there for the ride now.

With a grin, she led him out to face her mother.

x x x

"So how've you been?"

Rose could lie through her teeth. The thought was almost enough to make the Doctor quite proud, if it weren't for the fact that it brought up the uncomfortable question of if she had ever lied to him. Or how often, for that matter.

For instance — when he had asked her earlier how she was feeling — had her answer of 'fine' been just an offhand lie, meant to pacify him; just as her lies were now to her mother?

Nagging thought, that. He didn't think Rose would lie to him, not about something that important. Then again, they'd never been in a situation like this before. In all that time that they had been together, this was the first time he had been absolutely certain that Rose Tyler was going to die.

His hearts hurt. She was dying and there wasn't a damned thing in the world — nor in all of space and time — that he could do to save her. All he could do was try to make her happy during the time she had left.

Did she know, then, how different that made her from all the rest? He would let her stay here, with him. He would watch her wither and die, just as he had once told her would happen.

And he wasn't going to try to make her stay here, with her mum. Wasn't going to just swan off and leave her sitting here, safe and sound in her London flat, because it wasn't what she wanted.

It wasn't what he wanted, either.

She'd stay with him, right to the end. He'd do what she asked and make up some story for her mum. Something that made Rose come out a hero, even. That's what she'd been for him, after all. A hero from the first moment he met her.

He reached between them on the sofa, taking her hand and squeezing. Though she didn't look over, he caught the smile that flickered over her lips and the return pulse of her hand to his. He could also feel her shaking. Just little tremors of her arm and hand. Looking closer, he could see strain around her mouth, tears in her eyes. For the briefest of moments he entertained the notion that she was in pain.

Then he realized that, yes, she was in pain. Just not the physical kind. She was saying goodbye to her mum. Mickey would be over soon and she would do the same for him.

Rose was mourning her own death, just as surely as her loved ones would when the time came.

The Doctor leaned back into the sofa, but didn't let go of her hand.

"'E been taking good care of you, then?"

The Doctor jerked out of his thoughts, listening to Rose's answer.

"The best, mum. No one better to take care of me."

Fully expecting Jackie to protest that she could take better care of Rose than he could, the Doctor mentally prepared a calming comment or three to soothe Jackie's temper.

But the moment to use them never came. She turned to him with wise eyes, nodding. Her mouth was tight, but she didn't appear upset with him. Just a mother, worried about the daughter she rarely got to see. He gave her a charming grin, which prompted the same sigh and roll of the eyes that it always did.

His next visit to this flat wouldn't be nearly as uneventful or happy. Jackie would want to kill him and he just might let her when that time came.

This was it. The moment to say the words.

They wouldn't come. Rose swallowed back tears, hoping that her eyes weren't sparkling too bright. Her mother couldn't see them, could she? The tears that were right there, on her eyes, waiting to pour down her cheeks?

If she did, she didn't say a thing.

Rose hugged her mother, breathing in the warm scent of fabric detergent that lingered on her clothes. She took it all in, the way the hug felt; the warmth of it between them. She'd done the same with Mickey before he'd had to go back to work for the day.

She hadn't been able to say goodbye to him, either.

The Doctor saw her face as she turned, saw the tears that were lingering in her eyes. Something flickered through his eyes. He would take this from her if he could. He would make it all better.

The fact that he couldn't didn't change that.

He cared. About her.

Shame they weren't going to get a second chance to make much of that caring.

"I'll bring her back soon, Jackie."

Rose flinched. She was glad that her back was already turned to her mother. It was a lie, but she didn't contradict the Doctor's words. Easier now to let him lie for her than to keep doing it herself.

She just wished that someway, somehow, it could be the truth; just this once. That a miracle could be pulled off.

"Ready to be off?" the Doctor asked, leading the way into the TARDIS.

Rose nodded, letting her tears fall. "More than ready."

END CH5