Interlude: New Chapter, Same Book

A tear splattered next to his lips, sliding over the still-warm skin of Rose's forehead until it drifted wet across the spot where he still kissed. The Doctor sighed, raggedly, and it ruffled some of the fine blonde hairs that had fallen over her forehead. He was crying. Shaking. And he knew that there were things to do. Going back to tell Jackie, for one. Finding a quiet place to bury Rose, for another. Somewhere beautiful that would remain undisturbed for at least a century or three. Somewhere that he could remember her, place flowers next to, and just…visit. It was selfish of him, doing that instead of delivering her body to her mother for interment on Earth where her mother could mourn her, too.

But selfish was what he felt like being right at that moment. Very, very selfish. Rose had meant something to him. More than she should have, perhaps; but that knowledge did little to diminish how much he had cared for her. He wanted her set away from the world she had grown up in and grown away from.

He drew back from her forehead to look down into her face. Eyes closed, she could have been peacefully sleeping. But the diagnostic show no signs. Not a flutter of brain activity or beat of the heart. She was gone.

There was blood on her clothes from where she'd pressed against him as he carried her. Dirt on her pants from falling down. A bit of a scrape to her hands, smudged with the same dirt. He'd get all of that cleaned up before he did anything else. She wouldn't be buried looking like she'd just finished running for her life.

"Beautiful, for a human," he whispered hoarsely.

Beautiful…and glowing?

That…wasn't right.

The Doctor looked down at the swirl of golden light under the skin of Rose's forehead. He reached up, rubbing at eyes that he knew were tired. But the glow didn't disappear. He lifted her hand, watching the play of light. He knew this. Knew what this meant, because he had seen it happen to himself.

But it was impossible.

He stubbornly pushed aside the blastedly annoying bit of hope that reared its ugly head. This was just a side effect of her time spent with the vortex. The last of the energy leaving her body. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything else was impossible. Time Lords regenerated, not humans. Rose was definitely not a Time Lord. Her body was one hundred percent…human…

The Doctor's eyes went wide. He nearly tripped over his own feet as he backed away from the bed, fumbling behind him for the test results he'd gotten along the way. He looked at the results, then up at Rose, back to the results then back at Rose again. There! There it was. That little genetic anomaly that he had not been able to explain or even crack.

Was it possible, then?

The glowing swirls had grown to great golden pools beneath her skin, until he was no longer sure where one bit of energy ended and the next began. It was beautiful. She looked like an angel, just as she had one day not so long before, when she had saved his life. Except now the glow wasn't around her, it was in her. And it looked like redemption and a second chance all rolled into one as it grew and expanded.

Climax came suddenly, a flare of light so brilliant that he took another step back involuntarily. He could just barely see through it. Could see… changes!

Yes — changes! Longer hair. Oh — darker hair!

The Doctor grinned, bouncing back and forth from toe to heel. Sneaky, sneaky. Was it wrong for him to be so insanely happy that she wasn't dead, even though it meant that she wasn't human anymore? If it was, he would add that to the pile of guilt he felt for other things in his life and learn to live with it. She hadn't deserved to die and it looked like she wasn't going to!

Rose was going to be okay! He wasn't going to be forced to tell her mum that he'd gotten her…

Oh. The Doctor's grin slipped a bit. Jackie was going to kill him for this! Forget slapping, she was going to move right on to maiming and torture. Then the killing. Perhaps hiding was in order.

As quickly as it had come, the glow vanished; leaving the Doctor looking at a new, but definitely breathing, Rose Tyler. A sleeping Rose Tyler. Okay. Sleeping was good. Sleeping let him look her over without her asking questions he couldn't really answer — and a few he could but didn't want to, not yet. He just wanted to look and feel obscenely happy and a little giddy. He'd had no idea that interacting with the Time Vortex could do something like this! True, it was because people generally didn't interact with the vortex, but that was beside the point. It had saved her. In the end, when it mattered, it had saved her!

He stepped up to the bed, looking down at her with quiet amazement. The same, but new. Weird, looking at her and knowing that she'd changed. Was this how his companions felt when he did this to them? Wondrous and apprehensive? No, this wasn't how they felt. Usually they were frightened or worried — not him. He was excited! This was great!

It was her hair that he noticed first. Her auburn locks, laced with bits of gold and copper. She didn't get to be ginger, either. Fair's fair, he supposed. Her facial structure was still pretty much the same. Still the Rose he had come to be familiar with.

Taller, though. Closer to his height, he'd imagine. No more looking down just to see into her eyes! There was a bit of skin showing down between her sock and the hem of her pants. A trace of stomach around her middle where her shirt wasn't long enough to cover anymore. Was the skin there a little darker, too? Yes, her coloring was a nice peach now instead of that pale ivory. Lovely. Like she'd gotten a bit of sun on the beach. Just a touch. Interesting that her face hadn't really changed, but that was more than fine by him.

He felt like a man inspecting a new toy, he realized quite suddenly. Then he was back to grinning, grabbing for diagnostic tools. Rose was alive! And there would be problems and trouble because of it. Gloriously awful trouble, he was positive!

But she was alive!

Two hearts! Two! Even with the diagnostic telling him in no uncertain terms that Rose now possessed two of those beating organs, the Doctor couldn't resist laying a hand on her chest, fingers played out, to feel them both beating. Steady. Strong. Not a thing wrong with her. She was just as healthy as — no, healthier than — she had been before this all began. No more getting all achy from a bit of running. Not with this new body. They could run from their lives all day and night, if that's what they decided to do!

He lifted one of her hands, examining it. Longer fingers. Nice fingers. Not that the previous Rose — who he now would have to refer to as version one, he supposed — hadn't had nice hands. These were just... a bit nicer. Yes, he liked these hands. He hoped that she liked these hands.

Oh. He hoped that she still liked him. Admitting you loved someone was all fine and good, unless they woke up and no longer loved you.

Of course she would still like him, he argued with himself even as he thought that. The overall self didn't change. He'd still liked her, after all. There, that was settled. Rose would still like him. He wouldn't have it any other way.

He laughed out loud at his own silliness, squeezing her hand.

"You're alive, Rose Tyler. Alive!"

She didn't move. Didn't stir. That was to be expected, as much as anything in this truly odd circumstance could be expected. She had died, after all. And then that little bundle of genetics had unraveled itself and remade her! That was his theory for the moment. Plenty of time to poke and prod at her later to see if that odd little quirk was still lurking along her DNA chain, but he would bet that it wasn't. It's purpose had been served.

The Doctor pulled up a chair and leaned against the bed, resting his chin on his hands. Let her rest. That's what he'd do. He'd sit here and just… let her rest.

"But hurry up and open those eyes before I get tired of waiting," he whispered with a grin. "I've got a whole new you to get to know."

END INTERLUDE