Rose had planned to go to the library after the Doctor had finished her check-up. All she wanted to do was to have some quiet down time and curl up on the plush sofa there with a nice cuppa and a good book. Therefore she went to the kitchen and boiled the kettle. With a nice steaming cup of her favorite tea from New India in hand she prodded to the library. She fluffed up the cushions on the plush green sofa and lifted the blanket that was spread out over it. With a dull thud a large book fell to the floor. It must have slipped somewhere in between the layers of the folded blanket. Rose picked it up curiously and flipped it round to see the cover. The binding was in different shades of blue and several small pictures were on it. One showed a large tube like instrument, an other someone dressed in blue with a white overcoat talking to someone laying in bed. On the bottom right corner was an enlarged picture of a petri dish with several colorful germs on it. It seemed to be the medical text that the Doctor read last night but she couldn't identify she title since there were only intricate swirling patterns on it. She had never seen a Gallifreyan book before. Usually only the screens all around the ship were in the Doctor's native language. The books in the library were mostly in other languages. He had shown her the room where he kept the books from his native planet. It was all the way in the back of the library, up the spiral staircase and to the right, but since he'd never made a move to teach her any words she'd never had the need to go there again.

Intrigued by the prospect of learning about the Doctors home world she opened the book to a least look at the pictures. There were different chapters that seemed to be about different organ systems. While the first had many pictures of the heart and showed some scan, one looked similar to an MRI scan of the heart, the later chapters seemed to revolve around the liver and kidneys.

Time and time again Rose was fascinated that she could forget that she traveled with a universally educated 900 year old alien. But then again, how do you spend 900 years? She knew he had several degrees in just about everything but seeing the pages, some of the had something scribbled in pencil on them, made it that much more real.

She had been sitting there in the library turning page after page for some time when light knock on the door and a quiet creak of the door alerted her to the Doctor's presence.

„Have you finished?" she asked, tongue between her teeth „Am I declared fit for flight duty?"

He looked at her reluctantly and strode over to the sofa to sit down beside her.

„Well, I took quite some time to be thorough and certain about everything…", he trailed off.

„What is it? Did I miss some of my vaccines?", she asked uncertainly. She had been honest when she had told him about not being keen to go to the doctor's. It wouldn't have surprised Rose if she werde due some booster vaccinations.

„Well, to be honest I didn't look into that yet, since there seemed to be more pressing matters. I've had a good look at you blood work and it seemed to be a bit all over the place; red and white blood cell count, coagulation, inflammation markers, they were all out of the normal ranges."

He looked at her as if he expected her to understand the dire implications he was about to make but Rose just stared at him questioningly.

He took her hand and all of a sudden this gesture, meant to comfort her, made Rose realize that there was something seriously wrong. She felt her heart starting to beat faster and the silence around her was drowned out by the loud ringing in her ears.

The Doctor seemed to understand that this realization had hit her since her didn't speak, just offering her some silent support by pulling her against his chest.

When she had calmed slightly, he pulled back und tucked a strand of hair behind her ears.

„The thing is," he said all calm and collected, „you seem to have developed a form of leukemia. That's a form of cancer of the blood cells. With this type, it's called hairy cell leukemia, it is particularly hard to notice since you barely feel anything before serious complications arise."

He sounded terribly doctorish.

„You have been felling tired and exhausted lately, haven't you?"

Rose sniffled, her mouth had gone all dry and she had to clear her throat and cough before she could answer.

„A little, but s' not like it seemed more than usually. I mean we've been out a lot an' stuff."

The doctor nodded. Thinking about her blood work he was pretty impressed how she'd kept up with their adventures.

„That probably masked some of the symptoms, but now I wouldn't be surprised if you weren't feeling a bit like you have the flu. Are you feverish?"

„Dunno", Rose answered, „I haven't been sleeping a lot last night, I was all sweaty and kept waking up. That's why I thought I was tired."

The Doctor put a hand on her forehead. „37.9°C" ,he murmured. „Could be," he answered her a little louder, „but probably not."

Rose scooted a bit closer to him and nestled into his arms. The Doctor pulled the blanket over her and tucked it around her body.

„So what does that mean, „Hairy cell leukemia"?

„Well basically with leukemia the problem is that the are malignant cells in your bone marrow, that keep on dividing until there are so many in you bone marrow that there is no room for the other types of cells to develop. That's why you are anemic. The other problem its that the malignant cells are the B Lymphocytes. They are very important for you immune system to work. But the malignant cells that are produced in you bone marrow are basically not fully developed. Therefore you can't fight off any infections."

Rose seemed to understand where he was going with this since her next question was: „ Do you think I could have caught whatever you were treating back in Isfahan?"

„Initially I didn't think that. The people there were sick with Tuberculosis and since you seemed healthy and weren't malnourished or something it would have been highly unlikely for you to catch it. The patents you helped with were mostly children. Their cough is not strong enough to spread the bacteria."

„But you don't think that this is right anymore since I'm sick." She said dryly. „So what are we going to do about that. I mean I know that cancer is bad and everything. And an infection on top of that can't be good either!" She was starting to get teary.

„Ey, ey, ey we haven't even talked about what we can do about that. I'm here with you!", he lifted her chin and made her look at him. He put on a grin, hoping to get her to calm down a bit. „And I do hope you know you've got the best Doctor in the universe."

Rose smiled slightly and brushed the tears away with her sleeve.

„I do know that. Sorry it's just, cancer is something that usually only someone else gets. I didn't think that I would be that girl."

„There is no need to be ashamed of your tears. And especially not in front of me. I understand that it's frightening but I'll be by your side every step of the way."

He kissed her on the forehead.

„So how are we going to fight that hairy monster then?, Rose asked in a small voice.

The Doctor was surprised how well she took the news, all things considered he had expected her to have a harder time. He smiled, she really did trust him with her life.

„Let me tell you about this great battle plan of mine, Admiral Tyler!"