Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Jack and the Doctor ran through the corridors of the silo, side by side, flinging themselves down any stairs that they came to at a break-neck speed and turning the corners sharply. They turned the final corner to find Atillo holding his head in his hands, eyes closed tight, but snapping open as he heard them enter.

"Lieutenant!" the Doctor yelled placing his hand on the grieving man's shoulder. "Get aboard the Rocket, I promise you're gonna fly!"

"The chamber's flooded! Jake-"

"Trust me," the Doctor pleaded, "we've found a way of tripping the system."

The man looked at him for a second, swallowing his grief.

"When he fell, he knocked the second cup link closed. You have to open it for the system to work." He said.

"Thank you. Now run!" the Doctor urged the man before looking at the wall of technology in front of him, digging into his jacket pocket, searching for the sonic screwdriver before he saw a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. He turned to see Jack stripping of his coat and unbuttoning his blue shirt, revealing a white t-shirt underneath.

"Wha… why are you taking your clothes off?"

"I'm going in." said Jack, as if it was obvious.

"Well by the looks of it, Stet radiation doesn't affect clothing, only flesh."

"Well," he said, pulling his braces up over his shoulders and putting his hands on his hips, "I'll look good though."

He ran to the door and grabbed the handle, sliding it open the slightest bit, before turning to look at the Doctor.

"How long have you known?" he asked.

"Ever since I ran away from you." He replied, his eyes never wavering from Jack's face. "Good luck."

Jack nodded, opening the door and closing it straight after himself he turned to the room. As he moved, his arm touched the concrete wall and he winced as he heard and felt his flesh hissing as it came into contact with the build up of radiation that had made an invisible layer on the grey stone. He shook his arm and walked towards the cup links in the centre of the room, before looking around the room. He wasn't dead.

Back in the lab Martha, Chantho and the Professor stared at the blizzard currently showing on the small computer screen.

"We lost picture after that thing flared up." Martha said, clicking the reboot key to no avail. "Doctor, are you there?"

"Receiving, yeah. Inside." Said the Doctor.

Martha raised her eyebrows, looking around to her fellow listeners, "and still alive?"

"Oh yes!"

"He should evaporate." Said the Professor in an incredulous voice, "What sort of a man is he?"

"I've only just met him." Martha said, shaking her head.

"The Doctor sorta… travels through time and space, picking people up." Rose explained for the others.

"God," Martha laughed, "you make us sound like stray dogs!"

"Maybe… to him we are."

She gently took hold of Martha's arm, guiding her away from the microphone.

"Listen, Martha," she whispered, "I'm going down there. I need to talk to the Doctor, I have to tell him something. But… just do one thing for my, yeah?" Martha nodded in answer, understanding the urgency in the older woman's face. "When I say, can you turn the comms off? Please. No offence but it's something that I want to tell him and him alone. Jack already knows, but I can't keep this thing bundled up any longer. Will you do that?"

"Sure" Martha said, nodding and smiling, "'course I will."

"Thank you." Rose said, turning to leave before turning back and saying, "And thank you; for looking after him when I wasn't. You were there to hold his hand and for that I owe you so much. I wish that I could have found someone to be there for me." She pulled the younger woman into a tight hug, which Martha returned happily.

"See ya in hell!" Rose said, before cringing. "I have spent way too much time with Jack."

Down in the Stet chamber, Jack had started typing in the thirteen digit code that the Professor had told him to use as the Doctor leaned against the table outside, looking through the thick glass in the door at him.

"When did you realise?" he asked calmly. It was easier to talk to Jack like this, each of them standing on the opposite sides of a door. The itch in his head was toned down to a mere tickle.

"Earth, 1892. Got into a fight on Alice Island. A man shot me through the heart. Then I woke up." The Doctor raised his eyebrows, not noticing the light footsteps behind him as Rose hid just around the corner, close enough to hear all that was said but remaining unseen herself, "Thought that was kinda strange. But then it never stopped. Fell off a cliff, trampled by horses, World War One, World War Two, poison, starvation… stray javelin."

"Ooh!" the Doctor said sincerely as Rose suppressed a small smile. That was one work sports day she'd rather forget.

"In the end," he pulled open the lid to the cup link, moving on to the next, "I got the message; I'm the man who can never die. And all that time you knew."

"That's why I left you behind. It's not easy even just… just looking at you Jack 'cause you're wrong."

"Thanks." Jack replied sarcastically, still typing in numbers.

"You are I can't help it. I'm a Time Lord, it's instinct. It's in my guts. You're a fixed point in time and space, you're a fact. And that's never meant to happen. Even the TARDIS reacted against you, tried to shake you off. Flew all the way to the end of the universe to try and get rid of you."

"So what you're saying is you're…" he paused, raising an eyebrow as he opened the lid of the cup link, "Prejudice?"

"I'd never thought of it like that." The Doctor grinned, face thoughtful.

"Shame on you." Jack said, turning the top of the cup link. Then he notice Rose stepping out from around the corner, letting him know she was there.

"Yep." Said the Doctor, rubbing his eye, not noticing Jack's attention was on something behind him.

Rose smiled at Jack, putting a finger to her lips to tell him not to say she was there, but gesturing that he should carry on talking as he had been.

"I just wanna know." Jack said, drawing his eyes back to the Doctor, "last thing I remember, back when I was mortal. I was facing three Daleks; death by extermination. Then I came back to life." The cup link fell into place, "What happened?"

"Rose."

At the mention of her name Rose froze, eyes wide. What did he mean by that?

Jack kept his eyes on the Doctor, knowing it would give the game away to look at her when the Time Lord's eyes were focused on him so profoundly.

"I thought you sent her back home."

"She came back. She always comes back." There was the tiniest of underlying admiration in his soft voice, "Every time I send her away, no matter how terrible the danger is, she always comes back for me. She opened the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the Time Vortex itself.

"What does that mean exactly?" Jack pressed, typing the next code into the keypad.

"No-one's ever meant to have that power. If a Time Lord did that he'd become a God, a vengeful God. But she was human."

Rose shook her head as half remembered memories, hazed by a golden mist. She saw herself as if from another person's point of view. Her eyes shone gold as if she were a Goddess. She said three words; "I bring life," and then the image changed to Jack, sitting on the floor, slumped against a wall, suddenly gasping to life like she had seen him do so many times since.

"Everything she's ever done has been… so human." The Doctor was saying, keeping her connected to the real world as memories of music that defied age, of images that had for so long been hidden from her now flashed through her head, more and more and more, threatening to overwhelm her. "She brought you back to life. But she couldn't control it; she brought you back forever." The Doctor breathed deep, leaning against the door, eyes still focused on Jack. "That's something I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life."

"Could she change me back?" Jack asked, opening the lid to the third cup link.

"I took the power out of her Jack. I thought she was gone Jack. Up until today I didn't think there was any way to find her again. It was… so hard. Time Lords aren't supposed to fall for humans. That's why I was harsh when I met her for the first time, in my last regeneration. She took me; a broken, bitter old man and she made me whole again. But when I lost her… I was left in tatters. Martha and Donna… they were there to help me gather the pieces. They were there to stop me."

"Stop you?" Jack asked, pausing in his job, "Stop you from what?"

"From loosing it. If Rose had seen me the day I lost her…" he cleared his throat, looking at the floor, "I faced the Empress of the Racnoss. She begged me… but I wouldn't stop. I killed her, Jack. Her and her children. Donna kept telling me to stop, but it… it didn't seem right that… life should go on while I just wanted it to end. If Rose had seen what I became after I lost her she would have ran away. Ran away and never looked back."

"I'm not running now am I?" Rose said, making her presence made. The Doctor span around, eyes wide in shock.

"Rose! I thought… you weren't meant to…"

"They don't need me up there. Martha knows what to do," she raised her voice to the microphone on the computer, "Dontcha Martha?"

"No problem. See ya later, yeah." Martha said before there was a definite click as the comms went off.

"Your mind's slipping Doctor." Rose smiled gently, "You forgot to turn the mic off. We could hear every word."

The Doctor looked at her, their eyes meeting properly for the first time. It was then that he saw it. The darkness, swirling around and around inside her eyes. A darkness he only saw in one other place; his own, whenever he dared to look in the mirror.

"Rose," he asked, the tiniest of hints of a tremor in his voice, "what's going on?"

"Haven't you been wondering how it is I got here? How I got to this universe when you said that it was impossible? How I survived all the way through the vortex when it should have killed me? Aren't you wondering why you never thought to ask all these obvious questions?"

He thought. Why had he not asked. Surely it should have been his first reaction, to make sure she told him everything, but instead he had accepted her simple "wait til later."

"Fine, then I'm asking now." He said, voice rising in anger with himself, "Tell me what's going on."

"Do you remember," Rose said suddenly, changing the subject, "before you asked how long it had been, and I just answered that it had been too long." She cocked her head to the side, surveying him in a way that made him feel uncomfortable, "How long do you think it's been? Look at me and tell me what you think."

"Rose why are you acting like this?"

"Just answer the question Doctor!" she demanded, her voice suddenly sharp.

He looked at her, genuine worry rising in him now. She had never talked to him like this before. He didn't think she had even ever talked like this full stop. She was staring at him, her body tense and a look that meant that there was no way that anything he said was going to make her back down.

He looked away from her eyes, instead drawing his attention to her face and her body, trying to gauge the differences from the last time he saw her. She was slightly thinner and she looked more comfortable in herself that before; defiantly a woman now, rather than a late teen.

"Last time I saw you," he said stiffly, "you were about nineteen or twenty, am I right?"

She simply nodded, eyes boring into him, holding her breath as she waited for his answer.

"Now you look around about twenty two, so about… two or three years."

She sighed, looking away and rubbing her face as she laughed humourlessly. "If only."

"Rose, why are you like this, talking in riddles?"

She turned back to him with such childlike vulnerability in her eyes that made his hearts stop.

"Because I'm scared that… what I tell you will make you want to run away and never look back"

"Rose…" he whispered, his voice barely audible as he walked closer to her, ready to pull her into a hug.

She stopped him by putting a finger to his lips, before looking away, down his body to his hand, which she took hold of by the wrist and bringing it up to hover above her chest, looking back at his face, silver tears glistening in her darkened eyes.

"Rose?" he asked nervously, "What are you…"

"Just…" she closed her eyes, two diamond-like tears sliding down her cheeks as she brought his hand to rest in the middle of her chest. Then he felt it.

Bum-bum-bum-bum.

His eyes widened in shock, realisation finally dawning.

"That's not possible."

There he could feel two hearts, their beats overlapping in a mad drum roll.

"Not probable, I think you should say." She smiled weakly, dropping his wrist and stepping away.

"What's happened to you?"

"Pretty much the same as Jack, only I got the Time Lord bundle." She laughed half-heartedly. "You guessed at about two or three years…" she breathed deep before sighing, "try thirty."

"No…" he said quietly, "no, no I would have known sooner."

"That's the thing! They couldn't let you know."

"Who?"

"You see," she continued as if she hadn't heard him, her eyes slightly distant, her voice very slow and childlike, "I'd forgotten. They didn't want me to have the burden of knowing all the things I'd done, all the trouble I'd caused. They locked it away somewhere I'd never find it. But… as you were talking, it all came back. Everything returned to me. You'd sent me away, back home to my life of chips and buses and Eastenders. But I knew… I knew that I had to get back to you. I couldn't just… just leave you there to die, that I couldn't just sit back and get on with my life because…" her eyes came into focus as she looked up at him, her voice wavering slightly, "because you were my life."

The Doctor found himself breaking away from her gaze, unable to maintain it for longer than a few seconds.

"Mum and Mickey… they… they helped me to open the control panel, though that bit's rather hazy. All I can remember is the doors slamming closed as I looked into the heart of the Time Vortex. You can't imagine it Doctor, the bright light of time the searing flood of it coursing through my veins. As I looked into the heart of the TARDIS… and she looked into me, two figures appeared in my mind.

"The first was a beautiful woman, her hair flowing around her head like a Goddess, her eyes were the most piercing blue that seemed to look right through me, into my very soul, making me feel as if I was a naked child in front of her, but her arms were raised, as if she was waiting for me to run into them. At her side was a golden wolf, lying beside her, its' paws crossed, its eyes fixed on me. The woman spoke to me, her voice like music. "What are you doing child?" she asked. I answered her that I was going to save the Doctor. She smiled at that, bowing her head and saying "Yes he means to you as much as he means to me, doesn't he?" she looked down to the wolf, who stood up and bared its' teeth, but I somehow knew that it wasn't threatening me, but smiling. "Why?" it asked, "Why risk your life for a man who you barely even know?" I answered because I…" she looked at the Doctor uncertainly, but he was refusing to look into her eyes, so she took a deep breath and continued "because I love him with every part of my existence, and that if I had to die so that he could survive then… my life was a small price to pay."

The Doctor looked up suddenly, his eyes wide. Except for that time on the beach, she had never really admitted her feelings for him, and he had told himself that she couldn't possibly meant it and that she had said it on the spur of the moment, because it was the last chance to say it, or that she had perhaps said it in a friend love sense, but here she was saying that she would happily give her life for him to survive.

"Rose…"

"No!" she said firmly, "If I don't finish this now I… I never will."

He opened his mouth to argue, but the look of pure desperation made him close his mouth and nod silently.

She nodded her thanks, closing her eyes for a second.

"The woman; the TARDIS, she looked at me, her eyes so sad, and said to me "My child… you can't stay with him forever. For you… forever is impossible." And I answered that I didn't care. I said that I would stay with him for as long as was possible, or for as long as he wished me to stay. When I said that they both nodded. The wolf jumped at me, joining my body and the TARDIS guided my mind in what had to be done. She gave me the power to turn the Daleks to dust with a wish and a wave of my hand. The wolf whispered in my ear that Jack was dead, fallen in battle, and I undid what had been done. But the power… it was so… so strong, I… I could see everything that every would, what never could, what had and what might have, on every planet, in every universe, from the start of this universe to the end and the start of the next. Mirror reflecting mirror, going on for eternity and further.

"But the power… I couldn't let go, it was burning out my mind, it couldn't withstand. And then you," she looked at the Doctor, something of the wolf sparking in her eyes as tears flowed freely down her face, her entire body shaking in fear of her own actions, "You gave your life for mine, like I had been willing to do for you. You kissed me, and as they were about to leave me, the wolf and the woman asked me one last question; "If you had the chance to become his eternal companion, would you take it?"" She closed her eyes, swallowing hard, "and I said yes."

The room was silent for a long moment, Rose's tears falling soundlessly as she sank down the wall, coming to sit on the cold floor, holding herself as her body trembled, finally putting into words something that she herself she hadn't known until a few minutes ago. Jack realised with a jump that he had stopped in his task of attaching the cup links, looking down at his hand clamped tightly around the handle. The Doctor looked down at her sitting on the floor, his own body shaking, though not as violently as Rose's. He moved over to the wall beside her, sliding down to sit next to her and putting his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him. She looked up at him, the slightest of gasps escaping her lips. He nodded, showing that he was alright with it, so she buried her face in his shoulder.

After a few moments silence, aside from the dull thump as Jack attached the third cup link and the sound of both of their double heartbeats slowing to normal in their chests. Rose breathed deep, revelling in the scent that was so the Doctor, something that she always thought of in her most terrible times of need. She swallowed hard, clearing her throat before pulling back a little, making sure to stay within his embrace.

"You see, the reason you didn't know was because they wanted me to stay with you. They didn't want you to be left alone, and they knew that if you realised that I was the same as Jack then you'd leave me behind, like you left Jack. They knew that you cared for me more than you let me know, but they also knew that it wouldn't make a difference. So they waited for a time when they had to act to change me."

"What happened?" the Doctor asked softly, dreading the answer.

"I told you… back in Norway. I told you that I was working at Torchwood. I moved up the hierarchy quickly, got to head of alien liaisons within a year, though still working in the field. Dad made sure of that. But the thing with my Torchwood, as opposed to the one in this universe, we're a lot more… shall we say… hands on. We work with aliens and objects that have fallen to Earth, without being the reason that they fell."

"Glad to see that I've been of some help in making at least one Earth a little less hostile." The Doctor said proudly, dropping a light kiss on her hair.

"The only problem with that approach, "Rose said, smiling as her hearts did a back flip, "is that it's a lot more dangerous. Have you ever met a Weevil?"

"A what?"

"A Weevil? One of the ugliest creatures ever to walk either universes."

"I don't think so."

"Sorta like… what was it… the thing from the red bucket, blue bucket, running-through-the-corridors-like-we-were-in-Scooby-Doo fiasco."

"The Hoix?" the Doctor suggested.

"That's it, the Hoix." She shivered at the memory, "Then again, if I could choose, I think I'd take the Hoix any day. At least I know which bucket to use. It was the blue right?"

"Not blue, never blue, how many times do I have to tell you, never ever use the blue bucket unless I tell you!"

"Okay, okay I get it, not blue, not blue!" she laughed. "Anyway, about two years the job we were investigating all these murders that had been going on around London. They were nasty, people being found literally ripped to pieces," she shivered, trying to rid herself of the images of all the victims, "Well, I wasn't supposed to go in on my own, but I didn't listen. I thought if I could actually talk to this thing then I might be able to stop it. You've got to realise that at the time, I didn't know what it was; not really. Anyway, as you can imagine, liaisons didn't go very well. Out popped the weevil, ripped out my throat and ran straight into dad's bullet."

"I'm so sorry Rose."

"Hey, don't blame yourself. It was me who gave blondes a bad name. That's the last time I don't listen to daddy." She smiled, putting on a brave face over the thought of her messy demise. "So anyway, that was the first time that I knew about, until a few minutes ago of course, that the woman and the wolf came to me. I knew that I was dead, everything was dark, and I felt as if I was falling, on and on, down and down until suddenly… everything stopped. Then they came back to me, blindingly bright. "This is not your time to die." They said, "You will meet him again, the Doctor, the way will show itself to you when you need it most." Then I woke up in dad's arms, lying in a pool of my own blood. They couldn't explain how it had happened, said that my throat had healed itself. They took me to the infirmary in Torchwood. This guy called Owen Harper checked me over, found what he called a "self-regenerating genetic imprimatur" in my blood, which meant that when ever I get injured, the tissue sorts itself out."

"Yeah, I have that in my blood, but I'm guessin' yours will be different, otherwise you'd regenerate every time."

"At least my way I don't have to get a new driving licence all the time." She grinned.

"Oh, I didn't know you could drive."

"I couldn't last time you saw me. I went back to school, passed my exams and learned to drive. Go me eh?"

"I always knew you could do it if you put your mind to it." The Doctor said proudly.

"Anyway, when he was examining me, Owen also noticed what sounded like a heart murmur, but when he scanner me it turned out not to be a murmur, or a tumour, but a second heart. You see, that was one of the ways that she could hide how I was from you, but she'd also put something else in my blood that Owen found, but he couldn't work out what it was. She told me later that it was like a perception filter, but it pretty much only worked on you. That's why you haven't been asking as many questions as you should be." She laughed suddenly, "It's a good job you weren't there when mum found out about the two hearts thing. I'd told, her back on your first Christmas like you are now, I'd said that you had two hearts. She properly saw red, saying if she ever saw you again she'd knock your…" she trailed off slightly, looking away as her face fell.

"What's happened Rose?"

"She died. Mum died, years and years ago."

"How?"

"Have you ever read Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy?"

The Doctor searched his mind, looking over his long life and all the countless books that he'd read, "I don't think so."

"Well, it's about this little girl called Lyra who lives in a parallel world to ours where your soul is projected as an animal called a dæmon, but they sorta manifest themselves as something that resembles your personality, so say you were a servant, your dæmon would be a dog, 'cause you like following orders."

"Is this going somewhere?"

"Yes!" she said, before looking up to see him smiling and realised he was only teasing her, "Stop it, it's not funny. You see, her uncle, who turns out to be her father, he opens the way into another universe, where she meets this boy called Will, whose from our universe, so you can't see his dæmon, but anyway, he's the only person who can use the Subtle Knife, which is this knife that can cut windows into other worlds. But the reason I brought it up is because Mickey gave it to me, because it sounded like what happened with you and me. Trouble making little girl meets a boy who seems older than he actually is who can take her to fantastic new worlds, but then they find out that they can't stay together, because if you stay in another universe from your own, then your dæmon gets weaker and weaker until you die."

"You mean…?"

"Yeah. To start when mum and Mickey started getting these dizzy spells, but later it got worse and worse. I think travelling with you helped Mickey to keep going, but I don't know any more. But after mum died, I knew that I couldn't stay there, 'cause it was the place that had taken her from me. I cried every night for weeks, wishing that the TARDIS and the wolf would come for me, until, about three weeks after mum died, they came to me. They said that all I had to do was search for you and the TARDIS with my mind. You see, remember back at Canary Wharf, you were explaining about the way void stuff was attracted to the void, and I said it was like background radiation, the way you just picked it up by travelling through the void, only the thing is, when I said it I didn't realise how right I was. Of course that alone wasn't enough, otherwise you'd have all your old companions turning up all over the show. But when I had looked into the heart of the TARDIS, even though you'd tried to get rid of it, you'd missed a bit. It had burrowed right into the centre of my brain, but it wasn't enough to do me any damage, I'd never have even noticed it if I hadn't got separated from you. But there was another thing that your ship had done so that I could come back to you.

"You see, back on the beach, as you were saying goodbye and sealing the breach, your beautiful, magnificent ship had seen her chance. You see, you'd worked it out perfectly, you would have had enough time to finish that sentence you'd started, but the TARDIS had been forced to close it. You see, she left the tiniest of cracks open, not enough to fracture the breach or to destroy both universes, and small enough so that you'd never have noticed it, but big enough for me to use it one day. So I said goodbye to dad and Mickey and John, then left. Chiswick?"

"What?" asked the Doctor, surprised by her sudden change in subject.

"Chiswick? You said earlier that you'd asked Donna to come with you, but she'd decided to go back home to Chiswick. That's where I woke up, lying in the snow with this red-head screaming bloody murder that she was sick of bloody aliens and when I asked her what she meant she mentioned that you'd just left, thank you very much, and slammed the door in my face. Luckily the flat was still empty, and I'd brought plenty of money, so, two weeks later I found myself working for Jack in Torchwood, Cardiff."

"Wait a minute," the Doctor said suddenly, standing up and looking through the glass window, "You work for Torchwood?!"

"Thanks for remembering me, took you long enough!" Jack shot back, still working on the cup link.

"You work for the corporation that took my Rose away from me?"

"Doctor, stop it, it's not like that!" Rose said standing up and moving in front of the door, "Jack's Torchwood is the same way as mine. I'd never have worked for it if it wasn't. And anyway, since when was I ever "your Rose"?"

The Doctor looked suddenly very uncomfortable, swallowing hard and biting his lip slightly.

"Anyway." Rose said, leaving her question hanging. "I worked there as long as I had to until Jack got a signal on his you detector and we legged it and jumped on the TARDIS."

"Ahh…" the Doctor sighed slowly, "That's why she was being so weird on the way in."

"What do you mean?"

"When we came in she kept jumping time frames, flicking between 2007, the year we were before, and further and further into the future. She wanted rid of Jack, but she wanted to keep you safe as well. Rassilion, how I love that ship."

"Right then. So anyway…" Rose said, rolling her eyes, "You gonna tell me about this "My Rose" business?"

If the Doctor had been planning on saying anything, however, he was cut of as the final cup link fell into place and the alarms started.