Chapter Twelve

In Which Rose Takes a Very Short Break, and Disaster Strikes

"What was that about?"

"What was what about?"

He had to do that, didn't he? Act all innocent, like he had no idea what she was talking about. She stared at him, biting her lip, and watched as he ran around starting up the TARDIS. Aliens and monsters and robots and ghosts and every other horrible, frightening thing she'd seen—none of them scared her as much as he did when he was really angry. She hated it, when anyone made him snap, hated the person he became when he was driven to the absolute end of his temper.

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about."

"Nope." He grinned at her. "No idea."

"Yes, you do have an idea!" she said, anger flaring up inside of her.

"Rose, I don't know what you mean. Why are you shouting at me? You never shout."

"Is that all you can think of to say?" she snapped. "I never shout? Well, listen to this, Doctor. I'm shouting now!"

He took a step back, startled. "I--"

"Don't even start," she warned, "'cause I'm not finished. I've tried. I've tried as hard as I could. I've given it everything I have, and no one knows better than you that I've got a lot of energy and determination in me."

"I don't—"

"I'm not finished! Since the day I met you in the basement of that shop, I've been trying. I've put a lot of effort into it, you know, and all the time in between running for our lives and everything. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against running for our lives."

"Rose, what--"

"Will you put a sock in it? As I was saying, I haven't had much time to do anything else, because in between the running, I've been trying, so, so hard, to understand. I've put time and effort into understanding, and if there's one thing I can't stand, it's when I try to help someone, put my energy into helping them, and they throw it in my face!"

"What are you talking about?"

"If no one understands," she hissed, "then I wasted my time trying!" She whirled on her heel to look at the wall. "Set course for Powell Estate."

"Rose."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not leaving. I'm not that thick, and I couldn't ever get that angry. I am just so sick of you right now. I'm going to go home, right now, and I'm going to take a couple days off. Or do you have a problem with that?"

He sighed, an empty; defeated sound. "No. No, I don't have a problem with that. I'll take you home and...I don't know. Just...travel around. Until you call. With your phone, I mean, not just calling my name, I mean, I'm a Time Lord and all, but my senses aren't that good, and anyways, you can't hear things in space, can you, unless you happen to have a radio. Or if you're in a ship, but that doesn't count, because you're not in space, space. Not that I'll ever be in space, space, but I'll most likely be on another planet, so your voice would have to cross space. Time, too, for that matter. And of course voices can't cross time, that would be silly. Well, if sound was like light, then it wouldn't be, because it would travel through space at a very slow pace, and then if we were both very lucky reach me in whatever time I happened to be in. But even I couldn't hear that well, of course, if sound could even travel through space, which of course it can't, so--"

Rose stopped him by laying her hand gently across his mouth. It took surprisingly little effort to be gentle, even though she wanted to smack him as hard as she could. "Oh, be quiet and set the coordinates," she said more calmly. "I'll take a couple days to cool down and then I'll call you—on your phone, of course—and it'll all be back to normal, yeah?"

"Yeah." He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Yeah, all back to normal." He stepped around her and set course for Earth.

Rose leaned against the railing. He seemed dejected, suddenly. "Hey," she said lightly, and he glanced up. "Don't you go running off. You're to come back right away when I call you, or I'll set my mum on you. And if I somehow find out you've been to France...!"

"No running off," he agreed, shuddering visibly. "And no France, either. Though I don't have any idea why France is off-limits..." The way his eyes skated away from hers as he said it, and the ever-so-slight color that rose into his face, told her that he was quite aware of exactly why France was off-limits, and clearly didn't want to think about it. She didn't contradict him. She wasn't happy with him, but she didn't want another row.

There was a jolt as the TARDIS landed, but she was ready, and she didn't even lose her balance. With a little half-hearted wave, she stepped outside. "I'll see you later, then."

"Yes. Later." He hesitated. "Rose--"

"What?"

"I—I'll see you soon," he finished, not meeting her eyes.

"Yeah." She waved again and walked away. She didn't even turn back when she heard the TARDIS fading out behind her.

Rose walked home in silence, but she was grinning when she opened the door and entered Jackie's flat.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, she heard a high-pitched sound like nothing she'd ever heard before. Actually, it sounded ever so slightly like the engines of the TARDIS, but like a distant cousin of the so familiar sound. Blue light poured down from the sky, and she knew what was going on. And then she was taken by surprise to see Izzy from the other night running towards her.

"Rose!" the girl shouted. "Rose, come quick!"

"Izzy, I'm right here," Rose said quickly. "What's wrong?"

Izzy was nearly in tears. She looked afraid and grabbed Rose's hand tightly. "It's the Doctor," she said. "He's hurt. It looks really bad. I came to get you. I think you'd better come see."

"How badly is he hurt?"

"It's awful," Izzy whispered. "Rose, I'm so sorry. I knew what he was running into, and I came as soon as I knew, but I was too late. I'm not so sure we can save him."

A/N: Oooh! Cliffie! I didn't like this chapter much, til the ending...but the next one'll be much better. Promise!