"Slave circuits? That's brilliant!" Eight cried.

Ten grinned at him and opened a radio channel to the Control Room. "Rose?"

"Yeah?" her voice came back, a little tense.

"We've got an idea. I've got an idea. We've…hell, you know what I mean." Ten pushed his glasses higher on his nose. "I'm slaving together all the spaceships in the landing bay. With their Farristellian shielding, they should be able to pierce the hull of a Dalek ship."

"Won't they be expecting that?"

Eight shook his head. "Not immediately. They won't expect a kamikaze attack until their well inside our defense net. Now, after the first two or three attacks, they'll be able to recalibrate their shields, but…" he tapped a few switches "…I can send out a shortwave EMP burst that'll knock their computers offline long enough to take out a few more ships."

"That's not much," Rose said.

"Every little bit helps," Eight argued.

"Alright, then. Any thoughts on the other matter?"

"Not yet," Ten sighed. "It has to be the Emperor Dalek, he's the only one with enough power to manipulate time on his own. It's what he was designed for."

"But we don't know what he's done to alter the timeline," Eight continued. "And until we figure out what it is, there's no way to stop him."

"Right, I'll be down there in a tick. There's a UN shuttle landing soon."

"See you then, love," Eight said, switching the radio off.

Ten looked around the consol room. "Where'd the other one get to?" He looked over at Eight, who shrugged and brought up another screen full of data to sift through.

……………………………………………………………….

Rose and the Doctor stared at each other, Rose still clutching the photo album. "If that one's Eight and the other one's Ten, what's that make you then, Doctor?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, thinking over his words. After a long moment of silence, he looked down at the floor. "Nine," he said softly.

Rose set the album back in place and took a deep breath, leaning against the wall for support. "So…I was right? It's you? Them, I mean…they're you?"

"Yes," he admitted, still looking at the floor.

"Have you always done this?"

He frowned, and looked up at her. "Done what?"

She waved a hand. "This…changing bodies like this. Have you always done it?"

"Sort of, yeah." His shoulders shifted uncomfortably. "It's a Time Lord thing."

Suddenly, for no real reason, she felt a surge of anger. "Care to explain that, then? Or am I just too stupid of an ape to understand?"

His mouth tightened. "It's difficult to –"

"Right, then," she interrupted, brushing past him. "Obviously you're going with Option B, so…" She marched back into the consol room, the Doctor on her heels.

"You, then." Rose pointed to the man in pinstripes, who stared at her in confusion. "Which one are you? Ten? Right, explain this please. And use small words, since I'm such a stupid ape."

"Rose," the Doctor began, but Ten cut across him.

"Ah," Ten said. "That's right. She doesn't know about regeneration yet."

"'Yet'?" Rose said, her voice nearly a growl.

"You never told her?" Eight said, half paying attention to the conversation, and half engrossed in some screen full of math equations.

Ten shifted uncomfortably, just as the Doctor had done a moment ago. Rose felt lightheaded again. "Well," he said, "she sort of…found out the hard way, I guess you could say."

That got Eight's attention. "You just regenerated on her without explaining anything? I mean, I know I've done that before, I just…I wouldn't have expected to do that to Rose."

Ten scowled. "Well, it's not like I meant to, but she had to go and swallow the whole Time Vortex."

Rose blinked. "The what?"

But the Doctor - her Doctor, Nine, whatever – took a step forward, a stricken look on his face. "She did WHAT?!"

Ten groaned. "Look it all turned out right in the end. She saved my life, I saved hers, happy ending, all's well that ends well, eh?"

"So you did just regenerate on her without explaining anything," Eight pointed out, slightly amused.

"Sort of, yeah."

Eight snorted. "Bet that went over well. Look! I did it!"

Ten blinked. "Did what?"

He pointed happily at a monitor. "Got the slave circuit to work. Ships are launching now. I can hide them from the Dalek sensors for about three minutes, and then we need to start the attack."

"Brilliant!"

"I know."

"That's great and all," Rose said, "but does anyone care to explain what the hell regeneration is?"

"Quantum phsyics," said another voice. They all turned to see Rose-Two enter the TARDIS door. As she walked over to the consol, Eight met her halfway and she gave him a brief but tight hug.

Rose blinked. "What?"

Rose-Two grinned. "Quantum physics. See, the Doctor's a bit like the TARDIS on the inside. His consciousness isn't exactly on the same plain of existence as ours. Like how the inside of the TARDIS is in one place while the outside is in another. Only, the Doctor isn't as far outside his physical self as the inside of the TARDIS is from the blue Police box. He's more connected."

"Ooo, good analogy," Ten murmured.

Rose-Two squeezed Ten's hand affectionately. "When the Doctor sustains a fatal injury to his physical form, his body rearranges itself at the subatomic level. It has to do with superstring physics. Inside each atom is a subatomic partical and inside that is a vibrating string of energy. By changing the vibrational patterns of the strings, a Time Lord can pretty much build themselves a new body."

Nine and Ten both gaped at Rose-Two like fish out of water.

Rose tilted her head, taking this information in. Obviously her other self understood it, so that meant she should be able to. It did make sense, in a way, even if she wasn't exactly sure what the hell superstring physics was supposed to be. "And…it doesn't kill him because his mind's outside his body at the time?"

"Pretty much," Rose-Two said. "He changes a bit everytime, loses parts of his personality, gains other bits. He can't influence it directly, but I think the process plays a bit on his subconscious. That part's like anyone else, though. We change, too, us humans. We just don't do it on the outside."

"Tellin' me," Rose said, gesturing to Rose-Two. "Blimey. How'd I get so smart?"

"You get married to a Time Lord, pop out two half-Time Lord babies, then go to live on a planet full of Time Lords," Rose-Two snorted. "It sort of rubs off on you."

Rose and Nine exchanged looks. "'Babies'?" they echoed simultaneously.

Eight started laughing, and Rose-Two elbowed Ten in the ribs. "Oi," she said to him, "we were so cute, weren't we?"

"But," Nine said weakly, gesturing to Rose, "we're not…"

Eight laughed harder, pounding his fist against the consol. Ten and Rose-Two giggled, with more elbow-poking. "Blimey," Ten said, "I'm such an idiot!"

"You're telling me," Rose-Two snorted.

Eight stopped laughing long enough to look at a monitor that had just pinged. "There's a shuttle approaching, Rose, is that the one you were waiting for?"

Rose-Two looked back over her shoulder. "UN one? Yeah. I need to go meet it."

"I've almost finished the compression ratio for the EMP burst," Eight said to her, "so I'll stay here and finish that."

"I'll come with you," said Ten.

"No," Rose-Two shook her head. "You'll cause a scene."

He blinked at her, taking off his glasses. "What do you mean?"

She leveled a hard look at him. "Harriet Jones is on that shuttle."

A cold look came over Ten's face. "Still alive, is she?"

"One of the first to receive medical treatment from the Farristellians, thanks," Rose said, "to you and that little health scare you engineered."

"You're never angry with me over that!" Ten snapped. "You know what she did!"

"Yes, and no," Rose-Two held up a hand preventing Ten from interrupting her, "I don't agree with what she did. The ship was retreating and it was wrong of her to fire. But neither," she pointed a finger in Ten's chest, "do I think it's your place to lay judgement on her."

"Then who's is it?" he said acidly.

"Not," she repeated forcefully, "yours."

She turned and walked towards the TARDIS door, leaving Ten to stare angrily after her. Beside Rose, the Doctor shifted like he wanted to go after her. She looked at him as he watched Rose-Two leave.

She had a lot of questions, but he must have a lot as well, she reckoned. That other version of herself was married to him, after all. Well the other versions of him.

God, that was weird. They were married?

And kids! Those two kids must be theirs! She wanted to go see them again, to look at them closer, see if they looked anything like her.

She looked at the Doctor again and squeezed his hand gently. "Go on," she said softly. "Go talk to her."

He turned his head to her and lifted an eyebrow. "If it doesn't matter what we learn here," she said, "if it's all just going to change anyway, then what's the harm in knowing? You've got questions, I can tell. Go ask her."

"You'll be alright here?"

"Me?" she smiled. "Yeah. Just going to go spend some time with the family."

His lip twitched. "Don't start any pillow fights."

Rose grinned and let go of the Doctor's hand. He turned to go, but then paused and turned back to her. She looked up at him quizzically, and then – quick as could be – he bent down and pressed a kiss to her lips.

It was so fast, and he was already walking away, but Rose felt her lips burn where his had touched.

She cleared her throat, becoming aware that Eight was staring at her with an amused expression on his face. "What're you looking at?"

………………………………………………………………………..

"Rose!"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Doctor, I am not having this discussion ag – oh," she said, turning around. "It's you."

The ninth Doctor – the one she'd first fallen in love with, caught up to her, panting slightly. "Can I…would you mind if I walked with you? The other two can handle things in there."

"I…yeah, that's fine," she said, brushing a piece of hair behind her ear.

Up ahead of them, they could see the entrance to the landing bay opening. "Force field," she explained. "More Farristellian technology."

"Earth has an alliance with them, I take it?" He walked shoulder to shoulder with her, his fingers twitching like he wanted to reach out and take her hand, but he didn't.

Rose nodded. "Yeah. Jack and I saved their planet a while back, sort of by accident, but as a result they sought out Earth to give us thanks. Turns out the sort of wheat they grow over in the States is the answer to a world hunger problem the Farristellians were facing. So in exchange for agriculture and some mineral mining in the asteroid belt past Mars, we get advanced medicine and technology."

"Who's Jack? You sound as if I should know him."

Rose paused. "Been to London lately?"

"Just left there. 1987."

"Oh," she said softly. "I'm sorry about that, by the way."

He smiled. "You've told me that already."

"Though it is more your fault than mine," she added.

"What?"

She turned to him and arched an eyebrow. "You? Time Lord. Me? Stupid Ape. You never did explain the rules of time travel to me, you just sort of expected me to know. How would I have known anything? Only thing I knew about time travel were a few Star Trek repeats I watched as a kid because Mum had a thing for Captain Kirk."

"She would," he snorted. "Me? I'd be concerned about the Space AIDS."

Rose laughed. "Still, I am sorry."

He stopped and she stopped with him. Slowly, he lifted a hand and cupped her face in his palm, the same as he had done back in 1987. "I know," he said softly. "I'm sorry, too."

Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming sadness and loss for this man…this version of the man she loved. The one version she couldn't keep.

"Rose?" He lifted a thumb and pushed away a tear. It was such a familiar gesture, the brush of his thumb across her cheekbone. It was one he made all the time…the version of him that she'd married. But she'd never been that close with this one.

But, oh, how she'd wanted to.

And she would lose him again. She couldn't keep him, she knew. Even if the timeline altered, he'd be different. If she were with him again, it wouldn't be the same. She'd have lost that first joy of discovery, that first wide-eyed wonder at the universe he showed her.

It was too much. Despite herself, she began to cry. He pulled her into his arms, and the familiar scent of his leather jacket only made her cry harder.

"Rose…" he said into her hair.

"I loved you," she managed between so I loved you so much and you just left me. You just changed on me and it was never right after that. You left me."

"I'm here now."

……………………………………………………………………..

Eight had finished the calculations on the EMP and the signal was prepped and ready to be released. Jack had called in with an update on Weapon Station. Apparently they'd been able to double the power output, but it still wasn't going to be enough.

Ten sighed and rubbed the space on his nose where his glasses had been resting.

Between the kamikaze spaceships, the defense satellite arrays, and the Weapon Station, they might – might – be able to whittle the Dalek fleet down to a fourth of its size by the time it got within firing range of Earth. But that was discounting any tricks the Emperor Dalek had up his sleeve…and Davros, if Davros wasn't dead already by this point in the War.

Or had the Emperor Dalek already turned and killed Davros? His memories were so fuzzy when it came to the actual details of the war. And now they were getting worse as the temporal flux grew.

What was causing that flux, anyway?

Eight moved over to Rose, talking to her, trying to make her comfortable. As comfortable as one could be for the end of the universe. There was nothing she could really do at this point. If it came down to the station being invaded, he was sure she could help put up a hell of a fight, but other than that…the other Rose had more resources resources at her disposal.

And there was no way in hell he was going to let either of them absorb the Time Vortex again. He wasn't sure either he or Rose would survive another contact with it. Hell, he wasn't sure if the universe would survive, but that was beside the point.

He thought of Rose with a pang of anger. He'd thought she understood what he'd done about Harriet Jones; why he'd been so angry. He'd really thought she still saw things the way he did. It hurt to find out she didn't.

He didn't like feeling flawed in Rose's perception.

Sighing, he leaned against the consol. No, he probably shouldn't have snapped at Rose like that. She did have a point, a good one, too. He'd made plenty of mistakes on his own to have come down on Harriet Jones so hard. And no, it wasn't really his right to decide her punishment, but…after all the times he'd sacrificed to save that stupid little planet, to have them self-destruct their own future because of xenophobia had been an intolerable thought. He'd had to do something.

Wearily, he flipped open a computer screen and patched the TARDIS into the landing bay cameras so he could watch Harriet Jones's shuttle land. He really should go out and apologize to her.

Well…talk to her, at least. Let her know he was here to help, not here for her head.

Something on the screen caught his eye and he zoomed in. The previous version of himself – the ninth one – was holding a crying Rose. Oh, no, what had he gone and said? Obviously something stupid to make her so upset. The ninth version of himself hadn't been all that great at talking to women, especially not human women. Especially not Rose.

He flipped on the audio at a low volume so he could hear what they were saying.

"I loved you so much and you just left me," Rose was sobbing, face buried in black leather. "You just changed on me and it was never right after that. You left me."

Oh.

………………………………………………………………………………..

TBC