CHAPTER 19

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SECRET OF THE VIYRANS

As Mickey stared off into space for the tenth time that day, Martha waved her hand in front of his face. He suddenly blinked and said, "I did it again didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did. I might start to get jealous if you don't stop," Martha said as she tried to make him laugh despite how worried that she knew he was.

Mickey did smile for just a minute which was a win in Martha's book as he said, "Don't be ridiculous. It's not like that and you know it. It's just that she's my oldest, closest friend. I can't help worrying about something happening to her even if she does happen to have cosmic powers or Vortex powers or whatever. I'm sorry, Martha. I just can't stop worrying about her until I know that she's alright."

Martha continued to pretend to be jealous as she tried to draw him out of the depressed state that he had been in all day as she said, "Here I thought I'd heard enough about 'good old Rose' when I left the Doctor."

Mickey smiled as he said, "Stop it. You don't ever have to be jealous of Rose and you know it."

"I know. I just like to hear you say it," Martha said with a grin.

The two of them started to kiss then and continued to do so for several minutes until a voice interrupted them by saying, "Well, I can see that you're just all broken up about me, aren't you?"

Mickey and Martha both looked at the woman who had arrived in their house out of nowhere in stunned silence. It wasn't Rose but Clara.

Mickey recovered first as he said, "What did you do? Decide to regenerate into Clara? Isn't the Doctor really, really confused right now?"

"He probably is but not in the way that you mean. I, uh, borrowed Clara's body. We merged together into one person, but I let Clara stay in charge most of the time. It is her body after all," Rose said in Clara's voice

"What happened?" Martha asked in shock.

Rose became very serious as she said, "Carmen was right. River did almost kill me. Luckily Donald managed to go back in time and put in some counterprogramming of his own into the young Melody's mind. That made River bring an antidote to the radiation that she gave me without even realizing that she was doing it, and it saved my life. Unfortunately what Donald did wasn't enough to wipe out the programming for good, and it quickly took her over again. I had to use an old trick of Koschei's to possess Clara's body because I was too weak to take River on by myself after her last attack. Clara and I then defeated her together and fixed her brain. The problem is that almost being killed made me too weak to separate myself from Clara. Poor Clara has to wait until I'm strong enough to leave before she can get her life back. It's not the best situation, but it's definitely better than being dead."

Mickey looked at her in complete disbelief as he said, "I don't care how it happened or why. I'm just glad that you're okay."

He immediately embraced Rose, and she briefly smiled in contentment before her face quickly became darker. Martha could tell from the expression on Rose's face when Mickey couldn't see her that she was badly shaken by the whole experience but was trying to put on a brave face for Mickey.

Martha almost smiled as she saw that Rose was just as worried about Mickey as Mickey was about her except in a completely different way. They were both so close that it was almost scary.

As if on cue, Carmen appeared at Martha and Mickey's window . . . again.

"It's good to see that my warning helped," Carmen said with a relieved smile.

"You have got to stop doing that. Seriously," Mickey said as he and Martha both jumped while Rose laughed.

"So you recognize me then?" Rose asked.

"I'm a psychic," Carmen said with a grin as if that was self-explanatory.

"Thanks a lot for scaring the life out of me by the way. I've been worried about her ever since then," Mickey said in an angry voice.

"Mickey, she probably saved my life," Rose said.

"I'd like to think so. At least I made you realize just how serious that your situation was anyway,' Carmen said.

"I take it that you're not just here to say hello though, are you?" Rose guessed.

"Oh, no. Not this again. Is she in danger of dying . . . again?" Mickey asked in an irritated voice.

"Well, she does get into dangerous situations. A lot," Martha said.

"So do we but we don't have psychics showing up giving us warnings every day do we?" Mickey complained.

"Well, to be fair we certainly seem to have them showing up lately. At least one anyway," Martha pointed out.

"I'm just lucky I guess," Rose said with a small grin.

Carmen watched Rose with a serious look on her face as she said, "I just came to warn you that the beings wearing the white hazmat like suits that you met before are following you. They're right behind you even now. Be ready for them."

"The Viyrans? What do they want?" Rose asked in alarm.

"That which was taken from them. I'm sorry to always be the bearer of bad news, Rose. At least this time I don't see you dying," Carmen said optimistically.

"Well, I guess I'll count that as a victory then," Rose said with a small smile.

Carmen turned to leave and then immediately turned back in surprise as she said, "Your song is different now. The old song has ended and been replaced by a new one."

Rose shrugged as she said, "That's probably because I'm in my friend's body. You're probably hearing her song instead."

"No. Her song is still there. I can hear it distinctly, and I can sense a change coming to her life soon. A major one. No, your song is different now. It has been altered in pitch as well as in tone. It's almost as if . . . you're trying to hide yourself," Carmen said with a sudden realization.

Rose smiled slightly but said nothing.

"I think she's already two steps ahead of you in the knowing the future department this time around," Victoria said as she suddenly appeared in the room with them.

Everyone but Rose looked at her in alarm as Rose said, "It's okay. She's a friend of mine. She used to travel with the Doctor."

Victoria smiled as she said, "That seems like a thousand years ago instead of almost fifty. Hi, I'm Victoria Waterfield. Sometimes I get mistaken for the Great Intelligence though."

Martha looked at her with recognition as she said, "I've read about you in UNIT's files. It's so nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too. I just wish I was here in person," Victoria said.

"What?" Martha asked confused.

"This isn't really me. It's one of my servants who is now taking my form," Victoria explained.

"Servants?" Martha asked now even more confused.

"They used to serve the Great Intelligence, but now they serve me since I stole his power. I assume that you know who he was if you read my file. The Great Intelligence used to call them the Whisper Men. I haven't decided what I'll call them yet. I've changed their genders and made them all look like me so the Whisper Women maybe? The Whisper Girls?" Victoria said with an amused grin on her face.

Mickey laughed as he said, "They sound like a pop group."

Rose grinned as she said, "They do, don't they? Do you think I could join them?"

"I'm afraid your singing days are over," the Doctor said as he suddenly appeared out of nowhere when the TARDIS doors opened.

Martha and Mickey both realized that the TARDIS had been sitting there the whole time while invisible.

"Why not? It would obviously be after I leave Clara's body of course since I'm not sure that she can sing. Can Clara sing? If you can rap, why can't I sing pop?" Rose asked grinning.

"I've never heard Clara sing," the Doctor said ignoring her other question.

"Really? You were alone with her for nine hundred years, and she never sang once?" Rose asked in surprise.

"We fought a never ending war together for all of that time. Trust me. We definitely didn't feel like singing," the Doctor said.

Rose turned serious quickly as she said, "No, I suppose not. Sorry."

The Doctor smiled at her as he said, "It's alright. Sometimes we both joke around without thinking in order to distract ourselves from what we know is coming."

The Doctor then noticed Carmen standing there and waved at her as he said, "Hello, Carmen. It's nice to see you again."

Carmen started to say something to him but seemed to decide against it and remained silent which made the Doctor become nervous since he remembered what happened the last time that she had told him something. He wasn't sure that he wanted to know.

"I hate to always be the bearer of bad news. I told him the same news in his last life too," Carmen muttered to herself in a low voice.

"It's okay. It's going to be okay," Rose whispered to Carmen before she finally turned and left with a single sad look back as she went.

"Why is it that I still get the feeling that you and the Doctor are in trouble?" Mickey said.

"That's because they are. This time it isn't from River though," Victoria said.

"It's that Viyrans lot that you mentioned before isn't it?" Mickey asked.

Rose nodded as she said, "They're coming here. I can feel it. I need to lead them away before it's too late. I don't want them bothering you two especially with the baby here."

Rose gave Mickey and Martha a quick hug and waved goodbye to the baby before she and the Doctor ran into the TARDIS and quickly dematerialized. Victoria however stayed behind.

"Why aren't you leaving?" Martha asked in a slightly worried voice.

"Don't worry, Martha. I'm just here to make sure that you're okay. The Viyrans won't be able to detect one of my Whisper Ladies anyway. Hmm. Maybe I could use that name," Victoria said to herself.

"Are you sure of that?" Martha asked.

"Yes, very sure," Victoria said confidently.

The Viyrans burst into the Smiths' house seconds later as Victoria said with a hopeful look, "Here's hoping that it works."

Meanwhile back on the TARDIS, Rose suddenly cursed in Gallifreyan as Victoria telepathically told her what was happening. She started to glow with energy as she began to go back to protect Mickey and Martha when the Doctor put his hand on her shoulder.

"No, Rose. I don't want the Viyrans to discover that you're merged with Clara. You know why. The less people that know about that the better. Victoria will protect them if she has to. I don't think the Viyrans will be interested in Mickey and Martha anyway," the Doctor said.

"Why does Rose need to hide for anyway?" Clara asked as she took over her body again.

"Clara?" the Doctor asked.

"That's right, Chinny. Why is it that you don't want anyone to know where Rose is? That psychic woman said that Rose was hiding. Hiding from who? The Viyrans? Is that it?" Clara asked.

"No. Rassilon. Belle told us that the War Lords brought him back to life," the Doctor said.

Clara immediately went silent as she remembered her last run-in with Rassilon when she was trapped back in the past with a young Lily. Rassilon used the mind probe on her and nearly lobotomized her with it. No wonder Rose wanted to hide from him until she was fully healed from her battle with River. Rose had been the one who had killed him to save the universe after all. She got the idea that it was more the Doctor's idea for her to hide than her own though.

"Message received and understood," Clara said in a slightly terrified voice.

"Don't worry, Clara. I'm sure that he won't even remember you. That was ages ago," the Doctor said as he gave her a hug and kissed her forehead.

Suddenly the Doctor felt 'Clara' gave him a tender kiss on the cheek that he knew had to have come from Rose.

"Clara, not now. Rose might find out," the Doctor joked.

"Very funny, Doctor. Clara's already embarrassed enough when I even do something innocent like that. Now you're going to make it so I can't even give you a kiss on the cheek," Rose said as she pretended to be angry at him.

It was at that point that the TARDIS landed at Rose's best friend Shareen's house. Rose held her breath as the Doctor opened the TARDIS's doors. She was almost sure that the Viyrans were already going to be there waiting for them.

Surprisingly enough they weren't. Not yet anyway.

Shareen was talking on her cell phone in her living room surrounded by Rose's other friends, Penny, Emma, and Gwyneth. Also seated nearby were Mikaela and Polly who were apparently both guarding Charley who sat in-between them from the way that they kept watching her. Charley meanwhile looked like she was so tense that she was about to bolt from her seat at any moment.

"I take it that's Mickey on the other end of the phone then?" Rose said with a sigh.

Penny nodded as she said in a low voice, "The Viyrans just came and went to his house looking for Charley. He didn't tell them anything, but he thinks that they'll be here sooner or later. It's no secret that you and Shareen are friends you know."

"Are they alright?" Rose asked with concern.

"Yeah, they're fine. The Viyrans left as soon as they couldn't find Charley. Mickey said that they didn't even seem to see Victoria. He's a bit confused by that one and so am I," Penny admitted.

"Her Whisper Girls can only be seen when she wants them to be seen," Mikaela said.

"Whisper Girls, huh? So that's what she settles on. I like it. Maybe I'll go on a tour with them yet," Rose said grinning.

"Oh, enough with the singing jokes already," Shareen said rolling her eyes as she got off the phone.

"Who's joking?" Rose asked with a mischievous face wide grin.

"They're coming for me. Maybe if I leave, they'll leave the rest of you alone," Charley said looking extremely worried.

"Charley, do you really want to live with them for the rest of your life?" the Doctor asked.

"No, I don't. I also don't want to get anyone killed either. I should just go with them, Doctor," Charley argued.

"If you go with them, they'll never let you go. You know too much about them. They'll erase our memories of your ever having been with us, and you'll never have a normal life again," the Doctor warned.

"That seems to be what's going to happen anyway so I might as well go along with it," Charley said with a defeated attitude.

"You're not going anywhere. You're staying right here," Polly said to her just like a mother would.

"It's better this way. I don't want anyone to get caught up in a fight with the Viyrans. You don't understand what they can do," Charley protested.

"Don't argue with me. I said you're staying here. Sit back down," Polly said to Charley in an authoritative tone.

Charley smiled as she said, "You know you remind me of my mum."

"I'm more than old enough to be your mum despite my appearance so I guess it's only natural that you feel that way. I'm going to take the place of your mum until you get it in your head to sit still anyway," Polly said smiling as she winked at her.

"You might as well listen to her, Charley. It's not wise to argue with her. I even found that out as the tetchy old man. She's very nice most of the time, but she can really tell you off when she wants to," the Doctor said with a grin.

"Oh, be quiet, Doctor," Polly said with a chuckle.

"See?" the Doctor said still smiling.

Charley began to laugh and had just begun to relax like the Doctor wanted her to do when the Viyrans finally caught up to her. They appeared right in the middle of Shareen's living room and stood there gazing at Charley with anger evident in their every movement. Charley shrank away from them and immediately regretted ever having left them.

"Well, hello! What brings you here to see us today? Is it just a social call? If it is, did you bring me some fish fingers and custard? Oh, I really hope that you did. I could really go for some right now. I haven't had any in at least five minutes," the Doctor said as he put on a goofy smile and waved his hands about with enthusiasm.

One of the Viyrans looked down on the Doctor with its body language filled with animosity as it imitated Charley's voice to say, "You took Charlotte Pollard away from us without our permission. She serves us in our mission to eliminate the viruses that have escaped from our care. She has become too essential in that mission and knows far too much about us and our methods to ever be allowed to leave our service now."

The Doctor's smile dimmed somewhat but didn't leave completely as he said, "That should be Charley's choice whether she stays with you or not, shouldn't it? Otherwise it's just plain old fashioned slavery, and that is definitely not cool."

"Charlotte Pollard will come back with us, and your memories of your contact with her will all be erased. We also demand that the knowledge about our viruses that Victoria Waterfield took from us will be erased from her mind as well. Such information is too dangerous for someone with the power and potential mentality of the Great Intelligence to be allowed to possess," the Viyran said in an angry voice.

"No," the Doctor said in a calm voice as the smile faded from his face altogether.

"We will not be denied, Doctor. Either you do these things of your own free will or we will do them ourselves by force," the Viyran said in a menacing voice.

"I said no. No one is taking my friend away against her will, and you won't be messing around with the mind of my other friend either. They're both under my protection," the Doctor said as his voice began to become cold and dark now and filled with warning.

"Don't try to fight us, Doctor. You won't win. Not when we can simply wipe our very presence here from your mind in an instant so that you'll never know that we were even here," the Viyran threatened.

"I bet I can do the exact same thing to all of you," Victoria said as she appeared with an army of her Whisper Girls surrounding her.

"I was wondering when you'd get here," the Doctor said smiling.

"Sorry, Doctor. I was held up. I had to rescue Jamie from a little misunderstanding that he had with the Krotons. He's always getting into trouble," Victoria said with a fond look on her face that made the Doctor smile.

"You will allow us to remove the knowledge of our viruses from your mind or we will do it by force," One of the Viyrans threatened.

"I wouldn't make me angry if I were you. My girls here definitely wouldn't like that. Would you, girls?" Victoria said with a sinister smile.

The Whisper Girls began to whisper something underneath their breaths, and the Viyrans immediately began to scream in pain. Victoria grinned as she stood back and watched.

"Having a problem?" Victoria asked.

"So it's true. They really can kill with a whisper," the Doctor said with a disapproving look on his face.

Victoria's smile immediately faded as she said, "They could but they won't. Don't worry. I'm not seriously damaging them. I'm not even sure I can. Frankly I'm still not sure if they're even alive or not."

The smile returned to the Doctor's face as he said, "Sorry. I guess I'm still worried about you."

"I'm fine," Victoria said as she waved away his concerns.

Suddenly one of the Viyrans grabbed Victoria by the neck from behind, and she started to feel it breaking into her mind as she said, "On second thought, I'm definitely not fine. Doctor!"

Rose started forward to help despite what might happen as a result of revealing herself. Before she could do anything though, one of the Whisper Girls injected the Viyran holding Victoria with a needle. The Viyran screamed and immediately disappeared.

"So it's true. This virus does affect you. I'm sorry," Victoria said with sad eyes.

The Whisper Girls approached the other Viyrans with samples of the virus in their hands. The remaining Viyrans cowered away from them in fear as they drew closer to them.

"Victoria, what did you do?" the Doctor asked in a horrified voice.

"She found one of the viruses that can kill them. They told me once that some of their viruses could even affect them," Charley said.

"Each of those needles can puncture through the toughest armor, and they contain some of your deadliest viruses within them. I didn't tell the Whisper Girl to kill your friend. She did it to protect me. They're more loyal to me than they are obedient it seems. They'll do it again too if you don't leave us alone. Stay away from me, Charley, and my friends or there's no telling what they might do next," Victoria said.

"You haven't heard the last of this. We will not allow you to retain either our secrets or our servant forever," One of the Viyrans managed to say despite its fear.

"Well, unless you find a way to kill the Whisper Girls which I don't think you can, then I think that I win. Don't you?" Victoria said with a smirk.

One of the Viyrans angrily promised, "We will return. We won't allow you to keep what is ours. One day we will destroy you for this and take her anyway."

The Viyrans then disappeared immediately.

Victoria turned to see the others staring at her in shock as she said, "Oh, stop it. I didn't kill anyone. Watch."

She gestured at the spot where the Viyran had died, and it was suddenly there alive again and shaking in terror. It backed away from Victoria in pure fear.

"Oh, that's clever. That's very clever," the Doctor said appreciatively as he finally understood what Victoria had done.

"What is? What's going on, Doctor?" Charley asked.

"She was bluffing. She knew from their own database that some of the viruses would kill the Viyrans so she pretended to use them on one of them. She actually just made it invisible or sent it away somewhere until the others left. The needle was actually just filled with something harmless," the Doctor guessed.

"You're right. The needle was harmless. They all were. I sent this Viyran back to the beginning of time and let it drift around for months there all alone. Literally since there was no life anywhere at that point. You didn't like that, did you?" Victoria said to the Viyran with an evil grin.

"Leave me alone. Please!" the Viyran begged.

"Of course she will as long as you leave us alone. You see this time was just a warning. Tell the others that. Next time will be for real," the Doctor said improvising.

"Yes, and just to prove that I know which viruses are deadly to you," Victoria said before she had one of the Whisper Girls whisper something in the Viyran's ear.

"Y-yes, I believe you. I'll tell them everything. I'll make sure that they get the message. Just don't send me back," the Viyran said as it shook in fear before it quickly vanished.

"I'm proud of you, Victoria. You sent them away without using your knowledge to kill them. I know it had to be very tempting," the Doctor said.

"I couldn't do it, Doctor. Not if there was another way. You taught me that," Victoria said smiling at him.

"None of this will keep them away forever. They will be back eventually with some horrible plan to kill Victoria now that she's threatened them. I'm sure of that," Charley said.

"Probably but we'll deal with that when we come to it. Until then, one major universal threat at a time," the Doctor said with a huge grin on his face.

"Goodbye, Doctor. I hope I've at least kept them off of your back for a little while," Victoria said.

"I'm sure you've done it for much longer than that. Goodbye and thanks. And Victoria?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes?" Victoria asked.

"I'm so very proud of you," the Doctor said in a heartfelt voice.

Victoria immediately embraced him and kissed his cheek with tears in her eyes. Then she left after a quick wave goodbye. The Whisper Girls waved as well and then quickly vanished as they left along with her.

"I don't think I'm going to worry about her being taken over by the remnants of the Great Intelligence anymore. I really think that she's going to be alright now," the Doctor said to Rose.

"I'm sure of it, Doctor. I'm more worried about something else at the moment," Rose said as she kissed his cheek.

"What's that? Rassilon? The Symmetry? The War Lords?" the Doctor asked.

"Them too but that's not what's bothering me," Rose said.

"What then?" the Doctor asked concerned.

"I never got the Whisper Girls' number. I'd really like to go on the road with them. I think we'd make a wonderful singing group together. It's about time that I got back into the singing business," Rose said.

The Doctor shook his head at her while Clara said to Rose telepathically, I knew it! You really are her somehow!

Let's just keep that between us, okay? Rose replied back to her.

Sure. It's just too crazy to be true. I mean who'd ever believe it anyway? That sort of thing just doesn't happen in real life, does it? Clara replied.

No, it doesn't, does it? Rose said in a knowing voice that made Clara gasp as she realized that Rose knew.

Rose knew her own secret.

The Doctor looked at Rose's smile with an odd look as he asked, "What's that smile about?"

"Oh, nothing. Je- I mean Clara and I just agreed to keep a certain matter a secret. I won't tell anyone her secret if she doesn't tell mine," Rose said as she winked at the Doctor.

The others all looked at them in complete confusion as the Doctor just laughed and shook his head at her.

Next: Krail returns and he has definite plans for revenge against Je – I mean Clara. Now tell us again that you don't have emotions, Krail! This time Krail has a surprise coming though as he doesn't know about Rose. Will even that be enough to win the day though against Krail's latest plan?