Chapter Six

John slipped out of bed and realising he was naked grabbed his robe to hide his shame. He moved quietly to the bathroom and shut and bolted the door firmly behind him before leaning against it.

He was dreaming he had to be. Donna had never fancied him. In fact she'd called him a long streak of alien nothing. Ah but that wasn't him, that had been *him.* But he was *him* so she couldn't fancy him if she hadn't fancied *him* could she?

"Ow, this is making my head hurt."

He cleaned himself and felt a twinge of guilt that he had allowed Rose to go back to sleep without seeing to her, but that was what she had wanted. After splashing his face with water he stared at his reflection in the mirror. He looked tired. His eyes were bloodshot and had dark grey bags under them but every time he closed his eyes she was there or at least something red was. Was it her or something else? And why did he fear Donna? Sure she had been feisty, even hard work at first but she'd simmered down when she had seen what he actually did. No what *he* actually did.

"Tea, you need a cup of tea mate. Heals the synapses."

He tightened the draw cord around his narrow waist and padded silently downstairs. He flicked the kitchen lights on and peered inside. An empty room, she'd gone. He felt a pang of regret that he hadn't spoken to her, but he knew from the snippets of her life that he had seen that she was happy… getting on with her life… having a good life even. The last thing she needed was to be showing up in is dreams as some flame haired temptress.

He made his tea and seated himself at the kitchen table to drink it. It felt good; the scalding liquid burned down his throat and warmed his stomach. When his mug was empty he pushed it away from him and lowered his head on to his arms. He'd just rest here a while before going on back up to bed.

A red vista lay before him. He was still dressed in his robe and nothing else and he pulled it tighter around himself, "Very Arthur Dent" he mused aloud. He was bare footed and he carefully picked his way over this strange rock strewn but eerily familiar scene.

This was Mars or at least Mars as it was always depicted in films and by those rover probes that had made it there, Spirit, Opportunity and Phoenix. Spirit had sampled chemical compounds containing water molecules and Phoenix had sampled ice water in the shallow Martian soil.

John smiled. Martian, that was what Donna had referred to *him* as the first time they had met and *he* had eventually told her, "Donna, I'm not, I'm not from Mars." Why was he still thinking of her? It was this place, all the red.

He carried on making his way across the alien landscape until he saw it; a base! That can't be right! There are no bases on Mars, that's years away! But there before his eyes was a base. It had a large central dome with arms coming out of it forming a circle. At the tip of one of the arms was what looked like a child's drawing of a rocket ship with its nose pointed proudly towards the strange alien sky.

John ducked behind a convenient large rock as he saw *him.* *He* was being frog marched across the planet by something that looked like one of those machines from that film Short Circuit. He and Rose had watched it together when they were first getting acquainted. She had called it "filling in the gaps of his cinema knowledge" so he would blend in as an adult human male and now he was watching his other self being held at gunpoint by this machine like thing.

John didn't follow, he could see what was going on without needing to follow, and he could even hear what was being said. They were inside now and *he* was meeting people. People who couldn't believe another man was there.

No this wasn't good something was going wrong. People were being changed in to monsters with cracked mouths and white eyes. Water was pouring out of them, water that if it touched you… you became like them. What was *he* doing? *He* was leaving? What had *he* called it? A fixed point in time?

A fixed point in time. John knew what those words meant. Whatever was about to happen here HAD to happen. *He* knew that and that was why *he* was walking away.

What was *he* doing? *He* had turned around *he* was going back! John stood up and screamed, he jumped, and he waved his hands in the air,

"NO DOCTOR! NO YOU HAVE TO KEEP GOING! LEAVE THEM! DOCTOR LEAVE THEM!"

*He* didn't stop, *he* hadn't heard John.

Back in the kitchen John was still sleeping but his cries had woken Rose. She was now stood on the floor beside him and shaking his shoulders but she couldn't wake him.

John stood helplessly by; his hands had fallen uselessly to his sides. He watched as the machine raced across the red soil towards the old, battered, wooden, blue box.

"The TARDIS" breathed John; gasping as it dematerialised and then materialised in his minds eye back in the now ruined base.

*He'd* saved them, three of them who should have died that day; Adelaide Brooke, Yuri Kerenski and Mia Bennett. What had *he* done?

"NO NO NO!"

The words had torn from his throat as he had jerked awake.

"John! What is it? John tell me!"

It was Rose, his own dear sweet Rose, he'd woken her again. He fell on her sobbing, he couldn't tell her this! Not now! What had *he* done? John felt sure he'd just watched the beginning of *his* end; and just as *he* shouldn't have changed those three humans destinies he couldn't tell Rose what this meant for *him.*

He raised his head and rested it on Rose's shoulder. She was hugging him tight to her and rubbing his back up and down in an effort to soothe him but she had to let go when he stood bolt upright and stared at the far corner of their kitchen.

John had gone as white as a sheet. His eyes were fixed and unblinking. Ood Sigma. Ood Sigma was in his kitchen. That could mean only one thing. The timeline was already written. There was nothing he or anyone else could do to stop it.

*He* had said it *himself* on Mars, someone would knock four times and *he* would die.

John's legs gave way as his eyes rolled up in to his head. Rose managed to move forwards and fell with him as she caught him. She checked him carefully; he was breathing, he had a strong and regular pulse and he was warm. She cradled his head in her lap and waited for him to come back to her.