Chapter Thirteen

"Yes? John? You said my name please wake up… please?"

Rose laid her head on John's chest and sobbed in to his t shirt. She felt utterly helpless. All she had done for what felt like forever was wipe his forehead at intervals with a cool cloth.

John had gone from seemingly writhing in agony to appearing to smile in his sleep and back again more times than Rose could recall. He was weak and although his pulse was still strong she feared the stresses his body had been through would prove too much.

If her Doctor was battling like this and was destined to regenerate then what would become of John? When he had spoken her name hope had flared in her heart like an Olympic torch only to flicker and die when he still refused to open his eyes.

Rose was desperate; John had been sweating profusely and alternatively crying and whimpering in his sleep for the longest time. His eyes had opened momentarily and she had moved in front of him but while his eyes were open they were rimmed with red and held a vacant expression before sliding closed once more.

"DOCTOR!"

She yelled his name as loudly as she could not caring who might hear her. This might be her only chance and when she had needed *him* that first Christmas after *he* had changed saying *his* name and the words "Help me" had triggered a response from *him…* Maybe now, even though she couldn't see *him,* maybe *he* would hear her.

"DOCTOR HELP ME!"

There was no reply but a song filled the bedroom. It wasn't sung in English but momentarily it soothed John who slumped back on to his pillows whimpering as if he was in terrible pain. A noise alerted Rose to a presence in the room and she swung her face from John to where the noise had emanated from.

What she saw made her yelp and leap off the bed but he held up his orb and a finger to where a mouth on a human would be to shush her. Despite his alarming appearance Rose wasn't afraid she knew what he was but not why he was here. When he joined in with the chorus of voices she could still hear that were filling the room with music, a sense of peace descended on her. Somehow she knew that everything would be alright.

John screamed and she started to move to him but a movement from the ghostly image of the singing Ood stopped her. With a wave of his hand the Ood raised John from the bed and as his head fell back light poured from every orifice. His mouth was contorted in a silent scream of agony, his eyes were open again but the chocolate brown iris' had been replaced by a golden blindingly bright light.

As the glow faded and the room returned to normal and John floated back to their bed Rose raced to him. His lips were blue and his eyes wide open, vacant and unseeing. She placed her hand to his pulse on his neck, nothing.

Tears streamed down her face,

"BRING HIM BACK!" She fell on his chest and beat her hands against him in rage and grief. The Ood moved to her and placed a hand on her back which she violently pushed away.

"This song is ending but the story never ends."

"What does that mean? I want him back… please." Rose fell to her knees and clutched at her stomach sobbing uncontrollably. The Ood looked at her dispassionately and touched his orb to John's chest.

"Don't touch him! DON'T!"

John jerked under the Ood's orb as if an electric current had passed through his lifeless body before taking an almighty gulp of air and crying out in fear at the sight of the Ood in his bedroom and then falling back to his pillows as his eyes rolled up in to his head and closed.

"He will need much care. Tend to him. The connection is broken he will see and feel nothing of *him* again."

*"He's* changed hasn't* he?"*

*"His* song has ended but the story never ends."

"Meaning *he* regenerated; did it hurt?"

"It always hurts Rose." croaked John.

Rose swung to him and cradled him in her arms kissing his head as she held him. When she looked up from John the Ood had gone along with the singing voices.

*"He* didn't want to go Rose but *he* had to. If *he* hadn't changed *he* would have died."

"John I have to ask a question, I have to."

"Ask me."

"You saw it all?"

John nodded.

"Did *he* remember me?"

"Rose *he* saw you, *he* went back to New Years Eve. *He* saw you just as 2005 began. Do you remember?"

Rose looked at her broken husband and remembered,

"The drunk, just after Mum left? He didn't know what year it was. Was that *him?*

John nodded.

"Oh John!" tears stung at Rose's eyes, *"He* came back to before *he* was even *him, he* crossed *his* time line to…" her tears fell.

"To say goodbye Rose."

They clung to one another until they both cried themselves back to sleep.

Epilogue 12 months later.

"It's your turn to get up John."

"No it's yours."

"I did the 1am feed you didn't even move."

John sighed and rolled over to look at the worn out face of the woman he loved.

"When does this get any easier?"

"Mum says it might get better when he is on solids."

"How long is that?" asked John as he swung his long legs to the floor.

"Soon the way he is going; I can't do this until he is six months! Mum weaned me at three months and I survived."

"Very soon then" said John as he placed their son in the bed between them and moved him to Rose's breast where she latched him on with practiced ease. The baby fed greedily and John moved closer to enclose his family in a loving embrace.

There had been no more bad dreams; no more flashes of the Doctor or Donna, the link had indeed been broken. John didn't miss it. He and Rose had mourned the loss of the Tenth Doctor but they both knew that the Doctor continued to defend the planet; all that he had been was now contained in a different body and that gave John great peace of mind.

He was more like everyone else now. While there had been another who bore his face he had felt inferior. He had tried to view himself as one half of a pair of twins but even identical twins had differences, different memories. John had had nothing that set him apart, he had felt like a carbon copy, a duplicate and now he was truly unique.

John had never imagined life could be this good. He was now enjoying what the Doctor never could; an ordinary life. And just as the Ninth Doctor had instructed Rose to do before he had battled the Daleks and changed in to John's counterpart he was determined to make it a good life.

~fin~