A/N: I'm really not sure how this chapter is going to be received - and quite frankly that worries me.

I'm stepping a wide stride out of my own comfort zone here and going dark with themes I'm not totally used to using. This chapter mentions the loss of a child and briefly touches on the grief of a father in mourning. I've tried to give some insight into the change from bouncy puppy to deranged psycho and the possible influences that's brought that about.

Gawd ... I hope this reads okay. Please let me know if you believe that I need to change the rating at all.

I am deleting chapter two (the non-chapter) from this story. This isn't because I don't like the comments - for the most part I do. I am deleting it because I believe that my point was made and it's not actually part of my story... I apologise if you are offended that your comments will be lost as a result of deleting this chapter.

~~oooOOOooo~~

Back on Pete's World…

It didn't matter which planet she was on or what parallel world she lived in, to Rose Tyler all doctor's offices looked the same. White walls, clinical smells and walls filled with filing cabinets that held a rainbow array of tagged files belonging to patients. Medical receptionists differed far less than the offices themselves. Deliberately attired in scrubs or a lab coat as though ready to be called to arms in the nearest clinical emergency, each one she had ever encountered had an attitude of superiority and distain for anyone approaching their desk. It was as though it was a very specific skill required of all front desk personnel in the medical field: be as rude and as arrogant as possible with airs and graces suggesting several years of university studies and published papers…

…when in reality the only diploma that might hang on their wall was the one received at their high school graduation.

Doctor Song's receptionist was no exception to this rule. She was a slight girl with brunette curls that were tucked carefully into an elaborate up-do that was more appropriate for a school prom than a doctor's office. Her makeup was thickly applied, artfully contouring her cheeks and nose, finished with false eye-lashes and dark smoky eye makeup. The girl never smiled, leading Rose to believe that if she did dare to shift the corners of her crimson lips into a smile that the mask of makeup might just fracture and fall off her face.

Although the woman had claimed to be no older than about 26 years of age, she really did look as though her age was well above that number. The husk and shudder in her voice when she spoke only added to that belief. Across the phone lines, one could be forgiven for thinking that the girl was well into her forties.

… Perhaps she really was?

Rose narrowed her eyes to better analyze the cadence of the woman across the other side of the reception desk. She stared at the wiry texture of her hair, and the stoic expression on her face as she focused on the monitor in front of her. Rose found her analysis so thorough, that she challenged herself to go home and paint this girl's image from memory.

After a long moment of being scrutinized the woman lifted her eyes over the top of the monitor to look at her. "Doctor Song will be with you shortly, Mrs. Smith."

Mrs. Smith. Mrs. John Smith.

Rose hadn't been referred to by that name outside of these office walls in nearly five years. Not since the accident that took the life of her son and nearly took her loving husband with it. That was roughly around the same time that the man who was once a fun-loving excitable bouncy puppy started his journey to becoming a cold, calculating, and oftentimes deranged man…

…And the exact moment that Doctor Song had entered their lives.

Rose had questioned the circumstances that led to Doctor Song becoming a regular in their lives more than once. Although the accident had occurred on a stretch of country road that had little to no traffic on it on a regular day, Doctor Song had been on the accident scene within seconds claiming herself as a witness to the accident. She'd pulled a medical bag from the back of her own vehicle and despite John and Rose's insistence that any attention be given to their son, Doctor Song had only showed attentiveness to John. She had insisted that he be transferred to the hospital that she was working out of. Even though it was a twenty-minute ambulance trip further than the closest two trauma centres, the paramedics took him there. She made sure to accompany him in the back of the ambulance as it sped away from the scene with sirens blaring and lights flashing.

Rose and their son had been transferred to the closer trauma centre for immediate critical care, but their teenaged child didn't make it. Young Jamie succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital. He died without either parent at his side, inside a noisy ambulance with paramedics frantically pounding at his chest and filling his battered body with the electrical charges of a defibrillator.

Rose was told his fate as she battled against the emergency room doctor who was trying to reset her broken leg. It was hours later that she was given her opportunity to say goodbye to her child in a cold morgue laboratory. She did it alone, without her devoted husband at her side to help her through it. On what was the absolute worst day of her entire existence, she found herself separated from the man she loved. Separated and without any word as to his fate.

…For eight days she believed that she'd lost him, too. On that eighth day he finally strolled a seemingly nonchalant stride into the hospital with Doctor Song as his side and nary a mark on him to show the physical trauma that they'd been through. He walked into her hospital room as though he hadn't been gone for more than a week to leave her to grieve alone. He walked in, gave her a smile and said only: "Hello" to her. Hello. Nothing more. No explanations. Just that simple little five-letter greeting that he'd give to a complete stranger as he passed by.

Rose immediately fell apart, and his cool façade fell. Despite a click of disapproval from his Doctor, John collapsed onto the mattress beside Rose and dissolved into great gulping sobs of apology and sorrow. Although he held her tight and promised through his tears that they'd get through it together, she knew things had changed between them. How could they not? Their child had died alone. She resented his absence in her time of crisis, and he seemed to harbour more than a little resentment of his own.

Of course they'd just lost a child. Resentment and assignment of blame was to be expected.

Over the course of the following months, John changed. Rose fully expected that there'd be a period of time that he may revert to his Time Lord ways and withdraw into himself. She was prepared for that possibility and readied herself to help him through the grief as best she could. She could swallow her own anguish if it meant she could help him through his. She would swallow it down and be his rock.

The grief at losing his child was relentless, however, and it wasn't long before the man who once Lorded over Time herself began to wield the same power at home. After a particularly long visitation with Doctor Song, John returned home and efficiently deposed their entire home of any and all evidence of the existence of James Irving Smith. Mention of the lad's name was prohibited. He would no longer even acknowledge that the gifted and brilliant teenager even existed.

…And then, while he was at it, John Smith eliminated John Smith. Someone else entirely was born on that day. "The Valeyard" he called himself, or "Vale" if your name was Rose Smith (nee Tyler) or Dr. River Song.

What kind of name that was Rose Tyler was loathe to ask. She did reach into the English translation of the word to try and suss it out for herself, but only came up with "Valley."

A yard of valleys.

She could quirk a slight smile at that image. The meaning of it was lost on her, however, and as it was being used as a title in the manner that Time Lords seemed to do, she could only assume that it had a different meaning on Gallifrey than it did on Earth.

Rose blew a breath through pursed lips as she leaned her elbow up on the back of the chair and leaned her temple against her fist.

She wished that she understood it completely so that she could adjust herself enough to align with this new him. She wished that she understood the need for the change. Grief was a powerful motivator – she understood that to some degree – but change on the level her husband had undergone …. That made no sense at all to her… the new him made no sense to her at all. He was wrong. So very, very wrong.

"Rose. Sorry to have kept you waiting," River's voice crooned in a professional manner. "If you'll come with me, I can give you a quick examination to see if you've experienced any ill-effects from your travel."

Rose shook herself at Doctor Song's voice. She cleared her throat of a lump and rubbed sweated palms along the thighs of her trousers. "Right. Yeah. S'all good."

River waited a moment for Rose to shift. When she didn't immediately move to rise from the seat, she shook her head and exhaled a sigh. "Today would be nice. I'm a very busy woman and don't like to diddle-daddle."

Rose blinked her eyes and looked upward with confusion. At the impatient look in River's eye, Rose quickly nodded her head and uttered quiet apologies as she rose up out of the seat.

"If you're that busy, Doctor Song," Rose ventured with a smile of pleading. "Then we can cancel this examination. I assure you that I'm perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with me. Fit as a fiddle."

"I'm doing this as a favour to your husband," River answered back with a slight song in her voice. She pressed her palm against the doorway that led to an examination room and allowed Rose to step in ahead of her. "And to you, of course."

"Always the afterthought," Rose murmured under her breath. She then lifted her head and smiled as she spoke. "This is truly unnecessary, Doctor Song."

"Vale means a great deal to me," River continued as she directed Rose to take a seat. She smiled toward an assistant seated at the other side of the room, and then looked back toward Rose. Her voice remained professionally friendly as she leaned to one side to pick up her blood pressure cuff. "He's a good friend. I'm very happy to take time out of my busy day to do a favour for him."

"Oh, I'm very sure," Rose countered coldly as she held out her arm and turned up her nose at the coldness of River's hand as she wrapped the cuff. "I'm sure he's called on you a fair deal for favours."

River kept her eyes on the bell of the stethoscope that she'd pressed into the crook of Rose's elbow and smiled. "Jessica," she called to her assistant. "Would you mind please giving Mrs. Smith and I a little privacy? I need to perform a full-body analysis and this precious flower is rather shy."

Jessica removed a back-rimmed pair of glassed from the bridge of her nose and nodded quickly. She pushed herself to a stand. "Of course, Doctor. Did you want me to ensure that the resonating imaging capsule is prepared for Mrs. Smith?"

Rose stilled in River's grasp and swallowed thickly. Her breath shortened and she breathed out a series of negative sounds

That made River smile. "That would be lovely, Jess. And please make sure to have some sedative available. We know how anxious Mrs. Smith gets inside that capsule."

Jessica gave a firm nod of her head. "Of course. I'll make sure that everything is ready for you. Would you like me to notify Mr. Smith to have him collect her this afternoon?"

"Unnecessary," River sang with a smile as she discarded the cuff and moved onto securing a nylon tourniquet around Rose's arm. "I've already made the necessary arrangements."

"Understood ma'am."

The click of the door let Rose know that the two women were now alone. Immediately she pitched herself backward from Doctor Song and released the tourniquet with the snap of the buckle. She didn't bother to remove it completely and let it simply hang as an oversized bracelet at her wrist.

"You are not putting me back in that machine."

"Oh, Sweetie," River answered with a condescending lilt in her voice. "Of course I am."

Rose tightened her lips into a thin line and shook her head. She hummed out her denial in a single breath through her nose.

River Song slumped and rolled her eyes in a truly long suffering manner. "How many times must you and I go through this, Sweetie? Every time you come in, you tell me that I'm not examining you under any circumstances, yet I always end up with you inside the capsule and your blood in a vial on my desk."

"Don't call me Sweetie."

"You really should just give in and let it happen," River continued without acknowledging Rose's demand. "It'll just make all of this go so much smoother – and far less painfully – if you just submit to the examination."

"I didn't realise that there was a less painful option," Rose seethed through her teeth. "You've been holding out on me."

River Song hummed lightly. "Okay. I might have exaggerated a little when I suggested that I could make the procedures less invasive and therefore less painful."

"Does John know…?"

"Vale," she interrupted with a harsh correction, "trusts me completely."

"That didn't answer my question."

River Song dug her heels into the ground and scraped her chair against the floor to push herself away from Rose. She huffed as she pressed her hands into her knees to balance herself as she stood. "You're here at his demand," she answered rather coolly.

Rose jumped up quickly to a stand. Her fists curled at her sides. "Does. My husband. Know what tests you're running on me?" She growled, punctuating where she thought would have the most impact. "Because I'm fairly certain that if he knew…"

"Then he'd what?" River snapped in reply. "He knows these tests are necessary for your own protection, and regardless of what you believe, that man's sole purpose in life is your protection, which in turn makes it mine. " Her voice softened just slightly. " You are as unique as he is, Sweetheart, and I'm the only one who…"

"Don't' call me that."

"Oh, I'll call you what I like, thank you," she snarled in reply. "You and Vale are two very unique individuals. You both have physiology that requires…" She frowned as she considered the best word to use and circled her finger in the air. "Special examination methods in order to procure the most accurate data."

"Data that you no doubt procure for your own study," Rose challenged.

"Actually," she countered with a sly smile. "I procure the data for your husband's study."

Rose's smile fell. She tipped her head lightly to one side as River Song began a very slow and guarded pacing pattern in front of her. "What could he possibly want from me?"

River Song hummed and smiled as she deliberately – and very obviously – raked her eyes up and down Rose's body. "I can't say that I haven't asked that question more than once." She laughed when Rose immediately and subconsciously moved to cover herself up. She smirked a fallacious grin. "Then again…."

Rose quietly fumed when River Song left it at that and walked toward the rear of the room. She knew that the woman was chomping at the bit to triumphantly announce that she was sharing a bed – or table top – with her husband. There was far too much suggestion woven into any conversation between them for Rose to actually disbelieve it. And while she had not to this point brought that hidden topic to the forefront, there was an unspoken understanding between the women that the affair wasn't a secret. If it was because of respect, denial, or just a lack of desire to call in an all-out catfight, Rose would never admit for sure. She just knew that she didn't want to bring it up at all.

At least not to River Song.

Rose lowered her head and spoke softly. "What does he need from me, then?"

"You should ask your husband,' River answered with a shrug. "Patient/Doctor confidentiality and all that. I'm sure you understand."

Rose had to laugh at that. "Yet you share the contents of my file with him."

"Some of it," she answered along a high noted sigh. "The good stuff anyway – which there isn't a great deal of. Generally speaking your file is unremarkable."

"I sense a but in there."

River Song smirked and lowered her head to look at the ground. "Oh, Sweetie. The but that exists in your file." She lifted her head to look through the curls of her fringe at her. "The but that makes you so very unique to this planet, to the galaxy, and even the Universe herself."

Rose shoved her hand at the wall to shove herself into a walk of annoyance. "Yes. Yes. I produce and secrete the Lindos hormone when I am injured or unwell. John's talked to me about this – it's a side effect of the radiation I was exposed to early on in our relationship…"

"When you used to travel by TARDIS," she clarified coolly.

"You know about that?"

River Song exhaled a long breath through her nose that unsettled the front of her lab coat and had her smoothing it over with her hand. "Vale's told me a great many things, Sweetie. I believe there may be a very good chance that I know things about him that even you don't know."

"We've been married for thirty years," Rose countered.

"Which means very little," River countered with a sigh. "Men are instinctually secretive. It doesn't matter how much they love and vow to withhold nothing, they always will." She winked. "It takes a gifted woman to get them in the right circumstance to find out a great deal about the secrets that they keep."

And there it was again.

Rose vowed silently to herself that she wouldn't comment on that.

"So if you know about the TARDIS, then you also know that the two of us were consistently exposed to Artron radiation. Benign for the most part – but in special circumstances where that exposure is exponentially increased." She licked at her lip. "Well. It'll take some time for my system to work itself free of it."

River Song hummed.

Rose folded her arms across her chest. "Provided my immune system doesn't have to continually trigger production of it of course. Which you could help with by not performing these unnecessary examinations of yours."

River Song didn't comment, choosing to allow Rose to finish her thoughts before giving any of her own. She waved her hand in a request for her to continue.

"I'm never going to regenerate," Rose continued. "No matter how hard you push me. When I die, I die."

"That's truly not my intention," River Song clarified. "Collecting small samples is all I need for now."

"To what end?"

River blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Well. Why?"

River remained silent for a moment as she digested the question. She let the silence hang for a fair while before she stepped forward and walked toward the doorway. "Because that's what Vale needs."

"What?"

River shook her head. "We should really get this done," she ordered sharply. "Your husband apparently has plans for the two of you this evening, and we should make sure you're in the right condition to enjoy those plans." She couldn't shield the disgust from her tone.

"Then, just send me home," Rose ventured with a slight shake in her voice. "We can tell him that the exam went well and that I'm fit as a fiddle. No worries at all."

River Song found herself smiling at that. She pulled open the door to the examination room and gestured toward the hallway with a twist of her wrist. She waited until Rose had passed at her side to whisper a slight admonishment against her ear. "You would lie to your beloved husband, Sweetie?"

Rose shuddered at the hiss of hot breath against the back of her neck, but did her best not to let it show. "Why not," she answered softly – more to herself than to River. "He lies to me."

"Omission is not a lie," River chuckled back.

"Is as good as," Rose said with a thick swallow. "At least that's what he used to say to Jamie."

"Then to clarify: I won't lie to him," she whispered against her ear. "I told him I would examine you, and examine you I will."

Rose was led through the door that led to the imaging capsule and found her legs weaken underneath her. She hand to hold her hand against the wall to maintain her stand. "S-So you're telling me." She swallowed. "John knows about this?"

"He really doesn't ask," River answered with a cheeky smile. "And I certainly haven't told him." She latched the door to the capsule room behind her and walked back to press her rump lightly against the door. "Are you thinking of telling him?"

Rose blinked at the question. She could mention it to him. She could ask him why he allowed this torture to take place. She could ask him to put a stop to it…

Oh, but she had this mental discussion with herself every single time she ended up in this damn room. Every single time she vowed that the moment she was safely away from the clinic that she would break down and tell him everything and plead for his help. But for some unfathomable reason that she simply couldn't' comprehend, she found herself physically unable to do so. The words and the pleas were on her lips and in her mind, but she couldn't sound out the words that would call him to arms on her behalf. "Please help me" ended up leaving her lips as a desperate pledge of love for him, and any attempt to show him any of the surface injuries would instead have her pushing him toward the closest available surface to allow him to viciously make love with her with enough aggression for her to pass out when they were done.

She wouldn't wake until the following morning, but he'd always be there in bed with her when she did. He'd be wrapped around her with all the possessiveness of a boa constrictor coiling around its prey, fast asleep and puffing warm breaths against the nape of her neck. She'd never recall just how she made it into their bed, but he'd certainly offer her a cheeky reminder upon waking. And always in that short, but glorious moment where they indulged in some sleepy morning delight, Rose had her playful, loving, attentive husband back in her arms … there was no way that she was going to waste that precious moment talking about an examination with Doctor Song.

She imagined this time would be no different to every other time – although she vowed that she'd try. Whatever force was stopping her from fighting against it now or calling for her husband to help her wouldn't be able to hold her back forever. She'd work it out and find a way. Unfortunately her chance at getting advice and maybe assistance from the other side was now impossible…

…or was it?

Impossible wasn't exactly a word that sat well inside the vocabulary of Rose Tyler. She had assumed that the device she'd taken from John's laboratory had been the only model he'd made. But it really wasn't, was it? He crossed over the void to chase after her when she'd left him. If he was able to cross over in chase, then there was a second prototype.

Rose felt a stinging pain against the side of her neck, and all of her plans to search for the second device flew from her mind. She shook her head to clear it of the sudden cotton ball sensation that seemed to fill her mind and stumbled just slightly off to the side.

"Wha?"

"Mild sedative," River sang with a smile in her voice. "Our little chat made us a little short of time. I figured it would be better that I forwent all of our usual protocols of arguing and fighting and trying to get you to be more pliable to our requirements and just sedated you now."

Rose stumbled against the wall and then dropped onto a knee. She pressed her hand into the wall and looked up at River with hurt in her gaze. "Well that's no fun at all, is it?"

"For you perhaps not," she answered with a smile. "For me … well." River Song looked up toward a monitor as a face of a perfectly coiffed woman with harsh features and a silver patch over her right eye appeared on screen.

"I've heard that you have the subject prepped for a new round of genetic modification therapy. I trust we don't have another attempted incursion by her husband."

River Song's eye twitched as she recalled a slip in the conditioning that had allowed John Smith enough clarity to come to the aid of his precious wife early in their treatment schedule. It had almost resulted in the entire project being immediately shut down and an order of execution being brought down upon her. She wasn't going to let that happen again.

"I wouldn't worry about that possibility," she answered smoothly. "He's not going to be a problem. He is blinded enough by lust that he trusts me quite possibly more than he does her." She grinned. "Her little betrayal today has only heightened that trust in me."

"That's good to hear. And our subject?"

River looked down to the semi-conscious woman that lolled her heavy head on a weakening neck. "She's much less of a problem right now."