Disclaimer: Not mine. Scary stuff! Violence. Genocide. Be warned!

Reviewed by my brand-new beta reader; Don't-blink-doctor-rose!
thanks a billion for offering your services and for doing all this extra work on the side! Thank you!

Dedications to the following wonderful reviewers:

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TheDoctorMulder

Jake, Mickey, her dad and herself. The elite and top rank of Torchwood; all gathered here to hopefully forge the first tentative positive relationship with aliens on behalf of their entire planet. She gripped the paperwork in her hand tighter, hoping that somehow it would alleviate that worrying niggling sensation in the back of her head.

Over the last two weeks, since the last breach between their worlds had been closed, she'd had enormous difficulty holding onto herself. It was driving her half-mad. She'd lose memories because there was no way of connecting them in a way that would allow her to recall them; which meant that she'd find herself in strange locations with several hours worth of no recollection. Sometimes, she'd just get lost in her head, standing and staring into space, trying to hold onto something, anything that told her who the people around her where, what she was meant to do and what language to speak. Were they alien? Was she? Nothing seemed to make sense, all her thoughts slipping through her hands like water when she tried to hold onto anything.

And then there were the moments when her brain decided to try and build new connections; the fast way. Almost always she would collapse, screaming in pain. She'd been told it was good; she still had enough energy to scream... They'd shut up when she told them in no uncertain terms that it certainly didn't feel good.

So yeah, she admitted that maybe she was willing not to look too deeply into their offer. Identities for Earth, a way of life they could turn to, as their planet had been annihilated and the twenty-odd passengers of their spacecraft were, allegedly, all that was left of their planet. So she'd understood, had pleaded on their behalf and when they had offered to help her in return, she had agreed without too much thought.

Mickey had thought it odd, had questioned it, but she'd ignored him, had pressed ahead and, as grudgingly as possible, he'd stopped arguing but refused to budge on him and Jake accompanying her to the ship.

As it turned out, he was dead on. At some point, Rose admitted to herself, she would really have to acknowledge that Mickey had grown into his own and she'd have to take his opinion as being as important as her own.

The transmat beam teleported her dad, Mickey and Jake out before she could even get past the introductions.

Already she could hear her Northerner Doctor's voice echoing in her head "Jeopardy-friendly, you are". And maybe he wasn't too wrong. Couldn't really blame this one on him, could she?

Deep breaths, she reminded herself. Calm. You are not going to help anyone if you freak out; least of all yourself.

"So I take it you're not that interested in living on Earth after all, eh?"

If forced to describe them, she would have said they looked like elongated jellyfish. They were sort-of human shaped; well, they were much taller at around 7 feet and so thin she wondered where their organs were - or if they had any - and then, most obvious of all, they were entirely made up of that white, shimmery, squishy... jellyfish-like thing.

Her travels with the Doctor had long since taught her to accept even the weirdest people, so she hadn't hesitated long in treating them just like everyone else. All their communications were done telepathically, echoing in her head.

"So what now? Am I your prisoner? You going to take over Earth? Cause, I gotta tell you, it ain't gonna be that easy."

The voices in her head laughed at her suggestion and one of them stepped closer, a white hand trailing along her in wonder and she wondered what it was he saw.

'Time,' the voice in her head corrected. 'You have a connection to the vortex. We will use to harness it, to go back and save our people. We will find out how you surrounded yourself with it and we will do the same.'

And for the first time she felt an inkling of true fear rush through her.

That... That wasn't good. Her Doctor, parallel worlds, the vortex, the Tardis,... all that power.

"I'll never tell you."

Rose was proud of the fact that her voice didn't shake. No back-up, no weapon, no plan... and unlike the Doctor, that was not a great lead-in to a brilliant escape. But she was determined; she would die before she would give them that power. She understood and could even sympathise. They, like the Doctor, had lost everything. Their home, their families, their planet. Of course they were desperate for anything to give them hope.

But not this way, never this way.

'We felt you, all the way on the other end of the galaxy. Glittering and gold. It took us several of your planet's months to get here... Did you think we needed your consent? Your mind is wide open and your every thought is ripe for the taking. We will take what we need and we will send you back.'

She stared at them, aghast. Her thoughts, her emotions, all of it, laid bare for them? But what could she do? Her quick glances told her what she already knew; they had her surrounded. No easy way out.

Her hands clenched. Rose stood and watched as they talked to each other and, when they came to take her, she fought. She fought the way the Doctor had taught her, the way Jack had taught her. Every cheap shot, every dirty trick, anything she could think of. No way would they have her without a fight.

Except her mind was wide open. In the end, they knew what she was going to do before she was even fully aware of it herself.

Lost. Just like that.

Fully secured, they brought her into a white room with only a hard metal bed and several straps, clearly intended to secure her in place. Paling, even more desperate at the sight, she wriggled, kicked and moved but in the end it was useless. She'd achieved nothing aside from exhausting herself.

One strap at each wrist, each elbow, each shoulder. Three on each leg, two over her hips and upper body respectively. But worse than that, worse than the lack of movement, worse than the feeling of being unable to move was the casing around her head that made it absolutely impossible for her to see where they were, what they were doing. All she could do was blink and swallow.

Her heart raced and the panic finally fully took hold. There was nothing for her to fight, because she was unable to fight. Period. She was at their mercy. They were going to tear through her mind and she wasn't even sure if there'd be enough of her left by the end of it, to remember. Remember herself or her Doctor. The man who had saved her oh-so-long ago. The man she had been so intent on returning to. The man she loved above and beyond everything else in this universe and any other.

Her Doctor.

"You," Rose swallowed, panic and desperation choking her, before trying again; the domestic approach was what the Doctor called it. Apart from Daleks, any species could be reasoned with, surely... hopefully.

"You said you heard me scream, inside your heads. You said you came to help. What changed?"

Maybe she could get them to pity her, to empathise... maybe one would rebel against the group.

The alien turned to her, face expressionless, voice sounding throughout her head; strong, fierce, judging.

'We can all hear your thoughts. Your trickery will achieve nothing. We are loyal to ourselves and our cause.' The alien paused, its voice softening ever so slightly.

'Had it been anyone but you, any innocent on this planet, we would not have hesitated to help. But you - surrounded by time. Your connection to the vortex is fierce and we have searched the entire universe before we found you. We are sorry for what we must do, but do not think that any one of us will be swayed because of that. You are our last hope. I promise, your suffering will be worth it. Our planet will revere you, will always remember you.'

And then he left. She was alone; that was almost preferable to the threat of the aliens around her. She didn't want to be remembered or revered. Rose allowed herself to breathe out, trying to breathe through the panic and focus on her surroundings. There must be something she could do, something that could help her escape...

And then she heard a sound she had feared to hear the moment her family had been transported back to earth; the engines roared up and the ship came to life with an almighty shudder. Rose bit back on the whimper that wanted to escape her.

There was no one there to save her now. Her Doctor was gone, beyond the barriers of their universes in another world, not knowing that she once again needed to be saved. Mickey and Jake were clever, very clever, they might've had a chance to reverse the transport beam, given sufficient time. Except the ship had moved; if they reversed it now, they'd end up in space with no air to breathe. These transmats, they had figured out early on, were not connected to one another but rather to coordinates.

Her breath was starting to come out shaky, amber eyes focussing in on the white ceiling above her. This was it. The last thing she'd ever see. White ceiling or gloopy alien lifeforms, intent on tearing the vortex out of her. There was nothing, no one else, no one to save her and no way of saving herself.

This wasn't the first time she was helpless nor was it the first time she was helpless without her Doctor there to save her; a long, long time ago, before she had even met him, Jimmy had succeeded in it before, had made her feel like there was no one to help, like there was nothing she could do; she had cowered then, had given up for a while and let him do as he wished because what else could she do?

But she had changed. That was a lifetime ago. The new Rose Tyler simply did not give up, not that easy, not like this. There was still something worth protecting, something worth fighting, something worth not giving up on.

Her breathing eased and she allowed her muscles to relax, knowing she would need all the energy she could to fight what they were going to do.

The Tardis was the one to put up the initial shields and her Doctor's occasional rants on the topic at least let her know what she should do; it wouldn't help much - how could it? She had no experience and this was their entire way of life, but, she determined, anything that would hinder them even slightly was worth exploring at this juncture. At all cost, at any cost. They could not be allowed to get their hands on it.

Closing her eyes, she focused inwards; her mind was a mess and that was the way it should be. Rose felt sorrow rush through her, going beyond her ability to vocalise in any shape or form, knowing what she was about to do would destroy her more thoroughly than even the aliens possibly could.

She heard it, the howling at the edge of her mind, encouraging her, fighting with her when she started to wilfully destroy her connections to everything within reach - focusing specifically on the Tardis, her Doctor and alternate universes.

Connections, tenuously reformed since the loss of the Tardis, were the easiest to destroy. Harder were the ones she recalled in moments like these, moments she'd held onto when she was on the very edge, when there was no hope and she was all alone... - those memories, the ones that had carried her through, she cherished above all else. These memories she'd recalled a hundred-thousand times and destroying the many threads connecting to it was hard. And deep in her heart, she didn't want to, shied away from it and yet she knew they, too, needed to disappear into the deep, dark recesses of her mind. So with all the anger at being forced to lose her precious memories, all her sorrow at her loss, all her frustration at being caught out, at being so helpless when he'd taught her better, she used it to fuel her as she savagely tore through her own mind, tearing apart connections whenever she found them, feeling memories slip through her like sand, losing the ability to recall what she was destroying before she had even finished annihilating the last thread.

Her lips curled into a self-satisfied smile. Let them try that; she wouldn't give them anything. They'd have to fight it like she had to. These were her memories.

The last memory of him... the time they first met. The word, just one word... and then it, too, was gone beyond her grasp and with it the memory of why she was doing it, only the intimate knowledge that something was about to take all these precious thoughts and feelings from her and this was her last and only line of defense.

With that, Rose's mind turned to her memories of her life up until she was nineteen and started to systematically destroy their connections too, the reasons for it long since lost.

She was in a room. A white room. The words tasted odd on her tongue, like a joke that should've made her laugh but she couldn't remember why. A part of her wondered where she was, before dismissing it as irrelevant. Something inside her of her warned her not to think too hard, not to try and remember; so she didn't.

She knew there should be some distress at the realisation that she was tied up, that she couldn't move, but it fell away, before the panic could ever take hold. Her thoughts and feelings disappeared as they came up, being eaten and spat out again to float in her head, disconnected from everything.

Her eyes wandered around and for a split second she wondered what she looked like. She should know that, shouldn't she? What she looked like?

But then it, too, disappeared.

A hidden door opened and several tall beings came through, the one in the lead holding an injection needle.

"Oh, hi. I'd greet you but I seem to be a bit tied up at the moment. Say, you wouldn't know how to get home from here, would you? Or... where home is?"

There was a buzzing at the edge of her mind and she couldn't shake the feeling that they were communicating with each other in their heads. Well, that was just rude. Something tingled at that thought, something at the edge of her mind, but she let go of it as if it had burned her, an unnameable horror rising in her at the realisation that for one split second she had almost remembered something.

Fear tried to rise in her the moment the horror was swallowed up by the dark depths in the recesses of her mind, which, she knew, were filled with an entire beach and each sand grain a memory; but the fear, too, disappeared before it could overwhelm her and she felt almost detached, watching, as one of the tall aliens injected her with some form of liquid.

"Is this for alien cooties?"

She'd said something funny - or it was intended to be funny, any way, but she wasn't quite sure why and the smile fell from her lips before she wanted it to. How odd.

Frowning, she tried to force her lips to twist upwards, but they didn't obey. Nor was she frowning. She could tell that her face was slack and that one of the aliens had just closed her eyes; her body wouldn't obey any of her commands any more.

'No escape'

The words echoed through her head but she wasn't sure if it came from the aliens or her own head. At least her body was breathing. She could tell her ribcage was rising and sinking with each inhale, could feel it, but she couldn't control it.

'So you can't fight' sounded in her head but she had no time to think about it, no time to contemplate it. The next moment there five foreign presences in her head; not outside of it, on the periphery, a voice - no, their minds were crammed into hers, ripping her wide open and she wanted to scream. She could feel their shock, their coldness and their indifference towards her. They were looking for something and all they could see was vast black emptiness and she felt like laughing even though her head was throbbing.

She had no idea who she was, who they were or what they were after, but she did know that she didn't like them and this, this was satisfaction. There was only a mere hint of gold before that emotion, too, disappeared again, leaving her with only pain.

But that was okay. She didn't know why, but she had a feeling that she was used to it, to the pain.

'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, CHILD?'

Their voices were unified as one, nearly breaking her with the forceful nature of the scream, the unadulterated rage behind it and despite the pain she could feel herself fighting it, standing up to five of them, to their combined strength and she felt oddly proud. So that's who she was.

A fighter. Someone who would bend, but never break. Someone who would stand up and not give in, not let these people or aliens run roughshod over her. She almost grinned at that realisation and waved the golden trickle away that threatened to take this, too, from her. Not this bit. She needed to know she could - and would - fight.

They had obviously realised what she'd done, the severity of it, and they knew what they would have to wade through but she was glad that, no matter how this ended, she hadn't made it easy for them. A part of her wondered what or whom she was so fiercely protective of, yet discarded the thought almost immediately, realising that her efforts to recall anything would only aid them in their endeavours and not her.

She watched as three of them started wading through the darkness, the oblivion that obscured her memories like a protective fog, watched as they picked up sandgrains and floating clouds; her memories. They were disconnected, meaning they could pick up on completely nonsensical information as well as important ones. She hoped it was the former.

~ Bored, a seven-year old girl thought to herself, staring at the teacher in front of her.

~ "You could be great, you know." A youth, a few years older than her, was staring at her. He wore a half-torn cheap jacket and reeked of smoke.

~ "You're all I've got left now." A blonde woman holding a baby, tears on her face.

~ "C'mmon, now. I told you, I'm the only one who loves you, the only one who could ever." The same youth from earlier, eyes cold and harsh, a stark contrast to the soft touch on the girl's cheek. Resignation was written in the girl's face. She was definitely not a fighter.

Then the memories were discarded by the aliens, worthless and she roared in fury and pain. These were her thoughts, her memories. She didn't know who she was but all of these were from a previous her, a memorandum of a past she could not recall and to have it treated so callously, being so entirely dismissed as worthless, when they were the ones pouring themselves into her inner being, she couldn't stand it. Hated it.

She wanted to rage, cry and shout, wanted to scream at the injustice, at the pain they were causing her. Wanted to let them feel her heart breaking and the tears which her body refused to shed. They had taken her control away over her physical body; they could do whatever they wanted and she would be no more than an observer, watching as her body moved against her own volition. She had no control over it, over herself anymore.

And now they were taking her last hiding place, her last vestige from her too. Her mind.

Even here she was no longer safe; they were tearing her apart - all the memories she'd carefully sprinkled all around her mindscape - up in the sky and down on the ground, they were carelessly watching them, flinging them aside when they did not pertain to whatever it was they were searching for. She gathered them, the precious things they had tossed and discarded, holding them to her with an empty promise to protect them, despite knowing that even here, in her own mind, she was powerless.

Suddenly the two remaining aliens moved in on her, eyes fierce and cold.

'Remember everything about time'

Without wanting to, she was drug off into a memory. A cute five year old blinked up at the blonde woman from the earlier memory; only she was now older, more haggard looking.

~ "See this, Rose sweetie?" Her voice was exasperated, yet she was patient and her voice soft as she looked at the child. "This is how we tell time, remember? Mummy has to go now but when the large hand points here and the small one at this, then I'll be home. You understand, right? Max will be by later to check on you. Stay home. Don't open the door for anyone. I love you." The child nodded, large brown eyes focussed on the clock as if sheer will power could make it move faster. Her mum was barely out before the child stood up and moved the handles of the cheap clock herself, the way her mum had said it would have to point for her to return home... Except it didn't work.

The aliens hissed their displeasure but she didn't acknowledge them. She'd just had a far more important realisation - that girl in the memories was her and her name was Rose. Rose... Rose... She didn't know her last name, but Rose was definitely right. She liked it, the way it rolled off her tongue like...

~ "Rose," a man with sad, ancient blue eyes and a leather jacket looked at her like she was the only person in the entire world - no, the entire universe.

~ "Rose," a younger man with black hair said. He wore a jacket from the first world war and looked at her with warm affection and sorrow in his eyes.

~ "Rose," a man with sideburns and ancient brown eyes said, his voice elated and happy, his tongue twisting around her name as though she were a goddess and her name his prayer.

They were important, all of them, she knew. Rose didn't know who they were, what they meant to her, but she had meant so much to them, she doubted it hadn't been reciprocated in some shape or manner.

The aliens had lost interest in those memories the moment they realised it did not relate to their quest but she hoarded those memories too, putting them behind her, hoping she would be able to keep them safe and protected.

Her mind screamed and she knew without a doubt her body should be shivering with the pain by now. It was encroaching, closing her mind off bit by bit when the pain only got worse and worse rather than easing. The aliens, in a desperate bid to go through more memories started ravaging her mind in earnest and her entire mind fled into a pool of darkness, the intruders unable to see or move as she shut down. Rose lost consciousness.

The next time she woke up, the aliens were still there and she shivered at the thought that they had gone through her mind while she was unaware. All that she was, all that she had been, ever thought and felt, it was all contained here, in her mind. And it was hers to protect. There was something here, something they were after and it wasn't good.

Desperation rose in her and she allowed it, refusing to let it subside but the alien presence in her mind paid it no mind and with merely a thought from them, the emotion disappeared.

It scared her more than she cared to admit; manipulating her emotions, her thoughts. They were in her mind, they could make her feel happy when all she wanted was to cry. She had a feeling that there were very, very few instances in her life she'd been this scared; though, the fact that there were any comparable ones at all, was rather frightening, too.

In a desperate attempt, she tried to recall childhood memories, tried to put her newly discovered memories back into the sand and sky, hoping it would give her more time but in the end they stopped her every time. She tried to imagine walls, tried to recall that this was her mind, shouldn't she have total control? But in the end they had this art well and truly mastered and she was merely an annoying fly they had to swat away every now and then.

Then she realised that every time she blacked out, they were unable to continue; so Rose set about tiring herself out, making herself more vulnerable and easier for her to black out. She'd seen it often enough in the Estates. Too many soldiers, both young and old, were there. And most of them sought to escape their minds in different ways.

The aliens had recovered her memories of Max, the 60-year old war veteran who had watched over her when she was younger. The only man on the estate her mum had trusted enough to leave her alone with; mainly because he was the only one who had stepped in when Rita's boyfriend had tried to beat her up again, the only one who had lent a hand when Mo had fallen down the steps. The estate folk weren't unusually cruel, but it was all too easy to lose yourself, to lose your caring, your helpfulness, your concern for other people; too many people would take advantage of you, too often you felt it was you alone against the rest of the world with no one to give you hand - so why should you give them one? Max had been a kind soul. He had always helped where he could and he'd loved Rose. He'd taught her just how much it was worth to people that Rose would still smile, that a child could cheer up people so much, that she could help. On rare occasions she'd had to stay over when her mum needed a bit of time to herself and she'd never told her, no matter how scared she'd been that first time, about the nightmares Max had, the nightmares which made him jumpy and frightening.

In return he'd told her stories, had helped her and slowly she had learned how to help him through the nightmares. She had idolised the man until he died when she just started going to school.

So yeah, she knew how to make herself blackout quicker, even if she could not use her body for it. It didn't make it better, never better; the pain was still there, so unbearable. Her entire world now consisted of pain - there was nothing else. Rose sincerely doubted that there was anyone out there who could save her and she had long since stopped believing the aliens' promises that she would survive. This did not feel like she could or would survive.

Everything she did, every time she thought, there was that tinge of red on the side, the pain that should have made her scream, cry, anything but lie motionless on this table. Her entire existence revolved around pain. The memories of why she was doing this had yet to return, as had the memories of where she was, who the aliens were and what they wanted. All the memories she'd regained thus far suggested the idea of aliens was ridiculous, yet the notion was not foreign to her. But she didn't want to know any more, didn't want to fight any more - she didn't even know what for. But every time she felt like giving up, every time she thought about just letting go, she could hear what sounded like a wolf howling at the edges of her mind. Only the aliens never heard it and she wasn't frightened by it. A glimmer of gold, a wolf's howl and that burst of inner strength, of purpose she didn't know how to attribute.

Months passed as far as Rose was concerned. The aliens were getting frustrated, she could tell. They were rotating on who would have to go through her mind that day, tiring of the endless process and, more than once, they let their frustrations out on her mind. She could feel the scars forming as they ran havoc, making her want to scream and fight the injustice of it all. The longer it went on, the less they cared for how much they damaged her. Every now and then, when it was all too much, she tried to put up her walls, her barriers - or what was left of them. They ripped through them and would inevitably send her into unconsciousness with the backlash. It was a most painful and unpleasant way of doing it, but sometimes it calmed them down to a more rational level.

Most of the sand and clouds were piled behind her now. She had tried to reconnect them, forming associations and links, but every new memory threw her off, every presence in her head send her emotions into a flurry. She knew now that not even Jimmy could have ever made her feel this low, this unimportant, this complete feeling of being laid bare to another being and they didn't even think you were important enough, worthy enough to laugh at, that your memories, your every thought and your entire being mattered nothing, nothing at all.

She still didn't understand it, didn't know why she was abducted. So far there had been nothing in her memories to suggest she was anything other than one of the girls at the estate? What had changed? Why-

~ "Run!", a rushed, male voice sounded in her ear and a cool hand that slipped into hers, fitting her so perfectly followed by a strong pull that had her following the man in the leather jacket before she could even think twice about it.

That was him, the same man who had said her name and looked at her like she was the single most important person in the universe. The aliens discarded it but she rushed to retrieve it, holding the tiny memory close to her heart, knowing intuitively that this memory right here was the single most important thing in her universe. She could feel the warmth of it, the awe and love she'd poured into the memory in later years and felt herself almost desperate to search for more of them, though strangely reluctant when the warning growl of the wolf sounded behind her.

The aliens made the decision for her.

~ "Oh, don't give me that. It's an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about constitutional rights. I am talking! This planet is just starting. These stupid little people have only just learnt how to walk, but they're capable of so much more. I'm asking you on their behalf. Please, just go." The same man, in the leather jacket, talking to... a big fat thing - alien?

She heard her surprise echoed by the people around her. This had been - or may be - what they were looking for. He must be who she was protecting.

Resolve settled and all five aliens turned to look at her when they felt the emotion rise up around them but they were too late. This was her mind. She was not giving him up, whoever he was. Howling with rage, in tune with the wolf behind her, she flung all the precious memories she'd gathered, her barriers, anything she could think of, at them. For a moment, just a moment, she felt satisfaction when one by one, she made them disappear.

Unfortunately, it was very short-lived. She felt another needle go into her skin, nowhere near as gentle as the one they gave her every week to keep her body immobile. This one was jabbed into her and she wondered vaguely what they were doing before everything turned slow and sluggish, like she was moving to molasses in her own mind.

By the time the aliens returned to her mind, she could no longer form a single thought, suspended, watching as they tore through her, more vicious and angry than ever before. And she was helpless, hapless, forced to watch and be unable to do anything to stop them. Rose heard the wolf howl in outrage with the silent assurance that it wouldn't be long now.

It took a few days before they found a memory of her bathed in the golden glow of time, destroying an entire race of Daleks with merely a thought and bringing Jack back to life - forever. Her heart ached for the man but she was forced to watch as they replayed the same memory, over and over again as well as the one where she opened the heart of the Tardis and then, they finally left her mind.

For a moment she thought that maybe this was it, maybe now they'd leave her. For all of a day, she hoped. And after that day was over and they returned, she had felt all her hopes crumble, panic and fear seizing her again for the first time in a long time when they had medical instruments with them.

'We need to activate the Artron energy in her; then we can find out how to replicate it.'

Sweet oblivion, unconsciousness, she longed for it. She wanted to forget again, wanted to forget so hard when they cut her open and she could feel it, could hear every sound that her body made as it was forced to bare its insides, could hear every tear of skin, every squelch, could feel the blood running down her stomach; could feel the pain when they forced her ribcage open; she wanted to scream and cry, wanted to flinch away in disgust, in fear and horror but unable to make her body be anything but compliant as they explored her, tried to figure out a way of activating the particles left in her.

By the time they managed it, she was almost grateful for the burning sensation flooding through her veins as her entire body started to glow golden.

And then she wanted to tell them just how stupid they had been, how incredibly, incredibly stupid. They had forced her to be without control over her body and her mind and the entity she had formed with the Tardis, Bad Wolf, was made entirely of time as was she now. And time knew no mercy, no forgiveness. It swallowed up Rose Tyler in one golden wave and she gratefully gave herself over to it. There would be no mercy for the aliens that had done this, no reasoning, and Rose couldn't find it in herself to fight for them as she once had for a Dalek.

All that power, concentrated in her body, healed her in an instant before exploding outwards. Pure energy. There was a reason Huon particles were fatal - that much energy couldn't be contained. Not in a human or any alien body. In all of time and space, in all the universes, there was only one single human being who could contain it. Rose Tyler.

Bad Wolf merely directed a thought at the things holding her body down before they disappeared and she stood. Every alien on board of the ship had been disintegrated as had most of their ship with the exception of this one room, a concession towards the body they were living in.

A satisfied hum came out of her mouth. Everything was as it should be. Rose Tyler and Bad Wolf, as one, running for their thief. Bad Wolf took one look at this universe's time vortex before it revolted, throwing her off, rebelling, and golden eyes widened in recognition of what was to come, of what would happen should she be in charge.

Decision made, she looked for others that did not connect to this time vortex and it found them on Sol 3. Earth. The planet that she had once called home before the blue box had taken its place.

Bad Wolf stepped forward and the surroundings shifted as she pulled herself towards where she wanted to be. Within two steps, the blonde woman from the memories was in front of her.

She was staring, eyes wide, and the mug in her hand crashed to the floor, making another three men rush into the room. All came to a halt at the sight of her and Bad Wolf smiled a wolf's grin, tongue poking out between her lips. All was as it should be. These people would take care of Rose Tyler.

"My little wolf has - no, will need rest. So many words, so few ways of expressing time. Humans are funny," she barked a laugh but it only served to make the blonde woman tear up and the men to reach for their weapons.

Huffing in frustration, she waved her hands and made all the weapons disappear with a thought, disintegrating them and distributing their particles in the surrounding air. The humans were now staring at her with open mouths. Silly people. She would never hurt the little wolf. So much growing up still to do, before they would always and forever be one.

"Who- Who are you?"

"You know who I am, don't you... What was the name... names are weird. Rickey? No, Mickey? Mickety-Mick?" Her brows furrowed and then she shrugged.

"..Rose?"

Humans. So singular, so unwilling to connect the dots even when it should've been so obvious.

"Yes, well, no. Right now, in this form, I am the Bad Wolf. You have seen or will see this. I create myself. Not important, now. The little wolf will need sleep. And you and you," pointing a finger at both Mickey and Rose's mum. "are not allowed to touch her. We will suck you dry, if you do and the little wolf will not like that, not one bit."

Bad Wolf looked around itself. All the books, the television and the newspaper spelled out her name. She grinned before turning back to the four humans.

Nodding firmly, she talked half to them, half to herself, "Sleep now... Where's the off button again...? Ah-ha!" and then she retreated to a form at the edge of Rose Tyler's mind, watching as the little wolf's fragile body crumbled to the ground, before going to sleep herself. The little wolf needed to recover physically and mentally, not just from the energy but also the trauma. And she needed to hide herself away as much as possible to make the little wolf's walk through this universe a little bit more bearable.

A strangled gasp came over her lips and she woke up with her body jerking into motion like its strings had been cut.

The blonde woman rushed into the room again, staying out of reach, experience having taught them both that any touch would put them both in pain as her body attempted to pull something from the other woman. She felt sad that the older woman was so scared of going near her now even though she looked so sad every time she asked if she knew who the woman was yet.

She didn't have the heart to tell her that it could take months. Her mind was... well, destroyed. There were no structures, no anything. All her memories and emotions were just floating in empty space with no way of calling them, no way of finding out what they were about except for the laborious, slow work of going through each one individually and creating ways of connecting them. Most days she was outside, whether the sun shone or it rained; just the feeling of breathing the fresh air, of not being confined, was nice.

The people around her were treating her so cautiously. When she first awoke, she'd thought that all she had managed was to trade one prison for another. Her body was so weak, having lost all its muscles, and she had struggled to even get to the door. She had been frightened and angry, with only two memories in her head. Her looking into the Tardis and her and Tardis as Bad Wolf, saving the Doctor. He, she knew, was the most important person in her life. He had kissed her and saved her as she had saved him. She loved him, loved him so much she could burst with it. The warmth rushed through her every time she thought of the man with the too-wide grin, the large ears and his leather jacket.

Except the people here had looked so sad and upset, she hadn't dared mention him again. They seemed to think she should remember them first, but she didn't know why. The Doctor, he was the man she loved, why wouldn't he be the first she'd remember? Well, aside from her parents. She was still trying to figure out who and where they were, but she had nothing if not time.

Most of her time had to be spent in her mind and she resented it after the months with the aliens in her mind already, but she did want to remember, wanted to know where he was, who the people surrounding her were, so she battled on.

They kept trying to talk to her about things, but she couldn't make heads or tails of what they were talking about? The word Torchwood evoked a feeling of horror and loss, but that was all the association she had with it. Torching wood...? Maybe she was very pacifist - except for those days where she happened to kill entire races, of course - alright, so that didn't make much sense. She had long since given up, using the few hours she was awake to sort through a few memories at a time, hoping she found good ways of remembering them. It was a difficult, drawn out process when done manually. She needed to go through the memory, look for names, smells, feelings, anything to link to it that would allow her to recall it.

It took another three weeks before she realised the blonde woman in all the memories was her mum. It took another two months to find out her mum had a name other than, well, mum. She felt silly for not realising earlier that other people couldn't very well call her mum too. Mickey came in somewhere in between. Pete took a lot longer. It was four months before she realised who he was and it took another three before she had all her memories back, sorted, in her mind.

She knew what Torchwood was, who the Doctor was to her, remembered that day on the beach and all the time on the ship. Finally, she remembered what she had been unable to recall prior to their separation. She, as Bad Wolf, had known this was going to happen, had known she would land here, would attract the wrong sort of attention and the reason she'd locked it away was because she, rightly so, thought that Rose may, in a moment of weakness, falter and fight it and by doing so, doom two universes to unravel and her Doctor to die.

So the memories had been locked away up until now. Now all was there for her and she could see the future - or present? - of the Doctor. He was telling his companions about her. He was telling Donna and Martha, even Joan when he couldn't remember her, knew her name. She smiled softly. At least he was honouring her request of not letting her be forgotten. And he met Jack. Jack-face-of-Boe-Jack. At first she had laughed and then she had cried for him, for the man who had saved her when she was hanging from a barrage balloon.

The people she loved the most in this universe, Mickey and her mum, couldn't touch her. Pete had grown on her rather rapidly; he was calm where her mum raged and shouted, he was lenient and firm where he needed to be. He was, now that the first shock had passed, the father she had always wanted.

Rose had always been a very emotive and incredibly tactile. She held hands, kissed and hugged. She loved hugging; the way she'd feel safe and loved, the way it made her and them feel. Except now she couldn't hug her mum, couldn't touch her - nor Mickey. Her body could feel that they had been in touch with her universe's vortex; they were born in it and a tiny golden thread was in them for it, a link back to their timeline. And her body wanted it, needed it, as an energy source. But if she took that from them, she would erase them, their entire being, as she took their timeline. So here she was with only two people in the universe who understood her pain, who understood what she meant when she talked about chips and about certain smells... and she couldn't get any comfort from them, couldn't kiss, hug or touch.

Her own mother shied away from her when she reached out just an instant too soon for her cup of hot tea, shying away from the death her daughter's hand would bring. It only brought a bitter smile to her lips these days, everything else having long since been given over to emptiness. Everything would be right again once she found him, was back with him.

Except, as time went on, she got the shakes, like spasms. Then came the headaches, mild and intermittent at first before gradually growing stronger as time passed. Her family was concerned, but she knew what was happening. This time vortex was rejecting her. She was made of it, now that the aliens had activated the particles in her, and the time vortex recognised her as belonging to a different time stream, as being a different time stream, a different universe, and it tried to remove her from this one. It wasn't malicious, it was time; it didn't feel. But she didn't belong to it. Like the Tardis would die in a different dimension without a way of accessing her time stream to energise, killed off by that universe's difference to her, the same would happen to her.

Mickey, Pete and Torchwood had worked tirelessly on a solution, something that would allow her to use the tears in the universe to slip between them. They knew what was coming, knew the stars were going out and with astronomers on the lookout, it wasn't hard to catch it right when it first started.

What she hadn't told them was just how many universes they were. Not hundreds, not a thousand or a million. Not even a billion - for every choice, every vital choice, there was a different universe. For every choice after that, another few universes and so on. Since the beginning of time, for every planet in existence; the result was an infinite number of realities and she was searching for just a single one of them.

It would take time. A lot of time. Time she didn't have, judging by the accelerated progression of stars disappearing. They had calibrated the dimension cannon to return her once three hours had passed on Pete's world. The only thing they hadn't accounted for was the different way time runs in other universes.

Her first time jump took two years of her time. Two years... except she still didn't look a day over twenty.

To be continued...

I would love to have some feedback and everyone's thoughts. Sorry for the delay in having these here - below a list of replies to everyone's reviews! Thank you all for sticking with me and for reviewing! It's a pleasure to write for you guys!

Below the responses to reviews;

cecilehem chapter 3

Hi! I'm glad you're enjoying it! Hope you're still enjoying it, actually. Sorry for the delay in responding o your review. It really cheered me up when I read this. You are participating. I'm afraid most of the story is laid out in my head, but everyone's comments influence bits and pieces and character traits. It's huge fun! Thank you again. Let me know what you think of the latest chapters.

BadWolf chapter 3

Yay! Hope you're still reading- I'm glad you're enjoying it. Let me know your thoughts (Looove your username)!

Kou Shun'u chapter 3 .

Oh, thank you. I was very nervous about Mickey's portrayal and wanted to do him justice after previous comments, so thanks for saying I had. It was incredibly encouraging! |Hope you're still reading & enjoying the fanfic! Keep reviewing and letting me know what you think J

popie92 chapter 3 .

Yay! Thank you! Thanks for reviewing!

Guest chapter 3 .

Woohoo! Thank you so much for all the praise! I'm glad you're enjoying all the relationship-building. I love writing it! I do hope you continued to enjoy the later chapters as well. I would love to hear from you!

hotsasukefan chapter 3 .

Yay! Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying. Keep reviewing please!

J chapter 3

Yay! Thank you. I'll try. Let me know what you think of my latest chapter!

Painted Orchid chapter 3

Hey! Thanks so much for the lovely review! I'm glad you're enjoying reading all the moments; I loved writing them. I realise I've stolen some moments as it's more Rose-centric in my latest chapter, but I do hope you're still reading & enjoying! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

popie92 chapter 6

Brilliant - first review for this latest chapter! Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I have to say I was a bit unsure about it, so I'm happy to hear it was so well received! Thank you!

MuppetKatie chapter 5 .

Ya-hay. I've written about the not-good-aliens now; hope you're enjoying it. Thanks for the review. I'm glad you've enjoyed the previous chapters! I loved writing them, it's such great fun!

cecilehem chapter 5 .

Thank you so much for taking the time to write these lengthy reviews. It's such an inspiration to actually hear/read what you are thinking about everything, so thank you very much!

Yep, I've yet to master the art of hinting subtly but it's been great fun writing it. We'll have lots of changes and flashbacks coming up and I'm very excited about writing it all but unfortunately work is trying very hard to get in my way! Boohoo!

AkumakoRonso chapter 4 . Aug 12

Hi! Thanks for the lovely review... I'm afraid there does seem to be a bit of a misunderstanding going on. Rose is on the beach, she did say goodbye, she is in an alternate Universe, separated from her Doctor. Martha will be there as will Donna. The series will continue as previous until Rose's return, I'm afraid. Sorry about that! I do hope you'll continue reading and still enjoy the story I've laid out.

littlesniper chapter 5 & 2 & 1. Aug 12

Yay, thanks so much for all your reviews. I'm glad you're enjoying it. I know what you mean - the videos make me cry too! Have you found the one called I believe in her on Youtube yet? So sad and so empowering at the same time! I love it.

It's a horrible thing to say, but I'm glad I made you cry. That's why I love writing - to evoke this sort of emotion from people. It's brilliant (or fantastic one might say!). Thanks for all the encouragement! I hope I live up to expectations with my latest chapter!

Anna221B chapter 5 .

Hey Sherlock! Like the username! Anyway, thanks for the review. I've uploaded the next chapter and I do hope you enjoyed it. I would love to hear from you.

bexandcall chapter 5

Yay, thanks for all the kudos! I do hope you've read the latest chapter and are still enjoying it. I'd love to hear what you have to say on my latest chapter!

Guest chapter 5 .

Thanks for the review! Let me know what you think of our golden Rose.

hotsasukefan chapter

Ta for the lovely review. Is it bad that I want to whoop in joy at the fact that I made you cry? Oh dear, that sounds bad. I just love when my writing makes people respond to the emotions in the chapter - so thank you. I'm sorry you were sad; I hope it was somewhat therapeutic.

popie92 chapter 5 .

You've already read the next chapter, but thank you so much for taking the time to review!

Maria EduardaB chapter 5&4

Yay, glad you liked it. Hope you're still with us and reading. Let me know what you think!

TheDoctorMulder chapter 5

Yep, Ooooh sums it up. I'm glad you enjoyed it (I hope you did, anyway) and thank you very much for leaving a review. Let me know what you think of this latest chapter as well, please!