Chapter 5

When Rose finally woke up, she found herself lying on the sofa with a damp cloth on her head. Tentatively, she sat up and looked around. There wasn't anybody around.

She thought maybe, it had all been a dream. Maybe she was hallucinating. She could be just reacting to being over stressed from work. Yeah, that could be it, too much work and not enough rest. She saw Red walk into the room holding a cup of tea and she felt relieved that at least not everything was a dream.

He gave her the tea and sat at the edge of the seat and took the cloth from her hand.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm alright, but what happened?"

"You fainted" answered the ninth Doctor as he strolls into the living room holding his own cup of tea and leans against a wall.

"Oh, my God! I can't believe it. You're really here!"

"A lot of people are having trouble believe I'm here."

Rose sprang up from the sofa and quickly ran crossed the room to the leather-clad man and unexpectedly embraced him in a tight hug. She buried her face into the wore leather and breath in his scent. God, how she missed him! He felt so solid and whole she thought she might cry.

Nine smiled down at her and slowly rubbed her back affectionately.

Slowly, Rose pulled away to look at his face and she felt her voice quiver with emotion. "I thought I'd near see this you again."

"There's no getting rid of me, Rose Tyler."

Then, Ten entered and coughed, "Ahem…Sorry to interrupt, but don't I get a hug too?"

Rose wiped around so fast she thought she'd pulled a muscle. She saw it was him, well the other him was here too. Rose gave him a confused look and tilted her head to the side and pointed to Nine and then Ten.

"Hang on, why are you two here? I thought you said it was impossible. You said the walls were closed. Did you travel back in time and pick up the old you so you could come back and get me?"

Ten came closer to Rose, but shook his head no; "Rose I didn't came back intentionally. What I said back on the beach was true. It was impossible for me to return to Pete's world, but here I am, and him too. It turned out some disembodied voice or challenger wants us here and wants you to choose who you like best. Some kind of parallel universe of the bachelorette."

Rose was confused, "Yeah, but who's this person who brought you here?"

"I did" said Red as he rose from the sofa and walked up to Rose. However, Nine gave him a glare and pulled Rose behind him, but Rose wouldn't stand for it and broke free and marched up to Red. She wasn't a scared teenager who needed protecting and she wasn't about to be scared of a man who she considered her boyfriend. She looked him dead in the eye.

She said, "Richard, what do you mean? Why would you? How?"

"Rose I told you. I know what you're really thinking. I know how you truly feel and I won't have you pretend or be uncertain. I can't stand the thought that what we have is nothing more than some sort of second prize. Rose, I told you I lived a life of a spy. I know what it means to live a lie, to live in a world full of deceit and delusion where you don't know truth from pretend. It's true. I brought your Doctor here. I even did better and brought them both because I know how deeply you felt about them both. I did what I did because I won't be a stand in, not if you can have the real thing."

Ten replied, "But, doing something like this…bringing us here, it's all wrong. It's dangerous. And anyway, he is me. There's no point in making a copy of the last me. Doesn't it just give you more competition if you bring him into it?"

Nine: "Oi! I like being alive, pretty-boy!"

Red: "No two people are the same even if they are from the same being. I was a created in a lab with other genetically similar individuals and we are not all the same, so don't tell me there is no difference. Besides, this ninth version of you I duplicated is in every way a copy of the original ninth you. I'm very skilled geneticists and I'm a very good psychic, it wasn't as hard to do as you might think."

Ten: "What! That's—that's unethically! You can't go around making copies of people. It's wrong."

Nine: "What? You afraid of a little competition?"

Ten: "But, this man's a mad scientist! He's a loose cannon!"

Nine: "It takes one to know one."

Ten: "I'm serious! It's bad enough he recreated you, but he's also punching holes in the fabric of reality just so he can please Rose Tyler. I've never heard anything so selfish before in my life."

Nine puffed out a breath, "Oh yeah, you're one to talk. We've done our own share of impressing Rose Tyler. The only difference here is that Richy here calls it like it is. But, the only thing I don't understand here is why Rose isn't with you to begin with."

Rose raised her hand to get their attention and said, "Yeah, I can answer that. A while back, we were investigating these ghost back in London, but it turned out they were Cybermen who were from a different dimension we ended up calling Pete's world cause my dad here never died. When we went to Pete's world we found out some old guy was using ear-phones to control people and make them into Cybermen. We stopped the Cybermen with a virus, but later on we discovered that Daleks were trying to break through the Void from a prison ship and we had to suck them all back in. While hanging on I got sucked up, but Pete saved me and I got trapped with Mickey and my Mum. The walls were closed and I thought that was it, but then the stars were going out and I had to find you. It turned out it was Daleks again, but they had this weird mummy-man, Darvos helping them make this big machine to blow up reality by using planets like batteries. We got a whole bunch of your old companies helping and we stopped them, but afterwards to left me and you told me to live my life with your half-human metacrisis. We call him John."

Nine took a moment to process Rose's summary on the events that happened after his regeneration and he didn't like it. There were some many things wrong about what she just said. First, being the fact that Daleks were still managing to survive. Why could they just stay dead? What was the point of the Time War if they just kept turning up? Second, really how hard was it to keep one human safe? He remembered Rose being jeopardy-friendly, but this was ridiculous. And lastly, what the bloody hell was this about a half-human metacrisis named John? Since when did he have a half-human other?

The leather-clad man closed his eyes. He felt a headache coming on and rubbed his temples. Obviously he'd been dead quiet a while.

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Ten gave Rose a kicked puppy-look as he listened to her recount the events that had lead to their departure. He had so hoped she'd find happiness in his half-human other. He was certain the man had said the words he could never say and tell her things he would never speak. He didn't know it wouldn't work out between them. He had been so sure she'd get on brilliantly with John.

He didn't want to see her suffer. He didn't want to her to regret.

Ten whispered, "Oh, Rose, I'm so sorry."

He saw Rose met his eyes, but she quickly looked away. Clearly she was upset and things had not gone happily ever after like he planned after all. However, he saw Richard whatever-his-name was walk up behind her and pull her golden hair away from her neck and gave her cheek a tender kiss.

Ten shouted, "Oi! You, keep your hands off."

Red gave him a venomous glare, which Rose had never seen before on his handsome face. Richard had always been her rock and she was always pursuing him. It was weird seeing him act all Alfa-male. She didn't think it was part of his nature. It was like he was a different man.

Red gave Ten an eerie smile: "Tell me, Doctor do you forfeit? Or are you willing to take on a challenger? If you agree I warn you, I will crush you."

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Back to the action! Ok, so no fighting--no serious fighting yet, but Red is turn up the heat. Plus, 9 will want a piece of 10 after he collects himself, after all he's been out of the loop for a long time. And I kind of think this thing is getting kind of blah. I think I'll add some crazy in it (so tempted to add super psychic voodoo).

Please, reivew. Thanks.