Chapter Tweleve

The Doctor's POV

"I could have danced all night, I could have danced all night…I love that song!" I sang at the top of my lungs remebering the last time I had sung that song while "drunk". I closed the door behind me and turned to find that Lexi had dissapeared, "Lexi! Lexi? Where'd you go?"

"I'm in the kitchen." She called, "I'll meet you in the drawing room. You're safe to fly us out of here right?"

"Yeah. I can get us into the Vortex, but I think I'll leave the landing until the morning."

After leaving the 2000's somewhat safely and with only a small amount of turbulence, I wandered down the hallway, turned in the door to the room that Lexi and I had dubbed The Drawing Room, and crashed on the couch. The room was spinning a bit, so I closed my eyes.

The Broken clock is a comfort
It helps me sleep tonight
Maybe it can stop tomorrow
From stealing all my time
And I am here still waiting
Though I still have my doubts
I am damaged at best
Like you've already figured out

"Here!" I opened my eyes at the sound of Lexi's voice and found myself staring at a glass of water with two fizzing alka seltzer at the bottom; she knew that apsrin was a no go for me.

"Thanks." I said taking it from her and gulping it down.

"Now sober up and tell me tonight's story." She sat down next to me and pulled out her sketch book. I groanded as I remembered what lay ahead.

"I'm not sure I want to."

"What? Be sober or tell the story?"

"Be sober while I tell the story. Up till now that plan was working fine. But now I'm not sure I can tell it at all."

"Why? What's wrong?" She put down her pencil and reached over. I took her offered hand and squeezed it. She returned the pressure and waited.

"Do you remember back about a month ago, after our first adventure, you found me at Canary Warf?"

"You mean that big white wall?"

"Yeah."

"Of course, that's what made me relize how little I actually knew about you, and what started you telling me these stories."

"Well, tonight's the story that will explain that wall."

I'm falling apart
I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart
That's still beating
In the pain
There is healing
In your name
I find meaning
So I'm holding on
I'm barely holding on to you

"Whenever you're ready." She whispered returning her hand to her pencils. I took a deep breath and began.

"Well, Rose wanted to stop in for a visit with her mum. So we materialized in a grassy area near Powell Estate and popped in on Jackie. Rose and I didn't know what was waiting for us in her flat, and it wasn't good…"

And so the story unfurled from my lips. I was hesitant at first, unwilling to dig upt the memories that I had done my beset to burry, but as the pictures of my past began to fill the pages of Lexi's stech book as they had before, I felt myself sinking. I withdrew deeper and deeper into my own mind and got lost. I felt like I was reliving the whole experience. Tears rolled down my cheeks.

"Pete hit the button and they went back to Pete's World. The hole in the void closed on itself like I knew it would and she was stuck on the wrong side. I walked up to the wall and pressed a flat palm against it, and I sensed her. I know it sounds crazy but I just knew, as I leaned my head against it, that she was mirroring my movment on the other side." I puased to shake my head, "Listen to me, 'On the other side'. She was in a whole other world, but she seemed like she was right there!"

The broken locks were a warning
You got inside my head
I tried my best to be guarded
I'm an open book instead
And I still see your reflection
Inside of my eyes
That are looking for purpose
They're still looking for life

I paused to wipe away the tears that stained my face and Lexi looked up from her drawings. She was crying too. I wanted to comfort her, to apologized for the pain I had caused her, but I had to finish the story.

"It think that for a little while my mind refused to accept that she was gone. Maybe if I had sooner, I would have had enough time to tell her. I sent the TARDIS into the Time Vortex in search of a gap in the universe…I told her. I said, 'Rose Tyler', and she vanished. I'd run out of time. I found myself all alone in the TARDIS."

"You never told her?"

"No. I left her there, alone. I never told her. I never told her. I never…" I shuddered to a halt. Fresh tears began to fall They were tears of guilt. I never told her.

Lexi reached out and took my hand in silient comfort. With her free hand she flipped through her steches. I felt my eyes closing. My tears had tired me and I drifted off to sleep.

I'm falling apart
I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart
That's still beating
In the pain
Is there healing
In your name
I find meaning
So I'm holding on
I'm barely holding on to you

And death is coming...

I was alone in the dark with Dalek Caan's voice echoing all around me.

I can see it!

Suddenly I was surrounded in a blinding white light.

Everlasting death for the most faithful companion!

The light faded and I found myself facing a white wall, Canary Warf.

I woke, jumped off the couch, got tangled in a blanket, and fell to the ground. Lexi must have put the blanket over me after I had dozed off. I untangled myself and found myself lying next her sketch book. I reached over an picked it up and wondered if I dare look at the pictures she had drawn tonight. No, I decided. I wasn't that strong. I made to flip the cover closed when the picture that was on the front page caught my eye.

It was a collection of pictures from all of Rose's and my adventures. I saw my previous regeneration and my current. I saw Rose as the Bad Wolf and I saw myself in a pair of 3-D glasses, and it was all drawn in a small space. It was a mural, I relized. But what for? I wondered. Then I saw them. Next to the mural were two levers mounted to the floor. It was Canary Warf.

I smiled. It was a brilliant idea. Lexi was brilliant, and I knew what we were doing tomorrow.

I'm hanging on another day
Just to see what, you will throw my way
And I'm hanging on, to the words you say
You said that I will, will be okay
The broken light on the freeway
Left me here alone
I may have lost my way now
But I haven't forgotten my way home

Notes: Song: Broken by: Lifehouse. Second to last chapter of the first book. Read & Review please!