Bad romance

"What do you mean 'I lost Rose'?"

"Tosh, I'm telling you, I'm standing down in the morgue and her body is gone!"

Tosh looked at Ianto, who looked rather sceptical as well. "Owen, how did you um, lose her?"

"I think she walked out on her own."

"I think he's lost it" Tosh whispered to Ianto, who nodded. He looked at the intercom they were currently communicating through, like it somehow held all the answers.

"Say the body walked out on it's own…. What do you want us to do about it" Ianto asked.

"I need a lockdown of the hub. She's dead, so I'm thinking she didn't get very far."

"Yes, that does make sense" Ianto said in a sarcastic tone. "Let's just completely ignore the fact that she is in fact a dead body and instead focus on her speed of movement."

"Lockdown" Owen yelled and shut off the communication.

"What's going on" Martha yelled at the whole hub was enveloped in darkness and the doors started to lock around them.

"We're in lockdown" Tosh said as the emergency light turned on and an eerie red light filled the hub.

Ianto tossed Martha and Donna a flashlight each. "We're going body hunting!"

"I don't understand how Rose could just walk out of the morgue. She was in a body bag, in a container… In the morgue!"

The Doctor massaged his temples. "It's not Rose. Not anymore."

"Then, what? Her ghost?" Jack didn't understand anything anymore.

"No. It's the Bad Wolf."

"I thought that was dormant in her?"

"Yeah, because Rose was, well, inhabiting her own body there was no place for the Bad Wolf and the battle between them was killing Rose. So I contained it, inside her. Sure, it would rear it's head once in a while, like if Rose was in danger, but she was still Rose, still human."

"Why did it save her?"

"Self-preservation, I presume. The Bad Wolf probably didn't want anything to happen to Rose, maybe it thought if Rose died, it would die too? That's how she ended up here, I guess. Knowing the Master would destroy her, the Bad Wolf brought her back here, and since it couldn't bring Rose to the TARDIS with me, it brought her to you instead, the second safest place for her."

"But Rose was shot."

"And she died. Leaving her body empty, and the Bad Wolf filled it out. Her body, apart from a bullet hole, is fine."

"So the Bad Wolf is wearing Rose?" Jack gave the Doctor a look. "That's just… so weird!"

"It doesn't exactly work like that, but yes, the Bad Wolf is wearing Rose."

"So it wanted her to die?"

"I don't know, I don't think so. But when Rose died, it came out of hiding. Jack, this is dangerous, do you understand that?"

"The Bad Wolf is dangerous?"

"I don't even know fully what it is or what it want, what its powers are. But my guess would be it's not called Bad Wolf because it likes to watch East Enders and cuddle. We need to find it."

Now it was Jack's turn to massage his temples. "We need to find a rogue Time Lord with a serious personality flaw and some mystical creature wearing Rose as a suit?"

"You could be more respectful about this" the Doctor said in a strict tone.

"Doc, come on. This is so far off the scale of crazy that's it's just… It's insane and I don't know whether to laugh or cry anymore" Jack said with a faint smile.

"Cry" the Doctor commanded. "It's less immature and annoying!"

"This is insane" Jenny said. "You're all insane!"

"Because we have a runaway body, or because we're looking for the runaway body" Gwen asked.

"Both! This is just…"

"Weird? Yeah, welcome to Torchwood, now go that way and look for the body" Owen said and directed her down an empty hall, engulfed in the creepy red light.

"What am I supposed to do if I find her" Jenny asked.

"Tell her she's been a bad body for running away, then bring her back" Owen said.

"Just, detain her or something. Call us and we'll come help you, okay" Gwen said in a reassuring tone.

"I'll come with you" Donna offered and turned on her own flashlight. They walked down the hallway, flashing the light in every creek of the wall. "This is creepy" Donna said.

"How was she? Rose…"

"Nice… I didn't really get to know her, only met her briefly. But your father always spoke highly of her."

"Was he in love with her?"

Donna sighed. "Yes, he loved her."

"Why wasn't she with him then? I don't understand, if he loved her so much, why weren't they together?"

"It's hard for him. He's lost so many people and I think it was easier for him to keep Rose at arm's length, that way he wouldn't get hurt if something happened."

"And she just accepted that? You humans are weird" Jenny muttered.

"I think she hoped he would change his mind. Which he did…"

"But it was too late" Jenny asked and Donna nodded. "That's really sad."

"Yes, and now she seems to have run away" Donna said. "The last bit is more scary than sad, actually. What do you think happened?"

"I don't know. Maybe she's like me? I woke from being dead too."

"Rose was human. You're Time Lord. Lady?"

"Lady. It's my experience that humans, who are dead, usually stay dead. So something must have happened" Jenny argued.

"Yeah well, whatever it was, let's hope she's not to far gone."

"He's here?" Jack looked at the sign. "It's an abandoned building site."

"It's perfect" the Doctor said.

"Of course it is. So, the Master lives here?"

"No, but he's here somewhere, right now. With someone else."

"He has an accomplice. A woman he calls the Headhunter. That's all I know."

"Oh I know who she is. Bounty hunter, of sorts. We've met before."

"Something I need to worry about?"

"Just, watch out for her legs…"

Jack gave the Doctor a look, but didn't say anything and they entered the site. A strangled yell caught their attention and they both took of running towards the sound. The Master was standing in the middle of the of the site, looking extremely distraught. "No… NO! This can't be" he yelled at someone.

"Is that Rose" Jack whispered.

In front of the Master stood something that looked like Rose, engulfed in a orange light burning from her body and eyes. She was dressed in something that looked like Owen's scrubs and holding her left hand against the Master. It sent a weird orange glow towards him and he crumpled on the ground, screaming.

"I see you, Time Lord, all of you, and I condemn you for your crimes. You will become what you despise the most: human, forced to live a human life. That will be your eternal punishment!"

"That is not Rose" the Doctor said. "That's the Bad Wolf."

"What the hell is it doing?"

"It's turning him human, I think" the Doctor said and took a few steps closer to the thing that was Rose, but not really Rose.

"Hello Doctor" the Bad Wolf said and turned to look at the Doctor and Jack. "I was waiting."

"What have you done" the Doctor asked, looking at the Master, who was passed out on the ground.

"I punished him for what he did."

"So you just commandeered Rose's body once she left it" Jack asked in a harsh tone. It was just wrong, seeing Rose like that, knowing it wasn't really her.

"She's still in here, somewhere. Her death freed me, but I held on to her. She'll be fine, eventually."

Jack didn't understand anything of that, but apparently the Doctor did and he looked mortified. "Let her go, this is wrong! Rose Tyler is dead!"

"Rose Tyler is going to live forever."

"But she won't be Rose Tyler anymore" the Doctor pleaded. "You've taken her humanity from her, her mortality. Everything that made her Rose is gone!"

"You think her mortality made her Rose? It didn't! It just made her human and now she is so much more. You should rejoice, Time Lord! Rose Tyler is saved!" The not quite Rose in front of them smiled.

"She won't be the same again."

"She'll be better! Don't you understand, this is a good thing. She wanted this, she wanted to be with you forever. And now she can!"

"But I have to open her mind to you, let you in?" There were tears in his eyes now.

"Yes. That's the condition. Without me, she dies."

"You can't ask that, it's not fair" the Doctor said in a small tone.

"Are you gonna let her die? Again?"

The Doctor turned to look at Jack. "Jack, it's not right. It's not gonna be Rose…"

"I don't care" Jack yelled. "Bring her back!"

"Jack please understand…"

"No! I lost her, so many times! She's all I have, she's my family, I love her and I'm not gonna let you let her die again! Fix her." Jack pointed his gun at the Doctor. "Now!"

"Jackie's awake…"

Gwen's voice sounded weird over the walkie-talkie and made Owen sigh. This day had gone from bad to worse in a matter of moments. "Did you tell her?"

"That her dead daughter has wandered off? No, I gave her a cup of tea and placed her in the conference room with Pete. They're wondering about the lights, though."

"Turn them on, it's pointless. She's not here, we've looked everywhere. Have you talked to Jack?"

"No, I tried calling him, but I just got his voicemail" Gwen said. "Are you ok?"

"No…" It came out as a small laugh. "This day… It's insane, what we do, who we are… It's just…"

"Insane, yeah" Gwen agreed. "What do you think happened to her?"

"I don't know." Owen planted himself in their basement, next to Janet's cell. He knew it was a testament to his mental state that he found it peaceful down here. He could hear Gwen sigh on the other end. "You holding up?"

"No… This is an emotional rollercoaster. I talked to Rhys today…"

"And how is good old Rhys?"

"Angry, not that I blame him. I treated him badly and now I'm…" Gwen stopped herself.

"Gwen I know you're pregnant" Owen said.

"This isn't exactly how I wanted to tell you" Gwen said with a small smile.

"Doesn't matter, the outcome's the same. I'll take the test."

"Thanks…" She was just about to ask how he felt about it (somehow it was so much easier to have a conversation with Owen if he wasn't in the same room - the walkie-talkie made it easier for them both), when her phone started to ring. "Jack?"

"We found Rose" Jack said over the phone. "We're on our way back to the hub. The Master is here as well."

Gwen noted the weirdness in Jack's tone. "Is everything alright?"

"Just… Make sure Jackie isn't there when we bring Rose in. And have Owen prepare something, chloroform or something like that, to the Master." He hung up.

Gwen started the procedure to turn off the lockdown, starting with turning on the normal lights. She squinted a little in the harsh white light, but also enjoyed her moment of silence. She couldn't even remember the last time there was silence like this and it soothed her, if only for a second. Her nerves were worn thin and her emotions all over the place; the last month or so had been unbearable, she didn't even know how she had gotten through it. And she was scared for herself and for her unborn child, whose father was either a very boring former truck driver from Wales, a taciturn sourpuss doctor with a serious commitment issue or a maybe-alien from the future, stuck in the past with an even worse commitment issue. She kinda hoped the baby was Rhys', at least that would make one its parents normal.

"Owen, Jack needs you to prepare some sedative, they're bringing back the Master" she said over the walkie-talkie. "I'll get hold of the others and tell them to met us up here."

"Roger that" Owen's sarcastic voice answered and cut off their connection.

"This is Gwen. Lockdown is over, please return to the main area" Gwen called out over the intercom to the others. She sat down at her desk and waited. There was nothing else to do.

Jack was the first one inside, carrying Rose, wedding style, through the door. "Owen, I need you now" he yelled.

Owen handed the syringe with the sedative to Martha. "You know what to do?" Martha nodded. "Good girl." He followed Jack towards their med-bay.

Next inside was the Doctor with a zombie-like Master in tow.

"What the hell happened" Donna almost yelled at him. "Looks like someone turned off the lights in him."

"Someone did" the Doctor said.

Martha looked at the Master and then at her syringe. It felt pretty pointless, he looked like he was halfway asleep already. "Um, Owen gave me this…"

"It's not necessary" the Doctor said, leading the Master towards Jack office.

Donna, Martha, Jenny, Tosh, Ianto and Gwen looked at each other. "I feel left out" Gwen said. "And someone should probably go talk to Jackie…"

Everybody averted their eyes; no one felt like talking to the she-lion currently residing in the conference room. It was a wonder she hadn't disturbed them so far.

"I say Ianto goes" Donna said, giving Ianto a light push forward.

"Why do I have to go?"

"You're likeable…. And Jackie's not, so it'll equal out" Donna explained.

"I don't care, I'm not going. Gwen should go, she has most experience with these things."

"Like we often had to tell parents that their dead children had run away from the morgue, when I was a P.O." Gwen said.

"Fine, let's vote then. Anyone for sweet and compassionate Gwen, who has experience with these kind of situations" Ianto said and immediately everybody, except of course Gwen herself, raised their hands.

"I hate you guys" Gwen mumbled.

"What happened?"

"How are you feeling" the Doctor asked.

"Like someone scrambled my brain. What happened" the Master asked again.

"Do you remember anything?"

"Yeah, getting my head scrambled! Tell me what happened." It was meant as an order but came out more like a drowsy request.

"You shot Rose Tyler."

"Did I? That's nice…"

"She died" the Doctor said in a flat tone.

"Good…. That's good, I hated her. She was mean to me" the Master said an rested his head on Jack's desk. "I'm so tired, why am I so tired?"

"Do you know the Bad Wolf?"

"Yes… It's a myth, some weird old deity of some kind. Why?"

"You met it today. It's taken refuge in Rose's body, you see…. And then you shot her."

"Oh…" There was a clear tone of worry in the Master's voice all of the sudden. "That's bad, right? This is bad for me."

"It is. How are you feeling?"

"I don't know, weak and weird, like something is missing…" The Master paused and raised his head. "She stopped one of my hearts?"

"No…"

"But… No. No no no no no no NO! She couldn't have, she wouldn't? She can't have!"

"She did. I'm sorry, but it would seem like you're no longer a Time Lord."

"But, how is that possible?"

"I don't know" the Doctor replied honestly. And he really didn't. The inner works of the Bad Wolf and its powers were beyond his knowledge.

"What am I supposed to do" the Master asked pathetically.

"I don't know."

"Is she alive?"Owen checked Rose's pulse, her heart, her breathing, everything. "Yes she seems to be. What the hell happened out there?"

Jack almost collapsed on a nearby chair and breathed a sigh of relief. "I don't even know. We found the Master on some god-forsaken building site and Rose was there, but she wasn't Rose, she was glowing and saying all these weird things." Jack made a face. "And she asked the Doctor to do something, let the Bad Wolf in, something like that… He touched her head and they just stood there, for some time and then she just collapsed."

Owen looked at Jack. "That doesn't make any sense, at all! But she seems alive, her vitals are good and stabile, she just needs to wake up."

"When will she wake up?"

"Let me just look in my magic ball…. What am I, a psychic. She'll wake up when she does, if she does" Owen replied.

Jack stared at Owen. "She's gonna wake up!"

"If she does wake up, then what?"

Jack sighed. "I don't know." Just as he said that, Rose violently lurched forward with a huge gasp of air.

Gwen slammed the door behind her and rested her head on it. "You ok?" She opened her eyes and saw the Doctor standing outside Jack's office, looking at her. "Jackie's in there…"

"Oh?"

"And I just told her about Rose, how we lost her body and everything…"

"Oh…" The Doctor said with a knowing look on his face. "Jackie's definitely… She's something."

"Oh yeah! Pete's trying to calm her down, but he seemed pretty upset too. And I don't think I explained it very well, I don't even know what happened. Maybe you should talk to them?" Judging by the look in the Doctor's eyes, Gwen guessed that wasn't really an option. "Maybe not. She'll calm down, right? Once she sees Rose is alright. Rose is alright, right?"

"I don't know."

"There seems to be a lot of that going around here" Gwen muttered. "What's wrong with her?"

"I can't tell."

"But there is something in her, something inside her. She said so before she died."

"A couple of years ago, Rose looked into the time vortex and absorbed it. Something called the Bad Wolf took over her body…"

"But… That's what someone wrote on my car. And our sign…"

"It's the Bad Wolf's way of announcing it's presence. When Rose died it simply took over her body."

"So… It's not Rose? Downstairs right now, that's not Rose?"

"Not entirely no… Not anymore. I'm sorry…"

"I don't understand that. How can it not be her" Gwen asked as a tear rolled down her cheek. "She's my best friend. And I've been through enough now, so please just tell me how it can't be her anymore?"

"The Bad Wolf hung on to Rose when she died, she was still in there too. And now, slowly, Rose and the Bad Wolf will turn into one consciousness, one person."

"But that's still Rose…"

"It might be, but…" The Doctor sighed. He didn't expect there would be anything left of Rose once the Bad Wolf was done, it would just be Rose's body, but something else inside and it would be unbearable to look at. He was already planning where to go next and nurse his broken hearts.

"She'll still be Rose" Gwen said with conviction in her voice. She refused to give up hope, if there was a chance they would get Rose back, even just half or her or however this worked, it was worth it. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. "Jack?"

"Gwen, could you find the Doctor and get him down to the med-bay? Someone wants to talk to him" Jack asked.

"Yeah, sure, we'll be down in a minute." She turned to the Doctor. "Jack wants to see you in the med-bay."

"Oh I'm sure he does" the Doctor mumbled, but followed Gwen nonetheless. When all this mess was sorted out, or as sorted out as it would ever get, he wasn't going to kick Jack's ass for pulling a gun on him! Pacifism be damned, the Doctor was furious!

Jack and Owen were standing outside the med-bay when Gwen and the Doctor got down there. Jack and the Doctor shared a look, but both seemed reluctant to say anything. Owen looked at Gwen, who felt uncomfortable in the weird silence. Weren't they supposed to see Rose? Finally, Jack opened his mouth. "We'll give you two some privacy, but please keep in mind Jackie is upstairs and probably very eager to see her daughter." He grabbed both Owen and Gwen and walked off with them in tow.

The Doctor brazed himself against the door and slowly opened it. Inside sat Rose, still in the scrubs. "Hello" she greeted him in a tired voice.

"How are you feeling?" He closed the door behind him and leaned up against it.

"Weird. Dying and then having to share your body… No singing this time, either."

He smiled a little at her attempted joke. "Disappointing…"

She shrugged. "I'll live, hopefully."

"You remember?"

She nodded. "You can come closer, it's still me."

"It's not, though… You have to share."

"I know."

"Rose, I'm so sorry…"

"Don't!" It came out hasher than she intended. "All this time, the Bad Wolf has been inside me and it's been ok. I've been ok. And I'll be ok this time too."

"It will be different" the Doctor argued. "You'll change, be able to do things…"

"What things?"

"I don't know."

"So, take me with you, help me…" Rose looked at him with glinting eyes. "If you leave again… I don't think I'm strong enough..." This shook the Doctor out of his reverie; he walked over to her and gently touched her cheek. "I want to come with you, I missed you so much. And I accepted you, when you changed. I think you owe me" she said with a small smile.

"You're right, I do. But Rose, I'm all messed up, I'm still angry and I still have to work out some issues."

"I don't care. I love you, all of you, all the revenge and the horror. I just want your love."

He smiled. "I can't guarantee anything; it could be bad…"

"So it'll be bad… I don't want to be friends, not anymore…"

"Okay."

A/N: One chapter left. This was longer than usual, but I think I had a lot to say (or write). Hopefully you're not too disappointed. Thanks for all the reviews, it really means so much to me that you take the time to comment on something I've been obsessing over and I hope everyone will help me by reviewing and telling me what they think. Really, that's the best way to grow and improve as a writer.
And since the end is nigh, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who have read the story so far: THANK YOU for spending your time in my little fantasy land, complete with weird humour and crazy aliens.
Lots and lots of love to you all. Anne