18 Augmented

Rose slowly pulls herself up from the warm golden dream she was having towards wakefulness. It was almost womblike where she had been. Nothing to worry about, no pain, nothing bad at all, just comfort and an all pervading love that she's reluctant to leave. The same golden sanctuary knew it was time for her to go, and as the last tendrils caressed her, they gently but lovingly pushed her consciousness outward to the light and her life.

Blinking awake, she is at first disoriented by the oil-slick sheen that limns all the surfaces she can see from her bed. After blinking a few more times, both the sensation and the weird visual distortion are gone. Shaking her head to clear it and forgetting the oddness, she shifts, yawns, and indulges in a jaw-cracking stretch. She feels great, more than great really…rested, happy, calm; she feels fantastic. Sitting up in her bed, she notices that she's wearing her usual sleep wear of silk tank and shorts. How did that happen? She's fairly sure she went to bed naked. Sitting up straighter, and checking her time sense, she realises she's been asleep for…3 days!

"Holy shit!" Rose cries as the realisation hits her. From the Doctor's chair swarms a startled Jack, who'd fallen asleep reading as he kept vigil over Rose.

"Holy SHIT!" she shrieks again, shocked by Jacks appearance.

"Rosie, Oh my gods! You're finally awake. I was so worried." Reaching her side in two lunges, he drops onto the bed at her feet, reaching for her hand. She lets him have it though she's thoroughly confused.

"Jack! I've been asleep for three days! What the hell's that about?"

"I wish I knew, Rosie. The TARDIS helpfully dropped a book on Time Lord physiology in my lap the first morning you didn't wake up, and I mean literally in..my..lap. I almost aspirated my coffee, I was so surprised. Anyway, all I can figure is that you were in a healing coma. By the way, after the second day, I bathed you and thought you'd prefer waking up in pyjamas."

"Healing coma? What would I have been healing from that required three days!? The Doctor only needed one when he was dealing with regeneration sickness. Wait, bathed me?" she asks incredulous.

"Well, it isn't like I didn't see you naked before; but I don't know what happened, maybe all that we did with the Sontarans. It was pretty taxing on my brain and voice; I can only imagine how it affected you, since you were doing all the work. I felt like I had the worst hyper-vodka hangover ever the next morning, but I'm real glad your back; really, really glad!" Pulling her into a fierce hug for a moment, he releases her and jumps up from the bed announcing with enthusiasm, "I'm going to go start tea, and I bet you're starving. Give me twenty minutes and I'll have breakfast up!" And with that, he's out of the room like a shot.

Rose, on the other hand, shakes her head still confused. /So I've been out cold for three days, Jack bathed me like an infant, dressed me, and now I'm fine. Everything was so much simpler on the Estate!/ Rose thinks wistfully.

Wondering how the Doctor is doing, Rose reaches for their link and finds she can access it much more easily. She'd been expecting to reach for it and just barely get the tingle that he was still alive, like before. This time, however, she can almost see the thin, single golden thread connecting them. Following it, she can feel his mind. She's tempted to rub against him like a cat, but she can sense that he's currently not aware. Feeling around his mental locus, attempting to see or at least get an impression of his whereabouts, all she can pick up is cold. He's still in the cryo-pod. Interesting. So, in this new timeline, his kidnapper hasn't woken him yet. Well, that must be good, since the last one seemed extraordinarily unpleasant.

Since she can't learn anything else, she begins to pull back. As she does so, she notices the shadow of two parallel golden threads running along either side to the one she's been following. That's weird, though not any weirder than this morning has already been. Focusing on one of the other timelines has brought it to the fore, and with a sickening lurch her consciousness slips sideways into it. Now she can see the original timeline as just a shadow, and as if she's fine-tuning this new perception, she sees more shadowed timelines. There is the one other that leads directly to her Doctor; the rest do not appear to progress in the same direction.

Concentrating on this first alternate timeline, she follows it to a drastically different situation. Here, the Doctor is awake, and extremely unhappy. Something is keeping her from actually making contact with him. She gets the information in tiny bursts. All she can gather is that he's agitated…and maybe…in pain? She's unsure. He seems to be very busy, with whatever he's doing, and that at least means he's alive. His distress worries her, and she does not like it. Curious about the other parallel timeline, she seeks that one out to observe where it leads.

Concentrating on this one jumps it to prominence, though it appears murky and less clear than the last. She follows it after the same sickening sideways lurch; curious about the different possibilty it leads to. This situation is much worse than the last. On this one she can reach him fully, but just as she makes contact, she feels his enfeebled mind call for her one last time before it goes ominously silent.

With a mental shriek of /NO!/ she dives into the fading blue of his consciousness, looking for him without considering any potential consequences. The impression of his mental landscape is becoming barren and turning grey. Finally reaching his Foyer, she finds…nothing. The Pools are dark, and the doors are fading from view. Looking frantically around and calling for him, she hears nothing.

She's gasping and sobbing, trying to find a remnant to save as she catches sight of a tiny bright blue marble suspended above the lower pool, only a few centimetres from the still, dark surface. Reaching for it, she feels the beginning of an urgent tugging on her consciousness, the TARDIS is pulling her forcefully from the dying environment. Lunging forward, she's able to grab the little marble.

As she's being yanked forcibly from not only the Doctor's mind, but that timeline, she focuses on the marble. Mentally she sees herself blow on it, and it brightens. With a "Hello, Rose…," she hears her Doctor's voice and watches what he's experienced in the past three days. His coming awake, and the injured man, John Hart. The abuses, /Oh Doctor./ She listens and watches him struggle with the slaving devices; just as he's beginning to succeed against them, he learns his kidnapper thinks she's been killed. Crashing and locked in a dead cryo-pod without any oxygen, he lets himself die rather than regenerate without her. Once the memories of him using her as a focus for his sanity have ended, the little blue marble vanishes; that vestige of the Doctor gone forever. This is the timeline she ended along with the Sontarans. Just before she's pulled back to complete wakefulness again, she catches one more glimpse of that timeline as it fades completely grey and crumbles away from hers; in a moment, it is gone entirely.

Gasping back into herself, she hears Darling frantically calling for her. Trying to catch her own breath and stop the sobs that are uncontrollably wracking her body, she stumbles to the shower. Turning the water on full blast, she slumps to the floor and lets the water pound some relief into her bruised psyche, while she comforts the TARDIS, and also looks for answers. Her mental adventure took 3 minutes and 56 seconds.

~ROSE! My Wolf! I nearly lost you. You were so nearly pulled from me.~

/Darling, I'm here. I'm sorry, what happened? What…what was all that?/

~I think Bad Wolf may have…augmented your already substantial gifts.~

/Augmented? Added to them? Why would she do that though?/

~I would assume so you can channel her energy more efficiently. You were in the healing coma for a very long time, and that is usually only because of major organ regrowth during regeneration or substantial damage to the brain.~

/Alright, I can buy that. I did feel really tired and fuzzy after we were finished with the Sontarans. I felt a little like my brain was…itching…burning. But, what happened just now?/

~Oh, my Wolf. You had followed a different time stream to a dying version of my Thief, and you were in his mind as it was dying, too. It would have taken you with it if you had stayed. I had to pull you out.~

/It was horrible. He thought I was dead, that I'd died when the Sontarans killed the City. That isn't going to happen now, right?/

~It has already happened, my Wolf. That timeline is gone.~

/That's good though right? I mean, he died in that one…unhhh, I could feel him slipping away; he wanted to go. He chose…../

Another bout of sobbing takes her as she pours out her grief at the sensation of losing her Doctor permanently. The White Wall of Doom was bad enough, but at least she'd known he was alive. This experience though, feeling him choose to let his life ebb away, so broken, and calling for her at the last, was much worse. She will not let this happen. She's been given another chance. She chose when she ended the Sontarans. She'd saved thousands in Chelsea 426; she will save her Doctor, too.

~Good is meaningless, my Wolf. It happened, but we will do our best to keep it from happening again.~

Pulling herself together, Rose gets up off the shower floor, and bathes with purpose. Completing her shower, she gets dressed while formulating plans and making mental lists. There's a lot to do, and she may have less time now than she thought she'd have three days ago.

/I saw other timelines. How do I know which one is the right one? How do I choose?/

~It is not always as conscious a decision as ending that other timeline. There are always parallel realities created by either our decisions or those made by others that affect us. When we reach the causal nexus point, Timelines will be discarded or made anew by that event. We will have to wait, they are only possibilities at the moment~

Rose doesn't like this answer. There must be something she can do. Bad Wolf wouldn't have 'augmented' her for no purpose. At this thought, she feels Bad Wolf stir within her. Reaching for Her, Rose is immediately back in the altered perception showing her two timelines—the one she's in and the alternate which has the Doctor potentially in peril. Focusing on this timeline, Rose feels Bad Wolf share the vision of it with her. Now, she can see the twisted rope leading to the Doctor with several nodes of coloured emotional moments. Bad Wolf is enhancing her ability to read the Timeline even further. She sees a knot of purple black fury, knots of green fear, and most everything is glossed in the brownish yellow of pain. This makes Rose/Bad Wolf angry. They are endangering her Doctor and it will not be allowed to continue. Sifting through her options, she sees that she must reach her Doctor before he is woken from stasis. If she does that, then any other alternate timeline will cease to exist.

Satisfied with their task ahead, Bad Wolf and Rose separate. Coming back to herself, Rose has a new appreciation for the augmentation that Bad Wolf gifted her with. In this instance it wasn't very pleasant, but knowing is better than not. Reaching for Darling, Rose outlines what she learned to her.

/Can we time it that closely, Darling?/

~I will do my best, my Wolf.~

Rose sends as much confidence and appreciation as she can at the wonderful being. Rose worries that she asks Darling for too much help. She must think humans and Time Lords are the most irritatingly needy creatures in the Universe. Rose knows there's still a lot of work to do to find her Doctor, but she's ready; she needs him.

Suddenly, the smell of breakfast makes her stomach growl so loudly, she's sure Jack can hear it. As if on cue, he yells down the hall, "Food's up!" Smiling grimly to herself, she pushes the grief over the Doctor's death down and away. It will not happen that way; Rose Tyler forbids it.

Exiting her room, she hears Jack singing American Pie, as he putters around the kitchen. Finding a genuine smile come naturally to her, she wears it all the way to the kitchen.

Jack is just beginning another round of the chorus, "Bye, Bye Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry," when Rose walks in. "Hiya, Rosie!" He can see she's been crying. Not wanting to pry, he pretends everything's fine. He's done his own fair share of crying in the past couple of days. First thinking something he had done was killing Rose, then realising that he didn't care at all about what he might be losing by staying on the TARDIS for the next couple of years, and then how he was probably going to be killed by a pissed off Time Lord for killing Rose.

It was a rough couple of days. The book the TARDIS gave when he was so worried had helped some, and it was actually fascinating. Respiratory Bypass, now that could come…in…handy. With a lascivious turn to his thoughts that amuses him greatly, he sets the plates piled with eggs, toast, and some meat like protein he had found in the fridge. He has no clue what it is, but it smelled good cooking.

"Mmmm…everything smells divine! I'm so hungry. Thanks for cooking, Jack," she says with a smile. Seating herself and pouring a cup of tea for both of them, she's more than ready to take on the meal. Starting in comfortable silence filled with the sounds of lusty chewing, it doesn't take them long to slow down, and start talking.

"This was amazing," Rose says, finally pushing her plate away. Picking up her tea, she blows absently over it with an abstracted thoughtful look on her face.

"Thanks, glad you liked it. I have no idea what the meat stuff was, but it seemed tasty enough."

"Oh, that's what's left of the Venusian Bacon. They make it from some weird armadillo pig thing. The Doctor found it at a market on…San Helios, I think. He was ecstatic. I can tell you it is a hell of a lot tastier than Venusian Crabs. Those are vile!"

"Blech! I completely agree. As if green slime wasn't bad enough, but they smells like puke. How do people eat that?"

"Right? The Doctor thinks they're the best thing ever. He called them the fruit of the Goddess of Love!"

They both laugh at this distinctly distasteful notion, and the hilarity of the Doctor's preferences. Missing her Doctor terribly, Rose sobers and looks down into her tea.

"I saw him," she observes quietly. "I reached for him, just to see if he was still out there, and I noticed…well, I noticed some changes in how my mind works now. I could see our link, not just feel it, and I followed it." Rose wants to share the experience with Jack, but she's having a hard enough time digesting the things she's seen, and it's his ex partner who's responsible. She isn't sure she should burden him with these memories.

Jack can tell she wants to talk about it, but is hesitant, so he speaks up, "You could show me if that would be easier." Seeing her reluctance, he leans forward and takes her hand, "I'm your friend. Hell Rosie, you think of me as your brother. Let me help you. I'm a big boy, and you'll remove the memories someday anyway, so I think I can stomach however bad they are for a couple of years." He says this with a confident smile on his handsome face. He's so sincere.

"Jack, some of it is seriously ugly," she shares, giving him one last chance to say no.

"Let me help."

Leaning forward and still holding his hand, she lays her palm against his temple, "You ready?" With a nod from Jack, she slips the entire morning's condensed adventure into his mind. Since it's not a great span of time, processing the incoming information doesn't take nearly as long as her previous sharing.

When he has it all, he releases her hand, and gets up from the table to pace, a look of contained fury suffusing his features. It takes him several moments of heavy breathing to regain his composure. Turning to Rose with an expression of bitter sadness, he says, "I am so sorry, Rose. I had no idea he was capable of such…barbarism. I thought I knew him so well. He could be a hothead, but …no clue."

"You were lovers?" Rose asks. It's the only reason she can think of for the 51st century sex collars being on board. "Yes," he replies simply, looking away. "We'd been partners for two years, and long missions get boring. That's why I thought I knew him. You talk about everything when you're alone for so long. Dammit! I didn't know."

"This isn't your fault, Jack. Please do not make this your fault. You're right, you didn't know. This entire idiotic situation is no one's fault, except John Hart's. He's the one to point the blame at. We don't have time for a mea culpa parade. Let it go. You, I know. Truthfully, I do think of you as my brother, and I love you, Jack." Getting up from the table she interrupts his pacing to hug him, hard. She needs to feel his solid muscles and his loyal heart pounding under her ear. He's such a good friend, and she's so glad he's here.

Putting all of that into her hug, he's startled at first, not believing she would't be mad; but as she hangs on, he relaxes, taking all the love she's pushing his way.

"I love you, too, Rosie," he sniffs. Then as they stand back from each other, he says, "Let's go get this Doctor of yours. I'm looking forward to meeting the guy that deserves you."

Taking his hand with a grin that lights up the TARDIS, they head out to the Console Room.

"That's one good thing from that collapsed timeline—learning where they're headed. Mars won't be a problem, but I'd like to try and find him before he wakes up. That's going to involve the Vortex."

/Can we get there, Darling?/she thinks leaning against the Console. Flashing her lights and humming an affirmative, Rose and Jack start the dematerialisation sequence. The TARDIS lurches as she reaches the Vortex. The wormhole from where they were may have opened, but the Vortex itself is still stormy. Working on the Architectural Stabilisers that Darling flashes in her mind, Rose is able to give them a little solidity. They're still shaking, but not being tossed around the room is a definite improvement.

Inputting the coordinates for the space above Mars, 24 hours prior to where they just left, she throws the switches and toggles for the materialisation. With loud grinding, and much more shaking than Rose can compensate for, they slam to a stop on a firm surface. That wasn't Rose's intention. Picking herself up off the floor and reaching for Darling, she feels Her focused inwardly, repairing something and not responding to Rose. Looking for Jack, she sees him rubbing his bum, but he's standing, too.

"Is it always that exciting?" he asks, wondering if this was such a good idea after all.

"Yeah, don't you remember?" she asks him with her tongue stuck in her grin. "I don't know where we are though. I was aiming for space."

"Doesn't it say on the screen?"

"Not yet. She must be fixing something, all I get is a screensaver that says 'fixed point.' Go open the doors. Let's see where we are."

She and Jack walk to the end of the ramp and open the doors onto the Martian landscape. They're both pretty sure it's Mars…dusty, red, cold, and windy; must be Mars. Turning back toward the Console, Rose reaches for Darling again, /Darling? Is this Mars? Why are we on Mars?/ She doesn't get a response, and she has a really bad feeling about all of this; but what else is there to do? Not sure if she should be worried or not, Rose and Jack go looking for the spacesuits. Might as well go exploring while the TARDIS repairs herself. Rose looks back at the Console one last time, before closing the doors behind her.

She has a strange heaviness in her mind-an itchy buzz, and she doesn't know what it means. She's trying to dig some knowledge out of this big Time Lord brain of hers, but for some reason, she isn't coming up with anything. With a final shrug, she tries to put her unease behind her and enjoy the adventure. She has a time machine; as soon as whatever is fixed, they'll follow through with her original plan, presuming the Vortex has calmed down.

As the lock clicks on the shutting door, the view screen flickers back to life displaying: 21 November 2059.