Disclaimer: I do not own the Doctor. Or Rose. Or anyone in this fic, except almost everyone in Chapter four.
A/n:More Plot-ness!
000
Three weeks, five days, two hours and three minutes later, he still doesn't know how it happened.
He flushed the drug from his system three days after they found her. He would have done it sooner if he hadn't been such a mess, but he just couldn't understand how he'd lost something so precious, how he could forget her and everything she had done. Even after the TARDIS told him he was still confused. Only Rose's need for someone, anyone, to take care of her had kept him from breaking down completely.
Then again, if Rose was what had kept him from a mental break down, Donna was what kept him functioning. She was the one who'd made him sleep, made him eat, made sure he didn't waste away at Rose's bedside. It was her idea to ask the TARDIS to land somewhere safe and bright, her bullying stubbornness that had forced him outside. She was the one who had the mad idea of bringing Rose out, too, and having a picnic of all things. She was brilliant, Donna Noble, and he hasn't the slightest idea of how to properly thank her.
So when she suggests shopping in some alien bazaar on the planet of Moolenoff, he agrees and actually manages to get them there during the right time period (the TARDIS wants to thank her too). And when she decides that they're going to stay there all day, he doesn't say a word. He can manage, maybe, hopefully, and besides, she deserves it.
He even let her steal Rose away for some "girl time" ("The girl doesn't have any clothes! Okay, so maybe she does, but something new will make her feel special! How do I know? Well, spaceman, I'm a human female. We love shopping!"), though not without some (okay, a bit more than some) protest (still, he can't be expected to just let her go after having lost her for so long, can he? He's just a bit nervous, that's all, and she is very jeopardy friendly…
Three weeks, five days, two hours, and twenty minutes later, he's still afraid to let her out of his sight).
Still, it's the least he can do after all the good Donna's done for him, and maybe she can help Rose the same way. She's a brilliant woman, Donna is, as he can't help telling the shopkeeper—in between telling him the history of the Gun'qua fruit that he's currently holding. She's saved his life loads of times, and she's pretty accepting about aliens. Well, most of the time, she did keep calling him a martian when he first met her. Oh, and did he mention that the Gun'qua originated on Hway and not Polou?
Three weeks, five days, three hours and five minutes later, the Doctor's in a pretty good mood.
Three weeks, five days, three hours and six minutes later, he's running as if his life depends on it towards a tiny alley, which it does, because Rose just screamed.
He reaches it in 2.745 seconds, with his time sense kicking in to high gear the moment he senses danger, just in time to see a man with a knife lunge at his Rose. Within the 0.61 seconds it takes him to get to her, the man explodes into gold dust.
Which is impossible, part of his brain insists. Which is good, says the other part, because Rose is safe and has stopped screaming.
In the .023 seconds it takes for him to realize what both of these facts in this situation mean, the Bad Wolf catches him in Her glowing gaze.
"The stars are going out," She says in that strange double-timbre. "Through all the universes, the stars are going out."
He wants to say something, wants to beg that She let the power go because she can't survive, she'll die, she barely survived last time…
"You have to save them or reality will die." And with that doom-filled pronouncement, the golden aura recedes and she's just Rose again, his Rose, broken and filled with pain, but safe.
"What. The hell. Was that?" Donna demands from behind him. He turns to tell her, at least the short version, but something distracts him. Everywhere, on all of the banners and all of the stalls, even on the TARDIS though he can barely see her through the crowd, the words stare down at him. Bad Wolf.
Three weeks, five days, three hours, and seven minutes later, the world is ending.
000
A/n: Aha! Ridiculous rears its head once again! But Ridiculous does love reviews, and since the closer to the end of the fic I get, the more Ridiculous there is, Ridiculous must be kept happy for the fic to continue. And yes, that was a shameless plug for reviews. However, my mind is being swamped by Ridiculous, who has grown so big that Ridiculous has now become Ridiculous' own entity (though not big enough to get pronouns).