AN: Review responses:

LovelyAmberLight: Thank you! I hope you find answers to your questions.

TiaKisu: Maybe this universe does revolve around her, you'll have to read more to find out! Hopefully your curiosity is satisfied soon, and thanks for reviewing!

Brightwatcher:Thank you!

Purple Guest: Yes, Torchwood can be very frustrating. And thanks for reviewing!

ramen-luver101: I'm glad it caused that sort of reaction, lol. And thanks for reviewing!

Enjoy!

"This is Emergency Program Nine...nine...nine..."

Rose blinked blearily, stumbling over the grated surface of the TARDIS. Her legs felt like heavy iron anchors, forcing her to succumb to gravity, but she stayed standing, forcing herself to keep her sticky molasses eyes cracked open.

The Doctor stood in front of her, his image bending and swaying, fluctuating between two different forms. Her first and second doctor. Both relatively tall. One with short cropped hair, and one with locks that threatened to burst through the ceiling. One with ocean eyes that Rose felt like she was drowning in, and one whose eyes most likely tasted of chocolates, swollen with caramel filling.

"Do you miss me?" he asked. His voice sounded distant and very near at the same time, and Rose felt like she was staring him down from the end of a tunnel as his echoing voice called to her.

Rose budged her mouth open, but found much difficulty in talking. Her tongue had expanded to twice its size, and for some odd reason tasted of licorice. It was a rather peculiar sensation, but in her current state of mind, she didn't give it much thought.

"I don't...know," Rose finally stammered out. A second after the words left her mouth she shook her head, feeling as though a gallon of marbles were jostling within her skull as she did so. Of course she missed the Doctor. Why would she say such a silly thing?

Rose could swear that the Doctor was just a couple steps above her, but when she reached for him, to confirm the ache that she felt in his absence, it was suddenly as though she was extending her arm a long a great void to reach him. He didn't seem at all perturbed by this, or at least not as much as she was. But it was difficult to tell between the jittery shifting between his different regenerations. Though even that was slowing down, at least in Rose's sluggish mind. Eventual the fluctuations came to a stop, and there he stood.

Her first doctor. Rose had grown to love the new regeneration of her Doctor, but there was a certain ache in her chest when she reminisced about the man he had been before. The new regeneration didn't get half as grumpy as the other one, and he never complained about her and her 'pretty boys'. He never gave things to her in the same blunt, matter of fact way, instead choosing to ramble on for hours about the most ordinary things. Rose loved this, of course, but she missed the facts. The lack of scientific wibbly-wobbly jumbo. Her Doctor's predecessor was far more closed up than him, but at the same time he was much more open. He didn't hide behind his words, instead shielding himself with his worn leather jacket and closing himself up to all except for a chosen few.

Also, her second Doctor never said 'fantastic'

He gazed at her now, albeit in a somewhat unfocused manner. "Why don't you trust me?" he asked suddenly. His words were sharp and uneven, and they stabbed like razor blades into Rose's body. She wanted to scream from the pain, but she could barely even breathe.

"I don't...know why," Rose replied faintly. The words barely managed to make it out of her mouth, for the stabbing ache in her sides peaked. Rose grabbed frantically at her torso, half expecting to feel damp blood oozing between her fingers. But her fingers only sensed ribs and flesh. It was in this moment that Rose perceived that she was entirely naked. Well, naked except for her feet. Looking down, she discovered that she was wearing a pair of worn, oversized Converse tennis shoes. For some reason, this concept seemed infinitely hilarious, and she choked out a feeble attempt at a laugh. She knew that she should be completely embarrassed, standing there in the console room with no clothes except for shoes in front of the Doctor, but she didn't honestly care. Neither did he, it would seem, as she glanced up at him. In fact, he hadn't formed any discernible facial expression since Rose had encountered him here.

"I'm still him, you know," the Doctor continued flatly."I always have been."

Rose raised an eyebrow at him, confusion flooding through her every nerve. "But...you came first..." she said thickly. "You were my...first Doctor."

A wistful smile came onto his face, the first emotion he had displayed in this conversation. "Yes, I suppose that's the case."

An abrupt though popped into Rose's befuddled mind. "But...there were others...before you," she said sluggishly. "You...aren't...the first."

The smile was wiped off of the Doctor's face, only to be replaced by the former expression of apathy. "No, Rose Tyler, I am the first."

Rose shook her head, which currently weighed at least twice as much as her body, making it quite the difficult task. "But... Sarah Jane Smith...there were others..."

"No, there weren't," the Doctor said insistently. "There was only you, Rose."

Rose wanted to argue, to cling to the last tiny wisp of rationality that floated around in her rather unconscious consciousness, but everything just hurt too much. This pain suddenly became quite a pressing matter, and Rose's knees abruptly collapsed beneath her. But unexpectedly, she wasn't at the floor's mercy in this moment.

She now sat in a rather plush leather armchair, the cold of the glossy skin pressing into her bare flesh. The room around her had changed to some extent as well. In fact, it was difficult to understand the scenery before her now. Front and foremost, Rose could see that she was seated in the TARDIS library. Towering shelves and columns loomed over her in the relatively circular room at which she seemed to sit in the center of. But at the same time, the magnificent room was cross-sectioned with what Rose could identify as the medbay. A figure lay on their on a cot in the center of the sterile white room, clad on a pale green hospital gown that fell down to their knees. Rose couldn't perceive much about the person, other than the bleached blond hair that pooled around the pillow that she had her face pressed into. That hair was strangely familiar to Rose.

"Hello," a voice said, alarmingly close to her ear. Rose jumped slightly in her seat, turning towards the noise. There stood the Doctor, her second Doctor. He looked rather dashing, in Rose's opinion, an elegant tuxedo draped over his slender form. His hair was gelled, and parted, a look that Rose had never seen on him, but found to suit him well. Unlike his prior form in the console room, this Doctor smiled pleasantly at her. Rose wished to return the gesture, but her face felt rather numb.

"Would you join me?" the Doctor asked endearingly. He extend a crooked arm to her, and Rose stood quickly, linking her arm with his. Just like his predecessor, this Doctor didn't seem to be rather bothered by her obvious nudity.

The two of them proceeded towards the cot, and Rose soon found that her feet were now bare, her toes pressing into the plush carpet. Glancing over to the Doctor's feet, she could see that the shoes had somehow passed on to him.

"Doctor, what are we doing here?" Rose asked suddenly. She didn't have any issue speaking now for some reason, the words flowing out of her throat with ease. Now that she was here with the Doctor, it was easier to view things with clarity, and rationality. This whole situation was rather odd, Rose realized.

The Doctor chuckled. "Rose Tyler, you should know that I don't exist."

Rose was struck with a sudden, foreign sensation of fear. "Doctor, what do you mean?"

But he had pulled his arm out if hers, and now proceeded to the cot with an almost rabid sense of urgency. Rose tagged after him, the carpet beneath her feet melting into cold tile as she emerged into the med bay. Turning on her feet, Rose saw now only a blank white wall behind her where the library should have been. Rose heard the sound of fabric rustling behind her, and she turned.

The lay the cot, where that woman lay. The Doctor loomed over the table, inspecting something on the figure's back. Except, once more, it was her first Doctor. He was dressed, rather oddly, in surgical scrubs, a face mask tugged over his mouth.

"Where did he go?" asked Rose, suddenly rather conscious of her bare body.

The Doctor glanced up at her, pulling the mask down around his neck. "Where did who go?" he asked curiously.

"Well...you," Rose replied. Didn't the Doctor have another one of those gowns lying somewhere?

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the Doctor abruptly materialized right in front of her, a gown identical to the other one clutched in his hands. Rose took it gratefully, tugging it on, muttering a 'thank you' to him.

"You're welcome," The Doctor said. "But in response to your question, I'm right here." He looked at her, clearly perplexed.

"No, I mean.. The other you," Rose replied, just as confused as he was. Surely the Doctor knew what she was talking about.

The Doctor shook his head, turning away from her. "Rose, surely he told you," he said, "that he doesn't exist?"

Rose's eyes narrowed. "But that doesn't make any sense! Of course he exists, I know him!"

The Doctor laughed shortly. "Rose, only you and I exist. Out of all people, you should know that the best." For some reason, he glanced pointedly at the woman on the cot.

Rose made to respond, but before she could, the Doctor took her hand. For some reason, the grip of his palm in her's made everything he had said previously seem completely and entirely rational, and Rose felt the slightest bit of the incoherency from earlier returning.

"That isn't what is important," the Doctor said to her calmly. He led her over to the cot, to the point where both of them stood right over the woman. Rose noticed that she lay completely still, too still.

"Doctor, is she dead?" Rose asked.

The Doctor shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, but Rose could see pain in the depths of his eyes. "In a sense," he said.

"Why are you showing her to me?" Rose responded. "What's so important about her?"

The Doctor now redirected his gaze to her, and Rose's heart nearly stopped beating at the sight of eyes. His stare held so much weight, so much emotion.

So much love, Rose realized with a jolt.

"She is more important than all in this universe," the Doctor said quietly.

Rose gulped, and tore her gaze away from the Doctor, back to the limp form on the cot. Who could this be? Who could hold so much value for the Doctor? Rose had never heard of her before. She watched as the Doctor reached down to her body, undoing the snaps on the gown that ran down her back, stopping just at the back of her spine. He then turned to Rose, eyeing her intently.

"You need to see this, Rose Tyler," the Doctor said. For some reason, his voice sounded almost apologetic.

"Doctor, what is it?" Rose asked, barely masking the worry in her tone.

In response, the Doctor pulled open the flaps of the gown, baring the woman's back. At the sight of what lay before her, Rose screamed, jumping away from the cot. A beetle, a massive beetle lay across the woman's back. It was the size of a small dog, and grotesque, it's legs clawing into her back as it chattered, twitching the appendages by its mouth. Rose had seen many things in her travels with the Doctor, but for some reason this seemed the most alien. She didn't know how she hadn't seen it before, surely it would have bulged through the gown?

"Wh-why is that there?!" Rose asked shakily. "What is it?!"

"The second most important thing in this universe," the Doctor said calmly, apparently not affected by this horrifying sight.

Rose gulped, eyeing it warily. "But why are you showing this to me?"

"Because," the Doctor said. "Of this." He gently took the woman's shoulder, and turned her so she was on her side.

It was her. Rose was staring at herself. Her skin was paler than usual, and her roots had grown in slightly. But the lifeless eyes that stared blankly at Rose were her own.

Rose cried out, shielding her eyes as though that would make this spectacle go away. That couldn't be her. Waves of fear cascaded through her body, accompanied by a desire to run, run farther than she ever had before. The image of that creature, that monster, was burned into her retinas. The idea of it clawing into her back, grappling against her spine made her shudder, and Rose was quite sure that she would be sick.

"Oh god Doctor, what do I do?!" Rose sobbed. When she spoke, he was there, firmly gripping his shoulders. He was shaking too, Rose realized, his hands trembling on her shoulders. If anything, this made matters completely worse. She had rarely seen the Doctor afraid, truly afraid. But the look on his face conveyed more fear than Rose has ever seen before.

"Rose," the Doctor said, his voice unsteady. "You have to wake up."

Rose shook her head. "I don't understand." But her vision was going black around the edges, and she found herself slumping into the Doctor's arms. She could feel the Doctor's reassuring touch at her waist as he supported her, preventing her from falling to the ground. But even that was fading quickly as everything disappeared.

"This will all be over when you wake up," was his last whisper in her ear.