Disclaimer: Nothing related to Doctor Who or the Harry Potter Series is mine. I swear. I wish I owned them, cuz then I might have a bit more money, but I don't.

Warnings: Book Two of Three (Main books anyway). Swearing. Sarcasm. I have only watched the new series, no knowledge of early Doctor Who. EWE, kind of...

Dedication: To the Writers and Producers of Doctor Who, thank you for giving me something else to obsess over, now that Harry Potter is long gone. And to the lovely people who encourage me to continue writing in their reviews. To the lovely people who encouraged me to post the next chunk. To my lovely reviewers, GryffinPuffGirl and Emaelin, thank you for everything you've said.

Book 2: Stories of A Shop Girl

Summary: A Death too soon. A woman who steps up to save the world.

Rating: Dark T

Genre: Adventure/Drama

A/N: So the chapter after this is where canon starts being deviated from. Just a little bit.

A/N 2: Please, someone tell me what they think of Maria. I'm not asking for my health. I'd like to know so that I know about my skills as a writer. Because I really can't tell, given as I know all of the characters secrets, and every little thing I say about a character feels like 'everyone is going to know the secret'.

A/N 3: I am currently in university, and my studies are a priority. Knowing that, please be forgiving when I don't post as often.

A/N 4: Alright boys and girls, this is where it gets complicated. And a cliffhanger. Which I apologize for. I hope to start posting the next part before Halloween, but that's a tentative date. I've only got four chapters of the next part to finish. Tootles! (And if you want to suggest a name for part 2, please do so. I'm clueless right now...)

Part 1: Just a Replacement?

Chapter 10: Fun at the Game Station

It'd been some time since Jack joined us, and the Doctor had grown fond of him during the time. Jack avoided hitting on me, or if he did, it was just for fun.

I stayed out of trouble, and constantly alert. Jack had a habit of wandering into my bedroom, telling me to get up, but he normally doesn't knock.

Which was probably the reason why he'd found out I wasn't really Rose Tyler.

I was enjoying being Hermione Granger for the short time I could. I knew that we weren't due to arrive anywhere for a few hours, so I thought I would be safe.

That is, until I got a "Rosie, I'm coming in. Don't bother hiding, I've seen it all before." (And he had. He'd barged in quite a few times when I was less than decent.)

Before I could even run to my ensuite to take my potion, he'd entered. And immediately went for where his pistol would have been, if the Doctor hadn't 'confiscated' it during the first day. I stunned him, more a knee jerk reaction than anything else. I moved him into my room, lied him down on the bed, and rennevated him. He came too with a gasp, reminding me of him coming back to life in the future.

I shut the door. "Who the hell are you?"

I proceeded to spout off a whole bunch of facts that just him and I would know. He blinked.

"Rose?" I nod. "How?"

So I began telling him the story, skipping out the bits with him in it (It wouldn't do to have him know his future), and once I finished, he blinked.

"So, your name is Hermione Granger, you're a future companion of the Doctor, who's regenerated at that point, and you've accidentally travelled back in time. You found the real Rose Tyler dead, and now you're making sure that time doesn't crack because she's dead when she should be with the Doctor." I nod. "You're also a witch, which is how you can become Rose, but you can't use any of your powers while being Rose."

"Exactly."

"I don't envy you." He ended. I laughed.

He continued asking me questions, everything from what was it like being a witch, to talking about how I was feeling about pretending to be the Doctor's semi-famous companion. And then he asked me something I'd been questioning myself.

"So, do you think that this might have been supposed to happen all along?"

I swallowed. "I don't know. I mean, a future version of my best friend said that we'd close, and a future incarnation of him," I jerked my finger behind me, "Snogged the living daylights out of me. But I just can't accept, I can't believe. I don't want to get my hopes up." I sigh. "Rose Tyler ends up in another dimension. And time is always in flux, but, I don't see how any of what they are claiming can happen if I'm stuck somewhere I can't find him again."

And then Jack slapped me. I gave him a look, which spoke volumes. "Alright, so, I know we've known each other for a few months, and I don't know if you've been pretending this entire time, but judging by your stories, I think I'm safe in saying you need to stop and tell whatever's in your head, talking like that, to shut up. You've done tons of things, some of which I can't even believe are possible. I don't doubt that if worse came to worse, you could find him again. Judging by how the two of you interact, I can only see being in an alternate dimension slowing you down."

I stopped, looked at him, and started bawling. I honestly don't know why. Maybe it was because that was something I needed to hear. Maybe it was because I'd finally gotten all of that weight off my chest. Maybe...

There were thousands of maybes that would have given me reason to cry. But Jack held me anyway, and comforted me. I took my potion, after I dried my eyes, and we went to join the Doctor.

It was a week before everything would crash around our heads.

I woke to my head pounding and feeling fuzzy at the same time.

"What happened?" I blinked, my brain spouting images. Unconnected images. A slitheen woman. Great light. An egg. A planet. And white light. Then, nothing.

Someone's helping me up, and I glance, wondering if it's Jack or the Doctor. Neither. A tall, dark-skinned man. "It's alright. It's the transmat. Does your head in. Get a bit of amnesia. What's your name?"

I blink, fighting back the urge to say Hermione. "Rose. But where's the Doctor?" The word transmat floats through my brain. I blink.

"Just remember do what the android says. Don't provoke it. The android's word is law."

I frown. "What do you mean, android?"

Someone barks out instructions, telling everyone to be in positions.

"Come on, hurry up." I start falling over, and he corrects my balance for me.

I blink, looking around. "I was travelling, with the Doctor and a man called Captain Jack. The Doctor wouldn't just leave me."

The lady barking out order's before barks out more.

"But I'm not supposed to be here." My head's still a little fuzzy.

The man supporting my sighs. "It says Rose on the podium. Come on." I stand, gripping the podium tightly. I feel about to fall over at any second.

"Hold on, I must be going mad. It can't be. This looks like the..."

The lady yells that the android is activated. I blink. "Oh, my God. The android. The Anne droid."

"Welcome to the Weakest Link!"

The lady starts counting down, and I need to get out of here fast. But I'm told to stand up and shut up.

I sigh, and the game begins. I get a nice easy question about Maths first. And then things get interesting.

A question about old Earth legends (Tales of the Beetle Bard), and the round is ended.

"So, Rose, what do you actually do?" I blink at the Anne Droid.

I consider the answer carefully. What the hell? "I've been bouncing around jobs, never done the same thing twice. Robot deconstructer, metal melter, that sort of thing. I've also done a few hit jobs, done a bit of research work, been a doctor for a while. Been a prisoner. You know, the works."

All of the contestants seemed to take one step away from me. "And right now?" The Anne Droid asks.

"Between jobs."

"Another way of saying unemployed. And yet, you've still got enough money to buy peroxide. Why Fitch?"

I blink, not liking the slam to my hair. It's not like I can change it. "I think she got some of the questions wrong, that's all."

"Oh, you'd know all about that."

I frown. "I didn't get any of the questions wrong, thank you." I glance over to Fitch. She's in tears. "I'm sorry, that's the game. That's how it works. I had to vote for someone."

She starts begging, and I get a horrible feeling about this. Anne Droid tells us that someone else was the weakest link.

She finishes with "Fitch, you are the weakest link. Goodbye!" A barrel comes out of her mouth and a beam shoots out of it. And then Fitch is gone.

The floor manager yells something, but all I can hear is the pounding in my ears. "What's that? What's just happened?"

Rodrick, the man who'd helped me earlier frowned. "She was the weakest link, she gets disintegrated. Blasted into atoms."

"But I voted for her. Oh, my. This is sick. All of you, you're just sick! I'm not playing this."

Another one of the players beats me too it. He runs off, but also gets zapped.

Rodrick whispers back at me. "Don't try to escape. It's play or die."

I swallow. This is not good.

A few more people disintegrated and I'm feeling hopeless. I've gotten questions wrong (and apparently really easy questions too), and I've been close to being disintegrated too many times to count. Rodrick had revealed that he was keeping me in because he thought that I was stupid.

"When it comes to the final, I want to be up against you, so that you get disintegrated and I get a stack load of credits courtesy of the Bad Wolf Corporation."

I almost choke on my own spit. "What do you mean? Who's Bad Wolf?"

He looked at me like I was stupid. "They're in charge. They run the Game Station."

I swallow. That name had been following us around, everywhere. This was not good. The game continued.

It was down to Rodrick and I. I swallow, not feeling confident. I'd gotten most of the questions so far wrong, and the headache that had come from being transported in came back with a vengeance.

"Rose, in geography, what species came from Rexon 4 of the Rexon system?"

I blinked. "The Carrionites."

"Correct."

Rodrick got his question wrong. "Rose, the oldest inhabitant of the Isop Galaxy is the Face of what?"

"Boe! The face of Boe!"

"That is the correct answer."

Rodrick got the next question right. "Rose, in food, the dish Bouillabaisse originated from what culture of planet Earth?"

I swallowed. And then a memory came back. Bouillabaisse, Ron and Fleur Delacour. "France in Europe." I answered.

Rodrick got the next question wrong. I got my next two wrong, and he got his next two right.

I swore. The Anne Droid said two horrible words. "Sudden Death."

And I lost.

I tried protesting. I tried everything I could think of. Bad Wolf wasn't answering, my magic wasn't working. Nothing worked.

And then the Doctor came in. I ran. But they were too late. I was shot. Pain ripped through me, and I blacked out.

I woke to the sound of humming. I frown. Was it all just a nightmare? The Game Station? Everything? Or was I dead? I opened my eyes, and came face to face with an eye stalk. A metal eye stalk. A metal eye stalk connected to something horrible. Something I never wanted to see again.

Daleks.

I swear.

And then the Daleks start moving. "Alert. Alert. We are detected."

"It is the Doctor. He has located us. Open communications channel."

"The female will stand. Stand!" I stand, and shuffle over to the feed.

"I will talk to the Doctor."

I see the Doctor give a faint wave and a fake smile. "Oh, will you? That's nice. Hello!"

"The Dalek stratagem nears completion. The fleet is almost ready. You will not intervene."

I look at the Doctor. "Oh, really? Why's that, then?"

"We have your associate. You will obey or she will be exterminated." I started to wonder what would happen if I was hit by the Dalek ray. Something painful, most likely. But not death.

"No." I blink, frowning. What did he mean by that?

"Explain yourself."

"I said no."

"What is the meaning of this negative?"

"It means no."

"But she will be destroyed."

"No! Because this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to rescue her. I'm going to save Rose Tyler from the middle of the Dalek fleet. And then I'm going to save the Earth, and then, just to finish off, I'm going to wipe every last stinking Dalek out of the sky!"

I blinked back tears. "But you have no weapons, no defences, no plan." The Dalek said, confused. Do Daleks get confused?

"Yeah. And doesn't that scare you to death. Rose?"

I smile. "Yes. Doctor?"

"I'm coming to get you."

The Daleks started going in a frenzy. And then just calling out Exterminate!.

It was boring. But I couldn't do anything. Just wait. One of them turned to me. "You know the Doctor. You understand him. You will predict his actions."

I snort. "Right. I swear, I've known that man a few years now. I'll never understand him. And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you."

"Predict! Predict! Predict!"

"TARDIS detected in flight."

"Launch missiles. Exterminate!"

"Fat load of good that'll do."

The Daleks were slowly growning angrier and angrier, until I felt the TARDIS start to materialize.

"Rose, get down!" He only needed to say it once. I ducked, and a shot went over my head. It hit a Dalek behind me.

I swallowed, trying not to cry. "You did it." He runs and hugs me. "Feels like I haven't seen you in years."

He grinned. "I told you I'd come and get you."

"Never doubted it."

"I did. You alright?"

I grin, and grab my bag. "Yeah. You?"

"Not bad, been better."

Jack pipes in. "Hey, don't I get a hug?"

"Oh, come here!"

He grins. "I was talking to him." He hugs me back anyways. "Welcome home."

"I thought I'd never see you again." I said, blinking back tears. In the short time we'd known each other, he'd become something like a brother to me.

"Oh, you were lucky. That was a one shot wonder. Drained the gun of all its power supply. Now it's just a piece of junk." I swallowed.

I turned to the Doctor. "You said they were extinct. How come they're still alive?"

Jack nods beside me. "One minute they're the greatest threat in the Universe, the next minute, they vanish out of time and space."

"They went off to fight a bigger war. The Time War." I swallow whatever I was going to say next.

"I thought that was just a legend." Jack commented.

The Doctor had a far away look in his eyes. "I was there. The was between the Daleks and the Time Lords, with the whole of creation at stake. My people were destroyed, but the took the Daleks with them. I almost thought it was worth it. Now it turns out they died for nothing."

I try to comfort him. But nothing worked, so I gave him the honest truth. "There's thousands of them now. What're we going to do?"

"No good stood round here chin wagging. Human race, you'd gossip all day. The Daleks have got the answers. Let's go and meet the neighbours." The Doctor walked out the doors of the TARDIS.

"You can't go out there!"

He does anyway, and I follow. The beams are just bouncing off a shield outside the TARDIS. "Is that it? Useless. Nul points." He taunts the Daleks, before turning to me. "It's all right, come on out. That forcefield can hold back anything."

"Almost anything." Jack corrected, and I turned to glare at him.

The Doctor gave Jack a pained look. "Yes, but I wasn't going to tell them that. Thanks."

"Sorry."

The Doctor turned back to the Daleks. "Do you know what they call me in the ancient legends of the Dalek Homeworld? The Oncoming Storm. You might've removed all your emotions, but I reckon right down deep in your DNA, there's one little spark left, and that's fear. Doesn't it just burn when you face me? So tell me. How did you survive the Time War?"

"They survived through me." A voice said from our left. A light turns on and we all look at a great big Dalek casing, with a blue-skinned mutant in it, as if it was on a throne.

The Doctor swallowed. "Rose, Captain. This is the Emperor of the Daleks."

"You destroyed us, Doctor. The Dalek race died in your inferno, but my ship survived, falling through time, crippled but alive."

"I get it."

The Daleks around us started yelling at us not to interrupt.

"I think you're forgetting something. I'm the Doctor, and if there's one thing I can do, it's talk. I've got five billion languages, and you haven't got one way of stopping me. So if anybody's going to shut up, it's you! Okey doke. So, where were we?"

"A woman by the name of Balfowd came, tried destroying us, but failed. We ended up in the dark space, damaged, but rebuilding. Centuries passed, and we quietly infiltrated the systems of Earth, harvesting the waste of humanity. The prisoners, the refugees, the dispossessed. They all came to us. The bodies were filtered, pulped, sifted. The seed of the human race is perverted. Only one cell in a billion was fit to be nurtured." I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. I could hear a wolf howling, angry. I was too.

"So you create an army of Daleks out of the dead."

I glare. "That makes them half human."

"Those words are blasphemy."

The Daleks started chanting "Do not blaspheme."

The Emperor continued. "Everything human has been purged. I cultivated pure and blessed Dalek."

"Since when did the Daleks have a concept of blasphemy?" The Doctor asked, poking a little hole in the Emperor's declaration.

"I reached into the dirt and made new life. I am the God of all Daleks!"

And all the Daleks started saying "Worship him."

The Doctor frowned. "They're insane. Hiding in silence for hundreds of years, that's enough to drive anyone mad. But it's worse than that. Driven mad by your own flesh. The stink of humanity. You hate your own existence. And that makes them more deadly than ever." I wonder if anything that happened would ever make them less deadly than before? "We're going."

The Emperor and the rest of the Daleks tried protesting, but it didn't work well.

The TARDIS took off, and reappeared on Level 500. Or I figured it was. Last time I was here, it was dead cold, and everything was iced up.

The Doctor ran to the rest of the people in the room, and began barking out orders. It wasn't until they mentioned a Delta Wave that I became concerned.

"What's a Delta Wave?"

"A wave of Van Cassadyne energy. It fries your brain. Stand in the way of a Delta Wave, and your head gets barbequed." Jack explained. I swallowed. That wasn't good. The Doctor ran, starting to build what he would need.

I helped as much as I could, but it wasn't much. People started filing out, until all that was left was Jack, the Doctor and I.

"It's been fun, but I guess this is goodbye."

I'm about to cry. I know what happens next. And because I know it, I can't stop it. "Don't talk like that. The Doctor's going to do it. You just watch him."

Jack gives me a grin. He hugs me holding me close. "Hermione, you are worth fighting for." He pulls back and kisses me. He turns to the Doctor. "Wish I'd never met you, Doctor. I was much better off as a coward." He kisses him too. "See you in hell."

A few minutes later and I was thinking something. "Suppose."

"What?" The Doctor said, looking up.

"Nothing."

He frowned. "You said suppose."

"No, I was just thinking. I mean, obviously you can't, but, you've got a time machine. Why can't you just go back to last week and warn them."

The Doctor sighs. "As soon as the TARDIS lands in that second, I become past of events, stuck in the timeline."

"Yeah, thought it'd be something like that."

He looked down, speaking cautiously. "There's another thing the TARDIS could do. It could take us away. We could leave. Let history take its course. We go to Marbella in 1989."

I look at him. "Yeah, but you'd never do that."

"No, but you could ask." I blink, frowning. He's watching me closely. "Never occurred to you, did it?"

I snort. "I couldn't. I couldn't ask you to."

"The Delta Wave's started building. How long does it need?" We run over to the console, and I read what's written. I don't understand it. The Doctor's face falls.

"Is that bad? Okay, it's bad. How bad is it?" I look at him, trying to figure out what was going on in his mind.

His face lit up. "Rose Tyler, you're a genius! We can do it. If I use the TARDIS to cross my old timeline. Yes!" He runs into the TARDIS, and I follow. He tells me to hold on to something, and keep it down, while he goes and gets something.

"Doctor, what're you doing? Can I take my hand off?" The TARDIS starts. "It's moving." The door shuts, and a sinking feeling that started a minute ago gets worse in my chest. I pound on the door. "Doctor, let me out! What've you done?!"

And then the TARDIS is gone from the timeline. A hologram of the Doctor appears.

"This is Emergency Programme One. Rose, now listen, this is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger. And I mean fatal. I'm dead, or about to die any second with no chance of escape."

I cry out. Damn you, you crazy bastard.

"And that's okay. Hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after you, and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking you home."

"You big dolt. I was home to begin with. I'm not even in the right time!" I cry out. The TARDIS tries to comfort me mentally, but with the potion, it doesn't work.

"And I bet you're fussing and moaning now. Typical. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Programme One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do. Let the TARDIS die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it. No one'll even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world'll move on and the box will be buried. And if you want to remember me, then you can do one thing. That's all, one thing." Something happens to the hologram, and it looks straight at me. "Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life."

The hologram stops.

"No, you can't do this to me! You can't. Take me back! Take me back! NO!" The engine stops, and a brief flicker of hope that she's heard comes to surface. I run to the door, throwing it open, only to see the Powell Estate. "Come on, help me! Please!"

I go and sit outside leaning on the TARDIS doors.

Mickey comes up, grinning. "I knew it! I was all the way down Clifton Parade, and I heard the engines. I thought, there's only one thing that makes a noise like that." He sees me, sees that I've been crying. "What is it?" I get up and hug him. I start sobbing.

We end up at a cafe with Jackie. They're talking about food. Trying to make conversation, but all I can think about is he left me. He left me.

"Oh Rose, have something to eat."

I bite back a sob. "Two hundred thousand years in the future, he's dying, and there's nothing I can do." I blink, trying to take in that fact.

"Well, like you said, two hundred thousand years. It's way off." Jackie tried.

"But it's not. It's now. That fighting is happening right now, and he's fighting for us, for the whole planet, and I'm just sitting here, eating chips."

Jackie sighs. "Listen to me. God knows I have hated that man, but right now, I love him and do you know why? Because he dd the right thing. He sent you back to me."

I give her a look, and run out of the shop. They follow. I ran back to the TARDIS, just in time for the potion to completely wear off. Mickey blinks at me, uncertain now that I am back to being Hermione. Jackie just gives me a hug.

"I've been fighting for him for years. And he leaves me behind." I glance at the TARDIS and realize something.

I swallow. I look at Jackie and Mickey, and they realize that I know something else.

"I'm going back."

"No, don't sweetheart. He brought you back."

I blink, trying to hold back tears. "But I know what happens. I know how this has to end. And I know what I've got to do. So I'm asking you nicely. Leave the TARDIS. You shouldn't have to be here." Jackie swallows, looking in my eyes.

She must have seen something, because she said goodbye and dragged Mickey out. I shut the door behind them.

I sat down, and mentally connected with the TARDIS.

"I know what I have to do." I saw flashes of death. Pain. "Well then, I'll make it so I don't die. I'll change myself." A questioning tone resounded in my head. "I don't know, something that will make it so I don't have to die. And he doesn't have to either." Another questioning tone, this one asking if I was sure. "I've got to do this. I can't let him die alone. I can't walk away from him." I stood up.

An affirmative tone sounded across the room. And then the hatch opened.

I looked into the Time Vortex, taking it in. I could feel Bad Wolf taking over, and the TARDIS guiding me and telling me what to do. I thread DNA and TNA like it was string, weaving it together, mashing up my DNA. And then the pain hit.

I felt every molecule in my body change it's DNA into something new. Something never before seen. Part Time Lord, part Witch. I screamed, feeling the change in my body.

My head started to burn, and I felt my body trigger the regeneration process. I was dimly aware that I burst into a gold star, only to have it retreat a moment later.

I stepped, unsteadily. I had to save the Doctor. The TARDIS started the course, and I wondered what I looked like. I grabbed my purse, and took out a small mirror.

There was no difference. And then my brain caught up.

My eyes were glowing gold, but other than that, there was no difference between my new reflection and the reflection I saw after I took the potion. No more Rose Tyler.

And two hearts now. I frowned, wondering how I would keep that a secret from the Doctor. I couldn't exactly keep erasing his memories.

And then I grinned. I could do magic now. Full blown magic, because the potion wasn't in me anymore. I felt energized, and the Time Vortex had stopped hurting me. I'd almost forgotten it was even in my head.

The TARDIS landed, and I floated out. Bad Wolf took over.

"What've you done?" The Doctor cried.

"I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me."

The Doctor looked shocked. "You looked into the Time Vortex. Rose, no one's meant to see that."

The Emperor, who was on the screen spoke, "This is the Abomination!"

"Exterminate!" A Dalek said. I stop the beam with my hand.

"I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words, I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here." Because I could see everything, the past, the present, what should be and what is. And me, being here as Rose Tyler should be. It always should be.

"Rose, you've got to stop this. You've got to stop this now. You've got the entire vortex running through your head. You're going to burn." The Doctor said, getting up from where he was sprawled out.

"I want you safe. My Doctor. Protected from the false god."

The Emperor spoke again. "You cannot hurt me. I am immortal."

I glare. "You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence, and I divide them."

I was a little supercharged. I'd just regenerated though, in all fairness. One Dalek disintegrates.

"Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies. The Time War ends." I said. The Daleks and their ships crumble, and I can feel my magic spread out.

"Rose, you've done it. Now stop. Just let go." The Doctor said.

"How can I let go of this? I bring life." I found Jack's body, and sent the magic needed to resurrect him. Bad Wolf had control, and I tried fighting. But it didn't work. She was too strong. She had too much power.

"But this is wrong! You can't control life and death."

"But I can. The sun and the moon, the day and night. But why do they hurt?" I frown. Bad Wolf's senses expanded even further.

"This power's going to kill you and it's all my fault." I want to smack him. It's all my fault. I let Bad Wolf have the power. And she wouldn't let go.

"I can see everything. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be." Look and see the time line that needed to happen. But I couldn't see the end. I couldn't see past ending up in the alternate universe.

The Doctor smiles. "That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?"

Bad Wolf gave up control at that point, knowing that I would need it back. "My head..." The second Bad Wolf pulled away, and went back into her portrait, my head started to throb.

"Come here."

"It's killing me." He pulls me close.

He smiles. "I think you need a Doctor." I snort at the line, and then he kisses me. I feel the Time Vortex of the TARDIS slipping through my mental fingers, like water, flowing into him. And I feel another thrum, the thrum of my own Time Vortex, inside of me.

When the last of the TARDIS's Time Vortex is gone, I feel myself blackout.

I wake up with the uncomfortable grating digging into my cheek. "What happened?" I asked, looking around the TARDIS. The Doctor is standing at the console, and I frown. He doesn't look so good.

"Don't you remember?"

I frown. "It's like there was this singing."

"That's right. I sang a song and the Daleks ran away." He said.

Bits and pieces of the memories of the past day came back. "I was at home. No, I wasn't, I was in the TARDIS, and there was this light." I sigh, frowning. "I can't remember anything else."

The Doctor looks down, and pales. He looks back at me. "Rose Tyler. I was gonna take you to so many places. Barcelona. Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona. You'd love it. Fantastic place. They've got dogs with no noses. Imagine how many times a day you end up telling that joke, and it's still funny."

I frown, looking at him. What happened? "Then, why can't we go?"

"Maybe you will, and maybe I will. But not like this."

I frown. "You're not making any sense."

"I might never make sense again. I might have two heads, or no head. Imagine me with no head." I start smiling. "And don't say that's an improvement. But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're going to end up with." He doubles over in pain. I try rushing for him.

"Doctor!"

"Stay away!"

I frown. "Doctor, tell me what's going on." I really hope it wasn't what I was thinking.

"I absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex, and no one's meant to do that. Every cell in my body is dying."

I try not to sob, but one comes out. "Can't you do something?"

"Yeah, I'm doing it now. Time Lords have this little trick, it's sort of a way of cheating death. Except it means I'm going to change, and I'm not going to see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go-"

"Don't say that." I said, tears running down my face.

"Rose, before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what?" He asked. I shake my head, trying not to cry. "So was I."

He bursts into golden light. Everything changes very suddenly, and then someone else is standing there. Someone in the Doctor's leather jacket.

It was my old Doctor. Or apparently new Doctor. I swallowed, watching him closely.

"Hello, Okay. Ooo, new teeth. That's weird." He runs his tongue over his teeth. "So, where was I? Oh, that's right. Barcelona."