AN: I love stories where Rose and the TARDIS get close to each other, able to properly communicate and so forth, but I don't like how often times it just happens. Thus, in my story, it will be a process. On another note, certain story lines that heavily depend on the Doctor being the Doctor won't be written in this story - at least not yet… Thanks for reading!


She took Donna back to her home sharpish after that.

Watching the woman trudge to the door and outside, Rose took a breath before following her out. They had landed on the path of a suburban street. Donna had crossed her arms and was visibly trying not to look scared as she observed the ship from the outside, all the adrenaline from earlier now gone and allowing her to better take it in.

"It's really bigger on the inside," she muttered. "Is it alien?"

Rose nodded. "Yeah."

"Are you?"

For a second, she was reminded of the day she met the Doctor. "No, not me." She thought about how she had apparently glowed when in the lab and almost second guessed herself, but said nothing. "Is that okay?"

Donna shrugged. "I suppose so. You saved my life today."

"I suppose so." Rose looked at her closely. "Are you gonna be okay?" After all, the woman had been "kidnapped", betrayed and sort-of-widowed in the same day.

"Yeah," she said in a low tone. "I mean - I don't know. Maybe I'll go traveling!" she said, brightening artificially. "Actually see some of the world." Rose thought for a moment, in the back of her head, that the Doctor might have invited the woman to travel with him. Rose didn't think she could.

"I hope you do," she said. "There's a lot to see."

"Yeah." Then it was Rose's turn to feel x-rayed, as the older woman turned a critical eye on her. She resisted the urge to fidget. "So how about it then, sweetheart?" she asked in a soft voice. "Fancy coming in for a bit? Christmas dinner?"

Rose's eyes widened. "Oh, I couldn't -"

"It's just, you look lonely." At that, tears stung at the backs of her eyes. "Whatever I think of Christmas, no one should spend it alone." Donna shot her a friendly smile. "Fancy it? There's - there's an empty seat at the table now." Her own expression turned downcast again and Rose felt urged to stop it.

"I don't know - I mean I'd like to," she stammered, "but I've just lost -" She cut herself off and took a deep, steadying breath. "I just lost someone too."

Donna nodded. "Yeah? Who were they?"

Rose glanced up at the dark night sky and breathed in the air. "His name was the Doctor."


"If you ever need to, come find me."

Those were the words Sarah Jane Smith had spoken on the day they met, and even if the context behind them was different to her situation, Rose, next found herself piloting the TARDIS to Bannerman Road and the time-spaceship, bless her, stepped in to lend a hand, landing her right in the driveway.

A pretty green vintage car sat next to her and Rose had barely a second to stare at it with a touch of longing before the front door was thrown open and a familiar face - and how welcome a familiar face - came dashing out.

Rose tensed for a moment - a small wave of shame washing over her as she remembered the way her first meeting with Sarah Jane Smith had started - then relaxed and managed a small smile as the woman's eyes landed first on the TARDIS, then on her.

A smile broke out on Sarah Jane's face. "Rose! Oh, it's lovely to see you again dear, although - have you been looking after yourself?" She had reached out as if to hug her, but had instead grasped her shoulders and was assessing her through narrowed eyes. "You look far too tired. He hasn't been keeping you from sleep with all his dashing about, has he?"

A shot of pain went through her heart. "No, he hasn't."

The smile on Sarah Jane's face froze, then dropped slightly. "Well where is he then?" she asked in a falsely optimistic tone, turning back to the TARDIS. "Hiding from me?"

She swallowed. "No - no he's not. He's -" She broke off and sucked in a harsh breath. "He's gone, Sarah."

The woman's face paled dramatically. "What on Earth do you mean, Rose? Gone? Gone where?"

And so, feeling terribly sick again, she explained. Everything, from the army of ghosts who turned out to be Cybermen, and the Cult of Skaro and the Genesis Ark, and Torchwood's messing with the void. She told her about the Doctor's plan to save the day and about how, at the last moment, it had all gone wrong and how he had been ripped away from his own universe.

"The walls between the universes have all been closed off again," she said, drawing to a close. "I managed to get through to him again, but only enough to talk. He said himself that he can never come back."

Sarah Jane was silent for a solid minute, lips pressed into a thin line, and a part of Rose wondered whether the woman was going to blame her, tell her that it should have been Rose who got trapped - at which, she would agree - when instead she let out a watery sigh, stepped forwards, and wrapped her arms around Rose tightly, rubbing a hand up and down her back even as she felt Sarah Jane shaking.

"Oh, my dear, Rose," she muttered. "Come inside. Come inside."

She picked up the rucksack she had brought out of the TARDIS with her and allowed Sarah Jane to usher her into the warmth of her home, standing awkwardly in the small foyer until she was brought into the hallway.

"I'll make some tea," she said, muttering to herself more than Rose, before she turned to her with a look in her eyes so hollow that Rose almost winced. "You go into the living room, dear, just behind you. How do you take your tea?"

"Uh - milk and one sugar, thanks," she said, managing a weak smile, and as Sarah Jane disappeared into her kitchen she sloped into the living room.

Looking around the warm space, she felt a sort of tension drain from her shoulders that hadn't left her in months. Maybe it was the safe familiarity of being with a friend, someone she had known before and whom she trusted, but Rose instinctively let her guard down. She felt a bit like a schoolgirl again when she slipped the rucksack off her shoulders and placed it on the floor beside the sofa with a clunk.

It was filled with books from the TARDIS library. One was the TARDIS manual - easily the heaviest of the lot - and she had also brought with her a volume detailing the laws and regulations of the Shadow Proclamation; if she was going to keep invoking them at her enemies, she should probably know a law or two. Finally, a binder that she had put together herself filled with printouts from the TARDIS, of the various alien lifeforms that the Doctor had pissed off over his long life, and who she may have to keep an eye out for.

She wasn't really sure why she brought them out with her, but it made her feel better to have them right there, within her immediate reach, to answer any question that may arise. She also wasn't sure she was doing the right thing by coming to relieve her burden on Sarah Jane. The look on her face had been so defeated when she went off to the kitchen that Rose could have kicked herself. Maybe it would have been better off if Sarah Jane had never found out. What if-

"Here we go," the woman on her mind said, coming into the living room with two cups of tea. She passed Rose the one patterned with little terrier dogs and sat down opposite her. For a good five minutes after that neither of them spoke, because despite the tentative friendship they had forged, it wasn't strong enough to properly withstand something like the loss of the Doctor. Neither of them knew what to say.

"You'll stay here tonight," Sarah Jane said suddenly, and Rose blinked at her a couple of times. "I have a spare room you can take, and my son's out at his friend's house right now but he shouldn't make too much noise coming in, so I don't think he'll wake you."

"Oh, I couldn't -"

"You can and you will," she said firmly. "You shouldn't be alone right now." Rose didn't want her to know that she had spent about three months completely isolated from the universe until the day before, so she kept quiet. "I'll bring you some pyjamas. Settle in."


The next morning, after a night during which she managed to sleep surprisingly well, Rose awoke with a small gasp (because deep sleep didn't mean dreamless sleep) and looked around dazedly, eyebrows furrowed until she remembered where she was.

"Who's Mr Smith?" she asked, following her up the stairs to the attic. Sarah Jane didn't answer, just pushed the attic door open and entered. She left it open as an invitation for Rose to follow, which she did.

"We can talk in here," she said. "I don't want Luke to overhear any of this." Luke was her adopted son, who Rose had met briefly when he wandered into the kitchen earlier, yawning gormlessly and groping about for cereal.

"Actually, Sarah Jane," a disembodied voice said out of nowhere, "there's something you should hear about."

"Oh really?" she asked. "Lets hear it then. Mr Smith, I need you."

There was a loud clicking sound, and then -

Rose gaped as the supercomputer emerged from the wall and greeted Sarah Jane, then offered a hello to Rose, whose stammered return went ignored as it - he? - then said, "Sarah Jane, I have detected alien plasma coils coming from the centre of London."

"Really?" the woman asked, frowning even as Rose's spine straightened and the familiar call to action tugged in her stomach. "Tell me more."

A map diagnostic appeared on the screen as Mr Smith said, "This is the Royal Hope Hospital. Something appears to be going on there, though I don't believe anything disastrous has happened yet."

Rose and Sarah Jane exchanged a look before Rose said, "I'll go and take a look, if you like. It's been a while." And after her adventure with Donna, Rose had to admit that she was more than ready to heed the call of action again.


Sarah Jane's number had been saved onto her phone along with a dozen or so reminders (read: warnings) for Rose to keep her updated on whatever was happening at the hospital.

"The moment you think you need it, call me and I'll come in to help," she had said as Rose dashed about getting ready. "I'd contact UNIT, but they're a little trigger happy for my tastes these days."

She had almost taken the TARDIS, but her piloting skills still weren't exactly solid and she didn't want to risk overshooting, by either time or place. Getting it right wasn't as easy as it sounded, though she would never tell the Doctor that -

Lips pursing where she sat in the passenger seat of Sarah Jane's car, Rose cut off her thoughts and stared out of the window, trying to distract herself. She had been far too drained the previous night to look into much, beyond some skimming through of the book on the Shadow Proclamation, but her list of questions was growing more by the second. First and foremost, what were those golden particles inside Donna? And, she reminded herself, in her too.

Sarah Jane dropped her off at the Royal Hope with one more warning to keep in contact and to keep herself safe, and then with a couple more assurances, Rose was off. Whatever was going on, she was sure she could handle it. (Or so she told herself.)

While wandering the long, sterile hallways, claiming to be looking for her sick aunt's ward whenever a member of staff stopped her - because mother was still too raw - it happened. A great rumbling, followed by an ear-splitting sound, and amongst the screams of the people around her, Rose watched with disbelief as the rain outside began to run on the opposite direction.

Then, she realised, it wasn't the rain that was the problem. It was the hospital. They were being moved by something - literally ripped from the foundations of the building and moved. The world moved in a blur that she quickly had no hopes of tracking, before all of a sudden, almost as soon as it had started, they stopped. And they were looking down at another planet. Earth. They had been taken away from Earth completely.

"Oh my God," she muttered, trying not to gape. What the hell was going on? Fumbling for her phone, she skipped right past the two voicemails from Sarah Jane and redialed her number straight away.

She picked up immediately. "Rose?" Universal roaming was heaven-sent. "Rose, can you hear me? What on Earth's going on?"

"Not on Earth," she said, looking out the window again. "I think we're on the moon."

As behind her, a woman moaned with fear, Sarah Jane asked, "What? You're where?"

"We're on the moon, Sarah Jane," she said with more clarity. "Something's moved us to the moon."

To the woman's credit, she didn't remain hung up on the factoid for long. "Well, obviously I'm of no help to you now. I might contact UNIT after all though. Go back home, see if Mr Smith can offer any help and get back to you." The decisiveness in her voice made Rose's head clear.

She loved Sarah Jane Smith. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. Sounds like a plan. I'll see what I can do from here."

"Stay in contact," she said sharply, before Rose hung up and turned back to the room.

The people close by had clearly been listening in, but luckily they were too stunned to ask questions, and she didn't stick around long enough for them to think of any. Post-haste, she was in the floor's waiting room, where patients, visitors and medical staff were all gathered together. Doctors, nurses and student doctors alike continued to do their jobs even in the circumstances, though in one case, a student was hyperventilating, and being assisted by a visitor wearing a poodle t-shirt.

"I bet it's extra-terrestrial," a young American man was saying to anyone who would listen. When he saw Rose watching him, he leaned in towards her. "All this stuff that's been going on in Britain recently? Has to be aliens! And earlier, I saw these two guys in motorcycle gear walking around." His tone turned conspiratory. "They seemed shifty to me. I'd bet money on them being involved."

"Look, mate, I don't know what's going on, but I doubt it's anything to do with a biker gang," she said, trying not to show her irritation as she looked about, trying to draw inspiration from somewhere.

He huffed and muttered something to himself that sounded like, "Normals," and Rose couldn't help but grin a bit. He was certainly passionate.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Joshua Bautista," he said. "You?"

"I'm Rose." Still bereft of ideas, she asked, "So what are you in here for?"

He blushed and said, "Oh, well see, I do a show with my friend where I go looking for supernatural elements -"

"You're a ghost hunter," she said. Brilliant.

"I take it you're not a believer," he said gamely.

She thought back to Christmas with Dickens and him, and said, "Not exactly, mate."

"That's fine," he said. "My friend isn't either, who I make the show with. I'm used to you sceptics."

At that, Rose had to smile. "Well as long as you love it -"

"Oh, I don't," he said, expression deadly serious. "It's completely nerve destroying. I'm only in here because we came to England to film some episodes and I got hurt." He held up his bandaged arm to demonstrate.

She frowned. "What happened?"

"My friend scared me to death," he said, glowering at nothing. "Left me to walk through an infamously haunted basement alone, and then sent someone who worked there to 'check on me'. I freaked and fell over a bucket and sprained my wrist. He thinks it's hilarious."

"Sounds nice, your mate," she said wryly.

"Oh he is!" Josh said emphatically. "I love him. But he's a dick."

She was wasting time. "Yeah, well you stay here and rest your wrist," she said. "I'm off to find out what's going on."

As she walked away, Josh called after her, "It's aliens! I'll let money on it!"

When she came across a room with a balcony one floor up from where she had been, her uncertainty returned as she inched her way closer to the double doors. Resting in the Earthlight, she took a deep breath, and looked around as best she could without going outside.

If the gravity wasn't already gone, she doubted it was going to go at the opening of one window. Even so, she was extremely hesitant. A young woman with a white coat and a no-nonsense expression on her fairly dark-skinned face approached her where she stood by the window, and placed a hand on her arm.

"Miss, are you okay? I'm Doctor Martha Jones, I'm going around checking on people. Do you feel alright? Perhaps you might want to sit down."

Rose turned to face her properly and smiled. "I think I'm okay, thanks. Just… taking in the sights." No matter how many years she traveled, how many planets she saw, there would never be any sight more heartening to her than that of her own planet.

Dr Jones - Martha - let out a breathless laugh (though not literally breathless, thank God). "It's certainly… spectacular." The woman looked at her speculatively. "Are you sure you're okay, Miss…?"

"Tyler," she said quickly. "Rose Tyler. And yeah, I'm fine. Really. It's gorgeous."

"It is."

The two of them stood looking out the balcony doors, for some seconds more before out of nowhere, Rose balled up her courage and asked, "Wanna take a closer look?" Before Martha could so much as blink, she had stepped forwards and opened one of the doors.

"Careful!" she cried, before she realised they were still breathing and she gasped minutely.

"It's interesting," Rose muttered, eyes narrowing as she stepped out onto the balcony and looked around. They really, truly, were on the moon.

"We're on the moon." She turned to see that she had been joined by Martha. Her eyebrows rose up and Martha, catching the look, said, "As long as we're trapped here, anyone under the hospital's care is my responsibility. I won't let you go anywhere alone."

"That and you wanted a closer look at the moon," Rose teased gently, and Martha grinned sheepishly before turning back to the landscape.

"I can't believe what I'm looking at."

"Well, believe it," she said quietly, searching around for some answer as to how they were all still breathing. She took in a deep breath, as if that would give her an answer.

"How are we breathing?" Martha asked, more to herself than to Rose, but she still shrugged and said, "Dunno. Want to find out though."

The only thing she could conjure up in her mind was the mental image of a dome sealing the air inside, and so despite feeling a bit silly doing so, she searched around for something solid and found a smallish rock. Plucking it up, she threw it full pelt away from herself and felt a jolt of victory as it seemed to hit an invisible wall and drop to the moon surface.

"Air bubble," she said, trying to sound confident enough to inspire it in her companion friend. "The air's been sealed in with us."

Martha, still rather wide-eyed, nodded slowly, then seemed to think it over before her eyes widened. "Does that mean it's all the air we've got?" Rose began to nod, then froze. Oh no. "What happens when we run out?"

Throat dry, she managed to get out, "What do you think?"

"Oh God," Martha said, looking sick. "We have to do something!"

Something in her voice made Rose snap out of her own horror and she nodded decisively. "Of course we do. So, lets get started. Come on." And not waiting for a response, she turned and headed back inside.


"I mean, it has to be extra-terrestrial," Martha was saying from where she followed behind Rose. "That spaceship at Christmas, and that other one that crashed into Big Ben? Aliens. Definitely."

Rose was torn between agreeing with her and the thrill of shock that shot up her spine as she was reminded of the young American man who had said almost the same thing - and who had also suspected two men in biker gear. A lump stuck in her throat as she subtly began looking around for the duo in the crowds of terrified people.

"What do you think?" Martha asked, catching up so she was walking alongside Rose.

Momentarily distracted, she nodded. "Oh, I'd definitely say aliens."

The question was, which ones? Had she met them before, perhaps? Or as the very least heard of them, because her encounter with the Racnoss would had been easier to handle had she had any idea of what a Racnoss was, prior to her first meeting with their Empress.

Before she could say or do any more, however, her question was answered for her by the arrival of creatures dressed in bizarre military-style uniform. The look of the uniform and the odd helmet shape gave Rose a jolt of familiarity. Hadn't she seen sketches similar to this in the book she was studying on the Shadow Proclamation? Then the leading alien took off his helmet and the word hit her like a hammer.

"Those are aliens," she heard Martha exclaim. "Aliens!"

"Judoon," she said, eyes widening. Didn't they work for the Shadow Proclamation?

"What did you just say?" Martha asked, eyeing her incredulously.

"Judoon," Rose repeated, not looking away from the aliens standing amongst the terrified humans. "That's what they're called."

Martha laughed. "Oh, what, like you're an expert?" At Rose's serious look, her own began to mirror it. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. Got the time machine to prove it and everything."

One of the Judoon said, "Blos so folt do no cro blo cos so ro." Rose frowned; was the TARDIS failing to translate because of the distance between them?

A medical student wearing a coat similar to Martha's approached the Judoon then, trembling from head to foot, and said, "We - we welcome you in peace. We mean you n-no harm." His attempts at bridge building were cut off when the alien grabbed hold of him and shoved him into the wall, scanning him with a handheld device. Rose had jumped forwards to intervene as the young man - boy, really - whimpered, "Please don't hurt me! I was only trying to help."

It seemed her intervention wasn't needed however, as the Judoon moved away and then said in English, "Language assimilated. Designation Earth English. You will be assimilated." He drew a cross on the boy's hand and that was that. "Catalogue all suspects."

At that, a jolt of panic shot through Rose, who wasn't sure that her weak link to the TARDIS wouldn't make her show up as something alien, or even those golden particles that she had shared with Donna.

She wasn't going to stick around to find out. "Right, well, I'm off," she said before the Judoon stomping through the hallway could so much as spot her. Turning on her heel, she went back the way she had come.

"Okay," Martha said, having watched the display with keen interest. She was following Rose, and turned to her to say, "You obviously have some idea of what's going on. Start talking. You said they're called Judoon."

"They are," Rose said, nodding. "They work for the Shadow Proclamation. Like uh - I dunno, thugs for hire, but in space."

"And the Shadow Proclamation is?"

"Space police."

"Space police, right," Martha said, nodding whilst smiling in a way that told Rose she still didn't believe a word she was saying.

Feeling her temper shorten now the pressure to act was on, she clenched her fists and kept walking, getting as far away from the aliens as she could. She didn't know much about them, but she knew enough to know they weren't friendly.

"So they brought us here then? These Judoon?" Martha asked, following her for the moment.

"I think so," she said, nodding. "Like I said, they work for the Shadow Proclamation - space police - so they must be after someone. A criminal, maybe, who's hiding in the hospital, but they had to bring us away from Earth because the planet's protected. The moon isn't."

Martha's expression hardened. "Does that mean we're under arrest?"

"I don't think so," Rose said, "but it doesn't mean the Judoon are on our side. We're in danger from more than one front."

"So what do we do?" Martha asked, and if she weren't in the middle of something, she would have stopped to marvel at the woman's guts.

"We have to search the hospital and find this criminal," she said. "Before we run out of time."


"What exactly are we looking for?" Martha asked, beginning to sound frustrated as they walked inconspicuously past room after room.

Rose sighed and shrugged. "It's hard to say. If they're hiding on an Earth hospital they probably look human, so they could be anyone, but Mr Sm- my source, the person who told me something seemed to be going on here, he said weird signals - these plasma coil things - had been coming from the hospital for two days, so maybe we could narrow it down to people who checked in then."

"Plasma coils?" Martha repeated. "What're they when they're at home?"

"I don't know," Rose admitted, the small high of relief that came with recognising the Judoon fading fast. "Either the criminal or the Judoon themselves. Has anyone with weird symptoms been checked in recently?"

It was Martha's turn to say, "I don't know," and then stop suddenly, as if she had been struck by a great idea. "We could ask Mr Stoker! He deals with special cases sometimes. Come on!"

Rose followed her to an office another floor up, and tried to look past her inside as she threw the door open and shouted, "Mr Stoker! We need -"

She stopped dead, but before Rose had the chance to ask her what was wrong, an old, creaking voice cried, "Kill her!" and she was grabbing Martha by the hand, pulling her away from the office and running for their lives.

They were being pursued by two men dressed head to toe in - damn it, she owed Josh Bautista an apology - head to toe in motorcycle gear. Helmets and everything, and if they were working for the criminal the Judoon were after, she would bet they weren't human either.

"Did you get a look at her?" she asked Martha as they skidded into a stairwell and started up it.

"Yeah," Martha panted, trailing behind her just a bit. "She's this old woman!"

"Not really an old woman," she said.

"She had a straw!" Martha continued as they heard the doors directly above them crash open and they diverted to hide in a janitor's closet. "She was sucking his blood with it," Martha continued in a hushed whisper.

Rose raised her eyebrows. "A vampire?" Were there such things as vampires? Alien vampires? She supposed that if alien werewolves were a thing, vampires weren't too much of a stretch. "An alien vampire bothering to drink someone's blood when she's supposed to be hiding…" she mused quietly. "Weird time to stop for dinner, isn't it?"

"Maybe she needs it to be sustained," Martha suggested. "She might have had to stop."

"Or she's doing it for some other reason." But what?

There was no time to figure that out, because apparently they hadn't been as quiet as they thought - or the motorbike guys had better hearing than she thought - because with a terrifying crash! someone began trying to break open the door to their hiding place.

She and Martha let out synchronised shrieks of shock before her companion asked, "What do we do?"

"I dunno!" They wouldn't be able to dodge around it would they? At least not both of them. She was looking around for an idea but didn't see anything that could knock the - wait. Was that a broom back there?

She rushed forwards to grab it and aimed it at the door just as Martha gasped again - this time one of inspiration. The woman was a doctor-to-be for a reason. She was smart; having spotted a tub of strong cleaning fluids, she was rifling through it, looking at bottles and putting them back, before she settled on one containing a clear liquid, with a skull and crossbones on the label. Something corrosive.

As the wood of the door splintered, they stopped to observe each other's chosen weapons and Rose felt optimistic. "You hit it with that stuff," she said, "and while he's distracted I'll knock him down."

Martha nodded. "And then?"

"Then we run for it."

"That's it?"

"You got anything better?" she cried, but before their talk could escalate the wood gave and the door splintered everywhere - and one of the bikers stood in the doorway.

Not missing a beat, Martha ripped the lid from the bottle of acid and threw it over the alien man, who went stumbling back but didn't make a single noise as the acid ate away at his suit… and then continued eating and eating and eating, though it never reached his skin.

Eyes wide, Rose stepped forwards and hit him with the handle end of the broom, and he fell to the floor with a dull thud, as finally, the acid ate right the way through him, and he was left with a hole right through his chest. She could see the floor beneath him.

"Oh my God," Martha cried, hand going to her mouth. "I killed him! I killed a man."

Heart hammering, Rose knelt down beside the body and, being careful not to touch any acid herself, removed the helmet. Beneath was a perfectly round, black stub. Frowning, she reached out to touch it.

"Feels like leather," she said.

"What the hell?" Martha asked, joining her on the floor. "What is it?"

"Dunno," she said, doing her best to examine the rest of the body. "I think it's leather. All the way through. A creature made of solid leather. It was probably never alive to start with. Just a puppet for that old lady's convenience." She looked up at Martha, who still looked wracked with horror. "I don't think you've killed anyone. If we don't hurry up though, everyone in this hospital's gonna die."


People were beginning to slump to the floor as she and Martha left the stairwell and marched down the hallway. Patients, visitors and medical staff alike, some connected to oxygen tanks, lined their path as they moved towards the waiting room on their floor.

By this point, Rose was well past panic but it seemed as if, from the things people around her were saying, the Judoon had passed through this floor already and had moved on, so at least she didn't have to worry about that. And thanks to Martha she knew they were looking for an old woman, though not which woman - but then Martha would recognise her, wouldn't she?

"We have to think of something," Martha said, worried eyes locked on the people around her. She looked back at Rose. "You got anything?"

"Not yet," she muttered regretfully, looking around. "I -" She had been looking around the waiting room and just as she spoke, her eyes landed on someone familiar. "Josh!" she called, running across the room to him where he sat in the same place she had left him, still sharing his theories on the situation to anyone who would listen.

He looked up at her shout and surprise appeared on his face. "Rose, right?" he asked. "Hey."

"Listen, have you seen those bikers recently? As in, in the last couple of minutes? One might have been with an old woman. It's her we're looking for."

Josh blinked. "Uh - what? I mean yeah, they came this way like, two minutes ago. Why?"

"Where did they go?" she asked. "It's important."

"MRI room, I think," he said, frowning and glancing out of the door he sat right next to. At the end of the hallway through it sat the room in question.

"Thanks," she said, dashing off again with Martha hot on her heels.

He called after her, "Wait! Was I right? Is it the motorcycle gang?" She didn't stop to answer. If they all survived this he could question her til kingdom come. Right now, she had to concentrate.

"Why would they go to the MRI room?" she asked, both to herself and Martha, and then, just to Martha, "What exactly is an MRI room? What goes on in there?"

"Magnetic resonance imaging," Martha said. "We use them to take pictures of a patient's innards. Their brain, heart, etcetera."

Rose nodded. "Right. Still doesn't explain why this old woman would hide in there." She nodded down to the room at the end of the long hallway, just as the door behind them banged open - and they turned to see one of the "bikers" storming towards them. He had a hole burned right through his chest. "Run!"

And run they did. Turning off before they could reach the MRI room, they ran to the closest stairwell and straight up, looking for the nearest Judoon. Hopefully they would recognise something non-human when they saw the gaping hole burnt through the chest of the thing following them, and through that they could lead them to the old woman.

"Okay, think," she called to Martha as they sprinted. "This old woman, who looks human but isn't, was drinking Mr Stoker's blood when she should have been doing everything she could to stay undercover. Why?"

"Because she needs to?" Martha suggested again.

She nodded. "Yeah, maybe she needed it - like it keeps her looking human or something."

"You mean like a shapeshifter?"

"Could be!" It made more sense than space vampire, at least.

Bursting out of the first door they came to, they ran straight out and into the back of a Judoon, who turned sharply to face them. Rose gaped up at it.

"Hostility detected," the Judoon said in its droning, almost robotic voice. "Punishment -"

"No!" she cried. "Stop! We uh - we've found the criminal - the person you're looking for."

"She's this old woman," Martha added. "Only she's not, she just looks like it."

"She's a shapeshifter," she continued, "and she has these drone slave things with her. One of them was chasing us -"

The door behind them crashed open and there was the "biker" in their pursuit, with the hole burned through him. The Judoon looked nonplussed, though she wasn't sure that Judoon had a wide range of facial expressions to begin with.

"There it is!" Martha exclaimed, pointing at it. The thing had frozen in place when it realised the Judoon had seen it and there would be no point in running.

"Look at it," she said when the alien made no moves to investigate. "We can see the door behind it, doesn't that scream non-human to you?"

"Non-human slab detected," the Judoon grunted, definitely glaring this time as it looked upon the creature, who finally then tried to run.

The Judoon went to chase it before Rose said, "Wait! That's just a slave, but we have the real criminal downstairs. She looks like an old woman but she isn't. She was seen drinking a human's blood to disguise herself, because she's a shapeshifter, and she's downstairs, now, in the MRI room."

The Judoon stared at her. Rose's heart was in her mouth and she could see Martha clenching and unclenching her fists nervously.

Finally, it spoke. "Show me." They did, gladly.


If her meddling with the MRI machine hadn't been enough proof that she was guilty in some way, the slab with the hole through its chest wandering in after a couple of minutes and walking up to her like a lost child would its mother gave her away pretty well. The other slab was at her side, still fully in tact. The evidence, as far as Rose was confirmed, was pretty damning.

Still, they had the scan to prove - "Human," the Judoon declared, and Rose's heart fell as the woman - Florence - brightened.

"There we are," she said. "Now -"

"Wait." Everything stopped still again. "Traces of non-human blood detected. Further scans required." Painful silence fell as these scans were carried out. "Species confirmed Plasmavore, charged with the crime of murdering the child princess of Patrival Regency Nine."

Florence's expression soured instantly. "Well, she deserved it! Those pink cheeks and those blonde curls and that simpering voice. She was begging for the bite of a plasmavore."


The day was saved, of course. "Florence" the Plasmavore was executed and the Judoon returned the hospital to Earth, but not before whatever the "woman" had done the MRI machine began to overload and the space police decided their job was done.

With oxygen running dangerously low, Rose had managed to scramble to unplug the machine before it exploded, as Martha seemed to think it would, and she had been sure to put the young doctor-to-be, fainted dead away, on the closest hospital bed before she pulled herself together and left the hospital before anyone could stop her.


After about three days, she went back for Martha. Rose-time, at least. For Martha, it had been a mere handful of hours. Sarah Jane had convinced her that if she truly intended to search the whole wide universe looking for a way to bring the Doctor home, she had better not do it alone, and having heard about the young woman who had helped her save the Royal Hope, she had said there was no one better for the job.

So, once she had been given the Sarah Jane bill of clean mental health, she had scrounged up from memory the name of the bar the Jones family had been planning to go to on the day the hospital went to the moon, and with a wheezing groan, the TARDIS had left Bannerman Road in search of Martha Jones.

She was exactly where Rose had expected her to be, and approached her with almost no hesitance when she spotted her standing there. "I went to the moon today," she said conversationally.

"What a day," Rose said, smiling at her.

Martha nodded. "You've changed your clothes."

"So have you," she pointed out.

"You said you have a time machine," Martha said.

"Wanna see it?"

"No. Maybe. I mean - I shouldn't. I'm busy, becoming a doctor and all."

She raised her eyebrows. "So? Time machine, remember? Scheduling's not an issue."

Martha blew out a breath and stared at the blue box behind her with something akin to wonderment. "If you're telling the truth it's not."

"You think I'm lying?"

"I think there's no such thing as a time machine, least of all one made of wood. Not very smart, is it?" Rose smiled at that, thinking of what he might have said if he had heard such a thing.

"Not smart?" she could hear him saying. "She's the smartest ship in the entire universe! Let me tell you a thing or two about the TARDIS…"

"I can prove it," she said, coming back down to Earth with a pang. "Give me a date. An exact date. Go on."

Martha pursed her lips, clearly trying not to smile, as she thought. Then, she said, "Go on then. Sixteenth of March, nineteen… no, eighteen thirty one." She crossed her arms and stood expectantly.

Rose grinned at her, a glimmer of anticipation replacing the usual dread that came with thoughts of the Doctor. "I'll be back in a few seconds."

Then, rushing into the time-space machine, she called, "Hear that, girl? Mind giving me a bit of help this time? I want to get this right." Because in that moment, she couldn't stomach the thought of being alone any more.

With a hum the coordinates set themselves and all she had to do was check the dermal regulator and pull the dematerialisation lever, and she was off into the past. London, England, eighteen thirty one.

Landing and rushing outside, she looked around, glad for the mostly empty streets, and then spotted what she was looking for; a newspaper, abandoned on a park bench. Snatching it up and checking that the date was correct (it was!) she returned to the TARDIS and back to Martha, striding outside mere seconds after she had left and handing the newspaper over.

Martha gaped at it for a few seconds then looked back to the ship, eyes wide and yet not at all fearful.

Rose felt a smile tug at her lips. "Want a look inside?"

She nodded. "Yeah - I mean, though, isn't it going to be a bit of a squeeze?"

"I just proved it travels in time and you're worried about it being cramped?" she asked, gently teasing. "Go on, just take a little look."

She did, stepping inside slowly. Then back outside much faster. She ran from one side, then to the other, then back to the first side and right around until she had circled it. Then side looked inside again. Then she turned to gape at Rose.

"It's - it's bigger on the inside."

Flat out beaming then, Rose said, "Hell yeah it is! Come on." And she led her back inside, anticipation bubbling in her veins. "We could go anywhere, anywhen. There's something I have to do, but there's no reason I can't take you somewhere, as a thanks for today, y'know?"

Martha was still stood on the entrance ramp, though she had closed the door. "And this ship's yours, yeah?"

Like an emotional yoyo, she wanted to curl in on herself again. "No, it's - I'm looking after her for… a friend, while he's away."

"Wow. Must trust you a lot to leave it in your hands." For a second, defensiveness spiked in Rose - what was that supposed to mean? - before the other woman, who hadn't noticed her change in posture, continued, "Y'know, blokes and their cars and all."

Rose, feeling a bit silly, relaxed again and forced a smile. "It's - well it's all a bit complicated."

Martha must have caught her tone, because she nodded and delicately said, "Ah, I get it," and then let the subject drop.

She traced over a button or two on the console as she considered something, then made up her mind and said, "Well Martha, we've both got a lot of work to do, but before we get to that, I think I promised you a thank you trip. What d'you fancy?" Unable to resist, she grinned widely. "With all of time and space to take into account."