Disclaimer: Doesn't belong to me. Wish it did.

Would really, really love to know what you think.

Chapter 3

"It's you, Rose… It's The TARDIS she… she doesn't want you near her."

"Please don't leave me, Doctor!"

"I'll meet you back at your flat. I'll be there before you are."

"Come with me?"

"I'm not leaving the TARDIS here in Canary Wharf! The whole building's unstable."

"Please Doctor, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry!"

"Rose, don't. Just don't."

He'd detached her grasping, clinging fingers from the lapels of his jacket, his face set and his eyes hard.

It was the most awful bus journey she'd ever taken. She tried to distract herself from the wretched misery she was feeling with the familiar sights of Central London from a double-decker bus, the engine rumbling and vibrating through the floor and the regular ding-ding of request stops…. had it really been two years since this had been part of her daily ritual? In some ways it felt like a dream, as though the last two years hadn't really happened, just a day dream one evening on her way back from work…

Although judging by the Doctor's reaction to her after her future self had appeared, she strongly suspected that dream was about to come to an abrupt and miserable end.

She was nervous as she walked from the bus stop back to the flat. Nervous because her mother wouldn't be there… ever again… and she didn't know how badly that was going to hurt yet. And nervous because she didn't know if the Doctor was going to keep his promise and meet her here. And nervous because even if he did, he was still so angry with her.

The nervousness had turned to full blown, gut wrenching panic as evening had come and gone with no Doctor appearing. He'd left her, he really, really, really had left her. No mum, no Mickey, no job… nobody and nothing to cling to… that was when she started screaming.

dwdwdwdwdwdw

Rose jolted awake, the scream still ripping through her. For a second she had no idea where she was, and then the familiar surroundings of her bedroom came into focus. She was at home, in her own bed and judging by the sunlight coming through the window it was late afternoon or early evening. As she tried to organise her jumbled thoughts, her bedroom door burst open and the Doctor and Jack spilled into the room, looking around wildly for a source of danger.

"Rose, what is it? What's wrong?" the Doctor demanded, panicked, his gaze finally settling on her after searching and not finding anything within the room to have caused her to scream.

"Nothing." She said hurriedly, drawing up her covers remembering she'd discarded her bloody tee-shirt before she'd got into bed.

"Why were you screaming?" Jack looked at her with wary concern.

"Nightmare." She replied shortly. "Sorry." She apologised. Although, she mused, it wasn't a nightmare in the traditional sense. It was a memory, a very bad memory of the very worst time in her life. Of course the Doctor had eventually returned, just yesterday evening, with a surprisingly alive Jack Harkness in tow, but it had been a long two weeks of believing that he'd abandoned her.

"How's the pain?" the Doctor asked, carefully stepping over a pile of clothes as he moved closer to the bed.

"Bit sore but not too bad." She stared at the pattern on her quilt, avoiding his gaze. Actually it was sore as hell, and the screaming probably hadn't helped, but the injections he'd given her earlier, before stitching her up had been excruciatingly painful, it felt as though he was injecting into the ragged edges of the wound itself. He'd apologised profusely and tried to calm her as she yelled profanities, Jack holding her down to stop her writhing and kicking… they'd said it was necessary but that didn't make it any less painful – she'd much rather put up with the burning sensation she was feeling now that go anywhere near that kind of pain again.

"I'll get you something to ease it." He promised, obviously not believing her response.

"No, no, no!" she rushed, alarmed, curling her knees up to her chest protectively. She tore her gaze from the quilt and looked up at his confused and alarmed expression pleadingly.

"I can't. Not that injection again." She begged, answering his unspoken question.

"Oh, Rose." He sighed, shaking his head. "That was just to numb the area for the stitches. I was going to get you some tablets to swallow."

"Oh, right." She sighed audibly in relief. "Yeah, please."

He nodded silently and slipped out of the room. Jack watched him leave then sat on the edge of Rose's bed taking her hand in his own. Rose snagged the quilt in a death grip; it had shifted down slightly as Jack put his weight on it. Seeing her alarmed expression he grabbed a tee-shirt from her 'clean' pile on the chair and passed it to her, keeping his back turned. She tugged it on, hissing as she used her left arm, stretching the red hot skin around her injury, but glad she was now decent.

"He's still so angry with me." Rose confided, her voice breaking slightly. Jack turned to face her.

"Any reason why he shouldn't be?" Jack asked gently. She looked up at him, startled. "Rose, what you did this morning was incredibly stupid." He told her, his voice still soft.

"Jack, he was going to shoot you!" She tried to explain. "I couldn't just watch!"

"I can't be killed." He reminded her. "And the Doctor can regenerate, but you, Rose, you're very breakable."

She'd forgotten about Jack's immortality. Although to be fair, she'd only found out about it last night, and that, for some reason she couldn't comprehend, that was the reason the Doctor had left him behind on the Game Station. But that hadn't been exactly what she'd meant anyway. She wasn't just referring to this morning…

In the past, if something had happened like… well like her getting shot while trying to protect her friends for example, sure, the Doctor would probably have yelled at her, but he'd also have praised her for her bravery, for thinking of others before herself… and he certainly wouldn't have let Jack be the one to carry her back.

But then he used to care about her.

The sound of Jack clearing his throat reminded her he was there and he was waiting for her to say something.

"I know, I just…." She shrugged, struggling to explain why what she did was right, even in the face of his inescapable logic. "I just couldn't not do something… I couldn't just watch."

Jack put his hand on her shoulder as he looked at her seriously. In fact she couldn't remember him ever looking so serious. "Rose, that's exactly what you have to do." He said firmly. "We followed the Master here from the end of time. He's got the TARDIS. Who knows what he's got planned."

Rose knew that of course, they'd explained it to her last night. The reason for the Doctor's prolonged absence, he'd gone to Cardiff to refuel the TARDIS and give himself some thinking space, meaning to return to the Powell Estate straight afterwards, and then Jack had heard the TARDIS materialise and run to the ship and the TARDIS had gone to the end of time trying to shake him off…. The Master had stolen the TARDIS with the Doctor managing to lock the TARDIS coordinates to its last space-time location before he left, and then Jack and the Doctor had followed him using Jack's vortex manipulator…

Less than 24 hours after their return he had men out, shooting at them, although the Doctor said he may have been there a while, months even… there was no telling where he was or even who he was…

"Next time…" Jack broke into her thoughts "… and yes, Rose, there's probably going to be a 'next time'… next time you run, you hide, you do whatever you need to do to get yourself out of danger." His look was stern and brooked no refusal.

Rose blushed under his scrutiny and nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Say it, Rose." He commanded.

"I will… I mean, I promise." She looked back down at her quilt to avoid his eyes, knowing that if it really came down to it, she'd never be able to keep that promise.

"Good girl!" He squeezed her hand in affection and approval.

The Doctor came in then with two pills and a glass of water; he dropped the pills in her hand and put the glass of water on her bedside table. Rose murmured her gratitude, avoiding his eyes, and then as she reached for the glass her gaze fell on her alarm clock and realisation dawned on her. Downing the pills and hurriedly gulping the water, she swung her legs out of the bed in panic, jostling Jack as she did so.

"Whoa! What's the hurry?" Jack put a hand on her shoulder to still her for a second.

"Gotta go to work!" She said. "I'm late!" She really wanted to change but there was no time. She still had her jeans on from this morning, there was blood on the waistband but her clean tee-shirt hid that, she wore a uniform at work so it wasn't like she'd be serving while she was covered in blood. She leapt to her feet, vertigo hitting her about a second after she was upright; the Doctor caught her as she reeled dizzily towards the floor.