Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor who.

Chapter 17

The TARDIS re-materialised with a bone-rattling judder, throwing them both violently to the floor.

"Sorry about that!" The Doctor yelled over the whining of the time rotor, jumping to his feet and resuming his position at the console, as Rose nursed her bruised elbow, wincing.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine!" she snapped, sarcastically.

"Oh." He looked at her, suddenly abashed. "Sorry, are you okay?"

"Nothin' that a few weeks in traction wouldn't fix." She grumbled. "Just try not to kill me the next time we land, yeah?"

"It's the other TARDIS." The Doctor explained, ignoring her flapping gestures that she was 'fine' as he examined her arm. "It's still unstable, threw this TARDIS out a bit – ooh! That looks a bit swollen, Rose." He prodded the sensitive tissue around her elbow causing it to explode in pain once again.

"Ow! Watch what you're doing!" she snatched her arm back.

"We'd better check that out." The Doctor shook his head worriedly. "I'll just get Jack to come into the TARDIS." He pressed a button in the console. "Jack! Change of plan, can you meet me in here?"

Rose heard the unmistakeable stuttering whistle of feedback.

"This ship's nine hundred years old and you still haven't sorted out the sound system?" She teased.

"Public address system." The Doctor murmured, steering her out of the console room. "Hardly ever use it… And the TARDIS isn't nine hundred years old, I am…. Give or take…."

"Hello?" Jack's voice boomed out.

"We're here." the Doctor replied, leading Rose into the sick bay.

"The doors were locked, I had to use my key!" Jack complained, following them in and then swinging himself up to sit on the counter.

"Yeah…" The Doctor nodded, as he tried to get Rose to keep still enough to scan her elbow. It was killing her and she was trying to hug it protectively to her chest.

"Why was it locked? What were you expecting to try to get in here?"

"Not get in… not in as such." The Doctor murmured, glancing at Rose.

"What do you mean?" Jack swung back off the counter, his stance more alert as he looked around for danger. "There's something in here?"

"No, Jack." Rose laughed, humourlessly. "It's me. I'm not allowed out, apparently."

"You're grounded?" he grinned teasingly. "Tut, tut, tut, Rose, you bad girl! What did you do?"

"Ask him!" Rose chuckled, indicating the Doctor who was now applying a cold, soothing gel to Rose's arm.

"It's not broken but you shouldn't use it for a bit." He said, ignoring their banter then he turned to address Jack.

"How long's it been since you've seen me, Jack?"

"Err… two weeks ago, when we…."

"Stop right there!" The Doctor cut him off with a brisk wave. "Don't tell me! Looks like our timelines have got tangled up again."

"Why, how long's it been for you, Doctor?"

"I last saw you in 2006, when we got Rose out of that… place – I took off into the vortex, just for a few minutes, got waylaid a little bit and we haven't been back yet."

"Oh!" Jack looked stunned. "That's been a while then… so I guess I shouldn't tell you about what's been happening?"

"I think you can tell us why you called me here." The Doctor surmised, tightening the sling around Rose's arm. "Rose, keep still. I'm making a right mess here!"

Rose tugged away from him. "It's fine, Doctor!" She was impatient to hear what Jack had to say.

"Well…" Jack started hesitantly. "I've been keeping an eye on the CMB readings like you asked me to."

"Why would I ask you to do that? No… never mind." The Doctor cut off quickly as Jack opened his mouth to answer. He jumped up to sit beside Rose on the gurney. "So what have you found?"

"They've found another cold spot Doctor, and this one's huge."

"When you say 'another' cold spot, I'm assuming that you mean there's more than one?"

Jack nodded, "yeah, there was one identified in 2007"

"Why didn't you tell me?!" The Doctor demanded.

"I did, Doctor." Jack stated, slightly exasperated. "And you told me to keep an eye on the cosmic microwave background readings. Like I said."

"What's a cold spot?" Rose butted in.

"A void in space." Jack replied.

"So, what's that? Like the void the Cybermen came through?"

"Not necessarily, no." The Doctor answered her. "It's an area of space where there's no light being emitted… it's just black and empty."

"Like a black hole then?"

"Bigger." Jack supplied. "Much bigger."

"How big?" The Doctor asked.

" This latest one's one point eight billion light years across."

"That's…. that's big. Yeah." The Doctor's eyes widened. "And where is it?"

"Two point eight billion light years from Earth. Here, I've got a copy of the image of the cosmic microwave background." Jack reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of A4 paper. The Doctor jumped down from his perch to get a closer look and Rose joined him.

"Blimey!" The Doctor snatched the paper away from Jack. "But that's impossible!"

"What is it?" Rose demanded anxiously.

The Doctor just stared at the picture, stunned.

"Doctor! What is it?"

"The end of the universe." He answered in an awed whisper.

dwdwdwdwdwdw

Rose was reclined against the pillows on the bed in Ace's old room, absently toying with a frayed edge on her sling, picking at the threads she'd managed to loosen.

The Doctor and Jack had left the TARDIS to get more information. Rose had wondered if all this was the Master's doing but the Doctor was adamant that with the limited technology on Earth, even with the Master's superior intelligence, there was no way he could even remotely be responsible… there was something else going on, apparently... not that she was likely to find out. She sighed loudly.

But seeing as it had all happened at least two point eight billion years ago, Rose wondered what the sudden fuss was about now. She sighed again, bored, and slumped further into the mattress. She'd have liked to have gone out, to spend some time with Jack, he seemed emptier than when she'd last seen him, and a little bit lost, despite the bravado.

She growled in frustration, her boredom goading her into activity, even though she had nothing whatsoever to do. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed and hearing her doc martins clumping on the floor, she decided on a course of action. She was fed up of wearing Ace's clothes now, it had been fun for a while but she wanted to slide back into a pair of baggy jeans and trainers. She was going to find the TARDIS wardrobe.

The slight dimming of the lights in the TARDIS corridor indicated early evening. How long had the Doctor and Jack been gone now? It felt like hours. She didn't know what the time had been on Earth when they'd arrived but it must have been around noon considering the amount of time they'd been gone. She just wished they'd hurry back!

The corridor seemed to wind endlessly before her. Despite the inactivity of the last few hours, or maybe even because of it she was feeling a bit zoned out, there was a pleasant sort of humming in her head, lulling her. She passed the room with the photographs and then on a whim, turned back around to view them again.

Or more particularly one of them. The one that was not even a photograph, but an empty frame. She was drawn to it with a weird sort of fearful fascination.

Although the frame wasn't really empty anymore... There was definitely something there, something forming, a pale silhouette against the slightly paler background. Rose pressed up close to the frame. "Who are you?" she breathed? The frame didn't answer her though and all she managed to do was fog up the glass with her breath. She stepped back, watching the mist clear, hoping it would unveil something more, but the not-quite-a-photograph remained tantalisingly undecipherable.

She huffed out a sigh and left the room, heading deeper into the TARDIS only stopping when she reached another familiar door. This wasn't the wardrobe room she knew, but it was the room she'd found the Doctor tinkering in before. The room where he admitted he'd been giving away years of his life in an attempt to grow a new TARDIS. All in order to fix the mess that her future self had caused.

Something told her that she shouldn't go in there. The Doctor hadn't said anything about it but somehow it felt forbidden… she pondered the door for a moment but curiosity won over and she opened it carefully and looked around inside.

"Hello." She couldn't help but smile in delight when she saw the 'baby' TARDIS. It was still just a white column as it had been earlier but it seemed to be glowing now with a golden light that it hadn't had before.

"Aren't you just beautiful?!" she whispered softly as she entered the room. "I'm Rose, by the way. It's sort of my fault you're here." She continued, as she approached, plonking herself down on the floor, roughly where she'd found the Doctor the other day. She couldn't take her eyes of it, the light was just… enchanting her, filling her… becoming her… she reached out her hand to touch the smooth, white exterior…

The golden glowing light blazed incandescently at her touch, golden tongues of cool flame raced each other around the room, the pleasant hum that Rose had been hearing in her mind became an unbearable roar, she closed her eyes against the blinding light and slumped backwards as the pain in her head became too much to bear.

The golden flames curled in on themselves as the light flickered and died.