Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who.

I'm very sorry I've not written anything for ages. Work got really busy and then I just lost momentum in the story.

Massive thank you to everyone who's read, followed and reviewed this so far. It means a lot. It really does!

This following chapter was really, really difficult to write, but mostly because I haven't written anything for a while, it was hard to get back into it. I hope the result is not too awful!

(Particular thanks to the awesome SilverFX for the support, reviews and advice)

Chapter 19

Rose jerked violently awake in sudden alarm, her frenzied heart hammering at her sternum as if in a terrified bid to break out of her chest. She knew that face, that man!

Her scream choked off as the familiar sense of TARDIS and home seeped into her. She was safe, he wasn't here.

"Rose!" The Doctor breathed out loudly in profound relief. He'd been keeping vigil by her side ever since he'd found her collapsed. That had been four hours ago and despite running every test he could think of, he'd not been able to find anything that indicated that there was anything even remotely wrong with her.

He allowed himself a moment to cup her cheek in his hand as he beamed down at her, and then rushed about recollecting his equipment to run the tests again, now that she was awake.

"Doctor?" she blinked in bewilderment as he disappeared from her view again. "What am I doing in here? What's going on? …..Doctor?"

"You gave us quite a scare there, Rose Tyler." Jack appeared to the left of her vision. She hadn't noticed him before.

"Jack." She reached out a hand to him, hoping that he at least would keep still and give her a point to focus on. The Doctor's frantic scurrying around was making her feel dizzy.

Jack caught her hand is his and lifted it to kiss her knuckles briefly. "Can you remember what happened?"

"I saw the Master." Rose whispered fearfully.

"What?!" The Doctor stopped suddenly and spun to look at her, a sudden terror in his eyes. "The Master was in here? What did he do to you Rose?" he asked desperately as he dashed back to her side.

"No. Not in here." Rose hastened to explain. "Just before I woke up. I saw him."

"You dreamt of him?" The Doctor dropped his armful of medical equipment on the trolley next to her and took her hand. "That must've been quite frightening." He murmured, sympathetically.

"No. I didn't dream of him, I saw him."

The Doctor exchanged a 'she's lost the plot' look with Jack.

"You saw him in here?" he asked, carefully.

"No. Not in here." Rose snapped impatiently, "He was in a warehouse or a factory or something…"

She sat up suddenly and rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands… "It's slipping away…. I can't…" she broke off, frustrated.

"Sounds like you had a very vivid dream." The Doctor's voice was soft and reassuring. "But you're safe here Rose."

"It's not… it wasn't a dream!" She protested. Shaking her head in frustration.

"Was there anything else? Did you see anything else?"

"I saw… yeah, I did. I saw you, Doctor. I saw you and this woman. Err…" she tailed off, the memories were rapidly shifting into a blur like a watercolour painting left out in the rain.

The Doctor's raised eyebrows prompted her for more but she just shook her head. She was sure that there was so much more locked down in her memory and she was sure there was something very important that she had to tell him but she couldn't access it.

"Can you remember what you were doing before you collapsed?" The Doctor asked her.

"I collapsed?" she looked up at him startled. "I don't remember that!" She frowned anxiously.

"We found you in the room with the… the other TARDIS." The Doctor prompted.

"Oh... yeah. I did go in there yeah… err… I was…" she narrowed her eyes in confusion. "I don't remember." She admitted apologetically.

"Perhaps we should go back there?" Jack suggested.

The Doctor shot him a warning look. He didn't want Rose to have to deal with the fact that something she might've done could've broken the other TARDIS, especially after everything that had already happened.

"Yes!" Rose nodded, enthusiastically. "That might help." She swung her legs of the gurney, landing smoothly. Both the Doctor and Jack reached out to catch her but she didn't stumble.

"Rose. I'm not sure." The Doctor said, hesitantly, placing a gentle hand on her arm. "We don't know what happened to you. I don't think you should be walking about yet and I want to run some more tests."

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine!" She huffed, exasperated. "I feel great actually." And physically she did. There was that worrying recollection of the Master and something… something much bigger, but she couldn't remember what it was. Maybe being back with the other TARDIS would help her retrace what had happened.

She pulled her arm gently from his hand and reached under her sling to feel her elbow. The swelling and pain had completely gone. She grinned and pulled the sling away.

"Healed!" she declared, happily. Stretching her arm out as if to prove it no longer hurt.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes in concern but said nothing, preferring to let this play out for now. Rose did indeed look better than he'd seen her in a long time, fresh and healthy and full of energy but whatever had happened to her while he and Jack were out was still unexplained and therefore possibly dangerous.

There was a glow emitting from the room where the newly forming TARDIS was growing. They saw it even before they'd reached that stretch of corridor. The Doctor gasped lightly in shock. Only one thing could be doing that and it was the last thing he'd expected to see. The TARDIS had been dead, he'd seen it, he'd felt it. Or at least he'd felt the absence of it and that had been telling enough. But now, as the golden glow grew brighter, the singing began to fill his head. To be joined by the complex melody of his own TARDIS, no longer in pain but joyful, both voices intertwining harmoniously. He took off towards the room at a dead run, ignoring the alarmed shouts of the others.

There was no doubt about it. The 'baby' TARDIS, as Rose called it, was whole and complete… and that didn't make sense. Even with him giving away chunks of his life daily, it should've taken a few more weeks at least to complete. He turned to the others in stunned amazement.

"Doctor, what is it?" Rose demanded anxiously, gasping from the run. Unconsciously, it seemed, she begun to reach towards the glowing column as though to touch it.

"Don't!" The Doctor cried in alarm, catching her hand and leading her a few steps away from it. "I don't know what's happened here, but don't touch it Rose. Not yet anyway. Not until I've worked out what's going on."

"Why, what's wrong with it?"

"I dunno. Nothing, maybe. But she's grown…. So fast." He whispered in awe. "before, she was…." He broke off, spinning round to look into Rose's puzzled brown eyes. "What happened when you were in here earlier, Rose? Do you remember?"

She frowned in confusion. "Sort of. I was sittin' next to it and then…" She closed her eyes, concentrating hard, trying to remember. "I touched…" her eyes snapped open as the memory flooded through her.

"I was in space!" She grabbed the Doctor's sleeve, as she looked up at him excitedly. "I watched the Sun and planets form right in front of me! I saw you, an' this other woman an' Donna!"

"Donna Noble?" the Doctor's eyebrows drew so close together in his bewilderment that they almost formed one unbroken line.

"Yes! An' then… then the Earth was gone. It just disappeared and then I saw the Master but… it was like it was him, but it wasn't him. Does that make sense?"

"No." The Doctor shook his head slowly as he eyed her warily. "Rose, do you think you might've hit your head at all when you fell?"

"No!" she shouted, exasperated. "It wasn't like that, it was real!"

"Can I?" he asked, his eyes pleading as he reached his fingers towards her temples.

She considered saying 'no' out of pure annoyance, but this might be the quickest way to get the Doctor to see. She sighed and nodded.

Reliving it through the Doctor, the images were crisper and cleaner than she'd remembered them. She felt him gasp mentally as the Solar System was born beneath her, and felt his curiosity as the memory played out ending with shock at the sudden vanishing of the Earth. When she opened her eyes again in the TARDIS she was lying on the cool floor, the Doctor sitting beside her, staring at her in awe.

"You saw?" she didn't really need to ask, she knew.

He nodded.

"What was that?" she asked desperately.

"I was hoping to ask you the same question." He was smiling joyfully, almost proudly, Rose thought.

She shook her head and sat up slowly.

"You, Rose Tyler." He grinned widely at her, his eyes shining with delight. "Are BRILLIANT!" He jumped to his feet, pulling her up with him exuberantly.

"Wha' did I do?" she stammered, pleased and shocked at the same time.

"I dunno what you did, how you did it, but what you saw… no human should ever have been able to see, which meeeaans…" he pulled her over to the white column of the newly formed TARDIS, that you connected with this… her." he corrected himself. "When you touched the TARDIS, she showed you what she thought you needed to see… or maybe…" he mused, quietly, "what I needed to see."

"Anyway…" he shook his head to reign in his racing thoughts. "It's even more important that I see what's going on out there – it's connected. It's got to be connected!"

"Jack!" The ex-time agent had been strangely silent throughout all this. "I need you and Rose to get some information from Torchwood." He gave a meaningful look.

"Right." Jack nodded, catching the intention.

"But, what are you going to do?" Rose protested.

"I'm going to be doing some research from here." The Doctor answered, guardedly.

"You're not going anywhere?" she asked anxiously.

"Nope."

"'Kay." She nodded a little uncertainly.

The whirring and whooshing of the TARDIS started as soon as she and Jack were a couple of metres away from the door. Rose spun in alarm, running back to the rapidly dematerialising ship.

"Doctor!" She screamed.

"Rose, it's no use." Jack tried to hold her back but her desperation gave her strength and she wriggled out of his grasp, launching towards the, now transparent looking, blue doors. What she hit was surprisingly solid though. The TARDIS was gone but in its place was a white column structure with a hard surface. A very hard surface, Rose rubbed her shoulder ruefully.

"It's the other TARDIS." Jack's brow furrowed with concern. "I don't think he meant to leave that here."

"You knew he was going?" Rose accused.

Jack shrugged. "He said he had to."

"Where's he gone? Why did he leave me… us behind?" she bit her lip to hold back the sob fighting its way up her throat. Getting tearful now was not going to help her case."

"You know where he's gone. And you know why he had to go alone." Jack stated simply.

"That black hole thing?"

He nodded. "He asked me to keep you safe."

"When's he coming back?"

Jack shrugged. "I honestly don't know, Rose."

"He is coming back isn't he?" she felt a hard jolt of fear run through her core as she said this.

Jack just looked at her.

"We could follow him…." She said desperately, jerking her head towards the other TARDIS.

"Rose, neither of us knows how to fly that thing!"

"Bet I know someone who does." Her face was set with grim determination.

"What do you mean? Who, Rose?"

"The Master."