A/N: Hey fellow fans. Firstly I just wanted to give you guys a quick apology for how long it's been since I've updated my stories – I've got a lot of stuff going on at the moment, I've just moved back home after living in Europe, and now I'm moving to a different state… so it's been a bit hectic. But it's all done now, so we can get our fan fic on ;) Please review and let me know what you think of the story!

Rose woke up faster than usual. Most mornings it took her a few drowsy rounds of almost opening her eyes and drifting back into a dream before she actually managed to get up. Or, more, accurately, before the Doctor decided she'd been asleep more than long enough and "accidentally" dropped increasingly heavy objects outside her door and she got annoyed enough to get up and open the door. This time, however, she sat up straight, like a bolt of lightning had hit her, without any dropped frying pans.

She glanced over at the clock beside her bed. She'd actually managed to sleep through the night, which surprised her; but then again she had felt completely exhausted from the pain in her chest. As that thought ran through her mind she rubbed her rib cage without thinking, wincing in expectation. Surprisingly, it felt fine. She frowned, and then tentatively pressed a little harder. Okay, that hurt a bit. But it was still a pretty big improvement. The way Owen had talked she'd expected to be limping and moaning for weeks… Owen. That was what had woken her up. She'd had a dream about Owen.

She closed her eyes, letting the images come back to her.

She was sitting in the free clinic near her Mum's flat, watching a very large clock on the wall. The Doctor was running late. He was meant to come with her, but he wasn't here. She looked down at her watch, taking a bite of the apple she had apparently been holding. It hummed strangely in her hand.

"Rose?" Owen's voice made her look up. He was calling her into the doctor's room to see him.

When she closed the door it turned from a doctor's room into… well, the Doctor's room. His bedroom.

She sat down on the bed, looking around. She'd only been in here a few times before. It was bigger than she remembered, with little stars all over the dark blue walls.

"How are you feeling?" Owen asked her.

"Okay," Rose replied, biting her lip. The ceiling was moving in odd, swirling patterns.

"Are you nervous?"

"No," she shook her head, putting the apple down on the floor.

Owen walked closer, and held her hand. "I'm sure it's fine," he told her, finding the pulse point on her wrist. "I mean, you're not dying, are you?"

"No," she agreed. "But the Doctor isn't here, is he?"

"I'm sure he's fine, sweetheart," Jackie said. When had her mother arrived?

"He's totally fine," Owen agreed. "Just like Jack."

Rose frowned.

"Why would you say that?" she said. "That's horrible. That's a horrible thing to say."

"Come on sweetheart," Jackie said, "You can't expect everyone to be quiet about it forever, can you?"

"You didn't even know him!" Rose said. "Neither of you did!"

"Oh, not like you did I'm sure," Owen said mockingly, rolling his eyes.

The door burst open with a bang, to reveal the Doctor standing, smoke around him.

"You're late!" Jackie said. "What if she's pregnant!?"

"Don't worry," the Doctor said, "Jack's not here."

Jackie laughed, while Rose looked straight ahead, confused.

"What's going on?" the Doctor asked her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Don't you trust me?"

Rose opened her eyes.

That was weird.

She'd had some weird dreams before, sure… travelling through time and space did that to a girl… But this wasn't weird in that she was talking to aliens, or swimming through goop, or meeting vampires, this was weird in that it was about Jack. Which was pretty out of the blue, really.

She hadn't thought about him in… well, if she was honest, it had only really been a few days since she'd properly thought about him, and even then she often found him popping into her head – making some comment or telling her that yes, he would like that or this. But then that was to be expected. She missed him. Still, she hadn't dreamt about him for months.

He was the first person she'd known to die.

Sure, there was her Dad – but she'd never really known him, not really… Before the Doctor took her back he'd been more of a legend than a real person. And there had been her granddad Prentice, but he'd been sick for years, only there for the occasional holiday and even then he'd been murky at best, calling her Jackie and asking where the baby was. She'd had more of a shallow impression of him than she'd had a real relationship.

But she'd really known Jack. She'd loved Jack.

He had been the one solid constant in life with the Doctor. Apart from the Doctor himself, that is, and he wasn't exactly predictable… Jack was stable, but still exciting. The stuff she missed most about Mickey (being able to talk to him about how she felt, the humanness of him, the way he didn't expect her to be impressive all the time – how she could just relax with him be young and ordinary), with the stuff that she loved most about the Doctor – the adventure, the charm, the big mouth… the way he pushed her to try new things, be bigger and better.

And then there was the stuff that was just all Jack. Like dancing on invisible space ships, carrying high tech weapons and entering them into Intergalactic couples pageants so he could flirt with the other contestants and annoy their driver. Oh, and "accidentally" spraying the Doctor with alien pheromones… That one still made her giggle.

She'd decided to herself, back when Jack was still… her mind didn't let her finish that sentence. But she'd decided ages ago that if the Doctor wasn't around she'd probably (no, definitely) have been in love with Jack. Not that she was in love with the Doctor, of course. She mentally cleared her throat, raising her eyebrows and exhaling, and swung her legs out of the bed. That was enough of that kind of thinking. She was just going to make herself upset, and had never really let herself get upset about Jack… Not properly. She hadn't had time, living with the Doctor.

Rose walked over to her vanity; not quite registering how much easier it was to do that this morning, and twisted the lid off her moisturiser, reaching for her foundation. Her mum always teased her whenever they went back home, saying: "you don't have time to ring me but you still have time to do your makeup, I see!" But the way Rose saw it, she could end up anywhere, anytime, and if she was going to be in the background of photograph of J.F.K or Einstein or Maria Callas or whoever, she was going to make sure she at least looked decent. After all, you only get to insert yourself into a historical event once.

As she finished her makeup it occurred to Rose that she was going to have to go and find the Doctor.

And talk to him.

Usually that would send her out of her room faster, but today it just made her feel a little unsure. Despite their conversation the day before she still felt like he was holding something back from her, and that was never good.

In Rose's experience, when the Doctor left things out it meant one of two things. Either he was plotting to send her home (which was not happening, thank you very much) in some misguided attempt to protect her, or things were very, very bad and he didn't want to stop having fun yet. Things didn't seem very bad, and she wasn't home, or half way there - so she was stumped.

The feeling she could brush aside, but facts she couldn't. Like her ankle. Usually she wouldn't complain about not being hurt, but this time… Rose met her own eyes in the mirror and bit her lip. She trusted the Doctor, didn't she? How couldn't she?

There was a knock at her door.

"Come in," Jack said, looking up.

"Hey, boss," Owen said, slightly awkwardly.

"Is everything okay?" Jack looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "You're in early."

"I'm not sure," Owen said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"What's going on?"

Owen hesitated. "You trust this guy, don't you?"

"The Doctor? I trust him with my life. Well, I would if – you know."

"Yeah… What about Rose's? Do you trust him with her life?"

Jack studied Owen closely. "He wouldn't do anything to hurt her," he said slowly. "To be honest it's actually caused a few problems," he gave a half hearted laugh, then, face becoming more serious, continued. "Why? What's he done? How angry do I have to be?" he added, only half kidding.

Owen paused, giving a short breath out. "I don't know."

"You don't know."

"But it's something," the mortal man pressed, "I swear, Jack, something's up with Rose."

"Is she in danger?"

"No. No, that's just it. She's not in any danger at all!"

Jack raised his eyebrow again. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"Well, yeah, usually it would be, except sometimes we really should be in danger. If a weapon has shot you like that you should expect some sort of… repercussions. There should be a danger of clotting, of triggering some sort of cardiac response, scarring, even – but she is recovering perfectly."

"Still not seeing the problem, Owen."

"She should be taking way longer to heal."

"She's a fighter," the captain nodded. "But she's just as human as you. So we got lucky. That's a good thing, isn't it?" he said, with a little less certainty than he had intended.

"That's what I thought at first," Owen began.

"But?"

"But then she came to see me yesterday, thanking me for fixing her broken ankle."

Jack shook his head at him, motioning at him to continue.

"She never had a broken ankle. It was perfectly fine! She made out like she had gotten it in the chase – when she was shot – but that was a fresh wound. There's no way an ankle could heal by itself that quickly."

Jack was quiet for a moment. "Could the Doctor have repaired it?"

"That's what I thought," Owen said, "and I was going to go ask him about it, after Rose left, when he came and found me himself, and told me that you said to leave Rose alone for a little while, which was a pretty pathetic lie."

Jack didn't say anything.

"Now, there's a lot I don't know about you Jack," Owen said, "But I do know that when you have something to say to me you say it yourself – you don't send a messenger who I don't even know."

Jack nodded slowly. "I'll talk to him," he said.

Owen didn't respond right away, apparently expecting more of a response. When he didn't get one he nodded, slightly awkwardly, and left the room.

He paused in the walk way outside Jack's office before he went back downstairs, trying to shake his disappointment in his friend's response (or lack of one), and reminding himself that he probably shouldn't talk to Rose again - at least not with the Doctor around.

"Come in," Rose said, trying to look busy as she stared down at a bottle of clear nail polish.

"How are you feeling this morning?" the Doctor asked her, leaning against the door frame. "Can I get you anything? Breakfast?"

"'M fine, thanks," Rose replied with a tight smile, looking back down at her nail polish.

"Oh," the Doctor said, sounding a little bit put out. He recovered, and continued.

"Well, in that case I guess we could get going. What do you think? New worlds to see, new people to save, hey?"

"Yeah," Rose started to say, then paused. "Actually, do you mind if we stay a little bit longer? I wanted to, um, to talk to Gwen about... something."

"What about?" the Doctor asked.

"Uh - it's... private," Rose said. She wasn't used to lying to him, and she could tell she looked uncomfortable.

The Doctor gave her an odd look. "What's private?"

"Private things," she told him, kicking herself very hard internally. Private things? Pitiful. "Stuff that I can't, um, talk about with... other people."

Smooth, she thought to herself. Real smooth. She could feel her cheeks getting pinker, and felt more and more like she was making a very embarrassing mistake.

The time lord inspected her for a minute before breaking out into a small, but slightly cocky smile.

"Ooooh," he said, as if understanding perfectly. He walked over to her.

"You just take all the time you need, Rose," he told her, patting her on the head a little patronisingly, before stepping back and looking down at her again.

He sniffed, looking like she had just called him the cleverest man in the room and he was trying to seem humble.

"Just... just find me when you're done," he told her, leaving the room. She heard him whistling happily to himself as he walked back down the hallway.

Rose frowned, opening her mouth a little. She had absolutely no idea what had just happened.

Aliens... No, alien blokes.

She closed her mouth, shaking her head. Whatever he thought, at least now she could take a little time to get these silly doubts out of her head, instead of just having them niggle at her. She'd sort out whatever was making her feel all... weird... and then they could be on their way again.

"Good plan," she muttered to herself, picking up a denim jacket and leaving her bedroom.