Happy new year everyone! And with a new year came a new chapter! It was a feisty one, this one but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Like always, tell me what you think of it.
And a million thanks to my beta.

Chapter 23

The walk to the TARDIS had been silent for Rose. After they dropped off Agatha, she had let the Doctor and Donna take the lead. Listening to them discuss the life of the novelist following today's event. They had been completely oblivious of the fact that she was noticeably lagging behind them. She was reluctant to enter the time machine, and was trying her best to postpone the discussion that would immediately take place.

She supposed that the TARDIS understood her turmoil, because she had landed pretty far from the hotel, making Donna complain all the way to the entrance. Carrying an unconscious body, even with three able bodied people, was not really a walk in the park. At the time Rose had loudly agreed with her friend, but now she was glad to have a few minutes to herself.

Because she knew that when she got inside those doors, everything would change. She would have to talk about the past. About events that changed her forever, and more importantly, it would open old wounds. She had been alone for decades now, separated from everyone she had loved and therefor learned to cope.

But talking about everything again? She was not sure how well it would go for her. But she had made a promise.

"Are you coming?" asked Donna, her head sticking out from the TARDIS door. "I'm preparing some tea."

Rose forced a smile, trying her best to appear cheerful. "Coming. I was just looking around a bit."

But Donna saw right through it. Realizing she was most probably not ready to face the other occupant of the time machine. "The Doctor went to the kitchen. Said he needed to find something. But I'm pretty sure that the something is a piece of the banana bread that seems to appear every few weeks. Don't ask me how it gets there, because I'm pretty sure the Doctor would make the kitchen go up in flames if he tried to bake it himself." She shook her head fondly at the image. "That man I swear."

"Well if I remember correctly, he did set the kitchen on fire once. But in his defence, it was my fault." Rose snorted. "Well technically it was Jack's fault. I was still sleeping, and Jack had the cheeky idea to wake me up by throwing a bucket of cold water on me. I screamed like my arse was on fire." She laughed. It had been a glorious year with Jack on board. She had missed him so damn long after his death. "But as Jack was laughing his ass off, the Doctor came barging into my room like a madman, sonic in hand and looking around for the intruder." A big smile on her face as she remembered the scene. "Oh the shouting match that followed was glorious when he realized what had happened. Absolutely glorious." She had a dreamy look in her eyes at the memory. He had been so gorgeous in his fury, his eyes blazing with fire and his presence so intense she had to remind herself not to throw herself at him.

"You're drooling," Donna said matter of factly as she opened the door wide.

Rose blushed as she walked into the TARDIS. "Well… And when he finally stopped shouting we all realized we could smell smoke. And by the time we all got back into the kitchen, the oven was on fire."

"For my defense, Jack was a little wild at the time, so I was always prepared for the worst." the Doctor said as he entered the console room, happily munching on a plate of banana bread. "And with our luck at the time, it would not have been out of the possibility for him to have smuggled something in TARDIS without us realizing it."

Rose rolled her eyes as she sat down in the captain's chair. "It was only two times. And it was only Arandian chocolate, and a bottle of perfume from Allaq Kibor. Not a Tokamak reactor or a Keltek blaster."

"Ah! Knowing Jack? It would have not been out of the realm of possibility…" He suddenly looked at her funny. "Wait how do you know about those kinds of things?"

She shrugged. "Well I was undercover for three month at the Bedford facility in Pete's World. We were suspecting that a Usurian scout team had been sent here but it had been a false alarm. At least it had led to a few weeks of exchange about half-quantum vortices with one of their physicists. Very helpful for my thesis," she added more as an afterthought.

"I think I understood maybe half a sentence in what you just said," Donna said with a laugh as she put down the tray with a pot of tea. Making Rose realize she didn't see the redhead leave out of the room a few minutes ago.

The Doctor suddenly smiled, so big and so maniacally that Donna was afraid he was having a stroke. "Are you okay?" she asked, a little concerned about his behavior.

"That is absolutely brilliant, Rose!" he said as his only response, his face still showed his happiness as he dropped against the console.

Rose looked around a little embarrassed. "Well thank you. But at first it was more of a backstory than anything else. I mean one of the wealthier men of Great Britain and right hand of the president had suddenly an adult daughter? Talk about madness."

Donna sat down beside Rose, passing her a cup of tea. "Your dad is a flipping millionaire?" she asked, really impressed by that information.

She took the cup and smiled as a thanking. "My dad from that parallel universe was. My actual father died when I was a baby." She looked pensively at the ceiling. "I suppose he would have probably followed a path similar to his parallel counterpart, but we will never be sure."

"Oh I'm sorry," Donna said awkwardly as she realized the misstep.

The Doctor shifted to the railing, moving closer to them. "So what was your cover story to have disappeared for two decades?" he asked while trying his best to shift the subject on something less explosive.

"Well they explained that by saying that I had been stolen in the hospital when I was born, never to be found again. And that's why they never talked about me, because it was a subject much too painful for them." She rolled her eyes at the theatrics. "I told them it was absolutely bollocks, but everyone seemed to have believed it..."

"With Jackie Tyler as your mother?" He snorted. "Like she would have let you be kidnapped and did nothing. She would have unleashed hell on earth knowing her."

"I like your mother!" said Donna, already completely enthralled by the story. "And then?"

"When the cyberman attack happened, and that Jackie Tyler was killed, they were never able to find her body. Alas like a lot of the converted. So when my mom crossed over, they just told everyone she survived the attack, but the attack had been so traumatic she had been disfigured and amnesic, forgetting almost everything from that life. And what you believe, she had been found by a first year student from Lincoln university who was near London during the cyberman attack and who took her to the hospital, visiting every day during the months following the attack!" She rolled her eyes again. She had tried to tell the people in charge of creating a new life for them that it was just full of bullshit. Especially the part about her mom being disfigured but looking identical three years later. But she had been silenced and with the state she had been, she didn't have the desire to fight. Too deep into her own sadness. Of course her mom had loved it, but that was Jackie Tyler for you.

"Oh that's brilliant, completely brilliant!" Donna was delighted by the tale. "It's like a soap opera," she enthused to the Doctor who facepalmed himself.

"And people believed that?" asked the Doctor with amazement. Humans were clearly another species.

"People completely ate it up. Especially when we told them that I tried to find the family of that 'poor woman' and combined with the hospital's help, we were able to realize she was Jackie Tyler and contacted Pete. Pete of course came as soon as he could and realizing that she was his poor wife on that bed, so he hired the best plastic surgeon on that damn planet and reconstructed his wife like new. Of course the recovery took years, and during that time they became friends with that student. Until they realized that 'Rose Jones' was the baby that had been stolen that terrible day." Rose crossed her arms at the reminded annoyance. "Don't ask me how, that's when I completely tuned out any explanation. Every time a journalist asked me my opinion on the subject I would turn misty eyed and said it was a difficult subject for me. Did the trick."

"Wait, wait wait," Donna interrupted them, she had been eating the biscuit on the platter like she had been in front of a very intense movie. "So they presented you to the world like that? Saying you were their child?"

"Yeah you could say that. They first presented my mom, to ease the tabloid on the story. Especially when they realized that my mom was pregnant. And then me three weeks after we knew for sure I will not be leaving." She stared briefly at the Doctor, who looked dejected at the reminder.

"This is even better than EastEnders!" Smiled Donna.

"And that makes absolutely no sense at all," the Doctor complained while raising his arms to the sky. "The capacity of humans to believe absolutely everything will never stop baffling me. How can someone can hear something like that and think it's genuine."

"Hey don't look at me, Doctor!" Rose narrowed her eyes at him as she was completely insulted by the remark. "I told them it was bonkers."

"So you choose to be a student?" Donna interjected to try and keep an argument from starting.

"Well for them, it was more believable for me to be an innocent student. So they fabricated a whole life for me. I have to say it came in handy when I had to be sent on missions for Torchwood. Much easier to explain why I was not in class that day that if I had a job. But going from no A levels to third year Physics student was pretty mind blowing let me tell you," she said with a laugh. But at the time, she had been miserable. Every day had been a reminder that the Doctor was never coming back. That all the studying had been just a means to an end at first. Which was her getting back to her own universe. But now, now it was her life. And she had to make peace with it.

But as the girls were laughing, more Donna than Rose who was still reeling on the memory, the face of the Doctor became suddenly somber. "How long," he interrupted them with this question. His voice cracked up on the words, his emotions visibly barely in check. "How long has it been for you?"

The smile on Rose face disappeared instantly. She had hoped to have more time, just enough to ease the discussion on and go on her own terms. But the emotions in the Doctor's eyes were too raw. Too much anger and desperation spiraling in him to go peacefully. He had prepared for the worst and could not wait any longer. He needed a response now.

She opened her mouth, a lie on the tip of her tongue, something that became a reflex after so many years. But she had promised truth.

"43 years. Possibly more, maybe less," she answered in a somewhat dejected tone. "I've lost count." And she wasn't saying that to manipulate emotions or drama. She honestly wasn't really sure how long she had travelled between dimensions. All she remembered was the long nights working, and endless suffering when she crossed over. It could have been two months or two years. Time was moving differently there.

Donna gasped, moving instinctively to comfort Rose. But the Doctor tensed even more, his face blank and motionless. "When… When did you realize?" he asked in a flat voice. His stature rigid and inert. Donna could only see the alien in him at that instant, someone who was disconnected from humanity. A painful reminder of the day with the Racnoss. Her heart broke for both of them.

Rose disentangled herself from Donna, rising up from the chair and moving away from them. As she was facing one of the pillars she tried her best to not break down then and there. Like always the Doctor had touched a weak point, asking the most painful question of them all. She knew he was not aware of it, but that had been one of the most roughest periods of her life. It took years for her to close that wound. But now it was open all over again, raw and infected. Just like day one.

"I didn't know for a long time," she started, her voice wavering at the memories. "I think even my own body wasn't aware of the change. Not in Pete world I mean. But I think that all of those jumps into the void to cross over through the dimensions awakened something in me." She still couldn't look at them, but she knew they were listening. "I believe that it really started to show in the midst of everything, but we were too busy trying to save the multiverse to even start to wonder about it. It was very slow at the beginning, just wound healing much more rapidly than some of the others. The doctors first attributed it to the fact that I was young, in very good health and was born in another dimension. But I think it was just my body already changing." She turned around, still not looking at them, but at the console. "If not for me crossing into that last crack, it would have stayed that way. Just me being a little more healthy that normally. Even aging gracefully as my mom would say."

"What do you mean by that?" Donna inquired before Rose could continue. "That was different?"

Rose looked at her for the first time since she started talking, her eyes suspiciously wet. "When we travelled between dimensions we were using holes that were already open, trying our best to not worsen the situation by poking new ones between the walls. But as time passed, it became worse and worse. Some holes became apparent to the naked eyes, eating whole parts of the universe. As the energy reading on those were all over the place we decided to not cross over with it. But on my last jump, I think one of them opened as I was crossing, and the result was that I landed on Earth and my hopper's circuits were fried." She uncovered her wrist, showing them the weird steampunk looking watch she was wearing. "I was only able to repair the dimensional watch, the rest were beyond repair. I can really only jump from one place to another." She shrugged. "Came in handy."

"Rose…" choked out the Doctor, his face still stony. But his eyes were betraying the difficulty to reign on his emotions.

Rose's head and shoulders slumped. "I woke up in 1971 near Calgary. Without any means of communication or possibility to go back. I could only go forward." She had been frightened beyond reason at the time. Lost in a country she didn't know, in a time she had no part of. She had no name, no life here. Just herself. Rose Tyler was not even born yet. Her parents just children now. "It took me three years to go back to London." Three years to create herself again and hope for the best. Alone and without family. She could not even have friends, too afraid to reveal something she shouldn't.

She had been deep into depression at the time, seeing no end on the tunnel. Just a black void. So sure to die before seeing her family or the Doctor one last time. It had been the most frightening time for her. The only thing keeping her alive was the flicker of hope to see them all at least once before everything ends. "But one day I looked at myself in the mirror, and realized that I was the same as the day I came into that universe..." And realizing that even if she was able to find her family once again, it would be to lose them all over again. Cursed to see them all age and die. Until only memories would remain. Doomed to finish in a universe only with herself.

"Bad Wolf," added the Doctor, making sound the word like a curse. He looked so sad and ancient, that Donna had to stop the urge to hug him.

"What's Bad Wolf?" Donna asked. This was new to her.

"Me," said Rose with a sad smile. "Well me and the TARDIS." She lightly stroked the console, making the TARDIS hum joyfully. "When I was 19, the Doctor, Jack and myself had to fight a really powerful enemy, so powerful that we were almost sure to die. The Doctor sent me back to save my life, forcing the TARDIS to travel to my time. But I didn't see it that way. All I could see was the fact that he was dying thousands and thousands of years into the future. Without me. So I broke open the heart of the TARDIS, and we became one. Making me one of the most powerful beings in the universe for a brief moment. I saved his life but apparently it had some consequence."

The Doctor was suddenly in front of her, looking at her with sadness and rage. "I took everything. I'm sure of that. I made sure of it!"

She looked just as defiant. "I'm telling you, Doctor, it's Bad Wolf."

"How can you be so sure? How can I be sure you didn't do that yourself?" That was the heart of the problem for them. The trust that had been so entrenched to their dynamic was now in shambles, a shadow of what it was once. And until it was repaired, they would tear each other apart until nothing remains.

She felt the fight in her ignite. Grinding her teeth she growled, "What? You think I used my time in Pete's World to do that?"

"That would not be the first time you did something foolish." He had this almost sarcastic smirk that briefly reminded her of her first Doctor's smirk, and his eyes were hard and black.

She almost screamed about the Wolf in her, fighting the urge to let it go out to prove a point. But she knew that secret was to be kept at her own, that no one, not even the Doctor would know about it. She will speak freely about everything else, risking opening old wounds again and again. But she will never speak about the monster in her. Not until everything ended. That was the only secret she was ready to die for, because if the Doctor caught a single trace of it, he will do everything to get rid of it. And she knew she needed it, to have a chance to win in the future. She carried her mission for decades, made a promise to a lot of people. She will not fail so close to the goal. So she did what she had to. Fight back.

"I only became her to save you. Because I loved you so much that imagining a world without you was unbearable," she answered so fiercely that her voice broke for a second. "So if you have an issue with that, then tell that to him, because I will not say sorry for what I did and what I became." She smiled cruelly for a second, her rage overcoming her for a brief moment. "But the days where you were the most important man in my life are over, Doctor! I moved on." As soon as those words flew out of her mouth, she regretted them. He had always been her rock, a part of her, even back then when she had only been a scared 19 years old. She had hurt him once like that before, and she felt as shitty as that time. His distressed face was enough for her to feel like the worst person in the universe. She made a few steps, an apology in her mouth when his whole attitude changed. Becoming defiant and hostile.

The Doctor blinked as if to hide any hurt felt by the declaration. His brain screamed at him to shut up as he spat back, "I saw that. You were on that Earth for decades, and you visibly decided that you prefered UNIT to any sort of life. Took too much pleasure playing the soldier I suppose?"

The slap was almost instantaneous. Reasoning in the console room like a cannon.

"How dare you?!" Rose yelled as she pointed a finger at him. "How dare you say that? I lost everything! My family! My entire life as I came to know it! I sacrificed everything to have a chance to save them! Do you have any idea what's it's like to live in a world where you have no place? Where saying the wrong word, being at the wrong place, at the wrong time could bring the end of the world? Every day I had to fight with myself to not find my mum, Mickey or even you. I accepted that a decision I would make could send people to their death, I stayed silence when I knew something would happen, I lived in the shadow for decades because that would mean maybe, just maybe having a small chance to save the multiverse."

She was crying openly now, long held frustrations and feelings bursting from the dam that had been destroyed. "I stayed with UNIT because I had no other choice! I'm an abomination, what do you think will happen if people realize that I'm not aging? If I had to die, I would rather it be fighting what is coming. Not in a flipping cell seeing the universe fall apart around me!" She felt herself lose control of her herself little by little. The Doctor always had the ability to push all of her buttons at once. And a miniscule part of her was bemused to see it was not something that changed.

The Doctor, who was still holding his cheek in surprise following the slap, felt himself burn with anger at the implication in her last sentence. His eyes suddenly lit up with rage as his hand left his cheek and clenched at his side. "How could…"

Donna jumped in before he could finish and start a full fledged war with Rose. "Wouaaah everyone calm down now!" she said, conscious that if she didn't intervene right now, any chance of reconciliation between the Doctor and Rose would go up in smoke. "I think everyone needs to take five minutes, okay?"

She looked at them both, but they were clearly more interested in throwing eye daggers at each other than listening. Great, now she was irritated. "Stop acting like children," she demanded with annoyance, especially to the Doctor. She had flashbacks for weeks of him waiting to drown with the Racnoss he sentenced to death, too numb by the loss of Rose Tyler to go on. And now he was ready to play russian roulette with his second chance. She was more than ready to smack them both.

"You don't realize how lucky you both are!" she continued while absolutely fuming at her friends. "Lots of people would give everything to be able to experience an opportunity like this. Don't either of you dare to throw that away…" They both had the decency to look ashamed of themselves, realizing they had let their emotions talk before them. "So now, I'm going to make a fresh pot of tea, and while I'm doing that, the both of you are going to march your butts to the library to talk like adults. I am clear?" she ordered in a tight voice, showing she was now fed up with both of them.

They nodded in unisson, their eyes huge with fear. A Donna Noble that was on the warpath was not to be contradicted.

Donna smiled, but not with sympathy but satisfaction, and with one last sharp nod she walked in the direction of the kitchen. Letting them both fend for themself.

The Doctor and Rose looked at each other in an embarrassed silence.

"So what now?" the Doctor asked awkwardly as he rubbed the back of his neck.

Rose sighed, ashamed to have let her emotions get the best of her like that. "Well I'll say we do as Donna said…"

Without another word, they took the direction of the library, knowing perfectly that the discussion was not finished. Or if it had even started it in the first place.