Rose Returns

Clone?

__Doctor's POV__

I knew I wasn't going to survive this. I was already a torn lonely man after Rose left the very first time. And seeing her kiss my clone didn't help my situation. But at least I knew she was alive and happy. Now, nothing is for her. She's dead. That's it. She can't even feel it. The only thing I had left was to ensure Martha's safety, and that wasn't going to happen on The TARDIS.

I went to her room to ask her if we could finally talk. After knocking. she came to the door and saw my tears. She asked what was wrong, and if I might add, she asked with a bit of a snappy tone. I couldn't take it and started to choke out Rose's name, "R-ro-rose. She...she." Martha cut me off after my words fell short, "She came back, yeah, I know. I saw her just a minute ago. Wanted to talk to her, but I couldn't even wake her up, let alone start conversation." How thick was Martha?!?! Had I really been that blind in pain when choosing a new companion?

After seeing the look of shock and disgust on my face, she started towards Rose's bedroom, and on the way I prepared myself to tell Martha off. Well, I was fully prepared....until she walked into the wrong room. What Martha had walked into was an empty guest room. Which wasn't actually so empty. It was actually filled with my life. Well, everything that mattered in it. There laid Rose. My beautiful precious Rose. All I could do was choke out a groan of something between relief and worry, How had she gotten here? Was she real? Was she Okay? I walked a few rooms down to check on what I had left Rose as last night. But there she was!! How the hell did she wind up going from peacefully sleeping in the guest room to looking like something a Reaper spit up in a room that was down the hall? I scanned her to check for a hologram projector, seeing as I was quite shocked to move from the doorway.

The scans came back as Clone and I decided that I had everything wrong. This wasn't Rose. This was a clone. Of course Rose wouldn't be so stupid to go through the Vortex like that. Realizing that the dead bloody woman in Rose's bed was not indeed Rose, I had The TARDIS find a buried plot for her amongst the huge gardens and replace Rose's blankets and sheets with identical clean ones.

Finally, I decided to go back to Rose and watch her while she slept. Martha must've gotten bored or stopped caring, because, when I went back to that guest room, Martha was nowhere near. All I did was watch Rose (Real Rose, I scanned her) sleep. For days. I didn't blink once. When she finally did wake up, Martha had been out of The TARDIS. Actually, she was on a break visiting home. I watched over Rose, as it had been for the past couple of weeks. And she finally woke up.

As she sat up, she looked confused, but she must've figured out what had happened, since she quickly pulled me into a soft hug. She asked me how long it'd been, but I guess my box mentally filled in for me, since Rose soon said, "I'm sorry Doctor. I'm so so sorry." She pulled back to look me in my face, and I put on a half-forced smile. I was truly happy, I just didn't want to ever let go of My Bad Wolf again. I started crying, tears silently streaming down my face. She went to pull back into our hug, and then she kissed me. It wasn't a fairly long kiss, but it was the first time I truly kissed Rose. Not The heart of my TARDIS, not Cassandra, just my beautiful Rose, When she, the being without a respiratory bypass system, pulled back needing air, I wasn't letting tears loose anymore. I wasn't really worried at all. However this was, The Bad Wolf and The Oncoming Storm were back together again, in The TARDIS. After several hours of laying in the guest bed and talking, mostly catching up and planning for the day, we stumbled upon the topic Martha, also known as Snooty Jealous Evil Little Dalek.

"Rose, she's right outside The TARDIS. If we wanted, we could leave now, not come back for a thousand years. Well, a thousand for us. A second for her. Just...timey-wimey. Huh? Would you like to go somewhere now? We cou-"

She cut me off. "No. This isn't her problem. I heard her talking to me. As I was falling into this coma. I could actually hear voices for what seemed like a couple days. It was weird. I guess you could even call it ood." We both gave a light-hearted chuckle at her slight reference to the day we visited Krop Tor. Then I realized something. If she could hear everything for those first days....even just the very first day I was watching her....Her voice brought me back from terror to reality, "Doctor, what's wrong?" I knew then that she had heard me tell her half-conscious self that I love her. She knew, and she heard. I had to tell her of my own accord, and I knew I wasn't going to let her approach me about it. All that would do is make it even more embarrassing. Suddenly acting off of impulse more than thought, I blurted out something that sounded like "Ilunooh!" She gave me an extremely confused expression, so I slowly sounded out, "I. Love. You," while looking at the floor.

I felt immediately embarrassed, but Rose pulled me out of my thoughts when she lifted my chin up to look at her and started talking, "Doctor, it's Oka-" Then suddenly the door burst open. Fantastic I thought with a sarcastic tone. It was Martha, her being the only one in the world who would want this to stop.....whatever this was. She didn't even apologize; she just glared at Rose while saying "Doctor, someone called emergency. It's the same number we got when Katniss needed her weapon." I knew I needed to talk to Rose, and nothing was more important than that, but someone's life may be on the line.

__Rose's POV__

As The Doctor walked out and towards the control room, I felt the need to at least follow him and make sure everything was Okay with whoever this Katniss was. By the time I caught up, he was already in the control room speaking on the phone. I let him finish, and when he hung up, he turned to Martha and said "Katniss is dehydrating. Fast. The game-makers have ruined the waters and now she needs something. I think the best thing for her time period would be a spile. Would you go grab me one from the cabinet in hallway 221B? I'll land her in The Games, but be careful in case The TARDIS has a rough landing." Martha nodded her head, and ran off to 221B.

I felt awkward, an didn't know exactly what to say, so I waited for Martha to come back, while The Doctor safely landed The TARDIS with a small thud. I quietly asked where we were, and The Doctor responded with, "In a book." Great. So helpful. I thought. Martha soon came back with a spile, and we walked outside, me last. I felt jealous and like a third wheel in the situation because of Martha's major involvement with the problem, even though The Doctor had just recently confessed that he loves me.

We walked for at least fifteen minutes, until we stumbled upon a blond, unarmed, teenage boy, who was just walking around the forest as if he wasn't in the middle of a fight-to-the-death. "Cato?" The Doctor asked rather loudly. He walked viciously towards me and Martha, and all we could do was stare as he created our fear.