A/N: Finally getting the edits done so people stop complaining. : P Still don't own.

"Does it need saying?" The Doctor's voice was pained as if every word hurt for him to say as much as it hurt her to hear. He stood poised, ready to run. He looked like he wanted to be on the opposite end of reality, any reality, from this beach.

Rose felt no sympathy. He was the one that was doing this to the both of them not her, and she was sick of sympathizing with him. She knew as soon as they had stepped foot onto this awful beach that he was going to manipulate her into staying and what was worse was that there was three of him all wanting the same thing, if you included Donna.

Rose looked to the metacrisis and watched the hopeful expression cross his face and she knew if she asked him it was going to be a trap. Rose then glanced quickly at her mother and they shared a nod. Jackie walked over with glee, pulled the Time Lord around and slapped him so hard he ended up landing on his skinny arse.

"What?" said The Doctor as he sat in the sand sputtering, protected his cheek, and stared at Jackie.

"Well, what did you expect me to do, you stupid alien. Never did listen to a word my Rose said to you, did you. Maybe she has a story to tell that you might want to listen to before you swan off, yeah?"

"What?" The Doctor repeated.

"Shut it you," Jackie continued, "If you shut your gob for two seconds put together maybe you wouldn't be in this situation, now would you. Rose, love, I'll see you later, yeah. Just call before you come and we'll be ready. Love you."

"But-," the metacrisis started to say before he was elbowed by Rose, hard, which caused him to make a wheezing sound. She didn't want to hear him speak either.

"Yeah, mum, I'll see you soon; love you." Rose replied and hugged her mother goodbye.

Rose continued to watch her mother leave until she was out of sight over the nearest sand dune. She then turned to the two men and watched them with a completely blank face leaving them no way to guess her emotions. She had plenty of practice over the years to prefect it.

Both were staring at her in bewilderment. It would have been comical or endearing if she hadn't been as angry as she was. How dare he do this to her, again! The only clear thought she had going through her head was how much she missed One. He would have never done this.

"Come on we have to leave soon, right." With that statement Rose then passed Donna and walked into the TARDIS. Everyone scrambled after her.

"But Rose she's…" The Doctor tried to lecture.

"Yeah, I know. Been my mum my whole life, sorta." Rose interrupted him as he went to grab her shoulder to pull her around to face him. She deftly moved to avoid his grasp without making it seemed as if she noticed what he was trying to do. Donna situated herself on the jump seat and wisely kept herself from the conversation, while the metacrisis tried to come at Rose from the other side as if to box her in. Rose avoided him too. It placed her right next to Donna by the jump seat.

"You'll never see…" The Doctor tried again.

"We already covered this, mum and I. There are a lot of things you don't know." It was said with complete confidence and calm.

Her tone was starting to truly worry both men but a sudden noise from the TARDIS distracted both of them. They needed to leave before they were trapped here.

"Are you sure?" Donna finally spoke up and stopped any objections that may have started.

"Yes." It was accompanied with a soft smile for Donna who seemed to be regaining more of her human thought processes or maybe it was female sympathy. Rose didn't know or care but was still grateful. Donna then approached the console and put in the sequence that would take the TARDIS into the vortex, leaving the parallel world behind. This also left everyone hanging in awkward silence.

Rose pinched the bridge of her nose, a habit that she had recently picked up from Pete, and thought about what needed to happen now to make sure that everything worked out. First thing first, take care of Donna and "Handy". Then she was going to reacquaint herself with, well, herself. After that, a break from Doctors, every single one of him because Rose knew if any one of them touched her right now she would either break down or get violent and neither was appealing and that wouldn't be fair to One through Eight or Eleven through Thirteen. Not Nine though, he would have done the exact same thing as this one was doing.

"Right," Rose startled everyone with her voice, "Donna, Handy, come on we should go to the med-bay or whatever and figure out what's going to happen to you. Wouldn't want one of you to die because this happened to ya. Wait, no, changed my mind you lot handle it, I would just get in the way. I need to think and have a lie in. Good luck." With that she dropped onto the jump seat and waved them off.

"Handy?"

Rose had her eyes closed and couldn't tell with one of the men had said it.

"Is this really the time to be worrying about nicknames when there's potential death to avert?"

"I see your point. Come on Donna."

After the sound of their feet faded into the distance Rose looked up to find the Doctor staring at her. He looked frustrated, confused, relieved and worried with a large dose of fear overlaying everything else, which was probably why he hadn't gotten closer. It was no wonder considering Jackie's handprint was still vivid on his cheek. Rose held up her hand before he could speak because she knew if she didn't cut him off right now she would never get the peace she wanted.

"I'm too tired and angry to talk to you without being irrational, so just go and help them. I mean I'm sure their brilliant but it wouldn't hurt to have a Time Lord with them. Just make sure he picks out a good name that isn't John Smith. I think he needs to learn how to be his own person and not walk in someone else's shoes."

"But he's…"

"Not you."

"Why won't you let me explain anything?" He finally blustered out a full sentence and seemed braver for it. He was starting to inch his way closer to her.

"So I'm supposed to listen to you but you don't have to do the same? You know I wish for once you would respect the fact that I might know what's best for me and not some 1382 year old alien. 903 my ass, didn't realize that Nine was so insecure about his age." She ignored his surprised sputtering and continued, "Look I said I was tired and that I need to think things out before we do this, whatever this is. I'll be back in about a week; everything should be sorted by then with Donna and 'Handy'."

Before he could even question where she was going, because really they were in the vortex where could she go, Rose dissolved into gold light and disappeared into the console of the TARDIS. This caused the Doctor to do the only thing he was capable in that moment, panic.

"NO, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, give her back. What are you doing? Why? What? How could you…" During his frenzy he had been trying to open the grating around the console and had received a shock for his efforts. He was just resorting to begging when the metacrisis jogged into the console room.

"Donna is starting to deteriorate, so I could really use… Where's Rose? What did you do?"

The Doctor ignored the other man's tone of voice and locked away his emotions. How was he supposed to handle loosing Donna on top of what had happened to Rose. And what had happened to Rose anyway? The panic was receding and the analytical aspect of his brain that was usually in control was reasserting itself. The past five minutes was dissected in minute detail while he went over the options of what they could do to help Donna. Letting his emotions control him was dangerous but Rose had always involuntarily made what he felt override everything when he should have been logical. Plus, the metacrisis was rubbing his senses raw with the dangerous possibility he presented for either one of them/him.

Valeyard. The whispered possibility stung and the Doctor wondered if the metacrisis could even feel the dangerous ground they both stood on. At this point it would be one or the other. Although, to be fair at this point it was far more likely that it would end up being the metacrisis, most of the possibilities shined down that path.

"Stop," the Doctor cut the metacrisis off, he had been working himself into a fury, "Donna is more important right now. Rose will be fine, but Donna won't, so come on." With that he started towards the infirmary, the other man right behind.

"So if she's going to be fine what was the scene I walked in on?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it. Rose said she would be back in a week and I believe her, in her. So there's nothing to worry about. Let's just focus on Donna."

"Yes, let's," Donna interjected. The Doctor hadn't even realized that they had already reached her.

"Oh, Donna, I'm so sorry!" Pushing aside the issue of Rose the Doctor was still going to lose his best friend; the closest he had ever come to having a sister. The thought of what he was going to have to do to her was going to haunt him for the rest of his very long life.

"Save it string bean, you're not coming anywhere near my head. Martian boy point two over there has already explained your plan and we both decided that that was stupid and came up with one of our own. Your just here to make sure that everything goes well. Blue twig has already thought up a name and all's we need to do is get the proper documentation and the TARDIS will provide that. And have either one of you notice how pissed she is, the TARDIS not Rose. That was obvious, even if I know I should understand why, I can't." Donna finally gasped for air after saying that in one breath.

"Donna, stop, this isn't helping you." The metacrisis cut in before Donna could continue.

"Right," she muttered, "Let's get this over with."

The Doctor looked on in confusion as to what they had planned to do. Before anything happened the metacrisis looked directly at him.

"Listen we don't know if this is going to work the way we want it to, so be prepared for the worst. You better fix what's wrong with Rose because if I don't exist after this I won't be there to fix your mistakes. If I do, then feel free to make as many mistakes as you want. One man's loss is another man's gain, and all that." The last bit was delivered with a cheeky smile. The odd part of it was that it looked like Nine was using his body to do it with, making the smile somewhat mad.

Before the Doctor could question what exactly they had planned Donna and the metacrisis were sitting across from each other. Right as the Doctor opened his mouth to speak they linked hands. That in and of itself wasn't what knocked him off his feet, no that was from the minor explosion of energy that manifested in a blast of blinding light and a concussive wave of air.

The Doctor was just starting to recover when Donna's unconscious body landed on him winding him again. Wriggling out from underneath her and straightening himself out the Doctor noticed that "Handy" was nowhere in sight. Finally standing the Doctor gathered his scrambled thoughts and clothes and found himself staring at a hand, his hand, which was all that was left of the man who had been the closest to having another Time Lord around since the Master.

After lifting Donna onto the table and making her comfortable the Doctor checked to see if there was any lasting damage. While waiting for the results he put "Handy" in a new tank. He had no idea on which was the right thing to do with him, well that wasn't strictly true but he would avoid that choice until he knew more, and so left it for later and turned back to Donna.

The readings he got back were confusing; Donna wasn't human. She also wasn't a Time Lord. What she had been turned into was as if humans had evolved on Gallifrey. Oh, the potential was there for her to become a Time Lord, but that would take years, maybe centuries of learning plus the Rassilon Imputer, which was impossible for her to have. She wasn't as evolved as he was so maybe none of it would work but he could feel her mind humming in the back of his in her comforting brash way.

He needed a moment to take everything in, which was when he realized that he was completely alone and felt completely bereft for a second. His hand felt cold and empty and he needed a good cuppa to handle this and remain intact mentally. Plus he was completely knackered. Right, to the kitchen.

He was still there a half an hour later stirring his second cup while occasionally tapping Handy's tank and trying to understand what had happened to Rose. Donna had been easy to figure out. Handy and her were still within the first fifteen hours of regeneration and Donna was being destroyed. The regeneration energy that was in the both of them was two halves of the same whole. So when they had connected, they hadn't just physically touched, with the intent to heal Donna must have accidently pulled all of the energy to herself. Causing Handy to revert back into, well, a hand.

Rose was a different matter entirely. He knew it had to do with Bad Wolf that was obvious. What he didn't understand was the implications. He didn't think she was dead but he didn't understand how she willingly broke down her mass into particles of pure energy, let alone her consciousness. Not even he could do that, well he could but he couldn't go back to a physical manifestation of himself after. Could she? Rose had said a week and he was going to hold her to that, no matter that he had no idea how to reverse what he had seen. But he was a Time Lord, even better he was the Doctor and if anyone could do impossible it was him. Except Rose, she seemed to find doing the impossible easy because she was here, well relatively, and that was supposed to be very impossible.

All that was left was to figure out the TARDIS. She was furious at him and he had no idea why and every single time that he tried to determine why she kept blocking him mentally and making her even more irritated with him. If he wasn't careful he would end up trapped in this kitchen, which would be awful considering that he had run out of marmalade and hadn't had time to pick up more.

As if to prove how mad at him she was the bananas on the table were replaced with a bowl of pears. He knew when to give up, women. Why could they never just come out a say what was wrong. No, a completely innocent Time Lord, like himself, had to guess and human women were worse. You couldn't just read their minds that would make them even more upset with him. Romana was never this difficult, well, yes he suppose she was but not in this way.

Now that he was on the topic of moody people Adric had been terrible towards the end. One minute the boy would have been in a pleasant mood and then for no apparent reason that the Doctor could ever figure out he had terribly rude and a general grump to be around. Almost as moody as Donna or Jackie.

The Doctor paused in his thoughts and rubbed his cheek, it still stung faintly.

Grump, grumpy, sour-puss. No definitely not that one.

"Never use sour-puss," he said out loud then blanched at his own mistake. Looking around to make sure he was still alone he absentmindedly tapped out a rhythm on Handy's tank and then left deciding that he needed rest if he was making those types of mistakes.