Chapter Six: Not Blue

She was saying something to Jackie but he wasn't really listening. The Doctor suddenly felt a strange chill in the air. He'd felt it once before, when they'd been inside the TARDIS and he was rummaging through the tool box. The hairs on the back of his head stood up as he could literally feel the timelines bend painfully. He didn't understand it. But whatever was going on was very, very wrong.

"...you mumbled something about a trap and told me to go home immediately and not turn back."

He remembered Rose saying that. A trap. It could only be for him. He was the one being tailed by cybermats and having his memory bonked.

...bonked? Okay, never thinking and definitely not saying that aloud ever again.

"...now that we've found his spaceship, the Doctor can go back home and figure out his memory problem," he caught the tail end of Rose's conversation.

He had to get away before Rose and her mum got hurt.

"Right!" he said, standing up. "My spaceship. Well, time and space ship. I can go back to Gallifrey now."

He didn't really want to though, but there wasn't much he could do here. If he could get his memory back, he could find out what was going on here faster. Which meant that he could come back to find Rose again.

Huh...that's new. He had a feeling that he didn't come back for people often. But Rose seemed special. To begin with, not many people dealt with aliens as calmly as she did, and even fewer people would help one. She was also very quick thinking to have disposed of a cybermat using a lawn mower. Crude, but it did save their behinds.

He recognised potential when he saw it, and Rose Tyler definitely had lots of it.

"What's wrong?" she asked, noticing the frown on his face.

Potential and perception.

So, it was no surprise that he wanted her to come and travel with him. He just wasn't sure how to ask her. Especially with her mother sitting right there in the same room. The Doctor was certain that Jackie Tyler would stab him with the kitchen knife if he tried to whisk her daughter away. Multiple times.

He hugged her instead. Rose, that is. And thanked both her and Jackie before moving to Rose's bedroom to leave. He'd just find her and ask her after things had settled and his current problems had been sorted.

Right. Good. That's that. Perfect.

"You're leaving?" There was disappointment in her voice.

And there went his resolve.

Besides, they were in her bedroom now. If he said it softly enough, Jackie wouldn't hear him and before she could know anything and try to stop him, he'd have whisked Rose off to another planet. Perfect.

"Would you...?" he began but stopped himself.

She looked up at him expectedly.

"Would you like to come with me?" he asked, lowering his voice to ensure that Jackie wouldn't hear his words. "All of time and space...the past, the future, every planet in the universe...? What do you say?"

He saw her eyes widen and he grinned. But then she stole a glance at the woman in the other room and even as she bit her lip and considered, he felt like rejection was coming his way.

"You don't have to answer right away," he said hurriedly, trying to salvage the situation. If he could just show her how mundane her life was compared to the stars, he was certain that she'd accept his offer. And he needed her to accept it. He wasn't entirely sure why. Call it a gut feeling.

Never had those before either. Not that he could remember, but it felt strange.

He was feeling all sort of curious things today.

He proceeded to tell her how he had to make a quick stop at Gallifrey and fix his memory. She could take her time to make a decision until then.

Rose nodded and he couldn't help but steal another hug. Hugs were cool. And hugging Rose Tyler was the coolest.

She smelled like rain and tea and if he could, he would never let go. Blimey, he was getting attached pretty quickly.

"Are you two kissing in there," the Doctor felt heat creep up his face at Jackie's accusation and he struggled to control his biological response. "I won't allow any kissing in the bedroom."

Rose groaned into his chest. "Mum!"

With a chuckle, the Doctor released her and stepped towards his TARDIS. "Be back in five minutes," he promised as he pulled a key from his pockets and stepped inside his sexy blue box.

He ran up to the console and started the dematerialisation sequence, bouncing and flaying around to reach a lever or a button. He had safely manoeuvred into the vortex when suddenly a massive shock pulled the TARDIS back the way it had come. Sparks emitted from the console as the Doctor was thrown into the floor from the jolt.

"No!" he screeched as he got up and read the monitor. "No, no, no, no, no!"

He jumped around, trying to get the TARDIS back into the vortex. The TARDIS didn't behave no matter what though. They hurtled back to their last stop. To Earth, England, London, the Powell Estate, Rose Tyler's bedroom and the Doctor couldn't stop it.

They landed with a thump and the Doctor groaned as he had to pull himself up from the floor again. He was about to check what the problem was so that he could fix it and be on his way when he heard a shriek from outside. He immediately ran for the door but as he opened it, he almost keeled over.

The timelines were a tangle here. Right in this moment, time was bending in the most impossible ways, writhing and straining and moving in the strangest directions, tangling in themselves, in the most wibbliest-wobbliest way you could imagine.

And they were all centred on the pink and yellow girl who lay motionless of the floor.

-:-

She was having the funniest dream. At least she thought it was a dream. She was in a strange room which was more like a wide, white space that kept going on. And in the centre of it, sat a woman with wild, dark hair in a blue-green dress. She smiled when Rose caught her eye and beckoned her forward, gesturing towards the chair opposite her.

"Would you like some tea?" the woman asked when Rose neared.

"Who are you?" Rose asked instead.

"I'm Sexy," the woman informed. "That's what my thief calls me."

"Your thief?"

"Yes. He stole me. Will steal me. Is stealing me," Sexy said without a pause. "I stole him too. Would you like some tea?"

"Um," Rose began, taking the seat that was offered to her. "Okay."

A table appeared in the space between her and Sexy, holding two cups, a teapot and a plate of Jammie Dodgers. Yep, definitely a dream.

"Where are we?" Rose asked, as Sexy poured the tea into a saucer instead of a cup.

"At the heart. Our heart," Sexy answered, offering her the saucer placed on top of a cup.

"Okay," Rose said, deciding to go with it. Dreams hardly ever made sense. She'd recently had one where she was a golden wolf and she kept licking these pepper pots that had plungers attached to them and every time she licked one, it burst into gold. Except this one that had a red apron on and had made Rose a soufflé and Rose had decided to let her go. Funny how pepper pots have genders in dreams.

"My thief likes tea," Sexy said. "You like tea too. You've always liked tea. You'll always like tea. Oh, tenses are difficult, aren't they?"

Rose smiled as she took a sip out of her saucer. Suddenly, the white room was washed in a pulsing red light. A clanging sound echoed from the distance, as if repeatedly calling for attention.

"What's that?" Rose asked.

Sexy looked pensive. "The cloister bells," she said distractedly.

Rose's vision started to swim all of a sudden and she almost dropped off on the saucer of tea placed in front of her.

"It's a nightmare," Sexy said with a sudden urgency. "It's always been a nightmare."

Rose head a howling in the distance and everything was once more too bright and too golden. Someone was singing and when she woke up with a gasp, like she hadn't been breathing all this while, the song still rang in her ears:

"A little girl once wandered off,

To the woods of the big, bad wolf.

In a little hood as red as her blood,

And a beating heart so good."

"Rose!" the Doctor exclaimed when the pink and yellow girl opened her eyes.

It was four in the morning and after much protest at the prospect of leaving her unconscious daughter alone in her room with an alien, Jackie had finally gone to sleep an hour ago. So, when Rose blinked and looked around with confusion and then finding the Doctor peering at her in concern, hurled herself in his arms, the Doctor, while immensely surprised was mostly relieved at the absence of a certain formidable mother.

"My thief!" Rose shouted in glee.

"What?" the Doctor was utterly confused. He tried to pull her back to scan her when she leaned forward all of a sudden and pressed her lips against his.

There was a squeak of surprise from him and for the first few moments his hands flayed about like a chicken before he gingerly rested them on her waist. She tasted like tea and rain with a hint of metal.

He was only beginning to kiss her back when she pulled back and shrieked, "This is wrong!"

It took him a moment to get over his daze and formulate a reply.

"It wasn't that bad," he mumbled.

"It is!" Rose insisted. "I shouldn't be here! I-I should be there!"

She pointed at his TARDIS.

The Doctor blinked dumbly for a couple of seconds. "Well, um, good to know you've made a decision."

He was referring to his offer of time and space travel that he'd made earlier. Well, what else could her words mean?

"Why am I not blue?" Rose asked him, grabbing the Doctor by his shirt and pulling him to her personal space. Not that he minded. "I should be blue!"

"Well, I think you're lovely as you are. All...pink and yellow."

Rose stepped back. "But I want to be blue! I should be blue!"

"Okay," the Doctor said, "we'll get you some dye, if it's that important to you."

"No!" Rose wailed. "I shouldn't be in here," she clapped her hands against her cheeks.

"I should be here," she frantically gestured towards the TARDIS. "I should be blue!"

"I'm not following," the Doctor said after staring at Rose for a moment.

Rose blinked. "You don't recognise me," she said slowly. There was hurt in her voice.

"Of course I do!" the Doctor said. "You're Rose Tyler."

"You really don't recognise me," Rose repeated. "Just because I'm in here, and I'm not blue?"

"What are you talking about?" the Doctor asked, reaching towards his sonic screwdriver.

"I'm Sexy!" Rose—or not Rose said.

Yes, you are, the Doctor faintly mused.

"What?" he said instead.

"I'm the...mmm...the...mmmm," she fumbled. "Oh, what do you call me? We travel. I go vworp, vworp!"

The Doctor sat there, staring at Rose—Sexy in silence for quite a few seconds.

She couldn't be...it wasn't possible. "You're...the TARDIS?" he asked.

"Time And Relative Dimension In Space," stated Sexy. "Yes, that's it. It's me. I'm the TARDIS."

"No, you're not," the Doctor said, stepping away. "You're Rose Tyler. I asked you your name and you told me that you're Rose Tyler. You're pink and you're human and you have a mad mother."

"The casing belongs to Rose Tyler, yes. But her mind is asleep and she's having tea."

"If you're really the TARDIS," said the Doctor, "then how did you even get inside Rose's body. It should be impossible!"

"I don't know," Sexy said. "I..."

Suddenly, she keeled over, clutching at her side. The Doctor immediately rushed to her, pulling her up and scanning her frantically with the sonic.

"You're..." he began.

"...dying," she finished.

A/N: Sorry about the cliffhanger. And sorry about the very late update as well. I just couldn't seem to be able to write anything for this fic for quite a while. I'm still blocked but reviews might help me. ;)

A huge thanks to Meagan Snow, JollyRoger1, Pig-Rabbit-Suk, MargauxUniverse, Valerie E. Mackin, tash, Diving in, and Palomeke for your reviews. And another big tank you to everyone who added this story to their favouries' list and/or are following it.