A/N: So, this chapter came together easier than the second one. Almost as easy as the first. Let me know what you think.

"You'll never guess where we went today, love. Wellll, I suppose you probably already know, seeing as you're best mates with my TARDIS. But I'm gonna go ahead and tell you anyway. I'll give you a hint first: Applegrass! Yep, yeah, we were on New Earth. You remember New Earth, don't you? New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York with your New New Doctor? Yeah, those were the days. Can't say it smelled as good as it did last time though… See, we spent most of our time beneath the surface. Oh! You should have seen Martha! She was brilliant! Y'know, I think she's getting the hang of this companion thing, yeah. Not as good as you were, at least not yet. Buuuuut she'll get there, I suppose."

The Doctor continued babbling on about the day's adventures. He was lounging comfortably in the captain's jump seat with his converse clad feet propped up on the control panel. To the outward observer he was talking to empty air. This is what Martha saw and heard when she crept silently through the door to the control room. She looked at the Doctor quizzically when she realized that no one else was in the room, but remained silent, not wanting to startle him. She preened a bit when he complimented her brilliance but was quickly grounded when he said that she "wasn't as good." Who the hell was he talking to anyway? She began carefully backing away, resolving that this alien man that she was travelling with really was quite mad, even if he was a bit cute. She smiled at that thought and for a moment lost herself in her own fantasies where the Doctor would forget about "good ol' Rose" and actually pay attention to her for once.

Suddenly, the Doctor quieted. Martha froze, thinking maybe he had heard her movement. The Time Lord looked around and Martha ducked behind a coral strut, hoping he hadn't seen her. Quietly, in a much sadder tone than before, the Doctor continued, "I told her about Gallifrey," he choked slightly. "The Face of Boe, you remember him, big ol' head? Was there in the year 5 billion. Sun expands, Earth gets roasted…" he paused, "That was our first date. We had chips." The Doctor swallowed a lump in his throat and felt a wave of comfort wash over him, though he was unable to distinguish whether it was Rose or the TARDIS herself… Probably both. Regaining some of his usual bravado he plowed on, "Welll, anyway, Face of Boe, he was dying you see, he had just saved the remaining population of New Earth and well, there was a prophecy that said that a "wandering traveler," I suppose that's me, would get to hear some great secret from the old lump. Well, great big secret, you know I have to know, I love secrets! So, I get up close to him and he says, with his mouth, mind you, not his head, he says, "You are not alone." I mean, what's that supposed to mean. Anyway, after that," he pauses, choking a bit again. "After that, I told Martha all about it. The Time War, the Daleks, everything." He paused. "Oh, yes, but I don't understand how he could say that. Rose, how could he say that I'm not alone? I feel so alone sometimes, not just physically, but mentally too. All the time lords, they should be here," he gestured to his temple, "In my head, but every time I look, it's empty. Just… so, so empty."

By this point the Time Lord didn't realize that there were tracks of moisture running down his cheeks and he barely blinked at the golden haze that announced Rose's presence. Martha bit down a gasp as the blonde woman moved toward the defeated Time Lord and sat quietly next to him on the jump seat. She curled up and situated herself underneath his arm and just held him to her and let him hold her. They sat there for a moment, in silence. Rose tucked her head into his chest and listened to the steady drumming of his hearts before she sighed. He pulled back slightly at the sound and she raised her head, so her chin was resting on his chest and her eyes met his, "You aren't alone, love. 'e's right. And I know how much i' hurts to have so much emptiness in your head, bu' when you start feeling tha', remember. Remember how much fullness you have in your hearts. Then, you grab onto that feeling, and you run with it. And you never let go. Love, Doctor, tha's what makes you so brilliant. You have so much love. Love for Earth, and humans, even when we mess up and make complete apes of ourselves, you still love us."

He smiled for a moment at that and then placed a feather-light kiss on her forehead. "But you have it all wrong. See, love isn't my strength. It's yours. Rose, from the very first adventure I took you on, that platform, high above Earth, you just loved so much. That's how you helped me. That's how you healed me. You look at everything from a perspective of compassion and optimism." He laughed, a slightly bitter sound. "Bloody hell, I mean, the first time you encountered a Dalek, your touch made it mutate into… Well, I know you don't like talking about it." He amended, feeling her stiffen at the mention of the events in Utah. "What I'm trying to say is that you love so completely. If I love at all, it's only because you taught me how to after…" he trailed off, not wanting to bring up the Time War yet again.

Rose shifted slightly, inadvertently pulling away from him. He gripped her tighter to his chest and clung to her like he was a drowning man and she was a life preserver. She brought herself up to his eye level and stared into his eyes before planting a lingering kiss on his lips.

Martha turned away slightly from the scene before her. As baffled as she was about the exact dynamics of this turn of events, there was no doubt in her mind that this woman was Rose, the Doctor's Rose, the one he had lost, or so he had said. She slowly and quietly crept out of the control room and back to her bedroom. Or at least, that's where she thought she had been headed. When she twisted the door handle to her room, instead of finding the soft blues and silvers of the walls of her own room she was assaulted by various shades of pink, red, and gold.

She gasped softly and stepped into the room. The door snapped shut behind her and the lights in the room turned on automatically. As the golden glow filled the room she noted that it looked like the previous occupant had intended on returning. There were clothes scattered on the floor and drawers hung open with rejected outfits hanging out of them. Martha turned back to the door, intending to leave and return to her own room, only to find that the handle had disappeared. "What?" The woman backed away from the door slowly and further into the room. She sighed in resignation and began to explore the room carefully.

She examined the pictures on the wall more carefully. In some pictures she could see the Doctor, with his hair all crazy and his pinstriped suit. But there was something different about him. There was a light in his eyes that she had never seen before, even on his most "happy" days. She may have caught a glimpse of it here and there while they were alone on the TARDIS and he was absorbed in his work. He would often look up from his current tinkering project, eyes alight and full of mischief, and begin to speak quite animatedly, but then his eyes would fall on her and his face would lose some of its life before he quickly recovered and continued speaking in a falsely cheery tone. It was times like these that she was sure he had been looking up to talk to Rose, a realization that had always resulted in a sharp twist of jealousy in her gut as she forced a smile back at him.

Looking at the pictures on the wall only reaffirmed these suspicions when she saw that every single one of the pictures also carried the face of a certain blonde-haired girl. However, what puzzled Martha was that in some of these pictures, the older ones, by the younger look of Rose's face, instead of the Doctor, there was another man. This man sported a dark leather jacket and a stony exterior. He had big ears and hard cold blue eyes. However, when he smiled at the Rose in the pictures she could see that to him this girl meant the world. Upon further examination of the pictures, Martha drew many similarities between the look that Rose gave the Doctor and the looks that she gave the strange leather clad man. Also, it appeared that the adoring glances that the man and the Doctor gave her also bore many similarities.

Shaking her head and backing away from the pictures Martha took another look around the room. She'd had her suspicions about who this room might have belonged to and the confirmation had been in those pictures. This room was the one that Rose had stayed in. She made her way back over to the door, determined to find a way out. But on her way there, something caught her eye. There, sitting on the desk, was a book. As Martha picked it up to examine it she realized that it wasn't just a book, but a journal. She sat in the chair that was pulled up to the desk and wrestled with her conscience for a moment before quashing the guilt and opening the small red booklet. She opened it to the first page. Small, cramped writing met her eyes and she smirked. 'Well, at least I have better handwriting than this Rose girl…' Then she shook her head that how ridiculous it was to feel smug over a detail like that. She sighed and began to read.

So, the Doctor got me this journal today. He said, and I quote, "You apes have such horrid memory, and with all the time travel we're gonna be doing, it's bound to get a bit confusing, do yer'self a favor and keep track of it." I think at first, he was trying to be insulting by calling humans apes all the time, but I don't think he realizes that it just makes him sound like an immature child. Oops, better not tell him I wrote that, or I'll get lectured on the fact that he is a "high and mighty Time Lord" and they don't do childish things. Well, I guess I better go. The TARDIS is making some weird sounds. Maybe we'll go somewhere exciting. I hope there's a lot of running. I would never admit this to him, but I love it when he takes my hand and we run. It's… well, to use his word, it's a bit fantastic.

Martha shook her head at what she had just read. 'Well that doesn't sound like the Doctor at all… Apes? And since when does he say fantastic?' She gave a snort and flipped to another page, this time one that was about halfway through the finished pages of the journal.

I hate him. No, you know what… I don't hate him. I hate her. Madame de Pompadour! Or Reinette (Martha could almost hear the sneer in the girl's writing and her own jealous self gave a little shout of victory that the "perfect couple" had some trouble of their own) I mean, who does she think she is? Actually, no, that's a bad question; she's the uncrowned Queen of France. But still! The Doctor goes through the fireplace and swans off to 18th century France with her! Mickey and I were left going around that god-awful ship all by ourselves. Those clockwork droids almost kill us, and he shows up, drunk off his arse, with a banana daiquiri and ARGH! He just makes me so mad sometimes. But I suppose, I mean, he is a Time Lord. What am I? I'm just some stupid ape that he brought along in his fancy time machine. I suppose that I really am nothing special. Anyways, then he goes and gets up on his horse, Arthur, he calls him, and rides off smashing through the last window. He left me… us, I mean us, stranded in the 52nd century for five and a half hours while he was off, god knows where… I think I need to go to sleep. I'm not thinking very clearly at the moment. Thank god Mickey was there today. I think I may have been underestimating him. I mean, if the Doctor… oh never mind.

Martha raised her brow in amusement at the apparent doubts going through the other woman's head at the perceived attraction of the Doctor to this woman Madame de Pompadour. 'Couldn't have been the real one, right? Well, I guess it could have been. After all, if I'm the so called 'Dark Lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets then why not?' At last Martha turned to the very last entry.

I was almost a goner today. Well, I guess I'm almost a goner most days, but today was especially a close call. Damn Cybermen and Daleks, always showing up where they're not wanted. Well, I guess it's good that I got to see Mickey. But I'll never get to see him or mum ever again. At least that's what the Doctor told me. He said that now that the tear in the walls of the universe have been repaired that travel between worlds will be too dangerous. But at least we've seen the last of the Daleks… I hope. Anyways, we opened up the void so that all the void stuff would get sucked back in. Unfortunately, that included me and the Doctor, which is why we had a plan to hang on to these 'things' I don't remember what they were called. But anyways, we used the levers from Torchwood to do it. But one of the Daleks hit the lever on my side and the machine was powering down. I had to let go in order to put it back. I was so scared. The Doctor was scared too. I don't think he'll ever admit it, but I saw it in his eyes and I felt it in how tight he hugged me when the Void closed, and everything shut down. For a few seconds there I thought I was gonna lose my grip. But then I thought about how much I lo—Nope. Can't even say it here… What is wrong with me? Why can't I just admit it? I see that he feels the same, but neither of us has ever said it. Oh well, I suppose we still have time. I'm just happy to still be here, with him. And I plan to stay that way. Forever, just like I promised.

Martha turned the page, looking for any other entries, but there were none. She felt a wave of sadness wash over her as she realized that he must have "lost her" on their very next adventure. 'But… I just saw her in the control room. So, she can't really be lost… I mean, she was right there. I'm not crazy, I saw her.'

She sighed and put down the journal. She looked up to see that the doorknob had returned to its rightful place on the door and she shook her head slightly. Sometimes she felt like the TARDIS had a mind of its own. But even if it did, what was it playing at trying to get her to snoop around in Rose's things?

The next morning the Doctor stumbled into the TARDIS kitchen groggily, rubbing his eyes and yawning widely. His hair was sticking up even worse than usual and his suit was rumpled in places. Martha looked up at him from where she was standing at the stove and her lips quirked up in a small smile at his disheveled appearance. 'At least he slept. Sometimes I wonder if he gets enough sleep.' She poured him a cup of tea and placed a plate of eggs in front of his usual seat. She lingered at the stove, toying with her own food, trying to think or what she should say to him about the things that she discovered last night. She had debated for a long while about whether she should say anything at all, but no matter what way she looked at it she could not get around the whole "Rose isn't actually lost" thing. Her curious mind needed an explanation, no matter how much the other parts of her told her that whatever secret he was keeping was probably for a good reason and none of her business.

The Doctor eyed Martha for a moment. The woman had frozen, her hand still stirring her tea, a short time ago as if she were lost in thought. He pondered what she might be thinking for a moment before he lightly cleared his throat and began speaking, not liking the amount of quiet in the room. "Well, then, where are we off to today? Past? Future? Earth? Off-world? C'mon, whole Universe of possibilities out there, Martha Jones. Just waiting for little ol' you n' me." He beamed at her with his 10,000-megawatt smile as she looked over at him. She offered him a sort of cringing smile in return. He furrowed his eyebrow at that.

"Okay, tell me what's bothering you? That's not a smile. That's more of a wince, that is. Do I really look that bad this morning?" he asked the last as he turned to face one of the more reflective panels on the walls of the TARDIS and began to straighten out his suit.

"No, no. Doctor, stop. It's not you," she said tiredly, crossing the room and stilling the hand that was still attempting to fix his attire. When she realized that she had kept the contact for too long she dropped his hand and stepped back a bit. He looked at her strangely but didn't speak. After another moment of silence, he cleared his throat again to get her to look up at him. When she did meet his eyes, he gestured with his hand for her to continue speaking.

She sighed and walked out of the room, her body language indicating that he should follow. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his trousers and followed her through the winding halls of the TARDIS. When he caught up to her she was seated in an armchair in the library. The Doctor paused briefly in the doorway and swallowed. For the first time, he realized that he had not been in the library since Rose had… Well, he hadn't been in the library. It had been he and Rose's place. His mind flashed back to times in both his ninth and tenth bodies when they had spent quiet evenings in the library, each curled up on the couch with a book – him often a science-y book on temporal physics or some sort and her with a sappy romance novel. He looked around appraisingly and saw that that couch was not in the library any longer, at least not at the moment. After a moment he chook himself from his thoughts and he made his way over to where Martha was seated, taking the armchair that was sitting opposite her own.

He tried to sit patiently and wait for her to begin speaking on his own, but after a minute or two the memories of this room, that he hadn't had a chance to face yet, became too much and he began to fidget and wiggle in the seat. "So, Martha, is there a reason that you paraded me all through the TARDIS or did you just—"

"I saw her," she blurted out, abruptly cutting him off. At the shocked look on his face she plowed on. "I saw her, Rose, last night. I heard you talking in the control room and I was wondering why you were still awake, so I went to check on you. And when I got there you were talking to no one, and then when I was about to leave… Well, she was just there. And I'm sure it was her. But, what I don't understand is why? Why did you tell me that she was lost? I mean, I thought she was dead or something the way you kept going on about her. But she was alive, she was there, I saw her." She paused for breath and looked at him, expecting an answer.

For a moment he just stared at her, his mouth still hanging open from his initial shock. Then, quickly, very quickly, he stood up and began to walk toward the doors to the library. When he reached them, he let out a sound half way between a groan and a scream of frustration. He scrabbled at the door where the handle should have been and began muttering curses directed toward his TARDIS and threatening the time ship in a very violent manner. At last he gave up and just stood facing the door, refusing to turn around to meet Martha's gaze.

Martha had risen halfway out of her seat when he had begun to move and now stood frozen there, not knowing how to react to his behavior. She looked, for all the world, like a frightened animal that was about to bolt. As the Time Lord stood at the doorway, attempting to regain control of his breathing, there was a flash of gold in the library and he silently let out a whole other string of Gallifreyan curses as he whirled to face Rose.

"What are you doing?! You shouldn't be here, you're wasting time," he continued babbling, working himself up into an emotion that was somewhere between rage and desperation. He kept on running his hands through his hair and attempting to shoo her away. He began counting the seconds as she just stood there. His wild eyes flew to Martha over Rose's shoulder and his ramblings adjusted to begin blaming her for Rose's wasting of his time with her.

He should have seen it coming, her really should have. The second he started in on Martha the look in Rose's eyes had changed. He should have stopped then, but it wasn't until he felt the stinging on his cheek that he realized that Rose had slapped him, hard. For a moment, everything was quiet. Martha stood, shocked, next to the armchair that she had been sitting in. She felt her hand go to her face in a mirror of the Doctor's own actions. When the Doctor looked up to meet Rose's eyes she simply turned around and made her way back toward Martha and sat in the chair he had recently vacated.

Numbly, the Time Lord followed her. He perched himself on the arm of the chair as Martha once again lowered herself into her seat. The blonde looked at the Doctor as if to gauge whether he was recovered enough to participate in the conversation. Then she began, "Well, firs' off, Doctor. I's my time too. This arrangement isn' an excuse for you t' get possessive. I will come an' go when I wan' and if I wish to speak to Martha, I should be allowed to do so. Any wasting of my time is most definitely not her fault." She looked at him with a raised brow as if she expected him to comment. When he didn't, she continued speaking, "Second, now tha' she's seen and pu' certain things t'gether, she has a righ' to an explanation. I'm here t' make sure tha' you talk. If you agree to give her tha' explanation without any trouble then I'll go." She looked at him again. When he nodded dumbly she smiled softly. She gave a quick smile to Martha and then leaned in to kiss the Doctor on the cheek before she reassimilated into the TARDIS in yet another flash of gold.

The Doctor slid sideways into the empty seat and covered his face with his hands. Martha opened her mouth to speak. The Doctor, seeming to sense this, simply put one finger up. "Just, give me a moment, will you?" Her jaw snapped shut and she sat back in her seat, observing the man before her.

The pair sat still for a long while. The fireplace in the wall crackled loudly while the Doctor gathered his thoughts. He sat there, with his elbows planted on his knees and his head in his hands. After a few minutes he raised his head and placed his chin on his tented hands. He looked to his right, refusing to meet Martha's eyes, and stared into the fire. The fire reminded him of the Time War and the screams of his people as his planet burned. He closed his eyes tightly and set his jaw. After a few more moments of silence, during which he heard Martha shift quite a few times, he finally sighed and looked up into her dark eyes.

Knowing that there was no easy way to explain it he decided to take the direct route. "Rose Tyler is dead… mostly." Seeing the confused look on her face he raised his hand. "Please, just let me get this all out. If you still have questions at the end, then I'll answer them, if I can." He sighed and rubbed his eyes again. 'It is too early in the morning for me to be having this conversation.'

In his mind he heard Rose's snarky response, 'No morning or night in the TARDIS, dear. Time is relative.' Outwardly he groaned and met Martha's eyes again. "She died. She was dead for almost two hours before I brought her in here. I don't know exactly how it happened, but the TARDIS preserved her. She wrapped my little blonde girl up into the folds of her own heart and she is keeping my Rose alive. The catch is," his voice caught in his throat and he paused for a moment, blinking the tears back quickly. "The catch is that she can only physically manifest for 24 hours out of every Earth year that passes in the TARDIS. Well, I guess I should be glad that the TARDIS was measuring in Earth years or else it would be 33 hours every 513 days. Well, that would be going by the Gallifreyan year, which would make the most sense, but Rose is human so—"

"Hold on, so you're saying that she's dead, but she's also alive?" Martha was visibly having trouble wrapping her mind around the concept.

"Yeah, she sort of became part of the TARDIS. Think of it like one big life support system. That's how she explained it to me. Anyways, the rest of the time she can see and hear what is going on inside the TARDIS, much like the consciousness of the TARDIS does—"

"What? Wait, slow down. The TARDIS is conscious?" Martha was struggling to keep up now that the Doctor was back to speaking at his normal lightspeed pace.

"Yeah… I told you that she was sentient, didn't I?" he scrubbed his neck with his hand, "Welll, maybe not. Well, now you know. Anyways, I talk to Rose, tell her about my day and then we sort of, ration the time…" He trailed off, not wanting to get into the more personal aspects of what that part of the arrangement entailed. He continued softly, "It's hard, only being able get a glimpse of her here and there. Almost drove me mad the first month or so. That's why she told me that I needed to find someone. A hand to hold, someone to travel with. You see, the other catch is that she can't leave the TARDIS. Life-support, right?"

He looked down at his hands before continuing, catching Martha's eyes, "So, I'm sorry, if y'know, I mention her a little too much while we're out there," he gestured widely to indicate the world outside the TARDIS, "And I get that this will be hard, and maybe you won't even be able to get yourself around it, and I guess that's okay too. I can always take you home, I mean, I suppose, you'll want to go home now. I think the only reason you came along was because you fancied me and, well…" He let the sentence drop and he hung his head over his hands. He didn't want her to go, he needed her just as much as he needed Rose, he could see that now. But this, how could he expect anyone to get around this? That was the reason he had kept it from her in the first place.

"Oh, shut up," Martha said quietly. "Yeah, it's… odd. But, hey, travelling with you, what isn't, right? So, you have your girlfriend integrated with your ship, so what?"

The Doctor interrupted her there. "She's not- We're not…" he trailed off, blushing as he felt a raised eyebrow from Rose. 'Girlfriend just seems a little insignificant, don't you think?' he thought to her privately. Hearing her happy agreement, he smiled. They'd talk about whatever labels they wanted to use later.

"Anyways…" Martha said, glancing up to the ceiling quickly before dropping her gaze back to the Doctor. "You still need that hand to hold, right? Mine is right here." She held her hand out and wiggled her fingers.

"Wh- You're staying with me?" He asked, stunned and not yet daring to believe it. Though when she offered her hand, he smiled gratefully, his eyes watering, took it.

"Yeah! I mean, you're right. I do fancy you. And that might take a while for me to, erm, y'know. But it's not just that Doctor. You took me to see Shakespeare and the moon! Well I guess the moon wasn't your doing, strictly speaking… But you know what I mean, Doctor. Life here, with you, in the TARDIS, it's brilliant." She looked at him brightly, her eyes sparkling as she remembered how much fun she had already had and how much more she would have on their adventures to come.

The Doctor sighed heavily as he looked into her eyes. He knew that look; they all had it at first. He dropped her hand. "Martha, it's not all fun and running and laughs. Yesterday, on New Earth, you almost died, Martha. Rose died. This life isn't always safe, and I can't promise that I can keep you safe. I tried making that promise once," he felt a lump form in his throat as he thought of Jackie. Jackie who thought that her daughter was still with him. Jackie who would never know what really happened to Rose. "He shook his head lightly. "I wasn't able to keep it," he said simply.

Martha's face fell as the reality of his words hit her. She thought for a moment before she leaned forward and reached out to place her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her. "But isn't that the point? The Universe isn't a safe place Doctor. Earth isn't even a safe place. If I go back there now, who's to say that I won't get killed by an alien there? Or even just a random accident? Car crash? Allergic reaction? There are any number of things that could kill me. At least with you I stand a chance. At least with you I'm making a difference. And if you need a hand to hold to get you through the day so that you can keep doing what you're doing, then I'm only too happy to help."

The Time Lord beamed at her and swept her up into a hug. "Oh Martha Jones, we're going to have some of the greatest adventures, I just know it."

In the back of his mind the Doctor could feel the smug looks and smirks that the TARDIS and Rose were sending his way. He smiled. 'Okay, so I've found my hand to hold. Now what? Allons-y!'