Bit short…but this marks the end of the first part of my plan, so it ended where it would've done. Enjoy!

Thirteen

"I need a mirror," murmured the Doctor as he felt himself awaken from the darkness he had been swimming in for a while. He had to know what he looked like.

"Why?"

It was Martha's voice. She sounded quite happy, despite the fact that he had died and regenerated!

"Cos I need to judge whether Rose will still love me," he stated. He opened his eyes and found himself lying on a bed, wrapped up warm.

"Course she will," added Jack stepping up. "And Doc you're still handsome as ever!"

"Jack, you would sleep with anything that moves," the Doctor responded, suddenly realizing for the first time that his voice hadn't changed. How could he have the same voice if he had regenerated?

"Here," Mickey gave him a mirror allowing him to see his face.

"Why the hell didn't I regenerate?" Why was he upset over that? He should be overjoyed he hadn't lost one of his lives, but he still wasn't ginger.

"We have no idea," answered Jack. "We thought you might know the answer to that."

"Well I don't," replied the Doctor, trying to sit up, but found Jack pushing him down.

"You're injured," the captain replied stubbornly. "You nearly died – you're not moving until you've healed."

The Doctor muttered under his break, 'brilliant' but said out-loud: "What happened when I 'died'?"

"Rose fainted at the same time – we could see she couldn't breathe – her whole body was quivering. She yelled out about the baby dying – the Sakrok master, whoever he is – went right over to you and pulled out the knife you were stabbed with, then threw a liquid over your wounds –"

Mickey continued the story from Jack. "Rose started to wake – she muttered something about the baby – but we couldn't hear what she said – then the Sakrok leader gave an order for his people to retreat but ordered us to save you or they would lose Rose too."

It all made some-sort of sense now, at least to the Doctor. "Yep, I think I know what's happened."

"Care to explain?" Jack leaned back against the wall. "You've got all the time in the world…"

The Doctor scowled. "You know Rose and I have a connection of sorts. What I think has happened is that our baby is connected to both of us, so that if one of us is hurt badly enough that could end in death the baby reacts to that – and that in turn affected Rose. The baby could, I think, feel that I was dying, so its distress caused Rose to have the same effects as me, but not physically. As soon as I began to heal…the baby stopped being distressed and Rose stopped dying – or that's what I got from it anyway. Haven't got it all figured it out – and this entire mess is because of Rose taking the time vortex in the first place – she'd be safe in the Parallel Universe if it hadn't been for that! It was only our connection that really enabled me and her to get back together." He made a move to get up but Jack pushed him back down on the bed he was lying on.

"You're still healing."

"No I'm not," the Doctor replied stubbornly. "You don't know Time Lord Biology, Jack. You can't determine whether I'm healed or not. You lack the ability."

"I could easily strap you down," insisted Jack.

"You won't. I'm not important, Rose is. We've got to get her away from those Sakrok!"

"And how do we do that?" asked Mickey, folding his arms.

"I can use the TARDIS. We are linked – therefore I can program the TARDIS to hone in on her location and that should let us get on board the Sakrok's ship! I didn't think of it before since it didn't occur to me, but it's such a simple solution, I don't know why I didn't think of it before!"

"Why couldn't you just use the TARDIS in the first place?" asked Mickey.

The Doctor glared at him. "Because, Mickey Smith, the Sakrok's ship is cloaked and the TARDIS cannot pinpoint the exact location of the ship to allow me to set co-ordinates for us to land," he folded his arms. "However, my connection with Rose can bypass that system. Easy, simple and gets us to the ship – hopefully without any more lives being lost and is important for us to leave as soon as possible. I know Rose will give in and -"

He was cut off as a big BOOM rocked the ground.

"It's started," he sighed.

"What has?" Jack asked.

"The Sakrok are burning the Earth," he said as another blast came from above, causing some of the machinery to fall to the ground. "We haven't got much time."

To be continued…

Please let me know what you think!

Did you really think I would kill off the Tenth Doctor? I hope not – you should know me by now.

Next up: The Battle for Earth begins…

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