Confusion in the DNA Cycle

The golden surrounding light turned the grass into a charred charcoal mess. The two hearted being screamed as her cells changed. Re-grown and altered, changed and repaired.

Rose Tyler regenerated, just like she had the past three times.

She saw her first body, chemical blonde, awkward and always in happy-despair.

Then, the day the war started, for her at least and the horror that had followed, flashed into her mind. That day had ultimately turned her into her second incarnation. Ginger, classic dark green eyes. Truth be told, her hair had always been more of a dark red than ginger. But every time she looked in the mirror, she thought of him. Saw him, almost.

Dark hair, almost black, hazel eyes; dark and cold. She had fought so hard to keep that one, that body and the smaller one inside it.

She had failed. They had both died.

Waking in the rainforest.

Hair suddenly lighter, curlier, manageable only by a strange braided style she had picked up from the locals. It was the first thing to go after she had been kidnapped by the Issta. Brown eyes like the ones she'd had all those years ago.

Eighty two years is a long time to live, was the only real though coursing through Rose's mind, other than the pain of the current regeneration.

She wasn't sorry she'd lied to the Doctor.

It was over.

The energy faded.

Rose sat up suddenly, taking her first breath in body number five.

Long blonde hair fell from behind her shoulders.

"Crap, that hurt." Rose laughed high from adrenaline and relief; glad to still be alive, after all.

She got to her feet, swaying dangerously on unsteady legs

"Rose?"

Shifting her feet slightly, she slowly turned around.

Rose never really looked different after each regeneration (minor details aside), a fact she was suddenly grateful for as Gwen took small step towards her. Just her eyes and hair changed; maybe her feet and hands grew or shrunk a centimetre or so. Nothing dramatic. Someone she once knew called the changes nothing but 'confusion in the DNA cycle'. It was the phrase she has learnt to associate with herself.

The Doctor, creased his brow, a lone tear running freely down his cheek. His voice sounded horse…had that been him? Shouting when her death had seemed eminent and permanent?

She smiled, small and unsure.

Donna gaped at her in shock, and Jack swallowed hard, body shaking slightly.

In the distance, she saw Mrs Dawson charge into the depth of the wood. Probably scarred for her life.

"Hi?" she attempted, cheerfully.

Rose felt herself sway.

Then all she knew was black.

The Doctor placed the other two hearted being upon the medical table in the Torchwood Hub. Yes, there were two hearts; he had checked…three times. His Rose…

Still unconscious, still unbelievably alive.

He ran his eyes systematically over the primitive human medical equipment available and swore. Rose was getting regeneration sickness, just like he had at that Christmas, her left heart beating so slowly, it would soon stop.

Trauma to the already fragile brain would increase and there was a chance she may not wake up.

He glanced over at the confused heart monitor. First slowly, the speeding, too slow on second, too fast the next. Trying to monitor one heart, but getting caught up in the other. The Doctor tore his eyes away from it, then glanced at Jack standing beside him.

"I need another sonic device to counteract the waves from the machine." His said in a fast, mostly hysterical voice. His eyes straying to Jack's for less than a second before returning to Rose.

Jack bit his lip and glanced at Tosh, who ran from the medical area to her desk, searching frantically for something she was almost positive, wasn't there

"Here, will this help?" asked Sarah Jane, handing him her lip stick.

"I don't think it's my shade, do you?" The Doctor snapped sarcastically, giving it back to her.

"It's a sonic lipstick." Sarah replied, ignoring the comment. She pulled off the lid and gave it back to him.

The Doctor nodded thanks and got back to work.

Rose opened her hazel eyes.

Lighter than the ones she had been born with, sure, but she had always felt better if they were at least some sort of shade of brown. More like her. More recognisably her.

The Doctor.

Would he recognise her?

He fought so hard, was willing to sacrifice so much to get her back, but she had changed. Did he still want her? Even if it was only as a friend, she desperately hoped he did.

Of course, he would recognise her body, not that different. But her?

Most of the time she didn't recognise herself, anymore.

What if Martha had been right?

What if it was possible to prefer the old flavour of ice-cream?

She had to get out.

Rose sat up slowly and started to swing her legs off the bed. She noticed immediately that she still wore the ruined pale blue gown, it bunched up around her knees.

Rose put her hand to the side to steady herself and got up.

"You need rest." Shocked at the voice, Rose turned around suddenly.

Jack.

Arms crossed, he was leaning against the opposite corner of the room. She hadn't noticed him before. Glancing around, she realized she had been moved to somewhere more private, closed off, and quiet. His room, perhaps?

"No." Rose answered, running her had through her hair, while turning her head back to her feet. Her hair was longer, but the room was too dark to see the colour.

"You collapsed." Jack said simply, but he helped her to her feet anyway.

"You know that's all a matter of opinion. To some people I fainted, to some there wasn't enough oxygen getting to my brain." Jack was looking at her in concern, making him appear nervous and unsure. Quite strange, that. "To others I simply decided to lie on the floor for a bit."

Rose frowned. Was that how she talked like now? She sounded like...

"You didn't just lie on the floor." Answered Jack. "The Doctor caught you before you could touch it."

"Oh."

Could be worse.

"Well that was nice of him."

Rose walked into the main body of the Hub and, like a spell had been cast over it's occupants, all conversation stopped.

"Well." Rose began, uncomfortable, "I wonder what you were talking about."

"You regenerated." Sarah Jane said from somewhere to the right of her. Rose didn't bother to look. She walked over to the machine she had used to contact the Doctor.

"Sort of." Rose replied. Her accent a strange, rough Londoner.

All those years of learning and understanding more than she had ever dreamed, and she sounded like she had just left the council estate. For the first time in years she sounded like she had grown up in the rougher part of London.

Rose looked at the side of her machine, seemly made by another, different woman.

She saw her reflection.

Blonde.

Bright, natural blonde hair. Paler skin to prove it. It rested on the top of her breasts, no fringe, more of a golden than yellow.

Same nose, though, same mouth.

"What happened?" asked Martha.

Rose suddenly saw the Doctor's reflection gazing at her. Their eyes met.

"BAD WOLF."

As soon as Rose answered, it all become too much, the feel of all those eyes watching her, judging her.

She saw her old green coat, hung on a strut, an arms length away from her machine.

She grabbed it.

"I'm going out." She declared.

"What?" yelled Owen. "You can't just leave, you lied to us, you said you were human."

"No, you assumed I was human." Rose put her jacket on, the shoulders were too tight and the sleeves stopped a little past her elbows. Rose sighed dejectedly.

"I figured it being Torchwood and all that was the safest assumption."

"We'd never hurt you." Gwen calmly started.

"That's what the last lot said." Rose declared, walking towards the doors.

"Would you like to change?"

Rose spun around almost violently, like a gun had just been fired or a thunderous explosion.

"What!"

Ianto was holding a pile of clothes in his hands. Rose smiled nervously, as the others looked at him in surprise.

"No…thank you." She said slowly "I'm fine."

"Not even the shoes?"

"Actually," Rose glanced at the once hatred heels. "I kina like them."

With that, she walked out of the Hub.

Rose sat alone in a bar, nursing a glass of red wine.

She placed it on the otherwise empty circular table and sighed. The bar was part restaurant, all classy, brightly lit with natural light from a near by window (what made up one side of the building) and expensive.

Despite the odd looks Rose was receiving, she felt peaceful here.

She let the ring on her right hand fall onto the table with a loud 'crunk'. Using her thumb and forefinger she spun it around and around on its side.

Her fingers had changed. Thinner, they no longer fit the ring. Not quite willing to be parted from it, though, Rose fixed it to the chain she found in her pocket. The TARDIS key (also on the chain) and now the ring clinked together.

She really should get rid of that ring.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw an all too familiar figure walk past the outside of the building, and head straight into the bar.

The Doctor.

Dam Torchwood cameras.

Putting the chain quickly around her neck, Rose covered it with her jacket before picking up her wine and taking a large gulp.

The Doctor looked around like a small animal looking for predators, before it even thought of leaving its home for food. However, as soon as the Doctor saw Rose she turned into the prey.

He took a seat opposite her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" The Doctor asked.

"When, when I was captured or would that be when I was possessed?" Rose was caught off guard by the directness of his question; she resorted to harsh, brash and random explanations. "I thought we'd had enough of recorded messages and holograms and… I wanted to tell you in person." She was silent for a second before looking him in the eye.

"Just because you never told me." She left that statement hanging in the air, to mean whatever he wanted it to.

"Bad Wold altered your DNA, made you change, become…a Time Lady." The Doctor seemed hesitant, somewhat anxious.

"Yes." Rose began to bite her nails on her left hand.

"But I can't sense you!" the Doctor almost yelled in frustration.

"That's why it's strange." Rose explained. "I have no real telepathic ability, but I am aware if other people have one. Very mild, wouldn't really noticed if you weren't looking. Other then two hearts and great endurance," Rose smiled cheekily. "I got nothing."

"What about regeneration?" asked the Doctor, his eyebrows raised.

Rose made a noise with her tongue and her lips.

"I can't fully regenerate. It's strange… I feel emasculated somehow; it must be how blokes feel."

"Not this bloke." The Doctor fell into her trap and grinned.

"Oh really?"

Sat in a wine bar conversation laced with pure innuendo, the Doctor caught sight of her bitten fingernails. Rose's fingernails. She bit them in this body then.

"You're stuck here." Said the Doctor seriously. "There's no way back."

"Yeah, but stuck with you - that's not so bad."

They talked for a long time after that.

The Doctor almost agreed he was wrong leaving Jack behind. He knew he was wrong getting help from the Issta. He claimed he had thought it was the wrong thing. Even if it was for the right reasons. Getting help from, and making deals with war Gods to help bring back someone you cared about. Not so good.

After such a resentful discussion about Jack, Rose let the subject drop. After all, bringing someone back from the dead was a little too much like doing that kinda of wrong, best intentions none withstanding.

The Doctor left soon after, Rose having asked for more time on her own, to get her head straight. DW

Rose walked into the Hub.

The green coat was gone, as was the dress. In its place, a stylish waist length red jacket and small back dress, black tights and high heeled black shoes. Rose smiled at the Doctor, a beautiful red lipped smile framed by her blonde hair.

"Hi." They greeted at nearly the same time.

An hour later, they were stood around the TARDIS, the Torchwood team long since gone for the night. Martha and Sarah had already arranged lifts home and Donna hovered around Jack's shoulder, too near to be ignored when the time for goodbye hugs came.

"He asked you in an alley too?" asked Martha, her eyebrows raised at Donna and Rose. The women nodded and proceeded to laugh hysterically.

"So, is that how you do it?" asked Jack mockingly. "Lurk around in alleyways waiting to pounce on the first girl you come across?"

"Asking her if she wants to see your spaceship?" Rose joined in.

The past companions burst into childish laugher once more.

"I'd forgotten how childish you two could be together." Said the Doctor, as grandly as he could manage.

Martha, Donna and Sarah Jane said goodbye to Jack, the journalist and the immortal finding almost common ground. They smiled at each other, too extenuative for politeness. They all entered the time and space machine.

"My coat!" the Doctor suddenly realised, a theatrical hand resting on his brow, then he raced off back into the Hub.

"Well, that's him gone." Grinned Jack, as him and Rose watched the Doctor go back down the invisible lift.

"Why do you work for Torchwood?" Rose asked quietly, the avoided question rearing its ugly head.

"Waking up tied to a chair by two women holding nipple claps? Not as fun as its sounds… I had no choice." The last line, looking at Rose clearly, he hadn't wanted to say. "To not get caught and wake up there once a week, I worked for Torchwood. I needed a job no matter what and as I was there for the long hall, I thought I could give it a shot at changing its tactic's on alien encounters."

It was working. Took over a hundred years, but it was working. Not there yet, though. Jack would stay until that job was done.

"You were tortured." Kind, pitying eyes stared at him, Rose's eyes. "The Tortures of Torchwood." Rose looked down, fighting back tears.

"Some people call them scientists." Snorted Jack humorously.

"Ah, the euphemises of war." Old, very old. Jack looked at the woman but before he could ask what she had seen of war, she spoke first.

"So what did you do in the Second World War?"

"Fought in it, got promoted a couple of times but had to carry on being stationed in Cardiff, couldn't move to London." Oh did he remember it well. He had to stop himself going on like an old age pensioner about the 'good old days' when everyone pulled together.

"You'd have walked into yourself."

"Yep, which would have been painful. I have big shoulders."

They were both laughing as the Doctor ran to them, putting the last arm into his brown trench coat.

"Ready?" He asked.

Doctor Martha Jones and Sarah Jane Smith had been taken home. Rose and Donna, getting on a little too well for the Doctor's liking, had left together after a suspicious conversation about 'photos' and 'accents'.

The Doctor sighed and pulled out a small DVD. He played it one the TARDIS computers. He'd seen it laying there on Tosh's desk before they had left. Deliberately, he left his coat as an excuse to go back inside the Hub alone.

It was now close to the fifth time he had seen this with the sound on. Slowly he was feeling less guilty about it but more confused. Is this really what she thought?

Did Rose and Jack really think he would do that?

"Was until, we started listing all the crazy stuff we'd seen trying to out do each other… that's how we realised how much we had in common…but it made me realise…we are the same."

"No."

"He's gonna leave me behind Jack."

THE END

I know there are loads of questions left unanswered, but have no fear.

I am planning on writing a sequel, which I will start in about a month and a half.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed (and a special thanks to Talia Taylor who always has something nice to say) and my Beta for putting up with my mistakes.

Next story:

What War Makes Of Us