A/N: I'm so sorry it's taken so long to upload this chapter! I promise it won't happen again! As usual please review, they help a lot and they encourage me to write more! Thanks and enjoy the chappy!
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN DOCTOR WHO! If I did I certainly would not be writing fanfiction about it...
Chapter 4
The Doctor found that the forcefield that had previously kept him from going anywhere had gone, and he rushed to Rose, cradling her, trying to get her to respond to him.
"Rose! Come on, Rose can you hear me?" he desperately tried to wake her up.
"What the hell just happened?" asked Mickey.
"She was all glowin' and gold, what was that?" Martha questioned.
"Never mind that!" Jackie said impatiently, "Is she alright?" The Doctor ignored all the questions and focused on Rose. He put his ear to her mouth, listening to see if she was breathing, but he couldn't hear or feel her breath. He tried to get a pulse, but he couldn't get one.
"No, no, no, no! Come on Rose, you can't! Not after all this!" he started to panic.
"Doctor, she's not…?" Donna let the question trail off.
"No! Doctor tell me she's alright. Doctor tell me!" Jackie pleaded starting to cry. Jack quickly went over to Jackie and let her sob into his jacket, as he slowly started to tear up.
"No, please, Rose!" the Doctor was still begging Rose to be alive, "You can't! And I never got to tell you…" he trailed off, his eyes watering up, and then the tears finally falling. He sat there with Rose silently crying for what could've been seconds, moments, or hours while everyone else stood around them tearing up or crying. And then Rose breathed.
"Doctor?" she asked confusedly, "What—what happened?" The Doctor looked up in shock for a moment and then pulled Rose into a hug. Rose pulled back after a second and began to question him again.
"What happened? Where'd the Daleks go, a-and Davros? What—are you crying? Why's everyone crying?" she interrogated him looking at him and noticing that everyone else standing a short way away.
"Well that's gonna take a while." Doctor answered her, smiling, helping her off the ground.
"Ugh, my head hurts somethin' awful." she complained. "What—" she started to ask a question, but before she could finish it she was almost tackled to the ground by Jackie.
"Oh my God Rose! Don't you dare do that to me ever again!"
"Mum what are you talking about?" she asked, still confused.
"I thought you were dead! And you!" she exclaimed turning to the Doctor and giving him a huge slap, "You tell me right now, what the hell happened to Rose!"
"Mum!" Rose protested,
"Ow! What was that for?! I didn't do anything!" the Doctor complained.
"Will someone tell me what the hell is goin' on!?" Rose said, annoyed that she still wasn't sure what had happened. Jack, Mickey, and Sarah-Jane each came up to her and hugged her in turn.
"Good to have you back Rose!" Jack said grinning.
"Thank God you're alive!" Mickey said.
"I'm so glad you're alright!" Sarah-Jane told her.
"Alright! Everyone stop talking!" the Doctor shouted.
"Doctor!" Donna said trying to get his attention.
"Hold on a minute Donna." he said impatiently.
"Doctor! It's the TARDIS!" she said excitedly, pointing to a corner of the room where there stood the TARDIS. The Doctor grinned.
"Brilliant! Come on! Everyone into the TARDIS!" he said running towards it, grabbing Rose's hand as he did so. Once everyone was in the TARDIS, they gathered around the console.
"Okay," the Doctor began, "One question at a time, please."
"Where'd all the Daleks go?" Rose asked, "Is the universe still out there, is everything still okay?"
"The Daleks were destroyed, they're all gone now." he answered, "And the answer to your second question is," he said running to the TARDIS monitor checking to make sure everything was fine, "yes! Everything is still there, and the planets are all back in their proper places."
"How?" Rose asked.
"Weelll, that's a bit more complicated…" he said trailing off.
"Well I've got a question," put in Jackie, "What happened to Rose? Why was she all glowin' and stuff?"
"What?" Rose exclaimed, "I was glowing? What are 'ya on about Mum?" Rose inquired, turning to the Doctor.
"Well, that's a long story…" he began.
"Wait a second," Jack cut in, "is that what made me this way?"
"Yes Captain." the Doctor answered.
"Well go on!" Jackie said, "Tell me! What exactly happened to my daughter?" The Doctor rumpled his hair and sighed with resignation.
"Well it all started back in my ninth body. Back then I was travelling with Rose and the Captain. As we travelled we noticed that wherever we went we always seemed to see the words 'bad wolf' all over the place, graffitied on walls, on the side of the TARDIS, in the names of buildings and places. Then when we went to a place called Satellite 5, 200,000 years from now, and long story short the Daleks were there interfering with the human race and they got onto the satellite while we were on it and I sent Rose home in the TARDIS. But Rose being too stubborn for her own good," Rose elbowed him at this point, "she came back. She looked into the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the time vortex. When she did that she came back to the satellite and destroyed all the Daleks and brought Jack back to life. Turns out that Rose was the Bad Wolf and she had sent the words scattered all over the place to lead herself back to the satellite. I took the power out of her and because no one's meant to absorb the vortex like that, I regenerated." Rose looked slightly sad at this point and asked the Doctor,
"So that's what happened back on the Crucible? Somehow I became the Bad Wolf again and destroyed the Daleks? But—you said I brought Jack back to life?" she looked horrified, "Is that why he came back to life after that Dalek shot him?"
"Yep." Jack answered her, "I can't die ever since you brought me back to life."
"Oh God, Jack I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to—" Jack cut her off,
"I know you didn't, it's alright!" Rose looked at him sadly for a moment and then realizing something, turned to the Doctor,
"Wait, you said back on Satellite 5 you had to take the power out of me, did you do it again? You're not gonna regenerate are you?" she asked him, scared of what he might say.
"No, I didn't, you let go of the power on your own." he assured her.
"Oh thank God." Rose exhaled and hugged him. He returned the hug and they stayed that way until Sarah-Jane interrupted them.
"I still don't understand though," she began, "Rose was dead, and then she came back to life again. How is that possible?"
"I was dead?" Rose exclaimed with wide eyes. "What d'ya mean I was dead?"
"You were dead Rose." the Doctor told her solemnly. "You were dead. There was no heartbeat and you weren't breathing. And then you just came back to life."
"But… how?"
"I don't know." he said, thinking. "Unless… but no… that can't—that's not—no—" the Doctor's eyes got wide as he stammered.
"What?" Rose questioned. The Doctor grabbed her arm and stood her in front of the console and then quickly grabbed the monitor and started twisting dials and pressing buttons.
"What are you doing? What's wrong?" Rose asked him.
"Just stand right there," he answered her, "I've just gotta do a scan real quick." There was a moment's pause and then the Doctor straightened up. "I thought right…"
"What's wrong with her Doctor?" Jackie asked, slightly fearful.
"Well there's nothing…wrong really, but, it's certainly not normal…" he said running a hand through his already messed up hair.
"Then what's not normal?" Rose asked. The Doctor paused and then took a deep breath and said,
"There's residual energy from the TARDIS in you. It's nothing that'll harm you and it does explain why Bad Wolf surfaced again, but…" he trailed off.
"What?" Jack asked impatiently.
"The energy is… well… sort of mutating her cells." the Doctor answered.
"But you just said it wasn't harming her." Martha said confusedly.
"It's not. It's… benefiting her in a way."
"Meaning…?" Sarah-Jane asked.
"It's rejuvenating her cells. Normally cells will die, millions of them die every minute, but your body will make even billions more to replace them. But in Rose the same cells are being renewed by the energy. They aren't dying. And there's no new cells being made either."
"But if the cells aren't dying…" Jack began, "then that means…"
"Yeah." the Doctor knew what Jack was saying.
"What?" Mickey asked.
"Rose won't die, and she won't be able to age either." Jack answered him. "If her cells don't die, then she doesn't die." Everyone stared at Rose. Rose's mind was whirling. She wouldn't be able to die. That was something most people would think would be a good thing. But that would mean she would outlive everyone, minus Jack of course. Watching her mum, Mickey, and everything around her die… she would be able to be with the Doctor longer of course, but even he would die eventually. Just as she was thinking of this, the Doctor spoke up.
"Of course since it's TARDIS energy that's inside Rose, I think… that once the TARDIS dies, the energy inside Rose would probably die."
"So when the TARDIS dies, I'll die?" Rose asked.
"Theoretically yeah." the Doctor replied.
"Wow." Martha said. They were all silent for a moment until the Doctor spoke again.
"Right then! Everyone's questions answered? Good!" he said without waiting for any replies, regaining his energetic manner, "Time to go home!"