Rose woke up, outside. She was cold and it felt like she was frozen through. She only remembered bits and pieces of what happened. A bright light and suddenly a lot of pain. "Rose. . ." She shuddered, hearing her name fall breathlessly off of his lips. His voice was so familiar yet so foreign. She looked up and saw him, his dark chocolate eyes half lidded and glossed over with ice. His dark brown hair was almost white with frost and he was so blue. . . so frozen. It wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening. She moved towards him, her body slow and barely tolerating the strain.

The sky above her was dark and silent. It was night even though it was dawn. Frost formed around her lips but she wasn't cold. She wasn't dying like the man in her arms. The man with the bluish, frost speckled face.

The lights. The stars. The sun. They'd taken it all. Did they have to take him too?

"Rose you have about fifteen minutes. . .maybe a few more if you're lucky. You need to listen to me,"

Around her, people were dying. They would freeze in the same expression they made as they exited their cozy little houses. They heat had only lingered for so long after it'd been shut off. Citizens everywhere would surely wonder why it was suddenly so bitter. Her mum and dad, Tony, Mickey and the rest would all wake up only to die. She had no idea what she was meant to do.

"Doctor we have to get inside. . . You'll catch your death out here," She winced at the utter truth in her words.

"There's no time left for me Rose, but you can beat this. You just have to do as I say," His voice croaked urgently. She felt tears well up in her eyes. She wouldn't believe it.

"No, no, no, Doctor. . . You're stronger than this. Just regenerate or use your Time Lord-y powers or something. Just stop looking so cold. . . Please. . ." He closed his freezing eyes, smiling and stroked her cheek with a frozen finger.

"That's you there. Always looking for a way out," Tears fell and froze instantly on her cheeks. There was not even enough warmth to let them fall.

"And it's you too! Doctor, why are you just letting this happen?!"

"Rose. My Rose, but not mine. I'm human. I have been since we arrived here, love."

"Then why are you dyin' and I'm not?" She said between sobs.

"Because it's complete." He gripped her cold hand with his equally cold ones. "And now you must trust me, Rose. I've created a new rift in the universe. This world is dying but it's not without hope. Go to your mum and dad, bring them to the other Earth. It was always meant for this world to die, but you're not a part of this world. You can still escape.

"But you're not a part of this world either, Doctor! If what you say is true you shouldn't be dying,"

"It's because I'm f-finally able to give you everything you've ever w-wanted. I've been w-working on it for m-months now. . ."

"What you've been holed up in your lab for?" She asked.

"Y-Yes, precisely," He trailed off for a moment, his eyes staring off much too distantly for Rose's liking. He snapped out of it and looked at her, urgency all over his face. "Now you must go, Rose. Go and get your mum and dad and Tony. You will only be able to visit one house, because the moment anyone steps outside they will die. The sun is gone and there's nothing here left to warm the planet except the ghosts of the furnaces. It won't last for long, Rose. Do it or your parents will die. Go to the other world with the transporter in my lab, it's programmed to locate the TARDIS time energy signature. Tell the Doctor everything that's happened. It may not be safe in the other universe either. . ." Rose was crying, shaking her head, muttering no repeatedly. "Rose!" He said, growing frustrated. She sobbed tears that would never fall.

"I-I can't just leave you, Doctor. You're. . . I need you,"

"T-Then follow m-my instructions. . ." He put his hand on her shoulder. "My lovely Rose. I've finally loved you to death," She sobbed.

"D-Don't say that you twit!" And with a serene expression on the Doctor's face, silence fell. It was the most deafening silence she'd ever heard. There weren't passerby or cars or animals or wind. It was just a vast, suffocating lot of nothing. Everything that had moisture was now covered in frost. The Doctor was stiff and motionless and in the silence she wept. She would give herself one minute as her entire world crumbled into oblivion before she carried on.

Carrying on and not knowing why. The Doctor was dead now. She saw the entire neighborhood die before her eyes. Why was she still alive? She felt just as cold as everyone else, her body was definitely trying to die. Her body was certain it should be as silent as everyone else. But now the only sound that remained was her heartbeat.

Thud-dump. Thud-dump.

Just her heartbeat—

Thud-dump. Thud-dump.

Her heartbeat?

Thud-dump. Thud-dump. Thud-dump. Thud-dump.

Heart. . . beats?

"I don't want to go. . ." The Doctor felt a tear escape his eyes as the regeneration cycle took hold of him. It was the end. He was dying again. He would be back but this body, him. He was dying.

He closed his eyes, feeling it begin when suddenly he was being grabbed onto. He toppled over and suddenly a surge of energy shot through him. It was. . . regeneration but it wasn't his own.

He opened his eyes, trying to squint through the blinding light of the regeneration matrix. He saw a shock of blonde hair and beautiful brown eyes and thought if he was dreaming. Is this what heaven was meant to be? It was Rose. His subconscious was showing this body his Rose before he died. How kind. . . bittersweet, but kind.

"DOCTOR!" The imaginary Rose grasped onto his arm. The light got impossibly brighter and he felt his body healing. The sickness from the radiation was lifting and his head was becoming clear. Why was he not dying? Instead it seemed as though he was being healed.

"W-What is happenin—Ah!" The light was suddenly sucked into him, making him warm and it was completely mental but he was still alive. He sat there gasping, honestly able to say he'd never experienced that before. It was the next moment when he realized he was in someone's arms. He looked up, staring into the face of his hallucination. Rose Tyler. "R-Rose? Is it really you?"

"It's me, you idiot," She grinned, pieces of frost falling off of her as she did. She was frozen to the core, and by the bluish tint of her usually pinkish skin she really was. She was in hypothermia.

"Rose you're nearly frozen solid, what in the devil happened? Why are you so cold?" He immediately took off his coat, pushing aside the rather strange events of not just a moment ago to tend to her state. He covered her, rubbing her arms through his not-nearly-warm-enough coat. "How did you get here? I sent you back and closed the rift. . ."

"Circumstances have changed. . .Doctor. . ." Suddenly the frozen girl was racked with shuddering sobs and he immediately gathered her in his arms.

"Oh, Rose, what's happened? Tell me, now." She sobbed harder, burying her face in his shoulder. Rose. . ."

"They're dead. . ."

"Who's dead?"

"Everyone. . . Mum, Peter, Tony. . . The entire world. The Doctor—The Other Doctor, 'e's dead but I'm not. . . I don't know why. I'm the only survivor in the entire world, Doctor,"

"R-Rose. . . Everyone?"

"The morning the sun didn't rise. It took one morning and everybody. . . Everybody but me. But why. . .? Why just me?!" She started to sob again, unable to contain it any longer. The Doctor felt his insides turn cold as she depicted the story. The sun just went out? Suns don't do that.

"Come now. . . Let's get you some tea, yeah? We'll get you all warmed up and we can try to sort it out," She nodded hesitantly and let him help her up.

Something was entirely wrong. Humans didn't take a blueberry hue and live to tell about it. From just a visual check it seemed like Rose should have been dead. Her body temperature was slowly rising with the warmth of the TARDIS but it was still completely past the dead level.

He wasn't complaining, it was good to see Rose—bluer, post-apocalyptic Rose, but it was Rose all the same. He'd missed her terribly and right now they were curled up on the sofa together as she nursed her chamomile tea, trying to get the frozen tears to stop. He didn't like seeing her in this state but it would be lying if he said he wasn't giddy all the same. But he needed to push that aside right now.

Something, or somebody had just taken her entire world away. That was priority number one. He needed to keep telling himself that. And how the hell had he survived? How the hell had she survived?

When she seemed calmer, he dared ask her about her last moments with the other Doctor.

"What did he say to you before he died, Rose?"

"A load of rubbish, he did. . . About finally giving me everythin' I'd ever wanted, or some rot like that," She sounded cross and rightfully so. Who would want to hear that when the man you loved was about to die? Sounded like some stupid thing he'd say on his deathbed though. He and. . . Him really were too alike. "He told me to use the transporter to get my family out but. . . Mum had already woke up. . . Peter had left early for work and the maid had already been off to daycare with Tony. . ." Her voice was small and trembling and she threatened to burst into tears again. The Doctor was certain, however that even if she did, she wouldn't have any more tears left to cry.

"I'm so sorry, Rose. . ." he said, kissing her head as she dry sobbed into his chest. She pulled back and took a deep, shuddering breath, determined to continue.

"He said that this universe might be in danger too." She paused, looking curiously at the transporter. "Has this button always been here?" She pressed it without a thought and suddenly a light, not unlike a projector was shining to the middle of the room. The image of the Doctor stepped in the light. His eyes lit up as though he were seeing them.

"Oh, goodie you're alive!"

"Doctor!" Rose shouted, trying to stand up but the Doctor held her down.

"It's a recording, Rose," She stilled, sitting back down. Her face was stern but she was still rapt in attention.

"Rose, I trust you're in the care of my other self now. The original Doctor should be with you,"

"He is," She grabbed his arm, reassuring the hologram that he was correct. The Doctor smiled in spite of himself. She always was adorable like this.

"Good. Now to business. If you're reading this message then, you have survived and I have not. This means that everything has gone according to plan."

"Wha—" He raised a finger, quelling her outrage.

"—Now now, don't get testy. I didn't destroy the world, and yes my death was intentional, but it was also unavoidable. The universe that we moved to was a dying place. It had been doomed for destruction as it's time line has broken. All the existences have been slowly becoming extinguished. You've noticed it too, as more and more species go missing every day. Nobody wants to get out of bed. I don't know why this is happening—I'm hoping you can figure it out before something like this can happen again—but it's all up to you now. Since my recent foray into humanity, my death, along with everyone else's is unavoidable—That is, unless I regenerated my second heart. But then I would become a Time Lord again and you would still die. . ." He trailed off, looking grimly at the Doctor and Rose before jumping in excitement. "Fear not! I have a trick up my sleeve. A win-win, in the smallest sense," The hologram turned to the Doctor, like he knew exactly where he'd be, because he probably did. They were the same after all.

"What have you done?" The Doctor found himself asking, even though he knew the hologram wouldn't hear him. The other Doctor seemed to know what he was asking anyways.

"I won't tell you right now because you need to focus on Rose, but let me assure you that she is fine. I'll say this: I love Rose Tyler and now I know my purpose in my awkward life. It's always been to give her back the only thing she's ever wanted: You. It was always you Doctor. We may be the same in every mental capacity but this body doesn't know Rose and she doesn't belong to me. The clever girl can notice even the smallest difference. When I'm behaving like Donna she knows it before I do. She doesn't say anything but she knows I'm not the same. She always dreams of the past and winning you over. . ." He looked away, smiling a sad little smile before continuing.

"It was impossible, but I've made a bit of a loophole. Rose," He turned to the slowly thawing girl and smiled. "My beautiful Rose. Mine, but not mine. Now you can have back the Doctor you lost and he won't have any genuine excuse to deny you. Happy? You will be in time, I promise. It will take getting used to, but you'll remember that it has and always will be that crazy old Time Lord for you. He might be a bit difficult, but don't give up. Just remember I did this because I love you, okay?" The transmission faded out abruptly and Rose started sobbing again.

"That right git! What has he done?! He just said he could have saved himself but look!" She squealed, punching her fist. Tears streamed down her face and The Doctor just held her close, trying to calm her down, a feeling of foreboding swelling within him as he let the other Doctor's words sink in. "Now he's gone. That's all I get. . ."

"Rose, do you have any idea what it is he might have done?" The Doctor asked, and immediately regretted it.

"What he's done? What he's done is gone and got himself killed, the tosser! Both of you! Daft, old martyrs!"

"Rose. . ." He started, carefully. "Rose we have to figure out why it is you survived when nobody else did. Why my regeneration cycle was halted when you arrived. I know it's. . . difficult, but there could be something worse around the corner and I need to know everything. Have you noticed anything different about yourself since the incident? Anything at all?"

"I think I should notice if there were anything different about my own bod—" She stopped mid-sentence, realization dawning on her face. "M-My heart. It's always racin' now. . .Like double time. I don't know why that is. . . I'm colder and I can smell weird things. . . I smelled a picture frame and I knew it was exactly 10 years, 3 months, 15 days, 4 hours, 15 minutes and 23 seconds old. . ." The Doctor wrinkled his brow reached into the sofa, pulling out a random stethoscope. He put it on and pressed the metal to her chest. He heard the lightly elevated rhythm of the beat of her heart. It wasn't anything concerning.

"It's normal, Rose,"

"But I can feel it! It's like there's four beats when there should be two!"

"Four. . .?"

"Yes. In the snow it was so quiet, too quiet and I could hear it. A heart that beats four times. . . It sounded almost like. . .Like yours?" The Doctor quickly grew suspicious. He slowly moved his hand from one side of her chest to the other, gently pressing the stethoscope to it.

Thud-Dump.

No way.

He checked again.

Left side. Thud-Dump.

Right side. Thud-Dump.

A heart that beats four times. Two hearts.

"Two hearts. . ."

"What?" Rose said, looking at him like he'd gone mental.

"Rose. . .You have two hearts." He could feel his own hearts speed up at the realization.

"But that's impossible. I've always only had one hea—" Her words were lost because it was in that moment that she fainted, slumping against him. She was still cold. Too cold. The Doctor acted quickly, picking her up and racing to the medical wing of the TARDIS.

The Doctor rushed about after placing her carefully on the operating table. He took her shirt and pants off, opting to leave on her underwear, flushing only a little. There was no time for appreciation of her aesthetics, he reminded himself, he just needed to get her warmed up. He turned a dial on the table and it wasn't a second before he could feel the heat radiating from it, blanketing her in warmth from head to toe. The cyberthermometer read she was maintaining a body temperature of -100 degrees fahrenheit and by rights she should already be dead. He wasn't sure what was going on but she needed to get warm and fast.

When her body climbed it's way to 70 degrees, his anxiety peaking at the slow process of it, he noticed her body starting to sweat and convulse dangerously. Well that wasn't right. . .

He placed it down nearing 60 degrees and the convulsions started to stop and her body relaxed. Something wasn't right. . . This was well in the range of hypothermia for humans and it wasn't making any sense.

He placed cyber monitors on her body, getting her vitals and hooking up various fluids. According to the monitor her body was dangerously low on all vitamins and minerals. She must not have eaten for a week but none of her organs were shutting down. They weren't in any danger, if not a little strained.

"How is this possible. . .?" He muttered to himself. It was too similar. All of her readings were too similar!

Within the next hour it was just a game of cat and mouse. He couldn't lift her levels to that of a human because for some reason that just started to make everything worse. He was struggling to find a medium that made sense.

When she was finally stabilized, the Doctor gripped the operating table tightly, standing over her now calm form. There were no incisions or marks on her body. There was nothing to suggest surgery of any sort had been performed on her to get that heart in her chest.

How was it done? How did Rose Tyler obtain a second heart? How was it possible that every vital sign, all of her physiology were identical to his? Right now she was sleeping, her body repairing itself from the damage at an alarming rate. Humans didn't have accelerated regeneration capabilities. Theirs was limited to mending bones over long periods of time and making scabs. It was wrong. It wasn't natural. It was so similar.

It made less and less sense as his thoughts raced. He plucked a hair from her head and put it in the DNA analyzer in the Control Room. It took a minute too long to scan. The TARDIS hadn't even seen anything like it.

An image came up with a big flashing 'UNKNOWN' next to it but the Doctor could see the DNA. He almost balked at the sight.

A Third strand. . .

It was wrapped in an intricate design of the original double helix, but it wasn't just pure time energy. The whole human strand was now modified to receive it properly. It looked. . . like a time strand molded to become Gallifreyan.

"No, no, no, no! Even if she'd been genetically altered, there was no way she'd grow a second heart unless she'd regenerated. And even if she could, how did the time energy even get there?! It's only received upon a Time Lord initiation when looking into the Vortex and it comes with a Fourth strand!" He was talking aloud but it's how he thought. He smacked his head. "Think!" He was gripping both sides of his head when he realized it.

"When she absorbed the TARDIS energy. . ." He blinked, turning to his computer, putting on his specks. "Genetic remapping occurs in a Gallifreyan when looking into the Vortex. . . But what if you look into the heart of a TARDIS?" He pulled up a vector image of human, Gallifreyan and Time Lord DNA samples. The bases of the individual nucleotides were the same, only there were only two strands in a human, three strands in a Gallifreyan, and Four strands when a Gallifreyan became a Time Lord. He knew this. There were only a few minor details between human and Gallifreyan genealogy that didn't match—small but critical details (The fact of having two of almost every organ, for example). He pulled up Rose's DNA; To his surprise the current triple helix and the helix from before were the same, save for a few added details. She must have gained the Third strand when looking into the heart of the TARDIS. It was a little different, some weird, unrecognized nucleotides were present in the base pairs here and there, but the reading of her new DNA suggested that she was every bit as Gallifreyan as he was. She could even regenerate—

-She could regenerate. "Oh I am clever!" He clapped his hands and spun around. "All that is needed is the Third strand and even a human could regenerate. Added with a clever genetic remapping to that of a Gallifreyan and a timely demise that came with the end of the universe and she'd regenerate with two hearts, two stomachs, two of almost everything! She even has a Major Ganglion in her collarbone!" He fixed his glasses and looked carefully. "There are traces of symbiotic atomic nuclei in her RNA. Bloody hell she's even got Time Lord capabilities!"

The other Doctor had said he knew that the universe was ending. He knew that it would end but he also knew that he and Rose were not a part of that universe. They weren't a fixed point in time so they could escape it. Rose and the Doctor were, however, human. Even if they could escape it, the lack of sun would cause them to freeze to death first. Only a Gallifreyan could survive such a freeze. Not forever, but for a while at least until they could escape. The Doctor must have realized that after being exposed to the heart of the TARDIS, making Rose's DNA mimick that of a Gallifreyan was possible, if not a little far-fetched. He would die but at least he could save Rose. Being the fine doctor he was (if he didn't say so himself), he rewrote her DNA so that it played nice with the symbiotic atomic nucleoids that were already present in her Third strand. With this genetic tweaking, time energy would foster, and time energy is alive and it's attracted to Time Lords like fruit flies to a rotten banana— Not the most appealing analogy but it did the trick. All-in-all, it multiplies and festers until it's enough to sustain a regeneration without the need of Gallifreyan technology.

Then. . . Rose did die on that planet. She only regenerated and became a Time Lord. He tried not to feel too put out by this thought. She was spared after all!

"Brilliant it is. . . Rose Tyler: Time Lady." He nearly squealed in delight before setting off to work, busying himself with tests. He examined her new physiology. He did a full body scan and found that the sides of her head now held the temporal lobes. Her skin was tougher and more dense with blood and when he hooked up the electroencephalograph her brain activity was lighting up in ways that human brains simply did not. She was practically buzzing with time energy and her appendices were already ripe with regeneration. He suspected it would only take a second after one of her limbs was cut off to grow it back. It was utterly fascinating and the Doctor was sure he could do scans and tests to keep him entertained all day but Rose was waking up. Pity. He had just discovered that she did, indeed, have two uteri.

"Doctor. . . Doctor I had the most insane dream. . ." She sat up, rubbing her eyes. "The Earth ended, you died an' I was back on the TARDIS. I had two hearts—" She looked around once before looking at the Doctor again. "Oh. . . "

The disappointment on Rose's face when she realized it wasn't a dream made the Doctor feel unpleasant, but he couldn't possibly blame her for that. She looked down, face going a bit red. "I'm in my knickers. . ."

"Right, sorry. Saving your life and all that," He dug into a cupboard and pulled out a blanket. He gave it to Rose and she covered up. "You're not blue anymore,"

"Cheers for that," She said, the humor absent in her voice. "How long was I out?"

"About an hour." He sat down on the table beside her. "You didn't die and there's a reason for that. The Doctor did something to you," He shut his eyes. "Rose. . . there is no easy way to say this but Rose. . . Your DNA has been rewritten to mimick a Gallifreyan and because of when you absorbed the time energy from the heart of the TARDIS, you also have Time Lord capabilities. Now let me explain—"

"The Doctor rewrote my DNA to sustain the time energy lingering in my body. I died and regenerated, gaining the ability to live for a short while until I escaped." He was slack-jawed, staring at her in disbelief. "You were about to go into a thirty minute tangent about it and I shortened it for you,"

"Well yes, but how—? Right, Time Lord brain." He hummed in appreciation before looking at her again. "Anyways, listen Rose, he could only save one of you two. . . He knew the universe was going to end and he had to save you,"

"An' because you're here he sacrificed himself to save me."

"Precisely!" SLAP! "Oi! What was that for?!" The Doctor looked at her, scandalized as he nursed his reddening cheek.

"Think you're so clever, yeah? You're idiots. Both of you!" She got up, wobbled a bit, finding her balance before storming out. The Doctor stumbled up, still blown by the almighty slap he received. His ego felt it more than anything.

"Rose! Rose, come back! You're still too weak to be walking around. You need to finish the regeneration cycle! And you're half naked!"

"Sod off!" The door slammed and the Doctor winced involuntarily. He didn't much like Rose being cross with him. He wasn't even sure what it was he did wrong. . .

He went out to the Control Room seeing that Rose had opened the door to the TARDIS and was hanging her legs outside into space. She was wrapped tightly in the heating blanket he'd given her and was playing the hologram from the transporter outside.

The Doctor for some reason, felt guilty for how he'd behaved.

As clever as he was, he was still horribly green at the whole human empathy thing. What the other Doctor did and the reasoning behind it made all the sense in the world to him. It was a bit reckless, he'd admit, but really, what other choice did he have? They were the same and the other Doctor loved Rose as much as he, himself did.

If it meant saving Rose and procuring even a little happiness for her, where was the downside?

As he watched her watch the projected video in a loop, shoulders trembling, he entertained the idea that maybe, just maybe, he was missing something.

a/n: Well this is it! My first het fanfiction! What is becoming me, really? Tell me what you think. Is it good or is it complete garbage?