PREDATOR AND PREY

Chapter Seventeen

When the Doctor went back into Rose's mind, he decided to skip right to the Valeyard and ask Rose about the part Time Lord thing when she woke up. He didn't want to keep her under too long since River, Rory and Amy were waiting for them and the TARDIS could find a tear in the rift at any time. He sorted through the memories until he found one with the Valeyard in it. He stopped on it and looked. The Valeyard seemed to be standing in an office while he confronted Rose. The office had cream walls and a few photos of her and John on the walls. Behind Rose was a desk and when the Doctor zoomed in on it, he saw several memos from Torchwood so he surmised this was her office in Torchwood on the day she was taken. He zoomed back out so he could see the whole scene and let the memory play out.

"Who are ya, what d'ya want?" Rose said, backing up towards the desk.

"I am called the Valeyard," the Valeyard said in the same snide tone of voice the Dream Lord used. "What I want is information and more importantly, your time machine."

"I don't have a time machine," Rose said quickly.

"Oh puh-leeze," the Valeyard said, rolling his eyes. "Don't play innocent, Miss Tyler. I have several spies planted inside Torchwood who have been watching both you and your little boyfriend. My spies have planted listening devices in here and Mister Smith's office and I've heard you talk about this TARDIS and how you want to use it to travel time and space when it…grows up. I'm a man of very little patience, Miss Tyler, and I don't like defiance, so I'll ask you once more and that is it. Where is your time machine?"

"I don't have it," Rose said, crossing her arms defiantly. "We found one of your hypnotized spies and managed to get her to talk and she told us you were looking for it so I made sure it was hid far away from here."

"Is that so?" the Valeyard said, coming closer. "Then it seems you are of some use to me, Miss Tyler. I want that time machine and you're going to tell me where it is, either verbally or through a mind probe. I don't care how but I will have it!"

With lightning speed, the Valeyard whipped a small dart gun out of his pocket and Rose gasped when he shot a small needle into her neck. The Doctor stopped the memory when she collapsed to the floor and the Valeyard advanced on her while he put the gun back in his pocket. He sorted through the memories and found one where Rose was strapped to a table in a lab while the Valeyard stood beside her. He paused, mentally steeling himself for the sight of Rose being tortured. When he felt he was ready, he took a deep breath and let the memory play. While Rose strapped to the table, a large metal box with buttons and dials on the side of it was suspended above her. Coming out of the box, directly above her head, was a long steel laser gun that was aimed at her head.

"Look, I've already told you everything, plus you've done a mind probe, what more do you want?" Rose was saying to the Valeyard.

"Nothing," the Valeyard said with an unconcerned shrug. "I'm just bored and you're here and this gives me something to do."

Then he pushed a button and a thick red laser beam shot from the gun directly onto Rose's head. The Doctor winced at the scream emanating from her throat. He had heard her scream before but nothing like this. It was so earsplitting he had to pull out of the memory because his ears couldn't bear it any more. He then had to pull out completely because his body was shaking with silent rage and he had to fought to keep himself under control. He sat back on the blanket and tried to calm himself down. It was bad enough seeing Rose tortured but the fact that the Valeyard was doing it for no reason at all made him enraged beyond all reason. He hadn't seen anything else but he had a feeling it was just as bad and he suddenly had no stomach for any more torture of the woman he loved. He sat and watched her for a moment until he finally calmed down and then he put his fingers on his temples and woke her up. Rose opened her eyes and smiled warmly at him.

"Wow, that was nice. Best sleep I've had in ages," he said to him. "Did you see what you wanted to see?"

"I saw enough," the Doctor said. "Including some things that preceded the Valeyard. Rose…explain this whole part Time Lord thing to me."

Rose's eyes widened and she quickly sat up.

"Doctor…"

The Doctor waited for her to continue but she trailed off and sat there in silence, unsure what to say.

"Machines can be wrong," she finally said.

"Earth machines perhaps but not the TARDIS. You're getting another scan done here," he said to her. "But what is your theory…that is, if you are part Time Lord?"

Rose looked at the blanket and the Doctor stuck his finger under her chin and lifted her head so she was looking at him.

"Rose…I'm not letting this drop," he said. "If you are part Time Lord, I want to know why."

"How far back did you go in my memories?" Rose said.

"I started after I left the second time when your mum started ranting and raving about being in bloodyNorway."

"Shoulda gone back farther."

"Why?" the Doctor said.

Rose sighed.

"I had a…dream…after John did the tests," Rose said.

"What sort of dream?"

"I dreamed about that day on the Gamestation when the Bad Wolf killed all the Daleks. I saw myself inside myself as the Bad Wolf," Rose said, drawing her knees up to her chest. "I saw myself resurrecting Jack and I could feel that I did it because I loved him…in a brotherly way…and didn't want him to die so I brought him back to life. Then I saw you at my feet and I heard myself saying that I wanted to keep you safe and protected by the false god."

She glanced at the Doctor and he nodded so she continued.

"I then felt the Bad Wolf in my head reading my thoughts…about how much I loved you and how I never wanted you to be alone and the Bad Wolf spoke to me inside my head and told me that she would change me, make me like you, so we could be together and you would never be alone. She said that in this life I would be part human but when I regenerated I would become a full Time…Lady and I would get my second heart along with everything else."

She fell silent but the silence spoke volumes while the Doctor stared at her.

"I never told John about the dream," Rose finally said when the Doctor didn't speak. "Because I wasn't sure whether it was real or not and I didn't want to upset John. But when you first called to me across the rift, that first time we got separated, it was in a dream that I first heard you."

The Doctor swallowed hard, fighting back a wave of emotions, while he stared at her. Ever since he fell in love with Rose and dared to have a relationship with her, he had always imagined her as a Time Lady, thinking how wonderful she'd be as one and now it seemed like the universe had answered his fondest wish. Suddenly, it seemed like things had become extremely complicated between them.

"What happens now?" Rose finally asked.

The Doctor's brain was sluggish, trying to recover after all the shocks it had been through over the past several minutes. He was desperately fighting the urge to just grab Rose and snog her senseless or go find the Bad Wolf if it still existed and snog it senseless for doing this huge favor for him. Rose scooted closer and took the Doctor's hand and the Doctor smiled, grateful for the familiar comfort it brought to him. As he looked at Rose, he was shocked when a sudden possessiveness surged up within him the moment he started to consider what might happen to John in all this and he was equally shocked when "Sod John!" reared up in his thoughts. He forced himself to calm down and think.

"If you stay with John, it'll be the reverse of my situation, just like he said," he said, surprised he sounded so calm. "I…I'm not sure if I can make John into a full Time Lord so he'd be stuck watching you remain young while he grew old and died. As for River…"

His eyes widened for a second imagining River's reaction to all this. Rose scooted closer and put her other hand on his arm.

"You've already met River at the end of her life, yeah? Which means one day you'll meet her for the first time and then she'll be gone for good?" Rose said.

"I assume so," the Doctor said.

"If…all this is true," Rose said while the Doctor watched her. "Then both John and River will eventually pass from our lives. Everyone in here except for Jack will be gone eventually and that leaves just us."

The Doctor nodded.

"If all this true then I'll be living for centuries, yeah?"

"Barring any fatal trauma that you can't regenerate from, yes."

"Then here's what I'm thinking. I love John and you love River so why not love them while they're here and keep committed to the relationships since we know that eventually we'll be together. Why should we hurt then when they're both innocent in all this? If we'll have centuries together then what's a few years spent in other relationships? Especially if we can still be close and be friends in that time. We'll just pretend we needed space and needed to be with other people while you figure out how to stop being a jerk."

"Jerk?" the Doctor said.

He gave Rose a wry grin when she stuck her tongue between her teeth and winked.

"Oh, so the relationship problems are my fault then?" the Doctor said.

"Yeah. You were a right git and we did this whole amicable split thing while we mended our relationship. You know, what humans do."

The Doctor shook with silent laughter while Rose gave him a cheeky grin.

"This is hinging on whether or not the tests are correct," he said. "Because I still want the TARDIS to do a scan to make sure there isn't any errors."

"Fine. But if there isn't and I am part Time Lord, I say we go along with my plan," Rose said. "That way we don't hurt the ones we love."

"But we will have to explain this to Jack," the Doctor said. "It will look suspicious when you're still alive and young after 150 years."

"Course. And now you not only have Jack to travel with, you'll have me as well. The old team, back together."

"Wheeeeee," the Doctor said sarcastically.

Rose giggled and playfully punched his arm. The Doctor smiled and reached inside her shirt, pulling out her pendent.

"Do you know why I gave you this?" he said to her. "This wasn't on that table just because someone thought a leaf might make a pretty necklace. Silver leaves were only found in one part of the planet and so most people never got to see them. So they were much sought after, especially by lovers. If a man was able to get a silver leaf, he made it into a necklace as a sign of devotion to his beloved. Because most of the time it took a lot of traveling and hard work in order to get these leaves so it showed the woman just how much she was truly loved and that's why you got this and not the diamond ring."

Rose was speechless. She looked at the Doctor, his boyish face, and felt herself falling even more in love with him than she had before. Suddenly, it seemed like the barriers that had been placed between them were falling away and Rose felt her heart beat fast when the Doctor took her in his arms and began to snog her passionately.

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