This Doctor Who fic is set right after "The Parting of the Ways". A look at what might happened if the 9th doctor hadnt had to regenerate into the 10th doctor.

Power…..so much power that it made her feel like she was going to explode. Light like the sun exploding was all that she could see, but seeing and hearing were mere technicalities. Feeling….that was so much more important right now. Her whole body was aware of the light….she could feel it, touch it not merely see it like her normal eyes could. Something was building inside her body, a sensation like she had never felt before.

Power! She felt like she could do anything…energy was rippling through her body, pumping through her just as easily as her own blood ran through her veins. It felt wonderful….mere human abilities seemed weak and feeble compared to the things that she knew now that she could do. She could do anything…..she had the power of a god….

Time….all that was and is and ever will be exploded in her head like a million supernovas blowing up in radiant fire. So much information….all of the galaxies combined experiences blew up in front of her, inside of her. Such happiness, sadness, loss, birth, death….it was all before her.

The energy kept building inside her; it was wonderful, making every inch of her body tingle with the potential of all that she could do. All that she could see! She could reach into time itself and see things, all things. Change things…..change everything. But the power kept building; at some point it stopped being a good thing. It started to hurt; what had been a delightful tingling feeling began to be stabbing points all over her body. Her heart was beating out of her chest; how was it not exploding? Her head ached like it was going to split open. Power soon turned to panic; there was too much energy in her. It was going to rip her apart if it didn't stop….

Only it did stop; something perfect and amazing touched her and suddenly all the power she felt slowly slid out of her. It should hurt, it should be a bad thing to feel the all-consuming energy leaving her, but it only felt good. All energy was zapped from her body and then everything went dark.

…..

Rose opened her eyes; her vision was blurry and she rubbed at her eyes to focus. She found that she was staring up at the ceiling of the TARDIS, her back sore from lying on the floor. Lights flashed around her and she heard the familiar whirl of the TARDIS' behind her. She sat up, stretching her sore muscles and turned around. The doctor was working on the controls of the TARDIS and he looked at her as she got off the floor. Her feet felt slightly shaky as she walked over to the doctor. She felt strange; tired and kind of fuzzy all over. Her muscles ached, her stomach felt slightly woozy and her head pounded. What had happened? She rubbed her head as she tried to remember. The last thing she had remembered was pulling off the door to the heart of heart of the TARDIS. When she had looked inside it, it was like everything had gone dark; the next thing she knew she was waking up here. She must have missed something; it must have worked. The doctor had been so far from her but now here he was. They were both safe….they were both together.

"What….what happened?" Rose asked, sitting down on the chair at the TARDIS' consol. When the doctor turned around to face her, she saw the yellowish tone of skin, bright and glowing before it vanished. "Oh my god…..what? What just happened to you? You're….glowing. Or, at least you were" she asked, pointing , alarmed at the sight.

The doctor sighed, his shoulders slumping as if he was tired too. "You don't remember any of it?" he asked. He didn't seem surprised that she had no idea what had happened. She got the idea that she had apparently missed something very important.

Rose shook her head. "No…..no I don't remember" she said. She felt a pang in her stomach when she remembered the events of earlier; how the doctor had tricked her into the TARDIS and sent it back home without even telling her anything. She knew that he thought that it was the best thing, but it had been one of the most terrifying moments of her life, believing that the doctor was dead and that she was never going to see him again. Her throat got tight at the memory. "Why….why were you just glowing?" she asked.

The doctor looked a little sad as he looked at her. "You looked into the heart of the TARDIS, Rose." He said simply, seriously. She saw pain in his eyes. She didn't understand where it was coming from.

"Yeah…..and then I don't remember anything" she said, hoping he would elaborate as to what was going.

"You're lucky it didn't kill you, Rose" The doctor said with seriousness. Rose wondered if she was imagining it when she saw him pale. "The power of the TARDIS is strong…..way too strong for a human. It's almost too strong for me…..you had all of that power flowing through you. You destroyed the Daleks, got rid of the threat but it was too much for you to take. So I had to take it from you….that's why I was glowing. The power of the TARDIS was flowing in and out of me" He looked like it exhausted him.

Rose thought about it for a few moments; she did remember vaguely the feeling of what had happened even though she didn't remember the events. She could remember feeling good, powerful….but then fear and pain. "I did?" she asked about the Daleks. "They're really gone?"

The doctor nodded. "Yeah….yeah you did it Rose" Rose still thought that he looked sad.

"You're going to be okay, right?" Rose asked. "The power of the TARDIS? You're fine now right?"

The doctor nodded. "It hurt a little….well, quite a lot. But I'm fine" he said wearily.

Rose looked up at him. "If the power was inside me, then how did it get out of me and into you?" she asked. She had just looked into the TARDIS and the power had come to her, but the doctor was acting like he had done something to pull the power out of her.

She knew she wasn't mistaken when saw a faint blush creep up his cheeks. "It's not that important" he said nonchalantly but Rose wasn't going to let him get out of it so easily.

"You tell me that I had enough power inside me to kill me and you aren't planning on telling me how that power came out of me?" Rose asked. "I think I deserve to know….especially if I just destroyed all the Daleks. I think you owe me that much" she said, raising her eyebrows at him. She gave him the look she always gave him when she was fishing for information that he didn't want to give.

He didn't meet her eyes, but smiled as he looked off a little to the side. "I kissed you" he said quietly.

That wasn't at all the answer that Rose had been expecting. The doctor had kissed her? Surely if something like that had happened she would remember it. She wanted to remember it. "What?" she asked in disbelief.

The small smile on the doctor's face grew to a grin as he looked at her. "I kissed you, Rose Tyler" he said, sounding a little more proud of himself. "When we kissed the energy passed from you into me"

Rose was a little stunned; sounded like a good kiss too and she had missed it. She blushed a little at the thought. She had often watched the doctor's lips when he was ranting off something that she didn't understand, wondering what they might taste like. She shook her head, hoping he couldn't tell what she was thinking. "So…..you had to?" she asked. Maybe he hadn't wanted to….maybe he didn't like it. She didn't want to think about that.

The doctor was still smiling. "I didn't have to" he said. "We needed to have a physical connection between us to make the transfer….it was the best way I could think of doing that"

"I don't remember any of that" Rose said, trying not to let it show how much that bothered her. She couldn't read him….whether he wanted to kiss her or not. But then again, she supposed that it was a heated moment, a lot of other things going on.

The doctor's face fell, the smile disappearing. "That's not surprising…..with all that energy in you it's a wonder you even remember who you are." He walked up to her, putting his hands on her arms and looking deep into her eyes. It surprised her and she felt her breath catching. "Rose, why did you do that? Why didn't you stay at home like I wanted? You could be…I could have lost you"

Rose saw tears in his eyes that were trapped, unallowed to fall. The weight of the whole day and all the terror that she had felt came crashing down on her. She could feel her own tears beginning to tug at her eyes and she wasn't as strong as the doctor; she couldn't hold them in. "Do you even have to ask why?" she asked, her voice cracking. Surely he should have known she wouldn't just go home and easily accept her fate; how could he even believe that she would in the first place? She wasn't with him because she was a quitter.

The doctor's face turned even sadder. "Of course I do…..I set up Emergency Program 1 to save you. I wanted to you to be safe….to go home to your mum and live the rest of your life. I didn't want you to die today"

"And do what?!" Rose asked, emotion cracking her voice, a few tears rolling down her face. "What did you expect me to do? Go back to working in a shop? After all of this how could I ever do anything else? Dying today with you was better than going home and living without you"

The doctor closed his eyes and shook his head. "Don't say that, Rose" he said, looking at her. "You don't mean it"

"I do" Rose said with seriousness. Didn't he know her at all? Dull everyday life would be impossible after what she had seen. "I don't want that anymore…I wanted to be here with you, even if that meant today would be the last day."

Rose watched the doctor's lip quiver a little but he still managed to fight off the tears. "I didn't want that" he said. "I thought I was going to die, Rose….I didn't want your death to be the last thing I got to see. I wanted to die knowing you were safe and that eventually you would be happy."

Rose felt her heart ripping slightly; she never would have been happy on Earth, wondering if the doctor had died….assuming that he had. Maybe she would have managed eventually but she would never have been happy. "You didn't even give me a chance to say goodbye" she said through sobs.

The doctor bit his lip. "It was better that way…..make it easier to move on" he said sadly. They both knew that was a lie.

"I couldn't have done that" Rose looked up at him. "I don't want safe….I don't want a long life. I just want to be with you….no matter how dangerous it might be I just want to be with you"

The doctor put his hands on either side of Rose's face, looking deep into her eyes; she could see the unshed tears in his eyes and the surprise on his face. He was, somehow, surprised to see the emotion and deep commitment from her. Rose didn't know how he couldn't know how she felt about him already, but his look told her that didn't.

The next moment, the doctor captured Rose's lips with his own. His lips touched hers gently, almost just brushing against hers at first, before pressing a little harder. Rose's breath caught in her throat at first but she quickly relaxed, moving her own mouth against his. His lips were soft, tasting of something sweet she couldn't place. She didn't remember their other kiss, but all she knew was that this one took her breath away. This time the kiss was not to save her life, this time it wasn't because he had to; the doctor was kissing her now because he wanted to and Rose felt her heart beating out her chest at the realization. She put her arms around him, pulling him ever so closer to her; he was warm, hot almost, his hearts were beating…..he was alive.

After a long while the doctor pulled back slightly, his forehead resting on Rose's, his hands moving to her back to keep her close. Both their breaths were labored but they made no move to put distance between them. The doctor's hands were light on her, almost like he was afraid she was a vapor that might disappear from his grasp. "Don't ever do something like that again" he said, his voice a whisper, cracking slightly.

"I had to…."Rose said just as quietly. "You left me and I had no choice. Don't ever leave me behind again"

This time it was Rose who pulled the doctor into a kiss; her heart was hammering inside her chest and she was glad when she felt his lips move quickly against hers again. Rose felt the doctor move towards her, pulling her to him so that her chest was against his; she could feel the quick beating of his hearts close to where her heart was. His touches that had been so gentle now seemed to get a little more persistent; holding her tight against him.

Rose began to feel almost desperate to feel him, alive and well. It was mere hours ago that she had thought he was dead, that she would never get to see him again. She kissed him back harder, more insistent as her hands ran up his back, under his jacket and shirt. His skin felt so soft and warm; almost as if it was on fire. The small touch of his skin, rather than satiating her, made her only more desperate for more.