The Girl in the Box (Doctor Who)

New Earth Part Two

It's a long chapter, I know, but I'll be rewriting some episodes and making a few of my own adventures, so enjoy this episode "New Earth". And sorry I'm making Rose mean, just part of the story. Also, sorry for the lack of editing. It was a really long chapter to write and I had no incentive to edit it. So, I apologize for the measly, but annoying, errors.

-Rose Noble
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The pale man led me into a room with projectors showing a very posh party with humans drinking champagne and wine, listening to dual pianos. I usually liked parties that ended with no one knowing what happened the day after.

"We haven't met before, have we? I'm Cassandra, the last human! Last time I saw the Doctor and Rose Tyler they killed me! Well, almost. My brain survived after your friends murdered me, and I modeled Chip off of my favorite design to take care of my needs," she explained to me quickly. So the Doctor and Rose tried to stop her from doing something bad, so she died, but her brain survived. She force-grew a clone to take care of her, since I don't think a piece of skin can do anything, also I suspected she would get dry and need to be moisturized. My theory was proven when Chip sprayed her with something to keep her delicate structure from exploding. Also, Chip must be stealing medicine from the hospital in order to keep Cassandra alive.

"So let me get this straight, you want revenge on them, so for some reason you think you're going to get it by kidnapping me. I'm a Time Lady, girlie, and I don't think you know what that means," I threatened the skin with a face.

"And what would that be?" Cassandra asked me innocently.

"I always have something. Something that will get me out of situations. It can be a plan, or a sonic, but I always have something. And that something is going to bite you in the ass today," I roared.

"Chip, restrain her," Cassandra demanded of her minion. I started to run, but the man had me restrained with metal handcuffs in seconds. I tried my sonic ring on them, deadlocked, damn. Chip dragged me near a psycograft, and I did not like the idea of what was going to happen next.

"You're not getting this bloody body, I'd die before I'd let anyone in my head. I have too many secrets, too many memories. You take a bite of it and your existence will disintegrate. I'd tell you to go to hell, but since you're about to take a field trip in my mind, I'd say you're already going," I spat at her and Chip as the pushed me into the psycograft. He activated it and blue rays of light encased me and pain exploded in my head.

"The lady's moving on. It's goodbye trampoline, and hello ginger!" Cassandra shouted as the pain in my head became unbearable.

I felt my conscience subside into the recesses of my mind, I was so enraged, but I couldn't feel it. Cassandra was using my voice, discovering my limbs in amazement. She ran up to a mirror to inspect my body excitedly.

"Oh, my god. I'm a chav!" she screamed at my reflection. Oi, that's my body you're talking about you little...

"Look at me! From class to brass! Although..." she drifted off and pulled the neckline of my red tank top lower and took off my leather jacket. When I get my body back, I'll be back for the jacket. "Ooh curves! Oh, baby! It's like living inside a bouncy castle," Cassandra mused as she ran my hands over my body and bounced on the balls of her feet. Is that a fat joke? I screamed telepathically, she ignored it.

"My mistress is beautiful!" Chip complimented Cassandra, well, technically me. Cassandra and Chip discovered that Cassandra's brain had 'expired'. No going back now. Cassandra was to be stuck in me, or dead. I preferred the latter. Cassandra was talking to Chip how she could access my surface memories since I was still 'safely' tucked away.

"Gosh, she's with the Doctor, and Rose Tyler. That man, he's the Doctor. The same Doctor, new face. That hypocrite!" Cassandra clamored. It's called regeneration, but he's the same man at heart, and he will get you out of my body. "I must get the name of his surgeon. I could do with a little work... but, nice rear bumper," she commented as she looked in the mirror. I'll see to where to put your ass when I've got a body. My cellphone rang and interrupted her pervy stare. "Oh, it seems to be ringing. Is it meant to ring?" she asked Chip as she grabbed my phone from my back pocket.

"A primitive communications device," Chip explained to her as she answered it.

"Gem, where are you?" I heard the Doctor's voice say from the phone. Cassandra was clueless as to how I spoke, so she started using stupid British phrases. I'm not even British I reminded her with unkind names.

"Um, wotcha?" she embarrassed me with a wink.

"Where've you been? How long does it take to get to ward 26?" He asked her, putting her on the spot.

"I'm on my way, guvna! I shall proceed up the apples and pears," she said in a flirty tone, I was going to kill her for that.

"You'll never guess. I'm with the Face of Boe! Remember him?" the Doctor cheerfully asked me. I remember hearing about him while I was travelling with him, he was a legend.

"Ha ha ha, course I do!" Cassandra laughed throatily. "That big old... Boe race," she improvised terribly.

"I'd better go. See you in a minute," the Doctor hung up. He was oblivious, that man, as if I talked like that.

"This Doctor man is dangerous," Chip reasoned with Cassandra. I fully agreed, but I wasn't the one on his bad side.

"Dangerous and clever. That's why I've got a mind like his. The sisterhood is up to something. Remember that old Earth saying? 'Never trust a nun, never trust a nurse, and never trust a cat'. Perfume," Cassandra requested as Chip pulled out a bottle, which she placed in my bra. Don't you touch there! I screeched telepathically, enough to make her jump.

~~~~~

Cassandra was 'adjusting' my clothes as she walked up to the Doctor. Oh god, no I begged her. The Doctor was messing around with IV bags as Rose followed him, asking ever so many questions.

"There you are! Come and look at this patient," the Doctor dragged my body towards a Marconi's disease patient. "Marconi's disease. Should take years to recover, two days. I've never seen anything like it," he looked astonished. I was trying to get control of my body to warn him, but I couldn't do anything but make my pinkie twitch a little bit. "They've invented a cell-washing cascade, it's amazing. Their medical science is way advanced," he explained, and I agreed, this wasn't possible. "And this one. Pallidome Pancrosis, kills you in ten minutes, and he's fine," the Doctor waved to the pure-white man on a hospital bed. "I need to find a terminal. I've got to see how they do this," he told me. Rose followed dutifully behind us, not bothering with the medical talk and miracles. "Cause if they've got the best medicine in the world, then why is it such a secret?" he continued with a fantastic question.

"I can't Adam-and-Eve it," Cassandra failed miserably at imitating me.

"What's...what's with the voice," Rose asked Cassandra. Finally someone noticed I wasn't usually an idiot!

"Oi, I don't know. Just larking about New Earth. New me," Cassandra explained while shoving my cleavage in the Doctor's face. I will gut you with pliers for this I threatened.

"Well, I can talk. New New Doctor," the Doctor reasoned, glancing down secretly. I saw that, old man! I screamed.

"Mm, aren't you just?" Cassandra licked my lips, trying to be sexy. That's not going to work, sweetheart. I almost telepathically screamed as my body threw itself at the Doctor and kissed him roughly. Rose backed away slowly, and I was trying to murder myself mentally. I couldn't feel the kiss, and for that, because I assumed it was slimey with the way Cassandra was licking him up. She ran her hands threw his hair, which was incredibly sexy, I admit. A dramatic "Mwah!" ended the kiss. The Doctor stared at me for a few silent seconds, before Cassandra spoke again. "T-t-terminal's this way," she panted loudly and headed towards the terminal.

The Doctor stared at me bemused and in shock until he took a shaky breath and in a high voice murmered, "yeah,still got it." Rose followed behind us a good twenty feet away, looking back and forth between the Doctor and Cassandra with her jaw dropped.

~~~~~

"Nope, nothing odd. Surgery, post-op, nanodentistry. No sign of a shop, they should have a shop," the Doctor observed disappointed.

"No, it's missing something else. When I was downstairs those, nurse/cat/nuns were talking about intensive care, but where is it?" Cassandra stole from my thoughts as the Doctor stared at her with a sly smile.

"You're right. Well done," the Doctor told Cassandra as he was inspecting the map for one.

"Why would they hide a whole department? It's gotta be there somewhere," Rose finally spoke, reminding the Doctor of her presence.

"Search the subframe," Cassandra added on to Rose's comment.

"What if the subframe's locked?" the Doctor asked, obviously testing me.

"Try the installation protocol," Cassandra said as if it was obvious, stealing the answers from my mind.

"Yeah, course. Sorry, hold on," the Doctor smirked while messing with his screwdriver. The wall with monitors built in slid down, revealing a corridor. It was made of concrete, contrasting with the sleek white walls of the hospital. "Intensive care, certainly looks intensive," the Doctor continued as we all walked into the corridor. It was musky and dirty, with green containment units. Each held a sick human, injected with all of the diseases the hospital needed to cure. They were using flesh to experiment, like lab rats.

"That's disgusting. What's wrong with them?" Cassandra rudely assessed the flesh. The Doctor apoligized to the lab rats as Rose stared at it with fear, but wasn't nearly as rude as Cassandra was. The Doctor explained how the flesh had been infected with every disease in the universe when Cassandra asked, "what about us? Are we safe?" I gasped mentally from what came out of my mouth, how could I say such a thing and the Doctor not notice?

"The air's sterile, just don't touch them," the Doctor told her, not even caring,

"That's terrible, they're like human lab rats," Rose said with a quivering lip. I knew he would notice now, at least notice the contrast between us. "How many patients are there?" she asked as they looked at the thousands of green containment units that held a human, infected with diseases, in each.

"They're not patients," the Doctor realized with anger etched on his face.

"But they're sick," Cassandra argued with him.

"They were born sick. They're meant to be sick. They exist to be sick. Lab rats. No wonder the Sisters have got a cure for everything. They built the ultimate research laboratory, a human farm!" the Doctor shouted, enraged at the torture of these people.

"Why don't they just die?" Cassandra asked as I was about to mentally murder myself with a hanger.

"Plague carriers. The last to go," the Doctor stared at another containment unit.

"It's for the greater cause," a nurse addressed us, as Rose withdrew from the group when a few tears over-spilled from her eyes.

"Novice Hame, when you took your vows, did you agree to this?" the Doctor asked the nurse eagerly.

"The sisterhood has sworn to help," Novice Hame reasoned.

"What, by killing?" Rose shouted with tears now streaming down her face. I could tell it wasn't just because of the tortured lab rats, but also because of 'my' kiss with the Doctor.

"They're not real people. They're specially grown, they have no proper existence," Novice Hame argued quietly.

"What's the turnover, hmm? Thousand a day? Thousand the next? Thousand the next? How many thousand for ho many years? How many?!" the Doctor screamed in Novice Hame's face, and even Cassandra flinched from his tone.

"Mankind needed us. They came to this planet with so many illnesses, we couldn't cope. We did try, we tried everything. We tried using clone-meat an bio-cattle, but the results were too slow. So the sisterhood grew its own flesh. That's all they are, flesh!" Novice Hame tried to reason with the Doctor, while Cassandra was playing with my lips and Rose was giving the cat nurse deadly glares.

"These people are alive," the Doctor roared while pointing to the containment units.

"But think of those humans out there, healthy and happy, because of us," Novice Hame tried to rationalize.

"If they live because of this, then life is worthless," Rose screamed at the cat.

"But who are you to decide that?" Novice Hame asked the wrong question.

"I'm the Doctor. And if you don't like it, if you want to take it to a higher authority, there isn't one. It stops with me, and maybe Gemstone when she gets bossy," he threatened her with a calm tone, that scared me more than his yelling did.

"Just to confirm, none of the humans in the city actually know about this?" Cassandra asked.

"We thought it best not..." Novice Hame was interrupted.

"Hold on. I can understand the bodies. I can understand your vows. One thing I can't understand, what have you done to Gemstone?" the Doctor finally caught on! Doctor, I'm here! Cassandra used a pyscograft on me for a body.

"I don't know what you mean," Novice Hame panicked.

"And being very, very calm. You want to beware of that, very, very calm. And the only reason I'm being so very, very calm is that the brain is a delicate thing, Especially Gemstone's. Whatever you've done to Gemstone's head, I want it reversed," the Doctor demanded with a deadly calm voice.

"We haven't done anything," Novice Hame insisted.

"I'm perfectly fine," Cassandra tried to convince the Doctor.

"These people are dying, and Gem would care," the Doctor concluded.

"Oh, all right, clever clogs. Smarty pants. Ladykiller," Cassandra called the Doctor as she grabbed his tie and pulled him towards me. Oh, dear god, not again.

"What's happened to you? Not that I don't like kissing you," the Doctor resisted Cassandra. Bloody foolish, he is, always one to crack jokes.

"I knew something was going on in this hospital, but I needed this body and mind to find it out," Cassandra explained. Just curious about the hospital, she says. You've been curious about a few other things...

"Who are you?" the Doctor finally inquired.

Cassandra flirtaciously pulled his tie closer an whispered in his ear, "the last human."

"Cassandra?" the Doctor asked, bewildered that he kissed the piece of skin in the metal frame.

"Wake up and smell the perfume," Cassandra said before spraying the Doctor and Rose in the face with a chloroform and water mix to knock them out.

"You've hurt them! I don't understand, I'll have to fetch Matron," Novice Hame told Cassandra as she tried to catch the Doctor's body. It landed with a hard thud, along with Rose, who collapsed as well.

"You do that, cause I want to see her. Now, run along! Sound the alarm!" Cassandra ordered the nurse and pulled some wires from walls. Alarms blared as Cassandra put the Doctor and Rose in empty containment units.

Cassandra tried to infect the Doctor and Rose with thousands of diseases, payback for her murder. She also wanted money from the sisterhood, and a yacht. When they wouldn't give it, she ordered Chip to release all of the flesh from their containment units, letting the Doctor go. It was all a blur until I saw the Doctor following us, I was worried sick about the man.

"What've you done?" Rose shouted at Cassandra.

"Gave the system a shot of adrenaline, just to make em up. See ya!" she answered, now trading my Scottish voice for that of a snooty Brit.

"Don't touch them! Whatever you do, don't touch," the Doctor warned the cat nurses before chasing me down. The infected had dirty gray dressing gowns on, with grimy hair and blisters and boils. They were chanting 'save us' as they chased the cats.

Cassandra screamed as the containment units blew up in soarks suddenly, and released more flesh.

"What the hell have you done?" the Doctor interrogated Cassandra as they watched the flesh escpae form their prison. It was beautiful, but frightening.

"it wasn't me," Cassandra defended.

"One touch, and you get every disease in the world. And I want that body safe, Cassandra. We've got to go down," the Doctor shouted and grabbed Rose's hand to run.

"But there's thousands of them!" Cassandra bawled.

"Run!" the Doctor exploded in her face, making my body jump back a few feet. The building was quarintined by now, and we were being followed by zombie people that kill you with one touch. We went down far enough to get to the basement that I was originally taken to, thanks to the damn lift. We ran around until Chip was separated from us by the flesh blocking his path.

"Don't let them touch him!" the Doctor shouted at Cassandra.

"Leave him! He's just a clone thing, he's only got a half-life. Come one," Cassandra tugged on the Doctor and Rose as Chip was calling for his mistress.

"I'm sorry, I can't let her escape," the Doctor cried and followed after me again.

We ran back into the room the pychograft was placed, Cassandra tried opening a door, but the flesh were already there, waiting.

"We're trapped! What are we going to do?" Cassandra shrieked.

"Well, for starters, you're going to leave that body. That pyschograft is banned on every civilized planet! You're compressing Gem to death!" the Doctor pleaded with Cassandra.

"But I've got nowhere to go. My original skin's dead," she seethed back.

"Not my problem. You can float as atoms in the air. Now get out," the Doctor demanded. "Give her back to me," the Doctor threatened, raising is sonic screwdriver.

"You asked for it," Cassandra whispered before leaving my body for the Doctor's.

"Oi, my head," I groaned before wondering where Cassandra went, "where'd she go?" I asked Rose, who pointed to the Doctor. I sighed as the Doctor looked like a poised teenage girl, but I had to admit, this'll be fun.

"Oh, my. This is...different. Goodness me, I'm a man! Yum! So many parts, and hardly used. Oh, baby. I'm beating out a samba." the Doctor practically purred as he randomly spasmed.

"Get out of him," I warned her, barely conatining my anger. Though it did bring me an unusual pleasure to see him acting like that.

"Oh, he's slim, and a little bit foxy," the Doctor winked and raised his eyebrows, "you thought so, too. I've been inside your head. You've been looking. You like it," the Doctor chided me, Rose stared back at me with disgust. I didn't think that way! I just thought how this regeneration was...nice. That's all.

"If I ever say those words to him, they ought to come out of my mouth. And I don't fancy him, he dumped me off at Earth and forgot me for eleven years, maybe more for him, and I will not forgive him until he does something brilliant, you pest," I shouted at Cassandra. The door pounded against the weight of the flesh.

"What do we do? What would he do? The Doctor, what the hell would he do?" the Doctor paniced and latched on to Rose to avoid both the flesh and me.

"The ladder. We've got to get up," Rose noticed cleverly and I smiled at her, only to see her frown at me in reply.

"Out of the way, blondie," the Doctor screamed and pushed Rose out of the way. I let her got in front of me, to keep her safe, she was rubbing off on me after I saw how much she cared for the flesh.

"Save us," the grown flesh chanted as they barged into the room we were trapped in, I hastily started climbing the ladder, but they were right behind me.

"If you get out of the Doctor's body, he can think of something," Rose begged Cassandra, winking at me.

"You know, I'm not going to be able to help, I'm a bloody wreck under pressure," I lied to Cassandra, hopefully the Doctor didn't think otherwise, then she couldn't prove me wrong with his memories.

"Now, now, now, he thinks highly of you, Gemstone, don't patronize me. God, it was tedious inside your head, hormone city," Cassandra complained to me. Not like I can help it, for god's sake.

"We're gonna die if-no!" I screamed as a nurse grabbed a hold of my shoe. She wasn't infected, but I wasn't taking the chance. Thank Gallifrey for me wearing boots all the time. "Get off," I yelled at her desperately.

"All our good work, all that healing, the good name of the sisterhood! You have destroyed everything," the nurse blamed me, still pulling on my leg.

"Go and play with a ball of string," the Doctor insulted the cat woman.

"Everywhere, disease. This is the human world, sickness," the cat philosophized as one of her own flesh grabbed her and infected her and forced her to fall off of the ladder. She fell from an awfully tall height, and it was a lethal drop. Her body made a sickening thud when it dropped, so I blocked Rose's view from it, knowing she didn't need to see roadkill, as Cassandra wailed and climbed higher.

"Now what do we do?" the Doctor asked as we approached a door,

"Use the sonic screwdriver," Rose told him knowingly.

"No need, I've got it," I reassured her and unlocked the door by turning a gem on my ring to the left.

"Hmm, I like you better," Cassandra told me before entering my body again.

"Oh, chavtastic again. Well, open the damn door," Cassandra demanded the Doctor after he locked the door again.

"Not until you get out of her," the Doctor threatened Cassandra as the flesh came closer.

"We need the Doctor," Rose shouted between the both of us. Well, I almost liked her.

"I order you to leave her," the Doctor roared and ignored Rose with his sonic aimed at my, still very exposed, chest. Cassandra left my body again and returned to his again, and the throbbing pain subsided.

"No matter how difficult the situation, there is no need to shout," Cassandra reasoned with the Doctor, who was dormant with her stuck in his body.

"Cassandra, get out of him. Tell him that I'll be fine, and no more switching, you're stuck with me you brute," I promised her, coaxing her away from the Doctor.

"But if I go into you, he simply refuses. He's so rude," Cassandra reasoned.

"I don't care, put yourself into anyone but him and Rose," I demanded, and she obeyed. Her swirly-white soul headed towards me, but I ducked quickly and she went into one of the flesh just about to grab me.

"Oh, good lord, I look disgusting," Cassandra groaned from the flesh she inhabited.

"Nice to have you back," the Doctor greeted me with a smile as he hoisted me through the door and into a corridor. I had just gotten through the door when Cassandra's soul invaded me again.

"That was your last warning, Cassandra," the Doctor fumed after locking the door. I gave it my last shot, and let her have all of my memories, all of the bad and good. All of the pain and the hatred, but also the cheer and the joy back on Gallifrey, Before the war, before hell. I threw all of my emotions at her, all of my experiences, in hope of changing her, molding her to be better with my 804 years of life.

"Inside her head...they're so alone. These two, the Lord and Lady of Time. They're so broken, yet stronger than any of us. They've seen so much terror and death and sorrow, but they learn from it and make it better. They save the universe, every other day, and yet they've never been thanked. Doctor, Gemstone, let me be the first. Thank you, thank you for everything," Cassandra cried, tears daring to spill from my eyes. The Doctor stared at me, confused, we've never been thanked. I just never realized it.

"What did she do?" the Doctor bent down and cradled me, well Cassandra, into his arms.

"She showed me her memories, her terrible, beautiful memories. and I want to help," Cassandra told him, her eyes wide, and he nodded silently and knowingly. He held out his hand, and Cassandra willingly grabbed it. With Rose following us silently, we entered the hospital and into the room where the Face of Boe was, the legend himself. I was interrupted from my thoughts when a woman came at us with a chair, screaming a battle cry.

"We're safe. We're clean, we're clean. Look, look," the Doctor pleaded. Don't you dare go back into his body, as you know, I don't want him hurt. I would die before lettin' anything happen to him. I begged her.

"Show me your skin," the woman demanded, Cassandra raised my hands and proved them to be clean.

"Look, clean, look," Rose told the woman as she inspected her hands.

"If we'd been touched, we'd be dead," the Doctor explained as he waved his hands in the woman's face rudely. "So, how's it going up there? What's the status?" the Doctor asked her quickly before rushing off to look at things for himself.

"There's nothing but silence from the other wards. i think we're the only ones left," the woman told him. She looked like an assistant with a tight bun, thick-rimmed glasses, and a pencil skirt that didn't suit her well. "But I've been trying to override the the quarantine. If I can trip a signal over to New New York, they can send a private executive squad."

"You can't do that. If they forced entry, they'd break the quarantine," the Doctor denied her hopes flat out.

"I am not dying in here," the woman tried to convince him hopefully.

"We can't let a single particle of disease get out. There is ten million people in that city, they'd all be at risk. Now, turn that off," the Doctor pleaded with the woman who stared daggers at him.

"Not if it gets me out," the woman selfishly concluded with a look that could kill.

"All right, fine. So I have to stop you lot as well, suits me," the Doctor threatened, and I frowned metally because I wasn't there to help him, but by doing so I was saving him. "Gemstone. Rose, Novice Hame, everyone. Excuse me, your grace. Give me the intravenous solutions for every single disease, move it," the Doctor shouted orders. Oh clever man, I knew what his plan was, and it was bloody brilliant. The people in the ward grabbed bags of solutions as he soniced something in the cieling and removed it. He strapped the IV bags to himself and asked Rose if it'll do, which she obviously didn't know he answer to. He slid open the doors of the dormant lift.

"But the lifts aren't working," Rose unneccessarily informed the Doctor.

"Not moving, different thing," the Doctor slowly explained as if talking to a small child who didn't understand. He jumped onto the cable of the lift.

"What do you think you're doing?" Cassandra shouted to him from the entrance of the lift with Rose beside me.

"I'm going down," the Doctor's voice was muffled with his sonic in his mouth to let his hands connect the homemade repelling device to the cable. "Come on," he coaxed us. Rose willingly jumped into the Doctor's arms and he sat her on his right knee. I sent calming thoughts to Cassandra and slowly convinced her to jump from her spot. Finally, she jumped into the Doctor's arms and I was situated on the Doctor's left knee after some flesh started emerging from a door nearby.

"You're completely mad, no wonder she likes you, well, used to. You've got some apologizing to do, Doctor. You left the poor girl for trash," Cassandra looked into his eyes seriously, and they were screaming for forgiveness, something I couldn't give.

"Going down," he interrupted the stare and propelled us down the wire, we all screamed at the top of our lungs and slowed when the top of the lift neared. We all jumped off our ride and the Doctor started barking orders for Rose and Cassandra to hold a lever when he said so.

"I'm cooking up a cocktail, I know a bit about medicine myself," the Doctor said before ripping the tips of the bags off with his teeth and squirting them into the bucket that usually contained disinfectant. "Now that lever's going to resist, but keep it in posistion. Hold on to it with everything you've got," the Doctor order Rose and I as he jumped down into the lift.

"What about you?" Rose shouted down to him.

"I've got an appointment, the Doctor is in," he smiled. Bloody show off. He opened the doors with his sonic to reveal more flesh, and coaxed them into the lift with and commanded us to pull the lever. The lift sprayed the solution onto the group of flesh after the Doctor, and suddenly they were cured.

"All they want to so is pass it on. Pass it on," the Doctor shouted in excitement. With every touch, a flesh was cured with a sizzle. The flesh hugged and shook hands to cure each other, and it was absolutely beautiful. The Doctor helped Rose and Cassandra down from the top of the lift carefully, with a huge grin on his smug face.

"What did they pass on? Did you kill them, all of them?" Rose asked him with a whimper.

"No. That's her way of doing things," the Doctor nodded towards Cassandra. "I'm the Doctor, and I cured them," he announced and accepted a hug from the new life form, "Oh, that's right. Hey, hey. There we go, sweetheart. Eh? You're okay. go on. That's it, that's it," he encouraged the girl. "It's a new subspecies, Cassandra. A brand-new form of life. New Humans! Look at them, look. Grown by cats, kept in the dark, fed by tubes, but completely, completely...alive! You can't deny them, cause you helped create them. The human race just keeps on going, keeps on changing, life will out! Ha!" the Doctor exclaimed, like a giddy kid on Christmas day.

~~~~~

A voice on the intercom was spouting instructions as the NNYPD ran about the hospital and catalogued new life forms. We all watched the hustle and bustle of the hospital until the Doctor remembered something, dragging Cassandra and Rose with him. We ran into a hospital room with a glass containment unit, holding a very large and old face.

"You were supposed to be dying," the Doctor told the legend.

"There are better things to do today. Dying can wait," the Face of Boe spoke into our minds.

"Oh, I hate telepathy. Just what I need, a head full of big face," Cassandra muttered from my body. I guess she didn't change as much as I'd hoped. Rose shushed her, thankfully.

"I had grown tired with the universe, Doctor, but you have taught me to look at it anew," the Face of Boe spoke into our minds.

"There are legends, you know, saying that you're millions of years old," the Doctor tried to get the Face of Boe to talk.

"Well, now, that would be impossible," the telepathic voice reasoned.

"Wouldn't it just? I got the impression there was something you wanted to tell me," the Doctor assumed as he knelt down to look at the face.

"A great secret," the Face of Boe answered him.

"So the legend says," the Doctor pushed for more answers.

"I can wait," the Face of Boe decided.

"Oh, does it have to?" the Doctor pleaded the face.

"We shall meet again, Doctor, for the third time, for the last time, and the truth shall be told. Until that day..." the legend teleported away.

"That is enigmatic. That, that is textbook enigmatic," the Doctor got up and turned to face me. "and now, for you," he continued.

"But everything's happy. Everything's fine. Can't you just leave me?" Cassandra begged the Doctor with puppy dog eyes.

"You've lived long enough. Leave that body and end it, Cassandra," the Doctor pushed her.

"That's no fair, she's 804! I don't want to die," she cried and started to make my body sob.

"No one does," he assured her gently, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"Help me," she implored with my quivering lip.

"I can't," the Doctor denied her.

"Mistress!" Chip shouted as he ran to Cassandra.

"Oh, you're alive," Cassandra gasped at Chip's escape from the flesh.

" I kept myself safe, for you, mistress," Chip gleamed at her recognition.

"A body,: Cassandra realized, loving the idea of a willing volunteer, "and not just that, a volunteer."

"Don't you dare, he's got a life of his own," the Doctor tried to stop her, but her thoughts were well set on Chip's body.

"But I worship the mistress, I welcome her," Chip reminded the Doctor, proud to be a fathful servant.

"You can't, Cassandra. You...," the Doctor was interrupted by Cassandra's precense leaving my body, once again, and going to Chip's body. I fell, feeling extremely light headed, only to be caught by the Doctor. "Oh, you alright?" he asked me, and I nodded, just before falling again. The Doctor supported me and held me close to him, "Okay?" he asked me once again. I nodded, and stood up on my own.

"Yeah," I assured him once again, and looked up to be caught in his stare. "Hello," I laughed and smiled at him.

"Hello. Welcome back," he greeted me warmly, and glanced at my lips before our stare was intterupted by Cassandra in Chip's body.

"Oh, sweet lord, I'm a walking doodle," Cassandra insulted her poor servant.

"You can't stay in there. I'm sorry, Cassandra, but that's not fair. We can take you to the city, they can build you a skin tank, and you can stand trial for what you've done," I tried to convince her out of Chip.

"Well, that would be rather dramatic. Possibly my finest hour, and certainly my finest hat. But I'm afraid, we don't have time. Well, poor little Chip is only a half-life, and he's been through so much. His heart is racing so. He's failing. I don't think he's going to last.." Cassandra informed us before suddenly falling, luckily Rose caught her.

"You all right?" Rose asked Cassandra as she supported the dying half-life.

"I'm fine," Cassandra realized. "I'm dying. But that's fine," she smiled with Chip's body.

"We can take you to the city," the Doctor offered her.

"No, you won't. Everything's new on this planet. There's no place for Chip and me anymore. You're right, Doctor, Gemstone, it's time to die. That's good," Cassandra had an epiphany about her life, a bloody good one.

"Come on, there's one last thing I can do," I promised as the Doctor and I lifted Chip up off the ground and into the TARDIS.

~~~~~

We landed at the party, the party Cassandra was watching as I first met her, the posh party that I would never go to. So I stayed in the TARDIS and watched from the moniter. Chip went up to the young Cassandra and spoke to her for a while, only to die in her arms seconds later. They entered the TARDIS with huge smiles glued to their faces.

~~~~~

"Nice trip, wasn't it? A little bit rocky, but we got through," I sighed as I stepped out of the TARDIS and into my bedroom a few hours after I left. I had already muttered a goodbye to Rose and forced a hug in the console room.

"Gemstone, we need to talk," the Doctor sighed and faced me. "I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I dropped you off on Earth and didn't even bother to look for you until you found me yourself. I should've ran to look for you right after the Time War ended, but I didn't. I thought I was the loneliest man in the universe and that nothing would go right, you were dead, no chance of you being around. I was so thick and selfish, I can't believe myself for doing it. You were the love of my life, and I ruined it. I messed up, a hell of a lot, but that doesn't mean I can;t be forgiven. After all these years, I've never met a person that couldn't be forgiven," he looked a me with his sad eyes, the old eyes that've seen so much, and I knew that he was forgiven.

"Alright, Time Lord. I forgive you, but I'm still not travelling with you full-time," I told him with a sly smile playing on my lips. We were so close, he looked like he was about to snogg me, but I wasn't ready for that. I intercepted the kiss with a hug.

"See you soon, Doctor," I bid him goodbye as he walked into the TARDIS and closed the door.