**Notes: This is the last chapter in "The Other Side." The next story in the series is called "Better With Three" and I'll start posting it tomorrow. I hope you liked this, I had never written anything really before this story, but this idea had been rattling around in my head for almost a year and I needed to get it out... a way to get the meta-crisis and Rose back into the series proper without changing anything that had been established on screen. I think I did an ok job of it. The next story starts after Death in Heaven.**

Chapter Thirty-Three – Lizards and Potatoes

Rose and Doctor Tyler walked arm-in-arm along the street in Victorian London as they headed towards the address given to them by the Bad Wolf program on the TARDIS.

"So, is there a name attached to that address, love?" Rose asked her husband.

"Let me show you. You should learn how to access this as well," he said as he flicked through the settings on her screwdriver for her. "You see, it says we are looking for a Madam Vastra at this address and these time coordinates."

She filed the new settings he had just shown her away in her memory and then put the screwdriver back into her coat pocket. "Alright, so we have a name and an address and we know that she is a friend of the other Doctor. The TARDIS seemed to say that she had important information about him, but how will we know what to ask her?"

"Oh, we'll just make it all up as we go along," he smiled at her mischievously in a way that reminded her of their visit with his eighth incarnation. "Isn't that what we always do, my love?"

"I suppose you're right," she said. "I don't know why this is making me nervous. Maybe because it finally feels like we're getting close." Rose tried to make herself relax. This wouldn't likely be a dangerous meeting, these were the other Doctor's friends after all.

They climbed the stairs and Rose knocked on the door. A few moments later, the door was opened by what she could only describe as a large, sentient, baked potato.

"What?" Doctor Tyler questioned in shock.

Rose decided to be the more polite of the two of them and asked, "Umm, hello. We're looking for a Madam Vastra. Is she in?"

"But... but..." sputtered the Doctor. "Rose, that's a Sontaran!"

"Yes, sir. May I take your coat?" the alien replied calmly in the face of the Doctor's shock.

"No... no, thank you. I'm fine, thanks," he said as he rubbed the back of his neck and tried to determine if this was a threat or trick of some kind.

"May I take your coat, madam?" the potato-looking thing directed towards Rose.

"Certainly," she said as she took her screwdriver out of the pocket and removed her coat.

"Please wait here, human scum, while I inform Madam Vastra of your arrival," the Sontaran bowed toward them slightly before heading down the hall.

Rose and her husband both burst into hysterical giggles as soon as he was out of earshot. "What.." Rose tried to speak through her laughter, "What did he just call us?"

"Human scum," the Doctor chuckled. "Sontarans are warriors, what in the world is one doing here acting as a butler of all things?"

The short warrior butler reappeared in the hallway and said as he rolled his eyes, "It's a long story. This way, please."

They followed him towards the sitting room where they found themselves face to face with a young lady in a black dress and a humanoid lizard. "Silurian?" asked the Doctor.

The Silurian that they presumed was Madam Vastra raised an eyebrow at him, but before anyone could say anything more, Rose's screwdriver started beeping. When she held it up to look at what the alarm might mean, another hologram appeared in the middle of the room. It looked like the young version of the other Doctor that they had been following.

"Bad Wolf program, mark two. This message is programmed to activate when Rose's sonic screwdriver is in the presence of Vastra, Jenny and Strax." Everyone in the room looked surprised as they eyed each other then looked back to the hologram. "The appearance of this interface was chosen to be recognized by the recipients of the message. They have been sent to you, Vastra, by the TARDIS. He is another version of the Doctor and she is his wife, Rose. Please explain to them, the recent events in the Doctor's life and the threat that the Silence presented previously. They need to know why it was dangerous for them to be involved in the Doctor's life until this point in his time line."

The hologram paused for a moment and turned his attention towards Rose. "Rose, after this message has ended, you are free to activate setting 547 at any time. Please listen to these friends first and take some time to think about what you have heard. Once you have signalled the TARDIS, she will come straight to you without delay. End of message." At that, the image of the young, tweed-wearing Doctor disappeared.

The occupants of the room looked at each other dumbly for a moment.

"Well," Madam Vastra said finally to break the silence that had fallen. "Perhaps we should have some tea. This may take some time." She gestured towards the sofa across from where she was seated and Jenny poured tea for everyone.

"Thank you, Jenny, was it?" Rose said as she stirred some sugar into her tea.

"Yes, ma'am," Jenny replied as she prepared her own cup of tea.

"Jenny is my wife. I am Vastra, as you may have gathered, and that is Strax. We are friends of the Doctor, as are you it would seem," the Silurian said as she calmly drank something that they were quite sure was not tea, but didn't feel brave enough to ask about.

"We are definitely friends of the Doctor. We've been looking for him for quite some time now and the message from the TARDIS told us that we needed to see you before we met back up with him," Rose explained.

"Ah, the Silence. It was all such a tangled mystery for the Doctor, but in the end the answer was simple. They wanted to keep him from answering one question," Vastra told them.

"What question?" Doctor Tyler asked.

Vastra smiled enigmatically before continuing, "The story about the Silence, for us at least, began with Amy being kidnapped." The story did take a very long time to tell, but she explained about who the Silence were, what had happened to River, how they had helped at Demon's Run and how the Doctor had eventually lost Amy and Rory.

Vastra went on to tell them about meeting Clara first in London around this time while battling the Great Intelligence. They saw her with the Doctor several times and at one point, while facing the Great Intelligence on Trenzalore, she had scattered herself through the Doctor's entire time line. This Doctor thought about that, but without seeing the woman, he couldn't bring up the memories of her.

The rest of the story was what Clara had told them had happened. About meeting the past Doctors and changing his remembered outcome of the war. At the mention of that event, Doctor Tyler's brow furrowed in thought. He usually avoided the memories from when he was the Warrior, but forced himself to think about the end of the war. Suddenly, his eyes went wide when the memory unlocked in his mind. "Gallifrey wasn't destroyed," he gasped in awe.

Rose wrapped her arm around him tightly as Vastra continued. She relayed what Clara had told her about Trenzalore and Christmas and the Time Lords granting him a new set of regenerations before he changed again into the newest Doctor that had helped them solve the problem of the clockwork men that had been killing people for parts recently. Rose shuddered at the mention of clockwork people and her husband squeezed her hand.

Silence fell over the room again after the long tale had ended. Rose and the Doctor were lost in thought for some time before they said anything.

Rose was the one to finally speak, "So, he looks different again?"

"Yeah," said her husband. "And he has a whole new set of regenerations." He wasn't quite sure how to feel about that. It wasn't that he wanted to take back the TARDIS and the role of the only Doctor or anything. He just wasn't sure what to think about the other Doctor starting out on a life that might be as long again as he had already been through or more. This new Doctor definitely needed them in his life.

All of the friends that he had already lost over the centuries would be weighing down on him. There came a point where you just couldn't stand to lose any more. Doctor Tyler suspected that was what had led the other Doctor to hide for so long in Victorian London after losing Amy and Rory. He had finally picked himself up to move on, only to find that he was starting all over again with the weight of the universe and two broken hearts just waiting to be broken again.

Rose could feel her husband's thoughts about the other Doctor. "He needs us, doesn't he?"

Jenny spoke up, "Not to sound rude or anything, but who exactly are you? The hologram said you were another Doctor?"

"Well," Doctor Tyler said as he ruffled his hair. "I suppose a story for a story is a fair trade. Shortly before the Doctor looked like the one on the hologram, he looked exactly like me. You see, there was a group of Daleks that escaped the time lock surrounding the war along with Davros. He's the one who created the Daleks. They captured and moved twenty-seven planets into the Medusa Cascade in order to create what Davros called a Reality Bomb..." He continued his story about Rose finding her way back from the parallel universe where she was trapped, his creation and their short, tragic time before coming back to this universe. He explained why they needed to find the other Doctor and ended with telling them about the first message they were given by the Bad Wolf program.

"I see," said Vastra. "The Doctor was very unstable after his regeneration and Clara didn't accept the change very well in the beginning. We have not seen them since, so I cannot say what happened after their last departure."

"Why was she so upset about it?" asked Rose. "I mean, she knew about regeneration because she met some of the previous Doctors. It shouldn't have been a shock to her like it was for me."

Vastra clasped her hands together and seemed to take a moment to collect her thoughts before speaking again. "The last Doctor was young looking and handsome. Clara perhaps acquired a certain impression of their relationship."

Doctor Tyler rolled his eyes, "Oh, not again! It's Martha all over again."

"Indeed," she continued. "The newest Doctor's appearance is significantly older and less... agreeable."

"So he's pushing people away again?" Doctor Tyler concluded.

"Quite," Vastra answered.

"Well," Rose said as she stood up and adjusted her dress. "Sounds like I have work to do." Rose smiled broadly. She had fixed him before and she could do it again. Not to mention, this time, she had help. She took the Doctor's hand and pulled him up with her, "Ready husband?"

With a bit of a resigned sigh, he replied, "Allons-y!"

Rose activated setting 547 on her sonic screwdriver.