Chapter One – Hello Stranger

At first there was only pain. Darkness. And more pain. But then light began to replace the shadows, and the pain started to fade. Slowly. Very, very slowly.

Rose hit the floor hard, and lay there for a long moment, waiting for the agony to recede. Everything hurt, even her eyelashes, and her vision kept blurring. But at least she was still in the TARDIS. Wasn't she? It didn't look quite right, somehow. Rose struggled up and leaned on the console, gasping, then looked around her. Yes, the TARDIS was different. The coral-like growths were gone, and even the console shaped differently. It all looked less techno-organic, and more…Jules Verne somehow. Rose blinked. What in the name of Raxocoricofalipatorius had just happened?

"Doctor?" Her voice sounded a little wavery. Rose cleared her throat and tried again. "Doctor?"

Footsteps sounded behind her. She turned…and froze. A man stood in the doorway, holding a cup of tea in one hand and a biscuit in the other. He was about the same height as the Doctor, but with a longer nose, and dark wavy hair that reached almost to his shoulders. As for his clothes - he looked like he had stepped out of an Edwardian play. Attractive, some distant part of her noted. But not the Doctor.

"Who are you?" They both spoke at once.

"How did you get in my TARDIS?" The man took a step toward her and Rose tensed.

"Your TARDIS? This isn't your TARDIS. It's the Doctor's. How did you get here and what have you done with him?"

The stranger gaped at her. "I am the Doctor."

"You can't be. That's…" Rose's voice trailed off as a sudden thought struck her. She took a tentative step toward him. "Oh god, you didn't regenerate again, did you?"

The man frowned, looking perplexed and more than a little exasperated. "Look, how about if we start with names. I'm the Doctor, and you are…"

"If you're really the Doctor then you know who I am." This couldn't be happening. Not again. Not so soon. He had only just changed recently, and now… Another one of his lives gone, just like that?

The man put the teacup down and pocketed his biscuit. You'll get crumbs, she thought randomly.

"I assure you we have never met," he told her firmly.

"But I'm Rose. Rose Tyler." Had he forgotten her? "Are…are you really the Doctor?"

"I promise you I am."

"Then prove it. Where did we meet?"

The man ran one hand through his hair. "I have no idea. I don't know you, and I don't know how you got into my TARDIS."

Well, that was easy enough. Rose reached inside her blouse and pulled out the TARDIS key hanging on a chain around her neck. It glowed softly in her hands.

The man's demeanour changed instantly. "Good heavens." He crossed to her side in three steps, before she could even think about retreating, and reached for the key, then snatched his fingers back before he could touch it. He turned his head slightly to meet her eyes – and in that moment she knew. Just as she had known when the newly changed Doctor took her hand and reminded her how they met…she knew.

"Doctor?" Rose whispered.

Her knees buckled. He caught her before she could hit the floor, and steered her to a chair in the corner. Rose collapsed into it, staring up at him. "How? What happened? I mean…you were fine. You were perfectly fine. You were just gone for a minute and now this… I don't want you to keep changing," she added plaintively.

The man – the Doctor – kneeled in front of her. "I think, perhaps… May I see that key again?"

Rose held it up, still on its chain about her neck. The Doctor touched one fingertip to it gingerly, then pulled his hand away, as if it had burnt. It didn't feel hot to Rose.

"Yes, I see. Well, that explains it." He sat back on his heels and gave her a wide grin. Yes, definitely the Doctor. "You're from my future."

"'Scuse me?"

"My future timeline. I haven't met you yet, Rose Tyler."

Rose took a few moments to let that sink it. It did make a strange sort of sense. "So when the Autons came to…"

"Stop right there."

"What?"

"You mustn't tell me anything about my future."

Rose shook her head slightly, as if to clear it. "Why not? You're a Time Lord."

"Yes, and there are very strict rules about this sort of thing. I'm not allowed to know my own future."

"You never cared much about rules before," she muttered.

The Doctor smiled again. He really was very attractive in this body. Were all his incarnations drop-dead gorgeous? "True, he said, "and I can't deny that I might have bent that rule once or twice, but this really is dangerous."

"Because of the Reapers, do you mean?"

He looked startled. "How do you know about them? Whatever could they have been thinking of on Gallifrey to let…?" He shook his head. "No, never mind. I don't want to know. Well, I do, but you're not going to tell me, right?"

"Right," she said meekly. "But…"

"But what?"

"But how did I get here? And how do I get back? To my Doctor, I mean?"

"That, Rose Tyler, is a very good question."