Disclaimer: Sadly, I have no claim on Doctor Who and make no profit from it.

Some plot points and bits of dialogue respectfully borrowed from the episode "Rose" by Russell T Davies.

The moment that the news of the explosion at Henrik's flashed across the telly screen, Rose started running. Somewhere dimly in the back of her mind, the Torchwood agent in her knew that this was something the higher-ups should be alerted to. But the rest of her didn't care. Where there was an explosion, there was the Doctor, she was sure of it. And where the Doctor was, there she needed to be. He's not your Doctor, the rational part of her brain whispered. He won't know you; you might not even know him. But it didn't matter; her feet kept running.

Across the street from the remains of the department store, she leaned against a light pole, gasping for breath, watching the flames shoot high into the sky and then turning to scan the crowds for a familiar face. When she had caught her second wind, still without finding what she was searching for, she started moving again, a brisk but not quite so frantic pace, heading towards the London Eye. In her world, it had been a day – or was it two? Everything had been moving so fast, the timing was blurry – before he had tracked the source of the Nestene Consciousness's signal. But Rose was determined; she would camp out on the bank of the Thames until he showed up. If this was her one chance of finding him, she would wait as long as she had to.

But as it turned out, she didn't have to wait at all. As she ran along the embankment across the river from the Eye, she saw a familiar blue box illuminated by a street lamp. And only a few dozen meters beyond that was a tall man in a leather coat, the blue light of a sonic screwdriver flashing in his hands. She wondered how he had made it here so fast, wondered if this version of the Doctor had managed to snag the head of a mannequin rather than just an arm in the elevator at Henrik's. And then she slowed to a halt as the lamplight caught his face – a face from the past, a face lost to her even longer ago than the Doctor himself, the face she had first seen when a hand had grabbed hers and a Northern accent had told her to run.

The Doctor was slowly turning in a circle, holding the screwdriver out in front of him, as if scanning for something. His glance slid over her dismissively and kept going. Desperate to catch his attention, Rose broke into a run; it was only as she skidded to a stop next to him that she realized she had no idea what to say. Somehow, 'Hi, I know your counterpart from another dimension. Fancy some help battling living plastic?' didn't seem like the best conversation opener. So she blurted out the next thing that popped into her head: "Shop window dummies! They've come to life! They're attacking people in the centre!"

He didn't look up, just mumbled, "So it's started, has it?" He made another full circle with the screwdriver before his head snapped up. "Wait, if they are being animated already, why aren't I picking up the signal?" He threw an accusing look at her as if she were personally responsible for the missing signal. Which in a way she supposed she was, since she knew full well that the attack had not begun, likely wouldn't begin until the Conciousness felt threatened by the Doctor, if this world's pattern followed the other.

"Um…maybe they've stopped for a bit? I've been running a good while."

He seemed to accept that answer and began walking away from her, still scanning for the signal. She trotted after him. "What are you trying to do? Maybe I can help."

"I'm trying to save the world," he snipped, "And you can help by giving me a bit of hush."

That sounds like the Doctor I know, she smiled to herself. She resisted the urge to grab his shoulders and bodily turn him to face the Eye. That would certainly make him suspicious, when what she wanted was to gain his trust. She tried again. Her Doctor never could pass up a chance to show off his brilliance with a bit of exposition, and she gambled that this Doctor would be the same. "It's just… you look like you're searching for something. What is that blinky thing?"

He heaved an exasperated sigh and turned to face her. "The dummies – and all other plastic – are being controlled by an alien entity called the Nestene Consciousness. In order to control them, the Consciousness has to transmit a signal. And to do it on this scale, it needs a big transmitter. Huge. Massive. This – " he waggled the screwdriver between his fingers – "is a sonic screwdriver, and this is how I am going to track the signal to the transmitter, find the Nestene Conciousness and stop the destruction of all life on Earth. Well, the screwdriver plus possibly a vial of anti-plastic, but only as a last resort."

"Oh." She made sure to look suitably impressed. It wasn't hard. Even knowing what she already knew about sonic screwdrivers and Nestene Consciousnesses, well…the Doctor just simply was impressive. "So, huge transmitter…kind of like a giant satellite dish, yeah?"

"Yes, I suppose so." He was back to the scanning again.

"So, kind of like that, then?" She pointed to the Eye. He followed her finger, stared blankly for a moment, and then his face split into the manic grin that she had missed so much.

"Oh. Fantastic!"

On the other side of the river, he stopped to look around. "The Consciousness must be somewhere underneath."

"What about down here?" she pointed over the railing at a concrete bulkhead , just as she had…had it really only been four years ago? It felt like ages – another lifetime in another universe.

"Looks good to me." He ran down the stairs, unscrewed the hatch cover of the bulkhead, climbed halfway in, and then stopped. "I'm the Doctor, by the way. What's your name?"

"Rose. Rose Tyler."

"Nice to meet you, Rose Tyler. Now run for your life!" And with that he vanished down the hole.

"Oh, in your dreams, Doctor. You're gonna need me!" she muttered, more to herself than to him, as she climbed down after him.

It was so surreal, Rose reflected, this feeling of déjà vu, everything so foreign and so familiar at the same time. There was no Mickey to rescue, that much had changed; not that her fellow Torchwood agent needed much rescuing these days, she thought with pride. But the Doctor's demeanor, his invocation of the Shadow Proclamation, his approach to the Nestene Consciousness – all that was replaying like a movie before her eyes. She had half a mind to save everyone a lot of trouble, snatch the anti-plastic from his jacket pocket and chuck it at the Consciousness right away. But she restrained herself. It wasn't the Doctor's way, making a preemptive strike. If she had learned anything from him, it was that each person deserved a chance, a choice, an opportunity to do the right thing. Maybe this Consciousness would be more reasonable than the one of her world.

But no such luck. Events continued to unfold just as they had before – the capture of both the Doctor and his anti-plastic, the Consciousness's panic and fury at the discovery of the TARDIS, the beaming of the signal that would turn all the shop-window dummies of London into killing machines. But this time, Rose was prepared. The instant the signal went out, the instant the Consciousness had made its irrevocable choice, Rose was swinging on the rope that she had already loosened. The anti-plastic hit its mark with a satisfying plop, and then this Doctor was catching her around the waist just as her Doctor had, and giving her his trademark grin. "Now we're in trouble!"

As they burst through the doors of the TARDIS, the Doctor dropped Rose's hand and headed straight for the console. "Now just hush for a minute while I get us out of here, and then you can have your culture-shock breakdown, yeah?"

She didn't reply, grateful for having a couple of moments to herself as a wave of nostalgia crashed into her, filling her eyes and clenching her throat. She slowly paced the perimeter of the room, keeping her back to him so he wouldn't see the emotions playing out across her face, running her hand lovingly over the coral struts, everything looking so close to her memories and yet just different enough to remind her that she wasn't home, not really.

Finally, as a whooshing noise signaled their dematerialization, he turned to her, leaning back against the console, crossing arms and ankles. "Right, then, where do you want to start?"

"She's beautiful," Rose murmured a bit thickly. She cleared her throat and managed to say more clearly, "What do you call her?"

It wasn't a disingenuous question; she wondered how great the similarities were between her world and his. She felt something almost like a sense of relief when he replied, "It's a TARDIS. That stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space."

"So you and she do a good bit of traveling, then?"

"Fair bit, yeah."

"All alone, are you? Do you have any…traveling companions?" She looked around as if someone might pop up from behind a strut.

There was a long silence after this question, and she finally chanced a glance at him from the corner of her eye. He was staring at her with a rather bemused smile. "You know, this isn't the normal reaction I get from my guests."

His teasing tone was enough to snap her out of her maudlin mood. With a final blink away of her tears, she was able to turn to face him with a smile of her own. "Oh yeah? And what reaction am I supposed to have?"

"It's bigger on the inside?"

"Oh." Her eyes widened in surprise. The TARDIS had been her home for so long, it hadn't even occurred to her to comment on that feature. She recovered with a cheeky grin. "Well, you know, alien technology and all that – it doesn't really seem all that surprising that you could cram this much space inside."

"Oi! Who said anything about alien?"

"Oh yes," she rolled her eyes, "Because 'sonic screwdriver' and 'Shadow Proclamation' and 'Nestene Consciousness' are such common parts of human vocabulary."

"Seem to roll off your tongue easily enough," he retorted.

"I was paying attention. And I'm a quick study." She grinned at him with her tongue between her teeth, and his bemused smile grew. "Anyway, I'm right, she is alien, isn't she?"

"Yes."

"And you as well?"

"Yes. Is that all right?" This last said so seriously that it threw her off-balance.

"Well, yeah. Why wouldn't it be?" she asked in genuine surprise.

"You just met an alien that was bent on killing you and most of the world. Might make some people a bit skittish."

She shrugged. "I was mugged a few years back, doesn't mean I cringe at every bloke that passes me on the street."

He studied her intently for a moment, then the broad grin returned. "You are an interesting one, Rose Tyler."

"I could say the same about you, Doctor. And you still haven't answered my question. You are traveling alone?"

"Not usually. I have a mate that comes with, but he's off visiting his family for a few days. I just happened to run across the Nestene Consciousness while I was looking for something to pass the time."

She felt a pang of disappointment. When she had first seen news of the explosion and realized that the Doctor was in town, she had sprung into action without quite thinking of what outcome she expected or even wanted. Part of her felt a desperate hunger to reclaim some of the life she had had before, to see new stars and experience grand adventures. But another part wondered if her heart could bear to spend so much time with a man who was not the one she loved and yet so very much like him. Regardless, it would be nice to at least be offered the choice. But if the Doctor already had a companion… You've had three in the TARDIS before, she reminded herself. But every time, she had been the one to advocate for the inclusion of the third. Without a shared history with this Doctor, could she convince him to take her on? Did she even want to try? What was her goal here? She swallowed down the bile in her throat, pasted on a fake smile, and continued nonchalantly, "And so now that you've saved the planet from the terrible plastic monster, where are you off to next, Doctor?"

"Oh, I don't know." He turned back to the console and began fiddling with random controls. "The tenth moon of Darvion Major? The desert planet of Villansegel? It's a whole big universe out there. Although – and I'm not quite sure why I'm telling you all this, interesting Miss Tyler – I have half a mind to stop by and see my family for a jot."

Her jaw dropped. "Your family?"

"Yeah, my friend was waxing nostalgic about seeing his family, and it got me thinking that it's been a wee bit since I've seen my mum and dad. Probably time to pop back home and see how they're doing."

"You have family? Actual, honest-to-God blood relatives? On your home planet?"

"Of course. What, did you think I was spawned on the TARDIS?" He finally turned around and saw the shock written across her face, and started to laugh. "Wait a minute, you accept living plastic and a bigger-on-the-inside timeship with an alien pilot without batting an eye, but the idea of me having a mum and dad throws you for a loop?"

"Well, I just…I…" she sputtered, scrambling to recover, "I thought maybe you travel around so much because you don't have a home to go back to." Her mind was spinning. Maybe he meant he was going to travel back in time, to a point when they were all still alive. But that didn't sound like the Doctor she knew. The pain of his loss coupled with the danger of crossing timelines kept him far from that thought.

He was still laughing. "Of course I have a home. I travel because I like to, because it's fascinating. Easily bored, me."

"So what's it called, then, your planet?" she asked, more to see his reaction than to hear the answer she already knew.

"Gallifrey. In the constellation Kasterborus." Her Ninth Doctor had never been able to speak that name to her. And the Tenth had only said it once, in a fit of maudlin nostalgia one night after too much Spirvalian wine. But this Doctor – it rolled easily off his tongue, without a hint of accompanying angst. In that instant she was sure: this Doctor had not lost everything as hers had; he was not the last of the Time Lords.

An insistent beeping from the console drew the Doctor's attention, and Rose was left alone with her racing thoughts for a moment. Not the last of his kind after all. Not alone, not cut off, not wracked with survivor's guilt. A family, a home, other Time Lords to share his world. And then she nearly staggered as a memory hit her, a conversation that Mickey had once told her about, something the Doctor had told him on their first visit to Pete's World. "When the Time Lords kept their eye on everything, you could pop between realities, home in time for tea." But here she was in a world teeming with Time Lords; somewhere there was a whole planet chock full of them. Suddenly the goal that had been so amorphous just a moment before became crystal clear. "Doctor?" Her voice sounded a bit strangled, and she cleared her throat and tried again. "Doctor? I think there's something that you should know about me."

For a second, she thought he hadn't heard her; then he looked up from the console, blue eyes boring into hers. "Is it that you are from another universe?"