Author Notes: This fic is taken from (PROSE: Timeless) The Doctor's life goes AU when Trix does NOT join him and Fitz leaves as well to marry Trix and return to 'real' life. However, they do this while still in not only a parallel world but in an Alternate reality. This story opens after the Eighth has been left alone and has made a radical decision upon the discovery that there are no Time Lords in this new place and never have been. He makes the decision to recommend to Gallifrey that this universe is therefore unhealthy and should be colonized...and that he himself will remain. Gallifrey, for once, listens to reason and sends a colonizing force to the universe that was known as Pete's World...but they start a new colony five and a half years after one Rose Marion Tyler was left on a beach in that world's Norway.

Additionally, in this AU, the Master is the one forced into pressing the button and he doesn't survive the experience. After the Time War, half the remaining TLs in Pete's Universe, adults all, return to their home universe to begin anew...but the Doctor remains where he is to care for and guide juvenile TL minds. He needs to be there for my story, after all.

For the purposes of this story, this begins five years after Journey's End, Rose had never made it back to 10th and there is no clone of 10th because Jack knew what the dangers holding on to 10th's 'spare' hand could be and returned it to the TARDIS, not the Doctor, at the first opportunity. Sexy destroyed it on receipt. Because of this, the Doctor regenerated to his 11th body during 27 Planets instead of hanging on to his Tenth. 11th painfully explained about River to Rose and then returned her to Pete's World...to preserve his own Universe's Time Lines.

~ No Matter the Body ~

She was watching him a bit too closely, he decided. She did seem a little confused, like he wasn't quite what she expected and she winced from time to time, her right hand over what appeared to be a locket under her hoodie. The blonde had a backpack, sensible clothes on and the kind of trainers seen on long distance runners...marathon or cross-country runners, mostly. They were serious shoes, the Doctor thought in approval. As soon as the crowd in the chippie thinned out and she was sure no one else would try to share her table, she deliberately gestured for him to join her. With a good blend of curiosity and suspicion, he did so. As he seated himself, she winced again.

"Ow." She muttered softly. "How close did you park? The key is hotter than it's ever been and I don't know this regeneration of you, Doctor." She pulled out her old TARDIS key and sure enough, it was nearly red from heat. "But with the TARDIS key this hot...it is you. No question." She shivered at his nearness as he touched the key.

"They do that only in the presence of a regeneration prior to the one that gave it to you. To warn you...and me...that paradoxes are possible." As his finger touched it, the glow and heat faded to something comfortable. "Warning received."

"Yeah, well, this isn't my home universe and my you isn't here. Nor has he been for five years. Nor can he ever be again...in my home universe, he's the last. The very last of all the Time Lords...and in my old reality, cuz this isn't the reality of my birth, either, the walls are closed...forever." A tear dripped down the unknown companion's face. "So, that's it then, cuz with just him on that side, he can't get here from there."

"No, he can't." Eighth confirmed sympathetically. "Which regeneration?"

"Ten, Nine before him. Ninth found me about two months, from he said, after he stopped being you."She looked up at him, then opened her phone and started flipping through pictures until she found one that matched the man beside her. She held it up. "That you? He said this was his you."

"Yes. Though I can't say I've worn that outfit. I do rather like it though, I'll have to look around the Wardrobe room for it."

She giggled a little. The Mr. Darcy look did suit him better than the jeans and polo he was wearing just now. "'Kay. What now?"

"Well, in this universe, there was a war which we lost in our home universe and there were no survivors...but we had already colonized a place here. So we split the colony and sent the adults back and kept the children here."

"So...no paradox then. Not even possible...you're not the same Time Lord, close but not the same. There is something I need to tell you, but not here. The TARDIS needs to get a look at me and I need privacy to tell you the rest. Make no mistake, I am answerable to you, Doctor. I've got several things going on that were never meant for a mortal to experience, never-mind a human...and you need to know."

"Okay. We can do that." He relaxed as soon as she put herself firmly under his authority. She was well trained by his alter-self, apparently. She knew her duty to him.

"And I need two things. One badly and the other desperately."

"Which are?"

"Grounding and I need stabilizing...I've been a bit off ever since Bad Wolf Bay, like my balance is...gone."

"Okay. Let me check..." He ran his fingers lightly over Rose's face and she nearly purred at the touch. "Yes, you do. You see, you had bonded your soul to your Doctor's and that bond was denied and so it has been burning all this time. That was an incredibly cruel thing to do to you. This...how could he? Look, let me... transfer it to me. You'll feel better. I can fix this."

"Um...whatever you think you need to do." Rose had no idea what he was talking about but that wasn't unusual. She trusted his judgement regardless of all of it and followed his lead without hesitation.

"You still need grounding quite badly, so, up you get then. The state you're in isn't healthy for you. We'll do this in the TARDIS." He steadied her with a hand under her elbow and led her outside past a stunned looking young human male.

"Rose? Who's that?"

"He found me. Not the same one, but I don't really care."

"Who?"

"Who do you think?" To the Doctor, she said, "Mickey went on a few hops with me and Ten, didn't care for it and went home. He just doesn't get it."

"Ah. Well, some don't. Most don't, actually. For you to want to be with any me, any me at all, tells me you're quite rare. You see all of me and what's more to the point, you like us all. That is, for me, a priceless treasure considering the wide array of personalities that make up my deepest self."

"Oh shit, it's really him?" Mickey scowled. "And now you're gonna tell me 'I told you so' about you always having your TARDIS key, your pack and your best trainers on, I guess. You goin'? I'm set up so you can if you want and its not as if your mum has time for you anymore."

"If this him will let me? Hell yes."

Eighth looked down at her drawing her gaze upward. "I was already going to insist, actually. I think you could stand some vortex time and I finally got her rewired for this universe. What do you want, Rose?"

"Honestly? To open the doors, sit in the doorway and dangle my legs over the best, most colorful and most majestic nebula you can locate. I want to get back out into space. And not in something with weird engines and bay doors you can't open without losing pressure and killin' yourself. I want to be under the protective grace of the TARDIS and I want to hear her sing again. I want to watch your expression when Sexy explains what Bad Wolf is and how it applies to me, cuz that's gonna be funny. Really funny." Her voice shook. "And most of all, more than anything, anywhere or anywhen, I want my Doctor. No matter the body, I don't care about that, but I want my Doctor back. I want to topple dictators, I want to wander untouched planets and moons, I want to make my universe a better place and I want to thread my fingers through your's and run. my. ass. off." Her whole body was shaking by now and Eighth had got in close to support this passionate young human. "I just don't want to do it on Earth. Not any time soon, anyway."

Mickey just huffed in disgust and stomped away, though by the time he'd told Torchwood and got reinforcements, the TARDIS had already settled into the Vortex and both she and her Thief were in the process of grounding Rose. She smiled internally at her Wolf's gigging at her Thief's dumbfounded expression. For indeed, the TARDIS had given him chapter and verse on Rose and the Bad Wolf, just as the young human-TL hybrid curled herself around the figure of the Eighth, seated beside her on the infirmary bed.

"So, my version of the TARDIS you bonded to confirms that while you and she are still bonded here as well, there will be no danger of any kind of paradox. This is because I didn't connect to this universe's vortex until she did...so as far as this universe is concerned, this is my First body, not my Eighth as it would be in my home universe. I still have all my lives to live, but I've got the experience of the first seven bodies too. This is an advantage. Particularly since she has given me my Ninth and Tenth's body's experiences from your universe's memories of you. That gives me most of their lives as well. Almost all of Nine's and a good portion of Ten's, so I know you, Rose Tyler...my adorably pink and yellow, precious, Jeopardy-Friendly, now only part-human girl. Welcome home."

He drew on his alter-nine's knowledge of Rose and pulled her onto his lap, wrapped his arms around her tightly as her own slipped around his waist and held on for dear life. The Ninth and Tenth who knew her best were correct, she was amazing. No human had ever done so much for him, any him, and out of love alone. And none had ever forsaken homeworld and species for him, wanted nothing more than him and his ship, needing nothing more.

Rose Tyler was something else again.

:TBC: