The doctor was just finishing buttoning his suit when he saw it. His own reflection was in the mirror, only there were two.

"What?" he demanded, spinning around. The other version of him remained.

"Please," it begged. "Please it's important. You've got to-" And then it was gone.

The doctor shook his head, wondering if he was losing it completely. How had another version of him landed in his bedroom? Was it the version of him from the parallel world crossing through?

"Did you say something?"

The doctor turned to see Rose, already dressed and wearing her Torchwood ID. He smiled, thrilled to see her return it. He would never tire of seeing her every day. "No," he answered. "Well, yes," he corrected.

"Which is it then?" Rose asked, amused.

"I… Something strange just happened."

"Strange as in work-related?" Rose asked, instantly serious.

"No," the doctor replied. "I saw… me."

"Is it possible you just looked in the mirror?" she suggested cheekily.

He grinned half-heartedly before continuing, "No, there was another version of me. Just there." He indicated the place where he had seen himself. "And then he disappeared."

"Did he say or do anything?" Rose asked, frowning.

"He was trying to give me a warning," the doctor said. "But I don't understand how he could be here."

"Was it… the other one?" Rose asked hesitantly. "The doctor that's with Donna?"

"You know, I thought it might be at first," the doctor mused, but I don't know how he could have landed here now that all of the rifts have closed, and without the TARDIS too."

"Well, how else could another version of you appear here in our bedroom and then vanish?" Rose asked.

The doctor reflected on how insane their conversation would sound to most people. "I have no idea," he said. "But I'm going to go run some scans in the TARDIS, see if there's a rift in the fabric of the universe somewhere."

"We'll be late," Rose sighed.

The doctor glanced down at his own Torchwood ID. He hadn't much liked the idea of working for them, but after a few months he had accepted a job there. He tended to get caught up in travelling, and now that he didn't have such a long life, he couldn't just pop out for a few years and return to the same day. So he had also gotten a job at Torchwood, to keep his mind busy without travelling (except for when he was with Rose, of course). And after all, he had worked for UNIT with some success earlier in his life too.

"This is important," the doctor said.

"I agree," Rose said, nodding. "I'll call in."

"Let me run those tests first," he countered. "Then we can still go in late if they turn up nothing."

Not long after, the doctor was frowning in the console room, Rose looking over his shoulder. "There's no evidence of any rifts," he said. "Well," he immediately added, tilting his head, "There is one rift. Just one small rift, but it's not between worlds. It's just like a small blip in time, nothing that could allow another version of me to cross from a parallel world."

"Okay," Rose agreed. "Then, Doctor," she began hesitantly, "Do you think it could have been you?"

"Yes, it was me," he confirmed.

"No I mean, you – this you – from the future?"

"Impossible," he snapped. "That would mean I'd crossed my own timeline."

"Yeah, but you said you were trying to give yourself a warning," Rose argued. "Maybe you thought it was important enough for that."

"Nothing could be that important," the doctor returned.

"What if there's a huge threat in the future?" Rose asked. "Something that put the entire planet at risk?"

"That would be even more of a reason to not cross my timeline," the doctor informed her. "Trying to change big events is tricky at the best of times – crossing my own timeline would undoubtedly cause more harm than good. It could cause the entire universe to collapse."

"Have you ever crossed your timeline since that time with my dad?" she asked.

The doctor remembered how horribly that had turned out. "I did to prove to Martha that the TARDIS travelled in time," he replied, frowning. "But I didn't try to talk to myself. I never ran into myself. The universe can adapt for cheap tricks, but trying to give myself a warning… I don't think anything could convince me to do that."

"What do you want to do?" Rose asked, concerned.

"I don't know that there's anything to do," he returned. "Just keep our eyes open and hope it doesn't happen again."

"Okay," she agreed. "Shall we head in, then?"

"You go," he said. "I'm going to try and run some more tests, just to be sure."

"Sure," she said. "See you tonight."

"Yeah, see you," he replied, his mind already focused on the task at hand.

"Doctor."

"What is it?" the doctor asked irritably. He had been continuing to run tests in the TARDIS, and was not in the mood to deal with Jackie Tyler.

"Doctor," she repeated. "You weren't answering the phone."

He turned at the tone of her voice, and saw her standing in the doorway with her eyes filled with tears. "Jackie, what is it; what's wrong?"

"It's Rose," she choked out.

"Rose, what's wrong; what happened to Rose?" he demanded, advancing on Jackie until he was right in front of her.

"Pete just called," Jackie explained, stifling a sob. "He said that there was a drunk driver."

"What are you saying?" the doctor demanded.

"He drove into her lane, doctor," Jackie sobbed. "She tried to swerve and avoid him but I guess she lost control of the vehicle. It hit a tree and… she never made it into work. They brought her to the hospital, but it was already too late!"

The doctor felt as though his veins had been filled with ice. "No," he murmured.

"She died, doctor," Jackie cried. "After everything she's been through… She got run off the road by some drunken idiot!"

The doctor stood frozen for a moment, Jackie sobbing in front of him. "No," he said finally. "I don't believe that. Shut the door," he instructed, turning back towards the TARDIS console.

"What?"

"SHUT THE DOOR!"

No sooner had the door clicked into place than he had fired up the TARDIS. "Which hospital?"

"You're not supposed to fly the TARDIS-"

"Just tell me!" he interrupted. She did.

How many times had Rose insisted that they drove, like normal people, rather than flying the TARDIS to work? She had seen him mess up their flight coordinates (in time as well as space) too many times to let him fly it for every day type of trips. But this was different. He needed to be there. Now.

The doctor parked the TARDIS in a supply closet in the hospital basement before following Jackie up to the ER. His mind was still racing, trying to find ways to explain how this couldn't be true. It was the wrong car. There was a mistake. It was the right car, but the wrong patient. She's actually fine. This isn't even actually real. It's a nightmare. Any second now, I'll wake up…

Pete was waiting for them. And just seeing his face – the Doctor knew. His face was contorted with grief. His body seemed heavy with suffering. Slowly, he opened his arms to allow Jackie to fall into them.

The Doctor's usually keen mind seemed to be firing off random thoughts too quickly for him to catch them. "Where's Rose?" he asked, still denying the awful truth.

The couple didn't seem to hear, Jackie sobbing into Pete's chest, Pete's eyes staring at something no one could see. "What happened?" the doctor demanded aggressively.

"They said," Pete managed, before having to clear his throat. "They said that she died on impact. She did didn't feel a thing."

"At least," Jackie sobbed, "she didn't suffer. That's something."

"That's nothing," the doctor spat. "And I won't believe that she's gone," he denied desperately. "Where is she? I need to see her."

It took some convincing, and then some waiting, before someone finally led him back to a sectioned off area of the ER, behind a curtain. He whipped his way past it. "Rose?" he asked.

And it was her, but it wasn't her. She was too still, too cold, too unresponsive. "Rose!" his voice broke in a sob. "Rose, no. Don't do this." He threw himself over her, hands trailing along her stone cold cheeks. "Rose, you promised," he reminded her still form through his tears. "You said forever!"

The Doctor sat alone in the TARDIS, still in a state of partially numb denial. How could Rose have died alone on the highway? How could one stupid ape have gotten drunk and accomplished what no other life form, Daleks to quite possibly the Devil himself, had been able to do?

The doctor buried his face in his hands, fighting against tears because that would mean accepting that she was gone. And he could not, for one moment, believe that she was never coming back. He couldn't give up on her.

Temptation to go back and change time like he hadn't experienced since the fall of his own planet came over him. The death of all the Time Lords was not only an event that he was present for, but also a big event. The universe would implode if he went back to save his people.

But one human woman… one human woman who was not even meant to be in this world…. Surely if this world could accept the addition of Rose Tyler where she hadn't been before then it could do it again? She hadn't been born here; surely her death wasn't fixed here either? And if it was in flux, couldn't he change it?

Wild with hope, the doctor leapt up and began pulling levers and turning dials on the console. He would have to cross his timeline… but if he avoided himself, and spoke only directly to Rose, then he couldn't cause too much harm, could he?

"Like a little paper cut," he said aloud. "Any damage done to time will fix on its own."

Nothing could convince me to do it. But that was before. Now he knew different. Small events could be trifled with, as long as proper caution was used. A small event to the universe, perhaps, the doctor thought. But everything to me.