AN/ Look who's not dead! For those of you reading 'Run, Wolf Warrior,' I promise I'm still writing it. The next chapter will be up as soon as I get over my current little hurdle. Anyway, here's a nice fresh story to get my muses working. Let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. Wow, I actually said that without it leaving a bad taste in my mouth... oh wait, there it is.

The beta for this chapter was the King of Soda. Though I admit I've made some slight changes since then but psychoticsimon looked over it for me so hopefully there are no mistakes.

Chapter 1: A Black Swan Event

Black Swan: an event that lies outside the realm of regular expectations, carrying with it an extreme impact.

You've heard of Christmas going south but Donna Noble was quite certain that she could take the world prize when it came to disastrous Christmases. She never much did like the holiday. It was all about working overtime, underappreciated presents, re-runs of overplayed Christmas movies, and the endless arguments that always seem to accompany family get-togethers. Not to mention the weather was rubbish.

However, this year was definitely one for the record books. It was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. Instead she got beamed up to a bigger-on-the-inside-spaceship, harassed by a skinny man in a suit who called himself 'the Doctor,' abducted by a robot in a Santa costume, stuck in the web of a giant omnivorous spider, and informed that her beloved fiancé had been in cahoots with the eight-legged freak from the off.

He'd been poisoning her with huon particles so that they could use her as a key to let the overgrown arachnid's spawn loose on the Earth. And to top it off she'd have to cancel the honeymoon now! It wasn't much of a honeymoon if you never got married and the groom-to-be was spider food.

Taking all of this into consideration, her disdain for the holiday was certainly understandable and more than a little deserved. However, despite her own misery, the one Donna felt most sorry for wasn't herself but instead the ridiculous, skinny man in the suit. He might have acted hyperactive and carefree but it was a farce so transparent that even a blind man could see through it. The Doctor was broken. A vital piece of him was missing and the only person who could make him better had been lost.

Desperately wanting to do something for him, she offered him to come inside for Christmas dinner, knowing he'd decline but feeling the need to ask anyway. She was surprised when he accepted, albeit with some reluctance, however when he disappeared inside the TARDIS and it started to disappear she knew this was goodbye. Not ready to see him leave just yet she called out to him.

She told him to find someone. He had scared her that night and she dreaded to think what might happen if next time there wasn't someone there to stop him. He invited her to travel with him but she ruefully declined. His world just wasn't for her. However, her new year's resolution was to become a truly different person, to travel the world and, as the Doctor had so rightly put it, 'be magnificent.'

After a brief goodbye he closed the door again to leave but there was still one more thing Donna wanted to know. It had been eating at her but she'd yet to work up the courage to ask him. However, if this was her last chance to ask she wasn't going to miss it.

"Doctor?"

"Oh, what is it now?" he asked with mock exasperation as he emerged from the TARDIS yet again.

She asked her question, carefully gauging his reaction. "That friend of yours, what was her name?"

Unsurprisingly, he stiffened immediately and swallowed a lump that seemed to have gathered in his throat. When he spoke, his voice was forced and thick. "Her name was Rose."

As soon as her name passed his lips he retreated back into the TARDIS, closing the doors before Donna could utter another word. The TARDIS then shot up into the night sky, as though going through the usually dematerialisation sequence wasn't a quick enough escape.

Once the Doctor was back in the safe seclusion of the Vortex he allowed himself to sag against the console, his earlier strength failing him. As soon as Donna had asked about Rose he'd felt his control waning. The pain of losing her was still so fresh.

Her last moments kept being played over and over in his mind in an endless loop. He couldn't even close his eyes without being forced to see her pleading form reaching out for him, still believing he could rescue her even as she fell into oblivion. Her desperate screams and the terrified look on her face as that white light engulfed her would be forever etched into his soul. His Rose, lost to the Void. Hell itself.

The Doctor shook his head and rubbed at his eyes in a futile attempt to dispel the cruel images his mind had conjured. Then, with a heavy-hearted sigh he circled the console, brushing his fingers over the controls absently as he prepared to carry out another scan, not even bothering to change out of his sullied suit, sodden from nearly being drowned under the Thames.

Ever since the Battle of Canary Wharf, the Doctor had been relentless in his quest to rescue Rose. He'd run countless scans across the universe, searching every point of Time and Space, desperately looking for some way of getting her back. He'd worked to the point of exhaustion and then kept going because to give up and accept Rose's fate would be unbearable.

However, despite his best efforts, success was nigh on impossible. Breaches in the walls of the Universe were extremely rare and incomprehensively difficult to detect unless you knew where to look, which he didn't. And not only did he have all of Space to search but all of Time as well. The term "needle in a haystack" didn't even begin to compare.

The closest he'd managed to get was a miniscule gap that had still remained from the breach at Canary Wharf, however it had been closing fast and by the time he'd found it, it was so small that even if he'd had the energy the most he'd have been able to manage would have been to send through a projection of himself which wasn't nearly sufficient enough. Besides, it was too late now, it had sealed completely just before Donna had appeared.

The Doctor froze as a though suddenly occurred to him. Huon particles... they had brought Donna here because there were huon particles in the heart of the TARDIS. Rose had looked into the heart of the TARDIS... It was a long shot but maybe, just maybe if he was very, very lucky, she might have retained some of the huon energy, it was extremely resilient stuff after all.

He immediately changed the parameters of his scanners to search for huon particles. If they truly existed in Rose then they would be far easier to detect than a weakness in the outer casing of the universe.

As the scans began he waited on bated breath, silently begging his TARDIS to put everything she had into the search. "Come on, old girl, do it for Rose," he pleaded.

His hearts almost burst in his chest as a positive reading appeared on the monitor with a loud beep. The TARDIS had found something! Without a moment's hesitation the Doctor locked onto the signal and sent his ship hurtling towards it. Common sense told him not to trust such a capricious hope. However, in his desperation to get Rose back, he forsook all reason and blindly put everything he had into making this work.

The TARDIS came to a jarring halt when they were almost directly on top of the signal. The Doctor assumed this was the closest she could get. He ran straight for the doors, taking a single, steadying breath before pulling them open and looking out to where she had taken him.

His blood ran cold. Suspended before him, in the deep blanket of space, was a black hole. Surrounding it were the spiralling reds of nebula and stardust. The crimson rivers careened mesmerizingly above him before cascading into the dark abyss.

"Impossible," he mouthed, staring in horror at the lidless eye before him.

Slamming the doors shut, the Doctor rushed to the console and started a detailed scan of the devouring pit.

It didn't take long for the results to display themselves on the monitor. When they did, the Doctor's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets as he read over the data with disbelief.

The centre of the black hole was in a state of stasis. At its heart resided a snapshot of the universe at a particular point in time. This meant that if his luck held out the core of this black hole contained a part of the universe's outer fabric that hadn't been sealed during the Battle of Canary Wharf.

The Doctor looked up towards the ceiling of his beloved ship and for the first time in so many months, he properly grinned. "You've done it," he declared. "You've found a way to save her!"

He spun around the console with newfound purpose and determination, jamming buttons and slamming levers as he went. He even regained his ability to ramble.

"There's a doorway to Rose inside that thing but we can't go after her," he told his ship. "The moment we enter the Void, you'll lose all power and we'll ALL be stuck. BUT thanks to our very good friend, Donna Noble, I have the perfect way of bringing her back."

He spun a dial with exaggerated vigour and pulled emphatically on a lever. "All we have to do is reverse the polarity of your huon flow..." he broke off with a frown. "Why does that sound familiar?" He shrugged it off and continued. "Anyway, do that and it should draw her out like poison from a wound!"

With a triumphant "HA!" he slammed a final lever and held on to the console as the TARDIS shuddered in response to the energy change.

"ALLONS-Y!" he yelled, almost as a battle cry as the shaking became more violent, forcing him to tighten his hold, lest he be swung into one of the coral buttresses. The console began to spark under the strain of her task but the Doctor believed that she could do it. She could sweep Rose from the Void and carry her out from beyond the event horizon of a black hole.

A familiar stream of golden light slowly began to seep into the TARDIS. The Doctor's eyes burned as the light took form. He didn't need to see the yellow locks of hair or the soft pink skin to know who the form was, as a missing piece inside him suddenly fell back into place.

The TARDIS stilled and before the light could even dissipate, the Doctor was straight over to Rose, catching her before her lithe form could hit the cold grating of the TARDIS floor. His hearts nearly burst with the joy of having her in his arms again.

A cold slither of trepidation slid through him as he forced himself to check her vitals, terrified in case he found nothing and all his efforts were in vain. That fear quickly dissipated as he felt a strong heartbeat and saw her chest begin to rise and fall, drinking in oxygen.

Relief washed over him like a tidal wave and he swiftly gathered her up and swept her off to the medical bay. The TARDIS was humming reassuringly in his mind but he refused to take any chances. He gently laid her on a bed and attached a monitoring device to her. Only once he was absolutely sure she was stable did he allow himself to collapse into a conveniently placed chair at her bedside and keep silent vigil.

He sat in reverence of his victory. He'd rescued Rose from the black oblivion of Limbo, a feat so seemingly impossible that it had danced along the borders of hopelessness. He stared at Rose with a mixture of disbelief and wonderment. He was reluctant to trust he could be so lucky, expecting any moment now to wake up in his study and this whole miracle being nothing more than another cruel dream.

However, usually when you suspected a dream of being so it fell apart, yet Rose lay stubbornly solid before him. Therefore he resigned himself to waiting patiently for her to awaken. Patience wasn't one of his strongest qualities but seeing her shining, hazel eyes flutter open to look at him would definitely be worth the wait.

At that moment, the Doctor was aware of nothing save for the sound of his sleeping companion's breathing. His spirit swelled with every rise and fall of her chest, as though their life-forces were intertwined. How had this silly little ape come to mean so much to him? They'd stumbled into each other completely by chance yet her presence had had such a phenomenal impact on him, like a healing balm she'd made him better when war and loss had left him worn and shattered.

People like Rose were rare, as special as finding a black swan. That was Rose, his black swan, an unexpected miracle.

TBC

So, what do you think? Granted it's only the first chapter so there's hardly much to go by but feedback would still be nice
Next chapter is finished and will be up soon.