Disclaimer- I don't own Doctor Who nor do I aspire to achieve any profit from this fic other than a couple of rave reviews...

A/N- I've got a couple stories in the works and if you've read them and are wondering where the next bits are then sorry. But, this one wanted to be written now, and the other stories all begged for the day off... Please read and review.

I LIKE IMPOSSIBLE
Prologue: Guess who?

It had been five years. Five years since Bad Wolf Bay. Five years since she'd been ripped from a world she knew and a life she loved. Five years since she'd said goodbye to the Doctor, her Doctor. Five long years…

But, in many ways, they'd been five short years too. After all, she'd been busy, living a life day after day. The Doctor had called it the one adventure that he could never have, and, to honor him, she intended to make her stupid-little-ordinary life the most spectacular adventure possible. Rose Tyler had decided to live a fantastic life.

She'd proved herself to be invaluable at Torchwood; she was head of her own department now. Her working knowledge of alien technology was a strength, yes, but her true gifts lay in translation and alien negotiations. The translation bit was a residual gift of the Tardis—she didn't know how it was possible, but a part of her must still be connected to the ship somehow—but her genius in negotiation was all her own. She'd guessed it came from traveling round the universe, the fact that she was so good at understanding alien cultures and being able to sensibly broker treaties, but she was known in the near universe as a straight-shooter: often compassionate, rarely brash, and never rude. Rose Tyler, Defender of Earth.

She'd gone to school. It wasn't necessary, but she'd wanted to do it to prove to herself that she could and to have the added credential for all the stodgy wind-bags at Torchwood who'd initially been so suspicious of her. She'd graduated with top marks with a double major in Physics and History. Both of her parents had cried at the ceremony.

Her mum and Pete had had little baby John pretty quickly after being reunited, and Rose loved being an sister. She'd stayed on with them at the mansion because there was plenty of room and because she just liked being there. It had been awkward with Pete at first, neither quite knowing what to say to the other, but that'd faded. He hadn't thrown himself in front of a moving car to save the world or anything in his reality, but he had held all of Britain together after the whole mess with the Cybermen and that was certainly something. Plus, he felt so very much like the Dad she'd met in her own reality aside from the whole successful thing. She'd started to call him "Dad" after a couple of weeks, and he hadn't told her not too.

For the most part, Rose felt like she really had her life together. The one area where she felt like she still refused to move on was socially. She had her mates, Mickey and Jake, of course. She'd realized quite a long time ago that there really was nothing that she could do to shake off Mickey, and she loved him for it. After a couple of months in this world, he'd tentatively suggested that they might give the whole dating thing another go, but it hadn't taken too long to convince him that he wouldn't always want to be number two in her heart. He'd recently started dating another Torchwood employee, Addy or something, and he seemed pretty happy.

Rose had dated a couple of guys since crossing into this reality. She did it mostly because she thought that she should, not because she really wanted to. And, though, she really did try, the relationships had all failed rather quickly because the blokes, all pretty smart really, realized soon enough that there was a part of Rose Tyler's heart that was locked-away and off-limits no matter how hard they tried to break through. Rose Tyler, Breaker of Hearts.

Rose's phone rang. She woke with a start. Must be Torchwood, she thought gazing at her clock, no one else would ring at 3:15 in the morning. Argh, she fumed internally, I hope this isn't about those bloody Glistygian refugees again. She sat up, grabbed her cell phone from her beside table, and mumbled, "Hello."

An enthusiastic voice resounded in her ear, "Rose!"

"Yea, Jake." She said recognizing the owner of the buoyant voice and pulling her phone a little away from her head, "What is it?"

"You'll never guess who Torchwood just took into custody!"

TO BE CONTINUED...