"Oh no," the Doctor muttered, grabbing onto a strut and trying to back away from the pull of this fledgling sort-of TARDIS. "It's decided that I am its latest pilot

"Will that help?" Craig demanded

"No," the Doctor yelled. "I am way too much for this ship—total solar system collapse, we're talking here!"

Then it released him very abruptly. The Doctor blinked rapidly. "What? Why are you doing that? You shouldn't be doing that! It can't change its mind!" He glanced over at Craig and Sophie, to make sure that it hadn't latched back onto either of them, but it hadn't.

Then the door burst open, revealing a platinum blonde girl dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. "Rose?" The Doctor asked incredulously, wondering what he was hallucinating now.

Craig, knowing who Rose was, was equally shocked.

"Hello, Doctor," Rose said, sliding her tongue along her teeth in that grin that haunted his dreams. "Like the bowtie, the hair's kind of crazy, and Jesus Christ, you could put someone's eye out with that chin!"

"Hey!"

"What do you think, Martha?"

"Martha?" And, indeed, it was Martha Jones who followed Rose through the door. Rather than dressing like military, the way that she had every time that he had seen her after the Year That Never Was, Martha was dressed more like she had been when she was travelling with him—jeans and a t-shirt, with a return of the red leather jacket. Her hair, instead of being pulled into a bun, was just in a single ponytail.

"He's dressed like my uni philosophy professor," Martha commented. "And I'm not sure about the tweed. What about you, Donna?"

"Donna!" And there was Donna Noble, sidling through that door. At least, while he had lost Rose, he had had the comfort of knowing that she was with her family, that she had a fortune, and a job, and her own version of him to grow old with. That she was happy. Donna, on the other hand—he regretted what he had had to do to Donna very much.

"Oi, spaceman," Donna said. "Stop staring and get out of the way." Then, on her way by, Donna casually slapped him across the face. "That's for erasing my memory, by the way."

"But—but—how?"

Rose looked at him, a smirk curving her lips. "Well, it all started a few months ago—in the parallel world, that is. When, after living a long and happy life and growing old together, James died. And I followed. We had had children, and grandchildren. It was a fantastic life, which is the reason why I'm not slapping you like Madame over there did. But see, thing is, it was something of a shock to my children, and my younger brother, when I woke up in the morgue, looking like I was twenty again."

"How?"

"Oh, honestly, spaceman!" Donna cut in. "How do you think? Do you think that someone can absorb the Time Vortex and walk away from it unchanged? She regenerated. The TARDIS saved her, even on the other side of the walls."

"So, saying goodbye to my family hurt, no doubt, but they didn't need me anymore. I was an old woman, and I had had a lifetime to watch over them. So I took the dimension cannon and headed back to this universe. I landed in Cardiff 2010, but I couldn't find Jack, and his little fountain base looks like someone stripped it down to rubble with the tip of a spanner. So I went for the next best thing—Martha and Mickey. Mickey was shocked, but Martha wasn't."

"Are you kidding? After everything that I had been told about you? Of course you were coming back. You weren't about to stand for himself leaving you behind again," Martha interjected.

"Of course," Rose said, grinning again. "Martha examined me, determined that I wasn't aging, and an encounter with a crashed Sycorax proved that I'm not dying anytime soon. But then Mickey got shot, too. And I brought him back. Because now I can control Bad Wolf.

"Knowing this, Martha and I knew to go straight to Donna."

"I thought that they were bonkers, when they showed up on my doorstep and claimed to know me," Donna said. "At least until blondie over there started glowing. I'm not sure what she did, but she managed to give me my memories back but protect my mind. So, here I am. The Doctor-Donna."

"And that's us; the greatest crack-team of alien hunters on the face of the planet," Martha finished proudly. "We chase up unexplained phenomena and take care of it. And between the mysterious disappearances and the unusual radiation that your TARDIS trying to materialize is giving off, we came here."

"I bet that your companion is trapped inside, isn't she?" Donna asked.

"I—I—how do you know that she's a she?"

"I've got your memories, remember?" Donna said, tapping her forehead. "You have quite the harem of female travelling companions; we're hardly the tip of the iceburg."

"Her name is Amy Pond," the Doctor said, defeated. Donna Noble had a way of cutting through all of his distractions. "She's ginger. And magnificent."

"And she's trapped on your TARDIS, which can't land," Donna added. "If I were her, I'd smack you again, just for that."

"But, what I don't get," the Doctor said, pushing aside his desire to hug Rose, to check Donna's head, to squee like a fangirl over how awesome the collective group of his girls had managed to become. "Is how did you get the ship to let go of me?"

"Oh, that one is simple. Because in the presence of someone (or a group of someones) who really could be its pilot, it recognizes that you're too much for it."

"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked, getting a strange feeling of foreboding.

"Well," Rose said, dragging the word out like his previous incarnation had done a lot. Which made sense, because Rose and his previous incarnation had been married for several decades. She hadn't said how long, exactly, but if they had had children and grandchildren and lived to a ripe old age, then clearly, they had been together for awhile. "See, I'm no longer human. And I've absorbed the Time Vortex—it is living inside of me. Donna has a Time Lord consciousness, but none of the physical attributes, leaving her the perfect pilot as well. And Martha is saturated with Artron energy, which means that she can also be a pilot, especially if we all grab on at the same time."

Then the Doctor realized that the three of them had been circling the middle-thing-that-was-not-a-console-because-this-was-not-actually-a-TARDIS. And without warning, all three of them reached for one of the round things and placed a hand on it.

The light was insane. Rose's eyes lit up golden, and the gold energy that flowed through her started powering up the main column of the ship. Donna and Martha clung to the metal struts against the onslaught. And then it was done.

"So. Next stop everywhere?" Donna suggested.

"Definitely," Martha agreed. Rose laughed as the gold in her eyes started fading.

"What? But—can't you... come with me? Please?" He sounded pathetic, he knew, and Craig snorted. "Oh, shut up, Craig, and kiss the girl!" the Doctor bellowed. Sophie was still looking terrified, dishevelled and confused, but Craig had rushed to her side to wrap his arm around her. Sophie looked up at him hopefully.

"You're one to talk! You left the woman that you loved behind in a parallel universe—twice, and you still haven't told her how you feel about her!" Craig shot back. "It's really, really, really, great to meet you guys, by the way," he gushed to Rose, Martha and Donna.

Then his earpiece turned on. "Doctor, the TARDIS is landing now," Amy said. The familiar sound of his TARDIS was filling the hallway downstairs.

"Oh, right," Donna said cheerfully. "Chameleon Circuit! And... what shape do you guys like?"

"Oooh! I have an idea!" Rose leaned forward and placed a hand on the centre column and closed her eyes.

"What are we?" Martha asked, when Rose pulled away.

"A train car!"

The Doctor went for the door—and they were no longer on the upstairs of the building. He poked his head out of this new TARDIS, and it was, indeed, a train car, sitting in the hall next to his beloved police box. Amy had poked her head cautiously out of the TARDIS, and she ran to hug him as soon as she saw him.

Then Craig and Sophie popped out, and Martha had followed them to the door. "Craig, Sophie, it was lovely to meet you," Martha was saying. "Bye, Doctor!"

"What! But—hey!" He lunged for the door to the train car, only for Martha to shut it in his face, and it started to dematerialize. Then it reappeared again, for Martha to stick her head back out.

"You must be Amy Pond, yeah? Here," Martha tossed her a balled-up piece of paper. "That's the number for Rose's super-phone—it'll work anywhere in the universe. You ever want to get to travelling without himself, we'll come running. You're always welcome. Bye!"

...

Amy handed him a cup of tea where he was sitting on Craig's couch. "I just... can't believe that they left me!"

Craig snickered. "This is Rose Tyler, who you left alone in a parallel universe with your clone, Donna Noble, whose memories you erased, and Martha Jones who has walked away from you and your offers to come with you on like four separate occasions, now, right?"

"I don't understand," Amy said. "What actually happened? Who was that black woman?"

"Martha Jones," the Doctor said. "She used to travel with me. See, that ship was a half-built TARDIS, but it needed the right pilot. It was trying humans, but their minds couldn't take it and it was killing them. Then it got hold of me—but it isn't a full TARDIS, just a very primitive version, and I, as a Time Lord, was too much for it. But then Rose, Martha and Donna walked in—Rose has the Time Vortex living inside of her, and she managed to charge the Time Rotor, and Donna has a Time Lord consciousness in a human body, so she was the perfect pilot. Martha has enough residual artron energy from travelling with me that she was able to bond with the ship, too.

"But I can't believe that they just left me!"

Craig laughed at him. "Rose'll come back—she promised you forever, after all," Craig comforted. "But you can imagine that she needed some time to herself. And aren't you glad that you aren't the only defender of the universe, now?"

"Shut up," the Doctor said grumpily.

So, this is my version of an alternate ending to The Lodger. The Doctor said himself that the humans couldn't take it, and he was too much for it, so what's half-way between? Donna, of course. I may or may not continue with this 'verse, and if I do, it will be Doctor/Rose. But that'll take awhile. I also may have Amy take Martha up on her offer to be a part of their time-travelling girl band of awesomeness. I'll have to wait for inspiration to come. But I just had to take the opportunity to give the Doctor-Donna her own TARDIS.