Summary; The Doctor can't quite figure out who she is...he never gets a good look at her. He senses her nearby when he's in trouble and knows that when he is, she interferes on his behalf...but he's supposed to be retired. He hasn't had an active companion in centuries. So, who is she, why does she help him, how does she know what kind of help he actually needs and why, oh why, does he think he knows her when he's never even seen her face or heard her voice?

Heart Home

She'd been there again, when he needed someone to be. Her presence was short-lived, she was in and out, had done what needed doing and gone before he'd gotten completely free of his former captors. Just like...like she always was. She, whoever she was, understood this body's skill set quite well and knew when he'd be fine on his own...she always left as soon as she knew he'd be okay. And she did know the difference between him pretending to be okay and him really being okay. Twice, he'd been out cold the last he knew and had woken up in his own MedBay, on a cot with the right meds and the right assistance already provided and done. How the hell she'd gotten into the TARDIS was a question said timeship refused to answer except. "Key."

She, whoever she was, had a key, apparently cared about him...but refused to let him see her or talk to her. It was almost as if she knew she wasn't supposed to be interacting with this him...but wasn't about to just wander off when he needed help. That would have made sense in his training universe but it made no sense at all here: Nobody had a history with him here. That meant that whoever she was, she was from there...and that meant she had a lot of explaining to do.

But this time, she wasn't running away, not really. She'd disappeared without a trace all the other times, but this time she was leaving signs. Deliberately, from the bits of ribbon tied in bows on the odd limb here and there, or the footprints that had been, apparently, applied with no small amount of force in some mostly baked dry but still a bit soft clay on the trail. Once she got up past the meadowland and into the forest, more natural signs showed themselves, a hair, here or there on a shrub or a bit of thread clinging to the bark of trees along the way. She wasn't hiding or really moving all that fast, from the rather lazy patterns of her footprints in this more forgiving ground. Like she was trying to let him catch up, for once. He crossed a river on a log and found solid granite on the other side...though once he looked around he saw something very strange stuck to some of the boulders, with notes attached.

"That's bloody impossible." He barked. He knew what they were...aside from harmless...but he also knew they didn't belong in this universe. That meant his little rescuer had even more explaining to do. This was a clear signal to let him know where and when she was from and it definitely wasn't here or now.

He followed her, moving in near silence through the jungle. Slipping through the dense vegetation along the trail she'd left behind. She was starting to drive him a little nuts, but he hadn't become determined to answer the question of who she was until she'd left that series of 'post-its, and after that, when she'd apparently run out, those ridiculous 'notes on a string' for him back there...guiding him out of a spot of trouble in following her. Not that her chosen method of delivery hadn't been crazy, because it had been. Air rifle delivered sucker arrows? Plastic ones. The sort sold to human children as toys on Earth...but this wasn't Earth...not really. Not the one he'd known when he'd been alive the first time back in his old training universe back when life and living meant a little pink and yellow human who adored him. He sighed, he'd already decided that wanted her with this him. Just because his retired form hadn't had a companion til now didn't mean he couldn't, after all. And nobody could say this lady wasn't capable...not after she'd bailed him out repeatedly. He hadn't wanted one, not a local one, anyway. And whoever she was, she wasn't local, that was for sure.

He peered at something that looked a bit odd and out of place, through the undergrowth and frowned, looked closer and sighed. Of course she knew he was there, didn't she always? He finally reached the child's toy and plucked this last sucker arrow from the bit of boulder it was stuck to and unfolded the attached note.

"Look up."

He groaned inwardly and slid sideways rapidly as he trained his senses upward.

"Don't be stupid, if I wanted to hurt you I would have left you in the middle of that crap back there. Come on up, there's things I need to explain and then a problem I need to have you put that big arsed brain of your's to work on."

"Rose?"

"Yeah. It is you, then...my first Doctor."

"Yeah." He answered quietly as he climbed the odd looking ladder and looked into the 'doorway'. "Don't get me wrong, Rose Tyler, I am very glad to see you...I've missed you like crazy, but how'd you find me? Or get here, for that matter?" He explained about the first life for each body being a 'training' run before they were assigned to a new 'retirement' universe. "So, yeah, I still regenerate, but I just heal and that means I don't change bodies now...and there's no limits on the number. Now you."

"Short version first...we can discuss details later?" She offered, hesitantly stepping toward him, like she wasn't sure that she really was welcome. "Or rather, you can help me remember the details. It's been longer for me than you think."

"Okay." He noticed her hesitation and shook his head, then gathered her into his arms himself. "Here now, stop that. Of course I meant it. Come to me, Rose." He didn't think anyone had ever hugged him that tightly or trembled that hard while doing so.

And she told him all of it, from the invasion following the crash after he'd regenerated at Christmas to Cybermen and Daleks battling it out in London, to the near fall into the void, the saving and returning of those stolen planets, being left as an ageless, unaging babysitter for his next body's metacrisis, burying her family and Handy years later...and then, when her failure to age became too dangerous to allow her to remain on Earth alone, leaving her homeworld in the mostly grown but still very young TARDIS grown from that crystal. As her voice died away, she pointed up and when he noticed the delicate scrollwork in detailed Gallifreyan on the upper walls and ceiling, he smiled as he realized he wasn't actually in a treehouse as he'd assumed.

"And then she located you, only I didn't believe it at first. Once I did, I wasn't sure you wouldn't be mad, but I couldn't just leave you on your own, either. So we followed her mum. Her mum told her to follow along and we did." Her voice was soft and pleading. "And Beauty says she needs her mother for an extended growth period and apprenticeship, so she insisted we talk."

"Shhhh, it's okay." He told whispered to her, cradling her against himself and running his work roughened, blunt fingers through her hair. "I've got you back...and your baby can ride in her mama while she learns."

"She likes being a tree." Rose stressed. "And that's good cuz I like her being a housetree."

"Okay, so she can take over one of the badly underused gardens."

It didn't take him long to realize that Rose had no real intentions of letting go of him anytime soon. This was confirmed when a broad couch appeared next to Beauty's console and the little ship flitted off to her mother as soon as he moved himself and Rose to it. "Well, at least we don't have to walk back." He teased gently.

He got a rather watery snort but she never moved her face from where she had it pressed into the side of his neck. He barely heard the first sob start, but it didn't take long for her to let go entirely.

"Missed you. Missed this you, had that you, but missed this you. One of of that you's quirks was turning off his thinker and another was not using it. Do you understand how scary you are when you're stupid? I've seen Down's Syndrome afflicted human children, of two or three years old, that spent more time thinking than that you. The part human clone was better at thinking than that you."

He paused, thought about that and winced. He pulled her bodily into his lap and began to gently pry those 'details' out of her, a bit at a time and was more than a little horrified when he finally understood what next him had actually done to her. Hell, next him could have just had his younger version of his TARDIS pick up the Metacrisis at that beach since the retirement form took no harm from self induced paradoxes and he'd have been fine...and Rose would have still been in her home universe where she belonged.

"I've got you. I've got you Rose Tyler and I will never let you go again."

"Promise?"

"Yeah. Definitely, And we can have a little chat with next me when he gets here..." He cracked his knuckles suggestively. "And none of the Past Mes will hurt you. Matter of fact, I think I want Eight involved in your healing, my precious girl. Empath and Mind Healer, that me."

He held her for a long time, until her body relaxed into sleep and breathing deepened. He smiled at the young ship's cheek, when the outer door opened and he was rather pointedly invited to leave so that the young ship could begin the dangerous part of her physical development...well, dangerous to other lifeforms while being rather fun for a young TARDIS. But, it was also one that she could bear no passengers during. He got a good grip on his sleeping Rose and exited into a vast garden inside his own TARDIS.

He could feel the older ship wrap her podling and Rose alike in her various of her energies. One kind to initiate the next stage of the young ship's growth, the other to stabilize and heal her wolf.

You'll be doing most of that, yourself, though.His own ship told him. I can only do so much. Your next self shattered her belief in herself several times. If she is to regain it, it must come from you. You are the self that showed her how special she is to start with, who gave her that belief in herself. I have removed her room entirely and placed her things in your room...she needs you. He actually abandoned her, Mickey and even me on that space cruising form of 18th century France so he could go play with that Frenchwoman.

What the hell did he do that for? Rose is right, he's an idiot.

He allowed a soul-bond to form...and then he abandoned her. Not once, but several times. She doesn't know of the bond and thinks he just got off on hurting her. The baby TARDIS told him. Since she was inside her mother, she could communicate just fine...plus he could feel her. Apparently, she'd slid a link in when he wasn't paying attention. That was fine, she was a TARDIS, but still counted as a juvenile...just as he did to her mother despite his age. He was remade wrong in some ways, because the regeneration didn't go well and there were some imbalances in three of his more important hormones that the elder version of my mother was unable to correct with additives to his food.

Fuck. No wonder she needed him this much. A soul-bond? Not that he'd been far from it before Sat 5...

He carried her to his room and let the ship open his door for him...his arms were rather full...to lay her in his unmade bed. He stripped her down as he had many times before and got her tucked into a nightgown his TARDIS laid under his hand, before getting her under the covers and simply getting in behind her after removing the black leather jack and his boots. It had been a few weeks since he'd slept anyway. He no longer slept as well once he'd lost Rose...he expected to enjoy this. He did, curling his long body around Rose in a tight embrace. Somehow, he wasn't at all surprised when she rolled over and burrowed against his chest.

"Mine." He whispered to the already sleeping girl in his arms. And she was, really...he urged the bond to connect to this him, this retired him...and left himself open to it. It would complete by the time he woke and be long since finished by the time she did. "Precious girl. Precious, brave girl...still married to the lot of us but at least we won't have to tell anyone...they'll know by now, I think."

Oh, they are all well and truly startled. His ship chortled. 13th is jealous because this is an afterverse bonding and he has to wait.

13th?

Your 12th was reset altogether, 13th is the beginning of a new cycle of lives.

Can the old universe stand that many of me wandering around?

We'll just have to find out, won't we?

**TBC**