Disclaimer: I don't own, obviously. If I did, I'd still have David under contract. :P Also, most of the dialogue in this first part is lifted straight from the episode. I had a reason for this, I promise.

A/N: This is slightly wacky, is only the first part of two or three, and probably doesn't follow any rules. I give myself a pass on that, because Moffat doesn't seem to follow any rules, either. :)

I ain't no angel,

I never was

But I never hurt you

It's not my fault.

- Birdy

She was so beautiful. It was cliché to notice that, and even more cliché to care, but Rose couldn't help it. She had never suffered from a terrible lack of confidence, but she was also nothing if not realistic, and she knew that Madame de Pompadour was objectively more attractive than her. Her features came together seamlessly while Rose's clashed in the wrong light. Rose was pretty, cute, hot, but she knew that she would never possess the sensual grace that the older French woman seemed to come by so effortlessly. Looking at her now, at her perfect natural blonde tresses set in perfect waves around her angelic face, Rose couldn't help but recall losing her first boyfriend to a sweet, popular, classic beauty named Evelyn. She remembered the feeling of desperation clawing at her stomach when she saw the way he looked at her, remembered taking him around the back of the school at fourteen and snogging him so fiercely that her lips were sore for three days afterward. Not that it did any good. George and Evelyn had quietly held hands the next day while Rose fumed and moved onto her next target, the quick winter wind murder on her chapped lips and aching heart.

Could it have only been six years since then? It certainly seemed like longer, and yet Rose was not yet 21. Was that it, then? Did the Doctor still see her as a child, and that was why he had refrained from making any sort of move since the kiss that had saved her life? Oh yes, that had come back to her. In pieces, but she was sure it had happened. The light all around, and the feeling of his lips moving against hers, warm and soft and cautious. Rose shook her head to clear it. That man was gone now, and the new one who had taken his place, so different and yet so much the same, had yet to show any definite interest. And besides, she wasn't standing in the doorway of the most famous woman in France just so she could brood over a nine hundred year-old alien who had a disturbing habit of acting like a fourteen year-old boy.

"Madame de Pompadour," Rose began urgently, and the lady turned, startled. "Please, don't scream or anything," Rose hastily added. "We haven't got a lot of time."

To her credit, Madame de Pompadour simply surveyed Rose for a moment before accepting this with a gracious nod and gesturing for Rose to sit down at the table opposite her in her grandly furnished chambers.

"I've come to warn you that they'll be here in five years."

"Five years?"

"Sometime after your 37th birthday," Rose confirmed, wishing the Doctor hadn't chosen her for this mission. Couldn't he have sent Mickey? Had he wanted her to meet the woman that had enraptured him, to check out the competition, as it were? But Rose banished this thought as soon as it entered her mind. It was selfish to think it, but more than that, she didn't think the Doctor had it in him to be cruel that way.

"I, um – I can't give you an exact date," Rose stumbled over her next words in an attempt to get them out, to be done with this awful charade. That was what it felt like, a charade – a play, in which Madame de Pompadour had been selected to play the role of princess and she, Rose, was the pauper. Rose had liked dressing up as much as the next girl while growing up, but now she could hardly stand to see the lady in her finery. This world of ornate decoration, of intrigue whispered behind fans and mistresses and wives who were somehow the best of friends, of clockwork demons and little girls who blossomed into temptresses before one's very eyes – somehow, it felt like the strangest place she had visited with the Doctor, although she had been to times technically far more remote. Oh, what wouldn't she give to be battling a Jagafress now! A beast, she could understand. Even the Daleks, terrible as they were, were in their own way more consistent than the Doctor.

Rose shook off these thoughts and plowed on, "It's a bit random, but they're coming. It's gonna happen. In a way, for us, it's already happening." Noticing the confusion on Madame de Pompadour's face, Rose felt her brow furrow in frustration. "I'm sorry, it's hard to explain, the Doctor does this better," she added. He must truly hate me if he's making he do this, she thought miserably, anxiously scrutinizing the lady's face for signs of comprehension.

"Then be exact and I will be attentive," Madame de Pompadour commanded, and Rose couldn't keep a small smile from ghosting across her lips, remembering how she too had demanded answers the Doctor was unwilling or unable to give.

"There isn't time."

"There are five years!"

"For you! I haven't got five minutes," Rose said, internally chastising herself for hesitating so long in the doorway.

"Then also be concise," the lady ordered calmly, and Rose felt anxiety seething in her stomach as she struggled to explain the situation in terms the astute but technologically backward woman would understand.

"Um, there's um…a vessel. A ship, a sort of sky ship, and it's full of…well, you. Different bits of your life in different rooms, all jumbled up. I told you it was complicated. Sorry."

Again to her credit, the lady took this incredible news in stride, perhaps so used to being adored that the idea of a vessel in the sky dedicated solely to her life did not strike her as out of the ordinary. "There is a vessel in your world," she began determinedly, "where the days of my life are pressed together like the chapters of a book so that he may step from one to the other without increase of age, while I, weary traveler, must always take the slower path?"

Try as she might not to be, Rose was impressed both by Madame de Pompadour's quick grasp of the situation and her eloquence in expressing it. "He was right about you," she admitted, but the lady paid her no mind.

"So, in five years, these creatures will return. What can be done?" The lady's face shone bright with purpose, intense and beautifully illuminated, and, just for a moment, Rose could see her how the Doctor must, and she almost forgave him. Then the moment passed, and she was back to giving the lady instructions once more.

"The Doctor says just keep them talking. They're kind of programmed to respond to you now. You won't be able to stop them, but you might be able to delay them a bit."

"Until?" Madame de Pompadour questioned, her limpid blue gaze still locked on Rose's hazel one.

"Until the Doctor can get there," Rose finished with relief, glad at least that this was the part of the script that never changed: the Doctor saved everyone, old or young, ugly or beautiful, so it wasn't as if he was showing favoritism with this woman.

"He's coming, then?" The lady asked, and there was such hope in her face that Rose couldn't bring herself to dislike her.

"He promises," she assured her with a cautious smile.

"But he cannot –" and there her voice caught just for a moment, her eyes flickering downward, "make his promises in person?"

Rose wanted to hate her for asking that, she honestly did, but she was familiar enough with the feeling of desiring the Doctor's full attention that she put aside her jealousy for a moment to honestly reassure the woman in front of her.

"He'll be there when you need him. That's the way it's gotta be."

"It's the way it's always been," the lady said grandly, resigned but not bitter. "The monsters and the Doctor – it seems you cannot have one without the other."

Rose laughed in spite of herself. "Tell me about it." Then an idea occurred to her, and she leaned forward, eager to share her new thoughts.

"The thing is…" she said, choosing her words as delicately as possible, "you weren't supposed to have either."

At this, the lady raised her eyebrows, but Rose simply went on, unconcerned. "Those creatures are messing with history. None of this was ever supposed to happen to you." The echo of her earlier question – why her why her why her – was clattering around in Rose's brain, and no matter how she tried, she couldn't seem to make it stop.

For the first time, Madame de Pompadour looked offended. "Supposed to happen? What does that mean? It happened, Rose, and I would not have it any other way! One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel."

As if to punctuate this statement, the lady stood and walked across the room to contemplate the fire, but Rose's head was reeling. "How…how did you know my – "

"Rose!" Mickey's voice, and she had never been happier to hear it; at least it meant this strange interview was close to over. To her horror, however, Madame de Pompadour utilized Mickey's sudden appearance to dart past them onto the ship.

Panic took hold of Rose, and she stumbled after the lady, stopping just short of seizing her bodily and setting her back down firmly in her own time period.

"No, you can't go in there, the Doctor will go mad!" she cried, but it was too late – the lady had already ducked beneath the tapestry and was staring in wonder at the strange new world she had discovered on the other side. For the briefest of moments, Rose saw that alien world through the other woman's eyes, how strange and foreign it must seem, with so much metal, so many buzzing, whirring parts, and she felt as thought she were suddenly in fact much older than Reinette, and much more tired.

She didn't have time to dwell on it, however. True to form, Reinette – when had she started calling her that? - was already speaking again, sounding a bit awestruck but, predictably, taking everything in stride.

"So this is his world," she said, and it might have sounded profound had it not immediately been offset by a chorus of screams. "What was that?" Reinette asked, looking truly alarmed for the first time.

"The time window – the Doctor fixed an audio link," Mickey answered, and Rose felt a sudden rush of affection for him, thrown as he had been into this strange situation, nearly murdered and dissected by robots and yet still willing to help.

"Those screams…is that my future?" Reinette asked, her blue eyes wide with terror but her voice admirably steady, betraying only the slightest hint of apprehension.

Looking at the regal woman before her now, Rose saw past her finery, saw straight to the heart of the little girl that the Doctor had first met only hours before, and she could summon nothing but compassion for her now. "Yeah, I'm sorry," she managed, a woefully inadequate apology, she now realized, to a woman who deserved only angels, never monsters.

"Then I must take the slower path," Reinette said slowly, as though she were realizing for the first time the true weight of what she had to do. Her revelation was interrupted, however, by the sound of her own voice cutting through the mayhem like a clear bell –

"Are you there? Can you hear me? I need you now, you promised. The clock on the mantle is broken. It is time!"

"But that's my voice – " Reinette's voice was too choked to finish the sentence, and Mickey didn't give her much of a chance, gesturing to Rose to follow him.

"Rose, come on, we've got to go. There's a problem."

"Give me a moment," Rose insisted softly. Her head was clear. Although she was unable to explain her sudden need to protect this woman at all costs, she knew that Reinette's stricken face had moved her in a way that the Doctor's concern by itself had not. Mickey shot her a worried look and sprinted off, while Rose turned back to Reinette, all her bad feelings for the other woman rendered meaningless in that moment. But before she could comfort her properly, before she could begin to save her, there was something she had to know.

"Reinette…before Mickey came…you called me by my name, I heard you. How did you know it?"

Much to Rose's surprise, Reinette smiled. The effect of the smile on her tortured face reminded Rose that strange feeling one gets when the sun shines and it rains in the same moment – as though you are witnessing a beautiful natural malfunction.

"I saw it, in his mind," she said gently. "You're very important to him, you know. A love like that is difficult not to envy." Reinette was smiling even wider now, but there was still something broken about it. She's happy for me, Rose realized, and to her surprise, tears pricked her eyes. Happy for me, but sad for herself.

The generosity of that, Reinette's ability to set herself aside almost completely, caused Rose not to notice for a moment Reinette's use of the word "love."Not to mention the fact that she said she had seen it inside his mind –

This confused train of thought was interrupted by Reinette stepping closer to her, and, much to her surprise, taking Rose's chin in one soft, graceful hand. Reinette was standing very close to her now – so close, in fact, that Rose could feel the warmth emanating from her, ensconced as she was in the pool of her radiance.

"When you see the Doctor," Reinette whispered, a hint of a wry smile forming around the edges of her divinely sculpted lips, "give him this for me, will you?"

And then her lips were brushing against Rose's, gently, invitingly, and for a moment Rose forgot the screams, forgot everything that was happening around them, and simply kissed her back. Later, she would rationalize it as the fact that it had been a long time since she had been kissed, and she was too shocked to resist, but in that moment, it was no more complicated than simply being spellbound by the other woman's beauty.

Sometime during the brief contact, Rose's eyes had drifted shut, and did not open until after Reinette had broken away and was clasping Rose's small hand in both of her own. A wordless look of understanding passed between the two women, then, and without saying another word they turned and made for their separate paths, Reinette to her future and Rose, as always, to her Doctor.

A/N: So, what do you think? Are you interested in Parts II and III, or should I just quit while I'm ahead? Are you impressed that I managed to make the straightest character in existence (Rose Tyler) a little bit bicurious? Do you hate me for making her kiss someone other than Ten? Do you love Reinette and Rose's would-be ship name (Rosette) as much as I do?! Let me know (and while you're doing so, you should be aware that this story is still firmly a TenxRose pairing, not even the transcendent power of the gay could split those two apart)!