So quite some time ago, a lovely author at AO3 suggested I try my hand at writing some Twelve/Rose. On thinking it over, I knew that if I did so, it would 1) have to be a multichapter reunion fic, and 2) he would to get to keep her in the end. Anyway, I've been drafting this for quite some time, it's been tons of fun to work on, and I hope you all enjoy it. :)

**This story is set post-Clara and pre-Bill.**


"Sixty obols? Are you insane? The blasted thing cost half that four months ago!"

The old clerk peers up at him from beneath bushy grey eyebrows, his swimmy eyes emotionless but for a hint of bemusement, as if the Doctor's ire puzzles him. A beat later he turns away, idly shuffling through a stack of crinkled papers. "Sixty," he repeats, tonelessly.

Properly angry now, the Doctor's own (rather impressive) eyebrows draw together, but he bites his tongue. Old Foster clearly has the upper hand on this go round, so it's no good getting into an argument with him, risk raising the price even more, when the closest village big enough to have a shop like this is a good day's journey by horseback.

As the little troll begins to whistle carelessly, knobby fingers rifling through a drawer, the Doctor wheels round before he says something he'll regret. Long black coat flaring, he strides away, ducks into the first empty aisle he sees.

He should've seen this coming. Foster can't stand him; he's not about to miss a chance to stick it to the Doctor, now that the Doctor actually needs to buy something pricey from his shop.

Just- sixty bloody obols. Almost six months worth of saving, the near sum total of what he's managed to scrape up since he got stuck here on this planet. If he spends a major chunk of it now to buy that communicator, and finds on cannibalising it that there's not enough copper in its guts to rewire his breather, it'll be ages before he gets another go at fishing his TARDIS from that stupid lake.

Perturbed, he paces the aisle for a bit, shoulders round and palms pressed together at his chin, the rough, unfinished wood floors squeaking under his boots. The sound calms him a little, as does the old-timey Earth aesthetic. This shop always reminds him of the sort they had in the Old West, late nineteenth century. The rustic way it's cobbled together, warm breeze wafting in through open windows, the dusty, spicy scent. He likes it.

Unlike most of its Earth counterparts though, this place is quite large, and sells everything from groceries to (rudimentary) tech to used books. The shelves on his left are full of the latter and, though over the past weeks and months the Doctor's paged through most of them, he pauses as he spots a new arrival. A thick tome, sturdily bound in dark blue canvas. He runs a finger down the spine, but doesn't bother sliding it from the shelf to crack it open. Title tells him enough. Wheat Fields.

No chance it's a clever play on words, nor is it a metaphor for anything. That will be a book on agriculture. Things are straightforward around here, exactly what they claim to be. Practical. And while he respects that to a point, this is just another book he can't possibly use in his class.

The Doctor sighs, trying to decide what to do next. Go home, probably. Maybe Foster will be in a better mood tomorrow. He could easily nick the communicator but he's not very keen to at this point, as he might jeopardise his job.

Besides, hasn't got a bit of time before he needs that breather fixed? It's strange... now that he thinks about it, he's not really all that sure what made him decide to pop in here this afternoon. Even if he gets what he needs he's got no time to tinker. Not with all those papers to grade.

Settled, he makes to head for the door- but stops after a single step, as the back of his neck prickles. Senses sharpening, he turns around, gives in to his gut-sense and crouches, glancing over the familiar, disorderly stacks of books piled on the dusty bottom shelf.

"What are you?" he murmurs as he spots it. A small, thin volume with a plain black paper cover sits askew on top of a pile, the air around it shimmering with fresh time distortion. The Doctor frowns, dismayed. He hasn't seen anything so weird in ages, and hasn't expected to. Hasn't wanted to. Not now. Not here.

Dismay blooms into worry as he reaches for it, slowly, warily, like he's afraid it might bite him. And as it turns out, he's not quite wrong about that: the instant his fingers touch the paper his stomach turns and he grimaces, his Time Sense flaring out a warning that clobbers him right between the eyes.

The Doctor ignores, as best he can, the mauve alert shrieking inside his skull and grabs the booklet anyway, flips it open and squints at a page.

It's...poetry.

What?

No. Wait. The overt rhyme and rhythm...it reads more like lyrics. Like a song. His brain absorbs a few words, registers their meaning.

...masters, commanders lord it over

...clever, won't matter, friends hate and fight

...love lofty ideals, but what about peace

A protest song? War-protest?

Bewildered, he peeks at a couple more pages, finding more of the same before the dizziness gets to him and he hurriedly stuffs the thing into his inner coat pocket. The Doctor squeezes his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. Thankfully, the headache quickly abates, now that its cause is tucked safely away in a pocket dimension.

Coat-pocket dimension, he thinks as he straightens to stand, smirking at the wordplay despite his unease. That book- all he can tell for certain is that it does not belong in this time. What he hopes, quite fervently, is that it is also out of place. Because this is a pacifist planet, with a beautiful history free of warfare. It makes him ill to think the same might not hold true for its future.

"You finding anything good, Professor?"

Head snapping up, he blinks when he sees Mali approaching, gathers himself, and smiles. It's not overly difficult. She's his favourite student, a forthright girl of seventeen, dark-haired and pretty, with clear, intelligent eyes. They sparkle with fun, though her mouth is serious.

He sniffs. "No. All too boring."

Mali grins, wordlessly digs in her canvas knapsack to quickly pull out a book of her own. Jane Eyre. He recognises it, of course, since he was the one to loan it to her, and a small thrill ripples through him when he sees what she wants him to see. A snip of blue ribbon marks her place, set nine-tenths of the way through.

"Like it, do you?" the Doctor asks, brightening further. He'd had three books in his pocket when he'd gotten stuck here- a book on quantum physics he remembers shoving in there and two novels that he doesn't. Jane Eyre is one, a first edition of David Copperfield the other. He's extremely glad he has them, but knows he'll soon be wishing for a dozen more.

"It's different from the stories you tell," Mali explains, picking at the end of a long brown braid. "Yours are all adventure and action, but this one's...quieter. It's about... the sort of person Jane is, what she's thinking and things, as much as it's about what happens to her. I like that."

"I like that too. Jane's a fascinating person."

Mali nods, takes a breath. "Yes...that's part of why it's so hard for me to believe she wasn't a real person." She eyes him, and the Doctor can see she's waiting for him to retract that claim, admit that he made it up, the way he makes up all the outlandishness he shares with his class.

(She'd never believe him if he told her his stories are true, that he's been honester in his time here than he's been in decades.)

"See, that, right there, is part of what makes it such a good book. You believe in Jane, maybe you'd even like to be friends with her, but you can't, because she's not real, she's Charlotte Bronte's invention. And she made her up by using what?" He taps Mali's forehead, lifts his eyebrows in expectation.

She rolls her eyes at his patronising manner. "Imagination."

"Very good."

"I still don't quite understand, though," she says after a beat, sliding the book back into her satchel. "You always say that if a story's not meant to be believed, it's not a lie-"

"It's not, it's fiction."

"-but this Charlotte person," she goes on, ignoring his interruption, "she made her story so real, on purpose, that I do believe it. Or I would, if you didn't tell me I shouldn't. So how is it not a lie?"

The Doctor grins, proud of her for challenging him, for thinking it through on her own. Two skills that are neither encouraged nor valued on this planet (though he's hoping to change that, just a bit.) "You sound too much like Ms. Queras."

"You mean, if she was smart enough to think it up," Mali mutters, quirking one eyebrow devilishly.

The Doctor laughs. Oh, she's clever. Heads above the rest of his students, though he sees potential in them too (well, some more than others). "What a thing to say of the lead teacher, Mali. Careful she doesn't overhear you, you might be expelled for impertinence."

"But she isn't smart enough," she insists, grinning. "If she was, she'd have used it by now, as a reason to make you stop reading novels to our class."

He grimaces, sucking air through his teeth. "True enough."

When he'd first been assigned his job, the "Literature" part of the curriculum he was to teach had horrified him. Aside from the occasional pretty turn of phrase, the books here are decidedly lacking in beauty, and near devoid of creativity. They're mostly non-fiction, history and biographies, and though there's few volumes of short stories, any fun to be had in those is all but choked out by heavy-handed moral lessons. It wasn't literature as art, as it should be, and wasn't that a bloody shame?

Ever the advocate of change, the Doctor rose to the challenge, determined to round out their practical education with a taste of the arts. It was slow-going at first; not that the kids' resistance surprised him. They're not incapable of imagination, but the cultural over-focus on practicalities has atrophied people's creative muscles.

So he used their books at first, began trickling in bits of his own stories, and once surprise and curiosity became enjoyment he started teaching them the basics of fiction. Pencils, which had only occasionally ventured from the realm of words and sums to draw a person or house or tree, were coaxed into doing so with frequency, and increased creativity.

A fortnight ago he deemed them ready for more, so he spends an hour every morning reading David Copperfield aloud. Most of the kids are enjoying it well enough, but so far Mali is the only one who's cared to tackle a novel all on her own. Still, he's encouraged, and he really needs more books from the TARDIS if he's to keep this going. He's determined to have them attempt writing their own fiction before they graduate.

Like she's read his mind, Mali takes out a worn school notebook, flips past pages full of sums and assignments to a spot toward the back. At the top there's a title, in her hurried script, "The Tiypn's Daughter".

"I know you said this week we're to write about something exciting that happened in our life," she says, with a shy hesitance that doesn't fit her. "But... I made this story up, like you do."

His eyes skim it, all ten pages, until it abruptly ends along with the notebook. It's about a girl who befriends a tiypn (a fierce, tiger-like creature). A rather simplistic plot, yes, but it's still good. The Doctor's chest swells.

"Ran out of paper," she explains, and his eyes cut up to find her biting her lip. Like she knows she's gambled on this, going against his instructions for the assignment.

He lets go, and the huge, face-splitting smile he's been holding back spreads across his face. "Mali, this is excellent," he says, genuine in his praise. "Are you going to finish it?"

"That's why I'm here," she explains, flushing pink. "Need a new notebook."

"There's plenty on the supply shelf in my classroom."

"I need a nice notebook," she modifies, turning to touch the leather-bound ones on the shelf.

His grin, if possible, widens. This isn't about grades or pleasing him. She's writing because she wants to.

"How did the story come to you, dear?"

"I don't really know," she admits. "I was trying to think of something for your assignment, and it just sort of popped into my head. I didn't want to forget it."

"The muse is an unpredictable creature," he says gravely, and shakes his head when she looks at him. "I'll explain another time."

"You're right, you know." Mali faces the rows of books, trips a finger along their spines. "Books can take you places. I just wish we had more like Jane Eyre. For you. So you won't think of leaving."

She says this with a giggle, like it's a joke, like leaving this village is impossible. And she's a tiny bit right, he thinks. Much as the Doctor wants his TARDIS back, he's not particularly anxious to take off in it, and she, all of his students, are a good part of the reason why. He's doing them good. He cares about something again. Why be in a rush to end it, when he's got nothing better to rush off to? Yes, it's amazing, wonderful, that he both saved his home planet and found it, but now that he has the choice to go back to Gallifrey, he can't imagine ever really wanting to. The little time he last spent there did nothing but remind him of why he'd run away in the first place.

"Me? You're the one that'll be graduating soon."

She shrugs. "Yeah, then I'll have to be a grown-up. Get married, all that."

"A grown-up," he echoes, disgust in his voice. "I'll never be one of those. Besides, don't you want to explore your planet, Mali?"

She shrugs again, though there is longing in her eyes, a tiny piece of her wondering if he didn't make up all his own travels, after all. "Don't know where I'd go. Besides, my whole family is here. And my parents are Ahionios. They've lived in this village almost forever, and they've never got tired of it."

It's a local word meaning 'eternal', used to describe certain paired inhabitants who don't age. The Doctor's heard the legends, isn't sure if he believes them, but it's a fascinating concept nonetheless. This is the first he's heard a student claim to be the child of a pair (well, except for Jeb Tatum, and the Doctor doesn't believe a word that comes out of that kid's mouth), and it kicks his curiosity into high gear.

"So..." Drawing the word out, he looks at Mali and thinks of parent-teacher conferences, an earth custom he'd do well to implement here. "How do you know that-"

Just then group of teens enter the book aisle, playfully pushing each other and laughing. The Doctor recognises all of them, and amongst them is his loudest, thickest, most opinionated male student, Kenna. With effort, he refrains from rolling his eyes.

"Professor!" Kenna yelps, pretending fear, though there is genuine surprise in his blue, over-pretty, idiot eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"Sunbathing," the Doctor quips, deadpan. "Did you think I lived in the school?"

All the other kids laugh at Kenna then. Pleased by this, the Doctor teases them all a bit about finding books to add to their reading list, and though they know he's joking, it's enough to make them scatter. Mali picks a notebook and goes to pay for it, and, suddenly tired, the Doctor thinks again about going home for the night, to his tiny assigned cottage. He has a time anomaly to wonder/worry about, and papers to grade. He'll think up a way to deal with the clerk and his overpriced merch tomorrow.

His hand is on the door when Mali's voice catches his ear. She's not speaking loudly, but there's a note of anxiety in it that makes him turn around.

"...thought they were two," she was saying to the clerk. "Two's all I have."

The old man blinks at Mali, then looks past her to the Doctor. Holding eye contact, he puts his hand on the notebook and slides it away from her.

The Doctor's fury returns with a vengeance. Him being cheated is one thing, but his student? It is intolerable.

His boots thump heavily as he stomps to the counter, storm blazing in his eyes. "Oi," he growls. "Two's plenty for that notebook. This young lady wants it for school, so if you think you can steal from her, just because you and I don't get on, then-"

A voice pipes up from alongside him, calm and feminine and authoritative, but it's the out-of-place cadence of her speech that halts his blistering words, freezes the Doctor in place.

"'S goin' on here? Some sorta trouble?"

His hearts speed as he catches a glimpse of blonde hair from the corner of his eye. It's a common enough colour, but combined with that accent, it's...it's impossible. No one has an accent here, the TARDIS translation circuit doesn't allow for it. He only ever hears accents when his ship doesn't translate at all, if a person is speaking a language he frequently uses.

Rassilon, if she didn't sound so much like...like her- he'd be immensely curious.

As it is, he's not curious at all. He's far too shocked.

"Sir? Sir?" he hears her say, and though he doesn't dare look at her, he notices the clerk is staring at him. Oh, oh no. She's addressing him.

"S'alright," she assures, touching his arm, laughing a little when he stiffens. "You're not in trouble."

The Doctor's eyes widen. Oh, but he was. Because now it's too late, he knows the truth, he's caught her scent, and even if he ran straight out of here and didn't stop till he was far, far away, he'll never be able to pretend this didn't happen. And though a million questions race through his mind, he is only capable of answering the one she's just asked.

"Yes, he's overcharging," he grinds out. "Three obols for this young lady's notebook."

"They're supposed to be two," she admonishes the old clerk, with such heat that the man shrinks back, and the Doctor finally gets the guts to glance at her profile.

If this is his mind playing tricks, it's doing an excellent job. Rose's jaw juts in indignation, her sculpted eyebrows drawn together, and as she tells off the merchant she is gorgeous. The first thing that hits him hard is how his memory has not done her justice, and a lump rises up in his throat that he can't seem to swallow away.

It's Rose.

Rose Tyler.

Oh, and she is a young thing. As young as he remembers her, her skin flawless and fair. There is a flowering vine wound about her golden head in a twisted crown, and it makes her look like a princess. Her gown (cream-coloured, draped round her form in a flowing Grecian style) only adds to that impression.

And then he recognises it for what it is.

She's wearing the gown of the Peacekeepers. Esteemed and revered, they are the highest authority on the planet, and now he understands the old merchant's cowering. Despite his overwhelm, a smile breaks out on the Doctor's face. Only those with courage and compassion in large measure can earn such a position, and isn't that just Rose Tyler all over?

She glances his way and frowns a little, probably because of his sappy grin, which he quickly gets rid of. Clears his throat, averts his eyes, and notices the communicator he tried to buy earlier is now sitting on the counter.

"Thirty?" he says, not really a question, and Foster doesn't contradict him as he plinks the dull, misshapen coins onto the counter.

Rose watches the transaction with crossed arms. "This is your only warning," she says, as the Doctor pockets his purchase. "I hear about you overcharging people again, you're demoted to sanitation."

The bushy-haired man nods. The Doctor barely notices. Rose's eyes train on him, she studies him with a little brow crinkle, and he knows he needs to look away, walk away, get away, before she recognises him.

But his feet won't move; they affix to the dusty planks, his eyes affix to hers, and when her cheeks turn pink his own do too.

"Do you know each other, Professor?" asks a voice, and the Doctor blinks to find Mali still standing there. His mouth opens, his eyes return to Rose-

But she's gone.

She's strolling toward the door, creamy skirts flowing, like this is any other day, like she didn't just turn his entire world on its head. His fists clench as his mind whirrs, dizzily fumbling for any reason, any half-baked excuse to stop her.

He fails.

"She's new," comments another girl, Ane, as the door swings shut with a wooden clatter. "And young. Like, only a couple years older than me. Have you ever seen a Peacekeeper that young?"

Shaking her head, Mali gives him another odd look and then tucks her new notebook into her satchel. "She's pretty."

Kenna hoots. "They're all pretty. She, on the other hand, is hot."

Mali smacks the moron playfully and he laughs, says not as hot as you and then they're all laughing and it's too much, the Doctor needs to get out of there.

"Go home," he commands himself once outside, after a few calming, clarifying gulps of fresh air.

It's knocked him a good one, seeing her here. Yet now that he's able to think a little, he knows he can't go after her. Her presence, while shocking, is not really a mystery; he'd gamble every last thing he owns that there's a misfiring dimensional hopper involved. And if that's the case, her being stuck here is a problem that's already solved. Nothing good can come of him mucking about with what, to him, is already ancient history.

From a distance, childish laughter catches his ear, and he looks over before he can stop himself. Sure enough, Rose is the cause of it, sunshine glinting off her hair as she reaches -illegally- into one of the village's huge decorative fountains to splash water on a group of four or five children who've gathered around her.

His hearts swell, he's grinning like an idiot. And when she wiggles her fingers to the little ones in farewell before continuing on down the stone-paved street, his feet, of their own accord, follow her.


1-29-18 For those who got an alert for chapter 2- FF is being dumb, and the chapter is posted but not showing up yet. Hopefully it will be resolved shortly.