A/N: Just a little one off scene from Pete's world that popped into my head a few weeks ago… ^Martha
"Rose!" The Doctor announced as she walked into the kitchen of the Tyler Mansion. "I thought you'd never get up. I had a dream last night and I think it's going to cause a culinary revolution. Sit down and I'll tell you all about it, then you can sample my creation."
Rose looked around the kitchen, she wasn't sure if he'd been cooking or testing weaponry… she was glad that her Mum and Pete had taken Tony to Disneyland.
"Doctor…?" Rose wondered if she should ask him about what was on her mind or not.
"What is it, Rose Tyler?" He grinned, still enjoying rolling her whole name over his tongue.
"I remember something… something new." She sat down at the kitchen table where there was already a mug of tea waiting for her.
"Something you'd forgotten?" He was holding out a bowl to her, but she seemed not to notice.
"No, something new. It's like remembering something I forgot, but I also remember things another way, like it never happened." She was frowning and looked as worried as he'd ever seen her look.
"What do you remember?" He pulled his hand back, deciding she wasn't going to be ready for his gastronomic revelation until after she'd got this off her chest.
"I remember seeing you, before I ever met you at all." She ran her fingers round the edge of her mug. "It was on new year's Eve, 2005. I was walking home with Mum and you were there, waiting outside the flat on the Powel Estate. I thought you were drunk, you could hardly stand up. You told me I'd have a great year."
"I don't remember that." The Doctor said softly, thinking through the implications.
"Except, I know that never happened. I'd have recognised you when you regenerated, but I didn't."
"Time is in flux, Rose. You've travelled in the time vortex, you can feel it now, when something changes."
"So… you must have gone back to see me." She whispered. "The other you, I mean."
They hadn't talked about the Doctor's full Time Lord counterpart in quite a while.
"I guess I must have." Things must have been dire if he'd risked crossing time lines and seeing Rose out of order.
"He wasn't right." Rose went on. "I think he was dying." She covered her mouth with her hand and shut her eyes.
The Doctor deposited the bowl he'd been clutching on the bread-crumb covered work surface and crouched down beside her, pulling her into a hug.
Rose put her arms around him and hid her face against his neck as tears threatened to fall. It felt so strange to cry over the death of a man who was quite clearly alive and there to comfort her. The Doctor rubbed her back in slow circles. He couldn't help wondering what might have happened to his other self, had he regenerated and what was he like now?
"Oh!" He exclaimed, slapping his forehead.
"What?" Rose looked up, alarmed by his loud exclamation in the face of her shocked grief.
"This. All this." He gestured madly at the messy kitchen. "Oh, I'm such a fool."
"I don't understand." Rose looked even more upset now.
"Last night, I thought it was just a dream. I mean, it seemed like the sort of thing that would be a dream." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully with his hand. "I crashed the TARDIS in a garden and this little Scottish girl cooked me dinner. Fish fingers and custard." He waved at the kitchen again.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Rose was giving him a familiar look. One that told him she was in no doubt at all that he was an alien.
"I thought I was regenerating, then it all got a bit odd. I think the swimming pool ended up in the library and I was flinging bread and butter out of the front door like a Frisbee. So when I woke up I thought it had just been a weird dream." He sat back on his heels, hand going to the back of his neck. "Did I regenerate and get taken care of by a little Scottish girl?"
"How would you have seen that?"
He shrugged with his whole body, his expressive mouth turning down at the corners, deep in thought. "Weelll…" He tilted his head to the side, "I was born out of regeneration energy. It could be that when it's used I sort of sense it."
"I suppose we knew he'd regenerate some time." Rose's voice was still quiet. It made The Doctor's chest feel tight. "When you told me about River and how she knew a different you from the future."
The Doctor nodded. He wondered if his counterpart in the other universe had figured out anything more about the mysterious Professor Song yet. He had started to hold that encounter in his mind as proof that his other self would be alright. Professor Song seemed to have known a good man, a man she was willing to die for. His future-self had clearly cared for her as well, that must mean all was not lost for him.
He pulled Rose back into a hug, feeling like the luckiest man in the universe – both universes, hell, all the universes – for the first time that day. He usually felt that way at least three or four times each day since arriving in Pete's world.
They were interrupted by the beep of the oven timer. The Doctor got immediately to his feet, grabbing oven gloves off the counter and pulling them on dramatically as if they were part of a radiation suit. He yanked the oven door open, recoiling slightly from the heat and reached in to pull out a tray of fish fingers.
Shaking off an oven glove, he skewered one of the fish fingers with a fork and dunked it in the bowl of custard. "Oh." He said around the hot, sweet, fishy mouthful. "That's just weird." He stuck out his tongue, showing the half chewed fish custard.
He gulped it down and took another custard covered bite of fish finger. "Really weird!" He exclaimed. "I don't like that at all." He put the last of the fish finger in his mouth, just to be sure. "No. Definitely not. Yuk!" He turned on the tap and stuck his head under it, gulping down water. Rose laughed behind him and he felt like a weight had been lifted. He turned the tap off and smiled.
He felt her sidle up to him and nudge her shoulder against his side. "You're an idiot." She said, her voice trembling between sorrow and amusement.