A.N.: This isn't going to be as long as my other stories. I see it being about 10 chapters, possibly one or two more depending on how some of the chapters unfold themselves. I have other stories in the works, so I don't know when I'll actually have the time to update this one, but I thought I'd see if it's something people think I should pursue. So, let me know what you think. I realize the premise has been done before, but I have some ideas for a new take on it.

It was still early. The Old Girl had landed at Clara's at 3:27 in the morning-her time, at least. This was something which she'd been all too eager to inform him of when she'd finally seen fit to answer her door. So, rather than risk another failed landing, The Doctor now had four hours for which he had to find something to do. After his rather horrifying domestic stay at the Ponds', he opted to return to the TARDIS for the duration of his tenure. Four hours, thirty-eight minutes, and fifteen seconds later found him seated beneath the deck doing some less than urgent tinkering on the wiring beneath the main console, see if he could finally pinpoint the reason for all of those missed coordinates; he wasn't terribly optimistic on solving it, but he had the spare time to try. It was as he was elbow deep this task nearly five hours after he'd begun that he finally heard the main doors open overhead.

"I was beginning to wonder if I shouldn't come back next week," he called without so much as a cursory glance from his work and he clamped the Sonic between his teeth to finagle with a pesky wire coupling.

Footsteps approached and descended the stairs off on the rim of the deck behind him. He should've noticed that the sound of those footsteps was off, quieter and slow, not the steps of one accustomed to walking in every Wednesday and making herself at home. He should've noticed a lot of things, really. No chatter about his-although not actually his because he could've sworn he'd input 9 o'clock in the morning-inconsiderate choice of hour to arrive. No scent of her perfume. No clicking of heeled shoes on the deck. None of the things he'd come to associate with his most recent travelling companion. But, then, there shouldn't have been.

Because it wasn't Clara who'd joined him.

"Almost didn' recognise the TARDIS."

The Doctor went completely still, well and actually frozen in place. All motor function, including that which was required to breathe, short-circuited as if he had the brain of something entirely un-Time-Lord-y, and he very nearly dropped his screwdriver.

"Gave the ol' girl a makeover, yeah?"

Forgetting to so much as blink, he turned his head slowly and with great conscious effort, his eyes wide, to face the figure by the stairs with hands tucked away inside the pockets of her jeans. Twenty feet and 419 years, and he recognized her in a heartbeat, a face he'd allowed himself to glimpse only once since her farewell had shattered him. Her eyes were on him, just as his were locked on her. He could see surprise there, along with so many other things, but surprise was forefront in her expression. She didn't recognize him.

Until, with a smile that sent his hearts stuttering, she did.

"Hello," she said, the one word heavy with so much more than a simple greeting.

His jaw went slack and the Doctor started when the Sonic fell and clattered across the floor as he was reminded that, superior biology or no, he required oxygen as well as any human. That breath which he took shuddered on its way in through an airway that was petulant in its unwillingness to cooperate. Quiet, sneakered footsteps drew his attention back upwards, and he watched, utterly transfixed as an impossible woman strode forward with slow steps. Her eyes remained fixed on his until she was but a few paces from him and then she bent to retrieve the screwdriver from the floor. She observed it curiously, entirely different than the one she'd known-not the only thing to change so drastically since she'd laid eyes on it last-before holding it out to him. His eyes remained on her as he took it, iron orbs drawn to the powerful magnetic pole that was Rose Tyler.

That was when the Doctor realized the TARDIS must have lulled him to sleep while he was working. It surprised him not to have noticed it, although he'd been without proper sleep for so long that it really shouldn't have. And the Old Girl could be downright crafty at times when it came to his wellbeing.

"I see you've changed again, Doctor," Rose said with a grin.

She lifted a hand to gingerly finger the fabric tied 'round his neck, failing to notice the way his breath caught again for her proximity as she drew close to do so.

"Wha's with this? Tryin' to dress more your age?"

"Hey." It was merely a reflex to respond this way, but it managed to snap him from his trance. The Doctor straightened the knot as he finally had the presence of mind to stand, Rose's nearness to him forcing her to back up a step lest he bump into her. "Bow ties are cool."

Rose laughed with a fond smile and warmth swelled in the Doctor's chest as he smiled in turn for the first time since this impromptu, subconsciously conjured reunion had begun.

"It's been a long time since I've dreamt of you, Rose Tyler. Long time since I've allowed myself to."

Her smile widened when he said her full name.

"I hope i's a good surprise, yeah?"

Now it was his turn to laugh.

"You've no idea."

She gave him another spectacular grin.

"Oh, I think I can imagine," she said. These words and the intensity with which they were spoken drew his attention, but he gleaned no answers from her expression. "I's good t'see you again. Even if i's just in a dream." She tapped on his bow tie again and added, "And even if you insist on wearin' somethin' silly as this."

That was when he saw it, a deep and profound sadness hidden behind her smile. He only recognized it for hiding so much pain himself, and it had taken so long for him to recognize it now for the simple fact that he had not thought to look for it. Not in her. His gut churned with a deeply seeded dread. His deepest desire was for Rose, wherever she was, to be happy. So, for this conjured spectre to show him otherwise…

It was not formed of his own mind.

"Something's wrong," he declared, and Rose sobered, the turn of her lips declining as she lifted her eyes back to his. "What is it?"

Rose shook her head, golden hair, a little shorter than he recalled, swaying and ghosting over her shoulders.

"I's nothing."

She never had been able to lie to him.

"Rose," he admonished.

"I shouldn' bother you with it. I's not like you could do anythin'."

His gaze didn't falter, and she recognized the futility of taciturnity. And when her false smile fell, the grief that took its place wrenched both of the Doctor's hearts right from his chest.

"He could die," she finally managed to breathe out as if this was the first time she'd been able to utter the words aloud.

The implications of this statement required no explanation. Rose smiled again, but the Doctor could see the film of moisture coating her eyes and he wanted to scream, to rage at the universe for its cruelty. It couldn't just let this be, this one thing? It couldn't let him grant her the life she deserved? With a man she deserved: a human man?

In this cruel turn, he was reminded just how fragile humans were.

"Wasn't that the point?"

This had never been his intention…

"H-" His throat had closed in on itself, disallowing the vocalization of even one complete syllable, and the Doctor had to clear his throat. "How?"

Rose studied him but surely found that same facet as before that told her he would not go without answers. She did know him so well…

"An invasion."

He wasn't entirely sure what he'd been expecting. This news, however, wasn't entirely surprising.

"Who?"

"It doesn' matter."

"Rose-"

"Doctor." Her calm refusal came in the form of his name, and it gave him pause. "You're there, and I'm here. I don' want you to worry about me, not when there's nothin' you can do about it."

His eyes softened as he absorbed these word and his tone drew quieter when he said, "I always worry about you, Rose Tyler, all prophetic dreams withstanding."

She laughed again, a touch more earnestly, but then that sadness was back, weighing on this dream reunion like the entire Dalek fleet.

"What is it?"

" 'S not-" She thought better again of brushing his question aside and glanced down a moment to collect herself. With a small sigh she looked back up, that weight settled heavily in her eyes once again. "I never got to say goodbye…"

The Doctor's immediate thought was of their last meeting, of a farewell he'd never given to preserve the future he desired for her. And then he wondered… Was she talking about him? Or was she not…? Had- … Had both of them left her without valediction? But, he already had his answer. It was all there in her eyes. He could see it clear as the fabric of time. Rose Tyler had been abandoned.

Twice.

As someone who'd had many people leave him over the course of his long life, someone who'd had his heart broken so many times… The Doctor couldn't breathe imagining he'd inflicted those same wounds upon her. He was going to apologise, for what little that was worth.

But, then she stepped forward, bridging the majority of the gap between them, and his magnificent brain short-circuited again.

"So, this is me… sayin' goodbye."

Rose reached up and laid the softest of kisses on his cheek, not so far from the corner of his mouth, and the Doctor felt his sensory nerves ignite under the feather of a touch-not technically possible in a dream, but the mind could be convinced of anything if it yearned for it enough. He only realized he'd closed his eyes after she drew back and then he 'felt' her hand cup his jaw, her fingers tickling the hair behind his ears as she ran her thumb over that same spot on his cheek. She may have removed whatever mark she'd left, but it could never be erased from his mind. He took only a moment to savor her-not actually there-touch, and then he opened his eyes to find hers waiting.

Rose offered him a smile that matched the kiss she'd just imparted to him for its softness and said, "Goodbye, my wonderful Doctor."

"Earth to Doctor."

Rose's image faded to the darkness awarded by his closed eyelids and the Doctor was reminded, so cruelly, how none of it had been real. She had never been there. They had never spoken. She'd never touched him. Never kissed him…

But, he couldn't shake that feeling.

"Although, I suppose we aren't really on Earth when we're in here… TARDIS to Doctor. Are you in there?"

He could still feel it. Her departing kiss. It was seared to the skin of his cheek as though the neurons could actually remember something that had never happened and it was fuel to the fire awakened in his chest. He bolted upright, alerting Clara who was standing in front of him, and he squeezed by her to rush up to the console.

"Afraid I'm going to have to cut this short," he said as he went. "Something's just come up that I need to deal with."

Clara followed behind less urgently with a look of confusion and mild irritation.

"Weren't you the one banging on my door at three in the morning, eager to go on an adventure?"

"I was not banging on your door," he defended himself. She just gave him a pointed look that reminded him they had both been there. "Alright, I was. But, as I've said, something's come up that I really must tend to."

"And just what is this urgent business that was brought to your attention while you were napping?"

"Time Lord stuff. Afraid you'd find it terribly boring," he argued lamely. "You won't even notice I'm missing. I'll pop off, handle what needs handling, and be back here ten seconds from now."

He could feel Clara staring at him as he input coordinates into the TARDIS's navigational system. By the time he looked back at her, although he detected a bit of suspicion on her part, she'd already conceded, unfolding her arms from their stern posture.

"I'll hold you to that. And you'd best give me details when you get back."

And then Clara turned and headed out. The Doctor waited for the door to close fully behind her before he punched the launch, eager to start his search. Real reunion or no, this had been a warning. He could only surmise that the TARDIS, through some small, nearly undetectable crack in reality, had picked up on a danger to one of her former passengers and had given him a warning in the form of a dream. Now all he had to do was find that tiny crack in the whole of time and space, find some way to get through that wouldn't leave him stranded on the other side, and sort out whatever was about to go wrong in Rose Tyler's world. All without either her or his other self ever knowing he had been there.

Of course, he'd learned a long time ago not to make plans. They had an infuriating want not to follow through as expected.