Author's notes:

Another Doctor Who / Star Trek original series crossover which I would like to dedicate to Furostomi-chan who made me think about a TOS crossover, and enjoyed my attempt so much. This is another fun episode, but I've added a bit of angst for good measure.

Chapter 1

Moving On By Going Back

Rose watched the Doctor slowly close the door of the TARDIS and walk up the ramp with his hands in his pockets. He was looking down at the floor grating with a sad, thoughtful look on his face.

'Why her?' she asked tentatively, unsure of her relationship with this incredible alien whom she had come to think of as more than just a friend. 'Why did they think they could repair the ship with the head of Madame de Pompadour?'

He looked up as if just realising that she and Mickey were on board. 'We'll probably never know,' he answered with a shrug. 'There was massive damage in the computer memory banks. It probably got confused.' He scratched his ear and walked around the console. 'The Tardis can close down the time windows now the droids are gone.' He adjusted a couple of the controls. 'Should stop it causing any more trouble.'

'Are you all right?' She asked hesitantly as she nervously touched her cheek. What she really wanted to ask was, "are we all right?"

Twice in the space of a few days, the Doctor had acted as though she meant nothing to him. Once outside the cafe near Deffry Vale High School.

"How many of us have there been travelling with you?" she'd asked him.

"Does it matter?" he'd replied dismissively. It was all a bit too domestic for him.

But Rose wasn't going to let it go. "Yeah, it does, if I'm just the latest in a long line."

"As opposed to what?" he'd challenged. Did she think he was her boyfriend or something? He was over nine hundred years old for goodness sake!

That had hurt her. She thought they had something special, something that would lead to . . . well, something more.

"I thought you and me were . . . I obviously got it wrong," she'd said angrily. "I've been to the year five billion, right, but this? Now this is really seeing the future. You just leave us behind . . . Is that what you're going to do to me?"

"No. Not to you," he'd said quickly.

So she'd been right. He did have feelings for her. She'd softened her tone of voice when she'd continued. "But Sarah Jane? You were that close to her once, and now you never even mention her. Why not?"

And that was the crux of the problem. He didn't want to lose Rose, but knew that eventually he would. "I don't age," he'd told her angrily. But his anger wasn't directed at her. He was angry at the universe in general. "I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone who you . . ." He'd stopped before making a confession that he might have later regretted.

But Rose had spotted his hesitation. "What, Doctor?" She'd wanted to know what she meant to him.

When he'd spoken again, his voice had been tinged with sadness. "You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on. Alone. That's the curse of the Time Lords."

And that had told Rose why he was reluctant to form relationships. It hurt him. But then today, he had ridden a horse through a time window to rescue Madame de Pompadour; trapping himself in the eighteenth century, and Mickey and herself in the fifty first. All without a second thought for her.

'I'm always all right,' he said automatically in answer to her original question.

Mickey could see that these two needed a time-out. When it came to emotional uncertainty, he'd been there and bought the T-shirt.

'Come on, Rose. It's time you showed me around the rest of this place,' he said as he took her hand and led her through the opening into the passageway.

He'd already seen the kitchen / dining room, as they'd had something to eat and drink while they waited the five and a half hours for the Doctor to return. At the time, Mickey wasn't sure if the Doctor would return, and had been trying to find out what supplies they had on board.

"So, how much food do we have on board then?" he'd asked her.

"I dunno really," she'd told him. "The Doctor said that the food replicator can recombine individual atoms and molecules into food items. I suppose it's infinite."

"So we won't starve then," he'd said with relief.

"Mickey, he's comin' back," she'd said, hoping her faith in the Doctor was well founded.

"Yeah, you said, I'm just tryin' to plan for any contingency . . . y'know, a bit of crisis management."

And actually, she couldn't argue with that, they hadn't know how long it would take him to get back, even though she trusted the Doctor and was certain he would do something brilliant to get back to her . . . Well, that's what she'd kept telling herself.

'The swimmin' pool and gym are just in there,' she told Mickey, indicating a set of double doors on the left as they approached.

He opened the doors and looked in. 'WOW!'

He was looking at a health spa, with changing cubicles, an olympic sized pool, and a mind boggling assortment of high tech exercise equipment.

'Yeah. Not bad, is it?' Rose said with a smile. She took his hand again and led him to the living room.

Mickey saw the comfy sofa, where he imagined Rose and the Doctor cuddled up to watch the large flat screen television.

'What channels do yer get on that then?' he asked, hoping that an innocent question about what they watched might elicit some information on their relationship.

'Oh, the TARDIS streams programmes from all over the place,' Rose told him, handing him the remote. 'I can still watch Eastenders, Top Gear and all my other favourites, but I'm hooked on this soap called By the Light of the Asteroid,' she explained as Mickey brought up the channel guide and started surfing the huge list. 'It's about this woman called Joofie Crystalle and there are these twins . . .'

Mickey found an earth channel that listed the original Star Trek episodes, which reminded him of a conversation they'd had when Rose and the Doctor had returned to investigate Deffry Vale High School.

'Seein' that there reminds me. Were you and 'im winding me up when you said you'd been on the Starship Enterprise?' he asked with a lopsided smile.

'No. Honest. Like I said, we met Gene Roddenberry an' took him home. I said y'wouldn't believe it,' Rose said.

'Well, y'gotta admit, it's a bit far fetched innit. I mean, Kirk an' Spock an' everythin',' Mickey said with a laugh.

'Yeah, I know whatcha mean. I was the same when I first saw them. But then the Doctor told me that they weren't William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy. They were the real people that the actors were playin' on the show.' Rose then had a thought. 'I can show ya the uniforms if y'like. They let us keep 'em.'

'Seriously?' Mickey asked with a big grin.

'Yeah. An' I can show you the wardrobe at the same time.' Rose took his hand and led him out of the living room.

She took the second passageway on the right, and then third on the left. She led him straight ahead and under some stairs. Mickey was starting to wonder just how big this ship was. They went past some high tech looking bins, and Rose stopped at the fifth door on the left.

'You ready?' Rose asked with a mischievous smile.

'Ready for what?' Mickey asked with a frown.

'This,' She said and opened the large door.

Mickey was confronted by a spherical room, the upper hemisphere looking like the console room, complete with floor decking and weirdly shaped coral struts. However, instead of a time rotor in the centre, there was an ornate spiral staircase which led down to an inverted hemisphere. Around the left hand wall and curving around to the front, were rows and rows of clothing on four levels. He could see the same on the floor below.

'Bloody 'ell,' is all he could say.

Rose bumped shoulders with him. 'I know. Good innit?'

She led him over to one of the rows of clothing and sorted through some of the getups. There were space suits, an Edwardian cricketer's outfit with three quarter length coat. A long coat with an outrageously long scarf hung around it. She pulled out a hanger with a red sweatshirt and black trousers.

'There ya go. Starfleet uniform. There's a changin' cubicle over there, why don'tcha try it on?' she teased.

'I will if you will,' he responded.

She flashed him her beaming smile. 'Deal. See ya in a few minutes.'

Mickey watched her jog over to the spiral staircase and disappear down to the next level. He went into the cubicle and hung the clothes on a peg while he took off his T-shirt and jeans. He pulled on the black trousers, and realised that he was a different size to the Doctor, and these trousers would never fit. And yet, as he pulled them up, they fitted like a glove.

What he hadn't taken into account was that the clothing was from the twenty third century. The cloth was made from a mimetic polymer which adjusted the fibres to fit the wearer's body. The same thing happened when he pulled on the sweatshirt, it fit around his chest and abdomen, and the sleeve length was perfect.

'I'll be damned,' Mickey said to himself with a smile.

He sat on the small bench and pulled on the boots, which again, fit him perfectly. He stood up and pulled open the curtain of the cubicle, where he caught sight of himself in the full length mirror. He swaggered over with a grin on his face, turning left and right to admire the outfit. He heard footsteps ringing on the metal stairs as Rose emerged from the lower floor.

'Well . . . Watcha think?' she asked, holding her arms out and giving a twirl.

'Oh God Rose. You look amazin',' he said, staring at the short red dress she was wearing. He'd never told Rose, but he'd often fantasised about her wearing one of the sexy uniforms, and here she was, right in front of him like a dream come true.

"Yep. Still got it" she thought to herself as she saw his expression and appreciative gaze. 'You don't look half bad yerself.'

'D'ya think the Doctor would take me back there?' he asked hesitantly. 'Y'know, to the Enterprise so that I could see it for myself?'

'I don't see why not,' she replied. 'Tell ya what. You go an' put the kettle on, and I'll go an' ask 'im.'

'Would ya? That'd be brilliant.'

'No problem.' She took his hand and led him back towards the kitchen. There was something else she wanted to ask the Doctor at the same time, something in private.

When she reached the console room, the Doctor had his back to the doorway, his hands in his pockets as he looked at the monitor.

'Hiya,' Rose said as she entered the domed room. He turned to look at her, and smiled when he saw what she was wearing.

'Hello. Someone's been playing dressing up again.'

She looked down at the uniform and smoothed it down before tugging down the hem of the dress. 'What this little ol' thing. You should see Mickey,' she laughed. 'Actually, he was wonderin' if we could go an' see the Enterprise.'

'Yeah, course we can,' he said and turned towards the console.

Rose walked towards him and held his hand. 'Before we do though, I wanted to ask you . . . Are we all right? Y'know, me an' you? Only this last coupla days have been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for me . . . what with meetin' Sarah Jane and then that thing with Reinette . . .'

He'd turned to face her and was looking into her gorgeous hazel eyes. He could see all the upset and uncertainty of the last few days reflected in her gaze.

'Oh Rose. Come here,' he said as he pulled her into a hug. 'I'm sorry. Meeting Sarah again brought back a lot of old memories, and then Reinette sneaking inside my head while I was looking for some answers as to why those robots wanted her brain. It all got a bit too much.'

Rose had her right cheek resting against his chest as she hugged him. 'I was so scared that you didn't want me any more and were gonna drop me off back home like y'did with Sarah Jane.'

He had his chin resting on top of her head, and rubbed her back as he replied. 'Of course I want you Rose. Before I met you, I'd been on my own for such a long time that I'd forgotten what it was like to have a friend on board. You showed me how to have fun again. There's no way I want to go back to being on my own.'

He released her from the hug and held her shoulders, looking into her eyes and smiling. 'And besides, if I ever drop you off back home all unhappy, your mother would kill me.'

Rose rested her forehead against his as she laughed. She then looked up into those dark, ancient eyes and stroked his cheek. 'Thank you,' she said and kissed the opposite cheek. 'C'mon. Let's go an' tell Mickey he's gonna be in Star Trek. He's in the kitchen, makin' a brew.'

She grabbed his hand and literally skipped out of the console room, happy in the knowledge that she and the Doctor were still good.

'Blimey. You've got him well trained,' the Doctor said as he bounced out of the room beside her.

'Oh don't say that. You make him sound like a puppy or somethin'.'

'Wellll . . .'

The USS Enterprise.

Orbiting an uninhabited planet in the Omicron Delta region.

Stardate: 3025.3. (January 10, 2326)

The USS Enterprise, designation NCC-1701 was a twenty third century Federation Constitution-class starship operated by Starfleet. It had a saucer shaped primary hull which was over four hundred feet in diameter. A large strut connected it to the cylindrical secondary hull, which was three hundred and forty feet long. Two long struts connected the warp nacelles to the secondary hull, giving the ship an overall length of nine hundred and forty seven feet.

Over the last few months, the four hundred and thirty members of the crew had been through the mill with a variety of gruelling missions and were in need of some down time. An away team were currently assessing an uninhabited planet which seemed to offer the possibility of some shore leave.

'Anything from the landing party?' Captain Kirk asked his first officer as he signed an order on a young yeomans data pad.

The Vulcan science officer, who had pointed ears and a yellowish complexion, walked over from a panel he'd been inspecting and stood behind the command chair with yeoman Tonia Barrows.

'They should be sending up a report momentarily, Captain,' he replied. He watched as Kirk stretched and groaned in the command chair. 'Something wrong?'

'A kink in my back,' Kirk told him, indicating the area between his shoulder blades. Yeoman Barrows started to massage the area he'd indicated. 'That's it. A little higher, please. Push. Push hard. Dig it in there, Mister Sp . . .'

Spock had stepped forward so that his captain could see that it was not he who was giving him the massage.

'Thank you, Yeoman. That's sufficient,' Kirk said hurriedly.

Tonia looked to Spock for approval before speaking. 'You need sleep, Captain . . . If it's not out of line.'

'I have enough of that from Doctor McCoy, Yeoman. Thank you,' Kirk told her curtly.

'Doctor McCoy is correct, Captain,' Spock told him. 'After what this ship has been through in the last three months, there is not a crewman aboard who is not in need of rest . . . Myself excepted, of course.' Vulcans did not expend energy unnecessarily, and were not prone to physical or mental fatigue.

Kirk had heard enough. He was the captain of this ship, and he would decide when he needed shore leave. He rubbed his eyes as he got out of the chair and headed for the turbo lift at the rear of the bridge.

'Have Doctor McCoy's report channeled to my quarters, Lieutenant,' he said to Uhura, the communications officer, who was sitting at her station.

'Aye, aye, Captain,' she replied as the doors swished shut.