Author's Note: This story contains spoilers for Girl in the Fireplace, if you haven't read spoilers for or seen the current season, beware what lies before you. Doctor Who is owned by the BBC and various other people who do not include me in their number, anything you recognize really does belong to them.

Rose

She'd waited there for five and a half hours. Waited there and agonized for him, praying that he'd save Reinette. She'd seen his face, seen his eyes light up as he'd talked about her, and she'd seen the devastation on his face when he thought that he wouldn't be able to save her. Much as it might hurt, much as some jealous part of her wanted to keep the Doctor with her and damn what happened to French-lady, she had to help him save her. She'd been the one to suggest that stupid horse anyway, while the Doctor and Mickey were just standing around in horror.

She'd helped him go back. Inside her mind, she kept hearing his voice, the old him that is, so happy, "Everybody lives! Just this once, everybody lives!" Part of that had found its way into her soul, and she couldn't not help.

Oh, but it had hurt so much to send him back there, knowing there was no guarantee that he'd find his way back to them in the fifty-first century. And it had hurt even more when she'd seen the look in his eyes, and realized that he loved Madame Pompadour enough to be willing to risk it.

So she'd waited. And then, as the minutes had ticked by, and she'd just started to lose hope, she'd heard his steps on the ship's decking. Mickey didn't walk like that, not with that light, fast, arrogant stride. It had to be him. And she'd turned and run to hug him, so glad to see him alive and here! Here, where he belonged, with her, and the TARDIS, and all of time before them to go off and save the world in, just like normal.

But even as she'd started to run, she'd seen the face behind him. And she stumbled to a stop a meter or so in front of him, staring over his shoulder at the woman he'd stolen out of time and she knew life on board the TARDIS would never be the same again.

Reinette

The girl's face had said it all. Oh, she had hidden the hurt almost instantly, but Reinette had not lived in the hotbed of intrigue that was the French Royal Court for so long without learning how to read the smallest, most hidden facial expressions. The girl, the same one who had once come through on her Doctor's behalf to warn her, had been overjoyed to see the Doctor, and shocked to see her.

The Doctor didn't see it, that was obvious. Where the girl had stopped short, he strode forward and embraced her, spinning her around and speaking quickly, that joyous lightning swift banter that had so enraptured Reinette as a girl and young woman. Asking the girl, Rose she heard him call her, how long they had waited, driving straight over her answer to explain how he had asked Reinette along with them in their travels.

Watching her face, Reinette could see the pain, quickly chased away as the Doctor bent down and whispered something in her ear, before turning back to her.

"Rose'll show you on board, get you settled. I'd better go find Mickey, see that he hasn't destroyed anything important." He said, his expression slightly distracted. It was amazing how different he looked here, surrounded by these metal walls, than he did at the Palace at Versailles. His focus was no longer solely on her, and Reinette was taken aback at how surprised she was by that. It had been so many years since she had traveled through his memories, and she had forgotten, or maybe just ignored, the fact that she was just the latest in a long line of people he had saved and taken with him. Looking over at Rose, she thought that at least she wasn't alone in this feeling.

As the Doctor walked off, whistling absently, Rose turned to her with a slightly pained smile. "'M Rose," she'd said, "I met you once, when the Doctor sent me to warn you. I'll find you a room somewhere, an' we can see about getting you something a bit easier to move around in. 'S no good trying to run for your life in a corset."

So she'd decided to make peace, instead of fighting with her for the Doctor's attention. That would make things easier in the short term, although eventually they would have to reach an actual agreement rather than stalemate. Still, if she'd made friends with the Queen, she surely could with this girl. She smiled back, and fluttered her hand against her skirts, "Or in panniers, I would think."

A small smile flashed across Rose's face, before she turned and gestured ahead of herself towards a tall blue box. "This way to the TARDIS," she said, "I think you're going to enjoy it."