Title: Wintertime
Author: SuperMiss (also known as naoasakura)
Disclaimer: the Doctor is not mine.
Beta: MrssJW & Nienna100 . Thanks to them.
Season/spoiler: Set in between S2 & S3 - spoiler free for S3
Characters: Tenth, OC
Genre: good, very good question. Let's say gen/angst.
Words count: 1800
A/N: This fanfic also exists in French, under the title "Variations hivernales".

"Come with me dance, my dear,
Winter's so cold this year"
(The Doors)

She looked at her watch, and noticed it had stopped. Again. This was happening right now, and she wasn't actually in the mood for it. The cold was coming and, with it, the loneliness she was accustomed to, by now.

She was going to put her headphones back with the music on, but then she heard it. The sound. That sound. She began to run, mingled joy and fear making themselves known deep down in her heart.

Something was wrong, something was creepy, and, inside the shaking TARDIS, the Doctor soon realized he was no longer controlling his ship. There were some energy readings, attracting it. He had no idea where he was going to land this time, and to say the truth, it wasn't exciting to face the surely upcoming trouble alone.

Then, the ship became still and resumed its discrete humming. Like the purr of a sleepy cat. Well, a big metal cat. He patted the control panel slightly, took his coat and made his way to the outside.

Even from the distance, she could make out the incongruous blue box, standing sideways as if it has been here forever, and her heart beat a little bit quicker, if possible. She was running so fast one could have thought death was on her tail. They wouldn't have been wrong, but there was nobody to watch her run. Everyone in the street seemed to have vanished, even the colors were less bright, the sounds muffled, her footsteps echoing dully through the thick silence.

The Doctor pushed the door open and stepped on the grey grass, alongside an empty street. From the buildings, the parked cars, the trees, he could tell he was on Earth, but he had a bad feeling about the whole situation. As if something was about to happen. He ran an absent-minded hand through his hair, taking stock of the lack of people, the lack of agitation. Earth was a noisy planet, it was known for that. He cast his eyes down to his feet, watching intensely the colorless grass .

He was about to kneel to carry the observation a little further, when he finally became aware of the only sound out there, barely audible through the raising mist; the footsteps, coming his way. Wait… He lifted his head just in time to see, in a flash, a young girl running toward him, before she collided with him, sending them both on the ground. His skull connected with the floor of the TARDIS with a loud thud.

Later on, with his head still pounding fiercely, he was trying to make his ship fly, but no commands received a response. The TARDIS was still purring, though, even if the readings the control panel was displaying were all the stranger. It was saying that they were out of time. However, there was no way…

"That's right; we're really out of time. Or… timeless. I don't know how you're supposed to call such a thing anyway…"

The Doctor remembered the girl, the only living thing outside, now perched midway on the spiral staircase of the TARDIS, with legs dangling. She was spying on him while he was trying to figure a way out of the mess. And she wanted to help, holding out her watch as if it was an indisputable proof. Maybe he had spoken aloud. "Did I talk out loud?" he asked, looking at her with a hand on the lump that was growing on the back of his head.

"Perhaps you should just sit down, you don't look so good."

The girl, she was no more than twenty, observed him while he sat; she was tall, with a dark fringe falling on her eyes.

"I'm Naomi Justen, by the way," she carried on, with a happy voice. Here, inside the TARDIS, she felt safe. Nothing bad would happen here.

"Well, I'm…"

"The Doctor, I know, I've seen you in a dream," she cut him off. "I thought you might help me, but you seem as lost as I am," she added, bowing her head with a sigh.

A dream? Nonsense. Maybe he was the one dreaming right now.

"You're mumbling again, Doctor," she chirped happily.

He was annoyed that he did not understand and his headache wasn't helping. He stood up, and before Naomi could stop him, he had the door open again. The cold mist struck him, making his skin tingle. The absence of noise was deafening, yet he could hear the girl behind him shouting, "Don't! Close it, close it now," as if it was coming from far away. He struggled against the void and the fog, which were trying to make their way inside the ship, and he managed to close the door.

"What the hell was that?" he turned, his voice frantic, and his hair even messier than before.

"Story of my life," was her laconic answer.

After a hot cup of tea and some banter from his annoying, chatty ship-mate, the Doctor didn't know a lot more, but he had determined that the TARDIS had been called by this girl. Naomi. She had told him about her dreams, in which he was him, but not the same. He figured he had had to meet her, or he was going to, in the future, for he didn't remember it.

It was amazing she had survived this long. Outside, there was nothing left.

"How long does this usually last?" he asked, while his eyes weren't leaving the scanner screen.

"Technically there is no passing time at all, so I can't tell." He shot her a glance that told her his thoughts about joking in the middle of a time storm. "Each time it's lasted about one hour. I guess we're stuck here."

She had come down from the staircase, and was now sitting in the seat by his side. She wore fingerless gloves and each time she spoke, they flew like multicolored butterflies. "It won't harm me, but sometimes there are people who never return, after it has stopped." While her tone was even, the Doctor knew she was sad, from the way her eyes became cold.

"First I thought I was becoming mad, but now I've developed a pragmatic vision of the problem." She was saying it in the same way she would have said there was no milk anymore in the fridge. "I'm alone, you see, I've got no one to talk to, only my music and my dreams."

As she was talking, the Doctor realized her description matched his own. He was alone, with nobody to rely on, traveling for so many years that he was, in a way, timeless himself. He had no dreams to help him, though. Every time he closed his eyes, it was only to see her face; Rose's face.

He clapped his hands together, shaking away the sullen memories. He would help this girl, then he would resume traveling and everything would be fine. Again. He looked at Naomi to see a smile cross her face, very much like his. "You're the same as in my dream, your face so flexible it can show despair one moment, and hope the next…" she said.

The Doctor stood up and retrieved his sonic screwdriver from one of his extensive pockets, before pointing it at the girl's face. She held out a hand, trying to shade her eyes from the bright blue light. "Hey!" she said, as if offended.

The Doctor's face was a mask of concentration; he had put his glasses on and looked like he was about to reboot a computer. "I've already probed your mind, in my future; your timeline is a mess," he added helpfully.

"You mean, I wasn't dreaming of you but only remembering you?"

"Yep." He turned and began fiddling with some control pads she couldn't see. She was about to stand up but he waved a hand without looking back, enjoining her to stay put.

The TARDIS awoke with a jolt, and the lights grew brighter; it was dim inside the ship, and he hadn't even noticed. Now he could ask it to go wherever he wanted, because he had sorted out who she was; when he wasn't confused, the ship wasn't either. This time the trip was rocky, but as he knew where they where about to land, it didn't matter.

"You don't belong to your time," he told her unexpectedly. "When you're tired or afraid, you freeze the time and make winter last forever. It's a kind of gift," he added, though the tone of his voice showed that he thought differently.

"I'm a psychic?"

"Well…your brain has been wounded and it uses that residual energy to protect itself."

"And I can't I remember anything?" It wasn't really a question, and, in a way, she already knew the answer.

"Because I've erased your memories."

"You did?"

"I will."

It was a strange conversation, for both of them ignored what had happened. She was just a young girl lost in a paradoxical loop, between a past that had rejected her, and a present she couldn't stand. The Doctor knew many young earthlings felt the same but he had never met one who could actually bend time and call the TARDIS for help.

This time, when they opened the door, there was no need to shout, and the sun, yellow, merging its colours with the sea, wasn't shrouded by a cold mist. The wind was carrying guitar sounds their way and suddenly Naomi's heart leapt in her chest. She had been here; she had heard that. The Doctor was striding ahead, his coat flapping against his ankles. When he noticed she had come to a stop, he turned and stretched out a hand as an invitation to go.

They followed the people, two strangers in 1970, and went to the front of the stage, on which a few technicians were bustling.

"You realize we're at the Isle of Wight!" her voice was tight with emotion.

"In 1970," he smiled back, as only he could do. "I've seen your inner thoughts, and I asked the TARDIS to bring you back."

"Back?"

"Until you shift again. Maybe it's in this timeline you're supposed to meet me, the future me." Another grin. The music began.

"And you'll erase my memories."

"Again," he nodded.

"That's rubbish, illogical, and I think I'd love to see you again."

"Story of my life."

A/N2: Good, bad? Tell me, so that I can improve my writing...