"Welcome back to The Ultimate Game Show! Our contestants are all lined up and ready to take the plunge, all in order to be famous and win an excellent prize of.."

The mindless chatter stopped as soon as he hit the power button. The screen went black and he chucked the remote onto the sofa next to him before standing up. He stretched his stiffening muscles, some of his joints clicking slightly as nitrogen bubbles popped in the cartilage. Straightening his jacket he walked out of the living room and headed towards the open door of the kitchen. As he reached the door, the Doctor ruffled his hair back into its usual spikes, and popped his head around the frame, instantly spotting the person he was looking for. That person was Rose, his beloved wife of now 10 years, 364 days, 3 hours and 47 minutes, who had just returned from a not so exciting food shopping trip and was now unloading her purchases into the cupboard. He caught her eye and grinned at her, and she smiled back, yet as always he saw the tiny twinge of sadness in that smile. And as always he knew the reason for that sadness. For he was the Doctor, but not the original, not the one that Rose had fell in love with in the other universe, not the one she had travelled around the universe with, the one with whom she had saved planets and fought monsters. He was just the result of those battles with the monsters, the one who had saved the universe but not in the way his original self would have done it. Rose had changed him, he was now like his other self, no longer full of fire and hate, the guilt of the genocide of the Daleks now a heavy chain draped over his single heart as it beat inside him. And now he was trapped in a single time zone, on a single planet, albeit with the woman he so truly loved, yet his mind was taken back to his, no, the other Doctor's 3rd self and his exile to Earth all those years ago. Sometimes he struggled to get his head around everything, the Human part of him not always keeping up with the demands of his Time Lord part. He looked like the Doctor, thought like the Doctor, and even had all his memories, but he wasn't. He was the copy, yet he was the one married to Rose Tyler, the girl who had crossed entire dimensions to find him, facing unimaginable dangers as she did so. And soon, he hoped to put things right, and return things to how they should be.

Rose put the last purchase away in the cupboard and walked over to where the Doctor was standing by the door. She put her hand on his chest, just like she had done on the beach in Bad Wolf Bay all those years ago, and he did the same, his hand covering hers. For a few seconds they looked into each other's eyes, feeling the Doctor's strong single heartbeat in his chest, noticing how they both were the same as they had been all those years ago, yet slightly different as they both aged together. Then the Doctor moved his hand off hers and put his arm around her shoulders instead.

"You know, there is nothing, and I mean nothing, on TV anymore! It's all reality show rubbish!"

"Tell me about it..." Rose replied, her hand having not moved from where she had placed it. "This planet is so boring at times!"

The Doctor chuckled before grinning.

"Don't say that! This planet is wonderful. It is just even more wonderful when you can escape it once in a while and see other places in time and space. And hopefully, that problem will soon be solved!"

Rose looked puzzled for a moment before asking him what she thought would be a most obvious question.

"How? What are you going to do?"

The Doctor grinned even wider than he already was.

"Well, first things first. I'm off to the greenhouse!"

Rose rolled her eyes, smiled, and pushed him gently back with her hand. The Doctor used the momentum to spin around and started walking back down the corridor towards the back door.

"The greenhouse, I could have guessed!" Rose muttered to herself. She turned around to walk back into the kitchen but stopped to look at the retreating figure of her husband down the long corridor of the mansion which they shared with her parents and her baby brother Tony.

"It didn't work the first time and it's much too quick for it to have succeeded yet. What makes you so sure?" She shouted down to him before laughing.

"Because I'm the Doctor!" He shouted back.

"But you're not, you're only half Time Lord! You're one of us humans too, don't forget that!"

"Thank you Earthgirl!" He replied, instantly recognising the traits of Donna in him, just like he had realised just after he had grown. He laughed to himself, opening the back door and stepping out into the late evening sunshine. He filled his lungs with the crisp air and observed the clouds, deducing what the weather would be like for the next few days in a seconds, before heading towards the large glass structure that was his specially built greenhouse.