The small, gold ring that encircled her finger told her she was engaged.
Her heart, every beat fraught with denial, told her she wasn't.
Why did she say yes? She didn't really love him. Sure, he was nice. Sweet, even. But she couldn't marry him. It wasn't right.
The ring was small, intricate. Beautiful.
It burned her finger. The salty sea air elicited one plump tear from the corner of Rose's eye. This was the last place she'd seen him – the real him. Her Doctor. And now she needed him. They all needed their Doctor. The world was in trouble, and he was the only one they could count on. So where was he? Jack said he could find him, but that was weeks ago. "Oh, where are you?" Rose sighed to the ocean, which could only lap at her feet in response.
IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE…
Not even a bowtie and fez could fix this problem. All of his friends were gone. Amy and Rory… he had tried to hard to find them, to get back to them, but even with River's help he couldn't do it without risking the entire planet. And now River had left.
The Doctor sat at some sort of an intergalactic bar, looking at hundreds of species walking by and wondering how he could have let himself become so attached to two people, how he could have let himself build a family.
The bartender looked at him worriedly as she refilled his water. He avoided her gaze, chewing on his mozzarella stick and wishing more than anything for a plate of fish fingers and custard. A tableful of other aliens giggled behind him and the Doctor lowered his head into his hands.
"Captain Jack Harkness, and who are you?"
"Oi, stop it," the Doctor said without thinking.
"Ha, I knew it was you! Different face, but there's only one person I know who would dare to go out wearing that," Jack gestured to the tweed coat and bowtie.
"Bow. Ties. Are. Cool." the Doctor replied, standing up to look Jack in the eyes, "But that's not why you're here."
"No Doc, believe it or not, I have more important things to worry about than your fashion sense… or lack thereof," his eyes swept over the Doctor's unkempt appearance.
"Why are you here, Jack?"
"We need you. River's missing. Yeah – I know River." The Doctor stared him down. "Whoa! Not like that, no. Give me some credit. We've worked together – that's all. I know you're married," Jack noticed his eyes shift, "Well are you waiting for an invitation? Come on, the world needs you."
The Doctor reluctantly moped behind Jack's confident stride. To his surprise, Jack walked right to the TARDIS, flipping out his old key with a smirk, "Never know when you might need this!"
Before he could swing the doors open, Jack's phone rang. "Hey, calm down I got him… Yeah we're on our way… Don't worry, Rose, it's good." The Doctor froze in his tracks; gripping the TARDIS handle so tight his knuckles turned white and the machine gave a small groan in protest. "Shit… Oh nothing… He heard me say your name… Yeah, I know you told me not to say it. It was a mistake!... See you in a bit."
The phone snapped shut a little too loudly, snapping the Doctor back into reality. Jack was already inside the TARDIS. "Come on, Doc! You gotta fly this thing for me!" he called from the inside, cutting himself off with comments on the redecoration. Not hearing footsteps, he turned around and his voice softened, "Hey, come inside. I'll explain everything, but I need you to fly her."
Once they were in flight, the Doctor pulled a lever Jack had never seen before. The TARDIS screeched to a halt, sending Jack scrambling for a grip.
"Talk," the Doctor sat in a chair on the other side of the console, "We're in stasis and I'm not moving her until you tell me what the hell is going on." His voice never varied, but somehow it was scarier.
"You know, this new regeneration of yours is a lot more passive-aggressive." He saw that the Doctor was not amused, "Anyways… River is missing. Not even Stormcage knows where she is, and they always know. Even when she breaks out, they just know they can't hold her. But now… nothing. And there's trouble in the parallel universe. Natural disasters, more alien disruptions than Torchwood would like to see, things like that. Most important, cracks. Cracks in the universe, Rose says. She figured if anyone knew anything about them, it would be you. So I've spent nearly two weeks trying to track you down."
"Jack, what do you want me to do? I've only ever met one person with a direct connection to those cracks and… I lost her. She was my best friend."
"We know; we've done our research. And we have a theory. The weeping angels got her, right? Well, what if they can move you in time and across dimensions? They'd have to be incredibly powerful, but they could feed on a hell of a lot more energy. What if Amy is in the other universe, with Rose? We can save her, which would probably help fix that universe, and she could help us find River."
For the first time during Jack's speech, the Doctor looked genuinely against the idea. "Jack. Amy Pond is under no circumstances to know about River's disappearance, much less help us. If we can even save Amy, we send her back to the right universe, preferably a time when I can see her without blowing up New York, but she will not know. Okay? River's real name is Melody, Jack. And Amy Pond is not going to help us find Melody Pond because I will not risk losing her again!"
"What?!"
"Amy isn't just my best friend, she's my mother-in law. River's mum."
"How does that even work?"
"Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey… you know the deal," the Doctor jumped up, "alright, Jack. Let's go save my family!"
He put out of his mind that Rose didn't fall into that category, that she wasn't his wife. He had moved on, there was nothing wrong with that. Still, Jack could see the absent look that plagued his friend's face as he went through the motions of flying the TARDIS. Suddenly, he reached over and grabbed the vortex manipulator off Jack's wrist, "I need to hook her up to this! If we're breaking dimensional barriers she needs some coordinate to lock onto!"
The TARDIS jerked as the vortex manipulator was linked into the system. "Hold on Jack, this is gonna get rough!"