*****THIS IS AU*****

"Rose Tyler, put your hands in the air!"

Rose complied, winking at the police as she grinned a toothy grin. "Do I have permission to wave them like I just don't care?"

"Freeze!"

Rose sighed, plastering an innocent look on her face. "Now, that I can do."

She stopped moving completely for two seconds while the police advanced on her. Then, with a cheeky grin, she bolted.

If there was one thing Rose Tyler, fugitive, was good at, it was running. She knew London better than she knew herself, and it was easy to track the streets and lose her trail. She smirked, and slowed her pace.

Rose pushed her dyed-red hair out of her face. She hated the color and knew she would re-dye soon. The red had been temporary - a disguise. She also fidgeted with the glasses on her nose. She didn't need them. The specs were purely decoration. She hated them like she hated her hair color. She reached up and took the glasses off, contemplating stomping on them before wiping off her fingerprints and throwing them in a trash bin.

She walked in the shadows for a bit until she found a beauty store that would suite for now. It was open, but only for a little while longer. She stepped in, and wandered through the aisles until she found the temporary dye. She picked up two boxes and then searched through her pockets to make sure she had enough money. She was a fugitive, but she wasn't a criminal.

She quickly paid for her hair dye and left, not wanting to be in one place for too long. She missed having blonde hair. She had dyed her hair blonde before she got mixed in with the wrong crowd. Rose had to admit that she was a little bit excited to have blonde hair again.

She spent the night in a run-down, trashy hotel. It was infested with rats, but she was used to sleeping with worse. Rose dyed her hair, bidding goodbye to her red hair forever. The blonde wasn't perfect - it was barely even tolerable - but it wasn't red and it was close to yellow, and that was all she cared about.

Rose woke up early the next morning and left before the motel manager awoke. She had three possessions in her backpack - a spare change of clothes, a sock of emergency money, and her locket.

It was a simple locket, really, but it meant the world to her. She pressed it to her heart, wishing she could wear it. But it was because of her precious necklace that she was in this mess. Rose sighed and slipped it back in the bag.

At four in the morning, there weren't a lot of people marking about. She considered tracking down her old friend, Jack. She wondered what he'd be like now. It had been a while since she'd seen him. Rose continued walking.

Though there weren't many people lurking about, there were a few. Rose was startled when she actually ran into one.

"M'sorry," she stammered, trying to keep walking.

"Wait, miss, you dropped this."

Rose turned back to the man she bumped in to, and he offered her what she had dropped. Her hand fluttered to her pocket in surprise, checking for what had been there, and then reached for what the man was returning. "My locket," Rose said. "Oh, thank you so much. I don't know what I would have done if I'd lost it..."

The man smiled at her, and for the first time, she noticed how attractive the man was. He was tall and lanky, with spiky hair and pretty brown eyes. She smiled back.

"It's a lovely necklace," he commented.

"Thanks for saving it," Rose said. She looked around, remembering what she was doing before bumping into the pretty boy. He seemed to realize something, too.

"Ah," he said. "Strange man talking to you at four in the morning...not at all creepy."

Rose giggled. "Not even a little bit," she teased.

The man grinned before furrowing his brow. "But tell me, what's a girl doing out in the dark parts of London at four in the morning?"

Rose shifted, opening her mouth but not knowing what to say. Finally, she changed her direction. "What about you?" Rose challenged, grinning. His face looked just as dumbstruck and speechless as Rose felt.

"Well," he said, swallowing. He shoved one hand in his pocket and scratched the back of his neck with the other. "Mostly just, uh...browsing."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "Browsing? For what, homeless drunks?"

The man smiled sheepishly. "Caught me."

Rose beamed back. She couldn't help but smile at the strange man. "I've gotta...um..."

"Oh!" the man said, taking a few steps backwards. "Right. Me too. Back to...browsing."

Rose gave him a strange look before turning away. She barely took one step before she turned back around to the man. He grinned at her and she beamed at him. "See ya," she said before she could stop herself. Rose quickly turned and ran down the street, trying to get distance between her and the man.

She didn't even know his name. She had just had a conversation with a strange man, at four in the morning. Rose had been flirting with him, and he had flirted back. She realized she was still smiling and quickly her expression dropped. In only a short amount of time, she had forgotten who she was for a stranger on the street corner.

She could only assume he was a drunk. There was almost no other reason for him to be out on the streets at four am. He was a gentleman, though, and Rose smiled when she thought of his small laugh. Her drunken gentleman. A part of her wondered why he was out at four in the morning, and then she thought of the date.

January the first.

It was a brand new year. Which meant, she had spent a year running. One year and a day ago, Rose had been smitten by a boy named Jimmy Stone. And one year ago today, she had realized her mistakes in being with him.

A part of Rose wondered if fate was playing tricks on her. She had always been a firm believer of fate and destiny. She longed for a kismet love story. Perhaps, the universe had sent the drunken gentleman her way to congratulate her. To show her there were men out there that weren't bastards like Jimmy Stone.

Rose shook her head, trying to shake away the thoughts. Or perhaps, she thought, more logically, some drunk bloke couldn't find his way home from a party he probably didn't even want to go to.

His intentions of why he had persisted a conversation with her could have been questionable. She wondered to herself why he had kept talking to her. She wasn't special, and he was sobering up. She froze in mid-step, and replayed the entire conversation. It dawned on Rose that he might have wanted information from her. She was relieved to realize she hadn't been completely daft, and had kept her information secure.

Rose continued walking, trying to erase the pretty boy from her mind. She was moving on - she wouldn't see him anymore. She had to get out of London. Maybe go back to her old home.

She walked past a graffiti wall, before stopping and glancing back at it. She had walked past this wall several times, and her hand traced over the newest addition to the art-work.

"Bad wolf," she murmured. "Must be a band or something."

A/N: So! This is my new story. Title will most likely change in the future. This is an AU story of Rose and the Doctor. The Doctor is still a Time Lord, and Rose is still a human, but they meet a different way and she is a different person than on the show, and they have different adventures. Mostly. We will see how this story goes. It might just get deleted. Who knows.

ALSO. The reason this was posted today in the middle of the night, is because I realized I haven't posted anything in a while, and the final part of 5 Stages is just NOT HAPPENING for me and I can't write it. So, I found this magic little document on my laptop with a story idea I had a while back and I figured I would post it. So yeah. Story time over.

xxxxKat (: