A/N: know. I know what you're saying: "Oh she's started another one when she has three still left unfinished?!" I agree. I do. Quite wholeheartedly, in fact.

But my muse came to me, slammed me to the ground and hissed into my ear that I have to write this or she'll do really mean and horrible things to me. And I really believe that she will because she is very evil like that.

But. This one is a finished work. I have it all done, but I need to edit and refine and determine just where chapter breaks need to be and whatnot ... so it'll come with a daily posting thing... Fingers crossed I don't decide that a new chapter needs to be added or something stupid like that ... anyhooooo.

I certainly hope that you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or any of the recognizable characters... Seriously wish I did, though. Like, let me write a season of Doctor Who so I can fix up all the crap that has happened these past few years. My checklist: River Song. Emasculating the Daleks. River Song. plot holes. River Song... Oh, did I mention we need to get rid of River Song?

~~oooOOOooo~~

The TARDIS thrashed, whined, pitched and volleyed as she struggled against the coordinate information that the Doctor had entered into her onboard computer. That wasn't where he needed to be. Those coordinates were the very last place that her thief needed to be heading to.

There was somewhere else so much more important that she needed to take him to. Someone so much more important that needed his help right now, and time was ticking down. Her window was closing so quickly as her thief's shadow drew closer to the terrified soul who needed immediate and hurried assistance.

In over a millennia of partnership, she'd think that the Doctor would know by now not to continue fighting her when she was so insistent that the course be altered. She threw a violent temper tantrum like a screaming toddler wanting her way; with the flailing of telepathic arms and legs, and squirmed free of the Doctor's arms to run them all in a much different direction.

With a whine of apology toward the three companions being tossed around inside her console room – but none offered to the Time Lord who should know better than to argue – the TARDIS screeched loudly and blew apart her thief's commands with a spray of sparks.

She could feel her terror and her heartbreak. She could see scars that ran deeper than just the surface of her delicate skin. She could feel the confusion and the betrayal; and she sobbed. Sobbed for the damaged and tender soul that was still woven around her own. Sobbed for the suffering of three …. No … four .. hearts.

Four?

The TARDIS let out a horrified shriek that pierced sharply into the minds of all of her current travellers.

For the love of Time's vortex, no….

TARDIS fought harder against her pilot's command. The Wolf may have vowed never again to howl out for her Storm, but TARDIS was not going to allow that to happen.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor picked himself up off the ground, stumbled back onto his belly, and then - after disentangling his gangly limbs – drew himself to a shaking stand. He spared a glance toward the three members of his party, who were themselves in their own stages of rising up off the floor.

"I hope that noone's hurt," he muttered distractedly in an attempt to appear as though he was focused on the safety of his guests and not the worrying why's of his ship's sudden erratic behavior. He listened to a brief three-way promise that no one was hurt, and then focused his attention on the rotor column in front of him.

"And what's wrong with you, then, Sexy?" he muttered under his breath as he dripped his eyes to scan the console for anything that may have been out of line. "What's got you all bothered?"

River Song winced as she rolled her shoulder to ease the ache of it striking against the floor as she fell. "Did you correctly programme the special coordinates before dematerialization, Sweetie?"

"I did," he answered distractedly as he pulled the monitor across the console to investigate any potential error messages.

"And did you get the all-clear from the TARDIS," she continued as she walked around the console, dragging her finger along each of the controls as she walked. "Because you know that if a woman decides that she doesn't want to go your way, then you should really listen to her." Her gait and her body language suggested that she was flirting, but the rake of her eyes across the controls indicated that she searched for the answer as earnestly as he did.

The Doctor answered her query with a push of the display into her line of sight. Although the data scrolled along the screen via the pulse of a circular Gallifreyan symbol in the centre of the screen, he was fully aware that River Song could loosely interpret it.

"Programming coordinates set and accepted by TARDIS," he growled in return. "And I thank you for your lack of faith in my programming skills, River."

River Song shrugged a shoulder and tossed a hand through her hair. "Well mistakes have been known to happen from time to time," she sang with a smile and a wink. "When you've found yourself distracted that is."

He didn't lift his eyes off a secondary monitor set flat into the control panel, but he lifted his brows and maybe his shoulders in a shrug. "Time Lords don't get distracted, River." He squeaked uncomfortably as the tip of her finger met with his arm and drew a long line up and across his shoulders to sweep down along the other side of him.

"Oh, Time Lords can be distracted, Sweetie. Quite easily in fact."

"River," he begged lightly. "Please. Not now."

She rolled her eyes dramatically and pressed her hands into the console to stand analytically at his side. "Okay. Then how about her power? Did you allow enough time to power up the Vortex Primer? I know that the Transit Switch has been a little temperamental of late…"

"Power was more than adequate," he snapped as he pushed himself off his hands and began a stalk around the console. "The Coordinates were sound, dematerialization switched activated. The Parking break was disengaged. Believe me, River. All the steps necessary for our proposed landing at Ferouko-7 were completed in a text-book manner."

She narrowed her eyes at his irritation. "I was just checking," she hissed through her teeth, "that no steps were missed."

"There are 387 stages to a TARDIS Vortex Flight," he growled back. "Of which, you only seem to know five." He thrust a finger toward the corridor that led to the library. "Now until you've updated your knowledge on TARDIS flight controls and troubleshooting enough to take your skills beyond those of a first year cadet, I suggest that you zip it – oh I like that – and leave the problem solving to the Time Lord."

She moved in close to him, her nose against his and her breath puffing at his lip. "Don't take your frustration out on me, Sweetie," she warned hotly. "I don't take kindly to misdirected aggression."

"And I take a much less kind approach to passengers of my TARDIS telling me how to fly one." He backed a full stride away from her and snatched the monitor back toward him and shifted his gaze between the monitor and the keyboard underneath. "So for once, River. Stop with your endless self-righteous condescension and let me work alongside my own ship to solve this problem."

Her jaw dropped lightly, but set hard as her eyes steeled in annoyance. "There's no need to be rude."

He snorted, but didn't look at her. "I'm the Doctor. There hasn't been a single incarnation of me that hasn't been rude." He frowned as he focused on the monitor. "If you know me even half as well as you say you do, then you'd at least know that." The furrow in his brow tightened as the image on the monitor switched from flight instrument data to a live feed of the outside of the ship. His speech slowed somewhat. "Rude is my thing. I've carefully cultivated and nurtured my rudeness into an art form." His expression lengthened and his voice weakened just lightly. "It should be looked upon and revered and on display in the Braxiatel Collection…"

There was slight distress in his voice as his words tapered out, and Amy was quick to move to his side and place her hand on his wrist. "Doctor, are you alright?"

His eyes were locked on the screen and his jaw hung low. "I'm always alright."

Amy noted the shimmer of watering eyes, and his lightly wettening inhales though his nose indicated to her that he was very much far from alright. As she firmed up her hold on his wrist, she looked toward the monitor to find the source of his upset. She was disappointed to find the image panned wide upon a crowd of people rather than a specific individual.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," she offered him gently as her eyes scanned the grainy image on the monitor.

His words passed brokenly over his lips in a quiet answer devoid of any actual tone of voice. "I think I have," he replied sadly. He lifted his eyes to the rotor column and grimaced an expression of absolute loss and heartache. "Is this why you fought against me just now, old girl? To bring me here? To show me her?" He slammed both hands down on the console as the TARDIS responded in blips and beeps and then zoomed tight onto the image of a woman. "Is this why you brought me here for? Because you think you found her?"

Any's breath sucked in hard, but nowhere near as hard as the breath that gasped into River Song's mouth as she viewed the image on a secondary monitor.

"She's locked inside another parallel with … with Him!" The Doctor winced as the image stilled on the woman. "How cruel are you?" he asked his ship sadly.

"And just who is she?" Amy queried worriedly with a sharp look up toward River Song. "Do you know who she is?"

River Song shook her head. Her eyes were wide and her expression stunned as she gagged out a pair of sounds before she could find the words to answer. "I. I have no idea."

"Competition by the looks of it," Rory muttered without hiding any of his surprise at that statement.

The Doctor shook his head. "No, Rory. Not competition." He heard the exhale of relief huff past River's lips and spared her a glance before he looked at the door to his TARDIS. "It's just a joke. A cruel, cruel joke sent by the universe to make sure that I'm continually tortured."

"That's dramatic even for you," Amy puffed out with wide eyes. Her eyes maintained their flare as she looked toward River Song, who kept her eyes on the image displayed on the monitor. "But it's good to know that you don't have any competit…"

"Amy," River breathed in warning. "Don't…"

The Doctor snapped a look to his ginger-haired companion and offered her a smile that had at least a small amount of warmth in it. "With her, there exists no competition against anyone at all." His eyes shifted back to the door and he licked at his lip as though searching for the answer to a decision that needed to be made.

"None?"

The Doctor shook his head. "None. There can never be anyone who could compete with her." He bounced from foot to foot a moment and harshly raked his fingers through his hair. He stopped bouncing and then let out a breath through pursed lips. He actually smiled as he clapped his hands and then rubbed them together then gestured toward the doorway. "And so just in case … do excuse me a moment. There's something I need to do. I won't be long."

Amy watched as the Doctor bounded up the stairs toward the front doors of the TARDIS. She kept her eyes on him, but leaned toward River Song. "No competition," she repeated with a smile. "That's a declaration for you."

"Don't misinterpret him," River Song answered shortly with a hint of sorrow in her voice. "The Doctor obliquely saying that there exists no competition between me and the woman in this image has more than one construal."

Amy's brow creased tightly together and she watched as River Song clutched tightly at the console and then slowly pushed herself up and off it. River closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath, holding it before letting it explode out from between her lips. She shook her head, and then her shoulders and looked toward Amy and Rory with a fake smile pasted across her lips. "Well? Isn't your curiosity as to the identity of this woman just killing you as much as it is me?"

Amy's hand snapped up. She held her thumb and index finger about a centimetre apart. "Just a little."

"A little?"

She rolled her eyes. "Okay. A lot."

"Then let's go, shall we?"

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor curled his long and lanky body around a door he barely opened to move from the inner dimension of his TARDIS out into the dimension of the world outside her doors. He closed his eyes as he inhaled the scent of the world at his feet. His inhale was deep and he held his head low as he let his senses tell him exactly where he had been taken.

He didn't need to rely on the TARDIS navigation to tell him that he was on Earth. (He materialised on Earth so frequently that it truly was more home to him than anywhere else – including Gallifrey….

Gallifrey had ceased to be his home so, oh so long ago. Long before the Time War had erased it from existence, Gallifrey was lost to him. It was lost to him when he was cast out and disowned by his family and shunned by the Time Lord Society as a whole when he was still barely out of the loom.

Gallifrey and her memory afforded him very little in the way of longing and of hope. And now, to some extent, so had the Earth. It was taken from him when he lost her.

That wasn't to say he didn't miss them: Gallifrey and Earth. For all his heartache and losses at the hands of both of them, he had as many joyful memories of them both. He still loved and honoured them deeply.

…In just as much as he loved and honoured every man and woman who came into his life; who shaped and moulded the man he was today. They all gave him something of themselves that he carried along with him from incarnation to incarnation. How could he not? They are all such wonderful, brilliant people…

Especially her. His precious girl. Rose Tyler.

The declaration in his mind of the superiority of Rose Tyler above all others was a passionate longing.

It had been centuries since the day he last saw her. Close to a four of them, in fact. Three hundred years, seven months, eighteen days, seventeen hours, four minutes and six seconds if he was to be accurate.

Three hundred years, seven months, eighteen days, seventeen hours, four minutes and eight seconds since he'd landed on Bad Wolf Bay in an alternate universe to drop off Jackie, Rose, and his Meta-Crisis.

Three hundred years, seven months, eighteen days, seventeen hours, four minutes and ten seconds since he'd walked away from her without even saying goodbye.

…Once upon a time he burned up a sun just to offer her his most heartfelt farewell.

He swallowed down the regret of not saying goodbye and let his eyes scan the crowd gathered ahead of him. The TARDIS had parked herself on a dusty cobbled road that stood like a balcony over the bustling market place below. This gave the Lord of Time a galley view of the market place back dropped by the ocean and he found himself wearing a grin as he pressed his hands into the ancient stone barrier at the edge of the road and lightly leaned over to take in the noises and the energy of the people below.

There was something to be said about a market place – especially on a technologically driven planet such as Earth. On an world where online shopping and big-box malls held supreme, it was a pleasure to see that a rustic little market place was still able to survive with such life and vitality. Each tiny little stall, many no larger than a few metres square, was a haven of crafts, fresh produce and smelly fish. A tiny little mall full of little canvas-roofed shops.

…And oh, how he loved a little shop.

The Doctor smiled into the dusty breeze that blew gently against his face and ruffled his floppy hair. He closed his eyes and inhaled the smells of fruits, vegetables, fish, seabreeze and sweat. He listened to the calls of the vendors pitching their wares as though it was a symphony crafted by one of the masters themselves.

The symphony was fractured by the creak of his TARDIS doors, and the Doctor opened his eyes and let out a long breath of mild annoyance. "I asked you all to give me a moment," he stated dryly when he felt the shift beside him and smelt the distinctive scent of River Song's perfume.

"You didn't tell us to stay behind, Sweetie," she corrected with a smile in a voice that was far too chirpy. She looked around them and let out a breath of longing. "Greece."

"Rhodes Old Town," he added with a sigh. "Early twenty-second century. Greece had emerged strong after their near bankruptcy in the early Twenty First century, and with the…."

"No need to explain it to me," River cooed with a smile as she petted his arm. "Archaeologist, remember."

He nodded and leaned down on the crumbling wall, supporting his lean on his elbows. "Indeed, River," he answered with a sigh as he let his eyes scan the crowd below. "Nothing left for me to show you now, is there?"

"I think," she whispered huskily into his ear. "You need to let others show you things for a change. What do you think?"

"Others being you, I suspect," he said with a sigh. "And just what marvels of the universe do you have to show me, then?"

"Spoilers."

He did smile slightly at her playfully uttering her catchphrase at him. He knew it was said to draw out a smile; to somehow lighten the air between them after their somewhat terse words in the TARDIS moments ago. He inhaled as he lifted his hand to pat lightly at hers, that still lingered on his arm. He didn't think it at all a condescending gesture, but he gathered that she must've when River let out a huff of annoyance and snatched her hand free.

"When you've finished brooding," she said through her teeth into his ear. "Then come and talk to me."

"When I've finished," he began in a repeat of hers, only to find his words captured inside his throat when he saw the golden-blonde hair of a companion he thought lost so long ago. Her name ghosted out from between his parched lips and seemed to hover in the air in front of his mouth as his vision seemed to zoom in and edit out anyone else that milled around her.

How had he not immediately isolated her from the crowd? She wore thick, tight, black fatigue-style trousers tucked into a dusted black pair of military boots. Her torso was hidden underneath an equally tight crimson long-sleeved t-shirt tucked underneath a thick canvas belt. It had to be 40-degrees celcius outside today. Everyone around her wore light colours and loose fabrics, and exposed as much skin as was considered decent in order to find a breath of cool on an otherwise hot day.

The Doctor straightened up his arms in order to perch himself higher to look around better at the crowds in the market place. If Rose Tyler was swanning about a market place on a blisteringly hot day wearing battle clothing, then surely she had a team supporting her, right?

…actually the better question was how is she here and where is the Meta-Crisis?

Okay, two questions. Both of them equally important. Well. Not quite. The Doctor really couldn't've have given a Woprat's fart about where the Meta-Crisis was… Then again. Perhaps that question was very important. The TARDIS landed them at this point in time for a reason, and that reason was a reason that needed to be reasoned….

He grinned to himself. "That's a lot of reasons."

Amy, who had strolled up beside him to replace River Song looked along her shoulder to him. "Pardon me?"

"Nothing," he croaked with a shake of his head. "Absolutely nothing. Just thinking out aloud to myself, after seeking expert opinion by taking to myself, of course."

She nodded a knowing bop of her head and blew out through pursed lips as she used a jut of her chin to gesture toward Rose Tyler below. "Is that the girl you were looking for?"

He gave a very slow blink of his eyes in reply and nodded his head. He inhaled deeply as he looked back down to Rose and let his eyes trace over a figure that was much less youthful than it had been when he saw her last. Her curvature was more defined and smooth now that her youthful chubbiness was gone. Awkwardness had most definitely been replaced by confidence as was illustrated by the straightness of her spine and the slight back pull in her shoulders that no doubt accented what he imagined was a very pert breast (if only she would turn around so he could confirm that). There was a strength in her legs, and even without great focus he could see the taut muscles of her thighs and buttocks…

…Not that he was looking, of course. He was absolutely not looking with any form of longing upon a backside that he absolutely not be looking at. No-siree. He would admit, however, to focusing on the way the ends of her long, blonde, pony-tail curled into loose ringlets right at the very end, which just happened to flick right at the upper rise of Rose's backside.

"She's tiny."

The Doctor blinked and found himself spluttering just slightly at that comment. "She's what?"

Amy shrugged. "That woman down there," she clarified. "She's. Well. She's tiny." She petted her hand in the air to indicate a small stature. "I mean, when you compare her to me and River." She cast a steeled look at the Doctor. "You know. Your wife."

"In the TARDIS library," he began drolly. "There is a book about alternate timelines and their relevance to actual timelines. It's in Gallifreyan, of course, but I'll have TARDIS translate it for you." He stood tall and set one hand on his hip as the other rubbed at his chin. "There is also one regarding the legitimacy of weddings as deemed by Gallifreyan council that might be of interest to you…"

Amy hissed at him for quiet, and even slapped a couple of times at his arm. "Yeah, yeah," she huffed out. "Try and play smart-arse another time. Right now, you need to work out what has your mysterious girl down there so terrified."

The Doctor sucked in a breath and pressed his hands down on the wall once again. "What do you mean?"

Amy gestured urgently to the market place below with a flick of her hand. "Doctor," she managed urgently. She grabbed at his bow-tie with practiced hands and tugged him to look over the edge. "Look at her. She's as skittish as a mouse down there."

"Rose, scared?" The Doctor questioned quietly as he looked through a frown of confusion down into the market place. "Rose isn't scared of anything. She's the bravest person I've ever…."

His words fell when he finally took in the way she held herself on the street below. She wasn't taut with confidence and a more womanly physique. She was as taut as a coiled spring ready to snap. He watched as she hitched shallow inhales and slowly released her exhales. He watched the static movements of her head as she took in her own surroundings. Once or twice he watched as she staggered to avoid a collision with a stranger that was ignorant to her presence in the market.

She was plainly and clearly terrified.

"What do you think has spooked her," Amy asked softly. "And who is she, I wonder? Is she from this time? From this planet?" She cast the Doctor a side glance. "Which is a legitimate question considering you know her."

The Doctor was ready to launch from where he was and drop the two storeys to the marketplace below. "Her name," he answered quietly. "Is Rose Tyler. Early twentieth century. Human. Female. Very female."

"Yeah. I got that, thanks."

"She's a former companion of mine," he continued. "And a very special friend of mine."

With that, Rose Tyler turned on her heel and spun to face them both directly. She swallowed as she lifted her head and her gaze to the pair looming high above her.

The Doctor stopped breathing when her eyes met his. He'd regenerated since he saw her last. There was no way at all that she'd know who he was. Despite his need to have her know who he was, the Doctor knew there'd be no recognition in her eyes.

But as their eyes met, the hardness and fear inside her eyes softened into recognition. The lengthened and guarded expression on her face tightened and broke into a smile across lips that parted to mouth his name. He couldn't do much more than smile in reply himself. Her name whispered across his lips once more, and he was ready to launch over the wall and take that magnificent woman into his arms and then fight off whatever entity it was that had her so frightened only moments ago.

"Is that her, Sweetie," River cooed over his shoulder as she moved to take up her place on the other side of him from Amy. "Her name is Rose?"

The smile that was on Rose Tyler's face fell out completely with the appearance of River Song at the Doctor's side. The fear that she had been ineffectually trying to hide bloomed suddenly, and fully, across her entire form.

The Doctor yelled out her name as Rose skittered backward a couple of steps, shaking her head and mouthing out a two-letter negative over and over again. She held up her hand and shook her head in his direction in a poor demand for him to stay back. He could see her tears glistening in the Grecian sun and watched with a shattering heart as the tears spilled from her eyes and onto the reddening apples of her cheeks.

He inhaled, readying to call out to her again, but found himself beaten to the call by a familiar, and long buried voice. The Doctor's breath hitched, and he was sure that he hears Rose whimper as the form of his Meta-Crisis self strode up purposefully through the crowd toward her.

The Doctor looked on with actual scrutiny at the outfit his Meta-Crisis had chosen to wear in this incarnation. He strode with confidence across the market wearing a black and grey pinstripe suit with a red shirt and tie and black chucks and sported facial hair that was very carefully clipped and manicured to border his face rather that truly dress it.

"What in the name of Gallifrey is he wearing…?"

"I think the more important question, Sweetie," River said with a growl. "Is just what he's put that girl through that has made her so unbelievably terrified of him."

The Doctor snatched his attention from his Meta-Crisis self, and flicked his eyes toward Rose. He felt himself shudder to see the abject terror in her eyes as the pinstriped man drew closer to her. Her delicate hands flew up to cover her mouth as she shook her head and tried to slowly back away from him.

The Doctor's eye twitched to watch her slump in defeat, without even daring to fight, when the man in pinstripes caught up to her and slid his arms possessively around her hips. The Doctor growled when Rose struggled vainly against the MEta-Crisis, but ultimately gave up and fell with her head against his chest.

"No," he breathed to himself. "No. No. No!"

He was vaguely aware of the found of River pulling out her weapon, and of her quick movement to leap over the wall to drop in to assist. He gave her a short look and then flicked his eyes toward the pair on the ground as he launched himself over the wall and down onto the ground.

River and the Doctor ran immediately toward the Meta-Crisis and Rose, both of them thundering out their own style of demand for the man to release Rose.

The Meta-Crisis looked innocently toward the Doctor and let their eyes meet and lock. He mouthed hello and winked and then looked down to Rose with a smile.

"Say hello, Darling," he said with a voice of absolute reverence.

Rose shuddered against him, but kept her cheek pressed against his chest. She opened her eyes and looked toward the Doctor and River Song with a smile. "Hello, Doctor," she breathed softly as she held onto the Meta-Crisis with a tighter hold.

…The picture of bliss and happiness…

The Meta Crisis kissed atop her head and lifted his sonic screw driver. "And buh-bye."

With a buzz and a flash of blue, the pair vanished from the market place.

The Doctor gagged as he fell to his knees in the place that his Rose Tyler had been standing only a second ago. "What? Where? Where'd they go?"

River Song leaned forward as she holstered her gun into the back waistband of her trousers. "Right. Are you gonna tell me who they were?"

The Doctor slumped in place and frowned at the floor, and at a fallen strand of blonde hair on the ground. He lifted it with his finger and held it to the light. "I'd rather know how they were here," he answered curiously as the strand of hair shifted in the breeze and then flew off his finger toward the crystalline blue ocean. "The walls were sealed. Forever…"

~~oooOOOooo~~

Above, against a wall on a dusty cobbled road that overlooked a bustling market place below, the very last TARDIS in the universe let out a soulful cry of utter devastation.

…They were too late…