Pairings: Rose/Astrid, Rose/Ten

Author's Notes: Set between 'Voyage of the Damned' and 'Partners in Crime'.

Rose ran into a lot of weird things while travelling with the Doctor. Things haven't been much different in that respect (though it's all so painfully different in many other ways) since she's started working at Torchwood, either. This, though, is still fairly unexpected, even for her.

It's sudden, and seems to have appeared out of nowhere. The blue glowy spirit thing hovering in front of her is like something straight out of those Star Wars movies that Mickey made her watch with him when she was fourteen and that the Doctor made her watch again when she was twenty (or thereabouts, relatively speaking) just so that he could point out every little thing the writer got wrong about the universe. Rose isn't quite sure what to make of the fact that this particular strange glowing woman seems to be a lot less fictional than those she's seen on the television screen. The woman doesn't seem to have a better idea of what to do about the fact that Rose is gaping at her either. They stare at each other for a long while.

Usually the aliens are shooting at her or trying to suck her soul out or something by now. Rose finds this odd sort of impasse somehow more unnerving than that threat of death that she's got used to.

"Um," Rose says to break the silent standoff, "who are you? Or, you know, what are you?"

"I think had a name once," the woman – or alien, spirit, whatever – says. "I can't remember it. I just remember... falling. No, that's not right. Flying. Flying so far. I never thought I'd want to stop flying. Now I think I've found a place to put my feet on the ground again for a while." Rose thinks it's lucky that the woman's translucent feet probably aren't capable of setting down anywhere for long, least of all there in the centre of London where her prolonged presence is likely to cause yet another alien-invasion-induced riot (not to mention a lot of paperwork for Rose's Torchwood unit).

"This sky is so different," the woman remarks. "Blue, not black. It's been black for so long. I think was out in the stars looking for... something," the woman says. She frowns slightly. "I can't quite remember what. Maybe that's why I'm here now. Maybe I've found it."

"Sorry, but are you dead?" Rose asks. She hates to be so blunt and unfeeling about it, but it is, after all, Rose's job to find out what kind of threat she (or it) is, for all that she doesn't seem like much of a cause for concern with her semi-vacant sort of rambling. Appearances can be deceiving, and the woman looks a little bit too much like the Gelth for Rose not to be wary. "Or you're an alien, maybe? I mean, you look human, but so do loads of things I've run into."

"Oh," the woman says. "I don't know. Am I?" She sounds only vaguely disturbed by not knowing the answers. "I think I remember something about... yes, there. I fell. He couldn't catch me."

"He?" Rose prompts.

"He," the woman states, as if it's a name or some kind of title in itself. "He set me on the winds of space. I wanted to fly so far, but once I was in the air I didn't know which way to go. I wanted to go back and ask him to help me, but he was gone. I think it might be him I've been looking for."

Since Rose doesn't have the first clue what the woman is talking about, she doesn't think she's going to be much use in helping her figure it out.

The woman seems to think differently. She looks at Rose as if she's sure Rose has the answers.

"You seem so familiar," she says. "I need to see... there's an old tradition that I think I remember."

Rose wouldn't have expected that she could actually have physical contact with the woman, since she looks to be made of little more than the air itself. She certainly wouldn't have expected the woman to be able to kiss her. The lips touching Rose's feel oddly solid, though still soft. Rose is too stunned to push the woman away. She doesn't know if she even could, or whether her hands would pass right through that wispy body unimpeded in a way her lips do not.

She doesn't know whether she would, either, given the chance, because she feels that there's something flittering just beyond the kiss that she knows with a strange certainty that she wants to capture. She presses closer, seeking it out, trying to discover what it is.

It's the Doctor, she realises with a start. Something about the touch reminds Rose of him somehow, as if some kind of remnant of him lingers on the woman's lips, and now on Rose's as well. It's a mad thought, and she tries to shrug it off. It's probably just because he's the last person she kissed (even if she was kind of possessed at the time). Even more likely, it's just because the Doctor is alwayson her mind so much that sometimes it feels like he's standing right beside her, just inches away from taking her hand. Regardless of the reason, that recollection of the Doctor makes the touch of the spirit so much warmer than Rose would have expected.

"You taste like home," the woman whispers. Rose knows exactly what she means.

She wishes she could thank the woman for that odd but welcome feeling that Rose can now cling to, but her body (such as it is) breaks into fragments like so much dust before Rose can say a word.

Rose breathes in whatever remains of her when she gasps. That should disgust her, or perhaps make her fear that the woman might somehow possess her. Instead, she feels strangely whole for the first time in ages.

She never knows later whether she's imagined the whole encounter. No one else rings in to report a strange ghostly figure to Torchwood, after all, and it wasn't as if the street was entirely deserted. It doesn't matter, though. Either way, she feels as though she's finally carrying a part of the Doctor with her wherever she goes, even though they're still universes apart.

~FIN~