Okay everyone, I haven't really had a chance to do much editing because my writing time is limited and I wanted to post. Anyway, I know it is a kind of slow chapter, but you have to get through this stuff somehow.

Chapter Three

The noise was getting to Rose. She figured that she probably had four hours of sleep in the last two days, and her entire body was protesting.

I swear, if he doesn't stop muddling with that bloody sonic… She opened her eyes and looked across at the Doctor who was perched on his seat, holding the new sonic screwdriver up to his ear, flicking it on and off. The concentration on his face was really too comical for her to stay cross. She sighed, and glanced past the Doctor to the window, which was dark, except for an intermittently blinking light, and then at Red who was curled up beside her with the blue bunny (Clara, for the moment, apparently). The little girl, who wasn't really a little girl, seemed to be asleep, and Rose didn't think about it too deeply.

"I thought you were going to sleep for a bit, until we land?" The Doctor asked from his perch, lowering his gadget for a moment to smile at her. She huffed through her nose, but then admitted.

"I can't sleep on planes. I've tried, but the noises are just all wrong." She cast a frustrated glance around the comfortable little cabin. "Zeppelins are fine, since they don't make as much noise, but planes buzz too much."

The Doctor gave her a sympathetic look.

"We'll be landing in not too long, I should think. You might catch a few winks while I'm sorting things out with the archeologist."

"You think it will be as easy as that then, Doctor?" She asked, ignoring the suggestion. "You said Time Lords, and I can't think that will be easy to sort out."

A frown settled on his face, but he didn't respond. Rose wasn't going to sleep and she wasn't ready to give up yet.

"You said once that if there were still Time Lords out there, you would know somehow." She shrugged. "Feel them somehow."

The Doctor nodded and then shrugged.

"It's not always exactly reliable, but yeah, if Gallifray and the Time Lords were still in this Universe, I would know it."

"Well, I know that's not the case." She spoke without thinking, trying to hold back a yawn. The Doctor's face was pale and staring at her when she focused back on him properly.

"What?"

Bother, I'd meant to work around to it gently. She reminded herself crossly. He was leaning forward, with his eyes fixed on her. She shrugged.

"Well, of course I went to look for you, didn't I?" Rose looked down at Red and gathered her breath. "After that sun went supernova, or whatever, and you left me on the beach; I started looking to see if there wasn't a version of you here somewhere."

"And what did you find?" Rose couldn't see the Doctor's eyes because she didn't want to look up, but she could hear the interest in his voice.

Uerrg…there is no telling how he is going to react to this.

"Rose?" That voice. Well, it isn't like he not going to find out eventually.

"It was hard, looking for you." She continued. "It's not like you're exactly the easiest bloke to find. But I got hold of a data thing, uplink, from the Adipose royal family."

"Wait," The Doctor interrupted. "Why would the Adipose give you a data link?"

"Well, it was part of the bargain, wasn't it?"

"What bargain?"

"The Adipose need loads of obese people to get the fat for their babies, and we have loads of people who want to get rid of fat, it's not like we couldn't find a common ground." Rose bridled at his look.

"It's perfectly safe! I tried it and lost three pounds." She smiled. "Their called Trixy, Staxipose, and Happedrome. I even get cards from them sometimes."

"You do know that they don't just use fat; they can convert an entire human into Adipose in just a few minutes." The Doctor gave her a serious look.

"Yeah, and as soon as they do something like that we report them to the Shadow proclamation and take prisoner every Adipose creature on this planet." She shook her head. "It's not like we don't keep track of them. And before you ask, we do tell people about the risks of their fat donation." She made air quotes around the last word.

The Doctor was just staring at her and shaking his head, so she had to ask.

"What?"

"It's brilliant!" He rubbed his jaw, and if Rose hadn't know better she would say that he looked a bit sheepish. "I just never thought of handling it that way."

Rose smiled.

"Well, you wouldn't would you; all skin and bone. What would you find in common with an Adipose?" She laughed.

"Oi!" The Doctor gave her an affronted look. "You were going to tell me about what you found out."

Rose sobered, and looked away.

"Um, yeah."

"Come on, Rose. Just spit it out." The Doctor said.

Rose started to shrug and then stopped, mindful of Red nestled against her.

"From what I could find out, you did exist here…in this universe, I mean. I could find records and things through history of a person called the Doctor." Rose bit her lip. "…But it all, kind of, just, stops…And no one seems to have ever seen my Doctor." Rose colored slightly as the Doctor raised an eyebrow at her.

"I mean, nobody can say that they have seen either of the faces that you've had while I've been with you."

She hunched her shoulders slightly.

"I found stories of the time war, and I've found people who talk about what you did, but they all say…" She stopped again.

"What do they say, Rose?" The Doctor's voice asked quietly. She sighed.

"They all say that you died in the Time War, Doctor."

Forgetting about Red and everything else, Rose reached over and put a hand on his arm, as he seemed to work on taking the news in.

"You okay?"

He shrugged and took a breath through his nose.

"Yeah."

"'Cause I know how I felt when I found out that I didn't exist here…" Rose offered, but the Doctor shook his head.

"No, really Rose, it's fine." He blew out a quick breath. "Makes things a little less complicated, actually, if I don't have be worried about running into myself all the time."

He frowned.

"Hang on…But if I died in the Time War, then we never went back to 1780, or met Queen Victoria… how come there's a Torchwood?"

Rose smiled.

"Yeah, I wondered about that to, but it turns out Queen Victoria still went to that house that night and met the Werewolf. It changed everything here, 'cause in this universe she destroyed herself to keep the wolf from taking over." Rose glanced around the workshop.

"That's why we have a President of Britain and the United Kingdom, and Torchwood is what Sir Robert and his wife started to combat the alien threat."

"Sir Robert survived?" The Doctor asked.

"Yeah, but what do you figure; he never would say exactly what happened. Except that the Queens sacrifice made it possible for them to escape."

"Quite a woman, was Queen Vick." The Doctor agreed.

"Quite the tosser was that Robert, bloke." Rose muttered.

"Come on, Rose." The Doctor chided. "It's not like he had a lot of choice." Rose sat back without comment.

"This does make things complicated though, because the Corsair never had much to do with Earth back in the other universe." The Doctor sat back, his face thoughtful, and ran his fingers through his hair.

"How can you be so sure it's the Corsair?" Rose let her head fall back against the seat back. "Couldn't someone else use that drawing… thing?"

"I won't know for sure until I examine it myself, but…" He hesitated, and then shook his head. "Candy shop was a rubbish metaphor. Parallel worlds are like spice shops where everything is unlabeled…and…"

"You could be getting mint, or the green stuff could be henna…" Rose finished for him, smiling slightly. He smiled back and then looked out the window.

"We're descending."

Rose felt Red move and looked over to see her sitting up.

"Hey, sweetheart. Did you sleep well?" From the corner of her eye, she could see the Doctor's lip twitch into a slightly sour expression.

If she wasn't sleeping, why would she have her eyes closed? Rose thought stubbornly.

Red smiled and looked around.

"They call it Burma here."

"What" Rose felt her brow furrow, and the Doctor sat up like a shot. Red looked between them and her smile faltered.

"You just…" She began, but trailed off.

"Was going to." The Doctor spoke gently, and reached forward to touch the little girl's hand. "I was going to ask if it was called Burma or Myanmar here." He smiled. "You beat me to it."

Rose watched her tighten her grip on the blue bunny, and blink a few times, before turning her face up toward her. Red gave an apologetic smile.

"Sorry."

Rose felt a jolt somewhere in the proximity of her chest, and had to struggle for a moment to prop up her smile.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for." She put her arms around the little shoulders and gave a quick squeeze. "What a clever girl you are."

After a moment the Doctor cleared his throat.

"Burma then." He tapped the sonic screwdriver against his knee. "Lovely place." A quick frown. "Mind you I think it was around 1500 BC, when I was last there. Water up to my knees in that ruddy rice paddy. I don't think that I saw the coast."

Rose could feel the plane coming in for a landing, and closed her eyes, letting the Doctor's babble about stepped temples, and the techniques for using copper to make bronze, roll over her.

Outside the tiny window, light was growing.

"I can't believe that you got here so quickly." Alan Mitchell, shook his head as he led the group through a collection of trailers and tents squatting on a muddy patch of ground. A thick, salty, drizzle had all of their hair plastered to their skulls. Rose lifted a foot and glared at the mud caked onto her trainer.

"Pete was able to get us a jet a flight." She tried to pick her way a little more carefully, behind the young archeologist. From behind her the Doctor quipped.

"Always lovely to see nepotism at work."

Rose narrowed her eyes. "If you'd rather have walked…" She could practically hear his mouth snapping closed.

They climbed up a short flight of stair into a box-like office, and Rose looked around.

"Gosh, Alan, you didn't have to tidy up just for us." Pieces of equipment along with rocks and buckets of muddy water practically filled the space, while a waist high bench ran along the middle of the room. On the bench, more tubs of water stood, though none quite as muddy as the buckets. In the tubs, different items soaked, some of them only vaguely recognizable.

"Er, well, we've been kind of busy…" Alan shrugged, and relaxed as Rose let her smile slip through. "We were able to bring up the box for you though."

"Where is it?" The Doctor's voice was sharp, and he sidled past Rose to get closer to the bench. Rose nodded at Alan who was giving her a quizzical look. He shrugged.

"It's here." The younger man stepped over to an alarmingly pink colored tub. The Doctor was right beside him, and Rose crowded in on the other side. Inside the tub a small wooden box sat covered by clear water.

From her perspective, Rose couldn't say that the box looked very special. The wood was dark, and un-ornamented except for the black mark of the serpent on one side. She certainly wouldn't have picked it for herself. The Doctor was staring at it though, as if it was the most amazing thing in the world.

"I still can't believe the condition of the artifact we are pulling up." Alan's voice burbled from beside them. "This site is going to be the biggest thing since the Rosetta stone."

Rose had only half an ear for Alan's commentary as she watched the Doctor reach gingerly into the tub.

"Wait, Doctor! You can't…" the protests were thoroughly ignored as the Doctor lifted the box from the water, and held it up to look at.

"Well Doctor?" Rose finally asked, as the Doctor turned the box and ran the sonic over it. "Do you know what it is?"

"It's a puzzle box." Red's voice spoke up from across the bench, and Alan jumped.

"Blimey, I forgot she was there."

The Doctor nodded.

"Yeah, I think you're right, Red. But I just need to find the right...Ooo, there it is." The Doctor stopped turning the box around, and very deliberately pressed a thumb in the exact center of the circling snake.

"What the heck!" Alan shouted.

Light was pouring out of the seams of the box, and slowly, like some kind of strangely luminescent flower, the box was folding open…to reveal another box, made of light.

"Oh, you beauty!"

Rose turned her eyes from the cube to the Doctor. He looks like he just got exactly what he wanted for Christmas. Despite herself, a quick stab of resentment flashed through her.

"Rose do you know what this is?" The Doctor didn't look away from the cube to ask her, but just stood grinning at it.

"No idea," Rose admitted.

"This is Time Lord Post. A bright, shiny, message in a bottle, only it's a box. Wrap up all your thoughts up and send them out, without touching a pencil or a keyboard."

"Kind of like the psychic paper," Rose hazarded. He made a face that said she was probably completely wrong, but Alan interrupted.

"How do you read it Doctor, if it is a message? Is the writing inside the light box?"

"Message inside the light box, how daft is that?" The Doctor scoffed, and Rose gave him a scolding look. "No, of course the light is just pyrotechnics. I told you, it's thought mail." He set the wooden box on the bench and held the other box in his hand.

"So how do we find out what the message is Doctor?" Rose asked, aware that her voice sounded the teensiest bit impatient.

"I'm doing that now." The Doctor's expression grew distant and grave. "…And it isn't a bit good."

Rose looked at his face.

"Doctor what is it? What does it say?"

The Doctor shook his head.

"Listen Rose, can't you hear it?" He looked over at her wide eyed, and she shook her head. "Give me your hand." He took her hand, and suddenly she did hear something. A woman's voice and the shrieking of alarms.

"The Ship won't make it any farther. I'll have to land her on earth and then I'll have to hide. They have my scent and they'll track me through all of time and space, but if I can hide, I might out last them. I have to hide as a human."

A new shrill of alarms broke into the woman's monologue, and Rose looked up at the Doctor's grim face. Then the woman's voice was back.

"If it is myself hearing this, you have to know that you are the last of the Time Lords and you cannot stay human, you cannot forget the Treasure! The watch, you must open the watch when the time is right. Open the watch and become again your true self. Above all, the Treasure must be protected."

Rose shook her head as the last, desperate sound of the woman's voice faded. She felt as if she had just run from a horde of Slitheen, and she had to take a breath to calm the shaking.

"That was horrible, I could feel how afraid and everything that she was." Rose looked at the Doctor again who was frowning grimly at the cube. "Doctor, what did it all mean?"

He looked up, but it took a moment for the thoughts to clear from his eyes.

"It means that the Corsair's ship was fatally damaged, and so she was marooned here on earth. Something…" here his jaw tightened. "Probably the creatures who damaged her ship, were chasing her, and she was forced to use a Biological/Gene Rewriter to change herself into a human, while storing the Time Lord Part of her in a device that looks like a fob watch." The Doctor looked away.

Gosh he looks sad. Is it really that bad to be just a human? She tried to banish that thought quickly.

"So, this is a message to herself then?" Rose asked, trying to put the Doctor's sadness from her mind.

"Yes, but I don't think that it worked." The Doctor set down the cube, and removed his glasses to rub at his eyes. "I think that the Corsair forgot, and stayed a human."

Rose frowned at him.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because the message is keyed to the Corsair and it has stayed on that ship all this time. If she had gone anywhere besides that ship, it would have followed her."

Rose considered that.

"So she must be dead then…"

The Doctor's shoulders slumped slightly.

"Probably." He stroked a finger over the little cube of light, but then stopped. "Except, maybe not completely."

Alan spoke up then.

"How do you not completely die, especially after nearly five hundred years?"

Rose felt a shudder run through her like a jolt of lightening.

"The Time Lord part." She stammered. "The watch."

"Exactly!" The Doctor shouted. He turned to the door.

"Wait, what are you doing Doctor?" Alan yelled after him.

"I am going fishing for a Time Lord!" The Doctor yelled back.