As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. Brand new August challenges have been added for your entertainment, education, and inspiration. If you'd rather do July's, instead, I'm accepting July II Challenges until the end of August or until I can't keep up, whichever. Thanks to all those who have participated thus far - I've REALLY enjoyed all the results. The new challenges will run through the end of August. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.

Response to ZephyrFox's challenge for July II!

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. However, I do not guarantee this to be a permanent condition.

Double Crossing

Chapter 2: Buttercup in Charge

The room was nice and spacious. It had two bedrooms with two double beds in each, plus a broad living room type area with a small kitchenette, a large tele, and a sofa that, according to the papers, folded out into another bed.

Rose shrugged. "It'll do, anyway," she observed. "Think it was designed for business travelers. And I guess we're here on business, so it works."

"Look, I dunno about you or Buttercup," said Ace to the taller Doctor, "but I'm hungry."

Rose's Doctor grinned. "And lack of food, of course, is what makes you hungry. Well, come on then. Anywhere around here we can get chips?"

"Chips?" asked Ace and her Doctor, both looking surprised.

"Blame her," said Rose's Doctor. "She got me hooked on them, last body."

"It was our first date," Rose agreed. "I had to pay, 'cuz someone's a cheap skate."

"You can pay this time, too," said her Doctor airily, making his way to the door. Ace followed him, looking sort of thunderstruck.

Rose turned to look at the other Doctor. "C'mon," she said. "S'your first time, s'pose I can buy for you, too."

He just stood there and looked at her, a sort of horrified wonder on his face. His mouth opened and then closed again a couple of times. Rose had no idea what was going on in that vast brain of his, but whatever it was, it had completely floored him. Feeling a bit sorry for him and quite a lot of affection for him, she reached and took his hand. "S'all right, Doctor," she said when he flinched. "I don't bite."

The short, strange, older-looking Doctor shot her a look that said he very, very much doubted it, before he let her lead him after the rest of their group.

In the end, they wound up in one of the hotel's restaurant bars, which had been made over to look quite a bit like Ten-Forward. Rose adored it instantly, anyone could tell.

The Doctor honestly didn't know what to think about her. She was beautiful, there was no doubt about that, but she was almost unconscionably young. She and Ten seemed to enjoy a close friendship, rather than the usual sorts of relationships he had with his companions, especially the younger ones. He couldn't honestly tell if Ten had lost their mind, or if he just let her have her illusions because she was such a sweet child.

"Look," Rose was saying over the tail end of her basket of the things Americans called chips, "there's the Vulcan contingent. Let's go over there."

The Doctors both moved to get up. Rose firmly shook her head. "Just me and Ace," she said. "You two'll just get us in trouble."

As much as he wanted to object to the statement, the Doctor decided to let it go. He had a few words to say to Ten anyway. "Don't wander off," Ten told Rose firmly. "Either of you," he added, glancing at Ace.

"And Ace?" said the Doctor. "Please don't break anyone."

Ace shot him that brilliant grin of hers. "Wouldn't dream of it, Professor. C'mon, Buttercup, let's go find the aliens."

"Buttercup?" Rose asked.

"Ace likes to give people nicknames," the Doctor said.

"Just be glad it isn't the one she gave Melanie," Ten agreed. "That never did go over."

"Standing right here," Ace pointed out.

"You called an aerobics instructor 'Dumpling'," the Doctor reminded her.

"Well, how was I s'posed to know? She looked like a dumpling to me, and I never saw her do aerobics."

Both Doctors shivered. "Be glad you missed it," Ten said. "She was forever giving me carrot juice."

"You don't like carrots," Rose observed. "Or pears, and that weird cream sauce they had on Delta Arietus."

The Doctor frowned. "Tukue sauce is vile, Rose," he said. "It reminds me of the food we had at the Academy."

"You call that food?" Ten asked and shivered. "Never mind," he added. "Just... come back to me, soon, yeah?"

She smiled softly. "You know I will. Don't get into any trouble while I'm gone."

Ten's return smile was full of something that made the Doctor's stomach clench with fear and anxiety and something else he wasn't going to look up, never mind label. "As you wish," he said.

Rose turned her brilliant smile on Ace, who grinned back. The girls charged off. The Doctor waited until he was certain they were out of ear-shot before turning to Ten with the stern expression of a proper Lord President chastising the errant. "That is your companion," he said firmly.

"She's not just a companion, any more than Ace is," Ten replied, his dark eyes blazing with some strange, deep conviction. "You are more of a parent to that girl than any one has ever been, and for the rest of her life, yours is the face that will pop into her head when some one asks about her father. So don't lecture me about getting too close."

"I was actually going to lecture you about the proprieties, so we'll leave that out, thank you. Aren't we a bit old to have a human teenager for a... a girlfriend?"

"She's twenty," corrected Ten. "Twenty-one if you count the year we missed because the TARDIS decided She wouldn't part with Rose. And, just so you can quit panicking, she's not my girlfriend."

The Doctor studied his future face, looking into those dark, burning eyes. There was an aching loss there, somewhere, a sense of pain beyond reasoning. He blinked and felt himself nearly compelled to look away. "Who is she then?"

The other Doctor, the older, sadder, lonelier Doctor whispered a single concept-word in Gallifreyan. The Doctor blinked in astonishment. "'There's me'?" he translated, the best he could make of the staggering concept of belongingness implied in Ten's usage.

"Trust me when I tell you that some day, those two words will be the most profound you have ever heard."

A porcine alien in a quilted leather jacket threw himself into one of the girls' vacated seats. Then, to the obvious shock of both Doctors, he said, in a perfect South Texas accent, "So, who're ya'll s'posed ta be?"

Rose managed to persuade the Vulcans and Romulans to invite her and Ace to their private party later that evening. Then, they took their leave, claiming they had to get ready, and went to find the Doctors. The two aliens had apparently managed to make friends.

"No, really," her Doctor was saying over what could only be a banana daiquiri, "I'm Q."

"So you've got god-like power over time and space?" said one of the Andorians who was drinking with the Doctors.

Both Time Lords blinked in surprise, and her Doctor tugged at his ear nervously. "S'matter of fact," he agreed, haltingly. "Why, don't you?"

Rose took pity on the smaller Doctor, anyway. He was sipping what looked to be a whiskey sour, and watching his older self in complete confusion. "Hi, fellas," she said. "Got some news."

Ace sidled up next to the burly classic!Klingon and nudged him out of the way. "Hey, Professor, we didn't wander off," she said.

"Thought he said he was Doctor McCoy," said the Tellarite sitting in Rose's former seat. He was obviously about three and a half sheets to the wind.

The table was really crowded, so Rose took a seat in her Doctor's lap. He looked a bit alarmed for a second, but let it pass.

"You can sit in my lap, if you want," the Klingon told Ace.

"Right," she answered coldly. "And you can shove it, if you want."

"Feisty," the Klingon exclaimed with a chortle and moved as if to steal a kiss or something.

Ace was suddenly holding a silver canister that looked pretty much like an old deodorant can. "Tell you what, sunbeam. You can kiss this first, and if you survive, I'm all yours."

"Ace!" both Doctors exclaimed. "Put it away," Ace's Doctor finished with a pronounced sigh.

"I think you gentlemen might want to head out, now," Rose's Doctor added. "Don't want to miss the show. Someone said it was City playing tonight."

"Spock's Brain," everyone groaned, even Rose. Then, of course, the table cleared.

"What's City?" Rose's Doctor asked. He'd used what he overheard, even though he didn't understand it. She wasn't the slightest bit surprised, really.

"City on the Edge of Forever," Rose said. "It's a Classic series episode. Everyone loves it, even when pretty much everyone's got it on DVD now. But they never show it at conventions. Something always happens."

"City on the Edge of Forever," the smaller Doctor mused. "Sound familiar?"

Rose's Doctor got that distant, far-away look in his eyes, the one that said he wasn't here at all, but somewhere with an orange sky, instead. "Oh, yeah," he answered, quite fondly, and smiled at the younger him. Rose was suddenly sure, for some reason, that only she could see how hurt and fragile that smile really was.

"It's a time portal," she said hastily. "Not important, really. Well, it is... oh, let's don't go there."

"Why, what's wrong with it?" asked Ace's Doctor. Rose's Doctor took her hand and held it tightly.

"Someone saves one small, insignificant, ordinary, good person's life, and doing that destroys the world," she answered quietly, sinking back into her Doctor's embrace without really thinking about it.

Ace seemed to have caught on to her discomfort and said, "Listen, Professor, we got an invite to the private pointed-ears party."

"Seriously?" said Rose's Doctor, jumping on the change of subject like it was a gift from heaven. For him, it probably was. "Oh, fantastic!" he said. "Well, I mean, brilliant, really. Absolutely brilliant. How'd you accomplish it?"

"Same as always," Rose said.

"Great," said the Doctor grumpily, "so which empty headed pretty boy will be coming with us this time?"

"Well, it certainly won't be the Tart of France," she answered, hotly.

They looked at each other angrily for a moment and then, all at once, started laughing, resting their foreheads together.

"They're cute," Ace told her Doctor in what was obviously not meant to be a real whisper.

"Button it, Ace, or that name comes out," said Rose's Doctor.

"You wouldn't," she shot back. "I know where you sleep."

"I never sleep," both Doctors answered.

"See, that's the thing," said Rose, standing and straightening the hem of her mini-dress. "For someone who never sleeps, you don't half snore."

They both glowered, her Doctor at her, the other Doctor at her Doctor. Utterly unchastened, Rose continued. "We're going to the party. I suggest you two put those enormous brains to work and figure out the arms deal thingee. I'm sure hunting for the kid is safer. If you can't think of anything else, check the hucksters."

"Hucksters?" asked Ace's Doctor.

"The vendors!" she said. "Geez. There you are, brain the size of a planet..."

"That's Marvin the Paranoid Android," said Rose's Doctor.

"Whatever," she said. "Ace and I are going to party with the supposedly boring logical people. We should have the kid rounded up before the night's over."

"Does she always tell you what to do?" Ace's Doctor asked.

"No," her Doctor answered, "but when she does, I usually do it, because... well, I can't remember."

"Mum slaps," Rose reminded him.

"Oh, yeah," he said cheerfully. "That was it."

Rose, because she was feeling a bit silly and mischievous, leaned over and kissed his cheek. The other Doctor looked utterly gob-smacked. Rose smirked. "You boys behave," she ordered softly.

Then, she went around the table, kissed the gob-smacked Doctor on his cheek as well and, with a flirt of her skirt hem, headed out of the bar.

"Oh, wicked!" Ace announced, and followed her.