IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just did a HUGE rewrite on this story. Almost all of the first chapter is new, along with added or deleted parts in other ones. Most of the dialogue is unchanged, but I really changed the introduction to Zoe, as I feel it will be easier for me to write her.

Also, I know it looks like there are fewer chapters, but I just combined some, and the last one is completely new material! :D I hope to be posting longer chapters only from now on, as a hundred little ones just get frustrating. I can't promise a steady pattern of chapters (though I'll do my best!!!!) but as long as I have reviews, I'll keep writing!!!!

I can't tell you how much I appreciated the original reviews! I really hope you guys still like the story, as it is still heading in the same direction as planned!

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Zoe blinked as the Oncoming Storm swept out of the flat, leaving two very confused humans in his wake. It took her a moment but then she was after him, Shireen calling her in vain.

"Wait! Doctor… just wait a tic!" she demanded, catching up to him on the stairs.

"Sorry, no can do. Busy man, me!"

"Oh, come off it! You can spare me five minutes!"

"No I can't!" he replied cheerfully. "If I'm gonna trace the signal I need to be quick about it."

"Signal?"

"Yeah, the one controlling the arm. If I'm gonna trace it back to the source, it has to be a recent signal. So- I can't spare you five minutes."

Zoe flipped some hair out of her eyes impatiently, still struggling to match the Time Lord's stride. "It's not gonna work, you know."

"What won't work?" the Doctor said, gracing her with a brief glance.

Her eyes glinted with mischief. "Tracing the signal with the arm. You see, the arm is too simple. You need something more complex to find the Nestene Consciousness," she rattled off smugly.

The Doctor stopped so fast Zoe ran into him. He turned and looked down at her with a calculating gaze, forehead furrowed in thought.

"How do you know that?" His voice was serious and deeper, and Zoe was close enough to hear his chest rumble as he said it.

She raised her chin to look up at him, unafraid and defiant. With a sly smile and syrupy voice, she said: "The answer will take more than five minutes to explain."

She could swear she saw a muscle in his jaw twitch. She grinned in the pleasure of having all the answers he wanted. For once, he had to play by someone else's rules.

Zoe turned abruptly on her heel and started walking in the direction she knew he was going: to the TARDIS. After a moment he followed her, never taking his narrowed eyes off her back.

"My name is Rosemary Zoe Taylor," she said, deciding to start at the beginning. "But call me Zoe. If you call me Rosemary I will put you through a wood-chipper, feed your remains to a hyena, kill the hyena and encase it with cement, then dump the cement block into the Marianas Trench."

"Is that supposed to sound impressive?"

Zoe grinned at the familiar question. "Sort of, yeah."

"Doesn't work," came the bored reply. "And what does this have to do with what you know?"

"Tsk, tsk. Patience, dear Doctor. I'm getting there. I was born on the 13th of February, 1990."

"But that would make you only 15, and you can't be that young."

Zoe stopped and spun to face him with her hands on her hips. "Oi! Who's telling the story?!"

This time she knew he twitched.

"That's what I thought." She started walking again. "Despite being born in 1990, I'm actually 19 years old. Why, you ask? Because my proper year is 2009."

The Doctor groaned behind her, probably thinking there was a temporal problem along with an Auton one. He had noooooo idea.

"Let me guess: I'll know you in the future and tell you this," he said acerbically.

Zoe smiled sadly. "It's a bit more complicated than that. I am from the future, and I do know you, but I'm not from your future."

"You're not makin' any sense," the Doctor complained.

Zoe stopped. She took a deep breath and forced herself to meet his gaze.

"I'm from a parallel world where time is ahead of here. This has already happened there, which is why I know how this ends."

Her green eyes begged him to believe her, to help her and let her in.

His blue eyes searched hers, processing all he knew about her and making a decision.

Nothing was actually spoken as they silently communicated in the graffiti-covered alley.

"Come on." The Doctor's voice was low, and his northern accent shaped the words, making them sound like so much more.

Zoe stared as he held out a hand to her. The moment froze and replayed in her head.

Of all the things that have happened, this is the most surreal, she thought as she took it. How had she not noticed how small hers was? The Doctor's comfortably calloused hand dwarfed hers. He tugged it gently, leading her in silence for several minutes before they reached a familiar blue box where he dropped her hand to open the doors.

The Doctor paused with the key in the lock. "I suppose you know what's in here," he said, more of a statement than question.

Zoe nodded and smiled. "TARDIS. T-A-R-D-I-S. Stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space; although I always thought that if it was a proper acronym, the 'and' and 'in' wouldn't be used. It travels through time and space and doesn't always go where you planned. She's the best ship in the universe, even if she's not the most reliable."

The Doctor gave her a bemused smile and opened the doors, walking in.

Zoe's mouth opened as she entered behind him. "…Oh, I forgot. It's also dimensionally transcendental."

The Doctor grinned, blue eyes shining in the glow of the time rotor, as he watched her walk around the room with a hand trailing behind to stroke the walls and struts. Her lips were still parted in amazement as she drank in every last detail with all her senses.

"Thought you been in here before?" he asked, voice laced with humor.

"Yeah, once… but I was a bit busy being kidnapped to enjoy it," she said with a hint of a smile.

"I take it that was when you came to this universe?"

Zoe finally turned to him and blinked. "You believe me?"

He nodded. "Had the TARDIS scan you."

He spun the monitor so she could see it also. "Congratulations- you're a human female; 5' 9"; of Anglo-Saxon descent; 19 years, 5 months, and 18 days of age, and perfectly healthy except for the Void particles surrounding you. Although it wouldn't hurt to floss more."

Zoe started in surprise. How did he do that?

The Time Lord in question was looking at her intensely now, making her feel a bit awkward.

"What?" she asked nervously.

"Your time line," he said as if it explained everything.

"What about it?" Zoe was really anxious. She didn't know how much he could actually see, but there was quite a bit she knew he shouldn't.

"For one, it only starts seven weeks ago. Was that when you came over?"

She nodded.

"Must be I can't see time from the other universe, then. But what's even stranger is what's ahead of you."

Her eyes widened and she swallowed before replying in a scratchy voice. "What do you see?"

"I see what could be and what should not. There are far more 'should not's' than 'could be's'. If I believed in that stuff, I'd say you have a destiny. But I can't see what it is."

"Then stop trying!" Zoe surprised herself by snapping. "Sorry… it's just… I'm here for a purpose- that 'destiny' you saw- and I don't think you're supposed to know it yet. There's still a while to go before I reach it."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow and leaned back against the console with his arms folded. "Are you saying I'm part of it?"

Zoe fixed him with a steady and firm gaze. "You have everything to do with it. You're the whole reason it happens. You're the reason I'm here." She couldn't help a tinge of bitterness seeping into her voice.

His face flickered with emotion, but it disappeared before she could decipher it.

"So," he changed topics, "tell me about who I am to you in the other universe. Exactly how much do you know about me?"

She looked up from where she'd been studying the grating and met his eyes. "You won't like it."

"Try me! See, despite you being covered in Void stuff, I know it's impossible for you to know me in the other universe. There are no other me's in the multi-verse."

"Isn't it possible that whatever kept there from being alternate Time Lord's was destroyed in the Time War?"

Zoe didn't waver, but the Doctor couldn't hide his reaction. He paled and stared at her. She felt slightly bad about bringing it up when he was so vulnerable, but she had to discourage him from asking what she knew.

Her green eyes were sad as she watched his mask slide back up and he turned away from her, fiddling with a switch most likely pointless on the console. She resisted the urge to comfort him. He barely knew her, though she knew oh-so-much about him. More than any other companion he'd ever had, probably.

"So how did you get here?" Apparently they would pretend the war hadn't been mentioned.

Zoe took a deep breath and blew it out dramatically. "That's another story I don't wanna get in to."

The Doctor looked at her over his shoulder with his body still leant over the controls. "I can't help you get back if I don't get some information here."

Zoe's heart leapt at the thought of going home, and for just a second she let herself believe, really believe and hope that it was possible. But it wasn't, and reality came crashing back down on her shoulders, steadily driving her into the ground.

"I can't." Her voice broke and she took a moment to steady herself. "I have to do what I was brought here for. And he- the person who brought me here- said returning was as likely as… as getting a pony for my birthday." She laughed a little, half-sobbing at the reference to the clichéd little girl's wish.

Standing here in the TARDIS, with the Doctor nearby, drove home everything that had happened. Her eyes started to water and she shut them tight, clenching her fists and berating herself for crying.

"I'm sorry!" she gasped around a sob. "I haven't cried for weeks! I'm better than this, I swear. It's just that… I don't know! I shouldn't be like this. I'm alive. It could be so much worse. I've lived comfortably, made friends, and have things from home- but I can't help it! I should be ecstatic- I get to meet you, see time and space, have adventures that weren't possible before. I shouldn't be so upset!"

Zoe didn't realize how tight her fingernails had dug into her palms until the Doctor took her hands and unclenched them and she saw the faintest traces of blood. How stupid and useless must she look to him? He would never ask her to travel with him now. What was she supposed to do if he didn't?

Steeling herself for his reaction, she raised her head and finally met his eyes. They took her breath away.

She'd read stories that spun beautiful descriptions of the Ninth Doctor's eyes. Poems had been written about them. But they were nothing compared to real life. It wasn't the unique shade of blue, or their intensity. It was the reflection of her own feelings in them.

He wasn't disappointed or repulsed by her- he understood her. In hindsight it made sense. He'd lost his world too after all.

A wave of comfort flooded her body and her eyelids fluttered shut. A deep breath in and out, a small sigh, and she opened them again with a small smile.

After searching her face, the Doctor gave her own back, the corners pulling up slowly until a mega-watt grin covered the bottom half of his head.

"Rosemary Zoe Taylor,"- how did he make her name sound so special?- "I promise I'll do everything I can to get you back home. If for no other reason than it's my job!"

Zoe chuckled a bit and he drew back, letting her wrists go and turning back to the console.

"Hope you don't mind if I sort this Auton thing out first, though. Don't suppose you'd tell me how ended for your Doctor?"

Zoe stuck her tongue out and joined him at the console. "Need a little help, Doctor?"

He looked at her affronted. "Course not! I'm genius, me! Just thought I'd let you feel useful."

She threw her head back and laughed. "You're full of it!"

"Sort of, yeah," he said grinning.

"I'd love to help, but I'm not sure giving you all the answers would be safe. I was brought here because time was already fragile- I don't think it's best to tell you all I know."

A measure of respect showed in the Doctor's face as he nodded. "Fair enough, but will you at least tell me if I'm getting warm?"

The sound of laughter echoed through the TARDIS for the first time since the Time War.