The Doctor stared at his long lean fingers entwined with each other on the shiny, wooden bar. Second bar he'd been to in two days. That was rather unlike him, this him at least, but he was feeling a bit low. He was here alone, having left Donna at home for a week for a visit with her family by her request. He sighed. He knew it was more than that, had taken a glance at her timeline and knew what was coming.

It was with Donna that he had spent yesterday evening in a bar, an Earth bar, in the 21st century. He had taken her home for tea with her mum and grandad. When had he gotten into the habit of that? He snorted to himself. It was so domestic. Last him had hated domestic, railed on it, recoiled at it as dramatically as possible, as often as possible, once braving a plasma storm so he didn't have to have tea with Jackie Tyler.

Of course, he knew the answer. Rose.

She had started to melt him even through the battered leather and hard exterior of his ninth body. This new regeneration had her written all over it. His boyish, pretty face, his joyful demeanor and boundless energy, his softer, more-likeable personality, his really great hair, even the way his hand slotted perfectly into hers, as if it had been made to order.

Jackie had even kissed him last time he'd been in her flat. He tried to imagine what his previous incarnation would have done if he had been kissed by Jackie Tyler. Now that was funny.

He suspected the TARDIS had helped him along a bit during the transformation, building a body Rose would like, a man that deserved her love. The ship had always had a certain affinity with Rose, altering things for her, making small amends to make her more comfortable, things she had never seemed interested in doing for any companions before.

The furniture had become softer and more feminine with things like throw pillows (much to his dismay), the average interior temperature was raised and even the towels had been fluffier. And she almost always made it impossible for him to find Rose's door if it was before 8:00 AM.

After the Bad Wolf incident he had often felt the two of them engaged in some sort of wordless conversation, seeing Rose absently stroking whatever piece of the ship she as near as she had often teased him about before. He never commented, wondering if she noticed it herself and the TARDIS refused to discuss it with him only ever receiving an irritated hum when he questioned.

He missed her so badly and he knew the ship did, too. It had been hard to continue without her but they had been forced into action almost immediately first with Donna then the Judoon...

It was all exhausting and throughout the past two years he continually found himself reaching for her hand, turning to tell her something devastatingly clever, searching for her in crowds where he knew she wouldn't be.

And this body was so tactile. It had such a need to touch (and taste) and be touched (luckily not to be tasted, although not that he hadn't thought about it with Rose...) in general but more than that, he knew it needed to touch and be touched by her.

It physically ached to be without her and he felt as though something vital was missing from his soul. Maybe it was. This regeneration had been so inundated with thoughts of her during the process, it was possible.

Martha had been a good companion but he knew he had hurt her. It hadn't been intentional but it still pained him nonetheless. He had known she wouldn't stay long and now he was going to lose Donna, his fiery, rude and ginger best mate. He lost them all in the end.

She had drug him to that Earth bar, seeing him in one of his melancholy "space man mopes" as she called them. He had protested and said that, of course, Time Lords don't mope but he knew he was. Ninth him would have brooded. He had just begun to master the brooding and then he had to up and learn how to mope. Frustrating, that was.

Donna had berated him until he gave in and went with her to a rather dark and sticky pub. Thankfully Wilfred had come with them and had distracted him from the moping with chatter as Donna flitted around the bar with some girls from her old temp agency.

He hadn't been paying attention to Donna until he felt something click in her timeline. Some sort of fixed point had just passed and he swung his head around to find her, anxious to see what had happened.

His eyes found her leaning against the bar with her hand on the arm of a good-looking friendly sort of man. He glanced a look at the timeline again and saw with a mixture of happiness and sadness that the two's timelines had started to mesh together.

Events flashed in front of him. Donna would ask to stay for a week to spend time with her family. He'd return two weeks late, feigning innocence but she will hardly have noticed. In that month, she'll fall in love with this man and he'll have to give her back her hat boxes. The two will marry and she'll threaten him within an inch of his life if he doesn't come to the wedding. They'll have four children and live a grand life together...the one adventure he can never have. And just like that, he'll be alone again.

He transferred his hands to his hair, mussing up the hard work he'd put into it on the TARDIS and stared at the empty glass in front of him.

"You look like you could use a pal and a drink," a voice behind him said. He turned his head slightly to see a man with two heads and three arms standing behind him.

"No good at being a pal though, so I'll just buy you two drinks," the other head said. "Four Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters - two for me and two for the mopey fellow in the pinstripes," the first head continued. He collected his two drinks and slunk off into the crowded bar, pursuing an attractive Altairian.

Getting blindly drunk would not help his situation in the slightest, he told himself. Still, it had been a while since he'd done it...maybe that would have changed. He could investigate...for scientific purposes, of course.

He downed both drinks.

As it turns out, it didn't help at all. It merely ended up with him staggering back to the TARDIS, shoe-less, tie on head, and with a bloody lip from merely mentioning to a rather large Xenion that his date seemed to resemble a Boeing 787. Very rude of him.

He scrabbled for his key, missing the lock several times before he successfully got the door open. He tumbled into the room and stopped short, staring at the center console. It was glowing a brilliant gold and the TARDIS' singing was unbearably loud. Usually she just hummed away in the background, a comforting melody that lived in the back of his mind. Now it was like she was shouting, bellowing the song as if trying to make someone far away hear it.

His drunken, confused mind scrabbled for what she was doing, trying to understand. Were they in danger? He didn't think so. The song sounded a bit desperate, like she was pleading with something. He had never felt her so focused and concentrated on something. What was going on?

He wanted to know, wanted to help but he was four banana daiquiris and two Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters past that stage. Instead he passed out face first on the floor but not before he caught two words lifting up from usually lyric-less music.

Rose Tyler.