Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. I do not own any of it, nor do I get paid for it.

A/N Thanks for the awesome response on the last chapter. This one is a short interlude as we look at the other side of the void into the main universe. Not only does it have the Doctor, but a few well-known faces.

Remember, this is an AU.

Happy Reading!

Interlude: Across the Void

Across the void, Dr. Martha Jones had just married Dr. Tom Milligan in a private yet beautiful ceremony. The Doctor and Donna Noble clapped as the new Dr. and Dr. Milligan walked into the reception hall, hand in hand.

"Come on," said the Doctor to Donna. "Back to the TARDIS."

"We are not staying?" Donna asked, though unsurprised. It had been an effort to even bring him this far. It had taken persuasion and a little emotional blackmail on both her and Martha's part.

The Doctor heaved an exaggerated sigh. "We'll stay long enough to congratulate them," he conceded. "But then, I am taking to you to the biggest library in the universe."

"You could be nicer, you know," Donna said, nudging his side when he stuffed one too many nibbles into his mouth. "God, you are such a child!"

"I am nice!" said the Doctor defensively. "I came, didn't I?"

"Yeah, after whining for nearly ten days," said Donna, rolling her eyes. "We should have brought Jenny. She would have been a lot more fun."

The Doctor sniffed and grabbed a few more nibbles from a passing waiter. "Jenny told me in no uncertain terms that she had a major paper on dimensional physics due in three days and was to be left undisturbed. Even after I offered time travel as a solution."

"She's honest, that's not a bad thing," Donna pointed out. "The University thing is good for her, isn't it?"

The Doctor smiled involuntarily. "Yeah," he agreed. "And this way, I know she is not getting killed or something. I still don't know if she can regenerate. Terra-forming is not a reliable thing to depend on every time."

Donna patted his arm. "Stop worrying. Jenny is going to be fine," she said. "Come on, let's congratulate Martha and be on our way."

The two of them walked towards the bride and groom, while the last chords of 'Hungry like the Wolf' filtered through the air.

After their trip to the Library, the Doctor retired to his room in the TARDIS. Well, technically it was their room. Had been so, since the incident with the Dalek in Van Statten's bunker. He fell onto his side of the bed and closed his eyes.

"Hello Rose," he whispered, pretending she could hear him. "It's Day 747 without you. I still haven't stopped trying to reach for your hand in the middle of running or turning in our bed and expecting to find you sleeping next to me. It still hurts. It hurts so much."

He sighed and turned in the bed, keeping his eyes closed. 747 days meant that her scent was all but gone but he didn't let that dishearten him. "Jenny is doing well. I give it another year before she will be Dr. Jenny Tyler. Did I ever tell you why she picked 'Tyler' as a last name? Well, when she first came on board she found our room and your things all around. Of course, she made me tell her about you. And then upon seeing a picture of you, decided that you could in essence be her mother had she been born of two parents. I could have stopped her, told her she couldn't pick 'Tyler' as a last name but I really, really did not want to do that. Is it selfish of me to pretend that she is our daughter? She looks so much like you, has your bloody cheek and jumps through lasers without breaking a sweat."

"I think she still holds hope that you will return. So does Donna. Even Martha thinks you will find a way back. I try so hard not to believe them. I can't allow myself to hope, Rose," he let a few tears slip out. "It hurts to hope. You were taken away from me as soon as I had allowed myself to believe your promise of forever." He sniffed and turned onto his back, his eyes still shut.

"Anyway, let me tell you about a peculiar thing that happened today. After congratulating Martha and Tom, Donna and I went to the Library. Not just any library, but the biggest one in the universe. You would have loved it. But the Library was empty. And then came the archaeologists led by Professor River Song."

"The first thing that I noticed about her was that time moved peculiarly around her. That put me on alert at once and it only became more and more suspicious when she knew exactly who Donna and I were. She was a Professor at Luna University so naturally, I wondered if she knew Jenny. Turns out, she did. Except she came from a few years ahead of where Jenny is. Do you know what that means, Rose? River Song was someone from the future. The relative future."

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "It only got weirder from there. She seemed to know everything about me. In a way that was very, very not good. But then, she slipped up and asked why I was alone. She saw the surprise on my face and then hastily changed the subject. I don't know if I just imagined it when she cast a panic-filled glance at my left hand..."

"I don't know what's happening, Rose. Am I supposed to be married to this woman? I wasn't attracted to her and it didn't seem like she was to me, either. To be perfectly honest, it felt like I was interacting with Jenny. She kept looking at me as if she had a hundred questions on her mind and when I challenged her, she told me the one thing that could make me trust her. Just two words, but those words have had power over me for so long, Rose. Bad Wolf."

"Please, Rose," he was crying now. It had been a really emotional day even before Professor Song had whispered that in his ear. "Are you coming back? Are you really, really coming back? Or am I going mad? I couldn't bear it if this was just some cruel universal joke. Please, Rose. I need to know. I need to know if it is alright to expect to see you one day when I turn around to look for you. I need to know if you are going to do the impossible, my precious girl. My precious, darling girl."

He waited until he couldn't bear the silence any longer and opened his eyes slowly. The room and the bed remained empty as ever. Sighing mournfully, the Doctor pulled the duvet all the way over his head and burrowed himself inside the darkness.

While the Doctor and Donna were in the library, Captain Jack Harkness was at his favourite bar on Majesticia. He raised an eyebrow at the Adipose who was clearly drunk and falling off the bar. Someone needed to take the little tyke home.

This bar had become his frequent haunt after losing Tosh and Owen. He knew that Ianto and Gwen were concerned at his untimely disappearances but they did not pry and he was grateful for that. He had already missed Martha's wedding and knew there would be hell to pay for that.

Apparently, even the Doctor had been there. He wondered what Donna had threatened him with to get him to comply. Or she could have just asked Jenny to do the dirty work. The Doctor would not dream of disappointing his little girl. Jack swallowed back his drink and shook his head. Jenny was good for the Doctor. He had never been the same ever since...well, since he had lost Rose.

Jack understood, he really did. He had loved Rose just as much as the Doctor, and had accepted long ago that it would forever remain unrequited. He was bound to her in so many ways; the girl in the Union Jack who had seen a hero in a conman, someone she had seen fit to call her friend, someone she had defied all laws of nature for and brought back to life...

He wanted her back in this universe, he wanted her and the Doctor to be happy, he wanted Jenny to meet the woman whose last name she had chosen for herself, he wanted Martha and Donna to meet the wonderful Rose Tyler whose shadow they had been inadvertently living in.

He signalled the bartender for a fresh drink and the bartender put down a fresh coaster with a drink on top of it. Jack picked it up and was about to down it when he noticed the logo on the coaster. A golden wolf stared back at him surrounded by the words 'bad'.

"I almost slipped up and asked him about her," Professor Song shook her head. "I forgot that this was way back in his timeline."

"You couldn't have known," her mother said comfortingly.

"I know," said River. "For a moment in the Library, it looked like I was going to have to plug myself into the computer to download the saved people from CAL but the Doctor found a different way. He saved me yet again."

"He does that," sighed Amelia Williams, with a sad smile.

They were silent for a moment wherein River realised that the house seemed a little quiet. "Where's Dad? And Tony?" River asked curiously.

"Park," Amy answered. "Your brother is far too energetic during holidays, I'm afraid. So, Rose wasn't with him yet?"

"No," sighed River sadly. "I don't know how long it will be until she finds him."

Amy smiled and looked at her typewriter where she was about to start Chapter 11 of Summer Falls. "She'll find him," she said confidently. "Their story is not over yet. Far from it."

"How's the book coming along?" River asked.

"Good," smiled Amy. "Just wait until I write this one. It's going to make everyone cry their eyes out."

A/N End of the Interlude. So, what did you think?

Each part takes around the same time except of course, the one with River and Amy which is post-The Angels Take Manhattan. And Anthony was the boy that Amy and Rory adopted as seen in the 'P.S. video'. If you haven't seen it, please do. It made me cry.

Oh and I couldn't bring myself to kill Jenny. Or River, for that matter. But apparently she does come back from the Library if the rumours for the Series 7 finale are to be believed.

Anyway, they have been given the signal that Rose is returning. The next chapter will go back to Rose and her adventures away from Earth and a way back. See you then!

~ Phoenix