A/N: This is not a Doctor/Rose story. This is a story about the Doctor, and Rose is listed in the characters (not as a pairing), because she is his companion at this point in the story. Also, the categories it is under are fantasy and adventure, not romance. I'm not going to discount the love he had for Rose, because I love her and I love them together, but the purpose of this story is not to pair the two of them. The Doctor doesn't need romance to be brilliant. If you're looking for cute Doctor/Rose moments, there will be plenty, because Rose is a big part of his life, but that is not the exclusive purpose of this story and I'm sorry if you thought it was. That being said, the chapters following this one will be Rose-centric, as will many to come. She is a companion, and I love her, so she plays a big part in everything.

Chapter 11.

An Impression.

The Doctor watched the house like it was his job. It kind of was his job, all things considered. It was home to a very peculiar girl who should not have been born. She could do extraordinary things, like bring his TARDIS back to life, and give him fleeting memories of his boyhood, and make him strangely giddy. It was his responsibility to find out what she was and if she was dangerous – and he needed to know exactly what she had done when she went to correct the corrupted timeline. He needed every detail.

He had tried to go back on his own, to look at her childhood and find a clue about her parentage, but the TARDIS bounced away from it like a repelled magnet. She was time-locked. He couldn't land anywhere near her past. And if that was not strange enough, a look in the future gave him no records of her existence beyond this age – nineteen. It was like she dropped off the face of the Earth. No children. No tax claims. No property. No news articles. She no longer existed after this.

She was a paradox. She was dangerous by default. It was his duty to find out what was so important about her, that the universe was shutting him out of her past.

But that was, admittedly, low on the list of his reasons for being here. He was watching the quaint little house because he wanted to make sure she had a good life. She had sacrificed so much, so bravely, that she deserved it. He would see to that.

It looked lovely so far. Her mother was in and out, planting flowers and watering rose bushes. She had a few phone conversations with very important people. Grace and her family were obviously very wealthy to live in a prestigious neighborhood like this, so separate from all the polluted factories and battlefields. Four little children ran around in the yard – presumably the brothers that had gone missing in the other reality – and the Doctor noted their features, assuring himself that they looked nothing like Grace. Half-siblings. Her step-father was still a factor, and so his children were still there, but all different ages than before. It seemed that he and her mother were destined to meet and procreate. In this timeline is had just happened a little sooner, so the boys were older.

Grace was the only one missing so far.

"Weird, right?"

The Doctor jumped and drew his screwdriver defensively, finding Grace leaning over the other side of the bench. She was watching the house as well, kneading the edge of the bench through her black, fingerless gloves. It was a wonder she had snuck up on him, looking so out of place.

She came around the bench and sat heavily beside him, motioning dismissively to the house. "I live there. I have a room and everything. In the basement."

"Why in the basement?"

Grace shrugged. "But the weird part is that I don't live there. I never had this. I never had any of this. Look at this place! One level, no slums."

She remembered everything about that world. It was very unusual.

"Okay, no, the really weird part is that I remember this life. I remember both. I remember being raised here, and I remember my mom getting married, and I remember dealing with my jerk hole brothers. But the other life… my real life… I dream of it. I hated it, but I miss it."

"It was what you were familiar with. You have every right to-"

"I don't want to miss it. It sucked. It really, seriously sucked. But I do. It was home, ya know? Dalton was there. Dad was there." She slouched, resting her head on his shoulder like she had known him her whole life, rather than one pitiful day. "Where's your friend? Did you find her?"

She remembered him telling her about Rose.

"Rose? Yeah. She was fine. She wanted to spend a little time with her mum after everything. We sort of had a run in with a mutant shark on a beach filled with tiny little people. Everything turned out alright, but she needed a little break." He took a deep, calming breath, sorting his questions into manageable lists. "I have to ask you… what did you see when you went back in time?"

"I don't remember."

She did innocent very well. She stared into him, disarming him with those beautiful eyes, and then she mucked his whole head up.

He had to look away. "I don't believe you."

Grace groaned, slipping her hand under his and toying with his index finger. She had little regard for personal space. "Okay. I lied. I do remember. But I can't tell you. So you have to let it go."

He was a little distracted by the contact, but his suspicion took over.

"Was it me? Did you see me?"

She smiled. "Now that would be silly. Come and see my room."

"Um, I don't think that's appropriate."

"Stop being dramatic. We're all adults here." She took his hand and dragged him across the street, straight to her front door. She stopped to listen, winking at him, and then she took him inside.

It was the same on the inside as it was on the outside – quaint, homey, and lavishly decorated. The Doctor counted eleven trophies in a cabinet in the hall, none of them for Grace, and dozens of pictures lining every feasible surface. But she was absent from most of them. He saw the four little boys repeated over and over again, with a mum and a dad, but no big sister – the pictures with her in them were just of her and her mother, and never any younger than preschool-aged.

Grace took him through to the back of the house, evading a stream of children and yelling at them to watch where they were running. The Doctor recognized the child he had seen Rose holding in the time ripple. He was a bit older now.

"Where are you in all of this?" The Doctor stood his ground when she tried to keep moving. He dragged her back. "You're not in any of these pictures. Why is that?"

Her cheer was diminished. She leaned in and whispered, "You are very easily distracted."

Now he was even more suspicious, and more eager to find out what was going wrong in this house, but Grace pulled him down the hallway, to the back door, which was nestled into the laundry room. There was a narrow staircase leading straight down into the dark.

"Go on. Watch out for the door at the bottom. I don't want you repeating your stunt with the rock."

The Doctor descended, running his hand along the wall to steady himself. He found a door at the bottom and felt along for a doorknob, and then stepped into a small, heavily carpeted room.

It was not what he had expected from a girl like Grace.

Her room was brightly colored, with pastel walls plastered in pictures of animals – mostly horses – and pink shag carpets. Her bed sat low in the corner with a canopy surrounding it. She had little floor space, but she had jammed a desk and a recliner into it, so only someone as little as her could really navigate it. There was a door on the wall nearby, probably leading out into the split-level backyard. While he tried to figure out how she had gotten the recliner into the room, she danced around him and went to the desk.

"Come here. I want you to see these."

The Doctor fixated on the door. "Don't you worry about that? No lock. What if someone tried to break in and found you down here?"

"Well, then they would have a very bad day. Come here!"

He groaned, struggling to join her by the desk. He almost knocked the chair over on his way. She bounced a little beside him, laying the papers out so he could look at them all.

They were sketches.

It was his face. He was there, over and over again, drawn in different depths, with different mediums and colors and techniques – a couple for every year of her life. He could track her progress, from the rudimentary attempt at his eyes to the intense portrait at the end. It was a perfect rendition of his expression after she had left him, when she took the TARDIS and almost wiped herself out of existence.

Her memories were powerful. Not only had they managed to stay intact for the reset, but she seemed to have every detail nailed down. Her mind was certainly not human.

Grace ran her finger over the most detailed picture, which had an incomplete corner. "I barely remember drawing some of them. I have glimpses of it – when I was little I had dreams about you. I think. Maybe. It gets blurry sometimes. But you obviously made an impression."

"I see that."

"Is it creepy? It is, right?"

"Well…"

They shared a smile. He was honored to have remained in her thoughts. She had stayed in his as well, but for him it had only been a few days, and for her, a lifetime.

Grace stacked the papers back up, taking special care to clip them together and store them in her desk. She patted the recliner. "Sit down."

"I really should-"

"You have something else to say." Grace patted the chair again, and then went to her bed. She sprawled across it and started picking pieces out of a box of chocolates. "You look very serious. So just sit down and let it out."

She was still just as perceptive as she had been in the other timeline, with even less regard for personal space. It was hard to hide anything with those seafoam eyes on him. But did he really want to hide anything from her? Something about her blunt look at life made him want to be honest, and therein lie the danger. He still knew hardly anything about her, other than she was alien, potentially ancient, and clever – she had outwitted him once already.

He was caught between wanting very desperately to trust her, and locking away his secrets.

He sat in the recliner and released the footstool, leaning back until he was almost lying flat. He got a good look at her room from that angle – she had a bookshelf stuffed to its limit in the corner under the desk, a heavily covered window that must have led to the backyard, and three dozen empty chocolate boxes hidden under her bed, along with a hefty stash of other sweets. Her shelves were dotted with anatomically correct models of otherworldly monsters, and there were a few stunning, perhaps hand carved wooden horses standing out amongst the clutter. Rose's words came back to him, and his eyes lingered there for a moment. Puzzle pieces. But what kind of picture were they trying to make?

Grace focused on the chocolates, like having a strange man in her bedroom was nothing new.

His eyes came to her last. He measured the little changes in her face, wondering what she was thinking, and how much she knew about the universe. She appeared intelligent, but the way she acted shrouded it. She was very odd, even in this version of the world.

"I got here this morning." He reached across to take a chocolate from the corner. Her outraged expression made him laugh. "I can tell your whole family is perfectly human. But you… Not you."

"You said that before."

"But you knew. I saw it in your eyes. So what are you?"

Grace shrugged, taking a bite out of a chocolate and then putting it back, disgusted. "Ugh. Cherry. Who puts cherry in a chocolate?" Strangely, she went for it again, taking little nibbles until it was gone. She made a sour face. "You need to work on your phrasing, by the way. What am I? Really?"

He smiled, unable to help himself. "You enjoy being frustrating, don't you?"

Grace got up on her knees and leaned over the arm of his chair, which was really only a few inches from her bed. She got very close, until their noses could have touched, and her eyes sparkled mischievously. "I thought you loved my mysteries."

"I never said that."

She sat back, shrugging. He caught a little guilt in her.

The Doctor laughed despite himself. "You're having too much fun with this."

"I really don't know, though. What I am. Who I am. I never met my dad. I mean, the biological one. In this world my mom never told me about him. In the other one… well, she told me a lie."

"She was just trying-"

"If you say she was trying to protect me, I'll throw this at your head, and it's got one good pointy corner that could take out an eye." Grace raised the box threateningly, waiting a moment before going on. "Lying doesn't protect kids. It just gives them hope, and then it gets taken away later on. It just hurts more, and you lose trust."

It was a touchy topic. He reminded himself to steer clear of it.

Grace held the box out to him, letting him pick his own as long as it wasn't one of the ones in the middle. She jerked it away when he tried. "What do you think I am, Doctor?"

"Certainly not human. No." He caught her wrist and she leaned over the chair again. He got another good look at her eyes, shaking his head, pretending he was doing something very scientific when he was really just gazing. "Other humanoid races exist, but nothing like you."

"And what am I like?"

Like the trees of Gallifrey in the summer, with the sky poking out behind them, and a warm breeze rolling over the grasses. Like home. Like a lifetime ago. Like a foggy memory in a narrow glass, distorted and far away, and then suddenly so clear that it gave the soul pause.

He answered without thinking.

"Beautiful."

Grace scanned his face. "What do you see when you look at me?"

"I see…" He could have been honest. It was an opportunity that he missed. "Uh, sorry. I meant your eyes. I mean, they're unique. Unique is what I meant to say."

She laughed – at him, not with him – and slid back onto her bed. She could have pushed the point, but she let it go. "So you've never met an alien with green eyes?"

"There are loads of aliens with green eyes – some aliens that are just green eyes – but nothing like that. Never so pale. And there was something else. When you walked into the TARDIS they glowed, like you were made of light. And how did you fly the TARDIS? It was dead, and when you walked in it just sprung to life. How did you do that? How did you know it would happen?"

"I heard it whispering." Grace squirmed a little, playing with the hem of her jean shorts. "We were standing there, and I heard it… calling me."

The Doctor was blown away by that. He knew his ship had a soul, but she had never spoken to him before. What was so special about Grace? What kind of creature could commune with something as ancient and powerful as the TARDIS? What kind of creature would the TARDIS literally call out to? It was fascinating, but he couldn't find the words to ask her about it.

Grace saw him struggling. She sat on the edge of the bed and grew more serious. "I just knew… I knew what to do. I can't explain it. I still don't understand it. But that's the truth."

"Thank you. I suppose we might never know."

She twisted her lips. "Is there any chance I can convince you to… stay the night?"

He blanched, clearing his throat to hide his surprised yelp. "Um, I think that might be… I should probably…"

Grace laughed, enjoying his suffering, and waved him off. "Easy tiger. I was kidding. Besides, you told me not to seduce you."

"When did I say that? And I didn't think it was funny, by the way."

"It was a joke at your expense, so I would think not." She got up, stopping him before he could leave the recliner. "Wait. I have a few hours to spare before I have to go to bed – I go to University in this world, you know. I'm studying biology. Don't know why, but whatever."

He thought he should go, because his will was growing weaker. He was too enthralled with this girl to think straight. But she seemed very desperate to keep him there, and he had a strong desire to please her, especially so soon after she had sacrificed everything to fix this world. Besides, if he could make her comfortable and get her talking, he could gauge how happy she was with this life, and soothe that nagging fear in his stomach.

So he reclined his chair all the way and told her about the black sand beaches he and Rose had visited, recounting it like a true storyteller. Grace sat up in bed for a while, listening, bursting into laughter at inappropriate moments, or scouring for another snack among the covers. As the night wore on she settled down with a pillow, curling up under her comforter and watching him through the haze of exhaustion.

When he finished one story, he found himself jumping into the next. He didn't want to let the night end. Grace grew so still sometimes he thought she had fallen asleep, but then she would tilt her head and rest her eyes on him with a big, lovely, sleepy smile. She urged him on into the wee hours of the night, past whatever bedtime she might have assigned herself.

She wanted to hear about everything, from the mundane to the terrifying, and she provided a running commentary on some of the most incredible things he had ever encountered. She wanted to know why, and how, and with whom. She even told some stories of her own, recounting events from her childhood in the corrupted timeline and comparing them to what she had experienced here. She was articulate and intelligent, with an underlying kindness that was occasionally clouded by her innate grumpiness. Despite that, she was charming. She was lively. She was excitable.

But he got the impression she was holding something back.

"How is your life here? Is it better?"

Grace stretched, yawned, and snuggled into her pillow. "I think anything would be better than before." She dodged the question perfectly, as she would have in the other reality.

He chose a gentle tone. "You can tell me, you know."

She took a deep, deep breath. "It's been three days since everything happened. But I guess you didn't know that, did you? Time traveler and all."

"I knew that."

"It gets so quiet down here. I keep thinking, you know, in the other world, at least I was never alone. I always had someone. But it's much worse now."

"I'm sorry. I wanted it to be better for you this time around."

Grace sniffled, appearing conflicted for a moment, and then her voice came out in a whisper. "I wish it had really been like that – I wish I had never been born."

Her tone broke his hearts. He hated to see such an otherwise bubbly person in such a state of sorrow. And for her it was not just a dramatic statement, but a real possibility, something that both of them had believed would happen.

"Don't say that."

"I know, I know. What a horrible thing to say. I know. But I wanted to convince you to stay, and I knew that… the truth would do it." She smiled faintly. "It gets so quiet down here alone, and cold. I want you to stay because you're the opposite of that."

"I'm loud and warm?"

Grace grinned. "Something like that."

He had a nagging feeling she was being purposefully pitiful to get to him, using his empathy as a weapon. And it was working. She must have known how badly he wanted to trust her. And what reason did he have not to, at this point? She was just a university student, raised in the suburbs, who happened to be an unidentifiable species of alien. He had no room to discriminate. She knew very little about him, too.

"What do you see when you look at me?" Grace repeated her earlier question, propping her elbow under her head.

He had another chance to be honest, and he blew it.

"I see… a friend, maybe."

"No. It's more than that. I see it in your eyes every now and then. It's like you get lost. But it's okay. You don't have to tell me. But I'll tell you what I see when I look at you – I see the only person who has ever cared whether I live or die."

"That's not true-"

"Doctor, there are billions of people on this planet. Billions and billions. I know ten of them. I have no father, and barely any family. I'm not being dramatic. I'm just telling you what it's like. And I'm not depressed or anything. I accept it. I always have – in both lives. But I never thought… It just never occurred to me that someone might care. But I think it's supposed to be this way, because honestly, I'm a terrible person. I cheat. I'm loud. I'm mean. I can be vicious. I'm selfish. And I think you see that. But you just…" She sighed, running out of words.

"I just what?"

"I hope you won't hold all that against me."

He smiled, understanding her for once. "I won't."

"We can be friends, then."

"I would like that very much."

He lay awake through the early hours of the morning, watching her slowly fade into sleep, and wondering what kind of dreams she had. She could talk to the TARDIS, after all. Did that mean she was tapped into the time vortex?

He spent the silence considering what he would do about this girl. After what she said, he couldn't imagine letting her stay on Earth. If she really had nothing tethering her, her life would me miserable, and he wanted to avoid that. He was already quite fond of her, but he didn't trust her. What would Rose think of him bringing her along? He had no right to ask that of her. It was just supposed to be the two of them, and Grace could put his friend in danger.

But the questions remained, and the only way to answer them would be to spend more time with her. What was she? Was she dangerous? What role did she play in his future?