He sits in one of Torchwood's many private jets as it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, staring out the window. He knows its useless—the fact that it's pitch black outside kills any visibility. And he's irritated with how slowly it's going/how long it's taking. From there, they still have to go across the country to get to where he's looking to for, to get to who he's looking to find. He's flying alone—something he had to fight for, but not without a price. He left his TARDIS key behind, left it with Romana, because even though she may not be his, she still has an integrity about her that speaks to him. So he waits, he waits for day to come, then night; he waits for the moment when he will learn what became of her. He waits, and as he does, he begins to remember.

"What are you doing?" she asks him, standing at the entrance to the TARDIS.

"It doesn't make any sense Romana. What they are saying doesn't make any sense," he says as he works his way around the console, his body tense and voice terse. He just spent four hours with other Time Lords and the newest director of Torchwood. They all tell him the same thing over and over, that the year is 2107.

"I know," she replies, defeated, and she climbs the ramp to his side.

"The signal came from this universe, the signal said 'Time War'. But there's no sign of it, no sign of any clear and present danger. No sign of—"

"Rose." She answers for him as she leans against the railing, out of his way. He looks up from the screen, his specs falling down his nose in his fury. He stares at the woman in front of him, the sad look on her face, the way she holds herself around him; he looks at her and it doesn't move him the way it may have hundreds of years earlier. How long had it taken him to get over her?

"A hundred years. It's been almost a hundred years since I left her here." The sound of defeat resonates in his voice as he leans against the console, his arms taunt against the machine as she creaks and moans in sorrow with him.

"If she was alive, if she… there's no way. Torchwood has her certificate of death. Her bloody portrait hangs in the Director's office!" he growls before pushing a cup off the console as hard as he can, sending it crashing to the ground.

"And yet, you're still looking," she says, and he looks up at her, his chest heaving in pain and anger, his eyes burning from stress. She's no longer leaning against the railing, but instead slowly moving closer to him.

"And yet, I'm still looking. Even if she had children, had decedents that may know anything about her, I need to know what happened. I need to know what became of her. Torchwood's bloody privacy policy can kiss my skinny ar—"

"Doctor," Romana interrupts looking back at the screen, and he follows her gaze. There it is, the tiniest of hopes, blinking to life on his screen; he's located her TARDIS key. It's on the other side of the world, give or take a few thousand miles, but it's enough. He turns back to Romana, knowing she sees it in his eyes.

"Romana, I have to do this."

She nods in understanding. "Go. Go and do what you have to do. But when you get back, we are going to have to talk about what this means."

"And what exactly does this mean?" he asks her condescendingly.

"Just because it doesn't seem like the Time War is coming doesn't mean anything. It could hit at any moment. Now that we can't question Rose, we're just going to have to believe her."

Shaking his head, he looks through the holographic disks in the cabinet. He must admit, the accommodations Torchwood has to offer are comfortable enough. He even has a bed if he wants to sleep, something that he's needed more and more of since this whole thing started. It's then that he sees them, beyond the blockbusters, beyond the entertainment. They are disks of past directors'. It's there, in those dust-covered cases that he finds Rose.

Taking a deep breath, he places the disk into the image projector and presses the play button. She is there, outlined in a shaking blue, the technology brand new at best. Her hair is dark, and her eyes sad, but she doesn't look a day older than when he left her.

"Doctor Rose Tyler, Director of the Torchwood Institute: London branch. January 25th 2013, 15:00 hours. After defeating the Glarecox invaders, it came to the attention of the board that we could never afford to have that kind of devastation again."

So she had dealt with Glarecox, and ancient brutal race that he knew well from the Time War. "We lost more than a quarter of the world's population. Our resources and technology here at Torchwood were set back about ten years— the technology being used to record this message had almost been perfected. But Torchwood wasn't the only one that suffered; all of Earth's technological and scientific advances were set back about fifty years. Upon invasion, the Glarecox reversed our polar extremities. Torchwood had anticipated such a happening… but no one was prepared for it actually occuring."

He watches as she shakes her head a little, her eyes dropping from his face. He's so sure she was his, so sure that she has suffered without him. He isn't completely in the dark; he read how she lost her parents only six years after being stranded here, how she had a little brother or sister to care for. Her life may be top secret in Torchwood records, but there was no way of hiding the tragic deaths of President Peter Tyler and his wife, Jackie. She wakes him out of his thoughts when she lifts her eyes and continues.

"The Glarecox were intelligent invaders, which is why we were confused as to why they were so interested in taking over Earth. But they did it with precision and dedication. Their main goal was to wipe out some of Earth's most powerful leaders. They started with…" She stops, drops her head and sniffs as she wipes one eye. He waits for her to continue and the seconds tick onward, the pause stretching on forever.

"Their first target was President Peter Tyler and his wife, Jacqueline Tyler. I realize Director, that there is a possibility that you probably will notice the connection between my name and theirs, so I'll sate your curiosity now. They were of relation." He watches as she poises herself, shuts away the feelings that must be eating at her heart. He watches as she goes into autopilot, a defense mechanism he knows from experience. It's enough to make his own hearts hurt.

"After England's loss, they waited three weeks before attacking The United States, North Korea, Canada, Iraq, Iran, and many other nations, by assassinating their leaders within days, hours of each other. At first, they created mayhem and chaos by designing the assignations to look like they were terrorist attacks. Geared for war, the United Nations was in a frenzy trying to calm and placate the situation, whilst trying get to the bottom of it. Then they bombed the U.N. After that, it was only a matter of time. They sat back and watched as every nation of the world began to prepare for a war with no allies, no agreements, no rationale. There was mass hysteria, hate crimes went up to a sickeningly high 122, and most nations instated their own version of Martial Law. Locked in the bunkers of Torchwood, we knew that all this devastation could not be the work of humans. We had been getting weird readings on our sonic space projections. By the time we realized what was going on, it was too late."

He doesn't want to hear anymore, doesn't want to listen to the pain in her voice, the lack of passion as she describes the death and destruction of her world. He feels bile rise to his throat as he realizes that he left her here, left her here thinking that she was safe. The world around him starts to spin as his guilt creeps up the back of his neck for all the moments she didn't cross his mind, for all the days that he was happy with Martha, was happy thinking that Rose was 'living a fantastic life.' Was it in those moments that she cried out in pain for loosing her mother? Was it then that she watched as women and children lay dead in the streets? She had had seven years grace before everything she knew was taken away from her. But he can't turn the projection off. Even in the privacy of the jet with no one to judge him he has to follow through. He does it because he owes her that much.

"First they disarmed us, something that even now I am thankful for. All nuclear warheads became inoperable; bombs, cars, tanks and most technologies were dead. We were left with guns and bullets, and chemical warfare. By that time, everyone had realized that there was more to what was happening than just a massive world war. Then they invaded. They showed no mercy— women, children, men young and ol' were slaughtered. People went underground, hid in bunkers, the sewers. We had several strongholds at that time and held as many civilians as we could. The Glarecox were ruthless with their destruction, but only to humans; they set out only to eradicate the human race. It only lasted a week, but it was the longest week the world has ever known. The Glarecox General, their ruling official, found us. I never once made the mistake of thinking we could negotiate, but no one could think of how to get rid of them—except for one person, whom I will refer to in these briefings as W. It was his wish to not be recognized by the Torchwood Institute for the length of his term as Senior Advisor to the Director. W. knew of a way to disarm and rid us of the Glarecox, through the box of…"

"Pandora," the Doctor whispers, along with her. He's surprised that a human would know of the box, would know to use it against the Glarecox.

"To think we had the means to all along, that the entire fable of Pandora's Box was based on their existence. But Fables and Legends always hold some truth; all fairytales come to fruition for a reason."

Fruition? Rose used words like fruition? he thinks to himself, watching as she tucks a lock of her dark hair behind her ear, watches the mature woman she grew into, and feels pride swell within him. She went back to school and received a Doctorate, she became the leader of a secret organization, and she went on without him. He feels his pain and guilt ease knowing he didn't leave her behind to wither away, that although she had gone through hell, she survived. Her wounds were deep but they— hopefully— healed.

"The Glarecox were designed as a plague. They had no motive other than killing, and they had set their sights on the human race; they had come for payback. We were the only race that had escaped them by closing the box the first time. In reopening it, it reopened old wounds, for them as well as us. They reminded me of Daleks, except they were easier to take out."

Which is why they were on the front line for the Daleks, he thinks.

"Once the box of Pandora was opened, they were vulnerable, they were easier to kill on the streets, and W. took out the Glarecox General. The longer the box was open, the weaker they became, with all their power being sucked back into its safety, or so I was told. I missed the last of the fighting, as I had been wounded in battle."

So she had physical scars as well as emotional. Why would he be surprised by that? After all, she had always been a hands on person. He could remember the countless times she had leaped in head first, damning the consequences to one of their adventures.

"The Pandora's Box has been sealed indefinitely and placed within Torchwood's High Alert Materials Vault. I am the only one with the access codes to the vaults, and the only one capable of opening them. When I'm relieved of my Directorship, I will give over the codes to the new Director to change. If any Director is killed in the line of duty, all vaults, with items within them, will be sealed forever.

End Transmission."

He closes his eyes as her face disappears, her image leaving him feeling empty. Why is he doing this? What good could possibly come from finding the key? What was he trying to accomplish? But he knows the answer, an answer that he is too afraid to admit too. He needs closure, he needs to satisfy his inquisitive nature, he needs to find out more.

He still needs her.

All those times he could have kissed her, possessed her, marked her as his, all those opportunities wasted by cowardice, lost because he couldn't find it in him to be what she needed, what they both needed.

"Doctor?" she asks, and he looks up from the book he's reading and down to the other end of the sofa where she sits. Her feet are in his lap, and her book is on her own, her blonde hair still in pigtails. He wonders how they got into this position.

"Yes, Rose?" he replies, while refraining from calling her dear, or sweetheart. It's been relatively easy, in truth, because her name is so beautiful he cherishes it more than any pet name he could imagine, thinking of how a rose blooms and how she does some days underneath his gaze. How her smile makes his hearts speed up, how her warmth gives him gooseflesh, of how he could never get tired of saying it… Rose, Rose, a rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but he thanks his lucky stars that she was so aptly christened.

"Earlier, before…" she starts while her feet shift in his lap, and he inwardly groans. This is too domestic, he's allowed her in too much, allowed her to think it was okay to lift her feet into his lap while they both share in a good night with a good book. She's a Rose alright, and just like any other plant she's taken root in his hearts, she's grown in time, and if she ever left, if she was ever torn away from him, it would leave him a disaster.

"You said you were a dad once."

So there it is then— she finally found it within herself to ask. He had hoped that she would forget it. He hadn't accidentally let it slip no, but it hadn't been his intention for her to dwell on the comment. He finds it curious how women always want more information, always want to learn more, and when a man finally gives them said information, they always find the need to talk about it, to go over it in excruciatingly long detail.

"Yes, I did," he says, his attention now fully given to her, and he sees her begin to wilt under his gaze, to withdraw and pull back from her line of attack, and he's ashamed to admit he's relieved. Thinking that the conversation is over, he turns back to the book still in his hands.

"Did you have a daughter or a son?" he hears her ask, and he cringes at the strength of conviction in her words. She no longer fears to ask him personal information. He no longer denies her these requests— where has he gone wrong?

He waits a moment, trying to hold out, perhaps pretending that he didn't hear her words, but he can feel her eyes on him, waiting patiently. She isn't angry that he never told her— not happy, but not angry.

"I had a son," he tells her, glancing up from the pages to look at her briefly, his lips quirking up at the corners the way they do when he wants to distract her, before dropping his head to the book once more. He feels her need to learn more, her desire to ask him; it screams at him in great volumes even in the silence. He inhales deeply, taking in the scent of her, knowing that she yearns for knowledge, knowledge that only he can provide.

Perhaps there is other type of knowledge you could provide her Time Lord he thinks, before he can stop that particular thought.

"I had a granddaughter as well. Her name was Susan," he says, before he even realizes what he's saying. There is a burst of warmth from her, the heat of her satisfaction wrapping him in a dizzying cocoon.

"Susan, that's a little… human," she says, chuckling as she leans against the cushions of the sofa. His hearts beat faster as thoughts sweep over him, thoughts that he's been trying to so carefully block for so long. He doesn't answer her, doesn't know what to say, or how to say it. He's afraid of looking at her, afraid of letting himself look her way. She doesn't realize how much danger she's in right now, how much danger they both are in, if he does.

He doesn't do domestic for a reason.

"I always wanted to name my daughter from a fairytale. Something like Ella, Belle or Ariel."

"Those are Disney names," he comments, still not lifting his gaze from his book.

"Oi! Nothin' wrong with Disney names. Disney made most of their princesses strong women," she tells him, turning back to her own novel.

"Nothing wrong at all except butchering fairytales by adding talking appliances and completely disregarding all original plot," he says, before adding, "What if it's a boy?"

"Then it's going to be Pete, for my dad," she replies, and he has finally calmed down enough that he can sneak a peek at her. As he looks at her innocent and beautiful smile, how she's completely at peace lying their on top of him, completely unaware of his desires, he feels the need to distance himself from her even more.

"And when do you plan on having these children?" he asks her, his stare piercing, his resolve absolute. His question catches her off guard and he watches as she looks up at him, surprised and confused. He sees the hurt in her eyes, the realization that as long as she's with him, little Pete or little Ella will never come to be. She smiles sadly before turning back to the pages of her book.

"Well, it was only a fairytale anyway," she says, and they both read on in silence.

When he opens his eyes, he noticed that the plane has stopped moving— he's slept his way over the Atlantic. He peels off the red tie that's stuck to his face before getting up from his seat and going to the cockpit to see what is going on.

"Just refueling Doctor, then we'll be on our way."

He nods to the pilots before returning to the back of the plane and flopping down on the bed. He's tired, so tired of not knowing what is or isn't real and what is going on, tired of being perpetually confused, tired of not knowing how long its been since this all started. As he closes his eyes, he drifts into a peaceful rest. Before dreaming, the tinkling sound of a little girls laughter is all he hears.

"What's wrong Elle?" she asks her sister as she is folding laundry.

"I hate this, this stupid unicorn puzzle!" Elle cries, exasperated, slamming her fists down against the coffee table. It makes the puzzle jump and scatter a little.

Rose sighs, dropping the laundry from her hands on to the sofa behind them and sits down with Elle.

"Why is it stupid?"

"Because none of it makes sense. I keep trying to put it together, but I can only make chunks of it, chunks that don't line up or make a picture."

They stare at the chunks together, Rose taking the unsatisfied and tired Elle into her arms as she looks down at the partially completed activity.

"Elle," she starts. "Puzzles are a lot like stories. The pieces and fragments don't make a lot of sense at first, but once you get two big enough pieces together, they start to make sense."

"But this puzzle's missing pieces. It will never be a horsie."

"Just because it's missing a few pieces here and there doesn't mean you won't be able to see the unicorn, or… horsie. Just keep building on the two different sides and then when they're ready, put them together. Once you do, the other pieces will begin to fall into place."

The thing about memories is that the harder you try to retain them, the faster they slip through your fingers, like precious grains of sand, until all that is left is words—words that don't really mean a thing. Things like "Elle's ginger hair was soft," or "Although she didn't look it, her mum could bake the best chocolate chip cookies she has ever had," and "his brown eyes always made her feel warm and safe."

When she used to know what it was to feel warm and safe.

She sits in the playground with her preschoolers and Nancy, her aide, fiddling with the TARDIS key around her throat as she goes over the last few days in her head. It all started with the headache the morning she dropped Peter off at school, the headache that only escalated until she had a full blown attack, an attack on scale with the one she suffered over 90 years ago. It nearly killed her to restart her system, and even then she feels the numbing effects of the medication wearing her resolve down. Soon she will be immune to it, and then what will she do?

She tries not to think about it now, with her kids chasing each other in the playground in front of her. But as the key twirls between her two fingers, she can't help but drift into thoughts and feelings. The Ouroboros told her that she would experience resistance in her body, told her that it would precede the great battle. Soon William would come back for Peter, then the war would commence, and then, if the prophecy rang true, she would no longer have a purpose.

Sighing, she lets the key go and leans into her hands as she sits there, watching. Usually, she'd be right in there, playing with them, laughing and singing, but she can't bring herself to try, can't bring herself to admit defeat against the battle she's waging.

She knows he's coming, knows that the clock is running out, and maybe that was what it was always supposed to do. Maybe William was supposed to come back for his son just before she became a complete basket case. She had no special role in the prophecy. Once she gave Peter back she became an expendable component, just like Grace did.

Poor Grace.

It occurs to her that maybe once the story really begins, her story will finally end.

But then again, maybe not.

It's a piece of a bowl.

A scrap fragment that to any one else may seem like nothing, but to her, it's enough to set the tears in motion once more. Its times like this that she could really believe in the old proverb "One man's trash, is another man's treasure," if she wasn't too proud.

But who is she trying to kid? She was a tag along, and it's a bowl. It's no longer a symbol of their friendship, no longer a reminder of the adventure they shared that day, and every day after.

It's just a piece of bowl. A piece of bowl that has sentiment attached, one that she can't let go of, so she holds it and cries quietly when she hears a knock on her door.

"Come in," she says, never lifting her eyes from the floor.

"Hey," she hears Jack say gently, quietly standing at the entrance. "Planning on a big trip?"

"Yeah," she snorts. "It's called going home."

Roughly, she begins to stuff the bowl fragment into her bag and gasps when it breaks. Before either of them have time to react, she throws the piece in her hand against the wall, watching as it shatters into more and more pieces.

"I hated the color motif anyways," Jack says, closing the door behind him. She looks up at the man, regret and a bit of gratitude in her eyes. He smiles at her, sitting down beside her and taking her hand in his.

"This isn't good," he sighs, checking the cut to see how bad it is.

"Ah, it's merely a scratch. No harm done."

"I wasn't talking about your hand."

Pulling away, she looks up into his eyes and sees genuine concern there, something she doesn't understand. From the first moment she met Jack, she's found him a bit flash for her tastes, a little flirty, a little charming. She knew a guy like that once; he broke her heart in school. It's not that she doesn't like him, it's that she is wary of opening up to him, letting him in. She's afraid he'll do just what she's trying to get used to. She's afraid he'll move on.

"So why don't you tell me: why seventeenth century china?" Jack prods her gently, placing her bag to the side. She stares out ahead of her, unable to meet his eyes.

"It's a long story," is all she can say, before turning back to the bag.

"That's actually quite interesting, because you see… I have this funny quirk, and it works out that I have A LOT of free time on my hands, so please feel free to tell me every little detail."

She chuckles soundlessly, and looks at him, sitting there beside her, a sly and charming grin on his face. She looks at him, perhaps truly seeing him for the first time, and she finds herself looking past the obvious gorgeousness, the charm, the persona, and sees him.

All she sees is emptiness.

"I may understand better than you think," he adds, the grin slowly fading, melting more into sincerity.

"I don't love him," she starts. "If that's what you think. Well I do, but it's not a romantic 'I'd die without him' kind of love. Not the love he has for Rose."

She looks away, at the cut in her hand, where the blood is already beginning to scab, "I'm not in love with him. But it doesn't mean that I don't feel—"

"Jealous?"

"No, I don't feel that. Unless…"

"Unless you're absolutely terrified that the door may indeed hit you on the ass on your way out," he offers.

Martha sighs, frustrated. "But it's not jealousy, it's envy. And don't tell me they're the same, 'cuz they're not. Jealousy would be that I hated them both and lacked understanding. I understand completely what's happening, and I can't help… at the situation…"

They both sit in silence for a moment. Martha cradles her wounded hand, her legs crossed in front of her.

"I never lied to myself and thought it would last forever. I just thought I'd matter a little more."

And there, she had said it. Said exactly how she felt to a complete stranger. A stranger who knew the feeling better than anyone else she could have told it.

"This is going to be hard for me to say," Jack starts. "And probably more than anything, hard for you to take seriously, because I'm sure you've heard it all before. But I know. I know how you feel, and how you hurt inside, and how although he may not be your lover it doesn't mean he's not your world. When I first met him, met them. I knew from the first moment, there was no way that I was ever going to mean as much to him as she did."

Again, the silence fills the room, and she realizes he wasn't lying when he said that it was going to be hard for her to listen.

"What you have to understand is that just because he's in love with her, it doesn't mean that he doesn't love you," he says, taking her face in his hands, making her look in his eyes.

"It may seem small, or pathetic in comparison, but he does, and he does more than he ever loved me. He does more than he probably loved some of the others. But we all have to be grateful for the little piece we get, because if we aren't, then we missed the whole point, didn't we?"

With that, Jack kisses her forehead before getting up and slowly exiting the room. After a few moments, Martha puts the rest of the bowl back into her backpack.

It may be just a broken bowl, but she's happy with her little piece.

He walks through the town, mid morning, watching as life goes on around him. It's been a long while, a very long while now, that he's been left to his own devices, and he takes the opportunity to quietly observe. Fallen leaves bluster around him as he takes even strides. The last time he checked, the key was here; he just had to follow his own senses. Romana refused to let him take the TARDIS, but she didn't refuse to let him take the sonic screwdriver, which served more purposes now than it did in their time. Turning on the tracking device, he listens to the sporadic beeping it makes.

North, South, East, or West?

He goes North.

Following his feet to wherever they take him, he feels the autumn wind beat against him as he gets closer and closer to his goal. He strolls till he hits a beach, the lake crashing against the sand as people stroll down the boardwalk, laughing and minding their own business. Following the blipping, he turns west and walks down the beach, watching the waves flow towards him, the breeze hitting his coat, sending it flying. He closes his eyes and feels the sun against his face, how the world smells fresh and new, the sound of children laughing.

Opening his eyes, he follows the sound of it, the chiming of their voices falling in time with the sonic screwdriver, both hurried and loud. Turning the screwdriver off, he crosses the street to the park, and nearly stops dead when he realizes what he sees.

She's given up and given in to the kids around her as she spins them around playfully, while Nancy pushes two of them on swings. After all these years she finds that spending her time with children is the most rewarding, that they're the only ones who can accept her for what and who she is. She tells them fantastic stories, takes them to far away places, plays and paints all day, and gets paid to do so. She sometimes thinks it probably helped her patience to raise a child that ages slower than normal humans, but she doesn't dwell on it.

"Miss Rose, I'm dizzy!" Sarah, one of her younger students, says as she giggles. Rose places her on her feet and stands up straight, closing her eyes as the sun shines down on her face. She feels it, feels it's warm…

But it's too warm, something's wrong. She feels her key begin to blaze against her skin, warm and tingling, but it doesn't burn her. Instead, she feels her whole body freeze up as the hair on the back of her neck stands on end.

She knows.

She knows once she turns around that she's not going to believe what she sees, and it's almost like the monster in the closet: if you pretend it's not there, it may go away. It's too bad that she was never a cautious child, she may have been able to spare herself. But she just can't help it, can't help sating that curiosity, help solving that mystery. It was there before he ever took her away in the magical blue box; it was a dormant gene, just ready to rebel.

And so she turns.

He watches two young women, one in her early twenties, and the other in her thirties, play and watch ten or so small children. When he catches her profile, his own world doesn't seem to exist. It's as if it's imploded and he finally feels the cracking of his mind. He watches, mouth agape as her auburn hair blows freely behind her, her smile sweet and caring as she spins them around, laughing. He stands there as his world crumbles around him, the sight too beautiful to grasp, too profound to walk away from.

It would be the wise thing to do, he realizes, to just walk away while he still can. To just spare himself the grief, so that he didn't have to fight himself to not just reach out and crush her to him, to push back one of her locks from her eyes and take her into his arms.

It's just as he turns that she looks up and makes eye contact with him, and he realizes that if he thought he knew fear before, he was naïve to what the feeling was. Or maybe this is all completely new. New New York. New New Doctor. New New fear.

She looks about as shocked as he knows he does, which causes him to think crazy and irrational thoughts. She knows him, but how? Unless she was… But that's impossible.

Then again, so was coming back to this place, to Pete's World.

He's paralyzed as he watches her tell the children to wait there for her and be good. Trapped as he watches her stick the hair behind her ear, smiling briefly at him as she approaches. Breathing, a repetitive function that every body has to do to live, becomes the hardest task he's ever accomplished.

He watches her slowly and tentatively approach him, so weary and cautious as a thousand things race through his mind. His heart begins to beat with a liveliness he hasn't known in weeks, months. Is it possible? Could it truly be? This is his Rose?

"William?"