CHAPTER 21

I do not own Doctor Who, and I am making no profit off of this.

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Shareen Costello was walking along the side of a road in the middle of London with her mind lost in thought.

She had been in a downward spiral in the last few years. It had started with her being dumped by her boyfriend in such an excruciating way that it still caused her intense pain to think about it even now years later. Then her best friend, Rose Tyler, had disappeared right after that for a year, and Rose's mother had accused Shareen's other good friend, Mickey Smith, of killing her! Shareen hadn't believed that for a minute.

Then when Rose did return, she just gave her an obviously fake story about having gone traveling for that whole year with some bloke in a leather jacket. After that, she saw less and less of the person who used to be at the center of her world until the worst day of her life. The day that she saw Rose and her mother's names on a list of the dead of the tragedy that had happened at Canary Wharf. Shareen almost didn't make it home that night because she almost went off the road and into a tree in her grief!

After that, Shareen's life grew even worse as her parents split up after her father lost his job due to corporate downsizing. No sooner was she slammed by that then she lost her own well-paying job and was forced to take a job that paid half of what she had made before. Now she just struggled to survive from day to day. Just today though was the final blow! She had not had enough money to pay her rent, and she was being evicted tomorrow!

She was now walking down the road in a mindless daze just trying to clear her mind and try to figure out what to do next when she accidentally walked out into the path of an oncoming truck!

Perfect ending to a lousy last couple of years! Shareen thought to herself just before the truck was about to hit her head on!

The impact never came though. Shareen's surroundings blurred, and then changed to a strange room full of light that had a strange looking column covered on all sides with knobs and switches right in the middle of it.

To the side of that column was Rose!

Shareen couldn't believe it. Her best friend stood there in something looking like the set of a science fiction show looking at her with concern written all over her face.

"Rose?" Shareen asked as she looked at her friend in complete disbelief.

Shareen looked around her in confusion.

"Am I dead? Is this Heaven? It isn't what I thought that it would be," Shareen said as she just stood there in a daze.

"No, you're very much alive. So am I by the way. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you sooner," Rose said to her with a small smile.

Shareen broke down into tears and slumped down onto the console floor.

"I am dead! Either that or I'm dreaming. This can't be real. That explains the last few years. It has just all been one big long bad dream!" Shareen said to herself as she completely lost her self-control.

Rose ran over to her and held her in her arms as she shook out of control with anguish.

"I'm so sorry. I should have come to visit you once I got back. I'm here now though, and I'm ready to listen just like in the old days. Remember when you used to tell me all of your troubles, and it would always make you feel better?" Rose said to her friend.

Shareen finally broke, and the dam burst. She told Rose about everything that had happened to her while Rose had been gone. Rose listened silently just like she used to do as she got everything out that had been bothering her for years.

Finally Shareen stopped sobbing, and she looked at Rose as if seeing her for the first time.

"It's really you, isn't it?" Shareen asked as she finally accepted the reality of what she was seeing around her.

"Hello!" Rose said with a warm smile.

Shareen put her arms around Rose and just held her tightly for a long time while she started to sob again. This time it was tears of joy. Finally something had gone right after so many years of darkness!

Rose finally explained just what had happened to her after Shareen was able to talk again. She told her about traveling through time and space with the Doctor and then being trapped on Pete's World. Then she told her that she had recently come back but had left out all of the details of just how she had returned or what had happened since then. She just told her that she was traveling with the Doctor again just like before. Shareen was dazed and confused enough without her telling her that she was the Bad Wolf or that she had never been human in the first place. That could definitely wait for another day when Shareen was a little more stable!

As it was, Shareen still looked at her in disbelief over what she had told her about the TARDIS and traveling through time and space with a thousand year old alien.

"So this is a spaceship? You've met aliens then? Real actual aliens like the ones that they've shown on television?" Shareen asked her as she struggled to grasp what Rose had told her.

"Yep! I've met them, fought them, and run for my life from them. It gets to be routine after a while," Rose confided to her with a grin.

Shareen shook her head as she struggled to believe in what Rose was telling her.

It was then that the Doctor walked in and eyed Shareen with a puzzled face.

"Don't I know you?" the Doctor asked her confused.

"No. I'd think that I would remember seeing someone in an outfit like that before," Shareen commented with a snicker.

The Doctor continued to stare at Shareen while Rose giggled in the background.

"That's it! Shareen! Rose's friend, right?" the Doctor said as he burst into a huge smile.

"Yeah but who are you? I'm never seen you before," Shareen insisted.

"I'm the Doctor, and we have met before. You remember, don't you? It's when I was the shouty bloke who wore the leather jacket and had the shaved head. Don't tell me you don't remember that me? That me was kind of hard to forget! I was always shouting and being all angry and emotional all over the place!" the Doctor said as he mimed his former self by putting an angry look on his face and holding his mouth wide open while he lifted his finger up and pointed it at her sternly while wagging it.

Rose started to laugh uncontrollably at this impersonation of his former self while Shareen just looked at him with shock as a sudden realization came over her.

"You! You're the bloke who kidnapped Rose for a year?! How could it be you though? You look nothing like him!" Shareen said in confusion.

"I have this little trick I do where I change my body when I'm about to die, and I literally become a new man. I've done it twice since you met that version of me. I have to say that this version of me is a definite improvement over Old Leather!" the Doctor said with a wide grin.

Rose shook her head at him.

"I loved him and the next you and this you! I love all of you, each and every one!" Rose said as she kissed him on the lips.

Shareen just looked at them both like they were crazy.

Oswin came into the room then with Emma and Penny.

They all introduced themselves to Shareen, and Rose explained a little of her history with her to her newest friends.

"So all of you are traveling together and fighting aliens through time and space?" Shareen asked them with a smile on her face. This was just too much! she thought to herself.

They all nodded as Rose said, "Yeah, something like that."

Rose and Shareen then moved off to the side to discuss old times as Shareen finally became comfortable in her new surroundings. The Doctor realized from what Rose was sharing with him in their link that he was about to have a new traveling companion soon for at least a little while until Shareen found another place to live. He didn't mind it though. He had liked Shareen when he had last met her. She had given Shouty a massive earful about taking Rose away for a year! He figured she was worth keeping around just to get to relive that memory every time that he saw her. He loved laughing at Shouty! Not as much as laughing at thoughts of Pretty Boy or Handy but it was a close second!

He turned his attention toward his other new companions. He liked Penny and Emma. They were both very nice, and he had already warmed up to them. He especially liked Penny because he liked anyone who could make Jack squirm like she did every time that she was around him. Watching Jack act like a bumbling idiot around her was just classic entertainment! Emma was a bit of a strange case. He could feel that there was some special connection between her and Penny. Like Rose, he could see the bond between them. He knew that this meant that they had to be related to one another. From what he could see, they had to be very closely related to one another. Just how close though he still wasn't sure yet, but he had his suspicions.

Then, he turned his attention to Oswin. Rose had told him that she had saved him in another timeline that had been erased, but he didn't trust her. She was a Dalek! How could he ever trust any Dalek after everything that they had done to him? Oswin especially bothered him because the device that she had rigged up to hide her true self was so effective that it had actually fooled him into thinking that she was really human when he first met her. He didn't like the idea of a Dalek being in his TARDIS, and he especially didn't like the idea of one who pretended to be human and did it so well that they could fool his own highly advanced senses! She acted all nice and friendly, but he didn't believe it for a second. She would show her true self sooner or later, and he didn't want Rose or his new friends to get hurt when she did so.

Oswin could see the Doctor staring a hole into her, and it made her very uncomfortable. She remembered him being her friend at the end, and to see him look at her like this now with such suspicion and blind hatred made her feel sick inside. She just wanted to leave and go somewhere else where she could live out her life in some kind of semblance of peace. She didn't want to be where she wasn't wanted.

Rose walked over to her after having watched this silent exchange and whispered to her, "He'll come to accept you eventually, Oswin. Don't worry about it! I want you here even if he doesn't right now, okay?"

Oswin nodded but still looked uneasy.

The TARDIS landed, and the Doctor read off where they had arrived on the console.

"Oh, London, 1880! I love the Victorian era!" The Doctor said with a grin.

Oswin looked up in surprise at that. She had originally been going to that time era by herself because she had read about the Doctor having a run-in with Queen Victoria there. She had decided to look for him in that time period first because she knew for sure that he would be there. Apparently Rose didn't change this part of the timeline or did she? Oswin wondered if it would happen differently from the version that she had read about.

"Do you think that Queen Victoria will still have that whole banishment thing on us in effect?" Rose asked with a smirk.

"Oh, I'm sure that she's forgotten about that by now," the Doctor said as he went to open the TARDIS doors.

He was immediately greeted by a small army of soldiers who were surrounding the TARDIS on all sides.

"You are under arrest in the name of the Queen," one of them shouted as they all pointed rifles at the Doctor's head.

The Doctor quickly shut the door so that Rose and the others could not be seen. He hoped that they would have the good sense to stay in the TARDIS.

As he was led away to be brought before the Queen, Rose thought back to him with a chuckle What was that about her forgetting about it?

The Doctor grumbled in his head but said nothing back.

He could hear Rose laughing at him for several minutes afterward.

Next: Rose and friends have to rescue the Doctor from Queen Victoria!