**Notes: Yay! They meet up with my favourite classic Doctor! I really should slow down on posting these chapters, are you guys keeping up alright?**

Chapter Twenty-Five – Chips and Old Friends

When Rose and the Doctor finally met again, two hours later, he didn't seem to be in as good a mood as she had hoped he would be. If he had found an answer, he should be happy. But if he hadn't, then why had he stopped searching the Matrix?

They had both changed back into their regular clothing. Rose in her long red skirt and white blouse, the Doctor in his brown suit.

"What's wrong, love? Did you find a solution?" Rose couldn't hold back asking any longer.

"Yes, Rose. I found a solution. It just isn't ..." His breath caught in his throat for a moment. "We'll discuss it later. For now, I promised you chips, right?" The Doctor put on his mask of happiness for now. There was a solution that would give them a long time together, but there was still a big sacrifice on Rose's part and they would need the help of the other Doctor to do it.

"Alright, where are we going for chips then?" She knew when to let something go with him for a bit and when to push harder. For now, she would let him stew on this if that's what he wanted.

"Well... As you know, our vortex manipulator won't work right now because it is attached to our time stream and we are within the area of the time lock that has separated all of Gallifrey's history from our regular time stream. BUT the CIA has given me this time ring which will allow us to travel within the time lock to planets nearby. There is one place where we can go that has really good chips. Not as good as London, mind you, but really quite good." He was swinging their hands between them as he rambled. It was something they always did and that little bit of normal was helping them relax after the stress of the past month.

"And? What's it called?"

"Pazithi Gallifreya. It is one of the moons of Gallifrey. There's a mining colony there and they accept all kinds of alien races for trading purposes (unlike Galllifrey). They have a market there for the sake of visitors that sells all kinds of different foods." He grinned at her goofily.

Rose grinned back, "Well then, allons-y!"

They both gripped the time ring and transported into a bustling marketplace. It was easy to tell it was a mining colony. Everything was a little bit grimy and well used. They could see Gallifrey looming in the sky and beyond it, the two suns. Hand-in-hand they made their way to a booth that was selling human food and ordered some chips to share. There were some benches nearby, so they sat and talked about silly, light hearted things.

Suddenly, Rose had a familiar feeling in her mind. One that she had already felt that same day in fact. "Doctor, there's another you here!"

"What? I don't remember coming here around this point in time." He looked around confusedly.

Rose smirked at him, "Well, I think there might be a good reason why you wouldn't remember it." She gave him the look that he often gave to say you just dribbled on your shirt.

"Oh," he said with sudden realization. "Because he meets us and I can't remember information about my own future... right." The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. "Any idea where he is then?"

Rose's brow furrowed a bit, "I'm still getting used to this feeling, so I'm not sure, but I think he's headed towards us. He is probably looking for me since I can feel his curiosity and a bit of determination."

Just then, the later Doctor saw his past self coming down the street with a confused Jamie and Victoria chasing after him.

"What in the world is it that you're looking for, Doctor?" Jamie called.

"I'm sensing something, Jamie. Something, no... someONE very important." The second Doctor walked towards them and came to a stop directly in front of a brightly smiling Rose Tyler.

"Hello," she grinned at him with her arm around her husband's shoulders.

"Oh my word," he said with a look of shock on his face.

"Well, who are they, Doctor?" Jamie asked as Victoria finally caught up with them.

The second Doctor continued to stare, open-mouthed at Rose. So, the Doctor in brown stood up to take Jamie's hand, "Hello, Jamie," he smiled. "I'm the Doctor."

"What?" Jamie practically shouted, "Now wait just a gosh darn minute! How could YOU be the Doctor?"

"Calm down, Jamie," the second Doctor said. "I'll try to explain." He looked at his future self for a moment as he thought. "It's a little crowded here, why don't we go somewhere with a little more room for us to all sit down and talk."

Rose spoke up then, "That sounds like a wonderful idea, Doctor. I don't suppose we could go to the TARDIS? I haven't seen any seating areas since we arrived."

He stared at her again, disbelievingly. The later Doctor nudged him with his elbow and he started out of his dazed state. "Yes! Yes, that sounds like a splendid idea. Shall we?" He offered Rose his arm and she happily took the arms of both Doctors as they strolled back towards the TARDIS.

Jamie and Victoria followed them, looking rather confused by the whole interaction.

"Just when we finally go someplace other than Earth, we end up going straight back into the TARDIS," Victoria complained.

"Aye," said Jamie. "I wonder if he'll let us wander around a bit later before we have to leave?"

When they arrived at the TARDIS, Rose went straight for the time rotor. She stroked the console lovingly and cooed at her, "Aren't you lovely, Old Girl." Victoria and Jamie looked at her strangely while the second Doctor smiled broadly.

"Why don't we all go sit in the galley for some tea?" suggested the later Doctor.

"Oh yes!" Rose said, smiling happily. "The tea on that space station was absolute rubbish."

"Of course," said the second Doctor. "Come along, Jamie, Victoria. We'll all have a nice little chat."

Once in the galley, Rose set about making tea for everyone and the later Doctor went straight to the cupboards to find biscuits as well. Jamie and Victoria were still looking confused as they sat at the table with the second Doctor. The later Doctor joined them at the table with the biscuits and Rose leaned against the counter while she waited for the water to boil.

"Now then," began the second Doctor. "He is, in fact, me from the future." he held up his hands to stop the oncoming arguments. "Time Lords, when we are about to die, do a thing called regenerating. Instead of dying, our body changes. We look, act and sound completely different, but our mind and memories remain. So, at some point in my future, I will become him."

"Alright, let's pretend that I believe you, Doctor." Jamie said, sounding like he didn't really believe it at all. "Who's she then?" He pointed to Rose.

"She," the second Doctor said while looking at Rose longingly, "is the reason I found my future self at all." He was staring again.

The later Doctor rolled his eyes at just how besotted his past self was with her. "She," the later Doctor began, "is my wife."

"Really?" Victoria said.

"Absolutely," replied Rose. "It is a real pleasure to meet you Victoria, and you, Jamie. The Doctor has spoken so fondly of both of you. I'm Rose by the way, Rose Tyler."

"It's a pleasure to meet you as well," Victoria said, smiling at Rose. Victoria was wearing a short dress with a sparkly bit on the top and several long necklaces. "We just had the most terrifying time on Earth and we were trying to end up somewhere other than England for a change."

"When are you, exactly?" asked the later Doctor.

"We've just finished dealing with some Yeti taking over the London Underground," answered the second Doctor.

"Ah! I see," he thought for a few moments with his brow furrowed. "Yes, we did end up in England a lot then, didn't we?"

Rose brought the tea over to the table and sat next to the second Doctor. "I wonder if we could ask a favour of you, Doctor?" She looked to her husband who nodded. "We need a lift back to Earth, if you don't mind?"

"And," her husband interjected, "you can't ask why."

He scowled slightly at his future self, but looked back at Rose and smiled sweetly, "For you, my dear, anything."

Rose smiled and ruffled his dark mop of hair, "You are just adorable!"

The later Doctor was scowling back now. When they had first bonded, back in the other universe, he had been so sure that he would never have to face meeting up with his past incarnations. He tried to think about how he would feel if he saw a 19 year old Rose again and relaxed ... a bit.

"Doctor," Jamie interrupted. "I don't suppose Victoria and I could go explore for a bit before we have to leave? It's just that we hardly ever get to see a different planet."

"Certainly, Jamie. Just stay together and be careful. Meet back here in about an hour or so, alright?" The second Doctor still couldn't seem to take his eyes off of Rose who was practically giggling at his shameless mooning.

Once Jamie and Victoria were gone, the later Doctor pointed out, "You do realize that you'll forget all of this, right?"

"Yes, yes, of course," he replied dismissively.

"Will you make Jamie and Victoria forget as well or just trust them not to mention it ever again?"

"Oh, I'm sure, if I explain it well enough, they can manage not to say anything."

"Well, Doctor," Rose directed her statement towards her husband this time. "While I know that getting precisely where we want to go is hopeless in the TARDIS." She smiled fondly. "Where are we aiming to get back to?"

"Well," he thought about it while ruffling his hair a bit. "We left Jack and the others in Cardiff, 2008. We'll have to aim for some point after that since we don't want to bump into ourselves... again."

"Alright, we'll try to meet up with Jack again and trust the TARDIS to bring us to the right time." She smiled at him. "How does that sound to you, Doctor?" She asked as she looked back to the younger Doctor.

"Hmm?" He blinked. "Oh! Oh, yes. Certainly. You've left the TARDIS there then, is that the problem?"

"Well," said the later Doctor, rubbing the back of his neck. "Something like that, yeah."

"Since we'll be waiting a bit for Jamie and Victoria to come back, I'm going to go freshen up a bit, if that's alright?" Rose asked.

"Of course, love," her husband answered. "She'll show you where the wardrobe room is now."

Rose left to pack a bigger-on-the-inside bag from the wardrobe room and take a shower. There was no sense in not taking advantage of the never ending hot water provided by the TARDIS while they were here and not hiding in the zero room.

The later Doctor was getting quite tired. The trial had been very long and while he still didn't need to sleep as much as a normal human, he needed a lot more than he did as a full Time Lord. Unfortunately, one hour waiting for his companions to come back, was not enough time for a nap. He would just have to push though until this Doctor dropped them off and they could get some proper sleep. He was thankful that his past self was so easily distracted by Rose. It meant that it was easy to gloss over the fact that they didn't have the TARDIS and he didn't seem to notice that Rose was a rather unusual name for a Time Lady.

Of course, now that Rose was out of the room, it would be much more difficult to dodge the dangerous topics of conversation. He began to tidy up the dishes from their tea, in the hopes of avoiding tough questions.

"So," the second Doctor said while clasping his hands in front of him and looking at his future self. "Which one are you, then?"

"Oooh," he sighed. "You would go for the hard one first, eh?"

The second Doctor looked confused. How could that be a hard question? "I'm sorry?"

"Well, I'm a bit of an odd situation really. I'm a bit of an anomaly you might say. You won't remember this, so I suppose it doesn't matter. When you regenerate into your 12th life, there's a bit of a split which created me. So there's two of us now. The other me has the TARDIS and we need to go find him." He hoped that would be enough of an explanation to have his past self leave it there.

The second Doctor looked at him partially in shock but also with a bit of suspicion. "Alright, I'll accept that for now. Although, that is odd, even for me. When will I meet Rose?"

"Right about the beginning of your 10th life. And I won't tell you anything more about that meeting." He smiled fondly at the memory.

"Fine," he sulked. "I suppose there isn't much point in you telling me very much anyway, since I will forget after I drop you off."

"I'm sorry. Our life has always been complicated and trust me, it will only become more so."

About an hour later, Jamie and Victoria hadn't returned to the TARDIS and both Doctors were getting worried.

Rose had changed into black trousers and a red jumper, so that she would be ready for running now that their stint with bureaucracy was over. When she arrived in the console room, she saw both Doctors checking the scanners with their brows furrowed in concentration.

"I can't find them," said her husband.

"Well, how many humans can there possibly be on Pazithi Gallifreya?" Asked the second Doctor.

"Apparently, quite a few, but they all seem to be gathered in one place. So, that would be the best place to start looking." The later Doctor put his jacket back on and grabbed Rose's hand as they headed towards the door.

The second Doctor followed them, but wasn't quite sure what to do with himself in this odd grouping. He was used to being the one leading the charge, not following along. Rose sensed his insecurity and held out her other hand for him. He smiled at her and took it willingly.

As they approached the area where the TARDIS scanner had indicated a large group of human life signs, they could hear quite a bit of shouting. They all peeked around the corner to get a look at what was going on and saw that there was a group of Raxacoricofallipatorians with guns, herding all of the humans onto a space ship.

"Ok," the later Doctor said, "we need a plan."

Rose smiled, "Not a problem. You two, create a distraction. Blow something up or something, you're good at that." They both looked at her rather gobsmacked. "And I will help the prisoners escape while they're busy with you. Agreed?"

"Ummm... well, I... uh," the second Doctor sputtered.

The later Doctor bobbed his head back and forth as he looked upward, "Yes, well... I suppose it's about as much of a plan as we ever have. Here's my sonic, that should help with the lock on the gates over there. Lead them out that way, alright?"

Rose smiled broadly and skipped off to the other side of the courtyard so she could sneak around behind the guards.

"You let her just run off like that?" The second Doctor asked incredulously.

"What? Rose Tyler is more than capable of taking care of herself!" the later Doctor assured him. "Mind you, there is a reason I call her jeopardy friendly..." He stared off into the distance for a moment before shaking himself out of it. "Anyway, yes, distraction! Raxacoricofallipatorians! Vinegar is very dangerous for them, the last ones we met were extremely profit minded (wanted to nuke the Earth and sell it off in pieces as fuel!) and their justice system back home is extremely nasty."

"Ok, we can deal with greedy," said the second Doctor. His brow furrowed in thought for a moment. "Missing Princess? Big reward?"

"Sounds like the start of a plan. Allons-y!" The later Doctor grabbed his younger self by the arm and pulled him in the general direction of the guards. Very loudly, he started to enact their plan, "I'm telling you, if we don't find Princess Victoria soon, the Empress is going to be very upset. She might start searching every ship within two light years of here!"

"I know, she is extremely worried. Especially with that explosion in the nearby pickle factory. The vinegar spillage was terrible. Who knows what might have happened in the chaos!" The second Doctor added. They saw the nearby guard flinch a bit at that.

"Of course, if someone were to help us find Princess Victoria and her servant, Jamie, the reward would be astronomical! Empress Rose is so generous and kind." The later Doctor pointed straight at one of the guards and strode towards him, "You there! I don't suppose your group would help us find the missing Princess Victoria and her servant? The reward would be astounding to be sure!"

"Well... I ... um, we... that is..." the guard tripped over his words as he tried to process what just happened. "Glune! Come here!" One of the other guards came over and they had a whispered conversation. After a moment, they called one of the other guards over to discuss things as well. They thought they were being secretive in their discussion, but the Doctors had rather exceptional hearing and didn't miss a word. They had plans to take this group of humans to sell as slaves back on Raxacoricofallipatorius as their much smaller body size made it easier for them to get into the tighter spaces of their own mining operations. This moon always seemed to attract a large variety of species they could exploit.

When Rose saw that the aliens were in a bit of a huddled conversation, she called quietly to some of the humans and motioned for the opening she had made in the nearby gate. She could see Jamie helping from the back to hurry people through.

The Raxacoricofallipatorians all turned back to the two Doctors, in agreement that a huge reward for losing two of their slaves for sale was well worth the sacrifice. One of them spoke up for the group, "What do these particular humans look like? I'm sure we could help you find them."

"Well," the later Doctor rubbed the back of his neck, drawing out the time before they realized what had happened. "They look rather like, those humans right there." He pointed at Rose who hurried Victoria and Jamie as the last ones through the gate and sonicked it shut behind her. As soon as the guards all turned in shock, the two Doctors ran for it to find them on the other side.

The guards ran towards the gate to follow their captives, but found it was now locked and bounced off of it ineffectually. By the time they looked around, there were no captives, no Doctors, and their employer was going to be very upset with them.

The other captives had all scattered back to safety while Rose, Jamie and Victoria were laughing away as Rose told them about the Slitheen family trying to take over the world using human skin suits as disguises. The later Doctor approached with his hands in his pockets and a huge grin on his face. The younger Doctor ran over to check on Victoria and Jamie.

He then turned a beaming smile to Rose, "That was marvellous, my dear, simply perfect."

"Thanks," she smiled as she ruffled his hair. He practically purred at that. "That's just what we do. Probably would have stumbled across it even if we hadn't run into you." Rose handed the sonic screwdriver back to her husband and hugged him tightly. He picked her up and whirled her around himself before putting her back on her feet.

"Time we were off, I think," said the later Doctor.

"Of course, time to get you two back where you belong. Back to the TARDIS."

On the walk back, Rose once again had a Doctor on each arm. She retold some of the story about the Slitheen to the Doctor who had missed it earlier. This time she made it all the way to the point where they blew up 10 Downing Street and the younger Doctor looked at them with wide eyes.

"I wonder who's Prime Minister now?" Rose asked. "I didn't think to check when we came back."

"Don't know," said the later Doctor. "Never really bothered to keep track of that stuff much."

"Right. Well," said the second Doctor, "Where was it you said? Cardiff?"

"Yup! Anywhere after 2008 should be fine," said the later Doctor. "Not too far after, mind you. We would rather see our friends before they've turned grey."

"Of course," he started flicking switches and the later Doctor joined him in setting the coordinates.

Rose looked around for a railing to hold onto, but there wasn't one. Her husband noticed where she was looking and told her, "There isn't a handrail, love. It shouldn't be as bumpy as you're used to anyway."

Jamie scoffed, "You must be joking! I almost fell out the doors not too long ago!"

The later Doctor tugged on his ear, "Yes, well... if I recall, that was due to foul play. As the TARDIS gets older, just about every trip gets to be pretty rough."

Rose laughed at that, "How many times did we both land on our backsides on the floor?"

"I'm sure, my dear," said the younger Doctor, "that you'll find the two of us can manage quite a smooth trip this time, eh?" He patted her on the shoulder.

The trip was indeed quite uneventful. As they were leaving, the later Doctor shook Jamie's hand and gave Victoria a hug. Rose hugged both of them, then turned to the second Doctor. She gave him a tight hug, a mental caress and kissed him on the cheek. He looked at her in shock as they left the TARDIS and waved back at them.

"Well," said the Doctor. "I guess, we'd best find out the date to make sure we aren't too far off from where we were aiming before we talk to anyone."

Rose ran over to the news agent's and checked the paper. "Looks like February, 2010. A couple years off, but not bad. I'm sure the TARDIS brought us this far for a reason."

"Let's see if we can find out what it is," the Doctor said with a smile.