The Doctor awoke choking on the smoke that billowed from the console. They had had a particularly hard landing, apparently, which baffled The Doctor because he was just intending to take Rose home for the weekend, a trip he rarely loved, but that The Tardis had never protested before. Perhaps she was finally tuning into his reluctance to spend time with Jackie. As if reacting to his new found consciousness, or perhaps the thought of the elder Tyler woman, the console spat out a small shower of sparks and he found himself relieved to hear a familiar yelp of surprise. He felt like his whole body was off kilter, but he staggered to his feet anyways, waving the smoke away as best he could, though it yielded next to no results. Coughing, he squinted, trying to see his companion, "Rose? Are you alright?"

"Good as… as I can be." Rose provided what was likely supposed to be a reassuring statement interrupted by a couple of coughs as she inhaled a lungful of smoke, "What happened?"

"I don't know." He admitted, finally managing to stumble across the slanted floor to her side. "Are you hurt?"

"Me?" Rose raised an eyebrow, "I'm fine, but you're bleeding."

"Oh." She was right, he realized, putting a hand to his forehead and wincing when his fingers connected with the gash there. That didn't bode well, not with his current unbalanced state and the way the room felt like it was leaning. Wait, no, it wasn't just him, he realized, the whole Tardis was tilted, like they had somehow landed perched on one corner of the base. Bracing himself on the console, he checked the flickering instruments in hopes of some insight, "Looks like we hit something…"

"In the vortex?" Rose frowned, grabbing the handrail and starting to pull herself towards the door.

"No… well, yes, but no." His frown matched her's as he examined the figures in front of him. Behind him, Rose reached the doors, attempting to crack them open without falling flat on her face, "Looks like we came out of the vortex earlier than anticipated and hit some kind of temporal force… a time lock, maybe. Don't open the door yet-"

"Whoops, too late." Rose announced, warm, slightly orange sunlight cutting through the smoke as the door swung open. Flashing him a cheeky smile, she poked her head outside briefly, "Definitely not London. Too pretty."

Sighing at his companion's unconcerned tone, he scrambled quickly after her, "Careful, if we broke through a time lock to get here, it could be dangerous! Those usually exist for a reason."

"It's just a forest." She argued, hoisting herself up and swinging her leg over the threshold of the door, "Better than dying of smoke inhalation."

"Rose wait!" He protested as she slipped out the door, vaulting himself after her with such enthusiasm that he nearly face planted on his way out of the ship, "Don't just charge out like that! We could be anywhere…"

"Oh you poor thing, what did he do to you!" Rose fussed over the Tardis, which had indeed landed half on a boulder, her top half wedged between two trees. Two trees with glittering silver leaves that caught and reflected the orange sunlight like sparks dancing between the branches. It took The Doctor a minute to notice that Rose had stopped talking to the ship, completely absorbed in his utter shock at their surroundings until her fingers brushed his arm, "Doctor, is everything okay?"

"The trees." He offered dumbly, then shook his head in disbelief, "They remind me of… but it can't be. And yet… I know this place…"

"Don't you know everywhere?" Rose teased, though her attempt at a smile didn't even touch the concern in her eyes.

"Not everywhere." He managed a slight laugh before his features schooled back to their former sober expression, "But I know this forest. But it can't be."

"Doctor, where are we?"

The concern in her voice now leaned towards anxiety and The Doctor felt a little stab of guilt at causing her to feel that way, but it still took him a long moment to find his voice and manage to croak out, "Gallifrey."

"What?" Rose's eyes widened, head swivelling like somewhere around them there may be some sign that would confirm or deny his suspicions, "Gallifrey as in…?"

"Where I'm from. Yes." He winced, his head throbbing, though whether it was from the weight of the revelation or the wound he'd sustained in the crash was anyone's guess, "But it can't be! It just… it can't!"

"Because Gallifrey was destroyed, right?" Rose confirmed, shyly, knowing well enough by now that he didn't like to talk about it, "Could you be… wrong about that?"

"No." His face darkened immediately, "No, I was there. I… I saw it happen."

"Are you sure this is Gallifrey then?" She frowned, glancing around again like something might have changed from the last time, "Couldn't it just be some other forest with silver trees… and two orange suns?"

"It's Gallifrey." He shook his head, even though everything inside of him was screaming that it couldn't be true, "It's not just the trees. I know this place. This is the Forest of Mystis on the Mountain of Solitude, I used to play here with my friends when I was a kid. My family home was just… just about an hour's walk that way."

Rose stared curiously in the direction he was pointing. It was quite the temptation, the possibility of seeing the childhood home of a man who still remained mostly a mystery to her, even after all the time they had spent together. Part of her naively hoped that if she just stared hard enough it would just appear in front of her, like the cottage of a fairy tale witch, crafted from candy. It didn't, of course, but she found herself leaning a little in that direction anyways, "Maybe we should-"

"Go?" The Doctor finished for her, turning sharply on his heel and marching back towards the upended Tardis, "You're right, we should absolutely go."

"I was going to say we should take a look…" She muttered as he clambered back into the Tardis, still gazing off into the distance. If this was really Gallifrey, it seemed a shame to just leave when he clearly missed it so much and it was unlikely they would ever find their way back there again, but then, perhaps it was easier for him this way. Maybe going back now would just be sad, like standing in the middle of an empty flat that used to be home after you've already moved all your stuff out.

Behind her, The Doctor started doing his usual routine of crashing around the console, trying to get more of a response out of the ship than a puff of smoke and a strained groan, but for once… she didn't seem to be having it. He spent a good few minutes trying, but eventually having to admit defeat, he climbed back out of the ship, coat in hand, giving his companion a glum look, "Rose…"

"We're stuck, aren't we?" Rose guessed, raising an eyebrow at him.

"We blew the dematerialization circuit," He admitted with a wince, "And the temporal stabilizers and… a couple of other things."

"Okay." Rose frowned, shoving her hands in her pockets, "Can you fix it?"

"Yes." He assured her quickly, then hesitated and added, "Eventually."

"How long is "eventually"?"

"A couple months?" He frowned, calculating in his head, "A few months… four or five months?"

Rose sighed, running her fingers through her hair as she thought for a moment, "Can we get new parts?" He stared at her blankly, so she continued, "We are on Gallifrey, right? Isn't there somewhere we can go to get… I don't know, spare Tardis parts?"

The Doctor was quiet for a little longer than was comfortable before sighing heavily, rubbing his jaw with one hand, "Well… yes. But we would have to go into the capitol, which is risky… or go to Lungbarrow, which is equally risky for different reasons."

"Lungbarrow?" Rose echoed.

"My family home." He clarified.

She raised an eyebrow at that, "Lungbarrow?"

He winced sheepishly, "It… it sounds better in Gallifreyan. Most things do."

"Right." She snorted, "How far to the capitol?"

"On foot?" He frowned, doing some more mental math, "Um… too far. Three days?"

"Not really an option then, is it?" Rose pointed out, "Lungbarrow it is, then."

It wasn't often The Doctor seemed to get nervous, but he seemed it now, "I don't know what we'll find there."

Rose considered that for a moment, then slipped her hand into his and gave it a reassuring squeeze, "We'll never know if we don't look."

A soft half smile crossed his face as he gazed down at her, squeezing her hand back, "Yeah, you're right… I'll just lock up."

She waited patiently while he closed up the Tardis, which had finally at least stopped billowing smoke, holding her hand out to him again as he returned. Weaving his fingers through her's, he lead her off in the direction he'd previously indicated. His mood seemed to improve as they walked, pointing out a variety of plants and the occasional small woodland animal that he recognized, every once in a while tossing in a funny little story from his childhood about tripping on tree roots or rubbing up against the Gallifreyan equivalent of poison ivy. Accompanied by whispering of the wind through the trees and the nearby gurgle of running water, it was quite… nice, despite the obvious nerves that kept The Doctor babbling away.

"How much further?" Rose questioned when she felt like they must be getting close. She wasn't sure exactly how long they had been walking but it had to be at least the hour that The Doctor had estimated, if not more, and one of the twin suns was starting to hang low on the horizon, painting the sky a dusky orange colour.

"Not far." He promised, smiling nervously at her, "It's just on the other side of the river. I spent a lot of time at this river when I was a kid, catching tadpoles. Well, I say tadpoles, they were more like tadpole crab hybrids. Well, I say tadpole crab hybrids, but not really, more like tadpoles with a hard plated shell and a soft underbelly and pincers more like a spider than a crab-"

"It's gold!" Rose blurted out, cutting him off. The silver trees had been a pleasant sight, but The Doctor had mentioned such things before, so she had been able to take them in stride, but the pale orange light hitting the choppy river water made it glitter like liquid gold.

"Mmm, it always looks like this in the evening." The Doctor informed her, "I never really understood why, but it's name roughly means something like Bad Wolf River- oh."

"I love it." Rose told him, amusement clear in her voice as she watched it dawn on him, "Right, so how do we cross this Bad Wolf River, then?"

"If I'm remembering right, there should be… ahah! There we go!" He announced proudly, leading her a little ways down stream to a small pool where a decent sized tree had fallen across, creating a partial dam.

"Doesn't look very safe." Rose pointed out, eyeing the log, which was only about two feet wide and growing some sort of blue-ish silver moss on most of its surface. "It looks kind of slippery."

"It's perfectly safe! I've crossed this way a million times!" He declared confidently, then offered her a reassuring smile when she still hesitated, "I won't let you fall in. Promise."

"Okay." She softened, taking his hand and allowing him to lead her tentatively out onto the log.

It was a little awkward trying to walk single file while holding hands, but she felt better knowing he was hanging on to her, particularly after the third time she wobbled, which he didn't seem concerned about at all, in fact, three quarters of the way across, he turned slightly, offering her a cheeky grin, "See? Nothing to it!"

"Right. How about you watch where you're-" Her words were cut off by her own surprised yelp as The Doctor misstepped, pulling her off the log after him and plunging them both into the freezing water below. Gasping reflexively at the sudden cold, she choked on water, flailing in panic until she felt his arms around her waist, pulling her out.

"Rose, I'm so sorry, I wasn't paying attention to where I was stepping!" He fretted, pulling her onto the bank as she hacked up water, "Are you okay?"

"Fine." She managed between coughs, taking a moment to catch her breath before adding, "Freezing."

"I'm sorry," He repeated, giving her a hand up, "The house is only about five minutes away."

"It's okay. I'll be fine." She assured him, hugging her arms around herself in a failed attempt to keep herself warm.

The setting sun had almost completely sunk below the horizon now and a brisk breeze rustled the leaves on the trees, making the final five minutes of their walk feel longer than the first hour and Rose didn't think she'd ever been happier to see anything than when Lungbarrow House became visible through the trees. The house reminded her of one of the old Victorian Era houses still found in particularly posh neighborhoods with a similarly well manicured yard and an odd statue of a man in a robe out front, but it was not as big as she expected it to be given the style. She was about to step out from the treeline to approach the house when The Doctor's arm fell across her chest, holding her back, "Wait… look."

For a moment she couldn't see what had given him pause, then a flash of movement caught her eye. Just twenty feet from where they stood was a small child, a girl of about four, if Rose had to guess, with long dark hair trapped in a braided bun at the back of her head. The front of her red, smock-like dress was bunched up in her little fist and she kept crouching down to retrieve something from the ground that she then stashed in the folds of fabric.

"What's she doing?" Rose hissed, giving The Doctor a curious look.

"Picking flowers." He informed her in a low voice, a grim look on his face, "They grow in the underbrush along the edge of the forest. She used to want to keep them in a vase by her bed but she never left the stems long enough."

"You know her?" She felt a bit silly about the surprise in her voice, this was his home, afterall, it wasn't that surprising that he knew this child, but for some reason it still caught her off guard.

"Her name is Anliss." His frown deepened, "We really shouldn't be here. We're trespassing in my own past…"

She was about to ask what he meant by that when a voice calling the little girl's name caught her attention. There was a woman following Anliss, she realized, a beautiful woman with long black hair twisted into a similar style as the toddler's, dressed in a long, red, robe-like dress that swished around her ankles as she walked. The Doctor made a sound under his breath that might have been a bad word and pressed Rose further back into the trees.

"Didn't you hear me calling?" The woman questioned, scooping the child up into her arms, causing her to squeal, and planting a big kiss on her cheek, "It's time to come in now."

Anliss laughed, spouting something that sounded like and apology or an excuse, but Rose couldn't quite make it out because The Doctor turned to her and hissed, "We should go."

"All the way back to the Tardis? Like this?" Rose protested, motioning to their soaked clothing.

"Go inside and get washed up for supper, I'll be in in a minute." The woman advised the child, placing her on the ground and shooing her off towards the house, waiting for her to get most of the way there before turning her attention to their hiding spot, "You can come out of there now. I know you're there."

The Doctor winced as they were addressed, hesitating for a long moment before reluctantly stepping out of the trees. His expression was hard for Rose to read as he regarded the woman, but if she had to guess, it was somewhere between fond and devastated. He cleared his throat, like he was pushing down some difficult emotion before offering a lame, "Hello."

"Hello." The woman replied, a slight confused frown maring her delicate features as she took in The Doctor and Rose, "You shouldn't be there. You know how dangerous this is. Crossing your own timeline."

"I know, I'm sorry." He replied quickly, "We didn't have a choice."

"Sorry, what's going on?" Rose asked a little impatiently, "I take it you know her."

"Oh, sorry, Rose." The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, "This is Patience. She's my, uh… well, she's my wife."

Rose's mouth opened and closed a few times in shock, but the woman, Patience, just gave them a once over and sighed, "I guess you had better come inside."

Reviews keep me motivated :)