Rose leapt off her bike, leaving it on its side on the pavement, back wheel still spinning. The TARDIS stood in front of her, and close to she could see the subtle differences from the time-ship she remembered, imperfections the grainy image from the CCTV camera did not pick out. She stepped closer, her hand reaching out instinctively to a place where the wood of the Police Box seemed to have become almost transparent; the mask the ship wore to hide its true nature apparently slipping. Curiosity overcame even her need to see the occupant of the TARDIS. Her fingers appeared to touch warm wood, but it was like touching the glass of a mirror, something was beyond the physical barrier her hand could not penetrate. There was a suggestion of something vaguely organic about the half-visible material underneath the illusion, that put her in mind of the walls of the control room...
A fierce yearning seemed to have unfolded inside her. She had long since started to believe that his goodbye on the Norwegian beach would be the final words the Doctor would ever speak to her and the possibility that she might hear him again was almost unbearable.
Her fingers trembled as they closed around the door handle. She pushed, and realised the door was locked. Hand still shaking, she reached for the neck of her shirt. Against her skin, hidden by her clothes, the key the Doctor has once given her still hung, the one sentimentalism she had allowed herself. As if in a dream she slipped it into the lock, and turned. The lock clicked, and the door opened under her touch.
She paused for the briefest of seconds. This should not, could not be happening At any moment she felt sure her eyes would open and the white ceiling of her bedroom would greet her.
She stepped inside. The control room was dark, and even more worryingly a haze of smoke hung in the air, making her eyes sting and catching in her throat. "D-doctor?" she coughed.
She crossed hesitantly to the console, and with a sinking feeling in her stomach realised it was comprehensively smashed. The few lights still blinking she recognised as warning systems, reading a litany of destruction. Oxygen levels: low... Structural integrity: failing... Flight systems: off-line...
A low moan made her jump. "Doctor?" she called again, wiping her streaming eyes.
The man seemed to rise up out of the smoke, although later she would rationalise he had been thrown against one of the pillars and hidden by the fumes. He was terribly burnt; her first instinct was to withdraw in revulsion from him. He extended the remains of what might once have been a hand as his mouth tried to frame the question.
It was the eyes that betrayed his identity, as she fought the terrible desire to flee from the ruined man. No matter their colour or the face they were framed with, there was something about the eyes...
"Doctor?" she whispered, and ran forward to catch him as his legs buckled. He was heavy, too heavy for her to support his weight and she sank to the floor, cradling the broken man in her arms. The smell of burnt skin and hair was terrible but she brushed some of the remaining long curls away from his face. He had been peppered with shrapnel, probably from the ruined console, but she could see this incarnation had been a handsome man. What remained of his clothes put her in mind of a Victorian gentleman; velvet coat, open collar, complete with cravat...
His eyes opened again, glazed with pain. "The Bad Wolf," he murmured.
"What did you say?" she breathed.
"The Bad Wolf... who are you?" he managed.
She ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach. "My name's Rose Tyler," she managed, quelling the disappointment the realisation that this Doctor was a stranger to her freighted.
"How did you... get into the TARDIS?"
Her hands found his, her fingers wrapping around his wrists where she could feel the erratic stutter of his double-time pulse. "I've got a key," she replied, shocked to find tears were falling from her eyes. "Doctor... You're dying."
He managed a smile, a bubble of blood bursting at the corner of his mouth as he struggled to draw his final breath. "... curse of the Time Lords," he said, as his pulse slowed, "... be seeing you, Rose Ty..."
She lowered him to the floor, her heart hammering madly. His body remained still, no brilliant light bursting from him. She thought for a moment, and pressed a button on the broken console. There was a hiss, a blast of cool air, and the smoke was gone. Smiling without humour she crossed to the door and shut it to, her mouth twitching as she remembered a voice from her memory, long ignored.
"The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried."
She leaned against the closed door, watching the body on the floor, waiting. Unease began to settle on her, and she took a tentative step forward-
Light, effulgent orange light too bright to look at, engulfed him and her heart seemed to skip a beat as she covered her eyes.
When she opened them again, he was standing up, surveying his tattered close with a forlorn expression. He looked up, his icy blue eyes meeting hers. She smiled faintly, realising the irony of seeing before her another face she had never expected to see again, and wishing it was the other.
"Hello, Doctor," she managed.
"Rose," he said, the manic smile she had known so well spreading across his features. She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat hearing her name said in his Salford accent seemed to have conjured.
"That's me," she replied, "Rose Tyler."
"The Bad Wolf," he added in an undertone, and her next remark died on her lips.
"That's me too," she replied, her own voice low.
"How?" he asked, walking across the metal grating until he was standing in front of her. She found she was staring at his feet, unable to meet his piercing eyes. He was taller than his previous incarnation, several inches of bare ankle showing above his shoes. The stupidity of this made her smile, and she found she could meet his gaze once more.
"I looked into the Heart of the TARDIS, to save my Doctor from the Daleks."
His face seemed to twitch as she spoke the name. "They're dead," he managed, voice hard, "I was there, I saw."
"I know. I'm not talking about... this universe." For the first time in a very long while the absurdity of what she was saying suddenly struck her. The Rose Tyler she thought had vanished upon stepping over the threshold of the TARDIS more than six years ago supplied a chuckle she managed not to vocalise at the way her world had turned.
"Ah," said the Doctor, as realisation apparently dawned, " But that... that can't be, not any more..." His face seemed to drain of colour, and for a moment she thought he was remembering the fall of Gallifrey. He raised a hand to his head, apparently unconsciously about to brush away long hair he no longer had, opened his mouth, and then fell over backwards in a dead faint.