At this point, Rose was no longer shocked; just extremely frustrated. "How many of you are there?" To her great embarrassment, she burst into tears.

"Steady on, steady on," said the Doctor, soothingly, patting her on the shoulder with a leather-gloved hand. "Let's start at the beginning. Tell me everything."

Rose looked up at him. There was a gentleness in his eyes that she was beginning to be able to recognise, even across all the incarnations. It calmed her and made her feel safe. She took a deep breath and started to explain; then pulled the note from her pocket. "Just read this. The other Doctors made sense of it."

"Other Doctors?" he murmured, flattening out the note.

The last message read:

Dear Doctor,

The Proprietor thinks it's a problem with the temporal stabiliser, but I have my doubts. Rogue universe?

The Doctor

"Rogue universe!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Good grief! This could be very bad."

"What's a...rogue universe?" said Rose.

"It's just a theory, you understand; but, putting it simply, it's a universe capable of destabilising an entire node. In this case, it would be a universe that had something catastrophic happen to its Timeline, that forced it to die in a way completely distinct from how all the other universes died."

Rose had difficulty wrapping her head around this one. "So the rogue is...a universe where something terrible happened to Time? Like...say...a Time War?"

"Yes, theoretically," said the Doctor. "However, even then, the Time Lords would simply reset the Time vortex and--"

"My universe must be the rogue. There was a Time War and all the Time Lords died."

The Doctor stared at her in shocked amazement. The note slipped from his fingers. A moment later, his jaw tightened and he said, "That is a possibility. But it doesn't explain why we're seeing these intermittent episodes of instability right now...something must have triggered it, something in the restaurant."

Rose suddenly felt very cold. "Or something trying to get to the restaurant? Like a... TARDIS from the rogue universe?"

"A TARDIS belonging to your friend--the Doctor who has arranged to meet you? Yes, I'm afraid that is a distinct possibility. He's probably having difficulty materialising; and every time he tries, it triggers another local failure here on the restaurant. We've got to stop him. Perhaps if we reverse the polarity--"

"Stop him?" cried Rose. "No, you can't stop him, he's got to get here--"

"Rose, it may be our only--get down!" He pushed her behind the desk, then crouched down beside her. She peered out from the side, and saw what appeared to be a white Kaled approaching.

She rolled her eyes. "It's nothing to worry about, Doctor," she said, sighing. "It's only a Kaled." She stood up and waved at it. "Hi there, thanks, we don't need anything."

"IN-FER-I-OR LIFE FORM DE-TEC-TED. EX-TER-MI-NATE! EX-TER-MI-NATE! EX-TER-MI-NATE!"

Rose stared, open-mouthed at the Dalek. It was a dull white, trimmed in gold. The Doctor managed to pull her down behind the desk again, just as it fired.

There was a blast of sound, like stone and metal shuddering; everything seemed to vanish, reappear, and diverge. Rose covered her head with her hands. Was this really how it was going to end for her? Killed by a Dalek at the end of the universe?

Everything went black.