The day had not gone as the Doctor had planned. He had simply wanted a nice walk through the woods, and perhaps to meet one of the Euripideans who supposedly lived in in burrows in the hills surrounding the forest.
Well, he'd met them. And as it turned out, their reputation for being peaceable was drastically overstated.
The natives had not appreciated an outsider entering their village, and he had been driven out at spear-point. They only turned back from their pursuit when the blizzard started.
He pulled his frock coat tight around his body and braced himself as he walked straight into the wind and driving snow. Velvet really wasn't a very warm material, he was discovering. And typically that wouldn't bother him, but typically, he hadn't received a head wound after tripping over a snow-covered rock.
The Doctor gingerly touched the gash on his forehead. "Not bleeding anymore at least," he noted, when his fingers didn't find more blood. "Well, that's one positive thing."
The snow swirling around him only added to his dizziness. He stumbled against a tree and waited for his head to stop spinning.
"Almost to the TARDIS," he told himself, though he wasn't sure if it was the truth. He could feel the ship in his mind, but in his addled state, he wasn't certain where exactly she was.
With the cold settling into his bones, he pushed off from the tree and started walking again. The snow was thick enough now that he could barely see two feet in front of his face.
For instance, he didn't see the tree root sticking up out of the ground, not until he tripped over it. His arms flailed as he tried to stay upright, but it was no use.
The fall knocked the wind out of him and multiplied the pain in his head by a hundred. The cold snow sucked at his strength, and the Doctor couldn't find the energy to move out of the snowbank.
The TARDIS' hum turned shrill and alarmed, but the Doctor shook his head woozily. "Don't worry, old girl," he said, somewhat deliriously. "It's nothing regeneration can't fix."
Time shifted around him, and as the Doctor faded from consciousness, he thought he heard a woman say, "I want you safe, my Doctor."
oOoOo
Rose started shivering as soon as the dimension cannon dropped her on the unknown planet in the middle of a snowstorm. She pulled her coat tight around her and checked the readout, hoping that for once, she wouldn't need to let the device cool down before she could hop home.
The flashing digital numbers counting down from thirty disabused her of that notion, but it was the coordinate display that caught her attention. She'd set the coordinates for this hop herself, and she was nowhere near where she was supposed to come out.
Rose sighed and slid the controls back into her pocket, then took out her torch and started walking. Her ears and nose were already starting to sting; if she stayed in one place until the countdown finished, she'd be frozen through.
"Might as well explore while I'm here," she muttered, moving the beam of the light back and forth.
Wind whistled through the trees, but underneath it, Rose could hear something else. She tilted her head in the direction it seemed to be coming from. The hum sounded familiar…
Rose nearly dropped her torch when she realised what it was. The TARDIS was here. Nearby, even. And if the TARDIS was here, then so was the Doctor.
She'd finally made it home. In the middle of a bloody blizzard, but she was home.
Rose reached for the TARDIS like the Doctor had started to teach her. Where are you, dear?
The hum changed pitch, and Rose turned towards it. It was hard going, trudging through three foot snow drifts that had piled up beneath the trees, but knowing she was almost home made it worth it.
"And when I get there," she said, teeth chattering, "I'm going to take a long, hot bath and then curl up in front of the fireplace with a cuppa." Talking made the cold hurt less, so she kept going, rambling on with a list of all the things she would do once she was home.
A soft sound interrupted her daydreaming. Rose pressed her teeth together to stop the chattering so she could listen, and this time she was certain—that was a man.
It was almost impossible to see in the storm, but following the sound, Rose found a man half-buried in a snowbank.
"Oh, my god," she mumbled, working quickly to dig him out. "Let's get you out of here," she told the man, hoping he was conscious enough to hear her. "I'll get you someplace warm, and my friend is a doctor. He can take care of you."
The TARDIS sang, and Rose toppled back on her heels when she realised what the ship was trying to tell her. She studied the curly hair and green velvet frock coat; this man wasn't familiar at all.
But that didn't mean anything. She held her breath and pressed her fingers to his wrist.
Two heartbeats.
Rose draped the Doctor's arm over her shoulders and carefully stood up with him. "Well, I can still get you someplace warm," she told him as she started for home. "And hopefully, the TARDIS can tell me what to do to take care of you myself."
oOoOo
The Doctor leaned against the balcony railing at the palace of Ralama. His eyes were fixed on the couple dancing below, as was the attention of everyone else in the room.
A blonde in a gorgeous red ball gown laughed as a tall man twirled her out, and then back into his arms. Even from where he stood, the Doctor could see how much they loved each other.
Something about them tugged at the Doctor's time senses, and he focused on the timelines around them, rather than their dance. Gold lines swirled around them in wide swishes and curlicues. Those were not the straight timelines of a normal human—those were the lines of a time traveller.
And he was very familiar with one set of those timelines, although there were parts he had yet to experience yet. This was his future self.
The way the second set of timelines intersected with his own sent another shock through him. The man was his future self, and the woman he held in his arm was his future wife.
The shock jarred the Doctor out of the dream, and once his eyes recovered from the bright lights, he carefully sat up. A woman was asleep in the chair beside his bed, and somehow, he wasn't surprised that it was the woman from his dream.
Even if he hadn't known how important she would one day be to him, she still would have entranced him. Her timelines were unlike anything he'd ever seen before. It seemed like every moment of time spun around her and through her, as though somehow, she had once touched the pure essence of Time.
"Rose," he said, the name coming to him without conscious thought.
Rose jolted awake. "Doctor?" she whispered.
She stood up and reached for his hand, and the Doctor felt a jolt of recognition when her fingers wrapped around his.
She seemed weary and worried, so he tried to smile reassuringly. "As you can see, no permanent damage done."
To his surprise, she narrowed her eyes and thumped him on the chest. "I knew you'd get yourself into trouble while I was gone, but really, Doctor? What were you doing, wandering away from the TARDIS in a snowstorm? Were you trying to regenerate again?"
He floundered in the face of her chastisement. "Well, it wasn't exactly part of my plan for the day," he offered finally.
She raised an eyebrow. "You had a plan?"
The Doctor laughed. "As much of one as I ever have," he admitted.
Rose leaned against the bed and shook her head at him. A typical day with the Doctor.
"Let me guess," she drawled. "You went off exploring without looking into some detail, such as the weather forecast, and then you discovered the less-than-friendly natives and had to run back for the TARDIS. Only the storm caught up with you, and you were left stranded in the cold, with that head injury keeping you from managing your temperature."
The Doctor pouted. "This isn't exactly the first impression I'd hoped to make on my future wife."
Rose sat down, hard. In one sentence, the Doctor had dropped two bombshells.
Resolutely setting aside the fact that he thought they would get married eventually, she looked at the Doctor again. His eyes danced with amusement, but at the same time his expression was guileless.
"You haven't met me yet," she realised. It was a possibility that had never occurred to her.
"Not that I recall," he answered. "And though I've been prone to memory loss in this incarnation, I somehow doubt it would be easy to forget you."
Rose ignored the heat spreading over her cheeks and grabbed at another thought to put off the discussion of their relationship a bit longer.
"But you knew my name."
His laughter was like music, and Rose wanted to hear it again. "I have a bit of a psychic gift in this body," he explained. "Timelines often make things clear to me that would not otherwise be made known."
Rose bit her lip. "And… that's how…" She let the words trail off and ducked her head to avoid the Doctor's gaze.
A moment later, he groaned. "I apologise, Rose. If I'd truly been paying attention, I would have noticed that hadn't happened yet for you, either." He waved his hand in a vague circle next to his temple. "I don't suppose I could blame that on the head injury?"
Rose knew without asking that he wouldn't give her any more details regarding her future. Too much future knowledge was never a good thing, the Doctor always said.
After a short pause, the Doctor spoke again. "If you thought I'd regenerated while you were away, I take it we've been separated for some time."
Rose sighed and tugged at the hem of her shirt. Speaking of future knowledge… "A few years. There was… Something happened, and I was trapped in a parallel universe. Neither of us could cross over."
She glanced over at the dimension cannon, still resting on the counter. She'd turned it off, thinking she was home, but now…
"We built this thing, called a dimension cannon. I've been trying to get home for about a year now. Thought I'd made it, but I guess I'll have to keep trying."
Rose closed her eyes, and the Doctor took the moment to study her. He could see the lines around her mouth and eyes, the tension in how she held herself.
Her weariness made his hearts ache, so he said the first thing that came to mind. "It's a pity you don't know someone with a space-and-time ship who could track down a future version of himself so you could be reunited."
He grinned when Rose's eyes flew open. "Would that be possible? It wouldn't be too dangerous for there to be two of you in one place?"
Her awareness of the Laws of Time impressed him, but for once, the Doctor could honestly dismiss those concerns. "Time Lords are protected from the paradox of meeting each other," he explained. "After all, it is something of an occupational hazard of being a time traveller."
She nodded. "True."
The Doctor tossed back the thin blanket covering his legs and torso and slid out of the bed. Rose offered her hand, and once he was certain he could stand without falling, he gestured towards the door.
"After you, Rose Tyler. I find myself selfishly interested in getting you home as soon as possible."