A/N: Many thanks to those who reviewed the first chapter, and encouraged me to write more.
If this sucks, blame them.
Just kidding. Flames will only grill my chicken faster.

xxx xxx

"What are you doing?"

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder as Rose stomped into his bedroom, hands on hips. He grinned at her from the wardrobe, and she glowered back.

"What are you dressed like that for?" he wondered, ignoring her question.

Rose growled. She was in her pajamas, and not without reason. It was five am, TARDIS relative time, and she'd been sleeping peacefully when a loud bang had woken her.

"I was sleeping," she frowned at him, "Like every normal person is at five in the morning. I came to see what all the racket was about."

"I just thought I'd organise my books," the Doctor said, still smiling, "You know how it is. First Roman literature gets mixed in with the Medieval poetry, then Calculus A gets put in the box with Hylix System Languages, and then before you know it you've got fossils in with your physics and War History alongside holiday trash. Complete disaster."

"Books?" Rose fumed, "Books! What, are they tin plated or somethin'?"

Judging from the noise, they ought to have been.

"No, no, no," the Doctor shook his head, and gestured to a disorderly pile of what can best be described as 'crap', "I had to get some things out of the way, first."

Rose turned her glare to the pile. It looked more than capable of providing the racket which had roused her, and she was about to dismiss it as noxious junk when something caught her eye.

"Is that a toboggan?" she demanded, not daring to examine the object herself lest it dissolved beneath her fingers.

"An old earth one, yeah." the Doctor said, "Rubbish, really. It doesn't even have a turbo."

"It looks fine to me." Rose said. She pulled the toboggan out of the pile. It was old, and heavy, but beautifully made. The sculpted steel frame was painted azure, and the pine bottom was a creamy yellow.

"Have you ever used it?" she asked the Doctor, who was watching her carefully while chewing on the arm of his spectacles.

"Of course not. When would I ever have time to use a toboggan?" he scoffed.

Rose grinned at him, disrupted sleep forgotten. "What about today? You haven't got anything planned. We could go to the snow!"

"I'll have you know I'm extremely busy today. Sorting out these books, you know." the Doctor told her, still chewing.

"Oh, come on! I missed the last two Winters back home, 'cause I've been travelling around with you. It's only fair you should make it up to me." Rose said, pouting at him.

"But the books..."

"I'll love you forever if you take me." and she gave him her most irresistible smile.

The Doctor gulped, and licked his lips.

"Maybe they could wait until tomorrow." he said, voice hoarse, "And I suppose I do owe it to you."

Rose squealed, and tackled him to the bed in an emphatic bear hug.

"This is gonna be great! I love the snow!" she giggled, and kissed him on the cheek, "You are going to love tobogganing!"

The Doctor was blushing furiously, "Alright, alright. You better get changed. I know just the place we can go."

Rose pulled back from him, puzzled, "We're not going to London?"

"God, no. There's millions of better places to see snow than London." the Doctor told her, struggling to his feet.

"Like where? Scotland? France? Antarctica?" Rose guessed.

"Even better. Planet Beta."

Rose followed the Doctor as he made his way out to the TARDIS' control room.

"Where's planet Beta? I never even heard of it." she asked when he didn't elaborate.

"It's in the Beta system. It's sort of a blue print planet," seeing Rose was about to question him further, he added, "The creators used it to trial things before putting them on earth. Animals, diseases, that sort of thing. Of course, we'll go back a few million years to when it was uninhabited."

"Creators?"

The Doctor nodded, "They call themselves that. They didn't really create earth, with all the mountains and oceans and such, but they occasionally fiddle with it. Shaping humanity's destiny, that sort of thing. A real nosy, interfering bunch."

"And it's good for tobogganing?" Rose asked, suspicious.

"The best. Beta has the biggest, coldest mountains in the universe. It has the heaviest snowfall. The atmosphere is almost identical to earth's, but it doesn't thin out as quickly with alititude, so we should have no trouble breathing."

"And you're sure it's uninhabited?" she asked, reluctant to spend another weekend being chased by slobbering aliens.

The Doctor had turned to tinker with the control panel. He was starting to look excited, humming to himself and gnawing on his mangled spectacles.

"Doctor." Rose taped his shoulder, "Are you sure it's uninhabited?"

"It ought to be." the Doctor replied, typing the planet's co-ordinates into the computer, "We're visiting it's prehistoric era."

He finished typing, and glanced up at Rose.

"Well, go on, then." he said to her, "You're not going to wear your pajamas tobogganing, are you?"

She gave him one last apprehensive glance, and headed for her room.

xxx

"Bloody hell."

In her cave, Rose was coughing. Despite the Doctor's earlier assurances, she was having a hard time breathing. The air was thick with fog and the threat of a blizzard.

And God, it was cold. Her clothes were drenched, and clung wetly to her. To her horror, the first icy crystals of a frost were beginning to form on her pants leg.

"I've got to get out of here." Rose said. She'd been talking to herself, finding it kept her spirits up, for the last hour while she watched the night blossom.

The snow was falling thick and fast now. Rose was running out of reasons to not leave the cave. She knew she couldn't survive in there, but there was a great fear, a black pit in her stomach, of what lay outside.

Those creatures, with their long, almost skeletal heads, and pale bodies, were enough to scare even the most hardened time traveler. Even the Doctor had been short of praise for them.

With the events of that morning still playing in her mind, Rose crawled stiffly towards the narrow mouth of the cave.

The world that greeted her outside was a frozen hell.

xxx

What Rose saw that morning when she stepped out of the TARDIS took her breath away.

"Better than London, huh?" the Doctor said, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"It's beautiful!" Rose replied, mouth agape, "It's bloody fantastic!"

The TARDIS sat in a small, snowy alcove about half way up the most rugged mountain Rose had ever seen. To her right, the slope continued its ascent to the clouds, rising in sheer faced cliffs and craggy outcrops, to form a jagged horn of black rock hundreds of metres above her head.

To her left, the ground dropped away with dizzying suddenness, sloping sharply downwards, down and down and down, before jerking upwards again in another fractured cliff. In the steep, zigzagging ravine between the mountains, Rose could just make out an icy-crusted river.

"Well, let's not just stand here all day." the Doctor said. He'd traded his beloved brown coat for a hooded jacket that was lined with wool, but stubbornly refused to change his joggers for snow boots.

Rose, on the other hand, was wearing every item of Winter clothing she'd been able to find in the TARDIS. Which was a lot, but she doubted it would be enough to provide padding in case she slipped and fell off the side of the mountain.

"Are we taking that path?" she wondered, pointing a gloved finger at a narrow, snow covered ledge that wound around the mountain side.

"You're a silly old hen, Rose." the Doctor grinned, "Of course we're taking that path. There's no elevator, you know, not like on your London mountains."

Rose shook her head. She didn't even know where to start correcting him with that one.

In the end, she decided it was hopeless, and said instead, "You can lead the way."

"I knew you would say that." the Doctor told her, but he went ahead nonetheless, dragging the toboggan behind him.

Look, Rose said to herself, there's bits sticking out of this mountain everywhere. Probably if I slip, I'll just land safely on another ledge.

Yeah right, said the more cynical, and honest, part of her brain.

The Doctor was still talking, strolling along the stubby ledge as though it was an ordinary footpath, "The other side of the mountain is flat. Diagonal, of course, but flat. We're well above the tree line here, so there shouldn't be any obstacles to run into."

Rose wasn't really listening. She was terrified. She didn't believe for a second that she would survive a fall, and the path was rising steeply. Maybe tobogganing hadn't been such a great idea, after all.

"It's about ten minutes to flat side." the Doctor was saying, "That alcove back there is the only flat surface big enough to park the TARDIS. It'd just slide away anywhere else."

Somewhere between ten minutes and ten hours later (or so it felt), when the pair reached the end of the path, Rose let go of her misgivings. The far side of the mountain was perfect. The slope was smooth and gradual, the snow covering undisturbed.

The landscape shone like diamonds, glistening below a sapphire sky.

Noticing the look on her face, the Doctor queried, "Do you love me yet?"

"I love this mountain!" Rose squealed, snatching the toboggan's lead from his hand.

With it in tow, she took off up the slope. Her boots sunk a foot and more through the surface before the snow compacted, but even that hardly slowed her.

"When I catch you, Rose Tyler," the Doctor shouted, trying vainly to keep up with her, "You know what I'm going to do to you?"

Rose glanced back at him, and grinned, "When you catch me, Doctor, you can do whatever you like!"

Although she would never admit it, even to herself, Rose adored the Doctor. Her face flushed at his words. Maybe later she would slow down enough for him to catch her. Maybe.

Before her, the mountain seemed to go on forever. Far, far in the distance, she could see the peak. From this side, it appeared to have been loped off short, so the top was flat.

"I've got you now!" the Doctor shouted, lunging for her. Somehow, even in his battered joggers, he'd managed to catch up.

Rose ducked away from him, and grabbed the toboggan in both hands. She spun in the snow, turning downhill, and leapt into the toboggan.

"That's cheating!" the Doctor shouted.

"Better luck next time, ey?" Rose called back to him.

The toboggan picked up speed quickly, hissing through the crisp snow. Rose screamed with the sheer thrill of the ride. She tipped the toboggan to go faster, and only very reluctantly brought it to a stop when she reached a jutting barrier of rocks.

"Bloomin' heck." Rose said, glancing back up the slope. She must have covered two hundred metres or more. If she was careful, and steered around the rocks, she could have kept going for another half mile.

"Maybe next time." she told herself, and headed back up the slope.

By the time she'd trudged all the way back to the Doctor, Rose was sweating, and more than glad to give her companion a go of the toboggan.

"Er," he said, holding the device awkwardly in one hand, "It looks quite simple, really."

"Just push it along the ground, and jump on." Rose panted, letting herself fall back into the snow, "I'm sure you'll manage."

"Er. Alright."

The Doctor retreated a few metres further up the slope. After a handful of deep breaths, he pushed the toboggan along in front of him, trying to mimic Rose's actions. He broke into a run, still pushing the toboggan.

"Get on!" Rose shouted, rising up on one elbow to watch him.

He got on. Or, at least, he attempted to. At the last, critical moment, he let go of the toboggan. The lead rope, still wrapped around his hand, jerked to the right, and the toboggan followed, slipping sharply from beneath him.

"Save me, Rose!" the Doctor cried, tumbling head first into the snow.

He probably would have been alright if he hadn't rolled. He did roll, though, round and round and round, until at last he crashed bodily into a snow bank. The toboggan, dragged along all the way, ploughed straight into him.

"Are you alright?" Rose called down to him, her words muffled with laughter.

She about to get to her feet, ready to run down and help him, when a dark shadow fell over her.

Rose looked up. And screamed.

A gaping skull screamed back at her.

xxx xxx

Is this okay? It seems okay to me, but you never know.
Christ, when did I get so freaking insecure? I blame society for this.