x x x Chapter Three x x x

It was the little things that were different about the Doctor and things concerning him in this reality; Rose began to notice almost immediately.

Starting with when she went to look for a place to call her own on this 'new' Tardis.

The Doctor had offered her any room that she wanted, so instinctively she had sought out the one that she'd used during the entire time that she traveled with her Doctor. She had walked right up to the door and opened it.

Only to be met with some sort of storage closet. Filled to the brim and resembling nothing even remotely familiar to the bedroom that she had spent untold hours' in, resting and recuperating from the adventures her Doctor had taken her on, or just grabbing a quick bit of sleep as they traveled. Boxes and bins, pieces of electronic equipment that made no sense to her. Things the Doctor needed, for sure.

She had walked down the hall further, taking the first bedroom she came to with a sense of odd detachment, born of something that she was sure was the beginnings of shock. The room was empty and she was glad for that. Jack's room was somewhere around here, too. Well, if he was in the same room he would have been in back in her reality, that was.

The Tardis was the same, and that was comforting even when nothing else could be. It was pleased to have her aboard. Just not pleased enough to rearrange everything and put her bedroom where she thought it should be, Rose thought to herself.

By the time she got back to the console room, Jack had returned and was working on something under the panel across from her. She could see his legs sticking out. Leather pants, well at least that hadn't changed.

And he still had a nice —

"You find a room?"

Rose nodded in response to the Doctor's question, turning her attention to him. Same eyes, different Doctor. Same face, different Doctor. Same everything — but not her Doctor. It was so very hard to keep that straight.

"Your mum take it well?"

Surprised, Rose could only blink for the longest of moments. She'd walked out of the room still talking to her mum earlier, setting out to acquaint herself with this new Tardis. So, of course the Doctor had no idea how that conversation had ended.

It was the fact that he was caring enough to ask that threw her for a loop.

Definitely not her Doctor.

"She's upset. But says if it makes me happy, then…" Rose trailed off, shrugging. She laughed. "S'not like you gave me much choice. Might as well have trussed me up and thrown me in."

"Oi!" the Doctor said, brows going up. "I didn't kidnap you."

"And if I hadn't wanted to come along?"

"He'd have figured something out, I'm sure," Jack answered, voice half-muffled from under the console.

"Of course," the Doctor nodded. "Just not sure what it would have been, mind you. Can't have you blundering about, potentially creating trouble for me to have t'come and fix. Much easier this way. Simpler."

When he put it that way, Rose had to agree. She couldn't deny, either, that this was where she wanted to be. Back in the Tardis with a Doctor, even if it wasn't her Doctor. And with a version of Jack, too! Speaking of which…

She shoved her hands down in her pockets and leaned back against one panel of the console, watching Jack out of the corner of her eye as she continued to follow the movement of the Doctor's hands on the controls.

"So how'd you two meet. Here, in this reality?" she asked. "I know how it happened in mine. But I s'pose it was different here, right? Without me there."

"Definitely no dancing involved," Jack called out.

Rose stifled a grin. So many ways that could be taken but only one that she was sure Jack had actually meant.

"Not with me or anyone else?" she teased. "Didn't take the Doctor for a twirl?"

The Doctor looked up, rolling his eyes as Jack laughingly answered, "Don't think I didn't try. He just wasn't having any of it. Used up some of my best lines trying to get him to do a little… dancing."

Okay, then. So maybe Jack did know that little meaning.

"What happened was this," the Doctor joined her at the console, leaning against it so close to her that she could feel his arm brush against hers when he crossed his arms over his chest. He hooked one foot over the other, at the ankle, and regarded her with a half-smile on his lips. That, too, was different. The Doctor she'd known — this incarnation at least — hadn't smiled that often. Not half-smiles or otherwise.

"Everything in your report — right up to the part where you landed with the other me — that happened like you said. 'Cept, was just me. Not you an' me."

Rose nodded in encouragement.

"I get there, figure out that I've landed in the middle of the war, start lookin' around for that thing I'd been chasing through the Void."

"That's when he and I stumbled into one another," Jack said from beside her. Rose turned, surprised. She hadn't even realized that he'd come up from under the console. "I knew I'd screwed up, but I was still trying to work my con."

"He's skippin' ahead," the Doctor argued with a shake of his head. "I met Nancy and her kids before that."

Rose was grinning outright at the playfully disdainful looks that they were giving one another. If she didn't know better, she'd think that the two of them had danced before. Come to think of it, all Jack had said was that the Doctor hadn't danced with him that time in London, not that they'd never danced together since. Something like jealousy bubbled its way upwards. She grabbed at it within mental fingers, squashing it before it could get any farther.

Not her Doctor.

Not her Jack.

Not her business.

"Anyway — we finally meet up. I think he's a Time Agent, sent to bring me in or make a deal."

"'Cept I'm not falling for his con. Not when I've already noticed that there's this bit of oddness goin' around. People with gas masks for faces. A little boy cryin' for his mummy," the Doctor rolled his eyes. "Made pretty boy here take me to his 'warship'."

"And from there it went pretty much like your file said," Jack shrugged. He leaned in a bit, bumping her lightly with his shoulder. "I'm sort of jealous of your version, come to think of it. All I got was him. The other me got to dance with you."

"Nothing beats dancing on an invisible ship during German air raids," Rose grinned, resting the tip of her tongue in the corner of her mouth. Jack's eyes followed it, lingered just a moment longer than they had to, and Rose felt a bit of heat build up in her cheeks.

This one was going to be just as much trouble as her own Jack had been.

Maybe even more so.

"Show me your moves sometime?"

Before she could stop the words from coming out of her mouth, Rose found herself saying, "If you're lucky."

Jack grinned. "I'm the luckiest man I know, darling."

The Doctor coughed. Rose smothered her grin and turned to him with an apology on her lips, but the look on his face was that of amused interest. Another difference, then. The other Doctor had wanted all of her attention to himself. This one, not so much so, apparently. Then again, he barely knew her. She couldn't very well expect him to get jealous over a girl he'd only just met.

"Do you two mind keepin' the flirting out of the control room?" the Doctor said. Then he paused and flashed a grin that was mischievous if Rose ever saw one. "And that dancin', too, if you don't mind."

Rose laughed, the sound bubbling up like a cough that escaped her lips before she could stop it. Her cheeks were a little hot and she had no doubt in her mind that they were pink. She opened her lips to deny what she'd been very well caught in the act of doing, open to shut them again. It didn't matter. This was a new Doctor and a new Jack and she could flirt with this Jack if she wanted. The Doctor had no say in her behavior.

Well, no say in it outside of insisting that she travel with him and Jack, that was. She hadn't exactly put up a fight, either, she supposed.

"So — he transported the bomb into his ship, then you showed up just in the nick of time to save him, then?" Rose carefully turned the subject away from flirting, dancing, and everything else that could even be remotely construed as dangerous topics for the time being.

"That I did. 'Course, he knew that I would. Don't know why the me in your reality played head games with him like that. Makin' him think he was going to be blown to bits for doing the right thing," the Doctor said with a shake of his head.

Rose knew. Or, she thought she knew. It was the whole jealousy issue all over again. The Doctor — her Doctor, that was — hadn't really liked Jack because of how he'd been with her. Without her to be in the middle of everything, obviously this Doctor got along just fine with Jack.

Why'd she feel a little off about that, then? Was it jealousy on her part? That she wasn't in the middle of their relationship?

Oh, this was going to be confusing. Not just the way she felt about the two of them — together and as a whole — but the adventures that the two of them had gone on versus the ones that she had been on and so on and so on.

Which led her to another question.

"Isn't me bein' here tempting paradox? I could say somethin', give away too much. Not to mention what was in those files…" she trailed off, realizing that she could very well have put this whole reality in jeopardy putting that information out there for the Doctor to read. She could've changed things already.

"Don't worry," the Doctor said. "Things are different enough for us that you aren't changing a thing."

"So…no Game Station, then?" she asked, half-playing, half-wanting to know for sure that she wasn't in for heartache sometime in the near future.

"Safe to say that, with all the Daleks gone from this reality, even if there was a Game Station, it wouldn't turn out that way," Jack said with bright grin.

She savored that thought, rolling it around in her head like a sweet in her mouth. No Game Station. No Daleks.

Sounded like heaven, to her; even with all the confusing thoughts running through her head. Rose looked between the two of them, a question in her eyes.

"So — where're we goin' first then?"

END CHAPTER