Rose Tyler stepped out of the hotel and blinked in the afternoon sun. She observed the heavy shopping traffic that swarmed through the streets before turning and making her way out of the tourist district. She briskly walked until she was a good mile away from the hotel before ducking into an empty parking lot and slumping against a rusted dumpster.

Jimmy Stone.

Rose hadn't seen this one coming. She honestly thought she was going to die in that lab, so why was she still alive?

She groaned and rubbed her face tiredly. She didn't want a repeat of her whole life and she had no idea why she was even in this mess to begin with. Why couldn't Jane Brown just keep her little timeline machine to herself? Why couldn't Bad Wolf just stop this whole disaster from happening? Her younger self had said that she could find her way back to the Doctor. But was she simply referring to the shadow copy of her first Doctor?

She paused considering her younger self. She hadn't seen or heard from her since the confusion in the Tardis kitchen. The blonde leaned her head back against the dumpster and clenched her hands. This whole situation was unfair! When was the universe going to leave her alone and allow her some small portion of peace!

A low growl cut through Rose's musings, causing her head to snap up. The sound resembled that of a lion and seemed to be coming from the street. The blonde quickly picked herself up and peaked out into the deserted neighborhood.

"Get off!"

Rose whipped around in time to see a young man with dirty blond hair run out into the street with only one trainer on his foot, the other clad in a green sock.

She watched curiously as the man ran further down the road and was quickly followed by what appeared to be a giant three headed black lion carrying an orange trainer matching the one on the man's foot.

Jumping into action Rose ran after the two, enjoying the familiar adrenalin rush that came with a good chase. The sensation was short lived as she saw the stranger duck into an ally that she knew was a dead end, with the lion following soon after.

"Look, you don't have to eat me. In fact I think we would be much better friends if you didn't eat me." She heard the man say, followed by a deep roar from the lion's multiple heads.

Rose turned into the ally and shocked to find the mysterious man standing in the corner looking defiantly into the lion's three heads. She quickly scanned her surroundings, eyes landing on a rock the size of her fist.

"Oi! Ugly!" She shouted. The creature turned its three heads and growled at her. She snatched the rock and hurled it straight at the tin roofing of the adjoining building. The resulting sound vibrated through the ally causing Rose to grimace and the three headed lion to stagger backwards disoriented.

She quickly ran forward and grabbed the hand of the young man, pulling him out of the ally before the beast could regain its senses.

…

"What was that thing?" Rose asked as the two stood outside a small grocery store after outrunning the beast.

"Its…well…um…" She watched amused as he stumbled over his words. The man was around her age and had a very prominent nose that he managed to pull off well. He seemed to be uncomfortable with this entire situation and Rose found it very endearing.

"I'd say it was alien."She hinted, and watched as his head snapped up in shock. Rose felt relief wash over her. Finally, someone she could talk to about this timeline mess. He was obviously a time agent of some sort…though probably a relatively new one.

"Um, why would you say that?"

"I think the three heads kinda gave it away. And we really should go after it; it could be terrorizing the town as we speak."

"No, my friend's got it, I was just told to distract it while he went off and fixed the machine that brought it here in the first place. Soon as it's done it will zap that thing back to wherever it came from." He chuckled and tilted his head as he looked at her. "You're one of them aren't you?"

"One of who?"

"One of those people where this stuff doesn't faze them, where they can walk into situations with aliens and monsters and just laugh because to you it's completely normal." He looked at his green sock with a small frown. "I would love to be one of those people."

Rose felt her heart break as she saw the lost look in his eyes. "What's your name?"

"Rory." He said, staring at his socked foot.

"Well Rory, I don't know a whole lot about you. But I do know that when I saw you in the ally staring straight into the eyes of a giant three headed lion, I thought you looked anything but scared. You don't give yourself enough credit."

She leaned casually against the wall crossing her arms over her chest. "And I think that these feelings have more to them then you're giving me."

Rory sighed and joined her against the wall. "It's my fiancée. She's completely in love with the adventure and risk…I just don't think I can keep up with it all. I mean there's this other guy who is like the textbook example of danger and excitement and I feel like she would rather have all of that and I just—" He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. "By the way, you didn't seem scared of that thing either," He opened an eye and looked at her. "What's up with that?"

Rose laughed. "Oh I've been around a bit, met my fair share of aliens."

He nodded. "I'd believe that."

"Rory, I know it looks difficult right now, but I swear you are over thinking this. You were prefect back there and any doubt you have about your capabilities need to be ignored, trust me, I used to test people on this kind of thing." She said thinking back on Torchwood new recruit trainings.

His posture relaxed and he looked at her gratefully. "You think?"

"Definitely." She confirmed, pulling him into a hug.

"Not that I'm judging or anything, but what this about?" He asked after he pulled out of the hug, gesturing towards her clothes. Rose glanced down and frowned at her attire. She had left the hotel room in a haze of fright and anger, not even thinking about changing out of the silk pajama shorts and matching top. "It's a new look I'm working on." She shrugged.

Now that her attention was brought back to her body Rose couldn't help but notice the changes. Her hair was a choppy shoulder length mess that she had done herself in order to fit into jimmy's gang. It was its natural brown as she hadn't started dying it until after the break up. Her hip and ribs were both throbbing and no doubt would be dark purple if you checked. It was painful enough thinking back on these memories, but looking and feeling like the girl that experienced it was a whole new wave of pain.

"So," Rory began, bringing her back to the conversation. "You never told me your name."

"Rose." She grinned. "And I was wondering if I could get your help with-" She was cut off as a loud voice danced through the supermarket door.

"Rory! Been looking all over for you! Thought you might have been eaten by Francis, and that would have been a tremendous shame." Rose took a few steps back as a man in his early twenty's wearing the clothes of a professor came bounced up to Rory, a yellow Popsicle in his hand and a red headed woman in his wake.

"He decided to call it Francis, don't ask why." The woman said in a Scottish burr, walking up to Rory and pecking his cheek.

"So what have you been doing? London isn't the most eventful city in 2002, but if you know where you're going you can find loads of fun! For instance there's this restaurant a couple streets over that serves the most delicious cheese sandwiches, but only on Tuesday! The rest of the time its absolute rubbish—"

"Doctor." Rory snapped, ending the man's spiel and simultaneously causing Rose's heart to jump"

The man looked questioningly at Rory. "I met someone while distracting the lion thing." He said, ignoring the red headed woman questioning gaze.

"…Rory, how in the world could you have time to mingle while getting chased by a three headed Ringoir?" The bow tied man asked.

"Well she ended up saving me from being eaten, so I'd say it was more than mingling."

Amy's expression darkened. "She?"

Rory rolled his eyes and reached for Rose who had somehow migrated a few feet away from the group, not that they noticed caught up as they were in their own conversation. She took his hand hesitantly and was pulled into the make shift circle the three had formed and ended up looking straight into the obnoxious man's face. "This is Rose."

Rose suddenly found herself looking into hauntingly familiar eyes and feeling her heart sink down into her stomach. She saw desperation and longing mixed with the intensity that always made her shiver. He had regenerated. And she wasn't traveling with him. And she knew that it had been quite a long time since he had seen her.

"Rose." He whispered, his hand inching toward her before falling back to his side.

Hot tears slid down her cheeks, but Rose was too shocked to notice. She would never get back to the Doctor, that much was obvious. She would be stuck reliving these Time Lines and running into shadows of him until she simply stopped existing.

Hello!

Had a crazy summer (so please forgive me) but updates should be coming more regularly now. Thank you to everyone that reviewed and PM'd me your feedback makes the updates faster and keeps me motivated. Also, know this is super late but yeah for Peter Capaldi!