Author's Note: With Rose and The Doctor adventuring separately for a wee bit, these next chapters will most likely be divided, as equally as I can manage, into half Rose, half Nine POV. Very George R. R. Martin of me. Without the dragons, regicide, and gratuitous nudity. Unless you're into that…

I do not own Doctor Who. Any resemblance to a well-plotted, captivating tale is strictly coincidental. Any recording or rebroadcast must be approved by NBC, Viacom, and Major League Baseball.

Pinklilieflower: Uh, I might be able to work in some horcruxes, but I don't think any of us want Rose gaining her "forever" with the Doctor by partitioning her soul (Linux, anyone?) and infusing it into a collection of inanimate objects. What would she choose, anyway? Her sneakers, probably. The Doctor's old watch, definitely… I need to stop this train of thought before it goes too far. Mauve Guest: You just made me think of Jackie, The Doctor, and foreplay in the same breath, and I will never forgive you for that. Never. TK: If it makes you feel better, I think Rose likes Chamomille tea just fine, but not when she's just woken up and needs the caffeine. :D

Rose stepped into the corner chippy and immediately stopped and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. The air was suffused with the scent of beer-battered cod, chips fresh out of the fryer, and the slightest hint of the newsprint they used to wrap everything up. This was her ambrosia. With a breezy, contented smile, Rose queued up and ordered a basket of fish with two orders of chips. Minutes later, she was carrying the newspaper-lined basket and its still-steaming contents to a small, lone table by the window. Rose mixed a bit of hot sauce into the little cup of tartar sauce and dug in.

She was halfway through her meal when a familiar voice outside caught her attention. Rose paused, mid-bite, before deciding it was just her imagination and continuing with her full-tilt slide into greasy sinfulness. Then, a man and a woman walked into the shop, and she nearly choked. She watched, heart in her throat, as the pair queued up, their backs blessedly turned to her. There, big as life, arguing with some unknown lad about the best way to treat rickets, stood Martha Jones. She looked a bit younger than Rose remembered, not quite as strong, and decidedly less pregnant.

Her heart was beating a panicked staccato in her chest, willing Martha not to turn around, to see Rose sitting there behind her. Given the evidence at hand, Rose suddenly had no idea what time she was in. This was London, clearly, and one not too terribly dissimilar from the one she'd left. As such, they couldn't have gone too far. Still, she had no idea whether or not "she" had met Martha by this point in the timeline, and she shrunk down in her seat as best she could, putting a hand up to hide the side of her face from the woman she'd long known as her best friend in this universe. Next to Mickey, that is. If Martha did know her, and if Rose was meant to be somewhere specific at this point in time, it wouldn't do to let the woman see her.

Oh, shit. The thought came suddenly to her mind, where was "she?" What if she was meeting Martha here for lunch? If she knew herself, and she wasn't half sure she did, she'd never turn down lunch at a chippy. With that thought, the level of panic she was capable of capped out. Her pulse leveled out to a more normal, if still slightly elevated, rate, and her mind was suddenly clear, assessing everything around her. Every point of ingress was mentally catalogued, along with the number of people in the shop and their position relative to her own, but her primary focus was discovering the date. The lone telly in the shop was broadcasting a football match, no help there. The tally monitor on the cash register, which showed the customer their order total and, sometimes, displayed the date, was burnt out.

Then, a thought occurred to her, and she tore the newsprint out from under the few remaining morsels in her basket. Flattening it out on the table, Rose searched the top line for a date. There, smeared by salt and oil, she made out July 20-something and the year – 2009. Granted, it wasn't necessarily that day's paper, but it probably wasn't more than a few days old, either. The month and year were enough. Relief washed through her, knowing Martha wouldn't recognize her, until the second realization hit. She knew exactly where "she" was: hundreds of miles away, huddled in Pete's old Jeep with him, her mother, and Mickey, making their way toward Norway.

Rose crumpled up the page of newspaper and stared down at her remaining chips. Suddenly, she had no appetite. On July 27th, she'd be standing on a deserted beach fifty miles outside Bergen, Norway, talking to a ghost. He would be genial, calm, and composed as he informed her of her own death and explained there was no way for her to return home, to return to him. She would hold it together to the best of her ability, reassuring him she would be OK, would carry on without him, all the while inside she felt like she was dying in earnest. Finally, she would crumble and confess her love as a desperate sob tore from her, and he, he would say her name one last time in that calm, even tone and disappear forever. For all she knew, that day might be today.

When Martha and her friend sat down at a table next to Rose's, she hardly registered the fact. Martha's familiar voice drifted in and out of her consciousness, the easy, unpretentious intelligence with which she spoke as warm and comforting as a sunbeam. Rose, meanwhile, stared out the window, unseeing, for several long minutes. It was an unfortunate coincidence, one this Doctor could never have foreseen. For just a few moments, she afforded herself the luxury of time; time to sit, to dwell, and to regret. To be every inch the heart-sick soul she needed to be in that moment. Finally it was Martha's voice, or, rather, the lack thereof, that stirred her from her wallowing. As she brought her focus back to the now, she realized the whole shop had gone quiet.

Looking around, Rose realized everyone; Martha, her friend, the line cook, the teen girl at the register, the customers on-line, those seated at the half dozen tables in the tiny shop, were all looking outside in stunned silence. The only sound remaining was that of the fryer, bubbling away around a basket of submerged chips. Turning back to the window she'd just been staring out, she saw what she had so utterly missed in her absentmindedness. It was snowing. Proper snowing. Large, heavy clusters of snowflakes were falling outside the window at a heady rate. The ground was already coated in a thin layer of white, and the people outside had all stopped wherever they were to look up at the sky, blinking as the large, chilled clusters landed on their upturned faces.

Rose's brow creased and she stood up from her seat, leaning over the table to get a better look upward. The sky had been mostly clear when she entered. Now, a full, heavy canopy of pale gray had settled in over London. For a split second Rose couldn't help but smile at the graceful, serene vision of white before her. It was picturesque, this sudden winter wonderland, only – only it wasn't winter. Not even close. It was July, and no matter how many freak weather patterns passed through her beloved city, never had she seen it snow in July, and certainly not to this extent. The smile fell from her lips as her heart sank. Every instinct in her body proclaimed, unanimously, that something terrible was happening.

"This is wrong," came Martha's voice behind her. Just as she said it, a flash lit up a patch of clouds to the east and, several seconds later, the sound of thunder rolled over them.

"Very, very wrong," Rose agreed.

There was now enough meat in the refrigerator and freezer to last them six months. Or, one month, if The Doctor got poisoned again. He'd even started a massive prime rib on a slow cook for supper that evening, feeling just a bit bad that he'd mindlessly plowed through nearly every morsel on the ship while Rose was asleep. Never mind the coffee and the tea. Had he not finished off every last dreg of caffeine, he likely would have survived the morning relatively unscathed. She'd still have been shocked, no doubt, but she'd likely have smiled and teased him instead of dressing him down like an errant child.

The truth be plain, he'd spent over a decade, now, traveling alone. Oh, he'd run into help everywhere he went, much in the same manner he always did. There was the sweet, plucky girl Lynda who'd helped out with that whole Nestene Consciousness business. He'd considered bringing her along, lonely as he was right after the War, but beneath all her cheer and willingness, he saw a distinct lack of sense and resilience. Losing a companion, after everything he'd lost, was a risk he couldn't take. So, he'd gone on. Way on.

After running about Earth so soon after his regeneration; thrown in among the faces of a species that looked, outwardly, so like his own, who blundered about their world from work to food to sleep in an unceasing, uncaring, monotonous cycle; he'd fled. Raced off to Ugor VI, a tiny, habitable asteroid that orbited a system of three stars where he'd overthrown a child dictator with the help of the lad's own parents. Then, there was the Forest of Cheem where he'd run into the lovely and bold Jabe and helped her stop an invasive off-world parasite from destroying thousands of acres of forestland. He was afraid, always afraid, to let them stick around long enough to get themselves killed on his account.

On and on he went in a mad dash to escape his memories of the Time War and balance out the miles of red in his ledger. However, in all his brash deeds, he'd not had to consider the happiness and well-being of someone, the same someone, so constantly for any appreciable measure of time. He cared for people, yes, for life all over the universe. That had never stopped, but that distant, generic manner of not wanting to see whole societies obliterated wasn't the same as getting to know a person on the whole and being mindful of their needs and hopes. And Rose, the wild, capable thing that she was, had demanded so very little of him. It was easy to let himself forget.

So, he'd decided, he'd make amends in what little manner he could. He'd knuckle down, get his share of the shopping done without whinging, despite the mind-numbing tedium. He'd make them dinner, and he'd make an effort in future not to take her very presence for granted. The Doctor walked past the console and down the ramp toward the door, resolved in his plan of action. Then, he opened the door and several inches of loosely fallen snow fell inside the threshold. He blinked at it, confused, for a second. When he looked up again, his eyebrows rose, creasing his forehead in astonishment.

It was snowing, and not just a little dusting. Big, fat clusters of flakes fell from the newly gray sky in a curtain of white. Stepping outside the TARDIS and ignoring the cold, The Doctor looked up and around, spinning once around in a circle. It had been mostly sunny when he'd entered the ship; now, the best he could describe it was a torrential snow. When a flash of light grabbed his attention and he saw a bolt of lightening arcing through the downpour, he rushed back into the TARDIS. He shut the door just as the low rumble of thunder reached him, and he bolted to the console, picking up his phone and dialing Rose's mobile.

The Doctor held his breath as the line connected, rang once, and an automated voice picked up and declared that the number he had dialed was not in service. He redialed, more carefully this time, and that same, infuriating voice came on. Slamming the phone down in the cradle, he rushed to his monitor, working furiously to find an explanation. When scans for EMPs, cancellation waves, and radio signal disruptors came back negative, he stared at the screen for a moment, fuming and at a momentary loss. Then, his screen flickered and displayed the date.

He'd intended to land them in London a bit early on purpose. Having no idea how long Torchwood would keep looking for them, he thought it best to drop in before the whole mess had started. Knowing Rose had spent six months in Africa before they'd run into each other, he thought they'd be perfectly safe landing in March 2019. Problem was, it was July 2009. In all likelihood, she hadn't even had this phone ten years ago. She may not have even arrived, yet. Suddenly, that thought struck him. Unsure when, exactly, Rose had landed in this universe, he had no way of knowing whether she might run into herself.

The Doctor cursed himself as he sprinted from the console and back out into the street. He could have put a Universal Signal Amplifier in her mobile, but he hadn't thought of it. He could have asked her more about her life, how and when she'd ended up here, but she'd been so guarded and he'd been largely unwilling to lay any of his cards down first. Now, something was happening, something he didn't understand, something that could put her in grave danger; and in the midst of it all, there was a threat of Rose meeting her former self, altering the timeline, and effectively erasing herself from his life. Hearts beating a fierce rhythm, he ran through the thickening blizzard. He had to find her, somehow.

Footnote: 2009, you ask? According to "Journey's End," Pete's Universe is a few years ahead of Rose's home universe. So, with the episode airing in 2006, I estimated her landing in 2009. Sue me.