Two Years After

She was so deeply entrenched in the corridors of sleep that at first she didn't hear him scream her name, but after the third or fourth time she jerked awake. She was alone in the room, and through the curtains she could discern that it was the absolute blackness of the small hours of the morning.

From outside, the voice came again.

"Rose!"

He never screamed for no reason. Rose threw off the covers and stumbled from the room barefoot, lurching into the hallway and colliding with the bannister before she was able to get her balance. The cold floor burned against the soles of her feet as she pounded down the stairs into the foyer. As she reached the bottom, the front doors flew open and revealed the Doctor on the front porch. He was bug-eyed and looked quite manic, clad in pajamas and a bathrobe, his new sonic screwdriver glowing in his right hand.

"Rose, Rose, it's done!" Before Rose could say a word he lunged through the doorway and swept her up, spinning her round in the air and laughing like she hadn't heard him laugh in years. "In just two years, I didn't think it was possible!"

"Quiet, you'll wake Tony!" She struggled away from him, laughing breathlessly. "What's done, what are you talking about?"

He grabbed her hand and dragged her into the cold night air outside.

"Come on!"

He led her down the porch steps and round the side of the house, through the gate and over the stepping stone path that led into the backyard garden. The silence outside was eerily calming, and by the time they stepped through the garden gate they had both stopped laughing. Somewhere far overhead a zeppelin hummed mechanically along.

Rose ground her heels in the wet grass, trying to ignore the numbing cold, and turned to ask the Doctor what on earth he wanted her to see, but the question went forever unsaid because at that moment she saw it herself. A huge, twisting structure had grown up, towering over the rosebushes, made of something that looked organic and mechanical at the same time, something that was clearly alien.

At the sight of it the Doctor started laughing again, gleefully.

"What — what is it?" said Rose, confused.

"Don't be daft, Rose, it's the TARDIS!" He turned to look at her, grinning. "It's my TARDIS! No — no, it's our TARDIS!"

"That — that's the TARDIS?" She pointed at the thing. "That."

"Well, you didn't think the Gallifreyan Time Lords all went around in blue police boxes, did you? Come on, let's look inside!" He seized her hand again and this time he didn't have to haul her along, she went with him and they leapt right over the rosebushes, all in bathrobes and bare feet and flannel pajamas. Looking at it, she never would have been able to even find the door, but the Doctor seemed to know exactly what he was doing, because he pressed a place on the structure and a gap opened up with a hiss.

In they stepped.

"Blimey," whispered Rose.

"Oh yes, oh yes, you are beautiful!" The Doctor bounded up the steps to the control center, which looked the same as the control center from the other TARDIS, but different, too, in a way Rose couldn't quite put her finger on. Everything hummed and whirred and shone with a life and vigour that she had never seen. Everything was clean; nothing was rusty.

"Everything in place, everything as it should be, you little beauty." The Doctor seemed to have quite forgotten about Rose in his excitement as he darted to and fro across the control room. Smiling, Rose leaned against the door frame and watched him with amusement. "I was afraid shatterfrying the plasmic shell would stunt your growth but you are just as gorgeous… no, no, more gorgeous than my last one. And is that a dimension loop? Hello, hello, yes, you gorgeous thing, I knew your mummy." Suddenly he let out a whoop and spun on his heel. "Molto bene! Everything is perfect, Rose, everything is just bloody perfect!" He leaned on the railing to catch his breath. "Only one thing left to do."

"Got that out of your system, have you?" said Rose, laughing, but her smile died and she leaned forward as she saw the Doctor draw a long sharp-looking implement from the pocket of his robe. "Hey, what's that — Doctor, what are you doing?"

"Don't worry, it's nothing serious, but a new TARDIS needs a cell sample of Time Lord DNA before it will run the way it's supposed to," said the Doctor. He leapt up the the control center and fiddled a moment with the controls; with a hiss like the door opening a little metal strip extended itself from the panel. "And there's only one bit of me left which is still Time Lord, with nothing mixed in." Before Rose could stop him, he plunged the instrument into the palm of his right hand and gouged out a sliver of skin. Gritting his teeth, he dropped it onto the metal panel, which retracted immediately into the center of the TARDIS.

"And that's done!" He held up his hand, grinning. A drop of blood rolled down his palm.

Rose went pale. "Right, I'll get a band-aid."

"No need! TARDIS energy field should regen…" He frowned. "Oh. Right. Human. No, don't worry, Rose, I've got a handkerchief." He leaned on the console and reached into his pocket.

As soon as his skin touched the surface of the control panel, a cloud of golden light expanded from his bleeding hand and swirled around his fingers. The Doctor stopped fishing in his bathrobe pocket and stared, wide-eyed, as the cut in his palm sealed and faded, along with the light, into darkness.

Rose was the first to speak.

"Was that —"

"Regeneration energy." The Doctor held his hand up and moved the fingers experimentally. "It must have lain dormant in my cells until the TARDIS charged it up. Well, isn't this hand just full of surprises."

"Does that mean… does that mean you can regenerate?" asked Rose, who was not at all sure how she would feel about that.

"No," said the Doctor. "No, this body is too human for that. I've only got one life. Just one. To spend with you." He stared at his hand in brooding silence for another moment, then stuffed it into the pocket of his robe and bounded back down to Rose. "So — where do you want to go first?"

"What — now? In our pajamas?"

"Why not? Just a quick jaunt, back in time for breakfast. We can fill up the wardrobe then. Blimey, I'll have to add a bedroom, seeing as I sleep so much more these days…" he trailed off, swallowing. "What would you like… bunk beds?"

"Ha!" Rose slung an arm around his shoulders. "You're a funny one, you are."

The Doctor's face spread into a grin.

"Queen it is, then. So where do you want to go?"
Rose took his arm and pulled him outside into the garden.

"Tell you what," she said, and pointed at the sky. "Let's go that way."