This will be a transitional chapter before we get to the big fix it. :) Hang on!

Again, well... you know. But wouldn't it be awesome if I did own Doctor Who?

BOOK I: Fixing the Doctor's Mistake

CHAPTER 14: Interlude

The beetle fell off Rose's back with a crack as it landed on its shell. She screamed, and the Doctor came running at once.

"Rose, are you ok? Rose?" he took her into his arms protectively. Safely in the comfort of his arms, she began to sob.

"Oh, Doctor! You're here! You're alive!" She sobbed into his arms.

"Shh, love. It's ok. I'm here. Whatever happened, it's over now. Everything is ok. What do you say we go find Donna and get out of here, and then you can tell me all about it!"

She could only nod in response. They walked off, hand in hand, Rose's hand clasping his in a death grip so tight, that even with his superior Time Lord biology he doubted he could get out of it if he wanted to. Good thing he didn't want to. There was only one problem: Donna was no where to be found.

"Oi! What is it with you humans and wandering off?" the Doctor huffed. Rose had to giggle at that. Sometimes he sounded so much like his leather clad self that she had to do a double take to make sure that his eyes were brown instead of blue.

Thinking about her leather Doctor brought tears to her eyes. In that dream, that alternate reality, that, whatever just happened, she had seen his lifeless body. She had seen an achingly familiar arm clad in leather fall lifelessly and drop the sonic. And worse, she didn't even grieve for him at the time! It was like he had never existed for her! The idea made her sick to her stomach.

"You alright, love? You don't look too good."

"'M fine. Let's just hurry up and find Donna so we can go home."

Donna hadn't wandered far. She had found a tent in the Chinese market that sold amazing chai lattes, and had bought three of them.

"Oi! Have a cow, Space Man! I just bought refreshments. Here's yours." He accepted it gladly.

"And one for the Wolf," Donna winked at Rose.

"Wha-?" Donna just put her finger over her lips and winked again.

"Okay... what's going on?" The Doctor had noticed their exchange.

"Nothing, Doctor," Donna replied for the two of them since Rose was still too stunned to speak. "Just girl stuff. Don't expect you to follow."

He popped an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. Just led them to the TARDIS. Rose was torn. On the one hand, she longed to tell the Doctor everything. On the other...

She chose the other hand. "You're the Temp! From that place! That horrible, horrible place! But, how?"

"I honestly have no idea. This whole thing is barmy, it is!"

"You're telling me?!" Rose shrieked. "But we fixed it, though. Didn't we?"

"I didn't do anything. That was all you!" Donna was insistent.

"Excuse me, don't mean to interrupt, but could someone please tell me what's going on?!" The Doctor was flabbergasted!

"Umm..." Rose started.

"Well," Donna, who was never at a loss for words, began. "Your girlfriend, here, got a time beetle on her back and created a parallel world where she didn't meet you and you died, and yours truly as well as all of your other companions that Rose has met, including two that you haven't met yet because they're with future you, teamed up to save the universe!" She had said all this in one breath.

"What?" came the Doctor's reply.

"Was I not clear Space Man?"

Rose defended him, then. "I think he heard you and understood what you said, Donna. I just think that he, like us, is trying to process it all."

"Yeah," the Doctor sputtered. "What she said."

"Donna, thank you for all of your help during that... situation. Really, I mean it. I never could've done what I had to without your help most especially," Rose spoke sincerely, laying a hand on the other woman's shoulder.

"Well, in a way, I'm just returning the favor," Donna smiled.

"Yeah, how is that, again? You'd said that you'd had a time beetle before."

"Well, you know how the rest of us were pulled from potential futures that never would be if you didn't fix the time line?"

"Yeah,"

"I think," here Donna paused to ponder. "I think that since you are still rewriting a time line, all of us who helped you were poked from the original one. In that time line, according to the new memories I've received, I was the one that picked up the time beetle, and you were the one that helped me fix time while you were jumping through universes, looking for him!" Here, she pointed at the Doctor.

"Well, you're welcome, then," Rose grinned.

"Let's just call it even," Donna replied.

The Doctor carried a very tired Rose to their room.

"Do you want to talk about it?" The Doctor asked, kissing her on the forehead. "I mean, Donna said that I'd died. I've had nightmares of you dying in front of me before, and they were horrible! But this wasn't a nightmare for you. This was real. I can't even imagine..."

"Oh, just shut up and just hold me," Rose half laughed, half cried. He willingly obliged.

After a few minutes of silence, she spoke. "Horrible isn't the word for it!" A lone tear streaked its way down her cheek. "You were dead, and there was nothing I could do! And worse, I didn't even know who you were! It was like you had never existed to me!" She shuddered, trying to hold back the tears. "How could that be? I had been transported back in time, and I never knew you!" She had lost the battle, and tears were flowing freely, now. "Except that deep down, I think I knew. I saw your body, Doctor. You had died underneath the London Eye, presumably at the hands of the Nestene Consciousness. UNIT recovered your body, and they had a sheet over you. The agents were asking why you didn't just regenerate, and no one knew. They loaded your body into a van, and your body shifted, and your arm fell out and dropped the sonic. Your leather clad arm with the strong hand I used to know so well. On the surface, I'd had no idea who you were, but deep down, I knew. I remember feeling like my life was over and I just wanted to curl up in a ball and die myself! And I didn't know what came over me!" She held him tight and sobbed into his shoulder, his pinstripes quite damp with her tears.

He just held her close, writing her name in circular Gallifreyan on her back with his finger, as it seemed to soothe her, and whispered comfort into her ear.

To say that he was overcome with emotion himself was an understatement. He had known for awhile that she'd loved him, but he hadn't known the true depths of that love until now. He had always assumed that she had regarded his leather self as a best friend, but fell in love with his current form. Now, as she mourned his leather self's death, he knew just how mistaken he was. Rose Tyler loved the Doctor. For the first time, he understood that she saw past his face to his true self, and loved him anyway. Not even his wife on Gallifrey had been able to do that. Oh, he didn't deserve her!

"Rose," he breathed before locking her lips with his.

She happily complied with his desire before remembering something that Donna had said that caused her to stop and sit up very suddenly in bed.

"Doctor!" She cried. "Did Donna say that I had helped her in the original time line?!"

"I believe so," he said, his eyes trying and failing to hide his hurt at her unintentional rejection.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. There's nothing better I'd like to do than... occupy... each other, but it's time! The stars are going out! We have to save the multi verse!"