Disclaimer: Doctor Who is not mine, I'm very sorry to say.

I'm running out of pre-written stuff, maybe just one more chapter. Really would love some reviews. Good or bad, really want to know what you think. Am I on the right track? (Is the rating still okay?)

Chapter 5

He looked at the glass in her hand and then looked at the open bottle next to her.

"What's that?" he demanded, staring pointedly at the glass, already knowing the answer but really not wanting to believe it.

"Urm… s'nothing" she mumbled, flushing guiltily as she put the empty glass down on the counter, pushing it out of sight, behind her, as though that could undo the damage.

"How much have you had, Rose?"

"Jus' the one." She slurred, her voice betraying her.

"Don't lie to me."

She shrugged, her eyes downcast, the flush still on her cheeks.

"You little idiot!" he breathed. "Have you got any idea the effect that stuff will have on the pills I gave you earlier?" the volume of his voice was building in line with his anger, "and on an empty stomach!"

She shook her head forlornly, still looking at the floor. "I'm... I'm sorry." She stammered. He noticed her hands clutching tightly on the countertop behind her, the effects of the alcohol mixed with the analgesic probably making her feel dizzy and sick. He was torn, half of him wanting to just wrap her in his arms and hold her tight, tell her it would be okay… and the other half, the frightened and frustrated half, wanted to shake her and shout at her, wanted to make her see, make her understand how much danger she was truly in.

But he couldn't, he just couldn't tell her. It would break her if she knew the whole of the truth. He ground his teeth in frustration.

"Just get to bed." He bit out, eventually. "I'll find something to counteract the alcohol before it makes you sick."

"Doctor I'm…." she started but he hushed her with an abrupt wave of his hand and a hard glare.

"Don't even go there Rose, I'm not interested. You have no idea how angry I am with you right now. Just go to bed."

He spun away, heading back to the living room. He had patches in the TARDIS which extracted alcohol through the skin, but of course, he didn't have the TARDIS. Jack might have something in that enormous rucksack of his though.

Jack looked up from the laptop as the Doctor came in.

"I heard raised voices…" he commented. "Well… one raised voice." He corrected himself with a tight smile.

"She's smashed." The Doctor explained. "Drunk. Downed half your whisky by the look of it."

"Oh." Jack looked surprised, and then shrugged. "Can't blame her really, it's been a crap couple of weeks for her. Why were you yelling at her about it?"

The Doctor took a long breath in through his nose and rubbed his hands over his face.

"She's just…." His voice trailed off. He shrugged.

"No, seriously Doctor. Ever since we got back you've been down on her. What's up?"

The Doctor glanced at him, glanced away and then sighed…. "She's just…. It's just… wrong Jack." He looked the ex-time agent in the eye. "She was… is supposed to be on the parallel universe with her mum and her dad and Mickey."

"What do you mean 'supposed to be'?"

"She… when she stayed… when her future self stopped her being caught by Pete, she changed time –no, not just time – she changed the whole bloody universe in a way that it was never supposed to be changed. I knew as soon as the void closed. She was supposed to go with them; her time in this universe is done…. ."

"And you were okay with that?" Jack demanded, outraged.

"No." the Doctor said in a low voice, shaking his head vehemently. "No, I was never okay with that. But it was right. It felt right."

"How did you know?"

"The timelines." The Doctor murmured. "Her timelines to be exact. The pull's been getting stronger and stronger over the last few months, it was inevitable, it was a fact." He looked moodily at the ground. "But she changed it… and now, well…" he shook his head and stopped talking.

"So what do you see in her timelines now, Doctor?" Jack asked urgently.

The Doctor shook his head, frowning as he tried to hold back the pain which rose in him whenever he thought about this. It haunted his waking hours as well as his sleeping ones. He knew he'd remember that day forever.

When her hands slipped after she'd so bravely worked her way over to the lever to bring the system back online and she'd fallen towards the void. At first he'd wondered why there were dual edges to her scream until he realised he was screaming too, desperately reaching out to her even though he knew it was useless. Then the impossible happened.

A future version of Rose had appeared and caught her. How could that ever happen? How could she even have a future if she'd been sucked into the void? Then when the parallel version of Pete Tyler appeared, arms open to catch her, it all fell into place. She'd gone into the parallel universe with Pete, somehow figured out a way to come back and stopped herself from being caught by Pete. Stopped herself from leaving this universe and creating a paradox to boot. Although his highly tuned Time Lord brain figured that a relatively small paradox during such a climactic time would mostly go unnoticed by the universe as it healed.

And it meant that Rose Tyler would stay here. With him.

The joyful shout died on his lips when he saw her. Truly saw her. Her future self had no real space-time substance. Time was moving through her, not around her, but that was as it should be. She would cease to exist any second, the future was being rewritten. What really shocked him was the Rose of the present. Before, the timelines around her had always been so strong. Merging and converging, her presence in the universe so right, so undeniable, so solid… and now there was nothing. The timelines so strong just a few minutes ago had been completely snuffed out. Now, looking at her was like looking into a dead-space, as far as the universe was concerned she didn't exist… it hurt to look at her and his gut was telling him to run, get as far away from this sense of wrongness as possible… but this was Rose. Rose Marion Tyler, his best friend. The woman he cared for more than anything in all the universes. The woman he'd died for, the woman who would've died for him, and she nearly did.

And now she was vulnerable. So vulnerable, with no place in this universe, no purpose and therefore no real chance of surviving. The universe had many ways of sterilising wounds, and it would see Rose as an infection…

What had she done?

Joy had been suffocated by fear but anger was a close runner up. After all she knew! She knew the rules, she totally knew. Then, as he ran towards the pair he caught the flicker of guilt on the older Rose's face just before she vanished. Oh yeah, she knew…

Fear and anger were jostling for first place as he skidded to a halt. With effort, he reigned the fear in, not wanting her to know just exactly how much danger she was in now, how much the universe did not want her, how likely she was to die at any time, from even the most unlikely cause, even though he'd do everything in his power to protect her. Forever, if it came to it. Never leaving her side, if that's what it took.

As he swallowed his fear to hide it from her, anger blazed through him and he saw her flinch, heard her whimper, and felt her fear. He was a Time Lord, last of his kind and it was up to him to enforce the laws and discipline of his people. To punish those that abused the gift of time travel… his responsibility… but this was still Rose and whatever she'd done, she had to have a good reason. The universe in danger or even her own life in danger…. He tensed up, fighting to hold his anger in, it worked but barely. He had to find out what had just happened and why…

There was nothing to throw in the white room, or kick or knock over or smash. He clenched his fists at his sides instead as he paced. She'd crossed dimensions to alter her own history because she was bored?! Not because the universe was in danger, not even because she was in danger – either of those he could've forgiven... but she did it because she didn't like her life on the parallel Earth! How irresponsible! How selfish! How reckless! How so unlike the Rose Tyler he knew. Well thought he knew… but that same girl was here. Just a few years younger than the version that had risked everything because she was what…? Discontented?

For the first time ever he was suddenly glad that the Time Lord race didn't exist anymore. Because of what they might do to her. Right now he was the judge, jury and executioner. It was his choice to make, and he chose….