Disclaimer: Whoever gave me this cough should have felt free to give me the Doctor Who rights while they were at it.

A/N: Eleven/Rose. Post Doomsday, totally ignoring the fourth series, not that I didn't love it, but ignoring it's convenient for me right now. While I'm at it, I'd like to personally thank Lazari, Jecir, Gotta Dance 88, northerngrunge and the ever lovely Francesca Montag for reading and reviewing last chappie. You guys are the ones who keep me inspired to keep writing. So gracias, this one's for you.

Train Track Reunion

It all started with a letter. The letter B, actually. Train B to be precise. Rose was waiting for it to pass so she could cross the railroad tracks. She cursed under her breath as she looked at her watch and tapped her foot. If only Tony hadn't thrown that temper tantrum before she'd left, she'd have been three minutes earlier, time enough to beat the train across the tracks. She sighed with impatience, remembering the days it'd have taken her mere moments to travel halfway across the universe. Now she couldn't even clear a bloody track.

She zoned out, her eyes unfocused on the cars as they passed fast enough to be dangerous but slow enough to try her patience. That's when the gaps between cars began to play tricks on her eyes. She had a view of the other side of the tracks for two seconds between cars, and in that tiny bit of time, she thought she'd seen one of the most familiar sights in her life. When the next car passed, she thought she saw it again, only clearer. After the third car, there was only the slightest bit of doubt that a blue police box was materializing not twenty yards away.

When the fourth car passed, she gave a cry. The TARDIS was there. She didn't know what it meant or what exactly she was going to do about it. All she knew was she had to get to the other side and what mattered even more was that she couldn't because the bloody B Train was blocking her path. The fifth car passed and she could see the door had opened. She held her breath so hard as the sixth car passed that it was actually painful. She forgot to breathe in the two seconds before the seventh car began to go by. There was a man in a suit. It wasn't the suit she remembered, but that didn't matter. She caught the tiniest glimpse again to see that it definitely wasn't the same face she remembered, but that mattered even less.

As the eighth car went by, the glimpse she caught made her heart drop. There was someone else, a girl. The ninth car passed, and the girl clearly became a young redhead. The tenth car, and they were closing the door. Rose realized she had to do something or risk losing the most important thing in her life…again. She'd lost count of how many times it had happened already and couldn't bear the thought of it occurring one more time.

She couldn't exactly throw herself over the tracks to get to him. Oh, that'd get his attention sure enough, but she'd be flattened like a pancake, and he'd have to scrape her from the street just to say hello. So she prayed her practice yelling at Tony was about to pay off. "Doctor!" She let go as loud as she could. Between two cars, she could see they were still walking away, their backs turned. She tried again, even louder this time, with everything she could muster. "Doctor!!!" The next gap showed that they'd stopped. The next image was that much more brilliant. He'd turned. She shouted his name again, and this time he was definitely approaching the train.

When their eyes met, she couldn't even begin to describe the feelings that bubbled in her brain, in her heart. Oh, he was so different, but he was so him. An unfamiliar but beautiful smile grew across his features. "Rose!" He mouthed because she couldn't hear him over the din of the train. He looked desperately down the tracks one way, then the other. The train stretch endlessly in both directions. His gaze reflected her own desperation back at her. He began pacing sideways, gauging the gaps, it seemed.

She half laughed, half sobbed, shaking her head. "No, Doctor, don't." But he couldn't hear her. She stopped laughing when she saw, between cars, how close he was getting to the moving locomotive. "Stop!" She burst out. It'd be just like fate to treat her to something so mind blowingly unbelievable before taking it away. "No," she cried when he leaped. She lost sight of him and was positive he'd been barreled over by the bloody inconvenient Train B. She began to cry.

The train kept moving but suddenly, someone was flying off the train at least twenty yards away. Someone in a brown suit. That someone hit the ground rolling but was up on his feet moments later. He didn't take even a second to brush himself as he rushed her way. It took her a millisecond to realize he'd made it. Impossibly, he'd survived, hadn't been crushed flat by the train. And she was running, arms and legs flailing wildly as she made her way to him. Seconds later, she was caught in a tight, unfamiliar embrace. But it didn't matter because she knew him better than she knew herself, even if she'd never seen him like this before.

Her face was buried hard in his shoulder, and his hands were desperately feeling through her hair, her neck, her shoulders, her back, checking to make sure she was real and not just the best hallucination of his nearly 1000 years. Suddenly, she pulled back and smacked him.

"Ow," he said in a voice she didn't know but loved dearly. "What was that for?"

She smacked him again, crying hard now. "You could have bloody waited, you stupid f-."

He caught her hand gently and cradled it to his chest before she could smack him again. "Rose."

Her breath caught at the way he caressed her name with that voice. She snapped out of the reverie, angry still. "You could have been flattened. You could have waited!" She cried again.

He had her other hand to his chest now, and he was looking straight down into her eyes with dark brown intense new eyes of his own. "Rose," he said, interrupting her again. "No, I couldn't have."

She faltered. "Wha-. You couldn't have what?" She asked, out of breath from running, from yelling, from crying, from missing him so deeply she'd only just gotten half her broken heart back.

He smiled, and it too was new and unfamiliar but brilliant. Like everything him. "The only thing that would have killed me would have been waiting one more second."

When the bloody train was finally out of the way, Amy stood crossly, hands on her hips, glaring across the tracks at the stupid, stupid brilliant man who stood grinning at her stupidly. She didn't even care that he was clasping hands with a blond woman she'd never seen before looking like he'd just won the lottery. "You. Bloody. Idiot!" She growled. "Do you have any idea what I've just been through?! I thought you were dead!"

The idiotic grin on his face began to falter but a squeeze from the hand clasped in his brought it back tenfold. "I'm sorry, Amy. So, so, so sorry. Really, truly sorry. But, look what I found." He held up their intertwined hands, and she finally concentrated on the blond who was gazing at her curiously.

"Hello," the woman said cheerily through tears. "I'm Rose." She stepped forward when the Doctor tugged her back suddenly.

His hand wound around her waist. "Where do you think you're going?" The panic in his tone surprised Amy, and she let go of enough of her anger to try to contemplate the situation and what she was missing.

If he'd talked to her like that, Amy would have looked at him like he was stupid before removing his arm from her waist. But the blond woman didn't look like she'd be doing the like anytime soon. Instead, she moved towards him. "Just sayin' hello," she murmured softly.

"Hello," he grinned down softly.

Amy felt uncomfortable suddenly, watching them. But the moment passed, and the Doctor was stepping forwards, introducing them. That night, in the TARDIS, Amy learned a great deal. She listened intently to one of the greatest stories she'd ever heard. And she learned much more about the Doctor than she'd ever known before. She came to understand where he went in his head during his quietist moments. She came to understand who he was really looking at when his eyes were on her without seeing her. Most of all, though, she learned just how fleeting everything, especially the people and the things you loved, could be. And she grew glad that the number of TARDIS occupants had grown by one in a matter of hours because it just might mean that no one, not even the amazing, wonderful, brilliant Doctor, ever really had to be alone.