Hi everybody,

I've been reading a few of Doctor/Rose role reversal stories and this idea came to me from... well I'm not entirely sure where. It's role reversal with a twist.

Full summary: On Bad Wolf Bay, Rose Tyler made a choice; the result of which was that she ends up living her journey with the Doctor out all over again, only this time she is The Wolf, the Last of the Time Lords. The Doctor- now human- plays her role in their love story. He is oblivious to this shared history while the Wolf remembers both lifetimes she is forbidden to go out of her way to alter the course of their story.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. Doctor Who belongs to the BBC and the name 'The Wolf' belongs to fairytaleslayer, which I use with kind permission.

Prologue: Rose's Choice.

(Pete's World: Norway, Local time 05/07/2012)

The TARDIS materialized on the wet sand of Bad Wolf Bay, Jackie Tyler and the newly created copy of the Doctor led the way out of the ancient Gallifreyan vessel.

Jackie took one look at where they had landed and groaned in frustration. "Norway, really? Fat lot of good this is, I'm going to have to call Pete, and he's doing the nursery run." She noticed the new Doctor's slightly quizzical look at this last point. "I was pregnant last time we were here, d'you remember? Well I had a baby boy."

"Oh brilliant," he grinned. "What's his name?"

"Doctor." said Jackie with an admirable poker face which the new Doctor apparently could not see through.

"Really?" he asked, sounding like a child allowed to open his presents the night before his birthday.

Jackie snorted. "No, you plum. We called him Tony."

By this time theactual Doctor, Rose and his newest companion, Donna, had emerged from the TARDIS.

"This is the parallel universe right?" she asked, with a slight edge of worry in her voice.

"You're back home." the older Doctor nodded.

"And the walls of the world are closing again," Donna put in. "Now that the reality bomb never happened the dimensions are reclosing." she grinned at the man beside her. "See, I really get this stuff now!"

"I can't go back now," Rose protested, weakly. "Not after all that time I spent trying to find you."

"You have to," the Doctor told her, gravely. "Because the cost of saving the universe this time was him." a brief gesture to the copy in a blue suit. "He's too dangerous to be left on his own. He committed genocide on the Daleks."

"You made me." said the copy, defensively.

"Exactly," the first nodded, gravely. "You were born in battle…"

"So says the Killer of his Own Kind." a cool female voice put in.

All heads turned in the direction of the new comer. She was a tall woman of around forty with a head of wild light brown curls, restrained in a high ponytail. She was also dressed in a spacesuit.

"R-River?" Both the Doctor's stammered in perfect unison.

"Hello sweetie." the woman, River, smiled. "And sweetie."

"This is impossible," Donna stated, agape. "You're dead."

"Well yes." River nodded. "But I won't be here for long. I'm here with a proposition for Rose."

"M-me?" Rose stammered, she didn't know this woman, who was clearly someone of significance from the Doctor's future.

"You," River nodded, patiently. "You see, I'm not really River Song- I'm merely a projection of the good professor created by the TARDIS; but that's irrelevant really."

Rose blinked, and decided it might be easier to accept this situation rather than question it. "So this proposition…?"

River smiled. "Straight forward, I think you and I would have gotten on splendidly- once we got past the fact we're both in love with the same man."

"Wait what?" this from the Brown suited Doctor.

"Wake up," his copy rolled his eyes. "She knows our name. You know who she is."

"Anyway," River said, loudly. "Rose, I want to offer you the chance to have the best of both worlds."

"You what?"

"I want to try something. If it is successful it will allow you to have forever with the man you love, and allow you to retain contact with your human family."

"What?"

"Live out your journey with the Doctor again, only from the other side. You the Designated Driver, and he the wide eyed travelling companion."

"Rose no!" Both Doctors and Jackie cried.

Rose didn't seem to hear them. "Will we remember how things are meant to be?"

"You will retain your memories." River nodded. "The Doctor however, will have to regain his."

"Rose, don't listen to her." Brown pleaded. "If you do this you'll lose yourself: you'll be a child of war, full of blood and anger and revenge. You'll be like I was when we first met- I love you too much to see that happen to you."

"I love you too," Rose told him. "You got better."

"Only because you made me better."

Rose placed her hand on his cheek, two pairs of brown eyes locking for what could be the last time. "And now you can do the same for me."

"But Rose, can't you see what he's giving you?" Donna asked plaintively, thoroughly on the original Doctor's side. "Tell her," this to the copy. "Go on."

"Rose, I don't just look like him, I think like him; have the same memories, thoughts, everything. Except I'm half human- I only have one heart."

Rose tore her gaze from the original Doctor's and looked at the copy askance.

"Which means that I won't regenerate. I only have one life, one that I could share with you."

"You'd grow old at the same time as me." It wasn't a question, nor was the thought of a human life with the Doctor unappealing. Rose let out a shuddering sigh. "River, if things don't turn out the way you hope, what then?"

"Then the time lines will revert, and things will progress as the Doctor would have them do. With none of you able to recall what transpired."

"With me looking after him," Rose's gaze briefly found the metacrisis clone. "But what about the other one? What'll happen to him?"

"Spoilers." said River, with a meaningful look towards the Doctor by the TARDIS.

"Rose, I'll be alright." the original Doctor assured her. "I'm always alright. Same old life, last of the Time Lords, remember?"

"We both know that you aren't always alright though- you only say that when you're not." god she felt like crying. "And what if you weren't the last? She's offering me the chance to share that with you- and who knows…" one hand settled on her belly. "Maybe we could bring the Time Lords back?

"We weren't born that way." the Doctor told her. "Time Lords were essentially woven together from parent DNA."

"Then so be it," Rose retorted, stoutly. "Or are you saying that you don't want me?"

"Rose."

The way he said her name was enough to bring tears to her eyes. She'd never heard so much in the single syllable. The pain, the longing, the love. It was all the answer she needed.

"River," she said, voice little more than a whisper. "I want to try."

Somewhere in the multiverse a wolf howled.

Somewhere in the multiverse a storm raged.

And there on the wet sand of one universe's version of Bad Wolf Bay Rose Marion Tyler's world dissolved in a mess of golden light and a heartbreaking song.

~V~

And that is the Prologue.

I find River really hard to write. I hope I did her justice.

Please feel free to leave a review, I'd love to know what you think so far.