Beta: Miral-Romanov

Prompter: Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1) at AO3

Scission

Rose knew from the second she met the Doctor that he was the gruff and distant type and that it was highly unlikely that she'd ever be anything more than a very good, platonic friend. He held hands with her during all of their adventures and he always hugged her post-danger, and at first Rose thought that maybe he might be interested, if even a little, but after three months of constant touching during adventures and then veritable distance put between them by the Doctor when they return to the TARDIS, she started to hypothesise that he only held her hand so that they didn't get separated and hugged her in the heat of the moment. Unfortunately by the time she realised it she was already hopelessly in love with him, so she stayed with him anyway despite the probable fact that he'd never want her the way she wanted him. She still got a swooping sensation in her stomach every time he reached for her hand or sent her a brilliant smile or said something sweet (I could save the world but lose you) but she stopped searching his eyes for hidden meanings and stopped purposely lounging in the library on the one space available for sitting, hoping he'd join her.

The handholding and warm smiles kept increasing, but the moments spent in the TARDIS were the same— he'd disappear underneath the console to 'repair' things and Rose would be left to her own devices. She usually kept him company by reading on the jump seat, which he always seemed to appreciate and which usually ended in her falling asleep and magically appearing in her bed wearing her jimjams. With this came the utter inability to talk to other males, no matter what species— the moment anyone showed any interest in her, the Doctor would get all Oncoming Storm, drag her away and be grumpy for the rest of the night. It was disconcerting and made Rose doubt herself every night until her head hurt.

After the incident with the Dalek, it got worse— the Doctor would touch her in places that had her shivering, looking down at her with constant concern (or something else) and would seek her out in the TARDIS to the point where he lingered in the doorway when she made herself a cuppa and tried his very hardest to make her food even though he really, really couldn't cook. Then she'd asked him if they could see her father, and he'd miraculously said yes.

After those events, the Doctor had acted for all the world like a child who'd broken the most expensive vase in the house, hanging his head and looking guiltier than she'd ever seen before, like destroying his planet was nothing compared to her losing her father a second time. Maybe it had to do with the 'stupid ape' comment, but either way Rose was getting seriously concerned— he glanced at her every six seconds, whether or not she was looking; he gave her spontaneous, lingering hugs every morning after she woke up and every night just before she went to bed; he ignored repairs to talk with her in the console room or in the library, sitting so close to her it could almost be classified as snuggling; and if, on their adventures, Rose got hurt in the smallest way, be it a tiny cut on her ankle or being thrown in jail for ten minutes, the Doctor would apologise in a soft voice and then make her a cuppa.

When Rose woke up after two weeks of this behaviour, she listened to him pace outside her door like he was terrified to be too far from her. She let out an annoyed sigh, flopping her head on her pillow, and the Doctor apparently heard her because his thumping footsteps hurried away. Enough was enough— she had to tell him, very sternly, to stop feeling so guilty about her father, and maybe snog him a couple of times. She probably wouldn't do the latter, but she could dream.

Shoving the covers off and trying to comb the tangles out of her hair with her fingers, Rose pulled on a pair of jeans and a jumper, used the loo quickly and then headed out into the corridor. Rose found the Doctor conveniently hidden underneath the console, pretending to poke around in the opened wiring.

"What're you doin'?" Rose asked, one hand on her hip.

He glanced at her, face turning suspiciously red when his gaze licked over her legs before he hid underneath the console again. "Repairin' the TARDIS's lateral array."

"You don't have a sonic," Rose pointed out stonily, and at the angle she was standing she could just see the tops of his ears turn pink.

"Don't need one to fix it," he lied, clearly.

She huffed out her annoyance, stepping down onto the lower grating and sitting down next to where his legs were sticking out, prompting him to slowly re-emerge from underneath the console, although he still didn't look at her. "You're actin' weird."

"'Cos I'm not using my sonic?" he said vaguely, staring at her feet.

"You know what you've been doin'," she snapped, irrationally angry at his deflections. "For God's sake, Doctor, what's the matter with you?"

"Nothin'," he grunted.

"Right," she said with disbelief. "'Cos freakin' out outside my bedroom door is perfectly normal." He flushed again, and her anger ebbed away, replaced with concern and a little bit of pity. "Look, if this is about—"

Her sentence was interrupted when the TARDIS suddenly lurched, pitching her forward with a cry straight into the Doctor. They fell to the ground with a painful thud, the Doctor hitting his head on the grating. As the TARDIS stilled, Rose winced at the pain in her elbow and tried pushing herself up, only to realise that she was, quite literally, horizontally spooning the Doctor. She lifted her head, only to flush furiously when she found her face millimetres from the Doctor's. His shallow breath hit her lips and she used all of her strength not to flick her eyes down to his mouth, and she was seconds from speaking up until a snide voice from behind them interrupted, "Are you shagging in my console room?!"

Rose whipped her head around, sliding off of the Doctor with a thump as she took in an irritated-looking man in the most ridiculous assortment of colourful garments. Her jaw dropped to the ground, but before she could demand how the hell he'd gotten in here or laugh at his getup, the Doctor sat up hurriedly and interrupted with a mix of astonishment and irritation, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here?" the colourful man burst out, glaring down at the Doctor over his nose. "What are you doing here?"

"This is my TARDIS!" the Doctor said indignantly, scrambling up off the grating and helping Rose to stand as well with great care.

"Doctor," Rose said, tugging on his jacket as she stared around the console room.

He obediently faced her before following her gaze with a frown. The console room had changed from pink organic walls and a rustic old console with an elongated time rotor, to artificial, cool green walls patterned with little roundels, a small utilitarian console and a time rotor that was opaque and only a metre tall.

"This isn't good," the Doctor muttered, keeping a hand on Rose's arm. "Our console rooms have merged."

"Evidently," the other man sniffed, circling the tiny console and stepping down onto the grating. "The fact that both of us are here as well means our timelines have as well. How far in the future are you?"

"'Bout four hundred years," he replied stonily, ignoring Rose's confused glances.

"Well," the other man replied, looking the Doctor over with his nose wrinkled in disgust. "Could've been worse. The ears are ridiculous."

"I'm sorry— have you seen what you're wearin', mate?" Rose scoffed, and the other man glared at her.

"You have a lovely taste in companions, I see," he said to the Doctor, with obvious condescension.

"Doctor, who is that?" Rose growled, looking close to tromping over there and throttling the stranger.

To her confusion, the Doctor's ears tinged pink and he fidgeted awkwardly in place. "Er, that's sort of hard to explain—"

"You haven't told her?" snorted the other man. "How positively brilliant."

"You didn't tell Peri, and then ended up almost killing her when your regeneration went faulty," the Doctor snapped back, and the other man scowled. "What's your excuse?"

"Both of you— shut up and tell me what the hell is going on!" Rose ordered at once, pushing out of the Doctor's hold and glaring at both of them. "Who is that bloke and how the hell did he get in here?!"

The Doctor cast the other man one last stony glance that clearly said 'stay put' before regarding Rose with a sheepish expression. "Er, when Time Lords get fatally injured, they can change every cell in their bodies." When Rose continued to watch him, looking slightly irritated, he added, "Which means that everything about their appearance changes, including slight personality alterations."

She frowned at his chest, processing his words. Then, with shock, she said, "So… so you're sayin' the colour-blind idiot over there is you?"

"Unfortunately," the Doctor said, ignoring the furious look sent in his direction by the other man. Rose spent a quarter of a second frowning, before a grin began to grow on her face and she started giggling behind her hand. The Doctor frowned and said, "What?"

"You chose to wear that outfit," she snickered.

"What is wrong with my outfit?" demanded the other Doctor angrily.

"Besides the fact that it looks like clown vomit? Rose said lightly.

"All right, this isn't the issue here," her Doctor said quickly, stepping in front of Rose before his other self attacked her like he obviously wanted to.

"Wait, if you can change your appearance to stop from dyin', how many bodies have you had?" Rose frowned, turning to her Doctor.

"Enough," he said dismissively, ignoring her smirk.

"And you're…?"

"The ninth." He jerked his head towards his counterpart. "He's the sixth."

"An' you call me jeopardy friendly," Rose said, sending him her signature tongue-touched smile that he returned on instinct, making his sixth self narrow his eyes at them.

"Yes, well, now that that's out of the way," the Sixth Doctor said delicately, still regarding them both with an inquisitive frown, "we've got to figure out why our TARDISes have merged."

"Right-o," said her Doctor, giving Rose one last fond look before hopping over to the console to join his other self, pressing buttons. "You were in the Vortex when you crashed into us?"

"Yes, although I hadn't been there for longer than a second," the Sixth Doctor said, striding purposefully down the grating and starting to flick switches.

The Ninth Doctor grabbed his counterpart's wrist, saying angrily, "Oi, don't touch my TARDIS!"

"It's my TARDIS too," the other Doctor pointed out stonily. "Besides, this is my console!"

"Will you two stop acting like children and focus on the TARDIS?" Rose demanded, as said timeship let out an upset-sounding, almost silent groan. "She sounds sick."

"Hmm," they echoed with matching frowns.

They both started making near identical movements as they reached out for buttons and switches to the point where Rose was a little freaked out watching them. They were almost completely in sync, up until they both tried circling the console and ended up nearly knocking each other over, ending with a glare from both of them. Rose bit back a smirk, even as they both frowned with concern and relocated to the monitor, having to press their faces together to see it together.

"This is the problem," said the Ninth Doctor, frowning at the monitor.

"Well, that's not going to end well," the Sixth added, covering his mouth with his hand.

"What's the matter?" Rose said with concern, approaching the two of them.

The Ninth Doctor reached out for her hand unconsciously, keeping his eyes on the monitor and leaving unnoticed his past self's sideways glance as he curled his fingers around Rose's and actually visibly relaxed when she gave his hand a comforting squeeze. "Both of our TARDISes are in a serious state of temporal flux— it's called a time scission."

"How'd it get like that?" Rose said, waving her hand to indicate the changes in the TARDIS.

"Basically it occurs when one timeline gets bent to the point where it make a perfect loop, so that two points in the time period merge," explained the Sixth Doctor, grimacing at the monitor as his circular language flitted over the screen. "What caused it is still a question—" Rose felt a rush of guilt in her stomach as her Doctor's jaw hardened, knowing full well that what caused it was in all likelihood her fault, "— but regardless, we'll need to separate our ships within at least six hours, or they'll compress into a quantum singularity."

"Wait," said Rose with a frown, fear pulsing through her insides. "How bad is it if a quantum singularity forms while we're still in the Vortex?"

Her Doctor sent her another affectionate look at her insightfulness as the other Doctor said gravely, "Very, since singularities are incapable of forming on their own in the Vortex. Time as we know it would implode."

"How're we gonna fix it?" Rose said worriedly.

"We'll have to modify the TARDIS's temporal reactor to emit a powerful enough pulse to separate our ships," the Sixth Doctor said, sticking his curly head underneath the grating to check the wires. "Dear Rassilon, how disorganised!" Rose smirked behind her hand as the Ninth Doctor bristled angrily. "Is that a bicycle pump attached to the fuel gauge?"

"He says it encourages her," Rose grinned, bumping her hip against her Doctor's.

"All right," he grumbled. "When you're done insulting my TARDIS, can you move your colourful arse out of the way so I can try and save the universe?"

The Sixth Doctor lifted his head and glared, but obediently stepped aside so that his future self could take his place— not before giving Rose's hand one last squeeze before parting company with obvious reluctance.

"Since I'm completely useless here—" began Rose with mirth.

"Rose," the Ninth Doctor said, with a mix of guilt and warning.

"S'true," Rose shrugged, bouncing over and giving his shoulders a squeeze. "Now, if you'll let me finish, since I'm completely useless here, I'm gonna make us all cuppa, provided the galley's still there. You keep… talkin' to Lite Brite over there," she added, pretending not to see the Sixth Doctor's glare of death.

Rose was glad to find, when she left the console room, that the hallways were relatively the same, save for the odd grey-green walls clashing with the dark flooring. The TARDIS let out another pained-sounding groan, and Rose paused for a second to give the walls a worried, comforting pat before heading into the galley. That had been almost completely changed— all the counters were pale green (what was it with that past Doctor and the colour green?) and the table was a little plastic thing with one tiny chair, but thankfully all the cupboards and appliances were still in place, so Rose set to work making herself a cup of Twinning's and the Doctors two cups of some kind of banana/tea amalgam that he favoured. She'd just put on the kettle and was starting to wonder how the colourful Doctor took his tea when a voice behind her made her nearly jump out of her shoes.

"I like it black."

Rose whirled around, seeing the Sixth Doctor leaning in the doorway, observing her with an inquisitive look. "Don't bloody do that!"

"I apologise."

He strode into the galley, eyes boring into hers to the point where she became uncomfortable and turned away from him to finish making his cup. "Sooo," she said innocently, drumming her fingers on the counter as she waited for the kettle to boil. "When exactly did you decide that coat was the prime of fashion?"

"Why does everyone poke fun at my coat?" he said petulantly.

"Probably 'cos Andrew Lloyd Webber made a musical about it," she grinned, tongue poking out at the corner of her mouth.

He scowled at her, just as the kettle whistled its completion and Rose turned to make his tea. Crossing his arms, he grumbled, "There's nothing wrong with my outfit. Better than Big Ears in any case."

"An' how d'you figure that, exactly?" Rose snorted, preparing his tea.

"That leather jacket is horridly plain," he replied, wrinkling his nose. "And he wears jeans. That's worse than sandals with socks!"

Rose rolled her eyes as the Sixth Doctor shuddered dramatically, handing him his cup with a sharp look. "Just remember you're gonna turn into him."

"Don't remind me," he said, taking his cup with a thankful nod and sinking down into the only seat. As she made her own cuppa, he observed her with an inquisitive look. "You're taking the prospect of regeneration very well."

Rose shrugged, stirring sugar into her cup. "I got used to the idea of a sentient time machine disguised as a blue box piloted by an alien with two hearts. There's not really much that can shock me anymore."

"Logical," he supplied, frowning at his cup as she hopped up on the table next to him. "I do wish others would adopt the same opinions."

"Why, did they react badly?" Rose asked, blowing on her tea to cool it.

"Something like that," he said shortly, swirling his cup before taking a sip. "Humans generally can't grasp the concept of regeneration."

"It is a bit scary," Rose admitted. She fidgeted nervously. "Does it hurt?"

He sent her a smile for the first time, filled with warmth and comfort. It lit up his face and made him look impeccably sweet behind all of the cynicism. "Sometimes. Not always."

"Sounds awful," Rose grimaced. "Can't imagine just completely changin' appearance and personality. Must take some gettin' used to."

"Not really," he said smugly, tugging on one multicoloured lapel with his free hand. "It's an occupational hazard of being a Time Lord."

She rolled her eyes as he gulped down his tea. "You think you're so impressive."

"I am so impressive!" he said with serious insistence, slopping half of his tea in his lap when he pulled the cup from his mouth. "I'll have you know this is the most impressive version of me yet."

Rose, who was in the middle of taking a sip, nearly spat out her tea as she started to giggle. "I reckon your other selves'd say otherwise."

"I can prove it," he insisted.

At first Rose scoffed, but then she noticed the self-righteous look he was wearing and her mouth dropped open. "Are you flirting with me?"

"Depends," he said swiftly, smirking at her slowly colouring cheeks. "Is it welcome?"

To cover up her embarrassment and slight flattery (it was technicallythe Doctorwas flirting with her, even though it wasn't the one she wanted to shove up against a wall and snog) she said with amusement, "Lose the coat, then we'll talk."

He scowled without any real irritation, just as the Ninth Doctor stuck his head into the galley, stealing Rose's attention. "Anytime you're done lollygagging," he said stonily, glaring jealous daggers in the direction of his past self, "I could use your help trying to save time as we know it. What?" he added grumpily towards Rose, who was hiding giggles behind her hand.

"You're covered in grease again," she said fondly, setting down her empty mug and hopping off the table to fetch a wet towel.

"Yes, well, I suspected this regeneration was horribly clumsy," said the Sixth Doctor smugly, earning himself another glare.

"Says the idiot who fell all the way down Mount Everest on that hiking trip with Peri," he replied shortly, making his past self flush angrily.

"When you're done insulting yourself," Rose said amusedly, pulling her Doctor properly into the galley and starting to wipe off the grease with care. "D'you know how to separate the ships?"

"We need to head to the spare parts vault and look through a few piles to see if we can find some extra pieces I need," he said quietly, eyes locked on her face with an unmistakable look of tenderness.

"Anything specific?" the Sixth Doctor asked, staring unabashedly at his smitten future self.

"A tritanium methodic cylinder, a box of Nxnn bolts and a Venusian toaster."

"Why a toaster?" Rose frowned.

It took him a moment to answer, since she was now wiping grease off of his forehead and had to stand on tiptoes to reach, so he was getting a very good view down her shirt. Ignoring his past self's smirk when the tops of his ears turned pink, the Ninth Doctor said, voice only cracking once, "The-the wires inside."

"They're composed of a positronic octotanium alloy," the Sixth Doctor said. "The Venusians were very adept at creating durable alloys that were also able to be cut into needle-thin strips."

"And yet they wasted them on toasters," Rose snorted, giving his forehead one last dab before flouncing off to throw out the towel.

"Toasters and extra-strength hairdryers," he replied swiftly. Giving his Ninth self a smug look, he hopped off of the chair and looped his arm around Rose's. "Shall we venture to the spare parts vault?"

"Sure," she said, snatching her cup to take with her and leaving unnoticed her Doctor's expression like he'd swallowed a lemon dusted with salt as she followed the other Doctor down the corridor. "Gonna have to tell me what exactly we're lookin' for, 'cos I dunno what a Venusian toaster looks like."

"It's that big black thing I showed you at the alien bazaar we went to last Monday," the Ninth Doctor said from behind them in a petulant voice, jogging to catch up with them and claiming her free hand with a possessive glare in his past self's direction.

"The thing that I said looked more like the Phantom Zone from Superman than a toaster?" Rose said, leaning her head on his arm and grinning up at him with her tongue between her teeth.

He beamed back down at her like a goofy, smitten idiot. "Exactly."

"Ah, here we are then," said the Sixth Doctor abruptly as they stopped before a coal-coloured door, hooking his arm around Rose's waist and scooping her in front of him. "Ladies first," he added graciously, opening the door for her with a swift gesture.

She gave him a strange look, like she knew precisely what he was doing, before obediently entering the room. As the Ninth Doctor glared yet again at the back of his past self's curly head, Rose halted in her tracks and gaped at the massive piles of haphazardly strewn, alien junk lying on the floor.

"This is what you call 'a few piles'?" she said, rounding on the Ninth Doctor, who looked sheepish. "Blimey, Doctor, I thought my mum's attic was full of junk!"

"To be fair, I am eight hundred and sixty years older than your mother," he pointed out.

"You've met her mother?" snorted the Sixth Doctor, who was already strolling around the mountain of garbage and idly examining it. "How terribly domestic."

"What exactly is it with you and hating domestics?" Rose asked her Doctor with an accompanying tongue-touched grin.

He gave her a sharp look without any actual edge to it, before sticking his hands into the nearest pile and starting to rummage through it, leaving Rose to send a smirk in the direction of his back before wandering off into the throng of broken alien tech.

"Found the Nxnn bolts," the Sixth Doctor announced, yanking out a package that looked a bit like a giant metal matchbox.

"Fantastic," his future counterpart muttered idly, still rummaging through junk. "I can't seem to find—"

"Found the Phantom Zone toaster," Rose chirped, emerging from behind the pile and holding up the thin, shiny black box. She held it up to the light, her brows furrowing together. "Why does it have bullet holes in it?"

"I once used it as a shield to defend myself from the Tarkanian Syndicate," said the Sixth Doctor proudly, sticking the box of bolts and a cylindrical item in the other Doctor's hands with a smug look.

"You think you're so impressive," Rose snorted for the second time that day.

"I am so impressive!" both Doctors exclaimed at the same time, causing Rose to start giggling when they frowned at each other.

"And that wasn't creepy in the slightest," she grinned, shoving the toaster into her Doctor's arms as well until he very nearly toppled over with the weight of everything.

They spent the next hour or so sitting cross-legged on the floor, Rose and the Sixth Doctor working together to take apart the toaster and carefully strip the wires of their rubber casings while the Ninth Doctor programmed the tritanium methodic cylinder with his sonic. It was relatively silent save for the occasional groan of pain from the ship, up until Rose broke the silence by tossing the rubber into the corner with the rest of the discarded pile and saying, "D'you reckon this'll be enough?"

The Ninth Doctor began to lean over to take a look, but his past self hopped up at once and stuck his face close to Rose's instead. "That's plenty," he said swiftly, giving her shoulder an overly familiar squeeze. "Thank you, Rose."

She beamed at him, before proceeding to stand up and scoop the needle-thin metal wires into her arms. "Brilliant! I'll bring these to the console room then," she said happily, stepping around her Doctor's knees and leaving the room.

The Ninth Doctor craned his neck to watch her, and once he was certain she was properly out of earshot he rounded on his sixth self with a murderous glare and an angry, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I haven't any idea what you mean," said the Sixth Doctor lightly, pretending to be interested in a discarded theta-band transmitter with a giant hole melted in the middle.

"Like hell you don't," his future counterpart snarled. "You've been flirting with her like you're some kind of horny Altuvian!"

The Sixth Doctor puffed up like an angry bullfrog, face flushing scarlet. "I most certainly am not!"

"Oh no?" His voice raised into a higher, haughtier pitch in imitation of his other self. "'Ladies first, my dear. Oh, you've finished the wiring; thank you, my darling Rose.'"

"I do not speak like that," snapped the Sixth Doctor with an accompanying scowl.

"That isn't the point," the Ninth Doctor answered shortly, in a normal voice. "I remember you. I was you. You don't flirt; you're rude and condescending. What's different about Rose?"

The other Doctor's scowl deepened at the insult, but he admitted grudgingly, "She is… fascinating. Throughout hundreds of years of time and space I've not ever met somebody who hasn't thrown a tantrum when they learn of regeneration, until her."

"You can't have her," the Ninth Doctor said in a low, menacing voice, fists clenching as he rose and towered over his other self.

He stood as well, his nose in the air. "Don't be ridiculous— I have no intentions whatsoever of taking her with me."

The Ninth Doctor's Oncoming Storm face faded slowly, though he still looked wary. "Then what've you been trying to accomplish?"

A familiar, pompous smirk grew over the Sixth Doctor's face. "You've been clinging to her like a puppy trying not to wag its tail. I may have… done a little experiment to see just how far you'd take your affection."

"Shut up," the Ninth Doctor growled.

"No, you shut up and kiss her before you both die of old age," replied the Sixth Doctor with an annoyed expression, all previous smugness gone.

"You know as well as I do that day'll come a lot quicker for her than for me," he said darkly, a shadow crossing his face.

"And you know as well as I do that it is invariably worth it."

They stared at each other for a moment, with unwavering eyes and a hardened expression on both of their faces— the moment was soon interrupted when the subject of their discussion ran into the room, hair slightly askew and a panicked expression on her face. "Hate to break up the staring contest—" They both blushed a slight pink, "— but it looks like the console's about to blow up."

The two Doctors glanced at each other with matching expressions of alarm before obediently following her into the corridor and heading into the console room with a brisk pace. The moment they circled in, it became apparent that the console was indeed preparing to explode— the entire console was making a loud screeching noise, the metal hooks that kept the heart of the TARDIS latched tightly shut were shaking violently and seeping a golden-coloured steam, and the glass around time rotor was slowly starting to crack while the rotor itself pumped up and down furiously.

"Looks like we have less time than we thought," the Ninth Doctor shouted over the noise, jumping down onto the grating with his other self, pulling out the tritanium cylinder and jamming it halfway into a slightly larger cylinder on the trembling console. "We're not going to have time to secure the temporal array with the Nxnn bolts."

"I'll hold it down," the Sixth Doctor said determinedly, scrambling under the console.

"What do we do the wires?" Rose said loudly, approaching the jump seat where she'd dumped the toaster wires.

"We need to thread them through this cylinder," the Ninth Doctor called out, and Rose obediently scooped them up and brought them to him. He let go of said cylinder long enough to grab them from her, before ordering, "Now get out of the console room."

"What?" She looked furious. "No!"

"Rose," her Doctor said with a glare, "there's every chance that this thing is going to blow up, and—"

"And, if it does, the rest of the universe is gonna go with it, so me hidin' in the hallway isn't gonna do anythin'," Rose said firmly, glaring right back. "I can help— just tell me what you need!"

"She has a point!" the Sixth Doctor called out from underneath the grating.

The Ninth Doctor looked like he was going to argue some more, but eventually he snapped, "Fine." Grabbing her hand, he led her to the other end of the console (to the only end that didn't look seconds away from exploding, Rose noted with slight annoyance) and pointed at something that looked like a fuel gauge, where an arrow was starting to inch out towards a small red area. "Monitor this and tell me if it's getting close to the red zone."

"And if it does?"

He sent her a sombre expression. "It means we're too late."

She swallowed but nodded, and the Doctor gave her hand one last extended squeeze before reluctantly letting go, heading back to his post and starting the seemingly endless process of threading the alien wires through the cylinder.

"Hurry up— the array's starting to turn mauve!" yelled the Sixth Doctor over the noise.

His future self opened his mouth to shout back, but he was interrupted when a section of the console let out a loud bang and a shower of sparks, making Rose yelp out in pain when the sparks burned her arm.

"ROSE!" her Doctor shouted, preparing to throw himself around the console and scoop her up into safety, but she called back quickly, "'M fine, Doctor! It just grazed me!"

He spared her one last terrified glance before swallowing his fear and threading the last couple of wires, finishing it off by twisting all the ends together. "Done!"

"The arrow's still movin' towards the red!" Rose shouted.

"And the temporal array's still turning purple!" the Sixth Doctor added urgently.

The Ninth Doctor slammed his fist down on the console, yelling with frustration, "Why the hell isn't it working?!"

"Try adjusting the temporal resonance frequency!" the other Doctor inputted.

As the Ninth Doctor began frantically pounding on buttons, Rose opened her mouth to tell him that the arrow was literally seconds from reaching the red zone, but a blinking light to her left caught her attention. There, right next to the trembling bicycle pump, was a gigantic blue button that was flashing the word 'push'. Glancing between the gauge, the button and her Doctor's frantic expression, Rose bit her lip, hoped to God for a moment, and slammed her fist down on the button.

Everybody was immediately tossed onto their arses; the Ninth Doctor slammed into the wall, the other Doctor rolling out from under the console and Rose being thrown into the jump seat, her head snapping back painfully and causing her eyes to slam shut. She collapsed into a heap onto the grating, wincing at the pain in her neck and only barely registering the now silent atmosphere in the console room, save for some groaning from one of the Doctors.

Almost seconds later the Ninth Doctor was by her side, scooping her up with care and holding her head up gently. "Rose?"

"'M all right," she cringed, clinging to his jacket and forcing her head upright and her eyes open. "Did we do it?"

"I think so," he said, as she took a quick look around the console and sighed with relief at the familiar coral struts, organic pink walls and a perfectly repaired, elongated time rotor.

"Thank God," she sighed, as her Doctor helped her to stand, her hands gripping his arm for leverage.

Almost immediately, the Sixth Doctor sat up from behind the jump seat with a pained grunt, curly hair sticking up and a streak of ash on his cheek. "Well, that was painful. What exactly did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," the Ninth Doctor said with shrug.

"I pushed a button," Rose announced.

"How did you know that was the right one?" he asked confusedly.

"It said 'push'," she said with a tongue-touched grin.

He sent her a fond look just as the Sixth Doctor rose as well, dusting himself off and taking a sweeping look around the room. "Well, I don't know what you could possibly have been thinking when you chose the organic layout," he sniffed, prompting a smirk from Rose and a scowl from his ninth self, "but I'm glad the universe isn't going to implode." He approached the now dark-coloured console, pressing a few buttons so the monitor showed a stouter, darker-coloured TARDIS suspended outside their own TARDIS. "Well, our ships have definitely separated, so I'll take my leave— Peri will be expecting me." The Sixth Doctor strode briskly up to Rose, taking her hand and bringing it up to his mouth for a brief kiss, much to her amusement and his future self's annoyance. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Rose."

"You too, Doctor," she grinned, tongue at the corner of her mouth again.

"Goodbye then, my dear," he said with a swift grin, before pressing a button on the console and disappearing in a flash of golden light.

A slightly awkward silence overtook the both of them, both desperately searching for something to say and coming up with nothing. In expectation of him disappearing under the console to 'repair' things again, Rose extracted himself from his hold and began to head towards the corridor, saying awkwardly, "Well I'm gonna shower— this whole ordeal made me feel gross."

She entered the hallway, giving the now dark pink walls a happy pat and beaming when she received a grateful hum from the ship in thanks. Rose began heading towards her room, hoping the jolt from earlier hadn't knocked down all of her things from her dresser, but she was stopped by the Doctor's voice calling out softly, like he half-wanted her not to hear him, "Rose, wait a minute." She turned around, stomach swooping with disappointment at his downcast and guilty expression— the one he'd been wearing for the last couple of weeks. "I'm sorry."

She cocked her head to the side, slightly exasperated. "About what?"

"The Dalek… and your father." His eyebrows arched upwards. "I shouldn't've gotten angry at you; I should've told you more about the laws of time."

Rose sighed, putting her hands on her hips. "Is that why you've been actin' weird this whole time?"

He cast his glance downward, suddenly unable to meet her gaze. "A little."

She frowned at him confusedly. "Well what else could it be?"

His fists clenched and then unclenched, and his eyes briefly flicked up towards hers before skimming back down to the floor. As she opened her mouth to inquire, he hurried forward with determination, pinned her to the wall and covered her parted lips with his own. She froze for the briefest of seconds as he snogged her with purpose, but warmth soon blossomed in her chest and she let out a pleased sigh into his mouth, hands trailing up his arms before framing his face. His movements stopped being stiff, his body melting against hers like butter as he smiled slightly into the kiss.

Pulling away after what felt like two seconds and a hundred years, Rose collapsed against the wall, gasping for breath and leaving his pleased expression unnoticed. "What—" She licked her lips, "— what exactly did that mean?"

"It means that I realised the Dalek was right." He didn't say the words exactly, but he didn't need to— her stomach flooded with a strangled feeling of painful hope and fluttery happiness. "And," he added, sending her a stern look that clashed with his smile, "it also means that I don't approve of you flirting with past versions of me."

She stared at him with incredulity. "First of all, you were flirting with me— second, you do realise that it was still you, right?"

"No excuses," he said firmly, making her laugh. "Now, since you technically just saved all of time and space as we know it—" he paused to scoop her up bridal style, causing her to squeal, "— I think, Rose Tyler, you deserve to be rewarded."

"Does that mean you're gonna kiss me again?" Rose asked with a beam, arms around his neck as he began walking with her in the direction of her bedroom.

"That too," he said with a dark look.

She shivered with delight. "Fantastic."

A/N: Another one for the prompts list, and the list of things I should've gotten done ages ago :x sorry... Prompt was: The 3rd and 6th Doctors are my favorites of the Classics. Maybe it's early on in 9 and Rose's relationship and one of those two Classics accidentally gets transported into 9's TARDIS. While 9 works on making sure the universe doesn't explode with the paradox, maybe Rose starts flirting with the past Doctor. 9 is really distracted by it but he's on a time crunch so he is helpless to stop anything." Sufficed to say, I chose Six cos he's a rude lil cutie pie :3 Hope you enjoyed! Please send more prompts, I'll never tire of them!