Hello guys, gals, and non binary pals! It has been almost a year, a really long one at that. I have no excuses, other than life getting in the way.

Enjoy!

Everything here is a fight for you. Don't you get tired? What keeps you going?

The promise of tomorrow. When today isn't working, tomorrow is what you have.

Yazmin Khan and Rosa Parks - Rosa

Leticia loosely tied her hair in a ponytail, sticking out her tongue in the mirror. "Wotcha?" She tried her best to affect a working-class accent. She did her best to express a smile, even though her heart really isn't in it.

She struck a pose, revealing her flannel dark blue plaid button up, with some black and blue zig-zag jeans. The dress has long since disappeared; a wonder of the TARDIS, with the ability to transport clothing and put them back on their selected area. "Will wonders never cease?" She asked herself, and the TARDIS, after glancing up at the section where she first found it.

In response, something dinged.

Leticia glanced at the podium near the middle of the twisting closet. There was a tablet device on it, attracted to the podium with a cord, the logo of it displaying TARDIS in shimmering blue lettering. The screen was on to display her dress, and detailing the location where she found it. "Do you have invisible arms or nanobots somewhere in you? A really good replicator like in Star Trek or Legends of Tomorrow?"

The screen shifted, a light opened on a section in the far back.

"Shoes. Well, sweetie, you still haven't answered." She grazed her hand across the screen. "Thank you though."

The Doctor grazed his hand through his freshly cut hair. It was starting to grow back, and he didn't need to deal with little things like that. It wasn't that he was vain, no. It was more the fact that, for this version of himself, his hair seems to grow fairly quickly.

The Doctor looked down at the computer screen, with readings that made sense for his eyes only. That message... Sometimes the universe surprised him, sometimes even with good ones.

He saw her. She hid so much of herself. Then again, she wasn't the only one.

Rose had as well.

"Is it warm enough in here?" He turned to see Leticia leaning against the doorway, arms folded. He could detect even the tiniest of room temperature changes, perks of his being. "I could always change it."

Leti smiled. "You can do that?"

"You're inside a time machine that's bigger on the inside than the outside, I think I can turn on the heating by a tad."

Somehow you've managed to have a library swimming pool room, so I guess anything's possible. "Ehh, I'm good for now. Needed to get out those restricting things, in them too much for my own good." She frowned at the Doctor. "Where did you get an extra sweater from?"

"I can't change my jumper from time to time?" The Doctor looked down at himself.

"I just didn't know that there was another closet room." I hope that is the case because the thought of you being in the room when I was trying to process... scares me.

The Doctor chuckled. "Bigger on the inside. Leads to an infinite amount of rooms."

Leticia pointed at his sweater. "So a sweater room is very possible?"

"A sweater room with one specific colour at that! Sometimes it's hard for me to keep track. I change quick. You should see me get into a spacesuit while falling from millions of feet from above." He joked, from an eventful few nights at one of the bigger cities of Macross Prime. "Headfirst, I might add."

He is a Time Lord, but there's just something else I can't put my finger on. "Okay, Doctor Cat-tastic." She went back to her bags of stuff from Toronto, eyeing the magenta-purple jacket again. "You must have them stashed like in a cubby hole somewhere." You did have something like that by the time you met up with River Song again, for the last time, even if it was sneaking a glass.

"What year did you say you were from?" He interrupted her train of thought. "The year that you came from."

Clouds enclosed by wide mountains. "2016. Why?"

"I did make a promise, to you. That we'd go to the future. Try my best at keepin' promises, me." He gave her the Psychic Paper.

Chicago: January 23, 2019

Help and assistance needed! Planet becoming inhospitable, alerting any emergency services for pickup.

-Versi

The black letters shimmered in the warm light of the TARDIS. "When it means Chicago, does it mean the city of Chicago, or does it happened to be a name of an alien galaxy?"

The Doctor chuckled. "In this case, it's the city. I've check the signal with the TARDIS."

"So the Psychic Paper can work like Whatsapp as well as a good piece of ID fabrication?" Leticia straighten her shoulders. "And you only have one of these?"

"They're not that common. But, there are certain people who do have them and are able to use them, this way and that way."

"Peer to peer contact." Leticia snapped her fingers in excitement.

"Similar," Sightly impressed by her line of reasoning. "But let's see how is Earth becoming inhospitable so early." The Doctor went to the control panel.

Barely hearing anything, Leticia headed straight for the railing. "How cold can it really be?"

A woman looked on from her space under a small bridge. Virtually anyone who were her neighbors left the area, heading over to the warming centers. She, on the other hand, took the opportunity to look through their belongings for something warm. They were going to get them back, she just had to hold onto them before anything else can happen to them. Coyotes could get them, or scavengers.

So, when she noticed a blue box near Lake Michigan, all she could do is watch. She didn't want to go anywhere near the water, that's where it is the coldest.

She has seen many brave a soul lose their lives near the water.

A person with a closed cut pop their head out of the box, then went back inside.

She doesn't blame him. She was taking in as much as she could before she went back inside her cocoon. Everything was covered, even her eyes with the prescription glasses she gained from the center a few miles away. This was the path she picked to escape from her husband and family. There was no way she was heading back there, even with the cold biting at her feet.

A few minutes later, he came out, in a leather jacket and a sweater, with nothing covering his face. Dissimilar, a black haired woman came out besides him, wearing a full body pink jacket with a long pink scarf, and brown boots. "Holy fecking crap it's cold!" The woman exclaimed before covering her face. "Why aren't you wearing anything else?" The young woman's voice was muffled.

"Let's just say I have good sense of my body temperature." The British man looked around. "I know it has to be close by, within two miles or so."

"Two miles- can't we just figure it out with the box, she has to know!" The young woman's was muffled, wise choice.

"Well, she might, but where's the fun in that?" The man gestured to Lake Michigan behind him. "Guess which part of Chicago we are?"

Leticia turned away from the Doctor, her eyes taking in a huge frozen wave. "This is Lake Michigan. This is a part of the Great Lakes, it can't be this cold!" Her voice muffed by a wonderful scarf she found that she will probably never part with. "Who would do something like this to this city?"

"Humans." She looked back at the Doctor. "This was all their making." The Doctor started to walk in the opposite direction, into silent traffic.

"But it can't be like this. It shouldn't be! Lake Michigan shouldn't be the next North pole!"

"It won't always stay like this, Leticia. 'nother day or two. We landed on one of the coldest days of 2019. There was this shift from the poles, which caused a drift to come down the Americas, affecting several states and cities. An unexpected one at that. But one of several to come."

Leticia kept her eyes alert for anything alien, having the sensation of being watched from somewhere. "But you said humans caused this."

"Climate change, that's how. Though a lot of it to blame is with a few thousands companies filled with stupid humans with lack of awareness to their own planet. Same old story."

For goodness sakes' the lake was frozen! How can they really be careless for this to happen? All these people in their homes, because of something that could have been prevented ahead of time! When they arrived at a street, only trucks went past them. No cars, busses, nothing else. The streets were filled with virgin snow. So were the sidewalks. The cars were blank with snow.

"It's like a ghost town."

"They're there. They're just all inside, well the lucky ones."

She blinked to get the snow out of her eyes. "There's people still out here?"

"Homeless, people who got unlucky. Perhaps our mystery sender is out here in the cold."

Leticia kept silent, as she managed to not freeze the longer they walked. The cold is definitely bothering me now.

The traffic light kept on going, showing all of the colors in the box as they walked down the solitary street. Coming back into this city, exploring one of the more highly explored streets in the city, really grinded her gears. She rarely ever went into downtown let alone one of the various expensive stores. They walked for another half mile until the Doctor suddenly stopped at a movie theater. "We're close." He took out his sonic, and started to scan.

"Sure, we catch a movie while we wait. Maybe the next Disney remake is out already."

"Aladdin's good, thought that one isn't coming out for a few more months. "

Seriously? "They're just going to remake everything, aren't they? What's next, remaking Lady and the Tramp?"

The Doctor decided not to answer, turned left, and headed down. Leticia was mindful as to not fall on any icy patches. She was out of breath when she saw a Tex-Mex place squished between an office space, and something that might be an apartment complex. In the middle of all that sliver and white, the Tex-Mex place which proudly states to be a family owned business was a flash of color. Orange curved roof tiles, with bright yellow walls. Like something she could see at home. The Doctor went inside. There was warm lighting inside.

"Are you sure we're heading into a trap of some kind?" She asked the air. "Fine, heading into danger. like a companion does."

The sight that greeted Leticia was something she never thought she would see. Inside a nearly empty restaurant, with bright yellow walls, except for a mural on the side of the wall, depicting the view of a familiar mountainside. There was a hispanic looking man, with flowing brown hair, lying down on the bar island, crying out in pain. A woman, in long purple hair that almost looks natural, was looking on at the man and the Doctor. As for the Doctor, his body was crouching near the man's lower area, his head covered by the man's long flowing skirt.

"Versi only had enough energy in order to send out a message. A midwife or someone that can help." The man grunted out between labored noises.

"I can take you back to your planet. I'll just have to get my ship, pop it in there. We'll get you somewhere in no time."

"You don't understand, Doctor! We sent that message over an hour ago! He's ready now!"

Leticia started to massaged her ears, willing not to drown out everything with that little noise. "I am present, I am here. I am-" She started to shiver. He's pregnant, that man is pregnant, how is that even possible? She jumped as the Doctor appear in front of her.

"Leti, ever been a midwife before?"

Leti looked back at the desperate couple. The woman consoling the man as best as she could. "Kinda. I did took of... my grandfather. And then there was Call the Midwife for several years, so I'm good there."

The Doctor jerked his finger towards the back of the empty restaurant, where a door was ajar. "Wet towels, anything you can find from the first aid kit, ice packs, any sort of medications, stat!"

Leticia was grateful for the distraction. Anything to keep her mind off of -

Hospital bed

beeping

5:38 PM

"You are living up to your name right now." Leticia set a wet towel on the man's forehead, having found most of what the Doctor had asked. The purple haired woman had sat down in one of the several empty booths housed in the tex-mex, staring into space.

"I try not to make it a habit. You decided to go on holiday right before birth?" He directed his question to the man.

"I was trying to prove something, to myself." The man's voice was horsed. He gripped on Leticia's hand gratefully.

"In what way?" Leticia asked, looking at the man's baby bump. Hesitating to reach out to touch.

"That I wasn't an invalid, that I could still enjoy my life even after being like this."

"You were going to give birth any day now, you didn't had to listen to him." Versi was sitting in the next booth.

Leticia glanced over to the woman, and asked. "Look I know I don't want to pry, but how did this all happened?"

Versi eyed the young girl, curiously. "Are you Earth Human?"

"Yes," Leticia blinked in response, shifted her stance. " as of a matter of fact, I am. Don't hold back anything, though, know more about the world, and others, than I appear to be."

Versi nodded. "We snuck off from our group just before the report came in about the rampant amount of snow that was about to befall this city. We came in on one of the Peth cruise liners from Sto, you see." She held up a bracelet as evidence to her truth. "I wanted to explore just enough to get a picture of this Earth, but then, this winter the humans are having became too much for us. We found the nearest residence to protect us, while we tried to signal for help."

"I heard they stopped the cruise ships coming over Earth about a decade ago." The Doctor said, as he positioned the towels under the man's body.

"They started back up again; too many people were out of work, because of that Capricorn fellow ruining a good business for many, many months. So far, I've have only good things for the review slip when we come back." Leti furrowed her eyebrows in response. "This wasn't the cruise's doing."

Peth cruise? Sounds familiar... Maybe because it's close to Beth?

"When being the word here." The man's voice squicked out. "Their teleportation bracelet leave something to be desired!"

"Trust in the Doctor, he'll get you there." Leticia looked at the Doctor. "Right?"

"Of course," The Doctor nodded back to the brown haired man. "Don't worry, Flay, you're in good hands." Flay started to cry out in response.

Leticia moved away from the Doctor and sat down across from Versi. "This is your first time on Earth?"

Versi nodded. "This wasn't my first choice, I wanted to come in a couple of months, when we were more stable in our work stations. But Torian, his father, gifted us this cruise to make it up for our honeymoon."

Leticia nodded. "And it was too good not to pass up the opportunity."

"I wanted to say no, he could have always refunded it. Peth added their last minute cancellation policy almost two years ago, but no..."

"Your husband still wanted to enjoy some time with you, before both of you would end up being too busy with your lives ahead of you. Same old story." Leticia held out a hand to her. Versi took it. "It's still strange he would want to go this late in the pregnancy." Among other things I am slowly adjusting to.

Versi shrugged. "He wasn't showing when we left, less than a week ago."

Leticia widen her eyes. "If you don't mind me asking, what race are you?"

"Gifftan, dear. For our race, pregnancies for all Gifftan usually last a week, unless we give birth to more than one child."

"Oh." Leticia opened her mouth to say more, but was interrupted by another, smaller cry.

Leticia rushed back over to the Doctor.

She felt pain in her hand bloom, from Fray's tight hold.

Cries of "Push" were echoed around.

The Doctor grinned happily.

The Doctor held a boy in his hands, with two umbilical cords.

Versi went over to Fray, and embraced him.

Leticia went over to see the young Gifftan. "He's so small." In response, the Doctor maneuvered the baby over to Leticia's arms. "Oh, wait, I-"

"I have to find something to cut the cord, something that you forgot." The Doctor moved Leticia's arms to cushion the baby's head just right.

"I didn't think that part through, no." Leticia tried to keep the annoyance from creeping in her tone, and focus on looking at this little bundle in her arms. "You're so small, and amazing!" She whispered to him, as the baby was still crying, getting used to the new world. "And so tiny, and so precious!"

The Doctor looked down at the sight; Leticia and the baby. The warm lighting of the restaurant lighting them in a soft glow. There was something about the picture that reminded him of a memory over several lifetimes ago. It could have been due to how she had to take care of family for years, or her nature to be kind. It was nice to have found someone who had the capacity for kindness in the universe, having been deprived of even seeing such small glimmers during the last arc of the War. He had only truly seen it in Rose, and her.

The pain, that hurt, and Leticia was still capable of feeling. All that light; from her, from Rose. He didn't deserve it. He was grateful for the opportunity, of course. Leticia needed him, Rose... ran at the opportunity to travel with him after little hesitation. After he came back to her.

All that time he had decided to hold off on seeing Rose again, decades of lost time. What was the point of it all? Even now, currently traveling with Leticia, for the Doctor, it has been a handful of weeks since they have last been with Rose. The deal with the Casubus took a while to recover from, among other side trips that Leticia have not been privy to.

He stayed a couple seconds longer, then started to head to the kitchen.

Leticia looked back up where the Doctor was, having felt his stare.

Leticia helped Versi sit Fray down on the booth, given that, with Fray holding on to their child, he was a lot heavier than expected. Leticia took off her coat in order to give them some warmth. After the Doctor cut the cords, he went back to the TARDIS in order to bring it back to the restaurant.

"Your boyfriend is amazing." Fray sighed, leaning against his wife.

Leticia looked back at Fray. "He isn't my boyfriend. We've been traveling together, as friends."

Versi smiled softly. "How long have you two been traveling alone for?"

Leticia grinned in response. "Just a few days. He was with someone else when I first met him. We've just been sidetracked, coming back to her. Eventually, we're coming back. She glanced back at the small family. "Life is too short, it really is, for most of us."

As soon as she was done with her sentence, the TARDIS started to appear in front of them. Versi shield her husband from the debris that was picking up with the wind, while Leticia looked on as the TARDIS appeared in front of her. "Magical."

The Doctor had gotten a hold of the teleportation bracelet, which was somewhat functional, and connected it to the TARDIS to find the last recorded coordinates of the Peth cruise ship.

"There are supposed to be about 8 parked overhead, one for each continent." Versi told the Doctor, after she had finished wrapping up the child in a blankie the Doctor had brought out for her. Leticia took a peek at the white overnight bag that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He really could be a Doctor of all trades. "So they should still be in the same space."

The TARDIS gradually stopped shaking, to the point where Leticia felt comfortable walking around while the TARDIS was still in flight. She thank the TARDIS in her thoughts. She looked back at the Doctor, a thought looming in her mind.

The Doctor walked back to Fray, holding him upwards, as they all walked outside. They landed in front of a busy hall, a short greying man was patiently explaining to a woman whose back was to the Doctor. They were right next to a sign with the title "Side trips to exotic lands!". The man looked up at the box in shock, prompting the woman to turn around, to no alarm.

A woman with flowing golden blonde hair, dressed in a smart white button up dress, with a white cape tied smartly on her neck. She smiled warmly, revealing her slight wrinkles. "Doctor, Leti, good to see you again."

Peth cruise line, as in Astrid Peth. The companion who died.

Note:

This chapter had several different variations until I settled onto one that I felt might work in the direction that I want this to go. Which, is going into the idea that Leticia's presence has already disrupted the Whoniverse, as you may have already seen. I have a second part lined up, of course. That one is going to be a hard one, given that will determine, at least for me, how Leticia is going to adjust to the new reality she ended up into.

Last Updated : Jul 19, 2019

Current chapter: July 2, 2020