Chantelle Billing had not seen Rose Tyler since she'd left school with that degenerate boyfriend of hers…Jimmy, was it? She'd been glad to see the back of the silly cow. Always bunking off school with that trampy friend of hers, giving the place a bad name. Last Chantelle had heard she'd been working at that place, Henriks. She wouldn't have put it past Rose to have blown the place up herself and then demanded compensation. That was the sort of thing her mother'd always been going on about the few times she'd been unfortunate enough to see her.

Chantelle had gone on to do her A-levels, taking pleasure in every-so-often reminding anyone who would listen that Rose was probably now pregnant and living in a council flat with her drug-dealer boyfriend. She seemed like that sort of girl, after all.

So when Chantelle saw Rose, during the summer after her first year at University (Chantelle was very successful, she'd gotten excellent A-levels, and was in one of the best Universities in the country.) she was somewhat surprised. The last she heard Rose had disappeared off the face of the planet ("It's what I always expected, of course," she'd said. "Always up to no good. She was asking for it."). It was a bit of a shock to see this girl who she'd sneered at, looked down on and derided for almost her entire school life – not without good reason, mind you! - sitting outside a chip shop in the middle of London, looking for all the world as if she was just breezing through.

As she was staring, Rose glanced over in her direction and caught her eye. Her face lit up and an expression utter delight washed over her features.

"Chantelle!" She called, and Chantelle pasted a plastic smile onto her face and forced herself to go over to the girl, when she'd rather have avoided her. At least this would be a chance to show Rose once and for all who was the better.

"Hey." Chantelle forced out, not quite managing to make the greeting sound pleasant. "Thought you'd been murdered."

Rose laughed. Typical, attention-seeking, that's what it was. She ought to have known.

"Nah." Rose said cheerfully. "I was just travellin'…Lost track of the time. How're you?"

"Oh I'm good." (Travelling – probably with gypsies. She had the look of one.) "At University now – studying Law."

"That's cool." Rose said, and Chantelle was sure that despite how genuine it sounded, secretly Rose was bristling with jealously. "Where?"

"Cambridge." Chantelle announced smugly, and paused to let it sink in. Instead of an impressed expression, Rose just raised her eyebrows, as if trying to encourage her to continue. "And what about you? What've you been doing since Henriks?"

"Me? Just travelling with friends, y'know." She shrugged.

"Friends?" Probably delinquents. Car-jackers. Muggers. Drug dealers. Jimmy Stones.

"Mm." Rose jerked her head back towards the chip shop. "They're just getting lunch. If you wait a tick, I'll introduce you."

"Introduce who?" Came a pleasant, American voice. Chantelle looked up to see the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen, holding a couple of trays of chips and smiling charmingly at her. She felt her knees go slightly weak.

"Jack, this is Chantelle." Rose said, divesting this new arrival of the tray of chips. "Ooh, curry sauce!"

Jack – oh what a name! – took Chantelle's hand in his recently emptied one and brushed a kiss against her knuckles.

"Captain Jack Harkness." He said. "Charmed."

"Is he flirting again?" Chantelle snapped out of her little Jack-induced haze (A Captain? How did Rose get involved with a Captain? And one that looked like that!) and looked up to see another man, this one handsome in a different way, moving to Rose's other side and stealing a curry-covered chip from her tray, despite the fact that he was holding one of his own. He had a leather jacket and northern accent, but there was something about him that was intriguing.

"Hm? Probably." Rose said around a mouthful of chips as she tried to bat his hand away. "Gerroff. You should've gotten your own curry sauce."

"Didn't want all that." The new bloke said, evading her hand and pinching another chip, while Jack nicked one from the other side as Rose was distracted. "Who's this?" He jerked his head towards Chantelle and suddenly she felt like an outsider. She didn't like that feeling at all.

"I'm Chantelle." She piped up, while Rose was trying to swallow the food in her mouth (disgusting girl – no manners. Mind you, what could she expect with a mother like that?) "Rose and I went to school together."

"Nice to meet you Chantelle." The new man said. "I'm the Doctor. Sorry about Jack, he can't quite help himself. He was born without a self-control gene."

"Oi!" Jack said, while Rose snickered into her chips.

How did Rose Tyler of all people end up with a Captain and a Doctor? With these particular examples? It occurred to her that Rose was probably sleeping with one of them, though that thought wasn't as much of a consolation as she'd hoped.

"Rose said you'd been travelling." She said, somewhat desperate to claw the situation back to where it'd been before these two men had arrived and flanked Rose like a tall, dark and handsome force field.

"Oh yeah." The Doctor – did he mention his name? - said. "Just got back from Cardiff."

"Cardiff?" Chantelle repeated, trying to sound politely interested. This was more like it. Who travelled to Cardiff? "Was it nice?"

"Not really." Rose said. "But we keep ending up there anyway."

"Before that we were in Egypt." Jack told her.

"No, before that we were in Paris." The Doctor corrected. "Egypt was between Antarctica and Edinburgh."

"Where we met Robbie." Rose piped in cheerfully. "He was nice."

"Robbie?"

"Mm. Oh yeah." Jack said, looking suddenly considering. "Nice guy. Good poet. Great bot - "

"And then there was Hong Kong," The Doctor listed. "Rio, St Petersburg, Miami - "

"I liked Miami." Jack cut in. "They all had great fashion sense."

"They were all half-dressed." Rose laughed. "So that's hardly a surprise."

"Why'd you go to all these places?" Chantelle asked weakly, seeing that the Doctor was getting ready to reel off some more.

"Business." The Doctor said.

"Adventure." Rose chirped.

"Fun." Jack finished decisively.

"Speaking of getting places," The Doctor said. "We'd better be off." He smiled at Chantelle. "Nice to meet you."

She watched as the trio turned and walked off, Rose holding hands with the Doctor and leaning up to kiss Jack on the cheek. Jealousy flared inside her as she realised that despite it all, Rose had beaten her again. She didn't just have the more glamorous lifestyle, she had both those men. And there had been something there that suggested it wasn't just a kinky sex game. Those men had radiated 'stay away, she's ours'. If Chantelle had won that round of one-upsies, they'd have made her regret it.

She felt sick to her stomach. Bloody Rose.

-----

Rose watched Chantelle turn and storm away out of the corner of her eye and she smiled.

"What was all that about then?" The Doctor asked, squeezing her hand to get her attention.

"Just wanted to wipe that smug look off her face." Rose said cheerfully, a feeling of smugness and victory washing through her. She wondered if she'd feel any better if they'd listed all the places they'd been, not just the human-friendly ones.

"Because she told you she was at Cambridge?" Jack said. Rose wouldn't have put it past him to have read Chantelle's lips through the shop window while he and the Doctor were waiting in the queue.

"She's been trying to get the better of me since we were kids." Rose explained. "She never forgave me for getting the bronze in gymnastics when she came fourth."

The Doctor grinned indulgently down at her, and shared a quick look with Jack over her head.

"Want to go do something that'll make her even more wildly jealous?" Jack asked, as the Doctor brushed his thumb over the back of her hand, making her shiver slightly and grin.

"Why not?" She said. "Just to complete the victory."