Summary: She hates Pete's World and the clone married someone else. When Rose finds a way out, she doesn't hesitate and she sure as hell doesn't warn anyone of her departure. Her backpack is a heavy duty one she begged from the TARDIS on that last fateful trip into exile and is filled with all sorts of survival equipment. She's going back to her universe, yes...but this time, the Doctor isn't even as much as a blip on her radar.

Introduction

Periodically, he dropped by of course, for how could She fail to notice someone so far away from her proper time as the blonde woman was? So She brought him sometimes and when the TARDIS did, Rose kept away from the Caves of the people that had adopted her. He finally parked far enough away that he didn't notice when she unlocked the locked door, poked her head in and told the TARDIS to let her be.

"He's betrayed me quite enough times, love. He's not getting another shot at me. Not as the one after my Doctor, anyway. Not happening. I'm quite deliberately establishing another parallel world, if his next form wants me, he'll have to live in my new one. This Earth is Rose's World, because I deserve to have whatever peace I can find for myself. I've already given him everything I had to give him and he threw me away...repeatedly. There's nothing left for him,...now leave me alone." She told the ship and darted away, leaving the door closed, but unlatched.

It was a puzzle that disturbed the Doctor when he got back and caused him to demand answers. He got them, though they broke his hearts, for his pink and yellow human no longer trusted him enough to travel with him and refused to board...with his current form, at any rate.

He's not getting another shot at me.

I'm quite deliberately establishing another parallel world

if his next form wants me, he'll have to live in my new one

because I deserve to have whatever peace I can find for myself

I've already given him everything I had to give him

There's nothing left for him...now leave me alone

The 11th met with the War Doctor and the 12th after that and didn't return to Rose's World in his current body. Next body would be something else again, he determined. Humans that wanted to establish a brand new universe needed help doing so...and he wanted to be a part of that. He tried and failed to convince himself that her presence there had nothing to do with it.

"I'm ready to go, more than ready. Rose needs me, whether she knows it or not, believes it or not or even wants it or not." He told his ship as the fires of regeneration took hold of him. "And I will be there for her." He cried out as his body was remade into a new one...which had a resemblance to the one he'd just left a bit ago but wasn't quite the same...silently, the TARDIS notified his future self that his last one had just split his Timeline neatly in half, one breaking away from a future with Amy and River and veering determinedly toward Rose's World. There was now a crux there, a many directional multi-fork in the road from which many possibilities could arise.

His future self was a little troubled but couldn't fault himself, not really. It was Rose, after all and he remembered quite clearly how much learning she no longer had faith in him had hurt...though realizing he'd done it to himself had hurt more, because he'd hurt her so much in the process. He looked up at his ship's ceiling. "Wish myself well in our endeavor. Though I have a feeling you're going to find that that you is going to be grounded and have a working circuit for the duration. I think you're going to need it. Dire wolves and wooly rhinos are no joke."

Ancient Home

Rose worked companionably with several other people getting the carcasses of the red deer they'd just killed ready to be transported back to their cave. It was bloody, dirty, stinking, hard manual labor to prepare a carcass and there were over fifty in the surround trap needing to be processed. Good thing there were many hunters here this time. She worked with her bow over her back, the string diagonally over her chest and belly to keep it out of her way and when the last beast was butchered, she went to the stream with the others to rinse away the bits that had stuck to her, the blood, the smell and the weariness. She pulled a change of buckskins out of her bigger on the inside bag for everyone, that magic bag that never seemed to run out of room or get worn, so that everyone could put on a set of clean, if old, clothes. Nobody wore good clothes on a hunt, likewise, no one wanted to wear bloody things after butchering because that attracted predators that might think you looked tasty. With tamed asses and horses harnessed to the new contraptions that Rose called 'wagons' the product of their hunt loaded in the wagon beds, the People took the meat and hides home.

Rose's World was a neat contradiction in discoveries, they had wolves and wild dogs raised with humans as their pack to help hunt and defend the cave. They had horses, asses and onagers to pull several different kinds of conveyance, travois, wagons and even sledges in the winter months if needed, as well as some kinds of wild goats and a few cattle that gave milk that improved the general health of all. Wagons and animal husbandry had not been discovered in her home universe or on her homeworld until much later in human history.

But that was there and this was here, she did as she wished and directed ancient humans as she wanted her new universe to grow. It had been a good long twenty or so local years since she'd last seen the Doctor, though she hadn't aged at all and to these ancient peoples that just meant she was a stong magical leader and that they were lucky to have her. These primitive folk wanted powerful people in their communities for their own safety. It helped that Rose also took part in everyday work, like the hunt today or working hides or crafting or whatever chore needed doing, if she were the nearest and not busy with another project, she didn't hesitate to put her hand to it and get the job done.

She wasn't overly proud like some of the priestesshood could be at times, though she was as powerful as they if not more so in some ways, if not in others. She was fiercely protective of the People of the Delta, as they called themselves, these widely scattered but loosely allied caves that ran up and down what would one day become the English coast.

There were some things she'd insisted on, shortly after she'd arrived. Upon learning about the raids they'd been considering conducting against a small but well organized group of new comers, she put a stop to those plans immediately.

"There is enough for all, there is no excuse to kill another person, no matter how strange looking you think they are or how different their ways are. Humans are too few in the world and there is no need that there should be fighting." She had scolded. "Instead, invite them to join your people and everyone will benefit. With more people we can spread out toward the west, which as all know is empty of humans...the new territory will include whatever ground is between the western most Cave and wherever they are when they find a new cave to live in, plus the same distance beyond that to serve as more hunting and gathering lands. Any livable caves therein will be claimed and used."

The leaders and priestesses had discussed her very wise council, all those years ago, and agreed with it. Getting along was always preferred, if possible.

It was on the long drive back to the Summer Gathering that she heard it again, that grumbling wheeze that could only ever be just one thing and never mean anything else. She calmed the panicked people with her and then set them to calming the animals.

"TARDIS, get your ass away from the animals, you crazy alien!" She shouted. "Land near the gathering if you're carrying the one after the one I don't want near me...but far enough away not to scare people!" She bellowed. "OH and tell your bondmate that he's just itching for a good old slap, will you?"

The noise faded, then sounded again, further away this time, and the odd shape that absolutely wasn't the least bit natural in this ancient world, took up residence on a hill overlooking the gathering. She growled something under her breath as she let loose of the reins a bit and urged the animals back to work.

Raising her voice, Rose spoke to the hunters. "Calm down, people. It's just Doctor. He won't hurt anyone...he's just thoughtless, and I don't know if it were him or the TARDIS that decided where to land that time, so at least one of them is very inconsiderate and both of them are people that you will find to be very strange. One of them looks like a man, the other, she's called TARDIS, doesn't. She is alive and has a mind of her own but she's a lifeform you couldn't ever have imagined of. Nevertheless, they will not harm you or your spirit and they are perfectly safe to have around the children." She told them decisively as she chirruped to the horses and got them moving, a snap of the reins over their backs given to hurry them back to work.

She didn't hurry, actually. She got done with her share of storing the meat or seeing that some went to people who's hunting luck was poor that day, saving out a large roast for her own hearthfire as well as some of the liver from one of the yearlings. She's asked that people direct the odd looking stranger man to her travel tent and went to get supper started. She wasn't about to go looking for him, he'd have to come to her.

As the meat began to cook, she ground dried millet in a wide, shallow bowl, making the flour for flatbread fresh with her own hands. Rose Tyler was a long, long way from that London shop-girl he had once known and there was no better time than now to start making damned sure he knew it. She was a strong, capable, independent woman who didn't age, had no family and no one to call her own...so she loved the whole village instead. But she wasn't going to wait for him or hunt for him or try to convince him he needed her. Not any more, for she well knew that path led to misery for her while he swanned off without a care in this or any other world. No.

No, this time, if he wanted her, he was going to have to work for it. She wasn't in a hurry to get supper done, though, not when waiting for that one...not with the gob she knew all his bodies had. She figured that it would take a while before he actually entered her shelter and she was therefore shocked when he entered less than half an hour after the meat was set to roast and while she was forming pita bread to bake on the hot rocks by the fire. Several small loaves of sourdough were already set aside to rest and rise, a bit put aside in a bowl with new dough, covered and shelved out of the way. This was why she kept a few goats, for their milk. She could use the milk to make butter and the leftovers from that for buttermilk or sourdough from the yeast in the milk.

She studied him. "Which?"

"One after. Last me split our timeline, one of me went along as we had been, the other followed you. I couldn't leave our old universe...or your original Earth...undefended. But I couldn't leave you alone either. Not again."

"Really? Pardon me if I don't believe you. At any rate, I won't be leaving this world for a very long time, if at all. So, if you want to be with me, Doctor, you'll have to stay here. I once gave you everything I had to give and you threw it in my face. So...I won't do that again. Not until I'm sure of you, if I ever am."

"You want courting?"

"I want someone who won't betray me...every fucking chance he gets to do so." She bit out.

The Doctor knelt slowly to settle beside her. "I won't. Last me was unstable, yeah? The me before that wasn't. Right? Leather and grumpy, but solid and real, right? So is this me. In this universe, the one you caused to split off, I don't need a bow tie to be cool. I just need you."

"You're the tweed one?"

"Not here...here it's back to leather, actually."

"Buckskin, anyway."

"Same thing."

"My new life is domestic as hell."

"I love you, Rose Tyler. I can do that."

"Really?" She stared at him in open disbelief. "You? Of all people?"

"Yes. First me ever could ever actually get the words out, that could say that, that can, that will...that wants to be that. Other me, other this me? Bow tie me? Has a married couple on the TARDIS. For you? I will be domestic. Well, I say domestic, I mean I will myself be domestic...but not 'a' domestic, yes? A bondmate, not a houseboy." He clarified, one long finger raised to make the point. "Husband."

The mental image of the Doctor...any him...as a houseboy caused Rose to duck her head nearly to her knees and struggle to hide the fact she was trying not to laugh, which scared him because all he could see was a seemingly crumpled form and shaking shoulders.

"Rose?"

She rocked back and forth a bit, trying and failing miserably to regain control...how had he gotten to her so fast? Damn it. But she knew when it was hopeless, despite her hurt and resentment, she adored the Doctor and there was no more sidestepping round it. She scooted the dinner preparations out of harm's way with shaking hands and let herself go...laughter pealing forth until she could barely breathe.

"What?"

"You...any you...as a houseboy..." She gasped out, "Ridiculous...you wouldn't have the first clue how to carry on. Anyway, Doctor, those are neanderthals out there...they're my family and people now. The other kind of human, my kind, didn't work out too well, did they? Tore themselves down as fast or faster than they built themselves up, so this time we're going the other way."

He pouted just a bit at her giggles but smiled as he finally spied a bit of tongue poking out from her mouth, firmly lodged between her teeth where it was supposed to be. "Okay. Good to know what I'm supposed to be helping along. I can do that."

"Running interference where needed yes, but mostly, on the slow path, in tents, on the ground, in the caves. Understand this, Doctor...not dashing about from place to place here...just doing the daily thing. Though, granted, daily survival can be exciting...like that time when a cavebear tried to lodge with us in our winter home and we weren't able to budge him. Will say that once he was in full hibernation, it was the easiest kill I've ever made. Obvious end to the problem and we needed the meat."

"Kill."

"Yes, but not war, just hunting. Hides, furs, pelts, meat...it must be hunted and killed to do us any good. Still up for it? Cuz I like the highly primitive conditions I live in now, just so you know. I like it as much as you like tinkering under the console."

"Hunting."

"Spears or bows, whichever you like. Or you can craft simple things if you want, primitives though, so keep it that way. I think introducing this level to pottery, livestock, gardens and load-bearing axils with wheels at the ends were about the biggest major changes needed for a few generations."

"Yeah, I think so too. Jewelry, then? I can carve, mind the kids maybe?"

"Or the kiln. I can fire things but we still need to find natural glazes than can handle the kiln. I've been trying to find the kinds of sands that would make colored glass as a coating...not working too well, though." She glanced at his expression of amusement. "What?"

"Okaaaay...yeah, why don't you let me do the sciencey bits...I'll get glazes."

"Smartass."

"Yes...perhaps...but still, let me to do potting and the glaze hunting."

"Okay, but no leads and no glass yet, except as beads."

"Agreed. Lead is bad for you and caves don't really need glass beads yet...but I'll make sure you have some. Well I say some, I mean whatever's on the TARDIS. I'm sure there's few large barrels of them. It's amazing the kind of extra junk you get as trade goods sometimes." He sighed..."And then hang onto for many, many lives, sounds like I finally get to get rid of them."

"Trade goods again, but I'll make jewelry from them first. They'll be more valuable that way."

He watched as she turned the meat a bit to let it cook in another area, reaching over as she straightened to run his fingers through her hair. She froze for a moment, closing her eyes and knew he could feel her trembling under his fingers.

"So. Bondmate. Will you have me, Rose Tyler?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I will."

"Forever, Rose Tyler. Yes?"

"Forever, Doctor. Yes."

"Good. Very good. Who do we need to talk to, to formalize this?"

"Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"You're gonna love the formals that these folks put on for weddings."

He almost groaned because he could hear in her tone, that she...who knew him so very, very well, was very close to laughing again. "I'm sure I will."

**TBC**