A long time ago, in the future, Rose Tyler had been called the Defender of Earth. She'd travelled through space and time, crossed dimensions, and had once held the Universe in her head.

And then, she woke up to find it had all been a dream. She was ten years old, living on the Powell Estates with her mother, in 1996, not twenty-seven, in 2013, living in a parallel world, working for the very organisation that had created the breach that led to her quasi-imprisonment.

And the world was - wrong. There was no other way to describe it. Her first Doctor had taken her hand, and she had felt the whirl of the Earth beneath her feet as it rotated on its axis, the absolute indescribable speed of it as it hurled through space along its orbit - a feeling that had vanished the moment he'd dropped her hand, leaving her breathless and dizzy - a feeling that had returned, to a lesser extent, like a soft, reassuring hum at the back of her mind, once her first Doctor had become her second Doctor. And that feeling wasn't gone, exactly - but it was - wrong. Sour. Like instead of a beautiful golden glow it had turned a dull yellow with sickly green notes.

She didn't know why she was thinking in colours, either. It was also quite possible, of course, that she was going mad. What normal ten year old dreamed those kinds of dreams? A mad man who could change his face had taken her away in a blue box that was bigger on the inside and could travel through time and space!

Rose was pretty sure it was all just a bit of insanity brought on by too much of Mum's shepard pie. But still - still...there were things she couldn't explain, things that she knew before they happened - people she knew, before she met them. Like Jimmy Stone. He didn't move to the Powell Estate until she was twelve - his family had money, once, and it had taken a few years for them to fall to hard enough times for them to need to live in such low circumstances. They'd never approved of his life, or her. She'd fancied herself in love with Jimmy Stone since she was fourteen, in her dreams, and she could see the exact same things beginning to play out in her reality, even though she'd done what she could to change herself from the girl she'd seen in her dreams.

She'd give dream!Rose that much credit, at least. There were some things about the girl that she never, ever wanted to feel, and that was that crushing sense of never, ever being good enough. She knew she was clever - even her teachers at school told her so, even if they usually followed it up with something about how it was a shame she'd never amount to anything. And while the Rose in her dreams had always believed them, little Rose Tyler had Dream Rose as a sort of guide, showing her that even without their belief, she could be something amazing. She forced herself to study the stars, just in case that daft old man with the big ears and the leather jacket with the mad blue box was real. She wanted to be able to name as many of those twinkling lights as he could.

Despite the things that proved her dream could have its basis in reality, there were other things that seemed to point towards it being nothing more than a really elaborate ruse her mind had created to trick her. She convinced Mickey to let her use his computer, and to teach her what he knew about hacking. Mickey was the only one she could trust not to have her sanctioned for the things in her head.

Together, they researched everything they could about classified government agencies. There was no mention, anywhere, of an agency named Torchwood. In fact, the only record of anything named Torchwood, at all, was a tiny footnote in history referencing the house Rose remembered staying at with her imaginary Doctor. The story of the werewolf had been reduced to a legend, and though it was "speculated" by conspiracy theorists that Queen Victoria had been attacked during her stay at the manor house the night its lord had died, there was no mention of a Sir Doctor nor a Dame Rose having been involved.

She tried to find proof of Torchwood - she went to Canary Wharf, and with forged credentials, thanks to her work at a print shop, she was given a journalist's tour of the building, including the very top floor. No white wall. No levers of doom. Nothing to make her heart clench in screaming agony. She didn't know which was worse - the anticipation that she would find those things, or the fact that they didn't exist.

Discouraged, she tried to find Jack Harkness, but there was no sign of him in Cardiff. She "remembered" him saying his Torchwood was based somewhere near the Rift, where they'd landed when they'd visited before, but though she wandered around for hours, asking anyone and everyone she met if a tall, handsome man named Jack had hit on them, no one had given her a positive response that had panned out.

She'd slunk home to London with her tail between her legs to lick her wounds in private, ignoring Mickey's calls for three days before settling down to study for her A-Levels. She watched the news, looking for anything that could lead her to the mystery man called the Doctor, for anything that would prove that her dreams were not just weird flashes of the future laced with liberal fantasy, but nothing happened.

When her gap year came, instead of taking the time to see the world, she took a job in a shop, the same one she remembered Dream Rose working in, on the hope that she'd finally meet him.

The bag shaking in front of her face, how was it different from any other night? Going down to Wilson's office - how did she know?

Rose was on tenterhooks. This was it - this was the night. There was the noise, the clatter that drew her attention from Wilson's office and towards the supply room where she'd finally meet him - memory and reality were becoming one in a way that had never happened before. She followed the footsteps of Dream Rose as though she were in a dream, outside her body, not in control, and she knew that there was a certain inevitability to this moment - predestination, Shareen would call it. Shareen had always liked to read, use big words she found in books. Rose used to make fun of her for that, when they were little - before the dream.

There they were - the shop window dummies - the Nestene Duplicates, he'd called them. Her memories from Torchwood One in Pete's World started pouring in as they began backing her against the wall. Autons, controlled by the Nestene Consciousness, seeking refuge on Earth, primary weapons were a laser or photon pistol device concealed in the hand, capable of creating an almost identical duplicate of any human, alive or body, honed from years of conditioning and self-taught martial arts from her "memories", as well as instincts that had been ingrained from that other life, was tense and poised for flight when a warm, solid hand grasped hers.

She felt it then, just as strongly as she had before, but still as wrong - the turn of the Earth, the absolute speed of the planet's orbit, but so very, very wrong - the golden note turned sour yellow.

And a voice, a voice in her ear. "Run," he said, pulling her arm along with hers, and she didn't even hesitate, never looked up. The voice was familiar, so she followed without questioning, despite the wrongness. And as soon as they reached the familiar elevator, she turned to look, to finally see those ears, that leather jacket, but she was pulled into warm arms and a thick, woollen coat that smelled of musk and bay rum and something she recognised but couldn't place - and then there was a flash of white light and the smell of the Thames assaulted her nose and she was being lifted from her feet in an encompassing hug that swung her legs around her saviour's body and smothered into a warm, broad chest.

"Hello," he said into her hair, and she laughed, finally able to place the voice.

"Hello," she answered, grinning up at him as he put her down. The eyes were blue, of course, bright and shining with laughter, not distant and raging with a storm. The hair was brown, naturally, and perfectly styled, never close-cropped, emphasising over-large ears.

"I think I'm supposed to say 'hello' a few more times," he teased, and she swatted his shoulder playfully.

"Don't you dare, Captain Jack Harkness," she said, shaking her head. "The fact that you actually exist, that you know who I am - that I'm not mad! Oi, you have no idea how brilliant this is!"

"So you've known since 1996, then?" he asked, looking down at her. "Oh, Rosie, I should have checked on you sooner. I was so afraid I'd be disrupting the time lines if I met you before you were supposed to start travelling with him."

"You might have done," she said, shrugging. "You can tell me all about it later. We've got an angry Consciousness to deal with, remember? Invasion of the Shop Window Dummies, yeah?"

"Anti-Plastic's in my pocket," Jack said. "I know the Doctor always gives them a chance, but I remember what you told me," he trailed off.

"The Consciousness wouldn't have stopped," she said, her voice hard. "They almost killed my mum, and they would have killed the Doctor. We don't give it a choice."

She knew the Doctor would never approve of what they were about to do, but she and Jack didn't answer to him, and he wasn't there. Jack used his Vortex Manipulator to pop them into the Consciousness' "lair" and with something resembling an unholy glee, Jack tipped in the vial of Anti-Plastic before it had a chance to register their presence. They popped back out a moment later. No muss, no fuss, no Invasion of the Shop Window Dummies. She still had a job, no one had died (except the Consciousness), and Mickey had never been taken. The Doctor might not approve, but she thought she might like their way better - there was less damage.

Jack tossed her a phone. "Call Mickey, call Jackie. Tell Mickey you've found some proof - I know you'd have told Mickey Mouse as much as you could; he'll cover for you with Jackie. Tell Jackie you're touring a uni campus, last minute opening, and you're taking Mickey - yes, he's invited, too, but he'll have to find his own way to get there. Taking two makes it worse, taking three is - distinctly unpleasant," he said. Rose nodded.

Jack pulled out another phone, and while Rose made the phone calls he suggested, telling her mother the lies Jack had prepared, she tried to listen to his conversation.

"When are you?" he was asking the other person. "I don't give a damn if you can't tell me, get your ass to the coordinates I'm sending you, because I need your help with a situation, Doctor Song!"

Rose's heart clenched at the word Doctor - for a moment she'd thought he was on the phone with the Doctor, but clearly he hadn't been. She happily convinced her mother she was touring another uni, and since her mother was convinced she had gotten airs and graces from her scholarships and working in high-class shops during school breaks, she didn't want to hear which uni it was anyway. Mickey was only too happy to finally see something of the life that Rose had been dreaming about most of their lives. She got the address from Jack and Mickey looked up the trains and buses he'd need and Jack promised to send a car to the train station for him. Their calls finished, Rose and Jack stood awkwardly looking over at the London Eye.

"The Consciousness was using it as a transmitter, y'know," she said, gesturing at the massive structure awkwardly.

"Aliens have no subtlety," he said with a snort. "Of course, they have slightly more than the people I'm taking you to visit."

"Torchwood really doesn't exist then," she said, trying to wrap her mind around the idea that the organisation that was behind so much of her misery, that had manipulated her life for so long simply did not exist.

"As far as we can tell, they never have, and while it is possible that they will in a few years, right now, they don't," he said. "I'm not the expert on this, Rosie. I don't have all the answers. But if you'll come with me, I'll get you all the answers I can."

"Doctor Song?" she asked, raising one eyebrow in a fair imitation of her second Doctor. Jack merely nodded, not even feigning surprise that she'd listened to his conversation. "Well, then - allons-y!" she said with false cheer.

Jack punched a few buttons on his wrist and put her hand over his, flashing them from their place in front of the London Eye to an oddly chaotic yet organised office. A handsome, well-dressed man looked up from a desk in the corner and smirked at Jack. "How many times have I told you to stop bringing home pretty girls, Jack?" he said, rolling his eyes.

"That's enough lip out of you, Ianto," Jack said, winking at the pretty boy, who shook his head and turned back to his paperwork.

"Welcome to UNIT, Miss Tyler," he said, his fingers flying over the keyboard. "If you'd care for tea, please let me know. Jack, Doctor Song was here for a few minutes before she mentioned something about - and I quote - 'bloody Time Agents learning their bloody coordinates' and said she'd be back in half an hour."

Rose was impressed that he'd managed the whole thing with an entirely straight face, his voice completely devoid of emotion. She'd have at least smirked when delivering a message like that.

"Yes, thank you, Ianto," Jack said. "Please remind me why I keep you on, again?"

"No one else will put up with your flirting, sir," the man said without looking up. "Gwen would probably shoot you, Tosh would stare at you like you'd sprouted tentacles, Owen would attempt to punch you, and Miss Tyler would likely laugh, if half of what you've told me about her is true."

Jack huffed and rubbed his temples. "Ianto, be a good little secretary and - I don't know - go file something, fetch a coffee - just - get out," he said, clearly done with his assistant.

"Tea, Miss Tyler?" Ianto asked, standing and looking completely undisturbed by Jack's antics, while Rose attempted to stifle her laughter. She'd never seen unflappable Jack so flustered. She would need to remember Ianto's technique.

"Tea would be lovely, ta," she said. "And it's Rose, please."

"Of course, Miss Tyler," Ianto said, leaving the room. "I'll return with your tea, and coffee for you, Captain, in a few moments. I will then attempt to find something to file. Send for me if you need anything further." The door closed behind him.

"Jack Harkness, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were just a little in love with that boy," she said, letting loose the laughter that had been fighting its way free since the exchange had started.

"Don't - just don't, Rose, please," Jack said, and for the first time, Rose realised that Jack was actually in pain.

"What's wrong?" she asked, stepping closer to him, rubbing his shoulder in comfort.

"What's wrong is that he knows what's going to happen to the charming and handsome Ianto Jones, and he can't reconcile himself to the idea that everything has its time, and everything dies," said a woman, and Rose looked up to see that they were no longer alone.