Non Reinette-bashing, non Doctor/Reinette romance, eventually a bit of Doctor/Rose romance. Mostly, I hope it's a true-to-character, fill-in-the-gaps look at the end of "The Girl in the Fireplace"...

This is a sequel to my stories, beginning with "02 00a Heart of the TARDIS". Technically, I wrote this before the intervening episodes, but yeah, it's a sequel.

Thanks to lyin' for pointing out, well, a fashion discrepancy ;)

Disclaimer: Surprise, surprise, I don't own Doctor Who. Nor do I get anything from writing these stories - except wonderful, constructive reviews! Wink, wink; nudge, nudge ;)

May 2018: re-edited since its original posting.

Chapter 1: Doctor to the Rescue

Rose stood looking through the impervious time window at the chaos in the eighteenth-century ballroom, below. "I don't get it," she said. "How come they got in there?"

"They teleported," answered the Doctor, working feverishly to find a way through. "You saw them. As long as the ship and the ballroom are linked, their short-range teleports will do the trick."

Rose felt sick inside, hearing the screams; remembering her promise to Reinette on the Doctor's behalf, her complete trust in him. There had to be something they could do. "Well, we'll go in the TARDIS," she suggested.

The Doctor dismissed the idea. "We can't use the TARDIS; we're part of events now!"

Right, thought Rose. Crossing timelines? Bad.

Mickey spoke up. "Well, can't we just smash through it?"

Rose glanced around for a tool, an axe or something.

"Hyperplex this side, plate glass the other," said the Doctor.

Maybe even the fire extinguishers would work, she considered. How strong was hyperplex, anyway?

"We'd need a truck," the Doctor commented, dashing her brief hopes before she could even ask.

"We don't have a truck," Mickey replied.

"I know we don't have a truck!" yelled the Doctor, clearly exasperated.

"Well, we've gotta try something!" said Rose. The droids had been on the other side for too long now. There was no telling what they were doing to Reinette. There had to be something they could use to get through -

"No," the Doctor told her emphatically. "Smash the glass... smash the time window. There'd be no way back." He turned to look at said time window, and Rose followed his gaze.

Rose watched through the portal as Reinette was brought into the ballroom but still tried to take command of the situation. All of the droids were there, and it didn't look like she had much time.

Rose turned to the Doctor, eerily reminded of the same man with a different face, looking at her across a cabinet room table. With all the calm and confidence she could muster, she asked, "So what're ya waitin' for?" The Doctor turned to her. "Do it," she said.

"Do what?" asked Mickey.

The Doctor didn't say anything for a moment, only looked hard at Rose.

"Ya promised," she prompted. "The Doctor's gotta keep his promises, yeah?"

Before the Doctor could reply, the horse from Versailles came trotting into the room. "Oh, good boy!" said the Doctor, his face lighting up. He raced over to the animal and stroked its muzzle. "I'll bet you could tackle a bit of hyperplex, couldn't you, Arthur?"

"What, throw the horse at the window?" asked Mickey.

"Or, ride the horse through the window," said the Doctor, mounting without looking at either of his companions.

"But you just said there'd be no way back!" shouted Mickey as the Doctor turned Arthur to line him up for the charge.

Ignoring Mickey, the Doctor looked to Rose. He opened his mouth but seemed to change his mind about what he wanted to say. "Emergency Prog-"

But she cut him off, saying, "We'll be here."

Mickey looked almost ready to stand in the Doctor's path, but Rose grabbed his arm and he wisely backed away as the Doctor kicked his mount into a gallop.

Rose watched as if in a dream as the horse's hooves smashed through the time window. For an instant, she could see the ballroom below, with Reinette on her knees surrounded by droids, and the Doctor astride Arthur suspended in the air above them. But the image winked out before the shards of hyperplex even began to hit the ship's deck. As the Doctor vanished, despite her faith and confidence in him, she felt a lump in her throat and tears began to form in her eyes.

"What happened?" asked Mickey. "Where did the time window go? How's he gonna get back?"

"We dunno if he even made it," Rose whispered, still staring at the shattered time window, almost as if she could will it back into one piece.

"We can't fly the TARDIS without him, how's he gonna get back?" Mickey repeated.

Rose forced herself to think things through, taking a breath and averting her eyes to the stars in their alien constellations visible through the ship's overhead window. Emergency programs or not, she wasn't even going to consider abandoning the ship just yet. After a few moments' reflection, she said to Mickey, "We'll check the other windows. It might just be this one that's broken, yeah?"

As they walked through the ship, Rose's spirits sank lower and lower with every destroyed time window they passed. She had thought that one of them might lead to a point in Reinette's future, sometime after the Doctor had crossed over; but each portal they found was either torn, shattered, or simply blank. After searching every deck of the ship, they finally made their way back to where the TARDIS was parked.

Mickey began to pace angrily, looking between the TARDIS and the broken window. "That's it, Rose," he shouted in desperation. "All the windows are dead. Every one. He can't get back to us!"

Rose moved to the bulkhead, staring out of one of the ships smaller portholes at the stars beyond. "We're not stranded, Mickey," she sighed at last.

"What, you tellin' me you can fly us home?" he asked incredulously. "I thought you said it was, like, forbidden to pry it open like last time."

"We can't do that," she said. "But he'll be back." She tried to make the words convincing, both for Mickey and herself.

"How?"

"I dunno," she admitted, turning her back to the wall.

Mickey threw his arms up and muttered something indecipherable as he turned away from her.

"I dunno how he'll do it," said Rose more forcefully, walking back to the broken time window, "but he will." Mickey looked ready to scream, but she continued, "An' the TARDIS can take us home if she has to. There's an emergency program."

"Yeah?" asked Mickey. He stepped over to Rose, taking her hand. "Well, let's use it, then," he said, moving to pull her towards the TARDIS.

"We can't," said Rose, slipping her hand from his. "Not yet."

"How long're we gonna wait?" he asked.

"As long as we can," answered Rose. "You can wait in the TARDIS if ya want," she said, turning back to the window. "I'll be here." Rose slid down to the floor, leaning against the control panel to find a more comfortable position for her vigil.

"Right," said Mickey, and he turned to head back into the TARDIS. "I'll be in my room," he shot back over his shoulder. "Call me when you're done starin' at the wall."

Rose listened to Mickey's retreating footsteps as he crossed the TARDIS' metal grating. Soon, all was again silent, save the background noise of the ship's warp engines. She almost followed him, wanting to wait in the familiar surroundings of the TARDIS; but she stayed put, keeping as much distance as she could between herself and the switch that would send them back home - as if she'd ever be at home again anywhere outside of the TARDIS.

Rose took deep, calming breaths, refusing to despair. The Doctor was resourceful. He wasn't the only person who could travel through time; there were Time Agents, like Jack, right? He could find one of them. Or, maybe he could get a ride from himself. He'd mentioned it before, running into a past or future regeneration. He was always visiting earth, so he was bound to be relatively close to another incarnation's visit. The past Doctor would just need to wipe the memories. Or maybe he could fix the time windows from his side. Not all of them had fallen apart like the mirror; maybe they were just temporarily disconnected.

How long could they wait here? The TARDIS could provide for them, assuming being cut off from the Doctor didn't have any ill effects like after his regeneration. So, it would come down to as long as Mickey could stand it. The Doctor wouldn't expect them to stay here indefinitely. If he did find a ride through time and space, he'd look for them at the Powell Estate, maybe even before he came back here.

But if he didn't find any help, and if he did still manage to get back here through the time windows, what then? If she let Mickey use Emergency Program One, the Doctor would come back to an abandoned spaceship three thousand years in Rose's future. Would he try to open up time portals to London 2007, rather than 1700's Versailles? She laughed as she imagined the Doctor stepping out of her bedroom closet when she was seven. Or popping out of a dumpster at sixteen. "Oh, sorry Rose, you're not quite the Rose I was looking for." Better not to find out. She'd wait here as long as she could, here with his TARDIS, no matter how grumpy Mickey got.

Of course, thinking about the time windows led to the question, why Reinette, anyway? What made repair droids on a fifty-first-century spaceship think they had to get a hold of the thirty-seven-year-old brain of Madame de Pompadour? That was the craziest thing. Granted, she was brilliant. If Rose had thought she had the market cornered on primitive humans taking the Doctor's world in stride, she knew better, now. "But you and I both know, don't we, Rose? The Doctor is worth the monsters." Rose knew. Madame de Pompadour knew. Sarah Jane Smith, Cleopatra -

No. She wasn't going down this path. So, he'd met people in his travels, some of whom became his companions? He'd had a long life, he was entitled. But where were the others? No sign of Cleopatra. Sarah Jane had stayed behind - willingly, this time. Reinette wasn't going anywhere; she had her place in history to fulfill. Rose was the one traveling with him, now. She was the one who had come back to him, after he had sent her away to safety.

She remembered their conversation of only a couple of days ago. "You just leave us behind. Is that what you're going to do to me?" she'd asked, more hurt that she wanted to admit.

"No. Not to you," he'd said.

She was special to him. And whether he'd invited Mickey along just for Mickey's sake, or for her sake, or out of some attempt to distance himself from her, she'd show him. He would find his way back to her, and she'd never ever leave him.

Rose heard Mickey's footsteps returning. "Rose," he practically whined. "It's been almost an hour since he disappeared."

She didn't answer, except to lie down with her hands behind her head, and one leg crossed over the other.

As Mickey stalked away, Rose closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

To be continued...

(I think a lot of the trouble with this episode for 10Rose shippers might stem from the fact that Billie Piper and David Tennant were great friends - but David Tennant and Sophia Myles were an actual couple for a while. Darn onscreen chemistry defying the written character relationships! FanFiction to the rescue...)