The Spaces Between

Shakespeare's Lemonade

Rating: T

Genre: Adventure/Romance

Summary: Rose finds that in an alternate universe, there is an alternate Doctor. He looks the same as when she first met him, but he's not hers. He's someone else. But he may be her only chance to get back home, back to her Doctor.

Pairings: Nine/Rose, Ten/Rose

A/N: Alternate universe where the Ninth Doctor exists in the parallel universe where Rose was stuck, but because Rose didn't exist in that world, he never met her. This also takes place near the end of season four, but before the events with the Master.

This story is complete, so I will be updating chapters regularly. It's also my first Doctor Who fic, so I look forward to hearing what readers thing.

Finally, thanks to my friend Kex3 for beta reading, and also to Cheyla from the Underground Fanfictioners group.

Chapter One "Silence"

"The silence isn't so bad till I look at my hands and feel sad 'cause the spaces between my fingers are right where yours fit perfectly."~Owl City

Rose was becoming accustomed to silence. She hated that she was falling into a routine without him. It wasn't supposed to be this way. She was going to stay with him forever, however long that was. Sometimes, she had to laugh because it never could have lasted. He was over nine hundred years old, while she had been a mere nineteen, and he still would have lived centuries or millennia beyond her. She may have had enough love for him to stay until she died, but she would have died eventually. Even he couldn't have stopped that.

The unfairness of it all was being separated by something other than death. The Doctor had said that the emptiness between universes was silent. Rose had narrowly escaped that fate, but she still lived in silence. Everything but his voice was white noise, a non-sound.

She had her mum and dad and baby brother. It wasn't enough. Maybe Rose was selfish-she didn't doubt it-but he needed her too, the Doctor. They were better together, but now they never would be again. As miserable as she was, Rose thought it must be worse for him. Eventually, her finite life would come to an end; his existence could go on forever, to the end of the universe, if there ever were one.

Still, the days went on almost the same as they had before Rose ever met the Doctor. She worked in a shop, came home to her family, went to sleep, and then did it all over again. Exactly the life she had abandoned when the Doctor offered to take her with him that night they destroyed the plastic monster. She had never regretted it. Even now, living in this other world, Rose didn't wish she had never met the Doctor. She only wished she could get back to him.

At first she had thought it would be better when he left his half human clone with her. He was almost the same person, and he needed her to keep him alive. But she had failed. She wasn't enough. He died anyway. It wasn't like the first time she had watched him die. It was slow and miserable. There was a lot of blood. Rose had never seen so much blood.

That was why she felt the need to find him again. The loneliness that had crippled her before returned with full force. She needed him as much as he needed her. But the rift had been closed. Time and space had been set right, or mostly so. The only thing wrong was that the Doctor and Rose were alone, and no one could bring them together again.

~oOo~

After the Doctor clone died, Rose left Torchwood. She had been able to carry on when she had lost him the first time, but this was different. He was human, and he was dead. He had never really been her Doctor, but he remembered her, and he needed her. Now, she had no reason to keep fighting. Her Doctor would have been disappointed at the idea of Rose giving up, but she couldn't bring herself to care anymore. Without him, all her efforts to save the world seemed meaningless.

And they didn't really need her. She had only worked for Torchwood to be close to him, or feel as if she were. Now, she knew she would never be near him again. He would go on in another universe without her, saving the day as he always did.

Rose went back to work in the shop. It seemed fitting to return to the life she had before she knew him. It was as if he had never existed, as if she had lived all her life in this universe, doing this job, all the while feeling as if her soul had been ripped from her body, that she would never be whole again.

It was dark, and the lights from the zeppelins cast a strange golden glow on the city. Rose had just left work and was walking along toward home. She lived on her own now in a little flat in her old neighbourhood from her proper universe. It wasn't the same, but it was close.

No one ever came near Rose, almost as if they knew she shouldn't be there. She didn't fear walking home alone at night because everyone gave her a wide berth. Somehow, her mother had managed to fit into this world, but Rose never could. Maybe it was better to be alone.

The streets got darker as she left the centre of London behind. Everything was quite to Rose's mind, until she saw a man step into her line of sight and heard his voice.

"Excuse me, I seem to be lost; where is this?" he asked.

Rose came closer to him, not believing her ears. "Doctor?"

He stared at her with no recognition in his eyes. He wasn't her Doctor. He couldn't be. This was a parallel universe where he existed before the purely aesthetic reading glasses, suit and trench coat, and Chuck Taylors. He was the first Doctor she met, but he wasn't hers.

"You don't know me, do you?" Rose wouldn't cry. She had lost him along time ago. This was only a ghost.

"Should I?" he asked, raising his eyebrows in that way of his, crossing his arms with the sound of creaking leather.

She shook her head. "No. That was in another world. I don't exist in this universe."

He frowned. That had caught his attention. "What do you mean, 'in this universe'?"

"I'm from a parallel world. My name's Rose Tyler. In that world, I traveled with you. But I'm stuck here now, and you-the other you-is back there all alone."

The Doctor who wasn't her Doctor shook his head. "Travel between universes is impossible."

"No it's not. Just very difficult, and ill advised."

"Now that sounds like something I would say."

"Yes, I know."

"You're telling the truth." He seemed mildly surprised.

"Of course I am. And you're not him, are you? You're different."

"Yes. I suppose it's only logical that if there are alternate universes, there are alternate versions of me. But you recognised me, so he must be similar."

"He was. When I met him, he looked like you, but then he had to regenerate."

"What happened?"

"There were Daleks involved. I don't think I should tell you. Might cause reality to collapse or something." Rose gave off a nervous laugh.

"The Daleks are extinct-well, maybe not in that universe. But if that's the case, is my-"

"What?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter. You shouldn't tell me because that's not my life."

"Right. Maybe-and this may not sound like something you want to do-but maybe you could help me get home?"

"How would I do that?"

"I don't know. There was a rift, but you-he closed it. Maybe there's another one out there somewhere."

"And what about the idea of universe hopping being difficult and ill advised?"

"Since when do you care about that?"

"You do know me, Rose Tyler."

Rose felt her heart beat faster as he said her name. She struggled to control the emotions that clamoured to get out. "So how does it sound?" she asked.

He smiled, and Rose resisted the inclination to melt. "Fantastic."

~oOo~

The Doctor wasn't sure he liked the idea of stopping by Rose's parents' house before they started off on their search for this alternate universe. He didn't mind taking Rose with him. She seemed like someone he could get on with, which made him believe her story about knowing his alternate self. But family? That was an area the Doctor tried to avoid at all costs.

"Mum will remember you," Rose said as they walked across the Tyler's lawn toward the front of the mansion. "The two of you were at each other's throats a bit, but I think she's gotten over it now. I think she liked the next regeneration."

The Doctor didn't say anything. He wasn't the person they remembered. He wouldn't be hanging around long. He'd help Rose get back to her time. It was part of his job, really. And he liked the idea of helping another version of himself get some sort of happy ending, temporary as it may turn out to be.

They went right into the house, and Rose called out for her parents. A woman's voice echoed down the stairs, and Jackie Tyler came into view with a small child on her hip.

"I wasn't expecting you tonight. What-" She stopped short, standing at the top of the stairs, her son squirming in her arms as she stared at the Doctor. "Don't tell me he's turned time on its head again."

"No, Mum," Rose said with a light smile. "He's the Doctor from this world."

Jackie looked like she might have smacked her own forehead had her arms not been full. "Why didn't we think of that?"

Rose shrugged. "I didn't exist here either. Any number of things could have happened."

"So are you going off again?"

"We're going to try to find a way back for me."

"What are you talking about? Back where?"

"Back home, back to the proper Doctor." Rose cast a glance toward the Doctor. "No offence."

"None taken," the Doctor said.

Jackie shook her head as she descended the steps. "He left you here, Rose. What about your family?"

"He left me with his clone. He thought he needed me more. But he's dead, Mum. I've got nothing left here. You know that."

"It's always him above everything else," Jackie muttered.

"It always has been." There was sympathy in Rose's voice, but not a hint of faltering.

Jackie's expression softened. "Tony will never get to know you."

"He'll have you and Dad." Rose sounded firm now. "I have to do this, Mum."

Jackie nodded. Then she turned to the Doctor and frowned. "Now, you better take care of her. And not like you did last time, either. No death, no paradoxes. If anything happens to her, I'll find you."

The Doctor didn't bother to mention the ridiculousness of that notion. He only nodded. "I'll take good care of her."

Rose said her goodbyes to her family, and it was all very emotional. The Doctor tried not to pay attention. He was getting a little anxious to be on their way, not that he knew where they were going. Ever since the Time Lords died, there had been no crossing between universes. Rose talked as if it would be easy, and she would know better than he would which was a strange sensation. Everything about Rose made him feel strange, as if he should know her, as if he should care. And that was probably the real reason he wanted to help her get back to where she belonged. Because another version of himself did care about Rose. She mattered to him, and he would do everything in his power to send her home.