Rose Tyler had woken up in a lot of odd places in her life, but the morgue was definitely a new one.

She sat up from the hard metal table. Inspecting her body, she did not seem to be injured. It must have been poison or illness that put her here then. She examined her memories and winced. She had an oddly vivid recollection of being cornered by a rogue Krillitane. She recalled great pain as it laid into her with its claws, the bitter taste of blood filling her mouth, and her fear as she slowly lost consciousness in that lonely alley.

Okay, in that context, the lack of injury was definitely weird.

She saw her clothes in a plastic bag on the side table and went to put them on. They were bloody and ripped, and oddly baggy around the hips. Looking down, the trousers appeared to be too short. This was another oddity that she didn't have time to contemplate.

Taking the elevator the ground floor, she found herself in the Torchwood lobby and sensed it was around midnight. She found her car and drove to her parents' mansion, hoping they could shed some light on what had happened.

When Jackie opened the door, Rose smiled.

"Hello, Mum."

That was odd. Her voice sounded all funny. She cleared her throat.

"Who the hell are you?"

"It's me, Mum. It's Rose. I'm not dead."

There it was again, that strange low voice. Perhaps her throat was a bit dehydrated?

"I dunno what you think you're playing at, missy, but my Rose died two days ago, and you are definitely not her. Don't you think I know what my own daughter looks like?"

"It's me, Mum. Why don't you recognize me?" Her voice caught.

"Are you trying to steal her identity? Is that what you're doing?" Jackie shook her finger at her. "Well, it isn't going to work, is it? No one takes advantage of my daughter's memory!"

Rose felt the sting of her mother's hand landing across her cheek.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps behind her mum, and a second later her stepfather appeared rubbing his eyes and sighing heavily.

"What's the problem here, Jacks?"

"This woman is trying to steal Rose's identity!"

"Mum!" Rose took Jackie's hand. "You and I were born in a different universe. My real dad died when I was a baby, and we lived in the Powell Estate. You are obsessed with EastEnders and were gutted when you discovered that Strictly Come Dancing went off the air after one series in this universe…Um…." She trailed off a moment, trying to think of a detail only she would know about her mum, who still looked incredulous.

"Oh! And you confided in me just last week that you bribe the cook to let you make the tea because you don't think she does it right."

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Rose?" Jackie's eyes went wide, and she lifted her hand to cover her mouth.

"It's really me, Mum."

Pete cleared his throat. "If you don't mind my asking, Rose, did you know that you could regenerate before this happened?" he asked.

"Of course I can't regenerate! What are you talking about? I just didn't die like you thought I did. It's not like I'm the Doctor and can go about changing my face."

Pete put a steady arm around her shoulders and led her inside, leading her to stand in front of the mirror in the hallway. "Then again, maybe I can," she breathed after a long speechless moment. She could comprehend no details about the face in the mirror beyond the fact that it was not at all her own. She turned around, feeling dizzy and nauseated.

"I need to sit down."

"I think that would be best for all of us," Pete sighed, following her into the living room.

Rose sat and leaned her head back against the sofa cushions. What did this mean? Did this make her a Time Lady now, or had she just gained regenerative powers? Did she only get this one regeneration, or did she get twelve now, like the Doctor? She focused a moment on clearing her mind of her whirling thoughts so that she could discuss this calmly with her parents.

Unfortunately, clearing her mind did not have the desired effect. Her standard technique of focusing on her own heartbeat led her to perceive the minutiae of the workings of her own body. Not only could she perceive the thumps of her heart, but also her liver producing bile, her kidneys processing waste, even her ovaries preparing to release an egg. She could differentiate the feelings of various hormones pumping through her bloodstream, though she had no names for each of them. Trying again to focus on just her heart, she discovered that she could slow it down or speed it up at will. As these things only caused her mind to spin more, she stopped focusing on her heartbeat and tried to just be.

The effect of this was even worse. Suddenly, it was as if she could comprehend their exact position in time in space and feel time ebbing and flowing forward and backward. She could feel the Earth turn beneath her feet and see her parents' lives fold out before her, laughing and aging, with Pete surviving a heart attack only to watch Jackie die of cancer the next year. Tears pricked behind her eyes. Her nausea intensified and her skin began to crawl. In a burst of intuition, she just knew that she didn't belong here, in this time and place, in this universe. Time swirled around her in strange ways, causing the fabric of reality to buckle and fold. There was no natural place for her here, no alternate Rose whose space she might occupy. It was imperative that she return to the other universe immediately. A wild thought hit her, and she found herself smiling genuinely for the first time in a year.

"I think I know how to get home."