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Author's Note: Nine/Rose, implied Four/Romana. Spoilers through "The Parting of the Ways." Thanks to loneraven and renn for beta work. Thanks to mosca for organizing the Free Verse Challenge.

City of Loss
by gwynnega

Transparent as shrimp, they swim
in transfiguring light.
They live on clouds and communion wafers,
the occasional locust, the odd
piece of honeycomb found in a tree.

The first planet they visited after the Doctor changed was called Metamorphopolis. Or something like that. Rose couldn't get her mouth or brain around the actual name, which had at least ten syllables after the "Meta" part. The planet was beautiful in a way that she could only think of as "unearthly," which was funny when you thought about it, since it was, quite literally, unearthly. The sky was violet, and the planet's inhabitants looked like tropical fish, except they swam in the air. They liked to congregate around tall trees with red blossoms that dripped a golden liquid. They grazed at the blossoms and swam lazily through the air.

The new Doctor reached up and swiped his finger against a blossom, brought it to his mouth.

"Maybe you shouldn't do that," Rose said. "What if it's poisonous?" Then again, she thought, if it was poisonous, the new Doctor could just turn into yet another new Doctor—so she supposed he could afford to take chances. Suddenly she was furious. You shouldn't have left me, she thought. We could have gone somewhere safe. I know I didn't ask, but you could have taken me away, and we'd still be together.

"Delicious," the new Doctor said, grinning as if it were the most marvelous thing in the universe. His smile was like her Doctor's, yet not. His smile hurt her. "Here, give it a try. It's honey, Rose."

She shook her head, and his smile faded. She could barely look at him. She shut her lips tight together to keep the tears at bay.

"Look," the new Doctor said, and pointed to one of the fishy things, which was pink and green and frilly, and about the size of Rose's hand. The fish started to glow with a golden light, and then it changed into another fishy thing, except this one looked like a silver and blue shrimp. Nearby, a yellow and orange shrimp was turning into a black and green fish.

Her anger flared again. So that was the plan, was it? The new Doctor had brought her here to show her that he wasn't the only creature in the universe that changed. As if some admittedly beautiful fish-creatures were going to make it all right. "I want to go back to the TARDIS," she managed to say. A tear coursed down her face, and another.

"Rose." She felt his hand—not his hand—on her shoulder. She shook it off. "Rose, I'm sorry. I thought..."

"I know what you thought." She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "It's okay. Let's just go."

When they got back to the TARDIS, she shut herself in her room and cried on the bed until she was sick of crying. She knew she wasn't being fair. But it was horrible to grieve for someone who wasn't even dead. Jack was dead, and she mourned him—but that was a clean, simple grief, not like this. It occurred to her that this was her punishment for changing on Mickey the way she had. Was this what Mickey had felt, wanting the old Rose back?

She'd been remembering, in bits, what had happened on Satellite Five. Remembered the light inside her, the power of it, and the pain in her head. She remembered the Doctor kissing her, the surprise and the sweetness of it, and how the pain had drained away, along with the light. How the light had gone into him, and how she'd slept.

He'd taken all the light with him when he'd gone.

"I'm taking you somewhere we've been before," the new Doctor said the next morning, without looking up from the control panel.

"Where?" she asked, but he just fiddled with various switches.

The TARDIS lurched and swayed, and she had to concentrate on keeping her footing. When the floor was steady again, he finally looked up. He gestured toward the door. "Go on."

"Aren't you coming?" She feared he'd taken her back to London, that he would dump her at home. Why wouldn't he, the way she'd been treating him?

He shook his head. "Need to do a bit of tinkering with the TARDIS for an hour or two. You go ahead. It's Paris in 1979. Remember?"

The Doctor had taken her there shortly after they'd dumped Adam back home, after the first time they'd been on Satellite Five. They'd eaten pastries and gone to the top of the Eiffel Tower. It had been an uneventful trip, but she'd felt keyed up and expectant the whole time, remembering what he'd said about kissing the wrong people. She'd thought maybe he would kiss her in Paris, but he didn't. She'd wondered if maybe that was because she wouldn't have been the wrong person for him to kiss.

"But why here?" she asked the new Doctor.

He was silent, watching her gravely. Finally he said, "I'm trying to help you, Rose." He started doing something with the sonic screwdriver and the control panel.

"All right," she said. "I'll be back in an hour or two."

He didn't look up.

The TARDIS had landed near the Louvre, and Rose began to walk towards it. She and the Doctor hadn't gone there together, though she remembered him telling her some vague story about writing on the back of the Mona Lisa with a felt-tip pen. She contemplated going inside and looking at it, but she didn't feel like battling the crowds of tourists. Instead she walked along the Seine and remembered being in Paris with her Doctor. How lucky she'd been.

Then she saw it, just sitting there on the bank—amazing, that no one seemed to notice it—and her heart began to pound. At first she thought the new Doctor had rematerialized the TARDIS to come and get her—but she hadn't been gone ten minutes. It was another blue police box.

Had he really sent her back to see her Doctor again? Would he do that, after the mess she'd made with her father? But she didn't stop to think. She pulled the key from her pocket and ran for the TARDIS. Her hands were shaking so hard, it took a couple of tries to get the key into the lock. She was going to see her Doctor.

There was a man at the control panel, doing something with the sonic screwdriver. His back was to the door, but he clearly wasn't her Doctor. He had lots of curly brown hair, and he wore a tan coat and trousers, and a long multicolored scarf. "Romana, there you are," he said in a deep, posh voice, without turning around. "Where have you been?"

"Who are you?" Rose asked. "Where's the Doctor?"

The man turned around and regarded her with blue eyes that gave her a jolt of familiarity. "You're not Romana," he said mildly. "And I'm the Doctor."

She inched closer to him. She felt a bit light-headed. This man was taller and bulkier than her Doctor, and rather odd-looking. Then again, she'd thought her Doctor odd-looking at first. Then, very quickly, he'd just been the Doctor, with his blazing smile, and he'd been beautiful to her.

"By the way," the man said, "who are you, and what are you doing in my TARDIS?"

"I'm Rose. Rose Tyler." She said the words slowly—as if, if she enunciated clearly enough, he would know her. "I'm a friend...was a friend of...I mean, I still am a friend of..."

"Perhaps you ought to begin again." His voice had an amused lilt to it. Then he grinned, a brilliant flash of smile that lit up his eyes, and something caught in her chest.

"I knew you, later on," she said. "Or I suppose you could be from further along in the future? At any rate, I know you, but the one I wanted to see is..." God, it was hopeless. The sentences looped back around themselves. "Sorry. It's just, I thought I would find him, but instead I'm here, meeting you."

"Ah," he said, and smiled again, more gently. He extended his hand for her to shake. But once she'd grasped his large, strong hand—even though it wasn't his—she couldn't seem to bring herself to let go. Now she was fighting back tears again. He squeezed her hand. "Come to think of it, you do resemble Romana slightly, in her new incarnation. I wonder where she is." His smile faded, and he let go of her hand.

Did the Doctor have a type? The idea that he might have picked her up as some second-hand Romana annoyed her enough to send the tears packing. Then what he'd said began to sink in. "Her new incarnation? So Romana is...one of your people?"

"Yes, Romana is a Time Lady. She seems to have disappeared. One minute we were eating bouillabaisse and saving the earth, and the next she'd vanished into thin air."

Maybe this was why the new Doctor had sent her here—to talk to this other Doctor about regeneration. "Did Romana...did she die recently? And had to regenerate?"

He looked vaguely entertained by the notion. "As far as I can tell, she regenerated for fun. I never did ask her."

"For fun?" Rose exploded. The Doctor gave a little jump, then grinned. "But...Doctor...wasn't it hard for you to adjust? To her new look, and all?"

His smile deepened. "I'm rather fond of her new incarnation, actually."

Just then it occurred to Rose that if Romana was a Time Lady, this Doctor must be from the past—because according to her Doctor, all his people were dead. Maybe that was why Romana had disappeared—because of the Time War. She had learned that the past too could change.

The Doctor peered at her. "Is there something you're not telling me, Rose?"

She told herself she was wrong. She didn't know much about the ins and outs of time, not really. But the sinking feeling in her gut told her she was right. "Doctor, if I'm from the future, I'm not supposed to tell you those kinds of things, yeah?"

"You're quite right, alas." He began fiddling with the TARDIS controls and the sonic screwdriver again. "I've been scanning for her presence in the general vicinity, but I can't find her anywhere." He added, as if to himself, "I can't sense her presence...anywhere."

She remembered what her Doctor had said about not being able to sense any of his people. Could they all be gone for this Doctor too? This was awful. If she was right, then this Doctor had lost his friend Romana—and maybe all his people as well. It wasn't like her Doctor, who had changed but wasn't dead. Suddenly she wanted to get back to him.

"Look here," the Doctor said, glancing up from the controls, "I don't mean to be rude, Rose, but I'd better widen my search. I'll start with some of the places Romana and I visited in Paris. It'll be faster in the TARDIS. You're welcome to come with me, but otherwise—"

"I'll be going," Rose said. "I hope you find your friend." Please, she thought, please let me be wrong about this.

"And I hope you find me. Which is to say, the me you're looking for." He smiled.

As Rose stood in front of the TARDIS and watched it dematerialize, she had to blink a few times. She thought she saw the ghostly image of her Doctor in his leather jacket as the blue box shimmered away. Wishful thinking—or maybe she was just losing her mind. But when the TARDIS had gone, her mouth dropped open. "Doctor?" she whispered.

It was really him. He must've been standing between the TARDIS and the river bank when she'd come outside. He looked serious—sad, really—but when he saw her, he smiled. "Back so soon, Rose? And where are the pastries?" He stared at her. "And you've changed your top."

She gaped at him. Then she ran forward and threw her arms around him. "I'm so happy to see you!" The new Doctor had sent her back to see him again. Thank you thank you, she thought, as she held onto her Doctor and breathed in the scent of leather, and felt his arms go round her.

"I see," he murmured. "Rose is still off getting the pastries, and you..." He pulled back, held her at arms' length. "Were you inside that TARDIS?"

She nodded. "I just met him. He—you—he's looking for Romana. He said he was going to look around Paris for her. Do you know what's happened to her?"

She knew that look—his frown, his face set in grim lines. He wore that look whenever he talked about the death of his people. "It's my fault. I'd planned to come to Paris in 2029, but instead the TARDIS brought us back here, where he is. The second my time line converged with his, it brought the ripples of the Time War. His time line's been contaminated, because I can never see them—Romana, or any other Time Lord—again."

His hands still gripped her shoulders. It was unspeakably wonderful to be with him again, and yet she hated to see him so sad. She wondered if he had loved Romana. She had been one of his people, and they had eaten bouillabaisse and saved the world together. And now she was gone.

But then he smiled. "But the good news is, it's not permanent—not for him. The second I leave his time line—or, for that matter, the second he leaves Paris 1979—she'll be back, for him. He won't have lost her, or any of them."

Rose smiled. "I'm glad."

He let go of her shoulders, took a couple steps back and surveyed her. "But Rose, what are you doing here on your own?"

What could she tell him? "I just...I just wanted to see you again."

"You mean we're not still traveling together? You decided to get back together with Mickey the Idiot? But if that were the case, you wouldn't be here in 1979, would you?"

"You know I can't tell you. It's future stuff, Doctor. And I know that she—the earlier me—isn't supposed to see me. Paradoxes and all that. Don't want to tear a wound in time."

He stared at her. "How do you know about that?"

That's right, he hadn't taken her to see her father yet. "Don't worry about it, Doctor. I just...wanted..." There were no words she could say. She reached up and cupped his cheek. "Whatever happens," she whispered, "you will always be the most important man in her life."

"Rose—"

She tried to memorize his face, so she could take it with her. She brushed her lips across his, and the moment felt unutterably long and all too brief.

He stroked her hair, stroked along the side of her face, and looked at her with such tenderness. "Just tell me you're all right, Rose. That I kept you safe."

She nodded and nodded. "Always."

And he smiled, a grin she thought would burn into her memory for the rest of her time.

Then she saw herself from a distance, skipping towards them as if she hadn't a care in the world, and carrying a paper sack. The pastries. They had been cream and chocolate, melting on their tongues, gone as quickly as that beautiful day in Paris in 1979. She wished she could tell herself, Don't take this for granted. Don't wait. But this was her time, that Rose's, to be with her Doctor. How lucky she was.

"Gotta go, Doctor," she whispered, and she turned and ran.

It wasn't every day that you got to watch a memory of yourself being happy. So Rose hid behind a tree and watched them. The Doctor looked haunted at first, but then Rose said something to him, and opened the bag of pastries, and he smiled. He took her hand, and she smiled up at him, and they walked away together. Rose watched until they were out of sight.

Then she headed back to her TARDIS, where the Doctor was waiting.