Rose Tyler looked over her shoulder at the strange man Tony had been talking to. It didn't make any sense. Tony was a sensible boy. He wouldn't go around talking to random strangers. He had been taught that when he was three. Rose looked down at her six yer old brother. He kicked a rock and watched how far it would go.
John picked up a rock beside her. "Hey Tony, watch this," He skipped the rock over the Bay.
Tony's eyes lit up as he counted the skips. "How did you do that?" Tony tugged on the edge of John's jacket.
"Look for a flat rock and you can do it too," Rose told him, scanning the ground for a skipping rock for him.
"Why don't we split up to look for a rock?" Tony suggested.
"No. I'm not letting you wander off again."
"I'll take Mr. Smith then!" Tony ran off, dragging John by his sleeve. He looked back at Rose, shrugged, then turned back to Tony. Rose smiled. John had come a long way since they both were dropped on the beach by the Doctor a few years back. He had gone to college for two years. He was smart. Now he was a substitute teacher at Tony's school. Tony had gotten accustomed to calling him Mr Smith.
Rose thought of John. Her John Smith. He was like the Doctor, the man he was a clone of, yet different on many levels. One thing was that he aged like she did, the Doctor's gift to her to live and grow old with him. He was living the life the Doctor always wanted. He was an almost perfect clone.
But there was still a part of her that loved the Doctor. A part of her in that TARDIS of his, traveling along with him. That same part was the part that hated her normal, boring life. The part that she would never tell John about.
It was true that she loved John with all her heart, and would do anything for him, but in the first few weeks it was painful to look at him. It would remind her of how the Doctor, her Doctor, had just left her in this parallel universe. John was more of a man than the Doctor could ever be. They had the same face, mostly the same intelligence, the same upbeat and excited attitude. But that was where the similarities stopped.
Rose had gotten so caught up in her own mind that when someone tapped her shoulder from behind her she jumped.
Rose snapped back to now, and whirled around, fist at the ready to punch anyone she had to. She looked at the man.
"Hello!" He said in a cheery voice. He was the man that Tony had been talking to.
"Is there something you want? I don't do charities, you do one, everyone starts wanting your money."
"No, no, I'm not here for a charity. I just came to give you this," he pulled a rock from his pocket. "I overheard that you and your brother were looking for one, and I found it." The man handed the rock to her. She looked into his eyes.
Rose backed up, startled. The man frowned. "Something wrong?"
"N-no... Nothing. Just... you're eyes."
"My eyes? What's wrong with my eyes?"
"I've... I've only ever seen one person with eyes like those, and he..." Rose looked the man up me down. He was wearing a jacket and a bowtie, and what appeared to be suspenders with a white shirt underneath. She remembered what Tony had said about him being a... "Doctor?" Rose breathed.
The man looked surprised at first. Then his surprise seemed to melt away into a smile. "Rose Tyler."
