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A shower of seawater startles Rose awake. She finds herself kneeling at the water's edge, boots sinking into the beach, and fists full of wet sand. Far on the horizon, a looming storm agitates the sea. Waves plunge into the beach, into Rose, eager to drag her to the ocean's depths.
Her body aches with fatigue—her nerves burn, her vision swims—but she hauls herself up. A fresh wave of pain courses through her abdomen. Broken ribs, she suspects; and something more, as if she's being pulled apart. The waves are working to sweep away her footprints, but there's a well in the sand where she knelt.
Cradling her ribs, Rose turns away from the ocean and takes stock of the beach. Starlight blankets the cliffs and dunes where the storm clouds haven't reached. Cliffs rise along the beach as far as she can see, jutting to sharp peaks.
She sees no hint of nearby cities, or civilization of any kind. Shivering, and still a bit light-headed, she draws a steadying breath. She needs shelter and a change of clothes. Lingering here means death.
Just as Rose decides to turn north—to walk until her legs give out—the bells begin to ring. Her heart leaps to her throat, straining to catch the sound again. Instead, thunder echoes across the bay. The storm has nearly reached the shore.
For a moment, she's so certain she's imagined it that when the TARDIS bursts out of the storm, she stumbles backwards. The cloister bells rings out again, and she watches the TARDIS careen across the sky. It dips, almost crashing into the ocean, and then jolts forward and upward. It disappears beyond the steep rise of the nearest cliff.
Rose hesitates, paralysed by bittersweet realization: Only one man in the whole of the universe could be piloting that ship, and it isn't the one she married. Somehow, she's standing on a beach in the reality in which she was born.
But this man, who has arrived in as theatrical a way as he ever has, he could be anyone. The Doctor who came to live in the alternate reality was an offshoot of his tenth body, and Rose knows he had several regenerations left after that.
Still, whoever he may be now, and whenever she's landed in his timeline, the Doctor's her best hope. There's a familiar thrill to the questions, anyway.
The climb to the top of the cliff is grueling, particularly with fractured ribs, so Rose distracts herself trying to remember—something, anything, from the hours or weeks before this night. But it's all black and blank, and the harder she pushes against it, the worse she feels. The last thing she remembers is saying goodbye to Tony and his brood. It was Christmas, and she could see snow falling on the TARDIS outside Tony's kitchen window, but she has the sense that was ages ago and—
—and the TARDIS, their TARDIS. Where has that gone?
At the end of the path, Rose goes around a sharp bend and collides with the man himself. She staggers back a step, her boots slipping on the sleek gravel. She grabs hold of the lapels of his waistcoat to steady herself as the Doctor catches her with an arm around her waist.
He ducks his head to meet her gaze, and Rose finds herself looking into a pair of startlingly familiar eyes. "All right?" asks the Doctor.
She nods, easing herself out of his hold. This Doctor is tall, like any version she's known, with blond hair and an easy smile. She recognizes this face. Travelling with the dimension cannon, she had near misses with Doctors who hadn't met her yet. She'd often busied herself sketching them while she waited for the cannon to recharge. When the human Doctor found the sketches, he showed her the order of his past selves.
The Doctor doesn't seem convinced by her nod, especially with the lapels of his waistcoat still firmly in her fists. She drops her hands, resisting the temptation to smooth the lapels. "I'm fine," she says. Over his shoulder, she spots the TARDIS. Somehow he's managed to land it more than he has crash it. The sight of it leaves Rose with a profound longing.
She starts toward it without a word. The Doctor doesn't object—although he does follow at her heels, and she can feel his eyes on her. The storm has hit them now, rain and wind making a worse mess of her already tangled hair. Just like the Doctor too, to almost crash his ship and then run out into a storm without an umbrella. It's unfair that the drenched look suits him so well.
"Wait," the Doctor calls, gentle yet firm. Rose has almost reached the TARDIS. Its back is to them, but around its edges, Rose can see the light pouring from its open doors. "Tell me your name."
She turns back to face him. "Rose… Rose Tyler," she answers, her mind pitching back to the first time the Doctor asked her name. The worry that hasn't quite left this Doctor's eyes grows. She wonders if he can read her mind. Can he see her standing outside Henrik's a lifetime ago—see the man that he'll become telling her to run?
For a heartbeat, she can see him, her first Doctor, standing behind this Doctor. Her eyes meet the spectre's, which are filled with a golden glow. The terrible pulling sensation hits her again, harsher than before, and she sways on her feet.
The Doctor rushes forward and takes her hand, stepping close so that she can lean on him for support. "Come on then. Let's get you sorted."
She lets him lead her around the TARDIS and through its doors. Inside she finds a spartan console room, with only the console at the center. Its gray and white walls are otherwise empty. They linger in the console room only long enough for the Doctor to lock the doors behind them, but as they pass the console, Rose runs her fingers along its surface. "Hello," she whispers, and the TARDIS gives a cheerful hum in response.
He guides her through a second set of doors and along a series of corridors. He pauses at several doors, mumbling to himself before redirecting them. Finally, he opens a door to a small room he must've used as storage until recently. A few odds and ends are scattered on the floor, with a box sitting in the center. It seems to have been constructed from pieces of the TARDIS itself.
The Doctor takes the top off the box. "Here you are," he says. He glances back at her, with her clothes and hair still dripping on the floor. "We can see what the wardrobes have for you after, but I think you need tending sooner rather than later."
"You want me to lie down in that?"
"Of course."
"What is it?"
"The Zero Cabinet. Scavenged from the remains of the Zero Room." It's nothing she's heard of, and the Doctor sees it in her expression. "You see, my people have this trick, when we're mortally wounded—"
"—regeneration, yeah. I know, Doctor."
He flashes a pleased smile. "You do know me. Well then, this room—the Zero Room—helped with the process. Had to jettison it, but we managed to get these scraps. Nyssa put this together."
"Isn't it a bit more than I need? It's just some broken ribs."
"Please," he says, "lie down." He seems troubled, so she takes his hand and steps into the Zero Cabinet. Once she's settled, he kneels beside her. "You aren't from this time—your clothes tell me as much. You know who I am, although I'm quite certain we haven't met. I don't know what you've been through, but I do know what it looks like when one's body is struggling against itself. And your eyes… Anyway, I think we both know that it isn't as simple as broken ribs."
"Doctor—"
"Rest," he insists. "There'll be time enough to talk when you've healed."
She nods her assent, and the Doctor places the lid back on the cabinet. At once, the environment of the Zero Cabinet has put her at ease; within minutes, her eyes have grown too heavy to hold open.
Rose dreams of the TARDIS as she first knew it; of laughing with the Doctor and Jack until their sides hurt; of watching her second Doctor tinkering with the engine; and of a wave of golden light that swallows her whole.
When she wakes, the Doctor has removed the top of the Zero Cabinet, but she's alone. Her injuries have healed, and she feels strong—stronger than she's felt in years, she thinks. She's out of the Cabinet and onto her feet before she has time to reconsider it.
Beneath her feet, the TARDIS thrums its approval. Time to go, it seems to say, and she follows its vibrations back to the console room.
The Doctor leans against the console, tinkering with something that he sets aside when she enters. "Well?"
"Better," says Rose. She joins him at the console. "You're right, by the way: I know you, but we haven't met—or at least, you haven't met me."
"Rose, perhaps you shouldn't—"
"No, it's fine, because I can see it. Whatever happens, whatever I tell you, you lose it all before I meet you. Properly meet you, that is. Something… someone takes those memories."
Unease floods the Doctor's features—intrigue, too, and a hint of fear. "You can't know that."
"I shouldn't know it, no. But I do." She holds his gaze until he looks away from her with a nod. He steps away from the console, arms crossed, and paces a bit. "Listen, Doctor, I don't have to stay. Wouldn't be the first time I've been stranded. But there's someplace I think I have to go, and if you're willing—"
The Doctor stops mid-step and spins to look at her. He shakes his head. "Rose, I wouldn't— That is, just because there's something I don't understand doesn't mean I want to turn you out. There's a first time for a great many things, it seems."
"You'll help then?"
"Of course."
"Good," Rose says.
"Good," agrees the Doctor. They grin at one another. "Where to then?"
* * *
The business of piloting the TARDIS gives Rose an opportunity to observe the Doctor. It's less theatrical than her Doctors have led her to expect—her husband the worst of the lot—and instead relies on maths and exact coordinates. This Doctor takes his time: he crinkles his brow in concentration, and he mumbles to himself as he enters the coordinates. He's less of a showman than she's used to but every bit as clever.
He'd shrugged off his waistcoat before they'd departed, and Rose allows herself to admire the fit of his sweater. When he's finished with the coordinates, he flips a switch then leans against the console, pleased. He catches her eye, realizing how closely she's studying him. It occurs to Rose that perhaps he's used to less scrutiny from his companions.
He raises an eyebrow as if to say, Yes? and Rose swallows a laugh.
They're on their way now, so there's nothing left to do but wait out the journey. "You're sure about this?" asks the Doctor.
Rose hadn't had coordinates—just a name and a date. When she'd given them to him, he'd made a resigned sort of noise but hadn't protested. As always, the Doctor was as good as his word. "Absolutely," she says, "not that I could tell you why. You don't seem too eager though."
The Doctor shrugs. "I've never had much interest in this place."
"Why's that? Too boring?"
"Best you see for yourself," he replies. As if waiting its cue, the TARDIS lands. Stepping outside, the pair find a barren planet. Its peaks and plains are covered with nutrient rich soil, but they find no sign of anything green or living. The Doctor has parked the TARDIS in a steep valley, hidden from plain sight. Ahead of her, a series of hills rise and fall. A footpath lined with gravel leads the way forward.
Rose leaves the Doctor in his TARDIS, against his protests. "Scan it, Doctor. It's deserted, yeah? Just us and one other person, and he's no danger to me."
Somewhat reluctantly, the Doctor lets her go. He presses a homing beacon into her hand—"rudimentary, but it'll do," he says—and watches as Rose trudges through the loose soil.
She follows the footpath as it winds its way up and down several slopes. Lifeless as the planet it is, its atmosphere makes the journey easy, and soon she arrives at her destination: The top of a hill, which levels off to a wide overlook. Another Doctor and his TARDIS stand there, stationed by a holographic plaque.
Rose approaches him unhurriedly. She hasn't seen this version of him, and she isn't sure what to expect. She realizes that this is the first time she's seen him—or at least a version of him who knows her—since he left her with the human Doctor in an alternate reality. His fingers twitch at his side, and she suspects he knows he's being watched. The Doctor allows her a moment more to study him before he turns on his heel, sonic screwdriver suddenly at the ready.
He's older than he's been in many, many faces, but when when her eyes meet his, her heart skips a beat. He drops his hands, nearly losing his grip on the screwdriver, and he draws a sharp breath.
He seems to be surprised to see her, of course, but it also seems from his expression that a question has been answered. "Rose," he breathes as she approaches him. "How?"
She shakes her head. "I don't… " She heaves a frustrated sigh. "I don't know how I got back to this reality. But I hitched a ride here." She gestures broadly to the lifeless world around them.
Up close, his worry lines seem more severe. He looks like he's tired of holding himself up—not in the way of the elderly, but in the way of a timeless being whose years have begun to weigh on him. Like her first Doctor, this one has so many ghosts knocking around in his eyes.
She touches the crinkles as the edge of his eye, and he dips his head into her touch. "You're alone?" He leaves part of his question unasked: Is he here?
"I was, I think. I've got someone now," she answers.
"You're okay?"
She nods. "Yeah."
"Good." He's grinning now, his hands cradling her elbows. "That's good." He hesitates, just a moment, and then pulls her into his arms. She returns the embrace, wrapping her own arms around his neck. Decades or lifetimes apart, it doesn't seem to matter: She knows him, and he knows her, and they fit.
When they part, he puts a bit of space between them, except for where their hands connect. The tension has slipped away from his shoulders.
She turns her attention to the plaque, which reads: Dedicated to ones who came before. May these waters guide us in their footsteps.
The Doctor scoffs. "What do you know about this place?"
"Nothing. Tell me."
"They call it the Waters of Life. No one remembers its first name. Like Earth, it was the only planet in its system that supported complex life. The people who lived here seemed to be advanced—there used to be incredible cities here. By the time anyone else came here, the planet was abandoned, leaving only foundations where their cities once stood. The oceans had already started to take over the planet."
"What happened to the people?"
"No one knows for certain. The explorers who found the planet discovered that the water had restorative abilities. They named the planet after its waters, and in less than a century, those waters were gone. Consumed, polluted, transported."
"Was it true? Did the water have powers?"
"A bit," he shrugs. "Nanotechnology that forced itself to evolve so that it could cross with biomatter, so that it could reproduce without limitation. It healed wounds, yes. Drinking it had beneficial side effects, but those wore off, and each time someone drank it from it, they required more to feel the effects. In the end, addiction bled this planet dry."
"And the people? What do you think happened to them?"
"What always happens: they destroyed themselves."
"It isn't possible that they just… went someplace beyond what we know?"
The Doctor kicks up a bit of soil. "Haven't seen evidence there's anything beyond. Still, I suppose it isn't impossible. They left nothing of themselves behind but those foundations and the water. Someone—or who knows, something—time-locked their whole history."
They stare out at the wasteland left behind by greed and desperation. Rose tries to see the world before them for what it was: incredible cities that spanned the planet; crisp, clean water. It's unnerving to know that thousands, if not billions, of people vanished without a trace. She feels him looking at her, just out of the corner of his eye, the way the Doctor so often did in the beginning.
"You can't stay," he observes.
"No," she agrees. "Not yet."
"'Miles to go,'" he says.
"Something like that." Rose turns so that she's facing him again and he mirrors her. Something's changed, she realizes. Something about him has shifted. She sweeps a wild curl away from his forehead, trailing her fingers down to rest on his collarbone. "You've changed."
The Doctor raises an eyebrow. "Time Lord, remember?"
"No, not regeneration—change. She changed you. The girl scattered across your timeline. She's bargained for your lives, and it's changed you."
A flash of worry in his eyes, the Doctor steps back into her space. He cradles her face between his hands. "What do you mean?"
"I… don't know." Suddenly, she sees herself standing on a planet with a thousand refracted suns, waiting, the cries of the TARDIS echoing across the valley. "It's only beginning."
The Doctor presses a kiss into her hair. "Okay," he whispers, "okay. Time to go, I think." His voice doesn't crack, but only just. His hands are still cradling her head, and she grabs hold of his wrists.
"Why did you come here? Why now?" she asks, stalling just to have a little more time with him. Just as she always has.
"Couldn't tell you. Never been before today, just felt like time. Bit late for a swim though."
Rose snorts. She has no trouble imagining the Doctor stripping down and swimming in someone's sacred waters. "You're terrible."
"Yes," he agrees. "I've missed you, Rose Tyler." The way he says this, almost a whisper and much like a long withheld confession, sends shivers down her spine.
It's Rose's turn to kiss him. She rises onto her tiptoes and places a lingering kiss on the edge of his mouth. She hopes it conveys how much she's missed him. Oh, she has loved her human Doctor, yes, and she wouldn't trade away even a moment she had with him—but she's missed this one too. The root and source, her lonely god. "Quite right, too," she says, and then she steps back.
* * *
She stands there some time after the Doctor and his TARDIS have gone, shaken by the willpower it took to send him away.
Finally, she pulls out the homemade beacon the other Doctor made for her from her pocket and presses the button. She closes her eyes as the TARDIS materializes around her. He's waiting, still missing his waistcoat, and leaning against the console wearing a mask of ease. His worry is betrayed by his bouncing foot.
He brightens when he sees that she's much the same as he left her, save for a few stray tears. "You were with me," he guesses.
"I was."
"You're certain I won't remember all this?"
"I am."
He seems somewhat unconvinced still, but he brushes his worry aside and presses on. He tosses the manual he'd been thumbing through aside. "Where to now?"
Rose hesitates. She hadn't thought this far ahead, and her mind or whatever instinct had told her to come to this planet is silent now. "No idea," she says. "Nowhere in mind."
"Nothing at all you fancy?" the Doctor presses.
"Hmm. I could eat, yeah."
"You humans—all that eating and sleeping!" The Doctor shakes his head, as an adult does watching a child toddling about.
"Oh, come off. I've seen you devour a whole tray of biscuits." On one more than occasion, even. The human Doctor couldn't be trusted alone with them.
"That's different. I don't need biscuits—"
"—that's not what you said—"
"—not that I'd expect you to understand the difference."
"You shouldn't, no."
The Doctor grins, a wide and unrestrained smile that lights his whole face. Rose finds herself rather taken with him and determines to draw out that smile as often as she can before they part ways. He comes back to himself a moment later, this rather solemn Doctor. "Well, then. Nowhere particular you'd like to grab a bite?"
She crosses over to the console, taking her spot at his side. "Surprise me—oh, but let's have someplace close to Earth… and sometime close to the twenty-first century. Someplace and time where exploring the stars still feel new to us."
"That's all?"
Rose has had more adventures than she can count. She's seen people and places and moments beyond her imagination. So her request is simple, yes, but simple sounds good—two people rather than a crowd, the taste of discovery still fresh. Simple sounds beautiful. "Get too far out there, and we forget. I don't want to forget."
The Doctor runs a hand through his hair, a hint of that smile at the corners of his mouth. "I know just the place," he says. She's been fidgeting with switches and dials on the console, and he briefly covers her hand with his. For a moment, Rose thinks she hears a faint melody echoing through the corridors.
Then the Doctor steps away, and the melody stops.
"Europa," the Doctor announces as they exit the TARDIS. "Enormous underwater laboratory and observatory. Your lot jumpstart evolution here, then you mix in your own creatures. Slight miscalculation though—we seem to have arrived during the night cycle."
"Private tour then?"
"Private tour then."
They wind their way through the open passages of the observatory. Most of its walls are windows, fortified by force fields. Hundreds of creatures glide past the windows as they wander around. It's quite peaceful, the deep, deep dark and the graceful way the creatures swim about.
Rose and the Doctor make a game of watching one another in their peripheral vision. He's got a heap of questions, she knows; sometimes when he looks at her, she catches him frowning with some mix of curiosity and puzzlement. Those times, his fingers twitch at his side until he shoves his hands into his pockets.
She can't blame him. Her own frustration at the great blank place where her memories ought to be grows by the hour. She knows she might not recover those memories, but it's impossible to shake the thought that they hold the answer to something. Rose has traveled with the Doctor too much to believe it's coincidence that she found herself on that beach moments before the TARDIS almost crashed on the cliffs. The Doctor knows it, too.
Then there's what's happening inside her. She hasn't felt that terrible pulling since the Zero Cabinet, but something else has replaced it. The sensation reminds her of when Jack used the nanogenes to heal her hand: she could feel her hand mending. The stitching feeling comes and goes between heartbeats—always someplace new each time, and always within her—and Rose hasn't summoned the courage to talk to the Doctor about it.
Sometimes she catches sight of her reflection in passing, just out of the corner of her eye, and thinks she sees golden light in her eyes or tendrils of that light snaking around her.
Meanwhile, she wonders about this Doctor. All those near misses with the dimension cannon, and never once was any version of the Doctor truly on his own. She wonders if he's so solemn by nature or if something's brought it out in him. She like this side of him, however unusual it seems.
They pause to watch a pod of dolphin-like creatures chase each other. The Doctor catches her glancing at him. "I can hear you thinking, so you might as well ask."
"I was just wondering—you haven't been traveling alone, have you?"
He has an incredulous look. "Not at all. I've got Nyssa and Tegan. They're taking a spa week. After Adric, they—" The Doctor cuts himself off.
Oh. Adric. She know this name. He'd been the start of Emergency Programme One, her Doctor had told her once, years after they settled into their freshly grown TARDIS.
The Doctor angles his head so that he can watch the dolphins swim upward, blocking her view of his face. "It's all right, Doctor. You don't have to talk about it, but… I know. It was brave, what he did."
"It shouldn't have happened. I should have…" He shrugs, his body now half-turned away from her.
"You can't control it all," Rose protests. She loops her arm through his, tugging him closer. "Come on. There's a cafeteria here somewhere, I'm sure." He doesn't speak as she leads him away from the window.
The find the cafeteria deserted—no surprise there—so they settle on a sofa right by the window. "No food," Rose sighs, "you've always been rubbish at this part."
She elbows him, catching his eye in their reflections. They go well together, Rose decides, with their blond hair and fair features. She likes his crooked smile, when he gives it. But right now, he's looking at her that way again, like she's a question and he's not certain he wants the answer.
"All right, Doctor. Your turn. What's that look?"
She's not sure he'll answer, but then he shifts so that he's facing her. The sofa is short, not at all compatible with the Doctor's long limbs. She mirrors his position to give him a bit more space, but their knees and elbows are still pressed together.
"We found each other on a beach three days' walk from a town. It was the eighteenth century, but you were wearing clothes from the twenty-first. You looked like… like you were struggling to hold yourself together. You were covered in void residue, yet you belong to this reality. And sometimes, just when I'm not looking right at you… Rose, I could swear… " He trails off, but raises a finger to tap the corner of her eye.
"I trust you," the Doctor continues. "It isn't even a question, and I can't explain that. The thing that bothers me is I don't know what's happened to you." He smooths her hair. Rose leans into his touch, and he cradles her neck in his hand. She tilts her head so that it matches the angle of his. She thinks he's holding his breath—she knows she's holding hers—and then a bell chimes. Lights switch on.
The morning cycle has begun, and their moment has passed. "Back to it?" says Rose, standing before the Doctor can be the one to put distance between them.
"Breakfast first," he replies. He loops their arms together, just as she'd done. "Front of the queue."
They find a rhythm after that, touring all of Earth's first outposts and colonies. Rose waits for that tug to come again, pulling her someplace where some version of the Doctor waits, but for a long time it doesn't come.
She dreams in hiccups of memories: of running beside her pinstriped Doctor; of holding a fragment of TARDIS core in her palms; of stepping out of the TARDIS onto the game station and into the middle of a Dalek invasion. The memories of what came before the beach and this Doctor still refuse to come.
They're on their way someplace mundane—at least insofar as anyone can safely assume a trip with the Doctor will be—when the TARDIS gives a jolt and an exasperated huff. It changes course, ignoring all of the Doctor's attempts to right it. When they come to a stop, they're orbiting a massive conglomeration of space stations. It must've taken millennia to hobble them all together, Rose thinks.
"Waypoint," the Doctor calls it. "Not much more than a petrol stop. There's some shops and some petty crime, but on the whole, a dull spot."
"And yet." The TARDIS seems determined to be here, and now that they've arrived, the thought of going anyplace else makes Rose's heart ache. He's here, and she must see him.
"And yet indeed," the Doctor agrees. He tucks the TARDIS away in a cargo hold and promises to wait there for her. He directs her to a path of color-coded arrows, which she follows to the main level, a series of enormous rooms with shop after shop.
Despite the chaos, it doesn't take long to spot him: her first Doctor, leaned against his TARDIS, wearing a frown.
That he's sulking allows Rose a moment to steady herself. She hasn't seen him like this since he regenerated—somehow, the dimension cannon had failed to ever land her anywhere near him. She's thrown back to that time, to what it felt like to lose him before she understood what regeneration meant. Even now, having loved two incarnations of him since, she's hit with tidal waves of grief and regret. Had he known how much she loved him?
Rose allows herself a heavy sigh before squaring her shoulders and pushing on through the crowd. She doesn't need to wonder whether she's found him before the Autons. Recognition flashes through his eyes. His expression shifts from frustration to surprise… and then amusement. So he knows her, but he hasn't yet taken her to see the sun swallow the Earth.
The Doctor meets her halfway. They manoeuvre through the crowd without seeing it. She'd forgotten how strongly she'd been drawn to him; only now with the distance of time does she see how drawn he is to her.
"You can't ask," she warns when they reach each other.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he replies. "Funny thing, I was thinking of heading your way—might've undersold my ship, I thought—but then the TARDIS had its own ideas." She glances over his shoulder at the TARDIS. It's a terrible temptation to invite herself inside.
"You did undersell your ship," she says.
"Knew it." He flashes a grin at her, and she can't help but answer with one of her own. "I'd wager I have time for a walk before I need to go sort that. If you'd care for a walk, that is?"
"Could do with a spot of shopping, yeah."
The Doctor who brought her here wasn't wrong: Waypoint is rather unremarkable. But Rose lets this Doctor lead her around, spouting off all of his useless trivia and anecdotes as they go. They share some great chips, and the Doctor buys an ugly hat—"might still want to go a different direction," he says—and he keeps on talking. Rose keeps close to him the whole time, so that their arms brush as they walk.
It's a pleasant walk, until someone hisses, "Time Lord," and shoves the Doctor as they pass. His whole demeanor shifts, shoulders tense and eyes dark. His frown returns, and he stops mid-step.
Rose refuses to spare a glance for the culprit. She takes the Doctor's hand in hers, just as she's always done, and she leads him away. Up a flight of stairs, the crowd thins, and they find a row of holodecks. They claim to offer sunsets from across two thousand worlds. She lets the Doctor choose. "Go on then," she challenges him. "Show me something impressive, Doctor."
He chooses a planet with an overly difficult name. The dome of the holodeck closes over them, and a world flares to life around them. Sunlight bursts across the Doctor's features, and Rose finds herself trying to memorize his face: all of his worry lines; the curve of his nose; the way his ears poke out.
The room warms to match the planet they're viewing, and the Doctor shucks off his jacket. Rose tries to focus her attention on the sunset, with its triple suns slipping away and its moons already risen, but she can't seem to keep her eyes off the Doctor. There's a little scar where his shirt collar has ridden down.
He catches her staring, and he raises an eyebrow. "Eyes up here, Rose Tyler," he teases.
Oh. The way he says her name. Caught in the moment, Rose lets slip, "I'd forgotten—" before she stops herself.
"Ah," says the Doctor, in that way of his. He's put together that she's seen this version of him come and go. A heavy quiet falls between them, the Doctor weighing his options. "Go on then."
Their room has begun to grow dark, casting shadows across the Doctor's face. Rose moves closer, examining the jut of his chin, and the blue-gray of his eyes, and the shape of his mouth. She runs her hands along his arms up to his shoulders before tracing the outline of his collarbone.
The Doctor's breathing has shifted to something sharper and stilted. He hasn't moved an inch since she touched him. Rose flushes, her heart hammering. She considers kissing him, but she already knows she's gone too far. The TARDIS had only wanted him to see her face.
A buzz startles them apart, and the dome opens overhead. "Time to go," she says.
They walk back to his TARDIS without speaking. Their fingers brush sometimes, as they weave through the crowds. When they arrive, the Doctor hesitates at the doors. "I don't suppose you'd want to come along?"
The offer doesn't surprise her—it's the breathtaking desperation to say yes that shocks her. She shakes her head. "I can't." It hurts to say, but Rose knows what she has to do now. She's taken too much, and the Doctor can't walk away like this. "I can pop in a minute though."
The Doctor nods. "All right then." He pushes the doors open, and Rose follows him inside.
The sight of the console room breaks Rose's heart. She couldn't have prepared herself for this, knowing that she has to walk away from it again—not in a thousand years. She sees herself in that room, dancing around in this Doctor's arms; teasing him at every opportunity; laughing with her second Doctor, the pair of them collapsed on the floor. Rose has never forgotten the feeling of either of their hands in hers.
She needs to go, but… But maybe has a moment for one other thing. The Doctor has tossed his terrible hat onto the console. Rose grabs it. "I'll just take this to the wardrobe. See if I can bury it properly."
He rolls his eyes, but he doesn't say anything as she leaves. Rose still has this layout memorized. She could probably walk it in her sleep. She passes her bedroom, followed by the library and the kitchen, and soon finds herself at the wardrobe. She tosses the hat into the depths of the wardrobe, sincerely hoping the TARDIS swallows the fez and never again lets it see the light of day.
She looks through the clothes. There's the dress she'll wear when she meets Charles Dickens. There's the Doctor's favorite jumper. She's smiling, remembering all the adventures this Doctor has yet to have, when she spies something at the back of the wardrobe: a pinstripe suit.
Rose's breath catches in her throat. She shoves the other clothes aside, forcing her way inside the wardrobe. She doesn't dare take the suit off its rack, but she stands there for several long minutes, staring at it. She traces the length of one stripe down a sleeve. Her husband didn't wear the pinstripes often, and although she liked the trademark look he adopted, seeing this suit here fills her heart with such painful longing.
It's easier if she doesn't think about this Doctor. Things between them never felt fully settled—she finds she's never quite gotten over it—and even if they had, he reminds her of her husband.
Rose sighs and shakes off her ghosts. She makes sure the pinstripe suit isn't visible, and then she closes the wardrobe. She blinks back her tears, wiping them away with the hem of her sleeve. It's time to say goodbye. If she doesn't do it now, Rose fears her resolve will crumble.
She finds him by the console. He's disassembling a clock, for reasons she'll never know, and he doesn't seem to hear her return. "Doctor?"
"Yeah?" He sets the clock aside, and a screw rolls off of the TARDIS.
"I've got to go."
His brow furrows. He's disappointed. "Already?"
She's crossed the room to join him at the console. "Afraid so. I'm sorry." He shrugs, as if it's nothing to him. He's still brittle, her Doctor. He still needs to pretend this doesn't matter, that his hearts can't be bothered to care about people again. "We'll see each other soon," she promises him. Then she grabs the lapels of his jacket and pulls him to her.
She kisses him, and as she does, Bad Wolf stirs. Rose thinks the room must fill with light, but the Doctor doesn't react if it has. He does return her kiss, his fingertips on her hips. Some part of her has always doubted her memory of kissing him—thought perhaps she filled gaps in the memory with fantasies she'd had of kissing him. As it turns out, she's remembered it exactly. He tastes the same as she remembers, and he kisses her the same. She wishes she could have more than just this.
Bad Wolf reaches into his mind; and when she's done, all that remains of his memories here is an impression of Rose's face. She pulls away. The Doctor has a faraway look in his eyes, and he doesn't seem to notice she's there. "I'm sorry," she whispers.
She walks out of the TARDIS, locking its doors behind her, and disappears into the crowd.
Rose doesn't try to disguise what's transpired between her and her first Doctor. She finds the other Doctor tinkering about the cargo hold, likely minutes from getting himself into some sort of trouble. He's halfway through a history lecture when he seems to notice her state.
The thing is, she sees less and less of a point in pretending she hasn't loved the Doctor most of her life. Which Doctor doesn't seem to matter, really. So if this Doctor's eyes linger on her mouth, and if his resulting frown seems a bit jealous, that's fine too.
"Tell you what," she says, "Forget simple for today. Let's go someplace else. Your pick."
He chooses the 100th Intergalactic Olympics—which turns out to be more like Eurovision mixed with a bit stunt piloting. There's the occasional Olympiad event, sure, but it's less sport and more show. About one-quarter of the participating races have adapted it as a mating ritual of sorts, with couples strewn everywhere. The host planet boasts more than a thousand food vendors, and they try to sample them all. It's loud and uninhibited, and it's a little out of character for this Doctor. But it's also, in a word, fantastic.
* * *
Rose has hardly caught her breath when the universe calls her out into its wilds again. They've just found their way back to the TARDIS, their ears still ringing and their stomachs full. The Doctor sees the shift in her mood as it happens, and all their euphoria dissipates. There's just one word: Hennoilia.
Her husband told her of the planet once. They were halfway through a sixteen hour flight to a remote mountain range, disorientated from the tedium of time unique to plane travel, and Rose had asked whether there were any planets—besides Earth—that he liked coming back to see. "The planet of song," he'd told her. "See, its position in the universe and the position of its seas and landscapes all align to create a phenomenon that creates a melody. It only affects those species with hearing, of course, and naturally the sound can't penetrate the TARDIS walls. It's believed each visitor hears a unique song, but no one can prove that. About ten thousand years from today, some bloke from the travel bureau will create an advert that suggests soulmates who come to the planet will hear the same song."
He'd then launched into a monologue about how the Time Lords had done away with the notion of soulmates before humans tired of dwelling in trees, and Rose had only half-listened.
The TARDIS lands in the middle of a deserted street. It's well past midnight, and the whole planet has been covered in snow. Rose fishes a gorgeous pair of boots out of the wardrobe. She's working at their complicated laces when the Doctor wanders into the room. He eyes her jacket with some skepticism. "If I remember correctly, the TARDIS has a whole wardrobe full of winter coats a few floors down."
Rose has never been one for thick winter coats, and the cold doesn't bother her much. "I'm fine, Doctor. If this version of you has any sense, he'll be inside somewhere anyway."
"About that," the Doctor says. "Looks like he's inside, although I don't know if we can say he has sense."
Rose bites back a laugh. She's always found it silly that the Doctor likes to ridicule other versions of himself. "What do you mean?"
"I'll show you."
She follows him to the console room. Little has changed on the monitors since she left, except for one, which shows a second TARDIS parked perhaps two meters from theirs. "He knew we would be here." Well, that's different.
"Off you go then," says the Doctor. "Try not to summon a third TARDIS on top of this one while you're at it. I'd rather a quiet evening tonight."
Rose makes certain he sees her rolling her eyes, but she squeezes his hand as she leaves. He squeezes hers back.
As soon as the doors to one TARDIS close behind her, the doors to the other TARDIS swing open. Out steps a man with unruly brown hair. His clothes look worn, and in the light of his TARDIS he looks like someone who's been running from something for quite some time.
At the sight of her, this Doctor grins. He piles so much joy and eagerness into that smile that Rose can't help but grin back at him. "You're here," he cries. He closes the few steps separating them, and Rose thinks she sees unshed tears. "I thought your message might not arrive."
"My message?"
"Right—you wouldn't know, would you? You'll want to leave a time delayed message hidden in the TARDIS. I'll tell you when it should pop up. Have the one waiting for you help."
"Got it," Rose agrees.
"I began to worry, you know. I thought maybe Charley and I botched the timeline too much. But here you are!"
"Here I am," Rose echoes, and she hugs him. He sighs into it, drawing her as close as he can. The night is so still and quiet, they could well be the only people on this planet. Then she remembers: "It's quiet."
"Oh! Yes, that's the TARDISes, I think. Working together. Here, let's step from between them." He takes her hand in his, and together they walk out into the snowfall. The doors to his TARDIS snap closed behind them.
It's immediate, the song that wraps itself around her. Rose knows it well. It's the melody that she heard right before she and the Doctor went to Europa. It's the melody that she hears in her dreams. She hasn't heard it this way before, so full and so loud.
It doesn't hurt, but Rose can see how the sound of a single tune might drive someone mad within days. It's no wonder this world thrives on tourism alone.
The world itself reminds her of Earth. The town has a neatly paved main street lined with shops. Rose and the Doctor follow the street to its end, where it empties into what must be a park. Now there are trees on their right and left, colossal evergreens perfectly spaced. Snow clings to their branches.
At the centre of the park, they stop. She's lost sight of both TARDISes now, but the Doctor's hand in hers is warm. She turns him so that they're facing one another. Seeing her husband's rough sketch of this Doctor's face hadn't prepared Rose for its beauty. "I keep thinking I should ask how you've been, but I know that isn't an easy answer. Or a short one."
He smiles at her again, although it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Better now, if that's a satisfactory answer."
"It'll do, I suppose."
The Doctor offers her his other hand. When she takes it, he places it on his shoulder. Then his hand finds its way to her waist, and they're dancing. The meander in aimless circles through the park centre. Soon they shift so that Rose can rest her head against his chest—one hand remains on his chest while the other goes around his neck. Through her jacket, the Doctor's hands are warm against the small of her back.
"Tell me, Doctor: what does the song sound like for you?" Rose asks.
"It sounds the same as it always has," he says.
It isn't much of an answer, but Rose finds she's too captivated by the rhythm of his hearts against the melody she hears to protest. Their dance goes on while the night grows deeper still. They seem to stand in a moment suspended from time, caught between the universe's breaths.
The Doctor begins to hum. Rose doesn't recognize it, at first. Instead she delights in the way the low pitch sends little vibrations across her skin. Then it does hit her, that she knows the melody he's humming—because it's the one that she's listened to the whole time.
Startled, Rose steps back just far enough to catch the Doctor's eye. Her surprise must tell him all that he needs to know, because he says, "Oh, Rose," and pulls her back into his arms.
They return to his TARDIS. They don't discuss it, and afterward Rose can hardly remember their journey back there.
She's only known this Doctor an hour or two, but she decides that the interior of the TARDIS suits him. Not that she has much time to consider that. They shuck off their snow-laden jackets, the doors swinging closed behind them, and return to one another's arms.
The Doctor kisses her like he's waited a lifetime for it—and she supposes, he has—gentle but sound. Rose feels like she's reclaiming him, delighted by the way his mouth feels against hers. Beneath his tenderness, she finds a hunger. Her own hunger answers back, and she presses closer to him.
They part, and the Doctor grins like he had hours ago, and Rose laughs as he kisses her again.
They grin and laugh and kiss, and none of it stops until long after they're in his bed. Rose falls asleep listening to his hearts.
Rose knows it has to end. She just doesn't expect it to end with her heart so broken.
Hours have passed since they took to the Doctor's bed. They've made love again, and they've scrounged the TARDIS's rather bare kitchen for food before returning to the warmth of the bed.
This Doctor has a wonderful sprinkling of freckles on his back, which Rose is tracing while the Doctor tells her of recent mishaps and adventures. He's skirting something though, and although she senses he doesn't want to talk about it, she asks, "What aren't you saying, Doctor?"
There's a pause where Rose begins to think he won't answer, but then he says, "The Time Lords have gone to war. I want nothing to do with it, but I'm not sure how much longer I can stay out of it."
Her heart drops to her stomach. Rose has seen what's to come for him. She hasn't meant to, but she finds herself peeking into timelines more frequently.
Rose hasn't meant to peer into the Doctor's timeline, but she finds it happening more and more. She's seen what waits for the Doctor: This Doctor must choose the Time War. The one who follows him becomes a hero in the eyes of the Time Lords, but Rose has seen that his victories come at a price. The horrors of the war sear away some of the Doctor's memories. Rose has seen the moment he forgets her.
Now, after burdening her with all of that, the universe has sent her here. She must set him on the path to the Time War—toward Cass and the Sisters of Karn. Rose holds back the sob in her throat. She steadies herself, blinking back her tears.
"Tell me about it," she says.
Outside the TARDISes, the sun begins to rise. Their clothes are still damp from the night before, so the Doctor offers her a spare set from his wardrobe.
Her first Doctor's leather jacket has made its way toward the front.
The Doctor doesn't tell her that he loves her, but she knows he only hesitates for fear of hurting her. She knows he can see the grief in her eyes.
He kisses her goodbye, and she feels his eyes on her until she closes the doors to the other TARDIS behind her.
Finding the console room empty, Rose tosses her damp belongings onto the floor. She finds her way to her bed—somehow—and doesn't leave the room for some time.
The next morning, she asks for the Doctor's help with the message. She sets it up just as the other Doctor described.
Then she asks the Doctor to help her with a second message.
She hopes that somewhere in space-time, having just left her with his human counterpart, her second Doctor finds it.
* * *
Time on the TARDIS has always felt relative. Rose and the Doctor could spin out a year touring some off-the-beaten-path system and return to Earth before a day has passed. She once let herself believe her time with the Doctor could be infinite, until the clock had run out all at once.
Now time seems to be speeding up again, and Rose doesn't know how to draw it out—or if she should.
The Doctor and Rose fill their days with the quieter corners of the universe, rescuing where rescue is needed, running where running is required. They attend the first political marriage between a human and an alien species. It's a beautiful reception, with riotous dancing and delicious food, and Rose convinces the Doctor to abandon his cricket outfit in favor of a fitted suit. All together, a great evening.
They're on their way to an afterparty on a nearby moon when the TARDIS intercepts a distress call. The Doctor hesitates, his eyes flitting to Rose in her dress. Her hair has come loose from its braid, and her heart's still racing with exhilaration. "Let's go," she says.
The distress call turns out to be an automated signal from a sleeper ship filled with passengers in stasis. Their fleet of caretaker bots has malfunctioned, causing the ship to miss an opportunity to refuel.
They're swarmed by the bots when they arrive, much like a dog owner whose has just come home from work. Rose and the Doctor do their best to calm the bots, but in the end he has to set to work on their systems before they'll settle.
It isn't the first time Rose has watched the Doctor tinker with something—it isn't even the first time she's watched this Doctor tinker with something—but she loves to watch him. In the beginning, she had liked to tease him. Poke fun at any supposed expertise, joke about his tendency toward hacking computers just because he could. But the longer she had been with him, the more it became a matter of fascination. The Doctor rarely operated with as much focus as he did when repairing something or building something… or disassembling something. She had started to feel she could see the wheels in his head turning, and in time she had found there was little the Doctor couldn't fix.
This Doctor's no different. He isolates one computer from the rest of the ship's mainframe before plugging the bot into it, working his way system through system until he's rooted out all the bugs. One by one, the bots form a line and let the Doctor fix them.
She teases him a bit about it, as it's only proper she does, suggesting he adopt the whole bunch and leave some cash for the sleepers. The Doctor rolls his eyes, but Rose catches him smiling as he kneels to disconnect the last of the bots.
"I'm impressed," she tells him as they step into the TARDIS. "Big, empty starship. You. Not a single crisis."
"Yes, well. The night's still young."
They wind their way through the hallways toward the nearest wardrobe. They've developed a habit of sharing it, on the rare occasion that the Doctor wears something different than the cricket garb. Rose has a pile of TARDIS-gifted clothes in a corner. It's a little reminiscent of the way she lived out of suitcases most of her time with the Doctor, before the parallel reality. The Doctor tosses his dress jacket aside and begins working at his tie.
They're arguing about the Time Agency now, all because the Doctor couldn't recall if one of the names on the ship's manifest was a descendent of a founding Time Agent or an ancestor of a founding Time agent. Like all three Doctors she's known before him, this Doctor finds the whole agency to be a joke.
"You lot. Can't stand it if someone's time traveling without your supervision. Just because you named yourselves Time Lords doesn't mean you've got a monopoly on it." Rose sits on the floor beside her clothes to throw together an outfit. She's too old and too tired to stand longer than she has to.
The Doctor blows past her teasing straight on to his next point. "You know what the Time Agency did get right? The movies."
Rose stops digging. "I'm sorry, you said movies?"
"I did. They'd send an agent back in time for field research. The agent would come back with their notes and the agency would sell the information."
"So we're talking accuracy here."
"Not at all." His tie refuses to be undone, and he frowns at it. "Or I suppose at first, yes. Then someone decided to write a screenplay about a bumbling Time Agent, and the genre took a turn. Nose dive in the accuracy department, sure, but much more entertaining films."
"Did that someone happen to be a Time Lord?" Tired of her hunt, Rose chooses a top and trousers at random, then pulls herself up off the floor. "Let's see the tie."
He tilts his head so she has a better angle to have at the tie. "You mock, Rose Tyler, but I'll show you. Best movies in the universe."
"Time Agency spoofs? That's your pick? Knew something was wrong with you."
"You'll see," he swears, just as Rose unknots the tie. He sweeps it out of her hand and into the trash bin. "Go and get changed. I'll find some popcorn."
The Doctor… isn't wrong. The movie he chooses is terrible, with more plot holes than the average adventure with him; and the casting director clearly had no interest in actors with any talent. But the Time Agents are everything Rose came to expect out of Jack Harkness, and she laughs until her whole body aches.
He keeps surprising her, this Doctor. In all her years with the Doctor, Rose had convinced him to sit through maybe two whole movies. Now she's sat next to him, watching a comedy of all things.
"Tell me the truth, Doctor. Do you really enjoy these movies, or is it more a spite thing?"
"Bit of both, I suppose," he admits. The credits—which are in 3D despite the fact that none of the rest of the film is—have begun to roll, but neither of them are keen on moving. As the silence spools out, they relax into one another.
Rose's mind wanders back to the sleeper ship. It left Earth at a time when humans had just started settling the stars. It wasn't enough to explore the closest stars, not after it took so long to start. The sleeper ship's purpose was to travel as far as it could before its systems degraded, then to find a habitable world for its passengers. One day, in the farthest reaches of the universe, they would wake to find how far time had marched on without them.
"Those people, Doctor. Where do they end up?" Her eyes have begun to feel heavy. She rests her head on his shoulder—just for a minute, she tells herself.
"I'll take you sometime. Wouldn't want to spoil the surprise."
"That doesn't sound like you," Rose half-mumbles, half-yawns. Some lesser part of her consciousness, probably the one part still fighting to stay awake, registers that the Doctor has been tracing little concentric circles on her hand. He feels heavy next to her, half-asleep himself.
"You'll have to live with it, I'm afraid. You can't know everything."
Rose's eyes blink closed, and behind her eyelids, there's a golden light. "I can," she protests when she manages to open her eyes again. "I can see the whole of time and space."
The Doctor goes still. Rose misses the way his fingertips felt on her skin. "Who are you?"
"Who are you?" She's nineteen, chasing down the man who'd blown up her work. The Doctor stops in his tracks and turns back. He smiles. "I can feel it," Rose says.
"Feel what?"
"We're falling through space."
Rose closes her eyes, finds that golden glow waiting, and finally falls asleep.
The night, as she has many nights before, Rose dreams that the universe is a flat sphere—a pool of stars and planets. She stands in its center, and raindrops fall into the pool. She kneels for a closer look and sees only her reflection: light-filled eyes and a sharpness in her smile.
Something else catches her eye, and she reaches deep into the pool.
When she wakes, Rose remembers everything, and she knows where she needs to go next.
* * *
She finds the Doctor in the library. He's been rearranging the books by most reliable author, so the library is a disaster. When she comes in, he's got an armload of books, and he's standing between two piles.
"Doctor?"
"Yes?" He glances at her, not paying her much attention, but the look on her face must tell him everything. "Oh—where?"
Rose swallows. The name is heavy and bitter. He won't want to hear it, she knows. But she has to go. "Trenzalore."
He pales. "No."
"I know, Doctor. I know. That's why it'll just be me. You won't be going down."
"Rose, that place… You can't possibly think it's safe for you down there. It isn't just the end; it's a battlefield."
"Please, Doctor. You know I have to go. You have to understand that by now."
The Doctor nods, and his armload of books crashes to the floor.
Another Doctor has parked the TARDIS on Trenzalore. The Doctor and Rose watch the planet from a distance. It's protected by a force field, and two ships are fighting for it. "Daleks," Rose sighs. "Of course."
The Doctor places a hand on her elbow. She catches a tremble in his touch. "You don't have to do this, Rose."
"I do," she says. "It'll be all right."
"In that case, you'll need this." He pulls a TARDIS key from his pocket, on a long silver chain. "This will take you to the TARDIS down here… and when you're ready, it'll bring you back to me."
He takes her hand and places the chain in her palm. Rose laces their fingers together, the ring pressed between their palms, and smiles up at him. "See you soon."
Rose steps out of the TARDIS into a night filled with gunfire. She sets off toward the sound. The snow beneath her feet is slick, and her boots keep sinking into it. A fresh snowfall has begun, with fat white flakes that cling to her eyelashes. She couldn't imagine a scene more different than the one she shared with the Doctor on Hennoilia.
By the time she reaches the battlefield, the fight has quieted. The Doctor's allies have pushed the Daleks back—for now—but it's cost them all the soldiers on the field.
Except for one: half-dead in a shed, clutching his wounded gut. He's propped himself up against a wall when Rose slips through the door: shivering, pale, his breath uneven. He's quite old, Rose observes, but then he's been protecting this planet for more than three hundred years.
"Doctor," she whispers, rushing to his side. "Doctor, it's me."
He lifts his head, smiling at the sight of her. "Knew you'd come," he says. "You've just missed Amelia." His voice drops at the last syllable of Amelia. A violent shiver racks his body.
"We've got to get you to the TARDIS. I… I don't think I can help you here."
He shakes his head. "No, no. Can't be moved. But don't worry, Rose. I've got reinforcements coming." The Doctor raises his hand to take hers, grimacing with the effort. "Come and sit awhile."
She obliges, settling close to him. He doesn't stop shivering, even after she sheds her coat and covers him with it. "You can't regenerate?"
"Used them up. Got a bit frivolous with them, you see. Kept a face just because a girl liked it, but that one still counted. Doesn't matter, I suppose."
Once, Rose hated regeneration: She resented that it took away the man she loved and left someone else in his place. Even after she realized how little his face factored into it, she still sometimes found herself missing the little things that added up to her first Doctor.
Now, with the Doctor's hearts aching with such fear and resignation—even knowing now that the man on the Waters of Life comes after this one—she resents the lack of it. "There must be something," she says. There's an answer. She's already met proof of it.
"It's all right," he says. "I've done good here. This could be a good death."
"No. Not tonight."
"Perhaps not. I've got reinforcements coming, you know."
"You've said. Here, lie down." She helps the Doctor shift so that his head is in her lap. Outside the shed, the night has gone too quiet. It won't be long before the Daleks return.
The Doctor starts rambling. Half of it's nonsense, the middles of stories he's never told her the beginnings to, but sometimes he makes sense. "I should've told you. Shouldn't have waited till you were a reality away to try. Definitely shouldn't have let the other one tell you first."
"It's okay, Doctor. I knew. Never doubted, really. I just wanted you to choose for that to be okay with you."
He drifts off a bit after that. Rose isn't sure how much blood he's lost, but she doubts she knows enough about Time Lord physiology to fix him on her own. She keeps talking to him, and every once in awhile, he'll acknowledge her with a grunt. She's sharing a story about the human Doctor and her mother, a favorite of hers, when he opens his eyes again. They're filled with tears. "I'm glad you came, Bad Wolf girl. I'm sorry I covered up your message."
"My what?"
"Your message. Your words. Inside the clock tower. Bad Wolf. I covered them with the children's drawings. I hope you don't mind."
"No," she whispers, "no, it's fine." The words. The message for herself—scattered across time and space and realities—here on Trenzalore. Rose realizes what must come next.
"They're good drawings," the Doctor's mumbling. "Really captured my essence, you know?" He coughs, gasping at the pain it draws from his wound.
"I don't think your reinforcements are coming, Doctor."
"Of course they are. That's what they're for. That's why they're called reinforcements. They... reinforce."
"Things don't happen just because you keep repeating them." She's smiling, even through the tears filling her eyes.
"Sometimes they do." He wrinkles his nose. "Not as much as I'd like, I suppose."
"Listen," Rose says, smoothing her his hair, "it's time for me to go, and I think it'll be awhile before I see you again."
"The reinforcements—"
"Not this time, Doctor. But don't worry. I have a plan."
"Probably be a better plan if you were really here," he mumbles. "Go ahead then."
Rose eases his head out of her lap and onto the ground. She bends to kiss his forehead. "Be safe… my Doctor."
Outside, the Daleks have begun to call for the Doctor. "Enough," she commands.
"You are not the Doctor," the Daleks cry. "You will bring us the Doctor."
Rose steps out of the shadow cast by the shed. The moon has broken through the clouds, and she stands in its light. At the sight of her, the Daleks shrink back. "Do you know who I am?"
"You will bring us the Doctor!"
"Every single atom of your existence," Rose says, and silence falls across the now empty battlefield. Inside the shed, the Doctor's wound closes.
* * *
Rose returns to the TARDIS. She catches the Doctor pacing around the console room, his hands shoved in his pockets. He stops short when he notices her. He lets out a shaky breath, his eyes fixed on hers. He's so young and whole—and he's so relieved to see her—that she chooses not to stop herself from crossing the space between them.
She throws her arms around his neck. His owns arms are around her not a heartbeat later. The Doctor buries his face in the crook of her neck. Rose shivers at his breath on her skin—then she realizes that his hearts are racing. "Hey, it's all right. I'm fine, see? And so's he. The other you, that is."
She takes a half-step back, her hands now on his forearms. The Doctor cups her face between his hands, tilting her head so he can search her eyes for something.
"Tell me," he says, "what about the Dalek forces on the surface?"
Rose blinks. Bad Wolf has gone quiet for now, but Rose can feel her, lingering beneath the surface of her subconscious. She wonders if in time there might be no distinction between the Wolf and Rose. "Dead," she says, "I killed them."
The Doctor's hands drop. Shock transforms his features. He puts distance between them, fiddling with the console. He scrolls through a few preset locations, choosing one at random. As the TARDIS slips away from Trenzalore, he turns back to her. "What did you do, Rose? And please, I'm not asking about today."
There's no use beating about the bush, so Rose tells him: "I saved your life. The Daleks were invading. They had the upper hand, and you'd—he'd—learned from Adric. He sent me into the TARDIS, and then he sent me home. I was… devastated. He was going to die, and I was stuck on Earth. I made the TARDIS bring me back to him."
"You overrode the commands on my ship? How?" His hands have gone back to his pockets, and he won't quite meet her eye.
"I looked into the heart of the TARDIS."
Startled, the Doctor looks to her at last. "... the heart of the… Wait. You mean—"
"—the Time Vortex, yeah."
"That should have killed you, Rose. I don't… I don't understand how it didn't."
It nearly had. Rose remembers the terrible headache. “He saved me. Took the time vortex right out of me. The memories went with it."
"But they came back," he surmises. Rose nods. "He died for you, then?"
Rose swallows the lump in her throat. Decades of her life have passed since that moment, and neither of them have said it so bluntly as that. "He did, yeah. Just like I would have—"
"I know." He's wearing that look. One of those expressions that seems common across all his incarnations: something has happened that has made him question what he understands of the universe—something that quite possibly endangers someone he cares about—and he doesn't know what to do with it. Rose comes to stand beside him at the TARDIS.
"There's more." The Doctor raises an eyebrow, as if he doubts that there could be more. "When we were traveling, we kept running into this phrase. Two words: Bad Wolf. When I saved him, I did that too—left the phrase all across time and space. A message for me."
The Doctor retreats to the opposite side of the console from Rose. He scratches his chin, considering something—something he doesn't want to, if the grim set of his jaw indicates anything. "So you killed the Daleks there. An army of them?"
"An empire."
"An empire?"
"Yes."
The Doctor sweeps back around to her side of the console. "Could I—would you allow me to—" He raises his hands, reaches them just so toward her head. "See it? Would that be all right?"
Rose hesitates. Reliving the memory has always been difficult. But she trusts the Doctor, and she think this might be the only way to make him understand. So she says, "Yes."
Once again, she closes the space between them. She takes his hands in hers, places his fingers on her temples.
Rose sees herself on Earth. Shell-shocked and heartbroken, she sobs into her mother's arms.
She sees herself standing in the TARDIS, swallowed by a blinding yellow light.
She sees herself on the Game Station. The Doctor kneels beside her, frightened… and awed. The Daleks die.
"I think you need a doctor," her first Doctor says. He kisses her, and the world goes dark.
When Rose and the Doctor open their eyes, she sees her reflection in his; her eyes are filled with that golden light.
The light fades, and the Doctor's hands fall slowly to cradle her neck. "Did you kill the Daleks on Trenzalore the same way?"
"Yes."
"And how do you feel now?"
Rose considers his question. After her memories came back, she'd felt out of sorts. Now, she feels like her pieces have fallen into place. "Good, Doctor. I feel good." She braves a step forward, leaving almost no space between them. She slips a hand beneath his waistcoat and around to his back. He smiles a little, despite his worry. "What does it mean, Doctor?"
"I imagine it means exactly what you suspect it does," the Doctor says. She sighs, tilting her head into his hand. "I think the question is: What next?"
"Next… Next, there's one last place I need you to take me."
The Doctor's smile falters. "You're leaving then."
"I have to. Sooner or later. You know that."
"Yes, I suppose I do." He's tracing little circles around her jaw. "I just… "
"I know," says Rose, and then—because this might be her last chance to do so—she pushes onto her tiptoes and kisses him. If she's surprised him, it doesn't show. One of his hands remains at her neck, where his thumb rubs her collarbones, and his other goes around to the small of her back. He tugs her close, adjusting the angle of his mouth on hers so that he can kiss her properly.
She stops kissing him just long enough to lead him to her bed.
He'll have his turn three regenerations from now.
She remembers telling her mum once that she couldn't imagine not loving the Doctor. Now, she knows how right she was. The Doctor's hair is a mess, and his legs are too long for her bed, but she keeps him there. She hates that she has to say goodbye to him soon, so she stalls for more time beside him. They trade stories as the TARDIS drifts through the Void.
The Doctor spins the wedding ring on her finger. "Tell me about him," he asks, and because Rose can’t deny the Doctor anything, she tells him the story of her years with her human Doctor... and the story of how she died.
Inevitably, their time runs out. After she and the Doctor dress, he takes her hand and leads her back to the console room.
Rose doesn't know the planet's name. The last time she came, with her second Doctor, he hadn’t given it to her. It's a rocky, hostile planet with the most incredible sunset. Years ago, she had stood on its surface beside him and sworn she would spend forever with him.
Side-by-side, Rose and the Doctor stand at console. She places the palm of her free hand on it. "Please," she whispers. The TARDIS sighs, and the engines begin to turn.
They decide not to call this goodbye. From his end of things, he still has one more night with her yet to come. (And thousands still after his memory of her fades.) Besides, Rose can't bear to say goodbye to the Doctor again.
Instead, they stand together and wait for the sun to set, her hand holding his. As the last light of the evening fades, he kisses her.
She watches him walk into the TARDIS. She doesn't flinch when the ship begins to dematerialize, loud as it is so close. In a thousand lifetimes, she could never tire of that sound.
As the Doctor's TARDIS fades, Rose finds another TARDIS waiting behind it—just as she's expected.
Its doors open for her.
* * *
Once upon a time, Rose had said to the Doctor, when she told him her story. She had swept his blond hair away from his forehead and pressed a kiss there. Once upon a time, there was a girl who worked in a shop.
The rest of her story went like this:
Rose and the human Doctor decide to stay awhile in Norway. It's quieter than home, and she hopes he'll adjust more easily with some breathing room. Anyway, Pete needs to sort out his documentation so that the Doctor can go from country to country, so waiting in Bergen seems best.
Adjusting to this newish Doctor isn't difficult. He's much like the one who left them here, if a little rougher around the edges and prone to sarcasm. He's still delighted by humanity, most of the time, and he still goes on and on and on. All said, it's less of a change than when her first Doctor regenerated, and one upswing: Donna Noble's influence has also made him a bold flirt.
It's the nightmares that weigh them down. He has them every night at first: Killing the Time Lords or killing Davros or being helpless to save a companion's life. It's impossible to wake him, so Rose just waits for the dream to play itself out. She holds him after, every time, and promises not to let go.
Back in London, she takes him to her flat. It isn't much, but Rose has always done her best to maximize the space—makes her feel a little like she has the TARDIS. They have chips, done right, and talk about the future. Because that's what they have, until one or both of them can't go on: the future, and whatever they choose to do with it.
That night in bed, their hearts still racing and half-breathless, the Doctor says, "Rose Tyler, I love you."
He says it every night after that, and he doesn't stop.
They join UNIT. It isn't the TARDIS, but it's a start.
His nightmares come less and less. Most nights, he doesn't dream at all—which he claims to prefer—but then one night:
"It was real," he tells her. They're huddled together at the foot of the bed they've shared for a year. "We have to go."
Rose once sat with the people she loved and told them of a dream leading her someplace. She remembers begging with them to believe her. And because it was her, and because it was the Doctor, they packed their bags and went with her.
He's her Doctor, so she packs their bags, and they leave the next morning.
During its rainy season, Salar de Uyuni—a Bolivian salt flat—offers spectacular views. The water transforms the flats into a reflective landscape.
The Doctor and Rose go at night. They flash their UNIT credentials at a bloke who tells them they have to tour with a group. The Doctor leads, guided by that persistent Time Lord instinct, and she follows him. It's breathtaking, like walking through a field of stars, and it feels right that she should be holding the Doctor's hand for this.
An hour or so in, he comes to an abrupt stop. "Here," he says, staring down at the flat. They kneel, and he reaches into the starlike water.
Suddenly he's grinning, his incredible, infectious grin, and he tells her to hold out her hands. She laughs, caught up in this moment with him, and obliges.
He places a fragment of TARDIS core in her hands. "It's beautiful," Rose says, and then the Doctor's kissing her. They laugh and kiss, dirtying their clothes and hair when they tumble over.
It takes years for the TARDIS to grow. The Doctor and Rose continue working for UNIT, mostly collecting artefacts and dealing with hoaxes. They travel the whole planet together, finding all of its most beautiful and dangerous places.
When the TARDIS is finally ready, they gather her family, and they get married on a planet with binary suns. They retire from UNIT after that, to explore until they can't. Once or twice, her little brother manages to stowaway, and they take him to meet children from across their universe or to see the birth of stars.
They fill their lives with adventure, splitting their time between home and everywhere else. It does this reality good, having a Doctor took look after it, and Rose knows she holds her own. She eventually convinces the Doctor to look up this reality's Jack Harkness. He's every bit the merciless flirt that their Jack was.
They age much slower than Rose expects. Jackie likes to credit her contribution to Rose's genes, but Rose knows it's life in the TARDIS that's to blame. For a little bit, she thinks they'll have more than their share of time.
Then the Doctor's heart begins to fail.
His death doesn't draw itself out. In the end, they're both grateful for that. They go to bed. He holds her close and whispers, "Rose Tyler, I love you." When she wakes in the morning, he's gone.
She buries him on New Earth, and then she brings the TARDIS home. She parks it in Tony's garden. During the summers, she watches his kids while he works. Sometimes he has to go out of town, so she takes the kids on adventures in the TARDIS—and swears them to secrecy after.
It's some time—years, even—before Rose decides to strike out on her own. Before the idea of traveling in the TARDIS without her Doctor doesn't break her heart all over again.
She says goodbye to her brother and her nieces and nephews after presents on Christmas day.
They find their footing, just Rose and the TARDIS. From time to time, they find someone to travel with them. It isn't like traveling with the Doctor, and Rose doesn't fancy herself a Time Lord, but it's less lonely.
Rose's death comes without warning. She steps out of her TARDIS and discovers she's landed on a dying world. She saves as many as she can, but she doesn't save herself.
She manages to stumble back to the TARDIS, but she collapses by the console. Her ship cries out, panicked by the blooding pouring into its engines. Rose doesn't know how much time passes with her bleeding out there—she just knows that the TARDIS's racket grows, and that eventually the ship begins to travel. The ride gets rough, but Rose grabs hold of a rail and somehow manages to cling to it.
Her heart stops beating. She shouldn't remember that, but she does. Her heart stops beating, and the whole of the TARDIS fills with the most blinding golden light. The TARDIS tears its way through space-time as tendrils of light slip into its core. Rose thinks she hears screaming.
The tendrils wrap themselves around Rose, and then they flow into her.
The TARDIS bursts through the Void and into the reality in which Rose spent her first twenty years. The ship spins out of control. It needs to heal, and it can't heal her without help. It hops across Earth's surface, like a stone across water. When its doors fly open, Rose tumbles onto the beach.
Her heart begins to beat again.
* * *
After she and the Doctor part ways, Rose loses her sense of time. Or perhaps, time loses its sense of her. She travels and waits and becomes, until separating Rose Tyler from Bad Wolf becomes impossible. They're two names for one woman, as it turns out.
Sometimes the TARDIS leads Rose places, and sometimes Rose leads the TARDIS. She sees the Doctor, of course—his timeline spans everything that Rose can see—but only from a distance.
Then one night that voice that once led her from Doctor to Doctor speaks again; and for the first time in thousands of years, a force outside of Rose's control shows her where to go:
Roughly translated, the planet is called the Sky at the End of Everything. Its surface is little more than naturally formed mirrors. Standing at just the right spot gives one the sense of looking into eternity.
So she waits there with her TARDIS, the pair of them reflected in thousands of mirrors, until the sounds of a second TARDIS begin to echo across the plains.
Minutes later, the Doctor steps out. Rose can see his reflection scattered across the horizon—not just this latest and last version of him, but every version of him, and every version there might have been. He's not the Doctor as she knew him, but then she isn't Rose as he knew her.
They meet in the middle, their TARDISes on either side humming. The Doctor offers his hand, and Rose takes it.