Chapter Text
It's a silly little thing, hidden deep in his pockets ever since a damp Cardiff basement. A small square box that contains a ring. The ring. It lives there for months, years even, switching over with new bodies unlike so many other things those pockets hold. It's there so that, when he finally gets the courage, he can ask Rose Tyler to marry him.
He never gets the chance.
It stays in his pocket though (he can't bear the thought of taking it out) and sometimes, when it's been an exceedingly bad day, he'll reach into his pocket and grasp at it. It's no substitute for Rose herself, but it's better than nothing.
He offers it to his double, just after they drop off Martha, Mickey and Jack. Just before he knows that this will be the last time the fully Time Lord Doctor sees Rose Tyler.
"I don't want it." The metacrisis says, "That's a ring you got for her. I want to get her something from me."
The distinction confuses him, they are the same man after all. Aren't they? But he keeps the ring, says goodbye to the woman he loves again and loses Donna just minutes later.
A year later, he regenerates and the ring box moves into a new coat.
He reaches for it less frequently now, slightly more stable a regeneration away from the last time he saw Rose. The days tick by and he keeps count; it's the main way he measures time now, in neat little how-many-days-since-Rose-Tyler units.
His counter gets wonderfully reset after he literally crashes into her on a planet he doesn't even remember visiting with her. But she doesn't realize who he is so he just smiles too brightly at her, wishes her a fantastic day and runs the other direction, already planning a distraction for himself.
It's only hours later that he realizes she was in the blue leather jacket from her dimension hopping days. He could have talked to her. Told her how he felt and it would have been fine. The timelines would have stayed sound and he would have gotten just a handful more minutes with her.
He curses himself for his stupidity and falls asleep with the ring box clutched to his chest.
Soon after that, another ring box joins it.
It's his fault that Rory is gone and Amy doesn't remember him. It's his fault he now has the evidence of two ruined relationships weighing down the pockets of his jacket. But it's not until the Pandorica that he ever actually regrets carrying Rose's ring (because that's what it will always be) with him.
"I found these in your pocket. Blimey Doctor," Amy says to him as he furiously works to riddle out the Pandorica, "Do you make a habit of carrying engagement rings around in your pockets?" He looks over at her and sees her holding both rings, her engagement ring and the one he never gave to Rose. A flurry of memories rise in his mind of a pink and yellow girl with a tongue touched smile and both his hearts in her hands.
"They're memories," he snapped, snatching Rose's ring from her. "Sometimes," he adds, softer now, "if you remember something, it can come back."
And oh Rassilon, is he hoping that Rose will somehow miraculously find him again. It's a selfish thought, he should just want her to live the rest of her life out with his double and do all those wonderfully human-y things the proper Doctor will never do. But that's not what he hopes for. In his selfish hearts, he's always wishing that Rose will somehow come back to him. Hoping that the metacrisis died just so he can have his Rose back.
Amy never mentions the ring again until a dangerous hotel and a discussion of faith. "That ring you have, the girl it belongs to, did she believe in you?" Amy asks.
He chuckles wetly, "Quite the other way around, Pond." He says softly, slipping a hand into his pocket to grip the box like he had done multiple times throughout the day. "If I believe in one thing, in this vast universe, I believe in her."