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The Doctor stops short the second he sees the first flash of her blonde hair.
Everything about the picture before him is wrong: she’s staring at the TARDIS like she hasn’t seen her in lifetimes. The color of her hair is just a shade off, a tad darker, but it makes all the difference--the light, golden blonde looks more natural, and the cut is shorter. He can tell because she’s wearing it loose now, letting it fall straight to her shoulders, rather than in the tangled bun he’d last seen it in.
The most disorienting thing is the clothing, because it’s just close enough to throw him off for a moment, to make him wonder if his eyes are deceiving him and perhaps she’s just let her hair down and somehow… no, she couldn't have beaten him to the TARDIS, not when he’d taken the most direct route and stalked off in such a fury. She could never outrun the storm.
So these were different clothes, then. His Rose, if his memory served, was wearing dark trousers, a pink hoodie, a denim jacket, and her practically trademark silver hoop earrings. This Rose was wearing dark trousers, a fuchsia shirt, a blue leather jacket, and her practically trademark silver hoop earrings. If he hadn’t been paying attention, he might’ve…
She turns, just slightly, enough for him to see her face, and no. He wouldn’t have.
The distinct lack of the thick layers of eye make-up are startling when he expects, somehow, to still see the same face he just left back at the church. It draws just as much attention to her eyes as the dark rings of eyeliner and mascara usually do: she looks older--tired, even--yet paradoxically just as youthful and lovely as his own Rose.
Right. Paradoxes.
“Must be losing brain cells as I age, me,” he says casually, not quite able to keep all of the repressed rage out of his tone, and he grimaces apologetically as the Rose in front of him nearly jumps out of her skin.
“Crossing my own timeline for yet another time today? Not one of my better moments. Where am I?” he asks her seriously, frowning at the way her wide eyes seem to drink in every inch of his face as she gapes at him.
“Doctor,” she exhales breathily, swallowing and blinking hard before forcing a smile onto her face. He frowns at that, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his chin up suspiciously.
“No, okay. I change my mind. I’m gonna need you to prove it,” he says darkly. “If you want me to believe that you’re Rose, prove it.”
“Doctor, it’s me,” she says thickly, tears springing to her eyes.
“Where’s the other me?” he asks bluntly, blue eyes blazing as his jaw tenses. Prove it, he’d said, and she hadn’t.
She looks away for a moment, and his hearts twist as one of those pesky tears slides down her cheek. He aches to brush it away for her, to pull her in close and hold her, but he forces himself to remain impassive until he’s certain that it’s her.
And, of course, because he’s still very angry at his linear Rose. No way he forgot about their fight the moment he saw this Rose begin to cry. Absolutely no way.
“I’m here alone,” she admits finally, steeling herself and meeting his piercing gaze once more. “I can’t tell you any of it, you know I can’t. But it’s me. Your Rose.”
Your Rose.
He’d originally thought it was just a shapeshifter, but he might’ve underestimated it. Your Rose. It was probably telepathic, picked up on the frayed ends of his tangled up thoughts after his row with Rose. It would never be able to access earlier memories, of course, but the surface ones… well, he’d hardly been focused on the upkeep of his shields after the war. It’s not as though he’d expected to need them to the extent he had before, so it wouldn’t be all too difficult to take a peek at his short term memories, his most recent emotions, his surface-level thoughts. Her accusations of possessiveness and jealousy, his hurt and betrayal at the way she’d blindsided him with foolish and selfish mistakes. The way he’d been thinking of her even now: his Rose, the one he was currently travelling with, and this one. Or this not-one. He still couldn’t say.
“You can’t be,” the Doctor argues, and a strangely wistful expression crosses her face.
“Then how could I remember this?” she asks softly, voice cracking on the last word before she clears her throat. “Very first word you ever said to me. Trapped in that cellar. Surrounded by shop window dummies… oh… not so long ago,” she says with a watery smile. “You took my hand,” she continues on, and he inhales sharply in surprise when he feels her hand slide gently into his. He hadn’t even noticed that she was moving closer the whole time, that they now stood face to face and he could see straight into the depths of those oh-so-familiar warm, brown eyes.
“I said one word,” the Doctor prompts faintly, though he knows it’s superfluous at this point.
Their very first moment, the moment they'd met. She remembers. It’s her.
“Just one word,” she confirms gently, tears falling in earnest now. “ You said... ‘run.’”
He tugs her forward with their joined hands and buries his face into her hair, relishing in the familiar feel of her arms around his body, the texture of her hair beneath his cheek, the reassuring pounding of her heart in her chest. It’s her.
His Rose.
“Rose. Rose. How can it be you?” he asks, eyes fluttering shut when he hears her murmur “Doctor” into his chest in return. “How can you be here if I’m not?”
“‘S a long story, and we both know I can’t tell you,” she said sadly, drawing back far enough to face him. “I wish I could.”
“Wish you could, too. Great audience, me,” he grins, and she laughs and wipes at her drying tears. “Does… does he treat you well?”
“What?” she asks, confused, and he offers her a pained smile.
“You knew immediately upon seeing me that I wasn’t your Doctor,” he points out gently. “You knew that I wasn’t linear with you, and even more to the point, you knew I wasn’t a future Doctor that you could reunite with. You told me that you couldn’t tell me anything. You knew that I was in your past already.”
“Oh, god,” she moans, and he smiles kindly at her, squeezing her waist in forgiveness.
“I wasn’t expecting to regenerate again quite so soon,” he admits. “It’s not… is that why you’re…”
“God, no,” she interrupts, eyes wide with horror. “No, absolutely not. I didn’t… there was an accident,” she says lamely. “I’m trying to find you. My linear you.”
“And does he treat you well? Do I treat you well?” he asks again, desperate for the confirmation that everything he feels inside him won’t die with this body. He always keeps the memories, but the emotions are more complicated; sometimes they stick, and sometimes they start to peel away bit by bit.
He doesn’t want another life if he loses all of the lovely and so very human feelings that Rose has filled his every waking minute with (and some of the sleeping ones, too).
She smiles, reaching up to cup one of his cheeks tenderly as she speaks carefully. “I’ve never doubted him.”
“Not entirely reassuring,” the Doctor grimaces, though he softens a bit at the adoration and longing in her eyes. He must not be the biggest sod in the world, then, if she still felt like that when merely thinking of him.
He wonders if he’s pretty, next time.
“Do you know when we are?” she asks hesitantly. “Obviously it’s London, but I’ve not… I was supposed to start the scan and get my bearings, but then I saw the TARDIS, and…”
“November 7, 1987,” he manages gruffly, and her entire body freezes.
“Oh,” she whispers. “This is--”
“Yeah,” he says, looking away only to have her hand on his cheek gently directing him to look at her again.
“I’m sorry,” she tells him, her tone so full of regret and guilt that it almost breaks him. “I can’t tell you much I… I’m sorry.”
“‘S okay,” he says bitterly. “My fault, too. I shouldn’t have agreed to take you here.”
Your wish is my command, he’d told her. It was his own fault for not remembering that his own faith could be dangerous, that his own feelings could blind him. He’d forgotten, with Rose Tyler by his side, how to be cautious with his own hearts.
“You were trying to do something nice for me,” Rose shakes her head in denial, and he smiles sadly at her. “This one was all me, Doctor, and right after you said you only take the best,” she sighs. “Spoke too soon, I suppose.”
“Rose Tyler,” he says imploringly, making sure she sees just how serious he is. “Even after today… you’re still the best. The best can still make mistakes sometimes.”
She throws her arms around his neck in another tight hug, and he clings to her desperately, trying to commit everything to memory before he’ll inevitably have to lock it all away. He loses her, at some point. At some point in his future, she’s hopping through time and space without him. But right now she’s here, and she’s still looking for him, and he wishes she could stay forever.
“Well, you best get moving, then,” Rose sniffles, wiping at her damp eyes again and giving him a shaky smile just when he's starting to wonder if he could help her. “Could stand here with you all day, me, but you can’t leave the reapers at the church alone for too long.”
Both of his hearts seem to drop into an instant freefall.
“Reapers?” he asks, horrified. He fumbles around in his pocket for a moment before yanking out his TARDIS key and hurriedly unlocking the door.
Four distressingly normal blue walls stare back at them. Rose’s eyes widen in alarm.
His Old Girl looks wrong, looks so… ordinary. She is, for better or worse, simply a box. An ordinary Police Public Call phone box, right here from planet Earth.
“Rose, you’ve got to go, now,” the Doctor tells her frantically. “Bad enough there are two of you here with reapers present. Three versions of the same person….”
“Right,” she blanches. “Shit, I’m so stupid. I hadn’t considered that, I’m so sorry--”
“Not your fault,” he insists.
“Funny, that--it really is. Twice over, actually,” she says miserably, and he shakes his head.
“Only the very best, Rose Tyler,” he reminds her, and hesitates for just a fraction of a moment before kissing her forehead. “Be careful. Find me, your me, okay? Bet he’s rather lost without you.”
She kisses his cheek, cupping his face fondly, and his breath catches at the tears in her eyes. “And you go save me. Gotta go be impressive, yeah?” she teases, and he smiles.
“Oh, you know. Always impressive, me,” he grins widely as he lets her go. She lifts her arm up, fiddling with a device strapped to her wrist that he’d hardly noticed earlier in his surprise at seeing her, and looks up at him one last time as her finger hovers over the button.
“Goodbye, Doctor,” she whispers, and he fights the urge to hug her again.
“Go on,” he nods. “Have a fantastic life, Rose Tyler.”
She blinks hard again, a thousand emotions flashing across her face before she offers him her signature tongue-touched smile.
“We will,” she says confidently. “I’ll make sure of it.”
And with a single tap, she fades out of existence in front of him.
“That’s my girl,” he says softly, nodding at the spot she’d occupied not moments before and then shaking himself out of it and sprinting back towards the church.
“Rose!!!”