Archive of Our Own ^beta

London – 7 Years Later

Dorea Potter stood in the rain. Again.

Typical. Always raining when she had to chase down some idiot Death Eater sympathiser who still thought Voldemort would rise like some deranged phoenix out of a cauldron. Seven bloody years, and they were still at it. She was soaked through her boots, wand drawn, eyes trained on the alley ahead — but her mind… her mind was far away.

Seven years.

God, it had been seven years since she left the Doctor to return to school. Seven years since she'd been Lily — just Lily — laughing in the stars, wrapped in borrowed coats and louder opinions, watching alien sunsets and running for her life with a madman in a blue box. That girl was long gone.

Now, she was Dorea Potter, Senior Auror, the Girl Who Lived, the Girl Who Killed Voldemort, the Girl Who Lost Everything.

Oh, the Ministry hadn't cared that she didn’t finish school. She’d ended a bloody war, which was apparently enough to slap a badge on her chest and call her useful. They'd offered her the position before the ashes had cooled. She’d told them to sod off. Politely. Maybe.

Back then, she’d been shattered. Not just tired or grieving — broken. You don’t lose Sirius and Remus and Tonks and Fred and just bounce back like one of George’s bloody prank balls. And Fred... Merlin, Fred. He’d been the only thing keeping her tethered to the ground in those last few months. He loved her. Not Dorea Potter, not the legend. Her. The disaster of a girl who forgot to eat sometimes, who yelled when she was afraid and cracked jokes at funerals because if she didn’t, she’d drown in silence. And she had loved him — in that quiet, terrifying way where you don’t even realise it until it’s already too late.

He’d hugged her when she came back. After twenty-six days gone from Earth — 26 for them, a year for her — they’d thought she was dead. Dementors had attacked. Mrs Figg had screamed at Dumbledore. She’d vanished without a trace. They’d buried her in their hearts already.

When she returned—scarred, silent, slightly older in the eyes—there had been panic. Screaming. Crying. Sirius had held her so tightly she couldn’t breathe, sobbing against her shoulder, whispering things like, “You’re not real,” and “Don’t go, not again.” —sobbing like a man who’d lost and found the world all in one breath.

And Fred… Fred had just pulled her into his arms and stayed there. He hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t needed to.

That was the beginning, really.

But then the dreams started. The whispers. The flickers of red eyes behind her own. Voldemort was inside her mind again. Not just brushing the edges — deep. He could see things. Feel things. And what if he saw the Doctor?

What if he saw him?

The Doctor wasn’t just a madman with a box. He was power incarnate. A being who bent time and walked among stars like they were stepping stones. What if Voldemort found out about him? Tried to use him? Destroy him?

No. She wouldn’t risk it. Couldn’t.

So, she did the unthinkable.

She ripped every memory of the Doctor from her mind. Every laugh, every adventure, every moment of tenderness and absurdity. She boxed them in spell-forged silver and stashed them in Gringotts with enchantments even the goblins respected. Only three people could ever open it: her, Hermione — if she died — and the Doctor himself.

She remembered nothing. Not until 2 years after the war ended. When she turned nineteen — physically still eighteen thanks to the stars and their damn games — she retrieved the box. Opened it with shaking hands.

And remembered everything.

She wept. Of course she did. For what she had lost. For what she had given up to protect the man who probably had long since forgotten her. She tried to find him. Desperately. But time had swallowed his trail. No TARDIS sightings, no cosmic breadcrumbs. Just... nothing.

So, she did the only thing left. She buried herself in work.

Three years as an Auror. Three years chasing monsters. Real ones this time. Human ones, which somehow made it worse. But at least with everyone she caught, she could tell herself that she was doing something to make this broken world a little better. For Teddy. For the children who deserved better than she ever had.

She'd been promoted. Senior Auror. What a joke. Half the Ministry were cowards hiding behind paperwork and politics. She was just convenient. A hero with a martyr complex — throw her at the fire and see if she burns.

She didn’t mind. Let them use her. At least she could do something.

Ron left to help George. She didn’t blame him. George had been fading — like a lightbulb flickering in a storm. Fred’s death had broken him in places no one could reach. Ron was doing good work. Dorea couldn’t fault him for finding purpose. She’d lost hers the day she forgot the Doctor.

And now? Now she was stuck with Draco sodding Malfoy.

She should’ve known. Her promotion came with a “partner” — like she needed one. And of course, no one wanted to work with Malfoy. His name might’ve been cleared, but prejudice lingered like smoke after fire. No one trusted him. So, they handed him to her. Another misfit. Another shadow in human skin.

She’d expected arrogance. Sneering. Instead, he’d been… quiet. Polite. Grim.

He hadn’t insulted a single person since his probation ended. He trained. He worked. He stayed out of the way.

She hated that she didn’t hate him.

Rain trickled into her collar. She sighed, brushing damp hair from her eyes.

“Brilliant,” she muttered under her breath. “From stardust to chasing ferrets in the rain. What a bloody journey.”

She glanced sideways at Malfoy, who stood waiting, wand ready.

Seven years.

She was Dorea now. Lily had been left behind with the stars.

And the only thing left to do was make damn sure no other child had to bury their godfather, their lover, their innocence. Not like she had.

Once again, she straightened her back, shoved down the ache in her chest, and stepped forward into the storm.

There was an alien ship over London.

Hovering like an omen above Westminster, its metallic underbelly shimmered against the winter sky, blocking out the stars. Muggles screamed and scattered below as Ministry alerts screamed in her ear, a shrill, pulsing noise that did nothing to calm her nerves.

Dorea Potter Apparated onto a rooftop with a sharp crack. The December wind sliced across her face, bitter and unrelenting. Her wand was already in her gloved hand, coat flapping behind her like wings. Beside her, Draco Malfoy landed with smooth, practised ease, looking every inch the off-duty spy in a dark cloak and dragonhide boots.

“Well,” he drawled, glancing up at the ship. “Merry Christmas.”

“I thought this would be a simple scan and clear,” Dorea muttered, eyes locked on the monstrous shape blotting out the stars. “Now it looks like a bloody invasion.”

Draco scoffed. “You’re disappointed it’s not.”

She ignored him.

Her heart pounded — not from fear, not from adrenaline. It was something else. Something deeper. Older.

Her fingers curled tightly around the chain beneath her jumper. The chain he had given her. The one the Doctor had slipped into her hand all those years ago, when she was still raw and hurting and believed in impossible things.

It had been cold for seven years.

Until today.

Until she set foot in London.

Now, it pulsed with warmth against her collarbone, like a second heartbeat.

He’s here.

Hope coiled inside her, sharp and breathless. She hadn’t let herself believe it. Not for years. Not after silence. Not after heartbreak. Not after waking up day after day to a world without him. But she couldn’t deny what her magic was screaming at her now.

The TARDIS was close.

“Malfoy,” she said abruptly, already moving toward the fire escape. “Cover the north side. I’ll check the alleyway.”

He arched a brow. “Splitting up during a potential alien crisis? Very Gryffindor of you.”

She didn’t respond. She was already gone. Down the icy metal stairs. Into the snow-dusted alley. Past a rattling bin, through a crooked iron gate—

And there it was.

The TARDIS.

Blue. Glorious. Real.

Her breath caught. Her knees nearly buckled.

“Oh my god,” she whispered. “It’s real.”

Her feet moved before she told them to. Her hand stretched out, trembling.

Please. Please remember me. Please let it be him.

She didn’t care if he’d forgotten her. She didn’t care if he’d moved on, changed, regenerated into something unrecognisable. She just needed to see him. To know he was alive. To know it hadn’t all been a dream.

The chain at her throat flared with heat.

She was inches away. Her fingertips reached—

And the TARDIS vanished.

Gone in a rush of light and sound. One second there, the next, empty air.

Dorea stood frozen, hand outstretched, lips parted in shock.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no—”

And then she heard the screams.

Not from below. Above.

Slowly, she turned.

There were people on the rooftops. Across London. Hundreds of them. Muggles. Still as statues, standing at the edges, their eyes blank. Toes curled over the ledges like they were seconds from jumping.

“What the hell is going on…?” she murmured.

She stayed.

She didn’t know how long. Hours, maybe. Watching. Waiting. Hoping. Scanning for the impossible. Praying for a sound — a wheeze, a groan, a voice she hadn’t heard in years.

Eventually, the ship retreated. The people climbed down, dazed but unharmed. No explanations. No memory of how they got there.

But she knew.

It was him.

Even without seeing him, she knew.

And still… no Doctor.

Of course, he hadn’t come. Not really. Just a flicker of something — a glimpse, a whisper of a life she used to know.

Footsteps crunched behind her.

Draco appeared, brushing water off his cloak. “Well,” he said. “No memory loss. Minimal magical leakage. Looks like it’s not our problem after all.”

“Fantastic,” she muttered bitterly.

He glanced at her. “You alright?”

She didn’t answer.

He looked at her for a long moment, then sighed. “You’re not going to the Burrow yet, are you?”

“I will,” she said quietly. “Just… not right now.”

“You’ll miss the pudding.”

A faint smile tugged at her lips. “Wish your mother Happy Christmas for me.”

He nodded. “Wish your foundling family the same.”

He hesitated, then said more softly, “See you after the New Year, Potter.”

With a crack, he vanished.

And she stood in the alley alone, as the snow fell around her like silence.

She apparated into her house — the one she’d inherited from Sirus years ago, but she ha moved in a year or so back. It was quiet, warm, filled with plants that reached lazily for the sun and books crammed into every shelf like they were trying to tell stories even when closed. The fireplace flared gently to life when she whispered, Incendio, casting a soft orange glow across the sitting room.

It reminded her of the TARDIS.

Everything did, if she let herself think about it too long.

She changed into something warmer. Brushed her hair. Stared at herself in the mirror like she could recognise the girl who used to believe in aliens and time travel and impossible magic. But something was missing — had been missing for years. A silence beneath her ribs. A phantom ache in her chest. Not pain. Not exactly.

Absence.

She turned away. She should go. Molly would be waiting with warm hugs and a louder scolding, and Teddy would be tearing the Burrow apart by now. There would be food and laughter and the chaos of too many Weasleys in one place. A proper Christmas.

But she couldn’t. Not yet.

Not until she knew.

She gripped her wand and apparated, not to the Burrow, but back to the alley in London. The same spot she’d seen it that morning.

And her heart stuttered.

It was there.

The TARDIS.

Whole. Unchanged. Quiet and blue and solid against the snow-covered street like it had never moved. Like no time had passed at all.

Her breath caught in her throat. It wasn’t an illusion. It wasn’t a dream. It was real. Real.

She stepped forward, the cold forgotten. Her heart pounded, hope thrumming in her veins like magic. Even if he wasn’t here, even if the Doctor didn’t remember her—maybe the TARDIS would.

The TARDIS had always liked Lily. Back then.

But then—there was a sound.

She wasn’t alone.

A man stood near the TARDIS, surrounded by a small group of Muggles. No one seemed to find him strange, but Dorea did. Her breath hitched, her fingers going numb.

Brown hair. Ordinary clothes. Shy smile.

He looked harmless. Forgettable, even.

But not to her.

Her vision tunnelled.

No. No, it can’t be.

Barty Crouch Junior.

Alive.

Breathing.

Smiling.

Her wand was in her hand before the thought fully formed. Magic surged up her spine, raw and instinctive, every nerve screaming danger.

He looked up—maybe she’d made a sound, maybe he simply felt the burst of magic—and their eyes met.

Recognition.

And then… he smiled.

Why—why in Merlin’s name would he smile?

“Lily!” he called out like she was an old friend he’d missed. Like he wasn’t supposed to be dead. Like he hadn’t once tried to destroy everything she loved.

And why in the world was he calling her Lily? Why not Potter? Why not Dorea?

Before she could process it, he ran toward her.

Ran.

Her world tipped sideways.

Her mind screamed - run, fight, he’s not real, he’s dead, this is impossible.

Instinct snapped through her body—she stepped back sharply, wand raised, breath trembling.

“You—” the word tore out of her, thin and shaking, “you were dead.”

He stumbled to a stop, boots scraping, eyes going wide. Shock. Confusion. Hurt… As if she had wounded him.

Then something flickered in his expression—fast, bright, painfully familiar.

Slowly, carefully, he raised both hands in surrender.

“Lily,” he said again, quieter now, voice warm in a way that punched the air from her lungs. “It’s me.”

She didn’t lower her wand. She couldn’t.

Because nothing made sense.

Because there was a warmth in his voice she wasn’t prepared for—something achingly familiar and impossibly out of place.

He spoke again, slower this time, careful, as if she were a frightened animal he didn’t want bolting.

“Little red… It’s me.”

She gasped.

Because only one person had ever called her that.

Not a wizard. Not a Death Eater.

Not the people she considered family.

No one except—

Her breath stuttered in her chest. “It’s impossible.”

He let out a breathy, incredulous laugh—the exact sound he used to make when she’d say something ‘scientifically inconvenient.’

“Oh, come on, Lily. Impossible? Really? You? The girl who once weaponised karaoke? Last time you said something was impossible, you broke an ancient god with interpretive dance!”

Her lips parted. A stunned, half-hysterical breath escaped her.

Because that—that humour, that ridiculous memory, that tone—it was him.

“And,” he added, gesturing vaguely at his new face, “I promise I’m still me. Just… taller. And with better hair.”

Her mouth twitched. She felt something inside her crack open—fear, disbelief, hope all colliding painfully.

He paused, then added with theatrical despair, “Still not ginger, though. Whole new face, whole new body, still the universe refuses to give me a soul made of fire. It’s rude, really.”

A startled, broken laugh escaped her. It felt like something unclenching in her chest—like a wildfire being smothered by relief.

Eyes wide, heart pounding so hard she felt it in her teeth, she stepped forward. Each movement felt fragile, like any wrong breath could shatter the moment, could break the illusion, could turn him back into the ghost she’d just seen.

Her trembling hand lifted—hesitant, terrified—and pressed against the right side of his chest.

There… There it was.

The unmistakable, impossible, beautiful rhythm—

Two heartbeats.

“It’s you.” A sharp inhale tore out of her lungs, shaky and desperate. Her eyes lifted to his face—really looking now, properly, beyond the shock and the terror.

This wasn’t Barty Crouch Junior.

Not even close.

Yes, everything about him was new: the hair, the height, the voice, the lines of his face — but his eyes… His eyes held the same warmth she remembered. The same age-old weight. The same quiet, buried pain she’d learned to see even when he tried to hide it.

Changed.

Regenerated.

Different.

But still him.

Still the Doctor.

Her doctor.

Emotion surged through her so fast she couldn’t separate it—relief, disbelief, grief she didn’t know she’d been carrying, anger for the years lost, joy so sharp it hurt.

She didn’t think… Didn’t hesitate.

One second, she was standing there—frozen, terrified, suspended between disbelief and hope—and the next, she collided with him in a blur of breath and heartbeat and raw instinct.

And he caught her instantly.

Of course he did.

Like instinct… Like gravity.

Like some part of him had been waiting—aching—to hold her again.

The impact knocked a soft grunt out of him, but then his arms wrapped around her with the same fierce, unhesitating certainty she remembered. Solid. Warm. Familiar in a way that made her chest crack open.

He lifted her off the ground, spinning her as if she weighed nothing at all. Her breath rushed out of her in a trembling gasp as the world blurred around them—snow, light, cold air—none of it real compared to the heat of his hands gripping her like she was something precious.

He held her as she belonged there.

Like the last seven years hadn’t hollowed her into someone unrecognisable.

Like she wasn’t twenty-three years old and exhausted in a way people her age weren’t supposed to be.

Like she hadn’t spent nearly a decade pretending she wasn’t tired, pretending she wasn’t breaking, pretending she didn’t miss him.

Like no time had passed at all.

Her fingers curled desperately into the fabric of his shirt—new shirt, unfamiliar texture, different man—and yet her hands knew exactly where they were supposed to cling. Her face pressed into his shoulder, and the moment her cheek touched him, something inside her simply… collapsed.

He was real.

He was here.

Alive.

Her breath shuddered violently out of her. She didn’t realise she was crying until her shoulders shook. She hadn’t meant to cry. She hadn’t meant to break. But everything—every year, every fear, every night she’d forced herself not to think of him—hit her at once.

His arms tightened as if he felt every fracture inside her.

And he laughed—soft, disbelieving, relieved—his chest shaking against her cheek. The sound wrapped around her like a promise. Like the universe had finally, mercifully, put itself back into the right shape.

For the first time in years, Dorea Lily Potter let herself breathe.

When he finally set her down, they were both breathless, both shaking, both staring at each other like idiots with snow dusting their hair and lashes. The world felt impossibly bright. Too bright.

“It’s really you,” she whispered. Her voice didn’t sound like hers. Too thin. Too full.

“Yeah.” His voice was soft. Honest. “It’s me.”

The word me didn’t match the face looking back at her, but the eyes — Oh, the eyes were the same.

“You’ve changed,” she said. “Again.”

“New everything. Just regenerated yesterday,” he said, gesturing to himself like he still wasn’t sure what to do with all the new limbs. His fingers ruffled through the wild mess of hair on his head with a kind of baffled pride. “Still not sure how I feel about this one. Bit… sticky-outy.”

She stared at him, mind tripping over itself. “Yesterday?”

Yep,” He nodded, bright and proud in that ridiculous Doctor way. “Whole thing—big flashy regeneration. Gold everywhere. Nearly set the TARDIS curtains on fire.”
He gestured at his own face with theatrical despair and added, “Still not ginger, by the way. Tried being born with dignity, ended up with hair that looks like it lost a fight with a toaster.”

A breathy laugh escaped her—helpless, a little wild.

Because, of course, he brought up a toaster.

Of course.

Her mind didn’t choose the responsible memories.

No—her brain yanked her straight back to being sixteen, barefoot on cold TARDIS floors, screaming because the kitchen toaster had started glowing blue and hissing her name like a very small, very angry demon.

She could still hear him — “Nobody panic!” — right before he panicked.

He’d come sliding around the corner in his leather jacket, wielding what he claimed was a “temporal destabiliser.”

(It was a cricket bat. She never let him forget it.)

She remembered standing on the counter, brandishing a spatula like a sword, yelling, “Doctor, it’s sparking at me!”

And him barking back, “Don’t antagonise it!”

As if she were the ridiculous one.

And then he’d whacked the toaster. Because of course he did… To save her. To save the TARDIS. To save breakfast. Who knew.

It exploded in a rain of crumbs and pink sparks, setting off half the ship’s alarms.

He’d coughed out smoke, hair sticking up in every direction, grinning like a madman.

“See? Easy fix.”

He had said it back then — covered in soot, crumbs in his hair, grinning like the universe was something he could charm into behaving. And she had laughed then, loud and breathless and entirely undone.

Now, that memory hit her like a punch.

Her chest tightened.

Because she could see him—the Ninth Doctor—sharp smile, tired edges, eyes that held a whole war like a secret.

He’d been so broken, back then.

And she’d been sixteen, not understanding half of what he carried, only knowing she would follow him anywhere.

And here he stood now—new face, new height, new everything—but still quoting toaster battles like nothing had changed.

Still trying to make her laugh.

Time hadn’t dulled the ache.

If anything, seeing him again—breathing, talking, rambling—made the last seven years squeeze around her heart like a fist.

He was alive.

He was talking nonsense.

He was still him.

Her throat tightened, emotions scraping raw inside her chest.

Seven years, where she had lost nearly everything… Names that still scraped against her bones every time she remembered them—Sirius, Fred, Remus… ghosts that clung to her ribs like bruises that never healed.

Seven years of funerals and standing in ruins she’d been far too young to walk through.

Seven years of watching the world fall apart and trying to stitch herself together in the dark.

Seven years of trying not to break because everyone around her already had.

Of smiling through ashes.

Of learning how to breathe around missing pieces.

Seven years of waking up and pretending she wasn’t listening—hoping—for something impossible.

A knock.

A sound.

A wheezing, groaning call of a blue box that never came.

She had survived all of that.

She had grown up through all of that.

And now—here he was.

Real.

Warm.

Talking absolute nonsense about toasters and hair, like the universe hadn’t cracked open in the space between then and now.

Her relief was so fierce it hurt.

Like something inside her was remembering how to beat again after too long in silence.

Her throat tightened again, but she forced the sound out anyway. “You look like someone who tried to kill me a few years ago.”

The words came sharper than she intended, brittle from the strain of keeping herself together. She watched the way his grin faltered—tiny, barely-there, but she caught it instantly. Of course she did. She had learned all his expressions back when she’d been too young and too stupidly brave.

And the guilt in his eyes sliced through her. Familiar. Almost comforting in its predictability.

“Right. That… yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck, awkward and sheepish in that way only he could be. “Sorry about that. Bit of a dramatic face.”

“Not your fault,” she muttered automatically, even as her wand hand twitched, the instinct to defend herself still ingrained in her bones. “Still nearly hexed you into next week.”

“Fair,” he said at once, without hesitation, as sincere as he always had been with her. “Would’ve deserved it. Mostly.”

The silence that followed didn’t feel empty at all. It felt thick—like smoke settling, like a room holding its breath. Lily could feel everything she’d shoved aside for seven years pressing up behind her ribs. Relief, anger, longing, disbelief—all of it tangling until she couldn’t tell one from the other.

And then—

“Doctor?”

The voice sliced through their little bubble like a blade.

Lily’s head snapped toward the sound.

The blond girl from earlier still stood a few paces away, watching them with wide, uncertain eyes. Young. Not much. Maybe a year or two. And the look on her face—Lily recognised it instantly. She’d seen that same tight, defensive posture in her own reflection after battles. That sharp mix of confusion and suspicion, like she wasn’t sure whether she’d walked into a reunion, an execution, or something heartbreakingly intimate she hadn’t been warned about.

And Lily felt heat creep up her throat—not jealousy, not bitterness, just a quiet jolt of realisation: that maybe – seven years had passed for him, too.

Of course, he’d changed. Of cours,e he’d lived. He’d travelled worlds she would never see, met people she would never know. He had run and fought and laughed at his absurdity, argued with his impossible brilliance, and saved entire galaxies while she’d been trying to survive a war that kept taking pieces of her.

She wasn’t his companion anymore.

It didn’t hit like a heartbreak—she’d had enough of those to know the shape of them. It was gentler, a soft ache under her ribs. Something she understood even as it tugged at old wounds that had never really healed.

Because she — she had missed him.

Every day.

 In quiet moments between battles.

In the hollow spaces after funerals.

In the seconds after waking, when she’d catch herself listening for a sound the world no longer made— a wheezing groan, blue light, a door opening to the universe.

Her stomach twisted sharply because she knew—she knew—he would be leaving soon.

Because he was the Doctor – and the world—her world—was built on gravity and grief and responsibility, while his moved with stars and storms and the endless call of time.

Her fingers curled—without permission, without thought—into the sleeves of his gown. Something inside her was reaching for the memory of safety, of belonging, of a time before war had carved the softness out of her.

And then she forced herself to let go.

Rose’s fingers curled tighter into her coat sleeves.

Because of her.

The woman beside the Doctor was Rose’s age—maybe a year older at most—, but somehow, she made Rose feel painfully young.

Wild red hair, copper and fiery in the snow.

Green eyes too bright, too sharp, too knowing.

Taller, more poised, completely bare-faced yet impossibly beautiful in that careless, infuriating way some women were born with.

Standing next to her, Rose felt… ordinary.

Like London grey beside a bonfire.

So, this was the new one.

Except—no.

Not new.

The Doctor had mentioned her once. Softly. Fondly.

Lily.

A “travelling companion from a long while back.”

Rose had rolled her eyes at the time, assuming she was some long-gone alien girl from centuries ago. She’d barely listened, because the way he spoke about her felt like hearing a story from before Rose existed.

But now… looking at her…

Lily didn’t look old at all.

No older than Rose.

So, how old had she been when the Doctor travelled with her? Ten? Twelve?

It made no sense.

Time never did with him. But this—this felt different. Wrong. Like a puzzle she wasn’t part of.

But what twisted deepest was the way the Doctor looked at the girl.

Rose felt it—the hard tightening in her chest.

Because he wasn’t just happy.

He wasn’t just relieved.

He was glowing.

That crinkling-eyed, unstoppable grin she used to think she’d earned… The one she hadn’t seen since before he changed.

He’d been off since regenerating—too fast, too cheerful, too unpredictable.

But with Lily?

He seemed… settled.

Grounded.

As if her presence steadied something inside him, Rose hadn’t yet figured out.

Rose tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. Lily would be gone soon. Things would go back to normal. Just the Doctor and Rose again. The way it should be.

But then Lily said something Rose didn’t catch—soft, almost teasing—and the Doctor laughed.

A real laugh. Head thrown back, unguarded, bright.

Rose froze.

She had never gotten that laugh.

And the girl smiled back, eyes warm, like it was something they shared, something Rose wasn’t invited into.

An inside joke spanning a lifetime, Rose didn’t know.

Jealousy stabbed low and sharp under her ribs.

Before she could stop herself, her voice cut through the air—far too bright, far too thin.

“Doctor?”

They both turned.

Lily blinked once, polite and calm.

The Doctor jumped—actually jumped—as if he’d forgotten Rose was there.

A momentary guilt flashed across his face, and that somehow made everything worse.

They looked at her like she was the one interrupting.

Rose stretched a smile across her face—too wide, too stiff, too fake.

“Sorry,” she said lightly, though ice threaded her words. “Didn’t mean to get in the way of your little reunion.”

She barely heard the Doctor’s attempt to respond. Her eyes were fixed on the redhead—on the effortless beauty, on the quiet confidence, on the green eyes that seemed too old for her face. On the girl who made Rose feel like background noise.

For the first time since she’d met the Doctor, Rose Tyler felt something she had never expected: Replaced.

The Doctor blinked rapidly as if snapping out of a trance. Then he spun around—nearly tripping on snow—and pointed at Rose with nervous enthusiasm.

“Oh! Right! Yes! Lily—This is Rose Tyler. And Rose, this is Lily. Lily Evans.”

Rose forced another brittle smile.

Her gaze slid over Lily again – Red hair. Snow-damp sleeves. Eyes haunted by something Rose couldn’t name.

A wooden stick—seriously?—clutched like a weapon or a secret.

Something about Lily felt… old. Like she’d seen things, Rose hadn’t. As she belonged to parts of the Doctor Rose didn’t know existed.

Rose shoved her hands deeper in her pockets. “Hi.”

There was a pause. Not awkward. Not exactly. Just… full. Thick with the weight of something unspoken.

“And how exactly do you two know each other?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light, but it still came out a touch too sharp.

The Doctor turned back to Lily—and beamed.

Rose felt her stomach drop, cold and heavy.

Because he looked at Lily like he had just found something precious, he thought he’d lost.

And Rose—Rose wasn’t sure she’d ever been looked at like that.

A strange, hollow ache unfurled in her chest.

Who is she?

Who were you to each other?

What am I compared to that?

Lily ducked her head slightly, a small, careful smile tugging at her mouth—as if she didn’t want to take up too much space. As if she were used to making herself quiet, dimming her presence.

And yet Rose couldn’t look away from her.

The girl felt… older than she looked.

Not physically. Emotionally.

Like she’d lived entire lifetimes, Rose couldn’t imagine.

Rose hated how much that bothered her.

She felt young—painfully young—under that green-eyed gaze. Inexperienced. Ordinary.

Like Lily had lived a thousand lives between breaths, and Rose… hadn’t.

The Doctor’s voice sliced through her thoughts—soft, gentle, fond in a way Rose had never heard directed toward her.

“Lily and I… we go way back.”

Way back.

The words hit Rose like cold water. Her stomach twisted, something sinking heavy and nauseating inside her.

He’d spoken about companions before, yes—stories, memories, hints. But he’d never sounded like this. Never with nostalgia warm enough to melt snow. Never with grief-laced tenderness threaded between his words.

It terrified her more than any alien ever had.

Because it felt like she was suddenly looking at a stranger—someone she didn’t know, someone she’d never met, someone important enough to make the Doctor glow.

“Brilliant days. All of them,” he said, voice gentling like he was speaking to a memory instead of a person.

Rose pressed her lips together so tightly that it hurt. But she smiled anyway—because that’s what she did. Pretended she wasn’t bothered. Pretended she didn’t feel like she’d been pushed to the edges of the frame.

She opened her mouth to say something—anything—but he spoke again before she could.

The Doctor stepped toward Lily, expression softening info something Rose didn’t recognise.

“You’ve grown,” he said, breathless, like he was seeing something miraculous. “Look at you.”

Rose forced herself to look away, pretending she wasn’t listening, pretending she didn’t hear the awe in his voice. She’d heard him speak like that before—once. Maybe twice. Not like this.

“It’s been seven years for me,” the redhead murmured.

The Doctor’s smile faltered—only slightly, but Rose caught it. Of course she did. She had been studying him since the day she met him.

“Three for me,” he said quietly.

And Lily just nodded—soft, understanding, as if the two of them were speaking in a language Rose didn’t know.

Rose’s stomach twisted again, harder this time.

She suddenly felt like an intruder—standing between two people who were reconnecting after years apart, years she hadn’t been part of, years she knew nothing about.

It wasn’t fair. She knew that.

But fairness didn’t stop the sting. It didn’t stop the cold knot of envy curling under her ribs.

Lily didn’t seem to be trying to take anything. She wasn’t smug or territorial. She wasn’t even romantically looking at him. But that somehow made it worse.

Because Rose could tell—in the softness of the Doctor’s smile, in the quiet familiarity hanging in the air, in the way Lily nodded as if she understood—that Lily already had a place Rose didn’t.

A place Rose had never been invited into.

And standing there in the snow, watching him look at someone else like that—

Rose Tyler realised something she never wanted to admit:

She was jealous.

Terrified

And heartbreakingly aware—that she might not be the most important person in his world after all.

Lily smiled—small, nervous—and rubbed her gloved hands together, snowflakes sticking to her lashes. “I—I’ve got a lot to tell you. But, well… it’s freezing. My house is nearby. If you want… we could go there?”

Rose stiffened. Her heart gave a horrible little jolt—like it had missed a step on the stairs. And before the Doctor could even breathe, Rose jumped in.

“My house is right here,” she blurted, thumb jerking over her shoulder toward the flats. “Warm. Bit crowded, but you’re welcome.”

She tried for casual. Really, she did. But it came out too fast, too eager. Too desperate.

Lily hesitated. Her green eyes drifted behind Rose—to the pavement where Jackie and Mickey stood gawking as they’d wandered into the wrong soap opera. Jackie wore the look she reserved for judging her neighbours. Mickey’s face said What the hell have you dragged home now, mate?

Lily offered a polite, almost apologetic smile. “Thanks, but… I’ve got to be somewhere for Christmas dinner.” A soft pause. “And, well—looks like you lot are a bit busy yourselves,” she added gently, nodding toward Jackie and Mickey.

It was kind. And painfully reasonable.

“Maybe some other day?” She offered.

Rose’s lungs tightened because there it was. A neat, tidy escape route. A perfect opportunity. He could turn to her now. Take her hand—like he always did—and say: Come on, Rose.

They’d go inside. Have tea, warm up, laugh at whatever alien nonsense had just happened. It would just be the two of them again. He could choose her.

But instead—

The Doctor turned back to Lily. And he said, quietly. Softly. Far too warmly: “No… I’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Would you like to see the TARDIS?” he asked, voice full of eagerness. “She’s missed you.”

He sounded… hopeful. Like a child on Christmas morning, waiting for someone to unwrap a present he’d hidden for years.

Rose’s stomach twisted sharply. She swallowed hard, her throat burning. The TARDIS had missed her? That felt like being punched right in the ribs.

Lily’s expression flickered—surprised, then something softer, something that made Rose feel like she was watching a conversation that had nothing to do with words.

Those green eyes drifted to Rose for one heartbeat—brief, measuring, almost apologetic—before turning back to the Doctor.

She gave the smallest nod, slow and careful, like she sensed the current pulling between the three of them even if he didn’t.

Rose’s mouth moved before her brain caught up.

“I’ll come too.”

Too sharp. Too quick. Too bloody obvious.

The Doctor turned—startled. Actually startled—as he’d forgotten she was standing right there.

“Oh! Right. Yeah. Of course.”

But he didn’t reach for her hand. Didn’t offer it like he always did. Didn’t slot their fingers together and tug her along like she was his anchor. His person.

He just nodded. Distracted. Almost absent. As though the part of his brain reserved for her had temporarily short-circuited.

And then—He turned away. Lit up like a Christmas tree and sprinted toward the TARDIS.

“Come on, Lily!” he called back, laughing.

Laughing.

Rose’s chest tightened painfully as he reached the TARDIS and pulled one door open with a flourish.

The golden light spilled over him like it had been waiting for this moment—warm, familiar, home.

But Rose felt none of it.

Inside, the TARDIS hummed softly—almost excitedly— as though recognising an old friend.

The Doctor’s grin widened, ridiculously bright, uncontained.

“She’s missed you so much—you’ll see. She’ll be over the moon!”

He sounded like an overeager puppy. A man who had just found something he’d lost and had never gotten over losing.

Rose felt something crack inside her – The TARDIS had missed Lily? Since when did the TARDIS “miss” anyone?

Lily looked back toward Rose once more—hesitant, gentle. An apology in the gaze. A softness Rose didn’t want.

Then she followed the Doctor at a slower, more careful pace—respectful. Like she knew she was stepping into someone else’s world.

But that didn’t make Rose feel any better. Not even a little.

Rose’s boots stayed planted, frozen—not by cold, but by something far more suffocating.

She watched them.

The Doctor held the door for Lily. Actually, held it—slow, deliberate, patient— like a gentleman out of some old-timey novel, like she was someone precious. Someone whose presence made the universe tilt in a better direction.

He’d held doors for Rose before—sure. But not like this.

Not with that soft-eyed look that screamed I missed you. I mourned you. I can’t believe you’re here.

Lily stepped inside the TARDIS, slow and graceful, like she belonged there.

Rose’s hands curled into fists inside her sleeves, nails biting against her palms. Her throat burned, jealousy rising sharp and humiliating.

Why is he looking at her like that?

Who is she to him—really?

What did they share that he never shared with me?

The Doctor dipped his head inside the TARDIS before stepping through after Lily.

But Rose caught the look on his face before he vanished—Wonder. Relief. Devotion. And something raw—grief dissolving into joy.

Like someone had returned from the dead.

Not me, Rose thought bitterly.

The golden light from the TARDIS spilled into the alley, warm and bright and familiar—home.

Except it didn’t feel like home—not tonight.

Not with that red-haired girl already inside, welcomed like some lost heir returning to her kingdom.

Not with the Doctor still looking at her like she’d stitched together a part of him that had been broken for years.

For the first time since she stepped into this impossible, wonderful, terrifying world—Rose Tyler felt utterly, devastatingly alone.

And worse—she wondered if the Doctor even noticed.

Rose followed the Doctor and Lily inside, though her feet felt heavier than they ever had stepping over that threshold. Except this time, it wasn’t her TARDIS she was walking into. Not really. Not with the way things felt.

Lily walked ahead—slow, reverent—and when her eyes lifted to the glowing coral supports and the living hum of the console, her face shifted.

Not surprise. Not confusion. But recognition.

A quiet ache twisted in Rose’s chest.

Lily breathed out a stunned little laugh. “It’s changed… a lot.”

“Changed?!” The Doctor practically squeaked. “Changed?! Lily, it’s brand new. Look at this—look!”

He bounded across the console room in three long strides, hands sweeping dramatically over the panels.

“New rotor! New radial stabilisers! And would you believe it; she let me keep the coral theme—only took a bit of pleading. And bribery. And minor begging. But look at her! Isn’t she magnificent?”

He circled the console, buzzing, glowing, practically vibrating with excitement.

Lily followed the movement with wide, nostalgic eyes. “It’s… beautiful,” she whispered. “Different but still her.”

Lily stepped closer to the console, fingertips brushing the warm metal. A soft hum rose beneath her touch. She smiled—small, fond, heartbreakingly familiar.
“Oh, hello, sweetheart,” she whispered. “Did you miss me?”

And the TARDIS answered. A warm pulse rippled through the room—lights brightening, engines purring, a low melodic thrumming Rose had never heard directed at anyone but the Doctor.

Lily laughed quietly, eyes soft. “There you are,” she murmured. “Still temperamental.”

“See!” The Doctor absolutely beamed, bouncing on his feet. “She is still her!”

Rose stayed near the door. The hum of the ship usually settled her nerves, wrapped around her like a warm coat. But tonight, it pressed against her skin—too loud, too alive—as if even the TARDIS herself was thrilled Lily was here.

And the Doctor… He lit up when he looked at Lily. More than he had at any point with Rose tonight.

It hurt. More than Rose wanted to admit.

Meanwhile, the Doctor seemed ready to combust with joy. He spun around the console again, utterly thrilled, then suddenly froze mid-bounce.

“Right!” he said brightly. “We should get you home, yeah?” His voice softened again—warm, fond, tender. “If you want… I can drop you off. In the TARDIS. Properly.”

Lily blinked, surprised. “Are you sure? I mean… I don’t want to intrude.”

The Doctor shook his head so fast his hair flopped. “No intrusion! None! Not one bit! Honestly—would love to. Absolutely love to.”

He turned toward the controls, hands already hovering, then paused.

“Oh! Rose—” He looked at her, finally remembering she existed. “Er… is that alright with you?”

Rose’s heart lurched. He was actually asking her. Her opinion. Like she had a choice.

Every fibre of her wanted to say no.

No, take me home.

No, I don’t want her here.

No, I don’t want to watch you glowing at someone else.

But she couldn’t say any of that. Not without sounding like a jealous girlfriend—worse, an insecure one.

So, she forced a bright, brittle smile.

“’Course it’s alright,” she said, voice painfully cheerful. “I’ll, um… come too.”

Lily leaned in, voice low, conspiratorial, and gave him an address. There was a familiarity between them—unspoken, but real—and Rose hated how easily it slid into place.

“Right then!” the Doctor beamed—relieved. “Off we go!”

The Doctor slammed a lever. The TARDIS lurched. Rose grabbed the railing. Lily didn’t even flinch.

Seconds later, the TARDIS landed with a soft, polite thud.

The Doctor had practically bounced through the dematerialisation sequence—grinning, chirping, throwing Lily little glances like he couldn’t quite believe she was real.

The doors swung open, and cold air drifted in.

They stepped out onto a neatly trimmed lawn—so perfectly precise it looked almost artificial. The sort of lawn that suggested gardeners, not lawnmowers. The air was icy, clean, and Rose thought—irritably—that even the cold smelled posh here.

In front of them stood a house—white walls, dark green trim, neat ivy curling up tall windows.

Old money, Rose thought immediately. Not loud, not flashy. Quiet confidence. The sort of place that said: We’ve been here longer than you’ve been alive.

But when Lily pushed open the front door—Rose’s breath caught.

Because from the outside, it looked… normal. Pretty, sure. Posh. Something a well-off doctor or quiet professor might own.

But once they stepped inside— the place was massive.

Not big. Not spacious. Massive.

The foyer alone dwarfed Rose’s entire flat.

Warm oak floors stretched out under crystal chandelier light—real crystal, not the plastic Tesco ones her mum moaned about. Tall windows spilled golden light onto polished surfaces. The grand staircase curved up the wall like something out of an aristocratic period drama.

Rose stopped walking entirely.

And it only got worse from there.

To the left: A drawing room full of soft carpets, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and a crackling stone fireplace draped with Christmas garlands. Fir-scented candles burned on the mantle, their flames dancing over strings of golden fairy lights. Plush sofas invited you to sink in and vanish for hours.

To the right: A kitchen big enough to host a wedding. Marble Island. Copper pots. A stove the size of a small car. The warm scent of cinnamon and cloves lingered, mingling with pine and something floral.

It felt like a magazine spread come to life.

Except it wasn’t cold or stiff. It was lived in. Loved.

Full of tiny touches—a half-wilted poinsettia on the table, a slightly crooked garland, a handmade knitted stocking hanging by the fireplace.

The hallway walls held portraits—painted, not printed—old faces laughing, reading, leaning on canes. They felt… aware. Watching. Warm.

Lily’s whole house felt like it had stories embedded in the air.

Rose swallowed hard, painfully aware she’d grown up in a cramped flat above a shop, where Christmas decorations were whatever her mum found in a pound-store sale bin.

And then— The Doctor exploded into the foyer.

“BLIMEY, LILY!” he shouted, spinning on the spot like a malfunctioning top. “Look at this! Look at—what is all this? When did this happen? When did you get a house that looks like—like—oh, I dunno—something the TARDIS would try to copy when she’s showing off!”

Lily ducked her head, rubbing her gloves together. Shy. “It’s not new. My godfather bought it when he left school. ’78.”

The Doctor blinked. “Oh.”

Lily tucked a strand of loose red hair behind her ear. “I inherited it,” she said softly. “Renovated it last year. Tried to keep the old bits the same.”

He froze mid–half spin, boots silent on the polished oak floor. And then he stared at her. The wild excitement faded into something deeper—something protective, tender, edged with old pain he had never quite learned how to hide.

You went from the cupboard under the stairs… to this?

He didn’t say it. He didn’t have to.

But Lily saw the thought cross his face like a shadow passing over the sun. “Yeah,” she whispered. “Guess I did.”

Then the Doctor coughed loudly, wrenching himself back to manic enthusiasm.

“It’s brilliant!” he burst out, spinning again. “Absolutely brilliant! You should’ve seen the last place I visited you in—oh wait, I did. Horrible little room. No—not a room. What did they call it? ‘Storage space’?”

Lily snorted.

Rose blinked. Storage space? Why on earth would she have lived in a storage space? She looked far too confident, too graceful, too quietly comfortable to have come from anything like that.

Before she could puzzle it further, the Doctor zoomed into the kitchen—coat flapping—then back into the foyer like an overexcited Christmas elf.

“This is incredible!” he said, breathless. “You’ve built a whole life—you’ve—look at this! Look at you!”

Rose crossed her arms, feeling painfully out of place among the gleaming floors and warm lights. A knot twisted in her stomach. She felt like clutter on the perfect oak floor.

“I like this house,” the Doctor added brightly, bouncing on his heels. “Much better than when the TARDIS threw that tantrum and grew a jungle in the swimming pool!”

Lily’s head snapped up. And then—She laughed.

Her first real laugh since they’d arrived. Warm. Genuine. Surprised. The sound filled the big foyer like bells.

The Doctor beamed at her, delighted beyond belief.

Rose’s stomach twisted even tighter.

They drifted into the drawing room — and it looked like Christmas had absolutely moved in and refused to leave.

A tall tree glowed in the corner, decked with silver baubles and delicate handmade ornaments… except some of them weren’t quite behaving.

Rose blinked.

One tiny silver stag figurine trotted along a branch, leaving faint trails of shimmering frost behind it.

A paper phoenix ornament gave a tiny flutter of its wings and rearranged itself on a higher branch.

A garland of holly berries seemed to shift colours each time she looked at it — red, then gold, then a deep forest green.

Rose stared, unsure whether she was tired… or hallucinating. Because normal decorations didn’t… move.

Fairy lights sparkled across the mantle — and she could swear they flickered in patterns. Almost like… Morse code?

No. That was ridiculous.

Three stockings hung over the fireplace—embroidered with elegant, looping initials. The middle one shimmered faintly, as if dusted with starlight.

And the room smelled like pine, cinnamon, and something warm and sweet baking in the background… except she couldn’t see an oven.

Everything felt warm and alive and… enchanted.

But Rose didn’t have a word for that.

Just a sense of stepping into a world she didn’t recognise — and wasn’t sure she belonged in.

Lily curled up in an armchair, one leg tucked beneath her, as if the house moulded itself around her shape.

The Doctor flopped onto the centre of the sofa, limbs loose, scarf slipping off one shoulder, laughing under his breath at absolutely nothing — like his whole body had exhaled for the first time in years.

Rose sat beside him. But she didn’t feel beside him. Not remotely.

Because his body angled towards Lily. His attention anchored to her. His eyes lifted to the doorway she’d walked through again and again, like a compass needle swinging toward one fixed point.

He looked at Lily the way one looked at stars that had vanished and somehow returned — bright, impossibly alive, beyond explanation.

They talked like people who didn’t need context or catching up. Like two halves of a story Rose had never been invited to read.

It grated.

Burned low in her chest.

Made her feel loud and clumsy and… small.

So painfully small.

“I’ll get hot chocolate,” Lily said suddenly, rising with a soft smile.

“No, it’s okay—” Rose protested, but Lily had already disappeared.
Her footsteps were light. Confident. Familiar with the house in a way Rose couldn’t imagine being.

The Doctor watched her go, his expression softening so much Rose felt it like a punch.

“Isn’t she something?” he murmured — barely aware he’d said it aloud. “Always thinks about everyone else. Even when it’s her life on the line.”

Rose forced a smile. It wobbled.

“You’ve… known her long?” she asked cautiously.

“For ages,” he said, eyes still fixed on the doorway. “Since she was four. On and off. Bit of a wild story.” His voice softened. “But she’s… extraordinary.”

That word hung between them. Extraordinary. Rose’s heart dropped.

He had never — not once — called her extraordinary.

Before Rose could respond, Lily reappeared — balancing three steaming mugs on a little wooden tray, as though she’d done it a thousand times. The rich scent hit instantly: chocolate, cinnamon, sugar, and something faintly floral… almost like Christmas warmth had been bottled.

She handed the Doctor his first.

“Fantastic!” he crowed, lighting up. “Hot chocolate is always the answer. Absolutely always.”

Lily smiled softly — the kind of smile that suggested she had heard him say things like that many times before.

Then she turned to Rose and held out a mug.

Rose froze. “Oh. No thanks.”

Lily blinked, surprised but polite. “Are you sure?”

“I’m just not in the mood,” Rose said quickly — too quickly. Her voice came out sharper, more brittle than she meant.

The Doctor stared at her like she’d just said she didn’t believe in Christmas.

“Rose. It’s hot chocolate.” He sounded genuinely distressed on behalf of the beverage.

“I don’t want it,” she muttered, staring down at her hands.

Her face burned. The silence stretched.

Lily sat back down, slow and gentle, careful not to make it worse — which somehow made it much worse. Rose caught the faint expression the redhead wore.

Not smug. Not triumphant. Just… understanding. Like she recognised the feeling of not fitting in.

Rose wished she hated her. It would’ve been easier.

“I’m sorry,” Rose blurted suddenly. “Didn’t mean to be rude. Just… not feeling it.”

Lily nodded, too kind for comfort. “It’s all right.”

The Doctor gave Rose a look she couldn’t read — a rare thing.

Usually, she could read him like a book. Now? He felt pages ahead of her.

But then Lily spoke again, softly, and just like that—

His entire attention snapped back to her.

And Rose sat there, quietly breaking.

Lily tucked herself into the armchair, legs folded under her like she’d sat that way all her life. Her fingers curled around the warm mug, steam fogging her lashes.

“Right,” she exhaled, a little laugh escaping. “Seven years. Merlin… it sounds ridiculous saying it out loud.”

The Doctor lit up immediately, practically sliding off the sofa in excitement.

“Start with a good one!” he burst out. “Something nostalgic. Something horribly embarrassing for you. Those were always the best.”

Lily’s eyebrows shot up. “Embarrassing for me? You’re one to talk.”

“Oh-ho, excuse me,” he said, pointing at himself indignantly, “I am the picture of dignity.”

Lily snorted. Actual snort.

Rose had never heard the Doctor pull that out of anyone.

“Yes, because nothing says ‘dignity’ like a man tripping into a fountain while insisting he meant to do it,” Lily said sweetly.

Rose blinked. The Doctor? Tripping? Into fountains? He’d never mentioned that.

The Doctor spluttered. “I—well—that fountain moved! It clearly moved!”

“It was a fountain,” Lily deadpanned. “A decorative one. Shaped like a cherub.”

“It was armed,” he insisted. “Had a very aggressive spout!”

Lily grinned into her mug, dimples showing. “You screamed.”

“I exclaimed!” he corrected. Loudly. “With heroic vigour!”

Rose’s mouth fell open slightly. She had never seen someone tease the Doctor like that — and get away with it — and make him look charmed by being teased.

He wasn’t annoyed. He wasn’t defensive. He was glowing.

Lily continued, eyes dancing. “And then you tried to impress me by hopping over the barrier.”

The Doctor winced. “Right, yes. That bit.”

“You landed in a hedge.”

“I meant to land in the hedge.”

Rose watched them go back and forth like a rally — familiar, easy, warm in a way that stabbed through her ribs.

Then Lily leaned forward conspiratorially.

“And if you want embarrassing…” She tapped her mug lightly. “…I still remember the karaoke incident.”

The Doctor went scarlet.

Rose’s head whipped toward him. Karaoke?

“No,” he said quickly. “No-no-no. Not that one.”

Lily’s smile widened. “The one where you tried to harmonise with a malfunctioning speaker?”

“You promised,” he hissed.

“You were yelling at it like it was sentient.”

“It was sentient! It tried to bite me!”

Rose stared. He looked… younger with her. Softer. Like Lily peeled back layers Rose had never reached.

Lily laughed again — warm, small, nostalgic — and Rose’s stomach twisted painfully.

Because that wasn’t just laughter. That was shared history. History Rose didn’t have.

Then Lily continued quietly, almost shyly: “You haven’t changed much, you know.”

His breath caught — the smallest hitch — but Rose saw it.

“Really?” he asked softly. “Feel like everything’s changed.”

She tilted her head, studying him with an affection that made Rose’s throat tighten.

“No,” she said. “Still dramatic. Still running. Still pretending your hair isn’t a lost cause.”

He gasped. “Oi!”

“And” she added, smiling into her mug, voice gentler now, “still the kindest man I’ve ever met.”

His entire face softened — open in a way Rose had never seen directed at her. Her nails dug crescents into her palms. She didn’t know which part hurt more — Lily’s words, or the way he looked at her after she said them. Like he’d been waiting years to hear her say something like that again.

“I missed you.” The Doctor tried for a flippant reply, but it came out too sincere.

Lily’s smile faltered — the fondness deepening into something older, heavier. And she whispered, “I missed you too.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was… thick. Full. Electric.

Rose swallowed hard. She had never — not once — heard the Doctor say something like that about anyone…

Lily nudged the rim of her mug. “Do you remember that planet? The one with the purple sky and the sand that stuck to everything?”

The Doctor groaned, covering his face. “Oh, don’t even start. I’m still finding grains in my boots.”

“You fell three times.”

“I was pushed by gravity!”

“You tripped on your own jacket.”

“I was thrown by my jacket. It had it out for me.”

“You face-planted into a sandcastle.”

“It was a structurally unsound sandcastle.”

Lily began laughing so hard she wheezed — a sound Rose had never heard from a stranger, let alone from someone who’d only been in the room for fifteen minutes.

And the Doctor? He was laughing with her. Just as hard. Too loudly. Too freely. His whole face alight. Like someone had handed him back a piece of himself he’d misplaced.

Rose sat very still beside him. The ache in her chest crawled upward — hot, humiliating, sharp. She had never seen him laugh like that with her. Not even close.

With her, he was fun. Warm. Adventurous.

But with Lily? He was home. He was someone else. Someone happier. Someone Rose didn’t know how to reach.

Rose’s throat felt tight, her chest hollow.

Because they weren’t just catching up. They weren’t just reminiscing.

They were slipping back into a rhythm they never lost.

A rhythm that didn’t include Rose.

And watching it — watching him — made something inside Rose curl in on itself.

She had never felt so replaced in her life.

The laughter between Lily and the Doctor had gentled now—soft, warm, threaded with that strange lived-in familiarity that made Rose’s skin prickle. They weren’t just catching up. They were sliding back into something.

Something Rose wasn’t part of. Something she hadn’t even known existed.

Rose stared at them—Lily curled comfortably in her armchair, the Doctor leaning forward, eyes bright, smiling in that soft way he didn't smile at anyone else—and something sharp twisted beneath her ribs.

Who is she? And why did he look at her like she was some lost star he’d finally found again?

She felt it again—that painful, humiliating stab of envy—and tried to swallow it down.

Lily was in the middle of a story, something about a foggy hilltop and the Doctor accidentally summoning a herd of angry rams—

When it happened.

WHOOSH.

The fireplace behind Lily didn’t simply light.

It erupted.

A swirl of green fire roared up the chimney, spinning like a miniature cyclone. The temperature in the room dropped sharply—so cold Rose felt her breath leave her lungs in a white puff.

Rose shot to her feet. “What the hell—?!”

Before Lily or the Doctor even moved, the flames twisted inward—

—and a man stepped out of them.

Actually stepped. Out of the fire.

Like it was nothing more than a doorway.

Tall, lanky, dressed in a Christmas jumper that had seen better days, hair violently ginger, coughing soot out of his lungs.

“Oi!” he shouted the moment he caught sight of Lily. “Dorea! Mum’s about to have a fit—dinner’s going cold, George enchanted the gravy again, and—”

He stopped dead.

His eyes swept the room.

Landed on Rose.

Then the Doctor.

He paled.

“Erm.” He cleared his throat. “Bugger.”

Rose’s jaw dropped.

Lily bolted upright so fast her mug nearly launched into orbit. “Ronald! What in Merlin’s name are you doing?!”

“You didn’t say you had Mugg—” He froze again. “Err… people over.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to FLOO CRASH into my sitting room like a deranged Christmas gnome!” Lily snapped.

“Didn’t know! Thought you’d be alone! Mum’s panicking!”

“Ron, get OUT!”

Ron squeaked—actually squeaked—turned back to the flames and vanished in another swirl of green fire.

Gone.

Like he’d never been there.

One moment, the red-haired man was coughing soot onto Lily’s rug — the next, the green flames swallowed him back up, and the fireplace settled into a polite, crackling calm.As if it hadn’t just spat a person into the living room.

Silence fell.

A long, tight, heavy silence.

Rose slowly turned to the Doctor.

“Did… that just happen?”

“Oh, absolutely!” he chirped, delighted, practically vibrating. “Controlled trans-dimensional travel through an elemental conduit—look at that! Perfect stability! No singeing! Domestic teleportation via chimneys—oh, that’s brilliant!”

He bounced once on the sofa — actually bounced. Then whirled to Lily, eyes glowing.

“Is there a catalytic powder? Chimneys calibrated to lunar cycles. Do they only work on Thursdays? Do you need runic alignment? Ooh — is there a registration system?!”

Lily pressed her fingers to her temples. “Doctor — later. Please.”

But Rose couldn’t take her eyes off the fireplace.

“He came out of the fire,” she whispered. “He walked through fire. And then he vanished. And you’re—” she gestured wildly — “just pretending this is normal?!”

Lily winced. “Sorry. That was Ron. He’s… family. And that was the Floo Network. It’s—well. It’s magic.”

Magic.

The word hit Rose’s stomach like a boulder.

Her thoughts scrambled, grabbed at the nearest explanation, and latched on with desperate relief:

Oh.

She’s an alien.

Yes. That made sense. That was familiar.

The Doctor loved aliens. The Doctor understood aliens. He smiled at aliens the way he smiled at Lily.

Rose could not compete with human women — but aliens? Aliens were a different category entirely.

The TARDIS humming near Lily. The floating ornaments. The green fire. Her odd, old-fashioned words.

Aliens.

Of course.

“That makes sense,” Rose muttered, breath loosening. “The Doctor always connects with aliens.”

She almost smiled — almost — when she turned to Lily.

“So… you’re not human, then?”

Lily and the Doctor both stared at her.

Lily blinked. “Sorry?”

“I mean,” Rose rushed on, “fireplaces that explode people out, weird powder, ‘Floo Network’ — that’s not normal human stuff. So, you’re not… from here.”

A beat of baffled silence.

Then Lily said flatly: “I’m from London.”

Rose stared. “…London London?”

“Yes,” Lily said, brow tightening. “Born in London. Grew up in Surrey. I’m human.”

Rose blinked. Her lifeline snapped in half. “Properly human?”

“Yes,” Lily said tightly. “Human. Just a witch.”

The relief evaporated. Panic rose hot behind Rose’s ribs.

Magic wasn’t alien.

Magic was human — but rare.

Magic was special.

Magic was everything she wasn’t.

And the Doctor — annoyingly — looked thrilled.

“Magic! On Earth!” he beamed. “Oh, that’s fantastic. Absolutely brilliant. Fireplace network—”

Lily shot him a look. He shut his mouth with an audible click.

Rose jabbed a finger at the fireplace. “You could’ve warned us!”

“I didn’t think anyone would be dropping in,” Lily said helplessly.

“Dropping in?!” Rose nearly shrieked. “Dropping in?! He exploded out of your chimney!”

“Wizards,” the Doctor added cheerfully, sipping hot chocolate. “Apparently.”

Rose spun on him. “And you’re just fine with that?!”

“Oh, I’m loving it,” he said, grinning. “Spontaneously stable elemental travel—”

“Doctor,” Lily warned.

He quieted — marginally.

Rose folded her arms tightly across her chest, heart hammering.

Magic. Real, casual, household magic.

And the Doctor — her Doctor — was practically incandescent with joy.

Not because of the fire.

Because of Lily.

“Magic is real? On Earth?” Rose’s voice came out small, cracking.

“It has been for over a thousand years,” Lily said quietly. “Hidden. Protected.”

Rose stared. First at Lily. Then at the Doctor.

He didn’t contradict her. He didn’t soften it. He just watched — too silent, too present — like he was waiting to see whether Rose would break.

Lily hesitated, then stood, spine straightening.

“Rose,” she said gently but firmly, “I need you to promise me something.”

Rose narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“What I’m about to tell you is protected by law. Wizarding law. If you repeat it — to anyone — there will be consequences.”

“So, you’re threatening me?” Rose snapped.

“No,” Lily said evenly. “I’m explaining reality. The Doctor bends every law in the universe, but you’re not him. You’re a muggle. And I shouldn’t even be telling you this.”

“A what?” Rose demanded.

Lily sighed. “Muggle. A human without magic.”

Rose’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

Lily winced. “It’s not meant as an insult.”

“It sounds like a fungus,” the Doctor muttered. “Said that for years.”

“Or a disease,” Rose snapped. “‘Sorry, Doctor, I’ve come down with muggle, should I quarantine?’”

Lily dragged a hand down her face. “I didn’t invent the term.”

“Yeah, well," Rose said, "your magical lot should sort out your PR.”

Lily’s jaw twitched. “You think I don’t know that? I’m a half-blood. My mum was a muggleborn — first in her family to have magic. And the idiot you just saw flailing out of the fireplace? Pureblood.”

“Lovely,” Rose muttered. “Your whole world sounds like medieval eugenics.”

Lily’s eyes snapped. “Careful.”

“Secret aristocracies? Memory wipes? Blood classifications?” Rose pressed. “Doesn’t sound magical. Sounds like anarchy with nice cloaks.”

The temperature in the room dropped.

Lily stepped closer, voice low. “We fought a war over exactly that sort of thinking. We buried friends because of it. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand.”

The words landed like a blow.

The air shifted.

Heavy. Charged.

But it was the Doctor who froze the room.

His head snapped toward Lily, almost instinctively. Eyes narrowing — just a fraction.

Not angry. Not suspicious. Alert. Like a dog hearing a sound that only it could recognise.

He knew of the war, everyone did — UNIT files, pub whispers, odd mentions from people who shouldn’t have known anything at all. But nothing concrete. Nothing detailed.

And certainly nothing like this.

Lily was speaking as if she’d walked through it. As if she’d lost people to it. As if the word “buried” wasn’t metaphorical.

That… was new.

The Doctor didn’t interrupt. Didn’t soften. Didn’t joke.

He simply watched her, gaze sharpening — a quiet, dangerous curiosity flickering beneath.

Lily noticed. Her shoulders tightened, guilt or pain or instinct pushing her back behind invisible armour. She offered no more.

Rose felt her pulse spike.

“Well, sorry if I didn’t get the memo on your secret magical wars,” she snapped, the words tumbling out before she could tame them. “It’s not like anyone told me magic even existed until five minutes ago!”

Her voice cracked.

The Doctor lifted a hand between them, not touching either girl, but forming an unmistakable barrier.

“All right,” he said softly. “Both of you. Breathe.”

They didn’t.

Not even close.

But the eye contact broke — just barely enough that the air didn’t snap in half.

The tension still crackled, sharp and restless, like static under a winter jumper. Rose’s pulse hammered; Lily’s jaw was tight; the fireplace hummed faintly with leftover magic, as if even it was wary of getting involved.

Then, in the most painfully Doctor-like attempt at diffusing a powder keg, he muttered: “Well… Happy Christmas, everyone.”

Rose snorted despite herself.

Lily rolled her eyes.

But the tension didn’t dissolve — it only shifted, settling into something brittle and lingering.

Underneath it all, Rose felt Lily watching her — not unkindly, not pitying, but with a kind of tired grief Rose didn’t understand. Like the weight behind Lily’s words wasn’t theoretical at all.

And Lily, for her part, felt that familiar knot coil tight beneath her ribs. She wasn’t angry because Rose snapped. She was angry because Rose had no idea what magic had cost people like her. What it still cost?

Lily inhaled slowly. When she spoke again, her voice had levelled — but the undercurrent of steel remained. “The worst they’ll do is remove your memories.”

Rose’s head jerked up. Her face drained. “They can’t do that!”

Her voice cracked — high, frightened, furious — and Rose hated that it betrayed her. She turned instantly to the Doctor, expecting outrage, some dramatic declaration about protecting her, something.

But he wasn’t looking at her. He was still looking at Lily — brow furrowed, thoughtful, as if re-evaluating her with every word.

And that — more than anything — made Rose feel like the floor had dropped out from under her.

“They’ve done it since the Statute of Secrecy,” Lily said quietly. “Since the 1700s. Before that — witch trials, inquisitions, burnings. Magical and non-magical people died. So, we hid. We had to.”

Rose swallowed, pale and shaken. When she finally found her voice, it trembled. “That’s… mental.”

“It’s survival,” Lily replied simply.

Silence.

Heavy, resentful, reluctant.

Then Rose muttered, barely above a whisper, “Fine. I promise.”

Lily’s shoulders loosened — just a fraction. “Thank you.”

She finally turned fully toward the Doctor.

And Rose saw it.

The way he was looking at Lily.

Quiet.

Focused.

Full of questions and something older, softer, deeper.

It punched the air out of Rose’s lungs.

She couldn’t stay.

“I need to go,” she said abruptly, pushing up from the sofa. “I need air.”

The Doctor shot to his feet instantly. “Rose—”

“It’s fine,” she lied. “Just… take me home.”

He hesitated. A long second. Looking between the two women — confusion in his brow, worry in his mouth.

Then he nodded. “All right.”

He grabbed his coat and stepped toward the door.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he told Lily.

Lily nodded once. “Take your time.”

The door clicked shut behind them.

And the moment it did, Lily collapsed back onto the sofa — shoulders sagging, breath shaking silently into the warm, magical, far-too-quiet room.

The front door clicked softly.

A moment later she heard him—those familiar scuffs of his trainers, the shake of his coat, the little breaths he never quite realised he made when he was unsettled.

He stepped into the drawing room, wind-bitten and pink-cheeked, hair a mess, coat half undone. His eyes searched for her instantly.

He found her exactly where he’d left her.

Still. Too still.

Hands twisted so tightly in her lap, her knuckles had blanched.

The smile on his face fell.

“Lily?” he asked, gently.

She lifted her head. And for the first time since he’d met her on a lonely swing all those years ago, she looked older than he did.

“Doctor,” she whispered.

Just his name—but it felt like an ending.

He crossed to the chair opposite her in three strides and sat forward, forearms braced on his knees. Not crowding her. Not retreating either. A man preparing himself for impact.

“I’m here,” he said quietly. “Whatever it is.”

Her next breath shook.

“I need to tell you the truth,” she said. “All of it.”

He didn’t ask why, didn’t ramble, didn’t deflect. Just nodded once. “All right. Tell me.”

“My name isn’t Lily Evans,” she said. “It’s Dorea. Dorea Lily Potter.”

His brows rose—not with doubt, but curiosity.

“Potter,” he murmured, testing the name. “Go on.”

“I didn’t lie to hurt you,” she said. “I lied because I had to.”

“Why?”

She swallowed hard. “Because my parents were murdered when I was a baby. My mum—Lily Evans—was Muggle-born. My dad, James Potter, pure-blood. Voldemort killed them both.”

The name meant nothing to him. But the grief did.

“He tried to kill me, too. The curse rebounded. That’s how I got this.” She touched her scar. “That’s how I became ‘The Girl Who Lived.’ A title I never wanted.”

The Doctor’s expression shifted—recognition of the burden, the unfairness, the loneliness of being made a symbol.

“I grew up with the Dursleys,” she said. “Cupboard under the stairs. Bars on the window. You saw enough.”

His jaw flexed. Yes. He had.

“Hogwarts saved me,” she said softly. “Friends. Magic. A place I finally fit.” Her voice thinned. “But Voldemort was always there. In stories. In shadows. And every year, something happened. Possessed teachers. Cursed diaries. A monster in the walls. As if the world was trying to drag me toward him.” She clasped her hands tighter. “Then came the Triwizard Tournament. I didn’t enter—they forced me in. The last task… Cedric Diggory and I grabbed the Cup together. It was a Portkey. Took us straight to Voldemort.” Her voice broke. “Cedric died before he even had time to be afraid.”

The Doctor’s hands clenched into fists on his knees.

“Voldemort used my blood to resurrect himself,” she whispered. “I watched him rise. I watched him call his Death Eaters. I watched him try to kill me again.”

Silence pressed in.

“When I got back, they said I was lying. Mad. Attention-seeking. The Ministry smeared me. The school split. The Dursleys locked me up like I was dangerous.”

“That’s why you were in the park,” he said softly.

She nodded.

“I couldn’t breathe anywhere else. So, I sat in the park. All summer. Trying not to think about graveyards. Trying not to think about dying.”

He saw again that thin, frightened fifteen-year-old girl. And hated himself for missing what she hadn’t said.

“And then,” Lily whispered, “you turned up. Again.”

Lily’s fingers twisted in her lap.

“I’d been called mad for days—months,” Lily said softly. “And then this strange man turns up again. The same one who’d offered me cocoa and a toy spaceship when I was four—the first gift I ever got.” Her voice trembled. “And he showed me the stars. You had no idea who I was. You didn’t care. You just… were there for me, in a way no one else ever had been.”

Her eyes dropped to her lap, fists curling tight.

“You were the first person in a very long time who made me feel like I wasn’t losing my mind,” she said, breath trembling. “You made the world feel less… sharp. Less cruel. Like maybe I wasn’t broken after all.”

The Doctor inhaled sharply, as if the words had landed somewhere unprotected.

But she wasn’t finished.

“When I went back to school,” Lily continued, voice thinning, “everything got worse. Voldemort didn’t just come after my life—he got into my head.”

The Doctor stilled completely.

“I saw what he saw,” she murmured. “Felt what he felt. The places he went. The people he hurt. And he—he could see back. Through me.”

Her throat tightened.

“That’s how Sirius died,” she whispered. “Because he used my mind as a bloody doorway.”

The Doctor’s expression changed—subtle, but unmistakably furious.

Lily looked up, eyes wide and wet.

“So, I panicked,” Lily said, the words trembling loose. “I thought… if he looks through me and sees you — a time traveller, a ship that bends reality, someone I actually—” Her breath hitched. “Someone I cared about — he’d go after you. The same way he went after my parents. After Sirius. After everyone else I loved.”

The Doctor leaned forward as if he could steady her with proximity alone, but she shook her head sharply and kept going.

“And I did the only thing I could think of.”

A small, raw silence opened between them.

“I tore you out,” she whispered. “Before he could ever reach you. Before he could turn you into another target.”

Her voice broke completely as she forced the rest out.

“I erased you, Doctor… because I didn’t know how else to keep you safe.”

His breath faltered — a tiny, devastated sound — but she pressed on, hands curling into the fabric of her trousers.

“I took every memory,” she said, voice cracking. “Every adventure. Every laugh. Every stupid argument about toast, or socks, or how I always touched the wrong lever. I pulled them out of my head and locked them inside a goblin vault no one could break.”

The Doctor closed his eyes, jaw tightening like the words physically hurt.

“I didn’t want to forget you,” she whispered urgently. “I didn’t. But I kept thinking about Sirius. My parents. Everyone who died because they stood beside me. I couldn’t bear the idea of him turning you into another weapon. Or another corpse.”

A shuddered breath left her.

“That’s why I did it,” Lily whispered. “That’s why I let myself lose you.”

For a heartbeat she couldn’t look at him. When she finally lifted her eyes—bracing for anger, disappointment, anything—she found neither.

He was looking at her the way someone looks at a collapsing star: awed by its gravity, terrified by its pain, unable to look away.

“Lily…” the Doctor breathed. Her name left him like something delicate he wasn’t sure he deserved to hold. It almost wasn’t a sound at all—more like a crack in the air.

But she wasn’t done. She drew in a breath that trembled through her whole frame.

“I wasn’t just scared of dying,” she said quietly. “I was scared of getting you killed.”

The Doctor went utterly still. Frozen. As if one wrong movement might make the meaning shatter.

“You were a child,” he said, voice roughened with something he didn’t dare name. “You should never have had to choose between the people you loved living or dying.”

“It wasn’t a choice,” she murmured. “It was a war.”

The word hit him like a physical blow. His shoulders tightened—old ghosts, old flames, old ash stirring under his ribs.

“We learned about Horcruxes the year after you… left.” Her fingers twisted together. “They were pieces of his soul. Hidden in objects. In living things. As long as even one survived, he couldn’t die.”

The Doctor swallowed slowly. “So, you three—”

“Ron and Hermione,” she said, a small, sad smile pulling at her mouth. “They stayed. Always. Even when it didn’t make sense to.”

Her eyes lifted—older than twenty-three, older than she should ever have had to be.

“There was a prophecy,” she said. “It had to be him or me. People fought for me. And far too many never walked back out of the battle.”

The names were soft but devastating.

“My mum. My dad. Sirius. Remus. Fred. Tonks. Colin. Mad-Eye.”

Each name fell like a stone on water—ripples of grief echoing into the room.

“People who never even knew what they were dying for,” she whispered.

The Doctor’s hands tightened around his knees, knuckles pale. He looked like he wished he could turn back time with nothing, but brute will.

“How did it end?” he asked—gentle, steady, though she could hear the tremor beneath.

Lily drew herself up, like she had done on battlefields, at funerals, in moments when she could not afford to break.

“After we destroyed everything, we could find,” she said, “I learned there was one Horcrux left.” Her hand touched her scar. “Me.”

The Doctor’s breath left him in a quiet, horrified rush.

“He accidentally put a piece of himself in me that night,” she continued. “That’s why I survived. And as long as that piece existed, he’d live. So I went into the forest.”

He leaned forward, unable to stop himself. “Lily—”

“But dying doesn’t hurt,” she said softly. “Not really. It’s… like falling asleep. Peaceful. Sirius told me that. So did my mum and dad.”

She looked down at her hands. “They were right.”

The Doctor closed his eyes, agony moving through his face like a shadow. He had died. Regenerated. Returned. But hearing her say it—his Lily—still broke something open inside him.

“You—”

“I stood in front of him,” she said. “No wand. No shield. Just ready. And when I woke up… it was somewhere white. Quiet. Like King’s Cross but not.”

He listened as though the universe depended on each word.

“I had a choice,” she whispered. “I could move on. Or go back.”

“And you went back,” he said.

“I couldn’t leave.” Her voice shook. “Not while people I loved were still fighting. So I went back. We finished it. He died. The war ended.”

She didn’t smile. Victory tasted nothing like she once imagined.

“It took another year before I could even walk into Gringotts,” she said. “Another year until I opened that vault, broke the spell, and let myself remember you.”

Her face softened—truly softened—for the first time since she began speaking.

“And there you were again,” she whispered. “Your daft leather jacket. The TARDIS. The toaster that tried to eat me. All the ways you made me feel like I wasn’t… breaking.”

The Doctor looked at her like the past was a door she’d just unlocked for him too.

“I tried to find you,” Lily said, the confession slipping out before she could stop it. “Every rumour of a blue box. Every impossible time-signature. I chased all of it.”

Her voice thinned.

“But you were gone. Properly gone. So, I—” She exhaled shakily. “I moved on. Or I tried to. What else was I supposed to do? Sit and wait for a ghost?”

The Doctor’s voice cracked like something tearing. “You should have told me.”

“And what would you have done?” she shot back. “Tried to fix it? Go back? Rewrite time?”

“Yes!” he snapped. Too fast. Too honest.

She barked out a broken laugh. “And you think I never wanted that? You think I never lie awake wishing I could go back and save my parents? Just one night? One moment?”

He froze—caught mid-breath.

“We both know you can’t change a fixed point,” she whispered. “Not even you. I searched for loopholes too. It doesn’t work like that.”

The Doctor’s expression darkened, old war-shadow settling across his face. He looked ancient for a moment—tired of time itself.

“And you,” Lily continued, softer now, “you were a constant. My constant. The one bright memory untouched by him. I couldn’t let that turn into a gravestone, too.”

The Doctor’s head snapped up, anger flaring hot enough to burn the air.

“Oh, so that’s it?” he said sharply. “You decide I’m some precious relic to be wrapped up and hidden away? Something to put on a shelf where the monster can’t reach?”

Lily flinched. “That’s not—”

“No?” He stepped forward, jaw tight. “Because from where I’m standing, that sounds exactly like what you did.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, voice rising to match his. “You’ve faced armies and monsters and cosmic tyrants and won. You throw yourself at the universe and somehow come out shining.”

Her eyes met his, bright with pain. “But you’ve never been hunted because you mattered to someone small and breakable. Because someone loved you. I couldn’t—” her voice cracked “—I couldn’t let him use you the way he used everyone else.”

He stared at her, breath unsteady, anger folding into something deeper and much more dangerous.

“You had your own ghosts,” she whispered. “The Time War. Gallifrey. All that weight you carried without ever saying a word. I wasn’t dragging you into another catastrophe I couldn’t survive.”

The room felt too small then—like the walls were holding their breath.

“Lily,” he said softly, but with steel beneath it, “I would have fought with you.”

Her eyes filled instantly. “I know,” she whispered. “That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

His face crumpled—pain and fury and devotion twisting together.

“So, you thought losing me would be worse than dying yourself,” the Doctor murmured, voice low and shaking with something he couldn’t disguise.

“No,” Lily said quietly. “I understood it.” Her eyes shone, but didn’t break. “Voldemort took my parents. My godfather. My friends. My mentors. He hollowed out everything I ever loved. I wasn’t letting him take you, too.”

The Doctor’s breath left him in one sharp, stunned exhale.

“You don’t get to march through hell on your own while I’m off playing spaceman,” he snapped, voice going thin around the edges. “Not when I know exactly what it is to stand in a world you’ve burned and think it’s all your fault.”

He let out a short, jagged laugh. “Sixteen. You were sixteen.”

Lily stared at her hands. She couldn’t look at him; the disappointment in his voice was too much.

He shot to his feet, pacing, tension rippling off him in frantic waves.

“I’ve seen children turned into weapons,” he said, voice shaking. “I’ve watched them age in hours. I’ve destroyed my own people to stop a war devouring the universe.” He spun back toward her, eyes blazing. “And you — you — were hiding in forests with cursed pieces of a madman’s soul inside you, while adults argued about who got the front page.”

His anger wasn’t loud. That made it worse. It was the anger of a man who’d already lost too much.

“That should never have been your burden,” he said.

“It wasn’t your fight,” she replied softly, stubbornly — the last shard of armour she still wore.

His eyes darkened, storm-deep and ancient.

“If it hurt you,” he said slowly, “it was absolutely my fight.”

Lily flinched. Properly flinched.

“I lied so you wouldn’t get hurt,” she whispered. “Changed my name. Hid everything. Cut you out because you were the only part of my life he didn’t twist.”

He stared at her, breath tight, waiting — willing her to keep talking.

“He broke everything else,” she said. “My family. My godfather. My teachers. My friends. Hogwarts. Me. I couldn’t bear the thought of him getting you too. So, I locked you away and pretended I’d never had you.”

The Doctor’s expression twisted — heartbreak, fury, pride all crowding together until none of it had space.

“You remember what I was like when you met me?” he asked, rough. “Fresh out of a war where I’d killed my own people. Travelling alone because I didn’t trust myself not to ruin anything I touched.”

Lily’s lips curled into a sad, familiar shape. “I remember.”

“And yet,” he went on, pacing again, hands in his hair, “you climbed into my ship anyway. You told me off every five minutes. Reminded me I wasn’t the only one who’d lost everything. Called me a coward when I deserved it.”

His voice wobbled — just once — and it almost undid her.

“You dragged me back into being a person,” he said. “Not a weapon. Not a ghost.”

He exhaled shakily. “And I wasn’t there when you needed someone to drag you back.”

Her eyes blurred. “I didn’t want to lose you too.”

“You wouldn’t have,” he said instantly — reckless, instinctive, painfully him.

She laughed — sharp, broken. “You can’t promise that. You didn’t know him.”

His gaze sharpened — that old, dangerous fire rising.

“Oh, I know his type,” he said. “Too many times. And I’m very good at ruining their fun.”

He stepped closer, voice low and deadly calm.

“And if I’d known,” he said, “I’d have been there. Graveyard. Forest. Castle. I’d have stood with you. Not instead of your friends — with them.”

Her breath caught. A small, painful sound. “That’s not how it happened,” she whispered.

“No,” he said. “Because you decided my safety mattered more than your life. Which is—” his hands flew in the air “—utterly infuriating. And very, very you.”

The fight drained from her chest all at once.

The Doctor stopped pacing. His shoulders dropped. He knelt in front of her — not dramatic, not desperate, just… real. Human.

“You,” he said softly, “are not the wreckage he left behind. You are Dorea Lily Potter. You walked into death and walked back out. You stopped a genocide. You saved a world that refused to believe you.”

He brushed a tear from her cheek with his thumb.

“You’re not ash,” he murmured. “You’re starlight. And stubbornness. And pure bloody-minded brilliance.”

A small, wet laugh escaped her. “You’re awful at normal comfort, you know.”

“Famously,” he said. “I’ve got the reviews to prove it.”

“That checks out.”

“But” he added, lifting his chin, “I am brilliant at being furious on your behalf. Properly dramatic about it.”

“That does help,” she said, voice small.

He sat beside her, sliding his hand over hers — warm, solid, impossibly grounding.

“Next time — and for the universe’s sake, I hope there isn’t one — you don’t shut me out. You shout. You call. You write ‘HELP, MASSIVE EVIL WIZARD’ on the moon if you must.”

She snorted. “The moon’s been through enough.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “It likes you. Very fond of you, the moon.”

She let out a ragged laugh — the kind that hurt but healed.

“There shouldn’t be another war,” she whispered.

“Excellent,” he said. “Because I am absolutely dreadful at watching people I care about die more than once.”

She let out a half-sob, half-laugh. “Doctor…”

He squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to carry any of this alone. Not anymore. Not the guilt. Not the lies. Not the war.”

Her eyes fell to their joined hands — her scarred knuckles, his steady fingers — and something inside her finally melted.

“Okay,” she whispered.

He raised an eyebrow. “Okay as in ‘I’ll tell you next time,’ or okay as in ‘I won’t vandalise the moon’?”

“I’m making no promises about the moon,” she said primly, chin lifting in that stubborn little way he’d always secretly adored.

The Doctor’s mouth pulled into a grin — that bright, crooked, ridiculous thing she remembered from seven years ago.

Except now it hit harder.

Sharper.

Like, suddenly the room had less oxygen.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured.

Before she could fire back some tart reply, he moved — gently, but with purpose — and pulled her into his arms.

Not the careful, one-armed squeeze he used to give a frightened sixteen-year-old on a TARDIS gantry.

Not the awkward pat-pat hug he reserved for strangers or companions he wasn’t sure he’d earned yet.

This was different.

Real.

Steady.

Like he’d been waiting seven years for her to stop running and let him hold her properly.

Lily stiffened for half a heartbeat — old habits, old armour — and then melted into him like her body finally remembered home.

His arms wrapped fully around her, warm and grounding, chest solid against her cheek. He held her like he wanted to keep every broken piece of her from slipping away again.

And something in her stomach flipped.

Hard.

She didn’t understand it.

Couldn’t name it.

Only knew that her heart suddenly felt too big for her ribs and too loud in her ears.

Seven years ago, she’d been a scared girl with scraped knees and a sharp tongue, clinging to the one man who’d made the universe feel less cruel.

Now she was a woman — battle-scarred, lonely, older than her years — and the way he held her made something warm and terrifying unfurl in her chest.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Whatever this feeling was, she didn’t have a name for it yet.

Didn’t realise she’d just taken her first quiet step into falling in love.

The Doctor pressed his chin lightly to the top of her head, exhaling as if he’d been holding his breath since she was fifteen.

“You’re alright,” he murmured into her hair. “You’re alright, Lily.”

She didn’t speak.

Didn’t trust her voice not to shake.

So, she just held on tighter.

Two old friends.

Two survivors.

Two people who’d lost too much… and somehow found each other again.

After a long moment, he mumbled softly, “If you do write on the moon, could you at least spell it correctly this time?”

She huffed against his chest. “It was one missing letter.”

“One very important letter,” he said solemnly. “The moon was mortified.”

That startled a tiny laugh out of her — the first one that didn’t hurt.

And he held her through it, quietly, like he finally had her back and wasn’t letting go anytime soon.

The hug eventually softened into quiet breathing, and then into the familiar ease that had once lived between them on the TARDIS — that unspoken certainty that they didn’t need to rush anything.

At some point, without either noticing, they ended up sitting side by side on the sofa, knees bumped together like they always had when she was sixteen and trying to look braver than she felt.

For the first time in years, the world didn’t feel sharp around the edges.

“So,” the Doctor said, nudging her shoulder lightly, “Auror, is it? Running about catching dark wizards, waving your wand in people’s faces — very dramatic.”

Lily snorted. “Says the alien in a pinstriped suit who fights genocidal pepperpots with a screwdriver.”

He gasped. “I’ll have you know it is a very sophisticated sonic—”

“—toothbrush?” she supplied sweetly.

“That was one time,” he muttered.

She laughed, and the sound made something warm flicker behind his eyes.

They talked. Properly talked. For hours.

She told him about the Weasleys — how Molly had practically adopted her, how George still made awful joke products, how Ron and Hermione had somehow survived both puberty and the apocalypse and were still together.

About Teddy —

“Tonks’ mischief,” Lily said, smiling softly, “and Remus’ heart. He changes his hair colour when he’s excited.”

“Oh, brilliant!” the Doctor beamed. “Wish I could do that on purpose.”

“You do it accidentally.”

“Only on Tuesdays.”

She laughed, and he looked quietly delighted.

“So,” she said, nudging his knee with hers, “what happened to you after I… left?”

He blew out a breath. “Ah. Complicated.”

“It’s you,” she said. “It’s always complicated.”

He gave her a wounded look. “Rude. Accurate, but rude.”

She smirked, and he finally began.

“Well… after you took your memories and stuffed them into that vault — rather theatrically, I might add—”

“That’s rich coming from you.”

“—I wandered,” he continued. “A bit lost. A bit lonely. Bit… well. You know what I was like.”

“A nightmare,” she supplied kindly.

“Exactly.”

They both smiled.

“And then?” she asked.

He leaned back, running a hand through his still-new hair as if checking it were real.

“Rose Tyler,” he said after a moment. “I met her last year.”

Lily’s expression stayed open, curious. Just… listening.

“How?” she asked.

“Shop window dummy tried to kill her.”

She blinked. “…Naturally.”

“Autons everywhere. Explosions. Running. Typical first date.” He paused. “She saved me, you know. Not with magic. Not with cleverness. Just—she refused to leave. Dragged me out of my own sulk. Quite impressive for a nineteen-year-old shopgirl.”

Lily smiled — genuinely. “I like her already.”

“She’s brilliant,” he agreed softly. “Human in the most stubborn way. Reminded me I didn’t have to be alone.”

Lily looked down at her hands. “Good. I’m glad someone was with you.”

Silence settled — warm, thoughtful, tinged with something unspoken.

He continued, quieter now. “You were the one who found me after the Time War. When I regenerated into Nine, I was… broken. Ruins. You dragged me out of the wreckage quite literally.”

“You were heavy,” she muttered.

“I was traumatised!”

“And heavy.”

He laughed — a real one, full-bodied. And Lily’s heart tugged painfully.

“You patched me up,” he said. “Piece by piece. Without even meaning to. Cocoa, silly adventures, yelling at me when I was being dramatic—”

“You were always being dramatic.”

He ignored that. “You made me feel like I wasn’t just… the thing that survived.”

Lily looked down at her hands, twisting a loose thread on her sleeve. For a second, she didn’t answer.

Then, very quietly: “I used to wish,” she said, “that I’d been normal.”

The Doctor blinked. “Normal? You?”

She huffed a small, humourless laugh. “Not normal normal. Just… a girl who went to school, did her homework, complained about exams, maybe joined a Quidditch team. Someone whose biggest problem was whether her Transfiguration essay was too short.”

“You were a brilliant witch,” he said, nudging her shoulder gently. “Still are.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean I wish I’d been the kind of witch who didn’t have a prophecy chained to her. Who didn’t have a madman trying to kill her since infancy. Someone who could have—”

She hesitated. “—stayed,” she finished softly.

The Doctor went very still.

“With me?” he asked, voice barely more than breath.

She looked up at him then — properly — and he saw the truth written across her face, quiet and aching.

“I wanted to,” she admitted. “When I was sixteen and running around the universe with you… it was the happiest I’d ever been. No prophecies. No war. No Dursleys. Just stars and trouble and you.”

He swallowed hard.

“But I couldn’t stay,” she said. “I had responsibilities. A destiny. A whole bloody world waiting for me to fight a monster they didn’t even believe was real.”

The Doctor shifted closer, elbows on his knees, eyes locked on hers.

“And if you’d been a ‘normal witch’?” he asked gently.

“I’d have run,” she whispered. “Right back into the TARDIS. With no guilt. No war dragging me home. Just… choice.”

Something in the Doctor’s expression cracked — painfully, beautifully.

“You did have a choice,” he said softly.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not really. Not with Horcruxes and prophecies and people dying. Not when I was the only one who could end it.”

“You were a child,” he said, that old quiet fury waking beneath the words. “You shouldn’t have been forced to choose between the universe and your own happiness.”

She smiled sadly. “Says the man who keeps doing exactly that.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Touché.

Lily continued, voice gentler now. “I used to lie awake some nights at Hogwarts,” she said, “thinking about the TARDIS. Thinking about you. Wondering what it would have been like to just… live. Without Voldemort. Without fear. Without having to be a symbol or a weapon.”

Her voice thinned. “Wondering what kind of person I could have become if I hadn’t been shaped by war.”

The Doctor’s gaze softened into something unbearably tender.

“You’d have been… you,” he said simply. “Brilliant. Stubborn. Always touching things, you shouldn’t.”

She laughed softly. “Still do.”

“Some things never change.”

She hesitated — then let the truth slip free.

“I wanted more time,” she whispered. “With you. With the stars. With the version of myself who wasn’t drowning.”

The Doctor’s breath hitched — barely audible.

“Lily,” he said, voice low, “I would’ve given you all the time in the world.”

Her throat tightened painfully. “I know. That’s why I couldn’t take it. Not when people were dying while I was safe with you.”

He closed his eyes. As if the truth hurt. As if he wished he could rewrite the universe for her. When he opened them again, his voice was quiet, steady.

“If you’d stayed,” he said, “I’d never have let the universe hurt you.”

She smiled — small, sad, real.

“And if I’d stayed,” she said, “you wouldn’t be the man you became. Rose wouldn’t have found you. Half the galaxies you saved wouldn’t exist. My life had to go the way it did.”

He breathed out — shaky, reluctant.

“Still doesn’t mean it was fair.”

“It never is,” she said.

A long silence stretched — soft, warm, filled with everything they never said at sixteen.

Finally, the Doctor nudged her knee again, lighter this time.

“For the record,” he said, “you’d have been rubbish at being normal.”

She snorted. “Rude.”

“Deeply accurate.”

She shoved his shoulder. “Probably.”

He smiled — crooked, fond, a little sad.

“But you,” he said, “you would’ve been brilliant at being happy.”

Her breath caught. Just for a moment.

“Maybe,” she whispered. “Maybe one day.”

The Doctor smiled at her — soft, warm, a little dazzled — and something in her chest fluttered helplessly.

After that, the conversation dissolved into the easy rhythm they’d always had.

They talked about everything and nothing.

He told her about planets shaped like teapots, a civilisation that communicated entirely through smell (“awful for public transport,” he said gravely), how he’d once been chased by a sentient sandwich (“don’t ask”), and the time Rose saved him with a fire extinguisher (“I was improvising!”).

She told him about Auror life, stubborn suspects, Ministry politics, the endless stack of forms that bred on her desk like Doxies. About Teddy learning to ride a broom and nearly taking out a gnome. About Sunday dinners at the Burrow and how Molly Weasley still overfed her as if Lily might vanish if she didn’t have a third helping.

“Sounds like you found your people,” the Doctor said gently.

“I did,” she murmured. “But it wasn’t the same as… this.”

He swallowed, eyes darting to her face — hopeful, fragile.

They fell into memories next — teased each other over old misadventures:

“The toaster tried to kill you,” he said accusingly.

“You told me it liked me,” she retorted.

“It did! Just… too enthusiastically.”

“And the incident with the goat—”

“That goat was hostile,” she insisted.

“It sneezed.”

“Violently.”

Their laughter faded into comfortable quiet.

And then, as if unable to hold himself back a moment longer, the Doctor shifted closer, eyes bright with possibility.

“Come with me,” he said. Not dramatic. Not performative.

Just… hopeful.

The way he used to look at the stars.

Lily froze.

“I mean it,” he went on, leaning forward eagerly. “Back to the TARDIS. Back to running. Back to… us. We could go anywhere — everywhere. Just like before.”

Her heart leapt — violently — because she wanted that.

Wanted him.

Wanted the stars.

Wanted the girl she’d been with him.

But then reality intruded like cold water.

Rose.

Rose, who meant something to him.

Rose, who travelled with him now.

Rose, who already didn’t like her — and who didn’t deserve to be hurt because Lily didn’t know what to do with this new, terrifying feeling blooming in her chest.

Lily inhaled slowly, hiding the panic behind a small, careful smile.

“Doctor… I—” Her voice caught. “I can’t. Not right now.”

His face fell — just a flicker, but enough to hurt.

“Oh,” he said. Too light. Too quick. “Right. Yes. You’re busy. Important Auror business. Forms. Evil wizards. Dramatic cloaks.”

“Something like that,” she murmured.

“You’re sure?” he asked, softer now. “You don’t have to decide forever. Just… a trip. One. Tiny. Trip.”

She wanted to say yes.

God, she wanted to.

But she thought of Rose’s wary eyes.

Of how confusing this feeling was, blooming in her chest after seven years apart.

Of how the Doctor was freshly regenerated, fragile in his own strange way.

“I think…” she said gently, “some other time.”

He swallowed hard. “Right. No, that’s—perfectly sensible. Very responsible. You’re practically Hermione.”

“Merlin forbid.”

He huffed something like a laugh — but his eyes betrayed him.

He stood slowly, rubbing the back of his neck in that awkward way he’d done since his ninth body.

“Well,” he said, trying for cheerful and only managing wobbly, “I should… probably go. Rose is still nervous. Brand-new face. Unsettling business.”

Lily nodded. “She seems nice.”

“She is,” he said, softer.

“She cares about you,” Lily said simply. “I understand.”

He looked at her then — properly, painfully — and for a moment she wondered if he’d say something else, something that would crack the air between them open.

Instead, he stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug.

Not the awkward pat hugs of before.

Not a careful goodbye.

A real one — full, warm, lingering, like he didn’t want to let go.

“I’ll see you again,” he murmured into her hair. “I promise.”

“You’d better,” she whispered. “If you die without visiting, I’ll drag you back just to shout at you.”

He pulled back with a crooked grin. “Very inspiring.”

“It works, doesn’t it?”

“Terribly well.”

He lingered one heartbeat too long in the doorway, eyes tracing her face like he was memorising it.

“Goodnight, Lily.”

“Goodnight, Doctor.”

The door clicked shut.

Lily sank back onto the sofa, heart thudding, mind spinning.

She’d wanted to go with him.

More than she dared admit.

But Rose mattered to him.

And Lily Potter had broken enough people to know she wouldn’t break another.

Still… the air felt different now.

Charged.

Alive.

Somewhere deep inside her, something whispered: Next time, you won’t say no.

Rose’s Home

Rose let herself into the flat as quietly as she could. The door clicked shut behind her, caught by the old draught-stopper Jackie insisted on keeping even though it smelled faintly of wet dog. In the living room, the telly droned on with some late-night Christmas special while Jackie snored softly on the sofa, paper half-slid off her chest. One slipper clung to her toes, the other had disappeared under the coffee table ages ago.

Ordinary. Comfortably, painfully ordinary.

Rose brushed melting snow from her hair, fingers unsteady. Home was supposed to make her feel grounded after long days of running through alien skies. Instead everything felt too small, too quiet — like the walls were pressing in on her.

Her thoughts kept circling back to the alley.

To Lily.

Beautiful without trying. Confident without making noise. Moving with that strange steadiness Rose had only ever seen in the Doctor. Magic — real, living, impossible magic — threaded through her life like it belonged there.

And the Doctor had looked at her as though he’d just found a lost piece of himself.

Rose shrugged off her coat and draped it over a chair, then stood still in the soft flicker of the telly’s glow, letting silence thrum around her.

Her chest tightened in that awful way again — remembering his face when he’d recognised Lily. That split-second of stunned joy. The breathless disbelief. The warmth that had rushed into him like light into a dark room.

He hadn’t looked at Rose like that.

Not tonight.

Not since he’d changed.

Maybe not even before.

She sat on the arm of the sofa, careful not to wake Jackie, and studied her mum’s peaceful face. Soft, familiar, solid. Nothing in Jackie Tyler’s world glowed gold or tore holes in time. Nothing made her feel unwanted.

Rose swallowed hard.

She’d never been truly jealous before. Not properly. Mickey had been complicated, sure — but this was different. This was bone-deep fear, the horrible sense of stepping into a story already in motion, one that didn’t need her.

Lily had walked into the TARDIS like she knew how it breathed. Like the ship had been waiting for her. The hum Rose had always thought was hers — that warm pulse of welcome — had shifted tonight. Softer. Brighter.

For Lily.

Rose pressed a shaking palm to her forehead.

Lily wasn’t even smug about it. Didn’t flaunt anything. Didn’t try to push Rose aside. Somehow, that made it worse.

Rose had spent a year at the Doctor’s side.

Saving him.

Laughing with him.

Learning the universe.

Risking her life.

Believing she mattered.

But watching him with Lily… tonight she’d felt twelve again.

Awkward. Ordinary. Desperate to be enough.

Hours passed.

Rose checked the window every few minutes, waiting for the tell-tale blue glow. Waiting for the engines. Waiting for him. But midnight came… then one… and the flat remained still.

Each hour tightened something in her chest.

“What if he left?” whispered the part of her she hated. “What if he didn’t need her anymore?” “What if he chose Lily?”

She wanted to scream at herself.

Wanted to be braver.

But fear didn’t care about pride.

She paced. Sat. Stood. Paced again.

Too wired to sleep.

Too heartsick to sit still.

By half two, the flat felt colder than outside.

She watched her mum stir and settle again, and for a moment she wished — achingly — that she were small again, when monsters were just nightmares and not girls with red hair and a lifetime of secrets.

And still she waited.

She refused to crawl into bed.

Refused to give up.

Refused to miss him if he came.

Because she needed to know.

Needed proof he hadn’t left her behind.

And then — at nearly three in the morning — the air outside the flat vibrated.

A soft, low hum rolled through the walls.

Golden light flashed under the curtains.

Rose’s breath caught.

She bolted upright, heart hammering painfully.

The TARDIS.

She ran to the door and flung it open.

There he was — coat askew, hair wild, breath visible in the cold — standing alone in the hallway with that familiar sheepish grin.

No Lily.

Just him.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said lightly. “Bit of a night.”

For a moment, Rose could only stare at him in the doorway—tall, rumpled, breath puffing in the cold corridor, exactly where she’d feared he wouldn’t be.

Her lungs loosened.

She breathed again.

Properly.

He was still here.

Still coming back for her.

Still choosing her—even if he had no idea how tightly she’d been wound waiting for that blue light to return.

The Doctor shifted on his feet, snow melting into droplets on his coat. Then he gave her that lopsided grin—soft at the edges, a little tired, unmistakably him.

“So,” he said, clearing his throat with forced cheer, “fancy staying in for Christmas? Bit of telly, mince pies, no imminent danger?”

A beat.

“Nah, course not. Silly idea. How about… somewhere new? Somewhere brilliant.”

The joke was thin, a patch over something unspoken, but Rose clung to it anyway.

Because this—this moment, this choice, this doorway—felt like the universe righting itself.

Rose stepped forward before she could think herself out of it. Her hand found his—warm, solid, familiar. The connection snapped into place like it always had, lightning-bright and grounding all at once.

“Somewhere new,” she murmured. “Definitely somewhere new.”

His smile deepened, brightening his whole face.

And for that breath, that heartbeat, that fragile sliver of time, Rose let herself believe it—that this was how it was supposed to be.

Just the two of them.

Running.

Laughing.

Belonging.

She tightened her fingers in his, holding on as if the simple act could keep the world steady.

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said softly, almost relieved. “Absolutely brilliant.”

And together, hand in hand, they stepped back toward the waiting blue box.

TARDIS

Rose had fallen asleep hours ago.

She’d only meant to rest her eyes, but the moment she’d curled into the jump seat and pulled the blanket beneath her chin, exhaustion swept her away. Now she slept soundly, her breathing soft and even, completely unaware of the storm sitting a few feet away from her.

The Doctor checked on her every so often.

A glance.

A small adjustment to the blanket.

A faint, relieved breath when she didn’t stir.

She was safe. Warm. Peaceful.

Good.

Because if she were awake, she would have seen everything he was working so desperately to keep buried.

The TARDIS hummed around him — steady, familiar — but tonight, the sound only seemed to sharpen the silence in his own head. He circled the console again, not out of necessity but restlessness, fingers ghosting across controls he’d already checked twice.

He couldn’t sit still.

Couldn’t quiet himself.

Couldn’t escape the name echoing through both his hearts.

Lily.

Not the bright-eyed fifteen-year-old who’d once darted through the TARDIS corridors, laughing at his terrible biscuit-stashing habits.

Not the stubborn little redhead who’d faced down alien threats with a chin lifted in defiance and a grin far too big for the danger around her.

No.

The Lily he’d met today wasn’t that child.

She was older now — not by years, but by weight. By grief. By the shadows tucked behind her smile. Her eyes had been too old for her face, too knowing, carrying stories no teenager should ever have had to live through.

He had seen it all in an instant.

Her shoulders straighter.

Her voice quieter.

Her smile dimmer — painfully dimmer.

Her eyes — too old by years. Decades. And she carried herself like someone who’d seen far too much of the world far too young.

“Little red…” he whispered. The name fell from him without thinking.

His heart twisted.

She had been a child when he’d left her behind. A child still capable of joy, of mischief, of hope. The sort of hope he’d once tried to keep safe — foolishly believing time would be kinder to her than it ever was to him.

But time had not been kind.

He’d heard it in her voice. Seen it in her hands. Felt it in the silence between her sentences.

She was broken in places he couldn’t reach.

And oh, how that knowledge burned.

He pushed a shaking hand through his hair, pacing once more around the console. Rose didn’t stir. She didn’t hear the rawness in his breath.

He looked at the floor, swallowing hard.

He wanted to fix her. Wanted to take every scar and burden and nightmare and crush them to dust.

But she had a life now.

A world rebuilt out of ash and grief.

Friends whose names she’d spoken with trembling lips.

People she would die for — had died for.

He couldn’t pull her away from that.

He couldn’t heal what wasn’t his to mend.

His hearts ached painfully at the thought.

But one truth steadied him, even through the hurt: She would be all right.

Not immediately. Nor easily. But Lily Evans — Dorea Lily Potter — was carved out of survival. She would find her way.

And he would see her again.

He knew it. Felt it deep in the marrow of time.

Because three years ago, his three years, an older Lily had stepped into the TARDIS — confident, bright, alive. A woman who had grown beyond the shadows he’d seen in her tonight.

A Lily from her future.

His future.

Proof that their story wasn’t finished.

Even though she’d vanished again as quickly as she’d appeared, he had felt it.

They were not done yet.

The Doctor breathed slowly, lifting his eyes to the glowing time rotor.

“Time’s never straight with us, is it?” he murmured, voice soft, tired. “Always looping back round… always finding its way.”

He glanced again at Rose — still asleep, still peaceful, blissfully unaware of the storm brewing in both his hearts.

Tomorrow, he would smile.

Tomorrow, he would run.

Tomorrow, he would be everything Rose believed him to be.

But tonight…

Tonight, the TARDIS hummed quietly around him as he let himself ache — truly ache — for the little red-haired girl he had once known, and the battle-worn young woman she had become without him.

One Year Later

TARDIS

It had been a year since he’d last seen Lily Potter.

A year since that snowy street.

A year since those too-old eyes met his and broke something inside him.

A year since he’d promised himself that time would bring her back to him eventually.

And today—

Today he lost Rose.

The TARDIS was dark and still, drifting silently in the vortex. The Doctor stood at the console, motionless, his hands hanging at his sides. His coat felt too heavy on his shoulders, his chest too tight to breathe properly.

His Rose—who had promised forever, who had looked at him like he hung the stars—torn away while he stood on a beach, unable to touch her.

Trapped in a parallel world where he couldn’t reach her, couldn’t save her, couldn’t even touch her.

She’d told him she loved him. He hadn’t been able to say it back. And now he never would.

He’d tried to be strong for her. Tried to swallow every emotion threatening to tear him apart.

But now there was no one left to perform for.

His hands braced against the console, knuckles white, breath shallow.

The first tear fell silently, splashing onto the metal grating.

He didn’t bother wiping it away.

Another followed. Then another.

Until he was shaking.

“Rose…” he whispered, voice cracking. “I’m sorry… I couldn’t— I should have—”

But the TARDIS could not answer him.

And Rose was light-years away.

He was alone again. Always alone.

The grief struck in waves—sharp, relentless, swallowing. He bowed his head, jaw clenched, shoulders trembling, trying to breathe through the ache.

Until the light changed.

At first, he didn’t notice.

Too wrapped in his own misery.

But then—warmth brushed his cheek, gentle and soft.

A glow.

Golden. Familiar.

His head snapped up.

Someone stood in front of him—bathed in molten light, as though the universe itself had opened a doorway and let her fall through.

Red hair. Green eyes. A face he knew far too well.

Only older. At least thirty.

Steady. Graceful. Whole.

“L—Lily?” he breathed.

She smiled. A small, knowing, heartbreakingly fond smile.

“Hello, Doctor.”

His breath left him like a punch.

He stumbled back, wiping at his face uselessly.

“No, but—How—? You—You’re older—much older—and last time—last time you just—vanished—and how are you—”

He couldn’t stop. Words tumbled out in panicked, grief-strained fragments.

She reached him in three strides, lifted a hand, and touched his cheek—soft, certain, utterly grounding.

“Shh,” she murmured, exactly the way she had when she was a stubborn fifteen-year-old scolding him for panicking over a disguised alien beetle. “Don’t talk yet.”

It hit him like déjà vu.

She had shushed him like that when she was fifteen, irritated and amused in equal measure.

But this version… She spoke like she’d done it countless times to him. Like this moment had already happened for her.

“I—how—when—” He choked on every word. His hands hovered near her shoulders as if he didn’t dare touch her, afraid she’d vanish like a ghost.

But she closed the distance for him.

Without asking permission, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him firmly, fully into her embrace.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

And that—

That undid him completely.

A broken sound tore out of him as he lurched forward, collapsing into her arms like a man whose last bit of strength had finally given out. She caught him—without hesitation, without surprise—like she’d been waiting for him to fall.

His forehead pressed to her shoulder, fingers clutching the back of her coat as though she were the only thing anchoring him to existence.

She held him tightly—one hand on his spine, the other smoothing through his hair—murmuring small, steady nonsense that somehow made the grief crack open instead of implode.

“Let it go,” she murmured. “I’ve got you.”

He sobbed—quiet, desperate, so very human.

He couldn’t remember the last time someone had held him like this.

Not just comforted him—held him.

Not since…

No.

He couldn’t think about that.

He couldn’t think about anything except the warmth of her arms and the unbearable relief of not being alone.

Lily stroked a hand through his hair, murmuring soft nonsense:

“There you go, love… breathe…”

“I’ve got you… it’s all right…”

“You’re not alone…”

“It wasn’t supposed to be her,” he choked. “Not Rose. Not like that.”

“I know,” she murmured. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“She said—she said she loved me.” His voice shook. “And I— I couldn’t— I didn’t say—”

“You loved her,” Lily said gently.

He squeezed his eyes shut, fingers curling tighter behind her back.

“When—when did you—” he choked, “why are you here?”

She brushed a thumb under his eye, wiping a tear. “You ask so many questions for someone who cries like a kettle,” she teased softly.

Despite everything, a shocked laugh burst out of him—a broken, watery sound.

“Lily—please. Tell me.”

She rested her chin lightly on his shoulder.

“Can’t say,” she said gently. “Not everything. Not yet.”

“Please,” he whispered. “Just—just tell me something. Anything.”

“Doctor.” She touched two fingers to his lips, silencing him with a gesture far too familiar. “You survive this. And you find joy again. Let that be enough.”

He stared at her, a thousand questions burning behind his teeth.

She shook her head. “Spoilers.”

“But Lily—”

“No.” A gentle reprimand, a smile pulling at her mouth. “You taught me that.”

He blinked. “I did, didn’t I?”

“In several irritatingly long lectures, yes.”

He almost smiled.

She cupped his face with both hands now, making him look at her.

“We’ll meet soon,” she said. “Properly. My timeline’s… messy. Everything’s out of order. But you and I—we’re not finished, Doctor. Not even close.”

His hearts lunged. “How soon?”

“For you?” She tilted her head. “A handful of adventures. A few wrong turns. One unfortunate misunderstanding involving a banana tree. Then—me.”

He stared at her, half devastated, half in awe.

“You really are her,” he whispered.

“I’m always her.”

Something warm flickered in his chest.

Hope.

Dangerous, fragile hope.

He swallowed.

“When are you from?”

“Later.”

“How much later?”

She laughed under her breath. “You really don’t listen, do you?”

He made a small, broken sound—half laugh, half sob—and leaned his forehead against hers. She let him.

Hours passed.

Or minutes.

Time blurred as he clung to her and she held him like she’d done it a thousand times, like she’d learned exactly how to comfort him long before he’d earned the right to ask.

And then—

A tremor of golden light rippled across her skin.

Lily sighed, a soft, regretful sound.

“I can’t stay,” she said.

“No—wait—Lily—”

“Not in my control,” she whispered. “Never is.”

His hands tightened desperately in the fabric of her jumper.

“Don’t—don’t go—please—”

She cupped his face one last time, smiling with that same impossible fondness.

“You’ll see me soon. Younger. Confused. Stubborn.” A teasing glint warmed her eyes. “Try not to give me too much of a hard time.”

“Lily—”

The light brightened.

“Look after yourself,” she said softly. “For me.”

He opened his mouth—he didn’t even know what he meant to say—but she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Then she smiled—older, wiser, heartbreakingly kind.

“See you soon, Doctor.”

Before he could touch her again, she dissolved—a burst of gold, a shimmer of particles—and was gone.

And he was left holding nothing.

Nothing but air.

Nothing but memory.

Nothing but the echo of her warmth on his skin.

The TARDIS felt cavernous without her.

He stood very still, hands limp at his sides, breath shaking.

But the grief had shifted—just a fraction.

No longer a crushing weight.

Something else lived alongside it now.

Hope.

Because Lily had come back to him.

Older. Stronger. Alive.

And she had promised—

They would meet again.