"I'm tired," she mumbles over pepperoni-and-mushroom pizza, while he's got one hand on the remote and is trying to wrangle an errant strand of cheese with the other. He realizes with horror that there are tears pooling in her eyes, and either he has done something wrong or that she has had a very vigorous day of sitting at her desk in the Torchwood hub.
"What?" he says, only just managing to get his unruly slice of pizza under control. There is a dab of sauce just at the corner of his mouth, but dutifully he has the self control not to lick it off with his tongue.
She gives him a sad smile, and oh, oh, no, no Rose Tyler is not allowed to make that face, not ever, because there's enough ache in his chest from it for two hearts and he's only just getting used to only having one. She reaches out a hand to brush the bit of sauce from his mouth, and without thinking, he catches her hand, kisses it.
"M'tired," she says. "Of bein' sad."
Oh. He knows every shade of Rose Tyler, knows the color of her heartbreak, the shape of her mourning. It's not unlike when he regenerated, except now, there's no leather jacket for her to wrap up in.
He wonders if that's something else she's grieving.
"I just keep thinking - I promised."
He reaches over, gathers her hand up in his, stroking his thumb across hers.
She laughs. "Forever, I said. But how'm I supposed do that when there's two of you?"
They've been dancing around this for weeks - never quite together, never quite apart, either. And he's not sure what's hurt more, the distance or the waiting, but he's willing to endure both, for her, give her whatever she needs, for as long as she needs it, because he's not going to cock up a second chance when it's been given him. He hasn't pressed, has been very well behaved, thank you very much, in that he hasn't kissed her silly or begged her for answers before this moment.
"Rose - "
"I mean, I keep thinkin' - he's gonna do something stupid. He's gonna be alone, and he's gonna do something stupid, and he's…he's…I just want him to be all right, Doctor. Please tell me he's all right."
He suddenly finds himself in the same embarrassing straits as Rose: tears welling and a sudden, clenching ache deep in his chest. Oh, what has he done to deserve this woman loving him across universes? She could have just…disappeared into this life, accepted all it offered to her without question. It's a ready-made happy ending that they have here, and they could have gone into it without another thought to the past, but here is his precious girl, worried about him no matter which him he is.
He's wondered, before, if he would have loved her in other bodies. Now he knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that every man he has ever been would have given her the stars to fasten around her neck if she'd asked him.
She mistakes his tears for jealousy, maybe, or that he thinks she's rejected him, and her hand tightens around his. "Doctor, I didn't mean - this is what I - "
Two hands, warm on her face, slide back into her hair. He feels her shiver, lets his fingers scratch her scalp lightly as he brings his mouth to hers, and kisses her for the first time since that day on the beach. It's the farewell kiss the other him would have given her - he had been desperate, relieved, utterly overjoyed that day, had clung to her like a drowning man, but this is slow. Absolute. A wedding vow of the most solemn nature, with his arms sliding from her hair, down her shoulders, to hold her firmly by the waist.
"He will love you beyond the end of time," he says, voice ragged as he lays his forehead against hers. "He never said it, but Rose, oh how he loves you. When he thinks he's going mad, you'll be what calls him back. When he thinks all his compassion's been spent, that the universe has no more good left in it, then he'll think of you, and if only to keep on being the man Rose Tyler loved, he'll remember himself. When he's a man neither you nor I would recognize, you'll still be the treasure he hides away in his hearts."
"Doctor - "
He can't manage words, just now, so when she reaches forward, draws him back in with a warm hand slipping underneath his shirt, he lets her.
The next morning, the Doctor's stomach swoops pleasantly when, warm and bare against his chest, he sees Rose Tyler's carefree, tongue-touched grin for the first time since he brought her home to investigate an army of ghosts. They have cold pizza for breakfast.