Disclaimer: I own nothing.

For some reference - I remember writing this after watching "The God Complex" when it premiered, that should give you an idea of how long ago I actually wrote this. That means, when I say his "tenth form" I'm referring to David Tennant, and his "eleventh form" is Matt Smith. I didn't know about the War Doctor when I wrote this.

This is my second dip into this fandom. I think I actually hoard these fics on my hard drive. I don't know why it takes me years to share them.

I believe in her…

It had been years since he had last uttered the mantra. He had done so much in the time since he'd last seen her that he'd pushed her so far back to the recesses of his memory, he'd nearly forgotten her until his darkest of moments. Then a memory would flit through his mind, and time would seize, allowing the memory to play out exactly as it had happened. A brief moment that spanned all of time, yet no time would pass. Crisp lines, vivid colors, high-definition, a brief flash of brilliance before everything faded away and he was faced with whatever monster was before him.

And he'd smile knowingly, slyly, savoring the moment as he'd stand tall in the face of clear and present danger, because he'd know unfailingly, that he would be triumphant in this battle. Only because she would have told him so.

The last time he had regenerated, into that trainer-wearing, spiky-haired, eccentric gob, he'd taken a piece of her with him; he adopted a version of himself that she could associate with, a version that would be easy for her to accept when he sprung the fact that Time Lords can regenerate on her so brutally. He was younger looking; he talked like her, with a sense of humor like hers, and a heart on his sleeve that let her know that he was a changed man.

Because of her.

There is a theory that when Time Lords regenerate they take with them from that previous lifetime what they enjoyed the most. That the mold is created from within themselves, perhaps a face they had seen before or a particular look they fancied. But people influence them as well. They can impress a part of themselves on that Time Lord, so irreversibly so that the Time Lord can take them along into their newest regeneration. He'd done it twice now.

This tenth form, he'd visited her in the past. In their respective present selves, they were lost to each other, separated by sealed universes. It was the only way he would have been able to say goodbye because in his current, eleventh regeneration he knew he had to guard his hearts. There was only so much heart break they could take before they'd fail altogether.

She was imprinted on his memory now, a phantom that haunted him when he needed it most and lay dormant until the next time he needed her. She was the last one he visited. She had to be. He remembered her in his dying moments, the radiation finally becoming all too consuming for him to soldier on, and in that moment he chose how he would be in his next life.

He would be brave. Just like her. Willing to break every rule of time and space, to rip reality apart for those closest to him, and to fearlessly face every demon head-on with unfounded faith that he would come out victorious on the other side.

He would be innocent. Like she had been in the basement of the shop all those centuries ago.

He would be curious. Questioning everything with a child-like mind, but never afraid to accept anything as it was. Seeing the universe and all its creatures, even the most despicable of all, as something to be revered and respected.

And most of all she instilled in him the alien sense of altruism, something that, when they first met, had been nothing but a pesky and dimly lit, distant memory.

So, when he opened the door in that God-forsaken hotel, emblazoned with his calling card – the number eleven, his identity, his rightful name for all it was – that separated him from his worst nightmare, he could only smile. It couldn't have been anything else.

There she had been, shouting his name as she clung to the lever by her fingertips. Wind whipped her blond hair about her face. In that moment, he knew forever was coming to an end. As the Void closed, he remembered standing with his ear to the wall, listening for her and knowing deep within himself that she was just on the other side, already fighting with every ounce of her being to come back to him. Breaking every rule of time and space to break the barrier open between them.

Rose Tyler.

Her name rolled off his tongue, the sounds tumbling from his mouth like a saccharine cascade of honey, eliciting a buried emotion reserved only for her. Suddenly, he was in the console room of his TARDIS, an empty feeling invading his hearts, his last words, "Rose Tyler, I..." hanging in the air around him.

He could feel the tears on his face and he knew. She was gone forever. And all in the blink of an eye, the single beat of just one heart, his hearts had cracked wide open once more, and lay bleeding love for his pink and yellow girl in his now hollow chest. Because for all that she had taught him, he could not defy the laws of the universe this time.

And now, there were people in this ruddy hotel that needed his help; he could dwell on Rose another time. He shut the door on the memory once more, though it wasn't forgotten. It would never be forgotten.

The memory stayed with him. That was the idea anyway. To nag, nag, nag until you were so fully consumed by your nightmare that you couldn't think about anything else. In that moment, you found release.

Praise him.

It stayed with him until they were in the hotel restaurant. Something was missing. Because Rose's departure was a fact of life, it was something that plagued him. But he didn't fear it. What was it about the room, then, if it wasn't fear that the beast fed on?

And then he realized.

His eyes slammed shut and he was suddenly at Canary Wharf again, his face and hand pressed up against the wall. She was there, he could feel it. The wall vibrated beneath his fingertips, the residual energy of an interdimensional portal still pulsing in the wall. But there was something else. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, feeling a tingling deep inside his hearts. A warmth perhaps. Why? What was this tingle? Why is it so important in this moment?

Suddenly, he's in a Chinese marketplace, every sign saying, "Bad Wolf." His stomach is doing backflips in anticipation, not from nerves, but from pure excitement at what these words meant. And he's suddenly frantic to find her, as if his very ability to intake oxygen depends on her presence.

He's on Game Station, and he sees her destroying the Daleks with a wave of her hand. His mind goes blank and it's only her in front of him and he knows that nothing has ever been or will ever compare to the pure beauty he sees in her.

Then, on a darkened, war-torn street in London, he turns to see her in the distance. His stomach is flipping once more and she's standing across the room, telling him to send a missile into Downing Street. And she's brave and brilliant and breathtaking and his breath is literally gone when he looks in her eyes. He knows everything will be alright because she believes that whatever he does is fantastic and finally…

He's standing in Satan's Pit at the center of a planet that should never have existed, orbiting closer and closer to a black hole. She is the only thing that he is thinking about in this moment. He's defiant, standing his ground, going toe-to-toe for something he believes in. Something he learned from her.

"Except that implies in this big grand scheme of gods and devils that she's just a victim. But I've seen a lot of this universe. I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods, and out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing, just one thing, I believe in her."

I believe in her. The dogma that had kept him going in the years following their separation. She'd find a way back to him. Because she had to. And he would never stop looking for her. He believed in her.

No. She believed in him, and in turn had shown him what it meant to be the Doctor again. She believed in him, and made him believe in himself. But if it hadn't been his faith in her…

Faith, then! Yes! Not fear; faith supersedes fear in the end. What is the one thing people do in their darkest hour, in the face of their greatest fears? They look to that one thing they believe will get them through. Even those who have no religion believe in something…believe that someone, somewhere is listening to their pleas. That something, someone, somewhere will deliver them.

Oh, you magnificent beast…that's very clever.

But if that's it then… what have I done?

"Oh, no. Oh, no, no…"