This was it.
His entire essence, the defining moment of his life encompassed right here, right now, and with it the power to change it all. The thing that had made him isolated, made him estranged, made him determined from that one point on to save all who could be saved, even the most undeserving if they would let him, and it was about to change.
Change for the better.
There were three of them, or three of him to be specific: the Doctor in some of his most brilliant incarnations present now in the decrepit little hut.
The celebration, the realization! Gallifrey could be saved! Or at least an attempt at saved; a far better alternative then that which had haunted him in the eons that had passed since that day. Hoots and hollers, tears of joy falling from dear Clara's eyes, and the Doctor, the Doctor, the old man in the room looking as if though he too were close to tears. His hands patted his face then opened to the heavens as he cried; "Oh Bad Wolf Girl, I could kiss you!"
With that, the air turned cold. Stopped, even.
As did four of the seven hearts in the room.
Ten's joy melted from his face and warped into terror and confusion. That name, that terrible, terrible name that had once haunted his shadow at every turn in a previous life, had then given wakefulness and rise to his own – and had been the essence of a being worthy of calling itself the goddess of time, and one of the few, perhaps the only woman, who truly ever held his heart.
"Bad Wolf?" His face contorted as a hole he tucked away in his heart was realized. He looked to Eleven who had a face of his own: of pretending, to be confused about a thing that he knew and remembered just as well as his predecessor. "Did you just say Bad Wolf?"
The Doctor, the first, looked to his successor blankly.
"She…," the man pointed to a spot right beside Ten. In an instant his gaze swept over his shoulder as quickly as his heartbeats gained in intensity. Both pounded in heated excitement as he glanced over, only to find himself hit with ,an unanticipated wave of loneliness to see empty space. "Ah, never mind!"
'Never mind?' Ten thought to himself angrily. 'You mention Rose and then say never mind?'
He had hoped that Eleven, his future self, the other other Doctor might interject, but nothing.
The confusion was lost in the anticipation again of saving Gallifrey. Ten allowed himself to be caught up within it, even as in the back of his mind questions swirled, but he knew there would be no answers. The moment now was to safe his home. The rest would come in time, or not at all. Still, he should know that time was not kind. Answers would not bring her back to him, if it was even her to bring back. Bad Wolf and Rose had always been one, but also separate.
Perhaps it was best if he never knew…even though he was quite certain he already did.
"I don't want to go," Ten sighed, and with that stepped into his own Tardis, revving her up to leave.
But something nagged at him as he stared at the control panels that glistened and gleamed, beeped and booped and did a myriad of all sorts of things that Tardis' do. He circled it once, twice, before finally allowing himself to sit back against the railing and run his hands over his face.
Bad Wolf.
He had not heard those words in a long time.
Or was it only yesterday?
He knew even as he was leaving that the memory would fade, as would the pain, but for the moment he grasped at it, desperate to think back with joy and sadness that once again she had somehow acted in some profound way to save him…she always did. This time she had saved him from his own darkness, the part of him he had always been most ashamed of, what had made him empty and desolate in his own sense of self worth – ironically what had lead him to her in the first place all those years ago.
Or was it only yesterday?
The memories were beginning to fade.
Fear took him over, and Ten rushed to the once place where he knew he could make the pain raw enough to maintain something of all of this. He pulled open doors upon doors, opened boxes upon boxes, unlocked locks upon locks, and found it at last. The one remaining piece he had of the Big Bad Wolf and his darling Rose.
A tiny leather jacket.
He wasn't sure why he had kept it. Fear of forgetting, he supposed. Something Eleven seemed to embrace too willingly. He wondered, and wished he'd thought to ask to see if this small momemto was still somewhere within the recesses of his Tardis. It likely was, put away with other memories too painful to face. But it didn't matter.
This was his memory; this was his to have and to hold, to cherish and to weep over in the loneliest corners of space where no one had followed him, where the cold permeated both the Tardis and his heart, becoming the pinpricks of doubt in his mind and reminding him that he was alone, and by his own hand he would forever remain that way.
A sad smile brought light to the pointed, exuberant features, and he meditated over the jacket for a time as he rolled its course, firm fabric in his hands. He recalled having met her, and the strange certainty with which their hands had locked that fateful evening. He considered ironically how the rose held so much symbolism across the planet earth in its early years and to humans of all walks even in the future. He smiled, remembering how the rose was deemed England's national flower. How he had never told her how ironic he felt that that was, that her namesake was the symbol of so much.
It made sense in its own course, he supposed. Her essence had become a symbol to him. Her joining him had marked the end of decades of loneliness, had broken through the walls and stubbornness of his then self imposed walls. The rose was a symbol of change, beauty, and strength, and she had been all of that to him – and more.
He wasn't sure how she'd been there, or if it had really been her. Perhaps the ghost that his past self was seeing was only a mirage – taken form in the timeless familiarity of the Bad Wolf – but in some small, poignant way, he would know that it was really his Rose that had saved him again, saved everything.
As gently as a newborn baby he tucked the leather jacket away, folding it neatly so as not to damage it. If he closed his eyes, it still smelled slightly of her, making his two hearts pang as deeply as the day he had lost her. But she was, in a way, still here. She had changed it all, hadn't she?
"My Rose Tyler," he whispered as a tear formed in his eye. "I have never been so indebted to someone in all my long years. But for what it's worth, I'm glad I owe it to you."