AU- Set after doomsday, Donna stays with the doctor with a time lord's brain, which proved not to be fatal after all, and now she tries to convince him to go back to Rose. Also, in this story, the metacrisis did not survive, so Rose was left on a parallel universe with no one.

Chapter One

The Doctor rushed across the control room, pulling back a lever, while Donna reached across him, pressing several buttons in a memorized sequence. It had been almost a month since they had left the ood, and the Doctor had been having some troubles with the TARDIS and keeping it stable during flight, but with Donna's help, the two had almost fixed the problem.

As her fingers left the last button, the floor beneath them stopped shaking and she released her grip of the console, which she had been hanging on to to avoid being flung across the room.

"Fat load of good you were back there." She scoffed, finally taking a seat, sighing.

"Oi!" He protested. "You were the one who had to go smarting off to the king of the Zumborgus. The KING!"

"Oh yeah, cause you can bloody talk about smarting off." She mumbled, rolling her eyes at him. They both looked at each other with a glare for about 2.6 seconds before they both broke into grins.

"But when you told him to buzz off..." He said, beginning to laugh. "The king. The look on his face? Priceless!" His laughter was rather contagious, and soon she was joining in with him, laughing away. This was how the pair worked; they got into trouble and then wormed their way out of it. In fact, they each had a rather good time with it.

She got up, a grin still on her face, and said, I'm going to make tea, you want a cuppa?" He nodded, and she walked off, leaving him alone to his thoughts. He got up and started tinkering with the console, something he often did when he had free time, when something underneath it caught his eye. He got down on his belly and reached underneath, pulling out a photo of... He dropped it, then slowly picked it back up, biting his bottom lip as he looked at the blonde in the picture, the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on. His Rose. Looking at it, he felt all the anguish he had felt, leaving her alone on that beach, flood back. He closed his eyes, and let the memories wash over him.

He stepped out of the TARDIS with Donna staying at the doorway, looking on. The metacrisis hadn't lasted long, not being able to cope with all the regenerations running through his head at once. Now he needed to leave so he could seal the Rift for good. He walked over to Rose slowly, standing in front of her. He catalouged everything about her: Her hair flowing in the breeze, the way the sun shone behind her, giving her a golden glow, the way her hands were fiddling at the bottom of her shirt, as if she wasn't sure what to do with them.

"Rose, you need to stay on this Universe with Mickey and your mum. You'll be taken care of." He has said. How could he take her with him and risk losing her? He had already had a close experience of losing it forever. He couldn't go through that again. He couldn't lose her. At least if he left her here, even if he couldn't see her, she would be safe.

She was sniffling, trying not to cry. "But Doctor, don't you want me around anymore?" Her voice had broken on the last word, and she frowned up at him, tears welling in her eyes.

"Oh Rose, it's so much more complicated than that." He said, searching for the words. He was never good with words. I love you Rose Tyler. I can't bear to lose you. I need you to be safe. But no. He didn't say that. He just stood there. A single tear rolled down her cheek. He wiped it off gingerly, and then pulled her into a hug. She wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly. When she pulled back again, there were tears running down her cheeks freely now.

Still, she seemed to pull herself together, and the Doctor saw a look of determination cross her face. "Doctor. The last time we stood on this beach, what did you say?"

"I said Rose Tyler."

"Yes, and how was that sentence going to end?"

I love you. I want you to be by my side for the rest of my life. You are so bloody brilliant. But he didn't say that. He never could say that. It would put her in danger. And he didn't deserve her regardless. He had killed the last of his kind. He was the Oncoming Storm. A murderer like him didn't deserve her. So he pushed her away. "Does it need saying?"

She seemed to break then. She looked at him in heartbroken silence for a few seconds before retreating to her mum, beginning to cry again. The Doctor turned away and started walking back to the TARDIS. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at her. "Goodbye, Rose Tyler. I wouldn't have missed it for the world." And then he was gone.

Donna walked back into the room, two cups in her hand, setting them down and chatting away when she saw his face. "So Doctor, I was thinking, perhaps for the next place- Oi, what's wrong?" She walked up to him and reached out for the picture but he jerked his hand away in surprise, roused from his thoughts, eyes downcast, not meeting her gaze. "Doctor." She said softly. He sighed and gave it up to her.

She took it and looked down at it. It was a photograph of a blonde girl with the Doctor. They were both smiling - one of the happiest smiles she'd seen on him - and at first Donna did not know who this girl might be. Over their travels, he had told Donna the entire story between Rose and him, but she had never seen any pictures. Imagined they didn't have any. After a few moments of wondering who this girl could be, to make her best friend so upset, but then the realization struck her as her mind associated the face in the picture with the face she had seen on the beach so long ago. "This... this is Rose."

The Doctor nodded, taking a deep breath. When he looked up at her, his face was composed, but his voice gave away his grief. "Yes. Usually, usually I can handle not seeing, I mean, I can take it, because I don't have things that make me think about her..." He held out his hand for the photo, which she gave back, and he put it in his coat pocket. Noticing her concerned look, he smiled at her, saying, "I'll be fine Donna. Honest. Now, where shall we go next?"