I own nothing, though I wish I did. Spoiler warning for season 4
The woman looked at the clock and smiled, she began the apprehensive count down in her head, 10, 9, 8... it had been almost 20 years since the last time she had seen him and today would be the last time she ever saw him again. She thought back to Bay Wolf Bay when he left without saying good bye, she had been so angry with him, it had taken her a long time to make her peace with his other self, but she could never stay angry at him for long. Besides she had her hope, the only secret she had ever kept from him. The message that hadn't made sense even to her until last week.
flash back
"Hello Rose," she had jumped out of her seat, the woman in front of her must have been in her late 30's but she looked good for it, healthy and happy and full of life.
"How do you know my name?" the woman smiled.
"I know everything about you, I know things that even you don't know yet." Rose stared at her, there was something to familiar in those eyes. She wanted to call the doctor, but he had asked not to be disturbed, the 3 'Doctors' were having some sort of conference, they had just dropped off the others, Jack, Sarah, Mickey and Martha. Jackie was having a nap, leaving Rose alone in her old room, which she was happy to see hadn't changed at all.
"Yeah and how do you know that then?" the woman stepped into the light and the resemblance was uncanny.
"Because, Rose Tyler, I'm you." Rose couldn't think of anything but paradoxes and reapers, she didn't doubt that she was standing in front of herself there was something instinctive about coming face to face with your future incarnation that made it difficult to question. "Don't worry this is an event that is meant to happen, to me it already has done, so there isn't going to be any reapers," they both smiled.
"Why are you here?" she asked her self.
"I'm here to tell you that its going to be ok, all of it, and to tell you that you will see him again when the planets are in alignment and Jack has made it back without a scratch on him and no children on any other continents." Laughed her future self.
"Who will I see again, and who is Jack, do you mean the Captain?" asked Rose beginning to see why there may not be a paradox, she wasn't being told anything.
"No not Captain Jack, I can't tell you anymore, but when the time comes you will understand," and she faded away a nostalgic look on her face.
end flash back
In 3 seconds the Planets would align and she would see him again, the Doctor, her own Human Doctor, Dr John Nobel was at work, lecturing at the University, he didn't know anything about today, but she would tell him, tonight over dinner because she loved him and they told each other everything. Jack was getting home tonight after his travels around the world, the other children were still at school, she smiled, they were fantastic.
The grand father clock struck 3 with loud echoing crashes and she heard the news reporter say two words she never thought she would here again... "All over the country the words 'Bad Wolf' have been appearing..." and she knew she was going home.
The Doctor looked at himself in the mirror, this incarnation was a little more rugged than his previous self, still skinny with brown hair, his eyes were now a dark blue with flecks of green. He seemed to always have a thin layer of stubble over his chin, Martha called it his designer stubble and told him that this incarnation was a bit of a bad boy hottie, and that she was sure he would break even more hearts than before. That reminded him he hadn't been to see her in ages, it was her 76th birthday soon, he smiled, she was still beautiful.
He had thought with the regeneration he might have been able to move on, make a fresh start, but as always things had brought her crashing back into his thoughts. Would Rose like the new look? He knew she would have laughed at the T shirt and Jeans that he now constantly wore, though he had stubbornly kept he converse. Would she prefer the stubble the razor sharp features and his eyes as they were now, or would she mourn the man that she had loved? He looked at the single picture he kept of her, she wasn't even looking directly at the camera, and that little detail made his heart ache.
"Hello Doctor." He spun round crashing out of his thoughts to face the familiar, if aged, voice. Rose, his Rose was standing there, eyes bright tongue pocking cheekily out of her wide smile as if she had seen him only yesterday.
"Rose..." his voice was little more than a disbelieving breath, and then they were holding each other clinging for dear life as they both cried and traced the others features. "How, I don't understand?"
"You've regenerated" she said at the same time "I like the jeans!"
They smiled not caring about explanations, nothing mattered except that she was there and he was holding her. "You look amazing, " he told her, "as beautiful as when I first met you."
"A few more lines I'm afraid," she told him pointing to the faint crows feet at her eyes, "But they're laughter lines and I wouldn't trade them for the world."
"They suit you," He told at her cupping her face in his hands firmly, "Have you had a good life? Please tell me you have."
"Its been fantastic," she told him tears clouding her vision as he smiled, so selfishly happy for her. "What about you, where is your companion?"
He wanted to lie to her, tell her that he had been fine, that she was just outside, but he couldn't not to his Rose. "I've had a few since the missing Earth but none have lasted to long, seems to be a shortage of fantastic people recently" she gave him a disapproving look.
"Have you given them a chance?" she asked, he couldn't say that he had. "Doctor, I want you happy, as happy as you have made me."
"I couldn't-" he told her closing his new blue eyes. "I couldn't... not knowing if I had made you happy, the other me I mean."
"You need to move on, to have a new life to let yourself trust another person." she pressed her lips to his cheek, "Doctor, I would have happily lived with you getting old and dying. But you have to understand, us stupid apes, we know our own mortality and I would have gladly given it to you." She touched his face running her fingers over the rough stubble. "You wanted me happy?"
"Of course Rose, that is all I've ever wanted!"
"I want the same for you," she lifted his hands and placed them on either side of her temple, "These are for you." She closed her eyes and he did the same. Images, feelings, sounds crashed over him and he witnessed it all. Her life with the mortal him through her eyes. He knew the difficulty she had suffered to separate the two of them, the joy she felt when she realised that she loved his human self more than she had ever thought possible. How scared she had been when she thought she would never be enough for him, that their single human life would never compare to travelling the cosmos through time and space. His eyes widened as she showed him the first time they made love, how nervous he had been and how it made her love him even more. He felt her joy everytime they had made love, at every possible oppertunity. He was at their wedding, went on their first adventure travelling around ancient Cambodia. He held their first child, a boy called Jack, there were more children to follow, he watched them grow. Cried with her when Jack left home to go travelling around the world by himself, laughed when the twins Donna and Sarah entered a talent contest trying to reinact ancient Pompeii and cheered when they won. He watched baby Martha's first steps and little Mickey's tantrums. Through it all he felt her love for the human Doctor, but always echoed was her love for him, her Doctor, the oncoming storm, she loved him and always would.
The Doctor was crying silently, "I love you to Rose, always. I'm sorry I never said it-"
"I always knew, deep down, I knew." She smiled at him " Be happy, I'll always be here," she touched his chest. "and this time I get to say good bye," she told him blinking back her tears, " I get to let you go knowing you'll be ok, knowing that I will always love you."
He nodded, brushing her blonde hair from her face, "thank you." He pressed his lips to hers gently scaring the feeling of her lips agains't his to his memory. He kept hi eyes closed as she faded away. Only when he was sure that she was gone did he open them again knowing that he was alone, again, but the ache in his chest had lifted and on the dresser beside his bed was a family picture of his human self, Rose and their children and when he tipped it the image changed to the two of them at her mum's old flat on Christmas in their P.J.'s not a care in the world. For the first time in a very long time the Doctor smiled.
Rose was a bit confused as to why she was still on the tardis until she saw her self, she watched her younger self for a moment before stepping out of the shadows, "Hello Rose."
"How do you know my name?"
"I know everything about you, I know things that even you don't know yet..."
Ok hope you guys liked it, I was always a bit of a 10/Rose fan and I loved the ending but felt that they needed a good bye. Hope you agreed :)