A/N: Heck, I know this is timey-wimey, but I couldn't resist. I'm currently shipping 11/Rose like crazy and this is a sort of reunion fic, with a little bit of a twist... While I'm thinking of ideas for my current fic, Being Human, I'm going to be writing a lot of 11/Rose.

Also, this fic is set just before this years xmas special, where we meet the lovely Jenna Louise-Coleman, and I'm basing this on the assumption Amy and Rory die... I know there's been no major s7 spoilers or anything, but in order for this fic to work, the Doctor needed to be hurting.

Anyway, enjoy! And please leave a few reviews! Hannah x

Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who.

He'd gone and done it. Again.

Why did he let it happen? He'd seen it so many times before; stupid, idiotic, brilliant humans risking their lives and their future because they think that he's worth it. That he's worth the agony and the pain and the doubt that death can cause, just because they believe that he can do so much more than them. That because he's over nine hundred years old and saves planets and civilisations and whole universes on a daily basis, that it's better that he lives than them. But that was so untrue that it actually hurt- deep inside both his hearts, they were breaking.

He shouldn't have let them interfere. He should've left them back in Leadworth, where it was safe- no matter how lonely he was. He couldn't believe that he'd put his own pitiful selfishness in front of his best friend's lives.

He really was getting old. Old and cruel. And he was just getting older and crueller. Whereas Amy and Rory; they were so young and kind and selfless that it killed them.

He slammed the TARDIS doors shut, his ancient eyes blearing with tears. His wonderful Pond's. The two people he trusted more than anything in this universe, even more than he trusted himself- but that wasn't unusual, these days. He was losing trust with himself more and more, as more wonderful people slipped between his fingers. But Amy and Rory; the girl who waited and the boy who waited longer, they were harder to lose than anyone else. Everyone else he'd befriended and corrupted were still safe and sound, living out their lives without him. His lovely best friend Donna and her husband. The remarkable Martha Jones and the even more remarkable Mickey Smith. And…

Well, she was safe. Safer than could be. Whether it was across the universe or sitting in the back of his mind, smiling that gorgeous tongue-between-teeth smile, she was safe.

But Amy and Rory weren't. They were just gone.

And there wasn't anything he could do about it. No matter how much he refused to accept it, he couldn't go turn back the clock.

Despite the situation, he chuckled. How ironic.

He could turn back the clock, if he wanted to, ripping apart two universes in the process; but that was just stupid. Amy and Rory wouldn't want that.

The tubular column at the centre of the TARDIS was humming softly, sensing the Doctor's pain and heartbreak. The Doctor smiled softly to himself, skimming the control panel with his index finger.

"Thank you, old girl," he murmured, "Thank you."

He sat down on the old pilot's seat next to the hexagonal panel, letting his head flop into his hands. "I let them die. I just stood there, and watched them die."

The TARDIS didn't make a sound, but the Doctor knew that she was listening. She always listened, every single time.

He removed his hands from his face, his skin wet with tears. He took a big sniff, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. He hadn't broken down like this, since, well, Rose was torn away from him. "It always ends like this, eh, old girl? Like I've lost a bit of myself. Like they've taken a bit of me with them. Not that I would have it any other way- I'm proud to know that" –he choked a little on his words- "Amy and Rory have got a bit of me with them. I'm proud to know that the two people who saved the whole universe knew me. Two, normal human beings. Well, I wouldn't say normal. Way, way more than just normal."

The Doctor knew that within, the TARDIS was relating.

The Doctor smiled, recollecting the times where his faithful time machine spoke back to him. He would've loved that right now. Even though she was here with him, he would've loved the comfort that the TARDIS could give him in person. "The orangey girl and the pretty one. That's what you called my lovely Pond's."

He inhaled deeply, letting the air clean out his head and compose himself. He wandered over to the controls and started to mess with dials and levers, not that he had any idea what to do with them. He didn't really know what to do with his life, full stop. "What now, then? Got to move on. Don't really know how, though. There's nowhere I want to go. No-one I want to see." he paused for a moment, the reality of the situation dawning on him. "What do I tell River? Does she know? I don't know how to do this- I'm not ready. How can I ever be ready? How can I-"

Suddenly, the TARDIS began to control herself. Buttons and switches were pressed and levers were pulled without the Doctor even touching them.

"Woah!" the Doctor jumped back as a shower of sparks erupted from the panel, "Stop! What are you doing?"

The cloister bells were making a horrible, clanging noise and the TARDIS kept manoeuvring without assistance, like an aeroplane on auto-pilot. The Doctor yelled out and tried to reach for the scanner to see where his time machine was taking him, but she wasn't staying still enough to make out the beautiful, Gallifreyan script that normally covered the screen. No coordinates, no nothing. The TARDIS was just going into override, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

As flames burst out from the wires beneath the glass platform in which the Doctor stood, he decided to grab onto the railings and hold on for dear life. The TARDIS had never, ever got this hyperactive in the seven hundred years the Doctor had known her- she'd never just take over like this.

I always take you where you need to go.

The Doctor couldn't help but grin as he gripped onto the bars, the sheer energy the TARDIS was producing making his brown hair whip up around his face. He hadn't felt this excited, this tempted by the unknown, since he regenerated last. Since he crash landed in Amelia Pond's back garden.

A sense of guilt riddled through him as the thought of the little girls face entered his mind. Amelia Pond. So innocent, so naïve. Yet he had to go and screw her up, didn't he? A young girl. No matter how much Amy Pond had said that the adventures they'd had together, even on the verge of death, were worth the twelve years that she'd been waiting for him, he still couldn't believe her.

Then the TARDIS stopped.

The Doctor let go of the railings, immediately rushing over to the screen to see where they'd landed- but everything just stopped. The familiar wheezing sound didn't meet his ears; the time rotor didn't lift and fall. Everything was just- gone. Everything was dark. Everything was dead.

The Doctor desperately danced across the dais, pulling and pressing and pushing everything in sight. "No. Don't you dare. Don't you die on me too…"

But there was nothing. No sounds of life, just emptiness. He scrambled down the steps from the main platform with dread, and scanned beneath for anything. Just something to show that all hope wasn't lost.

This had happened before. When he and Rose and Mickey had fallen through the time vortex into the parallel Earth, and they thought that the TARDIS was dead then. She wasn't though, there was a tiny cell of life underneath the metal grille. Surely there was something, somewhere…

After what felt like hours of urgent searching, his hopes were beginning to dissipate. What the heck had happened to make the TARDIS burn that much energy?

Where exactly had they landed?

Usually, that would be the first question he would ask in a situation like this; but his head was so mixed up with grief and loss that he didn't really know what to think.

The Doctor straightened up his jacket and bowtie, and attempted and failed to neaten up his hair a bit. At least if he'd landed somewhere, that would be something to distract him for a while.

He pulled open the doors with both his hands.

Okay, it was Earth. Most definitley. The smells, the taste in the air- most likely the late twentieth century or the early twenty-first, as the familiar tang of oil reached his tongue. He wouldn't have been surprised if it was London. Where exactly in London it was hard to tell, there was one street lamp lighting the way and it was already dark, and a little bit foggy.

"What you been doing in there, then?" a voice came from behind him, shocking him into spinning on his heels and facing where the voice had come from.

"Sorry, what?" the Doctor replied, not sure in where he was directing it.

"I've been sitting here for what, an hour? And you've just came out this very moment." the voice he now established as female answered him.

He heard footsteps, as the person wandered into the glow of the streetlight.

She had long, blonde hair, big eyes, about five foot four…

Oh no.

"So, come on!" she grinned, and that gave it away. Not that her voice, her unforgettable cockney lilt, wasn't playing on his brain waves either. "What were you doing in that blue box?"

I said that I always take you where you need to go, a voice said in his head, I never mentioned that I always take you to who you need to see.

But what about the timelines? I can't do it. I can't. This could change the whole course of history, all our adventures together… And I couldn't do that. Not ever.

"Are you just stupid?" she asked bluntly, the smile still playing on her lips like she was on his heartstrings, "Or are you deaf? Answer me! What were you doing in there?"

Answer the girl. Or kiss her. Forget about timelines- and that's coming from me. I could explode if you do this, or it could all go okay.

I can't. I'm hurting. I don't want to hurt anymore.

Just do it. You know you want to, thief. The universe won't tear apart- or maybe it will.

Thanks for that.

The Doctor approached her and she just stood there, her hands behind her back. She didn't look frightened at all, that a stranger was approaching her.

It was like she knew him already.

"Who are you?" she half-whispered when they stood face to face. "I've never met you before, have I? I can't…"

The Doctor pressed his hand against her cheek. She didn't flinch or turn away, she gazed up at him.

So innocent.

Oh for God's sake, kiss the girl!

She doesn't know me. Not yet… I shouldn't be doing this!

Of course she knows you, idiot. Everybody knows you.

This is so very not good.

"Rose Tyler, I…" he started, but couldn't finish.

She'd already pressed her lips against his.