The Doctor, the newly minted, human Doctor took Rose's hand as they watched the TARDIS disappear forever. When it was gone they looked at each other.
"Do you regret it?" Rose asked past a grief swollen throat.
The Doctor paused for a moment, not daring to look at the spot where the TARDIS had been because he knew a part of him was already withering. He truthfully hadn't expected it to hurt this much.
"No." He half-lied and forced out a smile. He looked back down at her. "Do you?"
Rose looked to where the TARDIS had been and made a decision. He'd wanted her to be happy and hoped that this way she would be. She might think he was wrong for forcing this on her and for leaving without saying a real goodbye but he had given her a gift. She would make this work, for him, because she loved him. She would fulfil her duty.
"No." She lied and reached up to kiss her new Doctor.
The Doctor threw all of himself into that kiss, trying to kiss away the sudden doubts and the awful emptiness in his head. He wanted to lose himself in her enough to kindle the hope and suppress the fear about what this new life - what this strange and unexpected gift that Donna had given him - was going to mean for him. What it would mean for them both.
Rose kissed him back just as passionately. She'd never really kissed the other Doctor - the REAL Doctor, her mind threw at her, but she squashed it down - so she had nothing to compare this kiss against. There had been that time when Cassandra had taken over her body and kissed him but she'd only been a bystander for that, not really experiencing it. He turned out to be a good kisser and passion flared easily into life between them, but she couldn t help but wonder if his kiss was the same.
Whilst they were busy kissing, Jackie turned into the practical one and made a phone call to Pete. It wasn't long before a helicopter arrived to see them to the comfort of a local hotel for the night. Unable to keep away from each other, they took a single room and there, on those borrowed sheets, they threw themselves into each other to block out the pain and the loss they were both pretending wasn't there.
The next day, a private plane flew them home and they finally found themselves completely alone together in Rose's comfortable flat in this alternate London.
Rose and her Doctor buried the words they couldn't bring themselves to say in a blizzard of kisses, both trying to pretend that everything was fine and that this physical contact was all that was needed for now. For the next week they didn t get more than 10 feet from a bed, and for the next few weeks they only made it a little further than that. The days passed in a soft focus haze of fierce passion in a tumble of soft cotton sheets.
Yet every night they both lay awake into the small hours with their eyes closed, pretending to sleep, but really just listening to the single heartbeat that pounded in his chest.
Then one day the Doctor woke to find Rose, not lying in his arms, but dressing.
"I'm needed at work." She told him as she pulled on her boots. "It had to happen eventually!" She smiled regretfully.
"Can I come?" He asked. "There must be some way I can help out."
"Yeah, but perhaps not today, okay?" She deferred. "Let me talk to dad first."
And with a quick kiss on the lips, she left him alone for the first time in this new world, in this new body.
The front door slammed shut and the Doctor let out a long breath as he looked around him.
"Right then." He muttered, wondering what to do now.
He'd never found himself at such a loose end before and really didn't know what to do. He watched the television for a while but got bored very quickly. He took stock of the flat, noticing for the first time how empty it was of personal effects. Without the physical presence of Rose in it, it was as if she'd never been here. Finally he couldn't stand it anymore and went outside.
He found a bookstore and contentedly browsed the books, finding a few history books of this world that he d like to read, but then he realised he had no way of paying for them. He went out and found a cash point machine but, putting his hand into his pocket, he remembered that he had no sonic screwdriver.
Feeling empty and bereft, he walked on. He walked the streets of this alternate London for hours, noting its wondrous differences to the London he knew fairly intimately from another man's memories, but finding no joy in any of it.
The Torchwood Tower eventually drew him like a magnet. He walked into reception and up to the desk.
"I'm the Doctor". He told the lady sitting there.
"Doctor what?" She asked.
"Just the Doctor." He said softly.
"Who are you here to see?" She asked briskly.
He thought about that for a long moment. Who was he there to see?
"Pete Tyler." He finally replied.
After a brief phone call the whole attitude of the receptionist changed. He was welcomed and ushered upstairs to Pete's office.
"Doctor!" Pete welcomed him with a surprised exclamation. "I thought you and Rose were still taking a holiday. Where is Rose? She not with you?"
"You haven't spoken to her today?" The Doctor frowned.
"Not for weeks!" Pete grinned and winked at him.
The Doctor wasn't at all sure how to react to that. He'd never had a relationship like this one. How do you react when people know that you've spent most of the past month having sex? Not to mention how do you react when the person who knows is the alternate reality version of your girlfriend's dead father? The thought gave him pause.
Girlfriend.
It shouldn't have been too much for a brain the size of his to handle - a friend, who's a girl, whom you go places with and have sex with quite a lot - but it was just too strange. Add that to whatever was going on with Rose today and he really wasn't feeling up to speed. Was this how humans felt all the time?
"So, are you coming to work for me?" Pete asked blowing the Doctor's mind all over again.
He hadn't thought that far ahead. A job. An employee. Employed by someone.
"The pays good." Pete laughed.
Wages. Money. Money to buy books.
"Gotta keep my daughter in the style she's become accustomed to!" More knowing laughter.
Dad speak for marriage? Oh.
The Doctor really wasn't enjoying this conversation so far. What he wanted more than anything was to run away.
Rose sat in a cafe in an alley near Oxford Circus, absentmindedly chewing on a chip. She'd woken up this morning and just needed some time alone. Some time to think. But, now that she had it, it wasn't helping at all. Nothing was quite right. When they were together she could lose herself in the Doctor's body, drink in his face and run her fingers through his gloriously unruly hair. But they couldn't just have sex for their entire lives. At some point they needed to do something else. Like have a conversation.
Rose had been avoiding conversations a lot lately. Not just with the Doctor, but with her parents too. They'd ask all the right questions and she had none of the answers.
What were they going to do with the rest of their lives? Travel? Get married? Have kids? A part of Rose longed for those things. Rose's mind conjured up an image of them surrounded by children. Then the children's faces morphed into Donna and she forced the image away again. Wrong.
"He's not my Doctor." She muttered sadly under her breath.
Pete talked more than enough for both of them as he gave the Doctor a guided tour of Torchwood's best bits. He didn't seem to even notice that the Doctor was uncharacteristically quiet... quiet that is, until they got to the blue room.
The Doctor's eyes went wide when he saw the machine set up in there. It was primitive but he recognised it immediately for what it was.
"No!" He exclaimed and ran over to it. He couldn't bring himself to touch it for fear that might just disappear. "You know what this is?"
Pete grinned. The Doctor ran over to the computer that was hooked up to it and started typing - 200 words a minute - making absolutely sure that it was what he thought it was.
"I know what it would be if we could get it to work!" Pete admitted. "The original ship it came from fell through a rift near Cardiff - decades ago. The pilot was long dead. Torchwood have stripped it down, trying to make sense of it. We managed to figure out what it was but not how to make it work again."
"Never have I been so grateful for Torchwood's scavenger instinct!" The Doctor grinned broadly. "It's from a Time Agency ship." He bounced on the balls of feet. "It's a time machine! Nowhere as sophisticated as the TARDIS, but hahaha - it's a time machine!"
He was so excited that he hugged Pete.
"Can you fix it?" Pete asked, extricating himself from the firm hold.
"I'm the Doctor." He replied, dashing back over the computeR, as if that was obviously answer enough.
The Doctor's head was spinning. Free. I'm free. We're free.
Rose came back to an empty flat.
"Doctor?" She called. There was no note, nothing. "Doctor?"
She checked all the rooms. Definitely nothing. Coming back into the living room, she sat down on the sofa and realised something horrible. She was glad he wasn't here. It was so much easier to cope with not having her real Doctor when she wasn't always confronted by the face of the unreal one.
It was all too much. She fell forward, tears welling up and wrapped her arms around her head. As the tears came she rocked back and forth like a child.
Soon he would come home and she'd have to live a lie again because she knew that the unreal Doctor loved her. He had no where else to go. He needed her. He was entrusted to her safe keeping. This was meant to be the best way for everyone. She couldn't do this. How could she save him when she couldn't even bring herself to talk to him!
That night he didn't come home and Rose had her first full night of sleep in months.
"Rose?" His voice softly called her. "Rose?"
"Doctor." She sighed and she felt sure that this was dream. Like before, he was calling back to Bad Wolf Bay, but this time not to say goodbye. This time to stay forever. Her Doctor.
"Rose?" This time it was accompanied by a sharp poke in the ribs that woke her up immediately.
"What?" She asked irritably. She opened her eyes to see his grinning face and her heart clenched painfully. He looked so much like her Doctor. "What's so urgent?"
"A time machine, Rose." He beamed. "Your dad has a time machine!"
"What?" She sat up, fully awake now, but he'd already moved away from the bed and was bouncing around joyously.
"It doesn't quite work yet. I still need to fabricate some new micro coils to channel the temporal displacement field. The original ones must have been burnt out when the ship crashed. I may have to invent a new technique to make the alloy strong enough. I don't know what they have in this universe that might do the job well enough." He babbled.
"Stop!" Rose cut in and he stopped mid-flow to look at her. "Slow down."
"We're not stuck here on this silly little planet." He said happily. "We have a time machine and, if I can just jump ahead a little, we can have a spaceship too! He came over to her and took her face in his hands. "We're free, Rose." He kissed her.
She didn't kiss him back. She pulled back immediately and moved away to the other side of the bed. Her mind was whirling. She wasn't stuck with him. If he had a time machine, then he didn't need her.
"What's wrong?" He asked confused.
"Just give me a minute." She said on a long exhalation of breath.
His snapped his mouth shut and he waited. As he watched her struggling to find words, realization began to dawn on him.
"You don't want to come with me." He said at last. The eyes that met his were filling with tears.
"I can't do this anymore. You're not..." She began but she couldn't finish the sentence and she suddenly couldn't look at him.
It was his turn to exhale deeply, sadly, but in an instant it turned to anger.
"Oh, so that's what s wrong!" He ground out, grabbing her arm and turning her roughly back to face him. "You can't accept that I AM the Doctor."
"You re not!" She got up on her knees and shrieked at him, pushing his arm off her. "You're not him! You're just a stupid hand, with some chucked in bits of Donna!" They were face to face. "I don't want you, or your stupid time machine, because you're not real. You're not him. You're nothing."
They glared at each for a long moment. He broke the contact first, and walked out. Moments later she heard the first door to the flat open and then slam shut.
Rose fell back on the bed crying her heart out.
After he left the flat, he walked mindlessly again along the streets of London.
Her words kept repeating in his brain. You're not him. You're not him.
He was surprised when he looked up to see where his feet had taken him. Not really knowing why, he knocked on the door. After a moment, it opened and he breathed a heartfelt sigh. There she was. He felt better already.
"Donna Noble!" He grinned. "It's so good to see you! I really don't know why I'm here. My feet just brought me. I guess I needed a..."
"Er, nutter..." She began sarcastically, her loose red hair swishing around her head as she moved. "Is any of this making any sense in your world?"
"In my world, it would make perfect sense." He told her, grinning.
"Well, that's alright then!" She replied mockingly, and started to close the door in his face.
He stuck his left hand in the gap.
"I'm a distant relative!" He improvised, not exactly untruthfully.
The closing door crushed his hand for a moment, before opening again.
"Are you one of Uncle Parker's kids?" She asked through the small gap. "He was always a bit weird too."
"Yes I am!" He cradled his hurt hand. Being part human really hurt.
"Figures." She replied, as she opened the door wider. "But family's family. Do you want a cup of tea?"
His grin returned.
"Oh, yes please!"
Jackie Tyler knocked on the door of Rose's flat. After speaking to Pete last night she'd got an awful feeling that something was wrong. She needed to speak to her girl.
When there was no answer, she let herself in with her spare key. As soon as she was in there, she heard the crying. She ran to the bedroom to find Rose curled in a ball sobbing like there was no tomorrow.
"Oh sweetheart!" She exclaimed and ran over to hug her little girl. "What is it? What's wrong?"
Rose pounced on her like a lifeline, hugging her as if her life depended on it. Jackie stroked her hair soothingly.
"He's not my Doctor." Rose sobbed. "He's not real."
Jackie looked aghast and drew back a little.
"Rose, what have you done?" She demanded. "You didn't tell him that!"
Rose lifted her tear stained face to her mother.
"But he's not." She wailed pathetically. Jackie drew back further, continuing to look at her in horror. "You don't understand!" Rose lamented.
Jackie's face grew black, and she slapped her daughter.
"Mum!" Rose exclaimed, clutching her face in shock, the sobs disappearing instantly.
"How dare you!" Jackie said indignantly. "How bloody DARE you!" She repeated. "I don't understand? I'm the only one who could possibly understand!"
Rose stared at her in shock as she got up to glare at her daughter from a height.
"My Pete - your dad - died." Her mother said softly, anger controlled but still there. "I cried for 19 years! I never got over it." She sighed. "Then the Doctor came into our lives... and I got a second chance."
Rose started to understand.
"You didn't see how it was between us at first." Jackie continued. "You were so wrapped up in trying to get back over there that you didn't see what I was going through. You think it was easy, Rose? You think it was easy seeing his face? Seeing the face of a dead man and remembering what I'd lost! Sometimes I hated him because of who he wasn't." She drew a deep breath. "He's not your father, Rose. He's not the Pete that I knew." She shot a look at her daughter and her face softened. "But I fell in love all over again. Not because he was that Pete - that man's gone - but because he was THIS Pete and he's brilliant and he deserves loving."
She came over and took her daughters shoulders in her hands.
"You're luckier than I was." Jackie told her. "Me and Pete here had to start from scratch. But this Doctor isn't the alternate version of a dead man who doesn't really know you and doesn't love you yet. He's the man you fell in love with, who, thanks to something amazing happening, can be exactly what you want. You're clinging to the other one, the one who can't be with you, can't grow old with you... why?" She implored her. "Why?"
"Mum, I'm so sorry." Rose said, really meaning it, tears welling for a different reason now. "I've been an idiot. I should have been there for you."
Jackie shrugged.
"No use crying over spilt milk." Rose tried to speak again. "No, Rose. There's nothing you need to say me. I know you've had a hard time. This isn't the sort of situation a mum expects to have to talk her daughter through!"
They both laughed but then Jackie grew serious again.
"Go find him, Rose. Apologise a lot and try and work it out. If there's even half a chance for you both to be happy together, then it's worth fighting for. Isn't it?"
Inside Donna's house was exactly the same as her home in the other reality. Freakishly so.
"Everything else is just a bit different," He muttered under his breath. "But Donna's exactly the same." An echo of something nagged at him. What if Donna's brain couldn t handle...? No, he didn't want to think about that.
Thankfully she came out and stopped his thoughts by handing him a cup of tea; a proper one, on a cup and saucer with a teaspoon on the side and little sugar lump.
He looked at it happily and tasted it.
"Oh, that is good!" He sighed.
"So," She put her hands on her hips. "What's your name then?"
"The Doctor." He said automatically over the rim of his cup.
"A doctor - always nice to have in the family - but what's your name?" She looked at him in the no nonsense way he liked so much.
"John." He replied with smile. "John, er," Family member remember. "Noble. Doctor John Noble." He tested the name on his lips and decided that he quite liked it. "But, seriously, everyone calls me the Doctor."
She raised her eyebrows.
"Good to meet you... Doctor." She said with a slight mocking note. "Now what do you want? Is it money?"
"Oh no!" He exclaimed horrified. "No, not money."
"But you're running from something, right? That's why you're here." She looked at him straight. "If it's not money, then it's a girl. You've got that kinda look about you."
He gulped at her perception.
"Have you got some poor girl up the duff?" She asked flatly.
"Up the duff?" He echoed hollowly.
"Pregnant." She reiterated.
"No!" He replied firmly but then paused. "Well, it's possibly, er, possible, I suppose, but..."
He hadn't thought of that. What if Rose was pregnant? Given what they'd been doing for the past month, it was definitely possible. That would complicate things so much more.
He collapsed into a nearby chair.
"It's okay." Donna said reassuringly. "Why do men always treat it like it's the end of the world!"
"End of the world would be less complicated." He muttered. "I know how to handle that!" More loudly he said. "No, I don t think she's pregnant."
"You are a strange one." Donna noted wryly. "Tell me about her then."
"It's complicated." He began. "I don't know what I'm feeling. I'm not sure I like being human." He admitted honestly.
Donna laughed.
"Join the club, sunshine." She smiled ruefully and sat down in the chair opposite him.
"Her name's Rose." He smiled as he said it but it turned into a bitter laugh. "But she's in love with another man."
"Ouch." Donna responded. "Does she know you feel about her?"
"Yes." He sighed. "But I don't know how to convince her that I'm just the same as he is."
"That's where you're going wrong." Donna stated and he looked up at her. "You don't want to convince her that you're the same! You want to make her see that you're better than him! Sweep her off her feet! Women like that sometimes."
The Doctor frowned.
"Better?" He mulled. "Better!" He jumped up, nearly spilling his tea. He downed it instead and put down the cup. "You're a genius, Donna Noble!" He pulled her to her feet and hugged her.
He ran out of the house. Donna was left a trifle gobsmacked, but she laughed.
"Invite me to the wedding!" She called out after him. "What a nutter!" She muttered, smiling.
Rose went to Torchwood because it was the only place she could think of to try and find him. She expected him to be working on his time machine. She smiled at the receptionist, who commented that it was nice to see her back.
"It's nice to be back." Rose smiled and realised that, for the first time in a month, she actually meant it.
She flashed her credentials at the scanner and went up to the blue room. Apart from the machine, it was empty. No Doctor. She went over to it. It didn't look like anything much. It was just like a circle of mirrors and a tangle of wires hooked up to a computer. Something tripped in her head like deja vu, but she couldn t hold onto it. She touched one and almost thought that she heard music; a soft, eerie, haunting melody that she vaguely knew.
"Rose!" A voice exclaimed behind her and she turned to face him. "I didn't expect to see you here. I was going to come looking for you at the flat."
"I didn't expect to be here." She replied and decided to launch into it before she lost her nerve. "Doctor, I'm so sorry. I was being stupid and selfish. You aren't nothing."
"Of course I'm not!" He grinned. "I'm the Doctor!" He came over to her. "And better than that..." He left it hanging as he handed her a piece of paper.
She took it and looked down, not sure what she was seeing. The words birth certificate jumped out at her.
"What?" She asked, confused. He handed her a small red book as well. "Passport?"
"Look inside." He said, bouncing on his feet eagerly.
She opened to the back page and saw his picture. She saw the name on it.
"Dr. John Noble." She read out loud and looked up at him questioningly. "Noble? I thought you always used Smith."
"I'm family." He grinned. "You see Rose. The thing is that I AM the Doctor but better than that I'm human, and I'm part Donna. I'm family. Isn't that fantastic?"
"Doctor John Noble." She said again, wide-eyed, understanding.
"I'm sorry if that's not really what you wanted, but that's what I am." He shrugged acceptingly. "But I can give you all of what he could, and so much more! When the machine's fixed, we could travel the stars together again, save the Earth as many times as it needs it... and we could have a family. A real one. I really would like to do that too."
He swallowed.
"I'll understand if you don't. If you don't want this, then I ll just go. You don't need to feel duty bound to stay with me. I don't want that!"
"Yes!" Rose exclaimed, her voice breaking on a sob. "I do want the same as you." She took a deep breath. "I want it all; the travelling, the saving the earth, the family. You are MY Doctor... and I want every single bit of you."
He grinned, grabbed her, spun her around and tears turned to joyous laughter. Finally he set her down and they kissed, softly and tenderly. This time there were no ghosts of other Doctors. There was no running away or comparing or regrets.
There was just Doctor John Noble and his Rose. And they would love, they would fight, they would travel, they would save the Earth and a hundred other planets, and they would get married and have kids, and grow old together. It wasn t always easy, but they kept on always, always trying to have it all.