First, the legalities. I do not own or claim to own the fictional characters or series that this work of fiction is based upon. All copyrights for Doctor Who and the characters of Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, and the Metacrisis Doctor belong to BBC, Russell T. Davies, and any other authors or entities that can lay claim to them, specifically the writing pertaining to what I have expounded upon from the episode Journey's End. I've merely borrowed them to take a peek into their world and play around a bit. I intend no malice; it was done purely for fun. However, the story depicted here is an original creation by me and belongs to me.

Now, that having been said, I hope you enjoy the story.

A Doctor By Any Other Name…

By N. Kelley

Rose looked down at the hand intertwined with hers. The hand of a man that she used to know so well.

The Doctor.

Only he wasn't really the Doctor. How could he be? He had only just been created this very day. Her Doctor, The Doctor had been alive for centuries. He had saved countless millions of innocent beings. This Doctor had just massacred an entire alien race.

Mind you, she couldn't exactly blame him for what he had done. Had she been in his place…

She looked back up at the empty spot where the TARDIS had been sitting, just moments before.

What had she done? Had she really been so self-absorbed that she had just kissed another man right in front of the Doctor? Her Doctor? How could she have been so insensitive? And now she would never have the chance to apologize, to explain to him that she had just been caught up in the moment.

All he'd had to do was say three little words. Just three. I love you. How hard was that? The other Doctor had said them and he claimed to have the same thoughts and feelings as her Doctor. So why hadn't he said them? If he had, she would have pushed past Donna and jumped on board the TARDIS without a second thought, without even one look behind her.

A strangled sob got stuck halfway up her throat. That was why, of course, he hadn't said those three little words. He had known that if he had dared to say them, that she would have never stayed.

And he needed her to stay. He was trying to give her the life she wanted. A life with the Doctor. He had assumed that this Doctor could give her the one thing he couldn't—a regular ordinary life. This Doctor could grow old with her. He was human and only had one life. But Rose had never cared about that. She had always known that eventually she would die and he would have to move on without her.

Of course, that meant that she was being self-absorbed again in a whole other way. That eventuality was something that the Doctor dreaded. He had told her once that she could spend her life with him and grow old with him, but that he couldn't spend his life with her. He would have to watch her grow old and die.

A tear trickled down her face. Now he would never have to do that. He could imagine her here, happy, living a life with the Doctor day after day…even if it wasn't him. More tears began streaming down her face and she gave into them.

"Rose? What's wrong?" the Doctor asked, taking hold of her other hand and turning her to face him.

"Nothing," she lied. "I'm just…trying to adjust. That's all."

"You think you made the wrong choice," he said quietly. "You have doubts that we are actually the same person."

She wiped under her eyes, completely at a loss as to what to say.

"It's okay," he assured her kindly, giving her hands a soft squeeze. "I understand. I do. But we are the same person. All you need to do is think of me as another regeneration."

"But that's just it," she protested. "I've seen the Doctor regenerate before and it changes him—" she made a face "—I mean you. When you regenerated the last time, you changed your clothes, your behavior, even the way you spoke."

"That's why this is better than a regeneration, because I'm still the same man."

"Are you? Are you really?"

"Yes," he said, releasing one of her hands but keeping a firm hold on the other one. He nodded toward her mom, who was standing a ways off with a look of concern on her face. "Come on. I think we better go check on her."

She glanced around at the beach they were standing on. Bad Wolf Bay. "I'm not ready to leave yet."

"Well, I don't really think that's an option right now."

When she opened her mouth to protest he continued, "We're not going anywhere until your dad gets here to pick us up."

She swallowed her argument and nodded.

"Although, I was just thinking if it was too much for you to be here, that we could probably walk for a while—"

Rose was shaking her head, cutting him off. "No, that's just it. I'm not ready to leave this place, this beach."

The Doctor was quiet and looked like he was trying to read into her meaning.

"Do you know how long I stood here after you left me the first time?" she asked quietly, looking up at him through blurry eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"After you faded away, I cried until I thought I couldn't possibly have any tears left, and then I sat down on this beach and stared at that spot." She glanced over and pointed at the place where they had said goodbye. "I don't even know how long I was there. I just kept hoping that somehow you would find a way to change things, to come back, and that if you did, I wanted to be there." She sighed and shook her head. "Mom, Dad and Mickey just sat quietly in the Jeep waiting for me to realize what they already knew. You were never coming back."

"Yet, here we are."

Rose was quiet. She closed her eyes, remembering that day from so long ago.

And I suppose…if it's my last chance to say it…Rose Tyler—

She opened her eyes and looked at the Doctor. "Say it again."

He gave her hand another squeeze. "Rose Tyler, I love you."

Her eyes threatened to well up again and she nodded at him. "Okay, I think I'm ready now."

He smiled softly and pulled on her hand as he led them over to where her mother was still standing quietly, for once, watching them. "How long have we got, Jackie?"

Rose frowned.

"Your mother was on the phone while we were talking," the Doctor explained. "I just assumed that she was talking to your dad."

"I was," Jackie confirmed, looking a little happier than she had when they had first stepped out of the TARDIS. "There's a car on its way here right now to get us."

"Dad's not coming himself?" Rose asked, wishing that her dad were here where he could wrap her up in a hug and tell her that everything would be okay.

When the Pete Tyler of this world had first yielded to the idea that he could have a daughter with Jackie Tyler, even if the two of them were from another world, it had taken a while for him to get comfortable with the idea. But once he had, it had felt like Rose finally had the father that she had always wanted. He had taken care of her, had helped her rebuild the Torchwood Institute, and had even financed the dimension canon that had eventually brought her back to the Doctor. He was the father that she had always wanted so desperately. That didn't mean that she had allowed him to replace her own father in her heart. She had just allowed her heart to grow big enough to love them both.

Right now, though, he was the one person that she wished she could see. He could help her make sense out of all of this.

"He's got his hands full taking care of Tony right now," Jackie explained, pooching her lips out in a pout. "Poor little guy's got a fever and a runny nose. He's missing me."

Rose forced a smile. "I'm sure dad's missing you too, right about now, then."

Jackie shrugged happily. "Oh, you know how men are. They'd be lost without us."

The Doctor squeezed her hand. "You don't know how true that is." He gave her a warm smile. "Thank you. I don't think I've said that yet."

A wrinkle formed across Rose's brow. "Thank you for what?"

"For staying here, with me," he said easily. "I know how much you would have liked to travel again in the Tardis."

She felt a lump in her throat and swallowed it with difficulty. Of course she would have liked to travel in the Tardis again. She had missed it almost as much as she had missed the Doctor.

Then she realized something even worse than her never being able to set foot in the Tardis again. The Doctor, this Doctor, would never be able to, either. If he really was the same man and had the same feelings, which apparently he did for her, then his first love was for his Tardis. He loved his spaceship. It had been with him for hundreds of years, way longer than he had known her.

And now it was gone.

She could argue that the Doctor had marooned him here, and so he hadn't had any choice in the matter, but somehow she didn't believe that. They weren't the same person, not in the way that it would have caused some kind of paradox or problem with him remaining with the Doctor on the Tardis.

Rose caught her breath. He was the same man. He rightly was. Their thoughts truly were the same. The Doctor loved Rose. He knew that she loved him, as well, and that she would never be truly happy being separated from him.

It was like Donna had said—don't you see what he's trying to give you?

He had given her the gift of being able to stay here, in this other dimension, where she didn't have to leave her family, but could live out her short human life with a version of himself that could be human too. But this version of him had given her a gift, as well. He had given her his life. If he had wanted to, he could have spent the remainder of his life traveling with the other Doctor in the Tardis. She was almost certain on some perverse level, that the Doctor might have enjoyed that. But he had given up that life of travel to remain here on Earth with her and just be human.

She felt her eyes welling up with tears and she turned to smile at the Doctor. "I can't lie. I'll miss the Tardis. I hadn't realized just how much I had missed it already until I was back on board it again."

Jackie was looking more and more decidedly uncomfortable when suddenly a wide grin broke out across her face. "Look! There's the car. I see it now." Then she frowned. "A bit small, though, isn't it? Couldn't your dad have sent something a little more posh?" she pondered, brushing past them, headed for the point in the road above them where the car had stopped.

Rose and the Doctor were alone again, if just for a moment, and she felt herself wanting to say so many things. But one thing stood out above the rest. "Are you sure you made the right choice?"

He looked at her quizzically. "I didn't really have one, did I? You heard what my pompous other self said," he proclaimed indignantly.

"Yeah, I did. But I don't buy it," she said, shaking her head. "You could've traveled on with him. He would have let you."

He crinkled his nose and ran a hand through his hair, mussing it a bit. "Yeah, but I think one Doctor per Tardis is more than enough, don't you?"

She glanced up at where her mum was busy talking to the driver of the car and then she stepped in and kissed the Doctor again. Part of her couldn't believe she was being so brazen. She would have never done this if it had been the other Doctor. Would she?

Before she could question her behavior further, the Doctor was reciprocating her kiss. His lips were soft, so sure in their movements against her own. He was a good kisser, which made her a bit curious because he wasn't human. How was he so adept at it?

She didn't have a chance to ponder it much longer because his arms had wrapped around her, drawing her to him and interrupting any train of thought she might have considered pursuing.

Only one thought remained. The car ride home was going to be torture. Trapped inside a vehicle with her mum for hours on end?

"Maybe we should find our own way back," she murmured against his lips between kisses.

Had she actually just said that? Yep, apparently she had.

He pulled away and flashed the smile that she had missed so much. The smile that did funny things to her stomach and made it completely impossible not to smile in return. It was the smile that he reserved for the times that he thought he was about to embark on some grand adventure.

Only this time, she was the adventure.

"Funny, I was just thinking the same thing," he said quietly, his eyes fixed on her. "Cooped up in the car with your mother isn't exactly the reunion I'd been hoping for."

"Come on!" Jackie hollered down at them, waving them to come up to the car.

"I'll go tell her," Rose said a little breathlessly, hating to leave him even for one second. It was like she was afraid he would dissolve into a dream and disappear again if she even dared to blink.

The Doctor took her hand and intertwined their fingers. "We'll tell her together," he said, smiling again.

Perhaps he was just as hesitant to let go of her. Rose smiled and walked along beside him up the hill to the car. Her mother had already climbed into the back seat, leaving the door standing open for Rose to get in beside her. Rose shook her head. Did her mum honestly think she was going to let her separate her from the Doctor on their trip home? She felt even more convinced of her decision to remain behind.

"We're not coming," Rose said, bending down to look into the car. "You go on and we'll find our own way home."

"What?" her mother exclaimed. "Don't be ridiculous. You're exhausted. The sooner you get home the better."

"I've got a credit card. There's a little inn just down the road," Rose explained, pointing. "We'll get a room there for the night. When we're ready to come home, I'll rent a car."

"But—"

"Tell Dad I said hello and I miss him and I'll see him soon," Rose continued, cutting her off. "And take good care of little Tony. Have a safe trip, Mum."

Her mother looked like she didn't approve and seemed a bit disappointment, but she just nodded. "Okay, Rose. You be careful." She leaned forward a bit and eyed the Doctor. "You bring my daughter back in one piece, you hear?"

The Doctor gave her a little two-fingered salute and Rose shut the door and waved. They stood there together, hand in hand, and watched until the car was out of sight.

To be concluded in part 2…Please leave feedback. I love feedback. I thrive on feedback. My muse withers and dies without feedback. :)