"So," she says, grinning up at him; it's fitting, she thinks, that her first word to this new him should be such a small and inconsequential thing.
He beams back down at her. "So."
"One of us now, eh?"
The new Doctor shrugs. "Slouch around the universe for long enough, eventually a downgrade is inevitable."
Rose elbows him in the ribs for that and he feigns outrage, but there's no missing the glimmer of laughter in his eyes.
The two of them fall silent, watching the other passengers of the TARDIS as they chat around the console. Jackie bids Sarah Jane farewell, Donna laughs with Jack, Mickey talks with Martha—or more accurately, flirts with her, because there's no mistaking that bashful smile of his, or the way his eyes constantly flicker down toward his feet, as if there's something terribly interesting to look at down on the grating. An old flame flickers briefly in Rose's chest, a ragged shadow of something she would have called jealousy once upon a time, but it soon transmutes into something else. Less of an angry-sputtering ember, more of a warm glow; she may have exchanged only a few words with Martha, but it was enough to know she likes her.
And Martha clearly likes Mickey, if her own mischievous smile is anything to go by. Rose's grin grows tender. Already they seem to fit together perfectly. Good for them.
"Does it hurt?" she asks. When the new Doctor doesn't immediately reply, arching an eyebrow in question, Rose turns to him to better explain. "Being human, I mean. Just having the one heart and all."
He considers. "Not in the way you'd think," he says softly.
Rose thinks about grabbing his hand, reaches for it, even, imagining how she'll entwine their fingers together like they used to. But she falters, grabbing the railing behind them instead. She doesn't know why.
"Yeah," she replies.
"And how was that sentence going to end?" she demands later, on the beach—that godforsaken beach, she'll never be rid of it, not if she lives to be a hundred—and the original Doctor has the audacity, has the utter bloody gall, to just stand there, looking sad and stern and unbearably pathetic, as if she's the one making this stupid decision—as if she's the one leaving him.
"Does it need saying?" he asks, and Rose's blood boils in her veins.
Years of work, months of searching, dozens of close-calls and barely-there's and raised hopes dashed ruthless and bloody on the rocks, and this is what she gets? This infuriating half-conversation, this heartless rejection, these ice-cold tears yet again on this stupid damn beach?
Rose tears herself away to look at the other Doctor, her pulse thundering so loudly in her ears she can barely hear herself over its frantic rush. "And you, Doctor?" she asks. "What was the end of that sentence?"
She doesn't expect him to answer, not really—same memories, same thoughts, same everything; that means the same noncommittal replies and same half-cooked endearments and same unspoken sentiments, doesn't it?—so imagine her surprise when he starts in before she's even finished speaking, leaning so that he can murmur in her ear. One hand presses to her arm like he can't hold himself back from touching her, like she's the anchor holding him to this plane.
Clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go…
"It's still your choice, Rose," he says, quietly, so that only she can hear. "And no matter what you decide—"
A brief pause. He swallows nervously. "—just know I love you either way."
The words send Rose's head spinning worse than if she'd just gone on a bender or got off a carousel gone mad.
We're falling through space, you and me.
It doesn't actually answer her question, but it's the closest she's ever gotten from him, on any important question, in any incarnation. And suddenly she can't stand the distance between them anymore, the inches so vast they might as well be an entire universe, and her body seems to move of its own accord, blessedly working much quicker than her reeling mind. She yanks him down by the jacket-lapels for a demanding kiss, and it isn't the way she always imagined it, not the way she would have planned—possibly she's bruised the inside of her own mouth with the force of his lips slamming into hers, she's bound to be sore there later—but her heart still hammers painfully in her throat and her eyes still shutter closed, overwhelmed by an onslaught of emotion and screaming sensory input.
(He looks like the Doctor and he sounds like him, too, but he smells like soap and sweat and soot, tastes like salt and skin, feels like a supernova. His arms wrap around her, his grip far more desperate than his words ever were, and Rose cinches her eyes against the welling tears, because this, this is what she wanted; why did she have to fight so hard to get it?)
Dimly, she registers the sound of the TARDIS dematerializing behind her, and before she knows it, her feet have pulled her away, parting from the stunned Doctor with a gasp.
He's leaving. He's leaving her without even saying goodbye.
(No, she thinks firmly; he's not.)
Stumbling backward, Rose propels herself toward the TARDIS, straining for the doors before it's too late—
At the latest of last possible seconds, she reaches back for the Doctor's hand, tugging him along with her—
She doesn't have to tell him to Run.