Weellllll... hello, universe! It's been a while now, hasn't it? This is my first Doctor Who fic, but it's not the only one. Anyway. I'm procrastinating on my thesis by going through some of my old stuff (apparently the conclusion chapter is supposed to be approached creatively and I've been approaching the last four chapters methodologically. I figured this might be a good way to help me switch gears) and I came across this gem. So do enjoy! I look forward to your comments!

"He's dying." His eyes are far away as he says it. The telly is on low in the background and she merely thinks he's doing a commentary on whatever he's been watching, that angry knowing look in his eye, the inability to understand how the wonderfully, brilliant human race could produce such idiots on its way to universal domination. She admonishes him gently each time, reminding him that ordinary, bumbling humans are usually the ones who make a difference in history. She doesn't respond to his comment.

"Rose," he said, turning sad, sad eyes on her. I'm sorry, he was saying to her, I'm so sorry. "He's dying, Rose."

She finally looked up at him, a pang of guilt echoing deep in her chest for initially ignoring him. "Who's that then?" She asked curiously, padding over to the couch to get a glimpse of the telly. Was it someone she knew?

"He's saying goodbye. He's dying."

Then she knew. Because a memory was surfacing, one that was brand new, one that hadn't been there moments before, she was sure of it. He had visited her, her Doctor, the proper, gentle Doctor, remembered merely as the daft drunk questioning what year it was. He was sick and sweating, a feverish gleam in his eyes. Standing in the shadows of an alleyway just outside her flat in the Estates. She had just assumed it was the effects of a long night in a bar on New Year's Eve.

"What year is this?" he asked in that deliberate way that had always gotten him the answers he needed. People didn't flinch at stupid questions that required obvious answers. Ever. No matter what year or planet, they looked at you questioningly but answered all the same. Her past self had fallen directly into that trap, and she smiled satirically, tongue-in-teeth, and snorted softly, knowing that she had been had. She shakes her head in disbelief at his brazenness, defiant to the end. Cheeky git.

"Blimey, how much have you had?" She asked with a laugh. "2005, January the first."

"2005," he said with a sad smile and a knowing nod. "Tell you what. I bet you're going to have a great year."

For them, Rose and her new Doctor, it had only been mere months since they were dropped off at Bad Wolf Bay, but somehow she knew it had been longer for him, some strange discontinuity of time, the oddities of an almost-paradox (the traveling twin theory, to be exact), the concepts of which Rose had only come to understand in those years she had begun working for Torchwood, building a Dimension Cannon to find her Doctor and save the universe from meeting its untimely end.

He had wandered aimlessly across time and space, avoiding the inevitable end to his song that the Ood had predicted. He had carefully avoided Earth at all costs, doing his best to steer clear of any possibility of having his lonely hearts shatter into a million pieces again at the sight of anyone of his companions. They all break his hearts when they find someone else, the New Doctor had shared with her once. Except for Rose. She had never found anyone, which is why she had been chosen to keep his human copy company as he lived out his days.

But he was dying. Her Doctor. Her beautiful, brilliant, fearless, sympathetic, caring, noble Doctor. He had become reckless, claiming that his loneliness made him impervious and he faced the final battle head on without a second thought of himself. (Because in the end, it always came down to perpetuating the great and powerful human race, didn't it?) The details were irrelevant, but he had suffered several long days before his eventual expiration.

The New Doctor, brilliant, smoldering, caring, brash, exquisite, Noble-Doctor, could feel it. It was an ache that sat in his bones for days. He revealed later that he had known when it started, a blinding pain that had exploded across his chest and shot through his fingers and toes like an electrical current, followed by silence and eventually, the feeling of life waning slowly from his mind impossibly linked to another across space and time and another universe.

Rose sunk beside him on the couch, her sad brown eyes pooling with tears that eventually spilled out in large drops. They carved rivers down her gaunt face and splashed unceremoniously on her lap. She met his eyes, clouding over with tears themselves and tried to smile reassuringly. Their hands met somewhere in the middle, both instinctively reaching out at the same time to comfort the other. He pulled her close, hugging her tightly. Her ear rested above his single heart, glad for the reassurance of a heartbeat and they cried together for hours. He squeezed her tightly until, suddenly the pain was gone and he broke down in sobs that shook his whole body.

"He's gone," he confirmed. "It's over."

Rose nodded against his chest. "Was it terrible?"

He breathed deeply and wiped at his eyes with the back if his hand. He gave her a watery smile and shook his head. "No, Rose. It was brilliant."