A/N: Thanks to RHHP Freak for reading over it! Any mistakes are completely my own fault. I hope you enjoy this first chapter!

Note: This fic depends upon the missing scene from "Journey's End," in which the Doctor gives a piece of TARDIS coral to Tentoo and Rose so that they may one day grow/create their own TARDIS. Assuming that this scene is included, this fic is not quite so unbelievable. :)

The title of the story is taken from Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

Disclaimer: Don't own. Sigh.

Rating: T

Pairing: Doctor/Rose, past Tentoo/Rose.

with eyes like sunsets – The Maine, "Into Your Arms"

The TARDIS starts whirring and spinning and traveling (all on her own, which is odd) as soon as he enters the console room after his nonexistent breakfast. "Oi, what's this all about?" he says, not unkindly, stroking one of the consoles. The TARDIS gives a mix between a teasing purr and a beckoning whine, and he smiles. "Oh, I see. Not gonna tell me."

He won't admit it, but he's sadder than usual today. She buzzes at him and sends him a tiny electric shock into his hand that he supposes is meant to convey something along the lines of, Cheer up!

"I can't," he murmurs, looking down. "You know that." He looks up again just as suddenly, slapping on that thrown-together flashy smile that's totally and completely fake. He ignores her telepathic chiding—she sees straight past his false grin, as she always does—and only says, "Where you takin' me, love? You gotta buy me a drink first."

The TARDIS does that purr-whine thing again. "Gonna have to come up with a name for that," he mutters to himself, walking around in circles as he is so prone to do. "Pur-rine? Whirr? Whinurr? Ooh, I actually quite like that one. Whinurr. Sounds like…sounds like…winner! Yes, that's it! You, you brilliant TARDIS you, you are a winner!" he beams. "But only if you tell me where we're going."

As if to answer his question, the TARDIS stops its beeping and whirring and promptly crashes, as she is so prone to do. "Oh, so we're here," he says halfway to himself and halfway to the TARDIS. "Wonder what's so important about this place? Where are we?"

One of the monitors of the console he's leaning against lights up, and he leans in. A hologram forms and reveals the words on the screen, held up in the air in a 3D image: 3:37 PM, November 15th, 2014. Dålig Ulv Stranden, Norway. Earth.

The hologram disappears but the words still blink on the actual monitor screen. Without even really thinking about it, his hand reaches down and he traces the words with his fingertips. "Bad Wolf Bay," he breathes aloud sadly, looking down at the floor. "Oh, girl, of all the rotten places. Why'd you have to bring me here?"

The TARDIS gives off a pure whine, begging him without words or song to open the door.

"No!" he says, not quite a yell but above his usual murmur. "Why'd you have to bring me here? Couldn't you have brought me somewhere with memories that won't completely and totally devastate me? I can't do anythin' right, an', what, exactly? You've just brought me here to bring down my confidence even more! Blimey, girl, what's the matter with you? Did I forget to screw on a bolt properly or somethin'?"

The TARDIS just mentally whines again, urging him to open the door and step outside.

"Rub it in my face, why don't you," he mutters to himself as he walks across the console room in long, loping strides. The faster this is done and gotten over with, the faster he can go back to the Void and quietly brood in his misery. It's not so much that he's as inconsolable as his last regeneration…she's gotten a chance at a new life with his human doppelganger, and he's grateful that she'll be happy. But…well, still. He misses her. So much. And he still loves her, of course, he just…can't get back to her. He's decided to let that be, and to let her be happy, which is really all he can do. So why on earth would the TARDIS bring him here, to the site of one of the worst days in his life (albeit in another universe) all those years ago?

The door swings open without him even getting the chance to touch it. "Blimey," he mutters to himself, exasperated and more than a little hurt by the TARDIS's pushy and unexplained actions. He wanders out of the police box that isn't really a police box and surveys his surroundings. Exactly how he last saw it in the parallel universe, minus one beautiful, impossibly wonderful woman. Rose.

It's November, and the waters are icy grey. It's around three thirty and it's time for sunset in wintery, blustery Norway. The sun is faded and colder than usual as it rests directly on the water, and he's reminded of cold misty grey mornings in London with…with Rose.

The beach seems to be positively empty, and the whiteness of the sand looks like snow. He won't be surprised if it starts snowing while he's still here. He turns after he's a foot away from the TARDIS. "Okay, I've looked. Maybe I come back in now?"

The TARDIS clangs her door shut in a sharp, unexplained response.

The Doctor sighs, more in defeat and frustration than actual anger, and turns to look around once again. Wait…there in the distance…a person. A woman, probably, though he can't really tell from this distance. She's surely at least a few hundred feet away. With a sigh, he begins to walk rather quickly. Perhaps she, this girl, can tell him what's going on. Maybe there's some sort of alien activity he needs to fix, as per usual.

As he approaches, he takes in the details surrounding them. Her back is to him and she's facing the gray, cold waters of the beach. Her black leather jacket reminds him of his wardrobe in his ninth incarnation, and her blue jeans are tight and long. Her black boots shine, and he wonders how she walked all the way out here in the sand in those small heels. Her hair is blonde and shoulder-length, obviously dyed as he can see her brunette roots.

And right next to her is a blue police box that he knows instinctively isn't a real police box.

It's a TARDIS. And that means that this woman is…that she's…

But that would mean that she's...yes, I know those curves, that body, from memories of staring and hugging; yes, I know this woman. But she can't be...or can she?

The height is right, as well as weight and hair color. He's seen her from behind well enough that he knows it's her, though he checks the air—smells like cinnamon and vanilla, exactly like her, she hasn't changed a bit—just to be sure. Yes.

It's her. It's really her. It's Rose.

He runs the last few feet to reach her, runs like he ran all those years ago before he was shot by that Dalek. As if she knows he's there, she turns away from him slightly so that he still can't see her. His hand finds her shoulder, but she doesn't spin around like he would have done. Instead, she shrugs him away and continues to gaze out into the water, taking a few steps forward so that the water nearly comes to her shoes but not quite. Her hair is whipping in the wind, not as wildly as when they first said goodbye, but enough that he definitely can't see her face. "Rose?" he whispers.

She flinches. Only slightly, but it's enough. He knows it's her, she recognized her own name. And Rose was never that good of a pretender, she can't lie about this. It has to be her. My memory wouldn't betray me like this, or my dreams. This has to be real, this has to be her. Please, he thinks desperately.

"Rose? Rose, I know it's you. How are you here?" he asks desperately, hardly daring to raise his voice above a whisper so that she can hear him above the wind and the waves, but also desiring to keep quiet in case this is just a dream - as though a loud noise might break the illusion and leave him gasping in his bed. "How did you get here?"

And then she speaks for the first time, and it is beautiful and he's breathless and she's perfect and here. "Came by TARDIS, of course. 'S the only real way to travel properly."

"How did you get here without…" he trails off after a moment, unsure of how to complete the sentence.

"We called him John in public. And I've been able to run the TARDIS by myself for decades now," she says, almost nonchalantly but there's a slight weirdness to her voice. "He taught me before he died. You didn't exactly leave us with an instruction manual, but he wrote it all down for me when he could still write."

"So he's…dead?" he asks, picking up on died. She begins to walk down the length of the beach, and he follows, trailing behind her like a lost puppy, searching and wondering.

"Yes." Her voice is clipped and cold, almost technical like a machine.

"You said decades. But you haven't aged," he observes. He would know. He remembers every curve, flaw, and inch of that body that's visible with her clothes on.

She pauses for a second in her walking and continues, changing the subject completely. "You've regenerated."

"How do you know that? You haven't even looked at me. You can't see me from that angle." He'll let her get away with avoiding the question for now…mostly because he wants to know the answer to this question, too.

"Oh, I can see everything, Doctor," she says, and he can practically hear the bittersweet smile. "All that is or was or will be…I see it. See, I'm not the same little girl you took aboard your ship. You dazzled her with stars and burnin' suns and passion she'd never known before. But she didn't care about any of that, quite honestly. All she wanted was you and your company. But I'm not her anymore. I've done so much and seen so much. I'm an aunt and a great-aunt and a wife and the Valiant Child." She hesitates, and he can catch the slightest corner of her face, a small view of her chewing her lip with her eyes and nose covered by her hair whipping in the wind. "And the Bad Wolf."

"How can you see everything?" he questions.

"The TARDIS sees it all, and I see it all, too. She's inside my head, see," she says calmly.

"How is she inside your head?" What is going on? Has their TARDIS linked itself to her? It can't do that with humans...can it?

"'Cause I did what I had to do." She sighs, moving briskly onward after a moment, walking back towards his TARDIS but keeping close to the shore's edge. "You taught me how to do that."

"Why haven't you aged? You said the other me had died." He moves on, keeping up with him just a step behind her.

"Yes, he did. A fine man, a good husband. He wanted to be a father. But I couldn't give him what he wanted. Time Ladies and humans, apparently they can't really procreate correctly, though from what I've heard it's not the same for Time Lords and human women. Wonder why that is. But I couldn't give him a child. He had to be satisfied watchin' my brother's kid grow up, and even that was short-lived."

"A Time Lady?" His brain is slowly beginning to catch up. Oh, Rassilon, no. Not her, please, not Rose. Don't condemn her to this…please. But beyond all that, a certain undeniable joy is flaring up in his head and his heart as he feels her telepathic presence, guarded by strong barriers. Oh, Rassilon. He's no longer alone.

"Yeah. See, after you left us, I was still human. That's why we weren't suspectin' nothin'. We were practically runnin' Torchwood, he and I, and we both liked it well enough. Just wasn't the same, I s'pose. We both wanted more. We wanted you again - or, well, I wanted you back and he wanted to be you again. Anyway. I got shot during a mission. From what I heard, it was quite terrifying, watching the life slowly seep outta me. John was inconsolable, he said. Woke up in the morgue 'bout six hours later, in the dark, alone, with two beatin' bloody hearts. No idea what was goin' on. I stole the cameras at the morgue, they showed me enveloped in this golden light as I changed or whatever. Dunno why my physical form didn't change, musta been 'cause my body was still taking in the change from human to Gallifreyan. Went home—what else was I s'posed to do?" she laughs emptily, stopping in her tracks and turning to stare at the ocean.

He stops as well, watching the back of her cautiously, trying to figure out if he should stop her and console her or let her go on. She doesn't give him a chance to choose as she hurries on her with her story, voice clipped and cold to conceal her emotions as best she can.

"Torchwood found out, started experimentin' on me. They freaked out. They kept me there for a while, in one of their lab-things. I watched my family grow old behind bars and bulletproof glass. Eventually, everyone died," she stares out at the sea and he watches as the gulls cry out and the waves beat against the sand, eternal like the both of them. "First Pete of a heart attack, then Mum shortly after of a broken heart—and I understand that, I know somethin' 'bout missin' someone so much you just wanna die—then my brother when he was only twenty-three from an aneurysm, and then his wife and child in a drunk driver accident a few years later. John, he held out the longest. For me, you see. We'd been officially married just before I turned Time Lady or whatever. He visited every day for as long as they'd let him. He was the biggest alien expert, so they let him most of the time unless I was being unruly or whatever, which I guess I often was. Anyway.

"Eventually, after everyone else had died, he helped me escape. We ran around the world for as long as we could, both of us, always runnin'," she says, and he can hear the slight smirk on her face, happy with that memory. "Torchwood was always chasin' us. We eventually used the TARDIS to go through time and space. Got to visit alternate-universe Barcelona, y'know? For the first time. Dogs with no noses. Right laugh, that was. It was good, life was good. I was content. He taught me how to work it—the TARDIS—and everythin', even those days when his sight weren't so good and he couldn't talk real well.

"But he got old. Had to stop runnin', stop walkin', stop everythin'. He was only seventy. He was about twenty-two or so when you dropped him off on the beach with me. About ten years of me being held by force by Torchwood, and then we ran around for about forty years. Then, after he couldn't anymore, we just…traveled. Went to milder planets without war and trouble. And I'll tell you, it was hard not gettin' caught up in stuff like that. He attracted trouble like a magnet, just like you. Funny how some things never change," she says, heartbreak evident in her voice even though she still sounds like her words are being spoken through a machine. He's struck suddenly by the fear that she's just a hologram, but then he remembers that he touched her, which relaxes him a little.

"He died at home, in our TARDIS, just like he wanted. Said it was the proper way to go. He was nearly a hundred when he went. We'd spent about seventy years travelin', maybe more, just him and me, takin' in the sights and sounds and hopin' to the universe we'd get another day with each other. Then we just…didn't. But he didn't die alone, which I'd never wanted—I'd always wanted him to be with someone, especially me if I could help it. No one should ever have to die alone." Her head raises slightly from its bent position and she tightens her hands at her sides into fists, frustrated and sad. "You died alone in your tenth body, I can see it in my head. Just after you said your first and last words to me, you crawled into the TARDIS and you died alone, whispering that you didn't want to go. And I am so sorry," her words are passionate, emotion rising high in her voice, sad and sweet and soft. "No one should ever have to die alone. 'Specially you, Doctor."

He inhales sharply. How does she know all of this?

Her head drops and she sighs, returning to her original subject. "He was happy, smilin' and holdin' my hand and callin' me his sweet, sweet Rose. One last kiss, one last 'I love you' to both of us, and he was just gone, gone from old age and too much love in his one, single, human heart. And I'd never aged a day, both hearts beatin' as strong as ever, and I'd have given him one of them if I could've. It wasn't fair, you know. I shoulda died with him, just like he promised, just like you promised.

"I couldn't stay there. Torchwood was still after me and there was no one there left to live for, so I got the TARDIS to bring me here. And I've already fixed the cracks in the universes, so don't you mind that," she adds in with barely a thought to it. "Hardly took a minute, did it just before I came out here."

"What do you mean? That would take knowledge far beyond your—" he's cut off from his bemused speech.

"Doctor, I had almost eighty years to learn everything," she raises a hand slightly and he's treated to her black-painted nails and a wedding ring on her finger. "I've learned more about the universes and time itself than you could possibly imagine me learnin'. Hell, I didn't understand paradoxes most of the time when I first left you, and look at me now. Fixin' the universes."

"But how did you get the TARDIS copy to bring you here? She would never say yes to it, not at the expense of the universes," he says, desperately trying to understand. Even if Rose and John's TARDIS was just a baby, she'd understand that the universes might be at stake. She'd make it impossible for Rose to travel here.

"I had her bring me. She knew it would all be okay. Nothin' bad's happened, and nothin' bad will happen," Rose says confidently. "I can see it. I can see it all. Past, present, future. Definites, maybes, impossibilities. 'S all in my head. I can see everything...all that is...all that was...all that ever could be. I'm more than just a little girl now, Doctor, more than just a scared, naive teenager always lookin' for a way out of her boring life. I'm a wife, a daughter, a sister, a lover, a fighter. I'm Rose Tyler, defender of the earth. I'm the Valiant Child."

She turns, and he sees her face for the first time. Her face is framed by the sunset burning behind her as it sinks over the calm gray-blue waters, light filtering in like a halo to wrap around her beautiful body as the sun sinks over the ocean. Her hair is caught in the wind, reminding him oddly of the day they first said goodbye on Bad Wolf Bay, all those years and a regeneration ago, as it brushes past her lips. Her lipstick is faint pink and smudged. Her eye makeup is less heavy and lighter, more silvery and softened by time. A tear runs down her cheek, almost unnoticeable due to for the fact that her eyes are drawing all of the attention he has.

Her eyes are glowing gold.

She smiles tearfully and heartbreakingly, and sparks fly from her eyes as one long shining golden tear traces its way down her face almost lovingly, just as he would have stroked her cheek once, a long ways away from now; the way he wants to stroke her now. She breathes in, murmurs the dreaded, achingly beautiful words once again with the backdrop of a sunset behind her, the whirring of his TARDIS like an instrumental to her confession.

"I'm the Bad Wolf."

A/N: And thus the end of Chapter One! Yay! :)

I'm working on the next chapter right now, I hope you liked it. Have a good day!