Rose sat on the roof of the block of flats, her legs pulled up under her chin and her hair blowing across her face. She had been sat up here waiting for him again. All she ever seemed to do was sit and wait. It was something she'd become used to, yet at the same time never would. When she'd used to wait up here, he'd always turned up. He'd always been there. First with a dark face, strained with the pain of pretending his world hadn't burnt along with his people; then later, a bright smile as he bounded like an excitable puppy to tell her what he'd seen, and where he would take her.

But now, it wasn't going to happen. She'd grown used to living here now. In this London that was Pete's London, but that would never be her London. Would never be the Doctor's London.

Now she understood what the Doctor meant when he said he lost everyone he ever loved. She was, as far as she was concerned, alone now.

The only person she'd ever loved was the Doctor. Her fallen angel. She'd needed him, and he'd been there when she needed him. He'd always held her hand tightly when the danger rose up. Even when they'd stood facing Davros. But then something had shifted in their relationship. She had been the one holding his hand, holding him together. She'd been the one saving his life that day, not the other way round. It was then that she fully realised just how much she loved him; how much she needed him to be there in her life.

He was far from the perfect man she knew that, but she also knew she didn't want perfect. That was one problem with the Doctor that he'd given her. The Doctor with the single heart and a human life, with only a robotic memory of what they'd been through before. Oh, he knew everything. He knew about the phone call she made on Satellite 5 as she watched the earth die, and he knew about the conversation on the beach, after she'd been sucked into the void. But what he didn't know was how she felt. Didn't know the way the Doctor had felt her eyes bearing into his back, his struggling not to blush as she walked towards him. It was the small things.

The Doctor-Donna wasn't her Doctor. He was an imitation. They'd tried to make it work; they really had. But he knew she was yearning for the Doctor, and she couldn't lie to him. When he asked her, she had told him the truth. He'd nodded sadly, and for that briefest of seconds she'd seen her Doctor withdrawing himself, accepting the inevitable and she'd wanted to stop him…to reach out, and pull him to her. To tell him she did love him, or that she'd at least try.

But she hadn't.

She closed her eyes as a tear trickled down her face, quickly followed by another. This was her world falling apart.

Rose.

Even now, when she closed her eyes, she could hear his voice calling softly to her, willing her to hear him. She looked at her hands sadly, and felt the way his touch used to linger upon them, even after they'd escaped the danger.

Rose.

She felt her body begin to shake. She didn't want to hear his voice if she couldn't see him. She didn't want to feel her heart speed up and her breath quicken at his voice. She didn't want to feel any of it.

"Rose! Look at me!"

Rose snapped her head up sharply. The voice this time was real, and she saw a man in a suit with braces standing in front of her. He patted the fez atop his head and grinned sheepishly.

"So I'm not the Doctor you were expecting, BUT I am the Doctor so that means you were wanting to see me!" He smiled, pulling the fez off and running a hand through his hair, "Or not?"

Rose stood up slowly, looking at the man before her. She knew about the regenerations, she knew all of this, but she felt somehow out of time. She'd never been older than the Doctor before, and this is how she felt she looked. She raised a hand hesitatingly as though reaching to touch his cheek, but she let the hand fall back to her side.

"You're you." She said flatly.

The Doctor looked down at himself.

"Well, yes, I would hope so. Don't fancy being anyone else again. Isn't fun. Believe me, of all the people you don't want to be, Lord Byron isn't one you'd normally think of, but still! I am me." He smiled again.

Rose nodded slowly.

"Rose…you were always…you are always…" the Doctor began, but Rose cut him off by placing a finger gently on his lips.

"Tell me what's happened since we last… Tell me where you've been?" Rose asked softly, "Do you travel with someone? Does she make sure you stop?" Rose hadn't realised she was crying until the Doctor reached and brushed the tear away from her face.

"Rose, so much has happened and nothing at all. It's…wibbly-wobbly." The Doctor smiled.

Rose looked carefully at the Doctor then, and knew that just as the bubbly happy man hadn't started as her Doctor, this eccentric Professor-like man wasn't her Doctor either. But he would be. She could see in his eyes that he had the same memories as she did, as her Doctor did. He may not always be hers, he may find other women to travel with, but she was always his.

She would always be his Rose.