Hello. As this is my first Doctor Who story, I thought I'd add an Author's Note... So. Voila. I won't bother saying I don't own Doctor Who, blah blah blah because obviously I don't own Doctor Who. Why the hell would I be writing FANFICTION if I owned Doctor Who?

Rose wept as the TARDIS engines roared. The sound was so familiar, but she had never heard them deserting her before. She had heard them taking her away from danger, returning to her, and taking her to adventure. Never leaving her behind like they were now.

She felt tricked. Tricked and betrayed. He left her there, standing on a beach, just as he had before. But then it hadn't been his fault. Now it was. Now, she could blame him. He had stepped into that TARDIS and turned on those engines knowing that it meant he would probably never see her again, unless someone else came along and started to tear down the walls of the universe.

He was so cute when he said that... the walls of the universe... that expression, furrowed eyebrows, pursed lips, wide, dark eyes.

No. She was mad at him.

Before, when he had sent her home in the TARDIS when the Daleks where attacking, before he'd... died, changed, regenerated... all she'd had to do was look into the Time Vortex and tell it where she wanted to go. She had had Mickey and Jackie to help her then. Now, she'd lost Mickey. She still had Mum, but Mum had Dad and Tony to look after.

Plus, she didn't have a TARDIS with a Time Vortex to look into. Not yet anyway. And there, she'd heard it. Just like before, when she'd almost been sucked into the Void, but Dad had saved her.

The faint popping noise of the parallel universe being sealed off.

He was gone, for good this time.

Rose felt a hand in hers. She looked up into the eyes of the Un-Doctor. He stared back. The same face. The same expression. The same memories, the Real Doctor had said. The same memories...

She's asked then what he had been going to say that day, on the beach at Bad Wolf Bay, on that very spot, so long ago. He'd told her. She'd kissed him, the Un-Doctor. The Doctor had left her. But still...

The Un-Doctor- no, Rose told herself, he's all the Doctor I've got left. The Doctor blinked at her.

She kissed him. As she did, she remembered something else the other Doctor had told her: "He needs you." Rose settled into the Doctor's arms and he eagerly wrapped his arms around her. Behind them, Jackie said angrily, "Doctor, or whoever you are, don't you get to bold, that's still my daughter there, even if you aren't all Time Lord!"

"Oi," the Doctor snapped. "Give us a mo', alright?" He paused. "Oh no, I sound like Donna!"

Rose just laughed and threw her arms around him to hug him. "I missed you," she whispered into his chest. "And what did Martha mean, on that camera thing, with the Osterhagen Key, 'You finally found her?' Were you looking for me?" She tried not to sound to hopeful, but she couldn't help the happy squeak in her voice.

"Well, sort of," the Doctor said, squinching up his face and wobbling his head from side to side, in such a familiar motion that Rose almost began to cry again. The Doctor looked at her. "Well, yeah. I was." He wiped a tear away from her cheek.

The Doctor looked at her for a minute. "It's weird having this new body. According to my memories, it's the same feeling as regeneration. New body, new stuff to get used to. But I have the memories of being in this body, I know what it feels like. But it's different getting used to a body and remembering getting used to the body. It's like you humans learning to drive out of a book and then taking your exams! Silly humans, brilliant, but silly-"

He broke off and his mouth opened and closed. "No, wait, no... NO! AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! I'm part human! EUGH! Disgusting! I'm one of you little- YEUCH!" He did a little dance, shaking his hands and jumping on one foot, shaking the other. Rose had to laugh. "Oh, Doctor!" she cried, taking his hand. "You're sort of the same..."

"Only sort of," the Doctor said. "Only a bit." He looked at her seriously. "I can remember how he-I-he was when you-we-aaaaah- first met. And I can remember how much you changed and helped me-him-ugh. I give up. But I do need you, Rose. And maybe once this little TARDIS seed grows, we can have adventures together and we can help each other and the rest of the world too, just like we used to."

"Yeah," said Rose, feeling truly happy for the first time since... since she hugged the Doctor after he regenerated back into himself. Before that, when she saw him down the street before the Dalek shot him, running towards her with that smile on his face. "I like the sound of that."

Hand in hand, Rose and the Doctor walked down the beach, following Jackie's tracks, towards the figure in the distance talking on the mobile phone, stalking off to the main road.

Behind them, the prints in the sand from the TARDIS were slowly fading away, sinking into the flat surface of plain wet sand.