A/N: Yeah, I know. I know. Starting a new one when I have others on the go... But this one has been kicking at me for a few weeks, and I can't seem to concentrate on anything else right now.

So, that said, time will be spent between this one and Journey for the next couple of weeks or so.

I know that Rose seems to be flip-flopping a little here with her feelings toward old Tentoo and his full Time Lord self, but love is a crazy fool... it does make you a little skewed and uneven from time to time when things don't quite happen along the path you wish it'd take.

Anyhow. I hope that it begins well enough to attract a reader or two or three or more...

I hope you enjoy!

~~~oooOOOooo~~~

It wasn't until the wind had died down and the last cries of the TARDIS vanished through the crack between the dimensional walls that Rose Tyler twisted her head to her left and looked into the eyes of the Meta Crisis version of the Doctor. Within the brown of his eyes she could see the questions that swirled inside his mind. She could feel, and even taste, the questions his mind was screaming. He was scared. He was lost. For all of his confidence, this half human/half Time Lord man had no clue of where he – they – were going to go from here.

There was slight movement in his fingers as he shifted his hand to clutch a little tighter at hers. There was sweat in his palm, and sweaty palms was something Rose had never felt in a hand hold with the Doctor before…

…It was strange, and she had to fight the compulsion to tear her hand from his with shock.

"I love you Rose."

Rose turned on her heel to first face the Doctor, and then to look back at her mother. Her face creased at the pain she could see in Jackie's face, and she found the excuse she needed to separate from this familiar, and yet strange man who stood at her side.

"Oh, Mum," she cooed as she closed the distance between them to snatch her into her arms. "I love you, too."

Jackie inhaled deeply with a wet sniff. She made an obvious attempt to compose herself and managed a smile as she cupped her daughter's face. "You take care of you and himself, madam. Do you hear me?"

Rose let a tear dribble along the same tracks that her previous tears had taken and nodded shortly. "I will."

"Promise me, Rose," Jackie demanded with urgent sadness. "Promise me you'll take care. Promise me you'll be alright."

"I promise, Mum."

Jackie kept her hands on her daughter's face and looked over Rose's shoulder toward the Doctor on the beach only feet away from them. "You take care of my little girl, Doctor. I'm leavin' her in your hands now, and I expect you to keep your promise to me."

The Doctor offered a thoroughly perplexed expression, but he nodded. "On my TARDIS," he vowed firmly before his face twisted up in pain. "Well. Not that I have a TARDIS to swear on anymore, but the sentiment is the same, of course."

Rose took a step back from her mother and gave her a weak smile. "I guess we should go now."

"Good idea," the Doctor called out with a forced chirp in his tone. "Much rather not have to stand out here all day. Not a very happy place this Darlig ulv Stranden. Too dark and dreary if you ask me." He inhaled deeply and spoke in a strangled tone as though trying to hold his breath and speak at the same time. "I'm sure there're plenty of nice places for us to visit in this dimension…"

Rose kissed her mother on the cheek and smiled weakly as she pulled away from her. She turned toward the Doctor and took tentative steps toward him. "I'm very sure there are plenty," she agreed with a small voice.

HE watched her approach and offered her a weak smile of his own. There was a spark of hope and of adoration in his gaze when she finally stood face to face with him. "Then I hope you don't mind playing tour guide and showing me everything this parallel world has to offer."

Rose shook her head lightly and dropped her gaze to watch herself take both of his hands inside hers. She inhaled deeply and then looked back up at him. "Do you trust me, Doctor?"

He swallowed so thickly that his voice croaked out of him. "With my life."

"Will you find me like a blind old fool like I did with you back in London?"

He hesitated slightly before he answered, and when the words came, they sounded confused. "Yes. Yes, of course. To the end of the universe and back. Well, maybe not the universe, unless you have a TARDIS or a craft capable of traveling to the end of the universe. But certainly anywhere on this Earth that you'd like to go."

Rose didn't seem entirely thrilled by his answer, but she offered him a weak smile and thread her arms up around his neck.

"Then Hold me, Doctor."

"Yeah," he stumbled out. "Of course."

Rose looked toward her mother and sniffed wetly. "Love you, Mum."

"Love you too, Sweetheart,"

Before he could begin to wonder why mother and daughter seemed to be speaking to each other with such devastation, the Doctor felt the grip of another universe encircle them both. He yelped out in protest as he instinctively held at Rose's shuddering body a little tighter against him to try and protect her against what was to come. But, he was in no way prepared for the brilliant blinding white light and of the constricting suffocation of passing through the void without protection. He felt close to blacking out as the void tried to separate them and held his vice-like grip around her waist.

He tried to offer assurance that they'd make it through okay, but he couldn't say it with honestly. He felt as though he would pass out and die from the pressure that surrounded them.

And in a pop, the void released. The rushing winds of the void shifted to the song of birds and the bustle of London. The brilliant blinding light muted to the afternoon rays of the sleepy sun moving west. The Doctor gasped, and then he blinked against the glinting sunlight. He flexed his fingers and realised that Rose Tyler was no longer in his embrace. His eyes flashed open and the looked hurriedly around in search of her.

"Rose!"

"I'm here," she answered softly, with distraction marring her words.

When he looked to her, she wasn't looking back at him, instead she had her eyes on the face of a cellphone and was scrolling her finger along the screen with practiced movements. "Are … Are you okay?"

She didn't look up. "Yeah. Fine. Used to it by now," she answered with a sigh. When he spoke her name through a worried whisper, she finally lifted her head to regard him properly. She plastered a smile on her face. "I'd like to tell you that you'd get used to bein' blinded and suffocated by the void, but that'll be your only trip through it. No point."

His brows pinched together tightly. "I don't understand."

She huffed hard through her nose and pulled a disk from inside her trouser pocket. Her expression was unapologetic, and perhaps even slightly aggrieved as she let it fall to the bitumen and then crushed it with the heel of her boot. "One-way trip, that was," she stated firmly. "No goin' back now – no matter what he wants."

Realisation dawned, and the half Time Lord slouched backward and let his jaw fall slack. "Oh. I see. Back in Prime and ready to hunt down my father."

Rose's brow flicked curiously. "Father?"

He thrust his hands into his pockets and scrunched up his nose with disgust. "I grew out of his severed hand, what else do I call him."

She rolled her eyes and chuckled under her breath. "Oh," she breathed out. "I can certainly think of a few things."

"Right," he said with disappointment. "So what's the plan, then? Got your superphone with you, I'm sure if you give him a call, the Doctor will materialise in an instant and take you back out across all time and space. The Doctor and Rose Tyler, as it should be."

He didn't register her dark look of annoyance, preferring not to look at her at all if it was to be helped, and instead kept on with his train of thought. "Well go on, then. Give the Time Lord a call…" He stopped when he heard a derisive snort. He looked toward her and nearly gasped at the furious expression on her face. A few different queries ran through his mind, but he voiced the only one that didn't show that he was actually really discomforted by this sudden turn of events. "Well? Go on. Call him."

Rose's eyes rolled and her head shook as she let out a breath and headed toward the road. She lifted her fingers to her mouth and expelled possibly the loudest whistle he'd ever heard in his ten incarnations of existence. The shrill sound actually made him jump and then shudder with shock.

A sleek black cab quickly pulled into the side of the road. Rose opened the door and slid inside. The Doctor watched with an expression of abandonment when her hand reached out to the door handle. Instead of closing the door, however, Rose leaned out to look at him.

"Well?" she called out impatiently. "Are you coming?"

He didn't need to be asked again. At her question, and the invitation he could hear inside her voice, the Doctor immediately moved his feet to bound toward the cab. He shuffled in beside her and gave her a smile of relief as he closed the door beside him.

"So where to?" he asked at the same moment the cab driver did.

"2132 Aurelian Place," she called out to the cabbie. "And please, take the short cut if you will."

The cab driver whined a little. "Well, love. I don't know that there is a short cut…"

"There's an extra fifty quid in it for you if you do."

The driver chuckled. "2132 Aurelian Place," he chirped out. "The straight through route. Do hold on."

Rose flopped back heavily into the grey leather seat and let out a long breath as the car took off from the curb. She rolled her shoulders and let out a moan that sounded as much pained as it did exhausted. The Doctor very quickly let his hand find hers. He squeezed her hand to offer his sympathies and assurance.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Rose?" He waited until she slid her eyes to him and squeezed her hand a little tighter. "I'll help you find him, but the Doctor-"

"Is out of my life," she interrupted harshly. "Forever."

The vehemence in her voice actually skipped his heart with shock. "You sound so sure of that."

She leaned back heavier into her seat. "He is never to find out that I've returned to this parallel," she stated firmly. She passed him a determined glare. "So don't you dare make any attempts at all to contact him on my behalf. Reach out to him if you want to for your own means, but I won't speak to him."

He cleared his throat with obvious discomfort and actual offence on behalf of the Time Lord who loved her. "That… Well, that sounds very determined and quite honestly final."

"It is," she replied stiffly as her eyes shifted to the window. Her voice quietened to almost inaudible. "He's made it clear enough that he's moved on, so now it's my turn."

"That's not true, and you know it," he defended on a low voice. "You don't know what he sacrificed on that beach.."

"And he's never going to know what I sacrificed for him," she finished gruffly.

"Your family," he stated surely. "You gave them up to go back to him."

She shook her head. "No. I didn't. I didn't return here for him."

"Then can I ask why you returned to this parallel?" One side of his lip turned up in a rueful smile when she snapped a furious glare at him. "I know you, Rose. I know how much you love your mother. For what other reason than for the Doctor would you possibly come back here knowing that you'll never see your own mother ever again?"

The car stopped, and Rose roughly tugged her hand from his. She offered him a darkened glare as she clumsily dug into her jacket pocket for some cash. "No," she growled in reply. "You can't ask, and I'm certainly not going to answer you if you try."

She tossed her money into the front seat, offered a hurried thank you to the driver and quickly climbed out of the car. Once again, she queried whether or not the Doctor was willing to follow her before she slammed the door shut.

Helpless and confused, the Doctor climbed out of the car and followed behind her. He slid his hands into his pockets and tried to think of something – anything – to say that might take this moment from hostile to at least amenable. .

"How about we get something to eat and then have a sleep. Tomorrow, maybe this will all make sense…"

She cut him off with a laugh as she crossed the street and walked up a cobble-stoned walkway toward a large cottage-style home surrounded by cedar hedges. "I don't know if you understand this, Doctor, but nothing about you – nor the Time Lord you – ever make any sense." She pulled a chain with a pair of keys from underneath her shirt and hooped that chain off over her head. "Mental. Everything about you is absolutely mental."

His brow flicked high, and he had to smile at the jovial way in which she made that comment. He felt the tiniest glimmer of hope that her apparent hostility toward his Time Lord self would remain directed only at his Time Lord self. He dared bump at her shoulder with his and chuckled.

"Oh, but that just makes it all the more exciting, doesn't it?"

She stopped for a moment and inhaled a deep breath. She shook her head and strode to the front door of the house, easily sliding her key into the lock. "More confusing and frustrating than exciting, Doctor." She opened the door and stepped across the threshold, not looking back at him when she continued to speak. "You truly don't understand just how much being with you can change a person, do you?"

He thrust his hands deeply into his trouser pockets and slumped as he followed behind, and then passed by her into the house. His voice was deep and quiet, perhaps slightly petulant. "I think I have quite a good idea about that, actually."

Rose chuckled to herself as she closed the door behind him to shut them away from the outside world. She walked past him to lead him toward the living room. "No. You really don't."

He lifted his eyes to hers and offered her a look of challenge. "I'm fully aware of how my actions and way of life affect my companions, Rose."

She laughed. Her face was an expression of total and utter mirth at his statement. 'How?" she asked after a breath. '"You never stick around to find out. Never mind go back and check on how they're doing."

"Is this about Sarah-Jane," he asked flatly.

Rose shook her head. "No, Doctor. It's about more than just Sarah-Jane." She walked past him toward the kitchen.

He was quick to follow. "I've been back, you know, to visit and see how she's doing."

"How kind of you," Rose said in a far more genuine tone of voice than the intention of her words. "She's a good woman, Doctor. She deserved better than that."

"It hurt me to lose her," he growled. "It hurts me to lose them all. Do you have any idea how it feels to lose everyone you care about? How it feels to watch them age, whither, and then die, while you live on?"

She muttered something under her breath that he didn't quite decipher, but he heard the tone of utter devastation. It made him pause. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

She inhaled deep and held that breath a moment as though to compose herself, and then exhaled roughly. "I said," she answered with false confidence, "that you might want to come up with a new catch phrase. Curse of the Time Lords doesn't exactly apply to you anymore, does it?"

"Until now it always had," he defended with a sneer. "And that's a fear that's going to be very hard to overcome."

She nodded knowingly and closed her lashes over reddened eyes. "I imagine so," she breathed sadly. "Which means that you should probably come with me." She inhaled a shaking breath. "There's someone you need to meet."

He eyed her hand suspiciously as she extended it toward him in invitation to take it inside his own. His eyes flicked up to hers, full of question and apprehension. "Meet who?"

She snatched his hand in hers and tugged him toward a white door at the side of the kitchen. "Someone who misses her Doctor very, very much."

She stood at the door a moment and pressed her palm against the painted wood as though trying to convince herself to open it up and let him in. Her fingertips tapped lightly against the lacquer, and then finally dropped to take the door handle in hand. She twisted the knob and pushed open the door. "She was near death when I found her. She was ready to give it all to save your life, but I wouldn't let her die. I couldn't let her die."

The Doctor seemed quite perplexed as he watched her flick on the light and hesitate before leading him down the steps into the basement. "Who?"

Rose sniffed. "Your best friend," she answered softly, yet with a reverent smile on her face as she looked up into his own puzzled expression.

"But, but that's you," he answered quickly. He then blinked and smiled a reverent smile of his own. "And Donna. Martha. Romana. Oh, so many of you. I don't know that I could really put any of you above the other. Well. Maybe you, but my feelings for you quite obviously extend beyond mere friendship."

"You mean that you don't whisper I love you in all of their ears?"

He heard sadness and not teasing in her tone, and shook his head. "No, Rose. Only you."

"I wish I could believe you," she whispered softly.

He stopped her descent down the stairs by lightly grabbing at her upper arm. "Why can't you believe it, Rose?"

She snorted in a laugh of incredulity toward his question. "How can I, Doctor, when you've done everything you can to push me away and prove to me that you don't?"

He followed her to the end of the stairs, wanting her to touch safe and solid ground before speaking again. When they both touched the floor, he cupped her arms in his hands and turned her around to face him. He dipped his head to make sure she was looking into his eyes, and gasped at the pain he saw inside them.

"Rose Tyler," he breathed out through a forced smile. "That all ends now. It's you and me from here on out. Rose Tyler, the Doctor, living the slow life together. No TARDIS, no alien threats to chase off, no time nor space travel to distract us." He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. "I've offered to spend this one life I've got left with you; to grow old together at the same time. Mortgages, carpets, windows and doors."

She sniffed wetly.

He continued. "Marriage and children - if you want." He sniffed and lifted his eyes to contemplate that a moment. "In time," he amended, "of course. I mean, we need to get to know each other a bit better again. It's been quite a while since we've seen each other last, and I expect that it might take some time to come to terms with each other's new nuances…"

"Doctor…"

He gave her a wide smile, happy at the crack in her voice thinking that she was coming around, and that they just might be able to work through all of this and start anew. "Yes, Rose?"

She swallowed thickly. "Before you make me any promises made because you've been cast out and forced to live yourself a life on the slow path…"

"That's not the reason I'm making this promise," he vowed. "I've wanted this—" his words were cut when she pressed her finger against his lip to shut him up.

"Don't," she growled warningly. "You saying that makes a fool out of us both, Doctor. Given the first opportunity, you'd run again." She snatched her finger away from his mouth. "It's your M.O."

"That's cruel," he replied with affront.

"Yes," she agreed. "Cruel most definitely."

"I think you're misinterpreting just who is the victim of the cruelty, Rose."

She looked down her shoulder and lifted her hand to point in toward the darkness. "Perhaps. Or perhaps I just know you too well."

"I don't entirely think that you do, Rose."

She looked up at him with a smile. "Before you make any grandiose declarations and promises of complete and utter devotion, or challenge just how much you think I know you," she said on a whispered voice. She sniffed. "Before you truly believe you've lost your ability to pick up and travel throughout all time and space like you always have…" She flicked on another light and looked toward a blue box seated toward the back of the basement.

The Doctor immediately rushed around her to lay his hands on the wooden door of his beloved blue Time ship. "My … My TARDIS," he exclaimed with surprise. Thrill and excitement filled his features, and the boy within the Time Lord rose once again to the surface. He kissed the door and hugged at the box. "It's only been a couple of hours, but oh, my old girl, I've missed you!" His voice became an excited growl. "Two hours without you! Two hours to think of all the planets I haven't been to yet! Oh! Oh, I have so many plans for where we go to next!"

His smile was broad and his excitement palpable as he spun toward Rose to regale her with promises of where and when they were going to go next, but all he found was an empty space.

"Rose?"

There was no way at all that Rose could have vanished through thin air, so he looked around the room, and then toward the stairs, where he managed to catch her on an upward climb toward the upper floor.

"Rose?"

She looked down at him and blew him a friendly, and final kiss. "Good bye, Doctor."

He pointed toward the TARDIS with both hands. "But. But don't you want to come?"

She shook her head. "No, Doctor." A smile stretched across her face. "But you go. Have your fun swannin' about up there and getting into mischief."

"Alone?"

"Nah," she sang as she jutted her chin toward the blue ship. "You've got the TARDIS. Get out there, both of you. Do what you do best. Don't worry about me. I'm okay. Got a life to lead, and all that. Defender of the Earth or something."

"But…"

"Go, Doctor," she said with a more forceful tone in her voice. "Please. I'd rather you leave now, than later when your feet become too itchy to stay." She sniffed and lifted her chin to feign a well held composure. "I'm going to step out for a bit. Please don't be here when I get back."