They say Be careful what you wish for, but the Doctor never was very good at listening to what They say.

Lying alone in the library—yes, alone, even after everything, of course, how could he have ever imagined it would be any different?—the Doctor stares up at the ceiling, his hands folded over his stomach. His legs dangle inelegantly over the edge of the settee, bare feet slumped onto the floor. Probably he should crawl onto the settee properly, try to catch a wink or two; after all, it's been a year since the last time he had a real night's sleep, let alone a good meal, or a comfortable place to sit, or a quiet moment to himself, and his body is still crying out for all of these things.

(It's crying out for touch, too, but he doesn't want to think about that.)

Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true.

He closes his eyes and tries not to count the seconds as they tick by.

Home is where the heart is. The words stared up at him from the front of a greeting card, twinkling obnoxiously in a swirl of sparkling yellow and sugar-pink. The Doctor wrinkled his nose in disgust. He knew the phrase isn't meant to be taken literally, he knew this—it's just an aphorism, an adage, an apothegm—but he still couldn't help envisioning a chest hollowed-out to make room for a little house inside. (Oh, but that's rather a nasty picture, isn't it?) But then again, he thought with a sigh, that's just the nature of sayings and clichés—no place like home, two birds with one stone, you are what you eat. You can't take it too literally, or no two locations can look alike, people are killing birds left and right, and everyone's a cannibal. Hardly a fitting state for a Time Lord.

At any rate, the more time wore on, the more the Doctor internally (and sometimes externally) rolled his eyes any time any such phrase was uttered in his presence. Something about their knowing-winks and saccharine-sweetness set his teeth on edge worse than any cavity ever could. He couldn't help but wonder what was the point of them. Their meaning hides deeper than the skin, he knew, but why say one thing if you really mean something else?

He shrugged, fully aware that the gesture was for his benefit and his alone. It wasn't like he had an audience, and no, the bored security clerk behind the counter did not count, as he was both a) too far away and b) too immersed in his copy-of-Playboy-hiding-behind-a-History-Today to care. A bell ringing at the front of the store let the Doctor know that someone else joined them in this empty place, but the clerk didn't look up, didn't say hello. Neither did the Doctor.

Tucking the greeting card back in its place, the Doctor wandered along the aisle, eyes gliding lazily over its wares. Greeting cards gave way to cards plastered with happy birthdays, congratulations, early Christmas wishes, sympathy for a recent loss. The Doctor quickly moved on from that section and immersed himself in a spinning rack of travel brochures instead. He picked one at random and flipped through it, resisting the urge to double-check the clock on the wall. His time sense was far more accurate than the clock could ever hope to be, and right now, it told him that only thirteen minutes and 54 seconds (55 now, 56) had passed since the TARDIS quit on him, only seventeen minutes since Martha walked out the TARDIS doors after a second goodbye.

He could have stayed in the TARDIS, of course; the problem was nothing more than the circadian rhythms re-establishing themselves after a year of inactivity, and soon enough, the cycle would finish recharging all on its own. But the idea of staying still for that long made his hands itch. Better to keep moving, even if it was just to explore the local Tesco. Anything was better than just sitting, feeling each and every second of this godforsaken endless life trickle upward like a reverse hourglass.

Something shifted softly behind him, and in the corner of his periphery, the Doctor caught a hint of pink. His nose picked up on the subtle scent of strawberries, or a synthetic acetate designed to smell like strawberries, anyway; probably it was someone's shampoo. Someone standing behind him. Someone standing a little close behind him, actually. Someone standing so close they could practically be looking over his shoulder. The Doctor had half a mind to turn around and ask them if they would like a lecture on the concept of personal space, but decided against it; with his propensity for holding hands and issuing hugs, it wasn't like he had room to talk, is it? Pun intended, he thought with a smirk.

He slipped the travel brochure back in its slot and plucked up another. This one boasted a city on its front, a colorful coastal town splashed in bright corals and sunset-oranges and soft whites and jade-greens, sitting pretty against a gorgeous blue sea and sky. It painted quite the picturesque scene. He did not think about how she would have liked to see it—either the city or the planet by the same name—or how he would have liked to see her see it.

The Doctor had just opened the brochure when a voice piped up behind him.

"Finally gonna take that trip to Barcelona, huh?"

The Doctor froze.

That voice.

He knew that voice.

He didn't turn to look; he couldn't. All of the oxygen left his lungs, vacated the room, disappeared from the planet, leaving him lightheaded and breathless. His body refused to move. His feet had grown roots and they were sinking deep, deep into the earth and he would never leave this spot again, not for the rest of his ridiculously long life, never ever.

(So many years, so many glimpses of bottle-blonde hair in the crowd, so many sunny smiles and bubbly laughs and faint whiffs of something sweet and almost-her; god, if he turned to see anyone else, if this was his still-recovering mind playing the universe's bitterest trick on him, his stupid hearts were going to choke and convulse and just quit, they really would.)

"Got room for one more?" the voice asked, her voice asked, and finally he turned.

Rose looked up at him, a shy grin slowly blooming over her face. "Hello," she said breathlessly.

The Doctor was distantly aware that his mouth was gaping open like a fish, and that he didn't care. He just looked at her, just drank her in, everything from her bright-shining eyes to her tee shirt to her trainers and back up to her face again, to her cheeks blushing beneath his gaze, her tongue poking out between her teeth exactly the way it used to, exactly the way he remembered.

She didn't look him over. Her eyes stayed locked on his.

You have to see it to believe it, so they say, but the Doctor, of all people, knew this isn't always true. It wasn't true a year ago, and it certainly wasn't true right now.

Rose's smile faltered just a little bit. "Doctor…?"

The Doctor cut her off by wrapping his arms around her. Drawing Rose in tight for a bone-cracking hug, he knew he was probably squeezing the breath out of her, but she didn't seem to mind; her arms wound around him just as snugly—snugger, even. Her hands fisted in his coat and she buried her face in his neck and suddenly his collar was sticking to his throat, damp from Rose's tears; something swelled almost uncomfortably in his chest, expanding his ribcage until it could burst from the pressure.

She was solid, she was warm, she was real, she was here.

A peal of hysterical laughter burst out of the Doctor and he pressed a kiss to the top of Rose's head, oblivious to the little blonde hairs that tickled his nose. "Rose," he breathed, his voice muffled against her hair as he kissed her again, planting a trail from the top of her scalp to her forehead, her ear, her jaw. "I never thought—if I'd known—I would have found a way, Rose, I—"

He halted, short of breath and words, and remembered what he promised himself, what he swore he would do if given the chance. His hearts hammered painfully at the thought and he pressed his face into her hair, eyes cinched shut as he just drank her in.

"I love you," he said quietly. "I love you, I really do, I'm so sorry I didn't say it sooner—"

But she shook her head and she stepped back and out of his arms (bad) but then moved closer again (good) and her fingers wrapped around his jacket-lapels (interesting) and she pulled him down until his lips met hers (very good).

(Very, very good.)

It was a closed kiss and altogether too short for the Doctor's liking, but it was still enough to send his head spinning, the softness of her mouth, the way she pulled her body flush with his, the little whimper that rose in her throat. She tasted of tears and morning tea and strawberries—lipgloss, that's what he smelled, not shampoo after all—and when she pulled back far too soon, gasping for breath, the Doctor could only think he must have the world's stupidest, most dazed look on his face because suddenly she was laughing.

"Sorry," Rose said, biting her lip. "But I've been thinking about that for ages."

Drunk on shock and happiness so overwhelming it could suffocate him, the Doctor couldn't quite find the words to reply, not yet. He reached out instead, cupping her face in one palm, assuring himself one last time that she was really there, proving it through fingertips and touch. A last wayward tear rolled down her cheek and the Doctor smeared it away with his thumb. The gesture felt almost unbearably tender, impossibly sweet, but the way she smiled up at him was worth it.

"Oh, Rose Tyler," he murmured. "Me too."

She laughed again, equal parts joy and relief, the Doctor imagined, and it just might have been the best sound he'd ever heard in all of his nine hundred long years so he thanked her with another kiss. And he didn't mean for it to become a messy and frantic thing, he really didn't, but before he knew it, their lips parted and he was drawing the air from her mouth into his, and their tongues brushed against each other, first just a glance, then something intentional, something slick with purpose and promise and oh holy hell, he was snogging Rose, he was snogging Rose Tyler, he was really properly snogging her in the middle of a bloody deserted Tesco.

Euphoria bubbled up in the Doctor's gut and he couldn't take it anymore, his body an inadequate vessel for a feeling so grand. Rose let out a squeal as he wrapped his arms round her waist and lifted her bodily off the ground, swinging her round and round in time to the wild dizziness in his head; she clung to him and laughed breathlessly against his neck as he spun, and all the Doctor could think is that if being trapped in a dying body with a madman on a doomed ship contributed in any way to him being right here, right now, with her, then he would gladly take it. Hell, he would happily just live in this exact moment forever, if he could.

At least, he thought that until Rose's foot caught the rack of travel brochures and knocked the entire thing over, spilling literature everywhere and eliciting a series of angry shouts from the security clerk. The Doctor set Rose down, preparing to apologize profusely to the man, but he stopped at the feeling of Rose's fingers wrapped around his.

He looked down. She held his hand—just grabbed it like it was just another day, like their fingers belonged together, like no time had passed at all.

Rose grinned up at him.

"Run!"

She pulled his hand and he followed, both of them laughing like children, running out just in time to dodge the History of Today being hurled at their heads.

They say Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

That one, the Doctor thinks, is definitely true.

A funny thing about Rose Tyler, the Doctor remembered from her days aboard the TARDIS, is how when he started touching her, it seemed almost impossible for him to stop. He was not at all surprised to learn that it was exactly the same way now, hands that didn't want to untangle, palms that didn't want to part, arms that didn't want to untwine, thighs that wanted to stay pressed together like books on a tightly packed library shelf. She was intoxicating, the smell and the feel and the sound of her, all snuggled up against him on the TARDIS jumpseat; she was still his very favorite drug.

"How did you make it back, anyway?" the Doctor asked, after the two of them had settled down a bit. They had already wandered all around the ship, laughing and running (and talking and maybe just a little bit of snogging, just the smallest bit, just because it was new and brilliant and they could). The Doctor watched as Rose touched and felt and looked over everything, unable to remove the stupid grin from his face, even if he wanted to. He silently thanked every god that might possibly exist, even a few that definitely don't just in case.

Now, the TARDIS hummed happily all around them, her light shining just a little yellower than before, just a little brighter, like the Doctor's happiness manifested.

Rose softened. "Not really sure, actually. I was there, working on a project at Torchwood, and then all of a sudden, I was here. Sort of feels a little too good to be true, doesn't it?"

"It does, just a bit."

Leaning forward, Rose pressed a kiss to his mouth and oh, that's something he could quickly get used to, the regular, so-casual slide of her lips against his.

He cleared his throat as heat blossomed through his cheeks and the tips of his ears. "Far, far too good to be true."

Smiling, Rose sat back, and already the Doctor missed her, even with just these few inches of space between them. Good grief, but he was getting needy and sentimental in his old age.

"I'm sorry I didn't find my way back sooner," Rose said softly.

The Doctor laughed in disbelief. "Rose, you managed the impossible. I mean it. Whatever happened was literally impossible. You've got nothing to apologize for—it's a miracle that you made it back here at all."

"Thought you didn't believe in things like miracles," Rose teased.

"Well, I do when it comes to you."

Rose's eyebrows shot up in surprise, and the Doctor realized how hopelessly cheesy that sounded. "That is," he stammered, tugging on one ear, and his cheeks grew hotter, and curse his traitorous body, "I mean—scientifically speaking—"

"You're such a dreadful flirt," Rose laughed. "God, I'd almost forgotten how terrible you are!"

"Wait, so I'm a dreadful flirt, or am I terrible at flirting?"

Rose nodded. "Yep."

"Did you really cross entire dimensions just to poke fun at me?"

"Yep."

"Charming," said the Doctor with a grin. "But turnabout's fair play, you know. And I've had a good year or two to come up with some prime insults, myself."

Shrugging, Rose stood up from the jumpseat. "Well, that sounds like my cue to go—"

Before she could step away any further, the Doctor grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her back toward him. This was just a game, he knew; would have known even if the mischievous glint in her eyes or her tongue peeking out between her teeth hadn't given her away. But he still didn't want her to walk off, didn't want her to be out of arm's reach, even as a joke. Not yet. Not until he was completely certain she would still be there the next time he blinked.

Although to be fair, he only expected her to stop, maybe sit back down—how was he supposed to anticipate that she would turn around and swing a leg over his lap?

He scrubs his hands over his eyes. Since he collapsed on the settee, three full hours have passed—three hours, eleven minutes, forty-eight seconds, and counting—and sleep still eludes him. He's not an expert in such things (well, he is, actually, an expert in theory if not in practice), but he's fairly certain that sleep generally shouldn't take this long to arrive. None of his human companions ever seemed to struggle with it. All Martha needed was a cup of tea and a warm blanket. Jack typically fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. And Rose…

His hearts clench painfully in his chest. Why, why do all of his thoughts seem hellbent on returning to her? Why can't he think of anything else?

This too shall pass.

(That's what They say. But They, the Doctor thinks, are a bunch of liars.)

"Ah," he said, eyes wide as she straddled his lap.

Rose bit her lip, suddenly nervous. "This okay?"

The Doctor laughed weakly. "It just isn't doing anything to allay the too-good-to-be-true theory."

Rose fell silent, thoughtful. Sitting back on his knees, she looked him over, and he watched as she charted the territory of him, cataloging the topography of his hair, the contours of his face, the plains of his chest on down. The Doctor struggled not to fidget or blush under her scrutiny, to ignore the warmth of her on his thighs. He forced his gaze to stay locked on hers.

"You're so different, now," Rose murmured.

The Doctor shook his head and absolutely did not think of anything that happened aboard the Valiant. "Not so different."

"You are, though." Rose extended a hand toward his hair, hesitantly at first—as if this were somehow the final intimacy frontier, as if she wasn't bracketing his thighs with hers—but eventually she surged forward, fingers combing through. Her fingertips glanced against his scalp, leaving warm and tingling trails in their wake, washing over him in waves. He fought the urge to let his eyes fall closed, to lean into her touch. (But if his eyes fluttered just a bit—well, he was hardly to blame.)

"Hair feels about the same," Rose said. Her fingers wandered down, slipping to the side of his face. "'S shorter, though. And I think you've got more sideburn, if that's possible."

The Doctor chuckled. "Oh, it's possible. You should have seen them a few regenerations ago."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, paired them with a cape and everything."

Laughing, Rose trailed her fingers down his cheek, to his jaw. "A cape? Care to elaborate?"

"Absolutely not."

She scoffed, but she still smiled at him. "Spoilsport."

Rose's thumb ran along his jawline, paused at his chin. "Still no stubble," she said thoughtfully. "But I guess that's the same as before."

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, some quip ready and prepared at the tip of his tongue, but as Rose's hand slid down a bit further, coming to rest at his pulsepoint just below his jaw, the well of his words suddenly ran dry. He hoped she didn't notice how his heartsrate sped up at her touch, how it bleated and hammered against her fingers. Wordlessly, Rose shifted her hand down the Doctor's chest, pressing just beneath his sternum, where his hearts fluttered wildly against her palm.

Rose breathed out slowly, like the air was reluctant to leave her lungs. "Never thought I'd feel that again," she admitted.

Fingers curling in his shirt, Rose looked up at the Doctor, something stubborn and determined glittering in her eyes. "I went through hell trying to get back to you," she told him, her voice hard. But before he could ask for details, demand to know what had happened, she forged on ahead with, "And I don't know how this happened, and I don't care. All I know is that I want to be with you, for however long I've got. Maybe not your forever, but definitely mine. So no more wasting time, yeah? No more holding me at arms'-length, no more dancing around the important things, and no more making my decisions for me. Got it?"

The Doctor wanted to argue (but that's not, but what if, but you don't all vying for prominence at the forefront of his thoughts), but instead he nodded. "Fair enough," he replied.

"Promise me."

He swallowed, and there was no way she didn't notice how much his hearts thundered beneath her hand. "I promise."

The instant the last syllable died on the air, Rose leaned forward and captured his lips in a kiss.

"Are you sure you haven't changed?" Rose gasped when she broke away for air. "Because I'm pretty sure the old you wouldn't have done any of this."

Warmth flooded the Doctor's chest at the sight and the feel of her. She was wonderful—even if she pulled away and never touched him again, as long as she was here, with him, she was wonderful.

"The old me was an idiot," he muttered, and Rose laughed.

The Doctor buries his face in his hands.

If it seems too good to be true, he thinks miserably, it probably is.

"What is it?"

The Doctor had stopped the motion of his hand on her arm, halted its northward progress at the sensation of ice crawling along his spine, freezing each vertebrae until he couldn't move. Rose lay next to him on the bed, flushed pink, wonderfully unclothed and radiating heat. The concerned look on her face hardly fit in amongst the warm and lazy glow of everything else, but it wasn't the only thing that was off.

Tracing a thumb along her ear, the Doctor just stared. He knew her body long before now, long before he'd charted it with his hands; he'd spent months sculpting it very nearly from memory, drawing from a plentiful reservoir in an already impressively eidetic brain. He had chiseled, to perfection, the upturn of her nose, the sharp angles of her jaw, the subtle beauty of her Cupid's bow. It was an act that had bordered on the worshipful, praising everything from her hair to her wrists down to her toes, everything that housed this exquisitely contradictory being, her many graces and numerous flaws alike. Certainly, he could have tasked someone else with the burden, had he wanted. He could have flown to any number of establishments in the near or far future and master craftspeople could have built the statue in a matter of hours. But the Doctor had accepted the task readily, offering his time and effort and sweat and strength as a willing sacrifice. At the time, he had told himself it was penance, and ignored anything else that quietly protested otherwise, but the truth was, he simply didn't trust anyone else to capture Rose the way he could, to see her as he had, to know her like he did. He couldn't expect anyone else to notice all the details.

Rose—the real Rose—had pierced ears. This Rose did not. Had not. Ever.

No. No, that was ridiculous. He was just paranoid after the last year, he told himself. Yes, that had to be it. A year spent in a cage and a dying body—that sort of thing would devastate anyone's mind. He was lucky to survive, even luckier to survive with his faculties completely intact. And what a silly thing to fret over, the state of someone's ears! Probably she just hadn't worn earrings for a long time, and he was just overlooking the scar tissue. Laughable, really.

But when he brushed Rose's hair away from her neck, looking for a small constellation of freckles he remembered from their trip to one of the Orsylln moons, he saw nothing; her skin was as smooth as fine silk. In fact, all of her skin was as unblemished as a newborn baby's, everywhere he looked.

The Doctor's fingers twisted in the bedsheets, grasping, as if he clung to the skin of the world, like it would plummet out beneath him otherwise. He bit his tongue to stem any horrible choked noise that might escape. Rose or not, whomever she was—or whatever, possibly—did not betray any signs that she was deceiving him. Her heart rate, skin temperature, pupil dilation, respiratory movement, everything pointed to normal, or normal given everything they'd just got up to together, anyway. There was nothing erratic or suspicious to be seen. Whether or not they actually were, this person genuinely believed they were Rose.

No—of course it was really her. It had to be. There was no other reasonable explanation.

(But why didn't she know how she got here, how could she have crossed the Void and survived, how could she have known where and when to find him…?)

"Doctor?" Rose asked, truly concerned now, searching his gaze for an answer.

The Doctor closed his eyes and kissed her, fiercely, his fingers tangling in her hair. Rose clutched at his shoulders, fingertrips grazing lines freshly clawed there. He held on to the pain, drew savage pleasure from it; that, at least, was real.

When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse.

"It's nothing," he lied against her lips.

(She falls asleep, after, and he watches her. Her face is so unguarded in this state, even more open than usual; she's vulnerable, and impossibly young. He, by contrast, is shameful, a suspicious, pathetic, and lecherous old fool. And yet, despite the self-hatred surging in his veins, he still can't stop touching her. His hand finds hers and even as her chest rises and falls in the deep tides of sleep, her fingers curl around his. It's an instinct, a reflex; surely no one could have programmed this, surely no one could ever be so inventive or so cruel.

Except that the Doctor knows better, spent the last twelve months living it firsthand.

There is, of course, a way to discover who she really is, a way to know for sure. But the Doctor can't quite bring himself to do it; he decides to get up, get dressed, walk away and resist the temptation. Because the real Rose would balk at the possibility of someone invading her mind, for any reason, and if she isn't the real Rose…

Well, there's a saying about cats and curiosity, and a theory about cats and boxes—the point is, the cat usually doesn't fare too well in the end.)

"All right: out with it."

The Doctor opens his eyes to find Rose standing over him, fully dressed once again save for her bare feet, resting just inches from his. Her arms cross over her chest and she looks down at him expectantly.

"What's eating you?" she asks. Faltering a little in her confidence, she hugs herself tighter, shifts her weight from foot to foot. "Was this too soon? Did I push you?"

Sitting up, the Doctor shakes his head no, but doesn't say anything—he doesn't trust his mouth or anything that might come out of it. Hours have passed, and he's no closer to figuring out the truth than he was before, doesn't know what he should say.

(He should just ask her. He knows this. There could be any number of reasons she's missing her scars, any number of ways she made the impossible leap back to him, managed to pinpoint him exactly, in this incarnation, in this place, in all of time and space. The TARDIS recognized her, after all; certainly there was no way someone tampered with its storage banks during his captivity, certainly no one would have had the capability to draw Rose's memories and personality out of the TARDIS, or grow a clone using any of the biological traces left behind in her bedroom. Certainly there was no one clever or wicked enough to torture the Doctor like this, no one with the drive or motivation. No one except a ghost, and even he didn't have the power to exact vengeance from beyond the grave.

But if he did…this is how he would do it.)

The Doctor's hands clench into fists. He has to say something. He has to. Rose, or the clone of Rose, or the person manipulated into looking and thinking like her, deserves to know what's going on, deserves to know the truth.

He promised.

"Should…" Rose swallowed. "Should I leave you alone?"

A dull panic rises in his throat and the Doctor reaches out for Rose, wraps his arms around her waist. He buries his face against her hip and when she lays a hand on his head, fingers combing through his hair, he allows his eyes to shutter closed, losing himself in the scent and the feel of her.

"No," he says, quietly. "Please stay."