A/N: Here we go. The sequel for Silver Memories. You don't necessarily need to have read Silver Memories but it might make things clearer. To help those of you who haven't though or just to refresh the memories of those of you who have, I have selected and condensed a section from the epilogue that might help you as a recap. Here is the prologue and chapter one. Enjoy.

Prologue - Recap

He wasn't the Doctor, not her Doctor. The only purpose he served by being there was to be a painful reminder of what she had lost and it made the pain sear at her heart. She had thought her heart to be broken before but it was nothing compared to this. She ran faster, harder, welcoming the breathlessness and the burn in her legs. She could hear cars up ahead, had she really run that far? She heard them but ignored them. It wasn't a particularly busy road but it didn't matter to her anymore. Her Doctor had left her, again.

She ran forward and just as she felt the tarmac beneath her feet, something solid stopped her from moving forward. She recognised the Doctor's body beneath her fingers and she beat at him with her fists, desperate for him to let her go. While he held her, it was hard to remember that he wasn't her Doctor and she hated so much that she just wanted to collapse in his arms and love him as if he were the other Doctor; she knew she'd feel guilty about it. She remembered how it had felt to have his lips on hers and how it felt to have him wrapping her in his strong arms. She had felt so safe in his arms, forgetting that he wasn't her real Doctor till the moment she had heard the TARDIS disappearing behind them. At that moment, she had realised what was happening and pulled herself away, guilt flooding through her. It had been easy to deceive herself when she heard those words that she had always wanted to hear. As her Doctor knew it would be.

She felt the new Doctor lift her into his strong arms and she beat helplessly until she wore herself out and fell limp against him. Unable to do anything to help the situation, she let the tears fall from her eyes; an endless river of sorrow that poured in one last feeble attempt to wash her soul of the pain that the last few years had caused; the pain that had etched itself so deep into her heart that Rose had no doubt that it was actually broken.

Rose was vaguely aware of the sand beneath her fingers as well as the Doctor's arms around her. He had sat down on the sand with Rose in his arms and she felt his tears fall on her face. Rose's own stilled and she opened her red eyes to look up at him. He didn't notice; his eyes were tightly closed. Every tear that had fallen from Rose's face had been a shard of glass that broke his heart. Those tears had been the one indicator that he had needed to know what Rose was feeling, to know that she had rejected him as the Doctor.

He looked at her and he could see that it hurt her that he wasn't her Doctor but she didn't realise how much it hurt him. He had all the Doctor's memories. Every time the Doctor had wanted to hold her; kiss her; tell her how he felt and every time he had shied away. He had all the Doctor's regret for not doing it but he also had this new pain at the thought of never being able to. He held Rose close to him and their tears merged together on Rose's face as they sat and shed the emotion that had overcome them both: The need for each other.

Chapter One – Changes

The Human Doctor sat on the end of Rose's bed with his head in his hands. Everything he'd known about his Rose had changed; gone. Not even the way she'd treated him after he'd regenerated was as bad as this. He looked around the room that belonged to the only consolation to his life of domestic loneliness. She may not love him but nothing would change his feelings towards her. He took one last look around the foreign room and left, wanting to be where Rose was but feeling awkward in her obsessively tidy room.

Rose's room looked empty. Not empty of furniture or clothes of physical thing but empty all the same. It reminded the Doctor of a hospital room: everything emotionless and in its place. Looking into Rose's room had been like looking inside the protective shell she hid behind when she was around her family. On the outside she looked happy enough, or rather she didn't look unhappy. Sometimes he'd see her out of the corner of his eye with a smile on her face and he'd wonder what she was thinking. He would live for those moments when he'd catch her smiling unawares. But it didn't happen often and the Doctor wasn't sure if it was through actual amusement or habit.

Most of the time, it was like she was only half there. She'd answer any question you put to her and she'd do what you told her to do but she appeared to be on autopilot. The time since the separation had changed her. She had lost weight and her skin had paled, both from her lack of appetite and her new unadventurous lifestyle. Her haircut was so straight, it looked to have been cut with a ruler and it reflected everything about what she'd become. Everything was neat, everything was tidy and everything was in its place. She woke up every morning at seven and went to bed every night at nine.

After she had gone to bed, the Doctor would often sit with Jackie in the front room and listen to Jackie compare this time to the last. "This time," Jackie had said, "it's as if she's accepted that it's the end. It's like she's lost the will to live but her body is doing what it's always done. Last time was the beginning of the end. Now it's just the end." That really upset the Doctor. That was the night he left the Tyler house and hung around town for the next couple of days. He'd nicked one of the other Doctor's spare sonic screwdrivers and needing less sleep than regular humans, had only slept in a hotel room for one of those nights. He remembered his, or rather the Doctor's, Timelord days and resented the need to sleep more than once a week. After the events on the beach, he'd been to sleep almost every night just as something to pass the hours but he didn't need it.

When he had finally slunk back into the Tyler household, Jackie scolded him, Tony glared at him and Rose hadn't noticed he'd gone. From that day on, he had decided just to sit and watch her. A guardian angel of sorts. The day she decided to get a job, he went out to the local shop before she woke up and left them all folded to the right pages on the kitchen table where she'd see them at breakfast. He followed her to the interviews and waited nervously to see her face when she re-emerged. When she had got the job, he bought her a bouquet of red and white roses, carefully placing them in a vase on the surface then leaving, cautious of being seen.

The Doctor smiled at the memory of that day. He remembered sneaking round to look through the window as she appeared in the kitchen. She had blinked as the flowers when she first saw them but quickly went over to read the small label he'd attached. She smiled gently and bent to smell them. She'd closed her eyes, remembering and a tear had run down her cheek. That was the day Rose began to acknowledge the human Doctor's existence. She never called him by name and he never wore a suit but it was enough for the Doctor.

Every so often, passing comments would become conversation. They were few and far between and barely lasted two minutes but the Doctor lived for them. Lived for just a glimpse of the old Rose.

It was one of those such days when the Doctor was leaning against the counter and Rose was absent-mindedly pulling her toast out of the toaster when she asked him without turning, "Can you pass the butter?"

The Doctor was surprised by her attention and there was a long pause in which no butter appeared. Rose looked round to find the Doctor looking at her rather sheepishly. He scratched his head and grinned, looking like a guilty golden retriever with his large brown eyes.

"Where's the butter?"

Rose looked at him steadily before saying patronisingly slowly, "Fridge." His face lit up in recognition and he turned away before searching through the kitchen cupboards trying to find the fridge. The corners of Rose's mouth flickered up into a smile and she shook her head. It was hard living with the Doctor's image but when she looked at him, she was beginning to see, not the Doctor but John Smith: A perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary but strangely intelligent human. His appearance and mannerisms were, essentially, the Doctor's and often she would catch her breath when she saw him gazing at her with a longing that was the result of their strange situation. At first when this happened, Rose would disappear as quickly as possible, struggling to stem the flow of tears that threatened to overcome her. Now she would just blink the painful recollection and he would be John Smith once more. The only times she had trouble with the feelings that she couldn't repress now was the rare moments when his intelligence would lapse so far out of human reach that there was no way to avoid it or when she caught him unawares doing something almost childish in a way that so much reflected the Doctor.

He had become particularly restless the week her mother had put the child safety locks on the cupboard doors. Rose had come down early one morning to find him fast asleep with a wooden spoon jammed into the side of one of the doors and the door knob broken off in his hand.

"Rose. Rose?" A voice broke into her thoughts and she looked up. The Doctor stood before her; butter in hand, his large brown eyes wide with concern. Rose looked away quickly, gently taking the butter from his loose grasp. Then, very decidedly, she placed the butter on the surface and looked up into the familiar warm of his eyes.

"Thank you Doctor." She replied firmly. Today, things were going to change.