**Guess who watched "The End of Time" again? (sniff) Nothing could stop me writing an AU ending for these two.**

The Powell Estate, London, Earth. His last stop. The Doctor had saved the best for last, because he couldn't imagine leaving, dying, regenerating, without seeing her face one last time. Even if it was for a moment, even if his presence threatened to tear a hole in the fabric of space and time, he had to see her. This body had been made for her and her alone, and now…now he didn't know who the next one would be made for. No one, probably. He had no one else now.

He was lucky, he supposed, that no one else had been around to see the tall man stumbling out of a blue police box. They would have come up to him, asked if he was alright, and ruin it. If he ran into anyone else besides her, he might not be able to control the blast. And that just wouldn't do, not when he knew, somehow, that she would be coming around that corner any second now.

Somehow he managed to make it to the brick-faced building without falling down, but he could feel the energy coursing through his veins. How long did he have? Minutes? Seconds? If that.

And then he could hear it: that voice. A sound he hadn't heard in years and yet here it was, ringing against the walls and snow and air like angelic chimes. His ears were still attuned to her pitch, and he heard her laugh and oh, how he'd miss that sound. Somewhere there was a recording of that sound on the TARDIS, but that warbled mess of robotic noise was nowhere near as good as the original.

He kept still, though, because his ears had also become trained to detect signs of danger, and they heard that Jackie was near. He couldn't show himself, not yet…what was he thinking? He wasn't planning on showing himself at all. Even if it'd been only him and Rose in that snow-covered courtyard he wouldn't have dared to emerge and risk altering future events.

Then he heard Jackie moving off, and suddenly, she was there. Right in front of him. Giggling with a childish spirit that only snow could evoke. Should he say something? She was turned away from him, but her pink snow cap and scarf were sending messages to his hands and feet, telling them, go, go, while you still have time, get her! But what if that wasn't her? What if this was just wishful thinking, and it was really some other blond girl, or, Rassilon forbid, a younger version of Jackie that was in front of him? What if—

A slice of raw regeneration energy cut into his side and he gritted his teeth in pain, barely suppressing the feral grown that emerged. He couldn't hold out much longer…

"You all right, mate?"

He froze, and slowly raised his head, worried that if he looked too fast she would disappear—Rose! Rose was there! Right there, in front of him! She had said something, some mixture of English words, but he could hardly care what words they were. His brain was ready to implode with the sensory overload, both from his restrained regeneration energy, and the force of her mental focus directed at him and him alone.

He forced himself to hold back his tongue, clenching his fists so they didn't try and reach for her and betray him. "Yeah," he grunted.

"Too much to drink?"

"Something like that." Blimey, he had thought he remembered everything about her, but now it was clear his own colossal mind was an understatement. Her smile was infectious; her playful tone of voice, intoxicating. How he had managed to walk away from Rose as she'd kissed his doppelganger he would never understand.

She smiled again, this time with a sense of wistfulness. "Maybe it's time you went home."

"Yeah." He had to bite back his tongue, before the tears and the words and all his grief came pouring out like a waterfall. Home is here, with you! He wanted to scream. Home is in your arms, by your side, with my hand in yours in a perfect fit that couldn't be matched by anyone, not any companion since. They say home is where the heart is, and if that's true, then Rassilon, have I lost both my hearts in your depths. And all for the better! I shall cry more tears than Woman Wept if I see my hearts again! But he could say nothing, not without creating about a thousand paradoxes, and so he stayed silent. Only sharp stabs of pain and his last strands of logical sanity kept him from getting too carried away by his emotions.

"Anyway, Happy New Year," she said with a joyful lift to her voice.

"And you." No, no, no, she was walking away! She couldn't do that, not yet! One last look— "What year is this?" Stupid, stupid! She wasn't supposed to remember him! But he found himself past the point of caring.

She turned around again. "Blimey, how much have you had?"

He smiled and chuckled slightly, because Rose had laughed a bit at his question, and he could feel his old self starting to come back. Martha had nicknamed it his "Rose-self", and she was quite right, too. Only Rose could make a broken alien smile again.

"2005, January the first," she was saying.

"2005," he repeated, testing the words on his tongue. That year…that was the year…!

He'd been looking for something to say to her, some last parting words that might leave some impact on her, and his hearts, without jeopardizing their future together. For however long that future might have been. "Tell you what. I bet you're going to have a really great year."

"Yeah?" she asked, her smile emerging again. Yeah, he replied silently. In less than a year you'll be attacked by shop dummies, and a strange man with big ears will grab your hand. He'll say "run"…

"See you." And with a tongue-tipped smile (oh, how his hearts had longed to see that smile again!), she turned away.

And it was worth it. Wasn't it? All that running? Was it worth meeting him in the end? He hoped it was. The image of his twin and Rose snogging the life out of each other on that beach made him smile, and he had to admit, that maybe, just maybe, he'd finally done something right.

Without warning another wave of energy brought his pain back to the forefront of his mind. Yep, time to go back to the TARDIS. No more companions to see…he'd saved the best for last…

He stumbled away from the wall, but kept a hand along its side, grazing along the brick for some semblance of purchase. Then he was falling, righting himself back up again. A massive pulse of regeneration energy, slightly different than before, caused him to arch his spine and give a throaty yell.

"Hey, you okay?"

What?! The Doctor's eyes flew open. Rose! But…something told him that she wasn't supposed to be here. Not now. She was supposed to be gone, she had been turning away—hadn't she? He stumbled towards the TARDIS, waiting for him patiently in the distance, but his vision blurred and his knees gave out underneath him.

In the midst of the rolling sea of pain that coursed through his sensory receptors, the Doctor was aware of many things: the song of the TARDIS, howling defiantly, as if She was standing up to some unseen force. Rose's voice behind him, and suddenly all around him. Snow underneath him. Pain shooting up his back and touching his lungs and vital organs, canceling out his repertory bypass. The sense that this new pain was very different from the regeneration pain from before. Indeed, it was more painful than all of his other regenerations. Was it…time energy?

The Doctor cracked his eyes open and saw that he was lying in snow on his stomach, his face half lifted towards his time ship. Sigma…he was standing there, in the snow. A projection? It was hard to tell…the Ood kept flickering in and out of existence, singing whenever he appeared and leaving silence behind. Almost as if Sigma was a part of a possible future, a future that was looking to be harder and harder to obtain.

Hands touched his back, and he bit back a yell as a different kind of shock pulsed his brain: paradox energy. Rose wasn't supposed to meet him like this, she wasn't even supposed to be here. But how did the Doctor know this? Wasn't he the first to say that Time was so "wibbly-wobbly" and "timey-wimey" that anything could happen at any given moment? But he could still feel it, in his mind. Two paths were being formed: one had Rose turning away and Sigma singing the Doctor to his sleep. The other…Rose was at his side, but he couldn't see what would happen after that.

Well, clearly the former was out of the question, so that left the latter.

"Can you hear me?" Rose's voice brought him back to the present, but every decibel was like a symphony of angels and demons to his ear drums. She turned him over and scanned his face, shocked to find it utterly pale. "Stay with me, mister, I'm calling 999. You hang in there, alright?"

Yes, yes, of course, Rose anything for you…but this wasn't how it was supposed to be! The medics wouldn't get there in time, anyway. With the amount of stored regeneration energy in his veins the Doctor had to get back to the TARDIS before he created a hole in the middle of London.

"Rose…" he managed to gasp, willing her to understand.

She froze, her phone (that rutty phone. It was nothing compared to the upgrades he would make to it) held up to her ear and the dial tone sounding. "How do you know my name?"

The Doctor looked up at her and tried to ignore his instinct to run. Time was already messed up by this point, what was the harm in creating another paradox?

Before he could reply the call got through and Rose was speaking into the receiver. "Yeah, hi, this is Rose Tyler at the Powell Estate in London. I've got a bloke here and he's…" She glanced down at him and bit her lip in worry. "He's having some sort of fit." A pause. "Well, he's pale, and he's shaking, and… I don't know, ma'am, I thought he was drunk or somethin' earlier but now… Okay, we'll be here. I'll try, ma'am. Bye."

The Doctor watched Rose click her phone off and replace the device in her coat pocket. She kept a firm grip on him through his coat, much to the Doctor's annoyance. Of course she would be so kind, of course she would think of what was best for others and not herself…and isn't that why he was so desperately in love with her?

"Rose…" He tried again, ignoring his future companion's pointed stare. "Rose, please, listen to me. You've got to let me go, I need—" Another flicker of pain and he ground his teeth together so hard he was probably turning them into powder. Not like he'd need these teeth again, anyway. Which reminded him…teeth was the first thing this body noticed and talked about. All to and for Rose.

But he needed to make her understand. "Please, I need to go. Let me leave!"

"Are you daft? The ambulance will be here any minute now, you'll be fine."

"No, I won't, and you won't be either unless you let me go." Just like his Rose, to argue with him over who's more willing to save the universe. Now wasn't the time for heroics. If there was any chance of Time going back to normal he needed to erase her memories and leave now, else he'd be leaving a lot more than Rose's life at stake. How many planets had they saved together? A hundred? Ten hundred? A thousand? They'd saved the Earth so many times he couldn't keep track of them all. If Rose died now, in 2005, the universe would implode on itself.

"Rose…" Oh, his beautiful Rose! In his turbulent mind and heart, the Doctor knew one thing for certain: his Rose was here, saving him again. And here the Doctor was, in her arms and scared, so, so scared, because he was close to dying and there was no way to save himself or Rose or anyone on this bloody planet. "Oh, Rose…"

Waves of fresh pain were briefly smothered by the Doctor's tears as they rolled down his cheeks. He was dying, yes, but he was in Rose's arms! Rose was here, in this universe. And somewhere, in another universe, she was alive and well and no doubt sleeping in his duplicate's arms. Just like the Doctor was preparing to sleep now. He'd accept this death, if death it was. He could always suppress the energy, to a point where regeneration never happened…the Master had done it, so why couldn't he?

Time seemed to open before him, and he could see a different man, and then another…so many faces…and they would be gone if he gave up now. But the Doctor curled into Rose's side and ignored them, his tears still burning his youthful face. He heard Rose utter a squeak of surprise, but he was grateful that she was so caring that it didn't matter how he knew her name. All Rose saw was a man who might be close to death, and in need of someone to comfort him.

The Doctor felt a timid hand rest itself on his back, and then another set of fingers laced themselves into his hair. He silently thanked her, and let his sobs roll across her lap, releasing his pent-up emotions as Rose stroked him and held him close.

To any other man or woman who happened to witness this sight, it appeared to them as if the pair were molded together. They created a single entity that floated along Time's edges and danced itself through the Sea of the Universe's Memory.

Their embrace lasted mere moments, but to the Doctor it felt like a lifetime. Suddenly his legs gave a mighty twitch as his golden regeneration energy flared like an inferno…the TARDIS was shouting at him, trying to tell him something important…and he fell into blackness.

**The story is not over yet for our heroes…**