A child born with an ancient history. A soul born of war, of destruction, of hate.

All the same memories.

It made the difference, didn't it?

A paradox. Not the man she had watched grow and change, the man she had changed. She could see it in the Doctor's eyes, he was bigger than this man. He was older, and lonelier.

There was a coldness in his eyes.

He saw space and time, the raw fabric, ever changing, ever unchangeable. He felt the world turning. He had told her that, on the night she met him, on the night she stared into those burning eyes the first time.

She watched it flicker in him, that man, that fire, changed now into something warmer and stronger and so much better. Because she had made him better. She felt it like the wind on her face, felt everything, the joy, the fear, the shock, the pain, all over again. And it stared right back at her in those eyes. So much history. So much in the words he wouldn't say.

Because it wasn't a lie. It wasn't something he was unwilling to say. It wasn't that he had moved on, had found someone else, someone better. Rose was not the first, she was not the last, but she was Rose Tyler, his light in the storm. His savior. His companion. His.

Hers.

That part of him, that one shining part born of fire and hate, cruel and ecstatic and changed…hidden now, purposely tucked deep away inside him, only one broken syllable to betray it. And Rose didn't care. She didn't care that this Doctor had wept and laughed without her, separated from her beyond even possibility. She didn't care.

"Does it even need saying?"

This was the Doctor she loved. Willing to rip through a star to say goodbye to her. Willing to never see her again to know that she would live. Willing to do it again, for the sake of the reality they had fought together to save.

"I love you." Lips on her ear.

These two were not a choice. They were the same. They were pararallel pieces, the Doctor who owed her his life and his sanity, who gladly would have given her his heart. She…she thought he would. She thought he had, already. And standing opposite, the man who would as well. A man who needed her.

Lips on hers. Arms wrapped around her. Whole, whole after so long and so far and so desperate, and in this Doctor's eyes the need and the fear and the joy again. Home again.

I will never let you go. I will never let you go again

....

"Rose. Rose." A hand on her face, wiping away the tears. Invisible in the dark, only the faintest grey outlining his face, his mussed hair, a bit longer than the man in her dreams.

He pulled her closer, her face warm and wet against his shoulder. Seven months since they had stood on the beach. He heard her breathe in unsteadily, the tears still falling. She woke like this most nights. Not for long. Not loudly, her breath barely changed when the tears started. But he woke every night too. He smoothed his hand over her face, watched her weep for the man he was and was not.

He never woke her. He just waited, quiet, whispering her name until she came back to him.

"I..." her voice broke off, then "I love you." An uncommon stress on the phrase. A sense memory, echoing back through the past. She had said it like this once before. The first time. The first time he had watched her disappear on the beach and thought he would never see her again.

He held her tightly. Skin to skin, in the dark, the same every night.

He responded because it was the only thing he could give her. "Rose. Rose Tyler." Head dipped down, hands pressing her forehead up to his, eyes in the dark gleaming into hers. "I love you. I love you."

He held her, held her in the dark, and felt the pain shooting through him for the man he was not, the man who haunted his love's dreams with words unsaid. And he loved her. He loved her as fiercely as he could. It was the only thing he could do.

In the morning, they would wake. The days grew brighter, their hands gained nicks and cuts and lines, the same now. It was never what he had dreamed of having with her, back when he had been running, running, never stopping, never really saying these words. It was strange to him. It was beautiful. Rose, Rose Tyler, finally his. Him finally hers. Not alone.

He did not ask what she saw in the dreams. She didn't weep for the beach, for that broken voice and the broken, amazing, impossible man who had left her there. She didn't dream of it.

The wonders and joys and fears ran through his mind. Memories. The past unsplit, a future that hadn't been rewritten by time and paradox.

I love you. I love you. I love you. He didn't have to ask.

He could imagine.

...

It haunted him. Not the moment she had turned to the other doctor. Not even the moment when he had watched pain and confusion flash in her eyes, and sorrow, and disappointment. And love, the love that had brought him out of the fire.

It haunted him, those words unsaid.

There were a thousand reasons why he couldn't stay, why he owed himself, this alternate version of himself, the chance to love and fight and grow and be better. To change. Why he owed this world a Doctor who would not kill but save. Why he owed Rose a lifetime of loving her completely, unabashedly, without the whole of his future pressing against them, killing her slowly while he remained untouched.

But it haunted him. Because he would have given her every lifetime, every one left to him. He wanted to.

But those were not words he could tell her. They were not words that would mend the rift and heal the man who stared at Rose in exactly the way he did. He couldn't say them, and he couldn't say less.

"Does it need saying at all?"

Rose was smart, and wiser than him, wiser by far. Wiser than any version of the Doctor would ever be. Perhaps she saw everything unsaid, heard it. And she was happy now. She could be happy.

Soaring through the stars. Hands working the gears and buttons he knew so well. Heart pounding. Running, running, running and never looking back. His shirt still damp from the rain of earth, the air of the world that contained so much of what he had left behind. The Daleks had accused him of running from his past, too scared to face it. They were wrong. In the shining light of the galaxies around him, the dark and light roiling through space and time, Rose was not back on earth—she was here. She would always be smiling back at him. She would always be there, the brave child, the woman who had saved him.

He closed his eyes. Wind on his face. A different planet, a different beach. But he whispered it, a promise, a truth. It was empty here. He was alone. The world was ahead, behind, all around. Everywhere.

"Rose Tyler. I love you."

...