Rose looked out over BadwolfBay, watching the water roll in to the shore in white, foamy waves. The sky was a cloudy gray, as it had been the day she had first come here to say goodbye to the Doctor. She felt the sand beneath her bare feet as she walked to the edge of the cold water that flowed around her ankles.
It was a few days after the Doctor had brought her back here with the half-human him. She still wasn't sure what she thought of having a human Doctor around. He couldn't really be her Doctor, could he? She wondered what he was doing right now, the original Doctor. He was probably off on some adventure on a planet at the edge of the universe.
Deep in thought, Rose hadn't heard the soft footsteps in the sand as someone came up behind her and took her hand, all the while looking out over the waves.
"You really are him, aren't you?" she asked, turning to look him in the face.
"I'm really him," he answered. They had gone over this more than once, though she still hadn't gotten used to it. He was always very patient when she asked him about it. "Same face, same memories, same emotions."
By "same emotions", Rose knew that he was telling her, in his own way, that he loved her. She squeezed his hand and placed her head on his shoulder. It would be hard for him to adjust to a life on Earth. He would have to get a house, a mortgage, a day-to-day job. He might get bored with it, after so many years of traveling in the Tardis.
"I'm sorry," she said suddenly.
"What?"
"For you being trapped here, without the Tardis. Everything changes now."
"Rose Tyler," he said in that soft voice of his. "You can be too nice sometimes. I sent myself here, in a way. The other me- the all Timelord Doctor- thinks almost exactly the way I do. He is me, and I am him. We're the exact same person. I could have gone other places, but I chose to be with you. I gave up traveling through all of time and space, every wonder that ever was… to be with you."
Rose didn't know to say to that; she opened her mouth and then closed it again. Then she kissed him as she had merely days earlier when he'd whispered what he'd meant to tell her when she'd first been stuck here.
