It was snowing in the London, on New Year's Day 2005. It was snowing on the Powell Estate, and on the blue police phone box that stood unobtrusively off to one side. And it was snowing on Jackie and Rose, as they argued their way towards the door to their apartment block. Stopping in the snow, they hugged. "Happy New Year, though!" said Jackie. "Happy New Year."
Jackie walked off, heading for a New Year's party, and Rose turned to go inside, but a moan behind her stopped her. She turned to see a man in the shadows, clearly not too well.
"Funny the things you remember, isn't it?" Rose smiled.
"Go on," said Metacrisis.
"Well, thinking back, he looked just like you."
The man wore a brown suit, and a long brown coat, with a pair of battered sneakers peeking out at the bottom.
"He looked a bit tired, but he was... handsome, tall, with great hair." Rose ran her hand through Metacrisis' hair. "Some... really great hair."
Rose called out to him. "Are you alright, mate?"
"Yeah."
"Too much to drink?"
"Something like that."
They spoke for a moment, then Rose turned to go. The man called out, "What year is this?"
"I thought he was a bit nuts. Or very drunk." Rose frowned. "But... funny thing, I get the feeling he didn't want me to go."
"Blimey, how much've you had!"
"Well."
"2005, January the first."
"And he looked so happy, when I said that. Like, he'd been quite sad, until then. Weird."
"What did he say?"
"2005," he repeated slowly. "Tell you what,"
"I bet you're going to have a really great year."
The man's face flooded with emotion, joy, and sadness, and pride, and regret, but Rose only saw the first, and smiled back at this strange man in the snow."
Rose turned on the sofa, and grinned at her Doctor. "He was right though, wasn't he? 2005. Year I met you."
Metacrisis looked back at her, smiling sadly. "You know, Rose, I bet that was me. Well, other me. That little moment, it happened years ago, but I don't think it happened at all until today, which is why you suddenly remembered it. I think that sometime, about now, he's regenerating, and he knew it was about to happen, and that's why he went back. I think he wanted to say goodbye to you, properly, before he went." Rose smiled. "Finally he's thinking of himself," she murmured. "Martha told me he was miserable, through the time he was with her. Missing me, she said. But he loses people all the time. I reckon it was just that he'd never said goodbye. And last time, at Bad Wolf Bay, he was too busy making sure we'd be happy to say the goodbye he wanted to say. He didn't want it to be a big thing for me. But it was, for the same reason it was for him. I thought he'd never said goodbye, and it broke me up. Now I find he did. In the most perfect way ever. No fuss, no tears, he just sneaks into my memories and says hey, have a good time. He's got his goodbye, tucked up in one of my happiest days." She smiled, and leant in to Metacrisis. "He won't think of me much anymore. We're the past. All of time and space ahead of him now. As it should be."
The two of them sat together, Rose lying against Metacrisis' chest, his arms around her, while above them in the house Jackie nagged and scolded, and Pete threw his arms in the air and wondered why this crazy lady was the only one in any universe he would ever love, and while, far away in another universe, Jack and Martha and Donna and Sarah Jane and all the others, all the other Children of Time went about their tiny, extraordinary human lives, and while, somewhere above the planet and several years before, a ship that was far bigger on the inside corkscrewed through the skies, and a new man, old as the universe and young as a child clung to the ship, laughing and dodging turrets, about to crash in a little girl's back yard, and start something new, and exciting, and fantastic.
The house was warm, and Metacrisis' single heart beat steadily against Rose's back. Rose thought of the Time Lord, and of the human, and was happy with both.