Chapter 1

Author's Note: Section breaks within chapters are noted by two bold-faced words.

It was her own fault, she supposed, that she had gotten so very cold. Afterward, after the words, after the kiss, after the machine had disappeared from the beach, her knees had given way and she had sat in the wet sand for a long time, oblivious to the salt water seeping through her trousers and soaking her skin, barely hearing her mother's voice as she discussed transport options with Pete, a little more aware of the man in the blue suit, who crouched on the sand next to her, hand on her shoulder. She sat like a puppet dropped to the ground, her legs splayed out straight before her, and before long her entire lower half was soaked in the frigid water, leaching up from the sand. Had she begun to shiver then? Perhaps. Or perhaps on the ride in the plane that had landed on the small airstrip nearby. Or perhaps in the car that took them to the Tyler mansion.

It was a testament to her step-father's influence and ready cash that they were home six hours after the Doctor had vanished. No ticket lines, long waits at security, or delays on the tarmac for the private jet conjured at a local airport and its three bedraggled occupants. For the first time in years Rose felt intensely grateful for the privileges her fake father brought into her life. No, that wasn't fair to Pete. That was the cold talking, and maybe the roiling anger that the cold seemed to be holding in place but not helping. It was probably for the best, as she sat in the backseat of the car with the new new new Doctor's hand on hers, that all she felt was cold. Wouldn't do to examine too much else yet. She wondered idly what the salt in her now only damp pants was doing to the buttery caramel-colored leather of the seat on which she was sitting.

Once they had arrived at the mansion, the various occupants had scattered. Jackie had run to Tony and Pete and the small family had been reunited happily if (uncharacteristically) quietly. Indeed, Jackie had been eerily quiet the whole way home, watching both the Doctor in blue and her daughter with an edgy disbelief. Rose had not had the wherewithal to look directly at the Doctor on the ride home. It had been bad enough on the beach, with those brown eyes black in the light, huge in his face, as he had said those words filled with hope and expectation. And she did not look at him now, as she muttered something about a bath and took the stairs to the second floor two at a time–a bit surprising that she was able to do so, really, given how cold she was. Adrenaline at work, she supposed. Anything to get away from the eyes on her. They did not try to stop her. People giving Rose Tyler a wide berth–business as usual in this universe.

But if she had not been shivering before, she certainly was as she sat on the side of the bathtub in the enormous marble bathroom that adjoined the room at the Tyler mansion designated as hers. She rarely slept here, preferring her small flat near Torchwood or–really, let's be honest, more nights than not–the couch in her office. But at the moment she was grateful for the capacious tub and the massive water heater that was delivering steaming water into it. She felt the sudden intensification of cold, as some of the numbness wore off–oddly, the rising temperature of the air around her threw her own bodily cold into focus and her teeth began to chatter violently. With shaking hands, she pulled a towel from a rack and a thick bathrobe from a hook on the back of the door and laid them on the edge of the tub. Wouldn't want to have to look for them afterward. Then she stripped off her shirt and–with a bit more difficulty because they were now stiff with salt–her trousers, socks, and shoes. She eased herself into the tub, wincing at the scalding sensation of cold flesh meeting hot water. The pain passed, however, and she felt her limbs relax. She sank her whole body below the water and let the warmth penetrate, scalp to toes. Coming up, she toed off the faucet as the water neared the brim of the tub. She stared at her abandoned clothes. She could see the salt stains from here. The trainers might be done for. Can you put trainers in the washing machine? She toyed with the idea of creating a bonfire of all of them. Bit overdramatic, really, and Pete probably would worry that the house would go up.

As her body warmed and became comfortable, her mind was loosed and began to wander over the events of the last days and months. She tried, momentarily, to prevent it, but what was the point, really? Not as if the pain could be avoided. Better to confront it straight out and start–again–the process of finding equilibrium.

After the first time on the beach in Norway, there was a period of sixth months that were still a blur to her. Jackie, Mickey, and Pete had filled her in to a certain extent, but none of them particularly liked to talk about it. Pete was the most forthcoming, since at the time she meant little to him and so he had the least hard time recounting it. Apparently she had collapsed on the beach and fallen into an almost catatonic state of depression, eating little and doing less. It didn't take a psychologist, she supposed, to figure out that in a desperate grab for control in an out-of-control situation she had clamped down on what she could regulate–eating and activity. Her weight had plummeted, and in fact had yet to recover, even though her eating had returned to something closer to normal…though she had never really redeveloped a taste for chips. After she had recovered somewhat physically, she had realized–nudged also by Pete and Jackie–that she needed something to occupy her mind. Torchwood, which had been her plan from the beginning (she had said as much to the Doctor on the beach), seemed the obvious choice, both as a place to utilize her experience with the Doctor and to find a way back to him. And at Torchwood she had succeeded brilliantly, her unparalleled resource of experience married to a drive for work that admitted no other aspect of life. She had no interest in creating a home, in dating, in hobbies, in anything but work. She discovered early on the deep thrill of danger, the fact that being in a potentially life-threatening situation focused the mind wonderfully. Impossible to think of a broken heart, of a lost love, of words not spoken when you were trying to save your own skin and that of those around you. She knew that she had a reputation at Torchwood that verged on unflattering…only Mickey and Jake were true friends, while others feared or, at best, respected her. Certainly no one doubted her courage, even if they questioned her motives for it. "Rose Tyler, adrenaline junkie," some said. She developed a track record of not being hurt on the most dangerous missions, and of bringing her team back alive (although they did occasionally get hurt). She began to feel invincible. The less she cared about living, it seemed, the more she strode unscathed through ridiculous situations.

Then the development of the dimension cannon had begun. It had been conceived as a way to follow aliens–hostile or friendly–into other worlds, but she quickly saw it as a possible route back to the Doctor. She had been instrumental in its development and even more so in its testing. Despite Pete's objections, and Mickey's, and Jake's (Jackie had never been fully informed), she insisted on being the guinea pig. Who else had more reason to take the genuine risks? And here her luck with injury had run out. She had been hurt on a number of early jumps, culminating with the fifth one. The team had been so worried about dramatic accidents–putting her out in the middle of a concrete block and being frozen forever, or in a volcano, or in deep space–that they had failed to think of the more mundane danger that she would be put down in a busy street. That had probably been the worst injury, when she had come bursting at a run out into an intersection and been struck by a car. Broken bones, surgery, and three months out of action. It had almost been funny, though–to jump universes and die in a car smash. But they had refined the navigational systems and she had stopped being hurt, but then there was the maddening and heart-breaking process of her near-misses with the Doctor, of finding Donna and having to correct that timeline, of seeing the Doctor on various screens and not being seen. That last was the worst, almost like a sick intensification of her experience of the last four years–thinking of him, seeing him in her mind, but being unable to touch or interact or figure out if he was looking for her.

Then things had begun to move with blinding speed. Seeing him at the end of that street, outside the blue box with Donna. Running to him. Finally, she thought. But then, the Dalek, the shot, the near-regeneration. She had been able to hold him after that, but only for a moment, before they plunged off to defeat the Daleks and Davros and had reunited with their friends and left them each behind in succession and then…he had brought her back to Bad Wolf Bay. And here, sitting in the bathtub in the Tyler mansion, Rose began to shake her head. Because she didn't understand it. She had fought so hard. Sacrificed so much to return to him. And he had refused to tell her he loved her and had left her again on that beach. How? Her mind stuck. How? And what of the Doctor in blue who had been left with her, who had told her he loved her and whom she had kissed in almost instinctive response to those words? What was he? What could they be to each other?

Finally she emerged, red and pruny but warm, from the tub. She dried herself and wrapped herself in the robe, and, feeling lightheaded, sat heavily on the edge of the bath. "Does it need saying?" Really, if he had tried with both hands, could he have said something crueler to her? He, who knew that his own words had been cut off almost four years earlier, denying her the bit of comfort that hearing it said would have given. Did it need saying? "Rose Tyler, I…love you." She had lived and breathed and ate the assumption that those had been the words lost to her when the connection cut out the first time on Bad Wolf Bay. Had not eaten much else, in fact. Had breathed out of habit. Had lived…well. Depends on the definition, doesn't it? "Rose Tyler, I…love you." But now that assumption, that lifeline, was broken. He had not only left her again, he had managed to reach back four years and shatter that article of faith she had clung to for so long. Neat work, even for a Time Lord with a penchant for destruction. What had he meant to say on that day years ago? "Rose Tyler, I…have enjoyed your company"? "Rose Tyler, I…think you have a lovely personality"? She began, suddenly, senselessly, to giggle at the thought of the Doctor mouthing all the classic brush-offs of her universe. "Rose Tyler, I…think you have such a pretty face but…"? "Rose Tyler, I…just can't see myself settling down now"? "Rose Tyler, I…think we need to see other people"? "Rose Tyler…it's not you, it's me"? She began to laugh louder, as the phrases ran faster through her head. And then she wasn't laughing anymore, not really, but crying, sobbing, and making terrible gulping noises. Somehow she was on the tile floor, straining for air, her throat tearing from the effort of trying to get the sobs under control. The soap dish had fallen when she did and shattered, and now her hand was cut and her red blood was on the floor and she couldn't stop staring at the contrast of the white tile and the redness and she couldn't catch her breath.

The door burst open. She expected Jackie's voice to ring out in frustration and concern, but instead he was there, down on his knees next to her, gathering her up tightly into his embrace. She clutched at him and buried her face in the shoulder of his blue suit, rough with salt and smelling like the airplane and…well, like a man who needed a bath himself. Had the Doctor ever smelled, she asked herself, focusing her mind on this mundane matter to try and calm herself. Still he held her as her sobs lessened and finally hiccupped to a stop. She drew back and stared at him for a moment, meeting his eyes levelly, as he met hers. Then he noticed the blood. "Rose, what did you do?"

"I knocked down the soap dish and it broke as I fell…must have cut myself when I caught myself on the floor. I don't think it's serious." She couldn't help but smile a little as he pulled out a pair of his familiar geeky glasses and pushed them on his nose, grasped her hand, and inspected it with concern. Identifying the extent of the cut, he reached back into his suit jacket again, and this time she gasped aloud as he pulled out the sonic screwdriver and pointed it at her hand. The cut healed in seconds.

"What…where did you get that?"

His lips quirked. "Nicked it from the TARDIS."

"You didn't!"

"Did. Partly mine anyway, and it'll be easier for him to build another one than it would be for me."

"That's brilliant! Anything else you were left with?"

He gazed at her. "Well. That depends, I guess."

She met his gaze in confusion for a moment and then realized–he meant her, but clearly didn't know what he had in her, or if he had anything. She continued to stare at him, really drinking in the sight of him, in a way she had not done since his creation. He was mussed and visibly tired. His eyes were a bit red. His hair was flatter than usual. Fine wrinkles were visible around his eyes and the corner of his mouth. He had a five o'clock shadow. All in all, despite the fact that they were identical, he looked distinctly different from the Doctor, who was always smooth and boyish and perfect. This man looked older, tired, sad. He was also, she realized, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. The small imperfections only added to his beauty in her eyes. His enormous dark eyes, the full lower lip, the delicate features, the gravity and weariness–all of them made him seem more touchable, more real, more…beautiful was the word that came to mind again.

He spoke first. "What are you thinking?"

She smiled and shook her head, disengaging her hand from his and reaching for the washcloth hanging on the side of the tub. "I must look a mess. Sorry to fall apart like that."

"Rose, I think if anyone in this universe has a right to fall apart this evening, it would be you. And the second person with that right might be me. And I think I might just do so if I can't talk to you now about what has happened. Please, tell me what you're thinking."

She scrubbed the remnants of tears from her face with the still-damp washcloth and met his eyes. "I don't suppose you'd buy that I'm all right? That I'm always all right?"

He smiled wanly at her. "I invented that."

"Yes, I suppose you did." Her instinct was to evade, however. Not talking about how she felt–being always all right–had been part of her coping mechanism in recent years. If you can't fix something, if you can't heal feelings, why discuss them? She was so afraid to open herself to him now, especially when she wasn't sure what she was really feeling.

But then she thought of the painful silences of her time with the Doctor, of the things left unsaid…does it need saying…and she made up her mind that there were things worse than the pain of honesty, even if honesty brought rejection. She looked him in the eye and went for the unvarnished truth. "I think I have never seen a more beautiful sight than you here on the floor of this bathroom. The Doctor, but human–tired like me, and confused like me, and sad like me. Part of me–a large part of me–wants nothing more than to reach out and hold you and kiss you again." She saw his eyes move briefly to her mouth and his breathing increase in rate.

She continued, "But I also feel like I did when I saw you–him–on the screen of Wilf and Sylvia's computer but you couldn't see me. Like I can see happiness but can't touch it. And I feel so…angry. So angry with him–or you–for leaving me again. For leaving me with a copy." His breath hissed in. "I'm sorry. I'm trying to be honest with you."

"No, Rose, that's what I want. Why wouldn't you feel that?"

"Did you decide together? To have you stay with me? Or did he make this decision for you as well?"

The human Doctor sighed. "I knew he would want to put me in a different universe, to get the genocidal maniac away from the scene of the crime..."

Rose interrupted him. "That makes two of us, you know. I'm a genocidal maniac too. Bad Wolf, and all that."

He grinned. "This universe better watch out, with the two of us around." The smile fell. "But I assumed he would keep you with him. He was careful to hide his thoughts about you from me. When he started to say…what he said on the beach, I couldn't quite believe…well, I couldn't quite believe my luck. Because I have all his memories of you, all his emotions about you, and…well, I meant what I said on the beach, Rose. I love you. And the idea that I would have you with me, or at least have a chance to have you with me…"

"If it's his emotion that you have, why couldn't he tell me?"

"I don't know. I couldn't not tell you. Maybe that's the human side–Donna in me. He keeps these things under better control. Or maybe he thought he was being unselfish, giving you reason to want to stay with me."

"I suppose, for me, the last one is the best one to believe. To believe that he did it out of love for me."

He sighed. "I wish he hadn't said what he did, though, about you fixing me. Like giving you a little project to keep you busy. It's insulting to you and to me. It's not easy being offered as a consolation prize for losing the man you really love."

She reached out and took his hand again, staring owlishly at him. "Something like being offered as a consolation prize for losing the entirety of time and space?"

He gazed back at her, and he didn't smile, but the warmth of recognition and understanding filled his eyes. "Yes," he said, and the tone of his voice made her heart jump. "Something like that, I would imagine."

Her lips parted and she felt breathless. She wanted him, she realized. He had all the physical appearance of the man she had longed for but had already–in the space of a few minutes–showed a level of empathy and a vulnerability that the Doctor had never been able to do. And was there any reason why she couldn't reach out to him and draw him to her and take some joy from this horrible day? Her hand moved up, almost without her realizing it, and stroked his cheek. He froze, his eyes on hers. Her fingers caressed his sideburn and travelled down over his lips. At that he reached up and grasped her hand, turning it and kissing her palm. She shuddered at the sensation this evoked. She began to lean forward to bring her mouth to his when suddenly the significance of her own words occurred to her. She had been given to him as a compensation for time and space. How long, then, before he tired of her? Before she was not enough? Before he left her too? She stiffened and pulled away.

He watched with dismay as her eyes changed and her face closed down. She pulled away from him and stood up. "Thank you for helping with my cut. I'm sure you need a bath and sleep as much as I do. There should still be hot water. We can talk more in the morning." She bent to gather up the broken glass and wiped up the smears of blood on the floor with the washcloth she still held. Then she was gone, closing the door between her room and the bathroom.

He sighed. His room was on the other side of the bathroom, sharing it with Rose's room. He turned on the taps and drew himself a bath. It did indeed feel good to wash, although lying where he knew Rose had lain naked recently did nothing for the physical manifestations of desire that her light touch had awakened in him. He closed his eyes. The intense love contained in his Time Lord brain and memories was now married to a human body, hormones, and single heart. This was going to be a dangerous combination.