As they stood on Bad Wolf Bay, watching the TARDIS fade from view, Rose's heart broke again. This clone….her heart was stubborn. This clone wasn't her Doctor. Her heart crushed, and the she let go of his hand, on the beach on her haunches, hugging her knees, and finally after all the times she held it in, she cried. Rose Tyler screamed on the bay in Norway, she had lost him again, gotten trapped again. It wasn't fair, she thought as sobs racked her whole body. She felt a hole in her heart getting more and more ragged, she could hardly breathe. She could feel her mum's gaze on her back, pitying her. She fell over onto the sand on her side, the sobs turning silent heavy breathing and the tears wouldn't stop falling. The Doctor was the one she had loved for two years. She saved the universe time and time again, and this was her thanks? Why couldn't she have just stayed with him? She tore through universes, through time and space just to find him again.

Rose cried for a long time stretched out on the sand, not wanting to relinquish the Bad Wolf in her. Until the duplicate Doctor lay down on the sand in her view, just to look at her, until she was ready to talk. She stared blankly at him for a while tears continued to pour down her face; he looked so much like her Doctor. Her heart ached as she looked at him, and the sobs returned and she closed her eyes, trying to break the onslaught of pain. He reached out his hand, to smooth her hair around her face, and to wipe tears off her face. She flinched and started to scream even more, yelling for her Doctor who had left her behind again. She rolled onto her back, staring at the sky that looked like her home sky, trying to get rid of this wretched holey feeling in her heart. Rose Tyler hated feeling weak, she knew she could have a life without the Doctor, but it just…hurt so damn much! It would take a while, but for now the tears flowed, and the wet sand beneath her was comforting.

The duplicate scooted over, that way his body was mirrored hers. His head next to hers, barely touching, but he was there. He knew he had been left behind as well. He knew how she felt, and knew words couldn't comfort her right now. So he lay there with her, his hands folded on his chest, silently letting her cry. Eventually, Rose turned her head towards him, not realizing how close he was, they knocked heads. Laughing a little, he scooted over so he could look at her in the face.

"You're really him? Why do you seem so different?" she asked softly, her voice cracking.

He touched his face, confused. Rose shook her head, "No, not physically. I just sense….you're not you. Well, of course you're you, but, different somehow, I don't know HOW exactly…you're just not…."

"Yeah, I was made because Donna touched my hand…well the hand that got cut off, Christmas Day; I was able to see into her head, made me part human. Suppose it's the human in me that you don't like," he gave a sort of half smile to her.

"No, that's not what I mean…I just… I dunno…" Rose fell silent and looked back up at the sky.

Jackie walked over to where the pair was, still worried about Rose, "C'mon Rose darlin', we've got to get to seein' about Pete….remember the baby…."

She sniffed and nodded, her hair scraping the sand beneath her hand, still staring up.

The duplicate Doctor got up in a fluid motion, just like he normally did. He stuck one hand in his pocket, and extended his other to Rose. She stared blankly at his extended palm for a moment, then reached up and took it, pulling herself up off the beach. He didn't let go when she got up, he led her to her mother with an arm around her shoulder, and they left Bad Wolf Bay in unison.

Rose sat at the end of her bed in her cotton pajamas staring out the window while the storm raged outside. The rain sluiced off her window and the thunder rattled the mansion. Her hair was wet from the long shower she had just taken, standing in the hot water until it turned cold. Surprisingly, her mum and Pete let the duplicate Doctor stay in the Tyler Mansion with them. They had plenty of room after all, and the Doctor, Rose's Doctor, had given this duplicate to her, a piece of him to spend the rest of her life with. Strangely enough, Jackie and Pete took a weird sort of liking to the duplicate; he had destroyed the Daleks after all…

There was a knock on her door, and she made a noise that pretty much meant she had heard the knock. He slid in her room, slowly and softly, not wanting to stop her reverie. He felt just as strongly for her as the original Doctor had. He remembered everything, just as it had happened, but now he was able to act on it, if she wanted to try.

"What is it Doctor?" she asked softly.

He sat next to her on the bed and shook his head a minute.

"I just don' understand. Why did he ask me if it needed saying? Of course it needed saying! Why did he avoid sayin it? It just doesn' make any sense. Did he just not feel that way about me?"

"Rose, I was a part of him when he left the first time, and God did it hurt when I-he, didn't get to tell you….I-he, cried when the transmission cut out. He could never tell you he loved you because….he would have had to watch you grow old, tired and sick. Time would've worked on you the way it does all humans. And it would've killed him to see it happen to you. If he said it out loud, it would've been that much harder to let go."

Rose wasn't happy with this answer, "I'm just…so angry….I was so miserable after the first time he left. But I channeled all of that anger into my work at Torchwood…But now…you're here…and I…" she jumped up off the bed to walk to the window and stare out; thinking hard about what came next.

He softly came behind her and put one of his hands on her shoulder, trying to comfort her, "You know, as a Time Lord, watching space, time, species, and even civilizations go by? We learn to hold on the time we are given, even if it's just a few moments. We learn, at such a young age, that the world is ugly, Rose, beings are cruel, and there's not as many answers as there are questions. But you taught me that you have to grab on to what makes you happy and fight for it, that the world isn't all blood and revenge. You taught me that love is out there, and attainable," he let his hand slide down her arm to hold her hand as she sniffed back tears.

She looked at him, "Do you really think we can live a normal life? Grow old? Spend it together?"

He nodded. "And you'll never be alone?" she looked at him full of concern, anger, and conflicting emotions even she couldn't sort out.

He smiled his big goofy smile, "Only when you want to be. I won't go anywhere unless you want me to. I told you we'd spend this last life of mine together, if you want, and that's what we'll do, if you're still willing."

When Rose turned to look at the half-human Doctor, the full effect hit him, her total heartbreak, her tears flowed just as they had on the beach, but they had a spark of understanding in them. As Rose tossed herself into hugging him, she realized that the Doctor had given her a piece of himself, not a shadow. She buried her face into his shoulder, and knew that if the real Doctor had been free to love her, this would be it. He had given her the piece of him that loved her more than anything. This man was cut, literally from the same cloth as the whole man she loved. Rose cried even harder thinking that it must have been like cutting a piece of his heart out. Despite all this, she peeked over this Doctor's shoulder to look at the sky outside her window.

"Thank you Doctor, where ever you are," she thought silently. Of course a piece of her heart would always be with the real Doctor, but it didn't mean that she couldn't love this one fully and without restraint.

"Come on Rose, it's been a trying day." Trying to lead her back to her bed, he yawns deeply, "Oh god that's strange. I'm not used to being tired, or sleeping that much for that matter," he grinned at her.

She laid down in her bed and scooted over to the pillow on the other side of the bed and flipped the corner of the blankets closest to him down, and patted the bed, "Don't leave 'till mornin'?"

He stood for a moment, staring at her, visible from the neck up in her bed, looking so hopeful. He smiled, "I haven't even gotten the pajamas that Jackie laid out for me on yet. I've got my shoes on…."

She looked hurt for a moment, and then turned over to face the wall, hearing her bedroom door open and close. She sat in the dark feeling silly and thinking that she had just thrown herself at him, but then she heard her door open and close again.

"Go away, mum. I don' want to talk about it," she snapped as she pulled the blankets more securely around her shoulder. The bed dipped, and she felt a body slide in beside her, "I told you mum, I just don't want to talk about it right now. Let me sleep."

"I'm not you're mum, but you did ask me to spend the night in this bed…..I'll go if you've changed your mind," said the Doctor's voice as he slid an arm over her waist.

She rolled over with such quickness, that once again, they bumped heads. He laughed so hard the bed shook as he held his head where they had connected, "If you keep doing that I'll end up with brain damage!"

Rose smiled widely, not even caring that her head twinged from the bump, and slid her arms around the wiry figure of her Doctor, snuggling into his frame, breathing in his scent, and feeling the soft cotton of the baggy pajamas that were once Pete's. She heard him chuckle a little as he enfolded her in his embrace and got comfortable.

Finally, with the exhausting day done, her emotions spent, him newly getting used to being half-human, they drifted to sleep in one another's arms.