Author's notes: Yet another "Journey's End" fic, I know. However, this is for the people who, like me, are getting sick and tired of reading how Rose is a cow, that Tentoo's the Valeyard, or that they just jump into bed together and go at it like rabbits. This story does not feature sexist crap, i.e., Rose or the companions as pushovers or whiny, so if that's your thing, move on. That said, it is often NOT Tenth Doctor friendly, and I treat Tentoo and Ten as separate incarnations. Enjoy!

Chapter 1: It's Been One Week

Rose Tyler, Defender of the Multiverse, irritably slammed a pillow over her head, muffling the echoes of happy, boisterous laughter of three humans and a half-alien from the downstairs dining room. All she wanted was to sleep and forget the heavy tiredness that had plagued her for the past week. One week since they returned from Bad Wolf Bay, one week since the walls of reality closed and she was left like yesterday's rubbish by the Oncoming Storm and his newly-created equal.

Stop bein' such a cow! He left you 'imself. Isn't that what you wanted? enjoined her mother's voice.

Yeah, what a prize, she thought. He left us in another universe with another rude-and-not-ginger regeneration to take care of, or at least until he fucks off in 'is new TARDIS. How could I possibly pass that up? Rose rolled over onto her back and stared blankly at the ceiling, silently envying the scattered, screaming souls who had loved and lost. The mechanical creaking and whooshing of a departed blue box had numbed and desensitized her like surgical anesthetic, for even a week later, it properly did the job of numbing the pain of being abandoned on the rocky, semi-frozen beach of her nightmares.

Suppose I should be grateful for not bein' left eight-hundred quid in debt in addition to a broken heart, she quipped as she turned over for the second time in five minutes. Her nose wrinkled at the week-old stench of body odor, adrenline and anger trapped in the red and white heart-patterned Egyptian cotton sheets. Rose's eyes shut in semi-embarrassment at the realization that she had not come downstairs to see her family in nearly four days. She gulped the bitter taste of remorse at hurting her baby brother for the hundredth time in so few days. Yes, Tony, we'll play soon. No, Tony, not today. Rose bit her lip; she sacrificed her brother's happiness and precious time in the vain hope of a reunion with the madman in a box.

But at least she helped save the multiverse, right?

Rose slammed her balled fists against the soft mattress, then again, and several times again. It wasn't fair; she kept her promise. Didn't that mean anything?

Does it need saying?

Her amber eyes flashed predatorily. If she had been sure of the place in his life and hearts, then no, it wouldn't have needed to be said. Yet domestics and any serious conversation about the elephant in the room were, like Captain Jack, unofficially banned from the TARDIS. The humiliated young woman shut her eyes a second time. She trusted him, she trusted his rules.

I thought you and me were… I obviously got it wrong. I've been to the year five billion, right, but this? Now this is really seeing the future. You just leave us behind. Is that what you're going to do to me?

No, not to you.

What a bloody liar, she hissed. He forgot about her the moment Donna inherited his mind and became the DoctorDonna, never mind that she had once absorbed all of time and space for him. It was Reinette and Sarah Jane Smith the third time over. Her first Doctor — big ears, black leather, and Salford accent — had never called attention to her lack of A-Levels; though it was never said outright, her second Doctor clearly believed she was a stupid ape and inferior to his other companions. Rose sighed. Maybe he was right; after all, he had his choice of companions among French marquises, accomplished journalists, and medical doctors — why would he even consider staying with a subpar shopgirl from South London?

Is that why you came back? Because you felt like he owed you a human ending of happily ever after? demanded a voice suspiciously akin to her first doctor's.

Her lips turned up, but into a grimace. No; she honestly stayed because she loved him. She came back because she thought that he still needed her, because she made him a promise of forever in the TARDIS. Despite what he and her mum apparently believed, she never wanted the beans-on-toast British life. Beans-on-toast meant returning to the shops and living an unremarkable life with an equally unremarkable husband and children. Rose had left in the TARDIS precisely because it was her only second chance at escaping the Powell Estate and changing nappies at twenty-one. As she once told her second Doctor underneath a black hole a billion light years from her Earth, if they had to take out a mortgage, they could do it together. But it was far from her idea of a happy life.

I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you, if you want.

But he's not you.

What of her third Doctor? Perhaps he had changed just enough.

Don't go down that road, Tyler, she admonished herself. Though her three doctors were all the Doctor, they weren't the same man. Rose knew that better than anyone, having been with all three. Big Ears wore his feelings like his black leather — perceptible, wounded, yet hopeful. Pinstripes was fit and had gorgeous hair, but hid his emotions behind the mask of mania, intelligence, and self-assured arrogance. Mickey first recognized the underlying insensitivity of the second Doctor, which Rose steadfastly denied. The Donna-Doctor was a hot-tempered, insecure version of the original who barely spoke to her, and like Pinstripes, would only admit to his feelings under extreme duress. But unlike his two predecessors and having observed many versions of Donna Noble's life, Rose instinctively knew that this Doctor wanted some imagined fairytale life with her, even though he was as emotionally aware as her kid brother.

And I'm him.

Rose sniffed dryly. What about her? Her own track record was less than exemplary; before the Doctor, with whom she had a more-than-friends-but-less-than-romantic relationship, she had been in two relationships, neither of which had been particularly healthy or mature. The safe, but dull Mickey's idea of teenage romance was a post-footie shag in his flat. Bored to tears and afraid of Jackie's wrath at her desire for more than a proper working-woman's life, she fell prey to the empty, charismatic words of Jimmy Stone, who turned his frustrations and fists on her weeks after becoming a power couple at school. Instead of the escape she so craved, Rose came back to the Powell Estate hundreds of pounds in debt, banned from senior school, jailed by her enraged mother, and ignored by her betrayed off-and-on boyfriend. She once again became a passive actor in her own life, waiting for the handsome prince to come and rescue her from the ordinary. The clarity of nearly ten years and a whole universe of experiences illuminated the painfully obvious: Rose Tyler had never been truly in love.

Then she met the Doctor, saw the universe, made new mistakes, and repeated old ones. Rose became still at the last thought. With her first Doctor, she had changed for the better; she was less afraid, less judgmental, more eager for knowledge and education, and more willing to take action, even if that meant arguing with and defying him.

I create myself.

After her Northern Doctor's regeneration, Rose found herself tiptoeing on eggshells around the frenetic pretty boy. She lost the independence of mind and spirit and clung to the Doctor's every word and decision, even while he threw woman after woman in her face and rewarded her with verbal barb after barb. Then after the worst day of her life, Rose started to breathe again with a quantum-flux dimension cannon and the dimmest of hopes of returning to her universe and the Doctor. She would never admit it to anyone at the time, least of all herself, but there were days in which she thought more about the success of the cannon than about reaching the Doctor.

Three knocks at the white bedroom door startled her out of her reverie. Rose stared at the painted wood, silent in fear of the person on the other side. Certain that it wasn't Tony, for he'd just open the door or cry until she unlocked it, nor her mother, who would have begun to shout by now, Rose deduced that it was either her parallel father or the Donna-Doctor.

The buzz of the sonic screwdriver unlocking the door immediately answered her unspoken question. Before she could shout at him to leave her alone, the half-human Doctor walked in, pocketed the screwdriver, and closed the door, leaning against it to block her escape. He crossed his long, thin arms and quietly raised a chestnut-colored eyebrow.