Rose eyed the metacrisis Doctor suspiciously.
"So, what's different about you? Aside from the one-heart thing, 'course?"
"Hmm," the Doctor said, absently tracing lines onto Rose's arm as he sat next to her. She felt stiff under his touch. "Well, I have a newly found fear of dying." he joked.
"Tha's not funny."
"Oh, alright. There's a great deal of differences, physically. It's a bit of an adjustment. A downgrade, honestly. My superior Time Lord biology was much less susceptible to illness, and, well, human emotions are so large...It make it's hard to concentrate when I'm -" His fingers moved slower across Rose's skin. "-Feeling so much."
Rose shivered. "So, you are different. You're not -" she trailed off. Not really him, she wanted to say. Still, Rose knew that even though this Doctor was not the one she'd spent so much time with, he still remembered all of their adventures as if it had been him travelling with her...Falling for her. He was so in love with her, and it was obvious. Rose couldn't be cruel and pretend that he didn't matter just because he wasn't, well, her Doctor.
The Doctor stared into her. There was no hiding from those eyes. He knew her. It was almost as if he was in her head. This man who was barely a day old knew her so intimately.
"Rose, I know... I know I'm not what you want right now. I can see it in your eyes. You wish I was him. And - and there's those feelings I was talking about," he said, rubbing his temples. "I can't believe I'm jealous of myself. Stupid! This is going to take some getting used to."
"For both of us," Rose mumbled.
"Rose, please. I know it's hard, but I am him. Everything you experienced with him, it's all here inside of me! I feel for you everything he felt. I love you," he said. It was a joy to be able to say those words. Something his Time Lord self had never felt comfortable saying. The words came to his human lips easily and happily.
"All that he felt for me!" Rose cried, suddenly upset. "And he never told me. He loved me, and now he's alone. I worked so hard trying to get back to him, and he just dumped me back in this ruddy universe that I've been trying to escape from the very moment I got here - with some clone of himself! How could he just leave me if he loves me? "
"I'm not a clone, I'm - "
Rose shot the Doctor a heated look.
"He loves you. He does still. That's why he did what he did."
"Well, it's bloody stupid! I'm sick of him making decisions for me. Don't I get a say?Would he have left me if you hadn't been...created?"
The metacrisis Doctor sighed. "No. He couldn't have made himself. I'm sorry, Rose. I'm so sorry."
"S'not your fault. Don't apologize."
The Doctor reached out and held Rose's damp cheek in his palm. "Rose," he whispered. "You're so beautiful. So strong. He left you because he loves you. I will stay with you for that same reason. I will never leave you."
Rose felt numb to it, now. But she believed him.
"Alrigh'." It was all she could manage. For now.
