Author's Note:

I don't own Doctor Who or intend to make profit from it.

I gave Nine the chance to say goodbye, what fun is it if Rose doesn't get a chance to see it?

Spoilers through The Parting of Ways

Goodbyes (part two of two)

------------------------------------------------

Rose Tyler wasn't sure what she thought of the man that wasn't quite not her Doctor and couldn't quite convince her that he was, either.

"Sonic screwdriver," he said, gesturing with the device. "Not many blokes see a screwdriver and think 'this could be more sonic,' right?" It was Jack's words, and hearing them from this stranger's lips hurt as much as when he used the Doctor's words. They weren't right, coming from that bucktoothed mouth, with those dark eyes and all that hair.

"Lemme see it," Rose said, holding her hand out for the screwdriver. She knew a few settings, didn't she? And anyway, it would be proof of a kind she didn't really need.

The new Doctor handed it over, watching her with words bubbling up behind his lips. He held them back, but he had a nervous sort of fidget that told her he wanted to burst out with a stream of conversation.

Rose fiddled with the sonic screwdriver, turning to "patching barbed wire" and "just plain ol' sonic," flipping through the numbers in a way she'd only done a hand full of times, hadn't wanted to do more than a hand full of times.

It had been her Doctor's way of saving the day, hadn't it? Not hers.

She clicked to the next setting, she wasn't even sure what it was, and then another.

And then… there was a blue light, a familiar form being projected.

"Give me that," the Doctor snapped, suddenly, holding out his hand expectantly. But Rose didn't listen. Her eyes had fallen on that beam, that projection.

"What's this?" She asked, watching the recording. It was saying something, but she couldn't hear what.

"Just a recording," the Doctor said, nervously.

"Well, where's the volume?" She tried to figure it out, frantic fingers scrambling over the screwdriver, adjusting…

Until the picture disappeared.

"Make it come back!" Rose cried, turning to look at the Doctor, tears brimming in her eyes. "Bring it back."

The Doctor nodded, a sad sort of smile twitching over his lips, and plucked the device from her fingers."Here," he said, turning it back and setting the volume up.

The Doctor stood before Rose, an eight-inch tall projection, each feature frozen perfectly as she remembered, from the heavy jacket to the almost nonexistent hair.

"I'd wanted to say goodbye," the Doctor explained, unable to reach out and take Rose's hand in his awkward new one. "I thought I was going to die, and I hadn't said goodbye."

Rose nodded, "okay," she said, though clearly it wasn't.

"When I sent you away," he emphasized. "I'd wanted to say goodbye."

"Emergency Program One--" she started, because that had been a goodbye of sorts, hadn't it?

"Wasn't a goodbye," he cut in. "It was a precaution. It was a last resort. I wanted to tell you in person, what I was feeling at that exact moment, when I knew I was going to die. It's not me at my best, Rose, or my most heroic."

Rose knew, intellectually, that this man was the same as he one in the projection, and when he said things like that, she could see it, hear it in his tone, was forced to believe it.

But looking at her Doctor on the projection and seeing this new man beside her, she had an awful time remembering it.

"Can I…" she started, trailing off as she realized she wasn't sure how to ask this new man to leave her so she could get her own goodbye to… well, to himself.

"I'll go wait outside," he said. "Just… just call me in when you're ready." He hit play and proceeded to leave the TARDIS, to set foot back in Rose's own time.

He was a Time Lord, she reminded herself, as the projection smiled at her, and started to talk. Surely he wouldn't mind waiting while she said goodbye.