Part the First

"Does it need saying?"

The Doctor could still see the look in Rose's eyes as he said those words. He could still see the utter loss in her wonderful summer-brown eyes. That look told him that she thought that his love for her didn't matter to him. And now the Doctor knew that letting her believe that may just be the biggest regret of his considerably-long life.

Had he sought to change her perception? No, he hadn't. He had made a split second decision then to protect her from the knowledge that he would most certainly dump the meta-crisis in the middle of the parallel universe so he could be with her. He'd burned out a sun just to say goodbye to her. There was nothing he wouldn't do to keep her with him.

Then again, he couldn't leave an angrier, bloodthirsty version of himself unsupervised. His meta-crisis was unreliable and unpredictable, and he needed someone to look after him, someone to tame him and keep him grounded. Rose was the best person for it, he had decided. She had managed to tame him, after all. How could he subject a universe to the possible dangers that came with a slightly-vengeful time lord? Though that universe wasn't his, and therefore not really his responsibility (seeing as he could never return to it again), he just couldn't do that. Even if he had taken Rose with him, he would be endangering not just a universe, but Rose's mother. He wouldn't do that to Rose.

But, alas, ignorance is, if not bliss, better than knowing his real reasons. If she did, she might not think them reason enough.

She would never do that, she would never endanger her mother, his mind replied emphatically. His Rose would never do that, but he hadn't seen her for two years. She had changed.

In clearer terms, she had grown up. He had seen that in her movement (she didn't skip around anymore, instead she walked rather gravely with her back straight and a steely confidence), her smiles (or lack of them and without her tongue peeking out), but mostly in her eyes. She had known a new type of pain. A pain caused by being on the other side of a wall that could never be torn down. He knew she had felt it because he had felt the same pain. He recognized the same look in her eyes as the one he often saw in his.

With haunted eyes, the Doctor turned toward Donna Noble, knowing that he was about to lose someone else he cared for.

"No!"

Was what she had yelled as her favourite blue box, the TARDIS, dematerialised.

A soft, lingering 'no' was her first thought after said blue box disappeared.

And a final whispering 'no' came from the smallest and darkest corner of her mind as the Doctor-look-alike had reached out for her hand on the glittering sands of Dårlig Ulv-Stranden.

She had ignored this last deny and slowly took his hand. She held it gingerly. It felt so alien, so wrong, so completely different from her Doctor's hand, yet similar too. Logically, she knew that it was the same exact hand. Or perhaps it was the real Doctor's original hand, she wondered.

It was as she was sitting next to the part-human, part-Gallifreyan on a small Torchwood zeppelin, when she thought of her thrice-made denials.

It was in an effort to be more economical and efficient that Torchwood had chosen to purchase a very small zeppelin. In fact, it was the one that the director himself of Torchwood had personal use of. That director happened to be Pete Tyler, her father (or rather, the man whom her mother had married that just happened to look just like her real father) and the zeppelin was the one to pick them up. It had just six seats, not including that of the pilot.

To save him the embarrassment of sitting next to Pete, she had continued to hold on to the duplicate's hand and pulled him into the back two seats. Pete had given her a small nod of thanks, but Jackie, who had her son Tony sitting next to her, had looked over at them with a frown on her face, as if she disapproved of Rose not distancing herself.

The man next to her, the duplicate Doctor, as she had taken to calling him, was a man born of and into war and hatred, blood and revenge. In that way, he was much more similar to her first Doctor than the Doctor who had left her twice.

"That's very me," he had said, and in that moment, she knew that it had not been her pin-stripe suit wearing Doctor talking; it had been the man in the leather armour. Almost as if the man was talking from the grave.

And that thought gave her chills.

Rose had been shivering since Bad Wolf Bay, a side effect of kneeling in the wet sand, but her latest bout of chills seemed more violent and less like the trembling that the cold causes. Feeling her sudden chill, the duplicate Doctor looked over at her, an eyebrow raised in a familiar fashion. It was an expression the Doctor had often worn and seeing it made Rose's eyes start to well up. She blinked a few times before offering him a weak smile. It was all she could manage.

That's what she would do, manage.

The Doctor (duplicate? copy? meta-crisis?) couldn't feel the turn of the Earth beneath his feet. It wasn't the fact that he was currently in an airborne zeppelin, no, when he stood upon Bad Wolf Bay-where everything was so still-it had unnerved him. He couldn't feel the Earth spinning at one thousand miles per hour (or what it actually was on this Earth), nor could he feel it rocketing around the sun. It moon's gravitational pull, which corresponded with the tides, hadn't drawn his attention either. He had never felt so still before. And the aching silence of the rest of his sort-of-species was still there, but there seemed to be… less of a silence, somehow. It wasn't any louder, just less silent.

A very weak, nearly silent hum nudged at the edge of his consciousness. He stuck his hand into his larger-on-the-inside pocket and gently stroked the small piece of TARDIS coral the (other? original? real?) Doctor had given to him. It was one of two things in this world that gave him some semblance of hope. Thinking of the other, his lips twitched into a small, abstruse smile.

Seeing his sort-of-smile, Rose asked in a low voice, "What's got you smiling?"

His smile widened a bit as he replied in a low voice as well. "The piece of TARDIS. It's already a bit telepathic. And do you know what that means, Rose Tyler? It means that it'll grow just like Donna said. Soon enough, we'll be free to roam space and time again-if you want," he added quickly, not wanting to assume.

Unable to wash the pure excitement from her veins, Rose flashed a grin at him. She kept her doubts firmly locked up in the back of her head. It wouldn't do to start questioning him so soon. Then he really might just off and go away in his TARDIS as soon as he could.

Pleased with her reaction, the (something, because he wasn't the Doctor anymore, seeing as there was more than one of them) Doctor slowly inched his hand over to where hers was gripping the armrest between them. When he saw that she wasn't protesting, his hovering hand slowly loosened her hand from the leather and slid his fingers in between hers.

His hand nearly fit perfectly with hers, the Doctor noted bitterly. It would have to do.

As Rose and the Doctor leaned back into their seats, content with the progress they had already made (however small), neither of them noticed the wary looks Jackie was throwing toward them.

(((((((((((((((((((((((BADWOLF))))))))))))))))))))))

The car they had taken to the mansion was a very nice, very spacious sedan of some sort that he knew hadn't existed in his universe. Again, Rose had purposely sat in between him and her little brother, Tony. Jackie's worried, suspicious looks she gave him were beginning to unnerve him even more. These looks came every time she decided to quickly swivel around to check on Tony, but the look on her face as she slid her eyes to him, when she was looking at Rose, told him just how much Rose must have been upset the last time (he? the other one?) had left her, and just how much Jackie did not trust him to not do it again. The thought sickened him. He was finally where Rose was, and could not fathom leaving her again. He wouldn't bear it.

When the car had finally stopped in front of a familiar mansion and they had all gotten out, the Doctor had only made it a couple of steps before stumbling over. Before he could make a proper fall of it though, Rose and, surprisingly, Pete, grabbed him and helped him vertical again.

His expression of bewilderment was met by one of slight, pained bitterness from Rose. "This Earth is on the other side of its tilt right now. Takes a bit of getting used to, trust me."

"I do."

Understanding replaced blankness as she quirked another small smile at him.

Jackie's shrill voice whipped back towards them. "Oi! You two! Come on, then. Don't need you two sick from a bit of rain."

Startled, Rose took a step back and started up the path to the front door, the Doctor trailing after her.

The exterior of the mansion looked the same as the Doctor remembered it, it was the inside that made his world tilt again.

Gone was the polished, clearly upper class décor, leaving behind a much cosier feel that the Doctor could picture Pete's little family in.

Seeing his shock, Pete spoke up as Jacked led Tony into some other part of the house.

"After the Cybermen, and… my first wife's death, I-we" he amended, "decided that the house could do with a change. It's very different from the last time you saw it."

The Doctor nodded slowly, still looking around. He noticed Rose had gone from the room. Why hadn't he noticed? Oh, that's right, human now-can't see everything anymore. "Yes, when I-he last saw it, it was still very, very..." He trailed off.

Pete took a couple of steps in the Doctor's direction. "Doctor, I wanted to let you know that in the case that you're not, for whatever reason, staying at Rose's flat, you're welcome to stay here as long as you want." The Doctor heard the unspoken, Even if Jackie says no, that was implied in there.

A twinge of pain knocked against his temples. His head must really not like the idea of being separated from Rose. "Thank you. I don't really know what my plans are yet. I need…" he stopped. The twinge was growing into a real headache now. He hadn't had one of these in a while. Or, rather, he hadn't remembered having one in a quite a long time.

"To talk to Rose," Pete finished for him. "Yeah, you two haven't had time to sort everything out yet, I realise." Noticing the Doctor's small grimace of pain, Pete asked, "Are you alright?"

The Doctor nodded, the motion bringing on a whole new level of pain. "It's just a headache. Combination of meta-crisis-ing and the whole parallel world thing. I'm just not used to it yet. It's nothing." He shoved his hands into his pockets.

Pete glanced around. "Well, since the girls have scampered off, I'll show you to a room." And with that, he motioned the Doctor to follow him up the stairs.

After two left turns and a right, Pete stopped in front of a plain wooden door.

"Well, here you are then. Rose's room is right there," he pointed to the room just left of the Doctor's, "and there is a bathroom connected to your room."

Again, the Doctor thanked Pete, shook his hand and promptly went into his newly-appointed room.

The room was simple enough, the walls a light beige colour and the bed a nice blue colour that was nearly the colour of the TARDIS. He sat down on a dark blue armchair. Simple, but very high quality indeed.

Seeing as his headache wasn't going away, a nap might just do the trick, he decided. Getting up, perhaps a little too quickly than what was good for his head, the room spun uncomfortably.

Tripping over his own feet, the Doctor fell with a powerful golden colour overtaking his mind.

Thank you for reading! Please drop a review, whether or not you liked it, I'd love to read any comments you might have.

I'm looking for a beta reader, so if you would like to help me with this story, please PM me.

~Ica

Doctor Who and its accoutrements are the property of the BBC, in other words, I do not own.