A/N: So originally this chapter was going to be half Rose and the Doctor working out some of their respective issues, and half investigation. And then I started writing it, and it became an introduction and a Very Long Conversation. But here it is! Enjoy!

Chapter Three

For the first time in over a month, Rose Tyler woke up alone. While the Doctor needed far less sleep than she did, he usually stayed in bed until she rose. She rolled over, expecting to find him sitting against the headboard reading. He wasn't there. Panic rolled through her, and then the adrenaline pushed away the remnants of sleep and she remembered. It would be easier if she was angry. She could push away the sense of emptiness that came with his absence if she held the anger close. She sighed. What good would that do? She was honest enough to admit that she had been in the wrong. She pulled away, used Martha to create the distance she needed because she was scared, and then she used his accidental telepathy to cement that distance.

Her fingers clenched around the sheets. There were so many things they never said. Before she came to this universe, back when she travelled with him she accepted it, usually. She didn't like it but she tried to understand. She didn't know if she could do that now, could bite her tongue and just move on. She wasn't half bad at pretending, but it felt too much like lying. The Doctor had tricked her, had kept her in the dark and sent her away, but he never lied to her. He must have had a reason for kissing Martha, even if it was one she didn't immediately understand. "A genetic transfer," he called it. Her lips quirked into an ironic smile. She never heard him refer to their kisses as such.

She rolled out of the bed and wrapped her dressing gown over her jim-jams. The fabric felt nice against her skin, and the color, a deep pink, flattered her complexion. If there was one thing she liked about the parallel universe, it was her clothes. She no longer wore baby pink and blue: being the Vitex heiress required a bit more sophistication than growing up on the Powell Estates had. She picked at the cream lace that lined the collar and cuffs of the dressing gown as she exited the bedroom. He wasn't in the sitting room either, or the bathroom, but a rumpled blanket lay on the couch and a book was on the table. His shoes were missing, but his suit jacket was decorating the back of a chair. She traced the cover of the thin volume lightly; it was The Signalman, by Charles Dickens. A soft smile stole across her face as she remembered the man's surprise when she kissed him on the cheek.

Rose moved to the kitchenette. It was little more than a hot plate, a sink, a microwave, and a mini-fridge, but it would do. She found a kettle stashed in one of the cupboards, filled it with water, and put it on the plate to boil. She made tea often, but especially when she was upset. It was a left-over from her childhood, something her mother did when she had a bad day at school or a fight with a boy. There was something intrinsically calming in the ritual that surrounded the process. The kettle whistled. She poured two mugs.

She was sitting on the couch, still wrapped in her dressing gown, staring out the picture window in the sitting room that overlooked the grounds and cradling the mug she had designated as hers when the Doctor came back. He was carrying a plain brown paper bag with something inside.

"Good morning." His voice was quiet, but without the air of suppressed anger that had suffused it the day before.

"Morning," she replied, and moved to one side of the couch so he could sit, if he so chose.

He did. "Some for me?" he asked, nodding at the tea. She pointed to the other mug, resting on a coaster on the table next to his book. He set the brown bag on the table in front of her and picked up the mug. He blew on the liquid to cool it, and sipped it with a hum of appreciation. They sat in silence for a while, sipping and studying the landscape. He set down the mug, opened the sack, and pulled out a paper-wrapped bundle. Rose raised an eyebrow.

He opened the paper and handed her a slice of a cake or bread, something heavy and moist. "Banana bread," he explained. "Saw a stand on the way up here, fresh bread and fruit and stuff." He reached back into the sack and deposited three apples and a single pear, for her sake, on the table.

She nibbled on the bread and watched him. He looked tired. His hair stood up in all directions and his suit was rumpled, like he'd slept in it. The silence stretched out between them.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Rose—"

It was the tone, the weariness in his voice that wrenched at her. "'M sorry," she murmured. She hated fighting with him, hated seeing him look so lost. She took a breath and started again. "I'm sorry. It was wrong of me to expect you to spill everything when I haven't, when I wasn't willing to myself."

He reached out a hand and cupped her face like he'd done the last time–when she'd almost ended the universe by trying to save her father. He smiled at her gently. "Nine hundred years and change, me," he replied, "and I'm still no good at this."

"You're good at everything," she said reflexively, quoting one of his frequent assertions.

He shook his head. "No I'm not. D'you remember what I told you when we first met?"

"Run?"

He chuckled. "After that. When we were tracing the Nestene consciousness and you kept moaning about Mickey."

She nodded. "You said you 'don't do domestic.'"

"I didn't for almost nine hundred years. When I travelled I wasn't looking to fall in love. It helped that most of my earlier regenerations were crotchety old men." He grinned wryly. "I was trying too hard to be mature and wise and serious. And then…" his voice trailed off and he paused for a moment, collecting himself. "And then the Time War happened. Amazing what being the last of your species can do for your outlook on life." Bitterness tinged his words. Rose took his hand and laced her fingers through his. "But then I met you. I was broken, and angry, and completely alone, and you pulled me out of the darkness and glued me back together. I didn't 'do domestic' because I was afraid." When he met her gaze his eyes were dark with remembered pain. "I was afraid that if I let myself love you, if I acknowledged it, that you would be ripped away from me. This," he gestured with his free hand at the room around them, "this is something I never thought I could have. And I'm still getting used to it." He leaned back against the couch and sighed. "Stopping the Empress of the Racnoss from taking over the world? Easy. Facing down a fleet of Daleks? Piece of cake. Being human?" He paused. "Now that's hard."

She sighed. He released her hand and wrapped his arms around her. She laid her cheek against his chest. "When did you meet Martha?" she asked.

"Three months after the beach," he replied. "And I was serious, Rose. That wasn't a kiss, it was a genetic transfer. The Judoon—space police that look a bit like rhinos," he clarified.

Rose nodded. "I've worked with them before."

He wanted to be surprised, but he wasn't. "They were looking for a plasmavore—internal shape-shifter. She drank the blood and mimicked the biology of a human. I needed time so I could find her, before they decided that the hospital was guilty of harboring a fugitive and destroyed it. The Judoon used this scan to separate human from non-human, but she could trick it if she drank human blood. Kissing Martha left traces of my genetics on her face—forced the Judoon to do a full scan and let me trick the plasmavore into drinking my blood, mimicking my distinctly inhuman genetics." He sounded a bit smug, but his face remained serious.

Rose nodded. "Clever."

"I thought so myself." They were silent.

"She loved you," Rose said after a moment.

"Yes."

"Did you love her?" The question was soft and hesitant and the Doctor could feel her tense as she asked.

"Not like she wanted me to." He stroked her hair with one hand. "I love you now, Rose, and I loved you then. I told her when she started travelling with me that she wasn't replacing you. No one could replace you, and when she realized that I really couldn't give her what she wanted, she left."

"Did you travel with anyone else?"

"Besides Martha and Donna?" She nodded. He shook his head. "No. I knocked about on my own for a bit. Didn't want anyone else with me, tried to pretend I didn't need someone with me." He sighed. "I was wrong. Donna called it, when I took her home. Said I need someone to stop me, sometimes."

"So you met Donna after Martha?" Rose asked, trying to work out a timeline in her head.

"No actually. I met Donna first."

"When?"

He looked away. "Just after the message cut out. I looked up and she was standing in the TARDIS."

"But you were in orbit around a supernova." Rose's forehead wrinkled as she frowned in confusion.

He gestured vaguely. "The Empress of the Racnoss—kind of like giant omnivorous spider-people, dosed her with Huon particles. The TARDIS has Huon particles, and when the particles activated they pulled her in. Was quite a shock." He smiled sadly. "She slapped me twice. Thought I gallivanted around kidnapping women."

Rose laughed. "I'm glad he has Donna. She won't let him get away with anything."

The Doctor was silent. His face was drawn and his eyes were closed.

Rose pulled away a bit. "Doctor." He did not respond. "Doctor, what's wrong?" He was silent. She grabbed his chin lightly and turned his face so he was looking at her, or he would be if he opened his eyes. "Doctor. What. Is. Wrong."

He stared at her for a moment. "I'm sorry, Rose," he said slowly. "Donna's gone."

She blinked. "Gone? What do you mean, gone? She said—"

"It's my fault." His voice was flat and bleak. "The metacrisis—she had a Time Lord consciousness in a human body. Humans use so little of their brain…Time Lords use far more, and she couldn't sustain it. Not safely."

"What are you saying?" Confusion and worry made her voice sharp.

"Donna isn't with him anymore. He, he would have wiped her memory. Everything she saw, everything they did, every memory of him. If she remembers, even once, she'll die. She'll burn up from the inside out."

Rose stared at him. He could see the ideas coming together, connecting. "You knew." It was an accusation. "On the beach, when he left, you both knew." He nodded. He wanted to speak but he felt like something had a vice-grip around his neck. "You knew," she was almost shouting now, "and you never said! You tricked me! Were you going to tell me at all? What is it with you two and making decisions? Did it never occur to either of you that I should have a say in what goes on in my own life?"

"Rose—"

"No!" She moved away from him, her arms clenched tight around her. She slid off the couch and stood, still staring at him. He froze. They stayed like that for a while, breathing, waiting. "Are you going to…burn?" she asked finally. "Am I going to come home one day and find you dead on the floor? Or slouched over your desk at the office?"

He pushed himself off the couch and pulled her into his arms. She was shaking. He laid his head on top of hers. "No, Rose. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm—less human than Donna. I would know," he assured her, "if there was anything off and there's not. And I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I wanted to but," he sighed. "I was afraid. I love you, Rose, as much as he does and ever did. And in the most important ways, I am him, but I was afraid that you would feel differently. I've got no TARDIS, no sonic screwdriver, no psychic paper, and one heart. It isn't a difficult choice, if you think about it," his voice had turned bitter. She didn't reply. He held her close as he waited for the shaking to stop.

After a moment she pulled back from him and wiped her face with the sleeve of her dressing gown. "He's all alone, then." Her voice was rough. The Doctor nodded. His chest was tight, like something very heavy was pressing into it, constricting his lungs, making breathing difficult and speech impossible. "Why? Why does he keep sending me away?"

"It didn't used to end like this." His voice was soft. His hands hung by his sides and they itched to hold her again, to smooth her hair and tell her with touch what he couldn't express in words. "After they left they had good lives, but then," he paused, as if gathering strength. "Then I destroyed your life and you were taken from me. I turned Martha into a soldier and was responsible for her family being tortured for a year. And Donna," his voice broke, "I killed her. Pressed the reset button. And she was amazing. Everywhere I go I bring misery and pain and death to everyone who knows me."

Rose wrapped her arms around him and hugged him fiercely. "Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me."

"But how could he look at you without thinking of the next time you would be lost?" The Doctor stroked her hair. He was crying, he knew it but he couldn't stop it. When was the last time he cried? "He was always going to lose you, Rose. If you survived travelling with him then time would take you away and he would be alone again. It was easier to let you go, to know that you would be with someone who would love you with everything they had, to know that you would be safe instead of waiting for something to tear you away from him."

"You can't keep me safe." He tightened his grip around her. "You can't." Her voice was louder. "Not unless you chain me to the bed, and then I wouldn't be happy."

He sighed as he rested his cheek against the top of her head. "I know. But at least my forever is the same as yours." They stood for a moment, holding each other, listening to their hearts beat in sync. She wiped her face on her dressing gown sleeve again, and then dabbed at his eyes.

"I don't think I've ever seen you cry."

"I don't do it often." His voice was harsh with emotion. "The Time Lords prized control and detachment above just about anything." He took a deep breath, and sank into the couch. She followed and kept her arms around him. "What happened with that boy?" he asked finally.

She was silent for a while. "It was one of my earlier jumps," she began. "I was in what used to be London. There was a war, a nuclear war, and the whole world burned. The society that came after was awful. They took children from the street, gave them a weapon and a little training, and made them fight for sport. The winner—the last one alive—got a thousand credits and their freedom." There was steel in her voice and a great deal of anger, thankfully not directed at him this time, but at what she had seen. "The jump's coordinates were off and I ended up in the middle of it all, in the arena. I tried to get them to stop, but they thought I was from the government, that I was trying to trick them. I saw that boy cut down three others before he turned on me. So I shot him, and I won. And then I took down the government, because any organization that forced kids to fight didn't deserve to exist." The determination in her voice brought a smile to his face. His Rose, always defending those who couldn't.

"I'm sorry for assuming," he offered.

She shook her head against his chest. "S alright. You only got a glimpse, same as me. 'S easy to jump to conclusions if you don't have all the facts." She ran her nails lightly along his arm, up and down. He sighed and relaxed against her touch. "It wasn't all bad," she said after a moment. "I saw some incredible things, beautiful things. I met brilliant people." She smiled at him. "Met ten or twelve versions of the Brigadier. Met a couple versions of Jack."

"But never another Doctor." It was a statement, not a question.

She shook her head. "No. Every universe I saw that had a Doctor once lost him in the Time War." Her voice was soft. "I'm sorry."

He gave her a lopsided smile. "I'm used to being unique."

"I don't think the universe could handle two of you.

He looked greatly offended and she laughed. The tension melted out of the room. He stretched his arms over his head and arched his back. "Well then, why don't we do what we've been sent to do?" She raised an eyebrow. "Fancy a bit of investigation, Ms. Tyler?"

Rose smiled, her tongue caught between her teeth. "I think I do, Mr. Smith."