By the time she turned around, he was already leaving.

Squinting into the bright bay, she could make out the nearly-transparent shape of the TARDIS as it flickered for the last time.

Just like that.

Her brain felt stuck. Paralyzed. This was all too much to process. The double. The kiss. The departure. The deception.

Except, there wasn't deception this time, was there? He was completely up front with her. He explained his intentions thoroughly. And had given her a choice. Sort of.

Still staring straight ahead, she felt the duplicate Doctor next to her. Gently, he took her hand.

They looked at each other, unsure what to do next.

He spoke first. "I'm sorry, Rose. So sorry."

She dropped his hand and stared at the vacant space where the TARDIS stood. The waves had already washed its imprint away.

"He didn't even say goodbye."

"He had to go," the Doctor said.

"I know. Dimensional retro-whatsit. The gates are closing."

"Not just that. Donna's running on borrowed time."

This seemed to shake Rose into action. Her head whipped around. "What do you mean?" she said with concern.

"Donna's brain is still human. Was never meant to pack that much information into. Sooner or later, it will fail."

"What will he do?"

"I...I don't know," he evaded. "There are only a few options." His mouth was set grimly. She opted not to push further.

"And you?" she said reaching up to mindlessly brush a stray hair from his forehead.

"What about me?"

"You're part-human. Will that happen to you as well?"

"Ah. No. I'm still mostly Time Lord. Thicker synaptic pathways. Should be just fine," he said with false cheer, tapping his head.

His big brown eyes watched her with liquid intensity as she chewed at her bottom lip, wheels spinning. Whatever happened next, it was her move to make.

Suddenly her head snapped up. "I can't do this right now. I'm exhausted," she stated. "It's been ages since I've gotten more than an hour of sleep."

"Right," he replied, visibly relieved that he could take action on something. "Shall we then?"

He scanned the beach to figure out where Jackie had gotten to, but saw no one. "Looks like Jackie has quite a lead on us. We should get going," he said.

There was no response. He spun in Rose's direction and saw her speaking quietly to someone on on a small mobile device. She reached out and wiggled her fingers, with a tentative smile on her face. He took her hand.

"Punch it, Riley," she said, and the world went bright. Brighter than he could stand. He had to shut his human eyes tightly.

When he reopened them, for a moment all he could see was a sea of shimmering afterimages, blotting his vision like thick television static. But his ears were working fine. And he heard...applause? Cheering? Had a very large cruise ship just parked itself on the beach?

As he blinked away the blur, he realized he was no longer on the beach, but in a very modern looking building decorated with concrete, brushed aluminum and composite materials. Well, modern to the 21st century anyway.

Rose no longer stood by his side, but instead was the center of a great crowd of people -- many applauding, some crying, and some who had clearly had too much to drink. Papers were scattered everywhere, and in the front of the room was an enormous red, blinking clock that was stopped at 00:00:05:32.

Somebody messily popped champagne, and a wet plastic cup was thrust into his hand. He sniffed at it gingerly. The crowd began shouting "Speech! Speeeeech!" towards Rose. She smiled broadly and with the aid of the outstretched arms of staffers, she ascended atop one of the desks. As she turned to address her admirers, he noticed for the first time how thin she looked.

"Are the stars back, then?" she asked with a twinkle in her eye. The crowd cheered in response.

"Are we sure? Has Eric counted them all yet?" The crowd chuckled and several people patted an embarrassed-looking, geeky guy on the back.

A shadow came over her face. "What about the Sirius and Cygnus outposts?" she asked worriedly.

The overhead speakers crackled in response, and a muffled voice came over the loudspeaker. "We're all accounted for, Ms. Tyler."

The crowd erupted again, and Rose grinned in relief. The calls for a speech were reaching a fever pitch. A moment passed and she motioned for quiet. Taking a breath, she began to speak with calm authority.

"No speeches now. No stories. No more drinking and no more cheers. Go home. Right now. This instant. Go home to your friends and your families. Go be with the people that you love. Hug them. Be with them for the rest of this week. Longer if you need. Make memories. Torchwood will still be here on Monday. You are all dismissed."

With a final cheer, the crowd began to disperse. Rose hopped down, and looking across the room locked eyes with the Doctor. She looked surprised for a moment, as if she had been so lost in her element that she had forgotten he was there. And he might as well not have been. Certainly few people in the crowd had paid him any attention.

As she approached, he considered the sheer number of things he wanted to talk about. The build-up of missing conversation over the years had become staggering. He wanted to know what things had been like for her. What she'd been through. Why she seemed sad. He wanted to tell her how proud he was. How much she'd grown. How beautiful she was. How sorry he was. How he'd physically ached for her when she was gone. How new that had been to him.

"So. You have a working teleport, then?" he said matter-of-factly. Shop talk was so safe.

She smirked a bit. "You don't think we'd be launching dimension cannons without first having mastered teleports, do you?"

He returned her thin smile and decided to save the safety lecture for another time. "And Cygnus and Sirius?"

"Our stellar bases."

He nodded. "Using the power from the binary star systems to extend the range of the teleport, hm? Very clever. But not going to get you further than 15 light years or so."

"Not all at once anyway," said a soft, feminine voice from behind him. "But we plan to link them serially. Welcome back, Rose," she said warmly.

"Tosh!" exclaimed Rose as she embraced the woman's petite form.

"Doctor," Rose pronounced with enthusiasm, "this is Toshiko Sato, our resident tech genius."

The Doctor instantly recognized the slim woman. But given the circumstances (parallel universe and all) he checked his desire to say something and just put out his hand. "Pleased to meet you Miss Sato."

Tosh looked unsure, first staring at the Doctor's hand, then looking at Rose with a bewildered expression.

"It's alright, Tosh," Rose breathed. "He's here to stay."

Tosh looked visibly relieved at Rose's words and grabbed the Doctor's hand enthusiastically with both of her own, pumping vigorously. "I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to be able to meet you, Doctor. I'm sorry about earlier. It's not easy... Things sometimes have been so complicated, even on us lot that are trained to handle these situations. You're not the first one she's brought back, you know. Sometimes it's been easier on everyone concerned to just pretend..."

"Tosh." Rose interrupted with a tone that was soft, but unmistakably full of steel and warning. The Doctor added another question to the enormous mental litany he was compiling. Tosh backed up immediately, stammering.

"Right. I'll leave you two to it then. But before I go, Rose, you should know that Alex was late for his last check-in."

The Doctor did not miss the reaction on Rose's face. She swallowed hard and froze her eyes, obviously trying not to give up too much. "How late?" she asked Tosh with too much casualness.

"About nine hours," replied Tosh. "That's not like him. And I thought you might want to be told." Her eyes darted between the Doctor and Rose's faces.

"Do you have the GPS on his mobile?"

"Of course. But he's not answering."

"Send the on-call squad out to pick him up. I'm sure he just overslept, but let's be sure..."

Tosh gave a small, two-fingered salute and smiled. "Sure thing, boss. Great to meet you, Doctor."

"A pleasure, Toshiko Sato," replied the Doctor, suddenly finding his tongue again. Tosh's heels clicked efficiently out of the room.

They were alone at last.

And it was quiet. Too quiet.

He was looking at her.

She was slouched against a wall. She wasn't looking back.

"It's just..." "So I..." they intoned simultaneously, stopping just as suddenly.

Rose laughed at their awkward moment, and the Doctor watched entranced as color came back into her face.

The color faded quickly, however, and her next words sounded defeated. "I don't know what comes next. I've been calling the shots for weeks. And now I'm a mess. And I don't know what comes next."

"Well, Rose Tyler," he said scratching his neck, "Lots of things come next. Plenty of things. Happy things, and perhaps some dreadful things. Things you'll make happen, things that will happen to you, and things you hardly be able to believe."

He stepped a bit closer to her, hands stuffed in pockets. "But the thing you're interested in is what comes first. The first of the next. And as it turns out, you're in luck."

"Why's that?" she said with a hint of a twinkle in her eye.

"Because I know what the first of the next is. I know what we do first. Next."

"And what's that?"

"What we always do next. We get chips."

He was rewarded with an enormous trademark ear-to-ear grin. "That," she said, "is the best plan I've heard in ages. C'mon. I know a place."

Leaving Torchwood HQ, they walked the London streets. And as they walked, somehow found a conversation balanced in light teasing and a very familiar playfulness.

There were moments - several moments - where he started to reach for Rose's hand, but stopped himself. Something told him that right now, more than anything else, she needed space. And time. And if anybody could give her time and space, he could. Even if now it was only the metaphorical kinds.

========================================================================

Dark.

There had been so much dark in the form where he waited out the years. The blind dark that came of being sightless. Eyeless.

But now he felt the weight and power of a larger body. The angry thumping of a panicked heart muscle. His mouth was wet with saliva and his tongue was thick.

But still it was dark.

Like a victim of a car crash, he carefully tested his limbs. Each seemed to obey his whims, some with more protest than others. The resulting shifting led him to sight a sliver of light in a thin strip near the floor.

Shaking, he crawled towards it. Reaching an obstruction, his hands clawed to find a way through. When his digits found the doorknob, they slipped right off. Slick. Slick with what? Blood? Bile? Sweat? He brought his fingers to his nose. Yes. All of those.

Wiping his fingers on his shirt, he tried again. This time the door gave way.

The Master breathed in the dim light of a misty morning.