Wait! Before you start! If you appreciate musical experiences with your fiction, you could traverse to the previous chapter and accompany it with Evelyn by Hurts. Goes with that chapter, I believe. Or for listening pleasure accompanied by, "Hey, that kind of relates to that one chapter of that one story." Of course, you don't have to. Whenever authors recommend music with their fanfiction, I don't tend to listen either. Actually, I don't like reading with music, so I suppose you could just appreciate the tune?

Thanks so much for all the comments on the last chapter. The threat in the building was supposed to be a man going berserk over the treatment of the Cybermen, which explains all the Cybermen references I've used, and the Doctor was supposed to actually pull out a weapon, but it happened differently and…I don't know. Just…thank God for inspiring me, because no way I would've come up with that on my own. (I really like God. It's a thing with me.)

Anyway, thanks. Please enjoy your read.

The man in the bow tie waltzes up to the Teselecta, an almost offensive grin plastered on his face. Rose and the Doctor wear nearly identical manifestations of confusion.

The sound of scuttling footsteps patters behind Rose. She peeks over her shoulder at the sound and finds a redhead and slim boy bursting through the entrance.

"Doctor!" the redhead shouts.

The bow tie man spins theatrically on the ball of his foot, throwing up his arms. "Pond! Glad you could keep up!"

"What's Torchwood? I don't understand!" the redhead seems to take up an old conversation.

"Not now, Amy, I'm introducing myself grandly," the man waves her off.

"Who are you?" Rose frowns.

"I told you," the man smiles broadly at her as if unable to resist, "I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor who?" Rose's frown deepens.

"Honestly, Rose, of all people to ask such a thing…"

Rose gives a small shake of her head, still perplexed.

"The Doctor, Rose. The Doctor."

Rose absently drags the back of her hand across the remaining residue of her tears. "No, you're not. Is he, Doctor?"

She turns to face her Doctor, who's looking over their arrivals with a hesitant curiosity. He focuses most intently on the new arrival in the bow tie and a resignation is present on his face.

"He knows," the bow tie man grins with satisfaction. "Remember, Rose, how I'd know if there was another one of my people present anywhere in the universe?"

"This universe feels different," the Doctor echoes himself darkly.

Rose's lips part, her eyes widen, and she turns back to the bow tie man.

"Doctor?" she asks softly, a quiet acceptance.

"There's my girl," he doesn't seem able to stop smiling.

"What happened to you?" she exhales.

The new Doctor scowls. "Oh, I'd forgotten you were a difficult one with the regenerations."

"Regeneration?" the redhead repeats from behind her. "You never fully explained that to us."

The Doctor familiar to Rose explains quickly and briefly, somehow feeling he could tell the redhead these things, "It's like dying and birth wrapped into one moment. Quite painful."

"You've regenerated?" Rose asks. "The other Doctor…my Doctor…he's…"

The bow tie Doctor waits for her to finish. When she doesn't, he finishes for her. "Dead. Yes."

Rose raises her eyebrows. "That wasn't the word I was gonna use."

"Might as well be. We're not the same man. It's kind of like Jenny. Remember Jenny? How she was born, but was born with knowledge and memories and experience she wasn't actually alive for? That's what regeneration is like."

He takes in Rose's blank gaze.

"Oh, right! You weren't there for Jenny. That's a shame. Everyone else was."

"He's dead?" Rose asks barely above a whisper.

The bow tie Doctor's face falls in the presence of her grief.

"Excuse me," a metered, monotonous voice cuts in.

"Right!" the Doctor exclaims, spinning back to face the Teselecta. "You! Yes! Hi! I'm the Doctor."

"No, you are not the Doctor."

"Pardon me, but I've taken great care in finding out exactly who I am and I am fairly certain that I am the Doctor."

"You are not the Doctor."

"Open your mind a little, old chap," the Doctor pats the Teselecta on the shoulder. "Now what was it you wanted Rose and that other Doctor for, again?"

"Crimes against humanity."

"What crimes?"

"That is confidential."

"Ah, of course," the Doctor nods, clapping his hands together. "I understand. Timelines and things. What am I allowed to know about it?"

"The Doctor and Rose Tyler destroy the world."

The Doctor cocks his head to one side, and then turns behind him. He points to Rose and her Doctor respectively, "That Rose Tyler? And that Doctor?"

"Confirmed."

He faces the Teselecta again. "Well, I think you may be mistaken. Destroying planets is not something Rose Tyler does. As for the Doctor, well, assuming that Rose has helped avert that genocidal phase he went through, if there was any Doctor that was going to destroy the world, it would be me. I'm a bit clumsy, you see. I might hit the wrong button or go into a fit of unabashed and uncalled for fury. It seems to happen to me on occasion."

"Doctor," the redhead pipes up, a tremor of worry in her voice, "are you sacrificing yourself for her?"

"Wouldn't be uncharacteristic of me, but no," he replies without turning around. "I'm merely conversing, and a conversation takes two, so what say you, Teselecta?"

The Teselecta, or the people in it, think for a moment. "You are not the Doctor," it decides.

The Doctor throws his entire upper body backward in emphasis of his eye roll. "Ugh, humans who refuse to listen. Ever so frustrating. On to my next point." His face grows serious and challenging. "Why is it your responsibility to stop it?"

"Why is it not?"

The Doctor nods. "Fair point. If you can save a planet, why wouldn't you? Raises other questions, though. If you went back and stopped every tragedy, would this world appreciate joy and love and peace and calm?"

"Destruction of a civilization is not merely another tragedy."

"It is for me," he replies darkly, a coldness in his eyes. It doesn't fade away as he continues, "Now, I think you've given Rose and the Doctor fair warning and I think you should go. And change form when you do, because this body is very disorienting. This whole situation is, but you're definitely not helping."

"Also, please give Pete back," Rose requests quickly.

"Ah, yes, that, too."

The room waits, barely a breath heard. The Teselecta people converse inside the eerily still machine. The audience waits eagerly and hopefully, and Rose even takes up chewing on her nails. Finally, a response.

"No."

Everyone instinctively starts stepping backwards.

"Rose, I hope you remember this part," the bow tie Doctor says quietly. Then, raising his voice, "Run!"

They all ready their leg muscles for exertion when a new exclamation comes from the rigid mouth of the Teselecta.

"Wait!" the voices drones. "It's me, Pete!"

Rose replies immediately. "Hello?! Are you alright?!"

"These people ought to know better," the Teselecta voice states. "Never let me near operable machinery."

The Doctor, Rose's Doctor, grins. "Good man, Pete! What did you do?"

"Oh, after a got ahold of a bracelet thing guarding me from the weird killer sphere things and made my way to the controls, it was simple rewiring. I've either disabled the ships external weaponry or created a self-destruct sequence. Either way, they probably don't want to push any buttons that would attack you."

Rose takes a moment to wonder how eventful the inside of that machine has been the past several minutes.

The bow tie Doctor smiles. "Pete Tyler! You're fabulous! Now, Teselecta people, please spit out Pete and return to wherever it is you're from with reassurance that Rose and the Doctor do not destroy Earth, and even if they do . . . well, you survived, so humanity presumably lives on somehow . . . Okay, you can keep an eye out if you must, but really, they're lovely people."

The room waits again, and the blank stare of the machine suddenly seems a tad haughty.

"Fine."

"Yay!" the redhead squeals with relief. The boy beside her sighs happily, as if he'd been holding in a breath.

Rose smiles, suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that she lived on. She turns toward her version of the Doctor, also smiling, and both of their smiles dissolve in the same instant.

They live on. They both live on.

Spurts of the moment they'd just shared play in Rose's mind, the kiss and the exchanged sentiments, both spoken and unspoken, and she looks away from him, finding her gaze refocused on the new arrival.

The Doctor, the other Doctor, had returned.

What changes?