Once she was in her en suite, she found that the TARDIS had set out the night clothes that she had slept in previously. Rose took care to make sure that her makeup was removed as it had been last night and that her hair was pulled back in the same way.

"What if I still don't understand, still don't believe that he loves me?" she asked the TARDIS quietly. The ship hummed back and sent her warm waves of love and sympathy. "I just wish I could remember or leave myself a message. He's already cheating a bit." Biting her lip, Rose knew that it might be a bad idea with horrible consequences. But if she was going to remember in the form of a dream anyway…

Looking down at her vanity, Rose noticed a black erasable marker. "You clever girl," she said patting the wall affectionately. "I still can't believe that you would do all of this, for me. Thank you." Again, the TARDIS hummed her mutual affection to her human.

Rose quickly scribbled a note where she would see it when she woke up. Six words that she hoped would help convince her to change her mind about what France and Reinette had really meant to the Doctor.

After one last look in the mirror, Rose made her way back into her room. The next version of her Time Lord was still sitting on her bed. His jaw was tense as his eyes raked over the tidy, packed state of her belongings. It was probably not how he remembered it. His mind was probably whirling with the possibilities of where their relationship would have gone if they hadn't all ended up here. She had just told him that it was only a matter of time before she left.

"Do you… do you still have my room? On your TARDIS?" She sat down next to him.

"I do. Neither the TARDIS nor I could ever let go of you completely. Although the version of your room that I have is a bit messier, more lived in."

"Do you live in it? Some of that mess is yours, isn't it? There are probably bow ties and converse all over the place," Rose teased, catching her tongue in her teeth. "I bet you sleep in it when you miss me."

He chuckled and pulled her into a hug. "This room is my safe place. I come here when I need to be made better. When I can't figure it out on my own. When I need to know what my Rose would do."

Rose closed her eyes, willing the tears that had formed there not to fall. There was no denying anymore that the flame that she had held for him still burnt brightly. She had tried to stop loving him, and even with everything that he had done to hurt her, she wasn't able to snuff out those feelings.

Right now, in this very moment, this new Doctor's timeline wasn't making a single move to stop it. He was, in fact, embracing it. At any point he could fade from existence, and he was just sitting here with her, just wanting to spend time with her. He was sacrificing himself; letting this regeneration die and all those years apart be rewritten in order to show her how much she truly meant to him.

Plus, he wasn't even going to make her forget this encounter entirely, something that Rose knew could have dire consequences. It showed that he trusted her. It might not make up completely for abandoning her on a spaceship to die but as far as grand gestures went this was a big one.

"I want you to know that I love you, Doctor. Even with everything that has happened over the last few weeks in this timeline. I never was able to stop loving you, and I don't think that I ever will be able to."

She may not be ready yet to make this confession to her current Doctor, they had far too many things to work through. But this Doctor, the one who had loved her and missed her for hundreds of years and was giving up his past for her, deserved to know.

Gingerly, he cupped her face in both his hands and kissed her softly. After a moment he moved his fingers to her temples. Their eyes were closed and their lips still millimeters apart. "Are you ready?"

"As I can be," she replied with a small nod. "Goodbye, Doctor."

"Oh Rose, there is no need for goodbye, because this isn't an ending, it's a new beginning."

"In that case… Hello, my Doctor."

"Hello, my precious Rose Tyler." He closed the scant distance between their lips and kissed her at the same time he entered her mind. Very carefully, he locked away certain aspects of today's events, names and faces that she couldn't know yet. He left her with relevant bits of information and a general over view of today's events, even if the details were fuzzy.

When he was done, she slumped against him, fast asleep. The Doctor laid her down and tucked her underneath her duvet. With one hand he brushed her hair out of her face. Tilting his head towards the ceiling, he whispered to his ship. "Thank you for this."

~oOo~

What was taking so long? Adjusting Mickey's memory had only taken a few minutes. Rose and the other man had been gone nearly half an hour. The Tenth Doctor paced back and forth in front of the console. Rose had seemed to prefer that new version of himself, if the kissing, hugging and touching was any indication. He slumped down into the jump seat and raked his fingers through his hair.

What if they were back there… dancing?

An odd feeling of jealousy and self-hatred shot through his hearts. He almost jumped off the chair and resumed his pacing. Rose wouldn't do that. Not with this him out here waiting for the other him. There was no doubt that he would like that very much, or that the older version of the Doctor might use this situation in order to fulfill the desire that had burned through them since sometime around 'There's me'.

That was it. The Doctor was resolved to go and beat down the door to Rose's room, damn the consequences. His feet were moving in the direction of the corridor before he could second guess himself.

"Where do you think you're going?" asked his rather annoying future self. "Did you not get enough alone time with Mr. Mickey?"

"You do realize that by insulting me, you are insulting yourself?" The spiky haired Doctor asked, exasperated, as they both moved back to the console.

"If you want to be technical about it, no, I'm not. You are in a different time stream than I am." This Doctor's hair flopped over his eyes as he began adjusting several of the knobs on the control panel.

Angry, the Doctor in pinstripes slapped the other Doctor's hands away. "Stop touching my ship."

"Our ship," the other man corrected. "And this is necessary. I'm planning on knocking you out and letting Sexy take you back to the Vortex." Moving to the other side of the console, he made a few more adjustments and then turned to his counterpart. "Now let's see about fixing those disconnected synapses of yours. Did you try tea by the way? It's great for the synapses, full of…"

"Free radicals, yes, I know. And of course I tried tea. What do you take me for? Rickey the Idiot?" The two men glared at each other for a long moment before, begrudgingly, the Tenth Doctor stepped in front of the Eleventh. "Let's just get this over with. That way you can leave, and I will never have to see that face of yours again."

"At least not until it's staring back at you from the mirror," the other Doctor replied dryly.

Tired of the condescension and with a healthy dose of self-loathing the Tenth Doctor snapped, "Maybe I'll do a better job of it next time and skip the giraffe in a Maths professor's clothes look that you have going on."

"Rose seemed to like it. In fact, she willingly went on a date with me, even kissed me before she knew who I really was. She seemed more than willing to run away with an alien with a pretty face, with me. Do you realize how easily you could have lost her today?"

"How did you lose her, Doctor? Hmm. Because you said yourself that all of this happening because you lost Rose. So tell me, how you are any better than me? We are after all the same man." This was a psychiatrist's dream right here, a man very literally arguing with himself about which one was the bigger prat.

With a sigh of frustration, he ran a hand through his spiky hair. "This is pointless," he said after a moment. "We need to get on with this." One long finger tapped his temple.

The new Doctor's jaw was set in a hard line. "You're right. We do need to get on with this. But never, ever question me about losing Rose Tyler. She was trapped in another Universe, across the Void, and there was a time that I didn't even care if I collapsed two universes to get her back. So whatever you think losing Rose might be like, multiply it by a million and you may just come close to that sense of loss."

Sorrow, regret and longing filled the Doctor's green eyes. "You know, back when I was you, I used to think that losing Rose was the worst thing that could ever happen. But I was wrong." His gaze fell to the floor. "We pushed her away, kept ourself from moving to the next level of intimacy with her, foolishly believing that it would hurt less when she was gone."

With a sigh, he looked back up at the younger Doctor. "Regret hurts far more than loss. I've had centuries to imagine what I would do if I could change my timeline. And I know one thing. I wouldn't hold back. I would let myself love her and be loved by her completely. Now we have that chance again. Do not mess this up. Today has been a bit overwhelming for Rose, and she may not be as quick to forgive you for our actions in France."

Swallowing hard, the Tenth Doctor nodded. He'd let the older Doctor say his peace without interruption, something he would never normally do, mind, because he wanted to lock away a small piece of this man's hindsight. Just a small piece that could lay quietly in the back of his mind so that this time he wouldn't lose Rose. And so that he would never become the damaged man standing in front of him. "Rose is everything. I'll find a way to earn her trust back."

"Good. Now let's stop wasting time." Eleven pressed his fingers into Ten's temples. "I have a couple of errands to run before my time runs out."

Before the Doctor could question what his older self meant by errands, the man had started to reattach neurons and memories started to return.

His eyes sought hers over and over again and when he did manage to catch her eye she would immediately look away. His hearts broke more every time it happened.

...

Three days after France on a spaceship he was sitting cross-legged in front of the console, repairing a few wires with his sonic. Rose came in and sat on the jump seat, looking at anything but him. "I may have been a bit hasty before, by not talking to you after... after France on a spaceship. So if you have anything to say, say it now."

So many things that he wanted to say were running through his giant brain, but he couldn't force the words out. Finally, after long moments of uncomfortable silence, he managed to splutter, "She wasn't you." And Rose took it the absolute wrong way.

He tried to fix it. "I mean she was accomplished, refined, beautiful and... and... and." Oh he had just cocked this up royally.

Tears slid down Rose's cheeks. "Right then, I get it. She was the woman you loved, I'm... Never mind. I get it. Let's just not... anymore." And she ran from the room. He didn't her again again and when he did, she was rewriting her diary.

...

The Doctor had kept them running, trying to distract Rose from what she wrongly believed to be true, that she wasn't the one he wanted. He didn't push to hold her hand anymore even though his fingers ached for hers. He didn't try to bring up France because he knew he would just mess it up again. Well that wasn't entirely true, he'd tried to bring it up again but Rose had simply left the room.

More than anything, he missed what they had. He missed her, was mourning the loss of their relationship. His grief was written all over his face, but still he didn't reach for her and it was killing him.

A decision was made. No more letting his real emotions shine through. There was an old Earth saying, fake it till you make it. And he was going to smile and laugh and win Rose over with his charm. Once things were back to normal he would lay everything on the line. Tell Rose everything that had happened and exactly how he felt about her.

However, the next day they had landed on Amazonia Prime.

The spiky haired Doctor collapsed as the last of his the memories returned. Not so gently the other Doctor maneuvered him onto the jump seat and touched a button on the console that started the countdown to dematerialization. Quickly, he slipped out of his old ship and didn't look back as she began the metal on metal keening sound signaling her departure.

His timeline was slipping away, and he needed to get back to Amy and Rory. There were things to be done before he faded from existence. Before his time was rewritten to include Rose. Never before had ending a timeline sounded this exciting. "Time for new adventures," he whispered to himself. "Geronimo."