A/N: I do apologize for sitting on this chapter on it's ass for so long, it just didn't quite feel right. And it still doesn't feel perfect, but maybe that's just the vibe the whole thing is giving off right now. Anyway, I love all of my readers very much! I appreciate all of you, no matter your opinion.

And just as a warning, I'm sorry for this... in advance. (;

Chapter 9

Fragile Feelings

Rose

Rarely does one have the opportunity to describe what it's like to come back to life. Nor do they usually have multiple experiences to draw on to explain with. And even though I do, this was unlike any of the four times I have, this was a sensation unlike anything else. Although, at least, the pain was similar. Just my luck. But that was really the only similarity. Instead of the usual golden explosive glow of gold, this was just a sheen of white gold, more a light than a sparkle. And it only exploded in my mind for one blinding moment. And then it was like I could remember everything and nothing all at once.

In the reign of pain that followed the golden white explosion, somewhere in the real world my physical body reached out and to grab something to steady myself. I grabbed something solid and a bit squishy and it calmed me momentarily. Then it was like I was thrust into something entirely new.

I landed face down as if I had just tripped, into something smelling of dried leaves but also a bit like… lemon? Something citrus. I moved my hands about and realized I was able to grasp onto what I was smelling. Tons of tiny individual paper like things… I could feel them against my face! They were long and smooth and… GRASS it was grass! My eyes fluttered open slowly and I saw red all around me. A bright crimson, 1 ½ meter tall grass was surrounding me. I started to push myself up to my knees.

My memories were still very wibbly in my head, things were still trying to really themselves into the proper place. Did I meet the Ood on an Impossible planet or go to my Secondary School ball first? Well the second one was rather odd… so easy confusion? What color are my eyes? Or my hair? What does my face look like? Trivial things, I guess. I could remember later. Not important now, but something was pressing right now. Something was happening… it was right on the top of tongue.. Oh what was it! Oh wait, someone is making that weird noise? That language confusion noise? Oh talking! Speaking! Conversing! How funny, beings were so funny when they did that!

That was when I realized.. He was directing it at me. Someone calling to me, not with a name or anything, like an address, informal, and not understandable? … he sounded young, and very near. As in right behind me just a breath away if I would only turn my head. I could feel immediately who it was but my mind was still adjusting, the words not quite translating yet. I could see a burnt orange sky above me and two shadows of my own casting on the ground, suspectedly from two twin suns blazing high in the sky behind me. I knew where I was. I could remember hearing about it in detail. It filled me with an incomparable sadness, and yet wonder, at seeing something I never dreamed I would ever be able to.

Gallifrey.

Of course! If I'm on Gallifrey that must mean… must mean.. He…

Stupid, stupid, slow ape head! WOW. Ape? Yes Ape. I'm human. Why am I human? It's been awhile since I took that form for a spin. Since I was…

Rose Tyler. Rose Marion Tyler. I'm me again! Hahaha!

POV Shift

Remember things was a pleasure… but there were still gaps. Fragments of time that weren't quite in the right place. She could see them all though. They were all there. Who had gone and messed with this complicated puzzle? She remembered the voice and whipped toward it. The voice belonged to a young man kneeling in the grass with her. He had slicked back, brown chesnut-y hair and bright blue piercing eyes. His brow bone was pronounced but fit his face well, giving him a constant disgruntled look. And the confused frown on his face certainly didn't help the future grumpy grandpa look. He was still speaking at her but she couldn't find it in her to understand him. Her brain felt so slow… She hadn't felt this way since she was….

No, that was impossible. She knew she wasn't human anymore. Didn't she just go over this on her head a moment ago? This was crazy, surely. But for some reason she felt that way, the slowness, the delayed reactions, the...imminent mortality. It felt pure, and good… But she knew it was wrong, and that's how she knew none of this was real. So she frowned slightly before speaking to the young man.

"Sorry mate, I don't currently speak Gallifreyan or whatever." She smiled at him, almost embarrassed at her lack of knowledge, and her heart fluttered when he smiled back.

"Oh, my apologies miss. But, you can't be here. There aren't any humans allowed on Gallifrey. So...How did you get here?" He was looking at her with wide eyes of wonder, and something else that was so powerful she could feel it coming off of him in waves. The urge to run, explore, to know all the possibilities of the universe crashing over her with their certainty and frothing with excitement. He was also definitely staring at her. Openly studying her with a slight look of awe. She gave him a curious look, perhaps he hadn't yet realized that none of this was real? Or maybe she was wrong, and it was true. But something inside her screams that this was impossible, from the appearance of the man before her to the feeling the planet around her gave off. Suddenly he realized what he was doing, staring rudely at the pretty young woman was not a good way to make first impressions. He turned away blushing slightly, thinking of how he might be able to do just that… But not rudely.

"I-I-... You're human, aren't you? I haven't met many humans. Except a few memories I have of my mother. But it's just…" he looked down, still flustered, but then gathered the confidence, to look back up directly into her eyes. "Are all of you like this?" He asked softly a hand reaching up toward her face but not quite reaching it. Rose was enraptured by him, and by this simple moment between breaths. She sucked in everything about him. The way his voice put specific inflections in weird places like he had just learned English, but also wanted to seem like it was old hat. How his face was so expressive, and you could see the devious want to escape this world lingering in the twinkle of his eye. She was drawn to responding like a call and answer game. As if she would have ever thought of ignoring him, it just didn't seem possible.

"Like what?" Rose asked in response, looking deep into those eyes that had permanently captured her heart, no matter what color they were or what face they sat in. They were still him. Even if she couldn't think of exactly who he was off the top of her head. It didn't matter right now.

"Beautiful." He said in a release of breath, almost a whisper. He didn't say it like a question, and it stole her breath away. She smiled her famous tongue in teeth smile and he smiled back again. "You are so beautiful." Suddenly she couldn't hold back, he had been drawing her in with every word, every breath, and she was just the moth to his flame. However, she realized as more of an afterthought, that she hadn't been the only one in motion. Their lips crashed together with a sudden passion but also tenderness like they had always wanted. It wasn't to save one of them from dying, and it wasn't because of them was possessed. Their minds merged for a mere moment and everything became clear. Who they were to each other, and also that none of this was really real. Except to them. The kiss carried on, perhaps only a moment, perhaps it was hours. There was no concept of time in this created Gallifrey, only the two of them. Together they soaked in every little thing they could possibly gather about this moment and each other. Until they both knew it was time to speak again and regain clarity. When they broke apart there was tears brimming in her eyes.

"Rose." His voice was all breathy, how could he have ever forgotten this fact? Her name was everything to him, it was everything he had cherished and dreaded for thousands of years. "My Rose Tyler?" At this point his eyes looked a bit watery. She just smiled back at him. Hands holding the face she had just been kissing, with his hands still on her neck. She could only let herself answer with a nod, fearing that if she spoke her voice would break or the wetness in her eyes would push through. His answering smile was so huge, he couldn't help himself. He jumped on her, pushing her back into the grass as their lips crashed together again. He cradled her head as they went back and landed lightly on top of her. Everything he felt for her swelling through their connection and she answered back just as ferociously. Again it was as if time stopped for them to just relax into a sort of momentary delight. They would laugh a bit, or smile slightly and the other would laugh as a result and they would break for only a moment. Then they were back to searching, learning, and bathing in the joy that began and ended in the others lips, and tongue, and mouth. When they broke to breathe she was looking up at someone who she felt she'd known her whole life.

"Theta." She said back and he smiled hugely again, happy she just seemed to know every part of him. They both felt so light, as if all the pain of the last two thousand years had disappeared. But, god, it had been so long for both of them. Especially her. Sure, they had both loved others, but not ever quite like they loved each other. And this was just what they needed for this moment. No complications, just them in a moment that was as ingrained in the stars as was the start and end of the universe.

But it wasn't meant to last, they were, after all, in a fantasy of mental concoctions. A subconscious wish brought to a semi-reality. They both felt as if they had had this exact dream a million times before. But this time the colors were brighter, the sensations more intense, and the one thing for sure, the emotions were real.

His hand ran down her back, pulling her closer to him as her hands slid into his hair, destroying its original placement. They were knotted together. Lost in the taste of one another once again.

Until a bump in reality severed Fable's connection with the Doctor's head, and vice versa for him. Reality felt so distinctly real at that moment. As if all time and space had come back into the focal point, even though neither had realized it was absent. They were so focused on the other that everything else had dropped away. An old man with a frighteningly grumpy brow line, and an older woman with jet black hair. Green eyes staring into piercing, bright blue, both breathing heavily, sitting less than a foot apart on a worn couch. One looking shocked, one dared to look hopeful, but they both looked so so scared. So neither spoke. Though both wanted to, and wished the other would start first.

So the silence stretched on. The Doctor wondered if Fable remembered being Rose; rather he really hoped she did. He just wanted to jump forward and resume what they had been doing telepathically. Rose didn't… or was it Fable didn't? She wasn't sure anymore. Was she just one person, or had she actually become two as the result of her drastic actions. Also there was so much time between them. She was sure the Doctor was older too, she could see it etched into every cone of his irises. She could see it in the way his timeline occasionally streaked across her vision like a lightning strike, though she tried not to look.

But she was a very different person. She didn't know if he could accept the woman she had become, and a part of her just wanted to run in anticipation of the way his face would contort in disgust when she told him of the things she'd done. Certainly, there was a chance he would understand the civilizations she had destroyed and the species lost. That much he had a first hand experience in as well… but who's to say how he would react to knowing she had been the cause of another universe's collapse. That she had destroyed another realms prime deity, and therefore, sent that realm into an eternal war. How would he feel to know that she had really, truly loved someone else… Even if that someone was a whole universe away and dead. How would he feel to know she missed her late husband. As much as she had missed the Doctor, even. Maybe more considering the life they had shared together… but she didn't want to think of all that now.

Here in front of her sat a man she had loved so deeply she was willing to destroy dimensions and rip holes in reality to be with him again. A love so powerful she had to forget herself to move on. She has destroyed herself for this man before, and that wasn't okay. But it wasn't his fault either. It was all her own fault, really. But could she do that again?

Oh god, she didn't know. Suddenly a noise-

"Aaah-... Are you-" It was his voice. Barely above a whisper, and it was cracking funny.

"Am I?" She responded without missing a beat. She felt steady despite the internal earthquake. Her voice was soft, but it didn't crack. He was still gaping, watching her face for a sign of anything, but she didn't fold. Her expression had long ago fell away from shock and fear to a blank mask, a step above indifference. Because she did care about him, so deeply.

"Can you… uh- .. Remember me now?" His hand twitched slightly at the end of his question, and she could tell he desperately wanted to hold her hand. But she couldn't just-

"Yes." She said with a single, curt nod. His eyes bulged a bit with the impatience of waiting for her to say something, or anything more. What could she say? Anything really, probably. "I remember every bit of my existence now. Not a stone out of place on the paths of my cobblestones..." She tried a little smile at the end but knew between her tone, her weird phrase, and her face's unwillingness to communicate any extreme emotion... it had probably been more of a grimace.

She did love him, she always would; but that didn't mean she would always be in love with him. It was a fine line, one she didn't know how to approach any more. He had changed, twice since she had seen him. He was more than double the age he had been when they met. Never mind her being almost 87 times older.

"You've gotten older." She said gently, though she knew it probably came off blunt. And was most definitely avoiding the large purple elephant in the room. He smirked a little bit.

"You can talk." He said lightly back, but suddenly there was a lump in her throat and her eyes were welling again, damn it. The elephant was impatient, and pressing on her emotions with the volume of importance he represented. Stupid elephant.

"Yeah I can. Same as you now." She said a bit grimly, because she never wanted to be like him. She wanted to love him, support him, but become him? No. So she didn't understand how it happened that she was. She supposed she was old like him so the similarities just added up in spades.

Time just made a certain type of person. The more of it you had, the more you were like them. Weathered, experienced, with a bitter wisdom, and miles upon miles of horrible choices to weigh on your shoulders. This was especially true of those that had a sort of immortality they never really wanted.

"I never wanted that for you." He said, as if echoing her own thoughts, and he started to reach for her but thought better of it. She was thankful he stopped because she wasn't sure at this point how she would react to his touch. Would she lean in? Or jump away? Maybe she wouldn't react at all. "I wish I could have been there."

"Me too." She said softly, and she could see his eyes twinkling with hope again. It made her want to hug him, and be the reassuring force he needed. Just hug him! Something inside her screamed at her, but she didn't move. It had been a loaded answer, really. She wished he was there so that none of the things that happened to her would ever have happened at all. She sometimes wished he never would have stranded her back on this side of the wall with his twin. Now, the word 'sometimes' was the lie in that thought. Even if that was so long ago it ached to remember it, a thousand and one things could have been prevented if he hadn't made that choice of walking away without really saying goodbye. It was in this moment that she missed Dean most of all, because if it were him on the other side of the couch he would have yelled, or gotten up, or just anything because he couldn't stand silence between them. But the Doctor was an entirely different creature, with an entirely different brain, and a new personality she had never even encountered before.

She watched him try to swallow past something in this throat, then he opened his mouth as if to speak but only a small croak and some air came out. He closed his mouth and looked away from her.. And her heart clenched for him, he was so scared of this moment, and she did still care for him; deeply. Part of the wall that was formed around her heart cracked and she reached up to lightly touch his face.

He didn't see it coming and his whole body went stiff for a moment, but his eyes closed as he let her fingers dance lightly over his creased face. She studied the features intently, memorizing the new twists and turns, then she wanted to see his eyes again, so she brushed her thumb over the eyelid lightly and he opened them. Her hand dropped to rest lightly on her knee.

"How are you here?" She breathed out, and then paused before "WHY are you here?" She added, with a slight gesture to the side. He smirked a bit and looked down for a moment, before meeting her eyes again. Now he looked ready to talk, like this was an answer he had off the top of his head. His words flowed like a dirge, with a light descant of hope sprinkled on top.

"I never could give up on you. 1100 years, and I never could. My eleventh self had to find a way to not think about you all the time.. Where you were, how you were, if you were happy with my metacrisis, anything. So I installed a new setting on the sonic" at this he pulled out his new, fancy one, that looked more like a weird power crystal than a screwdriver to her, "-it was something set to scan the universe for any tiny little fissure between our world's. Wherever I was in time or space it was scanning, it was made to keep scanning forever. Basically. So even when I changed the exterior of it, I always kept this one program running. I knew the possibility was extremely low. But i just needed to have the knowledge that i was doing something. Because I could never give up. And I tried to let you go, I tried to move on, I really did. But I never quite could-" he stopped himself, but she nodded for him to go on, because this was the why. And she needed to know why, and maybe if..

"But I never quite could… love anyone in the way that I felt for you." Her heart swelled and her eyes pricked as she sucked in a big breath, like a gasp. Of course she knew, John had said as much, but to hear him say that word… she couldn't explain it, she was still so mixed up inside. This was the man who had walked away from her saying things only his twin had ever said were true. But it still felt good to hear it, that much she knew. She smirked a bit as some words came to mind, an old poem in fact. From another universe, and as she began to speak it her voice carried herself closer to him. She didn't know if she was explaining something to him, or just biding time. She didn't know, but the words flowed out slow and careful like honey.

"One of the ancient maps of the world

Is heart-shaped, carefully drawn

And once washed with bright colors,

Though the colors have faded

As you might expect feelings to fade

From a fragile old heart, the brown map

Of a life. But feeling is indelible,

And longing infinite, a starburst compass

Pointing in all the directions

Two lovers might go, a fresh breeze

Swelling their sails, the future uncharted,

Still far from the edge

Where the sea pours into the stars."

She paused and really took in awe struck look the Doctor wore on his face. And the confusion swirling in his eyes… It dawned on her that suddenly quoting a poem when she had barely said anything was a bit strange… but it wasn't the strangeness he seemed to mind. They both knew he was equally as strange if anything. He didn't know how to interpret her words. Perhaps he was surprised he had never heard that poem before.

"It's from another universe." She supplied, and he nodded in response. She didn't tell him that her husband had used that very poem to propose to her. Dean had known about the Doctor, so at the time he had used it to acknowledge that it was okay to still love the Doctor, but also love him. He had just wanted her to be happy, and she had been so so happy with him. But now the poem was being re-delivered with a new taste to it and with a new interpretation. That's how art worked. Someone could have the same painting be their favorite one for their whole life, but have it mean different things to them as their life progressed and changed. Someone could look at Starry Night by Van Gogh when they were young, life just beginning, a new career ahead, and see all the wonders Gogh seems to capture with the simple blending strokes, and how light radiates across the universe. The same person could look at the same painting 30 years later and realize how life is more of a blend of the same and similar things, rather than this bright shining thing. Still beautiful, but explicitly simple in a way only Vincent could portray. She looked down at her fingers she'd been fiddling with and back up at him. It was time.

"Doctor," she started, and his name came out like a relief, which was not her intent, but it was true to her feelings about delving in and out of this whole thing with him. "I know it's been a long time for both of us, but it's been 2 millenia for me. I had to go out and live thinking I'd never get back, or you'd never come. And now-" She paused and sucked air in through her teeth and sat up a bit straighter. "I'm not the same person I used to be, in fact I made a point of forgetting who I really was about twelve hundred years ago." She paused again and couldn't take it anymore, she reached forward and grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly in hers. Somehow it still fit just as perfectly as it once had, and it took her a moment to regain her bearings before continuing. He grabbed her like a lifeline, and maybe she was that to him.

"I still care about you deeply, but I-" she paused choking on the words toward the end. How was she going to end that sentence? I don't think I'm in love with you anymore? I don't know how I feel anymore? I don't know how to love you anymore? I just don't know?

"I need time… to figure me out. I haven't been-... Rose Tyler… in over a millennia. And I don't know if we think the same anymore. Fable and Rose, I just… I don't know." So she dropped his hand lightly, setting it back on his leg, and leaned up on her knees to gently kiss his forehead. She savoured the feeling for a few seconds, a poor woman's indulgence, before pulling away. His mouth was set in a firm line, and if she were honest with him, she wanted to kiss away all the pained lines etched on his face. But she didn't have the strength. So instead, with all the collectiveness she could possibly muster, she stood up, and walked out of the room, pausing at the doorway to look back at him, the Doctor. Sitting inside her STARDIS. He looked a bit lost still and she knew that was only partially her fault. A man floating without a tether in the wrong universe. Probably felt like being a bit tipsy to a Time Lord.

"Are you gonna be okay for now?" She said, her palm pressed against the doorway, inches from escape. He looked up at her and gave her a sad smirk.

"I figure you should know, take as much time as you need but… I've got just less than 3 weeks to make my return trip or the gap I found closes and I'll be trapped on this side." He paused, and shook his head a bit "I've only been here two days. This is the third. I figure just to be safe I've only got fifteen more." He paused again, considering his palms, and then stood.

"Time Machine, Doctor. You're standing in a Time Machine." She said with a funny little smile. "Remember, Bigger on the inside, all of time and space, blah blah." He gave her this smirk and shook his head, thinking to himself how that used to be his job. To remind his companions that they need not worry about being back for their school, or mum, or wedding in the morning when you were inside a time machine. Rose moved to leave again but as she glanced back she stopped at the look on his face.

The way he leveled her gaze sent chills down her spine, the confused and unsure man was gone, and a profound confidence was in its place. "I'm not who I used to be either, I've done things. Things I'm still desperately trying to make right. But if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that you shouldn't hold it in. So when you're willing to share, I'm here. I'm probably the one person in all the cosmos that knows exactly how you feel." He smiled a little bit, and waved her along. "Go on, do what you need. I'll be here."

With that she nodded, and was gone. Thinking to herself if only he knew just what she'd become in his absence, and just what it was that she had done… he wouldn't have made that second to last statement.

A/N 2.0: So, just thought I would address a question/concern a few reviewers have had about subjective feelings on first person v. third person POV. Mainly, why did I switch from third to first after the first two chapters? Well, I was actually trying to illustrate a feeling of the story best I could. I tend to be less inclined towards omnipresent view points because if the reader knows everything both characters in a scene are thinking in that exact moment, then there is no mystery! You don't question things! But I especially wanted to use it to show how (pretty much) as soon as the Doctor steps foot onto Pete's world he only has himself to rely on and the things he can process. Switching to other characters gives you a second point of view on things, and gets the reader out of a contained headspace. That way everyone at least got The Doctor and Tony before Fable showed up. I didn't just want you guys to think like the Doctor, I want you to also be able to see his ticks. Seocndly, I wanted to keep everything a bit off kilter, and limited in terms of view points until Fable/Rose was able to regain all of her memories. Now that there is no more mystery ... and Fable and Rose are FOR SURE the same person, the view point switches back to third person... for now. Muhaha. (PS I promise we will be getting some glimpses and maybe some one-shots of what Rose's life was like without the Doctor) Thirdly, writing in first person is far more challenging. And, I do like a good challenge. Especially since I am an actor by trade it is always good practice to get right into a characters head space and try to think as them, instead of some unnameable thing from the outside. I can't tell you how many times I had to tripe check that all my pronouns and tenses were right. It's a headache. And I know it has frustrated some of you, or confused you. Perhaps you don't like feeling that close to a character, and that's okay. But I feel like I have done some of my best writing by forcing myself into the head of someone with a crazy, and huge brain. Someone who has had some serious memory loss. And someone who just likes to watch things as they happen, and then direct them in a preferable direction.

Anyway, my feelings on POV aside, I hope that answered your guys questions about the POV thing. As well as I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Please, please leave me a review of what you thought on everything! Any theories! I'm always open to ideas too if you want to contribute, and I'll give you cred if I end up using it. Anyone catch my (not so) sneaky reference to another fandom in there?

LOVE YOU ALL VERY MUCH.

xx Seralina