A/N This is the edited T-rated version of the chapter, which does not contain explicit adult content. The unedited adult version can be found on Teaspoon, the link to which is in my profile page.

Believe it or not, I actually tried to tone-down some of the angst in this chapter! And I'll say again, this seemingly bleak place is not the end of the line for the Doctor and Rose in this 'verse. Not by a long shot...

Chapter 9

Rose took several determined steps toward him, gaze keeping him caged.

"Doctor, tell me what's going on. Now."

The Doctor froze at Rose's question and the tone in which it was asked. She wasn't letting him breeze past the issue this time. And rightfully so. She deserved to know. He just wasn't sure if he could manage to choke out the confession. His aversion to discussing this was not solely due to guilt over the damage his actions had caused; he also did not want to inflict upon Rose the painful truth of what had led up to all this.

But regardless of his reasons for wanting to avoid the distressing conversation, right now there simply wasn't time for giving answers or denials. He needed to work toward a solution of stabilizing this paradox before it was too late. Even as he completed the dematerialization sequence to get the TARDIS into the Vortex, this alone was a challenge, because the Time Vortex was itself in a turbulent state, further underscoring the situation's need for urgency.

"Rose, I know you need answers. I understand that. But right now there's a major temporal issue that needs my full attention."

"So you're basically asking me to shove off and just leave you be," she bristled, fed-up with being put off by him.

"I'm asking for time," he pleaded.

She let go of a mirthless laugh. "Sort of ironic comin' from you."

"Yeah," he agreed. "That's true of a lot of things."

Rose moved around him to reach the jump seat, sat down and crossed her arms over her chest. "Alright."

He blinked. "Pardon?"

"I said alright. I'll give you time to work on your…issue." Her eyes narrowed sharply. "But we are gonna talk about this."

Tightly, he nodded once, then turned his full attention to the TARDIS' console, forcing his total concentration on the critical matter at hand.

Rose watched him measuredly as he ran scans, worked through calculations, and performed analyses at a feverish pace. Through it all, she continued to observe him with questioning intensity. He couldn't keep the truth of this from her much longer, he knew that. But like the desperate man he was, he fought to hold out as long as possible. For now he was taking it one issue at a time and just hoping to mitigate the effects of the fraying timelines surrounding them.

It took a mighty effort from the struggling ship just to maintain enough energy for the profuse computations. The Doctor ran scenarios and counter-scenarios in an attempt to find a way to stabilize this and reconcile altered events versus established ones, but he kept running up against a proverbial brick wall. For every possible action he might take, a new potential consequence would arise. For every small fix he might be able to make in Time, another hole would be left in a new location. He was beginning to run out of possible ways in which this could work, but refused to give up trying, entering calculation upon calculation with increasing speed.

Time could be rewritten. He knew this to be true. Events could be changed and reshaped without causing a cataclysm. With one unmovable exception: a fixed point. The reality of this situation was finally making the Doctor face something he had steadfastly refused to even acknowledge up until now.

Their separation was fixed.

He had always known the Battle of Canary Wharf itself was a fixed point in Time, but his mind had staunchly rejected the notion of including Rose's loss in that equation. Now he could no longer deny it.

Multitudes of events throughout Time – both the small and the great – were in flux and could change and be re-routed like the casual flow of a relaxed stream. But not a solid, unyielding fixed point. This one, agonizing event could never change. Never. Time would crumble around them if it did, as was currently taking place.

A multitude of outcomes were possible after their separation. Their lives could be shaped in a thousand different ways and take an infinite number of directions from that point forward. But one thing remained constant through it all – the Doctor must lose Rose in battle at Canary Wharf. It was inevitable and irrevocable.

There was nothing more to analyze. No solution left to attain. He would either have to give Rose up again, or else this cascade of destruction would continue until there was nothing left of either of them or the hapless paths which crossed into theirs.

The Doctor realized through the analysis he had just performed that the instability was following in their wake like a heat-seeking missile. Behind them, the fabric of Time itself was being ripped to shreds; before them, more destruction awaited as Time became further corrupted. He couldn't create a paradox involving a fixed point and one so intricately woven throughout Time as himself without serious consequences. Just arriving at the same place as his past self had caused initial instability, and that was before events had been tampered with. Considering the actions he'd now taken, Time was splintering.

The Doctor could not outrun the consequences. If he continued to try, he would have to jeopardize the entire universe, Rose included. The Doctor had run through scenarios, alternate outcomes, calculations and possibilities. They all kept coming down to one conclusion: this was not going to work. There was no way around it.

The Doctor slammed his hands down on the console, chest heaving as he suppressed the urge to scream at the universe.

He turned from the dismal stream of information flowing from the console's monitor. He couldn't look at it anymore. What he needed to see, to hear, to immerse himself in was Rose.

She had been waiting quietly but intently for him to return to their unfinished conversation. Despite wanting to drag it out of him, she had tempered her feelings. She had held back and given him space in that perceptive way of hers – so simple, so human, so profound.

But there was only so much she would allow him to get away with. As he turned to face her, Rose's countenance, which had initially been shadowed with anger, was beginning to give way to renewed concern as she finally spoke back up.

"You've been keeping something from me," she stated quietly, without accusation. It was simply a fact. "Whatever all…all this is about, you've made a point not to tell me."

He couldn't meet her penetrating gaze. "Yes."

"Why?"

His laugh was weak and hollow. "Would you slap me if I said it was complicated?"

"Would you blame me if I did?"

"No."

She stood, escalating anger gaining a foothold again. "Why can't…why won't you just tell me? Is it because I'm just a stupid ape, not capable of understanding the complicated issues of a Time Lord? Is that it?"

"Rose, no. Of course not."

"Then why? Why are you shutting me out? Why have you been lying to me?"

"I've been lying to myself more than anyone else," he replied back, voice weary. "And I just…didn't want to hurt you. Not ever. I only wanted to…"

His words fell silent. He looked at her then. Her warm caramel eyes met his, and he wondered how it was possible for one person to have the ability to heal and shatter him in the same moment.

In that instant, something changed within her own eyes – in the way she saw him. Anger and frustration were swept aside by something even more intense, more visceral and raw. Something akin to what his own eyes carried.

It was almost as if she could see right through him, no words of confession needed.

Before anything more could be said, Rose moved forward and simply enfolded him in her arms. Somehow she always seemed to know just what he needed – when to come close, when to give him space, when to push, and when to hold on and not let go.

"Oh, Doctor…," she began, easing back and curving her hand over his cheek as she searched out the last remaining answers within his tempestuous eyes.

He pressed trembling lips to her temple. "Shhh," he pleaded. "Shhh. Just…just let me feel you. For now just let me…oh, let me just…"

He dragged her body flush to his as his mouth came crashing down. She didn't resist him. She gave him this. His hands clutched fistfuls of her hair, pulling it free of the loose ponytail as he kissed her savagely, and still she didn't protest. Instead, she matched his fire with her own inferno, burning through his pain.

Rose pressed her forehead to his and pulled her lips free just long enough to speak again. "Doctor, don't carry this alone," she breathlessly urged. "Let me help."

His arms clutched her body and drew her all the closer. He simply didn't have the ability to put all this into words. The only ones he seemed capable of came spilling out instead.

"You're here, with me, so right now you are helping," he asserted in a thick voice. She tipped her chin up to look into his eyes. "I just…" He shook his head and went silent.

Rose stretched up on her toes and pressed her swollen lips to his. He responded with barely-contained desperation. She slowed the frenzy to layer kisses over the rough, day-old stubble of his cheek, his jaw, his chin, before coming back up to land softly on his lips. She murmured into his parted mouth.

"Always contemplating the concerns of the universe…" Her whispered words were an echo of the ones she had spoken to him when he was still just beginning to learn how to let her in and crack open his armor.

"I don't want to," he rasped. "Oh, Rose, I don't want to anymore. I'm tired. So tired of…of…"

"Then tell me what I can do," she urged softly.

His smile shook as he framed her face with both hands and stroked her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. "You're already doing it. Just being yourself. Just being here with me – that's all I've ever needed."

"I am here. You've got me," she assured him with quiet intensity.

He fought to keep his voice from cracking like the universe around them. "Yeah."

Intuitively knowing they needed more, knowing it was so far beyond lustful craving, she broke apart from the clinging embrace in order to take him by the hand. Turing, she silently led him with her down the corridor.

She was bringing him to their room. One last time.

Mutely, the Doctor followed on shaking legs. They reached the entrance to the bedroom – the room he had come to avoid in his current ship – and suddenly he didn't even know what to do anymore. How could he have her completely, and in equal measure let her go? He was paralyzed.

It was Rose's words that compelled him to action as she turned to face him. "You've got me," she repeated, placing her hands over his hearts. "Always. No matter what. Right here." Her hands squeezed through thick fabric to reach the fragile flesh covering his hearts.

The kiss that followed was frantic and wet and bruising as he walked her backwards in to the room. They didn't stop until her legs connected with the edge of the bed. In this TARDIS, the bed was one still currently shared by them, and if he focused on that it made it easier to pretend, just for this moment, that this was right, that this was okay, that they were okay.

He broke from her, eyes raw and breathing rate erratic. There would be no stopping for him this time; no holding back in order to prevent her mind from seeing his. If he had to chain their bond shut to keep her from accessing and experiencing his pain then he would. But he could not hold himself back from her anymore. Not in this moment.

The back of his hand feathered delicately across her cheek, down her neck, to her shoulder – so light a touch when inside he wanted to possess, to lay an eternal claim. But still he asked. He would not take this one last thing from her when the universe was taking everything else.

"Rose, c-can I…?"

She rocked forward, taking his face in her hands. "Yes," she breathed into his mouth before kissing him hard.

"You're still angry," he mumbled against her assaulting lips.

"Yeah," she returned, between nips of her teeth and flicks of her tongue. She stopped, eyes opening to find and pin his. "'Cause some things aren't fair. And because of that, some things are forgivable."

He snapped. There was no more restraint left in him. Hands tore at clothing in a desperate need for full, unhindered contact. Buttons were freed without pause and zippers were wrenched apart – her blouse, his jacket, their trousers – each piece of shed clothing was like the dropping of petals from a fading blossom that would soon wither and vanish.

There was no seductive teasing or slow, torturous foreplay. This was raw need that would be over far too soon yet would still burn until Time was no more.

Once stripped bare, down to nothing but hot flesh and blood, the Doctor's hands and mouth traced his lost lover's skin, reliving an aching memory and creating a final one that would endure for eternity. Every smooth line, supple curve, and sloping dip was singed into his being. He conveyed his love, his sorrow, his joy and his anguish with every caress of his fingers and touch of his lips.

He somehow managed to keep his tumultuous emotions caged just enough to stop from drowning them both. But when Rose reached for and was able to achieve touching his mind with hers, the dam nearly broke. He locked away his pain the best he could, shielding her from the inevitable for as long as possible.

Rose chased away his burning tears with her lips. He knew that what was hurting him, even if she didn't understand it, was hurting her, too. He could see it in her sorrowful, passion-filled eyes as her body sought to soothe his with every touch – every glide of fingertips up his spine, palms down his chest, lips upon his throat – each touch offering fleeting solace and escape, anger melting away beneath the fervent burn of love.

He tumbled with her on to the bed, needing all he could take. No. All she would give.

-:-:-:-

Afterwards, the Doctor eased up and watched her face as her breathing became slow and even. She was exhausted. He wasn't the only one feeling the weight of this burden. She carried it, too, even if she didn't fully know.

The hushed moments passed and her body fully relaxed. As she drifted into weary slumber, he gathered her to his side. The Doctor's impassioned vow of never letting her go reverberated in his mind. He felt like he was being torn in two. He could not let her go but he could not keep her with him. If he tried, it might mean the cost of the universe. He had thought he was ready to pay the personal cost in taking this reckless action, but he had not foreseen the extensive price being so great.

The Doctor gazed into Rose's face as his fingers painted a tender line over her cheek. She was so irrepressible, even in sleep. Frighteningly fragile yet resilient and bold. With that thought, yet another grim reality in all this began to haunt him. What of the life Rose was undoubtedly making for herself a universe away? Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth. That future timeline had not yet been fully jeopardized. But if this ever-growing alteration continued down the line, that life would cease to exist. He could feel her own timeline destabilizing the longer this paradox was allowed to continue. Regardless of that warring inner voice that wanted to scream otherwise, it was becoming agonizingly clear to him that Rose's future was never meant to be changed in this way.

If the degrading timelines continued their collapse, Rose might be lost completely. At least in the parallel world she was safe. That had been his lone source of solace after Canary Wharf. He had made the agonizing choice to send her away from him in order to keep her safe. He was now faced with that same decision.

A plainspoken woman named Donna had once asked him a simple yet crucial question – a question he now could not escape.

'That friend of yours…did she trust you?'

'Yes, she did. And she is NOT dead. She is SO alive.'

"So alive…," he whispered, fingers trailing her warm cheek.

As the surge of life Rose had just imparted to him continued to course through his veins, so did this renewed resolution. Whether together or apart, she would live. If he could give her nothing else, he could give her this.

-:-:-:-

The Doctor eased himself out of the bed, leaving Rose to slumber for a few more moments. He dressed quietly, eyes never leaving her.

He then went back to the console room and took one last look at the final conclusion that had been drawn from the extrapolated data. He cleared it from the view screen and turned away. Expelling a long breath, he sank to the floor and folded his long limbs beneath him.

The Doctor was so lost in his thoughts that Rose's soft voice caught him unawares.

"Doctor?"

She found him there in the console room, sitting on the cold grated floor with his back to the Time Rotor, legs drawn up and arms slung limply over his knees. He lifted heavy eyes as she approached.

Rose moved a few steps closer and sat down in front of him, legs crossed. She had changed back into her jeans and jumper but her hair was still disheveled. She tucked a few scattered locks behind her ears and drew a long breath.

"How long has it been?" she softly inquired.

He opened his mouth, but didn't know how to respond.

"Since you lost me," Rose clarified. "How long has it been since you lost me?"