Disclaimer: I own nothing, except David's contract.

Author's Note: Yeah! Three chapters in one day! I am on a roll.

Chapter 12- Twice Her Murderer

Shocked silence filled the room. It was as if everyone was waiting for someone else to speak first. Then suddenly the silence broke and everyone started talking at once.

"Another one?" groaned Rory. "As if three isn't enough!"

"But...you're so young!" declared Nine.

"When did that happen?" wondered Eleven.

"Cool!" exclaimed Jack.

"Is there another me around here somewhere?" asked Amy.

"Wait a minute!" shouted Ten, drowning out the others. "If you're us, then why are you doing this?" The others fell silent, suddenly wondering the same thing and waiting for Twelve to answer.

"That," said Twelve almost inaudibly, "is a long story."

The other three regenerations shared a look, wondering what on earth they would have to go through to become like that.

"Well, started telling it." said Ten, not too unkindly.

"I am afraid that if I did, I would give away too much. Spoilers and all that."

"We don't care." Twelve blinked when the other three spoke at once. He sighed.

"Alright. I shall attempt to make the long story short." He gave in rather reluctantly. "I hope that after hearing what I am about to share with you, you will not hate me. In fact, I rather hope that you will understand and sympathize. You might even agree to help me."

"I doubt that." said Ten.

"There was once a crack. A crack in time. The Eleventh Doctor and his companions know what I am talking about. The crack was caused by the TARDIS exploding. The universe was slowly being destroyed. Anything that fell into the crack was not only killed, but made as if it had never even existed. The whole of reality was doomed."

"But we stopped it!" interrupted Eleven. "I don't see what this has to do with why we are here today."

"Please let me finish. I did stop it as you say, but it wasn't until some months later that I learned that I had only stopped it in our universe. All the other universes were still being destroyed. It took some time and a lot of work, but in the end I managed to save all the universes, with the exception of one."

Here, Twelve looked pointedly at Ten and Eleven. "I'm sure you can both guess which one."

It suddenly seemed as if all the air in the room had been sucked away. Neither Ten nor Eleven could breath, they felt the world rushing up to meet them. "NO!" they shouted. "Oh, no!"

"What?" shouted Nine as he and the three companions tried to help them. "What? What is he talking about? What universe?"

Instead of answering, they just looked at Twelve, whose eyes were full of understanding and sympathy. "Rose?" they whispered. He nodded. "Gone. Forever."

"What's he talking about?" Nine demanded.

They didn't respond so Twelve answered. "Several years earlier, when I was still Ten, Rose got trapped in an alternate universe. For two years, I was absolutely sure that I would never see her again, and I thought that those were the worst two years of my life. Then, one day the impossible happened. She came back. I won't go into details, but I will say this, the Daleks had attacked once more. During their attack an incident happened. A metacrisis. A metacrisis between Donna Noble, my companion at the time, and me. Well, my hand. I had lost it earlier in a sword fight Christmas Day, but it regrew as it was shortly after my regeneration. Anyways, as you well know, Nine, there has never been a Human-Time Lord metacrisis before."

"Because it would have killed the human. What happened to her, this Donna Noble?"

"I had to end up erasing her memories to stop her from burning up. Well, as I was saying there was a metacrisis, and another me was formed. Only he was part human, part time lord. He had only one heart, yet he looked like me and had my memories. In short he was me, except a human version of me. After we foiled the Daleks' evil scheme, I left Rose with the human me in the alternate universe. But now, she's dead, and it is all my fault. If I had taken her with me this would not have happened."

"But how did you end up like this?" asked Jack. "You look...very young."

"A side effect, I'm afraid." Twelve replied. "I tried to save Rose's universe, but I failed and it cost me by life. I was forced to regenerate, but something went wrong and when I woke I was a child. A little boy no more than six years of age. It has taken me thirteen years to get to where I am now. Thirteen years of hell, remembering all that happened."

"But why," croaked Ten, his voice thick with emotion, "why do you want to erase her from history? To kill her again? To be her murder twice?"

"No. I simply want to forget. Rose!" he suddenly burst out. "My poor Rose! I can never forget. Every night I lie awake haunted by memories. Erasing her from history is the only way I can forget. If she never even existed I'll be able to forget."

"But how can you?" Ten was getting angry again. "You can't do this!"

"Why not?" Twelve replied. "Don't you want to forget? Don't you want to be able to live every day not remembering all the pain you have felt or caused?"

Ten and Eleven fell silent. Eventually they looked at each other coming to a silent agreement and then looking back up at Twelve. "No." they said simply. "Without Rose, we are nothing."

Author's Note: So, get it now? Twelve is not evil! He is a man gone mad with grief! Don't hate him!