I don't do domestic was a phrase he'd said to Jackie a lifetime ago. And that truth had never changed in a lot of ways. He couldn't imagine a life where the TARDIS was out there, parked motionless in the garden. He couldn't imagine working a job. But he had started to imagine coming home to Rose. He didn't do domestic in the ways so many humans carried on about, but Rose was his home. They'd both adapted around the other. Rose had put on a pair of trainers and begun running madly about with him, and he'd started slowing at the corners so that she could keep up. She'd breathe new life—new joy, boundless excitement—into views that Doctor had seen before, and kept his life fresh and dynamic. There was suddenly a distinct change in who he was, a line in the sand drawn between the man that he had been before, and the man he'd become since meeting Rose Tyler and regeneration was only scratching the tip of that iceberg.

He'd let her in. In the beginning, with his daft and grumpy face, the change had begun almost reluctantly. He had grumbled about her wandering off, but he failed to notice the shift in why he grumbled as his exasperation morphed into genuine concern, worry, terror when she was out of his sight, when she was in harm's way. It was a dangerous game to play; he'd never been dishonest about how risky his life was. Bringing her round meant that she'd be in danger, but Rose—his fearless, stubborn Rose—refused to be left behind. When he told her to stay, she ran towards him. When he brought her home, she took him by the hand and pulled. It was as if, whenever the challenge seemed too big for that silly little human, Rose simply grew, getting bigger and braver and stronger to face down whatever threatened to tear them apart. When the end of the world threatened, and he'd sent her to safety, she grew impossibly large, taking in all of time and space and directing it to keep them together.

He regenerated thinking of her. Oh, how she burned in his thoughts, gold and shining and singing and so horribly good. With wretched abandon he desired to be like her, as strong and brave and innocent. He wished, for the first time in half a dozen lifetimes, to deserve someone else. The regeneration energy relented, giving him an imitation of her shining brown eyes and her sharp tongue. It made him younger looking, so that no longer would someone look at the two of them and wonder.

When she promised him forever, he was far enough gone—so steeped with that radiant girl—that he'd only smiled. Rose might not have realized it then, but she'd already had quite captured his forever as well.

And then she was gone. He always was terribly good at ruining his home.

"You still got Mr. Mickey, then?"

Those were the words the Doctor used to try to start the distancing. He told himself that he'd already said goodbye once, more or less. He had slipped the dimension jumper onto her neck, letting Pete whisk her away from him, away from the dangerous life he would always expose her to. He would start raising the wall now, building up a massive barrier of ice and rock between him and the unbelievable pain that was sure to follow Rose's absence. Brick by brick he'd build it, hoping that he could lay down stones faster than the loss could swallow them.

He told the others that some people referred to the void as hell. Thinking of the emptiness that surrounded him in the Tardis, even as he could still see her, a part of the Doctor wondered if absolute nothingness would be an improvement.

"There's the five of us now. Mum, Dad, Mickey…" Rose's voice trailed off slightly, eyes shifted towards her left. Thinking. Judging. Weighing. Rose was always so much sharper than she'd let herself believe. She was clever, especially about people, even if she would joke about training herself to keep up. When she was working, he struggled to follow, always thinking of numbers and possibilities and ignoring what Rose could always see right in front of her. He wondered what he was ignoring now as her eyes darted up to meet his, a decision made. "And the baby."

The Doctor wasn't sure if it was audible, but the crack formed at her words resonated through every fiber of his being. It seemed that memories flowed from that crack, filled with stolen moments and promises and Rose.

The baby.

That wall he'd started building the moment Pete snatched Rose from the air was gone, evaporated, and the dust sucked into the void with the rest. There was nothing left to protect him. The Tardis seemed to quake under his feet, but he remained motionless, frozen, stuck.

"You're not—" His mouth moved. God, didn't it always. This body, formed around the very thought of Rose, would never behave itself properly whenever she was concerned. Always talking, jabbering off, never letting his brain catch up and censor what shouldn't be said.

There was another moment—endless—and Rose's features stilled before a gentle laugh escaped her.

He was normally rubbish with people. There were basic motivators that he understood, common tropes and tragedies that the universe couldn't seem to help itself from repeating, but that was all he really knew. Whenever the world seemed to get itself together enough to give him something new, he was stuck at the starting line with the rest of them, even if he did acknowledge he tended to run quite a bit faster than the rest. Still, the Doctor knew Rose well. Knew her better than anyone else, he'd wager. Knew every quirk of that stubborn girl, even if she somehow managed to surprise him when he wasn't quite looking, he knew her.

And as she began talking about Jackie Tyler expecting, he knew in the spot between his hearts that she, for the first time in years, was lying to him.

So? was what she had said when he'd told her that it would destroy both worlds to be together again. And despite the blood already on his hands, despite the worlds he'd laid low and the civilizations who would never stop cursing him, he was seized with the urgent desire to go through all that pain again to be at her side.

And she'd lied. His chest was tight as the Doctor let her shift the subject away. She'd lied because she knew him as well. Knew that he wouldn't let anything in this world or the next separate them because he had so much more than a duty to be at her side through this. He would ruin the world for her to be safe—nearly had on several occasions already, as a matter of fact—and now there was another. A little life, not even properly there yet but still warm and impossible and his—no, theirs. The Doctor should be at Rose's side for every damn minute of their forever, not a universe away.

And she'd lied. The lie didn't hurt much, not when there was already so much pain to go around. He knew why she lied, and it was the same reason he'd lied to her on Satellite Five. She'd lied to protect the most important thing in her life, so he'd work to let it go. If he went and ripped the worlds apart for Rose, he'd be destroying that little life too. A few minutes of Rose—an extremely short forever with her—couldn't be weighed against the very existence of that little life. He'd have a whole forever without her to rage and scream at the void; for now he could look at her face and dream about what their child would look like. He'd work to let the lie be accepted just for these two minutes.

He imagined it would be a girl. A daughter with this body's too-long legs and Rose's brilliant smile.

"I love you." The words were nearly broken as they fell from her lips, but they warmed him all the same. They didn't say it nearly enough, and the Doctor had spent so long convincing himself that she knew. Still, she deserved to hear it again, even if the words hammered in that this was final, this was it.

His mouth threatened to protest, to do the wrong thing, to say the wrong thing again. He'd done enough wrong to this woman, this brilliant beautiful woman that he'd unwittingly and unapologetically given his love to, and he fought the jokes down for just a minute longer. He couldn't—wouldn't—mask this pain with some stupid attempt at humor. Not now, not when he desperately needed to say the words near as much as she needed to hear them.

"Rose Tyler, I love you."

As the image faded and the star faded into nothingness behind the Tardis's closed doors, the Doctor was left staring into the empty space of the console room. That emptiness beckoned for a long moment and the Doctor wondered which of their stories would Rose Tyler tell their child first.

He wished he'd be able to hear them.