I'm terribly sorry it's been ages since I last posted. Life and work have been getting in the way all this time, but finishing this story that always remained in my to-do list, and now there are only two chapters left I would never forgive myself if I didn't. I dedicate this chapter my dear and encouraging friend NoPondInTheForest - I still owe you a really long email!
No beta, so all mistakes are mine.
Powell Estate, London, 1st January 2005, not long after sunrise
The city of London seemed to be fast asleep after all the hustle and bustle of the New Year celebrations. Still, other than the distinctive and soothing hum of the console, there had been no other sounds to be heard inside the TARDIS for quite a while. Such unusual silence had two very different and unconnected reasons. The obvious one was that neither the early birds nor the night owls of the Powell Estate had suddenly found themselves unsettled by any more noises coming from inside the younger spaceship. The less obvious one was that, from the moment they had peered through the door and accidentally witnessed as a slow-paced Tenth Doctor carried an unconscious Rose Tyler up the steps that led to her mother's flat, the Eleventh Doctor and Clara Oswald happened to be succeeding in avoiding not only talking to but also looking at each other. They appeared to be managing to keep their distance by pretending to be terribly busy behind opposite sides of the time rotor, each with matters they had successfully misled the other into thinking they'd be totally incapable of helping them with.
Clara had been spending most of her supposedly terribly busy time leaning over the console, her elbow seated upon the cold metal edge as her chin rested on top of her hand. For the most part she kept looking up at the computer screen, although she would occasionally risk taking a peep at the Doctor. Deep down inside, however, she would secretly be hoping he wouldn't be looking back at her every time her eyes turned to him. Now that she actually knew how the story of the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler had always be bound to end, she inevitably understood what her own future was going to be like. Much to her surprise she found that nothing had ever broken her heart as much as discovering that, since the day he left Gallifrey for good and set out to travel the stars, the Doctor had always been destined to end up alone. No matter how long she might be keeping him company - eventually there would come a day when he would desperately reach out for her but she would have vanished from his radar, as Rose Tyler and Captain Jack Harkness and all of his countless other companions had done before her. Time was a Time Lord's blessing, he had told her once, but in the case of the Doctor - now she knew - it was also his greatest curse. That he was no ordinary Time Lord was something she had been able to work out by herself, but until that very moment she had never truly understood the full extent of what being the Doctor actually meant. She finally did now. It meant always moving on. It meant forever having to start all over again, not daring look back because the pain of dwelling in the memory of the ones he had loved and lost would ultimately drive him insane.
Hiding behind the other side of the time rotor, the Doctor had also been trying to avoid looking up at Clara for what felt like an eternity by now. With his eyes fixed on the nearest set of buttons, he had long been keeping the pretence that he was musing over the way the lights on the console had kept flashing. Even if he would risk looking up at her occasionally out of the corner of his eye, he could tell that Clara was shunning him as well. He knew why of course. Although he had never breathed a word about his many former companions, it must finally have dawned on her that, one way or another, all of their journeys with him had inevitably come to an end. The fact that she was unmistakably eluding him was assuredly not contributing to give him any peace of mind in the slightest, but it was certainly buying him some time to try to come to terms with the fact that, whether he wanted it or not, he would inexorably have to answer her questions when they eventually came.
Those questions wouldn't take too long to start pouring - that much was easy to guess. There was one question he was particularly dreading to hear coming out of her mouth. Unfortunately for him, that very question had suddenly settled itself inside his own treacherous brain, making him clench his fists and teeth every time he played it in his head.
So one day you'll lose me too - won't you, Doctor?
The sudden reminder that sooner or later there would come a day when, because of some dark twist of fate, he would find himself having to let go of his dearest Clara Oswald made a shiver run through the Doctor's spine. Closing his eyes, his head dropped slightly. For Clara's sake, he suddenly wished that the events of the past few days had simply never happened - being handed a second letter from Queen Elizabeth I, seeking help from Sandshoes for his new quest, travelling to Elizabethan England and everything it had given rise to… With every hurried look he took at her he could sense the storm that her feelings were building up inside her, and the conviction that it was causing her unspeakable suffering was making it difficult for him to even breath.
For his previous self and Rose's sake, however, the events of the past few days were something that he, the mighty Time Lord, would never ever dare change. As for his own sake and the sake of his unhealed wounds, this might just give him a taste of something he had rarely known but something he had always desperately held on to every time it had come his way - some peace of mind.
Luckily for the Eleventh Doctor's and Clara Oswald's sanities, the sound of the younger Time Lord's footsteps as he stepped inside the TARDIS put an end to the train of their hectic thoughts. All they had to do was turn around and set their eyes on the newcomer to understand that getting inside the spaceship had probably been the result of force of habit rather than a decision he had consciously made.
Indeed, the Tenth Doctor looked and acted as if he was in a trance, his senses completely overruled by his feelings. His eyes appeared to be staring around the console room, yet in his mind's eye all he could see was the desperate gaze of the girl he had just parted with. The sensation of warmth left by Rose's arms after being wrapped around his neck for so long just wouldn't leave him. He could even feel her famished mouth responding to his equally voracious one the moment it crashed against hers, and if he closed his eyes, however briefly, there was no detail he wouldn't be able relive, however small. The twinkle in her eyes as she kept her pupils fixed on his. Every single snowflake that had come to rest on her long golden hair. She had known it was finally time to put their borrowed time behind them, and yet, as was to be expected of the warrior she was soon to become, she refused to let go of it. She struggled and struggled until their kiss deepened so much as to render her unconscious, which eventually enabled the Doctor to tear down the barriers erected by her reluctance to leave him.
The Doctor's heart had been in his mouth as he had carried her up to her flat, safely put her into bed and sat by her side, just as he had done right after her delicate neck had been rescued from the swordsman's blade. Leaving was not the choice he would have made had he had any choice in the matter. It was upon realizing he could have possibly spent centuries sitting there drinking her in that he came to terms with the fact there was nothing else for him to do. Slowly and unwillingly, he knelt down by her bed, caressed her cheek with the back of his hand and planted a long soft kiss on her forehead. A tear had crossed his cheek as his sad brown eyes had stared at Rose Tyler for the very last time. Then he stood up, turned around and left.
As far as the Eleventh Doctor and Clara Oswald could tell, the Tenth Doctor hadn't even noticed them. As luck would have it, an unexpected roar coming from his temporarily unstable TARDIS brought him back to his disheartening reality. When he finally spotted them, the way his eyes were blazing with the vibrancy of the many tears that for some reason he still had not shed made Clara gasp. A need to comfort him immediately took hold of her. She wanted to run to him, take his hand and tell him everything was going to be fine. What she did instead was squeeze another hand - the one of the Timelord that had finally come out of his hiding place behind the time rotor and walked in her direction to squeeze hers.
Such were the power and the strength of those two hands every time they intertwined that not even the next roar would dare unbind them.
With the following roar, the look of confusion vanished from the Tenth Doctor's face. He suddenly realised he was back inside the TARDIS and that he had gone there to face his own demise. This one incarnation of him was dying. Not that he was ready to go this time at all, he thought to himself as he took his hands off his pockets and stared at his spaceship, but at least he could find some consolation in the fact that Chinny had proved himself to be a more than worthy Doctor to pass the baton to. As for the friends that were now gone, he had ensured no harm would ever come to Donna, Martha and Mickey appeared to be doing wonderfully now they were together, and Jack had seemed more than willing to stay and keep an eye on the Zygons that had been causing so much trouble in sixteenth-century London as long as Edward de Vere was there with him.
As for Rose, or at least the young version of Rose he had recently spent the happiest days of his tenth incarnation with, he was certain that the joys of the time they had shared had more than outweighed its sorrows.
The subsequent roar made the Tenth Doctor inhale deeply as he clenched his fists. "Okay," he muttered, his eyes fixed on his TARDIS. "Whatever you are, you've come for me, haven't you? Well, here I am. Take it easy mate. You found me. I'm going in. I'm regenerating. I'll play my part but you've got to promise me you'll leave everyone else alone when I'm gone."
Knowing for real that this meant goodbye, Clara let go of the Eleventh Doctor's hand and closed the distance between her and the Tenth Doctor, who turned to face her as she put her hand on his arm.
"Oh, hello again, Clara," he said looking softly into her eyes as a hint of a smile appeared on his face. "High time I left, isn't it?"
"Doctor, I …," she whispered as a tear slid down the corner of her eye. "I wish we could've done something to make her stay."
The Doctor went quiet for a few seconds before he gave her an answer.
"It's okay, Clara," he said, slowly putting his hand on the hand she had put on his arm. "Wherever she may be right now, I'm sure she'll be doing fine. The Rose Tyler I know could never be doing otherwise."
That hadn't been entirely true of course. The Doctor was far from sure that the version of Rose he had abandoned on Bad Wolf Bay would be doing fine. All he could do was hope she would. Clever as she was, there had to be a way for her to understand that everything he had done, he had done only for her. However, had he told Clara so and said the word hope out loud, he would've been admitting that uncomfortable truth to himself. Now that the end was near, the only thing that prevented him from finding peace was the impossibility of ever knowing whether Rose had finally got to understand.
"I wish you could stay too," added Clara.
"But I am staying, Clara. Of course I am," he replied as he loosened his grip on her hand to point at the Eleventh Doctor. "Look at me! I'm over there. Right behind you."
"I know," said Clara, "it's just that being with the two of you at the same time for so long... And you're both so different! It's been a while since it started to feel like you're two different people."
"But we're not," he said, shaking his head slightly. "We may look differently, speak differently, and I bet more often than not we may also have acted quite differently. However… I know I'm going to regret saying this, but I guess somehow he's been brewing inside me all this time. I believe he is who he is because I am who I am. Somehow he is what I've been secretly looking forward to becoming all this time 'cause, different as we may seem, his cause will always be my cause. Each and every single one of the bodies that came before us and each and every single one of the bodies that'll come after us - we all live for the sole purpose of protecting those who need protecting. Of helping wherever help is needed. That's what we'll always do and that's who we'll always be."
"Sorry to interrupt you there, Sandshoes" said the Eleventh Doctor as he walked towards them, "but if we take into account your meta-crisis regeneration, I'm not sure there'll be many other bodies coming after mine."
"Doctor, what are you talking about?" asked Clara, turning to him in alarm.
"Oh yes there'll be," said the Tenth Doctor. "You're the breaker of rules, remember? I'm sure you'll find a way. Besides, you've got Clara. And on those rare occasions when the universe gives us a Rose Tyler or a Clara Oswald... That's all the motivation we need."
None of the three time travellers would have believed it if they had been told that the next roar would actually manage to startle them. As soon as it was over, the Tenth Doctor took a step forward, walking past Clara and the Eleventh Doctor, and spoke with determination.
"Okay, that's my cue," he said, furrowing his brow. "I won't let that thing make a nuisance of itself again."
Turning to his future self and Clara, he remembered his frustrated latest attempt at regenerating. Somehow, he thought, it had been much easier to go through it all back then, when he had been all alone inside his spaceship. He had had nothing else to lose back then. Now that Chinny and his girlfriend were there, saying goodbye felt infinitely harder.
"I bet you still don't want to go," said the Eleventh Doctor from behind him.
"You know me well," he answered.
"Well," his future self went on, "at least this time you won't have to go alone."
The Tenth Doctor smiled softly when he heard those words - among other things, because he certainly was unspeakably grateful there would be someone he would actually be able to say goodbye to.
"Thanks," he answered. "It'll be nice to spice things up a bit."
"Tell me about it," his future self answered. "The way I remember it, it was kind of bleak and gloomy."
"Well, it can't have been that bad, can it? You came out of it," he said, causing the Eleventh Doctor to chuckle.
Finally, the Tenth Doctor started to walk ahead, while the Eleventh Doctor and Clara followed right behind him. Upon reaching the TARDIS, its rightful owner took his key from his pocket, then turned around nervously to say one last goodbye to his friends. He wrapped his arms around Clara and held her in a long embrace.
"You take care of him, Clara," he said, his chin resting on top of her head. "Us Time Lords… We can be reckless and unpredictable, especially if we've spent too much time alone. We need someone to talk some sense into us every now and then."
"Of course I'll look after him, Doctor," she said as another tear crossed her cheek. "I promise you that."
The roars that had seemed to give them a brief break suddenly came back, incessantly and much louder than before if that was even possible. Each of them thought they would be gone after a few seconds, but much to their surprise the opposite happened. As it seemed, this time they were there to stay. It didn't take the Doctors or Clara very long to notice there was a certain rhythmic pattern in them, as if they were the beat of a powerful and inexplicable swan song.
The Tenth Doctor released Clara and turned to his older self, his younger hand reaching for his. No words came out of their mouths as they shook hands, but there were certain last words that the departing Doctor had been planning to say to the other Doctor for quite a while, and as he didn't want Clara to hear, he opted for sending the message telepathically.
Cherish your time with her, Chinny. Cherish every second of your time with her. You and I know you can never know how long it's going to last.
After the Tenth Doctor's message resonated in his brain, the Eleventh Doctor's head went down, his chin nearly touching his chest. Since he had met Clara he had not wanted to even think about it, but of course he knew how right Sandshoes was. It happened while Amy and Rory were travelling with him, it had also happened while Donna was travelling with him... And would he ever be able to forget how terribly unexpectedly it happened while Rose was travelling with him? One moment they had been fighting by his side, shining with the light of the brightest of galaxies, and the next they had been irrevocably gone.
Letting go of the Eleventh Doctor's hand, the Tenth Doctor slowly turned to the door. He held up the key, inserted it in the lock, and finally turned it in. As he pushed the door open, the chaotic scene he found inside his spaceship made him think that something in the logical cycle of the life and expansion of the universe must have gone terribly wrong.
"What the hell," he mumbled.
The console room was still in the dark, the way it had been since Clara and Chinny had come to find him, but now it was also housing a most spectacular phenomenon. The most ancient mechanisms of the universe itself seemed to be at work inside the TARDIS. A massive cloud of air, gas and dust was whirling around the time rotor. The Doctor had witnessed the birth of a galaxy on more than one occasion, and although it didn't make any sense at all, he knew this looked pretty much like it. It was as if a powerful tornado had taken over his console room.
The Eleventh Doctor and Clara gazed at the spinning cloud in amazement from outside the door. The electric charge inside it was now making it flash with light, the way lightning flashed during a thunderstorm. The roars themselves seemed to have turned into thunder, and yet they had managed to keep their musical quality.
Determined to find out what was really going on, the Tenth Doctor stepped inside his spaceship. No sooner had the soles of his shoes come into contact with the grating than the familiar orangey-yellow light which had disappeared from the console room came back. An almost imperceptible smile formed on the corner of his mouth, but it soon disappeared. As a matter of fact, the sudden stabbing pain he felt in the middle of his chest made him realise that it had been inevitable for said light not to bring something else with it - the agony of the effects that the radiation he had voluntarily exposed himself to were inflicting on his now once again dying body.
He put a hand on his chest and squeezed his eyes, silently waiting for the twinge to subside. He watched as the cloud that had been twirling around suddenly shrank, then started to spin even faster and eventually lifted up from the ground. Its ascent stopped the moment it touched the ceiling, but the spinning, the lightning and the thunder didn't. If anything they intensified, making the air in the console room feel colder.
To a mind like the Doctor's, there could only be one explanation. This wasn't the way a paradox manifested itself in the slightest. This had to be something else, he was almost completely sure. Something had to be coming. There had to be something travelling through the wormhole the TARDIS had detected, and it was coming for him. Which meant it was paramount to set his pain aside, rush to the console, and manage to get the TARDIS away from there so that no harm would come to Clara or the next Doctor. He would deal with that mysterious creature alone, and if he happened to regenerate while he was dealing with it, then so be it. Nothing like the strength of a newly born Doctor - as opposed to the vulnerability of a dying one - to guarantee success in dealing with a new menace. Also, knowing Chinny as much as he already did, he was positive he was going to love it.
Now that the decision was already made the Tenth Doctor staggered to the time rotor, but his aching body betrayed him and he fell flat on his knees. He could hear the word 'ouch!' coming out of his mouth before the thunder in the console room became so loud that it was utterly impossible to hear anything else. He looked up at the now blinding light coming from the dizzying cloud whose whirling was like nothing the Doctor had ever seen before. All of a sudden a thunderbolt came down from it, touching the grating right before the spot where he was kneeling. Its intense brightness and the nearness of the place where it landed made him close his eyes in order not to risk becoming blind. When he opened them, he saw a human-shaped figure kneeling down right before his eyes. Whether it was actually human was difficult to determine yet. Black and white clothing covered every bit of skin. The head wasn't covered though, except for the arms that were protecting it. Soon those arms started to return to their natural position, allowing the Doctor to see the long blond hair that had been hiding underneath. All at once, when the human being that had come out of the thunderbolt finally revealed itself to the dying Time Lord, the pain his whole body was aching with seemed to numb for a second before it returned, furious as the Doctor could never have imagined it to feel. With his eyes wide open and his lungs fighting for air even harder, tears welled in his eyes for a brief instant before they started to fall down his face with the violence of a thousand rivers cascading down Victoria Falls themselves.
Ignoring the fact that regeneration would soon be coming to get him, Rose Tyler threw herself into the Doctor's arms. Physically weakened not only by the poor state of his dying body but also by the revival of all the emotions that seemed to be determined to stay with him till his end, the Doctor fell on his back, taking Rose with him now that his arms were tightly wrapped around her waist.
"Rose," he sobbed, his face covered by her golden hair, "oh Rose."
Rose had never even intended to say anything. Lifting her head from the crook of his shoulder, she looked into his eyes from behind the veil of tears clouding her own before her mouth crashed against the mouth it had been longing for for so long. It hadn't been that long since the Doctor had last kissed her though, but still he kissed her back as if he had never kissed her before at all.
Clara and the Eleventh Doctor kept staring at them from outside the door. Taken aback by Rose's unexpected arrival, it took the older Time Lord a while to realise that the rotating gas cloud that had shaped the portal she had come through was still there. The Doctor became a bit anxious, especially because the thunder and the lightning hadn't vanished either. There could only be one reason to explain it, and that reason was that Rose had not only used it to get in. The vacuum that had formed itself in the very heart of the whirl above her was determined to swallow her back.
That obviously posed another terrifying question. Having managed to come back again, was she aware of the fact that she wasn't coming to stay? Because somehow he suspected that she wasn't.
When the Doctor's and Rose's mouths eventually drifted apart, the thought rushed through the Time Lord's brain that their yearning for each other was inevitably going to accelerate his regeneration. The absence of air in his lungs had already been worrying before Rose came. Now after their long and longed-for kiss it seemed that what little air his lungs might still have had in store had definitely run out. He had probably risked suffocating. Even so, just this once, he wouldn't have stopped it at all.
"Rose," he gasped, his elbow resting on the grating as he pushed himself up. His other arm, wrapped around her waist, still bound her to him. "How on earth have you managed to come back again?"
She loved the way he smiled softly as he asked her that.
"How could ya ever doubt it?" she asked, sitting down on the grating right between his legs as she wrapped her own around his waist. "I had to come back, Doctor. Not just 'cause I wanna be with ya, but also 'cause I need ya to tell me the truth."
"The truth about what?" he asked.
"About the other you," she answered.
"The other me?" he asked, puzzled, right before another sudden pang reminded him that this body was still in the process of breaking down. "Has he…? Oh dear, what has he done?"
"Oh, I… I couldn't… I wouldn't… I'm afraid I don't know," she mumbled as her body started to shake slightly.
"What d'you mean you don't know?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.
Rose looked down, uneasy. She had known all along that this question would be asked, but try though she might, she hadn't been able to come up with an answer that wouldn't make her feel deeply ashamed of herself.
"I know ya meant well when ya left me with 'im, Doctor, but…," she added before self-consciousness made her silent.
"How long has it been since you last saw him, Rose?"
"A couple of years, maybe," she answered sheepishly.
There was a brief silence before any of them spoke again.
"And I take it that hasn't happened because of some decision he's made himself, has it?" the Doctor finally asked her.
"But I don't want 'im, Doctor... He's not you," she said as tears started to fall from her eyes. "All this time I've been wondering where ya might've been, whether ya might've found new friends or whether you'd just be roaming the universe on your own. Not knowing about this you, the real you… That's been killing me! I just can't pretend ya never even happened and spend my days with someone else when all I want is to know that you're okay!"
"But I'm always okay, Rose," the Doctor answer, wrapping another arm around her and burying his face in the crook of her neck. "Eventually, I get by. I always do."
"And what do ya do till ya manage?" she asked, sobbing.
"Well, most of all, I think of you," answered the Doctor, pulling back in order to be able to look her in the eye. "I picture the wonderful life that's still there waiting for you, and I feel so glad that to be the one that made it possible. The chance to wander another universe in a baby TARDIS and in the company of someone who loves you more than you'll ever know. You want to know how I know that? 'Cause he's me. Did you hear that? I'll say it again," he added, lifting her chin with his hand. "He happens to be me, Rose Tyler. The only difference between us is he can have you. And the reason why he can have you is he's vulnerable enough to understand that you're as vulnerable as he is and never forget it. That's why he'll take much better care of you than I ever did. I've lost you so many times, Rose. I very much doubt he ever will."
"But ya didn't tell me the truth 'bout 'im," she cried. "Ya let me believe I'd leave ya for another, but I didn't. I got…"
"Wh… What?" the Doctor mumbled.
"I got lost and I came back for ya," Rose went on. "It was you who decided to banish me to that other universe and sent 'im with me."
"Hang on a minute," the Doctor mumbled as his eyes opened wide, "Did you just say I let you believe...? Oh Rose… Do you actually remember?"
"Remember what exactly? My room in the Tower of London? The scaffold and the swordsman? Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I? Don't be daft - of course I do," she answered with a half smile that the Doctor adored, as it succeeded in dispelling the sadness that had taken hold of her.
"But how can you remember?" he asked.
"When ya left us on that beach," she said. "It all came so suddenly. I kissed 'im and all those memories just came rushing in. Then I let go of 'im and turned around 'cause I wanted to tell ya, but ya were gone."
A bleak look returned to her face, and the Doctor regretted asking that question more than he had ever regretted anything he might have said in his extraordinarily long life.
"Oh Rose, can't you see?" he said as the words he had been looking for all along had finally presented themselves. "How can you still think he and I are different people when he actually brought you back those impossible memories of me?"
"Then why didn't ya tell me the truth?" she asked again, succeeding in her attempt to hold back her tears. She had travelled universes again just because she needed an answer to that question, and if she wanted the Doctor to give it, he had to be completely sure that she would know how to handle the truth. "If you're really the same person, then why would ya let me believe I'd left ya for another?"
"Because the truth would be a hard pill to swallow. Rose, you'd been through a lot when we found you in the Tower, and we still had to take you back home after that marvelous time we had. I didn't want those days to end and neither did you, which meant you'd have to go through a lot more afterwards. How could I possibly have told you about the future? To make you dread the days that were to come? That would've been pointless and unfair," he replied as a tear crossed his cheek.
"And what about what you would have to go through, Doctor?" she asked, cupping his cheek with one hand as she put the other on his chest. "We were there for each other. We could've comforted each other."
"Oh, you did comfort me, Rose," he said, cupping her cheek with his hand in return.
"You know what I mean, Doctor," she whispered. "Ya 'ad me from the moment I opened my eyes and saw ya sitting down on that stupid chair next to my bed."
"I know," answered the Doctor. "And I knew you knew I was crazy for you too."
"Things could've been so different," she mumbled.
"Oh Rose, things were amazing as they were. Were I to have the chance, I wouldn't change a second of it. You needed to get to know me, and things just ran their course. Believe me, much as I wanted to, don't you think it would've been unsettling to tell you any more than I did?"
Guilt could be a terrible thing, and the innocent young Rose who had been kidnapped by Queen Elizabeth I had been terribly haunted by it thinking she had irreparably broken the heart of the only man she had ever loved.
"So that was it," she finally said, not so much to the Doctor as to herself. "All along ya were just... Trying to protect me?"
"How could you ever doubt it?" asked the Doctor, visibly moved by her words. "I failed miserably at Canary Wharf, Rose. I've just been trying to make up for that ever since."
Rose burst into tears again and buried her face in his chest. The Doctor wrapped her arms around her once again, one hand resting on her back while the other caressed her golden hair.
"This me is dying, Rose," he whispered, holding back his tears as another pang left him momentarily breathless. "Not that I'm complaining about it at all. I've already died in front of you twice and believe when I tell you there's no better way to die, but I want you to be safe. You must go back now. No matter how long it's been - he'll be waiting for you. He'd spend his whole life waiting for you if he had to. I know him well."
"I still would've stayed with you forever, Doctor," she whispered in his ear.
"I know," he replied, "but I'm afraid the thing that brought you here won't leave until it's swallowed you back again."
Of course, thought the Eleventh Doctor. Sandshoes had also noticed. Good for him to have done.
"I know," she replied. "This is it I guess. I mean, when we finally get to say goodbye."
"This is not goodbye," said the Doctor. "For the Doctor and Rose Tyler, the stuff of legend, it will never be goodbye."
"I love you Doctor," she whispered as her fingers caressed his chin.
"Not as much as I've always loved you, Rose Tyler," he whispered back as his mouth came down looking for hers.
They kissed again - recklessly, irrationally, hopelessly. And all the while, Clara Oswald and the Eleventh Doctor inevitably kept their eyes fixed on them.
This time their kiss ended just because the Tenth Doctor's life was also about to end. Her eyes full of tears, Rose looked tenderly into his as she helped him get back on his feet. His hands were resting on her elbows when he suddenly felt a really familiar and scorching sensation in his arms. He raised one hand, looked at it, and there it was - the regeneration energy was coming out of it.
"Rose, step back!" he said in alarm. "Chinny, take her away from here!"
"What?" Clara muttered.
"I love you, Doctor," said Rose as she held on to him for a few more seconds.
"I love you too, Rose Tyler," he said, visibly emotional. "Now go and be as happy as you possibly can. And once again, do it for me."
"I will, Doctor, I promise," she answered.
Her hand let go of his waist but it refused to say goodbye without grabbing his - the one that was still free from regeneration energy. They spent a few more seconds looking at each other in absolute silence. Everything that had been left to say, they were telling each other with their eyes.
Once again, it was the Doctor who had to end it.
"Go now Rose, please," he said as tears started to uncontrollably fall from his eyes.
Rose wouldn't move or let go of his hand though, so the Doctor asked for help again.
"Chinny!" he shouted in panic as he felt the moment for his whole body to let out all of its regeneration energy drawing closer. "Chinny you gotta take her away from here! Now!"
"Doctor, you're not going to…," said Clara, but before she could say any other word she saw the Eleventh Doctor rushing through the door.
The moment the older Timelord stepped into the Tenth Doctor's TARDIS, the cloudy portal that had been touching the ceiling started to descend, clearly inviting Rose in, but Rose hadn't even noticed it. Her eyes were still fixed on the eyes of the man she loved, and he kept looking at hers in return. Eventually, when the regeneration energy contained inside the Tenth Doctor's body started to flow out of it with the ferocity of a supernova explosion, Rose passed out. Luckily for her, the Eleventh Doctor had been standing right beside her so he took her in his arms before she hit the ground.
He knew what he had to do next, although he didn't dare right now think of its consequences.
The Eleventh Doctor turned to face the portal, which by this time was turning around at a much slower pace than it had previously been. He took a deep breath and fixed his eyes on it trying to decide which would be the best moment to jump in. Then, all of a sudden, he heard a very familiar and dear voice calling for him.
"Doctor!" Clara cried desperately.
He turned to his left, and there she was. Clara. His Clara.
"Doctor…," she called again, but said nothing else. A sudden and stupid idea had come to her head and she had feared it for a split second but immediately discarded it. There had to be another way. Now that she could see the sadness on his face when he looked back at her, the truth of what was going to happen became crystal clear.
The Doctor was leaving never to return.
"Doctor, don't leave me," she begged him as a tear ran down her face. "Don't leave me please."
For a brief moment, the Doctor looked as if there actually was something that he wanted to say to her, but even if it had been so, he just never had a chance. The doors of the Tenth Doctor's TARDIS suddenly closed, and a few seconds later, it dematerialised.
Clara just couldn't believe it, but she was never going to see the Doctor again.
