It is not the first time that he has taken a second look at a blonde girl with curly hair, nor the second nor fifteenth. But it is the first time that the second look reveals that he is actually looking at Emma.

For one brief, blindingly golden second, the Doctor flies higher on the wings of his joy than he ever has before reality sets in and it all comes brutally crashing down.

Emma Bradley is dead. He knows this. He killed her with his regeneration energy.

And yet she is standing there with one hand on the TARDIS, squinting at him in confusion.

"Oh, you regenerated," she says. Amy and Rory look between themselves and then the Doctor and her.

"How did you get here?" he asks as he slowly approaches her. Emma shrugs in that sarcastic way she has.

"I figured you would know since you're the Time Lord and all." It's the sarcasm that pushes him over the edge to the point where he can't resist, and he throws his arms around her and drags her into the tightest hug he's ever given her. It's a kind of miraculous agony.

"We could do this in the TARDIS?" she suggests lightly before peeking over his shoulder awkwardly and waving at Amy and Rory. "Hello lovely to meet you, my name's Emma."

Emma and Amy manage to get them all into the TARDIS, he'd always thought they would get along, and if the two girls notice that he keeps Emma in his line of sight as he flies them out to the Vortex then neither of them say anything.

They sort out the fact that the last thing Emma remembers is right before the Master, he flinches very slightly at the memory and Emma notices while Amy and Rory don't. They sort out the fact that Emma is not a hallucination, nor some kind of zombie.

"I guess we'll just figure it out later?" Emma offers hesitantly as she looks between everyone in the console room. "Assuming it's alright if I tag along again."

"Yes," the Doctor blurts immediately, perhaps a little too sincerely, loudly, and quickly. Rory jumps, Amy raises an eyebrow at him and Emma rolls her eyes before shaking her head and giving him a fond smile.

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He goes and checks when everyone else is asleep on the off chance that maybe there was a miracle, but Emma's coffin is still exploring the stars, completely untampered with. It almost makes him want to storm back into the TARDIS and shake her awake and demand answers that he knows she doesn't have, but then his broken heart gets in the way.

It might be like living with a physical manifestation of Emma's ghost, but he would get to live with her again. Be with her again.

Luckily for him he doesn't have to look into the mystery of Emma because immediately after this revelation, he finds out that there is something off with Amy. She and Amy love ganging up with each other to razz him, and they both know how to handle his moods, though he does notice that Amy starts doing it less and letting Emma handle it more.

But the mystery of Emma gets solved as he figures out what is wrong with Amy, no reason why the Silence wouldn't try the same trick twice, and Emma holds his hand with such soft understanding when he deactivates Amy's Ganger that he feels an unbelievable amount of guilt even as he squeezes her hand back.

Despite all that, he is also unbelievably glad that Emma is there. She keeps Rory balanced in a way that he never could, she gives him the space to be nervous in the search for Amy and allies.

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The Doctor really isn't sure who screams louder when Emma jumps in between him, River and the gun.

It's like Typus Seven all over again, except for this time there's no way to save her, there's no miracle waiting for her.

Emma is going to die.

"It's okay. It's okay it's okay," Emma chants as their fingers link together over the blood spilling out of her, as they collapse to the floor with her in his arms. "It's okay."

"No, it's not," he says roughly, and he wonders if she can see the anger boiling up under his skin. She looks at him comfortingly through the glaze of pain.

"Yes, it is because I am not real," she says firmly and gently all at once. He flinches as his bubbling anger turns immediately into agony and she lets out a rough pained laugh. "God, I don't know how you thought I wouldn't figure it out you're such an awful liar. You wouldn't look at me for ages after the Gangers."

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and she shakes her head. "Emma I'm so sorry."

"No no don't be. Emma loved you and she would have wanted you to be selfish just this once when it wouldn't hurt anyone." He presses a few kisses to her forehead, agonized brilliance kisses for seeing through his lies, and hides his tears in her curls. "Let go Doctor. Let me go and stop living with her ghost."

"Thank you." Those are the words he settles on after choking down fierce tears and fumbling for what to say. "Thank you for letting me have more time with her."

And then because he can't lose this one last chance again, he says "I love you."

Emma's ganger's eyes slipped closed against the pain with a smile on her face. He lifts his head and closes his eyes as her weight is gone in an instant and when he opens them again all he can see is River's confused face.

"I don't understand."

"The Silence made a distraction to try and keep me from finding you. What they thought would be the greatest distraction in the universe. They took the ghost of the girl I loved and gave her flesh."

"If she knew she wasn't real then why would she die for you?"

"Because Emma Bradley loved me." She'd never said it, but he knew. He'd always known. Like he still hoped that she'd known that he loved her. "Emma Bradley loved me, and her ghost would have wanted me to live."

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Yes yes yes blah blah blah that's not how Let's Kill Hitler actually goes, but this is fanfiction and I can do what I'd like lol.