Thank you to all of my reviewers. I'm pleased that you've enjoyed the story, and thank you for your kind reviews. :) And, now, for the conclusion... - Gillian


Chapter 8: Aftermath

It was almost an anticlimactic ending.

Pebble shifted back, no cat darting into the street, and no carriage accident. It was a tidy solution for a not-so tidy problem. He rubbed the back of his neck as he stood from his hiding place next to the TARDIS. Any moment now, he'd be able to tell that it truly did work.

Any moment now...

"Bloomin' 'eck!" The exclamation rose over the normal street noise.

Excellent. His past self and past Rose had just disappeared. It had given the poor constable the fright of his life, but there was nothing for it. He wouldn't be able to tell anyone about what he'd seen for fear of being accused of being a lunatic. Not the best solution, but it was all that he had.

He brushed imaginary dust from his legs as he stood. Back to the TARDIS, back to Rose, and away from this city.

He'd almost died enough times this night.

His expression was unfathomable as he walked down the street toward the TARDIS, but she could imagine what it might mean. Sure, they'd saved history this time. But what about the next time she screwed up?

What about the next time she destroyed history because of a misplaced step, or the wrong word, or just by being there? What if she did it again?

She hugged herself against the sudden chill that ran through her body. The cold was bone-deep, originating from the inside rather than out. She was cold — chilled because she knew what she'd done. The Doctor would have to take her back, take her home.

She couldn't be trusted with time travel. That much was obvious. Nor could she be trusted with his life. She'd killed him with a single misplaced step. She'd changed the world because of a bloody pebble.

A pebble!

It felt more like a plot out of a cheap science fiction novel than real life. But it was. Real, completely real, and she'd done it.

Her fault.

"Ready to go?" he asked as he approached, but what she keyed in on was that he wouldn't meet her eyes.

He wouldn't look at her, but why should he? She was the failure. Not him. She should apologise, but what could she say? 'Sorry I destroyed the timeline?' or 'Sorry I killed you an' caused the invasion of Earth?' No.

Best to say nothing. Just nod.

He'd take her home and she'd have to live with the knowledge of what she'd done. She'd had it all. A best friend, a man — alien — that she loved, and she'd got to go on such amazing adventures.

Not anymore.

She wasn't worthy of the position of time-traveller. She'd failed him. And that was what hurt most of all.

An uncomfortable silence filled the room as he walked to the console. He wanted to get them as far away from Cardiff, 1869 as possible. Too much had happened there. He should've guessed. Should've realised. The tiniest change could change the course of history and it had.

A pebble. A tiny, insignificant stone had changed the world.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Oh, it'd happened before. Either he'd done something, or his companions had, but they'd always sorted it in the end. Or else the Time Lords had done the sorting for them. They didn't even have that backup. The Time Lords were gone. He was all that was left, and he should've known.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He set the coordinates and sent the TARDIS into the vortex. They could drift for a while as far as he was concerned. He'd almost lost her. So many times and in so many ways. But none as permanent as this. History had changed and Rose had changed with it. He should've known. Should've, but didn't.

Some Time Lord he was.

That was when a muffled sob reached his ears and he turned back toward the door. Rose hadn't moved very far from the entrance and she had wrapped her arms around herself as she shuddered with reaction. This had happened before, right after they'd seen Pete for the first time. But now it was sorted. Everything was fixed, back to normal, all better.

Except, it seemed, for her.

"Rose?" he asked as he crossed the room.

"I did it, Doctor. I had changed the world. I screwed it up. I made it so you died, my Dad lived, an' the Sontarans invaded. I did. Me. Stupid Rose Tyler all excited 'bout a trip into the past. Christmas Eve, 1869. An' what did I do? What did I go an' do? I hit a pebble. A bloody pebble an' 'cause of that I destroyed the world. Me." She shook her head, loosening strands of hair from her bun from the force of that movement.

"Rose, you couldn't have known..." He tried to reassure her, but she wasn't listening.

"I'm a liability, Doctor. I am. Jus' as stupid and bloody useless as the other apes from my planet. I destroyed history, Doctor! Maybe you should jus' take me home 'fore I do anything else wrong. Or something even worse. I can't believe you'd even look at me after that. I can't even look at myself." Rose dropped her gaze to the floor, refusing to look at him even when he touched her chin.

She had no idea. None whatsoever. She thought herself a liability. A failure. She knew nothing. Nothing at all.

Sudden anger burned within him at the thought of her blaming herself. Yes, it was a mess. But it was fixed now. Consequences were addressed, the ripples halted in their path. But it wasn't her fault. She thought she'd failed. She thought she'd destroyed the world.

She was wrong.

He had.

Gallifrey. Silurian Earth. This Sontaran-controlled Earth. Different names, same thing.

"Rose, listen to me. You did nothing wrong. Got it? Nothing at all. You couldn't have known what might've happened. I should've." Didn't she see? She wasn't the one to blame.

"No, Doctor. I'm not havin' it. You're not takin' the blame for this one. 'S my fault," Rose insisted. "You should jus' take me home if this is what I end up doing. I'm no help to you like this."

"No!" he all but shouted, reaching out to grip her shoulders. "No," he said in a softer voice. "Rose, I'm not gonna take you home unless you want to go. It's not your fault. You couldn't have known what might happen. I've done it too. Every time traveller has, an' what matters is that it's sorted now. Fixed. An' we can go back to being just us. Better with two."

"I don't wanna go, not really," she confessed in a soft voice. "I jus'...Doctor, I met my Dad. He was alive in that alternate timeline."

"I know," he replied, pulling her into a hug. Her slender body trembled against his own and he sighed. He could take the pain from her. Make her forget. But he wouldn't.

"An' you know what?" She wrapped her arms around him and rested her cheek against his shoulder. "If I 'ad to choose? 'Tween you an' him? I'd choose you."

Words failed him and he closed his eyes, her words re-playing in his mind.

I'd choose you.

He tightened his embrace, burying his face in her hair.

I'd choose you.

If he could have foretold the future, he wouldn't have changed it for the world. But he couldn't, not at that moment when they shifted at the same time. He moved his head to speak to her. She lifted hers to kiss his cheek. And, in a moment of serendipity, their lips met.

Time froze.

Dozens, even thousands, of reasons as to why this was a bad idea tumbled about in his mind. It was unintentional. Accidental. But neither moved away.

He couldn't. He was as frozen as time, captured by the feel of her lips against his own. When she sighed, the soft breath drifted over his lips and he shuddered from reaction. So many wants and desires filled his mind, but he couldn't. He shouldn't. This was Rose.

His companion.

His companion, for Rassilon's sake.

He shouldn't do this.

"Doc-"

"Rose-"

Their words tumbled over each other and they paused, neither moving away, just as close as before. Only a hair's breath of space remained between their lips. If he tilted his head even a centimetre, they'd be able to kiss again. But he didn't.

"I know what you're gonna say," Rose said when he made no move to speak. "We shouldn't do this. I shouldn't have kissed you. It was an accident. An' it was. I know that. But what if, I dunno, we don't worry about the reasons why we shouldn't and instead think 'bout why we should?"

He shook his head. "Rose, I don't. We shouldn't. I couldn't..." He couldn't seem to string a sentence together. There were thousands of reasons as to why this was a bad idea. A horrible idea. He was 900 years old. She was 19. He was a Time Lord, last of them. She was a human. She could die. He could regenerate. Her mum didn't like him. He didn't like her mum.

"If you can look me in the eyes an' say that you don't want to do this. That you don't like me in that way, don't-" She hesitated over the word. "-love me, then do it. An' we can forget about it."

No, he realised. He couldn't. Not now. This was why he'd had rules about this sort of thing. Why he'd followed them to the letter — he wasn't counting Romana, or Benny, or Charley or some of the others in that tally — throughout his lives. "Oh stuff it," he muttered, giving in.

He couldn't give her promises of happily ever afters. He couldn't even promise forever or until the end of time. He could only promise now.

Just now.

He looked into her eyes, reading the fear and, yes, love that mingled within her, and smiled. "I can't promise you anything, Rose. Y'know that, right?"

"I know. An' that's not what I want."

He slid his hand into her hair, letting his fingers tangle within the blonde strands. "What do you want?"

Her answer was a whisper of breath upon his lips. "You."

"'S not forever. Not happily ever after."

"But it's now. The present. Here. The past an' future can go sod off. Now's what matters, yeah?" Rose replied. "'Cause I do love you."

His smile turned brilliant. "Me too."

Life was too short to not give in. Her life, his life, their life together in the TARDIS. Humans burned brightly for too short a time before they were gone. But life couldn't be lived considering the what-ifs of existence. Anything could happen. Anything would happen.

A pebble could change the course of history.

A kiss could change his life.

And, as he dipped his head to kiss her again, he realised that it had.

THE END