"I don't suppose we'll know if we actually succeeded," the youngest Doctor murmured thoughtfully after they had finished locking Gallifrey away into a single moment of time and had reconvened for a cup of tea back at the National Gallery. "But at worst ... we failed doing the right thing, as opposed to succeeding in doing the wrong."
Rose smiled brightly up at him from where she sat at his side and reached forward to take his free hand in her own. The youngest Doctor leveled his gaze on her pensively for a moment before he continued, "I won't remember this, will I? I won't remember that I tried to save Gallifrey, rather than burn it ..."
"The time streams are out of sync," Rose's Doctor agreed quietly from where he stood before them. "You can't retain it, no."
"It'll all work out in the end, though," Rose reminded him, giving his hand a comforting squeeze and flashing him another bright smile. "You'll grow up and turn into them and get to relive it all over again from the other side." She nodded her head encouragingly towards where his two future selves stood, but the Doctor in leather didn't bother to spare them a second look. He was too busy staring intently at Rose - it was as though he were putting the last few pieces of his mental puzzle together and he had finally caught a glimpse of what the final picture looked like.
"I also suppose that I have you to look forward to as well, my dear," he added quietly, his brown eyes gazing at her searchingly, as though he were looking for those last few, misplaced pieces.
"That, too," Rose agreed, giggling lightly as she leaned forward and placed a firm, lingering kiss to his cheek.
Before she realized what was happening, her bond flared instinctively, not seeming to be able to make any sort of differentiation between the man who barely knew her and the man that he would one day become. Rose and the Doctor both gasped in surprise as a jolt of electricity shot through them at the exact same moment, and Rose was distinctly aware of the fact that the two older versions of the Doctor were staring at the two of them in wide-eyed wonder.
She ignored them, however, as another smile stretched over her face and she leaned in to place another light kiss against the Doctor's cheek in the exact same spot as before. "To the days to come," she whispered quietly, her words meant just for him. "They're gonna be absolutely fantastic."
"Oh, I don't doubt it," he murmured appreciatively as she finally leaned back and met his gaze again. Rose was pleased to note that the youngest Doctor's voice had gone a bit breathless and he seemed to have to force himself to meet her eye as he slowly scanned over her features one last time, as though he were attempting to memorize each and every single detail. After a moment of this, he gave her hand one last final squeeze, nodded his goodbye to his future selves, and then stepped back into his TARDIS.
"Thank you," he murmured as he met Rose's gaze one last time. He opened his mouth as though he wanted to say more, but seemed to think better of it and simply let his ship's doors fall closed with a small, parting grin instead. The TARDIS's engines groaned to life a moment later, and within seconds, the Doctor in leather was gone.
"I won't remember, either," the Doctor in pinstripes piped up as soon as the room around them had grown still once more, "so you might as well tell me."
"Tell you what?" Rose asked, meeting his assessing gaze cautiously as she glanced up at him from where she sat.
He took a step closer so that his intimidating height was even more pronounced as he stood before her. "Who are you?" he muttered quietly. Rose could feel his mind just on the edges of her thoughts once more, as though he longed to reach out and seize the answers for himself, but he couldn't quite seem to force himself to cross that line.
Rose immediately dropped her gaze in response to the younger Doctor's direction question before chancing a look at her current Doctor from out of the corner of her eye. He sighed heavily in resignation, but eventually nodded, indicating that it would be safe to reveal this one, final secret.
Rose stood shakily to her feet, her gaze hesitant as she glanced up at the man who she had dedicated a whole lifetime to back in her old world. Unable to meet his narrowed, curious gaze for very long, she dropped her eyes to the tie that she had so admired back in the prison cell in the Tower of London.
"That really is a great tie," she muttered thoughtfully, stepping forward and raising her hand so that she could trace the petals of one of the blue roses with her fingertips. "I'm assuming you're pretty far along in your timeline. I think it's probably already all happened for you ..."
"What has? What's happened?" he murmured, watching her expression warily as Rose continued to stare intently at the tiny blue flowers.
"The metacrisis," she finally replied, her voice little more than a whisper.
The Doctor stiffened and Rose immediately let her eyes snap up to his once more, her heart pounding in fear of what she might see in his expression. He was watching her with the same look of guarded suspicion that he had been wearing ever since she had first laid eyes on him back in that old prison cell, but there was something else to it now, too - something like recognition.
"How can you know about that?" he whispered breathlessly.
"That woman ... the one you left behind on that beach in Norway," Rose replied haltingly, "she lived out the rest of her life with your clone. They had a long, happy marriage doing what they always did - helping people and saving the world in a hundred different ways. They loved each other very, very much, and they had decades of joy that they shared with one another."
"How? How can you know that?" the Doctor demanded, his voice turning desperate as he stared down at her with dark intensity.
"Because ... that woman died," Rose explained slowly, feeling tears welling up in her eyes as she forced herself to meet his gaze. "And then ... she became me."
"You?" the Doctor repeated, furrowing his brow at her in confusion.
Rose nodded and bit her lip nervously, feeling the first of her tears break free and slip down her cheek as she stared up at the man who she loved and desperately begged for him to accept her.
Suddenly, the Doctor's eyes widened in shock and one of his hands raised to her cheek as he stared deep into her eyes, as though he had found something precious there that he hadn't even dared to dream could be possible. "Rose ...?" he breathed in quiet wonder.
Rose choked on a sob before she threw her arms around his neck and brought him in to a crushing hug, which he immediately returned as soon as he had recovered from his numbing shock.
"How can it be you? How can you be back?" he asked in breathless disbelief as he wrapped his arms tight around her middle and buried his nose in her hair.
"Long story," she muttered, laughing through her tears as she clung tight to him. "Doesn't really matter, anyway." She forced herself to release her hold on his neck as she took a step back to look up at his familiar features once more. "What matters is that you have a lot to look forward to."
"It certainly looks that way," he agreed, his gaze turning suspicious once more as he turned to narrow his eyes at Rose's current Doctor.
"I'll be seeing you soon," Rose promised, standing on her tiptoes to place a kiss on his cheek, just as she had done with his younger self. "Be safe," she sighed, wondering exactly how far along he was in his timeline and when, exactly, he would be turning into the man in the bowtie who was currently standing behind her.
The Doctor stared at her for another long moment in silence before bending down and pressing a quick, chaste kiss to the very edge of her lips. However, the brief touch was all that he needed to instantly find the mental bond that she had been teasing him with all day, and he quickly ran his thoughts over it in a gentle caress that made Rose's knees go weak.
"To the days to come," he whispered, his breath ghosting across her face as Rose felt the sharp stab of his yearning in her own gut. Before she could attempt to reach out and reassure him as she wanted to, he stepped back, flashed her a quick wink, and then sprinted back into his own TARDIS before he became too tempted to do something reckless and really screw up the timelines.
"Thats them gone, then," the Doctor muttered as the second TARDIS slowly blinked out of sight and disappeared. "Everything back to normal."
"'Normal'?" Rose repeated, turning to flash the Doctor a sarcastic look as she crossed her arms against her chest and spun around to face him. "Since when do you do 'normal'? Since when have you ever done 'normal'? I just said goodbye to two different versions of you who are probably off to go regenerate into to more different versions of you. Not a whole lot of 'normal' in that."
The Doctor smiled and nodded in agreement, but there was still a deep, profound sadness in his eyes as he turned once more towards the painting that stood on the opposite wall - it was the one depicting the fall of Arcadia, the battle filled with fire and smoke that was now frozen forever somewhere up there in space where no one would ever find it.
Rose heaved a soft sigh as she stepped up to his side, slipping her hand into his and resting her head against his shoulder. "It's still out there, somewhere," she reminded him quietly. "We could go and look for it, if you wanted to."
"Maybe ..." the Doctor muttered, his voice giving away nothing at all as he flashed the painting another small, distant smile.
"Doctor?" Rose asked as she quietly studied the frozen image of war before her. "Back on Gallifrey, when you were freezing the planet ... I heard you talking to the others. I saw all of the other TARDISes on the monitor."
"Mmm?" the Doctor hummed leadingly as his gaze continued to roam over the bigger-on-the-inside Time Lord painting before them.
"Doctor, there were thirteen ships ..." Rose reminded him pointedly. "All eleven different versions of you, plus the Doctor I met today, and ... one more. Thirteen different Doctors ..."
"So there were," he muttered quietly, his voice sounding vague and disinterested.
"So?" Rose continued to press him, squeezing his hand and tugging at their mental bond as she quietly begged him for more. "Who was that last one? The thirteenth Doctor, who was he?"
"Don't know," the Doctor murmured, turning to press a kiss against her hair as he filled her thoughts with peace and contentment and silently urged her to stay here in the present with him. "That's kind of the point, isn't it? He's the future. Those are spoilers."
"So ... you're not even the least bit curious?" Rose asked, refusing to let him simply brush off the dangerous possibilities that loomed before him. It was clear that there was another man coming to replace the Doctor who was holding her hand now, but neither of them could possibly know how far down the future that was or what would happen that would trigger the events of his next regeneration.
"Why should I be curious?" the Doctor asked teasingly. "Are you? Afraid that he'll be more handsome than me? Or are you worried that I'll go all old and gray?"
Rose tugged playfully at the Doctor's arm as she giggled into his shoulder. "Come on, Doctor - surely you know me better than that by now," she muttered jokingly. "You're gonna have to do a lot worse than 'old and gray' to get me to leave."
The Doctor chuckled as he gently squeezed her hand in his and then slowly turned to face her. The smile that he gave her was soft and almost rueful as she felt him quietly bottle up all of their collective fears for the future and store them away to contemplate on another day.
"To the days to come?" he asked, his eyes sparkling as he smiled down at her as though she were the answer to a long, lost prayer - a prayer four-hundred-years in the making, if his measuring of time was to be believed.
"To the days to come," Rose agreed quietly, filling their shared bond with enough love and devotion to last them both for at least a few more centuries to come.
The Doctor leaned forward and sealed their promise with a long, lingering kiss and Rose found that she really didn't fear for the future after all - not as long as he was guaranteed to be in it.