A/N: Okay, this is the last chapter of this story, well, this part of the story. As always, I don't own anything you recognize from Doctor Who.
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He was alone again.
He didn't notice the people below him cheering.
He didn't notice the perfect night, or the light breeze, or the ways the stars showed in a way that they never would again over London after electric light became a thing.
He didn't notice the crushed area of town, or the couple of fires burning, or even the fact that the destruction and death would have been all over the city if Rose hadn't remembered those plans and tried to stop the CyberKing.
He did notice the screaming silence in his head.
He did notice the cold of December that into his bones the way they shouldn't and made even his cool breath fog up. As if he needed a reminder that he still breathed.
He sat up there for nearly 20 minutes. He actually lost track of how much time. If it weren't for the spire of a cathedral passing him by, he'd have sat there longer.
He finished his descent, alternately using the valve and the burner to drop the balloon fast, but not too fast. He almost tore the bottom on someone's weather vane on the way down. It probably would never work quite right ever again.
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Jackson ran up to him as he touched down. He had followed the Doctor's descent through town.
"That was brilliant, Sir!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "Where's the other Doctor and Rose?"
His exuberance faded when he saw the look on the Doctor's face. The Doctor's face was a mask, but his eyes were haunted and he looked like a man that had lost everything he held dear.
"They were still...?" He couldn't get the rest of his question out.
The Doctor knew what he was asking, and nodded. He looked away and watched the people around put their things back upright.
Jackson looked around at the people around them, fixing up their things in the middle of the night on Christmas. In the morning, they would gather with their families and celebrate the holiday. Life would go on, but for the moment, it was time to grieve.
He walked with the Doctor in silence.
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He slowly walked toward the TARDIS, the only being that hadn't left him, yet.
He replayed the last 2 days in his mind.
Rose's happiness to be given a screwdriver and a sword that was just like the one she used to have, with a couple of additional details.
His other self's laughter when presented with the gift of edible ball bearings.
Little Tony's joy playing with that glider.
Jackie's protectiveness over her daughter. He needed to tell Jackie. He couldn't leave her hanging.
The memories forwarded to their last night together, how she tasted, how she felt.
How they both looked tangled up together, the sheen of sweat as they vigorously made love.
The way she greeted the man they thought was him next, and the way that she was so sad to think that he forgot her. He'd have to forget everything about himself to have a chance of forgetting her. Actually, he had forgot himself, with the fob watch, and still remembered her.
Rose's brilliance in solving the mystery of the man who thought that he was the Doctor. Her bravery in fighting off that Cyberman with a sword.
He'll miss them terribly, both of them. But he'd not regret a single minute of the time he had with her after giving in. Not one. He'd always be terribly grateful to his other self for his insight.
He'd died for her before, now he'll live for her.
The memories forwarded to the last moments, talking to Hartigan and both of them at the same time, her insistence that he not put her ahead of the unknown number of people below. Her telepathic shout that forced him to pull the trigger. It took the decision out of his hands. He did not want to have the decision, he'd begged his goddess not to have the decision. And the Wolf came through.
Be careful what you wish for.
Back up.
Talking to Hartigan.
"Is the Big, Bad Wolf going eat me?"
Big, Bad Wolf.
Bad Wolf
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"Attention all personnel. Bad Wolf One descending. Bad Wolf One descending."
He closed a door on her, trapping her with a Dalek. She survived to come back to him.
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"Now, you tell me, God of all Daleks, because there's one thing I never worked out. The words Bad Wolf, spread across time and space, everywhere, drawing me in. How'd you manage that?"
He sent her away to save her life, she came back a goddess and saved his.
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"But she told me to warn you. She said two words."
"What two words? What were they? What did she say?"
"Bad Wolf."
He rushed out of the fortune teller's tent to see the Two Words everywhere, even on the TARDIS.
He had sent her away again, she came back, only to be torn from him. She came back to him yet again, from another universe.
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Did he dare hope? Or would he just tear himself apart again.
Too late, he didn't have a choice. The seeds of hope grew in his hearts.
He ran.
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Jackson Lake walked in silence next to the Doctor, who walked morosely off in some direction he couldn't fathom.
He wanted to invite the man to dinner for Christmas, but he was certain that he wouldn't want to eat for a long time.
So, for the moment, he'd offer his companionship. Not to travel, mind you. He was a widower with a young son, but just for now, as a friend who knew what he was going through, who was going through the same thing himself.
Misery loves company.
Suddenly, the Doctor stopped moving. He stood there for a moment with a look of...hope? He then ran, and Jackson ran after him.
"Jackson!" The Doctor called, seemingly without the need for breath. "Did you hear everything Miss Hartigan said up there?"
"Yes!" he replied, not being able to do anything more than that at the moment. He had been listening intently to the conversation, her side of it anyway, as he couldn't hear the Doctor.
"Did she say anything about a wolf?" The Doctor asked as they ran around a corner.
Jackson had to stop for a moment to catch his breath. The action forced the Doctor to stop and come back to hear his answer.
When he returned, Jackson could see the change in the man. He looked manic, he practically bounced, and he seemed to be waiting for his words with anticipation and more than a bit of dread. It was a bit scary, actually.
"She said something about a bad wolf eating her," he informed the man between breaths. The man's dread lifted, and he looked almost...happy? "Why are you asking about fairy tales?"
"Come on, Jackson! Run with me, and I'll tell you a story."
They continued running, and Jackson couldn't figure out why they needed to run, or where they were running to. They only went a couple more streets over before they stopped in an alley, where a large, blue box sat on the ground. The Doctor stopped there and turned around to look at Jackson.
"A long time ago, when I was in my last body, I sent Rose away to save her life, she used my ship-" at the word ship, he patted the box lovingly. "to swallow Time and come back to save me." He turned his full attention back to Jackson. "While she was a goddess, she used the power to send words across all of time and space. They were supposed to be a message, but I always thought that it was mostly random. I'm starting to believe that much of it wasn't random at all, maybe none. That woman said Bad Wolf in an odd context, and for a moment, just a moment, I believed that I had made it up, but you heard it too!"
Jackson wondered what was going on. Was the Doctor 's mind breaking like his did? Why did they run here, to this blue box?
Blue. Ship. Doctor
"Is this it?" he asked, "is this the TARDIS?"
"Yeah, it is," he grinned, proud of it. "I might be able to use the TARDIS to find Rose, and wherever Rose is, my twin will be as well!"
"I thought that you could feel them in your mind?" Jackson asked.
"Normally, I can," the Doctor replied, "but not if we aren't in the same time." He opened the door and went inside, waving Jackson in with him.
"They were sent into the Vortex." Jackson said as they walked up to the console. "Could the Cybermen come back from it? I thought they'd be disintegrated, but-"
"No," the Doctor interrupted Jackson, "I know your fear, but it doesn't work like that. They'd have to have equipment that could travel in time to be able to travel anywhere before they were disintegrated." He went to the monitor and typed in the commands. They wouldn't be far.
"But Rose and the Doctor..."
"They have a Vortex manipulator on them. It hasn't worked right in a while, but Rose fixed it enough to allow for a short range teleport for one person. She kept it in her pockets, because we have a habit of getting separated from the ship with almost no way of getting to it and she thought it might come in handy."
Jackson listened to the Doctor babble and, to his surprise, he was actually able to follow most of what the Doctor said.. "Teleport?" he asked.
"Oh, it's a device to make people disappear from one place and reappear in another. It usually feels bad to use, but handy in a pinch."
"But if it could only be used for one person..." Jackson trailed off.
"If they were able to get it to function enough to time travel, it would have been able to be used for both of them."
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While the Doctor explained things to Jackson, a small part of his mind wondered when the man would realize that he had just walked into a tiny box with a bigger room on the inside. He always did enjoy the reactions from people when they walked in the TARDIS for the first time.
"...would have been able to be used for both of them," he finished. When Jackson didn't ask another question, he looked up at the man, who turned in a slow circle, finally taking the room in. He walked to the doors and did the traditional look around the box, then walked back inside, amazement written all over his face.
"Oh, my word," he said, slowly. He walked back up to the console and looked around the room again. "Oh, goodness me, but this is...this is nonsense!"
"Well, um, that's one word for it, I guess." There was a new reaction to add to his collection.
"Complete and utter, wonderful nonsense! How very, very-"
The console beeped, indicating that it had finished it's scan and interrupting Jackson, who had been a bit overwhelmed at the 'bigger on the inside' concept.
He rushed over to the monitor and looked at it, repeating, "please, please," over and over again, just as the door to the time ship opened up again.
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The Doctor winced at the force of Rose's mental shout at the other Doctor. It wasn't directed at him, and it still hurt.
He grabbed Rose's hand and made sure it touched the Vortex manipulator as much as possible, then pressed the button.
Instantly, he felt the familiar and hated sensation of traveling through the Vortex without a capsule. He anticipated the landing, but it still felt like he was being hit in the head with an ax and his breath was being stolen from him. It was worse this time than with Jack's manipulator, and he assumed that was because of the physiological changes.
They had left sitting on the floor, because the Dreadnought class ship had been jerking all over the place, and landed about a foot off of the ground. Both scrambled to get up quickly. Neither one knew what they would find when and where they landed.
Only a second's look showed the Doctor that they had landed in London. It looked like the same night. People were all around, picking up things that were knocked over when everyone ran from the gargantuan robot. He wondered what this version of the CyberKing had actually looked like, as they had only seen it from the inside.
Not a single person had apparently noticed their arrival in the middle of London. Typical.
He still felt like he was going to fall over, and looked over to Rose to make sure she was okay. She had just had a major shock to her system. What he saw made his jaw drop.
She stood there, almost bouncing with a kind of manic energy. She looked like she wasn't sick, had a headache, or anything. She looked like she felt good.
"Wow, that's a rush!" she exclaimed. Then her eyebrows furrowed. "Wait," she added, "in the other universe, that hurt like hell. Did I not fix it ri- Doctor, are you okay?" She had finally turned toward him and noticed his state.
"Unprotected travel through the Vortex is supposed to hurt," he told her, as the last vestiges of the nausea left him.
"Oh, so why did it not hurt-no, that's later, we've got bigger fish to fry, where's the Doctor, it looks like we've been gone for a little while," she fired off quickly. Rose closed her eyes and looked like she was concentrating on something, probably trying to contact the other Doctor to let him know they were there.
He concentrated on his link. Moving through time had closed their links off, and all he could get from his other self was the fact that he was there, in the same time, which he could tell from the TARDIS. His other self had apparently completely closed off the links, which meant that he thought they were dead.
"I can feel 'im, but he's...closed off?" Rose asked. "I can't get through."
"Yeah, we need to find him as soon as possible," he replied. "What would I do if...?"
"The Vortex manipulator. It can detect life signs," Rose said excitedly. She then deflated. "Oh," she realized. "I don't exactly have his information programmed."
"Rose Tyler, you're a genius!" He praised, glad that he didn't have to try to figure out where his other self was.
"What?"
"Use this to find him!"
"But we don't have him to scan, so-Oh!" she realized.
"Yep. We have me, and I know the life signs of a Time Lord better than the back of my hand."
A quick bit of programming later, and they used it to search for the Doctor. Nothing came back.
"But he's here, I know he is," Rose said, "I can feel him and the TARDIS."
"And what is capable of hiding such unique signs?" He prodded her.
"The TARDIS!" she turned to take off, then stopped. "Um, how do we get to it?" She asked sheepishly.
"It's your city," he pointed out.
"Yeah, 130 some-odd years before I was born!" she retorted. "Most of these buildings don't even exist anymore. And I'm not entirely sure where we parked the TARDIS anyway."
"136, and this way," he laughed and turned to go down an alley, Rose on his heels.
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The door opened, and there stood the other Doctor. The part human man looked rough. His suit jacket had a tear in it, where a button had been pulled off, the tie he wore that day was very loose and skewed, and a bruise had started showing at his temple.
He was happy to see his other self. Glad he wa... His mind trailed off, as he saw a glimpse of blonde hair behind his double as the door opened the rest of the way.
As soon as Rose was in the TARDIS, he ran over to her and grabbed her up off of the floor by her waist. She quickly wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as he rocked back and forth. He became aware that he was repeating the words, "you're alive, you're really alive," over and over again.
After a minute, she replied, "I love you too, Doctor, but you're squishing me."
She was obviously a bit out of breath, and he realized just how tight he held her. He loosened up and let Rose back down to the floor. Then, he turned to his counterpart, and hugged him too.
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The Doctor watched the Doctor hug Rose. When he put her down, he came over to him and, unexpectedly, wrapped his arms around him. The part human Doctor just stood there for a moment, unsure of his other self's reaction. The reaction with Rose, yes, but not him, he hated himself, said so many times. After a moment, he thought, well, screw it, it's just a hug, and relaxed into it.
"Oh, I am so glad to see that you're both safe!" Jackson exclaimed. "Though you both look like you've been through Hell and back."
"Not quite," Rose responded. "Hell's much worse."
While Rose had been talking to Jackson, the Doctor in brown grabbed pulled back from the hug and crashed his lips against those of his blue suited double's quickly, then pulled away and turned his attention to the other two.
"Where were you?" Jackson asked. "I thought you were dead, and he thought so too, then he started going on about-"
"We were nowhere, Jackson," Rose replied. "We jumped from right before he did whatever he was going to do, to a couple of minutes before we walked in here. That's time travel for you," Rose replied.
"We didn't have the time to refine the coordinates further. Really, we were lucky to be able to make it to the same city on the same day," the part human Doctor said.
They talked for a couple more moments, then walked Jackson out of the TARDIS before he became overwhelmed again.
"This city will recover, as London always does," Jackson told them once they were outside again. "Though the events of today will be history, spoken of for centuries to come!"
"Yeah, you'd think so, wouldn't you?" Rose queried, with a look over at the part human Doctor.
"Funny, that," he replied a moment later. That was odd, he didn't remember a single bit of this being in history. The only major destructive events of 1851 that he could remember was a fire in the Library of Congress in America, which took out close to 30,000 volumes in, well, the day they landed, actually, and the San Francisco fire, in May, which killed 30 people.
But then again, time can be rewritten. They'd look it up when they got back to the 21st century.
"And a new history begins for me," Jackson continued, "I find myself a widower, but with my son and with a good friend."
"Now, take care of that one. She's marvelous," the Doctor in brown praised.
"I like her," Rose added.
"She's fantastic," the blue suited Doctor put in.
"Frederic will need a nursemaid and I can think of none better," Jackson said. "But you three, it's Christmas, and you're welcome to join us at the Traveler's Halt."
"Oh, I'd be delighted to, Jackson," Rose accepted, happily, before either Doctor could decline. After that, the Doctors had no choice but to accept as well.
Jackson held out his arm for Rose, and she looped hers with it. She turned around and winked at both of them, and gestured for them to follow.
"The little minx," the part human Doctor complained to his other self, who returned the sentiment.
As they walked to where Jackson's son and Rosita were waiting for him, Rose told him, "You know, you made a great Doctor."
"Really?" Jackson asked. "I was chasing those beasts for a fortnight before you three came in and handled everything-"
"That's not what I was talking about, Jackson," Rose interrupted him. "I really believed you were a future regeneration for a good bit, and it's not easy to fool me like that, I'm a suspicious sort."
"She really is," the Time Lord agreed. "I regenerated right in front of her, and she thought I had kidnapped my past self!"
"Oh, hush you, you didn't really tell me anything beforehand, wasting time with stuff about Barcelona."
"Really?" Jackson asked, "I did alright?"
"Oh yes, you made a wonderful Doctor, for the most part," she affirmed.
"The most part!" he exclaimed. "And where could I improve?"
"Oh, Jackson, women don't like to be told what they should be..."
The Doctors both laughed as Rose began educating Jackson on women's liberation.
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Fin (for the story, not the series, in case you were wondering)
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A/N: the destructive events of 1851 that the Doctor mused on really did happen. Dec 24th, the Library of Congress lost close to 2/3rd of it's collection, and on May 4th most of San Francisco was destroyed by a fire that started at close to 11pm on the 3rd.