Beta: natural-blues

Day Four: Need You, Love You

He didn't sleep long, having slept too much the last few days already; but were there anybody else in the room with him, they wouldn't know he'd woken, as he was staying completely still underneath the covers with his eyes closed and steadily breathing in her scent. Eventually light began to spill through the window and he heard the sound of birdsong, so he forced himself up off the bed and slunk out into the living room, hoping Rose was there and, simultaneously, that she wasn't, since he was already starting to feel a bit ashamed of falling asleep on her bed. In her room. After discovering her secrets.

To try and clear his head, he took another shower and made it extra long, lathering Rose's shampoo into his hair and trying to savour it. Once she returned, he was going to have to sit her down and have a long talk about why exactly she had to return to the future him. He paused, fingers in his hair. He didn't want her to leave — more than he should — but he was pretty certain future him wanted her more… if that made any sense. He tried picturing the reaction the crazy-haired, pinstriped him would have after not seeing Rose for Rassilon knows how many years. He imagined there would probably be lots of tears.

And snogging. That made him flush.

The Doctor redressed and dried his hair, heading out into the living room to wait from her. He jumped a bit when he spotted Rose in the kitchen with her back to him, setting down her coat on the kitchen island and pushing back her windswept hair.

"Morning," Rose said brightly, when she spotted him in the doorway. She froze when he didn't answer, turning back to him. "Um, are you all right, Doctor?"

He stayed silent for an extra minute, simply watching her through sad eyes. Then, inhaling deeply to steel himself, he stepped forward and pointed to the picture of Johnathan Noble on the mantle. "That man is me."

All the flush from her face drained, leaving her colourless and looking like a ghost. "What?" she said, voice almost inaudible and sounding choked.

"Johnathan Noble, your husband," the Doctor said firmly, suddenly irrationally upset. "He's me. You didn't tell me that."

"He's not you, Doctor," Rose said, in the same near-silent tone as before.

He gritted his teeth— how dare she lie? "No, he's just one of me."

Rose flushed and her right hand immediately flew to her left ring finger to grip the gold wedding band, which most likely held the same Gallifreyan inscription as the one in the box. "How did you—?"

It was his turn to flush with shame. "The box under the bed."

The mixed look of horror, betrayal, devastation and anger would probably haunt him forever. "You opened it?! You went through his things?!"

"He's me!" the Doctor burst out.

"He isn't you!" Rose cried, stomping her foot as tears splashed down her cheeks— he felt awful for making her cry but stood his ground. "'Cos he would never be such a nosy arse!" He flinched, but she kept going. "I haven't even opened the box!"

"Well if you had, you would have learned some things," the Doctor snapped.

"What did you see?" Rose said, voice low and dangerous.

"A ring, with my real name and yours intertwined in Gallifreyan. Among other things." Her fingers tightened around her ring. "What happens? Why do I get split into two people? Who's River Song?"

"It's none of your business," Rose shot at him.

"It is my business; it happens to me," he shot back. "I believe I deserve to know that in the future I'll turn into two people, one of which will marry you and then die before he can blink—"

"Leave," Rose snarled, letting go of her ring and pointing towards the door.

"No, I want to know—" he started to demand.

"LEAVE NOW!" she shouted. Suddenly her eyes were blazing and he could feel the anger radiating off of her, and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and at the same time the most terrifying. "GET OUT!" The Doctor glared at her and stomped over to the door, storming out into the crisp morning air. She yelled after him, voice wavering with tears, "AN' I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU EVER AGAIN, YOU BLOODY WANKER!"

Rose slammed the door behind him, before wrapping her arms around herself, sliding down the door and collapsing into ragged sobs. It was always the Time Lord Doctor that hurt her, left her behind, stuck his nose where it didn't belong, and acted like a genuine arsehole, whereas the human Doctor had never done anything like that. Fuck, she missed him.

She cried until her chest, throat and head hurt. Wiping her eyes, she heaved herself up off the floor and, sniffling, glanced at the clock. She had to be at Torchwood in an hour and a half, and as much as she really wanted to call in sick and spend the whole day in bed, the last thing she wanted was to be alone with her thoughts— no, what Rose needed was a distraction. So she headed into her room and did exactly what she did the day after her husband died.

Rose dressed, did her makeup and headed out for Torchwood.

The Doctor stormed through parallel London, heading down into the Tube (he flashed some psychic paper at the Tube station, since he was afraid he was going to shout at the ticket lady if he tried speaking to her) and glaring at anybody who had the audacity to sit next to him. He fully intended to leave this universe without her and never return— anger was coursing through him like molten lava and for the first time since he regenerated he desperately wanted to punch something.

Nearly knocking over some poor old dear doing her shopping in his haste, the Doctor stormed up to the TARDIS and tried to yank open the doors. She didn't shock his hand this time, since it was clear he was most certainly not in the mood, but still refused to open the door, probing his mind for an explanation.

"None of your business," he snapped, before recoiling at his own repetition of Rose's words. "We… argued, all right? Let me in." A giant mauve negative went up in his mind, along with a wave of anger on the TARDIS's side. He scowled and reached for the door again, only to have his hand shocked again. The Doctor yelled out in pain and gripped his hand. Swelling with anger he shouted, "Fine!" and, ignoring the odd looks people gave the madman yelling at the police box, stomped off into parallel London.

He found a park and sank down onto a bench, apparently radiating with so much anger that everybody avoided going within ten feet of him. Rose had lied to him. Even after he'd discovered the truth, she'd denied it. Either that or she truly believed the human clone wasn't him. Hell, he didn't even know if it was really him or not.

The Doctor held his head in his hands. Rassilon, his thoughts just kept going around in circles. All he kept thinking about was what his future self would feel, watching Rose walk off with a human version of himself, and then being forced to move on from her. His shoulders slumped— thinking of forgetting her even now hurt, and he was supposed to be angry with her.

He stayed and pouted on the bench for another two hours before his anger dissipated completely and all he felt was guilt. The Doctor slumped; he'd had no right to get angry. Not only was she technically maintaining timelines, he had gone through her personal items.

He'd have to apologise. Heaving himself off the bench, he stretched out his stiff muscles and started back the way he came, but paused after a minute of walking. She'd said she never wanted to see him again. Surely it was something said in the heat of the moment— perhaps if he bought her flowers? He grimaced; that was far too cheesy. He should just apologise and be done with it— hopefully she'd forgive him with just that.

The Doctor rode the Tube back to outer London, and he spent a full ten minutes pacing outside the door of the manor wondering whether or not to knock. When he finally worked up the nerve to, nobody answered, and when he peered through the window he found the kitchen bare of her purse and coat. Guessing she'd gone to work, the Doctor set off into London to ask around for Torchwood.

"'Lo Miss Tyler," said the secretary at the front door, Alice or something. It was far too soft a name for such a sharp-looking woman, with her pressed clothing and one too many facelifts. "Anything the matter?"

"Nothing, thanks Alice," Rose said dismissively, hoping the pound of concealer she'd put on sufficiently hid the hour she'd spent crying. "My team ready?"

"Ready and waiting in the briefing room," Alice said, handing her the case file.

Rose took it and simultaneously strode over to the briefing room whilst flipping through the file. Pushing open the door, Rose regarded her team— Emory and Alex Evans, dark-haired twins from Hounslow, Jenna Finnigan, an Irish field medic and Wilson Lawrence, who was almost annoyingly polite but good at negotiations. They all looked up from their own files, frowning at her abrupt expression.

"What's the scenario?" Rose asked. Everybody stayed silent, all looking slightly worried. Rose put her hand on her hip. "Well?"

"The Sontarans are on their way to invade," said Jenna in her thick accent, voice quiet and terrified.

Rose stayed silent for a full minute, leaving her back turned to her team so they couldn't see her face. Then, with a blank sideways glance she muttered, "Well then. Sontar-ha."

It took six people to find one that knew the location of the Torchwood building, in central London. Once he learned this he hastened back onto the Tube, heading back to near his TARDIS was parked and coming across a tall, thin building that reminded the Doctor of a credit stick. He was stopped at the front gate— a minor inconvenience with a flash of the psychic paper. The Doctor hesitated when he approached the secretary, hoping Rose wouldn't run into him here and that they'd be able to talk in private.

"Can I help you?" the woman said, her voice oddly gentle for such a waspish-looking secretary.

"I'm, er, looking for my friend, Rose Tyler," he mumbled, staring at his feet.

The woman — Alice, from the plaque on her desk — gave him a raised eyebrow. "She's out in the field with her new team."

"When will—?" he started to say impatiently, before pausing. "Wait a moment, 'new' team?"

"Yes," said Alice, looking sympathetic. "Her old team died in a mission last year."

I lost my parents, my friends, an' my husband.

His hearts dropped into his stomach. She had told him she'd lost her friends as well, and it'd completely passed him by; he'd been too caught up in the sensitive subjects of her parents and husband to even think about her watching her friends die as well. His eyes drifted to the corner of the room, where there was a blown-up photograph of three laughing men and two women, one Asian, all surrounding a smiling Rose— the caption read what was most likely their names, "Owen Harper, Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Toshiko Sato, Gwen Cooper." At the bottom in smaller writing was probably a tribute or something, but the Doctor didn't bother reading it.

All he cared about was getting Rose back. Now.

"Where is she?" he demanded, voice cracking.

"She's in the field, like I said," Alice said, frowning at him.

"No, tell me exactly where she is," the Doctor snapped, gripping the edge of her desk and giving her an Oncoming Storm glare.

She successfully recoiled. "She's at the UNIT field headquarters in Essex, at a negotiation!"

Whirling around without thanking the woman, he stormed back out of the Torchwood building, prepared to shout at the TARDIS to get her non-existent arse straight to Essex. However, once he got off the Tube and headed towards to her, the doors opened on their own and he stomped into the console room.

About bloody time, he thought, making a beeline for the console.

Punching in the coordinates, he twiddled a dial and the TARDIS landed. The Doctor pushed open the doors and at once his ears were met with the loud sounds of fighting, making panic well up in his hearts.

"ROSE!" he shouted to nobody in particular, dashing into a grassy field towards the source of the sounds. The Doctor tripped over himself twice going through the field, seeing the outline of people and an armada of ships growing more detailed the closer he got. "Ro—" he started to call out again, stopping himself when he fully reached the scene.

Sontarans. Literally dozens of them, storming over fallen non- and human bodies firing lasers into a crowd of fighting Torchwood members. This regeneration was known well for being very against violence, but Rose was magnificence in the field, using tranquilliser guns (a woman after his own hearts) to take down one Sontaran after another. The utmost look of concentration and determination was on her face, and he simply took the moment to watch her in awe and admire the woman he was most definitely going to marry in the future.

Rose had her back turned to him, standing amongst the bodies and making more fall like dominoes with the help of her new team. To his horror, one of the already 'fallen' Sontarans stirred behind her, lifting its head and gripping its gun. Terror filled him up like a teakettle and he screamed, "ROSE, BEHIND YOU!"

Rose started to turn around, but before she could turn her head all the way the Sontaran behind her began to raise its gun. It was as though time slowed to a crawl just for this moment— the Doctor plunged his hand into his pocket and withdrew whatever he grabbed first, hurling the object — which turned out to be a cricket ball — at the Sontaran just as it fully raised its gun. The cricket ball hit the Sontaran squarely on the back of the neck just after it pulled the trigger, knocking it out at once.

The shot hit her directly on the back, lighting up her body like a light bulb, making her eyes widen and her mouth fall open almost in a shocked 'oh'. He was aware his mouth was open as well in a scream and that his feet were moving him towards where Rose was falling forward, and then all of a sudden he found himself in front of her, catching her in his arms and lowering her to the ground to cradle her in his lap. The rest of the world melted away as Rose's team took out the other Sontarans, and nothing existed but the woman in his arms with the bloodstain on her back and the slowly closing eyes.

"Rose," he whimpered, unimaginable fear clenching his throat and making it hard to breathe. "Rose, keep your eyes open." She made a choking sound like she was trying to speak, but he hushed her gently. "No, don't try speaking, love. Just… just stay with me, okay? Rose, no," he said loudly, when her head started to loll and her eyelids flickered. "Do not close your eyes, Rose, do you understand me?"

She made another choking sound around what he guessed was blood. "Doctor…"

Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, making him grip her tighter and choke out, "Rose, I need you. Don't go. I'm so sorry." Rassilon, he couldn't breathe. "I love you," he whispered, blinking away tears. Her eyes drifted towards his, betraying no emotion whatsoever. "I love you, Rose. I need you. Don't leave me."

The smallest of smiles graced her mouth, making her eyes crinkle at the sides. Then her head tilted and her eyes slid shut, smile still on her mouth, and her body went completely limp in his arms.

"No, Rose," he said loudly, shaking her a bit to try and wake her and failing. "Rose!"

"Oh my God," gasped some nameless woman behind him.

He had to get her to the TARDIS. Hoisting her up and cradling her bridal style, he bypassed the fallen Sontaran fleet and the Torchwood team and headed straight for his ship in the distance.

"Open!" he shouted needlessly, and the TARDIS doors burst open on their own again.

The console room now led straight to the med bay, allowing the pale-faced Doctor to immediately set Rose down on the bed. Praying she wasn't already gone, he used a pair of scissors to cut through her vest top and brassiere, revealing the giant melted hole across her back. Bile rose up in his throat but he choked it down, wiping tears off of his face and hooking her up to a monitor. A strangled cry echoed through the room, and he left it unnoticed that it had come from him— there was still some brain activity, but her heart wasn't beating. The wound had either shocked her heart into stopping or had severed something inside her and it had bled around her heart, suffocating it.

He set to work, using advanced scanning equipment to check her internal injuries and thankfully finding none that couldn't wait, nor any blood around her heart. With a pair of wires that he taped on diagonal sides of her heart, the Doctor circled over to the monitor and set a standard charge. Her body jerked at the jolt of electricity, but her heart still didn't start on its own. Desperate, the Doctor doubled the charge and shocked her a second time, once again to no avail.

"Why, why isn't it working?!" he shouted to nobody, raising the charge and shocking her again. It was almost terrifying, how she was still wearing the smile from earlier. He yanked the monitor back in front of his face to check the scans again, wondering what he'd missed.

At once the world ended.

The scans showed the muscle on her heart had been burned away almost completely. There was no way he'd be able to save her, not even with his advanced technology.

"No…" he breathed out, turning to her and simply staring. Rose was still so beautiful, skin pale where it wasn't covered in blood, still smiling and looking unbelievably calm. And she was dead. "No. My Rose."

The Doctor stumbled over to her, sinking to his knees by her bedside and grabbing her hand. Her fingers didn't grip his back like they normally would, and it was another sear to his hearts. Dropping his head onto her bare chest, the Doctor did what he hadn't done since he was a child— he dissolved into tears.

Rassilon, he was in love with her. And he'd realised it too late.

It destroyed him, knowing the last thing he'd spoken to her about was future him dying, causing her pain, knowing the last thing she'd said to him was that she never wanted to see him again. His respiratory bypass was the only thing that kept him from suffocating under his own shuddering sobs and the anguish tightening his chest. The TARDIS was prodding his mind but he ignored her, too caught up in sobbing his hearts out. He was going to have to bring her body back to future him, and future him would remember everything that transpired the last four days, and despite knowing it was going to probably kill him again, the Doctor didn't want to forget meeting her, living with her, or loving her.

Oh Rose, my Rose, I'm so sorry. I failed.

The TARDIS poked his mind again, this time more urgently, and he rounded on her, hugging Rose close, glaring at the ceiling and shouting, "SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!"

The TARDIS recoiled initially from his outburst, but instead of snapping back like she usually would by making the monitor fall on top of him or something, she sent a wave of something warm — what the hell was that? Hope? — flooding over him. Sobs dying down the slightest amount, he was able to hear a slight rattling sound coming from the console room. Frowning, the Doctor turned his tear-stained face to squint through bleary eyes in the direction of the sound. The console room was glowing slightly gold, the light flickering in sync with the clanging sounds.

Forcing himself to stand and lay Rose back down on the bed — not before pressing a kiss to her still warm hand — the Doctor headed into the console room, blinking a bit sluggishly around tears. A section of the console was rattling like it was trying to open, golden light seeping through the cracks.

The heart of the TARDIS.

Rose had mentioned once that she had looked into the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the Vortex to save him (among dissolving Daleks into dust, apparently), and suddenly yes, there was something to hope for. With another sob and a prayer to whoever was listening that this would work, the Doctor undid the latch on the console and heaved it open.

At once the console room flooded with light, almost too bright for his eyes, and an ethereal, terribly beautiful song that reminded him so wholly of Rose. He brought one arm up to shield away the worst of the light, carefully avoiding looking directly into her heart and instead turning his gaze to where Rose was visible through the doorway. Golden tendrils snaked from the console and drifted almost lazily to her body, wrapping themselves around her body until she was completely covered in translucent gold light.

He watched in awe as her skin seemed to soak up the light, making her hair shine and her eyelashes glow almost white. Then, as quickly as they'd come, the tendrils slipped away from her and poured back into the console, which swept closed with a bang. At once, Rose stopped glowing, looking as she did moments earlier. Only — no, wait — she was breathing. He literally threw himself back into the med bay, all limbs and little else, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process and collapsing at her bedside. Her chest rose and fell with gentle, normal breaths, and when the Doctor pressed his palm to her chest he could feel the strong thrumming of her heartbeat against his hand.

A strangled cry of relief flung from his throat and he leaned over to hug her to him, only to pull back when his hand slipped onto her back and encountered healthy skin. He lifted her up slightly, shocked to discover that the wound from the Sontaran's weapon was gone. The blood was still there, as was the dirt and ash from the battle, but her skin had been completely repaired with nary a scar left behind.

He definitely had to be the luckiest person in the world.

More tears — these ones of relief — spilled over his face and he exhaled raggedly, picking her up again, regardless of the blood and soot that was getting on his jacket. A door appeared to his right, leading into a modern pink bedroom. Holding her tightly to him and nuzzling his nose into her hair, the Doctor stepped through the door and headed straight into the en suite.

He set her in the bathtub and bathed her, wiping the blood and grime off her body until she was completely clean before dressing her in a pair of flannel jimjams the TARDIS had laid out of her. Then, after setting her onto the bed and tucking her in, he curled up next to her.

A/N: Chapter four :) Lotsa angsty-angst for this angsty-angst fic. I can't remember if I reassured you guys there'd be a happy ending or not. Anywayyy, special thank you-s go out to zeFluffleTruggle, bananas-are-good-9, JA Ingram, Porrima, wishbones, Genesis Chi, ramen-luver101, Kylaia78, hotsasukefan, DeepBlue-sama, jenn008, The Doctor Rose, Greek-Whovian, TwilightTeen1995 and natural-blues as usual :)

Stay tuned for chapter 5 and a happy lil Eleven/Rose reunion.