Four knocks.
He thinks, maybe, that the universe is toying with him. Naw, you won't die. Look! They're all gone! You're safe!
Four knocks.
He's scared.
Scared for himself. He knows what is coming, what has come, but unlike his last regeneration's sacrifice, this one isn't an easy choice. He knows what could happen, if he stays and lets Wilf, Donna's so very precious grandfather, die.
He's a Time Lord. What could be has always been very real.
He knows he should be thinking in the past tense. What could have been. But with Rose, it's always the present. He'd catch himself slipping with the others, with Donna and Martha, slipping into the present tense as if she was just waiting for him around the corner with a grin on her lips and a tease in her tone.
I could do so much more!
He sees himself somehow finding a way, a crack in the universe, finding a way back to her. He sees himself knocking at her flat, sees her fling herself into his arms. Him-the other him-is inexplicably absent. He sees the first time they really kiss, the first time he finally, finally says he loves her.
He sees their wedding, the daughter with Rose's eyes and his smile, the son with hair that won't cooperate and eyes that are, strangely, the same intense cobalt blue that used to stare back at him from the mirror.
Rose recognizes them, of course-Rose knows whose eyes they are.
Don't you see all I could do? All I could have?
It's not fair!
Rose Tyler. You can spend the rest of your life with me. And I wish I could spend the rest of mine with you.
The only problem is, he already has. One lifetime as a soldier in a black leather coat. One lifetime as a half-human. And now, with this last stop, one lifetime as a pretty-boy with a manic grin.
He's had three lifetimes with her, he thinks, staring into her eyes one last time. She doesn't even know who he is yet, but still. Three lifetimes where she made him better.
He is afraid for himself, for who would he be without her?
She will have a great year. She will meet him, he will meet her, and he will fall completely, irrevocably in love.
He will believe in her.
He cannot believe in himself anymore.
Stumbling into his ship, he is afraid.
Scared silly, him. The Last of the Time Lords. He has become so very human, with this regeneration. A subconscious effort, perhaps, to be more like her. And oh, Rassilon, he is so afraid. Because he knows what will come.
I don't want to go.
I don't want to leave her behind.
But the fires of regeneration cannot be postponed any longer. For a moment, when all his regenerations slide together, he senses the crackle of an oncoming storm in the air, a faint whiff of leather and eyes bluer than the skies Rose loves. I know, you stupid pretty-boy. You could never tell her, for either of us, he hears, but there is no voice. I loved her too.
And then it is gone. He is blistering, searing, everything that makes him who he is burned and charred away. Their love bleeds through his fingertips as the man he is begins to melt. Rose, he thinks. RoseroseroseroseROSE!
I can't forget her. I love her. Rose! Rose! I love you! I love you, Rose Tyler! Don't make this my last chance, please, to say it, Rose Tyler, I
Her name is peeled from his lips like a promise broken.
The pain stops.
There was a name. Something he was supposed to remember?
Oh, Rose, of course. What did Rose have to do with anything? Hadn't he left her behind?
Suddenly, his fingers seem far more interesting than a name buried in the ashes of two men who no longer exist.
Somewhere, locked away inside him, he is afraid. For who will he be without her?
The him who wore leather puts his hand on the shoulder of the him who wore converse with a suit.
The pinstriped him cries, sinks to his knees and sobs a name, while somewhere a TARDIS is crashing and a gangly giraffe of a man is worried that he's regenerated into a girl.