"Rose."

It was barely more than a whisper that escaped his lips, but she smiled at him when she heard it. Her hair was a bit longer, a bit less blonde, and wrapped haphazardly in a knot at the top of her head. Instead of her usual uniform of jeans and trendy tops she wore an old, worn-out worker's coverall that had engine grease and God knew what else strewn across it.

She'd never been more beautiful.

"You're a bit early," she said, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle in the coverall.

He stared at her, still unable to look away. "How'd you even know I'd be here?"

Her smile widened a bit, and she shrugged slightly. "You told me."

He felt himself beginning to grin, in spite of his confusion. It was all just so bloody crazy and so completely his life that he couldn't help but grin. "I did, did I?"

Rose grinned back and started to laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, you did."

They laughed together and inexplicably, he felt a sort of weight lift off his chest. Then a thought occurred to him. "Did I, er…did I say why?"

She tilted her head at him and gave him an amused look. "You didn't say, no."

"Oh."

"But," she continued, "you never had to."

"…oh." He stared at her. Did she mean what he thought she meant? She knew how much he loved her? That horrible argument they'd had resurfaced in his memory. She hadn't known then. Hell, he hadn't known then.

Obviously, something had changed.

She smirked as if she could hear his thoughts. "Yeah, you see," she said, pushing a bit of hair back into its place, "when you marry someone, it's usually implied that you love them."

His jaw dropped and he reeled a bit as her words sunk in. But before he had a chance to respond, she was still talking and his ears had to play catch-up.

"Besides, there's the kids, you know. I mean, obviously you lot have various ways of reproducing, but it's still seldom that a Time Lord hitches himself to a woman he doesn't love and then makes babies the old-fashioned way. Isn't it considered a bit taboo unless there's a serious personal attachment involved?"

He looked quickly back over his shoulder at Jack, who shrugged and walked away. So much for male solidarity. Bastard.

"I," the Doctor began. "I, wait…what? They're my kids? Rose, are you having me on?"

She bit her lip and winced. "No, I'm not."

His pulse sped up a bit. "You're seriously not joking?"

"Nope."

"They're my children?" he repeated.

She shrugged. "Yup."

"Mine…mine and yours?"

"Yes," she nodded.

He started to grin like an idiot. This was absolutely insane and a bit impossible, but this was the sort of thing he lived for, wasn't it? Even if was totally different and nothing he'd ever expected and absolutely wonderful and –

His thought pattern broke off after that bit because he was a bit occupied with the physical task of grabbing Rose and snogging her senseless.

Snog first. Explanations later.

Rose gave a soft little gasp against his mouth as his hand tightened on her waist. As he captured her bottom lip and tugged gently, he felt that there was something oddly familiar in this. He'd kissed her once before, to save her life, but this was different and yet…something felt the same about it.

He knew, somehow, just what she'd do with her tongue when it met his. He knew the exact instant she would arc her back and press herself closer to him.

And the look in her eyes of dazed love as he pulled away was something he knew he'd seen before, even though he hadn't.

"How long?" he gasped, forehead pressed to hers.

It took her a moment to respond, her grip tightening on his shoulder as she attempted to stay upright. "What? How long until what?"

"When do I come back for you? How long do I have to wait, how long do I have to travel without you until we can be together again?"

She stared at him and swallowed slightly, regaining her composure. "I don't understand."

"Rose," he said, stepping away from her slightly so he could concentrate and wouldn't keep staring at her lips. "You say we're married. You say we have children."

"That's right."

"But that hasn't happened for me yet," he said patiently. "Which means its in my future, which means I can't stay here. If I do, I risk changing things and I really don't think I want to do that."

"Oh," she said, as realization hit her. She turned away from him for a moment, covering her mouth, then turned back. "I hadn't thought about this, about how you'd react. I mean, I knew…I had an idea what would happen, but now…I really don't know how to explain this."

"Explain what?" he frowned.

She looked down at the floor and rubbed the back of her neck as she considered what to say. "I didn't marry a future you."

"I don't understand. Rose, you had to have. I think I'd remember if I married you. I'm fairly certain I'd remember having children. I know I occasionally forget where I put my socks or where the backup hot water heater is on the TARDIS, but you giving birth to my children is something I think would stick out a bit, don't you?" He frowned.

"You'd think, yeah," she agreed, finally looking up at him. "But you don't remember."

"Oh, no," he said, glancing wildly around. "I haven't landed in an alternative dimension, have I? That happens so rarely, but it's possible that I miscalculated…"

"You always miscalculate," she snorted, "but no, this is the original time stream. Your original time stream and mine."

"And since when were you an expert on the matter?"

"Since I married you and learned you talk in your sleep."

He blinked. "I talk in my sleep?"

"You used to, at least. The version of you I married does."

He ran a hand through his hair. "How is this possible? If you're right, and this isn't an alternate dimension…then this isn't bloody possible! It's a paradox, an anomaly. See, if you went back and did anything with any previous version of myself, then this me…this current body you see before you, would remember. My memories alter when something like that happens, and they haven't in this case."

"No, they wouldn't," Rose shook her head, "because they're not new memories. They were always there."

"Rose, remember when I said that humans so rarely make sense? You're only proving my theory."

Instead of laughing or smiling or even explaining, Rose crossed her arms and stared at the floor for what felt like an eternity. "I've been to Gallifrey," she said softly.

His hearts both stopped for a beat.

"We lived there for a bit, you and I," she continued, turning away from him again. "It has a sky like amber, and in summer when the sun fades it turns the deepest, most beautiful shade of red anywhere in the universe. Some of the trees have silver leaves, and there's a grove of those outside your house – our house – and they bear this fruit that tastes like apples and pears and bananas all in one. And…"

"Stop."

His universe was imploding around him. There was a roaring in his ears as memories tried to push themselves to the front of his mind, and every breath he took felt as if it were fire itself.

And when she turned around again to look at him, he saw in her eyes that she felt it, too. She'd really been there, she'd seen it…and she knew, the same as him…she knew what had been lost. She felt what had been lost.

Rose was sharing a pain with him that he never would have wished on anyone. Especially her.

She went on, gently. "I had to live there," she whispered, her voice growing hoarse. "I lived there with you. I was so happy there with you and our children and Susan. With Leela and Andred and even Romana after we stopped trying to kill each other."

He closed his eyes, each name she mentioned bringing a fresh stab of pain.

"And every day, every second, I knew…" A sob escaped her, and it took her a minute to compose herself enough to continue talking, though she was still crying. "I knew what would happen to that beautiful world and all those people. Every time you smiled at me, every time we went to a festival or took the kids sightseeing. Every time we discussed political policy with Romana or…I knew, in the back of my head, I knew what would happen to them all. And I could never say a word of it."

"Rose…" He opened his eyes, finally, looking at her. For the first time, he saw a mirror of his own pain and loss…someone else finally understanding that darkness and guilt that had been plaguing him.

Rose had known. She'd seen the outcome of the Time War. She'd ended it, herself. But she hadn't said anything. She hadn't changed it.

Did that make it her fault?

That's what she was thinking, he could tell. And he wasn't sure that he had an answer for her, not anymore.

But even if she bore some of the blame for it, like him, it could never be her fault, not entirely.

"I must have known," he managed, at last. "I must have known that you were from my future. And even if I disregarded all the rules about that sort of thing, even if I threw all caution to the wind for you, I would have known there were some things I could never ask you about."

She nodded, swallowing, unable to speak.

"Oh, Rose," he sighed, "what have I put you through?"

She stepped close to him again, touching his face gently with her hand, wiping away tears he hadn't realized he'd shed. "Nothing I didn't go through willingly."

"Why can't I remember?"

"How much do you really remember of the Time War and the years before it? You know what happened, your mind lets you remember that, but it's so terrible a thing…I reckon it's like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or something." She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him. "I imagine you do remember, somewhere, but you haven't let yourself dwell on it because it's just so incredibly painful."

He held her for a long moment, and then it sank in. "I survived," he breathed into her hair. "I survived…for you."

She said nothing, but pulled him into another kiss. He could taste the salt of their mingled tears when his tongue lingered on the corner of her lip. He felt as though he could easily lose himself in her; surrender all the weight of his years, every burden he carried, every loss he suffered.

This was love, then. He'd loved before, many times, and he'd been loved. But he hadn't been in love, in the human sense. He'd never given himself over to passion completely, and he'd never let himself be owned by anyone. For a human to love, there was always some degree of possession, and it was something he could never give.

But he was Rose's, wasn't he? She'd claimed him, all that time ago on Gamestation when she'd absorbed the Time Vortex to save his life. He was her Doctor. He'd thought it would only be that body, that version of himself that she claimed, but it stayed with him.

It was with him even before that. She was with him.

He broke the kiss gently, but still held on to her. "So," he said finally, "where am I now, then?"

"You left," she replied. "A day ago. Romana sent word."

He winced. "It's started, then?"

"Yeah," she closed her eyes, and he felt the tickle of her eyelashes against his neck. "It's started. You told me you'd be back for me in a day."

"And you figured that it would be a different version of me, one that had remembered everything?"

She shrugged. "That or you'd realize that you'd been a complete prat about that stupid argument and you'd come back for me. Jamie understand this things better than I do, of course, and said the TARDIS wouldn't let you land in 2007 since the other you was about to land there and stumble across me. He figured she'd probably bring you here, like it or not."

He smiled. "That's my beautiful ship. And my clever Rose. And," he added, smile widening, "my apparently well-educated, brilliant children who I have yet to meet."

"Again."

"What?"

"You've yet to meet them again," she corrected. "You've already met them once. You're the one that had to play catch when Gwyneth was born. Mind you, Leela had to keep pinching you to make sure you didn't faint on us like you did when it had been Jamie."

He started to laugh. "Are you serious? I fainted?"

"Leela said Andred did the same thing when their son was born. She also said you lot tried to pass it off as natural birth being so rare on Gallifrey that it wasn't your fault you hadn't seen it before."

"It's such a gory event with you humans," he grimaced. "Like something out of a Sam Pekinpah film."

"Stop it," she giggled, smacking him. "That's terrible. Come on, let's go see the kids. Maybe they'll jog your memory or Jamie will have some flash of inspiration."

They linked hands and began to walk towards the exit, the Doctor teasing her into telling him the story about getting tossed halfway across space and time because she'd accidentally crossed the wires on her spaceship's quantum drive. "It's Farristellian technology," she tried to explain, "so it's not like it's my fault, really, that the instructions are only printed in Farristellian. The TARDIS was gone, so there was no telepathic translation, so what was I supposed to do? Sit around with a broken spaceship?"

"Jack said it took him a year to find you," he snorted. "I'm sure the kids are fluent in Farristellian, why didn't you ask one of them?"

"What makes you think they're fluent?"

"Well, they're my children, aren't they? Good genetics. Smart little blighters, I bet."

"Brilliant," she grinned at him.

"Besides, you obviously knew enough Farristellian to read the instructions on the beauty products. I mean, look at you!"

"What do you mean?" she blinked.

He waggled his free hand at her. "You! You haven't aged a single day. I mean, your hair's gone a bit different, and your sense of style has obviously gone down hill, but there's not a wrinkle on you. At the very least you should be into your thirties by now –"

"Thirty-six."

"My point exactly," he nodded, "but you still look every bit the twenty-year-old. That's got to be some Farristellian product, there."

"Actually it's not, it's…" she trailed off as a familiar sound reached her ears.

He noted it, too and they both stopped in their tracks and stared at each other. "Doctor, you got someone else with you?" she frowned.

"No." His eyes widened.

"No one who can fly the TARDIS?"

"No, just me. It's only been a day for me since I dropped you off in 2007."

"But," she said, "that's the TARDIS."

"Yeah, it is."

"That's your TARDIS," she reiterated.

He didn't respond, and they watched, dumbfounded, as the very familiar shape of one blue Police Public Call Box materialized just in front of them.

Rose dropped his hand and took a step forward while he fished in his pockets for the sonic screwdriver. But before he could pull it out, the TARDIS door burst open and a figure he knew all too well burst from it and fell to the ground in a tattered heap.

"Oh, shit," he breathed.

Rose gasped and looked at him, then back at the man lying on the floor. "But…" she gaped. "How?"

She rushed forward and pulled the man on the floor into her lap, tapping the side of his face with her palm. The man opened his eyes, looking from her to the Doctor. The two men stared at each other, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

"Well," the eighth version of himself said between gasps, "this is potentially problematic."

……………………………………………………………………………..

TBC