Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me.

Author's Notes: Yes, the crack in my story is now officially AU, given what we now know about it (unless you're watching on BBC America), so just be aware:) Thanks for all the kind reviews so far! Enjoy:)

All These Things That I've Done

by Kristen Elizabeth

By the time the TARDIS landed in Amy's bedroom, she'd managed to tell John all about her first encounters with the Doctor, the crack in her wall and Prisoner Zero. He took the last two things in stride, but the first part of her story, the sad tale of Amelia, bothered him.

"Twelve years?" John was incredulous. "He said five minutes and it was twelve years?"

"Fourteen if you count the two he missed later," Amy added. "For a Time Lord, he's really bad at keeping track of it."

She had a point, but he still protested, "Well, he's been known to mix up a date or two here and there, but twelve years instead of five minutes?" John shook his head. "That's something different entirely."

"How do you mean?"

"You said it yourself. He's a Time Lord. He is a Lord of Time."

When it appeared that this was all John was going to say, Amy propped her fists up on her hips. "Is this going to happen to me someday? I'll travel with him so much that I'll end up like him, refusing to give people proper answers to their questions?"

"Believe me, Amy...sounding like him is the least of the worries you should have about traveling with the Doctor."

"What happened to you?" Amy asked a second later. "Why do you seem to hate him so much?"

Seconds ticked by. "I don't hate him," John finally said. "I can't hate him."

"But you're mad at him?"

"How can you be mad at someone who gave you one of the two things he loved most in the world?"

Amy shrugged. "Easily, if you loved the thing he didn't give you more."

"Very good," John said a second later. "Wrong, but good." They landed at their final destination with the usual wheezing and whooshing. "Oh, I love that sound!" he declared. "It's a brilliant sound."

"Deja vu," Amy murmured.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. Just...never mind."

Amy followed John into her bedroom, her forehead crinkled in deep thought. There were so many pieces to the puzzle and she had a feeling that a few very important ones were being kept from her.

"Left in a hurry, did you?" John pointed at the string of white lights threaded through the bed's headboard. "Those could start a fire."

"But...wait..." Amy looked around the room. "It's the same night."

"Same night as what?"

Spotting her wedding dress, Amy's stomach dropped. "The night I ran away with the Doctor." She blinked. "I'm not in my bed...but he said we'd only been gone five minutes."

"What are you doing? Amy?" Despite the suspicion in his tone, Amy brushed past him and ran for the big window in the hallway. John caught up only seconds later and together, they looked out over the backyard.

There was the TARDIS. There was Amy Pond in her nightgown. And there was...

"The Doctor," Amy said unnecessarily. She swallowed. "He's telling me we can go wherever I like."

"If either of them look up here and see us, the cracks in the universe won't matter, because everything will explode in the wake of the massive paradox," John warned, averting his own eyes.

She shook her head. "I won't look up. I was too excited."

John's severe expression relaxed a bit. "You waited for him a long time, didn't you?"

"I dropped everything and left with him on the night before my wedding." Amy lifted her shoulders. "Maybe it was the bow tie."

"Bow tie?" Although undeniably curious, especially now, John refused to allow himself even a small peek at the new version of the man he had once been. "Bow ties are for uncles and geography teachers!"

Amy shot him a dirty look. "Bow ties are cool."

Down below, unaware of the exchange taking place in the house, Amy and the Doctor disappeared into the TARDIS.

"Where did he take you?" John asked.

"Far away." Suddenly, her chin trembled. "I wanted him to. The farther, the better."

"On your wedding night?"

Amy sniffed, straightening her shoulders. "You should talk. You haven't married your someone."

"I asked. I even asked her in Italy." This admission hung in the air between them. "She said we weren't ready," John finished.

There was another moment of silence. "You should ask her again," Amy advised.

His Adam's apple bobbed. "It's probably too late now."

"Why do you say that?"

John glanced at the watch on his left wrist. "You said that you and the Doctor were gone five minutes, yes?" Amy nodded. "We haven't got long, then. Show me the crack."

After pointing out the place on her wall, Amy hung back as John looked it over. "I was praying to Santa about this crack when the Doctor crashed in the backyard. I thought...Santa must know what he was doing, even if he did send a mad man in a broken box." She smiled, lost in the memory. "I still can't eat beans. Or fish fing..."

"Shh!" With one ear pressed to the crack, John held up his hand to quiet her. "I can hear voices again." He frowned. "What are they saying?"

Amy frowned. "I can't hear anything."

But clearly John could. And whatever he heard emanating from the defunct crack made him back away from the wall like it had suddenly caught fire.

"What's the matter?" she asked as he walked backwards past her. "John?"

He swallowed heavily. "We should go. You and...and him...you'll be back any moment."

Amy hesitated. "Just so we're clear, I don't understand any of this and the only reason I'm going along with you is because I don't fancy being stuck out of time for the rest of my life. It would be nice, though, if you could tell me you at least have some idea of how we can bring back the Doctor."

John opened the TARDIS door. "Go on inside."

Her eyes narrowed. "You don't have a clue, do you?"

"Now."

There was too much quiet fury in his tone for Amy to ignore. Without another word, she brushed past him on her way into the TARDIS. He followed her and they departed with only seconds to spare.

We are an impossibility in an impossible world. - Unknown

Apples. Yogurt. Bananas. Cellophane-wrapped cupcakes. Cold take-away chips. Rose's kitchen was stocked with everything he'd once loved to eat and now couldn't stand.

With a sigh, the Doctor closed the refrigerator door only to find the woman herself standing a few feet away, watching him in the moonlight that streamed through the window.

"Can I fix you something?" Rose asked.

Politeness. Good manners. Not warmth. The Doctor ignored the question. "Shouldn't you be keeping off your feet? You did promise Jackie."

"I also promised her I would make you sleep outside tonight. Should I have kept my word there, too?"

Seconds passed as he watched her pour herself a glass of milk with trembling hands. After she took a sip, she cleared her throat. "You said...it was radiation poisoning that made you change. But how..."

"Like I told you...it was for a good cause. To save someone who wasn't at all important," he clarified.

Rose let out a reluctant chuckle. "Yeah. Sounds like you, all right." She looked up, into his eyes. "Were you alone?" He inclined his chin. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "You shouldn't have had to be alone."

"Couldn't be helped." The Doctor's smile was crooked. "Got a new look for the TARDIS out of it, though."

"A new TARDIS? So, then...nothing's the same? Everything's changed?"

"Everything always does," he reminded her. "You certainly have. Changed and moved on with your life like I knew you would." He gestured to her stomach. "But even I couldn't have guessed you would move quite so fast."

Rose stared at him. "It's been six years since you left us on that bloody beach!"

The Doctor held up a calming hand. "I'm not upset, Rose."

She dropped her eyes back down to her glass of milk. "Of course not. Why would you be?" She paused. "I haven't changed all that much, you know."

"No," he admitted. "I suppose not. Not where it counts, at least."

As Rose sipped her milk in silence, the Doctor spotted a photograph stuck to the side of the fridge with a magnet. He reached for it and spent the next minute analyzing the image of the man he'd once seen in the mirror every day, standing in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, his arms around Rose and a huge smile plastered on his face.

"Italian holiday?" the Doctor asked.

She nodded, rubbing her belly. "We think it's where this happened."

It was an unnecessary comment, but it served its purpose. For a fleeting second, hurt darkened the Doctor's eyes, as if the idea of his doppelganger tangled up with Rose in Italian sheets, doing all the things it took to create a new life, was physically painful.

But in true form, he quickly recovered. "Well, if you insist on risking the wrath of Jackie by not resting properly, then we should get back to work."

"On what?" Abandoning her milk, Rose followed the Doctor out of the kitchen and through the cottage towards the nursery. "We still don't understand how you and John...what exactly happened to make you switch. So how can we possibly..."

"When I regenerated in front of you, I said that I changed my body, every single cell." They reached the empty, mostly-lilac nursery and the Doctor turned to face her. "That's only mostly true."

"But you became completely different." Rose glanced at his bow tie. "You're completely different now."

"No, not completely, Rose. Not completely at all." He tapped his temple. "My mind is always the same. I knew you, remember? Straight away after I changed, I knew who you were, the adventures we'd had and..." He stopped short."

Rose's heart thudded beneath her breast. "And what?"

His face was so young, but his eyes were haunted. "It's like dying and being reborn, it's true. Everything is raw and new and I spend weeks figuring my new body out, but the memories and the feelings...they always carry over. Wouldn't be the Doctor without them."

"Feelings?" She hesitated. "Like...love?" He said nothing. "John loves me," she blurted out. "On the beach...he told me."

"Well, one life, one heart..." The Doctor tried to smile and failed. "We're not the same man. We never were."

"But you had the same mind at one time." Rose blinked. "That's it, isn't it? The thing that's connected you then...is connecting you still."

With her attention temporarily diverted, the Doctor ran into the nursery. "The thing that pulled us both out of our worlds." He patted down his messy hair. "This daft, Time Lord mind we share. Oh, we're different, to be sure." He made a face. "He's still eating apples, evil things. And he knows things I will only ever dream about, but the crack...the crack is just energy. Can't tell the difference. Get too close to it, probably at the same time and..." The Doctor pressed his ear to the crack. "Chaos."

Against her better judgment, Rose walked up behind him. "Doctor?"

He held up a hand. "Shh. I think I can hear something."

"What is it..." Rose cleared her throat and pressed on. "What is it that he knows...that you dream about?"

"It doesn't matter," he insisted.

"You know it does."

The Doctor straightened up and looked down at her. "This is hardly the right time."

"You're a Time Lord. Make it the right time."

Still, he hesitated, like a man under torture, desperately wanting to give in, but knowing that if he did, nothing would ever be the same.

"Doctor, I swear..." Rose started.

"He knows you!" the Doctor finally conceded. "He lives with you, eats with you...sleeps with you. He knows Rose Tyler in a way that I never will."

Her eyes flooded. "Could've done," she whispered.

"Wanted to." He cupped her cheek in his unfamiliar hand. "Two regenerations and that hasn't changed."

The moment was broken by the faintest sound emanating from the crack.

The whoosh of the TARDIS.

To Be Continued