Gradually, the ruckus around them dies down; blood-red light fades and winds slow to nothing. The sounds of the Doctor's ragged breathing are the only thing that punctuate the silence, loud and rasping and rough without any other noise to mask it. His hearts still hammer madly, but his skull feels heavy, too heavy to support any longer, and he slumps. Hangs his head and leans against the console for support and waits for the pain to subside.

(So this is what it feels like, to almost end the world. Exhausted and guilty and sick and trapped and unsatisfied in every possible way.)

In his periphery, he's vaguely aware that Rose is moving, combing her fingers through her hair. She holds her hands against her head for a moment while she collects herself.

"Thank you," she whispers on a relieved exhale.

The Doctor tenses with anger. "Satisfied, are you?" he mutters under his breath.

Rose's arms drop. "Sorry?"

Snapping to, the Doctor grabs her by the shoulders, clamping down so hard that she yelps in pain.

"I said, are you satisfied?" he asks between gritted teeth. Before Rose has a chance to defend herself, wide-eyed in shock, he gives her a shake. "I could have fixed things, Rose. I could have made them better. I could have made it all better," he spits, his voice growing hoarse as his volume mounts. He shakes her again for good measure, his grasp tightening until her leather jacket squeaks. "I could have stopped that battle, I could have saved so many lives—I could have saved you!"

"Bullshit!" Rose shouts.

The Doctor blinks at her in confusion, his chest heaving. "What?"

Rose shoves at him, hard, and he loses his grip, stumbling backward out of surprise more than anything.

"This isn't about me," Rose says. She scrapes her knuckles across her cheek, smearing the windblown tear tracks there. When he doesn't respond, too angry and lost for words, she pushes him again. "This was never about me. And it isn't about other people, either. This was always about you, feeling sorry for yourself!"

"You don't know what you're talking about," he argues, but he can't look her in the eye when he says it.

"Oh, shut up," Rose snaps.

When the Doctor raises an eyebrow at that, Rose shoves him one last time, knocking him backward until his back smacks against a coral column. "I did not work for six years, fighting the impossible, doing the things you said that no one could do, giving everything I had, just for you to insult me," she chokes out. "Six years, Doctor. I'm sure that's just a speck to you, but for me, that's a long time. Working my fingers to the bone, working until I was sick or dropping from exhaustion, jumping from universe to universe and never knowing if I'd survive the trip, all just to get back to you!"

"Then why did you stop me?" the Doctor demands.

"Because it wasn't your decision to make!" Rose shouts, loud enough to make him jump. "And I'm not even talking about the fixed points or paradoxes or Reapers or any of that nonsense. You don't get to choose how everything happens, Doctor. You don't get to determine fate, you don't get to change the world to your design, you don't get to decide who lives and who dies!"

The Doctor lets out a nasty laugh. "And precisely who else is going to make those decisions?"

"You can't control everything," Rose says, forging ahead like she didn't hear him. "People need your help, I get that, but they don't need you to move them around like pieces on a chessboard. They need guidance. They need the truth. And they deserve to make their own choices."

"No matter how terrible those choices are?" the Doctor asks with a bite to his voice.

Rose nods gravely. "You can try to make it sound as noble as you like, but it's not. Not when you force things to be the way you want them to be. It's not noble at all. It's selfish."

The Doctor's throat dries up, his anger with it.

(Six years later, and she still knows what words will cut him best.)

She's right. Of course she's right.

(He hates it when she's right. Gods, does he hate it.)

Rage abates and the Doctor feels hollow with it gone. Shame floods through in its stead.

His legs have turned to jelly, unable to support his weight anymore, and he slides down the column, landing on the grating with an elegant bang. The Doctor buries his face in his hands. He can't bear for anyone to see him right now, raw and naked as he feels. (Mortified that anyone, particularly Rose, would ever see him lose control like this.)

Half-tempted to ask Rose to leave, to give him some peace, the Doctor opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. It's just as well. As much as he hates himself for it, he still can't stand to be alone. Still can't stand to be without her.

The Doctor feels rather than hears Rose approach, her footfalls vibrating the grating beneath him. "I'm sorry," she offers.

"No, don't be," he says, his voice muffled by his palms. "You're not wrong."

"And you're not okay."

He doesn't reply. She's not wrong about that either.

"What's going on?" Rose asks.

When the Doctor still doesn't respond, Rose starts to fidget uncomfortably. It's the first display of uncertainty she's exhibited since she came onboard with her blue jacket armor and an attitude to match. Fingers twist around a hoop earring, weight shifts from one foot to the other. At least some things haven't changed.

"If it helps," Rose says, "I think I might be a little selfish too. So at least you're not alone. Right?"

The Doctor allows himself a small smile, drops his hands in his lap. Rose kneels beside him, stretching out one leg, then the other, as she plants her bum next to his. There is no question of personal space here; she snuggles up so close to him that even the idea of space between them is eliminated, so that he can feel the warmth of her leg pressed against his.

No white sparks jump out at her this time when she leans back. The TARDIS doesn't consider her a paradox anymore. The Doctor doesn't know why, but that's disappointing, somehow. Sort of like sticking a pin in a balloon and somehow being surprised when it deflates.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Rose asks.

"No," the Doctor says simply, his smile tightening. He gives a little shake of his head, a little shrug of his shoulders, and he hasn't felt this much like his Ninth self since he regenerated. "I really don't."

"It sort of seems like you might need to."

"You know, people always say that, but I'm not so sure. Humans, in particular, seem to think you can solve all your problems by simply talking them away."

"Isn't that pretty much what you do?" Rose teases, nudging him with her shoulder.

The Doctor shoots her an annoyed glance. But it's only a little annoyed. "Your observations are obnoxiously insightful."

"Not bad for 'only human,' huh?"

The words sting. But the Doctor imagines they hurt her more than they hurt him. He suddenly finds his clasped hands in his lap to be fascinating.

"I can't tell you what you want to know," he says after a moment, his brain working overtime to choose phrases as carefully as possible. He's already almost-destroyed the universe once; he's not in any great hurry to do it again. "And before you ask, it's certainly a matter of can't, notwon't."

He pinches the bridge of his nose in an effort to fend off his lingering time-migraine. "You already know too much as it is. No telling how it's influenced your decisions up to this point. Anything more could compromise the timelines to a dramatic degree, no matter how carefully you try to avoid it. And that's a bell you really can't un-ring."

Rose fidgets with her earring again. "What if you could, though?"

"What do you mean?"

She hesitates. "Why did you come back to see me, all of those times?"

"I told you," he says impatiently. "I missed you—having you around. It wasn't a lie. I just omitted the fact that you happened to be in another universe at the time."

"And is that why you tried to change things at Canary Wharf? Or did you do it because all of this happened after I came back, and despite everything…"

Rose draws in a deep, shaky breath. Like she's bracing herself. "…we're still not together?"

The Doctor closes his eyes in an effort to shut her out. It doesn't work. He can still sense her there, watching him. And he knows his silence says more than he ever could.

"Look. Earlier, when…" Rose stammers. "Earlier, you said there was a solution, if there were things I didn't want to remember anymore. You said you could make me forget."

"I was babbling," the Doctor says quickly.

"Okay. Maybe you were. But if you weren't…"

She scoots back so that she can look him fully in the face, so that he can see the resolution firm in her eyes. "Doctor, I love you."

He starts at that, lips parting, panic and something like relief rising in equal measure, but Rose just shakes her head, cutting him off before any words can stutter out of his mouth. "I love you, and I want to help you, but I also think after everything that's happened, I'm entitled to some answers," she says. Then, slower, her words heavy with meaning: "Even if I won't remember them."

The panic that threatened to rise before now finishes its journey, pushing its way out of the Doctor's throat in a strangled laugh that echoes wildly in the console room. His head falls back against the coral strut with a thud, hysterical laughter choking him and wracking his body. Eyes stinging, chest heaving, he thinks he can pinpoint the exact moment his respiratory bypass kicks in to prevent hyperventilation. His ribcage aches with effort.

"Brilliant," he laughs. "And here I thought the day couldn't possibly get any worse. Oh, it's lovely to be so wrong about so many things, isn't it?"

Rose waits patiently for the last of his choking laughs to die off before she speaks again. "Doctor, I'm serious."

"So am I," the Doctor says, dragging his hands through his hair.

"Look, I don't like it any more than you do. But it's like you said, I already know too much. I could say something, or do something, without even meaning to, and the younger you might figure everything out, might change things that he shouldn't," Rose reasons, her voice thick with emotion. She blinks the wetness out of her eyes. "So you're gonna have to erase my memories anyway, aren't you? Shouldn't you?"

"You can't possibly know what you're asking," the Doctor snaps, pushing up off the floor. He needs to escape. Run away, walk away, it doesn't matter as long as he's anywhere but here.

A few long strides give him some distance, some air to breathe. Head swimming, he sways a little on his feet. He has to grab the rail for support.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor says. "You're just going to have to do a bang-up job pretending, I guess. Because I can't do this for you."

"It's not just for me," Rose reminds him, her voice soft.

When the Doctor doesn't respond right away, his mind racing to try to think of any argument he can use about why not—any argument that doesn't involve Donna, he can't think about Donna right now, can't bear the memory, not unless he wants to scream—he hears Rose stand up behind him, her steps quiet as she approaches. Placing her hand over his, she gently uncurls his fingers from the railing, threading their fingers together.

The Doctor thinks, not for the first time, about how strange all of this is. Six years since she last held his hand and he was kissing her passionately not half an hour ago.

"Just let me know, just tell me the truth, for once," Rose tries again. "For both of us."

The Doctor considers, playing for time, weighing the consequences. Even outside of the trauma of removing someone else's memories—which is quite bad enough on its own, thanks—he has no desire to dissolve the walls and let anybody in, not really, not even now. If it's all almost too much for him to bear, he can only imagine how horrible it will be for one small human, trying to make sense of timelines and foreign emotions and event after painful event and dubious Time Lord morality. Rose has always been understanding (usually got a blind spot the size of Jupiter as far as he's concerned, he knows that), but he's not exactly eager to test the boundaries more than he already has. Surely telling her everything, even if he erases the confessions from her memory immediately afterward, can only cause more harm than good.

Still, he can't help but notice that his time sense, returned in full and pulsing in the corners of his subconscious, ever-present like a third heartbeat, is chiming quietly once again. Which, aside from being a good sign that time has stopped degrading, means that he has an important decision to make.

And so does she, he realizes.

A slow breath leaves his body, tension leaking out with it. Blimey. He knows she loves him—of course he knows, he's always known—but he's never felt it as viscerally, as much like a physical, tangible force pulling deep in his gut, as he does right now. He can't believe she's still here with him, willing to take on this burden with him, willing to trust him, even after everything. It's a revelation that leaves him feeling both quietly joyful and woefully inadequate.

"You know, I don't think I deserve you," he admits.

"Nope," Rose says, the corners of her mouth turning up in a grin. "I'm just too good."

He sends her a watery smile in response. "Quite right, too."

Every instinct in every fiber of his being screams at him to escape, run and leave. But he thinks maybe he should ignore his instincts, just this once. It isn't like they've done him much good, of late.

(And if she won't remember…well. As much as he hates to admit it, there is a certain amount of freedom in that.)

Inhaling strongly (the deep breath before the dive, he thinks), he turns toward her, guides her by the shoulders until she faces him fully. Rose doesn't say anything when he raises his hands toward her head. She does, however, look at him questioningly.

(The Doctor catches a glimpse-memory of Donna, standing next to the console just like Rose, looking up at him with tears in her eyes while she promises and pleads for forever. The thought of it makes him nauseous. No matter how he tries to tell himself this is different…it sure as hell doesn't feel like it.)

"You've seen me do this before," the Doctor says. "But I'm not looking for anything this time. Your thoughts are safe. This is only to transmit, not to receive. And it's the fastest way to tell you everything you want—everything you need to know."

Concern flashes in her face, but Rose doesn't stop him.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks, even though he already knows what the answer will be.

She nods.

The Doctor presses his fingertips against her temples, feels her pulse bleat beneath his fingertips. The bright, warm expanse of her mind flutters at the edges of his consciousness, golden and melodious like a song.

He really, really hopes she doesn't hate him after this.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs. "But this is probably going to hurt."

Before Rose has a chance to change her mind, the Doctor closes his eyes, lowers his barriers, opens a connection.


He stands outside a house in London; the sky is dark and snow is falling

(The Doctor takes her back to the regeneration into his Ninth body. Rose tenses, but she doesn't pull away. He wants to show her as much as they both can stand, because without context, truth is meaningless.)

There's a man here with his memories and his name. They devour him from the inside, eating away until there's nothing left but sorrow and the need torun

Before the Time War, he would have done anything to break free from the loneliness. Afterward, he would do anything to be free of the shame. The knowledge that he had no one but himself to blame for it all.

They've just escaped a planet ravaged by death, and a woman tells him about the darkness, about four knocks that will rattle his bones

In those days, Rose was a distraction, albeit a very welcome one.

He's trapped, imprisoned in a tiny metal bus and his own mind, held hostage by something he cannot see or hear or sense or even remotely understand, and a cluster of frightened humans debate whether or not they have license to murder him

(Shuddering, Rose whimpers.)

A woman from his future sacrifices herself for him. Donna places her hands over his and helps him shoulder some of the burden in Pompeii. He lifts his hands and obliterates her memory and her light is that much dimmer and he's alone again

She was so bright and new, and the universe was bright and new again through her eyes. Rose gave him a chance to rewrite himself, and he took that chance.

(The Doctor's arms tremble, but the motion isn't his—Rose is shaking, shivering like she stands out in the cold. The Doctor opens his eyes to see that her cheeks are wet with tears.)

He spends a year saturated in all of the agonies of a body collecting a millennium of hurt. He looks on helplessly as Jack and Martha's family are tormented and broken. He wills Martha to walk just a little bit further, to bloody her feet just a little bit more

(He doesn't show her the Master. He can't tell her everything. He just can't.)

Martha is left out or behind, over and over and over again. Well-earned shame and humility are his only companions when she decides she's finally had enough

Distraction gave way to companionship and gradually, other things peeked through the paint, familiarity and warmth and just a smidgen of affection and a pinch of over-protectiveness and something that felt an awful lot like jealousy if he thought about it too much.

A witch tries to break him using Rose's name. He starts a flood to save the world and barely moves to save himself

He sent her away to keep her safe.

He burns up a star to say goodbye

But she looked into the heart of the TARDIS and ended a war the same way he did. How could she have followed in his footsteps so exactly when he'd kept her safe from all of that? From him?

He leaves her stranded on a beach in Norway and the hurt is so good so savagely delicious so perfectly suited to what he deserves that he does it twice

(Rose's breathing grows rough and her nails bite into the backs of his hands until they draw blood.)

He knew he ruined everything he touched, but how could he have corrupted her without even trying?

He has never looked in a mirror before and felt jealous of his reflection. But he keeps this face to keep her and he can't even manage that in the end

Their first kiss, and he pulled death from her lips. He felt it a fitting epilogue. Reward and retribution all wrapped together.

(She's muttering; from her lips falls a broken chorus of no, no, no.)

She won't understand when his face changes, when he leaves her behind, when he sends her away, when the stars can come back but she can't, when he calls her name while he falls

If she truly was the catalyst for his redemption, then what would happen to him when she was gone?

He sentences a family to a lifetime of torture. He traps a coven in a crystal globe. Children die in the wake of his cowardice. A clever young man blows up an army and himself in the process. He powers a rocket with his hubris and somehow manages to be surprised when Utopia isn't real, it's a bunch of shattered promises and a fate worse than death. He drowns his fears and his anger and he tells himself he wouldn't do it if she was there to stop him

Because she made him better, and he didn't deserve to be. Because even though the universe gave her to him, the universe is not kind.

She wraps her hand around his, she presses a kiss to his lips, she walks and she runs and she laughs and she listens and he feels, oh, he feels so much, and he sees, and he wants, and she's so splendidly selfish and selfless and greedy and giving and she loves him, she's like a supernova trapped in a human frame, she burns so brightly, she burns all of his sins away

And one day she'll be dust and ash

(Rose grabs at his shirt to steady herself. He wills her to hold on just a little bit longer.)

He will save everyone, he will change the world as he sees fit, he will bend time to his design, he will spare Adelaide Brooke and he will save Rose and he will save himself and four knocks won't mean anything anymore. He will fear nothing. He will be victorious. He will never lose anything or anyone ever again, not lovers or children or family or friends. He will conquer time itself and the universe will bow to his whim and he will rewrite morality, good and evil, right and wrong, as he deems fit, and he will not die before he's had a chance to make everything right, he won't, he won't, he won't

(Her pulse speeds to a dangerous tempo; her breathing hitches; the blood drains from her face; she still doesn't pull away.)

The sky is dark and snow is falling and a gunshot splits the silence

Though he doesn't mean to, throughout it all, he can't stop himself from funneling into her his anger, his deepest self-loathing, his darkest despair.


"Do you see now?" he asks, knowing full well that she is long past the point of being able to hear anything over the roaring in her head. "Do you understand?"

With one last sharp gasp for breath, Rose loses consciousness. The connection between them darkens. Rose's body goes loose and she crumples, a puppet with its strings severed and heart bruised. The Doctor catches her before she can fall. He plants a kiss on one temple, easing her into his arms so he can hold her close. He counts the seconds between her breaths and doesn't relax until they peter off to something resembling a normal pace.

Slowly, the Doctor feels something loosen in his chest. It is not a pleasant sensation. It's like he was stabbed in the ribs, and someone finally took out the knife. Probably better in the long run but now he's got all this bleeding to deal with. But it isn't like the knife could have stayed in there forever.

He sits there for a long time, waiting for the bleeding to stop.


But I'll make no more ado, I'll go boldly and look

I'll go boldly

go boldly and

The Doctor sighs. For hours (days, years) he's tried to get through this book, only to get stuck on this page with words repeating like a broken record in his head. He's not sure how many times he has read this same passage, waiting for Rose to wake up. But so far, her body has stirred far more than her consciousness, limbs rustling in the bedclothes and making the Doctor jump every time he hears so much as a whisper of cloth against cloth. He turns the page—what's a few missed words between friends?—to see if he will have any better luck elsewhere.

His eyes met mine so keen and fierce, I

"I can't believe you leave me on that godforsaken beach again."

Fingers stilling between pages, the Doctor looks up to find Rose's eyes sliding slowly open, her face pointed toward the ceiling. He waits for her to continue.

Rose raises a heavy arm to wipe at the corners of her eyes. "I used to like the beach, you know. Not so much anymore."

"Give it time," the Doctor replies, pushing up his glasses so he can pretend to start reading again. "A couple weeks, a couple months, you'll be eager to get right back to the world of sunburns, salty winds, and shark-infested waters."

"Have they got sharks in Norway?"

The Doctor pauses, considers. "You know, I don't know. But I think probably not."

Rose falls quiet, and out of the corner of his eye the Doctor watches as she takes in the room, gaze traveling over the coral-lined walls, the lights in the alcoves, the barrenness of it all. Except for the white-blanketed bed, and both of their jackets and shoes heaped haphazardly in the corner next to the Doctor's overstuffed armchair, the room is empty, completely void of décor or personality.

"Where am I?" she asks.

The Doctor turns another page he didn't read. "This would be my room."

Rose hmphs at that, and he isn't sure whether she's more surprised that he actually has a room, or that he brought her there.

She turns on her side to face him, snuggling deeper into the covers. "Your bed is more comfortable than mine was. You've been holding out on your companions."

"I'll have to keep that in mind," the Doctor chuckles.

"Will you take a new companion now?"

His eyes lose their focus and he finds himself unable to look at the book at all anymore. Removing his spectacles, he stows the book away, tucking it next to him in the armchair. He places his glasses on top. "I don't know," he admits. "Probably not. Doesn't really seem fair to them, with my impending expiration date and all."

"I'm sorry," Rose tells him.

He scratches the back of his neck. "Sorry about the lack of a companion, or sorry that I'm going to die?"

Rose flinches at that. "Both. All of it. About…Canary Wharf, and the Valiant, and Pompeii. And Martha, and Mars. And Donna. God. Just everything."

"Ah," the Doctor replies. He smiles wistfully. "Thanks."

Biting her lip in nervousness, Rose pulls the blanket back, uncovering herself and exposing a patch of the mattress next to her. She pats the bed with a hopeful look in her eye. "Just for a minute?"

He's too tired to protest.

Moments later, he's settled in the bed next to her. Rose reaches over to take his hand in hers and he turns on his side, toward her, to give her better access. She frowns when she sees the tiny red crescents dug in the trenches of his knuckles.

"Danger of the job," the Doctor says. He doesn't know how much she remembers, if she knows that the wounds match the curve of her nails. "Don't worry, I earned it."

Rose doesn't argue, but she does hold his hand a little more carefully than she normally would, watching as her forefinger strokes the inside of his. He hopes she doesn't see it when he shudders at the sensation.

"I really hoped I could stay," Rose confesses quietly. "I mean…I don't know. I guess I'm glad I won't have to leave Mum or Tony. Pretty sure Mum knows what I've been planning. She's pretty torn up about it. And…"

"And you would be pretty torn up, too."

"Yeah," Rose says. "But I've just, god, I've worked so hard. For a long time, seeing you again was the thing that kept me going. I was so sure that I'd get to stay, that all of this happened before I came back permanently. I'd stay and we would be happy. Both of us. You know?"

"I know."

"Why did you do it?"

He could play stupid, ask what she means, but that feels like too much of an insult. "What else could I do?"

Rose shrugs. "Could have asked, I guess. If I wanted to stay. If I wanted…him. The other you."

"I don't know. Maybe if I had to do it all over again—"

"You would do the exact same thing."

The Doctor watches the play of their fingers, finds it easier than looking her in the eye. "Probably." He sighs, dragging his free hand over his face. "Definitely. Especially knowing what I know now."

"See, that's what I don't get," Rose says, pushing herself up by the elbows so she can look down at him. "Someone tells you you're going to die, and you don't even question it? Why?"

He can't make his gaze meet hers. He had wondered when she would bring that up. He's surprised she managed to hold onto the words this long, wonders how many more will fly out now that she has opened the cage.

"Why?" Rose presses when he doesn't answer. "You don't believe in things like prophecy or predestination—"

"Prophecy, predestination, fixed point. What's the difference?"

"There's a world of difference," Rose argues. "Isn't there? Isn't that the sort of thing you'd say? That there's no such thing as fate?"

"Maybe I was wrong."

"No," Rose says, shaking her head. "There's got to be something we can do."

"Rose—"

"No," Rose repeats, louder this time, pulling her hand away from his and leaving his fingers cold and empty. "You can't just give up. That's what you would tell me. You would tell me, you'd say that there's always a way out. There's always hope," she says, her bottom lip trembling as her words pick up in speed. "There's always a way to fight. You don't just let things happen. You take control, you push back, you make a speech, you find a solution, you do the impossible, you don't just lie down and take it, you don't just let yourself die!"

"You think I want this to happen?" the Doctor asks, frustrated.

"I think you must, otherwise you'd be figuring out a way around it," Rose insists. "Wouldn't you?"

He doesn't say anything. He can't. He just stares at her, bewildered.

(Even after he shared everything—as much as he could bear—how does she still not understand? How can she not see?)

"Rose," the Doctor says, his voice low, "I can't keep fighting this. I showed you what happens when I try. You saw it earlier. Whether it's regeneration, or the end of the line, I—"

He steels himself, realizing the truth even as he says it. "I can't run away anymore."

Rose's mouth falls open, like she might protest, but she doesn't say anything. Eyes glittering with tears, she looks away, fiercely swiping her cheek with the heel of her palm. The Doctor watches her. Forces himself not to turn away, not to give in to discomfort. Hesitantly, he reaches out and brushes the last of her tears away with his thumb.

"I'm sorry," he says.

Turning toward him, Rose's features soften. She leans forward and wraps her arms around the Doctor in an embrace so tight that her shoulder pops. He loops his arms around her, gives her what he hopes is a reassuring squeeze, drawing her in as snugly as possible. Rose buries her face in the crook of his neck. The Doctor half-expects his throat and shirt collar to become damp with her tears, for Rose's shoulder's to shake with the force of her sobs—even if it hasn't happened all that often, he has comforted her enough times to know how this sort of thing usually goes. But she's still, and strangely silent. Somehow, that's even worse.

(Six years is a long time to fight the impossible. Six years is a long time to build up hope.)

"I'm sorry," he says again. "I know this isn't what you worked for."

"No," Rose sighs, her breath warm on his neck. "It really isn't. But that doesn't matter."

The Doctor swallows. "At least you still get a happy ending. That's not nothing. Right?"

Rose stiffens in his arms. She draws back to look at him, her gaze hard.

"Rose, he really is everything I am," the Doctor tells her earnestly. "He's me. Well, he's me without the second heart or the last few months of spectacularly bad decision-making. But he's got the same memories, all the same feelings, that I always have."

Rose's brow furrows and he tries to stop, but the words wash over faster than he can batten down the hatches. "I didn't just shove some copy off on you, tuck you both out of the way for convenience's sake. Certainly not out of some misguided sense of nobility or selflessness. It really is just the best decision, given the circumstances, especially given this particular set of circumstances. Because I just knew. Deep down, I always knew something like this was going to happen. Not the specifics of it, perhaps, but our parting was inevitable. One way or the other, one of us would vastly outlive the other. You've never had that happen—you don't know what it's like. And it wouldn't be fair to ask you to say, not when you've got a family over there, a family and a job and friends and a life and you'd already given it all up for me before. For once, it was time for me to give something up for—"

—and suddenly his mouth is meeting resistance as the mattress pulls with shifting weight and the distance between them closes and soft lips press gently against his.

His heartsbeat pounds in his chest and his blood rushes in his ears. Still not an expert, but he's fairly certain he's being kissed again.

"—you," the Doctor breathes when Rose pulls away. She's just far enough that he can see her pupils dilating by micrometers, just close enough that he can feel the warmth of her exhale. He licks his lips, tastes the evidence of two different kisses from two different versions of her. Gestures than span more than half a decade.

"Doing things in the improper order again?" he asks.

"No." She leans forward and kisses him again, more insistently this time. He can feel her teeth in it. Her hands snake up his shirtfront, landing at the top to grab a fistful. "I've waited six years for this," she says into his mouth, "and you won't stop talking."

The Doctor laughs breathlessly, the sound bleached of mirth. "I thought you wanted to talk."

"Not anymore," she says, moving to kiss his jaw, the space beneath his ear. His pulse quickens at her touch and his hands itch to hold her. "Talking is stupid," Rose continues, slipping the top button out of its buttonhole, moving quickly to the next. "This whole thing is stupid. None of it means a damn thing."

"Rose—" he starts to protest, but it's a halfhearted gesture, and they both know it.

"Tell me to stop," she says, her lips brushing the side of his neck, and there's no suppressing the shiver that runs through him at that. "Tell me to stop, and I promise I will. But if I'm never gonna see you again—"

"You will," he says, and his hands have found their way to her waist somehow.

"Fine. But are you ever going to see me again?"

His jaw clenches. Hands fist in her shirt. He's dimly glad she isn't looking at his face right now, because he is certain it is the very picture of utter wretchedness.

Rose slips the last of his shirt-buttons free, goes to work on his trousers. "Doctor," she says, and his name sounds like a prayer. "Does arguing really seem like a good way to waste our last—"

"Stop," he bites out, his voice sharp as it cuts hers in half.

True to her word, Rose complies. Her fingers still their progress on his trousers and her hands draw back. But the Doctor grabs her by the wrists before she can move away, pulls her back in like gravity and covers her mouth with a hard kiss.

"Stop talking," he says against her lips.

(He doesn't want to know how that sentence was going to end.)

Neither of them utter another word.