Title: Rivers in Egypt

Author: Unknown Kadath (aka kadath_or_bust)

Series: The Other Egg of the Phoenix

Characters: The Doctor (tenth), The Doctor (alternate tenth), Donna, Rose, Jackie

Rating: K+

Word Count: 3,490

Disclaimer: Don't own it. Alas. And "The Other Egg of the Phoenix" was stolen from a reference in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Fables and Reflections.

Summary: Missing scene from "Journey's End." After dropping off Jack, Mickey, Sarah, and Martha, the remaining occupants of the TARDIS speculate on what the future holds.

Author's note: Just a little piece I thought up when I meant to be doing something else. Not quite sure about it. Oh, and I'll explain the series title in … probably the next story but one.

1. What Would Have Happened

The Doctor didn't look back at Rose as he stepped out of the TARDIS with Sarah Jane. He knew what he had to do, and he knew he should make the most of their time together, but … how could he keep smiling with her, how could he hold her hand, if he was going to have to let go? He wasn't a good enough actor in this body to do it convincingly, anyway.

Besides, that would be too cruel. To her, as well as him.

Ah, well, she'd understand.

Sarah was caught up in their victory. She didn't notice anything wrong. Or maybe he was a better actor than he thought. "You know, you act like such a lonely man. But look at you! You've got the biggest family on earth!"

He faked a smile and pulled her into a hug before she could see through it. It was best if they avoided looking at each other too closely right now.

She'd aged well, for a human. But she'd aged. The lines on her face didn't bother him, in themselves. It was the reminder of her mortality he found hard to look at.

He'd left her behind, once. Had to leave her, and then found excuses not to go back, until he'd convinced himself it was far too late. She'd have moved on. Well, she'd been moving on already. Trying to live her life and his at the same time, that could never have worked. Sooner or later she would have had to choose between the TARDIS and the slow path. And in the end, the slow path would have won.

Rose had once asked him if that was what he was planning to do with her—just leave her behind one day, vanish and never return. He'd told her no, not with her, and he'd meant it. Rose was special, and things had changed. He was a different person than he'd been all those centuries ago.

They could have stayed together. They could have gone back to the way things were before. She'd be with him for the rest of her life, and he'd find a way to tell her … what she must surely know by now. But now he didn't have a choice.

And then Sarah was rushing off, babbling something about her son being only fourteen. She barely looked back at him.

2. Three Hearts Are Better Than Two

The Doctor (of course he was the Doctor, even if he only had one heart, it wasn't hearts that made him who he was) watched Jack, Martha, and Mickey say their goodbyes to Rose and Jackie. He was a little put out that only Jack had bothered to say goodbye to him, and a perfunctory one at that, with a quick handshake and obligatory saucy grin.

Rose was back. That was all that mattered.

"She's back," he said to Donna, grinning like a loon. The Doctor-Donna, his sister-self. Brilliant!

Wellll … brilliant while it lasted. That thought wiped the grin from his face, and he turned to look at Rose again, standing on the other side of the console room and bickering with her mum. She looked older, leaner, her hair a touch blonder and her make-up a fraction less heavy. But still his Rose.

As he watched, she hooked her blond hair behind her head in a gesture so familiar it made his heart flutter in his chest. Which was rather alarming, as it was the only heart he'd got, now.

He wanted to go to her. So long apart, and he hadn't had the chance to say two words to her. The other Doctor had got her all to himself on the Crucible. How unfair was that? Ah, well, there'd be time enough later.

Right now, he decided, he'd spend some time with Donna. Cos she hadn't much time left.

"Yeah. Molto bene!" Donna grinned at him, in a manner that was both utterly herself and yet strangely evocative of … well, of him.

It was going to be hard losing Donna. He was far closer to her now than he'd ever been, with all these shadows of her thoughts ghosting through his mind. Oh, she was brilliant. Wizard! More brilliant than a very brilliant thing indeed. Even from the inside of all her self-doubts and insecurities.

But he'd have Rose. Both of him would. That'd be weird, yeah, but she'd got over weird long ago. She'd dealt with the regeneration well enough. And regeneration, this wasn't. Same face, same voice, same everything.

They'd manage. After all, he was an impossible thing, wasn't he? Even his other self had said so. Blimey, he was going to have to stop saying things were impossible. They always happened anyway, and it was dead embarrassing.

Everything was possible. He was the Doctor, after all.

"Mind you, living with myself … he's gonna be a real barrel of laughs," he said aloud, rolling his eyes. He was in for some sort of lecture about the Daleks, as if his Time Lord self wasn't going to be secretly relieved to have gotten rid of them without getting his own hands dirty. He was already acting like he thought he was all that, just because he was the original.

Donna herself had acted like he was a stranger, back on the Crucible. Told him to "wait for the Doctor." But he didn't blame her for that. She was human, right? Even with all those Time Lordy thoughts in her head. Bound to get a bit confused sometimes.

"Don't think that'll be a problem," said Donna.

"Mmn."

"Look, I'll be here to sort things out, yeah?"

The Doctor froze in the act of scuffing his Converses on the grating. "Oh. Uh-huh. Yeah, thanks."

He looked at her, trying to memorize—not so much her features, as the soul within them. Oh, Donna. She was always shouting at him, always slapping him (well, not in this body, not yet) but she wore her heart on her sleeve, and she had the saddest gray-green eyes this side of eternity. She'd seen everything go wrong but she still believed everything would work out right.

Plus, she was ginger. How great was that? He finally got to be ginger! In the wrong body, but … ginger! Well, for a little while, anyway.

"Hang on a mo," she said. "I have to go, er, do something real quick …"

The Doctor nodded, and she dashed off, giving him a last sad look. He wondered if she knew. She ought to know—no, she didn't. He could feel the echo of her thoughts in his head. Fortunately, it didn't work the other way. Her body was completely human, and not telepathic at all.

Rose was hugging Jackie now. The Doctor could hear the murmur of their lowered voices over the hum of the TARDIS, saying their last goodbyes. He looked away, leaving them too it. They didn't have too much longer together, either, before Jackie went back to the parallel universe forever.

"Okay, that's done," said Donna, a bit breathlessly. She trotted up to his side and slouched back against the wall, giving him such a sad smile that he wondered again if she knew.

No. She still believed she was gonna live, even though all the new knowledge in her head should be telling her she was gonna burn. He could feel it already, her thoughts coming too fast, like quicksilver. He could hardly follow them.

He wanted to hug her, to tell her goodbye, but if she didn't know something was wrong he didn't want to tip her off. Let her be happy for a little longer.

So he gave her a daffy grin and forced his thoughts back to Rose.

3. Two Heads Are Better Than One

Donna grabbed what she needed and started back to the control room. She stopped halfway there, pulled out a piece of paper, scribbled a note, and jammed it into her pockets with the other stuff.

"Okay, that's done," she said, trotting up to the skinny guy in the blue suit. The Donna-Doctor. He gave her a slightly distant look, almost like he knew. He ought to know—he had the same memories as her and the Doctor. Same nearly everything as the Doctor, come to think of it, so he should have figured it out before she did.

He wasn't staying.

She remembered how this had to end. And now she had some idea why. This man was dangerous. He'd committed genocide. She was a little afraid of him, though she pushed the thought down in the back of her mind, in case he could sense it. And more than a little sorry for him.

He wasn't a bad person, really. Just so terribly young. He seemed so new, so vibrant, so enthusiastic. Like a kid. Bouncing up and down in his horrible blue suit and his bright red trainers, giving her a goofy grin, completely clueless.

And the bloody fool was worrying about her. She knew from his memories that there was some danger involved in a metacrisis, especially across species, but was she sick? Was she? Nah! Picture of health. Be around for years yet. Molto bene!

She reached out and pulled him into a hug. Felt like his mum, she did. In a way it would be a relief to get rid of him, get rid of the complication, the reflection of herself. Not that it couldn't have been fun, but there were so many things she didn't like about herself (well, herself before she became the Doctor-Donna), and she didn't know how she would cope with living with that all the time.

She worried about him, and she worried about the proper Doctor. But the Donna-Doctor would have Rose, and the other would have her. Daft man. But if she couldn't live with herself, the Doctor(s) certainly couldn't.

Now, how to do this? The Doctor was an expert pick-pocket, and proud of it (funny thing to be proud of) and she knew everything he knew, soooo …

It was easy enough, using the hug as cover, to slip a few things into the Donna-Doctor's bright blue pockets. Spare psychic paper. Goodbye note. Banana. Rose's diary from when she was a kid, with a bunch of old photos stuck between the pages. There wasn't a spare sonic screwdriver, but she threw in a few parts he might find it difficult to get his hands on otherwise.

Bit of TARDIS coral … well, she'd spotted the Doctor breaking off a piece, when his clone wasn't looking. It had only confirmed what she'd already suspected.

It was a good thing she had enough of his memories to figure out the TARDIS pocket trick. Hang on, TARDIS pockets inside a TARDIS—

Ah. A little nudge, and the contents of her TARDIS pockets were transferred to his. So simple, even a human could do it!

She released him from the hug, mission accomplished.

"What was that for?" asked the Donna-Doctor, bemused. He didn't seem to have noticed the minor additions to his usual mountain of pocket-clutter. Honestly, he probably already had a spare screwdriver. And Jimmy Hoffa, and the lost continent of Atlantis, like as not.

"Oh, you know. Just being you," she grinned. "And me. How's it feel?"

"Brilliant!" he said.

She'd miss him, she realized. He was like a twin brother she'd never had. But she'd have the other Doctor, rest of her life traveling the stars … and they'd be better than ever before.

He was looking at Rose again. Well, he couldn't go too badly wrong, with her looking after him. Donna had all the Doctor's knowledge of Rose. Blondie was up to the task.

"What are you thinking?" she asked her twin.

"I'm thinking …" The Donna-Doctor frowned. And blushed. Then he turned to glare at her. "Oi!"

"Don't you 'oi' me!" she snapped back. "'Oi' what, Handy?"

"What—Handy?" he asked, appalled. "Handy?"

"Well, can't call you both "Doctor." Be too confusing for words. And you grew from a hand, didn't ya?" She waved this attempted distraction aside. "So go on—what're you 'oi'-ing me for?"

He put his hands on his hips—mirroring her own posture, she realized. "You know what! I wouldn't've thought somethin' like that on my own. It's from you—got to be!"

Her jaw dropped as she realized what he must have been thinking. Two Doctors and a Rose, living in a bloomin' phone booth …

"Oi!" she yelled, then lowered her voice when Rose and Jackie glanced over curiously. She smacked the Donna-Doctor on the arm and continued in a low hiss, "I never! Don't you go blamin' your sick fantasies on me, you great bloody … space pervert!"

"Oi!"

4. Forever

Rose looked up at the sounds of an argument. The … Doctor-clone … whatever he was … and Donna were shouting, "Oi!" at each other and smacking each other's arms. Donna appeared to be winning, but not by much.

God, that was weird. It had been strange enough when the Doctor had regenerated (and at least he hadn't done that again) but … what was he gonna do with the spare?

On Star Trek, the clone would usually go poof, or turn out to have only a day-long life-span, or die tragically saving the day. Something like that. But real life looked like it might be more complicated. It sounded like Jack was running at least one branch of this world's Torchwood—maybe he could use a spare Doctor? And that would be the sort of thing a Doctor might enjoy.

Across the room, the arm-slaps had turned into a shoving match, and from there into Donna slapping the clone vigorously about the head. He cowered, throwing up his arms to protect himself and yelping in protest.

Rose bit her lip to stop herself from smiling. The clone seemed a bit goofier than the Doctor, and she wondered how much alike the two were. She hoped it wasn't very, for the clone's sake. After all, only one TARDIS. But she couldn't quite imagine there'd be more than one Doctor, either. Maybe the clone wouldn't be such a restless spirit. Maybe he'd be happy to settle somewhere.

She felt a surge of concern for him. What must it feel like, to just sort of pop into existence like that? Was he worried that there wouldn't be a place for him?

Well, if all else failed, maybe she could talk the Doctor into bringing the clone along with them in the TARDIS. Could be fun.

She violently repressed a thought about what she could do with two Doctors, for fear mum would somehow realize.

"You will come back and visit, won't you?" said Jackie. "I mean, now we've got that Dimension Cannon thing an' all …"

"No, Mum, it doesn't work like that," she said. For the umpteenth time. Her mum did not want to hear that they would never see each other again. Still, at least she'd (sort of) admitted that Rose was staying with the Doctor. "It's gonna close up again." And really, Jackie ought to have used her hopper and gone back by now, if she didn't want to risk getting stuck here. But she seemed determined to put it off indefinitely.

She worried about her mum. But Jackie had Pete and Tony and a life in that other world, now. She'd be all right.

"Hmph," said Jackie, swiping at a suspicious spot of moisture in her eye. "I'll believe that when I see it. The Doctor said that before, and look at us! Back again. Always sayin' things ain't possible. You'd think he'd learn his lesson."

"No, Mum," said Rose again, as gently as possible. She thought she'd said all her goodbyes already. She hadn't expected her Mum to follow her across the bloody Void. Or Mickey, either, though she might have.

Mickey. At least she wouldn't have to say goodbye to him. Not permanently. He was staying in this universe.

All these goodbyes. For some reason, they got harder each time she said them.

"You could always come back," said Jackie, her composure becoming a bit desperate. "Maybe Himself could come along. Yeah? I mean, it's not like he's got anything left in this universe …"

"I don't think so, Mum." Dammit, now Rose was starting to tear up. Cos it sounded almost like it made sense, but somehow she didn't think the Doctor would go for it.

She looked over at the clone again. She should really go over and talk to him a bit. With everything that had been going on, he'd sort of been ignored by almost everything. She didn't want him feeling left out. Right now, though, she wanted to spend these last few minutes with her mum.

At least the clone had Donna with him. Poor Donna. She'd have liked to get to know the woman better. Brilliant Donna, but she knew that was gonna end soon. She'd seen it in the timelines.

Everything felt wrong, now. The feel of the TARDIS around her was familiar, and stronger than ever now that her senses had been sharpened by her time in the Void. Like home. But not like home, because home was with her Mum, and Pete, and Tony. But not with them, because the Doctor wasn't there …

Half a life in each world. A choice to make, and never look back.

Don't look back. She'd learned that from the Doctor, for good or ill. How to run away from your problems. She found herself wishing that all of it was over, and that she could be alone with him. She was so tired, and so tired of everything being so complicated. So many years apart, and they hadn't had a moment to themselves. Hardly said five words to each other, either. Part of her wondered if things had changed between them.

Nah. Not them. Not ever.

She hated herself for wishing her mother would leave and get it over with, but she just wanted to be off. Running. The Doctor and Rose, in the TARDIS, forever.

5. Things That Change And Things That Stay The Same

Jackie knew she should leave. She kept thinking, in a minute, in a minute. But it didn't get any easier.

"Rose, are you sure about this?" she asked.

Rose, who had been watching that ginger woman smack the living daylights out of the … Doctor … (and good for Ginger!) turned back to her. Rose Tyler. Her daughter, defender of the universe.

She'd changed from a girl to a woman years ago, but she was still Jackie's baby. Same big brown eyes, same reckless heart.

"Mum, you know I …"

She couldn't finish.

"It's just, you know, it's been years. And people change," said Jackie.

"Not me," said Rose. "And not 'im."

She spoke with such conviction that for a moment she almost persuaded Jackie herself. But, whether Rose wanted to admit it or not, it was true. She was far different from the child who'd been lost in a world of zeppelins. And the man in the brown suit had changed, as well. Oh, he was still the Doctor. But he seemed to be feeling his years more, like he had some terrible weight on his shoulders. And he was further away—distant even with Rose.

Jackie supposed she was a fool to think Rose would ever come back home with her. Or for thinking Rose could be happy there. It was selfish of her, really. Rose had never and would never be happy, not without the Doctor. And maybe the two of them could work things out, have some sort of life together. She shouldn't even hope for Rose to change her mind.

Or that the Doctor would change it for her.

Then the Doctor came back in. The one in the brown suit, that was. She wondered what was going through Rose's mind, looking at the two of them. Jackie certainly knew what she would be thinking, in Rose's place.

"Time for one more trip," he said.

And there was something in his voice that made Jackie wonder all over again if she was deluding herself—or if Rose was.

The End