DISCLAIMER: Not mine. No profit. Yada yada.

SUMMARY: Five conversations between Ten II and Rose.

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THINGS HE TELLS HER

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ONE

THREE LITTLE WORDS

He never stops telling her he loves her.

He could never say it before; now he says it every chance he gets.

When he whispers it to her in bed, right before she comes, she comes harder.

When he closes the already nonexistent space between them and breathes the words right into her ear, she shivers. A thousand times he's said it and still she shivers.

She's only going shopping, but he says it.

A flash of terror rattles his every bone when she closes the front door on her way out. A wall between them. A parting.

He runs to the door, opens it, and tells her again.

She smiles. She knows what's on his mind, she knows the terror in his singular heart. "You're not going to lose me," she reassures him, while Jackie waits impatiently in the car.

"No. I'm not," he says.

TWO

HANDSOME STRANGERS

He tells her what Jack had told him, that he had visited Rose a couple of times while she had been growing up.

"You never saw him?"

"A handsome man like that? I think I would remember," she teases.

"What about a handsome man like me?"

Her easy smile fades, and she tilts her head. "Did you really?"

He shrugs, timid to admit it even now. "Once or twice." He pauses and amends: "Or four or five times." It had been dangerous, but caution had not been enough to stop him. He'd tried to look forward, but he was always landing in the past. "There was one time..." He shook his head. "Do you remember?"

Her eyes became unfocused as years of strangers and faces and chance encounters rolled through her mind. Nothing, and then…

She gasped. "New Years Eve?" Details of the scene flooded her mind. "Down on the street. It was snowing. Just after midnight."

He frowned. "No."

The realization settles on them both.

Silent tears slide down her cheeks. "He wasn't drunk. He was dying."

He pulls her into his arms and she cries until she can't anymore.

THREE

FORGETTING

He knows what the Doctor will have to do to Donna.

Rose knew - not just from Dalek Caan's taunting - that Donna would be forfeit, another cost of saving the universe. But that it would come so soon…"He'll be alone," Rose laments, her voice heavily-laden with tears. "Right after he's lost me again."

He doesn't answer. He knows even better than her. He knows that the Doctor won't let himself feel it. He'll look forward. He'll keep busy.

Even a Time Lord can only take so much agony.

He'll flip a switch. He'll shut himself down. To lose Donna, to lose Rose for a second time, not only to parallel universe but to a parallel man – he won't let himself feel it

He'll go places. He'll save people.

And then he'll die.

"Your song will end soon," he mutters.

She repeats him, eyes wide. "What?"

"That's what the Ood said to us. To him. The Ood foresaw his death. Foresaw that it would come soon. He won't be alone for too long, Rose."

"He'll forget me."

"No. We never forget. But after the change it'll be…he'll be able to move on. He'll think of you, but…"

She dives against his chest and sighs with a gratitude that courses through her veins. "He knew that when he left me on the beach."

He kissed her forehead. "Of course he did."

"Your song will end soon…" she murmurs somberly, laying her head down on his shoulder.

FOUR

TEN CONFESSIONS

"Tell me all the things you would never say before."

"I love you."

She laughs. "I already know that one." She takes a few aggressive steps forward, cornering him with a mischievous grin.

"I need you."

"Quite right, too." She lifts her eyebrows. "What else?"

"I want you." He leans forward and presses his forehead against hers. He slides his lips down to meet her mouth, enclosing her with his arms, but she spins around. "What else?"

"I missed your laugh."

She reaches behind her slowly and rests her palm on his cheek. He tries to whirl her back around but she resists. "What else?"

"I thought about you every day. Sometimes it felt like every second. I tried not to, but I did."

She swallows. "What else?" she whispers, her eyes closing.

"I was afraid I would drain a thousand stars just to see you again. I kept your room intact. I used to touch the door handle, but I could never go inside. I couldn't pass it without looking at it. When I gave up my memories, I sketched pictures of you after being haunted by you in my dreams. When you were nearly pulled into the void, I was afraid I would have let go and followed you in. When you were talking about jobs and mortgages and being stuck with me I wanted to tell you how much I wanted it, if that was to be our end. And when I first saw you after I changed, for a second all I could think was how beautiful you were."

FIVE

TWO LITTLE WORDS

"I do."

And his name.