In Any Universe

"Does it need saying?"

When he heard his other self utter those words his single heart had leapt in his chest. He was giving him a chance; stepping back from the words he'd never quite managed to say to her and had longed desperately for another chance to, all so that he could prove to her that he was still the same man. So that he could be the one to live a happy life with Rose, day after day, the one adventure he thought he could never have.

He hadn't known quite what he expected her reaction to be when he leaned over and whispered those three words in her ear, finally, finally, but it certainly wasn't the one he got. After a brief moment of shock, he wrapped his arms around her tightly, pulling her closer as he kissed her back with all the passion he'd never dared show when they were together. He had missed her so much and needed her desperately right now. Oh Rassilon, why the hell hadn't he done this before; kissing Rose Tyler was quite possibly the best thing in the universe. No, make that two universes.

Their kiss had ended all too abruptly though, when Rose jerked back from him at the sound of the TARDIS dematerializing. She started to run towards the rapidly disappearing blue box but stopped short as it faded away entirely. Coward. He really was miserable with goodbyes, wasn't he? He slowly released the breath he hadn't realised he was holding and walked over to take Rose's hand, heart thundering in his chest. She turned to look at him, her expression just as at a loss as the one he was sure was on his face at the moment. Now what?

They stood there for a while, simply gazing into each other's eyes, neither sure what to do or say next, unwilling to breach the silence as the cold wind whipped around them. Was she going to scream? Cry? Snog him again? At that thought, he licked his lips and swallowed in an attempt to dislodge the lump that had formed in his throat. Just as he'd opened his mouth to say something, anything to her, they were interrupted by Jackie walking over to them waving her mobile. At the sight of her mother, Rose dropped his hand and pulled her arms around herself tightly.

"Oi. I don't know about you lot, but I'd like to get off this bloody frozen beach. Jus' spoke to Pete, he's going to fetch us as soon as he can, but we're on our own gettin' into town. Come on, shift!"

At her prodding, the Doctor turned to trudge in the direction Jackie pointed. With a glance at Rose, he sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets when she didn't move to take his offered hand again, instead electing to pace quietly behind him through the sand.

Perhaps sensing their discomfort, Jackie tried to fill the silence of their walk back to civilization with the details of her life with Pete in the years since he'd last seen them. He wasn't really listening though, his Time Lord mind whirling in a million directions at once.

Surreptitiously watching Rose through the corner of his eye, the Doctor attempted to inventory his new body and ponder their situation. He found himself shivering in the cold wind, which was new for him. He must be running closer to a human body temperature, but it was hard to say. Memories and intellect seemed intact, thank goodness. His muscles and head ached somewhat as they plodded onward, passing a sign indicating it would be four more kilometers to the nearest village.

Could do with a meal, he noted as his stomach rumbled unhappily. It occurred to him that he had literally never eaten in this body. No wonder he was hungry.

It felt a bit like a new regeneration, only not quite. The things that he'd taken for granted, that normally stayed the same from one regeneration to the next, had changed while his face remained the same. Still not ginger, he thought with a tiny smile. Never would be now, actually. That thought sobered him. Still, could be worse. Fitting really, to be stuck in the form inspired by Rose for the rest of his life with her, if she still wanted him.

His voice had normalized back to his usual Estuary accent since the metacrisis but he wondered just how much Donna he still had lurking in him. Oh, Donna. He hoped she was alright but feared the worst, knowing full well that his mind, his memories could very possibly cause her to burn. He'll have to pull it out of her, he thought bitterly. Another lie his other self had told Rose to convince her to stay in Pete's World, that he'd have Donna to keep him company. He shook his head to clear it.

Back to inventory. Something was missing. Something that should be there, other than his second heart, was gone but he couldn't quite place it. He bounced a little with his next few steps, trying to warm his body and synapses simultaneously. He searched his mind, running through a catalogue of what he should have until it occurred to him. He was alone in his head. Even more so than after the Time War ended and he lost the constant low-level murmur in the back of his mind that signaled the presence of other Time Lords. His link to the TARDIS was gone, sealed off behind the walls of the universe thanks to the dimensional retroclosure. How had he not noticed immediately?

Blinking back the tears that threatened to spring from his eyes at this sudden sense of loss, he searched his pocket desperately until he located the small piece of coral his other self had left them. His only connection to the TARDIS now, he held it tightly in his hand and willed it to give him something, anything to reassure him that it was still alive. It was warm to the touch and he would swear he could feel it vibrate ever so slightly against his palm but there was no sense of it in his mind yet. He hoped Donna was right and they could raise this fledgling nub into a fully grown TARDIS over the next ten years in this strange parallel universe. He quite liked hope, that was a good emotion.

Until then though, he looked over at Rose as she walked, frowning along the chilly Norwegian road. Blimey, what on Earth were they going to do in the meantime? She hadn't said so much as another word to him since their kiss back on the beach and was carefully avoiding his gaze even now. He knew this wasn't exactly what she'd been hoping for when she set out to find him. It certainly wasn't how he expected a reunion with Rose to go, when he'd dared to fantasize about such things. No, his ideal situation would've involved far fewer Daleks and a significantly happier Rose. And much more kissing, he added as an afterthought.

That reminded him of their moment of passion earlier and succeeded in derailing his thoughts for a bit as he felt a warm flush at the memory. He could still feel her lips on his, warm and sweet and demanding. He'd like to do much more than kiss her, actually. Wait, where did that thought come from? Time Lords didn't... well they could, but it was hardly the point. When you can live for thousands of years these sorts of things simply cease to be imperative. Not that he'd never, but honestly he was pretty terrible at reading those sorts of cues from the other species he encountered and it usually didn't occur to him to think of anyone that way. Though, it seemed since this latest regeneration he had gotten more than his usual share of, ahem, attention. He supposed he had Rose to thank for that indirectly; she had liked her pretty boys. He wondered not for the first time what it said about himself that he'd regenerated the way he did; his voice and face and personality seemingly tailor-made to suit her.

He'd accidentally done it again, he mused. Moreso, this time, since he now had a healthy dose of humanity mixed in, giving him the wonderful and horrible gift of a single human lifetime to grow old with her. He ought to be wearing a bow, the way the universe had gift-wrapped his human-Time Lord self for her. He didn't envy his other self, having to walk away from everything he'd ever wanted standing in front of him, wearing the same face, kissing his Rose.

Mmm... kissing Rose. He kept coming back to that. Not that it'd been the first time they'd kissed, but really it was the first that really counted. Cassandra kissing him didn't count, neither when he kissed the Bad Wolf, since she wasn't really herself and didn't remember, and ancient Rome, well that was hardly the same sort of thing. He'd waited years for that kiss, he couldn't be blamed for fixating on it a little. Or a lot.

He spent a few pleasant moments replaying that kiss in his mind as a silly grin stole across his face. He was exhausted but the memory sent warm prickles of excitement through his body and he shivered, not from the cold this time. The warm feeling shifted a little lower. That was new.

Wait... Is it? No... In addition to the loss of his dual cardiovascular system and respiratory bypass it would seem he had inherited something else from Donna. He had human hormones. Well, wasn't that just wizard.

As they finally approached the quiet Norwegian village she'd last seen over three years, practically a lifetime, ago, Rose was at a loss. What the hell was she supposed to do with a half human copy of the man she'd spent so long trying to return to? He said he was the same man, and part of her, the part that had grabbed him on the beach not so long ago, believed him. But she wasn't sure how to feel about it yet.

Intellectually, she realised that she'd been given something amazing, something she'd never really in her wildest dreams thought possible. But part of her thought back to the look on her Doctor's face when she'd asked him how that sentence on the beach those years ago was going to end. He'd looked so sad. And he'd left her yet again, without consulting her first or saying goodbye properly, in another universe. Damn him.

Her eyes flicked over to the other Doctor, walking along ahead of her in that slim blue suit, shoulders hunched against the chill. He'd stayed. Had he known what the Doctor was going to do? He'd not really had much of a choice in the matter either as far as she knew, but who could say? He hadn't seemed all that surprised by anything but the Doctor's accusation that he was dangerous. He'd also said those words she'd hoped to hear from the Doctor so long ago.

In the village, they found a small inn that had rooms available for the night and the promise of a hot meal in the restaurant situated on the ground floor. As her mother struggled to communicate with the clerk whose English was poor at best, Rose finally allowed herself to meet the Doctor's eyes. He gave her a nervous smile that she couldn't help but return briefly. She cleared her throat to speak but faltered, unsure still of what to say to him.

"Here we are then. Rose, we're in room 6; Doctor, you've got number 19." Her mother pressed a room key into the Doctor's hand. "I think we could all do for some cleaning up, eh?"

At first, Rose didn't resist when her mother pulled her to their room but stopped short when they got to the door. She shouldn't leave him all alone right now, it wasn't fair.

"Mum, I'll catch up with you later, I think I should go talk to the Doctor."

Jackie raised an eyebrow as she watched her daughter walk down the hall but didn't say anything. Those two... she shook her head. If anyone needed to have a serious conversation it was definitely them.

He'd made it to his room and sat down on the bed, feeling lost, but that was as much as he'd managed so far. He supposed he ought to get up and take a shower or something. He reeked of smoke and was covered in what he assumed, but wasn't interested in enough to lick to be sure, was a mixture of sweat, salt spray from the beach and remnants of the Dalek army from the Crucible. Not that a shower would matter all that much, without any fresh clothes to change into or his sonic screwdriver to clean the ones he wore.

He'd have to build a new one. Provided he could find the parts here on Earth. He was clever, he'd figure something out. Curious, he put his hands in his pockets to see what he had managed to bring with him. Not much, it would seem. Several bits of currency from other worlds he'd visited, some wires and various electronic sundries, Venusian Spearmint toothbrush, roll of duct tape, keys to a car he didn't remember nicking, a small torch, a few pencils, menu to a take away chip shop, the TARDIS coral, and a well worn photograph.

This last item made him pause. It had been taken at a fun fair in 1934. Rose had seen the booth and dragged him over to it, insisting that it was perfect. In the photo he was seated next to her, grinning happily with his arm around her shoulders, atop a wooden crescent moon in front of a backdrop of painted stars. She was beautiful, smiling with her tongue between her teeth, looking at him instead of the camera, wearing a pretty floral dress that suited her.

A soft knock at the door interrupted his reverie. He quickly stuffed the photo back into his pocket and stood to answer. Rose stood before him, her posture uncertain, but still, she was there.

"Hello," she greeted him.

"Hello," he repeated quietly.

"Can I, uh... can I come in?"

He nodded and stepped aside to allow her into the room. He turned to face her, closing the door behind him and noticed she was wringing her hands nervously. She glanced at the clutter laid on the bed and then back at him.

"Just... taking inventory I guess," he answered her unspoken question.

Rose nodded and sat down carefully on a clear space at the edge of the bed. "I thought maybe we should talk."

"Of course. What, um, what should we talk about?" His voice squeaked a bit on that last part and he cleared his throat again, trying to decide if he should sit down as well.

"Us. The future. I don't know." She laughed half heartedly at her own confusion. "We're a right pair. Look at us, stuck together again, aren't we?"

"Stuck with you, that's not so bad." He answered with a soft smile.

At that, she looked up at him and her resolve broke. She stood and wrapped him in a fierce hug, tears streaming from her eyes. "I missed you so much!" Her words were muffled against his shoulder. He held her tightly, making comforting sounds as he kissed her hair. "I missed you too Rose."

They stood that way, swaying slowly together for a while until Rose's tears abated. Sniffling, she wiped her eyes and looked up at him. He really was the same man after all. "Doctor...?"

He was delighted to hear her call him that and looked into her eyes as she spoke.

"I love you too." Her voice was thick with the recent tears but steady.

He took a deep breath, "I don't know what we're going to do either but whatever it is, no matter what, I promise you we're going to have a fantastic life. That's what he'd want, what I want. Together, yeah?" He leaned forward and kissed her tenderly on the lips.

They stood frozen like that for a moment, the Doctor's eyes worriedly searching her face for a reaction, positive or negative. Both their hearts were racing, beating in unfamiliar synchronicity. The room felt close and warm in those seconds until one of them blinked and all at once the nervous tension between them became something else entirely.

Their mouths came together in a rush, kissing as though the world were ending, which, in their defense, it very nearly had not four hours previously. Hands clutching at each other furiously, they stumbled backwards until they fell on the bed, scattering the contents of the Doctor's pockets to the floor with a clatter. It didn't slow them down. Gasping for air, they paused long enough for the Doctor to reflect on the fact that somehow they'd both managed to divest themselves of their jackets and were well on their way to complete shirtlessness. Briefly, he considered suggesting that they wait but that thought died unvoiced when Rose pulled her top over her head and pushed him back against the mattress.

Kissing Ro... no, Rose Tyler was definitely the best thing in any universe.

a/n - My first fic; be gentle with me, fair reader!

Edit - Thank you to everyone who left positive feedback in the reviews! Originally I intended this to be a one-shot, but I've written a follow up called Good Morning. It's been posted separately since, heaven help me, it ended up rated M. (It's a fairly tame M though.)