I finished it. I was going to break it up into chapters, cause it's kinda long- but I got lazy. Hope you like it!

He takes her to the library. It's easier to see her here. Sequestered amidst creased paperbacks and overstuffed cushions. In a place she's been before, like he never lost her. Like the last three centuries have been a dream or a nightmare and he's just been waiting to wake up. The Tardis makes tea. Puts it on a little table between them with a platter of Jammy Dodgers. He makes her a cup, exactly how she likes it, because how could he forget? Pretends his hands aren't shaking as he hands it to her. Her soft 'thanks' the only word either of them had spoken since his murmurs of her name had finally tapered off. He flashes her a smile, tries to ignore the way his hearts jump and his ears burn. Stares for too long and than distracts himself with making his own cup. She gives a little snort after the fourth teaspoon of sugar goes in.

"Gonna have some tea with that sugar Doctor?" He glanced up at her tongue in teeth smile, not quite as full as it might have been once. Eyes still guarded, taking him in. He shoots her a daft smile of his own, flailing his spoon in an attempt at a twirl and scattering sugar granule across the table.

"I might do."

She giggles, the noise making his insides dance, and he adds a last heaping spoonful, before bringing the cup to his mouth, taking an overlarge gulp and regretting it as the boiling liquid burned down his throat. He leaped up, fanning at his mouth and trying not to drop his mug, Rose's laughter making him feel heady and foolish- which he is foolish- not for the tea- but for ever letting her slip away. And maybe also for the tea.

"You alright?" Rose asks as he manages to cool his mouth and flop back into his seat, tea sloshing hot and ignored over his fingers.

"Yeah." He smiles at her again and they get caught like that for awhile, Rose looking shy and the Doctor just looking, staring, hardly daring to blink. His hands are shaking again. He's not sure they ever stopped. There's a conversation stretching out between them, just waiting for the words to get spoken out loud but he won't risk it. He's not sure he could. His tongue feels swollen and unwieldy. Rose looks away first and it hurts, hurts like satellite 5, and Marie Antoinette's fireplace. Like a great distance between them that he can't close. Not like Bad Wolf Bay- not nearly as bad as that- but at the same time so much worse. Rose stirs her tea and he forces himself to watch her hands so he won't keep watching her face. She teetering on the edge of something, each movement slow and deliberate, careful. He waits. He's been waiting for her for three hundred years even if he didn't know it, what's a few more moments of eternity?

"Where am I?"

It's not the question he was expecting- he thinks maybe it should be.

"You're on the Tardis, she's just changed a bit is all, regenerated like me." He spreads his arms for her to look, wishing he was dressed properly, realizing in a disconnected way that his clothes are now in her bedroom, and tries not to let the thought make him flush.

"Tha's not what I meant." He deflates a bit. Pokes at his tea and scrubs at his hair and doesn't say 'I know' even though he does. He doesn't need too. "Doctor…" He doesn't miss the waiver in her voice, the tears hanging at the edge. He would do anything to keep her from crying. Anything but admit he was stupid enough to lose her. So he deflects, he's good at that.

"Actually, that's not a bad question. Where were you?" He gets up and paces around her, clips his shaking hands to his lapels and squeezes hard. He juts out his chin and pulls out his sonic and makes a show of being nosey, even as he learns nothing.

"What'd you mean?" She twists to follow him, blonde hair brushing her eyes and he wants so badly to reach out and tuck it away behind her ear. He studies the sonic instead, shooting her considering looks over the top of the long device.

"You were in the Tardis, but where? When? How'd you get here?"

"Dunno." She sank into the cushions, a little crease between her brows that he wants to kiss away. "I was just wanderin'. You were tinkerin' with the console and I di'nt wanna get in the way." She gives her tea a stir and he notices that she's drank none of it seemingly content to just hold the warmth between her hands. "So I had a bit of a walk and when I went back everything looked different, including you." She gives him a cheeky look that's a little broken around the edges.

"And you didn't notice anything? Any noises? Or lights?" He drops down in front of her, almost daring to take her hands and catching himself at the last moment. "Think Rose, this could be important."

She studies him instead, with wet eyes that pierce through his own, leaning past him to set her mug on the table, her fingers sliding across his knuckles in a way his hadn't yet dared. Her skin burns against his, he's finally stopped shaking but he doesn't think he can move either. One of her hands comes up to brush along his jaw and he flinches even though he wants nothing more than to lean into her touch.

"Why are you alone Doctor?"

They're going to Venus. Rose is here, and she shouldn't be, and it's possible the universe will explode soon, which would be pretty awful really, but Rose is HERE. And while she is he's going to keep his promise and take her to see the Fire Birds and drink champagne and wear heels that are tall enough to be dangerous. Because he can- because she's here- and he's not going to let the opportunity go to waste. She can't wear the dress- the one with sequins that flash like moonlight- because it's locked away in her bedroom with his shoes and his brown jacket and he can't let her in without showing her too much. He can't retrieve his clothes either. So he sends her to find something else and he digs up a jacket for himself that's more purple and formal and a bowtie that's black but still cool, he knows Rose will think so. She's the best his Rose.

He sets the coordinates on the Tardis, and his hands are still shaking, but he's smiling, can't stop that either, and he's not quite humming, but he can feel his mouth tingling to try it and he thinks this is it. This is the universe letting him be happy for a moment. And it's wonderful and terrifying and heartbreaking all at once. Because it can't last. He can almost feel it slipping away. Because Rose is here, but she can't stay. He knows she can't stay. Exploding universe and all that. But he gets this and that's more than he'd ever dared for before and he tells himself it will be enough even though it never will. So he sets the coordinates with hands that shake and a mouth that won't stop grinning and waits for Rose to come back because there is nothing better than careening around the console with Rose Tyler, laughter bubbling and arms brushing, all that joy and contact, the smell of her and the weight of her as close to him as he dares to let her.

She does comes back eventually, with a mouth that's smiling almost as much as his, hair done up high on her head in a way that reminds him of something painful and long ago, but he can't quite place what it is. She beams at him and her heels click on the glass floor and she twirls as soon as she sees him, arms held out and sequins flashing around her knees, so young and beautiful. His hearts stop to see her like this.

"Well? What'd'ya think?" Her tongue in teeth smile is out in full force all the reservations gone from her eyes. He beams, looking at her flushed face and letting his eyes slide down to the hem of her dress to fast to get caught.

"Rose Tyler you are-" His eyes slide over the dress again, sequins winking at him like a secret.

"Yeah?" Rose skips a step closer, her skirt sashaying around her.

"...where did you get that?"

"Wot?" She looks down her own body, trying to follow his line of sight. "The dress?"

He jerks his head in a nod. Because it is the dress, the one that should be hanging on a loo door in a locked room, kept free of dust by the grace of a time machine.

"I found it." She starting to look worried, and he doesn't want her to, but there's something… something in his head that's slipping away, something that presses that presses against his brain and his hearts and he just doesn't understand…

"Where?"

Rose flickers, or maybe he's just blinking too fast. She suddenly seems very far away.

"In the wardrobe, why? Should I take it off?"

He doesn't let that thought catch in his brain, blinks past it and at the dress. It's just a dress. It's possible the Tardis' had more than one. Or that she moved it to the wardrobe for Rose to find. It doesn't need to be sinister- how could it? It's Rose and the Tardis. And Rose in the Tardis, which could only ever be a good thing.

"Doctor? You alrigh'?"

"I'm…" He looks at her and she's there and real and watching him with worry in her eyes and a soft expression on her face, not a single false line to be seen. He swallows down something like doubt or terror, or some mixture of the two, rubs a hand through his eyes and blinks his vision clear and… and maybe he was wrong. Maybe it is a different dress. It seems darker suddenly, fuller, less showy. Rose peers up at him, long blonde hair falling to her shoulders and seeming to blow in some soft wind.

"Doctor?"

He's just paranoid. Old and broken and seeing things that aren't there.

"I'm fine. Course I am. I've got you." He smiled at her and she smiled at him, and it was easy again. His hearts settled again and his hands shivered against the Tardis console. "So! Venusian Fire Birds, eh? Let's go." He slammed down a lever and they were off, the Doctor and Rose in the Tardis, and if his moment of happiness had passed- well. He had only asked for a moment.

He takes her to Venus and it's exactly what he always dreamed it would be. He takes her down to one of the blue sand beaches, the sky stretching out in front of them pitch black save for the stars, sets up a blanket that's huge and plush, and a picnic with fine Venusian champagne, that he ends up spitting across the sand, and little cakes and chocolates that he eats too much of. And Rose laughs and wipes frosting from his chin, sitting close and leaning her body into his. The air fills with music and shouts of joy as the Fire Birds emerge into the sky, wings like trails of smoke flashing across the restless water in hues of red and magenta and gold. Rose stares in awe and shoots him a smile so wide it's breathtaking. He links their hands and squeezes hard and it's perfect. So perfect. ...too perfect?

He tries to ignore it. The itchy crawling pressure slithering up his back. This is what he'd wanted. A quiet night. Just him and Rose. And he had that. There wasn't another soul on the beach. Which… he glanced about, the flat cerulean shore seeming to stretch an impossible distance in both directions. Not a Venusian to be seen despite the crowds they'd wandered through earlier. Their picnic lay in front, the taste of the sweets still lingering in his mouth and Rose rested beside him, hair moving in a wind he couldn't feel and… hadn't her hair been up earlier? He's sure it had. Her hand suddenly feel impossibly light in his, like if he squeezed to hard it would pass through the creases. His heart is leaping with something that isn't joy and his hands would shake if they weren't so tightly wrapped in her own.

"Rose?-"

"Thank you Doctor." Her smile is angelic and her eyes so soulful. She squeezes his fingers and her's don't disappear. "This's been...Fantastic." her nose wrinkles with her smile as she leans into him harder, solid and real against his shoulder, her mouth coming tantalizingly close to his own, like an invitation. He blinks at her soft pink smile. Blinks again as her thumb brushes his lip. Chocolate eyes dancing up and down his face, so close now he can smell the champagne on her breath. He should stop- she's maybe drunk and he's… he's maybe more crazy than he thinks. But he wants this. Oh he wants this. He tips forward slowly, till their noses bump, lips not quite touching and-

There's an ear splitting sound and they both lurch to their feet. There's a shape in the sky that's almost like a moon, but moving too fast and trailing too much smoke. It blows through the Fire Birds, scattering them across the sky- a neon green tractorbeam arcing out to catch a few and draw them into the ship.

The Doctor frowns and glances at the watch resting against the underside of his wrist, but it's dark and blurry and he can't make out the face. Still.

"This shouldn't be happening." He has to yell just to hear his own voice over the din of the ship.

"Why not? Haven't people poached the Fire Birds before?"

"Well yes, once, but I was already there! I stopped it! To be here again, now, would mean I've crossed my own timeline and the Tardis- what did you say?"

"What?"

"You said- how- how did you know? That they were poachers."

"Aren't they?"

"Yes, of course they are, but how did you know? You can't have known. They could've been anything- they- they could be researchers! Or- or Fire Bird...medical...unit. There could be a Fire Bird emergency!" He gripped her hand tight, staring down into wide-blown eyes. "How did you know?"

She tugged at his grip, looking panicky.

"Doctor, you're hurtin' me."

"Rose… are you real?"

"Wot?" She stopped tugging, though her fingers wiggled, begging for release. "Yeah. Yeah I am, course I am, Doctor it's me. It's Rose." She suddenly squeezed his hand back just as tight, tighter, till his knuckles throbbed with it. "Come on. Let's go back to the Tardis, yeah? Let's go home."

He let her lead him. Followed her through streets that seemed too calm and empty, the noise of the ship oddly muted and far away. Everything seemed very far away. Even Rose was like a shadow, edges blurring into the background, eyes sparkling but not quite as familiar as they had once felt. She kept up a litany of coaxing words, but they were garbled, like maybe the Tardis Translation Circuit needed repairing. Maybe that was it. Maybe it all just needed repairing.

He doesn't remember how they get to the Tardis, one moment he is following Rose down a street paved with volcanic rock and the next they are standing in the console room, Rose peering into his face, her hands cupping his jaw.

"You alrigh' Doctor?"

She seemed so like Rose. Her brown eyes, her blonde hair, the worry line between her brows, even the callouses on her palms. It had to be Rose. Of course it was. Of course. So why? Why did he feel… He grasped her wrists softly, bringing her arms down and holding them to his chest, watching the worry in her eyes and the teeth at her lip.

"How did we get here Rose?"

"What'd'ya mean? You brought us 'ere." There were tears forming at the edges of her eyes but he ignored them. Ignored the way they made his hearts clench.

"No, I don't mean… What happened to the library Rose?"

"Wot?"

"The library. We were talking and then… then we weren't." She shook her head and he pulled her closer. "How did you get here Rose? How- how are you here when you shouldn't be? Why isn't there a- a- a- hole! Like Belgium in the space-time continuum? And why can't I stop shaking?" There are tears falling from his eyes and he can't stop them, Rose is staring at him like she did before he regenerated the first time. Sad and afraid and not really sure why. "Please Rose. I don't understand."

"Doctor-"

He blinks and his hands clench and she's gone. Just gone. Disappearing like a faded memory, her hands slipping from his own- a weeping angel standing where she should have been with a smirk on it's face.

"RO-"

"-OSE!" The Doctor jerks awake, body shooting upright, hands reaching for something that has never been there.

Rose's bedroom stretches out around him, serene and undisturbed by his shouting. His neck feels naked and his socks look grey in the low light. He wiggles his toes, just to feel them move. Strains his ears for the sounds of shoes on glass and hears nothing but the double pulse of his own heart. He blinks slowly, feeling the tear as it slips down his cheek, reaching up to touch the wetness that's gathered there. A dream. Just a dream, but nothing, nothing like one. His mind feels used and achy, the Tardis strangely quiet in the silence that echoes around him. Almost like… like… He flings himself from the bed, gathers up his clothes and marches through the door. He dresses as he goes, until his shoes are the only thing left in his hands as he enters the console room.

"Did you do this? Eh?" he pounds up the ramp. The Tardis lights flicker, confident and unashamed. "Why?" He keeps his voice clipped and angry, cause if he doesn't he'll cry, and he's not sure he'll stop. "What was the point?" his shoes thud on the floor as he leans towards the rotor, his fingers white knuckled on the edge of the console. The Tardis makes a noise like rebuke. "And what was that supposed to prove? I can't have her! You know I can't so why?... Of course I want- it doesn't matter! No! I can't just pop in and pick her up, and even if I could, who's to say she would even want me?" The Tardis lights flash. "No, there is no way that I can… Rose is gone!" His anger drains out of him, and he might have crumpled without the Tardis to hold him up, he folds over anyway, pressing his head amidst the buttons. "Rose has been gone for a long time. And we can't change that."

He avoids people. He flees to Victorian London, gets rid of his bow-tie and his trusty tweed jacket, and hides himself away on the clouds. Amy's plea is still ringing in his ears. Don't be alone. Don't be alone. Don't be alone. But he can't bear it. Can't bear the thought of someone else after the Ponds, after Rose… He puts as much distance as he can between himself and humans. Vastra keeps her eye on him, tries to coax him down with mysteries and riddles, and at another time it might have worked. He might have dared to try again. But he's old and broken and paranoid and he couldn't bear it if he failed. And he always will. He knows that. Has always known that. Because how can you win when you're fighting something as inevitable as loss?

So he runs away, retires. Doesn't bother with time or space or people, or even the Tardis really. She clears out all the color and light of his life with the Ponds, fills herself with sleek lines and grey tones, like penance, or maybe a prison. And of course he loves her, he could never not love his Old Girl. But he puts the brake on, literally, parks her on a cloud and keeps her there, with the universe still calling for them. Because he's done now. He won't do it again. He won't let himself break anymore. And if that means he's more broken than ever before well… it's hardly a surprise.

He does a good job, of withdrawing. Of being grumpy and cantankerous and ignoring everything beyond his own head. Until her. Clara Oswald and her demon snowmen. She pulls at him. Tantalizing like a dream. So familiar, yet so unknown, until he has no choice but to follow in her wake. Until he's giving her a piece of his hearts without realizing, until his hopes have started to build. And than fall, like snow, crashing like broken ice all around him.

He goes to her funeral. Stares at her headstone and his mind spins. Because there were two of her. Two Claras. And he hadn't known. But it makes his mind jump to think of it now. Two Claras. Like copies. Except… except they hadn't been had they? They'd each had their own life, their own destiny… And he wants to find her. Wants to find her and unravel her and all her mysteries. But his mind is stuck. Stuck on the thought of two. Two of the same things, the same people, each individual from the other, capable of living different lives but made up of the same material. Two Claras...two Amys… two Rivers even… His mind is spinning so fast with the thought of something, but he just can't pin it down.

Two Claras. Two Amys. Two Doctors. The same people. Fundamentally the same. But split in two… like a clone...like a metacrisis. It hits him like punch to the gut, he can barely breathe with it. And than he's off, he hears Vastra call after him, hears himself say 'To find Clara'. And he is. But first… First he's going to get Rose.

He has to time it right. He knows he does. He wracks his brain to remember. To remember exactly when he needs to go- but the Tardis knows. The Tardis takes him, each thrum of her rotor filled with excitement and glee. She knows what he needs, she always has. She takes him to the park, on that last day, with the Tardis full of people and Donna full of memories, parks herself inside herself in a way that would be difficult to deal with if it hadn't already happened and he sneaks out into familiar corridors he hasn't seen for far too long. He can hear her. Louder than anyone else, though she certainly hadn't been. Laughing and happy and unaware that he's about to ruin it. He waits until everyone is distracted, even him, to sneak out. He's amazed they don't see him, and suspects the Tardis may be helping, she's put the door right behind Rose. He pats a wall in thanks.

Rose doesn't see him, staring out at her friends and family, new and old, her back turned to him. He creeps up behind her, hardly daring to breathe. He reaches out with steady hands, making sure all eyes are turned from them, and wraps his hands around her waist, yanking her back into the dark. She yelps in surprise and he claps a hand to her mouth as gently as he can. He maybe didn't think this bit through as much as he should have...

"Rose. Rose!" He doesn't dare to do more than whisper, pressing her to the wall and praying she'll listen. "Listen! Please! It's me! I know I don't look like me but I promise I am. It's me Rose, the Doctor, and I really shouldn't be here."

She wrenches his hand from her mouth and he cringes, waiting for a scream. It doesn't come. He peeks at her through one eye and she's staring at him, flushed and not quite trusting. And how, how, had he ever believed that that dream could be true when it hadn't done her justice at all? How could he not remember that she was so beautiful? Even watching him like he might be a threat, even pressed into a wall not quite afraid, so gorgeous, his Rose. And she will be. His Rose Tyler, for as long of an eternity as he can get.

"Rose?" He can hear the begging in his voice but he doesn't care. He would do worse than beg for her.

"What're you doin' here? How'd you get here?"

His hearts nearly fly from his chest because she believes him! He'd pulled her into the darkness like a kidnapper and she believed him! He sagged into her, pressing his face into the hollow of her throat, flinching when she goes stiff and pulling back in a hurry.

"Sorry. Sorry, it's just...I've missed you." He offers her half a smile, and she returns it, eyes thawing a bit.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He stares at her for a bit, until someone in the console- who sounds like Jackie, and doesn't that just make his cheek ache- says Rose's name and he starts. "Right! Bit of a time schedule- listen Rose, I shouldn't be here, I really shouldn't. But I can't lose you." Again.

"Why'd you lose me? I'm 'ere aren't I? I'm not leavin'." She squares her shoulders and he can't help but grin at the set of her jaw.

"Oh Rose, I wish I had time to explain, I want to, I will, but for now, I need you to trust me. Please."

This time she stared at him before nodding slowly.

"Alright. I trust you Doctor."

His hearts jumped and he pressed a kiss to one of her palms.

"Follow me."

He takes her to his Tardis, drags her behind him with his hearts in his throat and does his best to explain, about the Metacrisis Doctor and leaving her on Bad Wolf Bay a second time. He blushes bright pink as he explains the kiss and Rose looks like if she weren't so furious she'd be laughing at him.

"How could you do that to me Doctor? After everything?" The tears in her eyes are angry ones, but her chin wobbles with something that isn't fury and he hates himself a little bit more as he gathers her to his chest, crushing her against his ribs and burying his nose in her hair.

"I know, I'm an idiot, I'm sorry. I'm trying to fix it, please, please Rose…" He presses a kiss to her brow because he just can't help it. "Help me fix it."

"What'd you need me to do?"

He presses another kiss to her hair before he pulls away.

"He left you with a clone. We're going to do the same."

"How'dyou mean?" she follows him around the console as he inputs coordinates, shooting worried glances at the door.

"The Flesh."

"The wot?"

"It's a sort of… human-y skin clone thing… very advanced. It'll even do a Time Lord if it's got enough welly in it."

"Sounds a bit gross."

"No...well maybe, but don't tell it that, wouldn't want to get it upset." He shoots her a smile, trying to ignore how empty his hands feel.

"So what, you're gonna make a clone of me?"

"We are, yes."

"And it won't mind that, this flesh thing?" He wants to kiss her right then. He doesn't.

"No. I don't think so as long as we ask nicely." He twists the last dial, eager to be off, but he waits. Because there are important bits he hasn't told her and he won't do this without her full approval.

"And than what? How'd we explain why there's suddenly two of me?"

"Ah…" This is the important bit. "There wouldn't be two of you. Just one…. You couldn't go back Rose." He watches her carefully. "Not to him. No, we would send the Flesh Clone back, and she would go to Pete's world and you…" He swallows and looks at his shoes, twisting his hands and not daring to look at her. "You would stay… with me." He waits but she doesn't say anything. Doesn't scream, doesn't laugh. Doesn't leave. He risks looking up. She's waiting for him.

"With you?"

"Yes." He takes a half step closer, wants to take two steps back, doesn't. "With me."

She takes a step herself, licking her lips and his eyes can't help but track the movement.

"And him… will he be alright? You, be alright, I mean. The old you."

He's not sure what to say. Doesn't want to lie. Isn't sure if he should dare the truth. Can't risk anything but.

"No. No he isn't. Not really."

She blinks wet eyes, breathes a shuddering breath.

"And I really… really can't stay with 'im?" Her lips tremble for a moment, she covers them with her hand.

"No...you can't." He hangs his head. "I'm sorry. It's a fixed point, I can't...there's nothing else I can do…" She sniffles, wipes at her eyes and her nose and looks at his Tardis, rubs a thumb along the console.

"Will it work? I mean, won't he know? That it isn't… isn't human? Or is it human?"

"No. No, I can personally assure you that he won't know. As for the 'human' bit, well, that's… complicated."

Rose nods and they stand for a bit in silence. The Doctor fights the urge to touch her.

"We don't have to do this Rose…" It's painful to say, the words like glass in his mouth, but he presses on. "If you want you can go back out there, I won't stop you." He'd want to. But he wouldn't.

"It wouldn't help though. He'd just leave me, at least this way…" she flushes, pink and yellow and beautiful. "At least this way I get to keep you, right Doctor?"

"Yes." He takes another shambling step towards her, fighting the urge to bury his fingers in her hair, to… He holds himself steady, hardly breathing.

"And you won't leave me." She's crying, no anger in her tears this time. "You promise you won't leave me?"

"Oh, Rose." He takes her face in his hands, wipes the water from under her eyes and rests his head against hers, her arms slipping around his waist and holding tight. "I promise. I promise." He presses a kiss to each of her cheeks. "Rose Tyler I will never leave you again. I swear." He presses his mouth to hers in the barest of kisses and she surges up to meet it,

catches her hands in his hair, pulling him down, deepening the kiss into something that's desperate and slow and tastes of salt. He pulls her in as close as he can, anchoring his fingers at her hips. Eventually Rose pulls away, gasping, their lips still brushing as they breathe. The Doctor reaches up and entwines one of their hands, bringing it to his mouth and kissing the knuckles as he stares into chocolate brown eyes he had given up on seeing again.

"You're stuck with me Rose. Forever."

"Good."

END

Epilogue

Forever turns out to be far longer than either one of them hoped for. And yes. Rose likes the bow-tie.

Please comment and let me know what you think!