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[lone_defender]

Jack didn't find her.

Neither did the Doctor.

If they had, she'd probably have recovered faster, but it was for the best that they didn't. Sometimes, she needed to scold herself and pull her own self together, without the benefit of someone offering her comfort. She'd botched the one chance she'd have to see her family again, and it was entirely her fault.

Now she had to make sure she hadn't lost her Doctor, too, when she'd finally found him again.

It was a few hours, perhaps, by the time she found herself standing in the doorway of the Doctor's bedroom. Of what was her bedroom longer than her other's had been. She didn't step inside, but she did speak. "I'm so sorry."

She'd taken to saying that so often now, she almost couldn't remember the days he had.

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[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

And when Rose walks in and stands in the doorway, she wont find the Doctor curled up hugging a pillow that has a shirt of hers on top of it. No, not at all. Also, his face isn't buried in the fabric while he sleeps. Yes, the Doctor is actually sleeping.

But as she stands there, the TARDIS humms softly as if to lull him out of his sleep and he opens his eyes in time to hear her words.

"No Rose," his voice was softly, "I'm sorry."

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She wasn't sure whether to find that sight adorable, or whether she ought to feel terribly guilty about it. But then, that was everything dealing with her Doctor, wasn't it? She couldn't decide what to think about it at all.

She did know it wasn't his place to be the one saying 'sorry'. Not this time. "Don't be. You were...doin' the right thing. It's just that..." She bit her lip, gaze falling to the scattered research papers on the ground. "I'm not Rose anymore. Not the one Mum knew, anyway."

[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

Slowly he turned his head to look at her, a sleepy, sad look in his eyes. Of she wasn't the Rose any more, the one her mother knew, she wasn't the one he knew.

"Oh," his voice came out as just a whisper, "I assumed that...do you want me to leave?" Because if she wasn't that Rose, did that mean she wasn't his Rose?

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"No." An answer far too hasty to be of any use, probably. But this was his TARDIS. She loved it dearly, she'd miss it like she'd missed her family if he took it away, but it was his. Like she'd told Ianto and Jack and Donna and anyone who'd listen, the universe needed the Doctor. She'd always just been a poor placeholder for him.

"This is your TARDIS. It'd break her heart if you left."

[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

"Oh," he said softly as he lowered his back onto the pillow, face sligtly buried once more.

"Mine, right." Because that was important, the TARDUS missing him.

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"Doctor...we should talk." She took a few steps into the room, stopping at the end of the bed. Just because he was here didn't make the room feel less like home. "It's been five and a half years, Doctor."

[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

His eyes slowly moved to find her form as she stepped into the room, he glanced up at her face for a moment and then moved away from her on the bed, leaving a space should she decide to join him. "There's someone else?"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"Someone...no." Of course the Doctor had never actually been that someone. Not officially. But there'd still never been anyone else. Not really.

"But...you should know the things I've done."

[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

There was a look in his eyes, somewhat sadness, somewhat relief. Glad there had been no one else to take her heart, sadness that she'd been on her own.

His eyes still watched her and slowly he released the pillow he was holding and set it back on the bed, patting the space before them. Hopefully she didn't notice too much that he was still holding her shirt, "Things you've done?"

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She hadn't been completely alone. Not completely. There was Ianto, Jack, and Donna that whole time. They'd kept her sane when it seemed like she'd slip away.

Rose gave a soft frown, and settled on the bed near him, still watching him. "If I tell you...you've...got to promise not to leave me here. Give me a chance to say goodbye to the people I care about here, and...just...leave me in that universe I found you in, yeah?" Her gaze fell to her hands, knotted in her lap. She was who she was. She couldn't change it. Wouldn't. Yet..somehow her Doctor could still make her feel ashamed of that, even without knowing what it was. "I can still do good there."

[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

There was a look in his eyes, a look of complete and utter disbelief and slowly he nodded, "If that's what you want to do I..." Moving from where he was laying, The Doctor shifted down the bed and climbed off until he was standing, "I'll....I'll..." He ran his hands through his hair, after everything Jackie had been right, Rose had moved on. She didn't need him any more.

She didn't want him.

"You keep the TARDIS," his voice was soft, sad, "And once I've got some things together, take me back to that park and you can go back to that world you want to be in."

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

Oh, for-

She snatched up his hand, and stood, frowning. "No! You are not leaving. Not after I spent so long looking for you, Doctor. This universe needs you, and I...no matter how much I try, I can't be you. I can't. People die and I can't save them and...and they need you." She used her free hand to push him back to the bed--hoping he was still off-kilter or expecting the Rose she was enough for that maneuver to be successful. "You...just sit. And listen. And promise me, no matter how much you might hate lookin' at me when I'm done, you don't strand me here. Not here."

[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

He stumbled back onto the bed and looked at her, eyes a little unsure. Silently he sat, waiting for her explination. Because there was another world that needed him too, the world he'd been living in. A world without a Doctor but filled with alien threats.

So quietly he looked down, "On that world, with that Doctor." And he felt the realisation hit him, how that other Doctor had threatened him not to take Rose.

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"...What? No. You just...sit there for now, alright? No talking." She sighed, and resisted the urge to gnaw at a fingernail. "I am-was-the head of Torchwood One. S'pose I should start from there, yeah?" And yes. She's counting his lack of protest as an agreement. At least enough that she believes the TARDIS won't just abandon her, even if he wants to. "After you...after the walls closed, I was left...standin' there. Don't know how long I stood there but...eventually, the survivors of the battle got close enough that I could hear them. Screamin' and fighting and..."

She shook her head, shoving away the memories. It wasn't a pretty spiral she'd fallen into, but she told him. All that she could bear to. Ordering the executions of the half-turned, shooting Lisa with Ianto's own weapon. Taking control and all the alien invasions she'd killed in where he'd have found a better way.

She avoided most of Jack's involvement, but she couldn't skip over it completely. She spoke of the Doctor who'd arrived and who'd she'd helped repair his equipment--the one who'd changed her DNA so that she could 'replace' her Doctor. Of the worlds she'd let burn, and the races that were extinguished because she knew no other way. Because she couldn't see fixed points.

By the time she'd finished, she couldn't bear to look up at him any longer. Not with the weapons she carried in the TARDIS, and all the blood on her hands. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I'm so, so sorry."

[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

He stayed silent, so very silent indeed. Head bowed, eyes closed. The things he'd seen on the other world, the things that he'd had to let happen because he'd no TARDIS to help him out, crude technologies that he'd had to squish together to make something that might help.

There were worlds out there that had died because he'd been grounded, lives that had been lost because it took hours to travel instead of seconds or minutes. New report after new report reminded him just of how little he'd helped out. He was only one man, well Time Lord, and he'd been helping as much as he could between London and Cardiff. But when the rift opened, so many people died.

He'd been too late.

Slowly, softly, the Doctor sighed, "You fotgot the part where you want to stay with that other Doctor, the one who's with the Master."

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She crossed her arms, not out of irritation, but an unconscious desire to shield herself from the Doctor's disapproval. Not any Doctor, she'd seen so many they didn't matter. Hers.

"I can do good for them. That Doctor needs me...he's so broken and shattered, if you're leaving me somewhere, I can do the most good there. Jack and Ianto've got their Torchwoods in order, and Donna'll understand."

[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

The Doctor nodded slowly, a soft breath escaping his lips, "If that's where you want to be...then you should be there." Because that Doctor needed Rose and he hadn't even crossed her mind that he might or want her, which meant that she didn't need or what him.

"Keep the TARDIS," he said finally, "Just take me that to Pete's world first."

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"No." She wouldn't budge on that. She couldn't. She loved the TARDIS, loved the life, and the three closest friends she'd ever had, but the universe needed a Doctor. She couldn't save it on her own. And she would not let the universe lose him a second time.

"I won't let you go. This universe needs its Doctor, not a Rose. If you don't want to...I'll go. Like I was supposed to five and a half years ago. But not you."

[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

"This isn't my world Rose, and it's not your choice to make. You want to be with that other Doctor and I wont stand by and watch you be with him. This universe needs a Doctor, well it'll have one once you've fixed him."

"I have a life I never thought I'd have. A family who care about me, friends.. there was only one thing missing and it's too late for that now." Her heart was someone elses.

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

She stood staring at him a few moments. No, this wasn't anything she'd imagined, and she'd gone through her mind from acceptance and forgiveness and outrageous romantic fantasies to the full fury and rage he'd displayed at his worst enemies. She'd even gone over the possibility of his being as broken as the other Doctor.

Fixating on something else was never a part of that.

"I...what? This isn't his universe. He's got his own, and I'm just helping him and--did you listen to anything I said?"

[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

"Yes," his voice was soft, "You told me to leave you there with him." Of course he was fixacting on that part, the woman he'd loved for eight years was right there in front of him wanting to be with another him. He was the wrong Doctor now.

"And this isn't my universe either. I wont go back to traveling the stars alone Rose. I wont. I have a little brother who I want to see grow and fall in love. Without then I wouldn't be a good man."

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

"I...well you obviously weren't listening." She ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to calm herself. It wasn't as effective when the gesture she mimicked came from the person in front of her who was causing the frustration. "I don't want to be left. I love the TARDIS. I love traveling, and...but I can't. You travel with the best, yeah? And I'm...I've betrayed everything that you stood for. I don't...I wouldn't go back and change it, couldn't do it any other way. But...I'm tryin' to say I understand. And I just meant that if you won't travel with me then at least leave me somewhere I can make up for what I've done."

Oh, and tears she hadn't thought she'd recovered yet were starting again. She used to think she had such control of them. "But you can't....you can't leave. Take-take them with you or bring them here. Ianto and Jack or Donna would look after them. Just...you can't leave this universe to me. You can't. I can't save it."

[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

"Rose, I can't ask them to leave, they have lives there now too. Mickey has a wife, Ross has friends, without them that Earth wouldn't be safe."

At the sight of her tears, the Doctor's fell too. Slowly he reached out and took her hand for the first time in six years. "Rose, don't... don't cry." He pulled her closer to him, reaching up his hand to brush away the tears on her face, "Please don't."

He continued to draw her closer, intending on wrapping his arms around her to comfort her, but then... Pulling her down he pressed his lips to hers, his own tears falling as he willed her to kiss him back. So scared his heart might break if she didn't.

[lone-defender.livejournal.com]

Mickey had a wife. Dimly, she thought that was fantastic, because he deserved to have a wife. He was a good man and she'd never really gotten the chance to apologize for swanning off on him, even if she wasn't sorry for the adventure.

Oh, but the Doctor wasn't meant to cry. He wasn't meant to be harmed, certainly not by her. Hadn't she done enough wrong over the years, without breaking her Doctor's hearts and driving him out of the universe once she'd finally found him.

She'd been kissed before by Doctors. There were some very forward ones out there. There were also some very desperate ones. Of course she'd never gone along with them even when they had. But that didn't mean she still hadn't melted just a bit whenever they did. And as confusing as it was that it'd be her Doctor, as frustrated as she was (and as much as she was tempted to strangle him, currently) she couldn't help returning that kiss.

[thelostdoctor.livejournal.com]

His hand brushed over her damp cheek, pulling her closer as his lips parted and his tongue tasted her. The moan that rolled up his through surprised him, as did the passion that burned inside of him. His free hand came to rest on the small of her back and pulled her closer still.

Soon the Doctor was half laying on the bed, his feet still flat on the floor, with Rose laying over him. And they were still kissing, he was still moaning every once in a while.

"Rose Tyler," he spoke in her mind as they kissed, "I love you."