a/n: Thanks for sticking with the story. It will be concluded in Convergence. I have already started writing it, and I will try to start posting as soon as I can.

Epilogue

Far above the Earth, the TARDIS floated as if it were suspended in space. Its doors were wide open and the Doctor sat in the doorway, wearing a pink lei around his neck. Beside him lay the straw hat he had won at the Carnival of the Great Magellan Gestalt. In front of him his long legs hung out into apparent nothingness with only the TARDIS's force field protecting him from the vacuum of space.

Below him lay London, a city he spent so much time in that it had practically become his adopted hometown. If he looked hard, he might even be able to pick out the location of Big Ben, where the Slitheen had crashed a ship a lifetime ago, well, a lifetime for him at any rate. He knew he'd be able to pick out the general location of Ealing, where Sarah Jane and her son Luke lived, or Chiswick, where Donna was. Or even Peckham, where the Powell Estate was located and where…

No, she wasn't there. She was gone.

And happy, he told himself. With his meta-crisis self. Living a life one day at a time, together for the rest of their lives.

A life he had so desperately wanted. Still wanted, if he were perfectly honest with himself.

The one adventure he could never have.

Sometimes he was so jealous of his meta-crisis self.

For a moment, the Doctor allowed himself to remember what it had been like to be with her. Meeting her at Henrik's. Seeing how beautiful she was the first time they went to Cardiff, when he had first realized he was falling in love with her. Her overtly flirting with him during WW II, and dancing around the console with her after everyone had lived.

And more recent memories. Flirting with her in Scotland. The sight of her in that pink dress. Flirting at the Olympics.

Her promising him forever.

Seeing her for the first time after she had returned from the parallel universe.

And of course seeing her emerge from the TARDIS as Bad Wolf.

The image of almost losing her to the Void forced its way into his mind, and he roughly shoved it out. No, he wouldn't think about that now. Nor would he think about saying goodbye to her on the beach… or the sight of her kissing the other him. This was about remembering the happy times, remembering the joy, not the pain.

And above everything else, Rose Tyler had brought him joy.

He knew he'd always love her, no matter the incarnation, but this him, this incarnation, was born out of love for her. Was born to love. Was born to love her, and nothing else, no one else, had been able to fill the void created in his hearts when she had been lost to him.

But even though this incarnation had been born to love her, the meta-crisis him, with his part human body and his mortality, had been created not only to love her but to be with her. When he had begun to regenerate after being wounded by the Dalek, he had had only one thought in his mind: he wanted to stay with her in his current form. And his meta-crisis self could do exactly that.

He wondered if his other self had figured that out. He doubted it. Other him would only have the technology of Pete's World which was not nearly advanced enough to do an analysis of Time Lord genetics. He, on the other hand, had had the TARDIS to help him, to analyze his other self and compare him to Rose. In the chaos between the destruction of the Crucible and returning the Earth to its proper orbit, he had secretly scanned his counterpart and the TARDIS had given him the answer almost instantly. Somehow that him had been created for her, tailor made as it were, designed down to the smallest detail: still part Time Lord so that he could maintain his own consciousness, retain who he was without having a neural implosion as Donna had almost had, yet human enough to be with her in every way. Human enough to age alongside of her. Even human enough to have children together if they wanted. Naturally, without medical intervention.

A fresh wave of jealousy threatened to overtake him, one he quickly tamped down. Part of him was with her, part of him was happy, part of him had had his dream fulfilled, and that was, that had to be, good enough.

No matter how painful missing her was for this him.

It still hurt, missing her, particularly now after seeing her, and losing her, again. It was a physical ache that began in his hearts and went bone deep, just like it had the first time he had lost her. But then he had had Donna and then Martha to pull him back from despair.

Now there was no one.

It had been his choice, he knew that, he had had plenty of opportunities to have new companions, but every time the situation had presented itself he had refused, believing that it would be too painful when they inevitably left. He had thought it would be easier on his hearts to travel alone.

Instead, between losing part of himself in the meta-crisis and traveling alone he was slowly going mad. If nothing else, his behavior on Mars had proven that. He had become a danger to the universe and a danger to himself, and nothing he had done since then had shown he was any less dangerous now than he had been then. Ironic, that, since dangerous was what he had accused his meta-crisis self of being. But his counterpart had Rose to make him better.

He had no one.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment.

The Ood had said his song was ending, and he had run. Run as far and as fast as he could. But it hadn't helped. As the old saying went, you can't run away from yourself.

No matter where you go, there you are.

It was time to stop running. Even if it meant regeneration. Or even if it meant his death.

He drew his hands across his face. And then with heavy hearts he got to his feet, shoved the straw hat back on his head and walked to the console to set the coordinates for the Ood homeworld. And the doors to the TARDIS closed behind him.