After Rose makes her choice, she talks to the pinstriped Doctor and understandings are made.

Shorter chapter here.

This story has been my love letter to the Ninth Doctor, but it also has been an AU I wanted to explore. I wanted to know what might have happened had Rose had been intimate with Nine, and then canon with Ten happened anyway, even with a pregnancy in the mix. Rose loves Ten, but her heart wants what it wants.

Three Years Ago

Watching Rose was the Doctor's favorite activity, and now it was compounded by the fact that she lay completely bare in his arms. She wriggled closer and softly murmured as she slept contentedly, her delightful curves molding perfectly against his lean frame.

The tenderness in his gaze was tempered by the slight smugness in his smile. He was unbelievably sated, and he had fulfilled her. The shock on her face as she came down after he brought her to an explosive climax was one he would never forget if he lived another nine hundred years. Her shy admission afterwards that she had never reached completion in exactly that way caused him to bury his face in her hair as he embraced her tightly, concealing a proud smirk.

He loved her, and he had almost lost her. He might lose her still. The Bad Wolf was coming for them. He didn't know if it would be months or years. The Doctor even had no idea exactly what the Bad Wolf meant. But he knew he would do anything to keep Rose safe. Only the prospect of her death could make him send her away from him.

The Doctor thought of the ring he had made after Woman Wept and wondered if he would ever have the courage to present it to his beautiful Rose. Now that she was his, the desire to make things permanent was growing stronger than ever. He just had to be sure that she loved him the same way.

Present Day

If the Doctor could have stared off into space in the Gallifrey room, he would have. Instead, he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his suit jacket, sitting in the red grass against a large tree.

He had been born out of love, out of his ninth incarnation's love for Rose, and that same incarnation had seen to it that that love remained when he regenerated into this body. But with the love, came the pain. The Bad Wolf was no longer coming for them, but something else always was. They were star-crossed. He was always destined to be separated from Rose, one way or another. It was also at his own hand. He searched his feelings and knew that his former self had been right. If the Metacrisis had been like him instead, the outcome would be the same. But why did it feel like she was choosing another man?

It had only been a few short years since he met Rose, and yet it also seemed like a lifetime. They were right. He was a different man in those days. But some things also remained the same. He loved Rose enough to thwart regeneration. He also loved Rose enough that given the chance, he would do exactly the same thing his former incarnation had done out of love for her. He would die for her, and he would find a way to live for her again.

His reverie was interrupted by the appearance of the one person who knew what he was feeling (and didn't want to clock). Donna.

"I don't have to ask how you're holding up, Spaceman."

"No, I don't suppose you do."

Donna sat in the red grass, flipping her leather coat behind her back. She laid a hand lightly on the Time Lord's shoulder. "I wish I could say something to make it better."

The Doctor's mouth was a tight line for a moment as he stared forward. He shook his head, for once at a loss for words. "Doesn't seem like it will ever be. Problem is, I don't blame her." He choked down tears on the last words and swallowed heavily. "It's all my fault."

"How on earth could this be your fault?"

The Doctor laughed, but it was an ugly laugh, no mirth whatsoever. "I did this. Wellll, not exactly this me. But before I regenerated, I made sure I'd come back to Rose like that. And in a twisted way, I hardly blame him, either. I'd do it, too. I didn't want to regenerate, so I didn't. What's so different about wanting to come back from the dead, really?"

"Except that she's choosing him."

"That's my fault, too, Donna." The redhead laid his hand over his own. Their hands fit, but in an entirely different way. His friend to run with.

"Tell me, Doctor. How is it your fault?"

He ran a hand through thick chocolate hair, as though to prepare himself. "I told you about Bad Wolf?"

"Rose."

"Yep," he affirmed, popping the p. "But so much more than that."

Donna's eyes glittered for a moment, and then returned to normal. "A Moment, across the fabric of all of reality, and the Vortex, channeled into one human girl. A goddess of time, who could see every atom of existence and change everything. Rose used that power to defeat the Daleks." She grinned dazzlingly, "I really get that stuff! Not such an Earthgirl anymore!" She grew quiet for a moment. "It touched me."

The Doctor stared at Donna, as if she was going to disappear into a great conflagration. "What do you mean, it touched you?"

"The Bad Wolf. The TARDIS opened up before I touched the jar. Light wrapped around my hand, and that's how the hand became the gruff one in the leather instead of like you. But that still doesn't answer my question, how is it all your fault? Rose choosing him over you, that is."

"Yeah. I used the Vortex to make the Metacrisis the old me. She's human. All that bollocks about being the same man after I regenerate. If I were the same, why'd I stop myself from regenerating? I did it for Rose. I knew I'd be different. It all boils down to the fact that I never really let myself be hers. He did. The baby, I was him when we conceived the boy."

"So I gathered from what Sarah Jane said," replied Donna blandly. "But are you saying your relationship with Rose was different?"

"Exactly what I'm saying. I didn't tell her about regeneration until it was about to happen. Only had a minute or two to tell her what was going on- oi, Donna!" He grabbed his arm, rubbing it. "What'd you pinch me for?"

"No wonder she had a hard time with it, dumbo!"

"I could just see you...all big and brawny and blustery-rude- 'fantastic' trying to tell her you were gonna change. Then you light up like a fireworks display and 'molto bene!' Skinny, fluffy, pretty Doctor. Who made her think he didn't want her that way anymore."

"But that wasn't true! And not everything is about...that!"

"She was pregnant with your baby. At some point, it had certainly become about...that. With human women during pregnancy, that becomes bloody important."

"Donna! We aren't having this discussion!"

She shrugged her shoulders, shining red hair rippling. "Okay. We're not. I'm sorry I was so harsh with you, especially now. But maybe I'm not the one you should be having a conversation with at all."

"She's with him," the pinstriped Time Lord ground out. "Likely he's told her everything by now, how he loved her too much to leave her forever. I just can't...I can't hope to compete with that."

"No, but she loves you. She was coming back to you. Even if all this ends for you here, Doctor, she still has things to say, I'm sure of it. She was torn apart by having to choose. After you dragged Big Ears off to the library, she said she loved you both."

"That's Rose for you," the Doctor smiled wistfully. "If she could find a way to create two of herself, she would. She never could stand anyone hurting, even if they deserved it."

"Am I interrupting?" asked a soft voice from the doorway.

The Doctor closed his eyes and swallowed. Rose. He might never hear her voice again after today.

Donna stood up, dusting off her trousers. "I'll be back in the console room. Sarah Jane, in particular, is ready to go home to Luke."

Rose looked weary as she watched Donna disappear back into the corridor and she turned to the Time Lord before her. She felt wretched with guilt and grief over leaving him.

"I'm sorry," she begged. "I love you, Doctor, I do-"

The Doctor turned sharply to look at her and his topaz eyes burned into her for a moment, and he allowed her to see everything he had held back for so long. His longing, his grief, his love. He stood to his feet so he could be at her level as he gathered his courage to say the one thing he had always felt but had never said to her.

"And I love you, Rose Tyler. No expectations. No motive to try to keep you with me. You just deserved to hear that sentence finished at last, Rose. After all you've been through, after what I put you through-"

"But-"

"No, Rose." He smiled sadly. "I messed it all up. I regenerated, and that trust had been compromised. By the time you started to accept it, I started to push you away. I made you feel as though what we shared wasn't the single most important connection I've ever shared with another being. And I couldn't stop being afraid of losing you. Even after we started to make our way back to each other, the fear kept gnawing at me, and prevented me from loving you the way you deserved."

"I know. I loved you. I missed you terribly. Every minute I was in Pete's World, I spent with our son, or I spent on the dimension cannon. I was coming back to you." She bit her lip, bowing her head in anguish. "I just didn't know that there was any possible way you could come back as you used to be."

He cupped her face gently, tears welling in his eyes. "I know, Rose. I know there would be no peace, no happiness for you if you knew he was out there."

Rose threw her arms around her pinstriped Doctor, unable to hold back her tears, and they both wept for terrible choices.