Author's Note: If you haven't seen all through Series Four, you shouldn't read this. In fact, you shouldn't be reading anything. You should be going and watching that. And then, while you're at it, watch the cut scene of Donna and the Doctor giving Rose and her Doctor a coral of the TARDIS. It'll make everything else make far more sense, and like me you'll live in a happy little land where you can imagine they're out on adventures together in a parallel dimension of the Whoverse.

Metacrises.

As logical as it was, as quickly as the word popped into his Time Lord brain, he disliked the term. He particularly disliked it when applied to himself—truthfully, it would be a brilliant word if it didn't apply to him. It would have to be brilliant. It was his word, and he was brilliant.

When applied to him, however, it called to mind too quickly what happened when an otherwise nearly immortal being engaged in a mid-life crises. Over 900 years old, a barely contained whirlwind, an anchorless traveler of time and space, an adventurer. . . if one were to take a creature like that, and smack him into a mid-life crises, what else could it be but this.

He had a lease, and a little blue hybrid car that was for all intents and purposes smaller on the inside, and a steady job that thankfully was lenient enough to not expect him to work a consistent nine-to-five. He could shirk his duties, kite off on a lark, and given how valuable they believed him to be (and quite rightly) he would still have a job when he returned.

The trouble was, of course, that he wasn't kiting off on a moment's notice. That would have been normal, at least in his terms of normal. No, he was cloistered in a windowless room in an agency he was still relatively queasy about belonging to, no matter how much of a dangerous, violent, genocidal individual he believed himself to be (personal pronouns were a troublesome matter when you were part of a duplicate pair, he found quickly). His erstwhile companion-slash-babysitter was still conflicted enough about his existence that she was avoiding him, and he couldn't find it in himself to stray far while she was still around.

And the truly painful part of it all was that he couldn't blame her, any more than he could blame himself (his other self, that is) for leaving him.

He understood, oh far too well, what his other self believed of him—because he believed it, too. In their previous incarnation, daft face and large ears, he'd still seen himself that way. And even as he looked in the mirror in the years prior to the metacrises, after Rose was lost to him, he saw a killer behind the dashing good looks and cheeky smile. He always would. The day he looked in the mirror and failed to see himself as the culmination of all of his sins, the hard choices, the pain and the loss, and saw only what he wished to, he would become something else. Something worse. He was relatively certain that had as much to do with The Master's psychosis as any real or imagined drumming.

It wasn't a matter of deluding himself into thinking he was something other than what he was. It was a matter of finding a reason to keep making the choices, and not to be crushed under the weight of them, and the will to continue hoping for the best even in the face of the worst.

Rose had done that for him, then.

And now. . . well, and now there was a new tally to add to his self loathing. A whole new level of insecurity. Because he was himself, but not—and it was that "not" that Rose saw, the flash of pain in her eyes when he did manage to coax a smile out of her. And that stab of selfishness that followed his own pleasure at her company, the momentary flare of possessiveness. For her to be his, he had to steal her from his other self. Worse, his other self had given her to him.

Rose looked at him, and believed she'd been cast away.

He looked at Rose, and knew the pain losing her had given his other self, knew the level of sacrifice it took, and knew that he'd condemned himself to die alone. His song was ending, after all.

It haunted him. No one would be there to hold his hand. The others had fled him, and Donna. . . willful, brilliant Donna who had been his best friend and was now something like a lost twin. . . she was going to forget him. And more and more, as his still fantastic Time Lord brain turned to his own predicament, the damndable ability to watch time ebb and flow had him feeling the cells of his human body decaying around him, the daily death of skin and hair, slightly less perfect each time, the slow march towards a human death. The one great adventure he'd had to look forward to and he was wasting precious, limited time without the one person who he wanted to spend it with.

On the other hand, he had projects. The little chunk of TARDIS was slowly growing in the tank before him, bathed in golden light, with coiling coral surrounding an increasingly box-like shape. The hum of his sonic screwdriver sounded nearly right, now, and was far less likely to spark when the radio played (it would be far, far easier when the TARDIS could simply fabricate him another). Torchwood had encountered one alien race (it had gone badly—they really needed to learn the fine art of negotiation, or let him do it so he couldn't scoff at their failures) and thwarted an invasion attempt of another (his success, this time—at least they trusted him when it came to outmaneuvering and out-thinking others).

And he'd turned his office into a haven, thumbed his nose at Torchwood's authority over him as much as he could while still collecting a check, claimed Office number 42 for the Authur Dent-ish-ness of it, and had gotten them all to concede to continuing to call him The Doctor. He even had it on the sign on his door, a tongue-in-cheek notification of whether The Doctor was "IN" or "OUT." It was a relatively insignificant victory that held a great deal of personal importance for him. If he accepted a different name, if he adopted a permanent pseudonym, he was admitting he was a simple copy.

He refused.

Nine hundred years of memories, the same body (more or less), the same mind, the same pains and joys, he refused to see himself as a clone, or in any way unequal. If he didn't hold himself in the same regard, Rose never could.

Rose.

He could smell her, the fine Time Lord senses dulled enough by his new body that it took him a moment, but attuned to her enough that he could pick out her perfume as it reached him from the door. Hand pressed to the glass of the tank he forced himself not to tense, and not to initiate. It was her turn, now, to come to him. He'd already made his feelings clear, said the words that he'd always felt, and he wouldn't push. Wouldn't insist.

He was as curious as he was strangely off balance. He wanted to know what happened next, and the only way to do so was to let it happen.

"Red. That's new." There was a faint sense of tension to her voice, the forced lightness that he recognized as her attempt to start them out on a playful note while she determined what to say. He took it into consideration in his answer, lips quirking into slight smile, but answered seriously. "New-New TARDIS. I assumed it would be morbidly nostalgic to recreate her as a perfect replica, and the phone boxes around here are red. I can always go break her chameleon circuit later, if we miss the blue."

"New-New TARDIS for the New-New-New Doctor?" She approached him slowly, letting the door close behind her again with a gentle shnick of the latch catching, and he found his other hand seeking her out, their palms warm against each other as he twined his fingers through hers. And it felt right. This body was made for holding her hand.

"Technically, it's more like a New-New TARDIS for the New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New. . . Newish Doctor." He let his words rattle off, a cheerful banter to rival the lightness of their conversation at New New York, and laughed as she caught on quickly, her free hand tallying the 'new's. She had always been too curious about him, about his past lives, for her own good.

For a moment, it was just The Doctor and Rose Tyler as they should be, her pointed tongue caught between her teeth in a grin, her shoulder bumping up against his in a jovial manner. He found himself daring to hope again, squeezing her hand lightly as he turned to face her, taking in her features illuminated in the soft golden light of the growing TARDIS.

It took his breath away.

"Same goofy grin, though. How soon do you think she'll be ready for us?"

Part of him wanted to rattle off the effects of modifying the dimensional stabiliser, and explain foldback harmonics to her by using a tuning fork, the sonic screwdriver, and jazz piano records, and share in the sheer elation that making it work had given him, whether she grasped the particulars or not. Part of him wanted to expound on his cleverness, build it up a bit, ensure she was aware of just how fantastic he was to have it this far already even with Donna's parting suggestions, and then astound her with impossible completion dates that he'd force himself to meet, so long as she kept holding his hand. And then there was the other voice, the quiet, almost hesitant one, that simply caught on that last single syllable utterance with so much significance, begging her to expound on "Us?"

He'd already gone with option three, before he'd had time to construct either other option into words.

"Well, someone has to keep an eye on you." The meaning is playful, the tone teasing, but at her words he can feel himself deflate. His hand feels cold and clammy after he pulls free from her grip, and he does what he has always done, or as close as he can given the circumstances, by circling the TARDIS, twiddling with dials on the outside of the tank, turning monitors to impractical angles to read results, catching his rolling chair and sailing across the room to get his sonic screwdriver from his workbench.

His mouth was back on autopilot, but in the safer way. Of everything he'd learned, and experienced, he'd always had yammering as a primary defensive maneuver.

"Ah. Yes. I thought that's what your staff here was for, to keep an eye on the dangerous half-alien in your midst. I have to say, Rose, if you're going to leave me with minders and snitches as a staff, please find me one that can make a decent cuppa. That last one made tea worse than your mother."

"Stop." She was following him slowly in his circuit, now, a bizarre dance of maintained distances, him moving when she moved, stopping when she stopped, all the while making it seem as if it was merely his tasks that kept him out of reach.

"Don't tell her I said that, though. I think your mother takes a perverse sort of pride in being the best at tormenting me, and I'd hate to deprive her of that. Three weeks! Three weeks of living in that great bloody mansion under the same roof as her until I got my flat, and I think she spent every day of it finding new and unusual ways to torture me."

"Please, just stop." There was a quiet plea in her voice, a note of desperation as she begged for reason, for a chance to say her piece. His rambling commentary continued without pause, punctuated by the whir of the screwdriver, and the squeak of one faulty wheel on the chair. He became instantly engaged by that squeak, determined to fix it, still talking.

"One of them, one of them looked like shepherd's pie. Shepherd's pie! How hard is that, really. Bit of meat, bit of mash, couple of vegetables. . . I think it was still moving. How, exactly, is it that food made predominantly from leftovers can still be trying to fight back. And she brandished a fork at me when I suggested she let the help take over the. . ."

"Doctor, please." His jaw shut with a snap mid-word, dark eyes leveling an almost palpably intent stare, and he stood with the chair between them, knuckles white as he clenched the backrest in his hands. It was a disconcerting change, a mask ripped away in the middle of a performance. The silence was nearly deafening-she could hear the hitch in her breathing, the faint rubbery squeak of her trainers on the concrete floor as she closed the distance again, knees brushing the edge of the chair that stood between them as a barrier.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. I was scared, and I was confused, and I'd just lost you again after travelling so far to find you. I needed time and you. . . you make it hard to think. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, that I left you alone." Breaking eye contact, the Doctor bowed his head, holding the chair between them as a shield. She watched him, noting the tension running through the set of his lean shoulders beneath the tailored blue jacket, the deliberate blanking of his expression as he closed his eyes. She hesitates a moment, before resting her hand over one of his on the chair, curling the tips of her fingers against his in lieu of being permitted to clasp hands with him. "After everything, after he promised. . . I was left behind. And then I did it to you, Doctor. I'm the worst sort of hypocrite, and I'm. . ."

"I didn't leave you behind." There was steel in the Doctor's tone, a rasping, rough and unyielding edge that brooked no argument. When she opened her mouth to correct him, he pinned her with a stare, eyes open again, jaw set stubbornly. "I didn't leave you behind. I made a promise to you, an impossible promise, that I would never do that to you. If I'd broken it, I could have saved you so much pain, so much loss. But I made you a promise, and the universe gave me a way to keep it at last. And I took it. You keep looking at us as separate, as different people-the one who left, and the one who stayed. The duplicate and the original. That's not the case. We're not two sides of the same coin, we're the same man-I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking it. We both saw the decisions that had to be made. I made the call to destroy the Daleks-but the thought crossed his mind, as well. We made the decision before, at the expense of Gallifrey. I'm no more a monster for it now than I was then. Of course. . ." the quick bark of laughter is mirthless, bitter, and hard. . . "I'm no less of one than I was then, either."

Rose pried the fingers of his hand up to hold it, and the Doctor didn't resist. Looking down at the back of her hand, he nodded slightly to himself, and continued-she didn't interrupt him. She didn't dare.

"Standing on that beach, we both saw the decision that had to be made. And he made the hard call, the one we both saw coming. I took on new nightmares to save the universe, and he gave up his dream to keep a promise I made to you. And I stayed." Running his thumb along the backs of her knuckles, the Doctor slowly relinquished his hold on the chair and pushed it aside with his foot, sending it rolling away with wheel still squeaking, removing the physical barrier between them while turning and flattening her hand along his, studying her palm intently. "You called me Doctor." It was a sudden change of pace once again, a shift of tone and timbre, rich and velvet. "Three times, now, in one conversation. You've never addressed me by name, not since Bad Wolf Bay. . . So I'm still the Doctor, then?"

On the top of the Sycorax ship, sword in his newly regenerated hand. . . the twin to the 'fighting hand' currently cradling her own. . . the weight of the question had still been there, regardless of the tone. He'd changed in front of her, transformed into a new man, and he was uncertain that their relationship would withstand it. Now, everything hinged on her answer again, and there were no distractions to downplay the gravity of it all. In the end, there was only one response she could give.

"No arguments from me."

His grin that lit his face was transformative, stripping away the pain and uncertainty and leaving behind the same man she'd seen glimpses of since their first encounter, the smile she'd recognize whatever face he might have ended up with. "Now, that would be a change." His free hand snaked around her waist as she flung her arms around him, face buried in his shoulder, laughter bubbling up with her relief as he spun her, toes barely brushing the ground.

"I missed you." The words were muffled against his neck, but he hummed his agreement nonetheless, dropping her back down to her feet eventually, his back flattened against the glass of the tank as he loosened his hold on her, flashing his cheeky smile again. "Quite right, too. Now. . . do you still trust me, Rose? I want to show you something fantastic."

Eyebrow arched she bit her tongue, grinning suggestively. For once, he didn't miss the significance.

"Oi! Mind out of the gutter. That's the problem with you humans, always letting hormones get in the way of thinking. " Pausing, he considered the situation a moment, before resting his forehead against hers, eyes narrowing. "I'm mostly human in that regard now, aren't I? That's going to get interesting. Wait, it is going to get interesting, isn't it?" He shouldn't have sounded so hopeful. It was getting him entirely off track, and she wasn't helping at all, biting her lip like that and standing so near him. He scowled at her without heat, and unable to keep the expression despite the fact that she was doing a very poor job at stifling her laughter at his expense. And she hadn't answered the question either, too busy shaking with mirth. Injustice, thy name is woman. "Ahem. Time and a place for it. Sorry. Where was I? Ah. Yes. Trust."

Taking her captured hand up between them, he let the smile slide mostly away, looking for her permission first. Lip quirking up again, Rose nodded, head canting to the side in curiosity. "I trust you, Doctor. Always."

His tug on her wrist sets her slightly off balance, leaning heavily into him and pinning him against the glass of the tank. Glass that was cool under her fingertips, as he pressed their hands to it together behind him, dropping his chin to bring his lips closer to her ear as his other arm slid around her back to fix her there against his chest. "Close your eyes for me, then, and listen."

She was going to ask what for, going to question his motives, or give up and take advantage of having him at her disposal, but she heard something, a sound at the edge of her consciousness just out of the range of hearing. Closing her eyes she tried to chase it down, and it strengthened slowly. Lilting music, beautiful and tuneless, a melody that seemed to dance through her mind, growing stronger as it did.

It was almost familiar, almost. . . something. Resting her cheek against the Doctor's chest, she listened through him, the steady pounding of his single heart adding a rhythm to the song that seemed to adjust to match it. She could hear the murmured words rumble through his chest as he began a quiet explanation, without seeming compelled to move either of them at the moment. The music floated around the words, an ebb and flow of sound that rose and fell with his voice. "It's her. It's the TARDIS, singing. She just started today, only a few hours before you walked in. . . I was listening to her when you did, and she recognized you. Changed the whole song, having you here. Lighter, happier-better than she was getting from a morose old human Time Lord like me." He pressed a kiss to her hair, then, shifting to brace his feet against the concrete so he could half lounge with her against him, the burbling tank of the TARDIS to keep him upright.

"Clever girl, she is. . . one little shard of coral, but she remembered us. And she's so alive, Rose. She's alive, and she's growing, and she's learning. Learning me. It's a bond, you know. I could always feel her, hear her, just like this. And now. . . " She could feel his smile, feel his joy-the sound of it reflected in the song in her mind. "Now she's bonding to you, too. She was your home as much as mine, from the moment you set foot in her. And now this one, she'll know you from the start, without hundreds of years of my bad influence beforehand. She'll be yours. . ." Hooking his fingertip beneath her chin, the Doctor raised Rose's gaze back to him, offering her the quirk of a smile, laced with hope and trepidation. ". . .like me, if you'll have me."

At Bad Wolf Bay, there had been a slamming TARDIS door to interrupt them, pain and loss, her mother and Donna and his other self looking on, their closest relations stacked about them like some sort of mad soap opera audience, spectators for a private moment. This time, when she tugged his lips down to hers, pulling him away from the glass by the lapels of his jacket, there was only them and the TARDIS, no interruptions, and an entire future before them.

The song shifted dramatically, and for the moment neither of them cared.

Author's Note: Here's hoping I didn't run too long, either-apparently, the Doctor brings out my own inherent wordiness. Meanwhile, if you're a Buffy fan, you may understand the significance of my making the phone box red. It's not my fault Joss Whedon's had Rose and the Doctor and a red phone box scattered throughout the background of Season 8. . .