Chapter Twelve—Epilogue

Once the TARDIS was in the Vortex, the Time Rotor stopped moving. The Doctor had not programmed in any destination coordinates, so there the TARDIS hung, so to speak, neither here nor there, not in any particular where or when.

The console room was silent save for the ever-present quiet hum of the TARDIS itself and the sound of the Doctor's own breathing. Sounds that seemed overly loud to him at the moment.

The Doctor sat, head in hands, on the stairs that led from the console area to the upper ring that circled the room. Deep down, from the minute he had asked her to come with, no from the second he had seen her across the park, he knew it had to end the way that it had. He had known he would have to give her up yet again, but somehow he hadn't been prepared for how much it would hurt.

And oh, how it hurt.

It always hurt when people left, but there was a separate level of pain in losing Rose, a ripping of his soul that he knew now he'd never fully recover from, no matter how many regenerations he had, no matter how long he lived.

But as he sat there, he suddenly felt an unmistakable tingle in his skin. He looked up sharply, eyes wide with shock as new memories filtered through to him, coming to rest alongside his original ones.

The timeline had shifted.

THE TIMELINE HAD SHIFTED.

But why had it shifted?

His mind raced as he recalled the events of the last 24 hours. Bringing Rose back to her correct time and locking away her memories as well as those of his younger self should have restored the timeline to its original one. But when he had locked Rose's memories away, he had had to leave her memories of knowing him as Harry. Her meeting him was part of the original timeline, part of the original time loop that had brought him to the Powell Estate in the first place. But in locking up her memories, he had forgotten to smudge the memory of him calling his younger self her boyfriend, which was the thing that had caused the first timeline shift.

And she had remembered him saying it. And time had shifted.

From the moment of their first real kiss in the console room, things were different between them. No longer content to just be best friends, their relationship grew closer and more intimate by the day. They had tried to take things slow, but simple kisses quickly gave way to explorations with hands and lips and tongues. Until finally, on an impossible planet circling a black hole, they made love for the first time.

Originally, the Doctor remembered, they had only had months together after Krop Tor. But now they had had years. Instead of returning to the Powell Estate every few weeks to see Jackie, they spent months—once even a year—between visits, time together they hadn't had in the original timeline.

And a year after his visit to the Powell Estate, alone on a distant planet with sky rays circling overhead, his younger self and Rose had committed themselves to spending the rest of her life together. She had promised him forever, and he had promised never to leave her. It hadn't been a formal ceremony, but to them it had been as binding as any marriage could be.

Unfortunately, in the new timeline, despite his gob, despite the extra time together, despite everything that had changed between them, he still had never been able to articulate the words to tell her how he felt about her. Somehow, though, she had always known he loved her.

But then the Cybermen came. And he still lost her.

As had happened in the original timeline, he had sent her away to protect her, and she had returned, refusing to leave him. But this time, instead of arguing with her, he had quickly made harnesses for them to wear while the Void was open. But Rose had accidentally slipped out of hers. And as it had happened originally, she had been caught by Pete and trapped in the parallel universe.

Some things were fixed points, and evidently losing Rose at Canary Wharf was one of them.

Losing her had come close to destroying him, and if it weren't for Martha and Donna, he might have given up.

Eventually he met up with Jack again and retrieved his hand. For some reason he didn't understand, he wasn't surprised that Jack had had it, although the thought of his hand being in Jack's possession made him slightly queasy. As soon as he had gotten it back he had had a niggling feeling in the back of his mind that he should dispose of it, but he figured it was safe enough sitting under the console of the TARDIS, and besides, he loved his hand. If nothing else, it was a wonderful conversation piece.

Despite a deep sense of unease, he still went to the Library, telling himself that if he stopped going places that he felt uneasy about, he'd never go anywhere. The trip ended the same way as it had originally, because his Eleventh self had still taken Amy and Rory on a honeymoon trip.

Well, he had never said that his Tenth self had a monopoly on idiocy.

But then after the Library the Earth had been stolen and Rose had returned.

But in his joy of seeing her again he still didn't duck, and his meta-crisis self had been created out of the spare hand he had kept under the console.

The beach on Bad Wolf Bay in the parallel Norway was just as painful in the new timeline as in the original.

He hadn't wanted to leave her on Pete's World, but he had felt he had no other choice. His meta-crisis self was him as well. But she hadn't understood that.

"That's me when we first met," he said, willing her to understand.

"But it's not right," she said. "Because the Doctor's... still you."

"And I'm him," he told her.

He thought she finally understood when she stopped him and asked them both what they would have said the last time she had been on that beach.

"I said 'Rose Tyler'," he told her.

"Yeah, and how was that sentence gonna end?"

"Does it need saying?" he asked.

"And you, Doctor?" she said to his meta-crisis self. "What was the end of that sentence?"

He saw his other self bend towards her to whisper in her ear.

And then things changed again.

Her jaw dropped and a puzzled expression came over her face. She stared at each of them in turn, and then slowly shook her head. And then as she briefly kissed his meta-crisis self he turned to walk to the TARDIS.

And she stopped him.

"Doctor, wait!"

He froze. In front of him, already at the TARDIS door stood Donna, waiting for him, and he heard Rose's footsteps run up behind him. He knew he needed to leave, but he had never been able to deny Rose Tyler anything. He saw Donna nod. He steeled himself, putting on an emotionless mask before turning back to her. Over her shoulder, he saw his meta-crisis self still standing where she had left him, looking nervous and confused.

"Rose, please don't make this any harder than it already is," he said, unable to stop his voice from breaking. "You can't stay with both of us, and he is me."

"I know," she said. "You told me yourself, a long time ago, although I didn't understand what you meant at the time. You said to me, 'Remember deep down in your heart that I love you, even if I don't tell you again until we are on a deserted beach farther away than you could possibly imagine.'" She turned and looked at the Doctor in blue before turning back to him.

"I don't remember ever saying that," he told her.

"It's alright," she said. "You will."

She crossed the distance between them and laid a hand on his face. "You weren't even going to let me say goodbye?" she asked.

He hadn't thought his shattered hearts could break further, but he had been wrong.

"Don't make me say goodbye to you."

She shook her head. "It's not goodbye for you," she said. "You'll see me again."

"Rose, once I leave, the walls of the universe will be sealed, and you won't be able to come back again."

"You will see me again," she told him. "I promise."

"You can't promise that," he said.

"Yes, I can. Because it's already happened for me."

His jaw dropped, and he stared at her. Then she stood on her tiptoes, pulled his head down to hers and kissed him. Unable to stop himself, he wrapped his arms around her and sank into the kiss. But when the TARDIS groaned, reminding them that the cracks between the dimensions were sealing, she let go of him and took a few steps backwards. And he saw his meta-crisis self step forward to join her before he turned and walked back to the TARDIS.

Her words changed things. Despite losing her, in the new timeline he now had hope, where originally there had only been hopelessness. The hope of seeing her again kept him from feeling sorry for himself and from making some of the mistakes he had in the original timeline.

He didn't isolate himself as he had originally. He didn't travel with anyone, but he did visit Mickey and Martha. And Sarah Jane. And Jack.

He didn't stay away from Queen Elizabeth, but he didn't marry her either. Or anyone else.

And he never went to Mars.

He still gave his life to save Wilf, but this time he didn't rant and whinge about it.

And true to her word, he did see her again.

And then again right before he regenerated.

And ever so briefly in his eleventh life.

And each time he had seen her he thought, this, this is what she meant.

But she hadn't.

She had meant this time. With this him.

But then again, maybe she hadn't, he thought to himself. He had been wrong before. Maybe he would see her yet again. After all, Rose Tyler ate impossible for breakfast.

And with that hope he felt the darkness of this regeneration recede a bit.

Because, he reminded himself, even a Time Lord didn't always know the future.