based on/inspired by the amazing poem 25 Lives. (google it. it's the first result and on livejournal)

I didn't have a particular Doctor or Doctors in mind when I wrote this but I had to put something in the pairing section. So it's a choose your own Doctor adventure! And you can choose more than one! Anyways, I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think. I know it's different from what I normally write.

Also I know, I know. Two fics in as many days and still no update on Watch it Burn. I'm working on it, I promise. These are fics I already had written and am just moving here from tumblr.

The first time he met her it felt like everything just clicked into place, like he had been waiting thirty years just to meet her. It made no sense, John Smith was already happy in his life, fulfilling career, lots of friends, purposefully single and always very practical.

That is, he did not believe in love at first sight.

But somehow this blonde girl waltzed in and out of his life within twenty minutes and everything was different.

Her name was Rose and she was twenty five and worked as an artist and she was in no way interested in getting coffee with him.

It didn't matter how kindly she turned him down, it still felt like his heart was going to shatter.

(Nothing made sense, a stranger should not be able to break his heart.)

Life went on and John never saw the mysterious Rose again but he thought about her a lot, wondering who she was. Wondering how life would be now if they'd met at a different time, if things had gone differently.

If you'd asked him if he believed in life after death while he laid in a hospital bed, he would have said no, that one life was already too much for some people and had been enough for him.

Before he drew his last breath, John thought about her one more time. His Rose who had stolen his heart inadvertently and wondered one last time what could have been.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

If asked, John would have said that the theory of reincarnation was a ridiculous one but given the fact that he had memories of a life he hadn't lived, he was forced to reconsider.

The memories weren't sharp, more like a dream half-remembered. Certain events stood out though, things that had been important to him in that life.

Rose.

Apparently one life wasn't enough time to pine over a girl who had probably forgotten about his existence an hour after they met. And he wasn't necessarily pining, it was more a longing. Longing for that chance to get to know her, to hear her laugh, to see that bright smile of hers somewhere other than his own mind.

He almost had a heart attack when she walked up to him in a coffee shop and started chatting him up when he was 23.

She looked the same, Rose did. Twinkling brown eyes, wide smile, brown hair instead of blonde this time though. He didn't want to question his luck when they exchanged phone numbers and agreed to get coffee together sometime.

Maybe this whole reincarnation thing wasn't so bad after all, not if he got a second chance to make this work.

Coffee dates turned into dinners and shy kisses before heading the opposite way at a street corner. Slowly, she fell in love with him.

(He never tells her that he's been in love with her for two lifetimes now.)

This time when he took his last breath, she was in his thoughts again but he had no regrets about the life that he'd spent with her.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He never expected to inhabit another body. Had he been cursed to live his life over and over again as some celestial punishment that he didn't understand?

That didn't even make sense. It wasn't like he was living the same life over and over (at least so far). He looked different every time, had different family and friends. He was always John though.

And he was always looking for Rose.

She was his constant through these shifting lives.

Life number three she was blonde once again and they had a one night stand and he never saw her again.

Life number four he never found her.

They were childhood best friends in life number five, growing up together and getting into all sorts of mischief. She always went along with his stupid ideas and he loved her all the more for it.

That is…until one of his stupid ideas got them both killed.

Eventually, (lives number eight and ten) even when they grow up together, she learns how to talk him out of his bad ideas. He just had to give her more time to figure him out and not do something stupid at fifteen that he couldn't undo.

Rose is harder to get close to when they meet as adults. She always kind but she's guarded. Had her heart broken too many times to carelessly let a stranger in to trample it some more.

He makes stupid mistakes but somehow she always forgives him.

John falls in love with her more and more every second they're together.

Sometimes she's completely happy without him. Married and successful and living a picture perfect life (one that he's lived with her before).

Sometimes, she doesn't exist.

(Even when she didn't exist he still loved her.)

Too many times, they never meet. Maybe there's a glimpse of her smile in a crowd or on a train going the opposite direction but they never speak and she lives her life not knowing that he exists.

John prefers the times that she's killed him over those.

He wonders now if the cycle is ever going to end. If he lives his life the "right way" will it all stop?

(He drives Rose away once with his relentless search for perfection.)

(He drives her away many times because he moves too fast or forgets that she doesn't know him as well as he knows her.)

He treasures the lives that it works out and he gets to see her when he wakes up in the morning, hair (blonde, brown, even red a couple of times) a mess and limbs sprawled across their bed. The lives where he memorizes her body with his fingertips and lips and gets to see her fall apart for him. They travel the world together, piece by piece, life by life and he mourns the fact that she doesn't ever remember all they've been through together.

Maybe one day.

Maybe that's what he's searching for through all of these lives; the version of her that remembers, that knows him.

It seems fair that he's the one searching. She's his light and his beacon, his guiding star and without her he'd be nothing. Without him, she still shines brilliantly.

So he searches and chases her across lifetimes, hoping to one day find the life where they know each other.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He's lost count of how many lives he's lived when it happens. Twenty five? Fifty? Hundreds?

It doesn't matter because all of a sudden she's standing in front of him, eyes glassy and full of love, blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail.

"It's you," she breathes.

"You remember?" John can't believe it, this feels like a dream.

"Yes. I've known you forever, spent lifetimes with you and lifetimes missing you without knowing what I missed."

"You really remember everything?"

"From the first time we met and I turned down your offer for coffee to the days we spent in bed and the long plane trips when we decided to travel. I remember marrying you multiple times and running away from you just as often. I don't know why I only remember now but…I remember all of it, John."

"Rose," he breathes, reaching out and twining his fingers with hers.

When their lips meet, he feels the world click into place around him again and he knows this is what he's been searching for.