Prompt: 11/Rose, Roaring 20s, Secret relationship. The song Rose sings is, of course, "Stardust."

Once Again With You

Clara watched the Doctor spin in wild circles around the console as he flew them away from Caliburn House. Outwardly, he was behaving exactly as he always did at the end of a successful adventure, but today, there was something melancholy under his childlike glee. She thought about what had happened with the creature caught in the pocket dimension, wondering what could have put him in that mood.

"It's the oldest story in the universe, this one or any other. Boy and girl fall in love, get separated by events. … Since then they've been yearning for each other across time and space, across dimensions. This isn't a ghost story; it's a love story!"

The memory hit her like a bolt of lightning, and she sat up straight in the chair. His tone of voice when he'd explained about the separated lovers—there had been painful experience buried deep there.

"Doctor," she said tentatively, "how did you know they were lovers?"

His gaze lifted up from the console to meet hers, then returned to the controls. "I'm twelve hundred years old, Clara. Sometimes, I just know things."

"Yeah but… have you ever been in love?"

She watched him carefully. The Doctor would lie, he would use misdirection to get her off his trail. But she was learning his tells. He froze just for a minute, then moved with jerky motions to the neighbouring panel.

Gotcha.

"Again, let me point out my age." The Doctor adjusted his bow tie. "I think it's safe to say I've been in love a time or two."

His hand drifted down to the charm on his double Albert chain. Clara had admired the white enamel rose before, but he'd never given any inkling that it was sentimental.

The Doctor spun around to face her before she could ask any more questions. "We finished up at Caliburn House earlier than I thought we would. What would you say to one more quick trip—just for fun this time?"

Clara blinked. "Yeah, sure," she agreed, still trying to catch up with the conversation.

"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "I think… Go to the wardrobe room and pick out something to wear, and then I'll take you someplace where you'll fit in."

The Doctor's empty hand clenched into a fist after Clara walked away. Don't let go—that's what he'd told Major Palmer and Emma. Because he knew better than anyone what happened when you let go. You ended up sad and alone, without the love of your lives by your side.

His eyes stung, but he knew the tears wouldn't fall. He'd cried so many tears for Rose Tyler, and now, three hundred years after the last time he'd seen her, they just stuck in the back of his throat, making it impossible to swallow.

Did you have a fantastic life for me, Rose?

He tried not to think about Rose's life with his metacrisis, because despite his insistence that the other man was still him, he wasn't this him. This him had no memories of a life with Rose, of waking up to her face every morning, of sharing laughter and tears and everything else humans did so well.

This him hadn't seen Rose since he'd said goodbye to her as he was regenerating. He'd been tempted to go back, but beyond the fact that it was dangerous to cross his timeline like that, the agony of seeing absolutely no recognition on her face had tainted the sweetness of hearing her voice.

He could still picture her, in her bright pink coat and matching hat, when he told her she was going to have a really great year. She wasn't his Rose, not yet, but the woman he'd fallen in love with was there in her indulgent amusement. Who would have thought the last words he would hear her say would be a casual goodbye to a stranger?

The click of heels drew him back to the present, and he whirled around to look at Clara. "Well!" He clasped his hands in front of him. "In the mood for the Roaring 20s, Miss Oswald?" He looked closely at her black and silver flapper dress. "1927, I'd say. Close enough, anyway."

The Doctor spun back to the console and started setting the controls. "London… Do you want to go to a club?" He waved off her answer and turned a dial. "Of course you want to go to a club, stupid question. Why else would you put on a dress like that if you didn't want to go out?"

Clara laughed at him and skipped lightly towards the doors as he threw the lever. "Why else indeed?" she teased. "Although I think we're missing something important in this whole ensemble."

The Doctor looked at her blankly, and she sighed. "Money, Doctor. I can't go using credit sticks, or expecting to be able to pay the cover charge with my mum's ring."

"Ah. Of course." The Doctor fiddled with his sonic screwdriver, then put it back in his pocket. The first cash machine wouldn't be installed for another forty years, so he couldn't just use the sonic. "Just a second…" He rummaged in his pockets, then bent down and pulled out the same trunk he'd found his bow tie in. "I know I've got some good ones in here somewhere…"

That was the thing about money. It changed periodically, and for some reason, humans seemed to think it was a good idea to put the date on it. Not only did he need to make sure he gave Clara currency from before decimalisation, it couldn't say 1956 or something on it.

Clara tapped the toe of her shiny black shoe against the deck and shook her head. She'd only been travelling with the Doctor for a few months—and only on Wednesdays—but she'd already figured out he brought humans along because he needed a minder.

"Ah-hah!" he crowed finally, popping back up with a wallet in hand. "Money! Current money—contemporary to where we are right now, I mean." He handed Clara the wallet, then shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his feet.

"You're not coming?" she realised.

The Doctor's eyes widened and he blinked rapidly. "Did you want me to?"

"It's not that fun to go out by myself," she pointed out. The Doctor still hesitated, so she tried to negotiate. "Why don't I go get us a table, and you can come join me in a few minutes, once you get cleaned up?"

oOoOoOoOo

Rose weaved her way through the tables, playing her part as the club's headliner to put a smile on the customer's faces before she even reached the stage. A word here, a wink there—there was a reason Monaghan's had been the most popular jazz club in London since her arrival two years ago.

She flinched imperceptibly as she thought about the year. 1929. It would be nice to find the Doctor before the year was out… Somehow living through the Depression had a lot less allure than the Roaring Twenties.

The peculiar prickling up her spine that she'd long since realised were timelines nudging at her pulled her attention to a young brunette girl sitting alone at a table not far from the stage. Rose offered one last smile to the gentleman she was talking to, then made her way towards the girl.

"Mind if I join you for a minute?" she asked, pointing at the empty chair.

The girl looked towards the door, then nodded. "Go ahead," she offered. "I'm expecting a friend, but he has a habit of forgetting he's agreed to be someplace."

Rose laughed as she sat down. "I know the type," she said. "Always busy in his own little world, forgets the rest of us humans are here sometimes?" Her companion nodded, and excitement built in Rose's stomach when she didn't blink at the word humans. "I'm Rose, by the way."

"Clara." She saluted with her champagne flute. "So tell me, Rose, did you ever figure out any tricks I might use to keep him in the real world?"

"Constant reminders when it's important, and letting it go when it isn't," Rose said automatically. Fifty years of married life with her Doctor had taught her a lot about compromise and picking her battles.

The key she still wore around her neck turned warm at the same time as Clara suddenly smiled towards the door. Rose turned around, and her gaze immediately landed on a gangly, youthful man wearing a purple frock coat and bow tie.

It didn't matter that sixty years had passed since Bad Wolf Bay, or that he'd changed his face again. In his eyes she saw the same fearful hope that was coursing through her veins, and she knew this gangly, bow-tied man had to be the Doctor.

Those green eyes widened when they landed on her, and he froze in the middle of the club. They stared at each other for a long moment, and then the Doctor bolted.

Clara's jaw dropped when the Doctor took off running, but there was a wry smile on Rose's face, like she'd almost expected it. Rose. The name clicked, and she shook her head at the Doctor's emotional incompetence.

"I'm sorry, Rose," she said as she stood up. "I'd better go after him. Don't worry; I won't let him leave."

The Doctor was already three streets down by the time she caught up with him, running his hands through his hair and pacing under a gas streetlamp.

"Doctor, why did you run?"

His hands flapped at his sides. "I didn't run. I just needed to… to get some air."

"Liar." The Doctor started walking again, and Clara jogged to keep up with him. "She's the one, isn't she? Rose is the one you love."

The sudden tension across his shoulders answered her question.

"But if you love her, what are you doing out here?"

The Doctor stopped so suddenly that Clara ran into him. He whirled around, and she hopped back to avoid his flailing arms.

"Do you know how many times I've said goodbye to Rose Tyler?" he asked, his voice thick with sorrow. "I've lost count, frankly. Sometimes she came back—most of the time she came back. But twice…" He clutched the rose charm again.

His obvious grief tugged at Clara's heart, but she wasn't going to let him walk away from Rose. "Do you know what Emma told me, Doctor? She told me that love is the one thing that doesn't end." She put a hand on the middle of his back and pushed him towards the club. "Maybe you had to say goodbye all those other times so you could finally have your happy ending now."

"But—"

"Rose is back there in the club, probably wondering why you ran off. Don't you at least want to talk to her?"

The Doctor swallowed. He wanted to do so much more than talk to her. Three hundred years without her had done nothing to diminish his love for Rose Tyler. He'd barely survived losing her the last time… but Clara was right. He couldn't just disappear, not when he knew she was here.

He tried to steel himself for the inevitable farewell—no matter what Clara thought, he knew how Rose Tyler got her happily ever after, and it wasn't with him. After he talked to her, he would have to send her on, until she finally found him in that dark street where a Dalek lurked, unbeknownst to them both.

But something kept pulling at him, keeping him from putting up barriers to protect his hearts. He didn't want to think about saying goodbye to Rose again, not when she was right here, looking gorgeous as ever in the black beaded flapper dress.

He froze with his hand on the club door. Why is she in period dress? If she landed this far off-target, why didn't she just recharge her dimension cannon and jump back. Another though followed quickly on the heels of that one. And how did her dimension cannon send her across time?

Hope grew in his hearts, though he tried to fight it. Maybe Clara was right, and the universe was finally going to be kind to him.

oOoOoOoOo

Rose had been utterly unsurprised when the Doctor ran off without a word. That didn't mean she was going to let him get away from her. Clara's reassurance was unexpected, but despite the hint that his current companion knew who she was, she had every intention of being in the TARDIS when he reached her.

But the club's manager caught her on her way to her dressing room and scowled. "What are you doing back here, Tyler?" he barked. "You're on in two minutes."

Before she could argue, a familiar presence hummed reassuringly in her head, and Rose smiled at her boss. "Sorry, Charlie," she said and darted down the hallway to the stage. Even if Clara couldn't keep him grounded, the TARDIS could.

For the first time in her career, Rose broke the cardinal rule of a stage performer and didn't look at the audience once. Or rather, she did, but her gaze kept drifting towards the door. Charlie was at the back of the room, and judging by the way his arms were crossed over his chest, he didn't miss her breach of etiquette.

But when Clara and the Doctor entered the club just before her last song, Rose didn't care what Charlie thought. She turned to the band and gave a quiet direction, then offered a sunny smile at the audience, who clapped politely.

"I've got time for one more song tonight, and I'd like to introduce you to a new number that means a lot to me. It's a song about… Well, you'll figure it out."

Rose took a breath while the band played the opening bars, and then began to sing.

And now the purple dusk of twilight time

Steals across the meadows of my heart

High up in the sky the little stars climb

Always reminding me that we're apart

The Doctor's shoulders stiffened the moment she opened her mouth, and his eyes flew to hers. She'd hoped he would know it; counted on it, really. Would he realise the truth of the words she sang, realise she was not the Rose Tyler who had traveled across dimensions because the stars were going out?

You wander down the lane and far away

Leaving me a song that will not die

Love is now the stardust of yesterday

The music of the years gone by

Her throat closed up on the last words, giving them a husky quality. So many years with her Doctor, with the one who had been willing to give her the words on that beach. They'd had a good life together, and then he'd left her behind, unable to die and follow after him the way it was supposed to happen.

She had to close her eyes then, the presence of the current Doctor making her memories of her husband hurt even more. Because he was here, but he wasn't… It was like the first time she'd watched him regenerate all over again, only worse somehow.

The nightingale tells his fairy tale

A paradise where roses bloom

Though I dream in vain

In my heart it will remain

My stardust melody

The memory of love's refrain

The thunderous applause broke into Rose's private reverie. She opened her eyes with a jolt and looked around the club, trying not to look at the Doctor. There was so much to be said between them, but it needed to be said in words, not in looks and gestures that could be misinterpreted.

She smiled and dropped a curtsy, then put the mic back on the stand and left the stage. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Doctor and Clara slip out the back of the club, and she knew where she would find them. She took a quick moment to grab her bag out of her dressing room, then found Charlie.

"That was a gorgeous number, Doll," he said, all his earlier irritation forgotten in the wave of adulation she'd received. "You've got some pipes, I'm telling you." He handed her her cut of the night's take.

Rose stuck the money in her bag. "Thanks, Charlie. Look, you've been great about hiring me and letting me work without a contract. But I'm afraid tonight needs to be my last night."

His smile disappeared. "What? Why?"

She slung her bag over her shoulder. "I've been waiting for a friend, and he finally found me tonight. And I've been waiting for a long time, so I'm not going to let this chance go."

He pursed his lips, but finally nodded. "All right, whatever. It's not like I've got a choice, do I?"

"Susie is ready to take over as headliner," Rose offered. "Her voice is just as good as mine."

"Susie doesn't have your way with people, Rose."

"She'll learn." Rose smiled, then held out her hand. After he shook it, she darted out of the club without looking back.

The TARDIS was on the opposite street corner, and Rose had to fight back the tears she felt at seeing the blue box that had been her home for the first time in so many years. The ship's song crescendoed, and Rose rested her hand on the bright blue door before retrieving the key from where it rested between her breasts.

"Oh, you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," she breathed when she walked into the new console room. The blueish green light she remembered remained the same, but now instead of coral struts, the room was completely open, with gleaming roundels lining the walls.

"That's what I said, the very first time I saw her."

Rose turned around and looked at the Doctor again. "I know."

He swallowed hard and nodded. "How long has it been for you, since Bad Wolf Bay?"

"You mean, since you left me behind with your metacrisis?" Rose corrected, wanting to make sure they were speaking of the same event.

The Doctor flinched. "Well… yes."

"It's all right, Doctor." Rose paused, then shook her head. "Well, it isn't, and we'll have to talk about how you are not allowed to just leave me places, but it worked out. We had a good life together, for fifty years."

He mouthed the words, and Rose chuckled wryly. "We should have remembered what Bad Wolf Bay was named after. We'd been married for six years when we realised I wasn't ageing, at all."

"And… the metacrisis?"

Rose blinked back tears. "He had one life, and he spent it with me. Just like he promised."

"Oh, Rose." The Doctor's voice broke. "I'm so sorry. I never wanted you to know what that was like."

"I'm not sorry." Rose swiped at her eyes and looked at this new Doctor. "How could I be sorry when we had fifty amazing years together, in our TARDIS, flying through space and time together?"

A smile teased the corners of his mouth, despite the lingering sorrow in his eyes. "The Doctor in the TARDIS with Rose Tyler."

"Just as it should be," Rose finished.

A brief, awkward pause followed. Rose wasn't ready to fall into this Doctor's arms, and judging by the way his hands flapped briefly before he shoved them into his pockets, he didn't know what to do either.

Weariness finally prompted her to speak. "Could I…" She pointed to the stairs. "Is my room still where it used to be?"

The Doctor tried to straighten his floppy hair. "Oh. But I thought we…"

Rose shook her head. "We've got a lot to talk about, Doctor, but right now, I'm tired and I want to sleep."

He nodded quickly. "Of course you do. And I think you'll find the TARDIS, as always, will do anything you ask—so yes, your room should be right where you remember it."

Relief coursed through her. "Thank you, Doctor." She hesitated as she passed him, then stretched up on her toes and brushed a kiss over his cheek. "Good night."

He flushed adorably, and his hands started fluttering again. One finally settled on her cheek, and Rose leaned into his caress as he brushed a strand of hair back over her ear. "Welcome home, Rose Tyler."