AN: This is a prequel to the Being to Timelessness 'verse. I'd call it "canon if you squint," because we don't know what the Doctor saw when he held the Vortex for those few seconds, and from here, nothing has to change. The canon version of Tooth and Claw can still happen... or the version in To Make Much of Time can happen.

The Doctor looked at his precious Rose, standing in the doorway to the TARDIS with eternity in her eyes. He'd never imagined she was the Bad Wolf.

"The power is going to kill you, and it's my fault." He looked away from Rose; he'd always known he would lose her one day, but not like this. Not so soon.

"I can see everything."

Those words drew his gaze back to her. Time danced around Rose, and he knew exactly what she meant by everything.

"All that is, all that was, all that ever could be."

The Doctor swallowed hard. Time. Rose was seeing timelines—humans weren't meant to have that kind of awareness.

He pushed himself off the floor and stared down at her. "That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?"

Tear tracks stained her cheeks. "My head."

"Come here." The Doctor held his arms out for Rose. Saving her would kill him, but he would regenerate. Better for me to die once than for her to die forever.

"It's killing me," Rose sobbed, not knowing how much fear struck his hearts with those words.

"I think you need a Doctor." Rose went willingly into his arms, and the Doctor bent his head pressed a tender kiss to her lips.

For a moment, he felt the sheer pleasure of her soft lips against his. He used the contact to form a telepathic link, going into Rose's mind and hiding everything that had happened since she'd looked into the Vortex. The gold-tinged pink of her mental signature concerned him, reminding him too much of how she'd looked when she'd stepped out of the TARDIS, haloed by the light of Time.

Then the Vortex passed from Rose to him, and he lost sight of everything but Time.

With Rose in his arms and the ability to see everything that could ever be, he peeked at her potential timelines. Looking ahead, he saw the most likely timeline, where she was separated from him by the Void.

No!

The Doctor turned away from that future and searched for a way to keep Rose. In so many of her potential timelines, their time together ended abruptly, but one was entwined with his in a way that seemed… but how could he bond with her, when she'd wither and die?

He studied that timeline and sucked in a breath at its perfection. The Doctor and Rose Tyler, forever. Rose, as the Bad Wolf, with a lifespan that matched his. She would even do something to extend his life to match hers.

The glimpse he caught of his future self, the man he would soon regenerate into, tickled at his memory. He'd seen that face before, on the day he'd pushed the button and ended it all. Rose and his future self had been there, but how?

The Vortex burned through his veins, and he pushed that question aside. He'd forget about it after he let go of the Vortex anyway—he wouldn't remember anything he'd seen, actually.

That thought made him frown. He wanted that future with Rose, but he knew himself. He'd never open up enough to her to make it happen, unless he didn't have a choice.

Following the timeline with their forever back to where it split off from the prime timeline, the Doctor found the moment that connected him with Rose. An accidental empathic connection that couldn't be blocked or broken, of course. How could he pretend he didn't love her when she knew he did?

He scanned the surrounding timelines, looking for a way to make sure that happened, but Rose's timeline fractured with the slightest manipulation.

In the end, he could only plant a clue. Reaching through Time, the Doctor found the werewolf and gave him a brief glimpse of Rose's true nature.

"The Wolf. There is something of the Wolf about you."

Now, it was up to Rose to remember that curious statement and ask his future self about it. Their forever hinged on that moment, and as he sent the Vortex back into the heart of the TARDIS and caught Rose in his arms, he hoped the hint had been enough.