Chances Come In Threes

by: doctorrosetyler

Summary: The Doctor believed that their chance was over. Their time was up, and he had missed out on it. He had left himself behind on that beach. Their second chance. Little did he know that chances come in threes.

Disclaimer: If I owned Doctor Who, Rose would be a permanent character and David Tennant would have had a lifelong contract.

It had been three hundred and seven years for him. Three hundred and seven years since he last saw his Rose. When he left himself and his love on that beach, he had never imagined he would make it back through to the alternate universe. His aching loneliness inclined him to find a way. He loved her, and he wanted to see their life together. He wanted to know how happy he and Rose were, even if it wasn't really him anymore. He had left the big hair and traded it for floppy hair and a bow tie. And now he was about to step out onto Dalig Ulv Stranden. Bad Wolf Bay.

After so many lonely years, he had begun to look at the void and try to find a way across it. At first, his plan was to force his way through, but that would just shatter the two worlds. He had to make a bridge without breaking anything. So he grew a tunnel.

The physics involved was murder, and finding a vortex maker that could power through the void slow enough to avoid breaking it was almost impossible. But he had done it.

The only problem was he had no idea what time it was in this world. He only hoped that he could find some memoirs of himself and Rose. He only wanted to know what had become of her. He still loved her. He still ached for her. River had helped his wounds heal, but she had never replaced his Rose in his hearts. She couldn't. How could a star compete with a supernova?

He took a deep breath, trying to assuage his fears. The monitor looked okay, so he stepped out of the TARDIS doors. He was met with cold, biting wind and wet sand. The doors closed behind him with an unhappy chime. His ship was rather rude when she was cold.

There were a few new things on this deserted beach. There were footprints in the sand, small and large, and they lead to a small white house nestled at the bottom of the hills. It seemed so homey, and he smiled when he noticed a small girl in a pink sweater building a sandcastle near the front porch. He approached her, helping her by handing her a bucket that had blown away in the cold wind.

The little girl was very young, maybe six or seven. She had beautiful brown eyes and blonde hair, which was styled in pigtails. Her cheeks were a bright, healthy pink and she smiled at him. Her smile looked so familiar- it made his hearts ping in his chest.

"Thank you, mister!" she said, in a small but happy voice.

He couldn't help but smile at her. "You're welcome. You know, your mother isn't going to like you getting so much sand on that lovely pink sweater."

The little girl's face scrunched up in annoyance. "You sound just like my papa. This is my favorite color!" She smiled proudly, as though those two topics were somehow related and she had put them together perfectly. Her eyes were so familiar the Doctor was almost convinced that he agreed.

"Ah, and what a lovely color it is. Now, can you tell me anything about a woman named Rose Tyler?"

The little girl giggled. "My Rosie hasn't gone by that since before she was married! I can take you to her! She's making supper."

The little girl grabbed his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world and led him into the house. The warmth hit his face as the screen door creaked and shut behind him. Something was off, though. This house smelled way too old- had too much character. Were he and Rose already dead? The little girl led him into a beautiful yellow kitchen, which smelled of warm bread and chicken pot pie. The woman at the stove had her back to them, and was working feverishly at a lump of dough on the counter. She was blonde and she smelled like his Rose. But how could she be here, looking this young, in this impossibly old house on this impossible beach? The beach where his hearts died long ago.

"Rosie, this nice man is asking about you." She said, letting go of his hand and going to stand by her.

The woman turned to the girl, still without looking at him, and said "Ok Cassie, now can you go find your father?" The girl nodded enthusiastically before skipping off into another room.

She turned around and his breath left him in a soft whoosh.

She looked exactly the same as he had left her. She had the same hair, same eyes, and same face. Her clothes were different, somehow older and less…pink.

"Doctor…" she breathed his name as if it were the best thing she had said in a long time. Before either of them knew it, she had crossed the room and was being held tightly in his arms. They remained like that for a long time. They broke apart when the timer went off and Rose went to take her casserole out of the oven, almost refusing to take her eyes off of him. He cleared his throat and smiled.

She spoke first. "How did you get here? I never…I never thought I would see you again."

"I built a bridge through the void. Took fifty years to grow and lots more to figure out how to do it. You recognized me, even though you haven't seen this me before!" He said, delighted.

"Of course. I would know those eyes anywhere." She said.

He couldn't help but think of his human self. Were they still the same man, or had his experiences altered him somehow? Surely being a father again had made them too different to be called the same person any longer. "My daughter is beautiful" he said. He didn't expect the response he got.

Rose looked down at her feet, almost solemn. "That's not your daughter."

The Doctor stepped toward her, reaching out a hand only to let it drop at the last moment. "What do you mean? She has your eyes, your hair…you mean she's not mine?" The sadness that came with that thought was almost too much to bear. Did she not love him anymore? Had he gone and left her? He didn't think he could live on if their love had ended so quickly, not when he still pined for her.

Rose shook her head. "She's not mine either. Doctor, do you know how long it's been?"

He took another look around the kitchen. That was when he noticed it. The appliances were 23rd century. Before he could respond, she was hugging him again.

"That little girl is our great great great granddaughter. Our daughter died 185 years ago."

The Doctor pushed her back, examining her face once more. "You're…."

"Two hundred and seventy three years old."

"But you're…"

"Young? I was shocked too." Her voice took on a sad tone when she said this, looking over to the mantle where an old photo sat in a frame. He stepped closer to it. It was their wedding photo.

"Then where am I?" He asked.

Tears began to stream down her cheeks. "You died. You died of old age. We grew old together, like we were supposed to. We lived our lives, got married, had children, got a house with carpets and a mortgage. And we were happy. And we both grew old. It was perfect."

He held her again, dreading what would come next. She continued. "Then you got sick. We both did. That major outbreak of alien smallpox. You died. I regenerated."

The Doctor contained his shock quite well, though he did hold her tighter than he had ever thought he could. "I loved you, and you loved me. Our whole lives. And then it had to end. Because what had torn us apart in the beginning was also what separated us in the end."

He met her eyes, which were misty with tears. Her voice broke slightly as she continued. "Because…I am the Bad Wolf…and I create myself." With these words she took his hands and placed them on her chest. He could feel, under each palm, the steady thump of her hearts. She closed her eyes and he felt her presence in his mind, like it was before the time lords died. She had been shielding her abilities, to hide her precious family. They were all she had left of him and their life together. She sobbed against his chest, mourning for him, though he was right there with her. Tears slid down his cheeks as he wiped hers off her face. She had faced so much pain. But now they could be together again. Her eyes opened again and met his. "And…I couldn't die while you were still alone. Every day, while I was with the human you, I prayed for you. I loved you as I loved him, because you were the same. I regenerated the day before he died, and he told me to find you. I didn't know a way, so I took our children and their families and bought this big house. Here, on Bad Wolf Bay. That way, if you ever returned, I would see you. But I never thought it would happen."

Before she could speak any more, his lips were on hers. He pulled her close to him, kissing her as though they had not lived a life together. He kissed her with all the love and pain and loneliness he had felt in the past three hundred years. She kissed him with the same. Somehow, in the middle of the kiss, something changed. There was a light in their minds, something pulling them together. Their kiss became lighter, less painful, and they kissed with all the built up passion of two lovers long separated and reunited. They broke the kiss, both smiling and laughing. He held her close again, kissing her forehead as he used to.

That evening, the large family gathered for dinner. The family was made up of grandparents, parents, children, uncles, and all those in between. All of these people were the family that he and Rose had built here in this parallel world so long ago. They all sat around the table in the huge dining room with a wooden table and glass walls. The Doctor joined them at Rose's side as she announced that she was leaving. She announced that her husband had returned for her, that he was not dead as they all had thought. There were protests, gasps of surprise, even angry words directed at her, saying she was crazy and that this was not the man in the photo. Rose listened to none of it and packed her things. She packed her memories with the human Doctor, returned her wedding ring to her finger and his to his finger. She took his hand and her small suitcase of photos and diary pages, children's toys and Christmas cards and they walked out the door.

The children cried as the oldest looking woman, Rose's granddaughter, smiled. She held in her hand a note, written on pink paper. It explained why she was leaving; it explained how she knew this man was her Doctor. It held dates of her promised visits. She smiled as her family yelled and fought and cried. They would calm down soon enough and move on with their own lives. None of them really knew Rose. She was the only one who remembered her as she had been with her Doctor alive. She was the only one who remembered her happy.

She was the only one who watched as her ageless grandmother and her timeless husband disappeared into the mist of Bad Wolf Bay.