This is my first Doctor Who fic in a while ~Cough~Four Years~Cough~ so I apologise if it isn't fantastically brilliant. Anyway, I hope you like it and Merry Christmas!

"You're not him," Rose says one afternoon. It's not an accusation or a statement of dislike, just a matter of fact. They're both sat in the joint study they share; the Doctor is tinkering around with the piece of coral he swears he can grow into a TARDIS and Rose is leaning on her desk, writing up a report on the Jaxxi incident of last month. The Doctor doesn't stop working but his movements become less eccentric and they spend the rest of the day in silence.

She can't help it. The thought has been there since the second day the Doctor abandoned her on Dårlig Ulv Stranden, only this time it's worse because he's left her with someone who was so like him but, in the end, just not him at all. And it hurts.

They move in together, just like everyone expects them to, and she keeps her word to her Doctor because even though it isn't the same, this Doctor needs her. She tries and tries but every time she manages to forget that it isn't her Doctor laughing or running or kissing her, something comes along to jerk her back into reality. She stops laughing, she stops running and in the end she stops kissing because it feels like she's cheating on him with his brother or something.

The Doctor notices of course and obviously he understands. But it's so hard when he sees the person he loves unable to love him back because he isn't, no can't, be everything she wants him to be. Which is himself. And it hurts.

He stops trying to make her laugh and he stops kissing her because he can see the guilt in her expression. He even gives up reminding her that he has the same memories and is the same man. Then he thinks of the other Doctor (the proper Doctor, he thinks to himself sadly) and how he must feel knowing that someone else is in love with his Rose. Someone who is so like him but, in the end, just not him at all.

They stop pretending. He buys a bed for the second bedroom and moves his things into there. They put two desks in the study and turn it into an office so if people ask they can still prove that they're on civil terms. The Doctor starts trying to grow the TARDIS, thinking that it might be possible to take her back to him one day. Rose buries herself in her work and comes out only to see her family. They barely speak.

Three months later the Doctor half-heartedly suggests they try for a baby, but Rose is too busy in her work. Besides, the house only has three bedrooms so where would the baby sleep? They both know they could get a bigger house with a garden and a dog but he doesn't push it. He doesn't even hint that he could move back into the master bedroom with her because he can't bear the reproachful look he's sure to get.

The years pass by. Rose is promoted and eventually becomes head of Torchwood. The Doctor is always there, of course, to help out when needed but the alien species that pass by Earth are peaceable and Torchwood is well equipped enough to deal with any troublemakers. Jackie starts pestering them about getting married and having children so they set a date. Rose cries at the wedding and the Doctor hates it as everyone looks on fondly thinking the tears are from happiness, rather from the bitter sadness that she's marrying a man who just isn't what she wants.

They make love on their wedding night for the first time since Dårlig Ulv Stranden and the Doctor is hopeful for the first time that she finally might be coming around. They're content for a few weeks; she puts up the wedding picture next to a picture of her and the old Doctor and basks in the post-wedding glow of married life, until she finds out she's pregnant and cries until her eyes are swollen and she's breathing hysterically. He sits with her and holds her, even though they both know that is the worst thing he could possibly do, then they go about their separate lives once more.

Jackie and Pete are thrilled. They fawn over her and she starts spending more and more time at their place while the Doctor scours the papers for a more suitable place for a family to live. He finds a place within walking distance of Jackie and Pete's and they move in a month before the baby is born. He decorates the whole house and paints the walls of the nursery with their adventures. Autons and Daleks and Cybermen and stars painted on every wall, the door, the ceiling. She nods her approval and gives him a ghost of a smile before helping him paint the cot TARDIS blue and hanging a mobile of stars above where their child will sleep.

The contractions start late one night and by the morning it's time to get to the hospital. The Doctor calls Pete to drive them because the Doctor never learnt, and they all pile into the car and speed off to the maternity ward. Rose is in labour for twenty hours and the Doctor dutifully stays with her for every hour of it, even though she tells him to piss off back home more than once.

He's born at quarter past four in the morning of the twelfth of April. He's the most perfect thing the Doctor has ever seen and he immediately takes him over to the window and points out every star he can see, and several that he can't, to his newborn son. Rose jokingly suggests they call him Adam and laughs when the Doctor practically stamps his feet in protest. They settle on Jack Michael Tyler-Smith after the good captain and the tin dog and when they take him home Rose hugs the Doctor and carries their baby upstairs to his new room.

She's still sad, he can see that. She's not at work so they're spending more time with each other than they usually do. Any conversations they have revolve around Jack, they've stopped mentioning any past adventures like it never happened. The Doctor buries himself in his work on the TARDIS which is so near completion, and talks at one hundred miles an hour at his tiny baby boy.

Rose stops talking to him. She takes the baby to Jackie's every morning and returns to the house after eight every night. The Doctor does his best to ignore this behaviour but eventually everything snaps and they end up arguing so loudly that Jack starts crying and Rose grabs a suitcase of his clothes and toys and takes him back to Jackie's. The Doctor sits in his son's bedroom all night and cries until he can't cry another tear then gets up and begins working on the TARDIS with a newfound ferocity.

He goes to Jackie's every day for the next week and begs to see his wife and child. Rose refuses to talk to him but Jack is produced and he is allowed to take him for twenty-four hours at a time. He pushes his son around the streets of London and stares up at the sky before breaking down in public and taking Jack home where he tells him stories about his mummy and his mummy's best friend who wasn't daddy but wishes he was.

They carry on like this for two years. Jack starts walking and talking and they're pleasantly surprised that he is bright beyond his years. Of course, this also means he picks up on the fact that his mummy and daddy don't ever see each other and that gran is the one who takes him between them. He asks the Doctor why he doesn't love mummy and then begins howling when the Doctor starts to cry.

Jack never mentions mummy to daddy again.

The TARDIS is almost finished. The Doctor steps inside for the first time in years and smiles sadly as he runs his hands over the console. He flies the TARDIS to the Tyler residence and stands and waits until the door flies open and Rose appears in the doorway, Jack on her hip.

He pilots the TARDIS through the Void as well as he's ever done. Jack loves being in flight and charges around until he falls over and decides that sitting can be just as much fun as running. Rose doesn't speak. She sits silently, her eyes closed, the whole time they are in flight. He can almost see the memories swirling around inside her head and pulls a lever particularly viciously, landing them roughly and marching over to the door, swinging Jack onto his back as he goes.

He's already standing outside. The other Doctor. The proper Doctor. Jack is confused and asks why there are two daddies. The proper Doctor's eyes widen and he beams at the small, brown-haired boy clinging to the metacrisis-Doctor's back until the metacrisis-Doctor shakes his head with fire in his eyes and the proper Doctor looks around him to see her standing in the doorway of the TARDIS.

She runs to him and he gathers her into a hug, a real proper hug, and the metacrisis-Doctor hurts so badly that he wants to run into that TARDIS and never come back. He sets his son onto the floor and hugs him tightly, telling him to be brave and to look after mummy and the other daddy, and pushes him towards Rose who scoops him up and introduces him to the proper Doctor. The metacrisis-Doctor turns to walk back into the TARDIS but his son screams behind him and he's running and scooping him up and they're both crying because of course daddy isn't going to leave you with that man and of course he loves you and he doesn't know what he was thinking.

The proper Doctor is horrified and apologises but he never lets go of Rose's hand. The metacrisis-Doctor says nothing but tells his son to give mummy a big kiss and to say goodbye. Rose obliges and hugs her son, tears pouring down her cheeks, then she pulls the metacrisis-Doctor to her and says that she's sorry so many times it loses meaning before kissing him on the cheek and burying her face into the proper Doctor's chest.

They walk, hand in hand, father and son, into the TARDIS and he sets course into the Void. Jack is very quiet when they return home and insists on sleeping in the Doctor's bed in case daddy needs a cuddle tonight.

When the Doctor visits Jackie and Pete the next day to explain why they are never going to see their only daughter again Jackie loses it and screams herself into hysterics.

"Why!" she screams. Why. Over and over again.

The Doctor thinks about it before he replies.

"I'm not him."