"If You Were Me" by Frightened Rabbit.

Time passes. I accept the blame, and I accept that you might never care to see me again
At least we can shake off some shame. Still I quiver like a dying leaf in a violent wind
I don't wish to be excused for this, my disguise and my excuses, they have worn so thin
May I ask, and answer honestly, oh, what would you have done if you were me?
Time passes, kills everything in its path, and then it buries us in history
Some bits, some bits seem to stick, oh, I thought that you and I could be a timeless thing.

Some choices we make for ourselves in life. And some we make for other people. Not because we don't love them, but because we do. The only way we know it's right is if it lets us stay true to ourselves. But we can't regret our choices. The past is behind us. All we have is the present. And the future. Whatever that may bring.

The awful thing is that while I'm walking away from Ben and from Harry, with god knows how much makeup running down my face, dress soaked in the rain, the growing pressure in my lungs threatening to consume me in disabling grief… I know that this isn't the first time, or the first person.

I fumble to unlock my front door, and enter a house which has only too recently been emptied.
No Ben, and no Poppy. Just me.

The dress sprawls on my bathroom floor like a fallen soldier. I want to do the same – just to lie down, in an inappropriate place, and not move for an eternity. Instead I sink into the comfort of hot water and bubbles up to my neck, and begin to scrub the day away from my skin. Ben's missing belongings, the clients, the party, Harry, the bridge at midnight. It all dissolves into bath water and there is only me, free-falling and alone. Completely alone.

"I fucked it up," I tell the taps as I turn them off.
Is he ever going to come back? As the old friend I need so horribly?

The thing about making your best mate into your boyfriend – when it all goes tits up, the one person you want to run to is the person you're actually walking away from. And who is there now? Bambi, wrapped up in her married life? Charlotte, wrapped in her protective leather outfits and her unflappable façade? Poppy, who is partly responsible for this break up anyway? Her mother Stephanie, who is even more responsible for dumping Poppy on me at a time like this? My sister, who will sneer at my edited story about the reasons for the split, and make snarky comments about self-esteem and useless men? The sister I've only really had for the past seven years.

Would anybody care if I slipped under this water and never emerged again?

Mum would. But there's a reason why I don't see her as often as I should. By which I mean, hardly ever.
We used to be so close, before our worlds literally changed. Or rather, before we jumped worlds together.
Nowadays I can't look at her face without wanting to run up onto the roof and just jump.

When the pain gets too much, when you're hurting the people you love most, sometimes you just have to break away.

Brand new client today. Good. A positive kick-start to my brand new life.

He's actually another one from Stephanie – she says, a special thank you for everything I've done for her. This guy is offering a bomb, probably just because he can. His plan is a private dinner at Launceston Place – which, in case you didn't know, is the most expensive restaurant in the whole city – followed by a trip to the West End, then followed by drinks on a private boat trip out on the Thames. The actual night we'll spend at The Connaught. Five star. Mind-blowingly glamorous. I've been told to wear whatever makes me feel most like a princess.

It's exactly what I need. Here's hoping the man in question is worth spending such a night with. Stephanie says he's charming, gracious, quick-witted, very open and comfortable. She says, just ask for a Mr Knight when I arrive at Launceston and I'll be taken through to our room. So no clues as to what he looks like, how old he is, anything.

I do love surprises.

Now, I don't think I need to justify myself in my choice of outfit. He did specifically say 'princess'. And you don't get much more of a compromise between princess and escort than a Mac Duggal 78529D Dress. Cost a grand. Strapless sweetheart bodice, all silk and delicate jewelled floral embroidery, tapered right down to the thighs, where it finally starts to fan out into softly tiered layers of darling ruffles. Oh – and it comes only in the colour Rose.

My matching heels touch the thankfully dry pavement as I descend from the cab. I pat my hair softly, making sure its complications of pinned curls are all in place.

Inside, every pair of eyes is trained on me. Belle. The indomitable, failsafe façade that will get me through this and every day and night from now on. The personality I have committed to, in leaving Ben. My job. My life. The second-best thing that I was born to do, and now the only available one, so who's complaining? I'm young, I'm beautiful, I'm wanted and adored and rich.

The waiter is opening the door to my private room and my heart is skipping a faster beat.
"Sir?" he asks the invisible person inside. Then he waves me through with a nod.

I stride across the threshold with my finest and most dazzling smile fixed in place.
My client is standing with his back to me, hands folded behind him, gazing out into the dark street.
Even with his face concealed I recognise him. How could I not know that stance, the back of that head, that shock of hair.

I turn to leg it for my life – never mind my nude silk heels – but then he turns too, and I catch sight of his expression, and suddenly it's as though I haven't any willpower to do anything except stand there with a slack jaw and wide eyes like some kind of idiot. I don't know what I'm feeling, if I'm feeling anything. All I can see, all I can think, is his image looking back at me.

"You look absolutely stunning," he says.

There is a silence, deeper than the silence in outer space, deeper than the silence in death.

"Sit down," he urges as my knees quiver under me, "I didn't think you'd be this shaken up. Have a drink."
"Why are you here? What kind of sick fucking game are you playing?"

He gazes at me with dark inchoate eyes, the pupils a spinning vortex of infinite sorrow and concern.

"I felt it." He points to his one heart. "I knew you were at breaking point. I couldn't not come."
"Why didn't you call me?"
"I knew you wouldn't agree to see me. And – I wanted to give you the night you deserved, after what you've been through."
"You think this is going to make me feel better? All this – this money?"
"From what I can see it's exactly what makes you feel better nowadays. There's no shame in it. I mean, look at me."

I do. I look him up and down carefully, and he does have that discreetly breathtaking look about him. He emanates wealth.

"This is a Bottega Veneta Ebano Glen Check suit," he says with difficulty. "I don't even know what it means, didn't bother to find out, but it was bloody expensive."
"How did you afford all this?"
"You didn't stick around to see me working my way up in the world."

"And where are you now?" I ask.
"In banking."
"Oh."
"Yes, exactly," he sighs.

I don't think I can support my own weight any longer, so I try to drift casually over to a chair and perch upon it. He quickly takes the seat opposite me, pours champagne, and pushes a glass over to my side of the table. There is a pause while I desperately grope about for something to say as I sip. I don't want him here. He's ruining everything. He's bringing everything back that I've been running from. He's reminding me of everything that I can't be any more, and his face reminds me of a face I will never see again.

But his presence in the room is electrifying, after all this time. After these seven years of avoiding, ducking and dodging.
And he doesremind me of that man, so much. The tousled head of hair, the thin kind face, the slightly wonky brows that gives – gave – him the look of eternal intelligence.

"The last time I heard from you, you were going to sixth form to study," he remarked.
"Yeah, well."
"You went to university afterwards, I take it?"
"Yes."
His gaze roves up and down me for a moment. "Did you change your accent then, or when you started this job?"

I flinch, but not because of the question.
He just referred to my job without mentioning the word escort or prostitute.
I would never expect him to be crass, but still, he's doing what hardly anybody ever does. He's treating my career with as much respect as I do.

"When I started work," I mutter, administering myself more champagne.
"You're the same, though. Same old Rose."
"You don't know anything about me."
"You still do people favours, don't you, even when you don't really like them. Even when it interferes with your life."
"Stop it," I snap.

He looks at the tablecloth and grimaces slowly.

"I'm tired of being a parasite," he growls suddenly. "I'm tired of money and I'm tired of suits. I'm tired of everything, Rose."
"Stop calling me that."
"I know what you want. You want to get on with your job and forget about whatever you've been through. You want to focus on what matters to you now, and that's the lifestyle, isn't it? You want to be a lifestyle, not a person."

I am on the verge of actually punching him. He's second guessing. He doesn't know me.
He's not the Doctor and he never will be.

"I miss the old days," he says quietly. "I miss the adventures. I hate being static, here, and alone."
"No!" I stand up and almost knock the table in my sudden fury. "You weren't there! You're not him! You don't know me."
"I've told you too many times already, Rose. His memories are my memories. His feelings are my feelings."
"YOU ARE NOT MY DOCTOR."

The word's out of my mouth now. I've said his name aloud. I've broken the only barrier I had – the barrier of denial.
He watches as I crumple slowly into my seat again, battling the hysteria and the salt water.

"That's what you may think, Rose," he murmurs, "but I am. I will always love you, whether you want me or not. I'm sick of being what I am. Money, it's no good. I'm not happy, you're not happy. You've spent all this time running from us, hiding in hotel rooms with other men, wondering why you can't make your life fit. This thing that's just happened – I'm guessing it's a break up – it was about this, wasn't it? No man can handle your life because you won't let them, you make it too complicated, but you make it that way because you can't handle your own past. You won't let yourself accept that we're stuck here, on this planet, forever. Not as yourself, anyway. Can't you see this whole alter-ego thing, it's dangerous. Rose – Hannah – Belle – where are you going to end up? You can't keep inventing new personalities to run away from the things that hurt you. You have to let them hurt, like everyone else, and then let them heal. That's what's meant to happen. I'm here, I'm always here to help you do that. You know I am, because you know I need it too. Without you I'm just a bank manager in a fancy suit. I don't mean anything to anyone. I want to start helping people again Rose, and I can only do it if you're here, because I only care when I'm with you. You make me see all of these people in a different way. You make me human. I need to change – you need somebody who understands you. I'm the only one who will ever understand. And you love me. You can't deny that you love me too."

He reaches out to tilt my chin up and I can't say no. I'm limp, weak, battered down by the truth.

"Rose," he murmurs as he grasps my gaze in his own, that too familiar expression haunting his eyes. "What will it take for you to accept me? I'll do anything. Because I am him, and that's what he would do. What I would do. I'm a different body but I'm the same man. Why can't you understand that? Why don't you want to? I'm your happiness, Rose, I'm the only thing to hold onto. Just like you're my only thing to hold onto. Everything else is chaos and emptiness. But not when we're together."

He takes my hand, his thumb making small circles on my skin.
I can feel the mask cracking, crumbling away from my face, and the anguish is fully formed in my expression, and he can see.

"You look just like you did the first time I had to leave you here. On this world."

My shoulders fold forwards over my body as I feel the heaviness in my stomach becoming a void, a density of pain too much to bear, that I have to curl up around. My forehead touches our joined hands as I clutch at my body with my free arm. The sobs break out of me like fugitives.

"I want my life back. I was going to be with you forever, you and me, in the TARDIS."
"Yes," he whispers, his voice cracking. "That's what should have happened."
"What did I ever do wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Then why am I here? Why are you gone?"

His hand squeezes mine.

"I'm not. I'm right here. I'm the Doctor, and I have loved you for so long. I loved you since the day you looked into the heart of the TARDIS and I regenerated into this man – this face – consumed with love for you. You're everything, the only thing that could make me whole, keep me human. I would give up the stars for you. I did."

I'm crying now, and there's no hiding it. Full-out crying.
But his words are the most comforting, the most important that I've heard in months. Years.
My Doctor speaking to me, not from another universe, but from across the restaurant table.

Suddenly I wish he wasn't even that far.

He stands as I do, waiting for me to say anything, to give him any sign of an answer to the question he hasn't even asked yet. I clutch him to me, his real and solid body within my arms, his breath soft on my bare shoulder, his hands warm.

"I don't know if I can do this," I gasp incoherently.
"You've done so much already. You've been strong and alone for too long. It's time you let somebody take care of you. Because I'm not letting you go again, Rose, you can count on that if you can't count on anything else. I can't be without you. I'm not myself without you."
"I haven't been myself, I don't know who I'm meant to be."
"Be who you are. Just be mine, and I'll be yours, only ever yours. Forever."

I sniff. "What are we going to do? Doctor? What are we even going to do with our lives? There's no way out of this."
"No. So we'll have to let the adventure come to us. Won't we?"
"I don't know. I don't know anything."
"We can do anything we want, Rose. We can help people again. We can make this world right. We can hitchhike a lift off this planet, the first non-hostile ship that happens to come our way. Eh? There's always something to be done."

He pulls away just enough to reach my lips with his own.
We hang there, as though in space, weightless and alone and blissful.

For the first time since that blue box disappeared, I feel a strange sense of hope, belonging, as though gravity has somehow shifted, centred me where I was adrift before. I feel safe.

I feel loved, and I feel love in return.
I love him. It is him. My Doctor.
Nothing will change that.
I see it now.

"Shall I come back in a minute?" says an unfamiliar voice.

We both turn. A waiter stands in the doorway looking utterly confused and embarrassed.

"Do you want to stay for dinner?" the Doctor whispers with a smile.
"Well," I start to grin in reply, just the faintest trace of Belle's humour colouring my words. "You have planned our whole evening out so well. It would be a shame to waste it all now."
"Good. Give us five minutes, then," he nods to the boy, who promptly disappears with a low bow.

The Doctor helps me back into my seat and holds a mirror up while I fix my makeup.
"You look stunning," he beams, "like I said."
"Oh, stop it."
"Will it be the lobster or the caviar?"

I can't stifle my giggles.
This is what it was really all about, me and him. Just us two having a laugh. Laughing with the universe.
In this moment, I realise that I am happy, and I will never again have a reason not to be.

"You know I love you," I tell him quietly as he picks up a menu, one of my hands still intertwined safely in his own.
He glances up, and takes my breath clean away.
"Yes. I know."