Staggering, stumbling, like a sputtering, stalling automaton, he moved down the ever-stretching hallway. It went into an ever-fleeting light, so far away it felt like a distant star, or a galaxy that was simply so distant that all of its billions of suns and planets melded into only one dot of inescapable light.

Everything else was darkness, but he couldn’t tell if that was the TARDIS having dampened itself into dimness or his own eyes playing a prequel of what was to come, of the all-shadow looming hours ahead. Yes, hours, that was what he had. No more. He had gone too long and he wanted nothing more than to let that shadow take him and make the flames of rebirth consume him and bring into this world someone new, someone different, someone who would keep what they loved, at least for a little while.

Longer than this. Anything for it to be longer than this.

Why must he be alone for far longer than he was happy? Tar against feather.

His hearts seemed to beat out of tempo, one fast, instinctual, begging for life; the other slow, content, ready. His stomach lurched and he grit his teeth, trying to keep down the sick threatening to emerge. He couldn’t even remember if he’d eaten anything to throw up. Whatever emerged, it would probably be in a better state than he felt.

Leaning against the corridor, he emptied himself of nothing but stomach acids and bile. He wiped his mouth on the edge of his brown coat. Only half of it was pulled on him, the rest of it getting dragged after. He couldn’t bring himself to care even as it wiped up a part of the sick pooling inside the TARDIS.

And as he swayed on his feet, eyes blinking slowly like a snake-bitten toad, he stared at the light. It stared back at him, swaying as well, forming, mixing, until, from that darkness, a silhouette formed, framed by the light behind.

“Doctor?” Rose asked the darkness.

He moved faster than he had ever moved before, even to save her. Deep down, he knew it was a lie. Some sort of hallucination the TARDIS had given him to make him regain belief in life. A half-hearted attempt to get him to remember love. But he didn’t care. Like a desert-wandering man darting towards a mirage, he threw himself at her, delusional in his hopelessness, his arms striking out like vipers out of darkness, snaking around her before she so much as had time to stumble back.

He clung onto her, arms clutching her arms to their sides, his face finding its way into the nape of her neck like it never had before, and there, right in the folds of her hoodie, he found something. Something the TARDIS couldn’t make on pretend. Something not even his mind could conjure.

Scent.

Her perfume. The smell of her little London-house. Of her mum’s Christmas pudding. Of everything that made Rose, Rose. He found it there, and it made his mind whirl and his eyes water.

“Wh-, what-,” Rose was saying, trying to squirm out of his vice-like clutch, but it was useless. This was beyond a simple hug. He was holding onto her like a believer to their cross, or a child to their teddy bear on a thundering night. Even if she had been physically stronger than him, she would have been completely unable to escape his instinctual desperation. And yet, terror found its way into her voice, as she cried, “Doctor-!”

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And like a hero straight out of the comics, he appeared. She may not have been able to remove him, but someone else certainly could, and before the Tenth really knew what was happening or why he was no longer holding her, he’d been pried from her form, cast onto the cold floor of the TARDIS, his coat and everything else falling all topsy turvy.

And there, casting his shadow onto him, was him.

One arm protectively around her shoulder, the other gripping the sonic tightly. He looked so much like a saviour that the Tenth barely had time to comprehend it before the other him shouted, “Who are you, and how did you get in here?”

A Northern accent.

Not answering, not having the capacity to so much as try, the Tenth let his eyes warily fall on his surroundings. The hallway was gone. It was still the TARDIS, but something was off about it. The main console and everything that surrounded it was very similar to how it used to be, but not quite. Not entirely. Not in the way that it should have been.

Slowly, carefully, the Tenth got to his feet. His hard-leather soles clicked against the floor. “Rose,” he choked out. Her eyes were so scared. She didn’t know. “Oh, please, Rose…”

“How do you…?” Rose asked.

The Ninth held her tighter. “Are you who comes next?”

The Tenth felt so small. Like a hunched, tiny animal, cornered in an alleyway. He must have looked a right mess. And still, for as small as he felt, he could tell that the Ninth must have felt something similar. Although he pretended to be big, holding her so tight to not let her be taken by the clutches of evil, his eyes trembled. The Tenth didn’t need to give an answer. The Ninth already knew—he just wanted to open the possibility that it might not be so.

Because reflected in the Ninth’s eyes, the Tenth saw a mirror image of himself. At his very lowest, as low as he could ever go without bringing the rest of the universe down with him. The Ninth didn’t just see a future, he saw his future.

The Tenth took a meek step towards them. The Ninth drew back, bringing Rose with him.

“Please,” the Tenth said, his throat hoarse from the bile. “Let me touch her one more time. That’s all I need.”

A new emotion. A fear not for himself bloomed in the Ninth’s eyes. His clutch on Rose grew even tighter and the sonic in his grip trembled. And, again, he asked something he already knew the answer to. “What happens to Rose?” It was wrong to even ask, to so much as open the possibility of a time-space paradox, but if it was for Rose… “You have to tell me. What happens to Rose?” Desperation made his voice rise a pitch.

The Tenth was now close enough to feel the heat of their bodies, to make out their breathing over the hum of the TARDIS, to see how realisation dawned on Rose’s face.

“Please…” Heavy, lead-filled tears dropped from his face and onto the floor. “I miss her so much.”

As he reached out again, the Ninth tried to draw back once more, but this time Rose moved out of his protective grip, standing just in front of the Tenth. Her hand reached out, trembling, small. The Tenth took it and pressed it against his forehead, bowing his head to face the ground, keeping his tears from touching her—from sullying her. “Oh, Doctor,” she mumbled, “What happened to you?...”

A better question might have been What didn’t happen to you, but at that moment, the Ninth couldn’t bring himself to do any quips. A sob crawled out of his throat and he let it splat to the ground alongside the tears and the snot and the dribble. A hand found its way to his face, pushing the dirty tears out of his face. It was warm. It was so, so warm. Like fire and love and anger. Gently, he angled his face back up towards her, and from where he stood, she looked so much like an angel.

She smiled at him. Somehow, he was able to smile back.

A sense of calm unlike anything death could provide snuggled itself inside his chest and he released a breath of pure and true relaxation. He was, in a word, content. Rose wasn’t gone. Not really. And she never would be, because even as time moved on, she would always exist in one form or another, placed like an acrylic painting onto the canvas of time, irreplaceable and eternal and there.

Likewise, even though she was gone, even though he had lost so many, they would always be there, inside him, as a warm ball of dune, filling his chest with calm.

And, in the end, wouldn’t he always find another adventure, another companion, another person to help?