Chapter Text
You are not alone
Never
Trust to the last
Farewell
"Vale Decem"
Ten's Farewell
He had 30 minutes until the crack completely closed to make it right after she had left. No, not left. Got ripped from him. Without a last word. Without a farewell. Without a goodbye. He owed that to her. He owed that to himself. To someone he…to someone who would have given up everything for the Doctor.
i.
30 th November, 2012
29 Minutes
There was a dying sun in a solar system within the Centaurus cluster, circa 30000 A.D. Using that purple jacket Rose had left behind on the console, he hooked it up to the Tardis's telepathic circuits, hoping to trace her DNA, therefore her psychic imprint, to the parallel world. He harnessed the energy from the burning sun to boost the Tardis's signal strength, hoping to land. He locked on, and held on tight.
Unable to control where the Tardis would land in her timeline, he looked at the clock after the Tardis shook its landing, only to see that it wasn't functioning properly, showing all zeros.
Bringing the Tardis's screen to him, it showed that he had landed in a large, one toilet loo.
He bounded up the ramp and out the door, closing it behind him. He grew nervous. He could be a year into her future, or fifty. So unsure, when opening the loo door, he opened it only wide enough to look through and gauge the room.
It seemed like a hospital bedroom. White walls, a plain bed. Far on the other side of the hospital room was a telly sitting on a wooden table, and in front of that telly, in an arm chair, was Rose, her profile only seen from the angle. His breath was sucked out of him as he looked her over: stringy long hair, grey jumper, and sunken looking eyes.
He needed something to gauge what time he was in, so he'd never, ever come back. That woman sitting in the chair, watching mindless telly, that wasn't Rose. Because if it was Rose, that would mean that she was there because of him. She was in a mental hospital, by the looks of it, because of him. Oh, Rose. No.
The door to the main room suddenly opened and the Doctor made very sure not to make a sound.
"Ms. Tyler, I have your medicine," a kind voice said before the lady came into view: a nurse with a tray.
"Is it already eleven?" Her voice was so broken. So rough. Gravelly. So from what he had just seen in Canary Wharf it was suffocating.
He had done it. He had broken Rose Tyler. And if he ever managed to tell her goodbye, it seemed it wouldn't help at all.
"Yes, you already had breakfast, remember?" the nurse asked kindly, resting the tray on the table next to the telly before picking up a journal that laid on the floor next to Rose, putting it next to the tray.
Rose took a hand and pressed it against her eye. "I…no," her voice cracked.
He had seen enough.
ii.
20 th August, 2009
27 minutes
Take two, and he had to make it a good one. He couldn't go back now, now that he saw her at her lowest point. Saw her in just a shell.
The sun's energy gone, he had to move on, this time back to the Milky Way. 5000 A.D.
He needed to find a moment in her timeline in the parallel world when she was thinking about him. Before she would inevitably move on.
The Doctor placed his own hand in the telepathic circuit to aid the use of her jacket, using his other hand to pull the level on the console.
The Tardis whirred and came to a familiar rough stop.
Outside the Tardis doors he found himself him the backroom of a warehouse, by the looks of the metal walling, filled with miscellaneous boxes and, to his amusement, broken pieces of alien technology.
He heard a loud, almost deafening, blast from behind the door in front of him and then felt a few moments later, a low wave of heat.
Opening the door slowly and peaking carefully from behind it, he saw the larger portion of the warehouse as expected. This portion was filled with numerous men and women wearing lab coats, tables littered with equipment and sensors, people in uniform standing around with large guns, and all in the middle, her.
She held a large, smoking, device in her hand and what he could tell from his distance, her face was covered in sensors.
"I said bring him back!" Rose shouted, her voice echoing around the cavernous warehouse.
Words were exchanged that the Doctor couldn't hear. But apparently, they were frustrating to Rose because afterwards she screamed in anguish.
This was not the Rose he wanted to speak with. The Rose with guns and anger and despair, worse than before with the broken Rose. He must've landed before that. This is what caused her to end up in a white room, not remembering anything.
He closed the door.
iii.
13 th September, 2012
25 minutes
Another sun, another time in history.
The opening in the universe was closing fast, and he needed to go through each wrong time at a much faster rate if he ever wanted to find his Rose. The Rose without doctors and without an army.
As he walked out of the Tardis he was hit with bright sunshine and the smell of salt in the air. Cars and pedestrians walked right past him and his blue box, just as they always should. But Rose…if Rose was here she would be able to notice him. And if she wasn't the right Rose…
But if she was, he would miss her, just like that, if he hopped back in and took off. He still had more than enough time to tell her goodbye, give her one last hug…maybe even tell her everything.
He shut the door behind him and quickly began to turn, searching the various unfamiliar faces he saw pass by.
Rose had to be there, she brought him there to see something. Something about that moment in time meant something to her.
He paced a few steps down the pavement, past the back of the Tardis, still making note of every face he saw. Not Rose. Not Rose. Not Rose.
Maybe the Tardis had pointed him in the right direction the whole time. The Doctor retraced his steps back to his ship, then began walking in the direction in the front of the doors. Not Rose. Not Rose. Not Ro—
"I was completely exonerated," the Doctor heard a faint Socttish accent from his left side. It sounded so familiar and stuck with him in a very, very wrong way.
He turned then, and saw in the distance why he had ended up there. "I came to do whatever the job requires," he saw straight from his mouth. A mouth that copied his, a face that was his. Bearded, aged, wearing a suit, eating a 99, talking with a woman in uniform, Scottish. And he, that bloke who looked just like the Doctor, was tied to Rose somehow. But she wasn't there. This moment was important because of him. The double. The link between he and Rose was so strong, that it brought the Doctor to a place where she wasn't even was.
And he knew what jealousy and dread felt like.
iv.
11 th February 2016
22 minutes
Back at his console, he sank down on the floor and stared off blankly at the railing. He didn't know why he felt so betrayed by her. It was her life to live. But yet, he still felt inferior, even to a human, because that human was going to get to do everything he had wanted to do with Rose. That human was allowed to love her.
If he tried again, using a fourth sun, what if he stumbled across him again? What if he saw them together? Them together…it meant she had moved on from him. Which is what he had expected her to do, yes, but he didn't want to know, much less know it was with his own double.
Maybe, just maybe, she didn't really love the double. Maybe she was only with him because he was the double of her Doctor. Yes. That was it. She was using him. She'd never moved on. How could she? He had showed her the stars!
Yes, a fourth sun would have to burn in order for him to hear her speak to him like he was her Doctor. To witness the fact in sheer pleasure.
He landed behind a large tree, immediately spotting her blond hair floating in the wind near the water, the Lions Gate Bridge standing tall in the distance.
She and he were the only people he could see far and wide on the pavement, standing side by side just centimetres away from the edge.
Walking along the edge of trees, growing closer, he began to pick up bits and pieces of their conversation.
"—peaceful—hm?" Rose's gentle voice carried.
His Scottish accent picked up more clearly: "I wish there was this in London, you know?"
"—move—you know—it's not like we're—," she replied.
"Yeah, I know, maybe when we get a bit older, hm?"
The Doctor didn't quite pick up what she said in return, he'd have to admit, but in his imagination it was something along the lines of: "You mean when I get a bit older?"
Ignoring any response from him, the Doctor walked off, his hands in his pockets, feeling rather good about himself because, that was exactly what she would have said to him, back when they were still together.
v.
19 th December 2015
19 minutes
He hadn't been able to see her face in Vancouver. He needed to be able to see her face—to make sure she had progressed passed the warehouse and the doctors. Screw him, the next sun he vowed to approach her and tell her to leave him. He didn't care if it was selfish, seeing her speaking to him like that, like she was talking to her Doctor. At first it had made him feel proud. Proud that she had never moved on. But, now, he was just jealous. Jealous of the fact that that human, Scottish, bearded, frumpy, bloke got to put his hands all over her, and got to speak to her, and he didn't.
Fifth sun. Alpha Centauri System. 200 B.C.
He touched her jacket and concentrated. I need to see her face. Her real face. Her happy face with a smile. A face where she'd listen. A face where she'd remember.
He grabbed his trench on the way out, expecting it to be snowing, which it was. Of course it would be snowing. It was Rose. There was a thick dusting on the grass, and he noticed soon after the snow that he was in front of the Tyler mansion.
Warm lights shined through the clear windows and he could see figures of people moving about.
A grin erupted on his face and rushed across the lawn and the gravel to ascend the steps. Before entering, he adjusted his trench and ran his fingers quickly through his hair. He had to prep himself. What would he say? 'Rose, I can never stay, but I want you to always think of me, and to never, ever, fall in love with any human, because you deserve a Doctor.' Pure dead brilliant. And if he was standing nearby, hearing everything? Even more brilliant.
In he stormed, seeing the familiar foyer, but seeing dozens of unfamiliar faces. A few looked up from their flute of champagne and small talk but went right back, apparently uninterested with the man that did not fit in with the black tie dress like the rest of the minglers.
Did everyone think he was him? No, that was preposterous. He looked way too good to be confused with him and his depressing hair and sad face.
"Well, I didn't know the Hardy's had another brother!" a voice said from his side. "Did you decide to come?"
The Doctor whirled to look at the speaker, seeing a woman with short curly hair and a kind face. "Who?"
The woman squinted her eyes and tilted her head. "You look so much like…"
He caught the sign in the corner of his eye. Saw it sitting there near the stairs. The Wedding of Rose Marion Tyler and Alec Michael Hardy, 19th December 2015, it read.
"They got married," his breath rushed out all at once and the room seemed to collapse in on itself. "I never…she wouldn't…not with him...no," his voice broke.
By the way the Doctor reacted, the woman grew wary and suspicious, straightening her back. "Oi, who exactly are you, then? Are you a relative?"
"Me?" he dryly laughed. "I don't matter. Give the bride and the groom by best wishes."
As he turned to leave, the woman refused to depart, asking: "Best wishes from whom?"
"The person who doesn't matter," he quickly replied before going back out the door, his trench whipping around his ankles.
vi.
21 st June 2015
17 minutes
He banged his fists on his console and kicked the base. He felt it—the permanence the wedding had in their universe. He couldn't do anything to alter it.
Seventeen minutes still left, but he wouldn't need them. She had moved on. She had married him. That human, Alec, gave her the domestic life she deserved. They could have their own children, live in a house with a full kitchen and an upstairs, grow old together…
But what he couldn't ever give her though, he remembered, were the stars. And she had loved them more than anything else, including the human. He couldn't change the wedding, no, but he could see her face, one last time, and let her see the stars in him, reminding her of how she was settling. Yes, so she'd never forget the loss of her Doctor. The person who she was meant to be with.
He still needed to tell her goodbye, she deserved that. A remembrance of the stars and a goodbye. The most beautiful mixture in the universe.
After finding another sun to burn, he thudded into another landing.
Darkness was outside, darkness and little dots of warmth littered across the horizon. The wind picked up and then he heard a faint voice. He walked around the back of the Tardis, noting the smell of salt and the dull hum of waves in the air, following the voice.
Two dark figures stood in front of each other, near the edge of the cliff they were all on.
Quieter and nearer than he was in Vancouver, he easily picked up from Rose's voice: "I'd rather not think that he walks parallel with me. Drives a person crazy, I've learned." A shot of pain hit his hearts, realising she was speaking of him. She hadn't forgotten. "Do you still feel the same?"
The Doctor smiled fondly and opened his mouth to shout at her, to call her over to him, to say his goodbye, for some reason thinking she was talking to him. But, Alec's voice emerged, making the Doctor stumble back a step, his back hitting the Tardis. "How do you know how I felt before?"
There was a brief pause before Rose answered him. "I knew because of what I told you. And you just did it again. Told me I could find a way back to him."
He what? The human…Alec had told her to never give up on him? Why? Alec loved her, why would he? What was his motive?
"Any friend would tell you the same" was Alec's response.
Friend? Was this his way of getting women? Quite silly, lying like that.
"Perhaps," the Doctor heard her voice again. "But no friend would be jealous of the Doctor."
His pride swelled and he suppressed a loud chuckle. Alec was jealous of him! Good bloke! He should be! No one else could show Rose the universe like he had! No one else could—
Alec scoffed loudly. "What? I'm not jealous, I've never even met him."
Oh, he would just not stop lying, would he?
"You have no reason to be jealous. Do you know why?"
The Doctor's good vibrations crashed to a sudden stop. No reason to be jealous? How could she undermine him like that? He was magnificent! He was brilliant! He deserved worshipping not dismissal!
Their figures grew even closer together, and the Doctor shook his head. No, why had the telepathic circuit landed him here?! What did Rose want him to see? It was horrible watching them stand closer than he and she ever had before. His blood boiled, and it took all of his might not to flee.
He couldn't hear any response from Alec before she said: "Because for all I know, if I had stayed on the other side, we'd be doing this, right here, right now."
The Doctor let out a shaky and held the sides of his head in his hands. He turned right and left, right and left, suddenly so very confused. That wasn't true. That couldn't be true.
"Would you change anything about this?" her boyfriend asked.
He didn't wait for a response. He couldn't. He couldn't hear her 'yes'. He couldn't know that she and he were inevitable in every universe.
On a sheer compulsion, just before stepping into the Tardis, he peaked his head around the blue box. The shadows of their bodies mingled even more than they had before, and they had painted the picture for him perfectly. The Doctor had become no one in the matter of minutes.
vii.
6 th March 2035
10 minutes
He needed to face it—being alone. Get used to it. He could never have another companion that wasn't Rose. Rose was his everything, and at that moment in the parallel world she was most likely crying over him. Rose Tyler, crying over the pitiful, selfish Doctor.
Did Alec Hardy the Human help with that? The crying? Did he hold her at night and make sure she'd have no nightmares of the doctors and the warehouse?
Alec married her, he must love her with all of his one heart. He'd have to vow to cherish her—to never let her go.
The Doctor had been bloody rubbish at cherishing her. From her almost dying by the Slitheen, to the Dalek bunker, to the Game Station, to London 1953, to bloody Krop Tor, and then the events in Canary Wharf where he didn't win…he lost. He hadn't even mentioned his affairs with Reinette while leaving Rose without a second thought, something he hadn't even felt guilty about till much later when he realised they were…Rose and him had something special. No longer though, she had something special with Alec Hardy, and he didn't quite know if that was okay yet.
He hadn't gotten jealous with Mickey ever, because it was Mickey. The Doctor wasn't at all surprised she didn't marry him instead. Alec though, he was jealous of. Rose never settled. He was kidding himself before. She refused to settle with Mickey, she refused to settle on the Game Station, she refused to settle in Canary Wharf. Alec Hardy the Human must be something of the legends. He must be a hero among humanity. He must be pure dead brilliant for Rose Tyler to marry him.
His fingers went back to her jacket, still hooked with the telepathic circuits. He had ten minutes. Ten minutes to say a goodbye, if he wanted. Or to accept defeat. Accept that she was fine. She was—
The cloister bell activated suddenly, ringing with a loud echo. "No no no!" he couldn't help but frustratingly shout, rushing over to his levers and buttons, trying to figure out the problem.
"What? No, it's too early!" His eyebrows furrowed in worry a he soon gathered that the fracture between the universes was now too small for his Tardis to squeeze through, causing the Tardis to shoot back into his universe. He frantically tried to correct it, spinning dials and turning levers, but it was no use. He had overestimated the time he had had, and wasted it by dwelling on the future for Rose instead of the present. What mattered most to him, what he had originally set out to do, was to say goodbye. Instead, he rambled on, investigating her husband, trying to convince himself that she still loved him when he should have known that she would always love him. He, just the same. Neither had said it, but did it need saying?
Maybe there was still a way to get just a message across. Just a simple message saying: 'Goodbye, Rose Tyler.' That was all he wanted now. To bid his time with the ever-so magnificent Rose Tyler. To close the chapter in his life he would never regret opening.
Finding another sun and using the same technique as before, maybe he could cast his image into her universe. Yes, that might work.
A sun billions and billions of years in the future was his focus and with quick calculations, he figured that in just nine minutes, any sort of crack would disappear, making it no longer possible to do what he was doing. He had nine minutes to make it work.
After sticking his hand in the telepathic circuit and focusing on a place where she'd be able to see his face and he'd be able to see hers', his body shimmered into the shadiness of Las Rambla Street. None of the tourists in front, or behind him seemed to notice him, until just a gap in front of him became exposed and her saw her face. Her hair pulled back and sunglasses on, she stopped in her tracks, staring straight at him. She looked utterly breathtaking, and she was. His breathing slowed, everything slowed. Everything in the background was dull and she was there. Looking at him! And she recognised him! Her mouth parting in an 'o', a face of confusion. Yes, Rose, you're right, I'm here. It's me, I'm—
He appeared joltingly in the Tardis once again, painfully snapped away from her, and he realised he'd have to get her far away from anyone else. A place just for them.
viii.
2 nd October 2027
8 minutes
He didn't have time to think about how she had gone to Barcelona without him, and most likely with him. He concentrated on finding a more powerful sun (Proxima Centauri System, 400 million A.D.) and chanting inside his head while clutching the circuits: A place just for the Doctor and Rose, alone. It needed to not be in 2025 Barcelona, more like 2007 London, just after she had landed in the parallel universe. Still fresh hurt, no numbness, no anger towards him. Pure Rose he once knew.
He draped his trench over the railing, mentally prepping himself for a goodbye. Preparing himself for their tears, for her refusal to let him go. She'd have no idea why she had to stay—why he couldn't bring her back home. She'd soon know though. That was her reward and his punishment. His punishment that dated all back to when his stole the Tardis, unknowing of the pain it would bring ahead of him. The curse of having regenerations. It meant he was always alone. It meant he always had to make sacrifices, and Rose was just the most recent. He was sure he'd make more, he was sure he'd sit all alone over and over and over again, thinking of whom he had just lost. He vowed though, to always think of Rose first when remembering. Rose must always come first, even if the past didn't always show that. That was his promise to her, and he had to let her know of such.
His image faded onto a dull beach he didn't recognise from his past travels, with the sand almost the same colour as the sky. However, there was just a dash of colour in front of him though, of a young girl wearing a bright pink jumper. Her brown hair was back in a messy plait and her eyes were wide in shock.
"Daddy?" she whirled around to search behind her. "Weren't you just over there with mummy?!"
The Doctor couldn't help but softly laugh, knowing this little girl had to be the daughter of Rose and Alec. "No, I'm not your dad," he replied, looking down at the girl with a fond smile on his face.
"Are you Uncle Arthur?" she asked, confused, once she turned back to him.
"Nope," he winked, popping the 'p'.
"You appeared out of nowhere!" Rose's daughter exclaimed in disbelief. "Are you magic or something? Are you a wizard?" She paused and said in a hushed tone: "Are you a ghost?"
The Doctor frowned and looked down at himself, seeing that he was very much ghost-like. "Not exactly," he replied.
"Do you want me to get my mummy and daddy? They probably know who you are. You look really familiar."
He shook his head. "I'd like to talk to you, if that's alright."
"Well…" she began, peering around once more. "I think they might've gone back to the car real quick. So I guess. They'll probably be back soon though."
"Alright, I'll make it quick, how about that?"
The girl shrugged and waited for him to continue.
"This is 2027, correct?" he questioned her.
"Aye…" she nodded warily, her thin Scottish accent routed from her father, making the Doctor wince.
"So you're how old now?"
She grinned proudly. "Ten! I'm in fifth year!"
"Really? What's your name?"
"Ross."
"Really? What's that short for?"
Ross scrunched up her nose. "Rosslyn."
He scoffed. "Rosslyn's a brilliant name. Your mum did a good job pickin' it."
"Do you know what it means?" she crossed her arms, defiantly.
"What?" he smirked.
"It's Scottish, meaning 'promentary,'" Rose's daughter mispronounced 'promontory.'
"What's wrong with that?"
"It's boring! And Rosslyn's too girly!"
"Well, maybe someday you'll grow to like it, hm?"
"Yeah, well I highly doubt it," she huffed.
He looked off to the side for a moment, checking his controls. "I'm about to have to go in a moment, but I have two more questions."
Ross sighed. "Why can't you just talk to my mummy and daddy?"
"Because the timing isn't right, you know?"
She shook her head, but then again, she was only ten.
"Why are you here, wherever we are?"
Her mouth gaped open. "You don't know where we are? How'd you get here if you don't?"
"It's a long story," he chuckled.
"Norway," she rolled her eyes, answering his question. "It's the 20th anniversary, apparently or something like that."
"Anniversary?"
"Yeah, since one of my mum's mates died. She still sometimes gets sad about it," Ross shrugged.
20th anniversary…that would make it 2007…he came here in 2007. He said goodbye to her in 2007. He did it, and he had to do it again. He needed to find that point in time. "Well, thank you Rosslyn…" his voice carried off, waiting for the little girl to give him her full name.
"Oh, Jane Hardy," she finished for him.
"Rosslyn Jane Hardy," he held his hand up to wave goodbye. "You are just as brilliant as your mother, and I hope you keep the name."
ix.
1 st October 2007
5 minutes
How did Rose know to go to Norway in 2007? That was the thing the Doctor had to figure out once shimmering back onto his ship. She went to Norway probably specifically to tell him goodbye, so who delivered the message to her?
It would have been easier to find the point in time if he had been able to go all the way through and take some of Ross's DNA. But at least he had a rough date and a rough place. He just needed to connect Rose to Norway.
With the clock ticking down fast, he needed to focus on sending her the message. Where would she hear him? Where would she listen?
If he found one more sun, he could leave just a whisper in one time point, and catapult his image into another. One more sun. And it had to be a good one. A supernova.
The Tardis flew to Arcturus in the Boötes constellation. 8 trillion A.D. The year it burned.
He stuck his fingers in the telepathic circuits and focused. A Rose who will listen.
After sonicing his console he whispered the words he thought most important. The words he knew she'd hear. The words he knew she'd know were his.
"Bad Wolf. Norway."
x.
2 nd October 2007
4 minutes
His image came into view quickly afterwards onto the same beach he had seen in 2027. But all he saw, all he noticed, was her.
All of his past mistakes and journeys had to lead up to the most perfect goodbye in the history of farewells, and he would make it so when she remembered him, when they remembered each other, they never, ever wanted their goodbye to be anything else.
" Where are you?"