If You Want

1~ If We Only Die Once...

~Rose's point of view~

"Hold on, this is the parallel universe, right?" The TARDIS had landed, and I had walked out onto a beach. The beach I hoped I would never return to: Därlig Úlv Strànden, a.k.a. Bad Wolf Bay.

The Doctor nodded. "You're back home."

No, I thought. My home is in your universe.

"And the walls of this world are closing again, now that the reality bomb never happened," Donna spoke. "It's dimensional retroclosure. See, I really get that stuff now.

"No, but I spent all that time trying to find you," I said sadly. "I'm not going back now."

"But you've got to," the Doctor said. "Because we saved the universe, but at a cost. The cost is him." He nodded toward the metacrisis of the Doctor, the Doctor-Donna. (It happened like this: the Doctor regenerated, and directed all of the energy into his cut off hand from Christmas with the Sycorax, so he didn't have to change his appearance. The regeneration energy was activated by Donna when she touched the hand-- the TARDIS had been burning by the hand of Davros at the time-- and it grew a clone of the Doctor. Donna's newfound intelligence was from the Doctor's own mind, and we had a second Doctor around. It had been a very strange day.

The Doctor continued. "He destroyed the Daleks. He commuted genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own."

The Metacrisis Doctor protested. "You made me."

The Doctor addressed him, "Exactly. You were born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge." Turning to me again, the Doctor spoke with serious eyes. "Remind you of someone? That's me, when we first met. And you made me better. You can do the same for him."

My mind was reeling, and I couldn't believe any of this. I had finally found my Doctor, and now he was telling me to go back? Telling me to return to this insane world without him in it? And with a man that looked like him, but wasn't him? And I knew that I could help the metacrisis, like I had helped the Doctor himself, but I really didn't know if I wanted to take in this new/same man.

I felt kind of bad for the metacrisis, but I had to say it. "But he's not you."

"He needs you. That's very me." The Doctor's words struck a soft nerve in my heart. The Doctor, either Doctor, needing me? That's almost implying those three words I never got to hear...

"But it's better than that, though. Don't you see what he's trying to give you?" Donna asked me, then turned her head to the Metacrisis Doctor. "Tell her. Go on."

I looked to the man with my lover's face, and he spoke. "I look like him and I think like him. Same memories, same thoughts, same everything. Except I've only got one heart."

"Which means?" It came out a bit rude, but I was confused and a little upset by his words, and I couldn't help it.

"I'm part human. Specifically, the aging part. I'll grow old and never regenerate. I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you, if you want."

I was starting to realize what he was saying. "You'll grow old at the same time as me?"

He nodded. "Together."

Suddenly, the TARDIS made a noise. "We've got to go. This reality is sealing itself off forever," the original Doctor stated.

"But, it's still not right because the Doctor's still you," I said.

"And I'm him."

I decided to test something before he, my Doctor, left forever. "All right. Both of you, answer me this." I now stood between the original and the metacrisis. "When I last stood on this beach, on the worst day of my life, what was the last thing you were going to say to me?" I turned to face the Time Lord Doctor. "Go on, say it."