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The fact that Rose Tyler had no idea where she was didn't phase her overmuch. Not now, anyway - it would later, but right now, the simple truth that she'd managed not to fall to her knees or puke up her breakfast was enough of a triumph that it kept her busy.

It took her a minute (okay, several minutes) to actually look around the room she'd

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[was_fantastic]

He turned and looked at the voice. Sometimes it was so quiet in the TARDIS that the Doctor could swear he heard ghosts. Ghosts of voices once there. But this wasn't a ghost-- Rose was actually standing there and for a long moment he looked light a deer in headlights as he stared at her, slack jawed and speechless.

What?, he wanted to say, but then his slack jawed expression broke and he smiled brightly.

"Hello," said the Doctor.

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Rose blinked, her mouth opening and closing before she lifted her chin, finally biting her lips as she walked closer, trying to avoid looking around, staring at this place she'd been so sure that she'd never see for the rest of her life.

"So you're still... you."

She rubbed her hands over her jacket, then to her hips, then finally scratching the back of her head with one because she didn't know what the sodding hell to do with them. "How've you been?"

This wasn't how she'd imagined it would go, and she just sort of... stopped, about four meters away from him. "Y'look- I mean. You look alright."

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"Oh," he said, exagerating the sound as he mirrored her with the hand in his hair. "Well. You know how it is. Running. I've been doing a lot of running. And travel. Stopped a coup, got..."

Married. No, might be best not to say that to her.

"...caught in a storm. And now you're here."

He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes.

"How are you here?"

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"Right. The running." She nodded, worrying at her lower lip before he'd asked, her brows shooting up. "Me? Oh, I just... Well, ended up finding some salvager who had a Sontaran Time Jumper, jumped to 2008, used the dimensional canon, ended up in Ipswitch, found Jack, got his Vortex manipulator, then... here I am." She was looking at the ceiling through her whole explanation. "The coordinates took into account the TARDIS' interlational buffers and the other things, you know

[was_fantastic]

"...The way you do," he repeated. Brilliant as he was, it was still something he'd only have thought to cobble together in an emergency. Of course humans would bounce around and use what technology they could. Fantastic...and ridiculous. He was moderately impressed by her tenacity, but then he always had been.

"A new...oh. No. No, not for a while now. Just bouncing around on my own, you know. Traveling. The way you do."

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"... Ah." She bit her lip, and shrugged her shoulders. "So, are you- I mean. I need to be here." She swallowed. "I don't know why, but I do. So..." She looked around the inside of the TARDIS, and then suddenly, from nowhere-

"D'you have some sort of - I don't know, asprin or something? M'head, it's killing me." She pulled in a breath, her hand rubbing the back of her neck.

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"Aspirin. Right. I reckon bouncing around like that would do a number on your..."

He gesticulated wildly about his head. Human brains...not meant for that sort of thing, really.

"You need to be here? Of course. Right. That's why you...with the canon and the...Jack? Jack helped you? You saw him, then?"

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"Jack? I saw him in 2008, yeah. He gave me his manipulator." She paused. "He said- anything to help find you. He'd not seen- I mean, he'd not lived it yet. No idea about anything." She bit her lip.

"So, uhm. Where are you going? I mean, I'm guessing I ended up here and now for a reason." She was holding herself back, and it felt like that distance was a palpable thing, and it was one she wouldn't break.

Still, she looked away. "He died. Saving the world. Just thought you should know."

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"Jack? Ohh, well, he dies quite a lot," the Doctor replied, then drew his lips into a bow and furrowed his brow as he thought deeply.

"I'm going...I don't know where I'm going. Eventually I've got to go see the Ood, but right now, you know me, I'm just traveling."

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She didn't move from where she was, looking up at the ceiling again. "So, would you rather I just... left? I mean, I can-" She couldn't, but she still looked behind her, like she could somehow go back the way she'd come.

"Didn't know I was coming here. I mean, here, specifically, so-" She laughed, a tight, awkward sound. "Sorry I didn't ring ahead or anything." She shoved her free hand into the front pocket on her jacket, mostly because the other was still clinging to the banister - the world kept dimming and brightening, and she'd rather not just fall over. Not here. Not when he was standing in front of her.

Not when he'd left her, and she'd fought her way back here, and there's wasn't so much as a It's good to see you. No, Rose was ignoring the dimming, the pounding headache.

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"Leave? Naaaw, no! No! no, no, no, no need to leave. Or ring ahead. Come in, come in. No reason ti linger there," he chattered, ushering her forward.

"It's good your here. Can halep me choose a destination, eh? We can go somewhere together."

He seemed excited about that idea. It was the most excited he'd been in years.

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She stared at him, and then actually wobbled sitting abruptly on the jump seat, her forehead pressed against the heel of her hand as she stared at the floor, trying very hard not to throw up on his battered trainers.

"How can y'do that? Act like you didn't just leave me-" She looked up at him then, her face twisting. "You left me. I shouldn't have kissed him, but you left me." She shook her head, sucking in a breath, and stepped around him - and started finding the right knobs and levers, turning and flipping and reaching. She'd not know what she was reaching for, and then there it'd be under her fingers, and she'd just know what to do with it.

"I thought-" She looked up at the column, knowing he was going to stop her any second now (hell, she'd have stopped her the moment she'd appeared on his ship), "I thought that I mattered." She finally looked at him then, every single bit of good humor gone as she yanked the last lever.

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The TARDIS lurched and began to bellow and growl. The Doctor wasn't so much concerned with that. He'd been pulling and pushing at random for quite a while now.

"You dis matter. Do matter. You matter enough to have a normal life and not all...this. Aren't you happy with him? He's me. We're us. Best of both worlds, eh? Home and family. Mortgage and a little fence with flowers and the man of your...er...he has to love you, right?"

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"He's dead," Rose said succinctly as she stared at the time rotor, watched it rise and fall, and then she let herself close her eyes, catch herself on the console, leaning against it in a way she hoped was non-nonchalant.

"Sacrificed himself to save the world, and no, no home and family and normal life. The girl who made the Doctor I met into the man who you are has been gone since the first time you left me in Normandy." She sucked in a breath through her teeth. "I'm the head of Torchwood Six, and Special Advisor to Capt. James McCaren of the Valiant, or, I suppose, I was until I started having dreams that left me running willy-nilly all over the universe after you."

She bit her lip so hard it turned white. "He died eight months ago. Daleks." Who else?

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Dead. Dead dead. Forever dead. No regeneration, no last minute save-the-day plan. Just dead. Cold gripped him all over and his face went placid and pained for a minute.

"I'm sorry," he said. I'm so sorry. But you? What about you? You don't look well at all..."

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"Don't be sorry. He saved the world. Like you would have." She slipped then, sliding slowly down from where she'd half-leaned on the console, towards where she'd end up on the grating if he didn't catch her. "It's- I keep knowing things. Knowing things I shouldn't know, like how to g-get here, or flying the-"

Words sort of failed, and she reached out for him - the first time in what seemed like a lifetime.