Title: Whys and What Ifs
Characters/Pairings: Nine, Rose, AU!10.5/Rose
Genre: Romance, Angst
Rating: PG
Spoiler Alert: Journey's End
Summary: Instead of simply being a copy of the tenth Doctor, Rose's human Doctor looks like the ninth, and she questions as to how she feels about that.
Notes: 2479 words. I feel that because 10.5 looks just like 10, Rose wouldn’t be able to get over the fact that they’re the same but different. But since 10.5 in this looks and acts essentially the same as 9, I think that Rose has a lot easier time adjusting, just like she did in The Christmas Invasion. I see this as a counterbalance or an AU to my ever so angsty Foundations fic. I might write a second part where they do domestic. A response to isiscaughey's challenge.


She’s holding his hand.

Her heels are digging into the wet sand, her mother is chattering on the phone, the wind is blowing faster and harder than she’s ever been subjected to before and the only thing she notices is that she’s holding his hand.

She feels a strange sort of numbness. She’s seen an awful lot of weird things—aliens, robots, the end of the world. But she never expected this.

She looks up at him, and her eyes widen.

She missed him so much.

“Hello,” he says, smiling and looking down at her. She blushes—she feels so awkward, so out of place—

But their hands fit into each other’s just right, as they have so many times before, and that makes it all okay.

“Rose!” her mother calls and frowns while looking at them. Rose realizes why—her mother was never too fond of…well. Her first Doctor.

It sounds so weird, calling him that. He’s the exact same as the Doctor has always been, but this time he looks just the way he did when he first met her—short, cropped hair, northern accent, leather jacket.

Every time she looks at him, she feels like she’s seeing a ghost. But his hand, his warm hand that fits so perfectly into hers, keeps her grounded. It reminds her that he’s standing here, next to here, and perfectly alive.

Of course, she remembers, he was never actually dead.

“Rose!” her mother shouts, louder, and the Doctor grimaces.

“She’ll never change, will she?” he says, and Rose smiles.

“Doubt it,” she replies, and they walk over to Jackie, still holding hands. “What is it, Mum?”

“Your dad is coming to pick us up soon, I think. Either that or I’ll murder him. Bloody beach,” she moans, and glares at the Doctor. “Why’d you have to drop us off here?”

The Doctor’s eyes widen and then narrow into a glare. “Me?” he asks. “I didn’t drop us off here, and believe me, I didn’t know what I was thinking. Or what he was thinking. Or—oh, nevermind,” he stops. Rose gives a small laugh, and he looks down at her, smiling, eyes warm.

She looks into his eyes. The light blue eyes are so jarring after years of staring into deep brown ones. She has to remember that they’re the same eyes, more or less. That he’s still the same.

But she holds onto his hand, because as long as she does so she won’t travel to that frightening place of what ifs and whys.


Rose is standing rigid, wondering if this will be the end. If the Daleks really will destroy the universe itself. She can’t believe it, but she’s starting to doubt the Doctor’s power to get them out alive.

She hears a familiar noise, one she swore she’d never hear again. But she knows better than to rule anything out permanently, so she isn’t all too surprised when the TARDIS reappears. Relief washes over her and her heart speeds up.

She has no idea what will happen next, but she’s anxious to find out.

But when the doors finally open, she thinks that she’s already died. That it’s too late. Because the person who comes out of the TARDIS, simply a silhouette against a glowing background, is one she thought she’d never see again.

It’s the Doctor.

But it isn’t the tall, skinny, manic one standing next to her. It’s her older, quieter Doctor. Her Doctor.

She shakes her head. Now is no time to debate the whys and what ifs of how she manages to keep the two separate when in reality they’re the same exact person.

She looks at the Doctor standing next to her. His eyes are wide and he looks just as shocked as she feels.

Why? she thinks, but then shakes her head. Not the time, Rose, she tells herself. But she looks at the Doctor who just emerged from the TARDIS, and she realizes that she indeed missed him, even though he is still standing next to her.

The scene changes, and now they’re on a beach. Donna and Jackie are with them, and she’s standing between her two different Doctor. She sees how different they look, but how alike they are. They manage to stand the same way, and talk with the same eccentric air about them.

She doesn’t want to leave the Doctor, but it’s all so confusing. She still doesn’t understand what Her Doctor is doing there.

“Tell her what you can give her,” Donna says to Her Doctor. She turns around and look at him, looks into his soft blue eyes as he starts to speak.

“I’m different. I’m human. I only have one heart, and only one life. And, Rose Tyler, I’d like to spend that life with you.”

Her mind takes a few second to process that. The Doctor who never did domestic. Her Doctor. But she takes a look back at the Doctor, the real one, and thinks, I’ll miss him. “You’ll stay with me?” she asks, and he nods.

“For as long as I can.”

She turns around and her heart flutters as she feels Her Doctor take her hand. She looks at the real Doctor. “But…”

“Rose, he needs you,” the real Doctor says, pain evidently in his voice. Her heart breaks, and she subconsciously squeezes Her Doctor’s hand. “Just like I did when I was him.”

It’s all too confusing.

But all she thinks is, he’s back. My Doctor is back. She loves the real Doctor, more than anyone else, and she loves how he looks and acts and is around her. But Her Doctor, Her First Doctor, he’s…she’s always missed him. And that changes things. She thinks, the really are two different people, and now she has to choose.

She feels his warm hand in hers and realizes that although it’s a hard choice, she knows what she has to do.

Tear start to fall from her eyes as she thinks, I’ll never see him again. She doesn’t know if she can bear that.

“I love you,” she whispers, and the real Doctor nods, barely able to hear her. He says nothing in return, but swallows, turns around and leaves.

She starts to cry harder and all of a sudden she’s inhaling the smell of leather and feels strong arms around her.

The TARDIS groans as it leaves, and she’s sobbing, holding tightly onto the familiar jacket.

He rests his chin on her head and brings her closer.

“Thank you,” he says.

The tears are falling down her cheeks, and she opens her eyes. She’s lying in bed, curled up to the pillow.

It takes her a minute to reorient herself. She realizes that they’ve been in the parallel world for two weeks already, and she can’t stop having these dreams. She keeps wondering, why did I choose this Doctor? and what if I hadn’t?

Before she knows it, she stumbling into the foyer where the Doctor has taken to sleeping on the couch. He wakes up immediately as she walks toward him, still crying. “I miss him,” she cries. “I’m sorry.”

He looks at her and pulls her down to sit next to him. Turning to her, he gently caresses her cheek. “I know,” he says.

“Why…” she trails off, sniffing. “Why don’t you look like him?” she asks.

He shrugs, nonchalantly, as if she was asking why he wore the green jumper instead of the red one. “The metacrisis,” he says, as if that would explain everything. “It triggered my past regeneration, instead of my current one. Random, I’d say, but there’s never been a metacrisis. As far as I know, this could be completely typical.”

There’s silence. Rose doesn’t exactly know what to say to that. It all sounds so cold, so…scientific. But she doesn’t know if she’d rather he’d said something along the lines of, “Because I know how much you loved this me.” She doesn’t know if that would have been true. She doesn’t know if it would have been logical. She doesn’t want to ask.

“I wish I could change back,” he says. “I’m sorry you’re stuck with this big-eared, old version.”

“No,” she quickly says, shaking her head. There’s a long pause, and then she continues: “I think…I think it’s alright,” she tells him, taking his hand in hers. “It’s just like you’re back again. If you look liked him, I don’t think…I don’t think I could take it. Because you’d be you, but you wouldn’t be you and he’d be out there looking all like you…” she trails off, letting out a small giggle. “I’m babbling.”

“So you are,” he agrees. “But I get it. It’s just like having the old me back, right?”

She nods. “Yeah.”

There’s another pause. “But you still miss him.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“Yeah.”

“That’s okay.”

“Yeah.”

They don’t say much after that, but Rose sits there, leaning against him and holding his hand, thinking about why she’s okay with this situation and what if she completely forgot there was another version of him altogether.

It wouldn’t be too bad, she thinks, but her heart aches. Her First Doctor is back again, but she loves the second one just as much. They’re the same man, after all.

She looks at Her Doctor again, and he smiles at her. She shakes her head, laughing a little.

They’re the same man, except not.

They’re so very different. 

And that’s okay.


He makes sure to avoid suits when they go out to buy clothes for him. Finally they come back from a day of shopping with more clothes than they can possibly carry, and once they get into her flat they start unpacking.

“Oi, what’s that?” she asks, pointing to a small, nondescript paper bag.

The Doctor grins. “It’s a little something I picked up at Virgin Records,” he tells her.

“When did you go there?” She can’t remember him leaving her side.

He smirks. “When you were looking at the wedding dresses.” She immediately feels a blush creep onto her face and she’s sure it’s a nice bright shade of scarlet.

“I didn’t…they were just…pretty, is all,” she manages to sputter out. “Don’t get any ideas,” she warns him, and she’s not sure if she’s joking or not.

He understands her warning and drops the subject, moving over to her and taking the paper bag from her. From it he pulls a CD.

“What’s that?” she asks.

“Well, I really wanted the vinyl version, but seeing as you don’t have a turntable,” he says, glaring at her jokingly, “I had to get the CD.”

She rolls her eyes. “What is it, though?”

He grins, and it worries her slightly. Those manic grins are never a good sign (but in truth, she loves them anyway). Quickly he unwraps the CD, opens it, and sticks it in the fancy stereo Rose’s father gave her. He turns it on and waits for it to start playing, and Rose can feel anticipation rising in her.

A familiar tune starts, and the Doctor walks toward her. Her eyes widen as she realizes what the song is.

“Is this—?” she asks, and he nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “Remember?”

“Of course, how could I not?” she says, smiling at the memory. “We were being chased by a zombie gasmask kid.”

“And never really got a chance—” Rose cuts him off.

“To start our dance,” she finishes, and he shrugs.

“I was going to say finish, but have it your way,” he says, smiling. “So, Rose Tyler…do you want to see my moves?”

She grins. “Show me your moves,” she says softly to him.

He gently takes her hand in his, puts his other arm around her waist and they start to dance. This dance isn’t like their last dance—it isn’t fast, it isn’t jovial. Instead it’s slow and strangely romantic. But to Rose, it feels right. It feels exactly like how their dance should go.

She rests her head against his chest as he holds her to him tighter.

“Rose,” he says, pausing.

“Yeah?” she asks, looking up at him.

He smiles. “I’m so glad I met you.”

She nods. They don’t say anything for a while and simply sway back and forth as the song switches to something even slower and sadder.

She swallows and looks up at him. “I missed you,” she whispers, and he smiles gently back at her. She revises her statement. “I…I missed you,” she tells him.

“I know,” he says, and then grins. “So everything turned out okay then, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess it did.”  She looks away from him, because as much as she missed him, she misses the other him to.

The whys and what ifs slowly start to drift back to her, populating her mind with pinging thoughts. She no longer hears the music, only thinking about why and what if.

“But…why?” she asks, and he raises his eyebrows.

“Why what?”

“Why do you…” she trails off. The thoughts are closing in on her, but she doesn’t want to ask anymore questions.

It seems that the Doctor can read her mind, and he lets go over her hand, using his now free hand to tip her chin up so that she’s looking straight into his soft blue eyes.

“No more questions, Rose,” he tells her, smiling, and then leans down to kiss her.

The kiss is perfect: tender, sweet, and strangely familiar. She can feel his lips against hers, pressing just right, embracing her just right. It all feels so natural, and she realizes that maybe she doesn’t have to ask anymore questions after all.

Because maybe it doesn’t matter which one she loves more. Maybe all that matters is that he’s here, with her, and that he is the same person. Because when she holds his hand, it always feels the same, no matter if the hand belongs to someone with dark brown eyes or soft blue ones.

Her whys and what ifs slowly drift away as they spend the night dancing, learning each other like they never had the chance to, back when there were three hearts between them and a universe of stars.

But she never forgets those tiny differences that made each Doctor a different Doctor. She never forgets each moment she had with each of them, each time they held hands and ran for their lives.

And when she thinks about it, he’s still the same man. He’s always her Doctor.