The Doctor sat in the darkened TARDIS media room, staring at the screen embedded in the wall. He didn’t know when exactly the TARDIS had captured these images of his meta-crisis self and Rose — sometime in the hours between the destruction of the Crucible and the landing on Bad Wolf Bay. He wasn’t sure why the TARDIS had done it, either, but he’d found the unlabeled files hidden away in the depths of her visual logs and played them, out of curiosity.

The smile on his other self’s face — he knew the feel of that smile in his own cheek muscles. He knew the contentment and joy behind it. He knew the way it welled up from his chest when he gazed at Rose Tyler. Her laugh still rang in his ears, all this time later. Quiet, fainter than it had been in life. But still there.

Somewhere in Pete’s universe, his other self was still smiling that smile at Rose and seeing her smile back. He was hearing her laugh, feeling that well of contentment and joy, and basking in hers in return.

Experimentally, the Doctor forced the corners of his mouth upward. His cheek muscles twitched. His mouth fell into a flat line once again.

With a sharp inhale, the Doctor leaned forward and flipped a switch. The screen went dark.

Rising to his feet and moving toward the console room, he looked at the ceiling and spoke to his ship: “Well, old girl, how about we do something different today? Haven’t been to Mars in a good long while, have we?”

(Source: carlofan, via melislostinthestars)