Summary: Set near the end of Runaway Bride.  Angst/Introspection.  Ninth and Tenth Doctor perspective.

The first time was the one where he asked twice.  He never asked twice.  But she'd swung from a chain to rescue a stranger, and that was so stupid that it was fantastic.  So, she'd kissed her wet blanket of a boyfriend on the cheek and run towards him, and he'd thought then that there was probably nothing more amazing than her trust in him.

The second time, he'd landed them in Cardiff, and they were about to die.  He'd told her he was glad he'd met her - trite words, but he hoped she knew that he meant them.  She'd said 'Me, too'.  That's all - just two words - but they'd been enough to soothe a wound in his soul that he hadn't known existed.  He'd taken her hand, then, and given her something of himself with it.  He hoped she knew, but back on the TARDIS she hadn't said anything.

The third time, they were in Downing Street, locked in the Cabinet room.  He told her outright that he could save the world, but lose her, himself lost in the seeming inevitability of their failure.  She'd smiled, and told him to do it anyway.  A nineteen year old shop girl he'd only met a few days before told him to blow her up to save the world.  Then she'd saved them all - him, and Harriet Jones, and herself - and he'd not had the chance to dissimulate about what he'd said back in the Cabinet room.  She hadn't asked, though.

The fourth time was the same day, back on the Powell Estate, when she'd handed him her bag and told him he was stuck with her.  He'd fought not to smile, then, and wondered what was happening.  He was scarred, and walked alone.  Since when did he tie himself to silly human girls barely out of infancy?  Since now, it seemed.  And, what was worse, he didn't care.

The fifth time was the time he tried to rationalise what the Dalek was saying until he could almost convince himself that it meant nothing.  The woman he loved?  Of course.  He loved all the people he'd travelled with for any length of time.  The Dalek was an emotionless shell, it didn't know what 'love' was, and it mistakenly assumed that any affection - that of a friend for a friend, for instance - was the same love as any other.  But then the Dalek showed emotion itself, wishing for its own death, and he wasn't so sure any more.  Nevertheless, had she asked, he would have told her the reasoning he'd used on himself.  She didn't ask.

The sixth time, they were in 1941, and he was trying to resonate concrete.  The universe doesn't implode because the Doctor dances, she'd said, and he'd given in, begun to hold her a little bit closer than he ought, when Jack Harkness had transmatted them out.  He buried it, then, and the only indication he gave was to warn off the cowboy captain with his eyes as he finally danced with her that night.

The seventh time, they were on Satellite Five, and she'd been killed in front of him.  He'd told her, then, over and over in his mind.  It didn't matter that she couldn't hear him - he'd never have told her if she had, anyway.  All that life, all that brilliance - because he only took the best - gone.  Oh, yes, he'd told her then.

The eighth time was the time he'd been lost for words.  He'd sent her back to the Powell Estate, screaming at himself all the while, knowing it was the right thing to do.  But she'd come back.  She'd come back, flush with the power of the Time Vortex, and once again she'd saved him.  He'd wanted to tell her that she didn't need such power to save him, that she'd done it a hundred times, right from the first time he'd taken her hand, but he didn't.  Instead, he kissed her, and died for her, and told her that she was fantastic.

The ninth time, he took her hand in a new body, and she'd smiled tremulously at him.  That had been when he'd known for certain what he'd suspected for some time - he was lost to this girl from early 21st century Earth (not even the good part of the 21st century!), and he didn't really want to find himself again.

The tenth time was when she said hello, on New Earth.  It was the first time they'd seen each other being themselves since they'd been separated at the lifts.  He wanted to do as his past self had, and kiss her, but luckily for his peace of mind Cassandra-in-Chip's-body had interrupted, and he was safe.  Until the next time.

The eleventh time, she waited five and a half hours for him to come back to her.  Always wait five and a half hours, he'd said then, and resolutely ignored the thought that one day - if he made enough of these mistakes - she might not have five and a half hours.  So he told himself that he wouldn't make those mistakes, and they would always have enough time.

The twelfth time, they were in another world, and Mickey the idiot said it for him.  It was always going to be her, wasn't it?  And he'd thought to himself, as he cursed and ran after her, that the boy was right.  It was always going to be her.

The thirteenth time was his own fault.  He'd aimed for 1967, and America.  He'd landed in 1957 London.  And then her face had been taken and he realised that, no matter how noble he liked to think himself, his anger at the Wire really came down to one thing - nobody hurt her.  Nobody.  So he'd saved her - and the others, incidentally - and when she'd found him on that street it had been the most natural thing in the world to scoop her up into a hug and refuse to let go.  If she'd asked, he would have passed it off as exuberance at yet another day in which everybody lived, but she didn't ask.

The fourteenth time, they were on an impossible planet, and she offered him a mortgage.  The moment had been awkward, tense, but what he'd thought beyond all that was that he would have.  For her, he would have.  The amazing thing was, though, that she didn't want him to, and that was enough to allow him these grand, silent promises.  Then she'd ordered him to bring back the hideous orange spacesuit in one piece, and he'd made that promise again - silently, again.  She'd kissed his visor, and for a moment he'd indulged the wish that he hadn't put the helmet on for a while.

The fifteenth time, she hadn't even been there.  Ida Scott was the one to hear his semi-declaration, one that he was honest enough to admit that he wouldn't have had the courage to voice if Ida hadn't been the only one able to hear him.  Tell her...  He hadn't said it, though, because that would be like admitting defeat.  He believed that they would get out alive, both of them.  As he told the beast later; he believed in her.  And, anyway, she knew.  Oh, she knew.

The sixteenth time was when he realised that it was becoming more frequent.  He offered an exchange of Ida Scott for her, and they were holding each other almost the moment she entered the TARDIS.  She didn't move from his side until long after they'd left the time and place of Krop Tor, and he found himself wishing that it would always be that way.  His practicality told him that it wouldn't, but hope won through - after all, him and her, they were the stuff of legend.

The seventeenth time, she offered him a fairy cake with those ridiculous edible ball-bearings, and he told her to never say never ever.  He didn't want to, but he could feel it: someone wanted to take her from him.  She was so young, so full of life, and he couldn't bear to let her go... but if the universe tried, he knew he'd be no match for it.  It was the first time he'd felt his hearts clench in fear for her when they weren't in mortal danger.  It was the second time in as many days that he'd wanted to hold her tight and never let go.  It was the third time he'd wished upon a star.  It was the seventeenth time.

The eighteenth time, he walked into a room with four Daleks, Mickey the Idiot, and her.  She smiled, and he couldn't help smiling back, no matter that they were in serious trouble.  She had expected him, and that made him feel more alive than he had in years.

The nineteenth time, he put a hopper around her neck and sent her away.

The twentieth time, she came back and promised him her forever.

The twenty-first time, he watched her save the world and fall through to a fantastic life, and he wanted nothing more than to scream the agony he felt to the stars.  So he stood at the wall where he'd last seen her, felt himself tear apart inside, and left Earth to give those stars his cries.

"What was her name, this friend of yours?"

She was his plus-one.  The best.  Bronze medal in under-sevens' gymnastics.  Worth fighting for.  Daughter of a harridan  with a heart and a hero with impeccable timing.

She was the Bad Wolf - his saviour and his damnation.

She was life, and light, and hope, and joy.  Laughter and comfort and a hand to hold.  She was hope and desperation and courage and adventure, warmth and safety and danger and everything that had once been fantastic in the universe.

"Her name was Rose."