The Time Lord’s Dilemma

Title: The Time Lord’s Dilemma
Character(s), in order of appearance: Ten. Mention throughout of Rose.
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: 12
A/N: Coming to terms with this is more difficult than I’d expected ... hence these drabble!fics.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Spoilers: Journey’s End; reference to The Runaway Bride and Family of Blood.
Summary: Can he do this?

( Can he do this, to *her*? )

The Tenth Doctor and Journey’s End

It’ll sound hard to believe, but I don’t actually dislike Ten II. (I don’t like him very much, either, but that’s an entirely separate issue.)

And if I thought that Ten I was all right about it (as opposed to “all right”, which is something else again), I could sing the Ten II/Rose song with the rest of you.

But he isn’t, and I can’t, and I don’t really know even now how to reconcile the two.

Part of me wants Ten II to be the Doctor, as otherwise Ten I has given everything up for nothing. And yet part of me cannot bear the idea that Ten II is the Doctor because in many ways for me that means that the Doctor’s grieving Rose (all of Season Three, and a bloody great chunk of Season Four as well; and it was not the mourning of a man who wasn’t romantically in love with Rose, either – I don’t care what the naysayers say) was essentially for nothing, too (how can he have done that and then turned around and effectively dumped her, first chance he realistically had?)

I am conflicted (and, as more than one person on my f-list has said, I suspect that’s what RTD and co. wanted from us), horribly so, and I just don’t know what to do.