"He wasn't you, though," Rose pointed out, though in her heart she knew what he meant. That man, that nearly identical version of the one by her side, was as him as it could get. Moreso, in some ways. She'd seen the Doctor before this one and she'd met the one after, and neither was as like this one as the one he'd left behind with her. That didn't matter. Not to her. But maybe it would have mattered to him. "You needed me, too."
Oh, fine, maybe it was a little presumptuous. Assuming he needed her and all. But she wasn't stupid. She remembered how he'd looked at her when they'd first met here in Lawrence. How far he claimed to have fallen and how afraid he'd been that she'd just push him that much further away for it. What might have happened if he'd only let her stay? If he'd let her make her own decisions? They were those 'what if's again, only these she hadn't seen. And she desperately wished she had.
Something else had been bothering her, though. And, with her hand in his, it made it easier to say. "You left him with me for me to fix him. How he was so cold and angry from the war. How he'd committed genocide. But you did, too, you know. And so did I. You didn't punish either of us that way." There were things Rose didn't want to think about, but she was with the only person she could. Jackie would never understand, and neither would Pete. Even Mickey, as hard as he tried and as hard as he'd fought, couldn't completely get the things she'd gone through at the Doctor's side. With him and for him.