His mind was wandering, but that wasn't anything new. He was always travelling around space and time, saving civilizations that weren't supposed to be saved, showing people the worlds that surround them.

But he always lost. No matter what he did, he would always lose. Lose people. Lose soul mates. Lose his reason to live. And the most important thing, the one person he allowed himself to fall carelessly in love with, was the one person that he regretted losing the most.

Rose Tyler and the Doctor were in love, there's no arguing that. Rose saved him from death, whether it was his or somebody else's, and for that he would forever be grateful. He wouldn't have been standing there at this moment, staring out at the Norwegian ocean, where he had said goodbye and left her behind with the man that was supposed to be him.

I hope she's happy, he thought to himself, his hands in his pockets. That's all that really matters.

It had been thirteen hundred years, or four and a half billion - depending on how you want to look at it - since he had seen her last. At this point, she was just a distant, ever fading memory that he was desperately trying to hold on to. But that was the curse of immortality, and in contrast to the long years he had lived, the time he got to spend with the ones he cared for was fleeting.

Two regenerations had further corrupted his memory of her. He had once regenerated out of his love for Rose, to save her life, and that version of him spent his entirety loving her, then yearning for her. People assume that because he's a different man now, and because he's so much older, that he doesn't love her anymore.

But that's not true. He will always love her. To the Doctor, it's like losing a spouse to an illness, then eventually moving on enough to remarry, but you will always love the one you lost.

The Doctor closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He knew that this was probably a bad idea, considering the fact that the last time he did something like this, he had burned up an entire sun, but he just couldn't bear it anymore: he needed to see her one last time. To make sure that she's happy, and that his meta-crisis duplicate was treating her well, and that Jackie and Pete were still okay, and to meet Rose's little brother, and...

He pressed a button on the Tardis center console, pulled a lever, and then the creaky, wheezing sound rang out across Bad Wolf Bay. Then, he was in front of Rose Tyler's house, and his hearts started to race as the front door creaked open, and in only an instant she was sprinting towards him, and his breath caught in his throat while his stomach twisted into wonderful knots and his skin tingled at the very thought of holding her in his arms again.

And then, with one whoosh of the Tardis door, she threw herself at him, burying her head in his neck to muffle her sobs. The Doctor hugged her tightly, gripping at her back, bunching her shirt up in his hands.

"Rose," he barely managed to breathe. He had to tell her now, before he had to go to spare an entire galaxy from burning, so that he could finally feel complete, so that his unfinished business would be finished, and so that maybe he could move on. "I-I love you."

Now her breath caught in her throat, because she had dreamed of this moment for so long, and she thought for a second before whispering, "Quite right, too," and they both just stood there, holding each other until their arms started to ache and their hearts stopped racing.

And then, after thirteen hundred years, he could finally breathe.