My first ever Doctor Who fic! Woohoo! So, I am a late to the game follower of the Doctor. I am still working through the new/recent seasons and shouldn't by any means be considered at all extremely well versed with all that is Doctor Who – but I'm learning. I am up to Doomsday, this story takes place pretty much directly after that episode. I have watched, read about what happens after and what not...I'm just struggling giving up the Doctor/Rose pairing just yet...lol bare with me!

I'm watching, reading: learning.

I haven't seen The Doctor's Wife but I've read bits about it and I am completely enamoured with the TARDIS. I think the ship is fantastic and I've been reading a bit on her history...She takes a bit of an obvious place in this story. I've made her probably entirely more sentient than she is and have take great liberties with this...But I'm fanciful, I can't help it.

I hope you don't judge me too harshly on their repersination, as I said I am still learning all about the delicious new fandom. Reviews are GREATLY, GREATLY appreciated. This story is intended to be a one-shot, but I might add bits now and again as I learn and fall in love even more...reviewing certainly also helps, lets me know if I'm on to something, or just bonkers.

DISCLAIMER: all recognized bits and characters property of BBC and their creators...I'm just playing, no monies are being made.

I Am

At the age of 8 I looked into the Untempered Schism. After doing so young Time Lords, such as I was, usually do one of a three things:

Some are inspired.

Some go mad.

Some run away.

Me? Well, I ran...and I've never stopped.

Until today.

Today is the day that I stopped running.

My name is not a name the human tongue can speak, well no tongue really, except for one. His tongue, my tongue.

I have no form except the coral tomb where my soul resides. Often my heart and soul are seen as the same thing. Yet, they aren't. I can assure you they are most most certainly different.

My soul is housed at this centre of my glorious physical dwelling but my heart, oh my heart, it resides in my Time Lord.

My pilot, my constant companion...My Doctor. I've been with him more years than either of us really care to remember, though I am a machine and I could figure, down to the precise nano-second, when his life imprinted to me, but neither he nor I keep count.

We were grown on the same planet, my Doctor and I, though ancient, aged beyond usefulness was I while he was still young.

I am technically a TT Type 40 Mach 3 and the last of my sisters of which there were originally 305. Now, like my Doctor, we are the only ones left. We are the last of our kind.

He likes to fancy he "borrowed", and by "borrowed" he means stole, me from the museum where I had spent my entire existence. Since I was the last, I was to be preserved to history, to show the next generations what glories we, my sisters and I, were. The fact of the matter is though...I "borrowed" him. It was always supposed to be him.

We are grown you see, as I mentioned before, from the fibres of the Gallifrey earth. Constructed of minerals, stars, and time and space. The same earth, minerals, stars, and time and space as my Doctor. I picked him. I surrendered my entirety to him knowing that he would take me to finally see the stars and time that I was made of...and made for.

We TARDIS's, as I'm usually called, were designed to be piloted by 6 Time Lords but from the time of my first voyage I have been in the hands of one and I can't fathom a voyage without him. His imprint is all over me. He may change his appearance, just as I or he may change mine, but our makeup, our essence and our very fibres are as such that I would know him anywhere. Our imprint on each other is infinite, the most lasting things in the vortex of infinite time and space.

I know my Doctor to his very cells. His past, his present and his future I know better than my own circuits and boards. I know that he is running, that he's been running since he was 8 years old. I know that in a body that seldom truly tires he'll keep running until the day he can run no more.

He wonders why his landings are sometimes off, why he doesn't always land where and when he intends. He blames my navigation system. Always so quick to pretend it's chance is my Doctor. Too eager for an adventure is he, to question truly why things happen like they do. At least when it comes to me.

What he doesn't know, or what he refuses to see, as there is no true secrets between my Doctor and me, how could there be? He is me and I am him, we exist together, the last our kinds, the last of our planet. Maybe it's because he's scared to admit, maybe it's because denial is easier, I'm not sure, I'm still only a space ship after all, but I take him exactly where he needs to be.

Sometimes I take him where space and time needs him to be.

Sometimes I take him where he needs to be in that big vast time and space. Yes, sometimes my Doctor refuses to tend to his needs so I take the liberty. He takes care of time and space...I endeavour to take care of my Doctor.

He needs companionship, more than mine, more than I can give him. I know better than most what it means to be alone, to be the only one left. He needs a flesh and blood hand to hold. A hand to hold while runs.

My Doctor does like to run.

He needs love more than I can give. I am still just a ship, even if I've evolved more than I was ever meant to in these centuries with my Doctor. I am connected to him and my heart resides in him but still the only thing I can offer is my unwavering but silent companionship.

This is why today I am taking him back...back to Bad Wolf Bay.

Back to Rose Tyler.

He is the Doctor.

She is the Bad Wolf and the love of his existence, as I knew she would be. As I knew the day we touched down in London. I knew. I took him there, I am taking him back to her.

Around us in the vastness of time and space.

Between are walls that never should break.

But I am the TARDIS, I am the last of my kind. I am the vehicle that travels the vortex of all that is.

I am the TARDIS, I am the keeper of the Doctor and I am taking him back.

My name is Rose Marion Tyler. I am the Bad Wolf. I was the companion of the Doctor. I travelled through time and space with a Time Lord, the last Time Lord...a man not a man but still the love of my entire life. The love of my short, hazing past before him, my encompassing present and as sure as I stand on this sandy bay I know he is the love of future...even if I know that he cannot be, that his time line no longer links with mine.

Time is a wonky, indefinable, and a mysterious sort of thing. It is full of oddities and ever changing bits. I don't pretend to understand any of it, or not a lot of it anyway. Even seeing what I've seen, doing what I've done sometimes I am overwhelmed by what I've still yet to learn.

The vision, the projection of my Doctor just vanished. The last visage of what I had, of what I knew was simply severed from my life, from my timeline. He said he can never come back, that I can never leave. All that I have left now are memories of a life lived between millions of centuries – billions even. Memories of watching Earth destruct, memories of a hundred adventures – hopes for adventures still left to embark on. Memories of falling in love slowly, befriending fast, trusting emphatically, denying nothing but everything. Memories of dying and of living...oh of living! Living grandly and endlessly. Memories of a home made in the stars. I was companion to the Doctor, my home was the universe and my heart existed there. There in that expanse of eternity, with him. With the Doctor. My Doctor.

It was so sudden, so... I never thought that was how we'd part. I promised him forever. My forever – all of it. Every moment in my timeline I pledged to him without hesitation but here I stand in a parallel universe where I have everything I could imagine wanting: Mum, Dad...Mickey. All the things I wanted before I met my Doctor, before I became the Bad Wolf. Before I promised a man in a tatty leather jacket my entirety. Before I fell in love with a Time Lord, the last of his kind. My timeline has not finished, it's only been altered, torn from his and that isn't right. I promised him forever.

We were supposed to travel among the stars...forever.

We were supposed to at least be able to have a proper goodbye. He should have been able to say it, he should have said it and he should have figured out a way to save us. We were worth saving.

We are still worth saving.

I am the Bad Wolf.

I create myself.

I take the words.

I scatter them...in time and space.

A message to lead myself here...

I could have died a long time ago, I could have died that day that I and my Doctor were torn apart instead of getting sealed up on wrong side of the wrong universe...but I didn't. I saved the Doctor, he saved me...I saved myself. We save each other time and time again. He saved, he saves the world. It's time we saved us.

My name is Rose Tyler, I was the companion of the Doctor.

I promised him forever.

The Doctor blinks, tugging his ear, "Well, that's different," he mutters pausing in his frantic running about the TARDIS counsel.

He had always been one prone to talking aloud to either ship or whatever objects that were about. Most beings would be surprised at exactly how aware and listening many things were. He was never, well hardly never, talking simply to himself.

He had though, grown rather accustomed to talking to Rose. 'Best not venture there right this moment', he thought sourly, Rose had been gone two years, best to leave her there he tried to convince himself.

The Doctor was quite used to loss, used to it in a way that no being ever should be, but he was never the less. He worried about that sometimes. Part of him wished it'd get easier, part of him feared what it'd mean if it ever did. He didn't want to think about Rose, no indeed not. Not yet anyway, not when he thought of how he had had to leave her.

No, then he'd have to think about things he hadn't said, hadn't done...the things he had done. Like leaving her. He had done that.

No, best not think about Rose Tyler right this very moment. It was too raw, too new.

The TARDIS had obviously landed somewhere, somewhere clearly not the prehistoric era of Raymienedale, but very clearly somewhere.

He called out to his ship using the name only he knew, the name he only ventured to use when it was just him and his ship. He knew she wouldn't respond verbally or really in any audible way, but he knew she always understood, just as he understood her. They were two of kind really, well two of a kind in that they were now the only ones of their kinds...if you can be two of a kind like that. He might have to ruminate on that later. Maybe over a banana and a good cup of tea.

"What did you do, you blasted, sexy, spaceship you..." the Doctor always loved a good toss about, a grand adventure but this just reeked of his ship's meddling. Her navigation system seemed to constantly conspire against him, his driving wasn't that bad.

Undeterred, in fact rather excited he wagged his eye brows, flashed a large toothy smile as he grabbed his brown trench, patted his pocket to be sure his ever trusty sonic screwdriver was at the ready and burst through the TARDIS door with barely constrained exuberance.

Both of his very healthy Time Lord hearts came to an unexpected stop in his chest as he felt his trainers shift in the unsteady sand.

"Bloody h..." the exclamation died on his lips.

Rose.

His knees he found to be strangely jelly. He wanted to look down and assure himself that they were still attached but he couldn't move his eyes from his Rose.

This wasn't possible.

This walls were sealed.

He couldn't be here.

He shouldn't be here.

He couldn't move. The Doctor who was accustomed to always moving, always running toward the next adventure found that he couldn't move. This was all wrong.

This. Was. So. Very. Very. Right.

His hearts were pounding in his chest. It was just how he remembered, the bay, the pristine Nordic beach. His companion...his pink and yellow human.

Rose Tyler.

His usually unflappable self decided to be decidedly flapped. His usual rational and calm demeanour decided at that very moment to desert him.

His usually solid and dependable body decided to be considerably less...dependable as his knees gave out and he felt himself sinking into damp sand.

This was dangerous, this was all kinds of dodgy, wonky and wrong. Worse than dodgy really, it was bad. This was impossible.

The walls were sealed, the void...the contamination.

How...? Why?

TARDIS. He felt her presence pulse a little brighter, a little warmer in his mind.

Of course this had all taken just fraction of seconds in his superior Time Lord mind and he watched now as his Rose Tyler sprinted toward him yellow-blond hair streaming behind her.

"Doctor!" she cried as she slid kicking up sand to stand before him.

He looked up at her, an entirely new perspective for him, and blinked.

She sunk to her knees inches in front of him. "Are you real? Are you here...are you real, Doctor?" she pleaded, he caught the frantic, painful tones in her voice.

Her words were panted as she had lost her breath, her brown eyes burned so brilliant and her hands...those lovely, warm, human hands he had missed so much were clenched tight in front of her. He wanted to stop, to just absorb this clearly stolen, clearly fleeting moments. Her rising chest, her flushed cheeks, her singular wonderful heartbeat. His Rose.

"Oh yes...so very real. I'm very real Rose Tyler." He felt his face crack into a large, wide smile, a smile that belonged to only his Rose.

Her face, her body, her heartbeat relaxed and in flash he found himself being tackled by a wildly laughing and delighted warm human.

Hugs, oh hugs were good. Hugs from his Rose were the best kind of hugs. This was part hug, part tackle...part reunion with a piece of his soul he hadn't realized was missing. This was the link that had been missing. His link to humanity, his link to...well everything.

He wasn't lost any more. This was where he had been running to his entire life. His entire long life. It had taken losing her, not just losing her...not just temporarily misplacing her as he might have accidently done a time or two, oh no, it had taken losing her in the worst and most finite way possible. It had taken losing her to an entirely different universe...and suddenly gaining her here again to realize that she was what he had been running toward.

Forever, or however long they had. These surely ending moments, maybe his eternity, maybe her forever, time no longer had true meaning to this Time Lord as he hugged her to his body. Her warmth seeping into his being.

"Oh Rose Tyler, I've missed you..." he whispered to her hair as he hugged her closer. One hand holding her face close to him, he pressing his face to her neck where he breathed deep her assuring, right, scent. This was home. This was everything.

"And I've missed you...I thought...I never..." she laughed pulling from him words obviously failing her.

He found he had the desire to just look at her face and never stop. Tears were falling quite freely from her eyes but her smile was as radiant as he'd ever seen.

"Quite right...quite right," he answered around the sudden lump in his throat.

"How? I mean you said...but you're..." She suddenly pinched him.

"Owe! What was...oh, I remember, but I didn't ask if I was dreaming."

She grinned, "Just making sure, but really now, how are you here?"

"How did you know to come? Or do you just wander about Norway on whims?"

She tipped her head biting her lip, "Right, I don't know that it makes a lot of sense."

"And everything about our time together made so much sense," he couldn't help quip dryly at her. He hadn't been able to let her go, even as the damp sand saturated his trousers.

"I felt...I felt the TARDIS. Like she was right there, in my flat. In my mind...she spoke to me. She told me I was needed, that I was supposed to come and...save you. She called me."

He shook his head smiling, "Oh my little ship has some explaining to do she does."

"This can't possibly be real? I mean we can't stay together...can we?"

He looked down to the hands which hadn't let go of him.

"I honestly don't know." But he did. He wasn't losing her again. He just hadn't figured out how to keep her, yet.

"I have to tell you something...something I meant to say awhile ago..." he says suddenly as they struggle to stand up without letting the other go.

She looks at him taking firm hold of his hand while swatting at the clinging sand on both of their bodies with the other, "Oh, do you think it really needs saying?"

She was grinning at him as she tossed his words back at him. He stilled both of her hands, catching them in his own. Pulling her slowly flush against him, "Oh I think it does, yes it really, really does."

She grinned at him, leaning against him, and peering up, "Should I start?"

"Oh I think I remember the line, something about how I was slender and a bit foxy?" he teased trapping their hands behind her back as he pressed his forehead to hers.

"Hm, that sounds accurate but I don't think that is what I said."

"No? Hm, didn't you say that...?"

"Hush, you confounding man, you know what I said and what you were supposed to say back! So just say it, 'ight?"

"Fine...Rose Marion Tyler, I think you're just swell."

If he could have frozen time, captured that look that was on her face and hold in a frame for eternity he would. That brilliant flashing of defiance in her eyes, the knowing smile that was just a bit wild, just a little bit unknown, all wonderfully mysterious. The way she tipped her head in that conspiratorial, come hither way. The look that she was giving him in that moment was everything that summed up Rose Tyler. Well, nearly everything.

"That's not right, try again." She pushed up against him further.

"Well, how about, I love you too Rose Tyler? Better?"

"Much," she answered and managed to free her hands.

"I'm glad you..." She interrupted him by threaded her hands into the labels of his pinstripe jacket and pulling him, not too unwillingly closer to her lips.

"Just snog me already Doctor, eh?" she breathed.

Her sweet breath and sweeter words spurred him into action. Snog her then he did.

The kiss was everything perfect and everything chaotic. It was purposeful and deliberate. This wasn't him kissing her to draw out the energy to save her life...though he wasn't dissing that by any means, this was just more.

This was better.

So. Much. Better.

My Doctor saves the universe, he defends the Earth. My Doctor solves the impossible time and time again, but this time I've solved his greatest pain. I've given him the companion that I can't be. I've given him back his Rose. I've rekindled in him love.

I give and take him where he needs to be, I give him what he can't give himself. I protect my Doctor. Together now, my Doctor, his Rose and I will travel space and time once again. Once again we'll be among the stars running not away from something, not toward anything in particular...just running, running to capture as much time and adventure as possible.

I am the TARDIS, I travel time and space, I am the keeper of the Doctor.

AN: OH, I do so hope you liked that all right...I know, not really an explanation on how the TARDIS broke into the alternate universe...and not really all that spectacular...I just like romance and really love the character of the TARDIS lol... As I said, haven't see The Doctor's Wife so I've no true idea of her personality...but I like to think perhaps she might be a little like this...

Much Love! RA