The golden threads of the TARDIS's heart catch Rose in their grip. They play over her like fingers, somehow getting underneath her clothes to run directly over her skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake. She feels as if she's being lifted off the ground under the force of it, flying. Some part of her knows that that's all in her mind, just as the intimate caresses all over her body are.

It still feels real.

The TARDIS makes its way inside her in a way that no one and nothing ever has been before, not with a forceful thrust but winding through her, slowly insinuating itself beneath her defences. Something about the connection makes Rose's breath shorten and the tightness between her legs twinge in a way that she really doesn't mind at all.

There's a rushing feeling, as if space is passing by quickly. In that moment it feels not as if the TARDIS is just inside her, but as if she is the TARDIS, and the TARDIS is her. A smile forms on Rose's lips and she laughs; a sound that builds and combines together with the notes of the universe to create a haunting melody.

She reaches out and can touch the stars without even scorching her questing fingertips. She throws her head back and closes her eyes, wondering how she's gone this long without this kind of bliss.

The Doctor told her what it was like to feel the Earth, and every world, move under his feet, but hearing isn't experiencing. The rush runs through her veins hotter than blood, and pounding just the same.

She's barely in control as she steps out of the TARDIS (she has just enough wherewithal to wonder how that's even possible, when the TARDIS is her). She, the TARDIS, whatever it is that the two of them have become as they've been melded together, faces off against the gathering of tiny beings that can't even comprehend the immensity of what she's feeling right now. They're an unwanted distraction. She squashes them just as they deserve, and all the while feels like she's floating on the winds of space like the dust they leave behind.

She knows she still has a body, but it's an awareness that's practically only academic now. She doesn't feel as if it's actually true. The TARDIS lifts her beyond those worldly considerations, and she finally grasps that she's unconstrained and has the power to do anything at all that she chooses. Life, death, love; all can be conquered with just a wish and a thought, and each conquest drives her higher and higher in a spiral until it's so much that it's so good it hurts.

The TARDIS's grip on her turns harsh, and though part of Rose still enjoys it — she can't ever let go of it or get enough of it — she feels as if she's being overloaded. It's too much sensation, and it will eventually break her into more pieces than there are stars in the sky (and she can feel every one) if it goes on for much longer. She has no idea whether she'll go out with a smile on her face or screaming in pain, though she has difficulty forcing herself to care.

The song that echoes around her crests as something more plainly physical and solidly present than any sensation that's come before presses up against her. Lips touch hers. She leans into that body aligned to hers, pressing herself against him and arching her body almost lazily as she meets his kiss, some part of her that seems light-years away recognising that this is something she wants badly. Something like electricity, but so much more powerful, zaps through her from that contact. She clings onto that kiss when she finally recognises what and who it is touching her. She can see all of the possibilities of this, and they're endless.

She has the power of the universe at her fingertips, as well as thrumming through every other inch of her body. She could suspend this moment for all of eternity so that she'll never have to be separated from him, or from the TARDIS, the three of them finding a moment of synchronisation that's as beautiful as it is terrifying. She could shape the universe around them so that every star and every planet exists solely to support this kiss and this connection. She wouldn't even have to alter him so that he wants the same. He's already right there with her, even if he won't admit it.

But he won't act on the desire to keep her with him, and she doesn't want to have to force him, even though she knows she easily could at this moment. She could make him do anything, beanything, but all she wants is him exactly as he is.

That's why she has to let go after all.

She gasps as the kiss ends and her body shudders with release as she's supported by strong arms. Rose (for she is once again finally herself and nothing more) sags, exhausted and suddenly feeling oddly empty.

The Doctor is holding her, she thinks distantly as she watches the gold light that has disappeared from her mind fade from her sight as well. The Doctor kissed her. Her lips curve up slightly at the memory.

She slumps against the ground as that support falls carefully away, but she continues to feel as warm as if his arms were still around her.

She wants more, she thinks. She wants more of him, and so much more of everything that she felt in that long moment when she was so close to him. She wants to kiss him again, and for him not to let her go so easily the next time. And she'll make sure it happens as well. Just as soon as she has a bit of a nap.

She won't let him get away with keeping her at arm's length anymore, she promises herself tiredly, her eyelids drooping. She won't...

There's something she's supposed to remember, she thinks later as she wakes and blinks up at the Doctor. There's something important that's falling away, falling, spiralling within the strange notes of music and laughter that she can't properly make out even within her own head...

She smiles at the Doctor nonetheless. She's back with him just like she'd wanted, and he's safe after all, and that's the most important thing, she decides. The rest doesn't matter.

~FIN~