A/N- Hello! I know, it's been forever, like, an unacceptable amount of time, but I'm back! I come bearing gifts: the sequel to my story Together, which I wrote, as established, forever ago. I'm so so sorry about how long it took, but I finally sat down and wrote it. Anyway, I do hope you enjoy, and I will gladly take any suggestions you may have that will make it better.
On with the show!
It had been many years since the events with the Void had taken place.
His Rose, the Doctor's wonderful, brilliant, and altogether fantastic Rose was still here. She had promised him forever, and Rose, well, she's not one to break her promises.
His mind often wandered towards what could have been, what his world would have been like had the timelines not strayed from their course. He had an inkling- he was a Time Lord, after all- and it was precisely this knowledge that made him so very grateful to whatever caused the highly improbable change. To be frank, that other future he had glimpsed terrified him. It filled his heart with anguish and sent shivers down his spine whenever he thought of it, for that future was one without his Rose.
It was a thought he couldn't bear for long, because Rose was his everything. She was his rock, his best friend, his heart. A future without her was no future at all. He knew that in time he would have found another companion, and they would have been brilliant and so very wonderful, but they wouldn't have been Rose. He could have a thousand companions and none would ever be able to compare, because Rose could do something no one else had been able to manage: she could make the pangs of loneliness disappear.
The Doctor, for many years, had been a sad, bitter, and lonely man. His world, literally and figuratively, had been violently ripped away from him. He was angry and hurting, and it showed in his character. He hadn't realized the extent of his pain until he and Rose had their first adventure together, when he realized how incredibly lonely he truly was. Rose was the light at the end of the tunnel, a way out of his darkness and despair, and he couldn't let her go. She changed him, that could be seen clearly in his next regeneration. He became a better man, and his heart was being put back together again under her careful, tender care.
Rose turned him into a man he was proud to be, and that was why he could never lose her.
That's why he would never take that chance again.
So, when Rose appeared before him, ready for their next adventure, he cleared those thoughts from his mind. It would do no good to forever wonder about what could have been, because Rose was here, and that was all that mattered. He would do everything in his power to keep her safe, keep them together.
Because, in the end, this is where they were meant to be- defying the universe hand-in-hand.
Together.