A/N: This is indeed a reunion story that does assume that the bits of s4 with Rose and the creation of Tentoo did not occur. (Which...I love Tentoo, but needs must for the story) Pardon me for posting a Christmas story when it's almost May. Also for the incredibly cheesy title. It was a Christmas present for a friend on tumblr.

Thanks so much for the absolutely lovely response to the first half of this!

All mistakes are mine as I'm the only one who proofread it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Doctor Who. I am just playing with the characters because they play with my emotions.

The Doctor took a seat across from her, legs sprawled out in front of him as he leaned back on locked elbows. They stared at each other for a few moments, both expecting the other to begin. The Doctor broke first, asking the question foremost on his mind. "How Rose? How are you here? I tried everything I could think of and the closest I came was that damn beach."

Rose sighed and then launched into an explanation of a dimensional hopper, based on the early design used when the breach was open. She had refined it to where a jump would only create a pinprick in the dimensional walls instead of a gaping hole. The universe was used to small pinpricks appearing now and then so it automatically healed them. Rose had observed a large number of these incidental pinpricks appear and disappear before working on her design. Finally, after years of research and test after test to make sure she wouldn't damage the walls between universes, Rose began dimension hopping. She could only do a jump once a month so when she landed somewhere, she had to figure out how to live for a month before moving on.

"It took a lot of jumps for me to find this universe." Rose said quietly after finishing her explanation. "Lots of universes out there but even when they were real similar I could tell they weren't quite right." She looked down at her hands which were twisted together and holding tightly to each other as she fought to remain calm. "Some of them were so wrong that it took all I had to stay the month that the universe needed to heal. Saw universes where you were dead. Watched you die once. Ones where the Earth was just a smoking ruin with feral humans eating anything they could find, including each other. There was war and famine and sickness and death." Rose was shaking and when she wrenched her eyes up to meet the Doctor's he could see tears shining in her eyes that she wasn't letting fall.

He couldn't stay across the room. In a flash he was leaning against the console next to her and pulled her into a sideways hug. With her face buried in his chest, a steady double heartbeat underneath her ear, Rose found herself able to continue. "I tried to help where I could but so often things were beyond help and I just had to survive. Did some things I'm not proud of but I had to survive, had to keep going." She trailed off again and the Doctor just held her tighter. He understood doing horrible things to survive, to make it through to the next day. He understood what it was like to look at a world in turmoil and despair and know there was nothing you could do to help. It weighed heavy on a soul and more than anything he wished he could add Rose's burden to his so that she could be free again.

She sniffled once and then pulled back from their hug. Linking their fingers together, she raised their entwined hands to her mouth and gave the back of his hand a quick kiss before resuming her story once more. "It wasn't all bad. There were good days, good months, where the people were kind and friendly and the world at peace. Sometimes I was able to help them if there was trouble. There were days where everyone lived." She flashed a smile at him that reminded him strongly of the one his ninth face wore on that rare day that everyone lived and he had to smile back at her. "Once I found this universe though, I cannibalized my dimension hopper to make a rudimentary vortex manipulator. Much more accurate than Jack's. More of a comfortable ride too, although that could have something to do with my connection to the vortex rather than technological genius." That last part was delivered in a half murmur, mostly to herself.

"So you've just been…" the Doctor flapped his free hand around as he tried to verbalize his question, "hopping around this universe?"

"Hopping for my life," Rose threw him a wink and laughed, her tongue peeking out of her teeth. "But I've been wandering, yes, but I've really been looking for you."

"Found me." He said, bumping her shoulder. She giggled and leaned her head sideways onto him. One more thing was bothering him though, "Rose, this is all brilliant and I can't even tell you how happy I am that you're here but how long has it been for you? It sounds like you've been searching for a long time and building the hopper had to take a while but you barely look older than when I saw you on that beach."

She was quiet for a long moment before she pulled back and looked him in the eye again. "S'been somewhere around three centuries Doctor." Her eyes skittered away from his shocked ones and she plowed on ahead, ignoring the swift intake of breath from the Doctor. "Spent about 150 years in the original alternate. Most of that time was spent holed up in my own private lab after the first 20 though. Couldn't very well explain why I wasn't aging to everyone so I just started working on getting back here and defending the planet from behind the scenes. Once I got the hopper working, I spent eleven years and two months jumping parallels. I've been in this universe for around 140 years I think. Hard to keep track sometimes." She finally met the Doctor's eyes again, her hand coming up to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear.

Her nervous habits had remained with her for 300 years and the Doctor almost smiled through his shock when he saw it. She had been away for three centuries. Had been alive for three centuries. His brain, impressive as it was, had a difficult time wrapping itself around the concept. She'd mentioned a connection with the vortex earlier and that connection, left over from becoming Bad Wolf had to be what had prevented her aging. None of that is what came out of his mouth though. "You've been back for almost a century and a half and you're just now finding me?"

Rose managed a shaky smile, still unsure of his reaction to her news. "You're a hard man to find Doctor. Especially when you don't know someone's looking for you." She bit her bottom lip, debating on whether to share one of the things she did while trying to find him. "Went to go visit Sarah Jane when I got back. Gave her a bit of a shock since she thought I was dead. She'd seen my name on the list of the dead after Canary Wharf. Apparently she went to my funeral and then ten years later to the day, I pop up on her doorstep. Thought she was seeing a ghost, she did. Gave me a place to sleep for a few days though while we caught up. She hadn't heard a peep from you but I went back to visit her often. Lent a hand when she needed it in one of her investigations. She always hoped you would show up again."

Tears shimmered in the Doctor's eyes, "Is she…"

"No, but it's going to happen soon, Doctor. You should really go see her."

"We can go see her together," he offered, hearts beating faster as he realized that Rose probably had her own life now. She may not want to travel with him again and he wanted her to more than anything. Scrambling to add onto his offer, words tumbled out of his mouth at uncharacteristic speed, "We can go lots of places, Rose. If you want. If you want to travel with me again?"

Her grin was like sunshine pouring down from between rain clouds, dazzling in the dimness. "Of course I want to. Why do you think I was looking for you, daft alien?" She could see the beginnings of a pout on his face as he turned over her words in his head. She let him stew for a moment before cupping his cheek in her hand. "There may have been another reason I was looking for you," she whispered, lips hovering over his.

"And what was that, Tyler?"

"Might have needed to tell you again that I love you."

He closed the distance between their mouths and swallowed the last word of her sentence as he grinned against her lips. Christmas might still bring up painful memories but after today he would never doubt the existence of Christmas miracles, not when he was currently holding one in his arms and snogging the breath out of her.