Floating.

Floating through time and space, suspended among the stars. The Doctor didn't care anymore.

Six months, he thought to himself. It had been six months. More or less, anyway. Six months he'd been without Rose.

Rose. It hurt to think of her name, but it hurt even worse to think of her laugh, her smile, her voice saying his name. It hurt to dream of her. The moment she lost her grip on that wretched lever made an appearance in his nightmares every bloody night. Every night, he had to watch her let go, had to watch her be ripped away from him, screaming as she was carried on a violent wind into a parallel universe. Trapped forever, never to return to him.

He had tried traveling with another companion, Martha, but things had gotten so complicated with her. She'd gone home, and the Doctor was on his own once again, a lonely man wandering the universe.

Two weeks previously, an asteroid had very nearly hit the TARDIS. The Doctor had steered out of the way, but it was a narrow miss. Only afterwards, when he was safely floating through the universe again, did he think to himself what would have happened had he just let the asteroid hit him. He wouldn't have to miss Rose anymore, nor suffer through the constant nightmares- every enemy he'd ever encountered in his life, always ending with Rose's desperate cries as she was torn from him.

But he was the last of the Time Lords. And so he lived on, albeit grudgingly.

The Doctor walked over to the computer and glanced at the screen to see what was outside his ship. It was a standard view: stars, a lone supernova in the distance. Nothing had changed for the Doctor since he had last checked the computer.

And just as that thought crossed his mind, everything changed.

At that moment, just as the Doctor turned away from the computer, the TARDIS lurched violently, huge shocks of energy coming through every few seconds. The Doctor scrambled over to the control panel and began frantically pressing buttons, trying to right the ship, but to no avail. The TARDIS shook as though it were on solid ground experiencing an earthquake. There was nothing the Doctor could do but grab hold of a handle and hang on for dear life. He shut his eyes, hoping with all his might that he wasn't under attack.

Just as suddenly as the episode had began, everything was calm again.

The Doctor opened his eyes, and nearly choked.

Standing there on the grate, apparently solid, was Rose.

Rose. His Rose. The Rose that was supposed to be trapped in the parallel universe. The Rose that had been trapped there for six months. The Rose that, if his eyes were to be believed, was here in front of him right at this very moment.

Her expression was somewhat afraid as she looked into the eyes of her Doctor. "It's me," she said, breaking the silence between the two. The Doctor looked like he was about to faint, and she took a step towards him in case she needed to steady him. "It's me," she repeated. "Rose."

The Doctor stretched out one trembling hand, and laid it on her cheek. She was warm and solid, and her cheek heated at his touch. Hardly daring to believe even his own nerve endings, he whispered in a shaking voice, "Rose...is it really you?"

"I'm here, Doctor," she said in a voice barely above the volume of his. "I'm here with you. It's really me."

"But..." the Doctor said weakly, his hand still on her cheek, "How?"

"Mickey and Jake and I have been working for months on those transporters from Torchwood Tower," Rose replied. "Before I-" and here she winced- "left, a piece of the TARDIS fell off. Just a tiny little piece of metal and a screw. I didn't tell you, because it didn't seem to cause any damage, but I still had it in my pocket when we got seperated." She took a deep breath to steady herself. "I showed it to Mickey and Jake and they messed with it a little. Turns out, it carried a sort of code attached to the TARDIS. We figured out how to hook it up to the transporter so that when the time came, I would transport straight into the TARDIS, wherever it was. Sorry about all the shaking, by the way. It took a massive amount of energy to get here."

Slowly, as if he were dreaming, the Doctor lifted his other hand and placed it on Rose's other cheek. "Rose Tyler," he said in a low voice, "I love you." A sob broke in his chest. "My God, Rose, you're home."

Tears filled Rose's eyes as she wrapped her arms around the Doctor's neck and pulled him close. "I'm home," she whispered in his ear. "I'm right here with you, and I love you too."

The Doctor pulled back from their embrace and looked into her eyes for a split second before he kissed her fiercely. She kissed him back, matching his frantic need for the two of them to be as close as possible, as soon as possible.

She fumbled with his shirt, trying to get the buttons undone without ever stopping their kiss. He reached down and helped her, throwing his shirt behind him as they broke the kiss for just a second so he could fumble with hers. The instant it was off, she kissed him again, the fire inside her fierce and burning all the way down to her toes, blazing brighter every second.

The Doctor's hearts beat out of time, faster than they had ever beat before. He knew there was one thing they needed before this went any further, and so he broke the kiss again and virtually sprinted to the other side of the TARDIS. He kept an old quilt from his childhood somewhere back there, he knew he spotted it, and as quickly as he could, rushed back to Rose, and laid it out on the floor.

As gently as he could, he laid Rose down on the quilt and laid down beside her to resume their kiss. It was slower now, deeper, less frantic and desperate. The fire still burned within both of them, but it burned slower now, smoldering instead of blazing.

As suddenly as they had been seperated so many months ago, they were one.