Hello everyone! Sorry this took so long to get to you – I'd like to point out that I went back and did a lot of severe editing of this fic, and some major things have changed/been added, so if you want this to make sense I would go back and reread it. I just didn't feel really great about this fic until I went back and changed things, and I really love how it's come out. I'm anticipating two more chapters, now – I hope you enjoy them!

-Nicole

/

When Rory returned to his wife, she was sitting in the galley at a table, glaring at a piece of toast like it had offended her. She tapped the table absentmindedly, clearly impatient and anxious. She looked up at the sound of his footsteps.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Rose is awake."

Amy stopped her tapping and nodded thoughtfully.

"Did you talk to her?"

"Just for a moment. They need some time to themselves. He hasn't seen her in a long time, Amy."

"Was she nice?"

"Yeah," Rory said thoughtfully. "Again, we didn't talk much. But she was polite. And blimey, Amy, you should have seen it – the Doctor was so happy."

Amy smiled.

"Yeah?"

Rory nodded, dropping into the chair beside hers and pressing a kiss to her cheek.

"Yeah."

They sat together in a content sort of silence for a while, Amy munching on her toast.

"When do you think we'll be able to meet her?"

"Soon," came a voice at the door, and they looked up to see the Doctor stepping inside the room. A content smile graced his face, and it made Amy's heart warm.

"Is she okay?" she asked immediately.

"She's fine," the Doctor said. "I'm going to need to run more tests, of course, now that she's awake, just to make sure. But she was still tired. I set her up back in her old bedroom, so she'll be more comfortable. We'll handle everything else in the morning."

"I'm glad," Amy said, and the Doctor's smile widened.

"She's anxious to meet you too," he said. "Wants to know who's been keeping me in line."

Rory snorted.

"Wouldn't call it that, so much. More like tagging along and telling you not to do dumb things, and then watching you do them anyway."

The Doctor looked a bit wary at that.

"You and Rose are going to get on a bit too well, Rory," he said. "You're both…"

"Sensible?"

"I suppose."

"Good," his companion declared, crossing his arms. "Maybe you'll actually listen to her."

"She's gone to sleep, then?" Amy asked, before the boys could delve into an argument.

The Doctor nodded.

"I'm going to stay with her," he said. "I still don't want her alone for too long, not yet. She told me I should tell you, first. She didn't want you to worry."

Amy's features softened, and Rory made an appreciative sound.

"I like her already," he said. Amy hit him on the shoulder and he quickly closed his mouth before he could dig himself into a deeper hole.

"That was nice of her," Amy said. The Doctor looked at the door and fumbled with his hands.

"She's always nice," the Doctor said, glancing back at them for a second, before his eyes were drawn back to the door.

"Go on, then," Amy said, sensing his impatience. "Get back to her. I'm sure she's waiting for you."

The Doctor smiled.

"Thank you," he said honestly.

Amy shook her head and sipped her tea as she watched him bound out of the room, nearly tripping over his own feet as he turned out of the door. She reached for Rory's hand.

"You were right," she said. "He is happy."

/

When he stepped into Rose's old bedroom, she was staring at the pictures she had put up on her wall, centuries ago in the TARDIS's time. She had changed into her pajamas, a loose t-shirt and shorts, and tied her hair out of her face into a messy bun. She glanced back when she heard his boots padding on the beige carpet. She was smiling, just barely, and her eyes were a bit glassy.

"Everything in here is all dusty," she said.

"I haven't been here in a while," the Doctor admitted. "I'm glad it's still here, actually. The TARDIS, she had to delete a lot of the nonessential rooms, and I wasn't sure if – "

He stopped rambling when Rose stepped closer to him and laid a hand on his chest. His own hand immediately came up to cover her own, to hold it in place where it belonged.

"How long has it been for you?" she asked softly. He swallowed and turned his head.

"Long enough," he answered. It was very typical of him, to offer such a vague response, but it wasn't good enough. She shook her head.

"Doctor," she said. "Tell me."

"Two centuries," he said quietly, and she winced.

"I'm so sorry, my love."

"How long…"

"Seventy-nine years," she told him, and his eyes widened.

"What?"

"Calm down," she said, lifting her hand to run it through his hair. He stared at her with his mouth dangling open, trying to process what she'd said. She waited patiently for the information to sink in.

"You don't look a day over twenty-five, Rose," he said finally

"I know," she said.

"And what about – the other me. Was he – "

"We were married for almost seventy-five years," she said. "We were happy. We grew our TARDIS, we hopped around the universe and explored. The Stuff of Legends."

"As it should be," he said. "But you…"

"He started getting older," she said. "I didn't. We assumed it was because of the time vortex, but we couldn't draw any solid conclusions about it. He wanted me to come back here as soon as we found out, to be with you. But I promised him I wouldn't leave him. And when he…"

She trailed off, before her voice could crack, and the Doctor waited for her to finish.

"When he was gone," she said, "I started looking for a way back. I started digging though the old dimension cannon files from Torchwood, again, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work without damaging the fabric of reality."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"Stop it," Rose said fiercely, staring him in the eyes. "I told you before. That life was meant to be. I don't regret one moment of it."

"I don't deserve you," he said.

"I don't care what you think," she said firmly, and she stood on the tips of her toes to kiss him. She pulled his head down to hers and his arms circled her waist. It was brief and gentle, an effort to convey to him how she felt, how she didn't blame him, how she loved him.

They stood there, her arms linked around his neck and his resting on her hips, breathing the same air.

"You should get some rest," the Doctor said. Rose nodded reluctantly and moved toward her old bed, crawling under the crumpled duvet. She held them up expectantly, and the Doctor smiled softly.

He kicked off his boots and shrugged his tweed jacket off of his shoulders. He tugged on his bowtie, loosening and removing it, and left it lying on her nightstand. Unbuttoning his shirt, he revealed the white t-shirt he wore underneath.

When he was undressed, he shifted under the covers beside Rose. She let the blankets fall, draping over them, and she snuggled closer to him, his arm falling over her shoulders and hers draping over his waist. She tucked her head into is shoulder.

"I love you," she mumbled as her eyes fell closed. The Doctor relaxed back into the pillows.

"I love you, too," he said, and she smiled before she fell asleep.

/

Rose started awake the next morning, her heart pounding. She was wrapped in a warm blanket, her head resting on a familiar chest. As she remembered where she was, she sat up quickly, her breath catching. Her hands dug into the dark blue sheets of her bedroom on the TARDIS.

Her eyes fell upon the sleeping man in the bed beside her. She smiled in the silence, tears coming to her eyes. The Doctor. He'd stayed with her. She watched him, and almost let out a laugh, but clasped her hand over her mouth.

She tried to think back to her dream, knowing it had been strange, but she couldn't remember it – the events were clouded in a golden haze. She closed her eyes, concentrating through the shimmering fog, but then there was a sharp, stabbing pain in her temple. She let out an involuntary cry, clutching at her hair. At the noise, the Doctor stirred, snapping awake.

"Rose!"

She inhaled sharply – she heard him call her name, and tried to respond, but she was too busy focusing. She rubbed her eyes furiously, willing the pain to go away.

He scanned her with the sonic frantically, frowning at the results he examined. Her brain activity was going wild, fluctuating madly.

"Where does it hurt?" he asked, the question soft, but urgent. "Show me."

He reached up to grab her by the wrists, tugging her hands away from her face so she wouldn't hurt herself.

"My head," she said, "it's killing me."

The Doctor's hearts stuttered as she unconsciously echoed her words from so long ago.

"Rose, love, I need you to open your eyes. Look at me."

Rose's eyes snapped open at his request and he felt like he'd been hit in the chest as all the air drained from his lungs. They were shining, golden.

"Bad Wolf," he whispered. His fingers immediately raised to her temples, reaching out for her mind, and she welcomed him openly. Her warm presence washed over him and he tried to understand what he was seeing.

His presence seemed to calm her down, or at least lessen her pain, and he felt her relaxing. The intense, blinding light that permeated her mind faded into a gentler shimmer, and she let out a sigh or relief.

His own wild emotions were threatening to take over, though, and he knew he couldn't communicate to her the way he needed to. He opened his eyes, but maintained their connection, so he could speak with her face to face. Even then, he stumbled over his own words.

"You – "

"I've got the time vortex swirling around in my head," she said. "That's what that was, wasn't it?" The Doctor's mouth opened and closed, but when he couldn't respond, he simply nodded.

"That's impossible," he managed. "No one's meant to have that – especially not a human – that power, it should kill you."

"Doctor," she said softly, and he fell silent and watched her. She shifted on the mattress, crawling closer to him, onto his lap. His arms came up to cradle her back, holding her head to his chest.

"If it were going to kill me, I think I would have been dead a long time ago," she said. His grip on her tightened, and she titled her head up to press a kiss to his jaw.

"I just got you back," he whispered. "I'm not taking any chances. I won't lose you again."

"I know. Medbay?"

The Doctor nodded, clearly surprised at how easily she agreed.

"Please," he said.

He released her reluctantly as she slipped out from under the covers and walked over to her dresser. She pulled a soft sweater over her sleep shirt and exchanged her shorts for a pair of yoga pants.

When she turned around, the Doctor had put on fresh pants and was buttoning his shirt. Rose approached him quietly, reaching for the bowtie he had abandoned on her nightstand the night before. When she slipped the strip of fabric around his neck, he stopped moving and watched her intently. She tied the bow with a practiced motion, giving it a little pat when she was done.

A surprised sound was muffled in her throat as he leaned forward and kissed her firmly, cupping her face in his hands. She returned the kiss with enthusiasm, opening her mouth under his. His tongue stroked against hers for a long moment, before she pulled back, needing to breathe.

The Doctor pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, and she felt his smile against her skin.

"You have no idea how often I wished you were here to do that," he said.

"Do what?"

"Tie my bowtie."

A tiny smile crossed her face.

"I always used to, didn't I? Whenever you broke out the Tux of Doom."

"Haven't worn that in years," he said. "I've got a new one now, I wore it to Amy and Rory's wedding. Significantly luckier than the last one, I think."

"I would hope so," she sighed. "All right. Let's go, then. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish, yeah?"

The Doctor nodded in agreement, ignoring the nervous feeling that was bubbling up inside him. He was afraid of what he would find, he knew. But when he looked down to reach for Rose's hand, he realized that she already had it held out to him, and when he entwined their fingers, he could feel his anxiety dissipating.

She was here, and he wasn't going to let her go.