Back on Talania IV, Rose and the tweed-wearing, elbows-patched Doctor were wandering through the crowded market, each examining wares from brightly coloured peddler's tents, trying to figure out what to buy. Rose was watching the Doctor carefully, not really seeing the bauble she held in her hand. He had been chattering at her, more thoughtful and introspective than his previous form but still chatty, poking her to make her laugh and haphazardly catching objects his long limbs had accidentally bumped from tables but she could tell he was covering something up. He missed her, future her, she could tell. She reflected a moment on what that was like, having him miss her when she was right here. Oh, they were quite the pair, weren't they?

Just a few moments ago, he had stiffened suddenly and his eyes had taken on a faraway glance, like he was communicating with someone far, far away. He had sighed happily for a moment and then frowned, shadows covering his face as he seemed to relive something bad. Must be some sort of communication with future her, she guessed. He had excused himself from her and walked away, pausing in front of a booth to fiddle with something, glancing unseeingly at the object he held in his hand, his emerald eyes pained and his thin shoulders hunched. Her own heart constricted when she saw what he had unwittingly picked up. It was a small sample of bazoolium and he hadn't even realized. That stupid little stone that represented their separation, a gift intended with love turned into a symbol of heartbreak. Sometimes the universe quite liked the salt-in-the-wound technique.

Walking over to him, she gently started to remove the stone from his hand, hoping to get him away from the booth before he realized what he had been holding. Instead, she had startled him from his heavy thoughts. "Rose, what -?" he began before shouting "Oh!" and dropping the bazoolium on the table as if it had burned him. Their eyes met above the counter and in silent agreement, they grabbed hands and quickly made their way as far from the small booth as possible.

As they made their way back to the TARDIS, his hand was still in hers but he was a million miles away. "Doctor," Rose said softly, tugging on the hand that was dragging her through the street. "I'm right here," she said, remembering his Eighth form's words to her. "We'll be fine. Just give it a little time."

He sighed heavily, a gigantic, frustrated sound and dropped her hand once again, turning from her and pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Rose, Time has never been, and yet will always be, my biggest problem," the Doctor responded in a weary voice.

Rose watched then as he suddenly twirled around on his toes, his hands dropping from his eyes along with his jaw. He stood there, gaping widely at her in the middle of the street for so long that Rose considered asking him if was feeling strange. And then in the blink of an eye, he was on top of her, his mouth on hers, kissing her as though his life depended on it. Kissing her, devouring her, claiming her. His hands were everywhere at once, pulling her flush against him and Rose was certain that he was never, ever letting her go.

And she was perfectly fine with that. Except, she did need to breathe...

Suddenly he ripped his mouth away from hers, holding her out at arms length, both of them with heaving chests and glazed eyes. "Chess!" he gasped finally, pulling her back flush against him. "Chess!"

"Chess?" Rose squeaked from his very, very tight hold.

"Yes! Chess, Rose Tyler!" the Doctor yelled, picking her up and twirling her around, almost knocking her legs into more than a few scandalized shopping patrons who had also witnessed the ferocious kissing several moments ago.

She squeaked again as he unexpectedly picked her up from the middle of the street and trotted with her in his arms back to the TARDIS across the square. "Doctor!" she giggled, delighted with his mad antics even if she didn't understand him half of the time.

"That's because I only make sense half the time!" he crowed. "But you understand me even when I don't make sense. Even when I'm grumpy and old and giving up. And complicated. And rude. You're you, Rose Tyler, and you are wonderful!" he kissed her again, all awkward angles from holding her in his arms but Rose didn't mind at all. She started to scramble for her key around her neck when he stopped and shifted, freeing one hand and balancing precariously with her in his arms and one foot against the TARDIS. She raised an eyebrow and he raised one right back before snapping his fingers and she watched, impressed, as the door sprang open.

"Impressive, yeah?" he said, with a mad, smug grin.

Couldn't let him be like that, could she? "I'll be more impressed if you manage to get us inside without dropping me," Rose laughed, as he nearly overbalanced straightening up.

"The thanks I get!" he laughed, sweeping inside with her and dropping her onto the jumpseat before turning back the console.

"Where are we going?" Rose asked, swinging her feet and watching him as he leapt around the console. Her funny, bright, mysterious alien man. Her Doctor.

"Forward, my dear, darling, beautiful human. My Rose," he said, twirling on his toes again, circling twice before coming to stop in front of her, bending to kiss her again with breathless intensity.

"Forward!" he shouted, throwing his head back and pulling the lever to take them out of the Vortex. And somewhere deep inside him, ten voices raised up with his own, among them booming out the loudest: a Manchester brogue, an Estuary lilt and, surprisingly enough, a proper Englishman whose voice, though brittle with age, rang out loud and clear through the centuries. 'Forward!' they all shouted.

"All right, then!" Rose whooped with him, joining in his evident mirth with delight. "Geronimo!"

Forward, indeed.

-

They came to an abrupt stop, Rose and the Doctor clattering to the floor in a pile of long limbs and laughter. His eyes sparkled as he jumped to his feet and pulled Rose up with him. "What's out there?" Rose breathed, her eyes alight the the same excitement that would rise there even one-hundred and forty seven years later whenever they landed at a new place.

She'd been right. Of course, she'd been right. She was the same, he was the same and they would, of course, be fine. Better than fine, actually.

Fantastic, brilliant, molto bene, peachy-keen.

Oh. Maybe not that last one.

But anyway, here they were! The Doctor and Rose Tyler. In the TARDIS. And soon to be in the correct TARDISes. As they should be.

Rose ran over to the door and pulled it open, gasping as she saw the familiar red, rocky outcropping and the even more familiar blue box sitting just meters away.

"Is that - ?" she started, leaning back against the door and automatically reaching a hand out for his.

"Yes," he said, smiling gently and taking her hand. Rose's eyes never left the lonely blue box outside.

"And it's -?"

"Yes," he said again, pulling her in close to him and pressing a kiss into her hair. "This is where you promised me forever. I figured it was the best place to wait for you and make sure you kept it."

Rose turned back to him with tears in her eyes and he bent down to kiss each eyelid, to erase the sign of her tears. "I'm home?" she asked, quietly.

"You're home," he responded. Drawing him in tightly, Rose clung to his waist and let her tears fall into his cotton shirt. He rubbed her back and waited until her tears had subsided. "Now, we're hidden behind these rocks and he doesn't know we're here yet... and there's still a few things we need to do."

With that, he took her hand and led her off to their bedroom. Rose showered and changed back into the clothes she had been wearing when she'd burst into his TARDIS yesterday and charged up the ramp at him and they only got distracted a few times along the way (although the Doctor ended up with an additional shower and, by the end of the dressing, was decidedly less clothed than Rose). He gave her the book the TARDIS had hidden from him all those years ago, placed her red pack back on her shoulders and, as they stood locked together at the doors of his TARDIS once again, he gently hid the memories of this encounter behind shields set to drop at breakfast one hundred and forty seven years later to terrify his new gangly bow-tied self into thinking she might not want him anymore.

Kissing her one last time, he set her gently sleeping form right outside the door of his TARDIS. She would wake up in just a moment and he needed to get back inside before she saw him or he'd just have to lock the memory again. Bending down to press his lips to hers once more, he swept her hair back from her face and took a moment to recall how, in just a few seconds, a broken, sad-eyed, pinstriped man was about to discover that life was finally worth living again.

"I love you," he whispered in her ear and, once again, ten voices echoed along with his. Her Doctors, every one of them.

The Doctor slipped away, back into his TARDIS, to pick up his wife.

After all, she owed him a rematch. "Geronimo!" he thought with a smile.

-

Rose sat up at the sound of the TARDIS dematerializing. She looked around frantically and saw, just across the clearing, the TARDIS that she had been looking for all along. It'd been a bit rude of his Ninth form to pop off and leave her like that, unconscious outside his door (and had she been unconscious? She couldn't quite remember) but he had probably had his reasons.

She'd make him tell her in a moment.

Right after she finished snogging him senseless.

Because this was him. The one from her Timeline. Suit, trainers, mad gob and really, really great hair. She knew it, knew it in a way she didn't understand but accepted without question. He was there, just there, just on the other side of a few rocks and some transdimensional wood and soon not even that would separate them. She'd started on this mad journey almost two weeks ago and those two weeks didn't even compare with the three years she'd spent with only memories of him to sustain her.

She got to her feet and ran across the clearing. Should she knock? Use her key? Snap her fingers? (And wasn't that an odd thought?). The TARDIS solved the quandary for her by popping the door herself, the warm flow of welcome coming from the Timeship almost bowling Rose over.

Breathless, she stood in the doorway of home and swept her eyes over the beautiful, familiar coral, settling on the back of the pinstriped man in front of her.

He was facing away from her, hands in his hair and he'd frozen on the spot when he'd felt the TARDIS' welcome wash over him. He'd heard the door open, heard the heavy, familiar sounds of her breath, smelled the overwhelming, wonderful scent of Rose and calculated a thousand other minute details about her from his position facing away but he couldn't move. He'd had this dream so many times that it had turned into a nightmare. It was never real, it was never true. His senses would tempt him, would cajole him, would make him believe and then reality would hit him with a cold pillow and an empty bed. "Is this a dream, Donna?" he asked and Rose heard the fear and desperate hope in his voice. "Is...is she really there?"

If Rose's eyes had been able to move away from the Doctor, she might have noted the severe redhead standing over his shoulder watching with tear-filled eyes but she couldn't see anything but the beautiful Time Lord in front of her. Because she'd had this dream, too. And if she blinked, she might wake up.

Donna smiled gently at him, nodding over his shoulder to Rose. He deserved the universe, this daft spaceman who had wandered it for so long wishing for a hand to hold, wishing, in fact, for that hand to hold. "Why don't you ask her yourself?"