A/N: A very short chapter. Yes. Sorry about that. RL punched me in the chest and then dragged me around the floor for a large chunk of my day ... so this is all I could get today. I could go on, but I promised a chapter per day for Miss Ruki for her birthday - which is today!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! MWAAAAAAAH!

Before you all hate on me thinking this is where I leave it ... Please don't. I'm not quite done yet.

Hope you enjoy this itty bitty little tiny chapter. (I'm almost embarrassed to post something so short!)

~~oooOOOooo~~

With jerked movements, Rose threw her arms around his shoulder and lifted up onto her toes to bury her face into the crook of his neck. "It's going to have to be, Doctor. That's the one minute signal. We're out of time."

"No," the Doctor growled as he tried to tug himself out of Rose's arms. "Never tell a Time Lord that he's out of time."

"Dålig Ulv Stranden," she countered softly without releasing him.

The Doctor stilled a moment at those words, and he let the translation of those words slide past his lips in a whisper. His mind returned to the moment when he truly did run out of time.

"No," he managed on a strangled whisper as he struggled to pull away from her again to return working on the dimensional jumper still lying on the floor on the other side of the room. "That's not happening again."

She refused to relinquish her hold on him. She merely held him tighter despite his protests. "Don't, Doctor. Please, just…" She held him firm and looked up into his despairing face. "Can we just say goodbye properly?"

He ceased his struggling and let his hands slide down to her hips. "But I can't."

She nodded and smiled at him despite her tears. "Sure you can, Doctor," she said with a rueful laugh. "We've had good practice, yeah?"

He pressed his lips together in an attempt to stop their quivering and nodded slowly.

"And you're obviously being left in…" Her voice broke and she had to look down to rattle out a choking sob. With a strong inhale she looked back up at him and did her best to smile. "You're being left in devoted hands."

"But they're not yours," he whispered brokenly.

Rose lifted her hand to trace her fingers across his temple to shift his fallen fringe. "That's a sentiment that I'm supposed to make. Not you." She watched the track of her fingers as they lightly circled his temple. As his breath hitched, she shifted her eyes back to his and was thrown by the flaming intensity of his stare.

"Doctor?"

He roughly shrugged out of her hold and brought his hands up to her face. "If this is my last chance…"

She twisted her head from one side to the other to look at head of his hands, and then returned her eyes to his. His name left her lips with a questioning whisper when he slid his hands into her hair to press his fingertips to her temples.

"May I?"

She had no idea what the Doctor had in mind, but she wasn't going to deny him. "Yes."

"I haven't even told you what I'm going to do," he breathed in awe.

Rose lifted her hands to cover his. She splayed her fingers over his to push his hands firmly against the side of her head. "I trust you, Doctor. You know that." The beeping of the watch at the other end of the room shifted to a steady chime. "Ten seconds. Do what you need to do, Doctor before it's too late."

His mouth hung open lightly, closing only briefly enough to let him swallow as his eyes closed over his tears. He whimpered as he sought to connect with her and found absolutely no resistance from her at all. "Anything you don't want me to see…"

"I've never hidden from you before, Doctor," she breathed as she felt him enter into her mind with all the fresh softness of a deep breath taken on a Spring morning. She found herself momentarily weakened by his all-encompassing presence in her mind. "I'm not going to start now."

"You'll always be able to see me now," he vowed tenderly as he moved his mouth toward hers without breaking the touch of his hands against her face or breaking free of her subconscious. "Never forget me, Rose Tyler."

Rose let her hands fall to his waist and gripped her fingers around the belt loops of his trousers. She let out a shuddering whimper against his lips and tugged him closer to her. "How can I forget you? Forget this?"

"Make me proud, my precious girl." He sucked in a breath of air through his teeth and a lip curled in annoyance at himself. "What am I saying? I'm already proud of you. So very proud."

She closed the distance between them to capture his mouth in a last hopeless kiss, making sure to whisper her affections toward him before sealing her mouth seamlessly against his.

They clutched each other tightly as they joined in both mind and body with holds so taut that they issued the universes a challenge to separate them.

…It was a challenge most definitely accepted, and in less than five seconds of them coming together that their respective universes finally pulled them apart.

He couldn't pin point the exact moment that she dematerialised out of his hold and then disappeared from inside his mind. The effect had been so subtle. It hadn't been the violent suction pull of one universe ripping a soul from the other parallel that they'd been expecting. Much like his beloved TARDIS, Rose had slowly retreated, solid mass disappearing into air.

It took him a good fifteen seconds to finally open his eyes and confirm that she'd gone. He still had his hands held up in front of him in the same position they'd held either side of Rose's face. His lips were still slightly puckered and parted, and tingled with the remnants of her kiss.

He didn't immediately drop his hands from in front of him, even as he saw the devastated expression of River Song's face in the distance between them. He let his eyes switch to each of his hands and willed desperately for Rose's face to materialize in between them again.

Of course he knew she wouldn't. The horrific emptiness in his mind, which had been so alive with her presence only seconds earlier, was proof enough that the other universe had claimed its child and Rose Tyler was again lost to him forever.

His lips were still parted and his jaw low as he swallowed thickly enough to bring his whole head forward in a single convulsion of complete and utter sorrow.

He let his head hang to allow his silent tears to roll off his cheeks and onto the tiled floor at his feet.

"Doctor…"

Since he met her, he'd never heard River Song's voice so muted. There was agony in her tone that he could have mistakened was close to what he was struggling with at this moment. But no. Impossible. She didn't have two hearts to shatter inside her chest like he did, how could she possibly ever understand.

"Doctor, please…"

He finally let his hands break from where they'd remained since Rose's departure and brought them to his face to cover the puffiness in his eyes, the tears on his cheeks, and the quiver in his jaw.

"Doctor. I'm very sorry."

He slid his hands slowly down his face, revealing red eyes, then his stuffy nose and finally his wettened lips.

"Doctor."

He snapped his eyes toward River Song and then inhaled a deep breath sharply through his nose. He pressed his lips together, dropped his hands to his sides and firmly nodded his head.

"Right." He chipped on a broken breath. "So where were we then?"

River Song dared to approach the Doctor, but did so as though he were a wild animal cornered up against a tree. She slowly shifted her hand as though to touch him lightly on the arm. "Doctor. Please."

The doctor sniffed again and with such force that it lifted his lips up into a grimace. "Vashta Nerada," he said firmly. "Donna Noble." He spun on his heel and stalked quickly toward the edge of the room, where the blinking watch still lay. "Time to get rid of one and save the other." He loomed up and high over the top of that unreasonable little piece of technology and then quickly dropped into a crouch to snatch it up off the ground. "Definitely about time to do that."

He was back up into a stand and had the watch stuck into his trouser pocket within a beat of his heart.

"Well then." He looked the small gathering of people with the brave face of a man desperately shielding the world from his pain. "No sense in just hanging about, is there. Time to do what the Doctor does best." His eyes flared as a smile crossed his features. "And just what is that, I hear you ask. Well. I'm the Doctor. I save people. It's what I do. So come on. Allons-y!"