Now would be an excellent time to read my other story "Messages Across Time" as it explains in further detail things that happen in this chapter.

Thanks once again to everyone who has favourited and reviewed this story so far, it means a lot to me.

EDIT: I've decided to consolidate the last two chapters into one longer chapter as I feel it helps the flow better. Sorry for the re-upload.

And yup, you guessed it… I still don't own Doctor Who.

Rose handed him the small cube she had been holding, and he gasped loudly when he got a clear look at it. He couldn't believe his eyes.

"Where did you…? Rose, this… this is a Gallifreyan storage cube!" The Doctor declared. "How?" She smiled at him.

"The Doctor gave it to me." He raised an eyebrow at her. "My first jump through the Dimension Cannon, I found the TARDIS, except I was a few years out. He was over a thousand years older, if you can believe it. Different face too. He looked older. And get this: he was Scottish."

"Scottish?!" The Doctor sounded completely appalled. "The age thing, sure, some Time Lords lived well into their thousands. It's actually nice to know he survives for so long. But Scottish? Sorry, but that's just a bit rubbish…" Rose shot him a strange look.

"You pretended to be Scottish when we met Queen Victoria, so...?"

"That was only to blend in and not cause any undue alarm. I mean could you just imagine," he allowed a very convincing burr into his voice, "If I sounded like this all the time? I mean it would get just a wee bit annoying if I say so myself!" His flawless accent made Rose laugh (and secretly wish it was his real one).

"Although," he continued in his regular voice, then slipped seamlessly back into a Scottish accent for what he hoped would be comedic effect: "It would come in handy when I really have to complain about things." Rose didn't laugh like he hoped she would. Instead she got a very far-away look in her eyes. "What?" He asked softly.

"Nothin'. It's just… you sounded just like him. Bit eerie." The Doctor nodded.

"Well… I suppose he's somewhere in me too. At least, he would've been if I never…" The Doctor trailed off. "Anyway. Doesn't matter." He plastered a forced smile on his face. He was mostly human now. No need to witter on about the fact he couldn't regenerate anymore. He turned his attention back to the cube and focused on the writing on five of its sides. To anyone else, they would've just looked like a pretty circular pattern, when in reality they were bland instructions on how to open it. Then he looked at the rose carving on the lid and realised it was done by hand. He lightly traced his index finger over the carving and his smile turned more genuine. Whatever this cube contained, he just knew it wasn't anything frivolous.

"So, what do we do with this then?" Rose asked excitedly.

"We follow these instructions." He indicated to the writing on the cube as his grin grew wider. He flexed the fingers of his right hand seeing as the bruises were making it a bit stiff and using the thumb and index finger he pressed two of the opposing sides of the cube in slightly, causing the engraving to glow in a bright golden hue. He then tapped his left index finger on the bottom of the cube twice, then the back twice, and then pressed and held his finger against the front for five seconds. The cube began to glow brighter and he put it down beside him on the bed between him and Rose where it grew to three times its original size, all except for the top where the rose was engraved. With it suspended in midair above the rest of the cube, the Doctor realised this section was attached to a delicate metal chain.

"Well, that was clever." He smiled as he lifted the necklace away from the rest of the cube. He turned the pendant over in his hand to find more Gallifreyan writing on the opposite side. He squinted his eyes a little, trying to get a clear look at it and huffed.

"What's it say?" Rose asked eagerly.

"Dunno. The writing is just so… tiny!" He lamented. Rose gave him her signature tongue touched smile as she reached into the cube and pulled out something he never expected to see again.

"Maybe these'll help. Looks like he's filled this thing with gifts!" His jaw dropped when he spotted his glasses in her hands. He slipped them on, and was relieved when his vision became crisp once again. Squinting was honestly giving him a headache. He returned his attention to the writing on the pendant. He read the inscription to himself first, then smiled warmly at Rose a smile that he reserved only for her. This was far from the generic writing on the sides of the cube. It was far, far more personal.

"You gonna leave me in suspense?" Rose asked cheekily, despite the flush that developed on her cheeks whenever he looked at her like that.

He moved to gently place the pendant around her neck and she moved her hair aside so he could secure the clasp properly. He couldn't help but play with the pendant where it sat perfectly in the middle of her collarbone.

"It says 'My beautiful Rose, the love of my lives…'" his voice hitched as he looked up into her eyes before continuing and saw her smiling back; happy tears forming in the corners of her eyes "'may you be happy and find your forever.'" He was pleasantly surprised when Rose threw her arms around him in a tight hug.

"I think I found my forever right here." The Doctor made a happy little 'hmm' sound as he returned her hug.

"Me too." He pulled back enough to place a gentle kiss on her forehead. "Now, besides corrective lenses and soppy love notes…" He caught her slight glower and quickly recovered with: "Which I completely approve of. Your happiness and my eyesight are of paramount importance. Without my sight, well, I couldn't see you smile!" Rose rolled her eyes at his little ramble and found her smile again. "I wonder what else he's packed in here." The Doctor turned back to the cube and noted (without much surprise) that it was bigger on the inside. His eyes went wide when he saw something that he loved almost as much as his pink and yellow human.

"My sonic screwdriver!" He laughed as he picked it up with a flourish. Then he took a closer look at it. "At least, a copy of it. He must've kept the original. Oh the bloody-" he sighed and went into what Rose loved to call 'full pout mode'. "He should've just stuffed another note in here. Duplicate screwdriver for duplicate Doctor." He grumbled. Rose patted him on the arm.

"S'okay. Least he was thinking about you." She gave him a reassuring smile. "I mean you're sort of useless without – "

"Oh, so now I'm useless! Thanks for that." Rose blinked realising how those words could be misconstrued.

"No, that's not what I… I was trying to make a joke."

"Very funny, Earth girl..." He grumbled angrily, his eyes locked on his new screwdriver, idly wondering if it had a setting to stop annoying people from talking. Despite everything, Rose laughed at that remark.

"I'll take 'Earth Girl' over 'Stupid Ape' any day." The Doctor sighed, suddenly realising how childish his over reaction was.

"Same thing, isn't it?" He shrugged, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. Rose smacked him lightly upside the head in retaliation to his cheeky remark, and he couldn't help but laugh and shove her shoulder lightly in return. She grabbed a pillow and lightly hit him in the face with it causing his glasses to be dislodged slightly from where they rested on his nose. He just gaped at her.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you, you never hit someone wearing glasses?" He yanked them off his face and grabbed a pillow of his own and he smacked her with it. Moments later, a full on pillow fight was being waged and they were both so competitive that they weren't about to let the other one win. The Doctor landed a strike directly in Rose's face and she doubled over, holding her face in her hands. He dropped his pillow and rushed to her side, and unsurprisingly he got hit hard in the face by her pillow. He groaned. He should have seen that coming.

"HAH!" Rose laughed triumphantly as she took a couple steps back from him. "I win!" He just smiled indulgently at her.

"Yeah, yeah. All hail the Queen of the Pillows." He went to retrieve the pillow he dropped and noticed that during their battle, they knocked the cube over and its remaining contents spilled onto the floor. Rose knelt down to help him clean up the small mess. He grabbed his glasses and screwdriver, securing them in his pockets and then looked over at Rose who seemed to be trying to make sense of what she was holding and when he realised what it was, his heart nearly stopped. It was another little box, but this one was covered in dark blue velvet. A ring box. The very same one he had been carrying around for months back when they were travelling in the TARDIS. The very same one he was such a coward about giving to her. But the way Rose was looking at it, it was like she could barely see it. Then he remembered he slapped a perception filter on it just in case she ever found it, and bit back the very relieved sigh that was threating to overtake him as she shrugged and put it back on top of the bed next to the upturned cube.

She didn't even seem to notice when the Doctor quickly grabbed it and shoved it into his pocket.

Then another object grabbed both their attentions. It looked like a small, thick tree branch. Rose reached out to pick it up, but she barely brushed her fingers against it when she felt a strange, yet familiar hum, in her mind. She recoiled immediately. The Doctor reached out and picked up the strange object himself, and smiled when he felt the same hum inside his own mind.

"You are kidding me… no way." He practically whispered turning the small object over in his hands. "Oh, you are beautiful." He cooed to the strange little branch.

"Doctor, what is that thing?" He looked at her with a goofy grin plastered to his face.

"Well, you felt it, didn't you? That hum?" He gently took her hand and brought it up to the strange object and pressed her fingers to it. The hum entered her mind again, and she knew she had felt this presence before.

"Are you saying that this is…?" He nodded vigorously.

"Oh yes! It's a piece of the TARDIS!"

The Doctor turned the little branch over in his hands getting a good long look at it. Oh, he could just kiss his future self!

No, wait… that would just be creepy… very creepy.

A good old bear hug?

Much better.

Oh, he could just hug the stuffing out of his future self!

"Doctor, you once told me that TARDISes were grown and not built." Rose pointed out.

"That's right." He answered almost distractedly as he whipped out his glasses and examined the branch even closer, his tongue pressed firmly against his top teeth in concentration.

"So, could we actually grow another TARDIS from this thing?"

"Looks like!" He gave it a good sniff.

"But you also said that this universe's energy was incompatible with the TARDIS. Diesel in a petrol engine or something like that."

"Weeell…" He drew out the vowel before giving the branch a quick lick, causing Rose to roll her eyes at him for once again acting like a two-year-old. (Even Tony knew to not lick things indiscriminately.) "This bit of coral has been in stasis for over a thousand years, so technically it's still young enough to adapt to this universe's energy so…" He whipped out the sonic and scanned the little coral branch, "I can try and recreate the soil conditions that existed on Gallifrey. May be a bit difficult as some elements aren't present on Earth, or any other planet for that matter. But I can possibly reproduce them if I can get my hands on certain chemicals and hopefully not blow myself up in the process. And if I'm successful at doing that and she responds to growing in this universe with elements I've whipped up in a lab, I'd have to build a console unit for her. Time Rotor might be a bit tricky, but if I can manage space flight I can hopefully find the parts I need on nearby planets, providing this universe has parallel versions of the repair yards I visited back in our universe. And that's not even mentioning getting the chameleon circuit to stay stuck on being a 1950's Police Box. Did they even have those in this universe? Ah, doesn't matter. That's the least of our problems. For now."

Rose listened carefully to his mile-a-minute rant and was waiting for him to stop and catch his breath before she cut back in.

"How long do you think it'll take you, then?" He pondered her question for a good long moment.

"A year. Maybe two." He shrugged. "Hard to say, really. I've never had to grow a TARDIS from scratch before. And…well…" He trailed off, still staring resolutely at the coral. Rose waited a moment before gently prompting him to continue. He took in a long, breath before he could speak again.

"I can't guarantee that this will work." His words came out in a whisper as if he was afraid of his own voice. Rose shifted closer and leaned her head on his shoulder, her eyes transfixed on the coral.

"You'll think of something."

"Will I?"

"Well, with you being so impressive and all." She reached out and gently took the coral out of his hands and smiled when she heard the familiar hum in her head again.

"I don't think anyone's ever grown a TARDIS off world before. There are just so many variables and…"

"So what?" Rose interrupted him. "No one on Earth has ever built a cannon that could send people to other universes before." She turned her head and buried her face into the crook of his neck and just breathed him in for a moment. She smiled when she felt his arms wrap tightly around her. "And look where that venture got us. The dimension cannon was dangerous. I nearly died once…" She could feel the Doctor's breath hitch and he gathered her even closer to him.

"What happened?" Rose's smile waivered. She didn't even mean to mention the almost dying bit. But the penny was already in the air…

"It was during the testing phase. We thought we found a big enough gap to squeeze through bit it was rapidly closing. If Mickey hadn't pulled me back in time, I could've been lost to the void for good. Pete nearly shut down the project right then and there. But then the stars were goin' out faster and faster and then it started workin' and… here we are." She smiled again as she felt the Doctor plant a kiss to the crown of her head.

"Here we are." He agreed.

"So what I'm tryin' to say is, despite the risks, I think we should try. I mean, do you really think he would give us this gift if he didn't think it would work? He's givin' us our old lives back!"

"But if this doesn't…" Rose was getting really tired with him trying to say all the ways this new project wouldn't work, so she rolled her eyes and decided to employ the same technique he used to get her to stop talking the night before. She let out a contented sigh when she felt him relax and started to kiss her back. Finally, she found an effective way to shut him up. Soon, the need for air became imperative (and the Doctor silently cursed his loss of a respiratory bypass system) and they both pulled away.

"If I'm allowed to finish a sentence," he attempted so sound exasperated, but she knew he wasn't remotely serious. He rested his forehead on hers, "I just wanted to say that if this doesn't work I…" again he was interrupted by Rose's lips getting in the way. He absolutely loved the fact that they finally felt comfortable enough with each other that this kissing thing could actually happen on a quite regular basis, but he needed to say something important at that particular moment. Rose's disappointed whimper when he pushed her away slightly and gently placed his fingers over her lips almost made him loose his resolve and just resume their quite fantastic snogging session, but he needed to continue talking.

"Blimey, Rose… I just need to say, that if this doesn't work, and we don't get our old lives back, I'm more than happy to start a new one here with you. Y'know, if you want?"

"Is that a proposal, Doctor?" Rose gave him her tongue touched smile, and he could feel his face getting red. He very nearly whipped out that little ring box right there and then, but he was too scared to move. Scared of what, he had absolutely no idea. Sensing his discomfort, Rose just leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "S'okay, no pressure." He visibly relaxed upon hearing those words. "Then again, knowing mum…" She let the rest of that sentence hang in the air, and the Doctor shuddered.

"Speaking of which, I think we shouldn't tell her about the new TARDIS. At least until we know one way or the other. Don't want her to think I'm 'kidnapping' you again." He chuckled.

"Wouldn't mind if you did."