I'm sorry this chapter has taken so long to write. I had the hardest time figuring out how to end the story. I wanted it to be something different from how I had originally planned the ending.
In any case, here is the final chapter. Please review :)
The partially drawn curtains billowed in with the cool breeze. A man lay on a sheet of white, covered to the waist by the brightly colored blankets. He had gained a bit of weight, and his face had changed just a little, but his hair had started to thin and his eyes wrinkled from years of happiness and laughter, even though right now, at this moment, he was far from a happy man.
He held himself up with his elbow, his head resting upon his fist. His other hand still hadn't left her face, even though her skin had lost a little of its warmth and color and she was no longer struggling to breathe. In her last moments they were smiling, sharing the deep love held for one another for the last time. He promised to protect them as best he could, and the generations that came after, until the end of his days. This wasn't some illness, simply old age that finally separated them.
The Doctor wanted to stay here as long as possible before calling Amy and her brother to let them know that their mother died. He didn't want to believe that the one woman who could get him to stay in one place, nearly 50 years, finally passed from the mortal realm. It was so numb inside his heart, and his eyes were now dry but chapped and red from saying goodbye to her. Why couldn't he keep her? What's the point of living a very long life if you only have a little while with the people you truly love? What's the purpose of having a big brain and all the knowledge in the universe if he can't stop the one person in all of existence from growing old? He struggled to make himself remember every second in her presence, every moment of their lives together.
The Doctor lifted the pink veil over her eyes, painted in such a way that they popped and that's all he could see. They glimmered around the edges from the candlelight and her tears. As he leaned in to kiss her, Mickey, who was essentially an eight-year-old boy aside from that he and his sister age at ¼ of the rate of a human, and he screamed "EW!" from his place next to The Doctor and dropped the pillow he was holding to the floor to cover his eyes. Amy elbowed him. "Shut it you idiot!"
The Doctor and Rose laughed. He was mesmerized by the sparkle in her eyes, finding himself lost for a few seconds. The officiate, a Thorian priest in his long sky blue robes and head dress made of multicolored rainbow feathers and ribbon, cleared his throat before whispering, "So…. The kiss?"
"Right!" The Doctor's eyes met hers again and this time, he leaned in slowly, letting his lips graze hers for only a second, while he whispered "I love you, with all my hearts." He deepened the kiss, entering her mind and forming the psychic bond that would unite them every day until her last day as his wife.
The night sky lit up with a million stars, and The Doctor and Rose lay in a meadow on their backs, a twin on each side of them. The Doctor explained the nature of the universe, telling the teenage-shaped twins about he and Rose's many adventures on the TARDIS.
"We found an outpost, a research facility, which happened to be built on the site of a planet that was stuck in a gravitational field orbiting a black hole. As it turns out it was a prison for the most evil, oldest creature in the universe." The Doctor sighed. "It was the actual location of hell. I thought I lost your mum, thankfully she saved herself and what was left of the crew."
"Wait, you're telling me you met the Devil?" Amy asked, disbelieving.
The Doctor stared off into the stars. "Yup."
"Show us," Mickey challenged. "Prove that you can really travel the universe and visit other places."
The Doctor grinned from ear to ear, glancing over to Rose. She nodded her approval.
"Alright, but you get one trip. When you're older we'll talk about more adventures." The Doctor lifted himself off the grass, and reached to help Rose, who was in her sixties, from the ground. He led them into a nearby wood, carrying the aged Rose like a bride over the threshold, through the dark forest. They entered a cave and the Doctor pulled a torch from the pocket of his robes and turned it on. He handed it to Mickey and led them through until they emerged next to a waterfall in a tiny valley. The TARDIS snuggly nestled in a grove of trees, hummed at their presence. The doors opened. The Doctor stepped through the doors and placed Rose in the jumpseat.
"Hello old girl," he gently spoke to the console, an air of nostalgia in his voice. Rose's eyes were closed, when The Doctor looked back at her, and he knew from the smile on her face Rose and the TARDIS were speaking telepathically. The twins slowly entered the time machine, amazed by what they saw. "I remember this!" Amy exclaimed, "Dad used to show us this before we were born! This is what he called our 'heritage'. It's exactly the same." She paused, deep sadness creeping across her face.
She turned to the Doctor, and asked, tears in her eyes, "Doctor, Mickey and I want to know, can we call you 'Dad'"?
The Doctor brushed the tears from his cheeks as he sat staring at the phone in his hand. Amy, who had grown into a spitting image of her mother but with medium length brown hair and her father's eyes would be there in moments, and Mickey, who was almost a spitting image of the Doctor, but much shorter and a rounder face who's hair was long and wavy as the men usually kept their hair on this planet, would be arriving as soon as his last class was finished. He walked back into the bedroom and changed the sheets and blankets, and took Rose's body into the bath to wash it, before re-dressing her and placing her back in their bed. Amy and Mickey arrived at the same time, finding the Doctor sitting on the floor against the wall opposite the bed, his forehead on his knees. He'd grown a beard, Amy noticed, since she'd come to visit last. The TARDIS thankfully got her home often enough that she noticed these things, like that he hadn't eaten or slept in ages. Since Mickey only lived on the other side of the market, and taught an astrophysics course at the university, he was home more often, but still, a twenty-five year old had places to go and things to do.
Amy knelt in front of the man she'd thought of as her father for years now, placed her arms around his shoulders and held him. The Doctor's shoulders shuddered with silent sobs. This man who had faced armies, given up the one person in the universe he would love more than anyone, stayed to raise the children that weren't his for the man that had his face, who lived in one place with her and loved her and watched her grow old and die, who never complained, or bickered with her or pushed her into loving him again or forgiving him before she was ready had broken. All of those walls he'd build up inside to protect himself crumbled and it left him clinging onto his daughter, sobbing into her arms.
Mickey sat upon the bed and held his mother's hand. His head down, he whispered, "Dad, can we bury her? Can we put her nearby so she will always be with us?"
This planet didn't have graveyards, as the tradition of a burial at sea was more commonplace. The Doctor nodded his head and smiled up at Mickey, "Yeah, we can do that son. Let's put her in her garden, so she can stay with us." He stood, and sat opposite Mickey on the bed. Amy stood behind with her hands on his shoulders. The Doctor placed his hand on Rose's, and a glow spread from her hand, up her arm, and throughout the rest of her body. Suddenly, she looked nineteen again.
"This is your mum, when I first met her. So beautiful, and kind, and funny." The Doctor chuckled. "Oh, she'd get me with some good ones." The time they parked the TARDIS between two garbage bins and Rose wouldn't let it go for weeks about his poor driving skills flashed in his mind.
That night they buried Rose, in a grave among her rose bushes and lilies, and after Amy and Mickey had gone, The Doctor remained seated on the ground next to the freshly buried casket. His despair enveloped him like massive black wings made of ice. His hearts shattered, his mind lost in a maze of memories and emotions, and his body was frozen in place among the beautiful flowers in the dark of night. Her gravestone read simply "forever", written in Gallifreyan, and a carving of a single rose decorated it.
"I hope I gave you as good a life as he could have. I hope…" The Doctor paused, fighting the overwhelming grief in his hearts, "I hope that one day I might see you again, even for a moment. You're so precious to me, and," he choked back the lump growing in his throat," I just can't believe you're gone!" His voice broke. "I wish I could have saved you…"
He stood after what felt like forever, his face now hardened. He strode over to the TARDIS, which was now sitting under a small group of trees in the yard. He touched the door, and it hummed, the doors opening. The Doctor entered, looking back to the grave again. The doors closed, his head dropped, and suddenly the engines whined and murmured. The TARDIS disappeared into the night with a groan as its final farewell.