The Savior, Child of the Tardis, Son of a Mad Man

by blackcatkuroi

Out in the Universe is a bright blue box, holder of a fantastical realm. Inhabiting this box is a mad man who calls himself the Doctor, his son, the Savior of the Wizarding World aka Harry Potter, an immortal man from the 51st century who affects a Captain in front of his name, Jack Harkness, and a pink and yellow once-human who is simply Rose Tyler. What was Dumbledore thinking?

10. In Which There is a Spectacular Return

Um…..yeah, I can only offer school as a reason for not getting this done any sooner. 18 credit hours and a grad course pile up quickly. 0.o I didn't quite realize how much work it would be. . Also, NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow, so GOOD LUCK to all my fellow nanoers! YOU CAN DO IT! (I shall be working on this story most likely, seeing as how I already have the plot to it worked up and just need the motivation NaNoWriMo inspires to finally do it.

Thank you to all of you who haven't given up on me and this story. It is taking me a while to get chapters up but I will do my best.

Now, on to what I know a lot of you have been waiting for, Rose Tyler's return. Enjoy! ^_^

~~~~This is a Beginning~~~~~

The diary Harry had so fortuitously stumbled upon was old, old and fascinating and filled to the brim with wondrous and mind-boggling ideas. While he would peruse the rest of the journal later, right now he was concentrating on the thirty or so pages were 'Bad Wolf' was scribbled into the margins, as though an afterthought to the equations themselves. Equations that had begun the process by which the Time Lords would come to conquer space and time and dimensionality. Equations the very foundation of his birth planet were founded upon and held together by. Equations he could use to break through the barrier that now held fast between one universe and another. This universe and the one that held the girl whose identity revolved around those two words scribbled into a diary written before her time.

But there was something odd about these equations. Something that wasn't adding up right, or working out in the circular manner math on Gallifrey operated. Some variable was missing, or not accounted for, or not included. Something was off. The Doctor stared at the sheets of paper in front of him, an old fashioned pen (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had given him that pen as a souvenir of thanks) shoved between his teeth as he ran his hands through his hair, ruffling the already wildly out of control style he was sporting.

If he stared at it hard enough, long enough, something would give. He would have an answer, the answer. It would just take some more time...he threw another crumpled sheet of paper over his shoulder, where it landed amidst the mass of crumpled, scribbled on and ink blotted balls of paper already populating the floor.

Just as he was about the stomp off for a nice cup of tea and a game of three dimensional chess with Harry as a break, it finally hit him. He immediately felt like an idiot.

Rassilon wasn't taking into account the added effect of the Void variables, the lack of space that existed between universes to separate them from touching. He wasn't considering how he would breach that void stuff, since the rip he was creating had to be made twice, once on each side. There had to be a pathway through the void, otherwise any vehicle traveling through it would be trapped forever in the swirl of nothingness. He straightened up and began to scribble dawn the new variables.

This, this was his element. His way of working. Impossibility-shmossibility. No, he was going to breach that gap, and he wasn't going to tear the universe apart in the process (he hoped). This equation was in effect before the newer Tardis models that allowed travel between Parallel worlds on their own merit, when the Time Lords had watched over the various worlds but hadn't breached the void to others. No, this had stability built into the equation. The Doctor whistled lowly. There was a reason Rassilon was one of the greatest Time Lords, why he had been resurrected for the Time War, why he had reigned as President for all thirteen of his regenerations, thousands and thousands of years. He was a genius, even a young Rassilon who was still discovering the limits of the Time Vortex and levels of quantum mechanics. The Doctor would never have figured all this out, he hadn't been introduced to the lack of possibility of travel through to parallel worlds. Only after the Time War and the loss of the Time Lords was this travel impossible. Technology once plentiful, if squandered unreasonably by its creators, had vanished with those who made it. But the young Rassilon who had created these works of art had lived in that possibility and had compensated for it.

And he was going to recreate it. Here and now, in a Universe with only one Time Lord, he was going to recreate it.

The equations in hand, all thirty-five pages of them, he raced into the console room and spun the computer interface towards him. Harry looked up from the corner he was sitting in.

"Finally decided to grace us with your presence, dad?" Harry asked sardonically. The Doctor blinked.

"Huh?"

"You were gone for nearly a hundred and sixty hours. The Tardis was getting worried." The Doctor grinned.

"Oh, Harry, you brilliant child you, I am going to show you something fantastic!" And with this said, he began typing frantically into the keyboard and looking at the screen. The Tardis gave a questioning pulse.

"Dad, what are you doing? The Tardis…she's….she's….DAD!" Harry rose to his feet, reaching out, eyes frantic and confused. "You're…she says you're…you're breaching the void! You're creating a tunnel…..DAD! What are you doing?"

"Just hold on Harry! We're going through it!"

A dial spun, a knob was twisted, a new-fangled device was fiddled with, several more things began to spin and swirl and the central Column pulsed bright gold, filling the room with bright, eye-searing light.

"DAD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Harry was crouching behind the railing, hands holding on tight and eyes slammed shut.

"We're breaching the void! Spinning into nothingness and reaching into a parallel universe, Harry! We're actually doing it! Hold on tight! This is gonna be a bumpy ride!" Harry opened his mouth to scream when the entire room gave a violent shake and he was tipped sideways and sprawled on the other side of the room. The Doctor stood at the controls, a manic grin on his face, eyes wild and his hearts beating faster than he thought possible. He glanced over at Harry, noticing him struggling for the railing, reaching for stability as the Tardis pulsed with bright gold light again and shuddered. The Doctor was sent sprawling against the railing and the room spun in a vomit-inducing manner. Then it set down, brightly glowing gold light still spilling out of the column. A visible connection to the universe they came from. The Doctor sprang for the screen. They were there. They had made it to Pete's World. It had happened.

"Harry! Harry! We made it! We made it!" Harry groaned softly in the corner. "Harry? Harry!" He rushed over. Harry's black hair was sprawled over the floor, highlighting his pale skin and slightly damp. The Doctor touched the back of Harry's head. Red. He had split his head.

"Dad? When are ya gonna ge' yur license?" Harry moaned softly. The Doctor's eyes fluttered.

"Oh, oh Harry, I'm sorry, so sorry…so so…." He trailed off as bright sparks showered down and Harry's head healed up with a bit of sparkling green. Haryry smiled weakly up at him.

"see, all goo'….all good…just a little….sleepy…" Harry nodded off against the Doctor's legs, and the lanky alien smiled.

"Oh, Harry, aren't you just brilliant." He gathered the small boy in his arms. Harry was still so tiny, stick thin and with black hair brushing the lobes of his ears. Vibrant green eyes were closed right now, but when they were open, they shone with a fervor for knowledge and amusement. The necklace lying on his chest, a constant reminder of his own failures as a father but something Harry wore with pride, shone in the light. It was the only thing holding the child back from being dragged into the depths of his magic and drowning in it.

Now though, with Harry asleep and the possibility of Rose being outside those doors, the Doctor had a choice to make. Still, it wasn't a hard choice. Harry was his child and while he had been mourning the loss of Rose for years, he wasn't about to leave Harry when he was unconscious. Harry was his responsibility right now and he wasn't going to go haring off while Harry was recovering and asleep.

So he sat at Harry's side for a little bit, making sure Harry was alright and unhurt and in one piece before heading back to the control room and checking the screen. The screen was telling him that outside the Tardis doors were trees and just about anything else imaginable that would be on Earth. That wasn't what concerned the Doctor however. He wanted to know if they had made it to the alternate universe that held Rose and her family. The airspace was filled with what might be advanced barrage balloons, different from when he had been there before, but still. It was a hallmark of Pete's world that the skies were filled with them. He smiled. They had made it.

He spent the next few hours until Harry woke up discovering, to his chagrin, that they had arrived fifty years (he thought, time wasn't the same here) after he had left Rose here for the last time. He hoped…he hoped she was still alive, that she had lived a good life. He couldn't even think about the alternative, hadn't dared looked up her name, her family's name. he didn't want to know ahead of time, he wanted to see it for himself, so see her life, her spirit, still soaring. Whatever had happened, he wanted to see her as she was, not find out from a computer screen. Rose deserved that much at least.

Harry stumbled into the room after a few hours to find his dad reading the diary. Well, he looked like he was reading it. In fact, Harry noticed, he hadn't changed the page in well over five minutes. So he was thinking about something again, something that required enough of his attention to be considered vital enough that he couldn't multitask. Now that had to be something important.

The child took a deep breath, then spoke. "What's up dad?" The Doctor didn't respond. "Dad? Dad? You still there? DAD!" Harry yelled. The Doctor jerked up.

"Oh, Harry, how's your head?" Harry shrugged.

"Not bad. Not sore at all. Magic is good for something more than making makeshift 3-D models of the periodic table and nearby planets. Whatcha thinking about then?"

The Doctor sighed. "Someone I hope is still…still alive. She….I hope she's living a good life too." Harry frowned. It wasn't like his dad to visit old friends of his without telling him, and he was sure there were no old friends stuck on a formerly unreachable side of the void..

"I thought we went through the void to a different universe. How would you have a friend still here?"

The Doctor smiled. "She was stuck here, long long ago. Long enough that I don't know if she's alive. But I hope so, I really truly do." Harry nodded at the computer.

"Have you looked her up?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, too afraid. Don't want to know….not from a computer at any rate."

A knocking at the door had the Doctor's head springing up. So soon? He had be recognized so soon? Harry furrowed a brow.

"I'll get it." He opened the door and peered outside. "Says they're Torchwood, looking for you. A…A Zach? And a Gail?"

The Doctor frowned. "Torchwood? They still have one here?"

"Apparently. That's what they're calling themselves." Harry shrugged at their guests. "Don't know much about Torchwood, much less ones in parallel universes. You aren't exactly big fans of them, and uncle Jack doesn't talk about them much either." He looked out of the door. "What? No, I'm not the Doctor. Why would you think that? No, no, that's dad. DAD! Please? I don't like being mistaken for you."

The Doctor grinned but acquiesced to his child's request and came down to the door.

"Hello, how are you?" He opened the door wider.

Two people were standing outside, dressed in casual clothes and light jackets. They weren't armed, which pleased the Doctor, but they did look confused. The man, about thirty with short brown hair and a narrow face, the girl younger with black-brown hair, brown eyes and something that said 'serious' about her. When the Doctor popped his head out, they stepped back, slightly started.

Zach and Gail had been warned by numerous files that the blue box that their commander hoped would someday appear was bigger on the inside. Still, when confronted by this fact, they weren't sure what to do. It wasn't very often that a small child and a tall, skinny man would pop out of a blue box. Granted, they had knocked first (their commander had rigged up specific equipment to detect this blue box, they had answered the call) but it was in foolish hope. So when a boy answered the knock, they had been startled.

"Um, well, We…we're not really sure what to do about this…so….um…well, the Commander said we were to escort them to Torchwood home base….you, I mean, you, but….um….well…would you mind coming with us then?"

Harry grinned at them. "Wow, usually takes a bit longer for the tongue tying to commence. Congratulations on being the first to actually start right off." The Doctor gently cuffed Harry on the ear, then looked at the two still uncertain operatives.

"Well, then, we should go speak with your commander. Does this commander have a name?"

They looked at each other. "Uh…" Gail said. "We, er, we aren't really sure. She doesn't tell people her name, not anymore. She's been there since, well, since forever, really. Dunno where she came from." They started towards a small, one-story building. Discreet, mostly unnoticeable. "She's the one they call in when they don't have any other option. That's why she's the Commander. Built Torchwood up from the ground, they say, but that was almost a century ago, so I don't know if that's true."

The Doctor looked worried and vaguely puzzled. Could this mysterious commander be Rose Tyler? It wasn't possible, well, that wasn't really true, but it was improbable. He looked at Zach.

"Your commander, what does she look like?" Zach smiled.

"She's a looker. Honey brown hair, gold eyes, face to die for, bright red lips, smoking body. Still, she doesn't have anyone at all."

Gail shook her head. "People used to say that she did have someone. Don't know what happened to him, but she did have someone."

More and more riddles. Harry looked up at the Doctor. "Do you think she's the girl?" he asked in a whisper. The Doctor shrugged, but his face remained worried.

"I don't know Harry, I really don't. And it was so long ago…I don't think she's still alive. Might be one of her children…"

Zach opened the nondescript metal door and ushered them into a pristine, white-washed room. As soon as the door closed, the room lit up and scanned them.

"Welcome back, Torchwood operate Zachary Longswordth and Gail Collins. Third Party identified as The Doctor. Fourth party unknown. Please state your name and intentions."

Harry raised an eyebrow at Zach and Gail, who shrugged and nodded for him to acquiesce.

"Er, Harry, here with the Doctor…." That seemed to satisfy the voice, and a door opposite them opened. Zach and Gwen motioned them towards it and they entered what appeared to be a pleasant sitting room.

"Sit, please. I'll go and call the Commander." Zach and Gail vanished down a side corridor, and they heard the ping of elevator doors opening then closing. Harry threw himself onto a couch, and the Doctor looked around the room, wondering if he could access any information from here.

His search for answers was interrupted by a door sliding softly open and a figure stepping out. A very very familiar figure.

When the Doctor appeared rather tongue tied, Harry crossed to the woman and offered his hand.

"Hi, I'm Harry. Don't worry about him. He usually talks too much, so it's rather nice to see him astonished." The woman smiled down at Harry, then crouched until they were eye level.

"I know. He's always spouting on about things and expects you to know all about it. Thinks he's so clever. So, who might you be, besides Harry?"

Harry smiled. "That's my dad, when he's not too busy being a prisoner, chased, or evicted from various planets." The woman's smiled dipped just a bit, then steadied.

"Where's your mum then? Back in the Tardis?"

Harry shook his head. "Nah, dad adopted me, took my after my parents were killed, though I don't remember them. " He shrugged. "Still, I think I would go mad if I had to stay in one place, I love the Tardis. She goes anywhere in the universe and we even got to go see the landing of the first shuttle on Pluto! The first attempt was fifty million miles off an they were drifting into Neptune's orbit. Nearly hid a fringe Solar community, that's how far off they were. But the second one was a success! It was awesome!" Harry grinned. "Did you used to travel with the Doctor? He said he had a friend here, that they couldn't leave." The woman smiled sadly.

"Yes, I did, a long time ago." She looked up at the still speechless Doctor. "Long, long ago, when I was still a kid. I wasn't sure I would ever see your dad again, Harry."

Harry frowned. "Yeah, dad said it was impossible to travel to parallel universes, but then I found a diary from one of the old Time Lords and it talked about traveling to other dimensions then dad figured it out and here we are, though he said we got here really late and you might be dead. Since you aren't though, dad must be happy. What's your name?"

The woman looked slightly astonished at him, then smiled brightly. "You are just like your dad, huh, talking a million miles a minute. I'm Rose, by the way." Harry's eyes widened.

"I found your room! The Tardis showed it to me. Had your name on the door and everything. Even found one of dad's ties in there." He snuck a look at his dad, a grin on his face.

The Doctor finally spoke. "Rose? Is that you? Really you?"

Even with her right in front of him, her hair undyed, her eyes a shocking golden hue, he wasn't able to believe it. Then she sat and talked to Harry, smiling with her tongue between her teeth, her eyes lit up. Then she said her name. The Doctor finally found his voice again, and he croaked out his question. Rose looked up at him, then patted Harry on the head before stepping over towards him.

"Hello Doctor. It's been a while." He reached out to touch her, just brush his fingers over her arm, something to affirm her solidity. His fingers met the cool flesh of her hand, and without waiting for anything else to be said, he pulled her into a tight hug.

Her arms went around his waist, pulling him tighter into her frame, and her face buried itself into the crook between his shoulder and neck. She shook without crying, her entire body shaking, and the Doctor held her close. Tears ran down his face and he kept his eyes tightly shut, He heard Harry settle into the couch with the diary. Harry could keep himself occupied for a little bit.

They stood, melded together the full length of their bodies, until Rose pulled back, looking up into the face of the man she never thought she would see again.

Brown eyes stared into gold, and Rose smiled.

"Hey."

"Hey." The Doctor breathed in. "How…how are you still still here? How long…" he couldn't finish that sentence. Rose smiled.

"Almost a hundred and fifty years Doctor. It's been a long time. Way too long."

"How?"

"I don't know. I really don't. But I've spent a century trying to figure out how, how to get back to my world, how to get back to you, how to do anything. And since I'm death-resistant, well, it meant that I had all the time in the world to figure it out." She smiled at him, a wobbly, huge smile. "You just got here first."

The Doctor just pulled her back into his arms. "Oh, Rose, Rose Rose Rose, you are amazing. Absolutely amazing and brilliant. How did you ever end up with an old mad man like me?" Rose's hand smacked him lightly on the back.

"A question for another time, Doctor. But here I am, and you are not leaving me again, not ever." She ginned at him, the looked at Harry. "Hey, Harry, what do you say to cheering up your old dad?" Harry grinned.

"Sure, as long as I can dunk him in the Silusian Springs!"

"Deal!" Rose laughed. "I like your kid Doctor!"

The Doctor blinked. "You…you're coming with me?" Rose quirked an eyebrow.

"You have a problem with that? I don't have anyone here, not anymore. Tony's daughter never had kids, mum couldn't have anymore, and everyone else I knew died fifty years ago. I'm not staying here any longer and I'm sure Harry could do with another person around that isn't you or Jack. A better role model, at least."

"Oi!" the Doctor's look of comic surprise had Rose laughing. "But, no, really, you still want to travel with me? After…after all that time?" Rose sighed.

"Doctor, I waited a hundred years for you to come back here. What did you think I would do, stay? I've been planning on leaving soon anyway. Your way is just safer than mine." She brushed a soft kiss against the Doctor's lips, then pulled away. "I'll be in my office, when you've finally wrapped that big brain of yours around the fact. Harry, wanna come with me to get my stuff?" Harry grinned, shoving the diary into his pocket.

"Sure. It'll be fun to have someone else on the Tardis. Uncle Jack isn't there all the time. Says he;'s got responsibilities or some such." He followed her into the elevator, waving to his dad (who still looked dumbstruck, standing in the middle of the room and watching them go) as the door closed.

As soon as the elevator started moving (down, Harry sensed) Rose collapsed to the floor, pulling her legs in and tucking her head into her knees. Quiet sobs reached Harry's ears.

"Rose? Rose? Are you okay?"

She had held it together up in the waiting room, she had been strong and steady and even flirty. But she had also been keeping the shock and surprise and pain hidden, closed off behind a curtain she didn't want the Doctor to look behind. When the elevator doors had shut, she had collapsed, folding in on herself and dropping to the floor. Rose didn't know what to say. She had lived through a hundred and fifty years on slim hope, on something that she thought would never happen. After the death of the metacrisis Doctor, the one who hadn't been able to find his feet on the ground much less find her amidst his confused emotions, what she had lived for most was the advent of space travel. The ability to go out amongst the stars again. The Doctor….seeing the Doctor again was something she kept locked away in the back of her mind in cold storage, since the possibility of it happening wasn't high. She wouldn't contemplate it, she couldn't. Otherwise she would never get anything done. Now though, that he was here, here and alive and still with at least one of the same faces she had fallen in love with when she had been a child, a girl of barely twenty years, well, she wasn't sure her heart could handle it.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, a soft gasp, a small shudder, then her fear and hope and anger and every other emotion that had sprung to her mind when she had seen him on the monitor screen softened, and she could think properly again. She lifted her head and looked at the tiny boy that was the Doctor's son, holding a gold necklace in one hand and touching her shoulder with the other. His eyes were screwed shut and he was breathing in small pants.

"Harry?" her voice was hoarse. Harry opened his eyes.

"You alright now Rose? You weren't breathing very well and you wouldn't stop shaking." Rose blinked.

"What did you do?"

"I, I siphoned some of the emotional overload away."

"Now you really sound like him. What did you do, in less confusing terms."

Harry smiled, then took his hand off her shoulder. Rose felt the hand leave, felt her emotions swirl again, but she controlled them this time. "I'm a touch empath. I can feel someone's emotions when I touch them. I wear a necklace to stop it from happening all the time, but when I need to, I can take some of the harder emotions from someone, so they can think. Only do it to dad very occasionally. He told me not to do it, but sometimes, when he's too sad, I take some of it. It helps when he has to think of a way out of a prison cell without his sonic screwdriver."

Rose still wasn't certain she got the entire story, but the elevator beeped and told her they had reached their destination. She hauled herself up off the floor, wiping her face clear of tears and held out a hand for Harry. The boy put the necklace back on again before taking it, and they headed into the large, blue colored office that was Rose's home.

Upstairs, the doctor was still standing where Rose had left him, blinking. Rose was still alive. She was still alive, she still wanted to come with him, and she still…she still…he touched his lips, grinning rather stupidly. She still loved him, he thought. He hoped.

And Harry liked her. And Rose liked Harry. And she was still here. He couldn't wrap his mind around it. Who waits that long for someone, who has measures in place for the possible arrival of someone who shouldn't be able to travel to this dimension? Only his Rose would.

He stepped to the elevator, pressed the button, and waited. His Rose, here still.

Behind him, he heard another elevator ping open, and Zach stepped out.

"Um, sir, Doctor, sir, the Commander…where was that elevator?" Zach blinked. The Doctor grinned.

"Oh, I already met your commander. Brilliant woman, she is. Absolutely phenomenal. Brilliant. Just gonna give her a hand with her things, really." Zach cleared his head.

"I was just going to tell you, the commander isn't here. I couldn't get a hold of her…" The Doctor grinned.

"It's alright. She's here." Zach raised an eyebrow, then shrugged.

"Alright then. Let me know when you're leaving. I'll buzz you out." He headed back to the elevator and pressed a button, nodding to the Doctor as he headed out and down. The Doctor grinned madly. Rose, his Rose, was here.

The elevator in front of his opened up, and he stepped in. There was only one button.

"Well, that's easy enough." And down he went.

He had traveled maybe a five hundred feet underground when the elevator came to a halt and the doors opened. He stared at walls that were painted Tardis blue, at a wooden desk with an electronic interface, a wall panel that slid out to monitor the whole of the happenings at Torchwood, and then at the two people that were now in his life, making him whole and sane and complete.

Harry and Rose were pouring over various pictures and laughing.

"Did dad really look like that? With the big ears and nose and all?" Rose smiled.

"Don't knock it. He was brilliant. I loved that leather jacket, I did. Still remember the smell, even after all these years."

"Dad in leather…man is that a weird mental image." Rose laughed, and the Doctor felt himself shiver at the sound. It had been far too long since he had heard her voice. Far, far too long.

"What are you two up to then?" Harry grinned over at him.

"Rose was just showing me pictures of you! You've never had good fashion sense, have you?" he questions, smirking a bit.

The Doctor mocked affronted anger. "I will tell you that ties are the height of fashion," he said, nose in the air. Harry chuckled.

"When, 1950's Earth?"

The Doctor huffed and Rose laughed.

"Alright you two, come on. I've got a few bags that I have to have. Mementos, of family." She shrugged slightly, but the Doctor could see how much she missed them. No more Jackie to hug him, then slap him for bringing her daughter home late, no Pete and his weird inventions, he would never meet her little brother, Tony. All the years she had lived without him, never dying, stuck on a planet where people grew old around her. He looked at Harry significantly, and he sighed, then ran past Rose and into the room she was headed for. The Doctor snagged her arm and pulled her into a hug. One she didn't protest to.

"Oh, Rose, beautiful brilliant Rose. My Rose." Rose sighed into the embrace.

"It's been a long time Doctor, longer than I thought possible. God, I never thought you would be here. I couldn't find a way back, not without tearing reality apart, and I couldn't justify it. I couldn't destroy a universe to reach another, I couldn't. I sat in that room, staring at that wall, holding the button to the dimensional cannon." Her eyes misted. "Now, now you're here. After so long…" her voice choked up and the Doctor pulled her close.

"I'm so sorry Rose. So so sorry. I never meant for that to happen. Never. I thought…I thought I was saving you, leaving you here with him. God Rose I'm so sorry." Rose looked up at him with watery eyes.

"When Harry said he was your son, I think my heart almost stopped. But he is amazing, isn't he? Almost like a mini Doctor, the way he speaks." She leaned up on tiptoes. "Don't you dare stop me Doctor, I've been waiting a hundred and fifty years to do this." Then she kissed him.

Not the chaste kiss from earlier, no, this one was full of pent up passion and need and had teeth and tongue and the Doctor wound his hands through her hair and pressed her closer and noses mashed and teeth clashed and he was sure one of them had drawn blood but they didn't care and the world could have blown up and they wouldn't have noticed.

It could have gone on forever, neither of them really needed air anytime soon, but it was the habit of breathing, helped by the wolf whistle from Harry, that had them pulling back from each other and panting heavily. Harry was smirking, a few bags at his feet and tiny hands crossed over his chest. The Doctor caught sight of a video phone from New Earth in his pocket, but said nothing. No doubt as soon as they were back in their universe it would be sent off to Jack for review, but at the moment, he could care less. Whatever the future would hold for him, for her, for them, for whatever happened, Rose was back and he figured he could handle just about anything with Rose and Harry there. He smiled.

"Anyone up for a trip back to the Tardis?" Harry smirked.

"Don't you wanna christen Rose's bed before we leave this universe behind dad?" he leered. The Doctor blushed down to his shoes.

"You've been letting him hang around Jack too much," Rose accused him with a smile wide across her face. The Doctor couldn't quite meet her eyes. "It's alright Harry. I'm sure there are plenty of other places to christen, whenever I manage to loosen that tie around his neck." Here she gave a lavish wink to the Doctor. Harry groaned.

"Alright, alright, enough. No more innuendos, please. He's my dad!" Harry complained loudly. Rose smirked.

"Shouldn't have started then." The Doctor was still rather mute, but upon seeing the look in Harry's eyes, and the suggestive squeeze of Rose's hand, he delved deep for the inner sexual being and yanked on it. He swept Rose towards the ground, a deep back bend that ended in a kiss. Harry made disgusted noises.

"If you all are gonna do that, I'm heading back upstairs! No way am I sticking around long enough to watch what happens next!" And with this, he stalked off towards the elevator and pressed the call button. The Doctor grinned into Rose's mouth.

"How long should we let him stew up there?" he asked softly. Rose smiled.

"I have enough monitoring screens in here to make this place safer than UN Headquarters. We could give it a few hours." An eyebrow went up and hands pulled Rose up to slink further down her body.

"Well then, best get started." Rose laughed delightedly.

"Let me show you something first." The elevator doors closed behind Harry and started its journey upward as Rose pulled the Doctor into her bedroom and headed to the nightstand.

The Doctor stared around the room in wonder. The walls were covered with star charts and diagrams, various constellations and graphs of orbits and locations, plans for interstellar travel (a nearby magazine article, carefully printed out and taped onto the wall, announce plans for the first passenger craft to the Mars habitation in two months. Rose had tickets taped next to it. Her bed was a dark blue color, black and yellow pillows covering the top, spilling off the side. It wasn't made, rather abandoned in a hurry. Rose never made the bed, he recalled. A pink sweatshirt lay over a chair, a desk top was covered in various reports and paperwork, a mirror was melded into a far wall, a door led into what he assumed was a bathroom. There was no closet. Had Rose really forgone the unreasonable number of clothes she used to carry with her? The small things that would litter the Tardis wherever she left them? Had they truly vanished?

Rose ran back, holding out a small box towards him. His eyes widened.

"You…you still have this? Really? After all this time?" Rose smiled.

"What, d'cha think I'd leave it on the Tardis? After all that trouble to get it?" He reached out with trembling hands and grasped the box, holding his hand over hers.

"And it's…it's still there?" Rose huffed a laugh.

"Of course it is. Where'd ya think it'd go to? Always helped me remember when things got bad though, that there was hope, that you were still out there, somewhere, cause, well…"

"Venusian crystals are sustained by the life force of the other, the giver. And the brighter it glows, the more the other loves them…a genetic transfer that links directly to the original owner. Those who mine Venusian Crystals have to wear gloves so they don't taint the crystal. First skin contact initiates the genetic transfer, secondary contact completes it…" it was a rote scientific fact that he held onto as he opened the box, and the light emenating from the heart of the crystal overwhelmed him. Rose smiled.

"Whenever I felt like jumping off a bridge, I'd pull this out. It never failed." She smiled, lifting the crystal out and taking the Doctor's hand. "Do you remember what happens when both parties touch the crystal again Doctor?" she asked casually, holding his hand scant centimeters above the crystal. The Doctor's breath came in soft pants.

"The cyrstal…it…it becomes two halves, one of which inscribes…." He couldn't finish. Rose took over from him.

"Inscribes the name of the partner into the stone. It's one of the reasons the crystals are highly valued, because they have always been a part of a Venusian couple's bonding ceremony." Rose's tone was off handed, but the Doctor could feel the hard, fast pulse of her blood in her hand, the small tremble in her body.

"To become bonded without one is frowned upon, because there is no knowledge of true love in the union. The telepathic and genetic link the crystals form is a reflection of the bond already present between the two. The crystal is given from one member to the other, and only when the bond is considered complete is the crystal offered again."

They stared at each other, and Rose dropped her hand from the Doctor's. His hand reached out to finish what he had started all those years ago.

A scream rang through the room. A scream the Doctor knew well, a scream that had him rushing to the elevator and desperately pressing the call button.

~~~This is a Line Break~~~~

Harry smiled widely to himself. As strange as it was to see his dad kissing anyone, much less the nice and pretty Rose who knew the Doctor liked to stroke the Tardis and always had a banana and laughed with him, he was happy that his dad was happy. His dad was very very happy. He resolved to keep himself out of their way for a while. Uncle Jack might be corrupting him in various other ways, but Harry was still a seven year old. Some things were better left for people who liked that kind of thing. Harry was not that person. Not right now.

The doors pinged open to the couch filled room he had left half an hour ago, and he settled himself back into a comfy, cushion filled one nearby. The diary was back in his hands, and as he passed over the math sections of the diary and turned towards the back, his eyes narrowed. It was labeled 'Complications', or the Gallifreyian equivalence of the word. It encompassed the idea of urgency and emergency and problems and instability and the possibility of leakage.

He turned pages faster and faster as he read through as much as he could understand. If this was right, if his dad hadn't compensated for the minor temporal shifts and the factors of the null dimensions in the void, they were in a lot of trouble.

He was so engrossed in his pages, he didn't see the figure looing in front of him.

He did feel the slim needle the poked into his collarbone, the hand the grabbed him to keep from toppling over, the book falling from his numb fingers.

Then the necklace was slipped off his neck, he had no preparation, and he screamed as the person's emotions flooded his body, his mind. He screamed so loudly, so filled with pain and hate and anger, that the person holding him back off. Harry collapsed, panting, and he felt his mind struggle to deal with the influx of new information, the drugs in his system, the lack of his necklace, the fuzzy image of Zach in front of him.

"Why…." He said, his words slurring.

"If you're important to the Doctor, if he's who the files say he is, then he can help us significantly. And we need leverage. We thought we would have to threaten him directly. Then you came up. Weren't we lucky. The Doctor's companion, his child, his son, now in our hands. And with this pretty little necklace. A hostage and the necessary funding to finish the project."

"What….what…proj…" Harry couldn't keep his eyes open very well, his mouth wouldn't work, his hands were like lead. His hearing still worked though.

"This planet, such a weak planet, so easy to take over. And Torchwood has the best facilities. Did you know the Commander placed secret bases all over the globe? A network of telepathic signals, perfect for overpowering the weak, human mind."

"Dad…dad'll stop…stop you…"

Zach laughed. "He won't even be able to find you." Harry's vision blacked out, and the last thing he felt was arms picking him up, cradling him.

~~~~~~This is a Line Break~~~~~

The Doctor jabbed at the call button over and over, hoping that it would come faster if he just hit it a few more times. Rose was standing in front of the wall of screens, tapping on the wall with her fingers and moving images around, zooming in here, out there, poking, prodding and generally finding what she was looking for. When she did, a sound of victory rang around the room, followed immediately by one of anger.

"Zach. Why is it always the quiet ones? Damn it." She reached under the desk and pulled out what seemed like a tube. The Doctor looked back at her.

"What is that?" Rose's smile was hard.

"Stun ray. With a bit of a jolt. And I know where Harry is." The Doctor's eyes widened. "They blocked the video feed from the first ten floors manually and it would be a waste of time to start them again, so I ran a search for the vortex energy. Can't wipe that from the sensors, and they forgot about those. No one uses them really, here. They were more precaution after an invasion a few decades back. No one left knows about them except me. They found Harry three floors below ground level and moving east. Towards an old exit I could have sworn was blocked off. Obviously not," she added when the Doctor raised a brow.

"Where does it lead?" he asked quickly. Rose grimaced.

"Tunnel heads out to the Thames, a smuggling safe house. Closed down ages ago but the foundations still there, new hover dock and everything." Rose bit her lip, looked at the Doctor with a critical eye, sighed, looked at the elevator door that still wasn't there, looked back at the Doctor. The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Just…not used to having someone come with me 'nymore. Been nearly, oh, eight decades since I took someone with me…girl, barely out of her teens, fast, good with a gun…" she stopped, didn't need to finish the sentence. The Doctor sighed. He did know.

"I'm coming with you. I don't care, he's my son and I am not losing him to anyone. What do you know about Zach?" Rose sighed.

"Only as much as what's in the files really. I try not to work too closely with the members of Torchwood. They don't know my name, I'm only there once a week to run them through training simulations and I don't hire them. I vet them, check their records, make sure we don't get anyone crazy." She frowned. "He must have slipped through the cracks. Quiet guy, had a run in with an invasion about….thirteen years ago. Worked in the science department for seven years, transferred to field six years ago. Quick on his feet, good thinker." A slip of an ironic smile. "Little too good, apparently."

The Doctor fidgeted, then rushed into the now present elevator. Rose pressed an almost invisible button and a screen shimmered into existence on the side wall. She selected the third floor and the elevator started moving. "You've gotten cynical Rose," he said, staring at the doors. He missed the flash of sadness in her eyes.

"Comes with the territory Doctor. You're not exactly the most cheerful person in the universe, no matter how hyper you are." The Doctor grinned.

"True that." His hands ran repeatedly through his hair, making the ends stand up as if electrocuted. He tapped his fingers together, then on the wall, then his leg, until Rose, fed up with the noise, just grabbed his hand in hers and held it still, fingers entwined. It had been too long, she realized, since she had held his hand. Way too long. The look on his face indicated the same.

"There. Now stop fidgeting. We are getting Harry back." She stopped, screwed her face up in what looked like a grimace, then frowned. "It feels weird saying that to you, that's your line."

The Doctor laughed. "Usually is, but it is good to hear it." Harry, he thought, his little Harry. His magical in every sense of the word Harry. His hand clenched around Rose's. "If he's hurt, Zach had better hope you get to him first," he promised in a low voice. Rose stared into eyes that raged. She hadn't seen eyes that dark in over a century.

"Zach had better hope that whoever he's working with has got some mercy," Rose said. "I've got none for him." Children were children, and it didn't matter what species or planet of origin, they deserved to be protected. Harry just happened to have a protector who could and would tear the universe apart to find him again. That protector just happened to have along a Bad Wolf who could and would demolish you down to your atomic level. She knew how to fiddle with stun gun technology. She had created it.

The elevator door pinged open and Rose pulled a small screen out of her pocket as they headed out. "That way." Left it was. With Rose directing, they raced through hallways until they arrived at a brick wall. Rose didn't hesitate, pressing a small button on the side and watching the brick slide backwards and to the right. The Doctor grinned.

"Brilliant. Secret doors. I love a good secret door." He ran in and pulled out the sonic screwdriver.

"The detectors don't go any farther than this. We'll have to guess." Rose hoped they guessed right.

The Doctor grinned. "No need. Got this." He brandished his screwdriver. Rose sighed.

"I might not have seen that in years Doctor but even I know it can't detect humans." The Doctor shook his head.

"Not that. A special king of psionic energy. Harry's brimming with it, leaves a trail where ever he goes. Useful in making sure he doesn't get too lost." Rose raised an eyebrow. "I'll explain later. Alonzy!" and he raced down the passageway. Rose grinned. It had been a long time since she had had that heady feeling one got with the Doctor, as if everything would turn out alright.

More twists, more turns, more bends. The Doctor turned unerringly at every corner. The passageway was rough, hewn from rock that was hundreds of years old and hadn't been touched by modernity. There were still alcoves were lamps and iron rings for torches, something she hadn't seen in, in, she wasn't sure. Damp and slimy and dark (she was holding a small globe that illuminated the area around her), Rose checked every so often to make sure her footing was sure and steady. It wouldn't do to tumble down and break her nose. Her ability to not die did not extend to instantaneous healing.

They stopped abruptly in front of a plaster wall and the Doctor stared at the Sonic Screwdriver, his eyes screwed up, confused. Rose sighed. She had forgotten, over the years, that despite the Doctor's absolute genius, he was still a bit thick. She shoved him out of the way and raised a foot. She planted it directly through the wall and kicked out into open air.

"Fake wall. Easy to put up, especially if you have a head start." The Doctor looked at her admiringly. Rose grinned back, tongue between her teeth.

"Brilliant Rose!" He beamed, and he and Rose continued to dismantle the wall bit by bit. When they could finally fit through (it took a bit of punching and kicking and the Doctor almost busting a knuckle before deciding his feet were more sturdy that his hands) the Doctor turned a smile at Rose and went for it. She stopped him with a hand.

"You don't have a stun gun and I would rather not have a you with a new face if they decide to shoot upon entrance." The Doctor looked like he was about to protest. "And I'm sure Harry would rather not see you regenerate either." He froze, then sighed reluctantly and let her head through the hole first, stun gun in hand. She had fiddled the settings into a stun-and-shock mode. It was more than the bugger deserved.

She made sure the room they emerged into was clear before telling the Doctor to come through. Or she would have, if he hadn't slid out right behind her.

"You've gone and grown up on me," he said offhandedly. Rose gave him a tight smile.

"I didn't have much of a choice now did I?" she shot back. Then she sighed. They would have to talk about this power thing when they had the chance. She wasn't a twenty year old London shop girl anymore. He couldn't treat her like it either. "Now, where's Harry?"

The Doctor was already taking readings. "Come on then Rose." He was heading for the door opposite them. It wouldn't open. He buzzed at it with the sonic. It stayed locked. "Deadlock seal. I didn't think you all had them yet. Still too far ahead of your time." Rose shrugged, then narrowed her eyes.

"Zach's not working alone. Check the connection with the electronic mechanism. Do they use a fusion blend of hyper-zirconium and something similar to copper?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow but checked obligingly. When he had proven Rose right, she cursed softly. "Damn it. He's working with the Zotlings. They were the aliens that crashed here thirteen years ago, the one Zach was mixed up in. Tall, blueish species with three eyes and long, thin fingers; brilliant with electronics, the friendly ones at least. Got their ship fixed and they headed back out."

The Doctor listened in silence. "That's not all though, is it Rose?" he said softly. Rose shook her head.

"It was a prison transport ship, moving quadrants. A riot had broken out and one of the inmates had messed with a few couplings and the nav system. They left missing about four inmates. Most of us figured they died in the crash. Zach said he had seen some burn up…." Rose narrowed her eyes, then sighed.

"He was lying then, wasn't he."

"Yeah. That particular combination of metals comes from their ship. It wasn't top of the line so when a few spools of wire went missing no one questioned it."

"Very good Commander," a crackling voice spoke. "And you've done well in finding this place. We weren't sure if you would." The Doctor jerked his head up sharply. A screen was set above the doorway and a tall, thin, blueish creature with three eyes sat in front of it. Rose could see Harry laying on a couch in the background.

"What do you want with Harry?" the Doctor asked. The Zotling tilted its head.

"He is only bait, Doctor. We need you." It looked over at Rose. "And you, Commander. This child was just a means to an end."

"If you've hurt him," the Doctor started, but the creature waved it's abnormally long fingers dismissively.

"No, no, why would I do that? Only if I need to would I hurt the child. He is my…leverage, as you would say it. My insurance to assure that the work I need done will be completed."

"And what's that?" the Doctor asked. The creature's eyes widened in a smile of sorts.

"Why, my future plans. With the police long gone from this quadrant and this species, this primitive species, so far from being able to build the necessary equipment to return to any planet with some form of civilization more…advanced than this petty human race, I have decided that I shall place myself as their commander and take control of this pitiful and weak species. It would be a boon to them, a helping hand in their time of need. They are most definitely so far behind what I need." The Doctor glared at the screen.

"And so you took Harry to force me to help you complete a machine that you would use to take over the world? How daft are you?" The alien looked amused, rather than insulted. Rose wondered if the Doctor had any sort of plan at all and was about to take control of the situation, when she noticed Harry standing up behind the alien, his hand removing his necklace, his other reaching out. She remembered when harry had said earlier, about his ability to removed emotions from people. What was he going to do?

She turned her attention back to the Doctor. He was distracting the alien, keeping him occupied on him so he wouldn't look behind him.

"Young Harry is my insurance, my green card, to use one of your world's quaint phrases. He is here to make sure you work quickly. Zach will lead you to the device. And Commander, if you decide to shoot Zach, I would make sure you don't care too much about young Harry here," the alien turned around to gesture and was met with Harry's face. Harry smiled widely. "What? How?" The alien didn't get much farther than that.

"Time to sleep," Harry said viciously, then clamped both hands around the alien's face. He screamed soundlessly, and the alien screamed with him. They both collapsed and the Doctor looked like he would jump through the screen if he could. It was lucky the door clicked open, otherwise Rose was sure the skinny Time Lord would have tried his luck ramming through titanium alloy. Zach was met with the very angry face of the Doctor.

"Take me to see your boss, now." Zach quivered, quailed. He looked at Rose, who was pointing the tube at him. He gathered his courage, stepped visibly back from the Doctor, then said,

"He..he said that if you hu-hurt me, he'll hurt the child." Rose raised an eyebrow.

"Look at the screen, Zachary. You'll see that you're a little behind the times." Zach nervously stepped into the room, looked up at the screen, noticed the two unconscious figures, gulped.

"Al-alright. This-this way." Rose looked at the Doctor.

"Couldn't you have tracked him?" she asked, pointing at the screwdriver. The Doctor shook his head.

"No, this whole place is lead lined. Only got as far as this door, that's it. Then it cuts out, caput, gone." He looked at Zach. "Now, take me to my son." Zach nodded tightly.

It was a short journey, a few flights of stairs and a few turns, then the room they had seen on the camera was suddenly in front of them. Rose stayed with Zach, keeping the stun gun aimed at him, while the Doctor rushed to Harry. He gently placed the necklace back on him before picking him up and holding him close. Rose was sure Harry was going to get some kind of lecture later about risking his life (when did the Doctor not lecture someone on the principle, despite the hypocrisy that particular lecture brought about) but right now, all she could see was relief.

Rose pulled primitive handcuffs out of a pouch on her belt (no one knew about them anymore so no one could pick them) and attached Zachary to the metal tubing running floor to ceiling. It was strong enough to keep him in one place. Then she walked over to the two figures on the ground. The Doctor was carefully holding Harry to him.

Harry looked so much smaller when he wasn't awake, Rose realized. Absolutely tiny. His hands fit whole in her palm, his tiny nose and mouth wouldn't have been out of place on a much younger child. If she hadn't known better, she would have put Harry's age at four. She gently touched the Doctor on the shoulder and he looked up at her, his face drawn in that bottomless agony she had seen so long ago, when he hadn't been able to save someone in time, or when she had gotten hurt. She cupped a cheek, then took on of his hands and placed it over Harry's strongly beating heart.

"He's fine Doctor. He's alive, he's breathing, he's not bleeding. We need to get out of here, I need to have this stuff swept up by Torchwood employees, I need to have my senior officer re-vetted and then have him do a sweep of Torchwood. And I need to figure out what to do with Zach and our blue friend here, so take Harry and get back to the Tardis. I'll meet you there in a little while." She smiled at him. "And don't leave without me."

"Rose…I can help. I really can…" Rose raised an eyebrow, then looked down at Harry.

"Doctor, the bad guys are unconscious or handcuffed, there's no imminent threat of impending explosion or other massive problem that only the brilliance of you could defeat, so you can take a bit of time and take care of your kid. He deserves that much at least. It can't be easy on him, messing with emotions like he did." The Doctor's eyes widened.

"How…"

Rose smiled. "He's your kid in every sense of the meaning Doctor. Including babbling too much. He told me." Rose stroked a hand down Harry's cheek. "He's special, he is."

The Doctor nodded, then stood up, Harry's head balanced on his shoulder and arms dangling by his side. He looked at Rose. "I'll wait here until you can get someone else here. I don't want to leave you alone." The at all was implied. Rose smiled.

"Let me call Javier. I can trust him." She reached for her communication device and dialed a specific number, then held it up in front of her. A face swam into view.

"Commander?" Its tone was confused.

"Javier, get two people you trust implicitly and follow this signal. Bring a full kit, dismantle and destroy. Interrogation kits as well." The face on the screen looked puzzled but didn't argue. It faded to black and a small blue light clicked on the top. The Doctor settled onto the couch Harry had been laying on, looking at Rose with unreadable eyes. Rose ignored him, checking instead on the former Torchwood employee who was now leaning heavily against the wall, head against the pole. Zach looked up at her.

"Well now, what are we going to do with you?" The way she said it made Zach gulp. The Commander's reputation was scary. Scary and unnerving and made Zach shiver in his boots. Before all this, the idea of being exposed as working for an alien taking over the world had given him nightmares. He wasn't the bravest person, he wasn't the smartest, but he had realized opportunity to get his share of a world that had screwed him from the beginning. But looking at the eerie gold eyes that held absolutely no mercy for him, he didn't think even the glimmer of possibility was worth it.

"Wh-what are you go-go-going to do to m-m-me?" he stuttered. Rose didn't smiled.

"I'm sure there's sufficient punishment awaiting you. A bit of retcon maybe, a stay in the dungeon cells, though I could just send you to the remodification center. You know the one." And Zach did. Where the mentally insane were sent, their brain modified, they became an entirely new person. The faults were stripped away, something just slightly more human that a robot emerged. One's identity was completely gone. Destroyed by probing tools and chemicals and the promise of a better future. It was something the Commander had fought with all her power behind her against, and seethed when it had been pushed through the Union Federation's congress. Still, she wasn't above threatening with it. She did so now with relish.

"Please…please, not there. Not there, anywhere but there, please…" it was a whispered plea that got an ironic smile from the woman in front of him. She pushed her blonde hair out of her face, stood up.

"I'm not cruel enough to send you there, but I'm not the one deciding your punishment. It wasn't my child you kidnapped Zachary." She turned to the Doctor. "It was his." The Doctor met Rose's eyes, his own wide in shock.

"I….I am not, no, Rose, no. I can't, Rose. You know I can't." He grimaced. "This is why I don't like to stick around afterwards. I don't deal with the consequences."

"And look where that's got you Doctor." The Doctor frowned.

"I won't Rose. Can't, won't whatever the word you're looking for, that's me." They stared at each other for endless minutes, then three figures rushed in the door. Rose turned to them.

"Javier, make sure that one over there," she pointed at Zach," make sure he's dealt with appropriately for betrayal. Then him." Another gesture towards the still unconscious Zotling. "Then I want a systematic check, room by room sweep of this entire warehouse. Top to bottom. Any foreign tech, cordon off, call me. I'll run by it. Doctor," she turned, found him already out the door and almost to the stairs. Javier raised an eyebrow, then nodded after the Doctor's retreating back. Rose rushed out the door.

She caught him halfway up the next flight of stairs. "You know the way out?" she asked. The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"I'm sure I can find it. I'll be in the Tardis, whenever you're done. Isolating Harry is probably the best thing for him. His mind is still healing; he forced too many emotions at once through it." Brown eyes looked into gold. "I'll still be here, whenever you're ready. To come or stay, whichever." He leaned down, kissed her gently on the lips, then the forehead, pressed his forehead to hers, then left, back up the stairs before Rose could say anything. She watched him go.

Her Doctor, he was still alive, still the same, stubborn man he'd been since she met him, still handing out mercy like it was a little league trophy. She was glad at least that hadn't changed.

But she had, she had changed so much since she had left him. Since he had left her, something else she needed to talk to him about. But right now she needed to deal with clean-up, delegation of responsibilities and a rogue alien prisoner.

~~~~This is a Line Break~~~~

The Doctor found the Tardis easily enough. As soon as they had hit ground level, the pull from the telepathic link guided him gently towards her. She sat at the edge of a square, near an unused fountain. The doors opened for him and he carried Harry inside, shutting them and heading towards Harry's rooms.

Everything seemed to happen to Harry, everything bad that had ever happened to any of his companions, little seven year old Harry managed to out-do them by a mile. Well, with a few notable exceptions, but it wasn't as if he was jeopardy-friendly or a trouble magnet. It was is if danger only had to get a whiff of him and it was off, Harry was in trouble; he always ended up in trouble somehow, and he never felt any better for knowing that Harry was still alive.

He set Harry down gently on his bed, took of the tiny boots that Harry insisted on wearing and slipped off the small jacket he had found in the wardrobe. He tucked the blankets around him, watched Harry curl up in them, and sighed softly. Little Harry, so unpredictable, so uncaring of his own life. At some point he would have to make a more concentrated effort to remind Harry that he was only a child, that he could get hurt. Now though, now, with Harry isolated and contained and out of harm's way, he had other, more pressing matters to attend to. Like Rose. Rose being alive, Rose being unable to die, Rose being…Rose being here. Here and solid and he could hold her.

Rose being a hundred and fifty years older than she had been when he had left her. Time had passed for him, enough time that her loss wasn't a festering sore that sent agonizing pains through him every time it was prodded, enough time that Harry had filled a part of him he didn't even know he needed filling and had helped him heal, enough time that he didn't turn and expect to see her grinning at him with her tongue between her teeth, brown eyes alight with amusement and happiness. But a hundred and fifty years was a long time. Long enough for him to know Rose had changed. She had grown up, she had gotten older, she had become responsible and determined and able to handle herself without him. He didn't even know if he was still necessary, if she still needed or wanted him around, if he was anything more than a distant memory. Human memory was a very strange thing. He remembered his past if perfect detail, all of it, a side effect of being a Time Lord. Human memory was fluid, the details could and would change; the more often one remembered something, the more it changed.

He lounged in a chair beside the pool, a book in his lap, his eyes not reading the words. He had come here to see Rose, to make sure she had lived a good life, loved, moved on. He hadn't counted on making it here a century too late and still finding her. Still finding Rose, defending the Earth. Even had her own name, the Commander. And her eyes, gold and bright. The same golden light that had emanated from the Tardis console, light that indicated Huon particles and vortex energy and so much more.

Rose had never been meant to be cursed like she had, to live forever in an unending life. If he was right, she would outlive him now, never mind the forever part. It scared him, because time had a changing quality on everyone it touched. No one was ever the same after being affected by time, and a hundred and fifty years of it would change anyone. Even Jack Harkness, con artist extraordinaire, had changed. He commanded attention, he knew the value of life, since his own was never ending, he longed for death because he couldn't die. It was a scary thing.

He knew how time changed a person. He had started out, exiled on Earth with his granddaughter, a haughty, stubborn old man with a penchant for looking down on humans. Always trying to be older, wiser than he was because his own people couldn't. Now, older than he could remember (he said nine hundred like a woman in her forties said twenty. He just didn't want to remember), he tried to hide the years he had lived in a bundle of energy and movement and knowledge and unending thirst for adventure. With Harry, he had someone to show the universe to. Someone to share it with, someone who would value it because it was his home, the entire universe his home. There was some lesson about corrupting influences there, the knowledge that Harry might never be satisfied with a stationary life on one planet, the possibility of him dying young, but with those wide green eyes, he couldn't help but let him see the universe in all its magnificence.

Now he was back on Earth, back in a parallel universe where Rose was immortal and might travel with him again, and he felt the blame for it fall squarely on his shoulders. Rose had been affected by the time vortex far more than she had said. It hadn't shown, not at first, but no one could hold that much power in their body, control that much energy, without being changed on a fundamental level. Rose was timeless. Timeless and unending and would become an integral part of the universe, he could feel it. And the reason could be put on his shoulders. On the shoulders of a him with large ears and nose, who wore a black leather jacket and tight jeans, who had just found a ray of sunshine after years of torment and had taken it for himself.

He was still sitting beside the pool when a warm, female hand clasped his. He looked up into gold eyes and tried not to let the emotions running through him show on his face. He had evidently failed because Rose sighed softly and pulled away, then yanked him into a hug.

"Doctor, when will you stop blaming yourself for things you couldn't control?" she asked, almost as if not expecting an answer. Good, because he didn't have an answer for her.

~~~~This is a Line Break~~~~~

Rose had taken the time necessary to speak with Javier alone, away from the prying ears of those he had brought along. He looked at her seriously, his dark black eyes flat. Rose appreciated this in him, his seriousness and commitment to duty. It was what made him the functioning head of Torchwood, since Rose couldn't and wouldn't be in any government documents.

"Commander, you are leaving then?" Javier wasn't surprised then. Rose nodded.

"Yes. I will be turning over control of all Torchwood operations to you, the security map and grid of every Torchwood base around the world. The heads of the Asian and American bases already send their reports to you, the African, Antarctic, and Australian bases will be notified of the change of command." Javier's eyes widened imperceptibly, then he nodded.

"Will you be coming back at any time in the future?"

"No. I doubt it. I trust you to take care of things here." Javier smiled a thin smile.

"I don't doubt that Torchwood will be less without you, but we can take care of business here just fine. We might just have to find a new heavy hitter for the fields." He quirked a brow. "Or a team." Rose smiled.

"You will also need to run full backgrounds on everyone within the compound and any new employees you hire. I will run a check of my own before I leave and send you the results, before I lock my station."

"I am to assume your offices will remain locked for further use?"

Rose waved a dismissive hand. "No. I won't be coming back, it would be a waste of space. You can take control of them or appoint someone to them, but don't leave them to get dusty. They served me well."

"I understand Commander, and if I may be so bold, may I ask your name, since you won't be returning?" It was something that he had wondered about for years, ever since he had been hired on and the young-looking woman had appointed him her second in command without so much as an introduction. Everyone else had told him she was the Commander. Rose smiled a wide and genuine smile, one he hadn't seen before. Her eyes lit up.

"Rose. My name is Rose. Someone in this universe should remember the Tyler family, since I won't be here." Javier's eyes widened.

"The Tylers? Rose Tyler, you're Rose Tyler?" And wasn't that just a kick in the ass. Rose Tyler, long lost heir to the Tyler family fortune, believed to be running around somewhere in the wilderness (or her progeny at least), Commander of Torchwood. Rose smiled and nodded.

"I'll leave you to finishing the work here. I'll make sure the security codes are sent to your desktop and the employee files. Goodbye Javier, and thanks for your work here." Javier saluted and Rose smiled lightly. "No need for that."

"You've saved the planet enough times to deserve it Comman…Rose Tyler." Javier smiled though. "It was good serving under you." Rose nodded. Then she left, heading out and up to the surface, finding her way back to headquarters and down to her office.

Harry had packed what little she had (the little imp had packed her underthings too, she noticed, a smile on her face). He had missed the secret compartment above her bed, where she kept things from before, when her family had been alive, when she had traveled with the Doctor. Her phone, still working. It had been well used, its photos well perused, the buttons no longer showing any numbers. A camera, new battery made it still operational. It held pictures of her family, Tony and his partner Jeff, their adopted daughter Kelly (she had died before having any children, an auto accident). Her mother and father, the Doctor's metacrisis, then pictures of her Doctor, both of them. The memory of this model had been expanded as technology improved, and the thousands of photographs had been viewed and loved and printed out many many times. Eventually, as memories pressed, she had put the camera away.

Her pink sweatshirt, now grey with age. Small collectibles she had in her pockets from her times on different planets, in different times. She put them all inside one of the two bags she had. Then she ran the background tests again, checked deeper, sent the results to Javier's terminal with an encrypted email with the passcodes. It took her ten minutes to finish. Technology had grown easy and quick to use over the years, something she found both intriguing and annoying. When one had all the time in the world, one relied on some things to slow one down. When the computer started operating efficiently about seventy years ago and only improved in speed, she had had to find other ways to fill her days.

As the lights powered down and Rose stood in the elevator, watching as her office shut down, she could only feel a sigh of relief. After all this time, all this waiting, staring up at the still unreachable stars and yearning to see them again, to do something, anything than stay on the ground where no one knew her anymore, and she didn't really know anyone either, she was leaving. And she was leaving with the Doctor.

The Tardis wasn't hard to find, a blue police box stood out among the bright reds and yellows and crisp greens and whites of the buildings, and the fact that it was relieved by the black stone of a monument to those lost in the third World War made it all the easier to find. She fumbled, trembling with the key, and opened the door.

The bright pulse of light staggered her backwards, and she held onto the cool metal railing she hadn't felt in a century and a half. A warm song filled her mind, her ears tingled at the non-sound, her eyes blinked away tears and sparkles and light. The door shut behind her and she could hear the welcoming presence of the Tardis, telling her she was home.

She nearly fell to the metal grated floor right there. It was good to be home, it was good to be back to the one place she had truly felt alive in. Her whole being felt whole once more, as if she had been missing some part of herself and she hadn't known it until it was filled.

She pat the console lovingly, then asked "Can you help me find the Doctor?" The Tardis let the image of the library bloom in her mind and she smiled. "Thank you old girl. You're amazing." The Tardis purred in contentment. She had missed Rose too.

Unerringly Rose headed down the corridors and to the library, knowing exactly where it was. It was as if the Tardis hadn't wanted her to get lost, had wanted her to find him. It was probably true. Rose smiled. The door was open, the rows and rows of books set around and beside a giant swimming pool. The Tardis was starting to match the Doctor for eccentricity, a swimming pool in a library. Or a library in the pool room. Something.

The Doctor was sitting, staring at a book without reading it, eyes troubled and full of self-loathing, hands folded under his chin. Rose sighed. He would always blame himself for things, would always feel as if he were the one to blame for the wrongs in the universe, all of the wrongs.

She had hoped Harry had knocked that out of him, but apparently the tiny tot hadn't managed it yet. He was so deep in thought that he didn't notice her until she put a hand on his. He looked up at her, and she could see the hate and pain and sorrow on his face as if he had written them there with permanent marker. She sighed. Only one remedy for this, really. She pulled him up, surprised at the ease in which he followed her direction, and wrapped her arms around him. She felt his go around her, hold her as if she might break. She sighed into his chest.

"Doctor, when will you stop blaming yourself for things you can't control?" He didn't answer, which was answer enough. She pulled back slightly, looked at him directly. "It's not your fault, the fact that I'm…death-proof." She grinned, irony in her smile. "I've had a while to get used to it. Long enough that nothing you could possibly say about blaming yourself would change that fact. It's happened, it's over." The Doctor's eyes misted.

"But I'm the reason you were stuck there Rose. Why you had to live alone." Rose sighed.

"And we'll get to the leaving me behind thing in a while, but I understand. Really, I do. I might not like it and I might have spent a decade throwing flammable darts at your picture, but I do understand why you left me. In a weird, Doctor-y like way." She smiled. "You left me with a you, a Doctor. He just wasn't you. Not really. Too much of Donna mixed into a personality that was volatile and couldn't stay still for longer than five minutes. No one was surprised when he died. We were more shocked that he lived so long. He couldn't settle down, but you couldn't have known that. And don't start on the I should have known that tangent. You aren't all knowing. From what I remember, you are rather thick about things a lot of the time." Rose sighed, looked back at the Doctor.

The Doctor didn't really know what to day. Rose had that effect, had always had that effect, the ability to just stun him with words. He couldn't do more than pull her into him, tighten his hold, and just feel her in his arms. Her head tucked under his chin, her arms around his waist, her hair, honey colored and curling past her shoulders, tickling his nose. Her heart beat reassuringly against his chest, her breath whooshed over his collar bone, her fingers tightened against his back, clenched in his suit jacket.

"What did I ever do to deserve someone like you? You and Harry, both of you." His voice was soft and full of choked emotion. Rose smiled.

"You were just you Doctor. Nothing more, nothing less. That's all you need to be. Harry needs a father, here you are, full of energy and knowledge and two hearts large enough for the Universe. When you picked me up, I needed adventure, excitement, something different. There you stood, in leather with sad blue eyes and a blue box that traveled through time and space." She pulled back slightly, though not far, the doctor wouldn't let her move too far away, and tiled her head up so she could look at him closely. "And I fell in love with that big eared, blue eyed mad man. Then he changed, a skinny geek with pinstripes and trainers and so much energy and excitement and smiles and laughter, but still just a mad man with a box. And I loved him too." Her hand ran through spiky brown hair. "And if he could ever forgive himself, that mad man with his blue box could love himself again."

The Doctor blinked slowly, dark eyes misty. How had he lived without this wonderful woman with her knowing eyes and heart full of love and just everything? Rose, his Rose who loved him regardless of how much he screwed up or how often he landed them in a jail or whatever he did, she loved him. Did she still, could she still? Had a hundred and fifty years dulled her emotions? He looked at her.

"Do you still need me?" he asked softly, heart in his throat. He looked everywhere but her face. He heard her laugh softly.

"Doctor, the day I don't need you is the day I die, and since that isn't happening any time soon, you're just going to have to get used to having me around." She tiled her head. "And you? How long has it been for you?" She pursed her lips. "Not as long as I had to wait, you wouldn't have stayed with the same face," she teased gently. "But how long?"

The Doctor sighed, thought back. He never misplaced years, not the years Rose was gone. His age, yeah, he forgot that on purpose, but the time since Rose had left, he would never forget it. How could he? He watched her fly toward the void, almost vanish into it, he father catching her at the last minute. She had almost vanished into the blackness of nothingness, and he had felt his hearts stop, jolt, stutter, then start again when she had been saved. Then she had come back, years later for him, only four for her, and he had felt his hearts start to beat again, pump blood around consciously, had jolted when she stood there, gun in hand, blonde hair, brown eyes, red lips, then he had left her on that beach again. And now, here she stood, a hundred a fifty years later for her, and for him,

"37 years, five months, four days, three hours and ten minutes," he said softly. Rose blinked, sighed, smiled.

"Sometimes I forget you have time running through your brain, then you know how many minutes it's been since you last saw me and it all comes rushing back." She leaned up on tiptoe, face to face with him. "Well, Doctor, long enough for me to know that, no matter how long it's been, I should have snogged you when I was still twenty and naïve." And she pressed her lips to his gently, hand twining around his tie to pull him closer.

The Doctor felt his hearts soar and sing and possibly the pleased rumble of the Tardis in the background. The kiss in Rose's rooms had been a desperately needed reminder that the other was there, physically, that they existed. This, this was something that, in any movie, would be accompanied by fireworks or waves on a beach or some other sappy, romantically lit scene. Here though, in a library/swimming pool room, inside a small blue box, it couldn't have been anything other than what they had been waiting for for years.

They breathed together, hands resting, not pulling at clothes, not yanking at hair, not desperately scrambling for skin. Rose had the Doctor's tie in one hand, the other around and cradling his neck. The Doctor was running fingers through soft tresses with one, the other resting on the small of her back. It contrasted with the quick and heady kisses, soft and hard at once, nipping teeth and soothing tongue, the fact that one had forgotten toothpaste this morning and the other tasted oddly of garlic and spaghetti (Harry's breakfast food choice of the day) didn't matter. Just the physical contact, the pressure of bodies and mouths and heat and cold and the beat of hearts was all they seemed to need at the moment.

~~~~This is an Ending~~~~~

So…here it is. Rose Tyler's return. I hope I haven't done it injustice (besides the extraordinarily long wait between this chapter and the last…) and there is a side story I will upload shortly as a companion to this, Rose's story. Quite a few of your questions will probably be explained there.

As to all of you amazing, wonderful, brilliant reviewers, readers, alerters, followers, all, Thank you. Seeing your notices in my inbox all the time finally gave me the kick to get this done and put it up. I will hopefully have replies to you as soon as possible, school and paper due tomorrow permitting.

Kuroi out.