Thank you so much, everyone, for all of your loving and enduring support.

It only took ten thousand years, but here is the epilogue to this adventure. Thank you, everyone, for embarking on it with me. :)

Epilogue: Barcelona

The Doctor started the device at the top of Rory's casted leg again. "There! Five more minutes with this beauty, and you'll be good as new!"

From his slanted med bay bed, Rory peered doubtfully at his leg.

Rose leaned an elbow onto the edge of his bed and grinned. "Makes ya wish we had this technology in our time, doesn't it?"

Rory raised his eyebrows in agreement. "It'd make my job as a nurse much easier."

Rose was intrigued, not knowing much about this companion's life. "How'd you come to know the Doctor, exactly?"

The Doctor threw a hand between them and flopped it, cutting off their conversation. "Enough talk. Who's up to see some Thesoloniacs?" He grinned to both of them gleefully. "Eh?"

As Rory frowned, Rose turned her attention to the Timelord. "What are those?"

The Doctor's hands danced through the air. "Oh, they're marvelous! Hands—as big as their faces!"

Rose squinted, about to point out the obvious point, but Rory pulled the expedition to an abrupt halt. "Doctor, this has really been an extraordinary journey, but I would rather like to return to my wife now."

"Oh, you've a wife?" Rose asked in pleasant surprise.

"Yeah," Rory explained with a small smile. "Baby on the way, too."

"Oh, congratulations!"

The Doctor gave a dramatic sigh. "But life at home is so boring." He eyed Rory doubtfully. "Are you sure you don't want to come with us? See one Thesoloniac?"

Rory's eyes drooped. "I'm sure I'd rather sleep for the rest of my life than go on an adventure right now, Doctor."

The Doctor's index fingers shot up as an idea struck him. "I've got just the thing!" He hopped towards one of the cupboards, rummaging through. "A drug so caffeinated that you won't need to sleep for weeks!"

Rose gave Rory a pitying look before turning to the searching man. "Doctor."

"Hmm?" He didn't turn.

Rose pushed away from the bed and laid a gentle hand on his arm. She waited until he looked up before saying, "Let's take the poor bloke home."

The Doctor's eyes softened as the corners of his mouth sagged. He turned to the exhausted human before his hands slumped to his sides. "Oh, alright. If that wife of yours is so important to you..."

Rory stared at him stonily when the machine beeped.

"Oh, goody—you're fully cooked!" The Doctor danced over and pulled the machine off of the leg. He stared at the leg with a manically excited look. "Now, I'll just go fetch the power saw, and we can cut this contraption off of you in no time!"

Rory hurried off of the bed. "No, no that won't be necessary. I'll do it myself."

The Doctor looked up in surprise. "Are you sure? It'd be very quick—"

Rory shook his head, scurrying towards the door. "I'll do it once I'm back at work—no trouble at all."

The Doctor furrowed his brow. "But won't the others wonder—"

"No trouble at all!" Rory called back as he turned out of sight and towards the center console room.

As the Doctor frowned, Rose rested a hand onto his arm. Jolted out of his inner dialogue, he spun around to see her amused smile. "Right. I'm glad you're here; I thought of another test that I wanted to run."

He was stepping towards a large scanning machine when Rose caught his arm with a laugh. "Doctor!" He spun back towards her, and she gave him a sure grin. "I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine."

His expression became serious. He slid his fingers into her blonde hair, cupping the base of her skull. "How can you be sure? How can you be so positively sure that there isn't some energy eating you alive this very minute?"

She rested a hand on his. "The Doctor that kidnapped me activated the Bad Wolf energy inside me." The Doctor's eyes brewed. She squeezed his hand. "He taught me to control it…" Her brown eyes lit with a golden fire as her voice took on an echo. "And I can be the Bad Wolf, Doctor." Slowly, her eyes faded back to their natural chocolate hue. Her voice was hers alone. "But I can also be Rose. The energy that bound to my DNA isn't in charge of me anymore."

The Doctor's hearts sputtered in his chest. "How is it not destroying you? You're… you're human!"

Rose tilted her head. "D'you hear that?"

The Doctor vaguely heard all of the normal sounds he heard aboard his beloved ship: humming, thrumming, churning, and a faint singing.

Rose smiled. "The TARDIS is alive and full of restorative energy, just like you." Her big brown eyes held his. "Just like me."

The Doctor was taken aback. "But she lives forever! Rose, I live forever!"

She scrunched her nose. "That's a bit of an exaggeration."

His breath caught in his chest as his thumbs skimmed her cheeks. "How could you want that?"

Her eyes became amused. "Forever? With you? That can't be so bad, can it?"

His hearts ached. She would see the ends of worlds and the ends of lives. She would suffer through so much more than any human should. She would suffer through an unnaturally long life—just as he had.

Yet, his hearts soared. He would never be alone.

"What do you say, Doctor?" she challenged. "You want to give me a forever that others can only dream about?"

The Doctor grinned; there was no going back now, anyways. "Most definitely." And he snatched her up in one toe-curling, too-long-awaited kiss.

Because Rose Tyler was here to stay—forever.


A bumpy landing let Rory Williams back to his universe right when he had left it. He clambered out of the time machine, eager to be back to his world. And the TARDIS's telltale vwooshing sounded out before Rory even walked through his front door. He imagined that the absorbed couple was already landing on some foreign planet, eagerly searching for Thesoloniacs.

Rory, in his opinion, had a much more desired plan. After pushing his way inside and locking up again, he trudged up the stairs, a cast thudding against every other step. In his room, a familiar lump was sprawled across the center of the bed. He couldn't even bring himself to care about the reduced space—he would've accepted an inch at this point.

Not bothering to strip out of anything but his shoes, Rory collapsed onto his side of the bed with a relieved, euphoric sigh. He closed his eyes, his mind beginning to drift off as soon as he did so. This—this was bliss.

"Did you get them then?"

Rory didn't move a muscle. "What?"

There was shifting beside him; Amy asked, "The dill pickles. Are they in the fridge?"

Rory's bloodshot eyes jolted open. A dawning horror spread through his veins as he realized what she was asking. The Doctor had brought him back too soon. He had never gotten the pickles for his wife.

She gave a small pout. "You did get dill, didn't you? I've been craving it for hours." Her hand gently stroked her swollen belly.

Sleep-deprived, his muddled mind couldn't think this through. With a burning hatred for the Doctor, Rory pushed himself out of Nirvana. He clambered back out the door, muttering a promise of a swift return and dill pickles.

Amy tilted her head, narrowing her eyes at the retreating form of her husband. When did he get a cast?

A minute later, Rory returned, sans cast. He offered her the jar of pickles before crawling back to sleep.

Amy happily crunched into the crisp food. After having her fill, she set the pickles at her nightstand and settled back to sleep.

Sometime later, she woke to the sound of Rory dragging his feet through the door. She squinted her eyes open in confusion as her husband sat a second jar of dill pickles on her nightstand and then crawled into the empty space beside her. As she stretched her legs out her toes brushed against Rory's leg.

As she drifted back to sleep, she swore that her toes hit the rigid exterior of a cast.


"Run!" the Doctor shrieked. "Run!"

The blonde whirled around, a look of amused exasperation plainly across her features. She had stopped to look in a tarp of a shop—for all of two seconds—and the Doctor was already racing for his life.

"Wasn't a suggestion, dearest!" the Doctor snatched her arm at the elbow and yanked her into a sprint beside him.

Rose shot a glance behind them. "What're we running from?"

The Doctor's hands twirled about, trying to blow off the topic. "It's all just been a big misunderstanding."

The two whirled through a back alley before sprinting onto another dirt street.

"Did you explain that to 'em, then?" Rose raised a dark, doubting eyebrow.

The Doctor threw a panicked look over his shoulder. "I'm not sure they're too keen on conversing."

Rose looked back in confusion. From the corners of the clay buildings, fifty withered bodies crawled out into the streets. Their haggard, skin-and-bone bodies scrambled through the dirt in pursuit of the duo—much too quickly for Rose's liking.

"These are Thesoloniacs?!" Rose did not understand his attraction.

"It appears that the TARDIS and I had a bit of a mix up!" the Doctor hastily explained, rushing them through another clay building. "It appears we've landed in 1400's Greece! The TARDIS misinterpreted my direction of species!"

Rose looked back to see the scrawny things clambering after them—and gaining on them. "What the bloody hell are these?!"

The Doctor shot her a slightly embarrassed but mostly panicked look. "Demoniacs."

Rose shot him a blank look, continuing the run.

"They're possessed by demonic spirits," he rushed to explain. "Greece had an epidemic with them in the 1400s—where the idea of zombies sprung from, actually!" He grinned eagerly at the idea, but the smile was quickly dropped with a look backwards.

In a panic, Rose forced herself to continue sprinting through the city. She would kill the Doctor later.

Straight ahead, the parked TARDIS popped up into their field of vision. The two let out a small sigh of relief, continuing their speedy escape.

After a beat of silence, the Timelord glanced anxiously at her. "Are you alright?"

She kept her mouth clamped shut and ran. She would kill the Doctor later.

"Rose?" The Doctor faltered a step. The two reached the blue box, and the Doctor fumbled for his set of keys.

She would kill him now. "You're a Timelord! Shouldn't you know when you've landed on Earth?!" Panting from their run, she shoved his shoulder roughly. His keys were dropped to the dirt as he stumbled to catch himself.

Picking the keys back up, the Doctor gaped at her. "It was an easy mistake. Anyone would have done the same in my situation."

She went toe-to-toe with him. "Doctor, we are running from demonic zombies. In what world is that any easy mistake?"

Slightly abashed, the Doctor gave her a hopeful look. "This one?"

Rose opened her mouth, but a strangled, growling groan drifted their way. The two looked over, suddenly realizing how close the zombies were to closing in on them.

The Doctor jumped to find the right key.

Rose swatted his arm, never taking her eyes off the herd. "Doctor. Doctor, unlock the door."

The Doctor rifled through them quickly, having his progress jolted every few seconds by Rose's arm slaps. "Would you quit rushing me!"

"I wouldn't need to rush you if you'd open the door!"

The zombies were yards away, their grunts and scrambling only growing louder.

"Doctor!"

"Got it!" Holding up the correct key proudly, the Doctor dove towards the door, unlocked the ship, and threw his companion in. The two scrambled inside before slamming the door shut—just in time for a zombie to beginning banging against it.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Rose flipped the lock and walked towards the center console.

The Doctor, however, remained pressed against the door. His eyes remained wide.

"We need to go to a beach," Rose announced, leaning against the center console with folded arms. "Oh, well, maybe not the beach after Bad Wolf Bay and all that. Maybe the mountains."

Slowly, the lock began to turn on its own. The Doctor hastily flicked it back to its locked position. The lock slowly unlocked. The Doctor hurried to relock it.

"Or meadows or something," she continued. "Somewhere we won't be constantly chased…" Rose's amused expression drifted away as she look up and saw the Doctor's rigid stance. "Doctor, what's wrong?"

"Nothing!" The door's lock turned, and the Doctor twisted locked again.

Rose stared at him.

With a small grimace, the Doctor admitted, "I may have accidentally left my keys in the door." The door became unlocked; he hurriedly relocked it.

There was a beat of silence. The door unlocked; the Doctor relocked it.

"Shall I get us out of—"

"That'd be wonderful," he rushed to affirm.

She had half a mind to leave him guarding the door while she showered, but she smirked. This hair-brained genius was the man she loved. She turned towards the center console without an outstretched palm and glowing, golden eyes. In no time, the machine launched itself into the time vortex.

"Ah ha!" The Doctor triumphantly pushed away from the door and marched toward her.

Her smirk never left. "Keys."

The Doctor held up a finger and whirled back towards the door. "Right!"

He fished them out of the door before going back to her. "What an adventure that was, eh?" He grinned down at her.

She wrinkled her nose as she smiled. As chaotic as this life was, as close as they had come to being mauled by satanic zombies, she couldn't help but agree; their lives were an adventure.

She combed a hand through his floppy hair, smiling. "And where are we off to now, Captain?"

His hearts quickened at the name. "I was thinking…" 'Thesolonia' was on the tip of his tongue. He so badly wanted to show someone the species. Yet, he surprised both of them when his mouth rolled out the word "Barcelona."

Rose raised surprised eyebrows.

His hand held onto hers. "The planet, not the city."

The corner of her mouth twitched upwards. "I guess we never quite made it there."

"Not yet," he said. His hand reached up to cup her cheek.

It was time to embark on a long-lost journey. It was time to travel with his long-lost love at his side. Forever.

"Barcelona it is." Rose gave him her tongue-in-teeth grin, leaning her cheek in his palm.

It was time to visit Barcelona.

"We were together.

I forget the rest."

-Walt Whitman

-Alice