Another chapter... thank you all so, so much for reviewing. It really means a lot. And I know there were other things I meant to say, but right now I've completely forgotten them... sheepish grin Oh, yeah - since we are near the end now, I will thank all reviewers at the end of the story.

Back on the rooftop, the Prime Minister and the old man had noticed with some concern that the size of the portal was diminishing.

"They're not going to make it out alive." Decided the Prime Minister at long last. "There's no way they could stay so long in there without becoming Dalek dust."

And at that moment, she was forced to eat her words. Because the portal began to blaze with fresh light. And of course, against the odds, they had done somewhat more than survive.

Falling out of the portal onto the ground, everything was a blur at first. And then, Rose felt a pair of familiar arms pull her up from the ground, and together they saw the bombs that were still falling and hurtled for the cover of the fire escape. He pulled her inside the concrete stairway and hugged her and all of a sudden familiar floppy brown hair was in her face and her head was buried in his shoulder and she could feel brown corduroy against her fingers and... she had thought she would never feel that again

"Doctor! Rose! I... You..." The Prime Minister stood there with the little old man, absolutely amazed.

"What happened in there?"

And then, she remembered what she had been told. And she grabbed the Doctor's hands suddenly and put them to her temples and all of a sudden he could see exactly what Dalek Kahn had said about the DNA time-bomb. The Doctor's face turned white.

"What are we going to do now?"

Rose yelled at that moment in a fresh outburst of pain and collapsed on the ground. Theta looked at the Prime Minister.

"Have you got a helicopter?"

She beamed. "It's on it's way – I was afraid you'd never get back through the portal alive and I needed a plan B, so I phoned the Queen's private jet, who fortunately were still alive – apparently they're the last emergency unit that hasn't been called out. Told them it was an emergency." She waved a small cell phone.

True to her word, less than a minute later an army helicopter appeared, dodging bombs that were falling with admirable dexterity.

The small craft, embossed with the royal insignia, hovered above the roof, weaving in and out of the bombs, and half-a-dozen men clad in black dropped down as the Prime Minister shouted for help from the fire escape.

Upon seeing the men, she ran up to them. "Now don't ask questions. I want this lot in there – all of them – and you're going to take us wherever this man tells you to." She pointed at the Doctor.

With that, they all sprinted for the rope ladder leading to the helicopter, and once inside, the Doctor carried Rose into the back.

"The Powell Estate, SW19. Now! It's urgent!" His fingers glowed dangerously.

The pilot set off, cranking the speed dial to maximum, while in the back the Doctor grabbed a stethoscope and swung it thoughtfully while taking in Rose, who was by this time fast losing consciousness, and emitting harsh white sparks at regular intervals.

As the Doctor was aware, you couldn't give birth when you were unconscious. Worse than that, he was beginning to feel unusual pain, a weakness, a strange burning sensation in his toes that he could feel spreading. He realised what was happening – the mutations in his new DNA were showing their effects as Rose approached labour, and he guessed that he had minutes left. He sat down shakily and put his head in his hands, beginning to experience pure, undiluted terror.

The helicopter grounded down at the Powell Estate seconds later and there, still in the now bomb-shelled car park, looking mercifully undamaged, was his Tardis. As the helicopter landed, the Doctor grabbed Rose and carried her out before anyone could stop him. He sprinted with her to the Tardis which he opened, shot inside and slammed the door before crumpling against it in despair, feeling weaker by the second.

At that moment he felt Rose begin to stir in his arms. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and to his horror, what he had been secretly dreading had happened – her eyes were glowing yellow. Suddenly, with a rush, Rose's real eyes beneath returned for what seemed like a fraction of a second.

"Can you hear me?"

He heard Rose's voice through his shock, insistent and echoing – a telepathic yell. He knew that this was the last thing he would ever hear. This was life or death... he had a hunch it would be death.

"Rose?"

"Open the Tardis!

"What?"

"JUST DO IT!"

The Doctor didn't pretend to understand. He just put Rose down, crossed the room, took a deep breath and opened the grill that suddenly exploded in a burst of yellow light that threw the Doctor into a dead faint. The raw power of the universe escaped and ran riot in the Tardis... all its knowledge and power and glory and destruction. And what happened next was so simple it was genius.

The heart of the Tardis reclaimed what had been unwittingly stolen from it when Rose looked into it such a long time ago – Bad Wolf, and the destructive forces that came with the genetic mutation were drawn from the two time travellers back into the Tardis – the being that had created the exclusive bond between them.

Somewhere in the depths of the universe, the Face of Boe smiled.

The Doctor stood in their bedroom holding a tiny newborn in his arms, and watched his wife curled up fast asleep on their double bed, as her anaesthetic wore off. Rose, he thought, was unimaginably beautiful – the pink in her cheeks and her evident tiredness as she slept only accentuated this, in his opinion. With some amusement he noted that she was dribbling on the pillow again.

The child was a boy, with deep brown eyes that were almost black - Rose's eyes - and the barest hint of hair that appeared as a browny-ginger. Looking at him... memorising him, the Doctor could not put his feelings into words. You just can't quantify love for your son, and this fatherly affection was something he was very much unused to, having grown up on Gallifrey with their strictness and discipline and pride.

Humans had at least got something right, he mused. Families.

His abstract train of thought was interrupted as Rose woke up, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and smiled lovingly at him, blond hair splayed out over the rumpled pillows. The Doctor blinked several times before the faculties of speech were returned to him.

"Rose... here he is."

Rose's mouth dropped open. "Oh... he's beautiful. He looks just like you!"

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

Rose laughed. "Like your ego really needs to get any bigger..."

The Doctor handed over the small child, who nestled in Rose's arms as naturally as it had its father's.

She looked down lovingly at her son. He was worth it, everything they'd had to go through to have him safe in her arms, he was worth it a million times over. And from the way the Doctor was looking at him, it was clear he thought exactly the same.

"So... what are we calling him, then?" As her son gripped her little finger in both hands and squeezed hard, Rose softly reprised it from his grasp, and the baby immediately began crying surprisingly loudly as well. Rose had to rock him gently for some minutes before he fell silent.

"He's definitely a Tyler..." The Doctor mused, watching the baby boy now half-asleep, with reddened cheeks as a result of the recent outburst that was definitely characteristic of Jackie. Rose agreed.

"But what's his name?"

"Thomas."

"Why?"

"It just has a ring to it, don't you think? 'Tommy Tyler'..." Rose rolled the name over her tongue experimentally.

The Doctor shook his head in amusement. Calling his son 'Tommy Tyler'... well, that was interesting. But when he though about it, he really did quite like it.

"Alright. Middle names?"

"Middle names?"

"Tommy here needs a good, strong Gallifreyan middle name..."

"'S down to you, then." Rose grinned as she watched the Doctor think about it.

"I think... Apollo. Yes – that's good."

"What does it mean?"

"I don't know- do you know what Thomas means?" Rose shook her head.

"Apollo's one of the nicer, more pronounceable Gallifreyan names."

"'Apollo'... yeah, I like it."

"Fantastic – Thomas Apollo Tyler, it is. He's going to do his parents proud..."

He put an arm around Rose's shoulders and for several minutes they were lost in sentimentality.

"D'you know what happened? When you opened the heart of the Tardis, I mean?"

The Doctor shook his head, no. "I don't know and I don't want to find out. I mean, we're both got two hearts but that's about it... I don't know whether we can regenerate, whether we can die... we'll play it by ear, shall we?"

At Rose's agreement there was comfortable silence again.

"Theta... when you sealed off the planet of the Daleks... you gave up the Eye of Skaro for good, didn't you? You can't get it back?"

The Doctor looked at her, startled by the abrupt change in subject. Slowly, he nodded. "It's alright – the Daleks would have destroyed everyone otherwise, and- "

"I love you."

Rose looked at him, eyes shining in wonder at the magnitude of his sacrifice – she knew he had thrown away his chance to get Gallifrey back to destroy the Daleks completely, for the sake of ordinary people who would never know what he had done.

She felt the Doctor's re-awakened, silent emotion at the final loss of Gallifrey that would burst out in torrents at the slightest let-up, and without even thinking she just pulled him in and kissed him, their first in what suddenly seemed like such a long time. Even through all that had happened, she was glad she could still remember him – the feel of his skin, the hairs that curled lazily at the nape of his neck, the contours of his face that she had memorized long ago...

As they both clung to each other in that moment, Rose whispered endearments into his hair as he accepted his ultimate fate – Gallifrey really was gone, for good. Hot, bitter tears trickled slowly down onto Rose and not for the first time, he was very glad she was holding onto him like she would never let go. He could well have surrendered himself to the oncoming storm that always threatened to devour him, if it wasn't for her.

There we go, folks... please review.