26. In which years pass and he still doesn't say it.
So many years pass. Alice loses count of how many planets, how many worlds they save together long before they realized she stopped aging, and afterwards is a long, wonderful string of the most amazing, heart-wrenching, breath-taking people, worlds, and adventures.
And she gets to do it all with him, her Doctor.
They spend their times apart, a few hours here, a day there, a week or so at the most. But otherwise, it's always them, always together. They just don't need anything else.
He never says the three words she wanted him so badly to say, but then she'd known somewhere in the back of her head that he wouldn't, almost as if someone had told her. Eventually she realizes that she doesn't need to hear them. She lives them every day with every touch of his fingers, every smile he keeps just for her, every stupid joke that only they understand.
And she's happy.
Alice and the Doctor never make their relationship "official," though he does bring it up once. She thinks he does it because he wonders if she's bothered that he's never asked. Alice doesn't honestly care one way or the other, but she appreciates the thought so she tells him so.
"And," she adds, "If I need official proof of the status of our relationship, I can always borrow your psychic paper and save us the cost of a vicar."
"Well, I could do it, you know. I'm licensed in over thirty galaxies in four or five hundred different religions."
"Why don't we just go on an extra honeymoon instead?"
"I do actually know this one place. There's a moon that's made of actual honey. Well, not actual honey. And it's not actually a moon. And technically it's alive. And a bit carnivorous. But there are some lovely views."
"Brilliant. Let's go there. You know, right after we invite the Cranzent to join us for an Old Time's Sake reunion."
"I could get you a ring, if you want."
"Doctor," Alice replies, smiling. "As long it comes in a blue box that's bigger on the inside, you can get me anything you want."
Author's Note: I couldn't get the other two chapters together. Just couldn't do it. So here is the first of the last three chapters. I'm posting the other two along with, so get ready for the end.