They stayed silent for a long while, not looking at each other exactly, but not moving away either. Rose was trying to decide, because that was what this was, it wasn't a chance to get what she always wanted, it wasn't a chance to live in the stars with the man she wanted. It was her time to decide who she wanted to be and how she wanted her story to end. For the Doctor, there was nothing to decide, only plans to put in motion and damage control to handle. Standing next to him was Rose Tyler, his Rose Tyler who could live with him forever like he'd dreamed about for so, so long. They stood next to each other, both too caught up in their own thoughts for a moment to make any action on what they wanted to do.

"Who are they talking about, Doctor?" Rose whispered, turning towards him to catch his guilty frown before he masked it.

"River Song, my wife," he said her title hesitantly and with a bite. He didn't want to talk about River to Rose, because she was nothing to Rose. He cared about River because he was suppose to, he didn't even fully know who she was so he just played along, but this was his Rose. His Rose was there in front of him and their forever was finally a tangible thing he could see in the future.

"And you would just leave her?" Rose shook her head and looked at the Doctor disgusted. "Doctor, you can't."

"But she isn't you, Rose, and we're not even married, it was in an odd universe, kind of parallel, but not really, well- thats not the point." The Doctor shook himself and focused on Rose. "I don't love her, Rose." There, he didn't say it out right, but Rose knew what he meant, knew it was the closest he'd get until her forever was really there.

"So you'd just leave her like that? What if a few hundred years down the line I regenerate into someone you don't like and you leave me, huh?" Rose asked the question only because she felt she needed to know to make her decision, but at his words, she knew she didn't.

"No, not you, never you" he swore, but she shook her head and sighed, looking away. "Rose," the Doctor whispered, taking her hand and pulling them towards the console where there was more light. "Do you remember when I asked you how long you were going to stay with me? And-"

"I said forever," Rose finished for him, smiling up at him but the Doctor couldn't see that it was a sad smile.

"Forever," he repeated with a laugh. "Rose, I can give us the forever we've always wanted. You and me in the TARDIS, forever, like it was meant to be." He held on to both of her hands and smiled down at her.

"I told you I would stay with you forever, Doctor," Rose said, then stepped out of his hold. "And I tried so hard to give that to you. I tore my way through universes to get back to you and-" Rose shook her head as she choked on the words and the Doctor's shoulders sagged and his eyebrows creased. "You sent me right back, left before I could tell you no."

"But Rose, I was doing what I thought was best for you, for us. I would have seen you grow old and wither and you-"

"You sent me away so you wouldn't have to feel pain later on after a wonderful life together!" Rose shouted at him, moving away and fiercely brushing a tear away. She'd thought she had comes to terms with all of this, and in a way she had, but having those eyes look at her like she was what kept him going brought it all back up. But she was wiser now, and she'd vowed never to let an emotionally-handicapped genius anywhere near her heart again.

The Doctor followed after her, anger rising in him at her words, "No," the Doctor said, grabbing her arm so she'd face him. "Don't think for a second I didn't feel just as much of the pain you did when we weren't together anymore. More because I had to live with someone else being in my place! I thought about you everyday, I still do." The Doctor was desperate now, and they both knew it, but Rose had made her decision.

"And I did you, and I was ready to hand over everything I was to you. I would have done anything to give you our forever, Doctor, and then you forced John on me." Rose almost shook her head, but at the thought of her second love, she couldn't because she wasn't mad at the Doctor for giving her those beautiful months with John even with the ending they had.

"No-"

Rose raised her hand. "I'm not mad about John, Doctor. Just listen to me." Rose lowered her hand and smiled up at the Doctor coming to terms with her words as she said them "I got my forever with you already, Doctor. It may not have been thousands of years, but our two year forever was beautiful and so was my year forever with John. I loved you both so fiercely and I don't regret a thing."

The Doctor smiled sadly back at her words, feeling the familiar ache he felt whenever he thought of his Rose and her undying love her him, except now he knew it wasn't boundless. He'd always known Rose would fall out of love with him, had feared the day, but he'd always believed it would be due to loosing someone or because of something he'd messed up or because she'd seen too much of his dark side, but in the end, it was from pushing her too far away.

"You and I don't need a forever anymore, Doctor, and I don't need forever to stretch out in hundred of years. I really am ready to grow old with someone and give them my forever, and I want to do that with Sherlock."

The Doctor shook his head, "oh, Rose," he said. His words, though not having any meaning, made ire rise in Rose because she could sense the next words he was going to say and she didn't want him to put a voice to them. They needed to be left unsaid, she'd avoided thinking about them for a year now and she didn't want the Doctor, of all people, to be the one to remind her. "Rose, come with me, you know your forever isn't with him."

"It is," Rose bit out, her anger making the Doctor somewhat angry as well.

"With Sherlock Holmes?" The Doctor snapped. "You're smarter than this, Rose, you know how this story ends, and it's not with Sherlock Holmes growing old, it ends with a fall like it always has."

Rose stepped and turned away from him to circle the console, "you don't know that."

"We both do," the Doctor said, his anger leaving him at her distraught look. "Rose, don't do this to yourself, don't love a man that you'll loose, please."

Rose turned back to the Doctor with a frown, "isn't that what I'm good at?" The Doctor closed his eyes tight at the words, feeling them puncture his heart and no doubt leave a permanent mark. "You don't know thats what will happen, Doctor, no one does, thats the point of a parallel universe."

"But it is parallel, Rose," the Doctor pointed out, but she was shaking her head.

"Only by a little, Doctor, I've lived here for six years and I know these people as people, not as characters. They write their own stories like they're suppose to, Doctor, and I'm going to live out mine with them."

"And if he does fall?" The Doctor asked hesitantly. Rose shook her head and closed her eyes, trying not to entertain the thought.

"Third strike, I guess," Rose said her morbid words with a shrug, but looked away from the Doctor towards the doors, missing his heartbroken but resigned expression. "I love him, Doctor, just as much as I loved you, and he loves me back in a way you never could."

The Doctor was desperate as she said these words he didn't want to believe were true, words that would suggest his long list of companions weren't due to loosing them, but from growing bored or from letting them get too close. He didn't want to believe that he sought out loneliness. Yet he still couldn't say it. "I could too, Rose, I've changed."

Rose shook her head and smiled, lifting her hand and placing it on his cheek, fondly but platonically, "you haven't changed, Doctor, you were going to leave River, your wife, for little ole me. Eventually, you would do that to me as well."

"I told you, Rose," the Doctor whispered. "You're different, I won't do that to you. Not to you."

Rose laughed a wet laugh and let one last tear drop for this mad man. "You already did, Doctor." They both choked on their words and the Doctor pulled her to him, both of them clinging to each other for the last time, no more words needing to be said.