Rose throws open the curtains allowing the morning sun to caress the room in its light and warmth. She vaguely remembers a time when a new day filled her with hope and excitement, but now it just feels like a reminder of the time that is slipping away from them. The ticking clock of her husband's last days.
She busies herself with cleaning to distract from her morose musings. She wouldn't waste their time together being despondent. With their lives, any day could have been their last they were fortunate to have gotten to this point.
Movement out of the corner of her eye had her turning suddenly to face her husband, freezing almost immediately upon realising he was still asleep.
He was fine, she reassures herself.
The countless monitors reaffirmed that thought after all. It didn't stop the nightmares. Ever since they'd figured it out she'd wake in a cold sweat, the lingering grief of having watched her husband die in her arms, with the knowledge that it would one day be her reality.
Sometimes she found herself berating herself for being selfish, they'd had a long and happy life together, seen the extraordinary and yet she still found herself longing for longer. It hadn't started off that way.
Rose was sat at the dining table staring blankly at her laptop screen. It'd been three days since she'd gotten back to this universe and she had a report to fill out now that all the stars were back because people don't just forget something like that.
Since the cyberwars, there was a certain tension amongst the people of London of the xenophobic kind. They didn't take well to aliens, despite the cybermen's human origins they needed someone to blame. Pete was preparing a press conference to ease their minds but he couldn't do that until she completed her report.
Her fingers drummed uselessly at the side of her face from where her hand was propping her head up. She'd been at this an hour and was not even a fifth of the way through yet. Her mind was running at a million miles an hour whilst simultaneously going nowhere.
Maybe she was hungry.
She pulled herself from her seat and headed over to flick the kettle on. She reached for her mug from the permanently open cupboard, grabbing a tea bag in the process. Placing the mug on the counter and the teabag in the mug she stared listlessly at the speckled counter as she let the sound of the bubbling kettle wash over her.
When was the last time she'd eaten? What had she eaten? Was this her life now? Planning meals, making tea and writing reports? It wasn't exactly riveting. Very… domestic.
She was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of footsteps on the cold tiles, her head whipped round to face the sound, hand reaching for the stun gun under the counter automatically. As the intruder stepped into view she brought the gun up, aiming for their chest, she charged up the weapon, fingers prepared to fire when her brain registered the figure now holding their hands up.
"Doctor." Rose sighed, lowering the gun she let it power down before tossing it onto the counter, she rubbed a hand down her face wearily, "I forgot you were here."
"I can see that." The Doctor-but-not-quite said almost bitterly.
Rose glared at the touch of judgement in his tone.
"Its Torchwood standard procedure, it only stuns."
"Doesn't mean I have to like it." He shot back in that high and mighty tone that was so similar to his Timelord counterpart.
Rose scoffed, "Lest I remind you that you are here because you committed genocide against the Daleks. Again. And apparently cannot be trusted on your own not to commit another."
She pulled open the fridge with more vigour than necessary. How dare he condemn her for protecting herself when he'd slaughtered the Daleks and so many more. He'd killed the cybermen of this universe after all. And he didn't know what she'd encountered in her multiversal travels. The void was a dangerous thing and what lived outside of it wasn't much better.
There wasn't anything appetising to eat. Damn. She really needed to buy groceries. But she hadn't counted on still being here.
"You know that's not why I'm here." He said softly.
She begrudgingly pulled out ingredients to throw into a sandwich, she couldn't walk away with nothing now. Her eyes didn't linger from her task as she spoke.
"Isn't it? Let's be honest, you wouldn't willingly part from the TARDIS. This is your self-imposed penance, is it not?"
He was silent for a long while, she almost thought he'd walked away because that would be so like him. But when she cast her eyes up he was still there. Arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the counter as he scuffed his trainers against her tiles.
"You didn't see me after I lost you, Rose. This isn't my punishment, it's his."
Rose took a deep, steadying breath at that.
They didn't talk about the other him. The Timelord him. They'd barely acknowledged each other, Rose had thrown herself into work and repairing the life that she thought she'd never see again. She hadn't exactly tried to make a life for herself here, so now she was on damage control.
But the fire in her belly, stoked by rage and hurt, hadn't quite burnt out just yet.
"You're right I didn't see you. But I remember what it felt like for me. And I spent four years fighting to get back, I finally managed it and I'm still here." Her gaze hadn't dropped back to her food when she'd checked to see if he'd walked away and now it was his turn to raise his eyes to her. "I did everything I could think of to get back even when he said it was impossible, I saw terrible things and I changed. So if this isn't your punishment, it's mine."
"You have your family, a job, this house! He just wanted you to be happy."
She slammed her knife down onto the plate next to her still unassembled sandwich.
"That wasn't his choice to make! He took my choice away from me. I don't belong here. I forced myself into a world that has no room for me so I could get back and without asking, against my wishes I was forced to return. I've been to dozens of parallel earth's and I never exist, I don't belong in any of them." Her voice had softened towards the end.
The almost-Doctor stared at her with pain in his eyes, a look so reminiscent of when they'd stood beneath a black hole on an impossible planet with no escape.
She dropped her gaze and collected her sandwich, she scooped up the plate in one hand, balancing it on her laptop, she grabbed her tea with the other.
"I have a report to write." She said as she left the room.
The stalemate had lasted a week. She'd been sitting in the garden staring at the stars as the damp grass seeped into her jeans. Stargazing had always brought her some comfort. Growing up she'd sit on the roof of the Estate and pretend the passing planes were stars on nights when Jackie was out late trying to provide for the two of them. Travelling with the Doctor they'd lie out on his leather jacket - and later his long brown coat - as he'd tell her stories about the constellations they could see. When she'd gotten to this universe she'd tried learning the constellations of this universe, had them practically memorised until they started disappearing.
The sort-of-Doctor gingerly took a seat beside her, she barely glanced at him from the corner of her eye. Still stewing, she had her mum's temper after all.
"This isn't ideal for either of us. But nothing about the last couple of years has been ideal and this is the hand we've been dealt, wouldn't it make sense to make the most of this second chance I didn't think was possible?"
"The hand you had a part in dealing." Rose pointed out, he opened his mouth to rebuke but she beat him to it. "Don't. I get it. You, he or whoever, thought you were doing what was best for me. But that isn't anyone's choice to make but my own. This isn't going to work if you don't respect my decisions. I'm not the same nineteen-year-old craving something more anymore, I've seen the death of planets and genocide and wars bigger than I could have ever imagined. I'm capable of making my own decisions."
"I know. I know that. But I've lost more people than you can imagine and I've already lost you once. And this won't work if you can't see me as the Doctor, because that's who I am."
She stared at him wordlessly for a moment.
"I know." She knew that she did but… "You're human. You can't tell me you're still exactly the same, you lost an entire bloody organ for christ sakes!"
His gaze dropped to the grass, already expecting her rejection.
"This isn't quite the same as a regeneration and I need you to be honest with me, so I can be honest with you. Because you're the only other one who gets it. Gets what it's like to be trapped in a universe in which we don't fit."
He nodded silently.
"It's more of a sideways regeneration." He started to explain.
They sat there for hours just talking and for the first time in years the Doctor and Rose are back together as they should be. Things aren't quite the same and they aren't quite fixed but it's a start. They can muddle through together.
When the Doctor had first arrived he'd been shocked by the empty house in which Rose supposedly lived. It wasn't even her house. It was Pete's the one he'd lived in after the divorce with this universe' Jackie but after Rose's mum had moved in it hadn't been necessary and the property had just been gathering dust.
And honestly, Rose had gotten used to her independence on her travels with the Doctor that she'd forgotten just what it was like to live with her mum that she'd been more than grateful for the offer.
But unlike her room on the TARDIS or at the estate, there were no mementoes or trinkets, no décor or cushions, no signs that someone lived there at all. Not even the clutter and mess that the Doctor had grown accustomed to.
Because in truth Rose didn't live there at all, she saw the house as little more than a place to eat and rest after a long day (or several days in many cases) of research and jumping. Somewhere she was just passing through while she worked on getting home. Even the mugs and crockery were impersonal, more befitting of a hotel than a home.
With time it had started to make sense. Rose hadn't made space for herself in this universe, she didn't exist. She wasn't Rose Marion Tyler, daughter of Peter and Jacqueline Tyler, defender of the Earth. She was just another Torchwood agent, one with more experience and knowledge than should've been possible for someone that didn't technically exist.
And now she had to backtrack, carve out an identity and life for herself while the Doctor himself also tried to do the same and acclimatise. It wouldn't be easy but they could do it. Together.
Truthfully the Doctor was struggling more than Rose, he'd never set down roots before, never intended to stay anywhere. They'd both only ever had the life that had been given to them; for Rose, it was the one on Earth on the Powell Estate, for the Doctor it was the one on Gallifrey amongst the Timelords. But neither had that now.
And on top of that, the Doctor was still trying to establish the changes brought on by this sideways regeneration. His senses were significantly dampened, he no longer possessed a respiratory bypass and though he had no means of testing it, he suspected his telepathic capabilities were also significantly reduced. It frustrated him to no end, but he wasn't the only one struggling, so he tried to keep it under wraps.
Slowly they made the house a home but one better suited to the both of them rather than that of someone more terrestrial. They built lives and tried to adapt, to both the universe, to each other and to the lack of time travel. It took time and patience, it wasn't easy, they both had a temper and were more stubborn than a bull but they were working on it.
There were ground rules after all. The Doctor couldn't run from his feelings anymore or make decisions for Rose, especially now that he was lacking his near-immortality. Rose had to discuss her decisions with the Doctor. She wasn't alone anymore and they were pretty much stuck together. She also had to work on her communication, because as loathe as he was to admit it, the Doctor was quite dense and he needed help sometimes especially in regards to chores. The TARDIS couldn't clear up after them anymore. And they didn't talk about him.
They'd come to an impasse when it came to Rose's gun and the Doctor's experiments that had a tendency to explode. But eventually agreed that they'd leave the other be on those particular subjects.
They both struggled with the domestics but as they were planet-bound, some things were just unavoidable. And they'd dealt with worse after all.
Something that hadn't come up in the ground rules was sleeping arrangements. They'd occasionally shared a bed on an adventure when the situation had called for it, and although they'd now said the words, neither knew how to move forwards.
The Doctor had been on his way to bed from a late night in the basement laboratory he'd built when he'd heard Rose screaming. Without thinking he'd burst into Rose's bedroom prepared to fight off whatever attacker he might find. But there was none. None that he could deal with at any rate.
For what preyed on Rose was her unconscious.
Crossing the room with single-minded determination, he scooped her into his arms, attempting to soothe her. She was released from her nightmare with a choked gasp.
"They were dead. Everyone died. And I couldn't do anything. They were just dead. Oh god, they were dead." She sobbed, into his chest.
"Shush, it wasn't real. It's not real." He whispered into her hair as he rocked her.
"But it was! It was a universe away but those people are still dead. And there's no one to mourn them, they're just gone."
"There's you." The Doctor pointed out, unsure if it helped. "Tell me about them."
She hiccupped as she stared at him, but eventually, she settled down against his chest and began telling him about the planet she'd landed on moments after its extinction.
And in the dark of the night they lamented over the loss of every planet, civilisation and individual they'd been unable to save.
"Someone once told me that we can't blame ourselves for not saving everyone, just try harder to save the next. Because our grief could be the difference between a person saved and a person lost." The Doctor muttered from his position leaning against her headboard.
"Oh yeah. Who said that?" Rose asked, still clutching his shirt.
The Doctor smiled, "You did, oh a lifetime ago, you told me that."
She turned her head to look up at him, her face caught somewhere between disbelief and dare he say awe?
"I don't remember that." But he did, he'd remembered something she'd likely just said in that moment in the hopes of easing his pain years ago.
The Doctor shifted awkwardly under her gaze.
"Yes well, better let you sleep." He said as he made to get up.
"Stay." Rose blurted. "I mean you can stay. I don't sleep well by myself without the TARDIS' noise. I doubt you do either."
She said it as if it was the most logical course of action despite her heart being in her throat, afraid he'd do what he'd always done before and take ten steps back for every one forward. But he surprised her again.
He turned back around and got under the covers. Rose obediently shuffled over to make space for him, not quite able to keep the smile from gracing her lips.
"Goodnight Doctor." She said once they'd settled.
There was a beat of silence before she heard the words muttered back just before she slipped back off to sleep.
The Doctor hadn't slept in his own bed since that night. And gradually Rose's room shifted into their room, slowly filling with both of their things. They were still learning to accommodate the other, the Doctor had been on his own with nothing but a sentient time machine and the occasional human for company for centuries and Rose had grown to love and loathe the quiet and the space of the non-sentient house.
But it was getting easier. The arguments less frequent, they still fought when the other put themselves in danger, their protective streaks too evenly matched. It was a process. But they were learning.
Perhaps it would have been easier if Rose had settled into a normal human life as soon as she'd arrived in Pete's world as the Doctor had assumed. Then they wouldn't have had to struggle through both of them trying to acclimatise to this life and subsequently to them.
Because that was part of the problem, wasn't it? Rose had been on her own for so long, in an almost self-imposed isolation, that learning to live with anyone was difficult. But to live with the man that she loved, the man that had finally returned her affection? Was proving to be more difficult than she'd expected. And the Doctor had been running so long that he forgot that he couldn't anymore. He didn't want to, but it was habit at this point.
They each knew how the other felt but beyond that they didn't know how to act. They never thought they'd get to this point. And while they'd moved past the original resentment of their circumstances, there was still a lingering awkwardness. Neither of them knowing how to move forward together.
And it wasn't exactly as if there was much time to talk about it.
Their schedules often clashed, with the Doctor trying to settle into a new life and establish himself at Torchwood and Rose trying to find purpose now that she'd accomplished all that she'd been working towards for years. They didn't have a lot of time for them, any spare moments spent on sleeping and eating.
Conversation was often stilted when it did happen, both too tired to fully commit to more than mumbles.
But it'd been a slow week at Torchwood and they'd been all but kicked out of their respective work stations by Pete, who'd grown agitated by their frustrated searching. Both eager for something - anything - to do to preoccupy themselves only to find the task to be far shorter than expected, a replacement required immediately.
So finally they did have a spare moment for themselves, an imposed weekend off. And neither knew what to do with it. Sure, they'd had quiet days on the TARDIS with Rose investigating the bowels of the ships while the Doctor worked on repairs, occasionally coming to join her. But those were infrequent and generally only came after a particularly difficult adventure in a span of difficult adventures.
Staying still wasn't something they were accustomed to. And every day on Earth felt like a quiet day. They'd never admit it to anyone else bar themselves, but they secretly longed for those alien invasions and incursions that got their blood pumping as they ran for their lives.
Jackie had once called Rose an adrenaline junkie. And maybe there was some truth to it but it was hard to sit still and pour over paperwork and reports when there was so much the universe had to offer. A single moment in time was happening somewhere out there and they were missing it. A thousand blinks of history that could never be recovered. How could they stay still when they knew that? Knew all the universe had to offer and knew they were missing it.
So they'd found themselves inside the first café that offered free Wi-Fi pulling up maps of the UK to look for an adventure. It was no starfire or Woman Wept but it was what they had for the moment.
"What about the rift? Things have got to be more exciting there with things falling through all the time." Rose suggested buttering a slice of toast for the Doctor, she'd taken over when he'd tried eating the marmalade sans toast with his fingers.
"Where is it in this universe, do you know?" The Doctor asked, hunched over his laptop.
It was unlike anything you could find in any store, perfectly adapted to the Doctor's needs with what little resources he could scrounge from his pockets, work and the odd alien inhabitant of London. They were easy to find if you knew where to look.
"Cardiff. It's in the exact same place in fact. I used to go up there when we first started on the dimension cannon. Figured a gap in time and space might be a good start for a machine that would push you into another universe. But it was too temperamental. The rift didn't exactly play nice with the void; it's why we settled on London as that was where the crack had been originally been in both universes. But I managed to get some interesting data while I was down there."
She spread the marmalade - that now had finger grooves in - onto the other slice of butter-free toast. She'd decided to help herself to one of his slices of toast, he wouldn't mind, they often shared food, pinching from the other's plates. And they could just order more if they were still hungry and without a plan.
As she spread the marmalade she realised the Doctor hadn't said anything in a moment, she looked up from her task to find him already looking at her.
"What? Why're you starin'?"
"You're brilliant." He said simply, not elaborating as if it was a known fact.
Rose just gaped at him.
She knew that of course, objectively she'd accomplished things that others had considered impossible, had done more than most people could imagine. It still caught her off guard to hear him say it so matter of fact. Before, he would have blustered or moved on, pretending it'd never happened. But things were different now, and it caught her off guard.
"Thanks, not sure for what though. Here's your toast." She finally managed to get out, pushing the plate towards him after she'd picked up her buttered slice.
"You managed to find a way through the void - which should be impossible - without a capsule. Made the logical assumption that the rift would be an easier stepping stone between universes and when it didn't work moved on. Correctly assuming that the issue was the void not that it was impossible. Then turned back to what you know had worked previously. The perseverance, it's…. It's incredible."
She bit down on a smile, covering it with a bite of toast.
"I had good motivation."
The Doctor responded simply with a pleased hum around his own bite of toast, marmalade glistening on his lip that Rose tried desperately to look away from.
"What about San Andreas?"
"Hmm?" She finally tore her gaze away, having missed what he'd said.
"The San Andreas fault in the other universe also has a rift running through it similar to Cardiff. Is there one here too?"
"I… I don't know. Google it. The area's still a hot spot for earthquakes and the like so I'd imagine so."
Rose leant back in her chair as she watched his finger fly across the keys. It was a familiar sight now. But for a second the image in front of her swam and was replaced with the sight of the Doctor hunched over the console, his fingers flying across the keys attached to the TARDIS monitor rather than his laptop.
And then the image snapped back into place.
Rose blinked rapidly. The sight of the TARDIS console room returning to that of the London café. What the hell had just happened? That had never happened before, for a second she could have sworn she was back on the TARDIS. It had felt so real. Was it just a memory bleeding into reality?
What else could it have been? She argued, with herself, she'd never left.
"Rose?" The Doctor started, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, sorry daydreaming. What did you find out about San Andreas." She pasted on a smile before taking another bite of toast to stop her from saying anything more.
"The rift exists in San Andreas, it's monitored by the American Torchwood branch. I'm sure we could ask for a peek if we promised Pete we're getting out of his hair for a couple of days. Think he's finally had enough of us."
They shared a grin at that.
"To be fair, you have a tendency to blow things up when you're bored and the west wing is still recovering from your last spout of boredom."
"And what about you, Miss Tyler? I heard they're still trying to disable the time stasis sphere you gave to the Ganords."
"Well, they seemed bored too while they waited for the delivery of that essential part they needed for their spacecraft."
"Dr Malcolm was stuck in stasis for three days." The Doctor added, struggling to hide his amusement.
The Ganords were a small grey species that had crash-landed in Ealing three weeks ago. They'd been thankful for Torchwood's assistance in repairing their craft but a key component had to be shipped in from an overseas branch. And in the meantime they're extraterrestrial guests had grown bored. A feeling Rose was all too accustomed to.
The Doctor had been away at a conference in France and Rose had been left in charge of reorganising one of the storage areas. She'd come across the stasis sphere mid-labelling and sorting. It was a harmless device so she'd offered it to the Ganords, both to help interspecies relations and to relieve their respective boredom.
At first, they'd used it solely on the plants, finding the pause in their growth fascinating. Then on the engineers working on their craft, but only for very short periods. But then Doctor Malcolm had suggested that changes to their navigation system would improve their craft, they'd taken offence and frozen him for three days, manipulating his frozen limbs as if he was a moldable statue.
He'd only been unfrozen when word of the incident had reached Pete. He'd not been impressed but Rose had managed to smooth things over pretty quickly. After all it had greatly improved interspecies relations, even after Malcolm's offence.
But the Ganords had left them one last surprise, in their fiddling they'd adjusted the settings just so that they had yet to find a way to deactivate it. A whole section of engineering inaccessible due to the stasis bubble.
The Doctor - meanwhile - had been temporarily relocated to a laboratory on the west wing when one of the other scientists had requested his help with a project. However, the partnership hadn't gone well. Dr Hallett hadn't been willing to listen to the Doctor's suggestions. Accusing him of undermining her because she was a woman.
The Doctor had found the notion ridiculous, he'd been praising her work for weeks even while offering his suggestions. She'd requested his help! And yet she seemed to not want him there at all, not listening to a word he said.
So when Pete had refused to transfer him back until the project was complete, even going as far as to lock the Doctor out of his lab. Unable to work on his projects or have his suggestions listened to in the project he'd been roped into, the Doctor had taken matters into his own hands.
After a lockdown drill - a standard procedure where they prepared for the possibility that someone or something broke into Torchwood - in which any and all projects and advanced technology were moved out of open spaces like labs into secure closure storage. The Doctor had set off a device in the lab.
The damage had been minimal with a few cracked floors, missing ceiling tiles, minor fire damage and some broken glass. But the damage had swept through the entire west wing beyond just the lab. And as the labs were used for the testing of potentially unstable extraterrestrial devices and projects, there were certain safety measures that had to be met.
They were a bit of a nightmare duo at Torchwood. They'd created a bit of a reputation for themselves as being brilliant field agents and scientists, but also falling a bit on the side of mad scientist when the need struck them. Prone to bouts of boredom, they became a nightmare to the rest of their coworkers when caught unaware.
People tended to avoid them outside of arranged assignments as that was usually when the need to do, caught them.
"I think we could convince him to extend our forced eviction. Just name drop a few devices and projects we were thinking of working on." Rose told him slyly.
Normally, they avoided time off like the plague. The odd day here and there was enough to make them go insane. Not enough time to go somewhere but too much time to not do something, anything.
But they'd already been given the weekend so what was a few more days? They likely already had enough holiday time hoarded away. As Torchwood agents they had more holiday than most as part of a wellness scheme. Employees having breakdowns or falling asleep on the job put lives in danger.
"You call Pete and I'll arrange the zeppelin and accommodation?" The Doctor offered.
"You still got your away bag in your car?" Rose checked, already pulling out her phone.
It had become common procedure for both of them to keep a duffel in their respective cars with a few days worth of clothes and the essentials. In case they were suddenly pulled away, spontaneous crisis meetings and field missions, and needed to leave immediately.
It had happened a few times, enough for Rose to have gotten in the habit during her dimension-hopping years. A habit she'd quickly advised the Doctor to get on.
The separate cars had also quickly become a necessity when they were so frequently pulled in separate directions with their competing schedules. Arranging a second Torchwood issued SUV hadn't been that difficult. Though Rose did much prefer the use of her motorcycle when possible.
The Doctor was not a fan of her preferred mode of transport.
"Yep, right next to the freshly stocked mini-fridge." Another fun feature of the SUVs. "Try and get passes to the San Andreas division."
Rose nodded, though whether he saw with the way he was focused on his laptop screen, she didn't know.
Less than fifteen minutes later they were ready to go.
They'd driven back to Torchwood to get their passes, leaving Rose's car in the car park after she'd moved her duffle into the Doctor's. She hadn't remembered to restock after her last field mission yet, only a few bottles of water left. Then they'd driven down to the nearest zeppelin port, tickets in hand and accommodation confirmed.
The spur of the moment trip would last for five days before they'd likely be called back. Because while they were a terror in their boredom. There were few who could match up to the duo. They just didn't have the experience or knowledge that they did.
Those few days in California had been the start of things moving forward for them. It was the longest they'd spent in each other's company since arriving in Pete's world and they had quickly remembered why they'd fought their way back to each other. Remembered just why their separation had hurt so much - Rose Tyler and the Doctor were the stuff of legend for a reason.
Rose watches her still sleeping husband's face. She wonders if he remembers that trip anymore. The first of many. The dance they'd shared on the second night at the place he'd taken her to dinner, their laughter as they'd spun across the dance floor. The first kiss they'd shared since Bad Wolf Bay, after he'd spun her back against his chest. The promises they'd made each other. The secrets they'd whispered in the dark.
All their fears and dreams had been laid bare on that trip. And finally they'd had clarity. They knew what the other wanted and knew how to finally move forward.
Rose still remembers her mum's response when they'd returned.
"Well, it's about bloody time sweetheart. You only spent four years looking for himself after all."
Rose smiles at the memory.
"What's got you smiling like that?" A voice pulls her from her memories.
Rose looks up to find her husband already looking at her. He was awake, her smile grew.
"Hello, love. I was just thinking about our first trip to the Sans Andreas fault."
"Ah yes, that's where I promised to love you for my forever. And you promised me the same." The Doctor reminisces, a similarly fond smile taking over his weather features.
"And I always will," Rose promises him, leaning in closer to take his hand to press a kiss to it.
"Forever is a long time, my dear." A look of melancholy settles in his eyes as he stares at his hand in hers.
"I made a promise I intend to keep." She climbs into bed beside him, resting her head against his as she keeps ahold of his hand, she presses a kiss to his forehead. "I'll love you forever and ever."
"That's what I fear, my love."
A/N: Apologies for the long wait on this one. It's not one of my main focuses ficwise and I've been busy with uni and the pandemic but here it is, an update. This chapter's less focused on Rose's immortality like the prologue, and more so on the development of their relationship. How do we feel about the layout of this story so far? With the beginning and end of the chapters being the present and the main story being the random flashbacks? Let me know your thoughts in the comments, this is a slightly angstier story for me
Replies:
Angelicsailor: the fic I've been waiting for someone to write
Honestly I've been wanting to write a story like this for a while but worried that it wouldn't be of any interest to anyone else due to it being a lil miserable? I guess. So I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one :)
doctorwholover: Oh wow, I love stories that start like this. Please continue soon! Great start!
I'm glad you're enjoying it thus far, apologies for the wait I've been a lil preoccupied with my other dw stories but I just finished exams and got hit with some inspiration so here it is!