Author's Note: This is the penultimate part. The last should be up tomorrow. Thanks to all those who've read and reviewed!

She had no idea when she had fallen asleep, but apparently tiredness had finally won out over anxious thinking some time after she had laid down on the king size bed to try to get some rest. In her fuzzy brained, half awake/half asleep state Rose imagined that she could feel someone sitting next to her, softly stroking her hair. She smiled distractedly to herself. It was nice. Comforting. She tried to force herself to fall completely back to sleep, hoping the feeling would lead to pleasant dreams where the Doctor had come back to admit all his mistakes, beg for her forgiveness and do nice things to her in penance.

As soon as she thought about it though she found herself more awake than ever and sighed grumpily, knowing there was no chance of getting back to sleep now. It seemed even her body was opposed to the idea of them being together for a 'happily ever after' moment. It hardly seemed fair.

As she resolved herself to getting up and taking a warm, relaxing bath, she came to realise that the sensation of someone stroking her hair hadn't gone.

Mildly panicked, her eyes snapped open in shock.

"Oh, so you are awake then," the Doctor said brightly as he smiled down at her, pulling his hand away from the strands of blonde hair he'd been playing, "You humans spend a third of your lives sleeping, you know? Total waste of time if you ask me. Do you have any idea how much quicker you'd achieve things if you didn't have to sleep so much?"

Rose hurriedly sat up, staring at him open mouthed.

"Yep," he said, responding rather redundantly to her reaction, "I'm back."

She didn't know what to do or what to think, she was in far too much shock to decide. Instead, she settled on the first reaction that came into her head, realising it was probably the most honest.

She drew her hand back and slapped him squarely across the cheek, the sound reverberating loudly around the large room.

"Ow!" he protested irritably as his head snapped to one side. He clutched at his sore face, looking back at her in admonishment.

"Do you mind? That bloody hurts!"

"It was meant to," Rose muttered, her voice strangely toneless.

"There's a real violent streak in your family, isn't there?" the Doctor ploughed on, getting up to check the red mark on his face in the nearest mirror, "You'd best not turn into your mum over the next twenty years or I'll dump you on the nearest sludge covered planet."

Rose was continued to stare at him without further comment.

"You're not still angry with me, are you?" the Doctor checked after a hesitant pause, catching her gaze in the mirror, "I did leave you a note."

A note? A sodding note!

She ought to throttle him. She ought to shout and scream at him. She ought to pick up the bedside lamp and beat him over the head with it. But she couldn't because she was just too relieved to see him. He'd come back. He was standing in front of her with his stupid leather jacket and his stupid northern accent, talking to her as pleasantly as he ever had. She didn't know what this all meant, but at this very second she didn't give a damn.

Diving forward, she crossed straight over to him, flinging both her arms around his neck and hugging him towards her for all she was worth.

"Er, Rose?" he said in a rather hoarse voice after a moment, "About that violent streak of yours…You're choking me."

Feeling a little silly, she loosened her grip just enough to allow him to breathe properly. Moments later she was relieved to feel his arms slide around her waist and drag her closer still, squeezing her body tightly against his. A comforting hand ran up and down her back.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into her ear, suddenly much more serious, "I didn't mean to scare you. It'll be alright now, yeah? There was just something I had to do."

"What?" she asked, still holding on to him for dear life and unable to hide the hurt in her voice, "What could be so important that you left me like that? I've been going out of my mind. Where have you been?"

He sighed, pulling gently out of the hug and putting a few cautious paces between them as if he wasn't sure she'd understand.

"Gallifrey," he admitted in a soft, almost embarrassed manner.

Rose frowned, the situation made no clearer by that explanation, "But I thought you said it was destroyed."

"It was," he confirmed, "Still is. There's only dust and rubble there now."

She saw the flicker of pain in his suddenly clouded eyes and wanted to hug him again but forced herself not to. This was too important.

"Then why did you go back?" she pressed.

There was a long pause whilst he looked at her. Not for the first time in her life Rose found herself uncomfortable with his scrutinising gaze and turned away. She only looked up again when he clutched at her hand.

"Because I had to tell them," he explained looking at her intently, "Face to face, so to speak."

"Tell who what?" she asked with a small shake of her head, getting increasingly frustrated by his vague answers, "Doctor, you're not making any sense."

He continued to stare at her for a moment more, as if trying to make up his mind about something. Then he began to smile.

"I went back to Gallifrey to tell the other Time Lords that they can stuff it," he clarified, "They can stuff their traditions and stuff their rules. They're out of date and they're not important anymore."

He smiled wryly and gave a small shrug, "Besides, I'm the only one left now. Which technically means I'm in charge, so I think I can make up my own rules from now on. Within reason, of course."

Rose hardly dared breathe. Did this mean what she thought it did?

"And what about all those rules about not taking advantage of other people?" she asked hopefully, too nervous to broach the matter directly.

The Doctor's wide grin made her heart skip.

"They only apply in a case where said person has not made clear an express wish to be taken advantage of."

Before Rose had even figured out whether that was meant to be a thumbs up or thumbs down, he had closed the gap still between them, leant forward and pressed his lips to hers. It was nothing like the desperate passion of their other kiss. This one was sweet and a little uncertain, the kind that should happen at the end of a first date. And it meant the world to her. She resisted the urge to grab his jacket and pull him in for something deeper, wanting this moment to last in her memory just how it was.

"What about the other little problem?" she asked when he eventually pulled away, not wanting to ruin the moment but wanting things resolved, "I won't be this young and pretty forever, you know."

"There's no forever," he acknowledged thoughtfully, "It doesn't exist; the universe is just not built that way. And I'm not asking for it. Just a bloody long time will do me."

Rose's smile grew to huge proportions.

"Besides," the Doctor added, "All aging is is the body giving up the fight to keep a set of badly designed systems going."

"Are you saying I'm badly designed?" she asked with a small teasing grin.

"Yeah, in a very well proportioned way, of course," he soothed, suddenly finding his hand trailing around her hip, "And if I can manage to run a time machine then I think I can manage to find out how to fix a few design flaws in a relatively simple species like yours. No offence."

Rose shook her head in disbelief. Beat the aging process? She couldn't even begin to contemplate it.

"Do you think it's even possible?" she asked trying to keep the uncertainty from her voice.

If she was honest the thought frightened her a little. It wasn't exactly something most humans had to face. It broke everything she'd ever known about herself and her own mortality. It would require quite a shift in thought. Was she even mentally capable of living as long as he did?

She quickly decided that right now she didn't care.

The Doctor nodded, concentrating more on the idea than her reaction to it, "It must be. I mean, look at Cassandra. She was mostly human and she was over 2000 years old."

Rose frowned as an unsavoury thought crossed her mind.

"Just so it's clear; I don't want to end up as a bit of skin, right?"

"Agreed," the Doctor said, his hand skirting delicately across her waist and over a thigh, "You'd lose all these bumpy bits and I think they're strangely appealing."

"You saying I've got bumpy bits?" Rose teased again.

"Rose?" the Doctor said, looking at her with a scowl.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."