Once again, thanks for all your lovely reviews. This is the last chapter, though there will be an Epilogue posted shortly. Hopefully this will please all you 10/Rose addicts out there... Enjoy!
Chapter 3 – Happily Ever After
Where the Doctor wanted to go was back in to the vortex. It was easier to make the calculations for sending the message if the ship was here. She was better able to connect with the timelines and they were safe from any of Jackie's relatives who might come knocking, wondering where she'd got to.
The Doctor scratched his head and punched buttons thoughtfully. This was taking longer than he'd expected. It had been three hours since Rose had gone for a lie down and the ship was only a quarter of a way through her working out.
Are you being slow on purpose?
There was a change in the lighting that only he would notice.
I'm not sending her back.
"No chance," he muttered. He tried to push a mental image of reassurance and felt the atmosphere lighten somewhat in the control room.
"I'm off to find her," he said aloud. "Get on with it will ya?"
Wandering the corridors in search of Rose, the Doctor began reflecting on everything that had happened. A few hours ago he thought he was saying goodbye to her forever, and now here he was, going to find her on his ship. She was here and she was safe, with him. Halfway down what he hoped was the second to last corridor (the Tardis did seem to making this difficult today) he stopped suddenly and leant back against the bronzed metal wall.
He let out a weary sigh. He felt he was in uncharted territory.
Honesty time. Ever since he'd met Rose he'd been falling for her. By the time they'd faced the Dalek in Van Statten's bunker it was full-blown love. The Doctor had held back for all the usual reasons. He needed to keep such lowly, human emotions at arms length. He needed to keep everything buried deep down. He held too much in the balance to give in to his own selfish needs. Couldn't afford to attempt that juggle. The fate of the universe so often in one hand and his own, private wants in the other. It was partly about beingselfish though. It was also his protection. Avoiding the ultimate curse of the Time Lord. Doomed to carry on alone, out living anyone he cared about.
Humans, they withered and they died. He couldn't lie. If he hadn't thought he was seeing Rose for the last time, there was no way he would have told her he loved her. Not that he'd quite managed it. But, he knew, he was going to. He'd wanted her to know in that moment. Couldn't bear the thought of her living on in the parallel world, not knowing that he felt the same about her. And oh, he did.
But she knew anyway, didn't she? How could she not know?
She did. And he knew she knew and yet, he had to say it. He had to bloody go and say it. Because he was never ever going to see her again.
Never say never ever, hadn't he once told her that? Not that long ago either, by his watch. He should have thought he might find a way back to her again one day, and been more careful not to… Not to what? The Doctor frowned. Not to let her know that he thought her the most incredible, fantastic woman he'd ever known? That she'd saved him from himself when he'd been broken? That he'd died for her and would do it again in a heartbeat? That he was hopelessly in love with her? Hopeless because no matter how he felt, he had greater things to consider than his emotions. Hopeless because he'd live nigh-on forever and she'd live the equivalent of one of his seconds.
Except now she was here, and everything was out the metaphorical window.
Now she'd told him and she knew that he'd been about to tell her. All the old, time honoured excuses had fallen away with her the moment her fingers slipped on that lever. When he'd screamed her name, certain she was going to die, and when he'd spent days searching for a way to get her back. Then he'd stood in the Tardis and watched her cry in Bad Wolf Bay and he'd realised, nothing else mattered but telling her how he felt.
So now what?
Why do you deny yourselves?
The Doctor dragged his gaze from where it was fixed somewhere in the middle distance and raised it up to the lights softly illuminating the corridor, as if there he could address his ship. She spoke in his mind not exactly in words, but in notions. Pulses of telepathic energy which he could translate as easily as she did any alien languages he came across.
"Good question," the Doctor muttered. Had he been wrong, thinking it was an either or situation? Rose or the universe?
He let his head drop, his hands sliding up and over his face. He pressed with his palms until flashing colours exploded behind his eyeballs. They slowly coalesced, forming the image of a face before him. Rose. He snapped his head up and opened his eyes. The image of her remained, like when you look too long at a light bulb.
Yes, he'd been wrong. Not an easy thing to admit that. Though perhaps this bitter pill was easier to swallow if he considered what the outcome of his honesty might be. If he told Rose he loved her…
The Doctor bit back a stupid grin and hid his face in his hands again. A fascinating mixture of excitement and acute nerves swelled within him. This was definitely uncharted territory. Relationships on Gallifrey, well, they were something else entirely. He felt like a teenager.
"Butterflies is a good word for it," he told the empty corridor, resting a hand on his stomach. "Feels like there's a million of the blighters in here."
He took a deep, calming breath and straightened his tie.
"Okay," he said slowly, impressed when his voice only wavered slightly. He made to walk on to Rose's room but stopped and turned to the wall instead, thumping his head gently against it.
"You're all over the place," he told himself. "Can't go and talk to her like this, time only knows what you'll come out with."
He stood with his forehead pressed to the cold metal until his panic had subsided a little. He hadn't a clue how to go about this. He liked to consider himself self-assured and devil-may-care about this sort of thing. That was before it mattered more than anything else in the universe though.
"What do I say?" he wondered out loud.
Once again the Tardis new what was good for him.
The truth.
.-.-.-.
Rose had been lying on her back staring at the ceiling when the Doctor came to her door. She'd slept fitfully for not more than a couple of hours and spent the time since in utter turmoil. Several emotions were jostling for position within her. She was over the moon to be back with the Doctor, yet this was tempered with sadness at the loss of her family. First up though there was a great big slab of guilt to deal with. And number one on the current guilt list was Luke. She'd been stringing him along without even realising it. She'd been so convinced that she'd finally put her life with the Doctor behind her and was getting on with the fantastic one he'd want for her, she'd got swept off her feet. There went strong, independent, grown up Rose Tyler. Seen so much and done so much, wasn't she great. Of course this lovely man wanted her. Who wouldn't? Great big fussy wedding, why not? The Doctor always said she was the best. She deserved it. That's what fantastic meant wasn't it? Great job, lots of friends, loving husband and family?
Lying on her bunk, back in the Tardis, Rose shuddered. What the hell had she been thinking? God only knows what would have become of her and Luke if she'd gone through with it. Would she really have condemned the pair of them to living a lie? She wondered briefly if Luke suspected the truth. She couldn't blame him if he didn't though, she'd done a pretty good job of convincing everyone else. Even herself.
Truth was she did love Luke, as a friend. Kind of the same way she loved Mickey. Once upon a time she'd thought Mickey was The One. That's before she had any clue how love really felt. For her, love didn't come in the shape of soft-hearted boys like Luke and Mickey. It didn't come complete with a big church wedding, honeymoon in Tenerife and lifetime subscription to Perfect Marriage magazine. It was much more exciting and thrilling than that. About as far away from normal as you could get. Love had taken her hand and led her across the stars. It walked with her through ancient markets and under frozen waves. It left it's footprints in the dust of alien worlds, side-by-side with her own. It was under her skin and in her heart. And it came with it's very own time machine.
Rose turned and buried her face in her pillow. She squealed with excitement and bit so hard on the fabric of the pillow case that she tore a whole. Then she sat up and watched amazed as the hole stitched itself back together. She couldn't believe she'd once taken that sort of thing for granted. She couldn't believe she was really there, back in the Tardis and back with the only man she'd ever really loved.
Loved. That sounded wrong, because it wasn't a love that had passed. It wasn't something she'd got over. Who could? She flopped back down on her back, a stupidly massive grin on her face.
She loved him. She'd never stopped, and now… She was back with him. She slapped her hands over her face suddenly and groaned.
"I told him!" And he'd nearly told her. She knew he loved her. They knew that about each other but they'd never had to give it voice. She knew he'd never do anything about it. How could he when he had far greater things than her to worry about on a daily basis. She'd been content to be that way with him forever. They each took the scraps of affection they'd thrown each other (otherwise known as near-constant hand holding and what Mickey had one time complained was a stupid need to hug at every available opportunity). Theirs wasn't a conventional love affair, but the rules of conventionality were out the door when you spent any time with the Doctor.
Now Rose feared she'd ruined everything. The delicate balance was upset. She'd seen that when she mentioned the beach before and the Doctor blustered his way around the subject. She groaned again and reached behind her head for the pillow, hiding her head beneath it. What if things could never be the same between them? The thought terrified her.
It was at this point that the Doctor knocked on her door. Actually, pounded was a better word. Rose's Torchwood-honed instincts took over and she leapt up. She flung the door open to find him standing there, grinning like the fool she knew he was. She grinned back. They always were infectious, his smiles. Besides, it hid her panic.
"What?" she asked eventually.
"Rose Tyler," he replied, his face suddenly serious. It reminded her so much of that moment on the beach, when he'd said the same thing. Oh God.
"I was asleep," she said quickly, and a little too forcibly. No way.
"Y – you were?" the Doctor stammered, suddenly feeling foolish.
"Yes, but it doesn't matter," Rose said brightly. "What's up?" she breezed past him and started back the way he'd come.
Once she was sure he couldn't see her face, she shut her eyes briefly and let out a long breath. She was sure he was about to finish his sentence from his goodbye, but it felt too ridiculous to think about what that might mean and so she turned and grinned at him instead. He was standing in the doorway where she'd left him, looking dejected. She felt a sudden rush of love and protectiveness towards him. He looked like a little boy lost. Despite her better judgement, she walked back and stood before him, holding her arms out for a hug. He gave her a little smile and accepted her embrace, wrapping his arms around her waist so she had to wrap hers around his neck. She felt the tension in his shoulders relax and gave him a squeeze. She was telling herself that she must have been imagining things and there was no possible way he was going to say what she'd thought, when she noticed the Doctor had slowly let the fingers of his right hand slip beneath her t-shirt. To her surprise he then began to gently stroke the soft skin of her lower back. Trying to contain a shiver of pleasure, she reluctantly pulled away and took hold of the same hand. His fighting hand, as it happened.
"Come on," she told him, fighting hopelessly the blush that was rising on her face. "Come and tell me where you're up to."
The Doctor followed after her, looking for all the world like a naughty school boy.
.-.-.-.
He was at once relieved and disappointed that Rose had stopped him. He couldn't work out if she'd guessed what he was going to say, but if she had, perhaps this wasn't the right time for her. Perhaps she still needed to sort things out in her head about Luke. Perhaps, he wondered despondently, she just didn't love him anymore. Arrogantly he quickly pushed that thought aside as impossible and grinned wolfishly.
"What's up with you?" Rose asked, when she caught sight of it, working on a smile of her own. He shook his head but went on grinning, and didn't stop all the way to the console room.
"She's halfway there," he announced, when they arrived. "We'll soon have to start looking for another exploded star."
"I suppose I'd better start thinking about what I'm going to say," Rose mused, looking worried.
"I wish I could help," the Doctor offered, settling in to their usual seat. "I'm no good at goodbyes."
"You're not so bad," Rose assured him and he felt himself blush with pleasure. He tried to hide it by pretending he'd sat on something and making a fuss of finding it, hoping the hair flopping down over his face would provide a shield. She sat down beside him heavily. "I am so not looking forward to this."
"We don't have to, if it's too much. Or, we could go another time," the Doctor told her, ending his search for the pretend thing he'd sat on.
"No," Rose said, shaking her head. "It has to be now or I'll never do it... and I have to do it. Mum'd kill me if I didn't." The Doctor gave an exaggerated shudder at the thought of Jackie on the war path. Rose laughed. "You wouldn't believe it," she told him. "But she's your biggest fan these days. All she raves about is how you gave her back her Pete and kept us all safe."
The Doctor was genuinely touched, but then he frowned.
"Guess that's going to change," he told her. "Once she realises I've snatched you back, normal service will resume."
Rose chuckled. "I can't help thinking," she told him, "that you may just be right."
They sat in silence for a moment. The Doctor wondered if Rose was thinking again of what she was losing. Rose wondered whether the Doctor was thinking about her.
"Now what?" she asked finally.
"Well, we have some time to kill, but if we go anywhere it'll take even longer."
"We're stuck here for a bit?"
"Yes."
The Doctor watched her for a moment. She was gazing across at the console, the lights of which lit her face with alternating flashes of green and gold.
"Rose," he began, thinking perhaps now was the right time to say what he wanted to.
"What?" she asked suddenly, shooting him a fearful look.
"Tell me about your life," he said instead, his hearts plummeting to his shoes, wondering if there would ever be a time when he could say it. She looked relieved. Yes, definitely not the right time.
"What do you want to know?" she asked, leaning back in the chair and tucking her legs up in front of her. Her heart hammered. She found she couldn't meet the Doctor's eye.
"I don't know… What's it like working for Torchwood?"
"Like being with you, a lot of the time," she told him and smiled ruefully. "Not the paperwork though." The Doctor smirked. "Can't quite imagine you sitting me down at the end of one of our adventures and giving it, 'Right Rose, a full report on the Sycorax invasion on my desk by noon!'" They grinned. Rose's eyes flashed.
"But when it's exciting, and we're fighting something, stopping something or helping someone… then it's something like being with you." The Doctor grinned some more. "Having that kind of excitement in my life got me through a lot of stuff," Rose went on. "Can't imagine how much worse it would have been if I'd had to go back to a completely normal life. Certainly wasn't that. Far from it. If you'd told me all that time ago, just before we met, that I'd be doing all that… 'defending the earth' I'd have said you were mental."
"Bet you sometimes wished you'd never met me," the Doctor said, without thinking.
Rose looked shocked. "You must be joking," she told him. "I'd never swap any of it." He raised an eyebrow. "Even losing you," she told him. "Even losing them now. Not for the world."
The Doctor smiled, relieved and faintly awestruck. Was there nothing this girl couldn't handle?
"So, how old are you now, exactly?" he asked suddenly.
"Don't you know?"
"Well, I guess you must be, give or take, 26?"
"Yeah, but why's that important all of a sudden?"
"It isn't," the Doctor told her. "I'm just trying to get a picture of your life."
Rose nodded, satisfied. "It's one thing I was grateful of, being there. I didn't have to keep up with that whole, I'm really a year younger thing, after we came back -"
"12 months later instead of 12 hours, I know. That did get confusing!" he agreed. They shared a laugh.
"I didn't think mum was ever going to forgive you for that," Rose told him.
"Me neither, can still feel the slap despite my regeneration," he told her, rubbing his cheek. "Mind you, that might have been preferable to her more recent treatment of me. Last time we turned up she kissed me! Kissed me!" He laughed, but Rose was looking sad.
"That was the last time we came back, before -" she began.
"Yes, I suppose it was."
It was weird, how that happened for him just days ago and for her years. He of all people should be used to that, but it was how she remembered everything so clearly. He guessed that day was burnt in to her memory, he was sure it was in to his. It was hard to comprehend that she had been dealing with it for all that time.
"That day was unbelievable," she told him, sinking further back in the chair. "Everything happened so quickly and then suddenly, you were gone." She looked at him. "Or, I was." He nodded.
"Afterwards," she said, looking down at her hands, fiddling with the edge of her t-shirt. "I was convinced for the longest time you'd be back. I know you said I couldn't see you again, but I couldn't help thinking that you'd been wrong before." The Doctor gazed at her, feeling every ounce of her pain for himself. "I'd be there at work, doing something 'brave', or even just at home, doing the washing up and I'd think 'Any minute now, I'll hear him… hear the Tardis and he'll be here.'"
"I'm sorry."
"I was deluding myself," Rose replied, shaking her head. "In the end I knew I was stuck there. I tried to make the best of it, do like you'd said before, have a good life."
"Good for you," he told her with a proud smile, eyes crinkling at the edges.
Rose shook her head. "Didn't work," she said and laughed sharply. "It's official, I was crap at having a fantastic life."
"Oh, I doubt that's true," the Doctor told her fondly. "I bet your colleagues at work would tell me different."
"You can ask them in a bit," Rose smirked, but her eyes betrayed her fear and sadness.
"Come here," the Doctor told her, holding his arm out.
"Don't," she protested, as he pulled her against him for a hug. "I'll cry."
"What's wrong with that?" he asked her. "It'll do you good."
Tears began to fall as she reached around him and held on tight, nestling her head under his chin. "I dunno what's wrong with me!" she spluttered. "I should be happy! I am happy. You're all I've wanted for as long as I can remember."
The Doctor's hand stilled where it had been rubbing her back in what he'd hoped was a soothing manner. He swallowed hard on the lump that had suddenly forced it's way up his throat. Now or never?
"Rose," he croaked, embarrassed when his voice failed him. She shuffled up so that she was still caught in his arms but could see his face. She'd never seen him look more serious.
"What, Doctor?" she asked in a small voice.
"Do you still?" he asked simply. She shook her head slightly and frowned, didn't know what he was asking of her. "Want me?" he clarified, watching her face for any sign of her true feelings.
And there it came, a full-on Rose Tyler patented, 100 watt smile. "Are you kidding?" she asked.
"No," he assured her, his voice firm. Important she knew that he meant it with all his… hearts.
"But," she began, pulling herself upright and out of his arms. "You don't… do that, do you?"
The Doctor felt vaguely embarrassed. "Well… I erm, I have been known," he blustered.
"All that domestic stuff, I mean," Rose clarified quickly, to save his blushes. She grinned though, sure sign she knew exactly what he was thinking about. "You don't do domestic."
"No," the Doctor agreed. "I don't. Don't do domestic. Don't do marriages or mortgages, picket fences or family trips to Ikea."
Rose smirked. "Me neither," she told him honestly. "Freaks me out."
"Clearly," he told her, referring to her earlier abandonment of her own wedding. They laughed and Rose reached for his hand.
"What are you saying then?" she asked.
The Doctor slid his palm across hers and let their fingers entwine before continuing.
"I'm saying, Rose Tyler, that I can't offer you all that."
"What I don't want anyway?"
"That's right. But I can offer you this," he gestured about the console room with his free hand. "The Tardis and… me." He dropped his gaze then, feeling like he was a million fathoms out of his depth, yet ridiculously buoyant - on the verge of being the happiest he'd ever been. Rose seemed to be holding her breath.
He looked up then and added, solemnly, "For-your-ever."
For the longest time they just sat and stared in to each others eyes. When the Doctor finally broke the silence his face still held that serious look.
"Rose Tyler -"
He was interrupted by a sudden and incessant bleeping from the console. He turned his head and glared at it in disbelief before reluctantly rising and stalking across to the controls. Rose stayed put, shocked in to silence. After a while she gave herself a mental shake and joined him at the console.
"What's going on?" she asked, her voice surprisingly steady given the way she was feeling inside.
"The calculations are complete," the Doctor told her. "And she's found us a supernova." He gave the ship an odd look. Strange the way she'd suddenly sped everything up once he'd reassured her he wasn't planning on getting shot of Rose.
"So we can do it? Now? Send the message?" Rose asked, her voice betraying the sudden panic rising within her again.
"Yes, we can," the Doctor replied. Then he turned, grabbed her shoulders gently and said, "But first, I've got something I've been trying to say to you."
Rose smiled. It was half giddy joy, half blind panic and the Doctor could see that. It was much like what he was feeling himself. He grinned happily. He made an exaggerated gesture of looking about them for the next possible interruptee and then turned his attention back to her. She lost herself in his soft brown eyes and remembered that moment on the beach, when all she'd wanted was to hold him one last time.
"Rose Tyler," he said, and then stopped to look around once again. "No Daleks going to pop out from behind the console?" he called, making her laugh, all her panic forgotten. "No Gelth? Werewolves? Members of the Slitheen family? No Krillitane?" he asked, peering up at the rafters. Rose shook her head, laughing harder. "Right, well in the absence of any further interruptions," the Doctor said, suddenly serious again, causing Rose to catch her next laugh in her throat and gaze up at him.
And then he said it. "Rose Tyler… I love you."
And the 100 watt smile was back. Rose flicked her tongue between her teeth cheekily and grinned. "Quite right too," she told him and he laughed out loud.
He'd said it! She couldn't believe he'd finally said it. And it wasn't half a decade ago. And he wasn't just an image, returned to haunt her dreams. This time he was here and real and she was able to fling her arms about him and be spun around.
Setting her back on her feet the Doctor kept one hand resting at her side. The other, his right, he brought to her cheek, his fingers slipping gently in to her hair.
"May I?" he asked, bringing his face closer to hers, his intent clear.
Rose laughed gently. "You have to ask?"
"Technically," he said softly, his breath on her lips, "you are engaged to another man."
"Technically," Rose mimicked, her voice a low stage whisper, "I couldn't give a -"
She stopped there, because a smile tugged faintly at the corner of the Doctor's mouth and then… he kissed her.
Rose knew, as he held her and his lips met hers that this was love, and it was everything she wanted and she had never, ever been kissed like this before.
And the Doctor knew that this was right. Oh, so right. And how had he ever thought it could be wrong?
.-.-.-.
Jackie Tyler had grown accustomed to strange and unusual things happening in her life. Ever since Rose had gone missing for an entire year, and then turned up going on as if hardly any time had passed at all with a strange man in tow, life had been far less than normal. Nothing, however, had prepared her for being dragged outside the church her daughter was about to get married in, to be told that she had disappeared in to thin air.
"What do you mean she's disappeared in to thin air?" she shrieked. "Someone must have seen which way she went!"
"I mean, she literally disappeared," Pete told her, taking her by the shoulders. "Right in front of my eyes Jack! One minute she was here. The next -"
"It's the Trills," Mickey was telling Jake, the two of them looking uncomfortable in full dress suits, with cream cravats and carnation button holes. "I never should have let her talk me in to the peace agreement. Man, I knew they'd be planning something else."
Pete was glaring at him. He had no idea who or what it was that had taken Rose, but filling Jackie's head with thoughts of avenging alien races was not going to help. Mickey caught his eye and fell silent. Behind them Rose's husband-to-be Luke appeared in the doorway of the church, looking confused and holding Jonny's hand.
"Oh come here sweetheart," Jackie told her son, seeing his worried face. The four year old scuttled over to her and hid behind her fuchsia-pink dress.
"What's going on?" Luke asked, and his blue eyes flashed with panic. "Where's Rose?"
Everyone looked at each other, hoping someone else would be the one to tell him.
"Sweetheart -" Jackie began.
"I'm here."
The entire group turned and were stunned to find Rose standing before them, in the shade of the tall trees beside the church.
"Oh Rose!" Jackie wailed. "We've been looking everywhere for you!" She started towards her but then stopped, staring at her. "Where's your dress?" she asked.
"It's a long story," Rose said and smiled thinly, looking down at her jeans and t-shirt. She hadn't thought.
"Well you're here, that's the main thing," Jackie went on. "Dress or no dress there's still a wedding going on. Let's get everyone inside." She began to make shooing motions to move them through the door.
"No!" Rose said, suddenly forceful. "I'm not."
"Not what?" Luke asked, finding his voice at last, and pretty sure in his own mind what the lack of wedding dress might mean.
"Not here," Rose clarified, to which everyone looked confused.
"You disappeared, right in front of me," Pete told her.
She nodded. "Yeah, I did." Then she looked about, making sure there was no-one else in ear shot. Thankfully the rest of the guests had remained inside the church.
"What happened?" Pete asked.
"I fell," she explained. "Through time, um… and space, I guess."
"What do you mean you fell?" Jackie asked, her voice betraying her anguish. "Fell where?"
At this they all watched as Rose turned and smiled encouragingly at something invisible to her left. Then she reached out her hand and suddenly, standing there holding it, was the Doctor.
"You!" Jackie cried.
"Who's that?" Luke asked Mickey quietly.
"That's the Doctor!" Mickey told him, not quite able to hide the wonder on his face or in his voice.
Luke's face fell. He'd heard all about the Doctor. In the years before he and Rose had become an item, when he was just another colleague at work, he'd been a shoulder to cry on. As with the lack of dress, he had a growing suspicion what this all meant.
"Hello Jackie," the Doctor was saying. He smiled kindly. "Pete," he nodded. "Mickey. Jake." Each nodded in return.
"And this is Jonny," Rose told him. "My little brother." The Doctor smiled and Johnny looked scared, stepping further behind his mother's back. "And this is Luke," she went on. The Doctor met his gaze but said nothing.
"I'm really sorry babe," Rose told the man she had been about to marry. But before he had a chance to reply, Jackie interrupted.
"What's happening?" she near wailed.
"We're not sure," the Doctor began.
"Rose?!" she asked, one word conveying her hope that there was a solution to all this.
"Remember when the Doctor came to say goodbye?" Rose asked, and everyone who'd been present that day nodded slowly. "Well, it's like that now. We're just an image, like he was that day. I've one last chance to say goodbye." She looked Luke in the eye at that.
"Oh God," Jackie whimpered, her legs giving out beneath her. Pete grabbed at her arm quickly and kept her standing. "You've done this!" she screeched, pointing madly at the Doctor.
Rose shook her head quickly. "He didn't do anything. Mum, you know he wouldn't. It was just an accident." She decided to leave out the bit about the Tardis. That was need to know information and right now her mum was the last person who needed to know. She'd never be able to understand the ship had an independent consciousness, she'd blame the Doctor forever and Rose couldn't have that.
"Be thankful I didn't end up on some planet somewhere with a bunch of strangers," she added instead, for emphasis. The Doctor squeezed her hand.
Rose tore her eyes away from Jackie's and turned to Luke again. Much as it felt wrong having this conversation holding another blokes hand, she knew if she let go of the Doctor his image would disappear again and she needed him there.
"Luke, I never meant to hurt you, but I have to tell you the truth," she began. "If it wasn't for this happening… I was leaving anyway."
"Rose -" he started, but she cut him off.
"It's true, isn't it dad?"
Pete nodded. "Sorry mate," he told him.
"Rose," Luke started again. "I knew you weren't happy. I should have called the wedding off myself, but I was being selfish. I thought having you at all was better than nothing, but it would have been wrong."
Rose stared at him. "What did I ever do to deserve you?" she asked him quietly. He smiled, but his eyes were sad.
"I'm going to go inside and tell everyone what's happening, let you say your goodbyes," he told her. "Take care of yourself babe."
"I will. You too," Rose told him. Everyone watched him leave, before Jackie started up again.
"Rose sweetheart there must be a way back to us!"
"Mum, the Doctor has tried, he really has. There is no way back, not for anything other than this. And even if there was -"
"What?" Jackie asked quickly.
"Mum, I'm where I've desperately wanted to be for the last five years," Rose pleaded. "I am going to miss all of you so much, but I need you to know, I'm happier than I've been in a long time."
Jackie smiled an odd smile, one that came with tears and a strangled sob.
"I wish I could give you a hug sweetheart," she managed at last.
"Me too," Rose told her, matching tears starting from her eyes. The Doctor moved closer to her and gently took hold of her wrist, above their joined hands.
Jackie turned her attention to him.
"You're all she's got," she wailed at him.
"I know," he replied solemnly.
"She loves you," she told him, in case Rose hadn't got round to that bit.
"I love her too," he assured her and as if for emphasis, leaned in and kissed her gently on the temple.
"Hey, hey!" Mickey cried. "It's like that now is it? That's quick work Rose!"
"Will you shut up?" she snapped playfully, but blushed crimson with it.
The Doctor grinned like the cat that got the cream and even Jackie laughed despite the situation.
"Well, good," she decided at last. "Lord knows it's what she's wanted ever since she's known you."
"Mum!" Rose cried. The Doctor shot Jackie a quick grin.
"Just keep her safe," Jackie told him at last. "And don't break her heart."
"I will, and I won't," the Doctor promised her. He turned to Rose. "We have to go," he told her.
"OK. God, I don't know what to say," she cried, turning to her family. "I love you all so much! I'll miss you. Take care of each other. I can't believe I won't see you grow up," she told Jonny, who was peeping out from behind Jackie's dress again and frowning. He didn't understand. "Be a good boy," she told him, tears running freely down her face.
"I am a good boy," he told her and everyone laughed.
"I've got to go," Rose said. "I love you mum."
With that the image of the two of them standing hand-in-hand disappeared and Jackie was left staring at the space where they had been. Dappled sunlight filtered through the trees and spotted the grass beneath. She let herself be folded in to her husband's arms and cried her heart out.