The Doctor had wrapped Rose up in another crushing hug as soon as he had recovered from his shock and lifted her practically off of her feet with his enthusiasm. When he finally set her down and stepped away again he was smiling from ear-to-ear as he gazed down at her.
"We're not gonna die here!" he announced brightly. "This isn't real." He dropped her hand, spun on the spot, and then grabbed a nearby rock and threw it into the ravine before them. "It's a snarl!"
"A ... what?" Rose asked, completely lost.
"What does a wounded animal do? It tries to scare everyone away," the Doctor explained quickly, peering down into the depth of empty space below. "We're close to the engine. The TARDIS is snarling at us, trying to frighten us off. We need to jump."
"Okay, so you haven't changed that much," Rose amended, laughing breathlessly as she came to stand at his side at the edge of the cliff face.
"Hey, now, Cla - ooh, wait, hold on. What do I call you now?" the Doctor asked, interrupting his own thoughts as his brain raced on ahead of him. "Oswin? Clara? Oh, but that's weird ... Why'd you have to go and change your name?"
"Says the alien who went and changed his face," Rose retorted pointedly.
"Oi!" the Doctor chided, gesturing towards her in a wild up-and-down motion. "Look who's talking!"
And Rose couldn't help but laugh out loud at the strange situation that they had found themselves in, her happy relief ringing out through the mist around them. The Doctor smiled in response as he watched her and Rose wondered why she had bothered to keep all of this a secret for so long. Now that she had proved the truth to him, he was looking at her exactly the same way that he had always done before they had been forced apart into two separate worlds. The familiar look in his new eyes nearly took her breath away.
"Alright, fair point," she conceded finally. "But, to be fair, I didn't exactly to and plan all of this." She paused for a moment in consideration before continuing, "I suppose you should probably call me 'Clara' when we're around other people. The Bad Wolf said something about implanting memories in other people's heads, so that's probably what the rest of this world would know me by."
"But ... when we're not around other people?" the Doctor asked cautiously, his eyes nervously scanning the empty space that surrounded them.
Rose flashed him a soft smile as she tilted her head affectionately towards him. "Well, you know my real name, Doctor," she reminded him softly. "Might as well use it." Her smile faltered after a moment and she added awkwardly, "That is ... if it's alright with you. I know that it's all a bit ... weird."
The Doctor smiled and took a step closer to her, slowly letting his fingers slide around hers until they were standing side-by-side and hand-in-hand once more. "It's not weird," he muttered quietly. His green eyes took on a misty quality that Rose hadn't seen on this new face yet as he added, "I've missed you, Rose."
And her name - her real, true name - on his lips sounded like a prayer, a promise, and a vow all in one. Rose nearly choked on all of the emotions welling up within her, but the Doctor quickly reminded her that there were more important matters to attend to as he squeezed her hand and then slowly led them backwards so that they could attempt a running leap over the chasm before them.
"Ready?" he asked, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as they faced off against the impossible odds before them.
"Always," she replied with a wide smile.
"Geronimo."
The two of them jumped in tandem and instantly landed in a large, white room filled with shards of floating shrapnel.
"The heart of the TARDIS ..." the Doctor whispered under his breath.
"Doctor ..." Rose murmured as she tentatively reached out and slid her finger over one of the metal pieces nearest her. "What's happened to her?"
The TARDIS was still moaning and groaning in her head, her sorrow nearly overwhelming Rose's own senses.
"The engine ... it's already exploded," the Doctor replied quietly. "It must have been the collision with the salvage ship. She wrapped her hands around the force. Froze it."
Dying, dying, can't sustain ... the ship wailed desperately.
"How long until she can't hold it any longer?" Rose asked tentatively.
"There's no way I can save her now," the Doctor replied with a humorless breath of laughter. He shook his head and fiddled nervously with his hands as he cautiously picked through the floating shrapnel around them. "She's just always been there for me, and taken care of me, and now it's my turn and I don't know what to do ..." he murmured frantically to himself.
Rose stepped forward without another word and grabbed the Doctor's arm, sliding her fingers down to link with his in that easy, comfortable way that had always come so effortlessly to the two of them. She pushed a mental wave of comforting reassurance his way as she wearily eyed the frozen explosion all around them.
Before she could offer any sort of solution, however, the Doctor was raising their joined hands and frowning thoughtfully at her palm.
"It's just a burn ..." Rose murmured distractedly, not wanting him to put up a fuss over her when there were far more important things to worry about. "It happened when we landed."
"No. It's not," the Doctor replied, frowning hard as he twisted her hand in his to get a better look at it.
"What?" Rose asked, confused.
"No, it's not," the Doctor repeated. "It's not a burn, it's a message."
Rose raised herself up to the tips of her toes to get a better look at the mark on her hand as the Doctor traced his fingers over her sensitive skin. She could see now that there were a series of interlocking circles in the Doctor's native language burned into the skin of her palm, and she wondered at how she hadn't recognized the distinctive pattern earlier.
"What does it say?" she asked curiously. Rose clumsily sounded the words out as she narrowed her eyes on the alien language. Her husband had taught her how to read circular Gallifreyan over the years, but there was still much about the language that she didn't understand, and the words on her hand were all backwards, like she was reading them through a mirror.
When the Doctor didn't immediately reply, Rose glanced up to see that he was standing very close to her and his eyes were wide with surprise.
Rose smiled and playfully rolled her eyes at him as she carefully reminded him, "Known a few Time Lords in my day, you know."
The Doctor's grin then was a mix between wild hope and wondering disbelief as he brought her hand closer and pressed a kiss to the burned skin of her palm.
"Big, friendly button," he announced grandly as he hastily grabbed for his sonic. "The rift in time, all the memories leaking out. I need to find the moment we crashed ..."
The Doctor raised his sonic and waved it through the air around them, finally settling on a direction when the whirring noise of the screwdriver raised in pitch. He flashed Rose an excited grin before purposefully reaching for her uninjured hand and leading her off back through the TARDIS.
They arrived quickly back in the console room, where a glowing white light was seeping through a vertical crack in the wall. "The time rift," the Doctor explained quickly as he led them closer to it. "Recent past, possible future."
"What are you going to do?" Rose asked cautiously as he dropped her hand and stepped closer to the ominous glowing chasm.
"Rewrite today, I hope," he stated simply.
"But ... what does that mean?" Rose asked as the Doctor pulled a round, silver object from his pocket and pressed his sonic to it.
"If I get this right, then it means that this entire day would have never happened," the Doctor explained hastily as he furrowed his brow intently on the work in his hands.
"Is this another thing that you just ... do now?" Rose asked suspiciously as she watched him. "Do you just ... rewrite your own history?"
"When I have to," the Doctor agreed quietly, flashing her a quick look before focusing back on his work.
"But ... what about us?" Rose asked hesitantly. "What's going to happen to us?"
"We should end up right back where we started," the Doctor explained simply. "Everything will be exactly as it was before the crash."
"But, will we ... Will you remember?" she asked quietly, her mouth suddenly going dry. "Doctor ... will you remember who I really am?"
"Not sure," he replied distractedly, still not meeting her eyes. He had finished the work in his hands and Rose saw that he had engraved the round, silver device to reflect what had been imprinted on her hand. He flipped the thing about nervously for a moment before taking a step closer to the glowing rift.
"Doctor, wait!" Rose insisted, grabbing his elbow and pulling him forcefully around to meet her eyes. "But you can't. I don't want you to forget. I don't want the secrets anymore."
His jaw twitched as he watched her for a moment before he quietly admitted, "Neither do I."
Rose's grip on his arm tightened and he sighed wearily as he turned and grabbed her uninjured hand once more. "This is the only way to save us - to save all of us," the Doctor reminded her gently. "I have to do this. There's a chance we might both retain our memories, I don't know. We're at the heart of this thing, so we might just be able to remember. But either way, it doesn't change anything. We'll still be here, together, and you'll know who you are, at the very least."
"But ... what if I never find another chance to tell you?" Rose insisted desperately. "What if you never find out who I am again?"
"Rose," the Doctor interrupted her, her true name instantly settling her anxiously thoughts. "You're here," he reminded her calmly. "You made your way back to me - against all odds, all reason, all rationality. You're back, and that's all that matters." He squeezed her hand reassuringly and his smile was filled with the centuries of unspoken words that lay between them. "We'll find each other in the end. We always do."
Rose swallowed past the lump in her throat as she stood on the tips of her toes once more and pressed her lips against his cheek. "Always," she agreed, her voice soft as she whispered her quiet vow into his ear.
She was about to pull away from him again when the Doctor's free arm suddenly came up around her back and pulled her into another tight, desperate hug, which Rose eagerly returned.
Always, he promised silently as he gently brushed against her thoughts with his own. He remained a respectable distance away form the rest of her mind, but Rose could still feel his overwhelming sensation of heartbroken desire as he forced himself to step away and focus back on the task at hand.
Forever, Rose replied before he could let go.
The Doctor didn't meet her gaze again before he thrust himself through the glowing time rift and Roes's ears were instantly filled with the sounds of his screams.
When she finally came to again, Rose was standing in her bedroom (the ship had provided her with a brand new one upon her return to this universe without her even having to ask) on the TARDIS and staring blankly into her mirror. She blinked hard a few times as her mind desperately tried to sort out the conflicting timelines in her head.
Part of her knew that she was standing here because she had been getting dressed in preparation for another day of adventures with the Doctor, but another part of her knew that she had just been in the console room with him, listening to his screams as he rewrote time in order to save his exploding ship.
Rose winced at her reflection as the memories and activities of two separate days collided within her head and suddenly every single muscle in her body ached. Beneath all of it, though, was an undeniable urge to seek out the Doctor. She needed to know if he had retained the truth of her identity.
Rose forced herself towards the console room, happy to hear the TARDIS's usual melody back in her head - though the ship seemed to be just as weary as she felt. The Doctor was standing at the controls, his back to her and his shoulders hunched in a haggard stance as he leaned heavily against the console.
"Doctor?" Rose called out hesitantly.
Her voice seemed to shock him out of whatever thoughts he had been lost in and he immediately shot up, twirled around, and flashed her an eager, excited look.
"Ready to go, then?" he asked cheerily. "Where should we head off to next, eh? I was thinking maybe we could check out the Alignment of Trulemond - always wanted to go, it sounds lovely. Or maybe we should pop back to Earth for a bit? Make sure that there're no invasions going on this week? Your planet does tend to attract a lot of unwelcome visitors, it's really quite alarming ..."
"Could we leave it for now?" Rose asked as she rubbed at her temples. "I'm completely knackered."
"Yes, okay," the Doctor replied slowly. "Break for some rest and relaxation it is, then. Feeling a bit run down, myself. Bit odd, really - that usually doesn't happen."
He had turned away from her again, continuing to fiddle with the console controls even though Rose knew that he wasn't setting a destination.
"Doctor?" she asked cautiously. "Are you ... alright?" It wasn't the question that she really wanted to ask, but she couldn't very well just come right out and ask him if he remembered a day that had technically never happened without sounding completely insane.
"Sure, yeah," he replied, watching her wearily out of the corner of his eye. "You?"
Rose glanced down at her hands as she fidgeted awkwardly under his gaze, unsure of how exactly to respond. Suddenly, however, her attention was diverted as she realized that the red, circular marks had disappeared completely from her palm - her skin was as clear and smooth as though she had never been burned (which, she supposed, she hadn't, now).
Rose figured that it was as good a test as any to try and gauge the Doctor's memory, so she lifted her healed right hand and smiled cheerily. "My hand's all better," she announced, wiggling her fingers at him in demonstration and silently begging for him to recognize the casual attempt to jog his memory.
A slow smile spread out over the Doctor's features as he turned to face her fully once more. He closed the space between them in three large steps and took her healed hand in his, smoothing his fingers over her freshly-healed skin before raising her hand so that he could brush his lips softly against her knuckles.
"Still just as jeopardy-friendly as ever, Miss. Tyler," he replied, her true name a whispered secret between them.
His green eyes were glittering mischievously and Rose couldn't help her own elated grin as she stared up at him and knew for certain that not a single memory had been lost between them and they were finally, finally back to what they were always meant to be - Rose Tyler and the Doctor in the TARDIS, off to find a new adventure. It didn't matter where in space or when in time, as long as they were together.