John Smith wakes up to the sound of birds singing. It must be nearly four and the gap of sky showing in between the lilac curtains is an odd shade of blue, not quite day yet but no longer night either. It's the brink of a new day.
John stands with his feet sinking in the sheepskin rug and walks over to the window. He can't remember the lost time he stood still long enough to watch the sunrise. The solitary yellow sun pokes up from behind the trees, the trees don't change colour like the ones back on Gallifrey that look like they are on fire. He told Grace about Gallifrey thinking it was Earth because he had lost his memory, things were the same with Joan but with Rose she knows everything.
"Doctor," Rose groans in her sleep kicking all thoughts about other women from his head.
"I'm right here," he says perching at the end of the bed. He doesn't ever want to leave her again not now that he doesn't have to. He curls up next to her holding her tight just because he is so very glad to be able to be here with her. He watches the sunrise from her bed with a strange realisation that it's the only sun he'll ever see. He doesn't have his TARDIS as the original Doctor still has it, despite the fact that he can recall stealing it so he could get away with his granddaughter. There was always some reason why he had to keep running, he didn't mean to upset all those people he left behind because that would require him actually having to stop and think about the consequences. He did what he had to just like back on the Crucible, what's wrong with that?
Rose got left behind and he thought of her every day, all those things he did all the unfair comparisons with Martha all those adventures and still he thought of her. Thousands of people across the stars and though time have spoke of love as if it was something in need of definition, the science of love all those hormones and mind games, the rules and regulations but it's all nonsense. He doesn't need to read H G Wells to know time travel is possible and he doesn't need to read Keats to know that he is in love with the woman in his arms.
Rose melts further back into his arms, strange that when she's asleep she calls out for him but doing her woken hours he isn't the Doctor. He doesn't mind though because hope is a gorgeous thing and he's got bags of it. He doesn't mind watching the sunrise from her bed seeing how the light changes on her skin and hair. He is actually excited about the oncoming day because for once he doesn't know what's going to happen. He gets to live day by day, he can't think of anything more fun.
He'll miss the adventures and the variety, hell he'll even miss the running but this way is better. He is after all half human and therefore not so aptly designed for brilliant adventures, but a life with Rose is just wizard and well worth standing still for.