Next chapter! Not entirely sure when it's gonna end, but I'm pretty sure we only have two to three chapters left, including epilogue... Which is INSANE. Thanks so much to: imsuchanut, Horsegirl, krikanalo, Caraoke-Cherry, TenRose4ever, cailinbeag, Mist101, Evelyn Rose Caiside, MuppetKatie and GryffindorGrl97 for reviewing! You guys made me so incredibly happy!

CODA TO THE END

The Doctor was fighting a war. Surrounding by ghosts and shadows, he was in the thick of it. Then again, it seemed he always was. No matter where the Time Lord travelled, violence and death followed him like a plague.

He wanted to give up.

He wanted to stop fighting and rest.

It was tiring, living with more than nine hundred years of baggage and collecting more with each day. It wasn't a life he'd wish on anybody.

God, he was exhausted. He had been walking for hours now… Couldn't he sleep? He wanted to sleep. The Time Lord suddenly paused, looking around in alarm. No, no this was wrong. He had just been fighting. He remembered fighting.

And now he remembered walking.

The alien frowned, trying to make sense of it despite his muddled head. He was missing something. What was he missing? He could swear it was right on the tip of his—"Rose."

"Rose?! ROSE!"

No answer.

The Time Lord stopped, hands pulling at his hair as he tried to think. He paced in what appeared to be a forest clearing, hitting his forehead and muttering to himself. Rose was gone. He'd lost her. How was it possible that he'd lost her? No, it was impossible. Wrong. There was no way… And yet the proof lay before his very eyes. "I was fighting," the Time Lord muttered. "I was fighting and now I'm here. No Rose each time."

Pocket Universe? No, too hard to get to. And the possibility of such a manifestation was incredibly low.

Dream? No, it felt too real. Besides, he had pinched himself.

What else was there?

On edge, the Time Lord ground his teeth together and began his trek through the seemingly endless woods. "Rose?!"

He'd find her if it was the last miserable thing he did.

Rose Tyler woke to near darkness, her heart and head pounding as she sucked in air, choking on dirt. Attempting to lift her torso, the young woman panicked to find that moving was an effort, and eventually realized that she was half covered in metal and rocks. "Doctor?" Her voice was hoarse and talking made her feel like vomiting. The blonde swallowed, eyes adjusting to an odd glow, heart jumping to her throat at the source of it: the TARDIS. "Oh, thank God."

Scrambling to her feet, the blonde looked around, bypassing the piles of crumpled shadows half submerged in rubble and making a beeline for the human-looking shape under a pile of rocks. It looked like there had been some kind of explosion, something that had almost completely shattered the tunnel they were currently trapped in. "You're okay, you're okay, you're okay."

The young woman threw herself down beside her alien, only barely seeing his face in the dim. "Doctor?" Rose touched him obsessively, stroking his hair and cheeks, freeing his body from the dirt. It was amazing how adrenaline subdued pain and injury.

"No," she muttered. "No, you're okay. You have to be okay. WAKE UP." She shook him, collapsing on his chest when there was no response. Her hand reached up to feel for a pulse: Faint. Faint but there.

"Doctor, wake up, please. Please, Doctor… We need to leave. You need to wake up so we can leave." She looked at his prone form expectantly, hopefully, brushing back his fringe as tears sprang to her eyes. "Please," she murmured, leaning down towards his face. "Please, wake up."

She kissed him. Nothing happened.

Honestly, she didn't know what she'd been expecting. She figured it was the five year-old girl inside her, chanting that a kiss always woke the prince from sleep. Stupid. Fairytales weren't reality… If she hadn't known that before, she knew that now. Jumping into the TARDIS had been nothing but a big lesson in how happy endings were so rare, they may as well never exist. Everything came at a price, and that price was usually paid in blood.

Rose Tyler forced the tears down, clearing her throat as she reached under her shirt for her TARDIS key. It was gone. Water prickling at her eyes again, the young woman shook her head and stood up, dragging her alien out of the rubble as best she could. She couldn't fly his ship on her own. Though he'd taught her a few things here and there, there was no way she'd be able to do it alone.

In any case, in there was the safest place on the planet. Grunting, the young woman pulled the Doctor right up to the door, pushing at it with her back in an attempt to open it. Nothing.

"Come on," she growled.

Rose set her companion on the floor, jiggling the handle and pushing. Nothing. She rammed the door multiple times with her shoulder. Nothing. The blonde pleaded, yelled, whispered; she cried out to the machine, begging it to open.

Nothing.

Not until she noticed her fingers. They were glowing golden, with the same stuff that had surrounded the Time Lord when he had regenerated. Looking at her extremities, the blonde's eyes widened when the glittering light extended to her entire right hand. Rose didn't know how, but she knew what she had to do.

Stepping forward, the young woman pressed her hand to the TARDIS door, watching as the ship absorbed the golden glow despite the fact that her hand burned white-hot. She then easily pushed the piece of wood open.

First she was blinded. The sharp smells of the TARDIS followed immediately after, making her stomach growl and heart yearn for her home in the stars. Leaning against the ship's side, Rose was about to cry from happiness. "Thank you." Pushing herself upright, she grunted, groaning against the pain in her body as the young woman grabbed hold of the Doctor, almost dropping him when his skin began to glow golden.

Not like this.

He couldn't change. Not now. Not when they had come so far. He couldn't leave her there, on this deathtrap of a planet, to deal with a new person whom she didn't even know… Who might not even like her. He wasn't allowed to change. He was not allowed to die. He—They were supposed to leave before any of this had happened… She had told him.

In an act of desperation, Rose shook her companion roughly, yelling at him to wake until she had no more voice. Her side was aching, her breathing coming in short spurts. And her head, oh God her head; it felt like her brain was about to explode out of her ears. The Doctor's body glowed brighter.

The dam broke.

Crumbling to the floor beside her Time Lord, she sobbed, burying her face in hands. "Not like this," she whispered between sobs, "it was never meant to end like this."

She sat there for what felt like an eternity before finally getting up, noticing that despite the glow that had by now ebbed, his face still hadn't changed. However, she didn't get her hopes up. Rose Tyler knew little and less of regeneration, maybe every it was different every time. Bending down, the young woman kissed her companion's forehead, sighing into his filthy skin before dragging him into his ship, albeit slowly. He was heavier than he looked, and her muscles cried out in protest against the extra weight.

By the time the young woman dragged the Doctor to the medbay, his glowing had ebbed to being barely noticeable. Heaving a breath of relief, the blonde pushed him onto the examination table, too tired and grateful to look a gift horse in the mouth. Despite being worse for the wear, her Doctor was the same; that was all that mattered.

His nose was broken and his right shoulder looked like it had been dislocated. Looking down at her hands, the young woman found them drenched in blood from his face and scalp, despite the fact that, oddly, there seemed to be no open wounds. His left ankle looked broken, as did a multitude of his fingers. His hair was a bloodied mess. It had been hard to see in the tunnels, but she saw everything clearly now.

It made her want to vomit.

"Okay. Okay. Okay." Fetching the osteum and dermal regenerators, Rose went to work on healing him. She rid him of the ribbons of material covering his skin and popped his shoulder back in. She knitted his broken bones, and found that his previously lacerated skin had miraculously healed itself… A thing for which she was forever grateful. As the young woman worked at washing out his hair and dabbing the dried blood from his face, she began to feel cold and shaky herself. The blonde pressed onwards, however; she was not the main concern.

Half an hour later, the young woman was shivering violently, feeling nauseous and lightheaded as well as cold. She shed her own clothing, weakly attempting to use the osteum regenerator in order fix her ribs first. Every breath she took was like a knife.

But the blonde was too weak, especially when the machine began to work. It clattered to the floor as the blonde screamed, shaking. She felt it. She felt her bones being fitted back together. Stumbling to a chair, Rose put her head between her legs to keep from fainting. She then vomited before promptly passing out on the floor dirty, bruised and broken.

All the while, the Doctor fought. In the never-ending planes of his subconscious, he scoured deserts for her, swam seas for her… He woke to blinding light, the stink of sickness and blood and human waste enough to make him gag. He then searched, disoriented, for his companion only to find her lying in a puddle of her own refuse and vomit. Still nude, the Time Lord jumped down from the examination table, feeling for a pulse as his hearts pounded in his chest. "Rose," he murmured, panicked. "Rose, wake up. ROSE."

Her pulse was there, but faint. From the looks of it, she had major trouble breathing. The Time Lord suddenly remembered his human complaining about her ribs. "Punctured lung," he muttered. "Along with broken fingers, arm, and a possible concussion. Hang in there, Rose."

He grabbed the osteum regenerator.

The blonde came out of her subconscious only state to scream, begging him to please stop the pain because didn't he love her enough to listen and oh God pleasepleasepleaseplease have MERCY.

But the Doctor didn't stop. He continued, despite the fact that each scream and yell made him want to crawl out of his skin. "Please, just listen. This will make you better. I need to make you better."

So he fixed her ribs and hooked her up to oxygen and an IV for hydration. He checked to see if her pupils were dilated and let her fall back asleep, knowing that even if she did have a concussion, there was no real fear of falling into a coma. He covered her bare form in a blanket and tucked her into the small bed in the far corner of the room, pressing a kiss to her forehead as he sat at her bedside, fidgeting.

He was cold. Cold.

Hesitant to leave her, the Time Lord decided against running to his wardrobe for his regular suit and tie. Instead, he clothed himself in an old burgundy t-shirt and some jeans lying around from his previous face. His leaner form swam in the material, but the Time Lord figured that untailored clothing was the least of his current worries.

For one, his companion was unconscious and currently scaring the remaining life out of him. Secondly, he had healed, yes, but healing comas were not without consequence: the Doctor felt like he'd been hit by a bus. Walking back over to his pink and yellow human, the Time Lord sighed as he sat down, fingers running through her soot-filled hair. "You were right, you know. There was nothing left for us here… For me. You're the only responsibility I have and look at you." He scrubbed his face with his hands, the words forcing themselves from his throat. "Wherever I go, death and destruction seem to follow. I'm a plague; everything I touch turns to dust. But you need to wake up form this, Rose. You have to. Because if you don't, I will never forgive myself."

One more reason to run across the Universe.

"I'm so so sorry."

He wasn't expecting an answer from her, not really, but was disappointed all the same when she stayed silent. The amount of affection he had for this Child of Earth was unprecedented and dangerous, but the Doctor was finding it hard to keep his distance at this articular moment in time. Tracing her face, the Time Lord ran his thumb over her bottom lip, wanting more than anything to kiss her and have her respond.

He loved her, plain and simple. And he vowed, he swore to show her everyday when she awoke. Because, yes, he had been trying to protect himself by keeping his distance; he had been trying to protect her… But after the Qa, after almost losing her; after watching her lie prone on the bed, the Doctor threw all his rules to the hell human were so fond of referencing.

Yes, life hurt. In nine hundred plus years of existence, he had been hurt and pushed around enough to know that the Universe made no exceptions. He was alone, and would be alone again. He would lose Rose, the one who came after Rose, and the one who came after that. He would lose them all a hundred times over, and he had thought that staying relatively distant was an indispensable protective measure.

He was wrong.

Because happiness, love, true companionship… all these things were worth running to the ends of the Universe for. It was worth the inevitable heartbreak, and the hope it would bring that the bitter end would evade him this time. And so, the alien got himself comfortable, holding his companion's hand as he ran a thumb over her skin, his eyes closing in exhaustion.

He loved her… And that was not something to withhold. Not anymore.