(AN) I am very very very sorry, update is way over due. Hopefully, there are still some people out there interested in reading this, and don't think it's too much for me to ask for feedback.

enjoy!

When Rose awoke, it wasn't just a simple affair of her eyes snapping open, consciousness sliding into her formerly prone brain.

No, it was quite the affair, complete with her initially gaining

sensation in her fingers, and pondering what it meant to sense, to feel. Was it reality if only she could only perceive it through her calloused fingertips? Eventually, this became less of a question as her perceived nerve endings began to spread, to tingle as she now felt her arm, her torso, her other arm, her legs.

Cool air. That was all she was really capable of perceiving, initially. And soon she knew she could open her eyes, but she didn't quite want to. Not until she had it her fingers, splayed on whatever surface she now lay on, and was rather startled to feel the ground before her, smooth, impenetrable and flat.

Rose's eyes, they fell open, but almost immediately she shut them tight, because the brightness she perceived was too strong to handle. She breathed, letting the orange afterglow in her eyelids fade, before she chanced squinting again.

The sky. They sky, blue, with a slight scattering of clouds floating across it. And suddenly, her eyes stung, and she swallowed, a stray far trickling into the side of her nose. It wasn't the brightness that was irritating her pupils, it wasn't this sudden re-gaining of sight that stimulated this physical response. The sky. It was the sky, she had never thought she could see something as ordinary as the sky again in her life.

She rolled over, shuddering as now the tears didn't relent from streaming down her cheeks, raggedly breathing. She was on a beach, she now realized, her cheek pressing against the dirty wet sand, though she could hardly feel it. It was all too real. Everything that had happened in the past, possibly seconds ago in her timeline just seemed so painfully distant from her and now she was empty. She didn't know who she was, this lost girl lying on an empty beach, choking and shaking in the sand.

Eventually, she found it within herself to at least lever herself into a seated position, and then later to stand, not even registering her bare toes. She then took into account what she was wearing. A pale green, cotton dress, rather large and baggy on her. It had elasticized sleeves that cut off a few centimetres down her forearms. She couldn't even recall in the blur that was her memories of when she had quite donned the outfit, whether it was of times past or rather recently.

And then Rose walked. She didn't have any bearings of where she quite was, but the beach looked remarkably familiar for some reason. It stood out from all the other beaches she had found herself at in her childhood, her teenage years, her adulthood. And something was nagging in the back of her brain, reminding of her of this in this instant, and she didn't quite know why.

"It's been quite a journey, you an' I."

Rose froze in her tracks, sharply inhaling as she turned behind her to the sudden voice, even though she KNEW, she KNEW there was no possibility other than the face that immediately flew into her wearied brain.

There he stood, the Doctor. Her Doctor. His rough features appeared to be mostly neutral, but she could see it, an obvious pain in his icy eyes. His arms were crossed, and his legs were spaced far apart. Almost threatening, but Rose didn't know quite why.

"Doctor," she said, and through some miracle her voice was calm, collected. On the inside she had nothing more than an urge to run to him, claim him with her arms, and collapse with him into the faded pillows of upturned sand.

Instead, Rose swallowed strongly, tentatively approaching him, for some reason everything feeling numb outside of the tunnel between their two forms. When she reached him, she slowly lifted a hand up, her fingertips not even grazing the surface of the chest of his leather jacket until he shook his head. She pulled back, her confused swirled chocolate eyes staring up at his steely, slate grey ones.

"No," the Doctor said firmly, never breaking eye contact with her. "No touch."

"Why not?" said Rose brokenly, even though in the pit of her stomach she knew. God, she knew. She had sworn that this beach had looked familiar.

"You," the Doctor said now, and he took a shuddery breath, finally breaking eye contact with her. "You're just an image Rose, you aren't really here."

Rose's breath froze in her very lungs, and for a few moments she could only stare at him. Everything that she could perceive felt like it was shattering, crumbling right beneath her, even though she knew, she KNEW, she stood there right front of him, her Doctor.

"What..." Rose choked on her own words, tears dripping down her face and into her mouth, salt penetrating her pursed lips. "No this-this isn't true, I know I am here Doctor, I feel-"

"Rose, what do you feel?" the Doctor said sharply, his eyes snapping back at her shuddering form. "Beneath your feet, in the air that hits your arms?!"

Rose looked down through her tear blurred vision, at her feet that stood in the sand. It's surface was squishy, saturated with salted water from the ocean that expanded infinitely to her side. But her toes didn't so much as graze it's muddy surface. Her toes, they felt instead as though she stood on something smooth and cold beneath the pads of her toes. And as she breathed, no particular scent hit her nose, not so much as a whiff of salt, or the earth below her. The air she inhaled was dry, measured and cool. Now that she was aware, Rose quite frankly felt like she was suffocating, breathing such contradictory air in an environment such as this.

"Why?" Rose breathed, swallowing as her shoulders shook. She didn't even specify what it was she didn't understand, for any answer at this point wouldn't have been enough to justify her current state.

"You... You didn't want me Rose," the Doctor could only respond, but before he could even say another word in continuation of this statement, Rose's head snapped up, her face heating almost immediately.

"What the hell are you going on about!?" Rose screeched, stepping up to him until her face was flush with his. "You god damned DAFT ALIEN! What the hell is it that makes you think I don't care?! Are you entirely blind?! Are those lumps for ears on the sides of your dense skull good for nothing?! Doctor, dear lord!" Rose practically screamed her last sentence, and not even trying to restrain herself, leaned forward and placed her lips on his. Or at least, where his lips were, for she couldn't even touch them now, her face uselessly grappling with air. Rose gave a frustrated shout, and pulled away, sobbing with a renewed anger. She wanted to run away from him as far as she could, but simultaneously she wanted to run to him and hold him and kiss him and never let him out of her sight again. She collapsed to the sand beneath her, the impact of its surface hurting much more than it should have at her impact, only serving as a reminder that she wasn't really even there.

She felt the Doctor sit down next to her, or at least saw him out of the corner of her eyes, she couldn't truly feel his presence.

"Rose, I am sorry," he said softly, and Rose wasn't sure if he was aware of the fact that she could see him unconsciously pressing his fingers to his lips as he paused.

"But I couldn't do this to you. I couldn't be selfish," the Doctor continued. "Your family, your friends... I couldn't force you to abandon them for all eternity in the name of me."

"Where am I?" Rose asked, hollowly staring at her feet.

"You are back in your universe," said the Doctor, glancing at her now, she could see it. "I managed to grasp the last bit of your signal before you faded out and project you over here. Speaking of which..." he glanced at a watch on his left wrist. "I don't know if you'll be here for much longer, Rose."

Rose now looked at him fully, shifting on the sand so she could fully face him. "I forgive you," she forced out, despite feeling like her heart was being wrung out inside of her chest. Despite the agony she experienced now, knowing that her time with Doctor was finite, and very short at that, she knew it would completely destroy her inside if she could never see her mother again. But to chose, between two of the people she cared about most across the multiverse... There was no rationality to be found in that situation. She was almost glad that the Doctor had chosen for her, because she knew logically, she never would have been able to, caught forever in flux.

The Doctor didn't respond immediately, only looking at her, seeming to absorb every last cell of her face into his memory. Finally, he sighed, scooting slightly closer to her.

"Rose," he said tenderly. "I hope you know, since the day I first set eyes on you, since we first ran together, I have valued the fact that we were together more than any of the stars I have lay my eyes on, more than any of the infinite experiences that the TARDIS could have brought me. You have been a constant in my life for the longest time, and.." He visibly swallowed, but didn't look away from her. "I hope you know I love you, Rose Tyler."

There was no word, no phrase that could articulate the emotions that immediately flooded into

Rose's mind, her heart. The fact that it was so late, that was one of the few concepts that she could formulate in her head. Of course, she had known. She had always felt it. But just a verbal confirmation, three words whispered in her ear... It could have come so much sooner and the both of them knew it. But Rose knew there was no question, no doubt her mind in how to respond to him.

"Doctor, I-"