Thank you everybody who followed, favorited, reviewed, read, etc.! I love you guys and I hope you enjoyed the story. This epilogue to our story is entitled SPOILERS! That's because the events described may end up becoming another story…not really anytime soon, but maybe someday…! So follow me as an author and you'll find out!

In the meantime, though, realize that this chapter is a bit AU!

Epilogue

Six months later…

Rose eventually found herself back in the universe she'd been born in. Summoned by an old friend, Mickey Smith and his—wife?!—Martha.

The universe and the times they'd lived in had changed them. It wasn't as awkward of a meeting as one might have supposed. Rose saw Mickey and she was nothing but proud of him, and of Martha, the woman who'd helped look after the Doctor while she'd been gone.

There was a reason she'd been called back, however.

Actually, it was something of an accident.

Well, 'never mind', as Mickey said…

The Time Lords returned, and all of a sudden, it got a lot easier to jump between parallel worlds and—well, she somehow ended up helping the Doctor defeat his own people yet again!

It was quite an ugly battle. But what shocked Rose most of all was that the Doctor had changed every bit as much as she had!

He'd had quite a hard time of it, frankly. He'd lost Donna, decided to travel alone, and was without help when captured and tortured by a then-unidentifiable threat. When he escaped, he was broken and had lost his mind and sat in the Tardis on the corner of an alley on the half-planet of A-Baku—for ten years— before a beggar child had helped him recover his mental capacities.

Only to return to Earth and find his old friends the Time Lords returning from time-lock to consume the human-planet in their selfish plans to become the ultimate powerful and immortal beings in the universe.

So Rose helped him, and probably saved his song from ending—a couple of times.

She couldn't get over the sweet, old man he'd become, though. He still looked fairly young, but he wasn't.

The Doctor couldn't get over the experienced, motherly woman his Rose had become. It seemed like they hardly knew each other. But— they loved each other twice as much as before.

The Time Lords defeated, the Master dead, and President Obama restored, they finally said their good-byes to Jack and Mickey and Martha and Donna and Wilfred, setting out with the Tardis with the unspoken destination of the parallel world in which Rose now lived in mind. Rose wouldn't dream of not returning to her family, of course; her children were in the parallel world, and her parents; and so many friends, too.

The Tardis floated through the spatial chasm, the 'tunnel' between parallel worlds, which the Time Machine created herself, presumably taking them back through the loosed channels the Gallifreyan white-point star had created.

They were alone together at last.

"Twenty-one years since we met," the Doctor remarked quietly, sitting on his bench, watching Rose with a slight smile in his ancient eyes. "For me, anyway." Suddenly, he noticed something strange about what Rose was doing. "Where did you learn to fly the Tardis?"

"From John," she replied softly, continuing to work the controls without turning to face him. There was such a peaceful quiet in the room it made her seem more beautiful, in a way he'd never seen her before. For once, he was content to sit and watch her, instead of rushing about.

"How is he?" he asked curiously, wondering how his metacrisis twin had ever allowed Rose to leave the universe he'd left them in.

Rose stopped, hands hovering over the controls. "He died last year."

The Doctor's smile instantly faded and was replaced by a horrified stare. He couldn't believe what he had heard. "What? How?"

She turned halfway toward him, her eyes down and her mouth twisted. "Same thing as Donna, just not as bad, not at first." she shivered and met his eyes with soft tears in her own.

"I—I never thought that would happen," the Doctor stammered.

"I know you didn't," she sniffed and smiled a tiny bit.

"Rose, I'm so sorry…"

He awkwardly reached out to here, stopping and pulling back halfway, because he didn't want to cause her even more pain.

"Don't be," she interrupted, suddenly showing concern for him, as he had for her. She launched into the story. "'Was five years before we knew anything was wrong. We got married, started growin' the Tardis. We'd just had our second baby—s'all we had time for, before he got sick. He figured out what it was before anyone else did. He was dyin' all along. He made it two and a half more years. Then he left."

Tears started to roll down her cheeks, and the Doctor stared at the precious, shining drops in shocked silence. "I could've saved him," he whispered, thinking of how he saved Donna.

"No, you couldn't," she told him, as firmly as her voice would allow. She sighed and turned her attention back to the Tardis controls. "I knew I could save you; that's why I came back. You didn't know. You couldn'tve known."

"I look like him," he pointed out, moving toward her with his forehead wrinkled in concern. "D—does it hurt? To have me here, I mean—"

She shook her head, wiping at her eyes. "No! I know you both well enough to tell you apart."

Convinced it was okay now, he finally reached out and took her in his arms, where she buried her golden head in his coat and they leaned on each other for comfort. "I love you," she said through her tears, surprising him.

"—I—I love you, too," he replied after a moment's hesitation. It wasn't as hard as he'd thought it would be, just to say it.

After a few sweet, endearing moments, Rose suddenly took a step back and slapped him.

"WHAT?!" the Doctor nearly shouted. "Not you, too!" Pretty much all his friends had slapped him at some time or another, but never Rose!

"Seventeen years!" Rose near-shouted back, although she was trying hard not to smile. "That's way too long to be alone! What's the matter with you? You're lucky to be alive!"

"I know, I know!" he groaned, pretending to be embarrassed. It was the first time he'd carried himself with such animation in, oh, God only knew how long. "And what about you, Rose Tyler, don't tell me you haven't wished to have your old Doctor back to keep you company, if only some days," he grinned, raising his eyebrows at her wickedly.

"Only every day since you left us behind," she answered sassily.

They each ran out of lines to pull on each other, at least for the time being, and suddenly exploded into laughter, almost falling over as they held onto the console to steady themselves. It took such a beautiful long time for them to stop, because every time they tried to something in one would snap, some last spear in their souls from the past, and they'd start all over again, till they were both on the floor with tears of laughter streaming down their cheeks, stomachs aching and holding hands again like of old.

It must've been hours before they settled down, and hours more before the Doctor finally spoke again. "Travel with me," He flashed a brighter grin than he had used in years.

Rose sort of winced, not wanting to disappoint him, but, oh, they'd had such a good time in these few minutes together! "I—can't, I have babies," she reminded him.

"I love babies!" he wasn't deterred in the slightest.

She laughed. "But—but—my mum and dad—"

"I'm plenty old enough to be your dad," he remarked archly, causing her to double over with laughter again.

"But—the kids—it's only been a year; they'll think you're him."

"Well, they've seen identical twins before, haven't they? Honestly, Rose, what kind of a sheltered life have you been giving them?"

Rose's smile didn't go anywhere, and she couldn't answer because she was trying to catch her breath, so the Doctor continued, no longer in a jesting way.

"Kids are clever, Rose, they'll figure it out, if we tell them. They already know about the Doctor, right? See, we can do this. We'll make it work." He SO wanted her to come back!

Rose sniffed. "Maybe we will," she gave him a wobbly smile. "Just maybe—but, Doctor, I—I can't tell you now."

She smiled at his confused look and proceeded to explain. "I can't make decisions like you do. I need time, I just need—" he put his arm around her to show that he understood, "I need like, a week or so, at least. 'S that okay?"

"Um, can I leave you in Bad Wolf Bay for a week or so and pick you up in a few minutes?"

Rose tossed her head. "No, 'cause I wanna talk to you, you stupid alien you," she teased. The Doctor rolled his eyes.

"That long?"

"Cause, if this is the last week I see you, I wanna enjoy every minute of it."

Finally nodding in understanding, he reached over and kissed the top of her head. Born in love with her or no, he loved her now like a daughter more than a lady-friend. Finally she understood that, too, and he hoped, he just hoped, it would make it easier for her to decide.

He was no replacement for John, poor John Smith, his brother. Maybe someday he and Rose would fall in love again, but that didn't matter now. He was just the Doctor, a Time Lord, off to see the universe.

And he needed a hand to hold.

THE END

So we're at the end, my friends. Thank you all again for reading. Please tell me what you think in the reviews section, and follow me for more stories!

God bless you all and give you abundant peace, no matter where life takes you.

~Marina