Disclaimer: To this day, I have to my name a pillow, a chipped coffee mug, a one-eyed stuffed monkey, and a cat named Hamburger Phone, but no Doctor Who. Then again, they say dogs have owners and cats have staff, so…

A/N: Set during GitF. Alternate ending. What if the fireplace had been connected to the network? How will the Doctor get home now?

The Long Way

The Doctor gazed up at the stars in the night sky. A familiar view but so far away from home. He hadn't stopped to think. He hardly ever did. That was how he worked. He dealt with the consequences when everything had been said and done. Now, as he searched the black blanket above, he wondered if the consequences this time were too high a price to pay for what he'd had to do. When her face floated through his mind, he closed his eyes, wishing it away. He did a quick calculation in his head. 3243 years.

He opened his eyes again, sadness enveloping him. When he'd broken through the glass, he hadn't thought of it as leaving her. Because he always found his way back to her. Nothing, not time, nor Daleks, not space itself could get between them. Nothing had changed. It might take him over three thousand years to get back to her, but he would make it one way or another. The long way. He never thought it'd come to that, but here he was. As he focused on one bright star, he thought of her once more, and he envied her. For her, it would be but mere minutes.

Still, he knew what he had to do, and he didn't hesitate a second to do it. Give him time, he would find her again. Always would. And that's why he hadn't hesitated.

Rose was fresh out of tears. She felt empty, completely and utterly alone. Mickey was there. Always was, but all she could feel within and outside of her was the void left by his absence. She stared straight ahead into nothingness, hearing nothing, feeling nothing. Five hours and twenty-five minutes. She was keeping an exact count. She wondered what she would do when she ran out of numbers.

Tired, Mickey had slipped silently into the TARDIS. He'd given up trying to speak to her exactly three hours, seven minutes and thirty seconds ago. Unconsciously, she played with the key to the spaceship. She tortured herself thinking about what would happen next. Or even worse…what wouldn't. Her eyes prickled and burned, but remained dry. She had nothing left to cry.

A thousand scenarios had gone through her head at this point. In her mind, she saw him turning the corner, a mischievous smile crossing his face. She saw him slipping out through the TARDIS doors. Miraculously appearing back through the brick wall. Sliding through the fireplace. Doing the impossible. Always achieving what couldn't be done. At the resulting silence, she wondered if his number was up. Because he'd never made her wait more than an hour before he came back to her before.

When something clattered in the hallway beyond, she ignored it, convinced it was but another figment of her imagination. Just one more hopeless scenario among thousands. Footsteps. No doubt she was having delusions now. Voices. That was it. She'd gone round the bend. At least that's what she thought until a very familiar man appeared in her line of sight. And he was smiling.

She stared in disbelief, her mouth open in awe. "J-." She hesitated, unsure still if she was just seeing things. "Jack?" She managed.

His smile grew wider when she spoke his name. "One and only." He held his arms open. "Come here."

Stiffly, she placed her feet to the floor and approached him slowly. "How-."

He gathered her in his arms and held him to her tightly. "Doesn't matter. We're here now," was all he murmured.

She heard a second set of footsteps and gently disentangled herself from Jack to peek around him to see what he meant by "we". She had to admit that she'd expected it, but shock still froze her in place. He stopped in his tracks when their eyes met.

Tears she hadn't known she still possessed sprung newly to her eyes. He took a step forward, his eyes blazing.

"Doctor." Her voice shook with pain. And that was all it took. He rushed forward and gathered her in his arms, pressing himself tightly to her. She burrowed her face into his shoulder. He held her there, resting his head on hers and closing his eyes. The smell. The feel. All so right and familiar. It could have been just yesterday that they'd stood like this. But it wasn't. 3000 years did a lot to a man. He pulled her away from him but kept her close. He put a finger under her chin and tilted her head up. In a swift move he'd been waiting over a thousand years to make, he crushed his lips to hers. And everything they'd both been feeling in the eternity since they'd seen each other went into that kiss.

Only when he realized she needed to breathe did he pull back. They were both short of breath, and the tears in her eyes had dried to be replaced by something else. As he gasped, he caressed her skin. "How long did you wait?"

"Five and a half hours," she managed, all the pain of the past forgotten, healed in the one short blissful moment they'd just shared. Healed for them both. He could almost forget the span of years he'd waited to get back to her. Her eyes searched his, looking for answers he couldn't give. "What 'bout you?"

His breathing back to normal, he brought his face near hers again. In all the time, they hadn't let each other go. "Three thousand," he paused and kissed her forehead. "Two hundred." He kissed her fluttering eye. "Forty." Tip of her nose. "Three." Corner of her lips. "Years." Her cheek. "Two months." Her jaw. "One week." Her chin. "Three days." Her bottom lip. "Seven hours." The other corner of her lips. "Two minutes." Her top lip. "And forty-three. Hold it. Forty-five seconds." Then he captured her lips in another desperate kiss.

This time, it was she pulled back to give him time to breathe. Resting her forehead against his chest, she caught her breath, then asked, "You've been counting?"

"Every excruciating second. And do you know what I've decided?"

His tone made her look straight up into his eyes.

He tightened his hold around her waist. "I am never letting you out of my sight again."

"No complaint from me," she answered in a daze before letting him embrace her tightly again.

A/N: The fluff is getting out of control here, people. Taking on a life of its own. Can't control it. Then again it's better than angst on steroids, though we all like a little bit of emo these days… Do you know what really thuper duper upsets me? That Sunday, July 26th at approximately 10 am Pacific time, David Tenant will be less than 25 miles from me, yet we are separated by the harbor, convention center walls and lack of Comic Con badges. Same goes for John Barrowman. This makes me sad. And emo. Review, and maybe I'll feel inspired to forge a badge and get kicked out just as I steal their hankies…do they even own hankies…?