Life somehow didn't feel complete in this instant. Rose knew what she perceived, was aware of her existence. But she felt so distant from everything that occurred around her. Like she viewed everything through a translucent shell, like rubber coated her fingertips.

At least she had her mother, her father, a tiny voice nagged. At least she had Mickey.

That was all she had, initially. She had awoken on a table, polyester sheets loosely draped around her thighs, tubes running up her nostrils and down her throat. She gagged, and a loud beeping immediately screeched from one of the many machines she was hooked up to.

She could hardly remember much, other than faces crowding around her. Her family, Mickey, doctors, nurses.

She was a miracle, they said. For no conceivable reason she had been found passed out in one of the labs. The doctors had just started her on a new set of stimulants, apparently they managed to revive her from her almost half year of unconsciousness.

They never quite determined what had caused the coma, the only visible symptoms that Rose experienced were pains in her chest that only got more and more intense in the few weeks that followed. A long term prescription to duty painkillers numbed her up pretty well.

Of course they had her seeing a therapist. "What did you see?" asked an aging woman with gray hair and wrinkly caramel skin.

"Nothing," said Rose, her blank eyes staring directly at some faded spot on the manilla painted walls. "Absolutely nothing."

It was so easy to lie. What she had experienced had been nothing more than a dream, she knew it.

She soon met a man named John through her work, with gelled hair and caramel eyes. He didn't quite look like her doctor, but she could pretend. One marriage. No kids, though they tried. One death, he contracted kidney cancer and died soon thereafter just two years in.

"How are you doing?" Mickey asked. He still asked her everyday, leaning in the door of her office with a mug of coffee. Rose didn't even know why, he'd met a lovely girl by the name of Martha and they'd had three beautiful children.

Rose didn't look up from her work as she stamped a document, passing it on into an overflowing tray of abandoned projects. "All right," she said flatly. "You?"

"Fine," Mickey said, nodding. He paused, remaining standing in her door. Usually he left at this point, Rose noted.

"Rose, we've found something," Mickey said finally. Rose turned to him, eyes wide.

"Unusual patterns in the rift," Mickey shouted over the sound of drills to Rose, as they proceeded into what appeared to be a construction site. "The signals are originating from a point around twenty feet underground here, I thought you'd be interested."

A massive gaping cavern opened up in the middle of the dig site, and a huge towering crane had a chain dangling deep into the crevice. "Not quite sure what it is from this distance, but we've gotten a hold of something pretty huge, possibly trace materials from an alien spacecraft," Mickey yelled. Rose stepped slightly closer to the wire fence that enclosed the hole, squinting behind her protection goggles. The chain was visibly tugging upwards, but very slowly, carrying something that obviously was of a significant weight.

Rose turned away, already exhausted, for anything that required any degree of thought about the rift and alien technology getting through only dredged up pain. "Mickey, it looks like it's going to be a while, and I really have a lot of paperwork-"

"Wait, Rose!" Mickey exclaimed, grabbing her shoulder as she had slowly started to proceed away. "It looks like whatever it is is coming up now!"

Rose sighed, turning back to the site, and immediately froze.

Blue.

Blue wood.

She could hear Mickey's gasp beside her, but like it was through water, echoing distantly in her ears.

The TARDIS, entirely intact, slowly pulled out of the gaping cavern in the ground, and the crane lowered it on the rough dirt, just outside the fence.

Some force outside of Rose's control propelled her, and she wordlessly shoved past anybody who stood in her way, through the throngs of scientist and technicians that flooded around the ship, not caring, not caring at all.

But she could do only so much as a crowd of one, and she soon found herself stuck in the midst of everyone, at least four meters away from the people in white coats who prodded at the machine, testing it's doors, it's walls, to no avail. "You can't open it," Rose wanted to shout, but her throat had gone entirely dry.

Suddenly, doors creaked open, and Rose felt as though she would have a heart attack. The scientists who just a moment ago had been prodding the wood curiously now stumbled back, shouting and yelping in terror.

Silence. Complete and total silence from everybody.

"Thanks lads, but I could have gotten out m'self y'know!" a genial northern voice called. And there he was. The doctor. Her Doctor, rubbing his shaven head as he stepped out of the doors, squinting in the daylight.

"I 'spose I got to take the scenic route, eh?" he said, excitedly rubbing his hands together. He very clearly didn't care that there were at least 20 guns trained on him right at that exact moment. "No worries, had plenty of experience with that. The last earth I was on had purple sand and entirely uninhabitable atmosphere, can you imagine? Now I 'spose-" he looked around the crowd of mostly terrified faces, "this place is a little more populated-"

The Doctor froze as his eyes locked with Rose's.

"D-doctor-" Rose could even say any more as a choking sob fell out of her throat, tears streaming down her face.

For a moment, Rose was filled with terror, that it wouldn't be him, that he wouldn't know. He only stared at her, and for the first time in her life Rose could swear that he was lost for words, his mouth ajar. And then she saw it, heard him give a great shuddering sigh, as tears ran down his own cheeks. "Rose," he croaked. "Rose, I've found you."

And Rose didn't care, she couldn't care less about how many people she plummeted past as she ran, she sprinted towards him. She couldn't care less about terrified screams, guns cocking men shouting "stay away, stay away," as her feet pounded in the dirt.

All she could see was him, now, and pray to anyone that this was real, that he wouldn't be some robot or hallucination or dream trapped inside of her mind.

And then he was there and it was glorious and she could feel herself being lifted off of the ground both metaphorically and physically as he lifted her off her feet and spun her around and around, yelling in joy.

"I love you I love you I love you I love you!" Rose sobbed in his ear as he set her down, holding her so tightly she could shatter. "I never got to to tell you Doctor, I love you so much!"

"Oh Rose, I know," he cried in her hair, his hands possessively clawing into her shoulder blades. "I searched everywhere Rose, from universe to universe. "So many times, so many places you have no idea how long I journeyed I-"

Rose pulled away, their faces mere centimeters from eachother, and cut him off mid-word has she placed her arms around his neck, planting her lips on his. They both swayed slightly, and the Doctor's hand snaked into her hair, pulling her even closer, and they-

"Step away from the alien immediately," A harsh voice called. The Doctor immediately pulled away from Rose, and she became overwhelmingly aware of their current position, blushing. Despite them no longer being connected at the mouth, his hands still rested on her elbows.

Rose tried to shift away, to face the cross behind her, but the Doctor didn't release her. "Doctor, you need to let go, you could get shot!"

The Doctor turned away from whoever it was whom had shouted, looking down at her face. "Frankly my dear," he said, smiling cheekily. "I don't give a damn." He immediately grabbed her hand, and before a single word could be uttered he yanked her into the TARDIS, the door slamming behind them.

The Doctor rushed up to the console, flipping a switch, and the machine roared to life. "Was that a little cliché?" He shouted over the din. "I can't help but feel like that was a little cliché, not usually one to unnecessarily quote literature, but I just felt in the exact moment that-"

"Doctor!" Rose said sharply. The Doctor immediately stopped in his rambling, turning to her abruptly.

"Doctor, how are you here?" asked Rose, running up to the console platform to stand beside him. "How did you even get here,it shouldn't have been possible-"

"I had a signature from your universe was, Rose," said the Doctor, cutting her off. "When the time beetle was torn from your body, and you said wanted to see your mother, I re-routed the signal to teleport your body to my universe to your universe. I then took the TARDIS back to my universe and only allowed you entrance through holograph form, for fear I would rip a hole in the rift from excessive travel. However-" he reached over and pressed a couple of buttons, turning away from her for a second. "This universe was a different root universe than mine, and I already tore a pathway between the two universes by dropping off your body and then traveling back to mine. I used the same pathway, then sealed it behind me when I came back to this universe, and since it had been only travelled twice, there was no long lasting damage. Problem was, there were many parallel universes to this one, and I had to search and travel very long to find you, and-" he took a deep breath. "Point is, I'm here now. I've found you Rose," he said tenderly, cupping her cheek.

Rose didn't even know how to respond, this was too unreal. She placed a hand over his hand and sighed contentedly, shutting her eyes. "Where are we going?" she finally asked.

"Well-" said the Doctor, dashing away from her towards the monitor on the console. "I've gotten an energy signature on another time lord, a notification of sorts. When the TARDIS locates another one of my kind, I am usually able to latch onto the signal and locate whomever it is. That's actually what I was on track towards, and I just so happened to coincidentally land on your planet in your universe. Though the signal is as strong as ever, I can't manage to navigate the TARDIS any nearer or farther to it, we're just floating in the rift…" The Doctor trailed off as something flashed on the screen.

"Doctor, what is it?" asked Rose, walking up behind him.

"The energy signature…. Of the other other time lord...It's in the vortex…" said the Doctor slowly, pointing at red pulsing dot on his screen.

"As in…" murmured Rose, leaning over his hunched shoulder "Whoever it is has a TARDIS as well?"

"No…" said the Doctor, and she could see him visibly swallowing, his eyes widening. "The signature….It's coming from this ship."

Suddenly, he turned to her, a fearful, yet also hopeful look in his eyes. "Rose, I need you to stand still, very still," he practically whispered.

"Wha'...ok," Rose said hesitantly, standing slightly taller. The Doctor pulled the monitor away from the console, extending it's accordion-like horizontal stand so the screen hovered right in front of her chest. There was a low droning noise, and then silence.

The Doctor froze mouth ajar, then slowly, a huge smile broke across his face. "Rose, you have to see this," he whispered.

Rose hurriedly came around the the screen that he was looking at. At first she wasn't completely certain what she was looking at, but then she could make it out. A blurry x-Ray of her chest cavity. But then something else, something so astounding became visible to her, that she gasped, feeling rather faint. "Oh lord Doctor, there's-"

"Two hearts," the Doctor said fervently. "Two hearts Rose. You have two hearts."

Suddenly it all came rushing into her mind. The chest pains. The infertility. "Doctor, I'm a-I'm a...time-lady," Rose choked.

"Well, not 100% sure on that yet, but-" the Doctor very suddenly reached for her hand and placed her finger in a small cylindrical contraption that extended from the monitor. Rose winced as she felt a small pricking in her skin, immediately retracting her hand.

The screen flashed white for a moment, a loading wheel appearing on its surface, and then 5 words scrolled across the screen, followed by a great deal of statistics.

DNA ANALYSIS COMPLETE: TIME LORD

"Oh...my god," said Rose, not even beginning to be able to comprehend the emotions that filled her heart. "Oh my god!" she yelled, turning to the grinning Doctor. Not having to worry anymore about spectators, she threw her arms around his neck, kissing him fully.

"How?" was the first question she asked, as they sat on the railing of the TARDIS, floating listlessly through the vortex.

"Time lords aren't that genetically different from humans," said the Doctor. "What makes us so definitely different is our exposure to the time vortex, during development in the womb. However, you experienced such drastic exposure in not only your travel between universes, but also your creation of one, that it physically altered your genetic composition."

The joy of realising she was now going to be the same as the Doctor was slowly fading away. "This means…" said Rose slowly. "I'm gonna live forever."

"No, not forever," the Doctor corrected, the arm that rested across her shoulders clenching her slightly closer. "All time lords die eventually, and we haven't a way of seeing if you have regenerative capacities yet. But yes….you will have a prolonged life."

They were both silent for a moment, caught in their own individual thoughts.

"I don't think…" Rose whispered "...I would mind a prolonged life… If it was with you."

Rose wasn't even looking at face, but she could tell the Doctor was smiling. "Y'know Rose Tyler," he said cheerfully. "I don't think I would mind either."

Rose smiled slightly, and pressed her face into the shoulder of his leather jacket. She had no idea of what was coming for her in her future, but she was content with this now, this tiny slice of what was to come.

The Doctor and Rose Tyler, in the TARDIS.

(AN) I honestly do not know if anybody is keeping up on this fic anymore considering how rarely I uploaded, but I just had to give it a definite conclusion. I'm definitely proud, however unsteady it is, because this is my first long term fanfic I've ever finished, almost two years in the making. I might write an epilogue, might just leave it how it is. I have to thank all of the people who ever supported this fic and left feedback, especially those who have stuck through to the end. I couldn't done it without you. Hopefully you enjoyed it!