*tumbleweed blows past* Anyone still out there? I know it's been months, but here it is, my Christmas present to you all: the Final Chapter!

~OOO~

-Chapter 24-

At first all I felt was the returning pressure of the Doctor's hands as he squeezed my fingers back, but soon that sensation was replaced with a new feeling. This feeling was something that I had only felt once before, when I had been so utterly desperate that I'd been willing to do absolutely anything in order to make it go away. And then the sensation of the Doctor's hands faded away and I jerked my eyes open in surprise.

The world around me no longer show-cased the stone walls of the Acumen's Sanctuary, instead everything, from the room to the very air, had transformed into a shimmering, pulsating, golden light. I couldn't make out anything solid; it was if I'd stumbled into a hurricane of glitter. Quickly, I looked down at my hands, needing the solid connection of the Doctor's fingers wrapped around my own to reassure me that I wasn't alone in this, and a wave of abrupt and encompassing panic rippled over me when discovered that I could no longer see him.

"Doctor?!" His name tore out of my throat in a tremulous half-whisper half-cry, immediately swallowed up by the vortex of light swirling around me, and I spun in a quick circle, straining to see through the luminous air. There was nothing, not even a shadow or a silhouette, to indicate the presence of another body nearby.

Swallowing back the instinct to call out again, I tried to calm myself down. After all, this was part of my plan. Well, sort of. When the Doctor had reminded me of the last time I'd done this I'd been shocked. Because the first time I'd connected to the heart of the TARDIS I'd nearly burned my mind and soul, and it had cost him one of his lives. The second time he'd been aware of what I was doing, but was still adamantly against the risk, never mind the change in the balance—me having so much less of the vortex within me that time, him fighting to hold on this body because he knew how I felt about it…both of us caught in a web of desperation. But this time, he must have known that we were both dead without chance of reprieve if we didn't try something, and so the risk was justified no matter the cost.

But something felt different this time. It wasn't just threads of golden memory teasing at my consciousness this go around. It was as if the entire world had been absorbed by the combination of the vortex and my connection to it through the TARDIS, and the very atmosphere around me now seemed to pulse to the heartbeat of the universe.

And then a whisper brushed past the back of my neck.

It was barely a murmur, so soft that I was only aware of the sensation of words because of the way the air shifted against my skin. The words themselves were swallowed up by the glittering storm raging around me, both a roar of sound and silent at the same time. The whisper came again, and this time it was accompanied by a tendril of blue smoke drifting out of the light and curling around my ankles before being sucked away again.

"Knowledge…"

The bodiless Voice sent a chill through me. Despite being unable to see anyone beyond my own physical form, I knew the Voice at once as the hungry, greedy, hiss emitted by the Acumen, and this horrifying realization sent me twisting in a dizzying circle, straining to see through the tornado of light but unable locate it.

"Yessss…. We are pleased with thisss…" the Voice wheezed again, the eerie double echo seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. I twisted again, turning awkwardly just in time to see two more tendrils of blue smoke break through the light and wind their way up my legs teasingly before unravelling and blowing away once more.

The Acumen was here. Oh god. It was here and I'd just cracked the seal on the biggest feast of its existence. What if I'd been wrong? What if the Doctor hadn't meant for me to tap back into the Time Vortex one last time and I'd just handed his greatest enemy the key to ultimate power?!

The air around me felt pleasantly warm despite the chill seeping through my veins, and I tried to reign my emotions back in and focus. Something was telling me that the Acumen wasn't yet strong enough to come fully through despite what I'd done. But who knew how long it would take for that to change? The air had started to heat during the seconds it had taken me to make this observation, and the beginnings of a headache were starting to grow behind my eyes.

Something nudged at the back of my mind then, and I nearly cried out with joy.

"Doctor?" I thought quickly, turning this way and that, as if he would materialize out of the golden maelstrom any second. "Where are you? Tell me what to do next!"

But the only sound was the rushing wind around me, the only feeling the steadily increasing heat. My skin started to prickle like the beginning of a sunburn, and my headache throbbed, causing me to clutch reflexively at my skull. Then the nudge came again, dim, but persistent, and finally I realized what it was.

Nudge. Anxiousness.

Nudge. Worry.

Nudge. Encouragement.

The TARDIS' humanlike feelings teased at the edges of my mind even as the smoky tendrils from the Acumen returned, poking out of the glowing fog like some creepy, semi-translucent octopus, pawing blindly at the air. It was strange, really, that a quasi-consciousness like that found in a Time Lord's ship, could send out a mental awareness that resonated so well with human emotions, and yet, since I'd fully bonded with the TARDIS I'd stopped questioning that fact. The TARDIS was linked to the Doctor through some sort of Time Lord Physics which he had, to be fair, tried to explain to me at some point; however, like most things the Doctor explained, after a while I had stopped listening halfway though and just accepted it as incomprehensible reality.

I felt comforted by the TARDIS' presence in my head, but the feeling was dimmed by the growing reality of my physical discomfort. There was power running through my veins that I imagined must feel like—well, I'd never been struck by lightning, but the hot, intense flash of electricity that was surging through every part of me was somehow reminiscent of that sensation.

My very skin burned, and when I glanced down at my body I was vaguely startled at the soft golden glow emanating from every bare surface. The light coming from somewhere inside me should probably have been terrifying—after all it's not as if it's in a human's nature to suddenly make like a glow worm—but it wasn't.

Behind me there was abruptly a cold sensation, like a harsh breeze had suddenly whipped up, and I turned slowly to see what was there. Ragalagh stood behind me, looking the same as he had on the physical plane, only now he was surrounded by long tendrils of blue smoke. The Acumen hovered around Ragalagh like a cloak, or a ghost, not quite touching, but still very much there. The acuite soldier's eye's still glowed neon blue, and right now his gaze had locked scornfully on mine.

"Whatever it is you were trying to accomplish, human," he began in the Acumen's echoing voice, "We thank you. You have opened the gate to an unending field of the New." His body flickered slightly, and then solidified, before moving toward where I stood. The feeling of cold intensified and the waves of blue smoke stretched up into the air and hovered around me like reaching tentacles.

"I will give you one chance to turn away."

The words came out of my mouth with their own sense of foreign familiarity, as if they were both mine and not of this world. Something about the sound of my own voice just now tickled at a memory deeply suppressed.

Ragalagh laughed harshly, and gestured at our glittering surroundings. "You have no authority to give Us orders, human. Your consciousness is absorbed by Us. We control your thoughts now, there shall be no more hiding…"

The smoky tendrils dove gracefully through the air to wrap around my limbs and torso, binding themselves around my skin as tightly as if they were made of leather.

"You seek to overwhelm Us with the quantity of the Time Vortex…" the hissing non-voice came again, this time twisting sinuously around me from Elsewhere, as Ragalagh's mouth wasn't moving. "It will not work. We glory in the knowledge to be found there… We will rise to become the only being with True Understanding…"

A tiny shock zinged though the back of my head at these words. The Doctor had warned me that the Acumen would know our thoughts as soon as we gave rise to them, but I had honestly thought it wouldn't matter once I made the connection to the Vortex. Apparently that hadn't held true.

"You are foolish…" I heard myself retort coldly, somehow not feeling the appropriate concern over the tightening clamps the Acumen had attached to my body. "You may be a sentient being, but laying claim to the sparks of life does not give you the right to pillage knowledge from any creature you deem less worthy than yourself!" The chastisement was clear in my voice, the same odd assurance ringing through every word.

Cold laughter echoed around me now, strained, but cruel nonetheless. "And you seek to place yourself above Us?" The question was seeped in incredulous mirth. "You are nothing!"

"I am everything!" I snapped back, anger and arrogance thick in the voice that wasn't my own.

The last word I'd shouted echoed around the pair of us with a ring of authority that would have sent my feet stumbling back if I'd been a casual observer. Across from me, Ragalagh's body trembled the faintest bit; and around me the gripping smoke seemed to loosen for a fraction of a second. With no warning, words began to pour from my lips as if someone else had taken control.

"I am everywhere! I AM ALWAYS!"

The words punctured the golden storm like bullets, sending shimmering waves though the mist as they appeared, physically scrolling across the air as I shouted, then fading into oblivion once more.

My skin was on fire now, glaring golden light flaring out from my fingertips, my arms, my face…blazing from my eyes. There was no turning back now. This, as the Doctor had said, was all or nothing, and if we wanted even the slimmest chance of winning this fight I had to completely give over to the Consciousness that had once gripped me, so long ago.

"I am the Bad Wolf…" came calmly from my lips, and the storm around us intensified. "I see all that is, all that was, and all that ever will be…"

"And through you, so too will we…" the Acumen hissed, sounding slightly more agitated than before. "We are feeding on your thoughts even now… And your mind is burning. It has been damaged from your struggle. You are not strong enough to hold Us back… Let go… and your death will be merciful…"

"I desire not to restrain you…" Bad Wolf spoke slowly, and the words only halfway surprised me as I heard myself speak them. "Only to warn you that no being is meant to weld this power. As you said, this body is slowly burning from within, that is the sacrifice I am willing to make…"

"You seek to deceive!" the Acumen hissed vehemently back, its voice harsh as a north wind. "You think your claims on this pathway to knowledge are the only viable ones? We will not be tricked so easily!"

Somewhere in the back of my head the consciousness that was still my own, still Rose Tyler from a tiny apartment in London, with a mother who waited every day for the wheezing sound of a blue box to announce the safe return of her daughter, who had wanted an out from her boring, normal, everyday life, and who had seen and experienced so much… somewhere that tiny spark flickered in fear. Taking on the persona of Bad Wolf again as the Vortex ran through a mind so thoroughly damaged as my own had as much as signed my own death certificate.

Suddenly I felt very lost and alone.

The Acumen was correct about one thing; despite the tiny fractures that I was starting to sense in it as the Acumen fought back against Bad Wolf, my human body and mind were not strong enough to maintain a link with the Time Vortex for much longer. If I didn't let go soon there would be no point in keeping on fighting: I'd be dead, my brain fried if nothing worse, and who knew what would happen to the Doctor. Abruptly everything in me seized with an intense and white-hot pain. I gasped, and nearly fell to my knees.

Doctor!

You can do this, Rose. The burden is not yours alone this time.

The words swam through my mind slowly, and it took me a moment before the fogginess fell away enough for me to realize that the Doctor had really spoken to me. My body shuddered again and I cried out, dropping to one knee as somewhere near me Ragalagh let out a cold laugh.

I can't… I cried out mentally, the anguish inside me pouring out into my words. Doctor, it hurts…!

Let me through, Rose. You've created a barrier. The Doctor's voice was tense but insistent, pushing at the fragile edges of my mind in a frantic yet restrained manner. He was desperate to connect with me, knowing that if I was to have any chance to survive we needed to be linked, but also understanding that he could well be the one to kill me if I couldn't handle letting him in with everything else I was struggling to fight at the same time.

The pain in my head throbbed violently once more and a scream of agony wrenched itself from my raw throat. The Acumen's grip on me tightened, seeming to gain more physicality with every painful beat of my heart.

"Give in…." It crooned, cinching its tendrils around my limbs until it felt as if all my senses had been cut off.

Refusing to give up I continued to struggle weakly, searching desperately through the fog of my own head for a way to let the Doctor in.

Doctor… help me…

I could feel the blackness of unconsciousness starting to bleed in at the edges of my vision, and it became a battle in itself just to hold my head up. No. I thought dully, my thought sounding far away, faded compared to the battle cry of Bad Wolf, but no less in its own fierceness. No! I won't give in! Doctor, please… I need you!

With what felt like the very last vestiges of my strength I reached blindly into the void and groped wildly for anything that might feel like a Time Lord consciousness. It was like fumbling around in a dark room, unable to find a wall or an exit and yet feeling like at any second I was going to run face-first into a set of bricks. Tension coiled in my mental body, overlaid with anxiousness and fear, and then, with no warning, the floor dropped away and I plunged into an unending oblivion.

~OOO~

Something caught my hand and jerked my descending body to a halt mid-fall—or the equivalent of that anyway. The Doctor's presence in my head ought to have been too much— I was already stretched to the mental breaking point as I fought to hold onto Bad Wolf and keep out the Acumen—but, strangely, it wasn't. It was warm, and solid and comforting; and instead of pushing me over the edge it hulled me back from it, steadying me and centering my focus.

I blinked, finding the blackness that had been steadily creeping in around my vision abruptly gone and the glittering gale back in place. Only this time I wasn't alone in the eye of the storm, facing down Ragalagh and the Acumen.

I could sense without turning that the Doctor now stood stoically next to me, his pinstripe suit immaculate and his brown eyes hard as he stared across at our enemies. But I looked anyway.

"Doctor, you are here."

"Yes, Rose, I'm here."

He pointedly addressed me, not Bad Wolf, and my cold fingers were suddenly engulfed in the warm and reassuring grip of his own as he helped me back to my feet. I could feel the Acumen's presence pressing on all sides, trying to find a crack in my mental shielding, but I felt stronger with the Doctor next me, and the howl of the Acumen's rage had been muted slightly.

"You cannot hold Us back much longer, human..." the Acumen hissed, and the pressure in the air around both me and the Doctor crackled with something akin to electricity.

"You are not strong enough to possess this power…" Bad Wolf took control of my lips once more, and I could see the blazing golden light pouring from my eyes reflected in the Doctor's own as he moved to stand in front of me, placing his body between Ragalagh and the Acumen and myself, though he didn't so much as blink.

The next moments would be pivotal. I could feel the power rising within me like the swelling of a tsunami, higher and higher, seconds away from crashing down and annihilating everything in its path, me and the Doctor notwithstanding. The twining blue smoke that wrapped around me had started to wind around the Doctor now too, and yet he didn't move from his place between the Acumen and Bad Wolf.

"Doctor, you must move now."

"No."

I should have expected nothing less from him, especially considering the amount of danger I was placing myself in, but that didn't stop me from fighting to save him.

"Your Time Lord genetics will not save you this time!" Bad Wolf informed the Doctor harshly, and I could see in his eyes that he knew this, that he knew that if he didn't leave now he would die, and that he still wouldn't go.

"I know, Rose," was all he said in response, and squeezed my fingers gently.

Doctor! The word was a broken sob in the back of my head, even as Bad Wolf continued to stare impassively at the Doctor. The Acumen had wound itself as tightly around the Doctor as it had my own body now, and the smoky tendrils had begun to glow the sickly colour of chemical waste. I wanted to stop this. It was inexpressibly selfish of me, but I would have given up everything, let worlds burn and civilizations be destroyed, just to save the one man standing in front of me. And yet, it was because of him that I knew I couldn't let myself give in to that temptation.

"You have been warned!" As the words passed my lips with a shout of authority, I felt the pulse of the Vortex swell in my chest, followed immediately by my entire body seizing up. The Acumen exploded toward me at the same moment, and now both the Doctor across from me, and Ragalagh behind him, were flung into the air, as reality as we knew it exploded.

The same invasive spikes of pain drove into my brain, and I knew that the Acumen was trying to find a way to absorb Bad Wolf, to figure out how to access the Time Vortex and somehow weave those constructs into the recesses of its own makeup; but this time it was different. It wasn't that the pain was any less than it had been before, but the access to my memories was blocked off.

A scream ripped from my throat, a tangle of anguish and terror, but also rage and determination. I would not give up this time. I would not allow the Doctor to be hurt. Every cell, every fiber of my being felt like it was on fire, like it was burning in acid, and yet I refused to let go. I would let Bad Wolf burn me to a cinder before I stopped fighting back.

~OOO~

Rose…

That voice…!

The place where our essences clashed was a nether space, both in reality and outside of it, but no less real for its wavering existence. The Acumen was struggling, vicious and single-minded in its quest, fighting for dominance and gaining…millimeter by millimeter…

Rose!

Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard him. The Doctor was calling to me, anchoring me in the chaos. Bad Wolf was still throwing everything she had at the Acumen, and I could feel the current of the Vortex channeling its power through my brain like a drilling tornado, burning my consciousness to ashes as it went…

Don't give up, Rose. You're stronger than this! You can do this!

I was so tired though. So very tired, and young, and just… human.

There was a silence then, if that concept could be said to exist within the raging battle of wills that was happening all around. Then came three words that pierced through the melee…

I need you.

It would be lying to say that everything stopped in that moment, but those words sliced through the fire in my mind and echoed in my head, over and over.

I need you. I need you. I need you….

"I need you too, Doctor."

When the sound of my own voice passed my lips it was as if a veil was lifted and the sound turned back up on the room. My eyes were suddenly able to see properly, and my body felt light, as if I'd thrown off a great weight.

The atmosphere around me still flickered, but I could suddenly see the Doctor again. He was standing in front of me, his head slightly bowed and his eyes closed, but his expression was serene. I glanced around when a warmth registered in my mind, and it was then that I realized the Doctor's hands were pressed against the sides of my head; his palms rested against my cheeks and two fingertips pressed against my temples on either side of my face. His face was a masque of concentration, still and focused, as he maintained the Connection with my mind. It was this, I now realized, that had saved me from completely burning out when the battle of wills had initially started. Even now, the sensation of agony and searing heat was lessoning in the back of my mind, and I understood that it was the Doctor who was causing that somehow.

Doctor? His name was a question and a cry of relief at the same time, and I reached up to grab hold of his wrists, trying to tug his hands free as the pain in my head seeped away to nothingness. I wanted to thank him, to tell him that, somehow, he'd managed to protect me from the Acumen's attack this time, but he would not be moved.

I felt a frown of confusion come over my face, and it was then that I felt the tension in the way the Doctor was holding his body. His hands gripped my head solidly, holding me still, though a faint tremor ran over his skin from the effort. A crease had formed between his eyebrows and his lips tightened into a thin line.

"No!" The word exploded from my lips like a battle cry. "No! Stop it! Stop it!" I yanked at the Doctor's wrists again, but I might as well have been tugging at stone for all the good it did. Not that that stopped me from trying over and over again to break the connection between the pair of us, because I'd just understood what the Doctor was really doing. Tears sprang to my eyes and I blinked furiously as I tried to twist my head away from the Doctor's unbreakable grip. "Don't you dare! Jus' don't you even dare, Doctor!"

I have to Rose. The words in my head froze my frantic movements for a few precious seconds, and my eyes snapped up to the Doctor's face. I'm so grateful for your strength and determination, you've brought us so far…but you need to let me do it from here.

"But you'll die…." The words were a sob as my fingers stopped clawing at the Doctor's hands and instead clung tightly to them. "Or worse…"

A battle of the minds was one thing, but I wasn't a fool, I had seen how the Doctor had been losing the fight back in the Sanctuary. I could feel all the energy draining out of me. I'd been willing to sacrifice myself if it meant that the Doctor would continue to live, continue to save and protect others, and do so much good in the worlds that he visited, but after all that he was just going to throw it all away in an act of martyrdom?

"Don't do this, Doctor," I pleaded, squeezing my eyes shut as if somehow that could hold back the Doctor's mental link. "Please… we've only just found each other again!"

There was silence from the Doctor, and I could sense through the bond that he didn't want to lie to me and tell me that my fears were unfounded. A sound broke past his determined expression just then, a small, yet shuddering, grunt of pain, before he was able to clamp his lips back together. My hands flew from his wrists to clutch at the Doctor's face at this tiny crack in his armor, and I was abruptly aware of the way he was struggling to breathe normally, to pretend that he wasn't in nearly unbearable pain. Because, despite his outward appearance, I knew exactly how he must be feeling, since up until a few minutes ago that had been my own burden.

Something strange happened when I touched him though. My reaction had been purely instinct, yet the moment my fingertips grazed the Doctor's temples his body gave a shudder, and then… seemed to relax.

Doctor?! My voice was panicked and tense, but insistent as I pushed into his consciousness in a final desperate act. What happened? Are you alright?

I… I think I am…! The Doctor's answering thought was confused and a little surprised, like he'd been thrown off kilter and the result was pleasing but completely unexpected. His next words were hesitant. What... did you do… Rose?

I didn't answer at first, because I honestly didn't know. I could feel the Doctor's mind relaxing more the longer I touched his face; it was as if contact with me soothed the raging tempest in his head, which, I realized, had to be the truth. Because hadn't he just done the same thing to me?

I could feel an echo of the pain from the Acumen start up again, a ghost of the original attack reviving as I took back part of the burden from the Doctor's head through basis of my touch. But it was manageable, somehow, and I found that I was able to think clearly now, unlike before.

Look at me, Doctor, I murmured, and after long seconds he blinked open his eyes. There was wonder in their brown depths as the Doctor's eyes met mine, and I moved closer to him so that he had to bend his head down slightly to keep holding my gaze. Don't you realize what's happening yet?

I could sense him thinking frantically, trying to decipher what had just occurred to me. It didn't take him long, and a wide grin split his face. Why look at you, Rose Tyler… he murmured lowly, the words teasing my mind in a mental caress. And I always claimed to be the clever one… I stand corrected.

I felt a smile tug at my own lips at the Doctor's silent banter, and responded by gently sliding my fingers over his temples again. The Doctor's body twitched at my touch and he moved even closer, so that our bodies were pressed up right against each other. Inwardly, I could feel the weight pressing at the shields of my mind lessoning, the longer the pair of us had mental contact. The Acumen now felt much like a rushing wind, but even that seemed to be diminishing. The prickling at the corners of my mind now felt like the fading annoyance of pins and needles… nearly gone.

The Doctor was very, very close to me now, and I could sense that he was experiencing the same lessoning sensations in his own head. I wondered how I hadn't thought about this course of action sooner. The Doctor had been correct in knowing that I was the only one who could call the heart of the TARDIS up again, having done it twice before—despite not being a Time Lord, the heartbeat of the TARDIS was aligned with mine by now—but he was the only one who could hold out long enough to channel the power of the Time Vortex without dying… at least outright, like I had almost succumbed to. But neither of us could do it alone.

Pushing up on my toes I reached toward the Doctor's face and tugged his head down so that I could brush my lips against his. He responded immediately, instinctively, deepening the kiss as his fingers tightened against my head.

Pulling back slightly, I met the eyes of the only man in the Universe who I would have died to protect, and murmured, "United we stand, divided we fall. That was the key all along, wasn't it?"

The Doctor was looking down at me, wonder shining in his dark eyes. "Balance," he murmured, his eyes never leaving my face. "That was the only way out there ever could be..."

Suddenly, a blood-curdling shriek of mixed agony and utter, devastating, rage, ripped through the air behind us. I was so startled that I nearly lost my grip on the Doctor's head, but he'd reacted instantly at the sound and pulled me hard against his chest, anticipating my flinch milliseconds in advance and managing to counteract it just in time. We both turned carefully to see where the sound had come from, and saw, to mutual surprise, Ragalagh sprawled on the ground—for lack of a more corporeal term, of the glittering nether-sphere we were grouped in. The slithering, glowing, blue tentacles of light that constituted the Acumen were writhing about his body, seemingly causing him immense pain.

I stared, transfixed, as Ragalagh curled in on himself, clawing at the Acumen's ethereal form, trying to push it off his limbs and torso with increasing terror. The harder and more frantically he attempted to twist away, the tighter the Acumen seemed to grip him, wringing howls of anguish from his tormented throat.

"It's killing him…" I whispered, unable to look away, and felt my own throat tighten as my eyes burned suspiciously.

"Yes," the Doctor concurred lowly, his voice quiet, but with the faintest trace of pity. "No honor among thieves, as they say."

Together we watched as the Acumen covered over Ragalagh's body until it was no longer visible, and then, in a firework of light, exploded out of existence.

"We have not given up…" came a faint hiss from out of the echoing silence following Ragalagh's death. "You have not defeated Us!" The Acumen's voice was thin as paper, brittle as a sheen of new ice, and yet still relentless in its defiance of reality.

The Doctor's face twisted, hardening as he stared coldly at the place where Ragalagh's body had been. "It's over," he said, his voice flat and beggaring no argument. "We've won. Now leave this place!"

"We shall not give in to a human… to a Time Lord…" the Acumen hissed, petulance in every syllable. "You cannot beat Us!"

"Defeated henchmen, demolished temple… yup, I'd say 'beaten' is an accurate description for your current state."

I blinked, looking around more closely at the sound of the quip tripping lightly off the Doctor's tongue. The glittering storm had vanished. We were back in the Sanctuary once more, only it was a mere echo of the grandeur it had once proclaimed. The massive wooden doors had been blasted apart, now hanging off their hinges, their boards splintered and singed. The pedestal where the Acumen had first held court had exploded into rubble, which now lay scattered across the wide expanse of the Sanctuary floor. And the walls of the great stone room looked as if someone had taken a wrecking ball to them. Huge chunks of rock lay smashed on the floor, leaving the walls half standing, looking like the after-effects of level-seven earthquake. The pair of us stood in the center of the room, still clasping each other's faces, and the Acumen hovered in a corner, a dimly glowing mist above a scattering of what looked like charred bones.

I gazed around the space in amazement. "What happened here?"

My question had been mostly rhetorical, but the Doctor answered anyway. "You happened."

Surprise washed over me and I stepped back from him in shock, jerking my hands quickly away from the Doctor's head, as if subconsciously worried I might blast him apart too if I kept touching him. The second I lost contact with the Doctor's skin my eyes shot to his in alarm, my body already lurching back toward him in a panic.

The Doctor had apparently expected this reaction because he swiftly caught my reaching hands in his own, wrapping his long fingers smoothly over mine and drawing me gently up against his side. "More aptly, I should say, Bad Wolf happened," he corrected himself, looking the tiniest bit abashed. "All that power wasn't just swirling about nowhere, you know. Once summoned, the Vortex couldn't be fully contained, no matter what vessel it was using; it jettisoned out, breaking down the reality around it. But it's over now, Rose. You don't have to worry about maintaining the connection anymore." He smiled faintly, exhaustion creasing the lines of his eyes.

I stared around the destroyed Sanctuary a second time, realizing that the Vortex was indeed gone, vanished as if it had never existed. Except… except for the faintest hint of a glow hovering around the Doctor, a dusting of glittering light that seemed to cling to his skin like a scattering of sand. Frowning, I tried to brush it away. It didn't budge.

"The Acumen—" I began, my gaze flickering between the faintly wavering smoke across the room and the Doctor's face.

"The Acumen would never be able to handle the Vortex," the Doctor cut in. "Just being in the same vicinity as it was taxing it."

"But it was so strong!" I couldn't help protesting. "Even channeling the Vortex didn't seem to hold it back from me. I wasn't strong enough—" My eyes blurred and I blinked back tears. It still didn't feel real. It still felt as if one wrong step would send our entire world crumbling beneath our feet.

"Rose," And my name in the Doctor's mouth was so tender it made my heart ache. "You were never supposed to be strong enough. But don't for a single second think that that makes you weak."

I pulled my hands free of the Doctor's grip to rub viciously at my eyes, trying to regain control before he went on.

"Rose, you have the strongest mind of anyone I've ever met—and that includes many a Time Lord and Lady. But alone there is no one, not even Rassilon himself, who could channel the Time Vortex and live. You've seen that for yourself not so long ago…"

His gentle reminder wasn't meant to sting, but it did. A dull ache still throbbed in the back of my heart when I thought of the first face I'd known belonging to the man before me. He'd freely and willingly sacrificed one of his lives for me when he'd done just that, taking the full context of the Vortex into his being.

"The only reason either of us survived today was because we managed to share the burden of an impossible task. Together, Rose, a partnership."

The Doctor's face was both earnest and gentle, and I finally understood. Equality had always been the nature of our relationship, and it had been the key to our triumphing over an unconquerable foe.

"A partnership…" I agreed. And then I heard myself sigh, long and soft, like weariness made verbal, and my body slumped against the Doctor's chest, blackness dropping over my eyes like a curtain, and it was only the Doctor's honed reflexes that saved me from dropping like a lead weight onto the Sanctuary floor.

~OOO~

It was warm where I lay, curled up in a soft place with a gentle, rhythmic thump-thump beating in the background. I murmured and shifted position, my hand reaching out to pull the warmth closer somehow, but my fingers caught against something smooth, yet distinct, and my eyes blinked open.

There was a fire flickering in a grate near where I lay, but the flames were blocked by long legs sheathed in a brown, pinstripe material. My gaze slowly travelled up the legs, from the converse shoes on their ends, up over the bottom of a suit jacket, to a shirt with a loosened tie, and finally to a face, smooth and relaxed in sleep, crowned with a shock of thick brown hair. The Doctor lay on his bed, his long form stretched out on top of the covers I now realized I'd been nestled beneath, though he had one arm curled protectively around my body, which was tucked against his side. My head had been resting against his chest which is why I'd woken to the sound of his hearts beating.

I looked slowly about the room, feeling confused. We were back in the TARDIS. But hadn't we just seconds ago been standing in the decimated Sanctuary, listening to the remains of the Acumen hiss threats from across the room?

I looked back up at the Doctor's face and found, with a small start, that he was awake and watching me, though I'd been certain he'd been in a deep sleep only moments before. "Doctor? What happened? The Acumen—? The Sanctuary—? Why are we in the TARDIS?" The questions poured out of me so fast I could barely get my lips around them, and the Doctor's face changed from sleepy to awake like the flick of a switch.

He sat up slowly, drawing my frantic body up next to him as he met my eyes solemnly. "It's ok, Rose. You're safe. Yes, we're back in the TARDIS."

"But when—?" I began, and the Doctor hurried on, his calm voice soothing the panic in my eyes.

"The TARDIS left the mountain a couple of hours ago. You fainted in the Sanctuary and I carried you back here to rest. We both needed to recuperate," he added, seeing the faint flush of shame creep across my cheeks, rightly deducing that—despite his insistence that I wasn't weak, he hadn't been the one to collapse at the end of an epic fight—I was embarrassed.

"Your face," I said suddenly, recalling the flickers of glittering light that had clung to the Doctor's skin just before I'd passed out in the Sanctuary.

The Doctor frowned slightly. "Same face, Rose. I'm sure! I mean, I think it is, unless the Vortex gave me a new nose, or tweaked my ears or something, Time Energy can be a tricky thing—" He broke off at the look on my face. "What?"

"You look the same," I assured him, "but that's the strange thing."

"Strange? I thought you liked this face; you weren't angling for an upgrade back at the Sanctuary were you?" He was teasing, trying to lighten the mood, but I pushed on, my chest tightening as my eyes searched every inch of his skin that I could see.

"You were, I don't know, covered in a sort of 'glitter' back at the Sanctuary, Doctor. I thought that maybe you were—t-that after everything, you might still—"

And then his eyes cleared with understanding. "Ah… nothing to worry about, Rose. What you saw was just the remains of Time Energy. We were in the Vortex for so long that we were both covered in it. You were too busy fainting to notice your own sparkle, I suppose." His eyes were dancing but I frowned back at him.

"It's gone now," I stated, peering at him again.

"Yes," the Doctor agreed. "It fades with time. We have been home for a few hours now, as I mentioned." He smiled and I started to smile back in relief, before a sudden, more important thought gripped me.

"The Acumen," I pressed on, needing to know, for his sake if not my own, that it was really over. "It was still alive. It crushed the life out of Ragalagh but it was still there, Doctor. It still wanted to fight!"

"Yes, it's still there. But the Acumen is no longer a threat, Rose. The Vortex destroyed all its acolytes and left its temple in ruins. With no one left for it use as a conduit the Acumen is powerless."

"But someone could happen by like we did!" I protested. "Is it really safe to just leave it there? What if some other—?" I broke off just before the words "some other Time Lord" passed my lips, and quickly looked away from the Doctor's face. If he knew what I'd nearly said he didn't show it.

"I've programed the coordinates of the Sanctuary into the TARDIS; the Acumen is tethered there, but if anyone comes within a hundred light years of its location I'll be warned about it and can swing by to make sure nothing happens. It's over, Rose. I promise you, we've won."

I could feel a warmth spreading through my body at these words that had nothing to do with the many blankets I was swaddled in, or the embrace of the Doctor's arms. It really was over.

"I can't believe it…" I said slowly, feeling a smile break across my face. "We survived…"

"I've said it before and I'll say it again," the Doctor said with his own fond grin. "If there's one thing I believe in, it's you, Rose Tyler." And as these words left his lips, the Doctor's arms came up and pulled me closer against his chest, one hand cradling my head as he ducked his own down and pressed his mouth against mine, drawing me into a heated kiss.

I murmured happily against his lips as the Doctor shifted on the bed, pulling the blankets back so that he could press his body closer to me. I felt one of his hands slip neatly under my shirt and skim across the bare skin of my back, and automatically reached my own hands up to the buttons of his shirt. I wasn't nervous this time. This time we were celebrating our own miraculous lives and making love to each other was the deepest expression of that existence.

I was home now. It hadn't been lost on me, despite everything, that the Doctor had used that word in relation to not just the TARDIS, but to the pair of us being there inside it. And this realization sent a rush of love washing over me that burned away the last vestiges of shock and fear from for our showdown with the Acumen. Yes, I was home now, and I'd never leave again.

~Fin~

And this, friends, was the FINAL chapter. I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did and that it wrapped up ok. :) I'm working on a new fic (Amy/11) that I'll hopefully have the start of posted in the next couple of weeks. Perhaps you'd like to take a look at that if you think you might miss my writing? Subscribe to my 'follow author' list to make sure you're notified when it's published. I'll certainly miss all your wonderful reviews threating bodily harm if the next chapter wasn't posted "yesterday"! Haha! I continue to write because of you all; I hope you know that! Much love to everyone! :)