A/N Extra special thanks to my dear friend T'Kirr for listening to my incessant rambling over the plot and serving as an invaluable sounding board when some of the details had my head twisted in knots. You are awesome!

This was one of the angstiest and most difficult stories I've written, so I want to say a heartfelt thank you to each one of you who had the commitment to see it through and took the time to show your interest and encouragement along the way. This was necessary to lay the groundwork for the coming story, shaping the Doctor's frame of mind and paving the way for an AU path sans Journey's End. Now, if you look closely here at the end, you'll see that silver lining I promised. Tuck it away in your memory, because it'll eventually be turning up again. ;)

The next and final sequel for this 'verse, Beginning Again, will launch in a couple of weeks. I hope to see you then!

Epilogue

The last of the Time Lords was once again alone. The Doctor and Rose's past timelines had been restored. Fixed points stood unmoved and unyielding, as they were meant to be. Which meant the separation of the Doctor and Rose at Canary Wharf was once again an inevitable fact of the universe.

Time had been in a state of chaotic shambles, but once the situation began to right itself, multiple wounds that had been created in the temporal fabric had begun to heal. The divergent timelines of Rose, the Doctor's past self, and all that had splintered out from that point had collapsed in on themselves and vanished. Time was once again reset from the moment before the Doctor had created the paradox.

There would still be echoes and ripples from the damaging event until the last frayed threads fully mended. And even once it faded, the current Doctor responsible for it all would still always know. He carried no repressed memories of experiencing this as his younger self, since that reality now ceased to exist, but he would never forget his actions from this current perspective. Past events had fallen back in place, but what he had done as he stood in the eye of the storm would remain in his memories. Perhaps he needed that. He needed to carry the memory of the consequences so he would not be tempted to ravage the rules again in such a costly way.

The Doctor's personal timeline, though falling back into place in the past, was still experiencing a lingering bit of reverberating turbulence that rippled forward. He would feel disquieted aftershocks for some time to come.

Despite the fact that Time was rectifying itself, he needed to be certain that everything was truly mending as it should.

And so, the Doctor journeyed back to the one place that would give him the clearest vantage point for confirming the correct flow of his own timestream. This was the last place he wanted to revisit in light of recent events, but it had to be done. He set a course for the Medusa Cascade.

With his homeworld no longer in existence, the Doctor's timeline was entwined within this place more intricately than any other. This rift in Time and Space was the sort of place that pulled an inquisitive being such as himself like a magnet. His first visit had been in his mere youth, when the urge to run and explore drew him to this mystifying area as he sought to discover its secrets. With Gallifrey now gone, the entirety of his timeline throughout the whole of creation, spanning multiple centuries and multiple lives, could now be traced back, at its earliest, to this very place, then branching out from here as his travels spanned the universe.

Despite his innumerable and diverse travels since that time, his return visits here were many, this place harkening him back to his origins. And most significant of all was the fact that his name itself was hidden in this very expanse, burning in the stars. His life both converged and diverged from this portion of the galaxy; and thus, this was where he returned and observed as the threads of his life were woven back together.

Drifting within the heart of the Cascade, the Doctor stood at the open doors of the TARDIS, looking out at the spellbinding scene which lay beyond. The Cascade itself held an aura of haunted beauty – gasses of turquoise, magenta and gold swirling throughout like the sweeping strokes of an artist's brush on a canvas of potential.

Within this mysterious realm, the Doctor's own timeline, though in the process of being restored, was still in a tumultuous state. Knots were untwisting, severed chords mending, and countless future possibilities arising from the repaired threads.

Time was once again being put right, and from here, anything was possible. Every breath he took, every move he made would assign a path to what was now simply a world of possibilities.

Transfixed, the Doctor observed the ethereal scene as possibility upon possibility played out before him. He had no idea what his future would truly hold, but the possible outcomes were staggering.

With chilling fright, he witnessed a glimpse of what could have been had Rose not been lost to him at Canary Wharf. He realized with sickening clarity that she could have been lost in countless other ways. Death by asphyxiation on the Moon, burned alive within the heart of an enraged sun, tortured at the hands of a madman whom he could not see clearly, but somehow perceived as a mortal enemy.

This abysmal tangle of possibilities quickly wafted away and would never come to pass now that Canary Wharf was once again an unyielding fixed point. The Doctor looked on, only to see another perplexing jumble of potentials drift to the surface. Something else could have arisen from this very place. Something dark and deadly.

'Twenty-seven planets,' he caught mention of on a vaporous echo.

A new name for himself could have been formed here… 'Destroyer of Worlds.'

This place had the potential of housing a battle, the likes of which was capable of jeopardizing all of reality, and influencing his own in monumental ways. From this rare vantage point, he could see it in fleeting glimpses of tiny, jumbled fragments and whispered echoes…

'Don't die. Oh my God, don't die!'

'Instantaneous biological metacrisis…'

'They've all got someone else. Still, that's fine. I'm fine...'

'In the end, they break my heart…'

'I don't want to go…'

The brief glimpses fell apart, dissipating and scattering off into infinity, this possible course now seeming never to be. Whatever might have stemmed from the potential battle in this place, the currently-tumultuous Cascade itself now seemed too unstable to sustain such a raging storm due to the temporal upheaval that had taken place and was still rippling through here. Whether this possible significant change was ultimately a good or bad thing in the scheme of the Doctor's life, only Time itself would tell.

The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the muddled scene. He couldn't process any more. There was no guarantee that anything he had seen here was set or fixed. Time could literally go in any direction depending on where his steps led him, what decisions were made, what possibilities were embraced. He had seen enough of his possible futures to at least know that the past was being repaired. Where his steps would lead from here, he would simply have to discover moment by moment, with each passing minute, each passing hour.

He was about to turn away and shut the doors, leaving Time to weave its story. But one last potential among the masses seized his attention and held him for just a brief moment longer.

Through the tempest and the haze of Time, he could make out another TARDIS on the outskirts of the Cascade. This TARDIS, a mirror image of his own, was hovering over the mending timelines, the doors open for its occupants to observe the mystifying scene. He could distinguish who he knew to be a potential version of himself. Beside him stood the woman who had now woven herself into nearly every thread of his existence in some form or fashion.

Rose.

He almost imagined that her eyes actually met his from across the divide. It was as if she was really seeing him, was really there, rather than a mere filament of potential. She appeared to speak, though the words eluded him. He saw the image of his own self turn to her, whisper in her ear, then draw back. She smiled, a heart-stopping smile, then stepped back and closed the doors of the ship. It vanished, lost amid the swirl of possibilities.

For a moment he could barely breathe. His mind began to whirl as he considered the prospective significance of this fleeting glimpse. At this point, dare he even hope?

The Doctor staggered back and closed the doors to his own ship. Even for a Time Lord, seeing the raw confusion of endless future prospects any longer would have been enough to drive him mad.

He had absolutely no way of knowing what tomorrow would bring. Or the next day, or the next. All he could do was put one foot in front of the other and attempt to go on. He had been doing it for so many centuries and grown weary of the process. But through all this, Rose had reminded him of its great importance and held him accountable for doing just that. Perhaps his actions had served one definite purpose after all.

He would move on.

And no matter where his steps would lead him throughout all of Time, no matter which possible future timeline would become an unchangeable fact, Rose would be with him still. If not by his side, then in his hearts. Always.

On this day, the Doctor finally moved onwards. Because sometimes, even for those with all of Time seemingly at their command, the only direction that could be taken was forward.