"If it's time to go, remember what you are leaving behind; remember the best…my friends have always been the best of me." —The Doctor

Epilogue

That same night, a whole universe away, a startled cry pierced the air as a woman awoke from a nightmare. She shot up, her breath heavy as her nightshirt clung to her thin frame with sweat. Her husband startled awake, instantly wrapping his arms around her.

"What's wrong, Love?" he asked, concern shadowing his brow. "What happened?" he gave his wife a small shake when she didn't respond. "Rose?"

Hearing her name snapped her attention back to the present, and she turned to face her husband. She startled momentarily, thinking for a moment that his eyes were green and his hair was floppy. But that didn't make any sense. She shook her head to clear away what must have been fragments of a dream.

"Sorry," she said softly, her throat dry. "'M okay, I just…I had a very odd dream."

Her husband, The Doctor (or James Noble, as he was known to the rest of the world), raised an eyebrow. "Really? Odd how?"

Rose frowned, trying to recall the cause of all this. She could only get bits and pieces: a playground, outer space, dangerous old people, biting cold, something ginger…but most of it was fading from her memory already. "I'm not really sure, but…I think at one point, I was on the TARDIS." She smiled at her husband. "And you were there, too! But you didn't look like you."

"Oh?" her Doctor asked, a smile forming on his face as he waggled his eyebrows. "Still handsome though, wasn't I?"

Rose chuckled. "I don't know, I don't really remember." She frowned again. "Why do dreams have to fade so quickly?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Because they're not real. Reality is better than any old dream."

Rose looked at her husband whose arms were now rubbing comforting circles on her back. His gravity defying hair was shorter than it used to be, but no less thick, a salt and pepper gray forming around his temples. His face was full, flushed warm with freckles splayed across his nose, and slight stubble on his cheeks. There were wrinkles forming at the edges of his eyes and mouth, proof of just how much he smiled and laughed.

He was beautiful.

And he was right. This reality, her life with him; it was better than anything she could ever dream of. It had been a good fifteen years or so with him, and she wouldn't trade it for anything. She kissed him deeply, combing her fingers through his tangled hair.

"I suppose there's no need to remember it then, huh?"

"Nope!" he answered jovially, kissing his Rose on her forehead. A glance at the clock told him it was 5:47. Almost time for them to get up, anyway. "Well, since we're already up, I'm going to make tea. Fancy a cuppa?"

She nodded, "Yeah, give me a mo', I'm gonna change first."

"M'kay," he pushed himself off their bed and rose to his feet, stooping to kiss her one more time. "Love you."

Her hear fluttered and she smiled. Ten years of marriage, and those words still made her blush.

"Love you too." She watched him until he disappeared down the hallway, presumably to the kitchen.

Sighing with content, Rose stood and peeled her sweaty night clothes off, heading to their master bathroom to freshen up. She riffled through her husband's t-shirts, settling on one that had 'I make horrible science puns, but only periodically' printed on the front. Her mother, Jackie, had given it to him for Christmas one year, and The Doctor wore it occasionally, enough to appease her anyway, but most of the time, Rose wore it to bed. It was soft, and it smelled like him; it comforted her.

She pulled the dark blue shirt over her head, then wrapped her hair into a messy bun, running the tap to splash some cold water on her face. It was refreshing, soothing the rest of her nerves. Toweling her face dry, Rose glanced her reflection in the mirror, but that's not what caught her attention. Her heart stopped as she swore she saw a short man in a bowtie leering at her over her shoulder.

Rose gasped and spun around and found the bathroom empty aside from herself. Turning back to the mirror, the strange man's reflection was gone as well. Rose let out a shaky breath, trying to slow her heartbeat. Her mind was still playing tricks on her, still caught up in her strange dream. A cup of tea was exactly what she needed.

Shuffling into the kitchen, she found The Doctor behind the bar, pouring freshly made tea into two matching mugs. As she took a seat at the bar stool, he placed her mug in front of her and took a seat beside her, clinking their mugs together.

"Cheers!" he winked and took a small, careful sip of his hot tea.

"Cheers." Rose echoed. She wrapped both hands around the steaming cuppa, letting the warmth and the aroma calm her.

The silence that followed was comfortable, not stifling. The couple sipped their tea, The Doctor wrapping an arm around her and Rose resting her head on his shoulder. After a few minutes more of the quiet, The Doctor asked, "Feeling better, Love?"

Rose nodded, placing her mug back down on the counter. "Much better, thank you."

"Mummy?" a small voice filled the air. They turned to see their eight-year-old daughter, Aurora, leaning over the back of the couch, her jim jams on and her purple stuffed elephant in her hands. "Daddy? What are you doing?"

The Doctor patted the stool next to him. "Have a seat, Ducky," he said, using his affectionate nickname for her. "we're having biscuits!"

The little girl's eyes widened and she grinned, showing off her missing front tooth. She turned to her mother expectantly. "Really?" she asked.

Rose sighed. The Doctor was giving her the same look their daughter was. He was waiting for her permission, she realized. "One biscuit," she promised. "And a glass of milk. That's it."

"Yes!" bot The Doctor and Aurora cheered, and The Doctor lifted his daughter off the couch high into the air before plopping her down on the stool he had vacated beside her mother. He went back into the kitchen to retrieve the milk and the sweets.

Rose brushed the tangled mess of red hair (yes, she was ginger. The Doctor was absolutely thrilled about that) out of her face. Aurora, Rory as she was called by her friends, (or Ducky, as her father called her), was their little miracle. They had adopted her as a baby, shortly after discovering they were unable to conceive on their own. Too much dimension hopping unprotected through the multiverse, and too much variance in their genetic codes, that's what The Doctor concluded.

The fact didn't sadden them for long, though. It was The Doctor in fact who suggested adoption. 'Why not, Rose?' he had said. 'You want a child, I want a child, and there's millions of babies in the world who are sure to love us! Let's do this!'

So Aurora, this smiling, giggling, brilliant baby girl was brought into their world. She went to private school, generously picked out by grandad Pete, but The Doctor preferred to tutor her at home. She was exceptionally gifted, already learning at a level way beyond her years. The Doctor was even teaching her small amounts of Gallifreyan. She loved reading and science, building things and drawing. Bed times in the Tyler-Noble household usually consisted of Aurora telling them bedtime stories, fanciful tales she invented, with illustrations included as well. Rose would expect nothing less of The Doctor's daughter.

"Here you go!" The Doctor enthusiastically set a plate with biscuits on the counter and handed Aurora a small glass of milk. "Breakfast of champions." He winked, and Aurora giggled. The Doctor took his seat next to his daughter. Reaching over her head, he gave Rose a short, sweet kiss on the cheek.

"Are Grandad and Nan coming to dinner tonight?" Aurora asked with a mouth full of cookie.

"They are. And your Uncle Tony's visiting from Uni, so he'll be here, too."

Aurora nodded happily. "Good! I miss Tony. We can play Space Cooks together!"

"As long as you play in the yard, Ducky." The Doctor warned, remembering the debacle that ensued the last time she played 'Space Cooks'. The wall paper in the dining room still had scorch marks.

Rose laughed softly at the memory. "And who exactly was the one who helped her invent 'Space Cooks', Doctor?" She pointed a finger at him lightheartedly.

"Oi, don't be cheeky, Rose Tyler!"

The phrase sparked an impossible memory in Rose's mind. A man, blurry and unclear, but his voice and the elation in it piercing and strong. "Cheeky, Rose Tyler", the memory had said the same thing.

"That's me, breaking the tension with ill-timed humor", her own voice was saying in response. But she couldn't place where this conversation had occurred or who it had been with. Was it even a memory? Something she just imagined, maybe? It felt so real, so solid. The voice seemed familiar, comforting even. Safe. And for a split second, she felt a gaping emptiness without it.

The second ended when The Doctor's voice broke her train of thought. "Alright, alright! We'll keep the Space Cooks craziness to a minimum, won't we, Ducky?" he ruffled Aurora's already tousled bed head.

"Absolutely!" she agreed with a gap tooth grin.

Rose smiled fondly at the both of them. Whatever the voice had been or meant to her, it was quickly fading. Her focus was on the present, a reality far greater than any dream she had ever had.

"Alright, you," she said, smoothing out her child's hair. "finish your milk, then why don't you start getting ready for school, yeah?"

Aurora did just that; finishing her milk, she set her glass in the sink over the counter and climbed down off the stool that was just as tall as her, bounding back to her room.

The Doctor chuckled as he watched her go, the laughter lines prominent on his face. "I'll go make sure she doesn't flood the loo with bubble bath again."

Jumping off his stool, with one hand balanced on the bar and the other wrapping around Rose's waist, he leaned down to give his wife a long, passionate kiss. It took her breath away. He whispered as they pulled apart, "Love you."

"Love you too," she reciprocated.

With a smile, he followed after their mischievous daughter. Rose sighed in content once more, ready to start this new day of her beautiful life. What had her Doctor said? Reality was better than any old dream?

Hearing her husband and her daughter animatedly laughing in the other room, she recognized that yes; it really was.

fin.