Rose Tyler stood on a beach, cold wind blowing through her soul and watched the TARDIS vanish. The Doctor, the new one, reached out and took her hand and together they stood there, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives.

"I've gotten a hold of Pete! He's sending a zeppelin for us!" Jackie told them and the Doctor turned and grinned at her.

"Did he finally buy you one?" he asked and Jackie grinned back and nodded.

"When Tony was born," she chuckled.

He looked down at Rose and saw the tears tracking down her cheeks.

"Are you okay with all of this?" he asked softly, his other self hadn't really given her much choice in the matter.

"No, I'm not!" she wailed and he had a moment of sheer terror. Was he going to lose her? Was it over before it had even started? Suddenly she spun and flung herself into his arms, sobbing wildly and he wrapped her up tightly against his heart and held her.

"Oh, Rose, my love, it'll be all right. We'll make this work somehow, I promise," he babbled and Rose clutched him tightly, shoulders shaking. "I love you so much. I will always be here, by your side, I'll never leave you, I promise. We'll have such a wonderful time. We'll do anything you like, at your pace, however you want things done, okay? It'll be fine, my heart, it will," he babbled, trying to soothe the pain and grief she was feeling and she shook her head against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," she mumbled and it took him a moment to realize that she was talking to him. She'd called him 'Doctor' and it made him deliriously happy. "I'm not crying because it you, I'm crying because of him," she told him and he was confused. "He'll be so lonely!" Understanding bloomed inside of him and he nodded.

"Lonelier than ever, because even the hope of you will be gone," he sighed out. No more Donna, no more Rose, what would his other self ever do? How would he survive?

"He couldn't watch me die, could he?" she whispered and he nodded.

"No, I don't think he could watch either of us die, really." She looked up at him and tears were still trickling down her face.

"I would have stayed with him forever," she sighed out and then dropped her head on his chest.

"He knows that and it means everything to him. But, watching someone you love that much growing old and dying is agonizing, but worse than that is living for centuries more, without them." She nodded against him. "I lost you once and it nearly killed me, I don't think he would have survived it again."

"So, you love me?" she asked, her head coming up and those amazing brown eyes were warm on his. He wiped the tears from her eyes and fetched out a handkerchief for her from his jacket pocket.

"Yup," he told her, popping the 'p' just to make her smile at him. She blew her nose and smiled again.

"And you want to spend the rest of your life with me?" she asked, her eyes filled with so much love that it made his single heart flutter.

"Oh yes," he agreed and he'd never meant anything as much as he'd meant that.

"Then where would you like to get married?" She cocked her head to one side, her smile dazzling.

"Rose Tyler, I will go anywhere, do anything, and wear anything, as long as it includes trainers, that you want. I don't care how we get married, as long as we do, and as long as we have a brilliant honeymoon," he informed her, watching her smile grow wider as he spoke to her.

"Here now! I'm planning this wedding and you are not wearing trainers to it!" Jackie interrupted and the couple looked at her in dismay.

"I bet there is a Justice of the Peace in town," Rose suggested.

"Run!" he laughed, grabbing her hand and taking off, their feet flying over the sand.

"Don't you dare, you two! I have waited all her life to plan her wedding!" Jackie shouted after them, but they were running and laughing and the whole world was in front of them. They had a lifetime together to get started on.

The long gray ribbon of the road between the bay and the nearest town gave them the opportunity to hold hands, swinging their clasped fingers between them with grins on their faces.

"So, did you know what he intended to do?" she asked him and watched him frown a bit.

"I had a suspicion, after all, aside from some minor differences, we're the same man. I even understand why he was angry at me, even if I can't agree with him on this," he told her and she frowned.

"You mean the whole 'genocide' thing?" she asked and he nodded again.

"When I destroyed both Gallifrey and the Daleks, it was the worst, most horrible feeling in the universe. I wondered if killing people, or getting them killed was all that I was good for. I thought that maybe I was a worse monster then any of the creatures that I'd fought for so long," he confessed and she stopped to step into his arms and hold him tightly. "Then you took my hand and I could see it in your eyes. I could see that I hadn't fallen as far as I'd feared. I wasn't a monster, after all." She kissed him again and he leaned into her, arms and lips so much warmer than they had been.

"Oh Doctor," she sighed. "I'm sorry that you had to go through all of that," she told him, stroking his hair gently.

"Yeah, but you fixed that, love, sure it still hurts like hell, but just the way you look at me makes it all better, really," he assured her and kissed her brow with gentle tenderness. They released each other and began walking up the road again.

"So, you destroying the Daleks reminded him of all of that?" she asked next, trying to get some understanding of his mind.

"Yeah, I think seeing me do that, even after all that we both had seen, it hurt him, made him feel like a monster all over again." The Doctor shook his head with another sigh.

A car came towards them and the Doctor waved it down. It was a little Citroën and the driver was a tiny old woman who looked at them suspiciously. The Doctor spoke to her in Norwegian, at least Rose assumed it was and the woman thawed instantly, smiling and laughing at whatever he was saying. She had a face like withered apple and bright sharp eyes.

She nodded and the Doctor opened the back door and they climbed in, him still chattering away to the old lady.

"This is Mrs. Falla, her family has lived around her for hundreds of years, she's going to take us to the Mayor so we can get a license and then we can go to the local church," he chirped happily to her and Rose found that she was grinning. He really hadn't changed much; he could still make friends in the most unlikely places.

The back seat was tiny and cramped, but neither of them minded.

The ride into the tiny town of Askvoll was picturesque. Mountains, water, rock, scrubby grass, the birds that were everywhere in the air, on the ground, perched on rocks, or the infrequent trees that twisted up out of the ground.

Norway was beautiful, but Rose was feeling like she really wanted to go home. Too many life changing events seemed to happen here for her. At least, this one was going to be a good one. She grinned up at the Doctor and he grinned right back at her, and she felt like a goofy kid. They were getting married. It was certainly about time.

"I wish I still had a TARDIS Rose, I'd take you to all the best places," he whispered and she could see the sadness the lurked in the back of his eyes. After hundreds of years of having all of space and time at his feet, he was now trapped on the slow path with her.

"We can still go anywhere, you know, Paris, Tokyo, and everywhere else on Earth," she assured him. "It's a big planet." He nodded and squeezed her hand.

"This, you and me, this is gonna be the best adventure ever," he told her and his eyes were bright and the sorrow had receded. She looked up at him and nodded.

"Big adjustment though, eh?" she asked, not quite ready to let go of the subject. They had a lot to work out, after all.

"It's not my first trip around the block, Rose Tyler," he disputed. "I was married before, had a son, a daughter in law, a granddaughter. I had a brother, who was an arse, a mother that I adored, and a father I was determined not to grow up to be like; family is not something new for me. Just because they are all dead now, doesn't mean that I don't remember what it was like or what the job of husband entails," he told her and his voice was soft and filled with a longing she hadn't heard in it before.

"You must miss them so much," she murmured and wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

"My Mum and my granddaughter, yeah, I miss them both so much. The rest of the family?" he shrugged. "It varies between a relief not to have to deal with them anymore and guilt that I feel that way. I loved my son, but he was ready to turn my little Susan over, just because it was politically expedient."

"So, not the happiest family life, then," she teased and he grinned at her.

"Oh, Susan and I were very happy, she'd have loved you, Rose, she would."

"She'd have approved of you marrying a human?" she asked in disbelief.

"Why not? She did," he told her and she blinked in surprise at that revelation. "It was, I think, the main reason the other me couldn't do it. I watched Susan after her husband died of old age. There she was, still young and vibrant, and she just froze over with grief. She never did recover. Two hundred years after his death and she still never dated, never remarried, never even looked at another man."

"Oh! How terribly sad," Rose gasped, suddenly seeing what the cost of marrying her would have been for the Time Lord Doctor. "I never thought about it, I guess, what would happen after."

"I know. It's hard to think that way when you're young. You only see the immediate joy and the long term sorrow seems so far away. But nine hundred years, Rose, it's a lot of perspective. It's a lot of painful experience." He rubbed at his head and she leaned against him, seeking comfort and warmth. He held her against him and she could feel him tense up.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm just still angry, I guess, angry at him for judging me. It's always all right for him to kill off a whole planet, but the minute someone else does it, it's suddenly a big problem," he grumbled and she grinned at him.

"Don't talk about yourself like that," she teased and he shook his head in amusement.

"I hereby apologize for having been an arse for the last nine centuries," he announced and Rose giggled.

"Apology accepted."

They reached the center of Askvell and Mrs. Falla dropped them off with happy congratulations. He waved good bye to her, already feeling charmed with his new life. He'd rarely had to hitch a lift before. Having your own TARDIS insulated you a bit from such things.

"I ever tell you about the time that Marco Polo stole my TARDIS?" he asked Rose and she laughed.

"No! Really?"

"Yeah, got stuck travelling the Silk Road with him for just months, trying to convince him to let me have it back. I almost won it back from Kublai Khan in a backgammon match, but the old cheater beat me in the end," he complained and Rose looked up at him with her smiling eyes and her tongue-tipped grin and he felt utterly content with everything. Well, except for the loss of his entire race, being dumped into an alternate universe, and not having a TARDIS anymore.

"What was he like, Marco Polo?" she asked and he sighed.

"Far too trusting of the wrong sorts of people. Ian liked him a lot, but I really couldn't like a man who'd steal from an old man and a young girl," he grumbled and Rose laughed again.

"I bet he didn't know how old you really were!" she chortled and he sighed.

"Actually, back then I was really quite young. I looked so much older than I do now, but I was really still just a kid. I hadn't had all that Time Lord arrogance knocked out of my head yet either," he admitted and she stared at him. "What?"

"When did that happen, exactly, the bit where you stopped being arrogant?"

"Oi!" he shot back. "You should have seen me before, Rose, or met the High Council on Gallifrey! Now there was a load of stuffed shirts with more egotism than common sense! Don't even let me get started on Rassilon either! That man took narcissism to whole new heights!" he told her, with a roll of his eyes.

"All right, all right, I can see that you are an icon of humility in comparison," she teased and he started to calm down again. It seemed that he was a lot more angry in this body than he was in the other, or maybe he just wasn't as good at hiding the anger that they both had buried in them.

The memory of watching Gallifrey burn, of knowing that everyone he loved was dying or dead, hearing the screams of Time Lords and Daleks alike echoing in his head, washed over him. Tears pricked his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I know I'm a bit rubbish, a sort of second best, or also ran, for you." She grabbed him hard and kissed him, arms around his neck and body pressed against his. He was quickly overwhelmed by the sensations, her mouth on his, her hair against his face, the pulse of her heart against his own. Everything was washed away by her onslaught on him and he embraced her, holding her against him, falling into her gravity, burning up on re-entry, and happy to die in her arms.

She pulled back and they were both shaken by the intensity that was moving through them. She looked him in the eyes, her hands on either side of his face, making him look at her.

"You're not second best and you're not rubbish. You're the only one, of the two of you, who was willing to stick by me. You're the one who was able to tell me how you feel, the only one who would kiss me, hold me, and make me feel like I was worth standing beside. He left me, you didn't. That's not rubbish, that's what's really important, that's what matters. He's the one that's a bit rubbish, actually, because he ditched me," she informed him with a fierce glare and that aspect hadn't occurred to him before.

"He…" he began, but she cut him off.

"Don't let's make excuses for him, we both know it's not because he didn't love me, or want me. He couldn't make that leap, he couldn't risk his heart and I understand that. It hurts like hell, but I do get it. But I don't want to ever hear you say that you're less than he is, when you're so much more!"

He buried his face in her hair and held her tightly.

"Rose Tyler, I love you," he murmured and she squeezed him tightly.

"I love you too, Doctor," she told him. "Now, before Mum gets ahold of the police or something, let's get married.

"Allons-y!" he shouted and they ran for the town council building, hand and hand, grinning like children.