Disclaimer – All characters and settings are the property of BBC TV; I have made no money from their use.

A/N – Written and set between 'The Stolen Earth' and 'Journey's End'. Takes place in those few wonderful seconds, and if it was any fluffier, it would be candyfloss.

At the end of the world, life was good.

Never, in all those 900 years, had anything been sweeter. Not the discovery that River Song knew his name, or that Jack lived, or that the Earth was still there. Nothing. Rose was here. His Rose, his beautiful, intelligent, brave, Rose was there – the Bad Wolf in all her glory.

He wanted to run to her, race down Time itself. He was a Time Lord, after all. He wanted to stride out, that slow and elegant strut of any victorious male claiming his prize. He'd fought the universe to win her back. He wanted to freeze here and let Rose come to him, because mirages always faded when approached.

The Bad Wolf, armed with a gun larger than any he'd ever seen Jack carrying. Oh, Rose. The name was too precious to say aloud. It hadn't passed his lips for too long. He wasn't even sure that he could pronounce it now.

He could have watched her forever, long blonde hair flipping over her face, caught like a banner on the wind. Perfection amongst the devastation. Let the world – the universe – end. He had his Rose back.

Donna glared at him; he felt the ferocity of that expression and knew what she was trying to say. A good friend she'd been, but Rose... Rose, here, in London, instead of Bad Wolf Bay.

'Go on, Doctor. Go say hello.'

And then Rose saw him; the meeting of eyes inevitable, destined since that day in the department store when he'd grabbed her hand and shouted 'I'm the Doctor! Run for your life!' He'd known then, somehow – Rose would be there at the end.

Running. All through their time together, they'd run. Through London and New Earth, Justica and Cardiff and a hundred different planets and times, and with Captain Jack by their side, they'd run. In fear and expectation and sheer joy, they'd run.

And here was Rose, running back to him.

He couldn't not run. The years and days and hours they'd been apart – the Time Lord of Gallifrey knew how long he'd been missing Rose to the very second – played in his mind, and he couldn't take the separation any longer.

Suddenly, running was a pleasure again. The simple joy – the too complex emotions – that he'd only ever known with Rose were there.

Each stride was longer than the one before, and he still couldn't run fast enough, with his jacket and tie flapping behind him, and his t-shirt escaping from his belt, blowing clear of his skin. Running down time.

Air in his lungs, thick with death and smoke, and then Rose's scent. So familiar, so forgotten. He struggled for one deep breath and tasted her perfume on it.

He would run to her and sweep her off of her feet. He would skid to a halt and hug her and never let go. She would take his hand, and her fingers would lock around his, and together they would run for the Tardis.

He'd finish the sentence that he'd started in another universe, and kiss her, and keep her.

'Rose! Rose!' The name burst from him without any conscious thought.

And now he saw her beauty in fact, not memory and imagination. Matured, stronger, older – changed – but his Rose. Closer now, but still too far away.

'Doctor!'

Oh, and her voice was sweetest thing he'd ever heard. Song and surf on a deserted beach and the kiss of snow and the cries of a lover and the hum of the Tardis – her voice was composed of all of them, and more beautiful than any of them.

'Doctor!'

Once before, he'd arrived in her life like a knight astride a charger and offered her a choice. The East End or the Universe, and she'd chosen. Now, she came as the saviour, offering him a choice again.

Fight for the universe or claim Rose, and his name came again, mingling with her footsteps and heartbeat and breathing – and with his.

'Doctor!'

He would take her in the Tardis. They would leave and find somewhere in the universe. Just a place for them. He'd take the East End if it meant Rose, the flat and a job in a school and the domesticity. Anything.

If he could just have Rose, he'd let everything else go. That would be fair. He'd lost so much else. All he was asking for was his companion.

Rose was so close. He would hug her and bury his face in her hair and tell her of a thousand places they could go.

He would tell her he loved her.

There was never anything, in all his lives, as good as those last three steps towards Rose. She filled his vision, his mind, his hearing, his hearts and he never saw the Dalek.