Disclaimer: Still not able to pay for school without student loans, sadly. DW isn't mine, sadly.

A/N: So, we're at the end! I hope you all enjoyed! Leave me a review if you liked it! Leave me a review if you want a continuation of this sorta-one-shot!

Thanks (as always) to Liz because she's awesome. Liz, if you're reading, *hugs*.

I really hope you guys that followed this all the way liked it. Please let me know if I'm a good writer/need improvement/should write something other than angst-y stuff...

Ta!

xx

—tu es invincible —

After the sandwiches are made, the knife she used to spread the peanut butter could very well have been used to cut the tension in the air. Even though they were in an open field, miles from anywhere, everything was trapped in this bubble with them. The difficult part was figuring out what should be done about it.

"Rose, can I just tell you how I feel? I mean, I know you probably don't want to talk much. Or at all really, thats fine too. But I think that we both need to get some things up in the air."

He speaks first, breaking the silence first. He can't bear to see her hurting, least of all when he is the cause of it. The Time Lord brain of his is working overtime, balancing the outcomes of saying certain things against others and how they would all affect the chain of events. The human part of him tells the Time Lord bits to shut the hell up and just jump in.

"I'm scared, Rose. Truly, that's it. I'm scared that this isn't going to work out. You're all I've got and right now, I can't even figure out whether I want to run to you or away from you. You have every right to feel these things. But honestly, Rose? I have a right to feel these things too. You and I will always be connected by the fate that we created together. It wasn't just when I grabbed your hand and told you to run. It wasn't just when I took you everywhere in the universe I possibly could, hoping to impress you enough that you'd choose to stay with me. It wasn't even when the stars started going out and we found each other again. It was us, together. Cause you aren't just Rose Tyler. You're my plus-one. And you and me, we created each other.

"I know this must sound really sappy, but I don't even know where to begin. Rose Tyler, I love you? Those are the words you wanted to hear and you deserve to hear them. But I'm not just saying them because you want me to say them, Rose. They're how I really feel. I am him, Rose. I'm him, fresh from the Time War, but this time I have you and that counteracts the pain of it all. You are why I'm here."

Rose pulls her knees up to her chin, wrapping her arms around them. She sets her half-eaten banana down and stares at him. She's crying, but not tears of sadness. Tears of remorse and empathy stream down her face instead. She can feel him hurting, because every part of him is a part of her. She knows what he's saying is true. She can't help but know it.

"Oh, Rose, don't cry. You're so amazing. Please please don't cry, I can't stand it. You, Rose, are the one thing that I want so badly to run to. The only reason I'm not right now is because I don't know if you want me to."

"Doctor, I'm not crying for me. I did that, in the bathroom at that petrol station. I don't need to cry for me anymore, I'm sure I've got Mum crying for me, and the other you crying for me, and you're worrying yourself sick about me. No, Doctor, I'm crying for you. For everything that you're feeling while I just worry about myself. God, I've been so selfish, sitting in that car with you, hardly saying a word, and you've been feeling like this the whole time? Why the hell would you do this for me? 'Cause I know you weren't doing it for yourself. No, you did this for me.

"I'm just some shop-girl, Doctor. I grew up too fast and not enough. I had this life I was so goddamn used to, then you show up and turn it upside-down. I haven't been the same since. There was so much out there! Dammit, there was so much. And, after all the choices you had in your life, the one choice that changed you? Me. How the hell could a silly shop-girl change you so much? I asked myself that every day traveling with you. I couldn't figure it out."

Rose has stopped crying now, but her voice is still strained. She's released her death grip on her own wrists, and has scooted herself across the blanket to be closer to him. They're so close, she can breathe in his so-missed smell, and he can almost touch her now.

"I spent so much time waiting for you, Doctor. Then, I stopped waiting and started running towards any sign of you I could get. I chased hints and false trails, and I changed myself. I stopped feeling things, Doctor. I stopped caring if I got hurt on missions, I stopped caring if I endangered myself every damn day. 'Cause that meant that I was one step closer to finding you again. Hell, I ran for so long that I forgot what it was like to just live a life. And then, this happened. Yeah, I'm stuck back here, and he's off gallivanting across the universe, saving lives and probably falling in love again.

"And what does he do for me? Leaves you here, probably without consulting you first, and just takes off. Doesn't say what he came here to say, after he left me the first time. No, he just takes off. Typical scared man."

She's so close to him now, hands gripping his lapels, sitting on his lap. His arms are wrapped around her waist, and this time she softens into him. Her face is so close to his, he can almost taste her lips. Even after two years apart, he can still read her like a book. Now that she's gotten things off her chest, so now she can finally relax, finally give in to what she's thinking.

"You know what I'm thinking, Doctor? To hell with him. To hell with this shitty situation. 'Cause, you know what? I love you. You made me realize that sometimes, feeling things is OK. That I have a life worth feeling things for again. I can run, sure. But at least I'm running with you."

With that last sentence, she closes the gap between them, her lips sliding softly over his, her body molding to fit into his embrace. This kiss isn't what it was on that beach, no, a reflexive reaction to words she had waited to hear for so long. This is a kiss between best friends who are lovers and lovers who are also best friends. This is the kind of kiss that leaves no doubt what the other is feeling, and leaves no room for argument.

"Doctor," she says, pulling back from the kiss, "we're not gonna do this here, OK? I just realized how bad I wanna kiss you and...other things, but I ain't doing it here, in this grass, on an itchy Torchwood emergency blanket."