Heartwarming / Being To Timelessness

"To Make Much of Time"

• At the end of "The Satan Pit," after defeating the Beast, the Doctor makes an extra detour after rescuing Ida to save the 15 Ood still in Ood Habitation, since they're no longer possessed and don't deserve to die. He returns them and Ida over to Zach and Danny on the escape rocket in exchange for Rose.
  • The Doctor and Rose's "I love you" declaration as Rose invites the Doctor to sleep with her afterwards.

"Time is Still A-Flying"

• Rose consoling Donna about Lance's betrayal, empathizing with her using her own situation with Jimmy Stone.
• Jack and Rose catching up when he comes across her and the Doctor cleaning out Jackie's flat, something they never got to achieve in "The Stolen Earth" / "Journey's End".^note From a writing standpoint, the reason RTD had Jack show up right as the Doctor was shot and the Metacrisis happened was so he could avoid having to write a big Q&A for the Doctor, Rose and Jack. Because really, there should have been questions. And a conversation. And Rose demanding of the Doctor, "what do you mean, we left him there alone on the Game Station?" But by having such a big distraction going on, the conversation got shelved, and then by the time everything was settled, they were in different universes again. Of course, on the same token, such a scene would have also been somewhat out of place and screwed with the pacing.
• Upon taking Martha on as a companion, she and Rose quickly hit it off as close friends.
• Whilst pretending to be human to hide from the Family of Blood, the TARDIS ensures the Doctor and Rose stay married and together. We're granted several chapters of pure period romantic fluff between them until the Family arrives. They also get some more period fluff when they're stuck in 1969 thanks to the Weeping Angels.
• In "Blink", after Sally Sparrow's information allows them to recover the TARDIS from the Weeping Angels, the Doctor decides to express his gratitude to Sally for helping them by taking her and Larry back to 1935 so they can have one final visit with Kathy for closure.
• Because of Rose softening up Francine during "The Lazarus Experiment", Francine isn't inclined to believe the Master's lies, and the Master resorts to kidnapping Tish to extort Francine into betraying the Doctor and Rose. When Martha sees her parents and Tish on the Valiant, Francine apologizes for having to let her down, and Martha is quick to forgive her knowing that her parents were in a no-win situation.
• Whilst hiding from the Master, Jack gives the Doctor and Rose some needed privacy to have one last round of lovemaking before they head to the Valiant.
  • Jack in general when it comes to being the Doctor and Rose's wingman. He not only understands their need for privacy here, but he also tries to comfort the Doctor when the Master decides to force him to admit to Jack that Rose is "dead"^note Neither of them being aware that she's alive, but cut off from talking to either of them because the Master put a telepathic dampener on her while also limiting her communications with others to himself and Lucy
• Upon discovering the Master has turned the TARDIS into a paradox machine, the Doctor insists that Rose run for it if anything bad happens once the paradox machine activates. Rose refuses, determined to stay with the Doctor aboard the Valiant and risk a year of being held at the Master's mercy rather than be separated from him, for better or for worse. Her expression of determination when the Master's guards capture her and he's threatening her with his laser screwdriver invokes the same trusting, confident look the Doctor recalls her showing during the Slitheen invasion.
• Lucy Saxon deciding to take a message from Rose to the Doctor to let him know she's still alive. Both showing the first cracks in her loyalty to the Master, but also entirely out of the goodness of her heart to ease the Doctor's misery:
  Lucy: Doctor. The Wolf has only been silenced—your story is not over. And… she says you get a pass this year, but you’d better take her to Barcelona for your next anniversary.
  • Rose's message deliberately echoes what she, the Doctor, and Martha were told by Timothy Latimer after "The Family of Blood" when they parted from him in 1913 Farringham: “The Doctor and Rose Tyler, together, you burn at the centre of time and can see the turn of the universe. Even when the Wolf is silenced, your story will not be over. You are… forever.”
  • To repay Lucy, after the Master is defeated, Rose puts in a good word for her with the UNIT officers who arrive to clean up the situation.
• The Doctor and Rose's lovemaking after their first night back in the TARDIS following the Master's defeat. So short, sweet, yet clearly worth the year of separation. This is right after having gotten to tick off console room sex.
  “Forever,” the Doctor vowed as he kissed her neck.
  Rose moaned and dug her nails into his back. “Forever and never apart,” she swore.

"The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"

• Rose standing up for Astrid when Rickston Slade is berating her, even though it gives her flashbacks of putting up with the Master.
• Astrid manages to survive the Titanic, as opposed to being killed, thanks to the Doctor tasking her with helping Mr. Copper set up an EMP transmitter to take out the Hosts. Rose takes her place as the one driving the forklift to kill Max Capricorn.
• After the disaster is averted, Rose is shown calling Jack to help get Mr. Copper resettled on Earth. This comes in handy during "The Stolen Earth," as Mr. Copper uses his new fortune to create the Subwave Network that is utilized by Harriet Jones to locate the Doctor's TARDIS.

"Taking Time"

• The Doctor helping Rose rebuild the self-confidence that she lost thanks to the Master.

"Forever and Never Apart"

• Post-"The Fires of Pompeii", the Doctor and Rose sense Donna's lingering guilt over the people in Pompeii that they were unable to save from Mount Vesuvius, having had to erupt the mountain to defeat the Pyroviles and maintain the fixed point. So the Doctor takes the TARDIS up the Italian peninsula to Tuscany in 1324, and highlights to Donna that the lush vineyards covering the hillsides are there today thanks to their actions. Seeing the landscape reinvigorates Donna's spirit of adventure.
  Donna looked at the hills covered in vineyards with new eyes. She hadn’t slept well the night before, unable to stop thinking about the people they hadn’t saved. The little boy who’d been scooped up by his mother, the fruit vendor who’d sold the TARDIS to Caecilius in the first place… Every face she’d seen in their twenty-four hours in Pompeii had gone through her head on a constantly repeating reel.
  But with her lungs full of the rich, loamy scent of tilled earth and a castle looming in the distance, her enthusiasm for travelling returned. They’d saved the whole planet yesterday! She, Donna Noble, temp from Chiswick, had helped save the Earth from alien invasion. Oh, no one back home would ever believe this.
• The Doctor, over the course of the story, gaining a whole family unit of his own to pilot the TARDIS with, taking in Jenny and also Donna.
• In "The Sontaran Strategem," a lot of the UNIT Red Shirt deaths (including Ross Jenkins) are avoided thanks to Rose urging the Doctor not to antagonize Colonel Mace, making the Colonel more open to taking advice from the Doctor. Luke Rattigan also avoids having to sacrifice himself to blow up the Sontaran ship, with the Doctor doing that instead thanks to putting the converter bomb on a timer. He also is persuaded to show mercy on Luke, after Rose reminds him that Luke is a teenager and has plenty of years to turn herself around.
• Donna's arc in this season. Rather than have her memories wiped at the end, the elimination of all the elements needed to set up the Metacrisis Doctor and DoctorDonna means that she also gets to retain all of her character growth from the course of the season, and even become an honorary aunt to Jenny.
• "Silence in the Library" / "Forest of the Dead" doesn't have River Song, with her instead going by her birthname Melody Pond. That Melody is still using her birth name shows that she will never get separated from her parents, and grow up being raised by Amy and Rory with a normal childhood.
  • When Melody thinks she's broken some cardinal rules of time travel by accidentally letting slip to the Doctor and Rose an incident that will happen in their future, the Doctor gives her a reassuring hug and tells her that a little foreknowledge never hurts. We later see that after Melody is born, the Doctor and Rose will become her godparents.
• After "Midnight", Rose encounters the Twelfth Doctor on Julata. It's sweet for Rose, as she knows she’ll be with the Doctor at least through two more regenerations. And she realizes their mismatched lifespans might match more than she thinks. Also, encountering a younger Rose inspires the Twelfth Doctor to come up with a romantic idea for his Rose.
• It turns out that the Subwave Network that Harriet Jones uses to hail the Doctor's entourage was created by the Mr. Copper Foundation, showing that Mr. Copper has adjusted to life on Earth since the Titanic much better than most anticipated.
• When Davros is giving his Breaking Speech to the Doctor, trying to guilt-trip him, the Doctor refuses to give in to guilt and firmly shut down Davros with a passionate defense of his friends. Davros tries to counter by bringing up the death of Harriet Jones, but the Doctor still refuses to give in.
  Davros: The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth, Doctor. You take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons. Behold your Children of Time transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this. [The Doctor watched some of the fire go out of Martha, Jack, and Sarah Jane, and he shook his head quickly]
  The Doctor: Not murderers, Davros. Defenders. Defenders of the Earth. [He nodded at Dalek Caan] Caan was right. This shows you who I am. Not one of my friends was willing to just sit at home when you tried to take over the Earth. They didn’t give up or let things happen. They’re making a stand. [He looked at all of his friends, now standing straight] Would I have done things differently? [shrugs] Possibly. But I’m proud of all of them.
  [Davros paused for a moment, and the Doctor knew his response hadn’t been what was expected. And not too long ago, he would have been lost to guilt]
  Davros: Would you still be proud of them if they gave their lives for you? Your wife is not the only one who has sacrificed herself today, for their beloved Doctor. The Earth woman who fell opening the Subwave Network.
  The Doctor: Who was that?
  Mickey Smith: Harriet Jones. [The Doctor sucked in a breath. He’d barely thought about Harriet Jones of Flydale North since he’d had her removed from office almost four years ago] She gave her life to get you here.
  Davros: How many more? Just think. How many have died in your name?
  [The Doctor looked at his friends, and he could see the truth in their eyes. They loved him, and they were here because of him, but not for him. They were here for the Earth, for their families, for all the people who didn’t have anyone to defend them. And there were so many people who had made the same choice in his travels, the choice to put themselves in the path of danger to save a life or a planet. Their loss hurt, as it always did, but he couldn’t remember them without also remembering the people they’d saved. He wouldn’t cheapen their sacrifices by letting the guilt overwhelm him]
• Post "The Stolen Earth" / "Journey's End", not only does Mickey decide that he's come back to reside on the prime universe Earth now that the Pete's World version of his grandmother has died, but Jackie and Pete also decide to settle down with Tony back in the prime universe as well, so that Jackie won't have to choose between her kids. Jack offers to help them set up with the needed documentation to return to life in the main universe.
• Compared to the canon "Journey's End", we have 1) Donna remembering everything and keeping her character growth instead of being back to the old Donna, and for that matter staying with Team TARDIS (though still searching for her husband Lee from the dream world), 2) Rose and the Doctor happy and together instead of a horribly depressed Doctor standing in the rain having pawned Rose off to the Metacrisis clone, and 3) the Doctor actually having the biggest family in the world, instead of Sarah Jane Smith's remark being a cruelly ironic line. Instead of being alone, he's got Donna (who's like a big sister to him),^note For series 4, David Tennant and Catherine Tate more or less played the Doctor and Donna this way, and described them as such in interviews Rose (his bond mate and other half), and Jenny (his daughter).
  Sarah Jane Smith: This goodbye is quite a bit different from the first time you dropped me off. That time, you left me behind to fly off alone. But now… [She gestured towards the TARDIS] You’ve got the biggest family on Earth.
  [The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck. The notion of an extended family was honestly going to take a bit of getting used to, even though in theory, he liked the idea]

"Forever Timeless"

• We get to see the Doctor taking Sarah Jane's remark about the "biggest family on Earth" to heart.
• Donna gets her reunion with Lee, who as it turns out had been trapped in Amy Pond's wall due to the effects of the Reality Bomb.