Her grief was marked by holograms.
They were bookends to her life among the stars, these holograms, and they stood like ghostly guardians in her mind, guardians of a time full of times she would never know again.
The first hologram was supposed to mark the end, though really it only marked the end of the beginning. The end of leather jackets and brooding eyes. The second hologram truly marked the end. The end of long-winded explanations and furtive glances, unspoken promises and brainy specs. The end of the stars for Rose Tyler.
As she watched his ghostly form appear on the beach of Bad Wolf Bay, she couldn't help but think of her blue-eyed, Northern Doctor, and the unbelievable grief she had felt when he had sent her home, all that time ago. But she had been so full of hope then, so full of fire and so sure that she could save him. This time she was hopeless. This time she knew that her time among the threads of time itself was over.
He was saying goodbye again. Different eyes, different words, but still the same message.
And this time she believed it.
…
She came to hate holograms after that.