A/N: The poem that inspired this (and that is in the text) is called Recovery and it's by Maya Angelou

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who.

Recovery

A last love,

proper in conclusion,

should snip the wings,

forbidding further flight.

She's gone. Sucked into a parallel world. Sent there because of my own plan. My fool proof plan to put things right, to fix the mess that Torchwood made. To trap those vile enemies in a void between universes.

It was fool proof, but not Doctor proof.

I lost her, like I lose them all. I watched her flying into the void with theDaleks and the Cybermen; but with a stroke of what some would call luck, I instead watched her carried off to some form of safety. In a way, the latter is the harder. She is trapped forever in a world that was never hers, that was never meant to be hers.

My plan wasn't Doctor proof.

They never are.

But I, now,

reft of that confusion,

am lifted up

and speeding toward the light.

Every companion I travel with leaves at some point. Some leave suddenly, tortured by the things they've seen; some I must watch die; while still others are alive and well somewhere I can never return to. I've seen so many of them go and very few of their own volition. But, every time I watch them go, its heartbreaking. I love them all, all the same.

Or so I thought.

Rose was one of the hardest for me to lose. There was some extra connection between us. Some unspoken promise that we would last forever.

(Foolish, I know, for a Timelord to think he can have the same companion forever. Every human dies.)

That's why I didn't realize I was moving on. I dwelled so much on Rose in my thoughts that I didn't see the connection growing between Martha and myself until she walked out the door. Her story, her round-about confession, I understood it. Her words showed me a part of myself I had never considered seeing before.

A part that had healed.

I've seen so many people fall. So many dead while I live on. I thought Rose had been the final straw, the one to break my hearts forever.

The one I would never get over.

But, as I watched Martha Jones depart, her cell phone in my hand, I realized I had more than healed. I had more than moved on.

I had fallen in love.