A/N – I do plan to continue writing this, so stay tuned and tell me what you think. (:
"Am I ever going to see you again?"
The words came out as a choked sob, a small slip of the pain that she wished she could hide. Limbs shaking, Rose tried to laugh, to put on a good face for the Doctor, but her lips twisted, revealing an inconsolable ache reverberating through her chest.
"You can't."
Somehow she knew those words would come, but she had needed to know. The truth stabbed at her soul, and until now, she hadn't realized that she was holding her breath. She had still maintained a shred of hope that her Time Lord, being the magnificent alien he is, could find a loop-hole. Some sort of a gateway to this new universe with all of its kinks and once again whisk her away to the safety of his TARDIS. Her dreams were proven fictitious in two beautiful words.
Salty tears left tracks on her swollen cheeks as gravity helped them to roll.
"What're you gonna do?" Rose sniveled.
"Ah, I've got the TARDIS. Same old life, last of the Time Lords.."
The Doctor gave an unconvincing chuckle, his face betraying him. Rose had known that the Doctor, being the last of his race, traveled with a companion to escape loneliness. She wished the Doctor happiness above all else, but in spite of herself, she imagined what would happen once she was out of commission. Would the Doctor set out in search for a new Rose Tyler?
"On your own?"
The Doctor gave a brief nod of the head. She wished, not for the millionth time, that she had allowed the portal to close, trapping hundreds of Daleks in her world rather than leave the Time Lord.
Without thinking, Rose blurted the only thing she could think of. The one emotion in her life that had stayed a constant for the past two years.
"I L-" The words wouldn't come.
After all the shared tension that had knowingly taken place between them, it had been narrowed down to a brief two minute moment. The Doctor had never been one for domestics, but this was something else entirely. Rose gathered herself in preparation, gulping down her nervousness and fear to place herself on the line. She felt the words bubbling from the deepest parts of herself that she had thought were buried a long time ago. It burst forth like a volcano, spewing forth her bottled passion.
The three words she spoke were,
"I love you."
Sweet relief washed over her like a cleansing wave. She had said it. The ever-lurking presence that had grown between them was out - ready to materialize itself in the last moments of their relationship.
The Doctor's jaw clenched as he mulled over how to respond. He had expected - no - known about their shared affection since the night of his tenth regeneration. Rose had taken the whole of space and time into her petite, blonde body to protect him of all people, a Time Lord, when she'd been perfectly safe on her home planet in her own time. Knowing that her soul would soon split from the data excess, he had attempted the only thing left to do: extraction.
There had only been one other documented case of extraction in the archives; unfortunately, the offending being had perished. The Time Lord had known he needed to act quickly.
Muttering under his breath, he had whispered, "I think you need a Doctor."
He gently met his lips with Rose, breathing in her scent, taking comfort in the warmth of her skin, and absorbing the information that she held along with portions of her memories.
It was as if a live wire had penetrated his flesh. The data received was massive, as if everything he had learned in his nine-hundred years was instantly shot through his system, jolting awake every fiber.
Yet he felt changed, different somehow; he had Rose's memories. Her thoughts and emotions charged through him, shaking him to the core and uniting his fractured mind.
The Doctor struggled to compose himself. He had imagined that they could travel the universe, witnessing history being made throughout time. No boundaries, and certainly no heartache. It was cruel that Karma could be separating them now- punishment for delaying the inevitable: the courting of Rose Tyler.
"Quite right to."
The troubled Time Lord's attempt at humor fell flat. Obviously, this was not the time for jokes, but could he really reveal his inner-self to another living entity? This was his last chance to see his beloved, and he couldn't even bring himself to say a proper farewell. Regardless of the repercussions, he willed himself to speak.
"And I suppose, if it's my last chance to say it.."
His mind trembled on the edge of insanity. Seeing the hope, the longing in Rose's eyes and not being able to embrace her drove him mad with an insatiable desire for more time and closer quarters.
"Rose Tyler.."
Gone.
She was gone.
His transmission had fried after absorbing the last of the Delta waves being dispatched by the exploding star that was now in the process of becoming converted into a black nothingness.
"I love you."
Rose stood solemnly on the beach while a chilly breeze whipped through her hair, shooting its frigid tendrils into her skin. Fresh tears slipped beneath the curve of her jaw with several more to take their place. She gawked at the small patch of sand where the image of her Doctor had once hovered.
She refused to believe it.
Her eyes flickered about the expanse of the shore before her, unable to comprehend that for two incredible years the Doctor had shown her wonders unimagined by mankind, only to be swept away by the icy winds of time and space.
He had been fantastic.
A single, salty drop lurked on a rough patch of stubble as his mouth hung open in horror.
He never said it, she never heard. Pain wracked his consciousness as he imagined Rose's similar reaction to his fatal flaw. A dull, throbbing acceptance washed over the Doctor as a second tear joined the first. He closed his eyes. He was alone- him and the TARDIS.
He envisioned what their future could have been: the places they could've seen, the people they would have met, the things they would have- no, he couldn't go there. The Doctor moaned with rage at all the possibilities lost, coercing several more small drops of salt to trickle against his cheek. Pacing about the TARDIS, the Time Lord visualized all plausible options- none were likely to succeed. Yet, a firm denial lodged itself into place, gripped by the feral urge to resist defeat. The Doctor raced into action, twisting knobs and pulling levers, while swearing on each of his hearts, that this was not the end.
"Hang on Rose, I'm coming."