The first thing she remembers is the feel of the cold solid wall underneath her hands. She knows immediately that she is gone, that he is gone, and she cannot go back. She can't help but cry at the pain that cuts through her like a searing knife, sharper than any real slice of blade ever could be.
She smacks the wall, hard, and orders to be taken back. The dismal hopes she has are shattered when Pete says that it's stopped working. Rose continues to cry as her father tells her of the Doctor's success. Not for one moment did Rose think that the Doctor would fail. He hardly ever failed, and if he did, he went back somehow to fix it. There was always a way to fix it, wasn't there? There was always a way to fix it; that sentence repeated over and over and over inside of her mind. Any minute now the Doctor was going to show up and take her away. He would fix this; she would see him again. She had to.
Rose pressed her face against the wall and slide her hand a few inches away from her face. For a few seconds, she thought she could feel his presence. She knew it was impossible and that it was only stupid hope again, but she had to believe that she could feel him. The wall grew warm underneath the heat of her own hand and that's when she began to cry again. The others let her be for a few moments and she was grateful for that. She knew that they had to go, they had a life to make somehow, somewhere, now. That thought caused her to push away from the wall and wipe her cheeks. The sobs were still in her, she knew that she'd have a good long cry later, but right now she couldn't just cry. The others needed her and if the Doctor wasn't around anymore, she'd have to make do.
She walked away from the wall and squared her shoulders. Rose Tyler was going to make it through this; she had to.
The dream was a curse and a blessing wrapped into one large ball of uncertainty that Rose wasn't sure if she should follow through with it or not. But that voice, his voice, told her what she had needed to do. She had tried her best through all those years never to disappoint him and she was going to be damned if she started now. The Doctor had called to her and she would go. She would go anywhere.
She told her mum, she told her dad, and she told Mickey about the dream. She had needed to tell someone and they would know she wasn't mental for what she had dreamt. They listened and they agreed. She had to go. Perhaps they knew, or really hoped, that this would be good for her and for her sanity. After all, she had been in a trance-like state ever since that day when the breach had been closed. She had been perfectly compliant to everyone's wishes and had been very, very helpful at household chores. Model behavior, she would've thought. And maybe that was the real reason they had agreed to go.
The voiced instructions lead her to a beach, fittingly named Bad Wolf Bay, and she waited. She didn't know what she was waiting for, and in those moments, she wondered if she really had gone mental and that this was all for naught. Her body was tense, her mind hoped beyond all possible hope.
And then he was there.
The Doctor, standing just a few meters away.
Hope had come at last. Here he was to fix it, as she knew he would've been. Her mind raced with ways he was going to take her away, how he'd hold her and they'd reconnect like all this had never happened. She grew excited and she moved closer. She told him he looked like a ghost and he fixed it so that he looked solid. Rose didn't even think about what Mickey or her mum and dad were thinking. She only knew that her Doctor had come at last.
"Can I touch you?" She asked. God how she wanted to touch him, to touch, to hug, to kiss him.
His face grew apologetic, pained, but still apologetic. "I'm still just an image. Don't touch."
His soft reprimand caused her to ask, hopefully brokenly, "can't you come through properly?"
He told her in his patient way that it was impossible, that two universes would be ruined. She had the nerve to ask 'so?'. He laughed and she felt a bit proud of herself that she had caused him to laugh, even under the circumstances. She still held her hope.
She studied his face for a few seconds and wanted to be able to remember every feature the way it was in that moment. The look of sadness and still patience that was in his eyes. The few crinkles in the corners of his eyes and that same little-smile that wasn't happy but nor was it unpleasant. She wanted to remember all of him the way he was.
They had a small chat, Rose thought it so stupid, about where they were. She wanted to say so many things to him, but they wouldn't come. Her mind had suddenly gone blank of all questions and meaningful statements. So she talked about Norway. It seemed to please the Doctor's curiosity and it was something to say. It wasn't a complete waste.
Then she couldn't help but ask. She didn't want to know the answer, but it was necessary.
"How long have you got?" Her voice broke and the tears were coming up quickly. They started properly when he said only two minutes. Two minutes? Only two minutes more? She let out a choked sob, but pushed the tears away. She had to make the most of those two minutes; she wouldn't probably get another chance. "I can't think what to say!"
The Doctor laughed, but it was a sad laugh. The kind of laugh she didn't ever like to hear. The Doctor looked behind her and asked about the others. Rose felt a pang of guilt for forgetting them for a few seconds. Rose mentioned her brother without thinking how the Doctor would take it. She wondered for half a second what the Doctor would've done if she had confirmed that it was her that was having the baby. But that would've been dishonest and she would never lie to him. Never. She smiled a little when she corrected him.
Then the Doctor asked the most terrible question of all.
"And what about you?"
She told him about Torchwood, not all of it, that would've taken far too long and it would've been too complicated to explain in two minutes. She couldn't stop another sob as the Doctor looked on her proudly. She didn't want to be 'Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth'. She wanted to be 'Rose Tyler, companion to the Doctor, TARDIS resident'. Why couldn't she have only held on?
Hearing the Doctor say she was dead caused more tears. How could she really be dead when she was standing right there? She may have felt numb inside more times than not, but she wasn't dead. Hearing those words come from his mouth were cruel, sharp, and they twisted her insides and squeezed pain into her body.
The Doctor tried to remedy his mistake by saying a few kind words, but Rose was too emotional now. She looked at him and felt the tears sliding down her cheeks. The pain was too much. It had grown suddenly, leapt throughout her system, and was now pressing upon her. Rose couldn't breathe, her words came out on a choked sob.
"Am I ever going to see you again?"
She didn't want the answer. She didn't know what she would do if he said no. There had to be a way that she could. She had to be his companion again. She had to be—there was no other life for her that she wanted. Not even the lure of Torchwood looked interesting compared to the Doctor.
That moment he took to answer was a lifetime. In her mind she kept saying, pleading, "please, please, please, please."
She lowered her eyes and only looked up for a moment as he spoke gently.
"You can't."
The breath was knocked from her.
"What are you going to do?" She said in the sharp exhale.
The Doctor sounded sad, sadder than she had ever heard him, when he told her that he would do the same old thing. The same routine. The same lonely routine. That hurt Rose more than she could have known. He was too incredible to be lonely. She loved him too much to let him be lonely.
She had to tell him that.
"I—"
The thought occurred to her and she bent over trying to get enough breath to say how she felt. She had taken for granted all those quiet moments in the TARDIS and those moments where she had simply hugged him to tell him how she really felt. She couldn't do that, not again. Not that she wasn't ever going to get the chance again.
The tears were a steady stream now, but she couldn't help it.
"I love you."
"Quite right to." The Doctor deadpanned and Rose nodded. His humor, always his humor.
Then he started to speak again. Rose listened intently, listened harder than she had ever done before.
"And, I suppose, if it's my last chance to say it," she let out a sob and waited, waited for a long few seconds, "Rose Tyler—"
Then he disappeared. Rose blinked and looked around but he was gone.
Knowing that he hadn't said anything at all, Rose cried out in pain and then the sobs began. She couldn't keep them inside. The pain overwhelmed her and she couldn't stop crying. There was pressure all inside of her that seemed to press down and wouldn't release at all. She couldn't breathe; she didn't want to. Rose barely felt her mum's arms around her body, but somehow she still clung to her.
It was over, all of it, the time she'd spent with the Doctor was truly gone. It wasn't going to be fixed, there was no fix. It was done now and the Doctor was gone. Her time with him was over, and there was no going back.
She couldn't accept it. She didn't want to. She loved him, how could it all be over?
Rose sobbed and sobbed and she couldn't stop. There was too much pain and not enough air. It was over and she couldn't believe it. She felt her mum leading her back to the Jeep but the tears did not abide.
She didn't hear the others get in the car and she didn't watch the scenery pass by as they left Bad Wolf Bay. She didn't care about that now. The Doctor, the TARDIS, and all their time together was gone, long, long gone. And it wasn't coming back. The hope was gone.
Rose leaned down to put her head between her knees and let out a pained sound as the Jeep drove away. Mickey looked at her, obviously concerned, but she didn't look over at him. The pain had to end, one day, didn't it? Rose didn't know the answer to that. She didn't know the answer to anything anymore. All she knew was that he was gone and she wasn't going to see him again.
Agony flared inside of her when she thought of never seeing his face again. It pressed on her and she couldn't breathe. She gasped, but nothing would satisfy that need for air. Rose sobbed and wondered if one day she would ever be able to breathe properly again.