Rose was dying. She knew it, she felt it in her bones. After all, what does one do when her reason for living is gone?
Rose's husband, still known to this day as the Doctor, her mortal Doctor, passed away not three days ago, and Rose knew she would soon follow. They had both lived a full life, in their own parallel universe. They had revolutionised this world's Torchwood, and their children had grown old and had children of their own.
Rose was happy, she was content. She had had the life she always wanted, and now she would be leaving. She stirred the contents of her tea cup slowly, when she looked up, like a deer caught in the headlights of a car.
A sound, a noise she hadn't heard for over sixty years, seemed to echo through her silent mind.
A knock on the door followed shortly after.
With shaking hands, Rose hurried to the door, and admitted the man standing outside, his hands deep in the pockets of his long brown trench coat, his poofy hair sticking at odd angles.
"Doctor?" she whispered.
"Still my Rose," he smiled.
"What?" she snorted, "I'm all old and wrinkly!"
The Doctor laughed, lighting up his face.
"What're ya doing here then?" Rose demanded.
The Doctor sighed, and ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up more. "I felt my mortal self die, and I had to see you one last time. I had to, Rose."
Rose smiled. "But I thought all the rifts had closed, and to open one would cause everything to collapse..."
The Doctor seemed to shift a little on his feet, like a child caught with his hands in the biscuit jar. "I searched throughout the entire universe to find a rift," he admitted slowly. "You remember, last time I was orbiting a Super Nova? This time I'm actually inside one."
"Still my Doctor then," Rose grinned and her old, wrinkly face split up.
"So, what do you say? One last spin, around that whole timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly stuff?"
He pulled out a hand and stuck it out in front of him. Rose took it without hesitations, and he led her to the TARDIS.
"I can't believe you stole this," she muttered as he unlocked the door.
The Doctor turned back to face her. "He told you that? I told you that? We told you that?"
"Of course," Rose smirked, "it was one of the favourite bed time stories for the kids."
"Kids?" The Doctor repeated faintly. "I've missed a lot then, haven't I?"
"Well you were in the parallel universe, bit hard, really." Rose suddenly felt guilty for bringing it up. Her own Doctor, the one she had grown old with, had told her stories about his own family, his Timelord family, stories about what he'd lost.
"Well," she changed the subject quickly, "Where're you taking me? Where can you take me?"
"Oh, Rose," he smiled, "everywhere."
"Come on!" he yelled suddenly, and he leapt onto the platform, whacking buttons and pulling leavers. "Still remember what to do?"
Rose didn't reply, just stepped after the Doctor, although admittedly not half as quick. She latched her left hand onto one leaver and pulled down, her other hand smacking onto a button glowing bright orange.
"Ha HA!" The Doctor cried, as the TARDIS gave an all mighty lurch, the time rotor beginning to pump as the signature noise started up.
Rose grinned. She had missed this.
The Doctor ran around to the other side of the console as he flicked several more bits and bobs, and it wasn't long until they had reached their first destination.
"Where are we then?" said Rose, her lips curling up.
"Ah," said the Doctor, "Just step outside into the wonders of the universe."
And Rose did, slowly, make her way over to the door. She cursed her age that she couldn't bounce around like the Doctor was doing right now, but she was about as spritely as she could be, for an old girl of 83.
Opening the door, she gasped, and looked back at the Doctor.
Outside was beautiful. They were floating through space, just on the outskirts of a Galaxy. The tight-knit sprinkling of stars swirled in a distinct shape, and Rose thought she could almost make out the planets, the biggest stars, shining amongst the tiniest stars.
"I'd forgotten what this was like," she breathed.
"Yeah," the Doctor agreed. But he was not looking at the swirling galaxy before them, he was looking at Rose.
Rose seemed to notice at that moment, and elbowed him in the stomach. She refused to blush.
"Whadchoo do that for?" he exclaimed, outraged.
Rose just winked at him.
The TARDIS travelled slowly around the galaxy, and the Doctor suddenly closed the door on it. "That's enough of one galaxy for you then, missy!" he cried, still glaring at his companion.
"Where to next then?" asked Rose, a little hop in her step. God, but she had missed this.
The Doctor only winked, and the time rotor started back up.
This time they ended up in the Victorian era, and they were just in time for a reading by Charles Dickens, a few years before they had met him the first time.
They settled in the audience, laughed with everyone else, cried with everyone else.
"Pity he hasn't met us yet," said Rose as they left the building. "I would have liked to catch up with the old fella."
"Mmm, well," agreed the Doctor. "Where to next, milady?"
"Oh, I don't know," Rose shrugged, "Somewhere we haven't been yet. Surprise me."
The Doctor grinned, and away they went.
Once again, Rose opened the door, to reveal them once again, floating around space.
"The beginning of the Earth, the Big Bang, whatever you want to call it," the Doctor smirked, arms crossed against his chest. "Sped up, of course."
"Of course," Rose agreed lightly, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
They watched as outside the TARDIS, tiny clumps of rock, of asteroids, lumped into each other, slowly forming a bigger and bigger rock. It was soon big enough to be called a planet.
"Watch out!" Rose shouted suddenly, and was quickly embarrassed as she realised that a planet couldn't hear her.
The Doctor snorted, and they both watched as a giant asteroid banged into the developing planet, and then settled into orbit.
"Is that – "
"The moon," finished the Doctor.
Rose watched in awe as the planet slowly developed an atmosphere. She turned away, she knew what would come next. Life.
A thought occurred to her. "You know," she started, "why did you never take me to see the dinosaurs?"
"The dinosaurs?" repeated the Doctor, surprised. "You wanted to see the dinosaurs? The great, big, man-eating, primitive dinosaurs, over wonders like black holes and Super Novas, and famous authors and aliens and other galaxies and solar systems and the end of the earth and mysterious plots of murder and highly suspicious characters trying to destroy the universe and Daleks?
"Well I could have done without the Daleks, to be honest, and no I don't want to see the dinosaurs, not now, I doubt a walking stick would be much defence. I was just wondering why you never thought of it."
"Because Rose, we have the entire universe at our feet, why go to something you already knew about?"
"True," she conceded, and she smiled.
The Doctor took her to meet the free Ood, who immediately circled around her, whispering, "The Doctor's Rose, the Doctor's Rose, the Doctor's Rose..."
He took her briefly to Earth, this world's Torchwood, where she caught up with the infamous Captain Jack Harkness, aged not a day since she last saw him. She felt guilty then, knowing the full extent to what she had done.
"Ah, Rose, still as beautiful as ever," Jack had flirted, and laughed as the Doctor had immediately growled.
He took her to see the Face of Boe, looked after by the strange cat people. The Doctor just watched on sadly, and they left quickly.
"I never thought about it, but the Face of Boe reminds me of something. Not sure what, or why, though," said Rose as they once again boarded the TARDIS.
The Doctor shifted uneasily, and Rose caught him at it.
"What? What do you know?" she demanded.
"Once, er, quite a few years ago, I was talking to Captain Jack, and he mentioned the men of his unit, in one of the wars on Earth or something, they used to call him the Face of Boe..."
"What? No..."
The Doctor was compassionate when he looked at the old woman.
"That's what I did to him?" she whispered.
" 'fraid so," the Doctor shrugged. "No use crying over spilt milk, you Earthlings would say"
Rose punched his shoulder.
"Ow! Whadchoo do that for!"
Rose grinned and fluttered her eyelashes unashamedly.
The Doctor scowled and turned back to the console of the TARDIS.
Rose placed a hand over her chest, she could feel her end drawing near. But she didn't want her final adventure to finish.
The Doctor sighed. Rose whipped her hand back down, just before he turned to face her, his eyes sad.
"Time to go back home, I think. Or I won't be able to get back out of the rift."
Rose simply walked over to him, and held him tight. "I've missed this," she murmured.
"I've missed you," he replied.
They finally reached Rose's parallel universe, and they walked back to her house, hands held tightly together.
At the door, Rose turned around. "Stay?" she whispered.
"Always," the Doctor smiled sadly.
"Well come on then," said Rose in a last effort to lighten the mood, "welcome to my humble abode!"
"Nice," said the Doctor appreciatively, "You and me must have done well together."
Rose led him up to her room, her lonely room, and settled herself in bed, propped up on pillows. The Doctor pulled up a chair, still holding her hand, never letting go.
Rose nattered into the silence, telling her Doctor about their life together, her job, her children, her grandchildren, until eventually, they fell into silence.
Rose lifted up her other hand, and cupped the Doctor's cheek. "My poor, lonely Doctor," she murmured. Her eyes closed, and her hand fell limply into his lap.
For the first time, in what felt like years, the Doctor cried and cried, his head bent over the cooling hand of the woman he had loved for what felt like an eternity.
Some time later
The woman knocked on the door again, impatient to see her mother. "Mum!" she called, "Mum? Hello..."
The woman gave up knocking and opened the door. She ran to her mother's bedroom, and nearly collapsed on the floor as she witnessed the peaceful, dead look of her mother lying in bed.
As she passed the window, she glanced out as movement caught her eye.
There, on the other side of the street, was a man in a long trench coat, striding towards a large blue Police Box. The man seemed to raise his hand to his face, as if removing tears. He never looked back.
As the woman watched, tears streaming down her face, the blue box slowly disappeared, the trademark noise that had been described to her so many times echoing through the silence.
She smiled.
I cried. Did you cry? Or maybe I'm just a sook...
