Disclaimer: I wish.
Doctor
Would he die? Well, that was pretty inevitable, but he wasn't sure it mattered much. The choice was either death by falling or death by suffocation, and he'd take the more adventurous option any day. Could he just drop without a word of goodbye to the girl fighting for her life up in that space station, though? He didn't think so.
"If they get back in touch…"
He'd been through a lot with Rose, things he'd never been through with other companions and knew he owed it to her to say something. Finding the words was a lot harder than it seemed, though. He felt a surge of guilt as he realised he hadn't exactly said a proper goodbye to many of the other companions, either, but knew that the fact he had the chance and need to give one to Rose did not lower their worth in any way. Loving her – and he did, as he only, stupidly fully realised just now – did not make him care for the others any less. He thought he had the answer to every question…it dawned on him at this point that there was so much he had been blind to. If he'd never acknowledged the full extent of his feelings for Rose before, what else had he missed?
"If you speak to Rose…"
When he found his fingers had stopped unclipping the cable at the sound of her name echoing around the pit, he wasn't sure he wanted to consider why. If he did, he might never let go. What was it he said before? I'll be back. Rose is up there. A light smile crossed his face as he saw how much one single word could mean to him. Bravery, beauty, compassion, wonder, naivety, faith, hope,strength. Connotation was a wonderful thing. Of course, while the name brought up a thousand memories and stirred even more emotions for him, to Ida it would simply dictate the blonde girl ten miles above her head.
She was an observant woman, though. He thought she probably knew already. Somehow that made it harder to admit. Time Lords weren't supposed to fall in love, least of all with humans. Just a year ago, if anyone had told him he'd be in this position – hanging from a rope above what could possibly be Satan on a planet that shouldn't exist while he wondered how to say goodbye to a 20-year-old shop-girl from London – he would have told them where to shove it. But he'd promised her a lifetime with him and was now faced with explaining in a short, passed-on message just why he'd had to break that promise. Should I even be passing on a message like this through someone else? Shouldn't it be more...private? It wasn't as though he had much choice.
Ida was silent as the Doctor pondered what on earth he could say. Nothing seemed to be right except the three words replaying themselves around and around in his head like a broken record: I love her. Billions of words in billions of languages and he could only come up with three - three that still shocked him too much to be said aloud. He felt that didn't say much about how coherent he was in a crisis.
"Tell her…" Tell her that I'm sorry. Tell her I wish I'd said more than just 'I'll see you later'. That I wish we'd had more time, that I'd taken her to more places – ones that didn't result in near-death.
"Tell her I –" He couldn't understand why it was so hard to say, why so many doubts were racing through his head. Tell her that I love her so much it truly scares me, more than the thought of what could be at the bottom of this pit, more than the thought I might die falling to meet it.
Would it be harder for her to know how he felt only after he was dead? Would she spend the rest of her life wondering what could have happened? He knew he couldn't let her live out her life like Sarah Jane had, lonely and waiting. Would she resent him for keeping her in the dark for so long?
Every time he'd taken her hand, everytime they'd hugged and even their two kisses (for both of which she'd been as good as unconscious, he thought with something akin to regret) played like a reel of film through his head. Everytime he'd wanted to say something but couldn't, everytime she'd had the exact same look on her face…
"Ah, she already knows."
And she did, but he couldn't push away a sinking feeling that was now swallowing him up, one which could not be attributed to his free-falling: the thought that perhaps it wasn't fair she should have to know and never be told.
IdaShe could have told her, but it felt wrong to put words in his mouth, and how could she have been sure they were the right ones?
"Tell her – " I love her? Ida assumed so. But what if it was I'll miss her? To have a good life? To buy some chips for tea?
Rose would have wanted exact words, she knew, and then what would she have said? It could hurt Rose even more to never know what he was going to say. Besides, he was supposed to have fallen. He shouldn't have had the time to say anything, let alone prepare half a speech.
"He mentioned your name." It was all the consolation that could be offered. When it came to it, Ida wasn't sure why she lied. Perhaps she couldn't explain the urge to jump, the urge to fall, or didn't want to try and explain why the Doctor had jumped despite the fact that the girl who clearly loved him was ten miles above his head. Holding out hope until the last minute, Rose would have seen it as the Doctor choosing death over her, and Ida knew that wasn't a pleasant burden for anyone to bear. The girl thought there was a way out, another option, but in reality the only option he had left was whether to take control or submit to death. She would send herself crazy wondering why he didn't say more, why he didn't hang on for her.
The lie wasn't planned, but when Ida heard Rose's pain beaming loud and clear through the comm., she understood immediately that she'd done the right thing. To tell the truth would have been to break Rose's heart – no, more than that, to effectively rip it out and stamp on it, too, as it was already well and truly broken. There had been enough heartbreak, enough death already. No-one wanted Rose adding to the list.
She wondered, later, if they'd ever tell each other what really happened or how they really felt; if they'd ever find the words.