Russell T. Davis once said about Doomsday that, "The events of his life must propel him forward". Which inspired me, along with the fear that Rose won't stay, to write this.
Summary: The Doctor and Rose find each other. Only this time he won't take her with him, because the pain of losing her again would destroy him.
Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go
Rose stood before him, just as she had done a year ago, her body silhouetted by the echoing image of her previous self within his mind. Her hair had grown back out in to long blonde curls that danced softly over her shoulders, sometimes catching on the gentle breeze that blew off the Thames and through the city, causing her hair to tumble gently down her back. Her eyes still transfixed him, they were still the unknown colour of green and brown that mixed together to create a nameless colour that he could only define as Rose.
She stood before him as a statue as timeless beauty, yet even as his heart yearned for her and ached within the shell of his body, The Doctor was unable to run to her. Instead he stood and stared again, his eyes threatening to consume her with the intensity of his gaze, slowly drinking the sight of her face once again.
Rose did the same, her mouth was slightly parted on a gasp mixed with a cry of joy, yet the words had not formed nor tumbled from her mouth, so she stood as though she was transfixed mid sentence as she watched him. She felt the very tips of her fingers tremble against the thick denim of her jeans that covered her thighs; her fingertips pressed together creating a force between them which she was powerless to overcome.
"Rose" was the single word the Doctor managed to mutter, it was barely a croak, as though his voice had been trapped and unable to speak within the past twelve months in which she was missing. It was as though every scream he had ever mustered was tearing his vocal cords apart as a reminder of all he had lost. It was all he could do not to scream again.
"Hi". Her voice was soft against the sound of a world of activities – yet the only sound the Doctor could hear was the soft decibels that left her mouth. She raised her mouth to form into a lopsided smile that was slightly veiled by shyness.
The Doctor let a small smile grace his lips as he watched her, his eyes wandering over her skin, longing to rediscover the feeling of her hand tucked into his – he longed for the completeness that he once felt with her to overcome him again. Instead all he felt was pain; pain that seeped within him with every beat of his pounding hearts. His body began to tremble with the velocity of the memories that flooded his conscious, memories that he had actively worked to suppress until the point where he barely knew himself.
Yet despite losing her, dropping her, longing for her – her she stood as strong and beautiful as she ever was.
Rose walked slowly towards him, the ground beneath her absorbing the impact of her footsteps against the surface of the Earth as she moved slowly towards him. He didn't move towards her, instead he stood and watched as she moved towards him as easily as though she were floating.
Soon she was before him again, her head readily fitting underneath his chin as she stared up into the vortex of his chocolate brown eyes which were glistening with pain and repossession.
"Doctor" her voice was quiet as she stood before him, to him it was loud, echoing within the hallways of his mind until he could no longer to hear her voice as it mixed with the screams of losing her.
He closed his eyes momentarily, so tightly that the red veins that pulsated within his lids heaved so that they blurred his vision into a red haze in an attempt to block out the visions that replayed over his mind like a film.
Rose raised one hand to gently trace his cheek bones which appeared as though they had been glued to the outer surface of his face. He jumped back instantly as though he'd been struck creating an instant layer of pain to Rose's eyes. He looked at her intensely before raising her hand which was now by her side and pressing back against his cheek so that he could lean into the soft skin of her hand.
"Doctor" she said softly, her words just the same as before, just this time with an undertone of despair as he broke before her.
"Doctor. My world's collapsed. I'm back. I'm…home" she whispered, afraid that if she spoke the words they would no longer be true.
The Doctor looked down at her again; the faintest hint of a smile touching against his lips as he pulled her into his arms holding her so tightly that she feared for a moment every bone in her body would break under the intensity. She clung back to him, her fingertips pressing into the skin on his back so that she left a mark for fear that she might be dragged away from him again.
"Missed you" she whispered into the folds of his coat which lay just beneath her cheek where tears now fell against him.
"Missed you too" he whispered into her hair.
They stood that way for what could have been a piece of eternity, with their faces pressed into one another, angry tears for their parting falling down both of their faces until they were so intertwined no longer knew what it meant to be alone.
They parted moments later with the Doctor's hand still resting upon Rose's cheek. There he traced the lines that had formed around her lines
"How did you get these?" he asked softly
"I aged" she replied quietly, her eyes downcast at the weakness of humanity. The Doctor seemed almost momentarily stunned that she could be attacked by such a human force. He rubbed her cheeks softly, the reminiscence of tears clinging to his thumbs until they no longer touched her face.
"You're still beautiful" he whispered softly as he watched her. She smiled up at him watching his eyes before she blushed slowly.
"Doctor?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah" he replied, his eyes drowning in the sight of her eyes smiling upon his skin.
"Can I come with you?" she barely whispered, the desperation on her words hanging heavily upon his heart. He watched her face quietly as his mind replayed watching her fall from him over and over again, each time his heart breaking more and more until he was hardly left.
"Rose" he breathed softly, the forgotten words so hard for him to expel. It was as though he could still hear her sobs in his head from years earlier still tearing away at him.
"Rose, I've lost you once. You've died once. And it killed me" he whispered, his voice cracking as he tried to speak.
"The past year…its' destroyed me".
"It broke me too Doctor" Rose whispered, her words stark. He nodded at her, his thumbs running down her cheeks again.
"I can't do it again. Rose you made me human, you made me love and care and fear, so, so much that I would lose you" – he was babbling now, his words tipping out as though he had no control over them, the flood of emotion was forcing them out – "And then it happened, you were gone. And I couldn't get over it. I'm still not over it. I stand here and see you before me and my heart still aches for losing you…and if I do it again…I'll – I fear what I'll become".
Rose was speechless, tears rested against her porcelain cheeks as she watched the torment in his eyes. Within the cavity of her chest she could feel her heart breaking all over again.
"Doctor, losing you killed me. But now – now I've found you, and if you just leave me here, if you just…" her words ran off as sobs overcame her. She stood before him, a vacant shell of what she was as her body trembled with the force of the words he had just forced at her.
"Rose. I love you" his words were quiet against the sound of her sobs tearing at his heart.
"Then why are you doing this?" she asked desperately.
"I love you so much that I would rather leave you like this, watch you walk away and know you're alive than take you with me and to love you for however long we have left and to have to watch you die and knowing its my fault".
Rose bit her lip as a frown absorbed her face
"Doctor…You changed me. I'm not who I used to be. And I've spent so long searching for you and now…now I have you back, you just want to let me go…"
He looked at her apologetically through the tears that had now started to fall down his face and onto her hands which gripped his shoulders in desperation.
She looked away from him, staring down at the floor as the logic of his words fell into her brain like cogs of a machine working in unison. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath
"You can't do this to me again" she angrily accused as her fists trembled against her sides, "Why do you always want to leave me behind?" she choked
"Because it means you won't die".
She stood silently before him, overwhelmed by the guilt and pain that lanced through his eyes. She sighed softly
"You know sometimes I wished that I'd just fallen into the void. Then this – this life without you – wouldn't have to happen." She whispered laden with guilt. The Doctor raised his hands to tip her face upwards so he could stare into her eyes
"And I wished that it was me who fell into the void, just so that I wouldn't have to live with this guilt that's killing me".
They smiled softly at one another, their hearts breaking in unison as they clung to each other one last time.
"Visit me?" she asked softly as she nearly chocked on her words.
The Doctor nodded quietly as he moved away from her.
"I love you" she whispered, her body morphing back into the one that haunted him from Bad Wolf Bay. He smiled his broken smile at her
"And if it's my last chance to say it, Rose Tyler, I love you too".
And with that he walked away from her, the broken shell of the once powerful Time Lord retreating back to where he hid away from humanity and the people that could break his heart the most only now he had two ghosts to haunt him, once from the first time he lost her, and the second from when he broke her heart all over again.
The finality of that felt so severe to him, but he knew that it would be better, anything would be better, than having to lose her again, because then he would be lost and the only person who could reach out to him would be gone. So for her, he had to break her heart, and for the future of the entire universe he left the woman he loved to sit alone in his Tardis as his heart broke again and again until the pain numbed him. Because he held her tight, then he let her go.