Alone
Oh Donna. What a dear, dear friend. And what fun we had had together. Saving the world from a villainous Racnoss, travelling to Pompeii, solving an Agatha Christie mystery in person, creating and losing Jenny, facing the Dalaks… It is a pity, more than a pity really, that Donna will never again be able to look at me and say my name with that drawl of hers, "Doock-tooore!" We will no longer be able to travel all of time and space together, talking about how we are best mates and how Donna thinks that 'TARDIS' isn't actually a word. (But of course it's not. Anybody who's anybody knows that TARDIS is an acronym for Time and Relative Dimension in Space.)
In losing Donna, I had lost my best mate, the friend who was going to travel with me forever, (and one of the only companions who I didn't mind hearing that from). It almost would have been easier for me if Donna had died. It wouldn't have been good for her, no, not at all, but it would have almost been easier for me to live with if she had died. Instead, I had to take all her memories and make her forget that I even existed. And she knew. She looked at me and she knew that I was going to take her memories away and that she was going to go back to being Donna Noble the temp.
I'm used to losing people. Eventually everybody dies and I end up alone, alone in my TARDIS with the entire universe at my fingertips. Companions come and they go, and I don't mind. I've gotten used to my lot in life. But with Donna, it was different. In losing Donna, I not only had to live with the fact that I couldn't just pop in and say 'hello' next time I ended up on Earth in her lifetime, but losing her reopened a freshly healing wound left by another companion who was dear to me.
Rose was not a friend. Rose was, dare I say it? Dare I admit it to myself? Yes. Rose was my love. Rose was different from Donna. Both could be completely loud and obnoxious, yes, but when Rose told me that she'd be with me forever, I was wary. She supported me through one, no scratch that, two transformations, and yet when she told me that she loved me, I couldn't say it back to her. There is so much pain and hatred in this universe that you'd think a little bit of love would make me happy, you know, spice things up, but as much as I knew that I loved Rose, and as much as I believed her when she told me that she loved me, some part of me was still holding back.
Losing her that day after the Battle of Canary Wharf broke at least one of my hearts. I'd known better than to get emotionally involved with someone, because I know that they will always getlost, and yet I'd gone and done it. Seeing her months later at Bad Wolf Bay, I knew that this broken heart was not one that would be healed anytime soon. I expected Rose to get over me, to settle down with Mickey the Idiot and live happily ever after, pausing every once and a while to think fondly about The Doctor, but I was wrong. She was trying to find me, and eventually did find me, and helped to save the world. But by then, my heart had healed with the help of Donna Noble my best mate, and there were two of me walking around in the TARDIS.
I knew what I had to do, just like I knew what I had to do when I realized the position that Donna was in. Both actions broke my heart: sending Rose off with the other me, and removing Donna's memories and dropping her off at home, unable to even say farewell. But I did the right thing. And I've been right all along.
This Time Lord always ends up alone.
This is my first attempt at a Doctor Who story. Please let me know what you think!