Rose Tyler hated the TARDIS.
When she had first met this man who had called himself the 'Doctor' she wouldn't and couldn't believe what he was telling her. Then she saw it. That beautiful, brilliant blue box with the words Police Box wrapped around the top, and a flashy light bulb to make it complete. Alright, she supposed she had loved it just a little at first.
Then she agreed to go with him. Oh, the places that it took her! To 5 billion years in the future to see her planet explode while strange aliens watched on? It could bring her there! Go back in time to the snowy streets of a crowded London to see Charles Dickens and an undead ghost alien thingy from outer space? It sure can! Other more dangerous adventures took place, and she learned more about this man that soon become her closest friend. How that had happened, she didn't know.
She had grown accustomed to the golden walls of the TARDIS, the wires crisscrossing about and underneath, the tree-like supports holding it, and the enormous and yet small room inside of her. And, she supposed, for a time it became her favorite place to be.
She could sit back with a cup of tea and rest her feet on the console and not care at all if she by accidently pushed a button or flipped a switch. The place was as crazy and as unpredictable as the man she was traveling with.
That's where she and him had danced, laughed, cried, and mourned, all in the same place.
And all of a sudden Rose Tyler, the young girl gone woman, learned two things.
One, the TARDIS made her sad, indescribably sad, and irrevocably sad. The long walls that had grown around told her of stories she was not even sure she understood. She had realized that it had seen so many people; perhaps all once young and bright like her, enter and then leave. Because she couldn't imagine anyone willingly leaving this wonderful, lively place. The TARDIS was a weeping place, holding memories of lost friends.
Two, she was in love with him.
She kept it to herself. Looking back, she wished she hadn't.
She ended up telling him on a beach in Norway, crying her heart out in front of just a projection of him, and he couldn't tell her back. He was cut off. The signal had failed. The star had burned out. She really shouldn't have been so surprised. Rose Tyler had always gotten the rotten luck, the foul hand, the sad twist of fate. This was no different.
The second time, and last time, she said goodbye to him, was on the same beach in Norway.
"Yeah, how was that sentence going to end?"
"Does it need saying?"
He had really been there this time, not on a projection. Except this time she knew he wouldn't tell her, and would never tell her. That hole in heart felt like it was ripped open, and then sucked closed quickly. His new red-headed companion, Donna, was staring at her with sadness in her eyes.
And when Tentoo turned to her, and said, "I have one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you, if you'd like." she looked at the face of the man she loved for the last time and saw anguish. But Rose Tyler had never just accepted her fate and not do anything about it. She turned away from him and his big blue box, the same wondrous box that had shown her so many glorious places and people, and kissed Tentoo.
And when she turned around, they were gone. The blue box, her TARDIS, was gone. Off to travel on more planets, to meet new people, to help save things. That's what she was good at.
She supposed they had never really been that good friends anyway.