They say that there are five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They say everyone goes through it if they have lost someone. But they don't know what it's like to be stuck in stage four...
Denial
She was gone.
For the first time in his life, he was forced to accept the truth he would never see Rose Tyler ever again.
But...how? How could he say goodbye to her, how could he leave her? No. She stayed for him once, and he would always find a way back to her. There had to be a way.
He hadn't accepted her death on Satellite 5, and he was right to have just felt numb. She was still alive. He had felt it then and he was feeling it now. Rose was alive! She wasn't dead. Of course he could get back to her.
He bounced around the TARDIS, coaxing it and twisting levers and smashing buttons in an all but desperate attempt to reach her. She was alive - she wasn't out of his reach.
That was when he found the small gap. And even though the hope he had almost began to overwhelm him, it forced him to realize the truth.
He could see her one last time, and then he would never see her again. She was dead. Officially, on his world, she was dead. In Pete's World, she was living and breathing and changing lives. She was attracting other males and he wasn't there to stake his claim. Pete's World got to see her beauty every single day, and he could only see her one more time.
There was no more denying. Rose Tyler was gone.
"But not yet!" the Doctor screamed at the TARDIS. "She's not gone yet! I can still see her - I can see her, which means she isn't gone yet!"
"Take me back," Rose choked, pounding desperately on the walls. It hadn't happened, it couldn't have. This was just a dream, and if she screamed and punched and fought hard enough, she'd wake up in her room in the TARDIS, where the walls were softly humming along to the Doctor's hums while he tried to control his ship. It was how she normally woke up and how she wanted to always wake up.
It had to be a dream. She couldn't wake up staring at a new ceiling. A ceiling that she would see every single day. Never changing, never moving...never leaving.
No. It was a dream. She was so sure of it, so confident. It was a dream, and she would find her way back to the Doctor. Her Doctor, her love.
He didn't know when it began, but he soon found himself underneath the TARDIS console. He had always gone there when he was upset, and he assumed he always would. He had ended up on the floor, ripping at his hair and screaming randomly and just letting himself cry. It was unlike him - but it was better than the fury he felt like releasing.
He sat there for what could have been minutes, or hours, or days. The Lord of Time had lost all track of it the moment Rose lost her grip on the lever. He felt himself growing more and more insane, maddening and ripping and yelling and crying.
The TARDIS wouldn't cooperate with him. His Rose was in his reach. She was alive and breathing and he could have her again - but his ship simply couldn't defy the truth.
She woke up to a dull, still ceiling. There was no humming - only silence. Rose moved slowly, numbly, before a thought stopped her in her tracks.
Of course. He was her Doctor. This man, this wise and mad man, would find a way to come back for her. He always did. He always would. The Doctor saved Rose every time she needed to be saved, and there was no possible way he was going to stop now. She clung to the idea as if it were all she had - and, in almost every single aspect, it was.
She practically skipped out of her room, and she found her mum and Pete sitting solemnly on the couch.
"Rose?" they said in surprise, when she appeared almost chipper to make a cuppa.
"Hello," she said simply , pushing away the pang of pain that ran through her body.
"You're awful...cheery," Jackie said doubtfully.
"That's because I know the truth," Rose said, feeling almost giddy. "The Doctor has saved me before, and he isn't going to stop now. It'll be me and him on the TARDIS, the way it should be, before you know it!"
She left the room with her tea, and Pete and Jackie exchanged worried looks. "It's just..." Jackie began, stopping in shock when tears filled her eyes.
"Denial," Pete concurred gently.