"Again," she said as soon as she materialized.
"Rose, you need to take a break," Mickey informed her, moving forward from his spot next to the Torchwood science officers.
She turned to him with a glare that had been borne from the hardships and betrayal she had lived through in the last few years. It was a look that the Rose from the original universe would never have been able to accomplish. That Rose was gone though, left at a beach in Norway.
"The universe is dying, Mickey! All universes! And he's the only one who can fix it! I'll take a break when I've found him!" She hissed at Mickey before turning to the scientists. "Again."
Never one to ignore a command from a Tyler, the scientists immediately began to activate her Dimension Cannon.
"Be safe, Rose," Mickey said as she disappeared.
When she appeared again, it was dark, but she could easily recognize her surroundings. She was standing in a fairly familiar place: in front of the Big Ben. Immediately, she looked around for the familiar blue police box; she was quite accustomed to seeing it dematerialize just as she popped in. This time, she didn't see the TARDIS anywhere, nor anything else to give an inkling to why she was there.
She moved out of the shadows where she was hidden and approached a well-dressed man as he walked by.
"Sir, pardon me, but can you tell me if there's been anything odd happening around lately?" she questioned.
He barely glanced at her as he continued walking. She huffed and turned to the next person, an elderly woman with her husband. She immediately asked her the same question. Her husband tried to hurry his wife along, but the woman stopped and turned to answer Rose.
"Nothing, sweetie. It's been a good year." She paused then said, "Do you need help? A place to stay?"
Rose smiled gently and shook her head, "No. I'm sorry to bother you."
The woman nodded and as she moved to join her husband once again she said, "You look a tad lost, dear. Whatever it is you're looking for, don't give up. I'm sure you'll find it before long."
Rose nodded as the woman walked away. She paused to wonder if the woman had ever met her before, seeing as she had uncannily guessed what was wrong with her. Sighing, Rose moved to press the button to return to her universe. There was nothing for her here; nothing odd had happened nearby so there was no reason for the Doctor to show up. Just as she was about to press the button she heard it.
Someone was humming Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade".
Quicker than she thought possible, she turned to look for the source. Based on the clothes the people were wearing, it was sometime during the latter half of the 19th century; Glenn Miller wasn't even born yet.
And when she saw who was humming the song, her heart stopped for a moment and tears began to well up in her eyes.
"Jack," she whispered.
He paused where he was walking. He stood still for almost a minute, just staring at the path ahead of him. Slowly, he turned around to look at her.
"Rose."
And then as if time had started once again, they moved toward each other, meeting in the middle with a bone-crushing hug.
"You're here. You're actually here. You came back," he whispered in her ear as he tightened his hold on her. The people walking past them gave them odd looks but none stopped to discover the reason behind the odd exchange.
After quite some time, they separated from each other, instead choosing to just stare at the other.
"I've missed you Jack. What are you even doing here?"
The words caused Jack to flinch. As if realising something, he turned to look around before asking, "Where's the Doctor?"
Rose's eyes dropped to the ground as her shoulders slumped. "That's why I'm here," she told him. "I've been searching the world to find him. The universe is in trouble."
"So he just up and left us both, did he?"
Her brow furrowed and she said, "He'd never abandon us, either of us."
Jack gave a cold laugh and then said, "Then where is he? He's not with me and he's not with you. From my point of view, it's looking a lot like he's left us."
"Whatever he did," she told him, "it was for the best. If he left us, it was because he had no other choice."
"He has a time machine, Rose! If he wanted to, he could pick us up the moment he left us! He chose to leave us!"
Rose looked at him and said, "I thought you were dead on the Game Station. You shouldn't have been able to survive. I mourned you."
"And the Doctor? Did he even care?"
"Of course he did!" she defended. Calming down, she looked him in the eye again and told him, "He sent me away, back to my family, but I managed to make it back to him. I was dying though, I was only human and I was dying. But the Doctor, he saved me. But he died instead."
Jack's eyes widened, "The Doctor's dead? But then why are you looking for him?"
She shook her head, "He's not dead, but the Doctor we knew, the northern bloke with huge ears, he's gone forever. Instead, there's a new Doctor."
There was silence from both of them for a few moments before Jack admitted, "The Game Station was only 5 days ago for me. Five days ago and I was with you and the Doctor, happy as could be."
She smiled softly at him. "It's been 4 years for me. I've been separated from the Doctor for almost two years. It was the Daleks again. I wasn't strong enough and I lost him forever. I was sent to an alternate universe where there was no Doctor. Even though my mum was there, I'd never felt more alone."
"I know the feeling," Jack sighed.
Sharply, Rose turned to him and said, "You are not alone. Remember that Jack, you will never be alone."
"Thank you, Rose."
A beeping alerted them both to the device around Rose's neck. She looked at it for a second before glancing back at Jack.
"You're leaving, aren't you?" When she nodded, he pulled her toward him and pressed his lips to her quickly.
"Go save the world."
"I love you, Jack."
She pushed the button, and she was gone.
The next time Rose used the Dimension Cannon, she ended up in Pompeii. She immediately discovered her reason for being there: Jack was standing in front of a merchant's tent, talking to the owner.
She immediately moved toward him. Just as she reached him, he shook hands with the merchant and turned away from him.
"Jack," she said.
He turned to her and said, "Well, hello beautiful. I'm Captain Jack Harkness, but I suppose you already know that, don't you?"
Rose immediately realised this wasn't her Jack. This was the conman he had been when she first met him. This Jack had yet to travel with her and the Doctor.
"Never mind," she said as she began to back away. "I thought you were someone else."
He raised one eyebrow at that before shaking his head.
"Be careful, sweetheart. It's volcano day."
He turned to move away from her but her voice stopped him.
"One day, you'll be a different man, a good man. You'll be able to recover from your past and love again. You'll love a man who will abandon you and a girl who'll leave you. But you'll love them anyways because they saved you. You'll love, Jack, and you'll be loved in return. And when the man and girl break your heart, you won't give up because you'll see them again."
She looked at his back as she said her last words, "I'll make sure you find happiness. I won't let you be alone."
And when Captain Jack Harkness turned around to look at this mysterious woman who seemed to know him, he found nothing. She was gone.
"You are not alone," he whispered to himself as he continued on through the market.
Jack was crying the next time she saw him. He was staring at a piece of paper and whatever was on the paper was causing him to have some sort of negative reaction. He didn't even realise that she was there at first.
Suddenly, he grabbed an alien artefact off the table and threw it into the wall. It was while he was doing that that he looked up and saw her smiling at him from a corner.
"Rose," he said, relieved. And then he quickly moved to hide the paper he had been studying before.
"What's wrong, Jack?"
He refused to meet her eyes as he said, "It's nothing. I just received some bad news."
She didn't seem to believe him, but she dropped the subject. Instead, she chose to look around his office and then peered out into the hub below. Owen and Tosh were both at their computers finishing up some paperwork for the night. It had been a long day for everyone.
"Where are we?" she asked.
He hesitated for a moment than conceded, "Torchwood Three. It's located in Cardiff."
She nodded and with a wistful smile on her face, mentioned, "The Doctor would hate this place." When Jack looked at her questioningly so she elaborated. "The Doctor and Torchwood aren't exactly on the same side. They took everything from him after Canary Wharf."
Jack started at the location of Torchwood One. "You know?" he asked.
"That I died? Yes. Except I didn't. I'm here, aren't I? Remember when we met again for that first time? It was just days after you left the Game Station. I told you that I wasn't strong enough and was sent to an alternate universe. That's where the actual Rose Tyler is right now. She's trapped, just waiting until she becomes me and gets the chance to find the Doctor again."
Jack let out a breath he didn't realise he had been holding.
"You're alive. I thought you'd left me," he whispered. "I was so alone."
She smiled at him and said, "You are not alone."
Thousands of years later, when Jack finally reached the end of his very long life, he was not alone. The Doctor was with him one final time. Though the Doctor had abandoned him, he'd never actually left him. Jack had always had either Rose or him in his life.
He was ready to die. He'd lived a long life, bettered the world just as he knew the Doctor wanted. Everything he did, he did to make Rose and the Doctor proud.
Thinking of Rose, he smiled. She'd been there with him through all the hardships. She lifted him up when he needed it the most, and he loved her for that. Even though his life had been irreparably changed by meeting the Doctor, he wouldn't change it for the world.
This Doctor in front of him was so different than the other Doctors he met. This one was sadder than all the rest, a sadness that was similar to the one Jack had first met the Doctor in. Immediately, he knew that this Doctor had just lost his Rose and believed it to be forever.
As he felt his life draining from him, Jack –the Face of Boe– repeated to the Doctor the words that Rose had always gave him, the words that gave him strength.
"You are not alone."