Two days after the attack, he seeks out Harriet Jones. She's doing what she does best, stepping up when her country needs her most. The guards try to stop him but he is death, he is empty, he is mourning.
She sees him, so still amongst the panic and the face he wears now, though the same, is unfamiliar to her. She waves off the young man in front of her and steps out into the crowd.
"Doctor?"
He turns to look at her but he isn't there, not really.
Here he is again, he thinks, with no one to turn to, no arms to sink into at the end of this atrocity. His homes, old and new are gone.
Rose is gone.
He doesn't notice the room freeze around him, or Harriet Jones' hand on his arm, or the tug as she leads him to her office. She draws the shade and closes the door. She doesn't turn around, not yet because she knows what will happen when she does. She knows what will become of them when she utters the words. She has faced down aliens and war and press and government inquiries. She has struggled and thrived and she is wholly inadequate for this situation. She has no idea what she's supposed to do with, do for, a grieving Doctor.
Because even if he hasn't said it, he exudes it so heavily that there is no other option. She slides her hand down the glass, across the cool metal frame and locks the door.
She walks over to her desk, just buying time before she has to look him in the eye. But here it is, that moment, that thing she can't escape.
The words are painfully stuck in her throat but she pushes them out.
"Doctor, where is Rose Tyler?"
His eyes fill with tears and he swallows thickly. He looks at her then, and if pain could kill, if loss could stop the very heart of a man, she imagines he would collapse here in front of her.
"Gone."
"Gone where?"
"Away. Somewhere I can't follow."
"What can I do?"
"I..." He looks down at his trainers, hands trembling in the pockets of his trousers. "I'd like to ask a favor of you. I know that I haven't the right, not with the trouble I've caused you..."
Harriet crosses the short distance between them and rests a comforting hand on his shoulder. He's tall enough that she has to duck to catch his eye. "You've saved this world countless times. If the records from Torchwood are anything to go by, we owe you everything. And after what happened, I have no doubt that you had a hand in saving us this time. Tell me what you need, and you'll have it."
He smiles sadly and places a hand over hers. "Thank you."
When Torchwood Tower is reconstructed, a memorial is built at the entrance honoring those fallen in the Battle of Canary Wharf. There dozens of names but three stand alone.
Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler are memorialized as heroes. Their names are in all of the records, public and confidential and they are given honorary titles in so small an exchanged for what they had given up.
And the Doctor, he fades away.