I never stopped thinking about you.

He crossed that out - it sounded almost frightening. She was married, she had children. She was happy, at least to some degree, from what little he knew. Frustrated, he scribbled over the sentence again. If he was going to send her a letter, then he'd bloody well do it right.

The man cleared his throat, ran his other hand through his tousled hair. For a letter that he inwardly knew he'd never send her, the whole thing was proving to be far more difficult than he'd originally anticipated. It wasn't right; he was supposed to be eloquent, verbose, a romantic - he was supposed to be brilliant. She always called him that and even though he had desperately tried not to let on, his hearts had always fluttered a bit when that word stumbled from her lips.

He sat back, dropped the inkpen onto the paper and watched it roll haphazardly onto the control panel next to the one the notebook sat on. The steady whooshing of the TARDIS engines provided some temporary salvation, and helped calm him, which was wonderful until his gaze strayed back to the blurry, horrible recording looping on the screen near him.

Gorgeous blonde hair. Those beautiful eyes. Perfect lips. A body unlike any other he'd ever seen on a human. A fiery personality and a certain stubbornness that he had quickly found himself rather fond of. She had been absolutely perfect in every way; losing her had seemed like insult added to injury when he thought of losing River, and Amy, and Rory.

Really, what the hell. Why not Rose, too.

The worst part was that she had been the first, before all of them - although, really, River had been first, but with her timeline running parallel to his that whole concept was in and of itself arguable. He had already lost her, as it were, and he could remember seeing her life end as clear as day - just as much as he could remember watching Rose turn and kiss another version of himself. Much to his chagrin and surprise, he could feel his eyes well with tears as his mind replayed that crystal image as though it had happened only an hour ago. He had left her, lost her, and while he was so very glad she was happy, she was one of the few he had traveled with that he was never really sure he could continue without.

Yet, there he was. It felt almost sacrilegious.

In a sudden fit of rage, the Doctor tore his loosened bow tie from his neck and pitched it at the screen; it hit Rose square in the middle of the face and he could have sworn if he hadn't known any better that he saw her flinch, however slightly, as though a rogue breeze had tickled the tip of her nose. It was a flinch he could have sworn he'd never noticed before, and he knew that video from beginning to end - he'd watched it maybe a thousand times, if not more. He knew her every movement, every word, from beginning to end, to the point where he knew the poor TARDIS had long since grown weary of it and was forcing the recording of his memory to degrade.

He'd just record it again.

But the next recording wouldn't be quite as perfect.

And that didn't explain the flinch.

The Doctor leaned forward, his hearts pounding. It made no sense, of course; logically speaking his memories, recorded or otherwise, were just that, and he had made absolutely no attempt beyond a few dozen crumpled or burned desperate love letters to contact Rose. There was nothing he could do, or say. He had to let her live.

But she had flinched.

One trembling hand reached out; calloused fingers brushed tenderly against the screen. To his exhausted, hopeful mind the ultra-responsive touch sensitive material felt almost like skin, enough so that he couldn't help but stammer a tiny, breathy giggle.

"Rose Tyler," he whispered as he leaned in toward the screen, watching her movement, feeling his hearts break all over again as her eyes welled with tears, "I'm so sorry those words never came from my lips." Unable to help himself, he felt streaks of warm liquid drip down his cheeks, and as he'd done so many times before he leaned in to place a shaky kiss upon the blonde's freeze-framed lips.

As he withdrew, he could have sworn he saw her smile.