It had been so long since he had seen her that sometimes he wondered if he was forgetting what she looked like. Then he would be on the streets, and he would glimpse a flash of blond hair. With it he would remember everything that he'd thought he had forgotten, and his heart would break all over again.
After the white room in the alley, he had returned to the TARDIS, and set the destination to random. That had been almost a decade ago, and he hadn't once stopped doing what she asked. He kept running.
He never stayed in one place for very long, and he spent more time in the console room that anywhere else. Mostly because he was afraid that he would miss the next message, but also partly because he didn't know what else to do. Every time he walked outside, his eyes constantly moved, looking for anything that might relate to Rose. On countless occasions he thought that he'd found what he wanted, but he was always wrong. It always turned out to be something else. So he kept moving, and only on the rarest occasions did he stand still.
Now was one of the occasions. He was frozen in front of the console monitor, trying to figure out what the image on the screen meant. It had popped up only a second before, and despite his best attempts, it wouldn't go away. The picture looked like an ink blot, the kind that psychiatrists would stereotypically use in a movie, and it resembled a number 10 with lots of random swirls and patterns around it. Finally he placed a hand against the monitor, wondering what it could mean, and he was surprised to see the ink move to surround his hand. When he removed it, the ink swirled again, and became a perfect likeness of a rose, and faded to white. Then it showed a video of Rose tapping what he assumed was the camera.
"I hope this works." She muttered to herself uncertainly, before smiling. "Doctor, this is number 6, I hope you find this. But if you have given up on me, then I understand. If you have decided not to wait, and have abandoned your search for my messages, then I do not blame you. While I was the Bad Wolf, I saw a few different possibilities for this moment in time, and one of them was where you gave up on me. But this point kept flexing based on your decisions, so I decided that I would hope for the best. Now is the moment when it will all be worth the wait, or at least I hope that it is worth it. As it is, the last message sets in a temple on the planet Kayther. But you need to know that it will change everything that you ever thought possible. As the Bad Wolf I discovered a lot of things, most of which have been hidden from me by the TARDIS, but not the thing that I find most important. That thing is you. So if you wish to change your own fate, and mine, then go to Kayther and go to the temple that sets right at the tip of the largest mountain range in the year 10,409 and go to the room at the tip of the shortest tower." The video continued for a few seconds before she reached out of view, and the screen went to static.
As soon as it disappeared, his hands were flying over the controls, taking him exactly where he needed to go.