Sometimes, he visits the day he said goodbye to you. Standing alone, he stares as the ocean pushes its worst waves away from its core, and onto the grey shoreside rocks. He shoves his sweating palms deep into his suit's pockets, never glancing twice at a specific spot of sand. A specific part of this resented beach, where he can vaguely see your fading footsteps.
Oh, those fading footsteps… which were distant echoes of a certain pair of feet that he can recall tickling, that used to run with him, that were part of the anatomy of, quite possibly, a specific pink and yellow human.
But as soon as he walks silently towards the spot where those feet used to stand, he crawls to his knees and digs his hands deep into the sand. He cannot fathom how you are now, how far those feet have taken you, how hard he has broken you. And he tries to find a grip in the soft sand, but it falls from his clenched fist back onto the white, burning ground. He has no one to grip onto and hold on tight to. He has no one to keep him standing. He has no one.
And as he kneels, beneath the sand that, in another world, were blessed with your brilliant touch, he holds his head tight with his fierce knuckles, burying his head into the suffocating sand. And he lies there, feet tucked and hearts pounding. But he does not lose his breath from the sand seeping into his mouth. He does not lose his breath from the ocean waves that cleanse his face from his only salty, warm tears. He does not lose his breath from his lungs struggling to inhale oxygen beneath his silent screams. No. He just loses his reasons to breathe.
He can hear his TARDIS wail, trying to comfort her withering Time Lord. He can hear the ocean breathe a rhythm similar to his aching heart. He can hear your voice, gentle and smooth, drift slowly through his intoxicated brain. He can hear his voice crack, and a sob escape his mouth. He can hear himself hoarsely respond, "I love you, too."
But he is unheard.
And his sentence is left unfinished.
The dam he had precariously built inside his only mentality, ensuring that love could never trespass into his mind, has a crack in it. A small one, one originating from the bright tongue in teeth smile of a girl. A happy girl had somehow managed to destroy 900 years of hard labor. Just a tiny human. A lady. Rose Tyler-
Oh, sweet Rose Tyler.
How he has failed you.
He let his guard down, and his dam broke, and he was left here, drowning in the constant waves pulsing through his soul. He was left here, alone, bathing in the wreckage of a disastrous storm. The Oncoming Storm, perhaps, hurt himself in the aftermath of his own rage.
And he was left alone, to pick up the pieces of his own foolish mistakes.
Oh, sweet Rose Tyler…
How he has failed himself.
And now, as emotions pour and waves crash, he will drown in sorrow.
Perhaps, if he is lucky, you will forgive him.
But we all know luck is just coincidence. And he never believes in coincidence.
