"Rose?" the Doctor asked between one of their adventures, stopping the TARDIS in the Time Vortex, holding their vessel perfectly still. "How are you feeling? Are you alright?"
-X-X-X-
Darling you are the only exception.
Rose Tyler didn't quite know what she felt anymore. Her life had been turned upside down by a man who called himself the Doctor. She didn't know his real name. She didn't know very much about him. But she cared for him enough to stay with him, though her life had almost ended many times, and his, as well. His had ended, once. His big ears and retired-army-man demeanor had left in favour of a bouncing, smiling man that was always on the move. The whole blue-police-box-that's-bigger-on-the-inside-and-travels-through-space-and-time thing kind of freaked her out, but the TARDIS had very much grown on her. Like a second home.
I've got a tight grip on reality, but I can't let go of what's in front of me here.
She knew that it was impossible. That someone like him would look at her with such care in his eyes. That she could travel to the planets she'd been to. That she could travel back and forth in time. That she could disappear for a year and not care, because it had been with the Doctor, and it had been fantastic. Rose knew she shouldn't care so much for him. He was nine-hundred, and she was barely twenty. She knew that some day, it would all come to an end. But she just could never stop herself from caring too much about him. And so she promised him time and time again. "Forever."
I know you're leaving in the morning when you wake up.
Rose knew one day he might come to his senses. That he might drop her off back home without a backwards glance. She doubted that it would be because he thought she would be hurt or killed. Being nine hundred, he had to have a bit of experience in not caring as much for the people around him as much as they cared for him. But there was a quiet voice in the back of her mind saying yes, he did care about her, and if he ever were to make her stay away, it would be for her safety. Every time those thoughts came into her head, she comforted herself with the thought that he had promised she could stay until she didn't want to anymore. She really hoped he'd keep that promise.
Leave me with some kind of proof it's not a dream.
She wanted desperately to run up to him; to fling her arms around his neck; to lay her ear between his hearts and listen to the beat until her own heart quit racing so; to kiss him senseless; to tell him that she loved him, and there would never be anyone else. Even if he didn't return the feelings, she wanted to hold him tightly to prove to herself that he was real, and her mind hadn't cooked up a delusion. But she simply sat back, watching the manic man run around and around the console in the middle of his TARDIS, hammering buttons and throwing levers and grinning madly at her. Oh, she was so in love. And she could never admit it to him.
-X-X-X-
"I'm fine."