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Note: This is my first Doctor Who fic, so please, leave a review and tell me what you think!
Supernova
She'd known he wouldn't say it.
Couldn't say it.
She'd known and yet when he opened his mouth, for just a second there'd been a blinding shred of hope that the words would magically tumble from his lips and somehow fix everything. Then of course the second passed and he was gone and the words still trembled unspoken.
How long had it been for him? He hadn't said- probably hadn't noticed. He didn't tend to notice little things like time when he was caught up in something, when he had something specific to focus on. For being a Time Lord, the passing of time never seemed to mean all that much to him. He skipped around all over the linear stretch of time, popping up into separate, fractured bubbles, never living through the continuous stream like everyone else had to.
Well, most everyone else. For nearly two years she'd been one of the exceptions.
No more.
Standing on that freezing beach, the wind whipping her hair across her face, she wondered if maybe she wouldn't have been better off without the goodbye. It was closure of a sort, yes, but with closure…there was no more hope.
He'd circled round a dying star just so he could say goodbye. And those last words would never be said.
She was never going to see him again.
She'd heard his voice in her dreams, in the still moments behind her waking thoughts. Just her name…over and over…"Rose." And she'd followed it.
For the first time, her mother hadn't scolded her, hadn't tried to dissuade her in any way. She'd never wanted her only child travelling round with the Doctor, but now that he was gone, she was more inclined to be charitable. Or maybe she thought it would finally be the start of healing. Maybe she thought it would finally lift her daughter of that bleak despair she'd been in.
How long had she stood leaning against that wall? Clean, white…praying to hear his voice on the other side of the void. Always before, whenever they were in danger, whenever they were separated by whatever was going on, she'd always known that he would come for her. He'd save her.
But he couldn't save her now. He'd used a dying star just to be able to say goodbye. He couldn't save her from a life of loneliness, of emptiness. He couldn't save her from days of working at Torchwood, finding bits and pieces she remembered from their journeys, couldn't protect her from the memories that left her locking her office door. He couldn't save her from the regrets and the what ifs, couldn't save her from the crippling, destroying hope that somehow it could change.
Welcome to hell…
It was a joke at first, that saying on the wall of the station. An impossible station on an in impossible planet in an impossible orbit around a black hole. It was frightening and terrifying and horrible.
But it hadn't been hell.
This, this was hell, standing on a frozen beach in a strange country and feeling the broken pieces of her heart shatter.
This was hell, knowing that in a few hours, she would have to return to the London she hadn't quite got used to yet, the house that was too big and too empty, the job that she hated because she loved it, loved remembering all the experiences even as they hurt her so badly.
When she'd scattered herself through time and space, why had she spread herself across the Void? Bad Wolf Bay…traveling with the Doctor for long enough, you learned there was no such thing as coincidence. Especially not when it came to Bad Wolf. Those two words were seared throughout all of existence, crossing the paths they'd already tread, waiting patiently in all the paths they might have got to. To find it here…
Hope again.
That moment when she'd seen the sign for the bay.
For a moment, she'd thought maybe there was a way out of this after all. Bad Wolf only existed because she and the Doctor were supposed to be together. It was almost a promise.
Almost.
Because then he'd said goodbye, and he hadn't said what'd she wanted to hear from him.
Had she needed to hear it?
She wasn't entirely sure what she would have done if he had said it. Knowing they couldn't be together, did it matter what was or wasn't said? Would it have helped to hear it?
Yes.
Because hearing those words, instead of goodbye, would have made her think she was on the right track at Torchwood. Hearing those words instead of the others would have made her believe the risk was worth it. Tearing holes in the fabric of reality, exponentially raising the potential to destroy two universes…did it make her a bad person if part of her thought it was worth it?
But he needed her. He needed someone to be with him, to draw him back from that terrible edge. He was so full of shadows, so full of rage and despair. He needed someone to show off to, to be brilliant for. Even if he did have to put up with domestics as a trade off.
He needed her.
Drawing in several deep breaths, frigid draughts of air that seared her lungs and chapped her lips, Rose Tyler wiped the tears from her face with one sleeve. Those tears wouldn't be the last, she knew that. There would be others: frustration, excitement, fear, joy, despair.
So much despair. And loneliness.
But she could greet those tears with equanimity now. Traveling wasn't always about moving.
Sometimes it was just about standing still in the right place.
Looking in the right direction.
She had to know.
So she took another breath, then another, and then another, until they became habit again, smooth, without the staggering strain of emotion. She stood breathing until the tears stopped scalding her cheeks.
And then she turned back to her family, waiting patiently by the jeep, and let them take her back. Back home, she supposed, until she could really go back.
She had work to do.
Because she needed to hear those words to make everything else worth it.