Lonely Meetings

by sanddrew

Rose and the tenth Doctor return to Bad Wolf Bay on the same day, though neither of them realise. So like, angstyness. First ever fic I've actually published. First chapter is the Doctor's. Rose will be chapter two. The rights to Doctor Who and all the characters and properties mentioned in this fic are the sole right of BBC and I claim no right to them.

6th of June

The bay was empty and desolate, cold winds whipping at the empty sky as the waves crashed relentlessly on the shore. It was an isolated and empty stretch of the Norwegian coast, the kind of place that didn't often receive many visitors and certainly not of the exceptional variety that was about to arrive just now. The blue phone box slowly materialized, accompanied by its distinctive sound and in a few moments it had formed fully, and was now standing still and alone on the cold, wintry beach while inside the TARDIS the Doctor stood frozen, his hand on the handle of the door. He wasn't sure he could face it, wasn't sure he could handle seeing the bay itself. He faced Rose's departure almost every day, in one way or another, those painful memories always being dredged to the surface, but this was different, this was something more. It was here that he said goodbye and it was here that he had failed to say those few simple words. He had come back on purpose; he knew full well that it was Bad Wolf Bay on the other side of those doors but it took more strength than he'd ever had to pull from his weary body to push the door open, a different strength.

He stepped out onto the sand for the first time, never having visited this place in this universe or even the other. He was wearing the exact outfit he had when he said goodbye to her, it just felt right, like he was honouring her memory, even if she was still alive. He walked from the open doors of the TARDIS, pausing only to shut them and strode out across the sands, walking slowly facing out over the bay never glancing away from the churning grey ocean, and the thick equally dull grey clouds that swathed the sky above it. It was miserable place, fitting he supposed, for a goodbye, an event which no matter the circumstances always filled him with a deep irrevocable sadness. He had seen so many go now, so many die or otherwise suffer horrible fates, some he barely even knew and no matter how he tried to argue against it, there was always one common denominator; him. He stopped just short of the water, staring out at the sea and barely hearing the thunder of the waves, too lost in his own thoughts and his own regret. He could never really escape it; it followed him wherever he went. Martha had left too, but at least she had left of her own accord, she hadn't been forced into another reality, but at least Rose had her parents and Mickey, it was one of the few things that consoled him during those darker moments.

He stood there for what felt like hours, what felt like an eternity, gazing out over the sea, immobile and unmoving as if the exposure to these painful memories and recollections had frozen the Doctor solid or perhaps turned him to stone. But eventually he turned, walking along the beach, the freezing ocean to his left and the towering cliffs to his right, as he strode across the wet sand. In the end, the only thing he could do was keep going, keep exploring and enjoying life, and through that honour Rose, because that's what she would've wanted. Yet he could never escape the lingering doubt that there was something he could've done differently, she had returned of her own free will, to help him and to stand by him and despite that he was powerless a she watched her sucked into the void, to be saved by Pete Tyler, her father, at the last moment but in so doing Rose had been condemned to spend the rest of her life trapped in another world, with no way of reaching him. He paused again and moved inwards, finding a rock roughly halfway between the tides and the cliffs and he bent over it, sonic screwdriver out and quietly buzzing away. He stood up, quickly checking his handiwork, wiping away the tears that had stained his face and then he turned and left the stone he had just examined now etched with careful lettering which read "Rose Tyler, gone but not forgotten".

He felt that now, he should go. He had seen the bay, had seen where Rose said goodbye to him, seen where he failed to tell her what she meant to him. He had made a monument, a small one, but something, that would last for some time yet and he would come back each year on this date and refresh it, strengthen it and remember what had happened, how he had lost her. He strode quickly across the sand, eager to be off and find some exciting new adventure, to try and escape these emotions like he had been his entire life. As he reached the TARDIS and yanked the doors open he paused again, and whipped his head around, for a moment, for one brief, impossible moment he could swear he had felt her, that he could sense her presence and that she was somehow here. But he knew that it was impossible, knew that he was imagining things. A quick survey of the beach told him as much, and so he swept into the TARDIS with a swish of his coat and the doors swung shut behind him, the faintest sound of a sob sneaking through them as they closed. A few mere moments later, the distinctive sound of the TARDIS pierced the heavy fog of the other sounds, cutting through the lashing of the wind and the rumble of the ocean as it beat against this miserable, lonely stretch of sand and then it stopped, as the TARDIS faded away and Bad Wolf Bay was left empty and alone once more.