Listen to: "Main Theme" by Ólafur Arnalds or "Altering Lives" by Murray Gold

But since it falls unto my lot

That I should rise and you should not

I'll gently rise and I'll softly call

Good night and joy be with you all

"The Parting Glass"

Prologue

Whenever she thought, and she really tried, and she really strained, and she really attempted, she could see him. Like a foggy night, his face was blurred and the lines were faded, but he was there. His unkempt hair and his brown eyes; his ridiculous sideburns and fantastic grin. And then it'd wash away, muddled with all of the other faces she'd seen over her lifetime. So, she'd focus on his voice. Low, steady (unless he was rambling on about the Tardis or the Ood or something of the sort), accented in all of the right places. And then she'd realise that maybe she was getting Pete and his voice confused and she'd throw her pillow across her room because he'd left her with nothing that let her see his face. Only the fading memories of the two of them, and some hacked up projection on a beach in bloody Norway. And, oh, she was so cross with him! How could he leave her there?! So the universe would split into two and everything would be for nothing, but she wanted to know he tried! That he didn't just give up and bloody walk away! He was never a coward, unless it was facing his feelings about Rose. She knew he loved her, and he never told her. He left her standing there, without those words she'd always wanted to hear.

#

Then, she'd realised it was her fault. It was her fault that she'd let go of that bloody pipe and flew into Pete's arms. It was her fault she was stuck in a universe with no trace of the Doctor or anything remotely Time Lord.

Jake Simmonds had come up with the technology for the dimension cannon, and it had worked. It had worked so well that Mickey had gotten stuck in the exact place she'd wanted to be.

She had screamed so much—in anguish that that wasn't her. That Mickey got to live her life. That cannons had become even more-so unreliable that Jake had refused to let her test them anymore, refusing to repair the ones they had, and she was so cross, and so bloody tired. Each brief second she spent in her original world before being sucked back into her imprisonment was so cruel.

She hated Mickey. He stole what was hers.

All of her hope.

#

And when she slept, she had no dreams. No dreams of a blue police box, no dreams of running ever-so fast.

That little orange bottle was so important to her, and Jackie and Pete never knew. She had kept it locked in her cupboard, until one day she awoke at the hospital and there were so many bright lights and odd faces. Her mouth felt like it had been scrubbed with cotton swabs and her eyes Rose," her mum sobbed, "I knew it was bad, but never this. Oh, God, please help her. Help my child." were watering from the burning of the whiteness.

"Oh

What did she do? They had moved her from her bed. All she wanted was sleep. All she wanted were no more bad dreams.

#

"Rose, where would you want to be, in the whole world, if that were possible?" the lady with the white coat asked her as they both sat on her uncomfortable bed in a room half the size of her old one.

"With the Doctor."

"And where's he?" she continued after writing something down on her clipboard.

"Oh…so far away now."

"Can you imagine it in your mind?"

"…I hope that's the only thing I see for the rest of my life."

A/N: I'll be posting about a chapter a day on this story. It'll be 19 chapters (one prologue, 16 chapters, and two epilogues). Hope you all like it.