Red. Everywhere, everything was red. His hands were stained with it, his clothes were stained with it, and Rose was stained with it.

So much red.

She was lying so still before him. Her eyes were closed, and it would appear as though she were sleeping, if not for the unnatural paleness of her face and her blood-soaked clothes.

"Rose," he whimpered, shaking her shoulders. She remained still and limp, and her head lolled sickeningly. "Rose? Rose, can you hear me? Please, love, please! Oh, God, no. No no no. Rose? Rose, please! Please! Can you hear me? Oh, God. C'mon, Rose, please!"

He screamed at her until his voice was raw and cracked.

Suddenly, several pairs of clean hands wrapped around his arms, pulling him away from his beloved.

"No! Let me go! I need to help Rose! I need Rose! Why are you touching me, go help Rose! Get the fuck off of me!"

No one listened to him. They pushed him further away from her lifeless body, and he watched as more people surrounded her, covering her with a sheet, before leaving her once more.

"No!" he screamed. "No, she's okay! She'll be fine! What are you doing? What the fuck are you doing? Rose? Rose!"

His legs gave out and he fell hard on his knees and he started sobbing…

"Rose!"

The Doctor gasped as he awoke. His stomach was rolling and twisting and he had to actively swallow to keep from retching.

"Rose!" he wheezed. He turned to the other side of the bed, needing to hold her, but the bed was empty. His breath left his lungs with a great whoosh. "No! Oh, please God, no! No no no no no…"

His stomach flipped and his vision blurred as he started dry heaving. He scrambled out of bed to try and run to the loo, but his legs were trapped in the sheets and he fell to the floor with a grunt. Tears stung his eyes and he felt like the universe was imploding around him.

He could see her blood staining his hands and staining his shirt. She was gone. Rose was gone.

But she promised. She promised she'd never leave! A human life spent together. That's what she'd promised him. That's what he'd promised her.

His chest hurt and his stomach hurt and he wanted Rose!

He wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his hands in his hair. He pulled at the strands until it hurt, but it still wasn't painful enough to overcome the ache in his chest. He let out a strangled noise that may have been a sob, but it felt good to let it out, and so he began to weep.

"Doctor?"

A pair of warm, familiar arms wrapped around him, and he flinched away. He cried out and curled himself tighter around his knees. Why couldn't she leave him the fuck alone? He wanted to be left alone. If she was going to leave him, why couldn't Rose have the fucking decency to stay dead?

"Oh, God. Doctor! Doctor, you're okay. I'm okay. I'm okay, love, look. Please open your eyes and look at me. Just look at me."

The arms holding him held him tighter and tucked his head under her chin. She pressed kisses into his hair, and he caught a whiff of that achingly familiar jasmine and vanilla scent.

He finally felt like he could breathe as he opened his eyes and saw Rose. A real live not-ghost Rose. She was alive!

He let out a wrenching sob as he scrambled to unlock his arms from his knees to hold her. He pulled her into his lap, intent on holding her for the next several decades without letting go, but her pained whimper stopped him.

He released her immediately, and his eyes were drawn to the spot of red leaching though her vest. At first, he thought he was still dreaming, and would have to watch her die all over again. But before he lost himself to his panic and anguish again, the memories came rushing back. Torchwood mission gone wrong…furious feuding families of Xralocs…furious feuding families Xralocs wielding swords…Rose getting caught in the cross fire…

"Oh, God," he whimpered, pulling up the hem of her vest. The raw gash on her side had reopened. "Oh, God. Oh. Oh, God."

"Doctor, Doctor, breathe," she said, ignoring her wound as she cupped his cheeks in her hands. "Doctor, I'm fine. I'm okay."

"You died!" he cried. "You died and left me alone!"

"No," she said patiently, stroking her thumbs over his cheekbones. "I didn't die, and I'm never leaving you."

"You got stabbed!" he whimpered, eyes fixed on the rivulets of blood trickling down her ribs before being caught by the waistband of her knickers. "You nearly died!"

"You saved me," she said firmly. "You took such good care of me, remember? You picked me right up ran me to the med van. You bandaged me up yourself."

He shuddered as he desperately fought through the lingering images of his dream and back to the actual memories. Rose was okay. She wasn't dead. She never died. She was okay.

The Doctor rocked up onto his knees before peppering frantic kisses across her face.

"I love you," he breathed, swiping his lips across her jaw. "I love you so much. Don't you ever scare me like that again! I can't lose you, Rose, I can't. I don't know what I'd do."

"Hey," she whispered, catching his cheeks in her palms as his lips tried to make their third circuit across her face. She held him steady so she could slot her own lips against his. He let out a strangled noise and kissed her back. His lips were rough and erratic, moving without rhythm. He tried pulling her closer, but Rose's tender skin pinched and pulled, and she couldn't hold back her gasp of pain.

"Oh, shit!" he exclaimed, releasing her at once. "I'm sorry. Oh, God. I'm so sorry. Oh, Jesus. Fuck. Shit. I can fix that. Please, let me fix it."

The Doctor stood on wobbly legs and reached down to help Rose up, too. She snagged him by the wrist before he could run to the bathroom for the medical kit, and she pulled him into her arms.

"Rose, you're bleeding…"

"I'm fine," she interrupted, ignoring the ache in her side. "Just…give me a mo'."

The Doctor felt tense in her arms. She nestled her head to his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist, rubbing at the knot she felt in his lower back.

"I love you, Doctor," she whispered, and he finally returned the embrace.

"I love you, too," he said, resting his cheek in her hair as he slowly rocked them from side to side. The dream was fading and so was his terror, little by little, and he held her closer, enjoying her warmth and the feel of her in his arms. "You really scared me today."

"I know," she whispered, pressing her lips to his chest. "I'm sorry. And I'm sorry I wasn't there when you woke up. Went for more aspirin."

"Does it hurt much?" he asked, pulling back and lifting her shirt again. Her wound had stopped bleeding, but it looked ghastly: blood was caked all down her belly and there was that orangish-yellow tinge from the antiseptic he'd applied when he first bandaged her wound.

"Nah," she said. "Aches a bit, though."

He nodded and pressed his lips to her forehead.

"C'mon," he murmured, turning her towards their en suite. "Let me clean you up."

After he washed the blood away and carefully bandaged her again, Rose tugged him back into bed.

"Thanks for taking care of me," she whispered when he finally settled behind her, with his front pressed to her back. His arm was hovering, not knowing where he could put it, and Rose brought it to rest over her breasts as she tucked his hand under her chin.

"Always," he promised, nuzzling his nose into her neck.

Rose hummed happily and relaxed further into the mattress. The Doctor, not feeling much like falling back to sleep for fear of what his subconscious might conjure for him, instead contented himself to cuddled as close to Rose as he could. He synced his breathing with hers, and every now and then dropped a kiss to her shoulder as he watched her sleep.