She only remembers patches, like her memory had gone through a fire that had consumed the vast majority.
So much pain, blazing a scorching trail as well as freezing her insides- immense pressure but infinite space. The Vortex was alive and wonderful and terrible and so very, very vast that she was immensely overwhelmed to the point of barely holding onto the fibers of her being.
Bad Wolf. That's who she was- at least, she knows it's a part of her. Or maybe she's a part of it.
She could see what could have been, how her life could have unraveled in billions of ways with Mickey or other humans, how she could have very well died the day she left, how she could have done so, so many things.
It wrapped so intimately, so completely within her soul, that even when it was removed, a trace was left. How could it not, when they were one?
She saw billions of her own futures racing across her mind, some where she stayed with her mother in the end, many where she had settled down with a bloke, and almost an infinite amount of places she would die with the Doctor.
It was subtle, the difference. She hadn't even noticed at first. Take your jacket today. Wear these shoes, not those. Don't forget your key. Ask the Doctor to go to this planet. It was a soft whisper in her own thoughts, and when she finally understood, she learned to trust it.
Everything raced and danced and fought within her, raging and storming with all the power of time and space and everything. She at once loved and hated it and knew it would consume her. Until her Doctor stood and took the burden from her very being, kissing her and the Vortex, knowing perfectly well major consequences, and never even imagining some.
She even remembered glimpses of other lives, ones she knew she would never choose. When the Doctor put the transporter over her head, she fought and scratched and cried out and yes, went back to him. She knew he still needed her.
She felt the Vortex leave her, mostly, draining from her being into the Doctor, and she wanted to weep and scream with joy at the same time. Because it told her one would be spared, but the other would not.
There was a reason she had grabbed the one on the right. She still had a mission, and so did he, and although more than anything ever in the entire universe she wanted to be with him, she knew that this would be another point in time that required a sacrifice. And she would absolutely NOT allow it to be his again. When the lever pulled from its position, she knew it was time. She looked at the Doctor and he looked back, an understanding hitting him as powerful as if he had been pulled into the nothingness of Hell himself. "No, no, nononono NO NOO! ROSE! ROSE!" He screamed at the top of his lungs. She pounced to the lever and, draining her energy, pushed it back.
When she woke, she felt a thrumming emptiness, so… NOTHING that she felt she should just curl in on herself and sob and scream at the world and die. Both the Vortex and the Doctor were gone from her forever. But that wasn't true.
Everything stopped. She may be safe with her family, and how petty and damn selfish it was of him to hate her for letting go. But she wasn't with him anymore. She left. He walked unsteadily to the wall and put his hand to it, with feelings so overpowering that he couldn't even begin to think past the look in her eyes as she had let go. And what just killed him, what tore his hearts to pieces- that stupid, terrible, fantastic, amazing, wonderful, pink-and-yellow human girl knew exactly what she was doing.
