How could he ever know?

"You're going to have a great year"

-and then your starry night without a fear of heights came crashing to the ground, falling, falling, flaming with the brightest stars that the sky could muster because that's what it was, that's all it was, pure nothingness burning into pale fire. And then he turned, and you turned too- oh, you shouldn't have- but you'll survive. Afterwards, you'll know how to survive, even in the darkest of days, at the end of time itself, you. Will. Survive. Because that's what we do, we who have seen the INFINITE, the all of space and time, so far past what is meant to be known. We are the warriors of the vortex; the ones who remain are strong.

He was pretty, wasn't he? The New Year's Doctor. But he's not your first. No, your first will be in only three months- that seems like an infinity to us, now- but three months is a second to your first. Your first- the leather clad one who looked so serious- but you know he's not. Can't say that now- but you will. Oh, Rose Tyler, you so will.

You won't know him, that man, that man who glowed with a thousand stars and exhaled fire into sleep. He's not- and won't ever be- your blue doctor, the man with eyes of ice who grabbed your hand and told you 'run.' You don't know him and it will break you because you miss the blue Doctor with his big smiles and talk of silver trees, a bubble world under a burnt sky that used to blaze just like him, a star sailing out from the sun of ash and cinder. You miss him and he's not coming back.

But then you feel the new hand in yours- fantastic- and tingles will run down your spine because that's the way your blue Doctor held your hand- so maybe, MAYBE, he could have something of the one he followed inside. And his lips on yours- Rose Tyler, you will never be so alive as you are in those moments.

They fly away too. You know that already, Rose. They always fly away.

You'll feel alive then, too. When you're hanging on for dear life and you're just so far away but it's a different kind of alive, an alive that sears at the inside of your throat and makes your eyes water. And you'll feel alive when you can hear the voices, when you create yourself. That's not the kind of alive you want to have, because it's fear, desperate fear that's scrawling itself across your face. And the man who burns with a thousand stars inside, a raging song of fire and ice that you will always remember, burns then for you, screaming your name.

That's a lie. You see him burn. You see him fall and hear the universe sing him to sleep.

But you can never, EVER know it was him.

As you saw his song begin, so you can see it end. He is so, so sorry, Rose Tyler, but you were so alive.

He'll think he broke you, but he fixed you so much in so many different ways. And you fix him too. You just can't see it yet. But don't worry.

"You're going to have a great year."

Something great and terrible is coming, Rose Tyler, and you can feel it in the shiver of the man's smile on New Year's Eve. You are going to have a great year- but you've been in this business long enough to know that it doesn't come without a price. And the price it comes with is great too.

Dear Rose Tyler: Bad Wolf Bay is calling you. It began calling you in three months and ended the last day you cried-doomsday, the day you were declared dead.

But you're not.

Rose Tyler, believe me, once you take his hand, you'll have never been so alive.