The Immortal Rose
It was quiet on the TARDIS. It was always quiet lately, with no one around but him. It was nice, he tried to convince himself, without anyone to bother him or ask him stupid questions or get him into trouble. Nice and quiet. Sitting alone with his jacket off and bowtie hanging untied around his neck, he looked around the room. It was just empty. Everything was empty without her. It had been so many years since Rose had been taken from him into another universe. He had not seen her face in so long. Sometimes he couldn't remember the laugh lines in her cheeks, the way her hair framed her face, how her fingers felt as if they were meant to rest between his. As hard as he tried, he found it difficult to recall the exact timbre of her voice. More than anything in the entire world, he missed Rose Tyler. He was empty. Yes, he had met Donna, and yes, he had travelled with Martha for quite some time, and Wilfred, and then Amy and Rory and River (he was married to her, for God's sake), but in the end they left and honestly, none of them even came close. They were brilliant. But no one could replace her.
Alone. That's how he always ended up. The curse of the Time Lords—the one Time Lord, now. He was alone.
Just before the battle of Canary Wharf, he and Rose had been visiting a gorgeous planet full of friendly creatures who were gardeners. The entire planet was a massive garden, full of the most beautiful flowers and trees, fruits and vegetables, bushes and moss and foliage everywhere you turned. Rose had returned to the TARDIS to sleep for the night, having bought a full basket of exotic fruit to bake with the next day, but he was out wandering through the nearly deserted marketplace. With the long brown coat he had worn then flapping around his ankles, he was thinking about Rose, as he did often. His feelings for her were going unspoken. Both knew how the other felt, and yet neither was brave enough to speak up. An awful case of skinny love, he thought. He knew that a relationship with a human like Rose was impossible. But when impossible ever stopped him? He fell in love anyways.
"Excuse me, sir," a light voice called. He turned abruptly to see a woman, mysteriously covered in a dark cloak with the hood up, shadowing her face. She was standing in the middle of the street ten feet back, carrying a basket. Approaching him slowly, almost gliding over the ground, she came to a stop in front of him, uncovering the wicker basket to reveal what was underneath. "A gift for your true love," she said, her voice quiet and dream-like.
He had shrugged, saying, "Sorry, I don't know who you're talking about-"
"Ah, but I've watched you two walking through the marketplace. The blonde girl who holds your hand and smiles at you like you are the sun. It has been too long since I have seen a love so true as the one you share with the Earth girl."
He had not known what to say, so he had merely stared at the woman in silence. "So you have not told her of your feelings. I have just what you need, my dear." She held out the basket enough for him to see, in the dim light from the moon, what it held.
"Flowers?" he asked incredulously. They weren't just any flowers, they were roses. He almost wanted to laugh at the irony. Beautiful, gold-colored roses—not yellow, but true gold, shining in the moonlight.
The woman laughed softly. "Not just any flowers. Flowers that never die. I grew them myself, and they will endure all time, never wilting or losing any petals. A gift to last as long as your love."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You tell her this, when you give her the flower. You tell her that you love her, and only when this flower dies will your love cease. Take it." She shoved the basket towards him more forcefully this time, but he backed away.
"I'm sorry, I can't just take it from you, and I don't have any money—"
The woman removed a single golden rose from her collection and placed it in his hands. "Take it. I need no payment other than to know that you will give her your heart, and receive hers in return." Hesitantly, he closed his fingers around the stem. She stepped closer to him, into the light, and he could make out her features, dark hair framing pale skin, thin cheekbones and sparkling green eyes. Her voice lowered to a whisper, she brushed her lips to his ear. "Your time is running out. Hurry back to her and tell her. Quickly, Doctor, before it's too late." Before he could ask what she meant, or how she knew his name, she turned, and with a sweep of her dark cloak, the woman disappeared into the shadows.
Twirling the rose between his fingers, he walked slowly back to the TARDIS. His time was running out? What in the word was that supposed to mean? He looked down at the flower. It had only just begun to bloom; he needed to put it in water and in a few days the petals would unfold fully. As he came to the door of the blue box, he tucked it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, just in case Rose was still up and about. He wanted to wait until the right time to give it to her. Clicking open, the door swung inwards. "Rose?" he called softly.
She was not in the control room, nor the library, nor the kitchen. Tiptoeing down the hallway to her bedroom, he listened at the door. No noise. Cracking the door ever so slightly, he peeked inside, where a faint sliver of light from the hall was falling across the bed. There she was, breathing soundly, eyes shut in a gentle sleep. He snuck inside, smiling at the peaceful expression on her face after brushing a strand of blonde hair from her forehead. Fingering the stem of the rose in his pocket, he retreated back into the hallway. When the right time was to give her this flower, he had no clue.
He spent all of his free time the next couple days locked in his room, standing in front of his mirror and holding the golden flower. He rehearsed, over and over, exactly what he wanted to say when giving the rose to… well, Rose. At first his hand shook, and he dropped the rose a few times, stumbling over a few of his words and running fingers through his hair relentlessly until his normally messy locks were disheveled beyond belief. But finally, after hundreds of times repeating the words, he got himself under control. With a final deep breath and an appearance check in his mirror, he once again tucked the rose, which had been previously sitting in a vase of water and had bloomed beautifully, into his jacket.
He searched for Rose in her room, the library, the kitchen, all the usual places, but she was nowhere to be found. He called her name, but there came no answer. Hours later he found her wandering around the art gallery, which he had only found once or twice himself, seeing as it was rather obscure. She paid little attention to him when he tried to talk to her, and after a few minutes he resigned himself back to his bedroom and the rose back to its vase. That was the first day he tried.
The second day he found her cooking, his nose immediately catching the smell of apples and cinnamon wafting into the hall from the TARDIS' kitchen. She was humming to herself as she removed a pie from the oven, and he found himself shoved into a seat as she placed a large slice of the gooey dessert in front of him. Despite the fact that it was rather delicious, his mouth was full, and there was no way he could speak his affections to her when they were both eating. Again, the flower was returned to the vase on his nightstand.
The third day he walked into the control room to find her sleeping in his chair, a book resting open on her lap and a cup of tea, still hot, on the table next to her. He just didn't have the heart to wake her from her nap. The flower went back into his bedroom.
He woke the next morning, glancing over at the rose. It could at least wait until later. Rose had been wanting to visit home and he wasn't going to add this to the stress of reacquainting with Jackie and whatever disaster was sure to happen when they landed in London. He got out of bed, changed clothes, and flew the TARDIS back to Rose's hometown.
That was the day of the ghosts. The whole time they were at work trying to figure out where the ghosts were coming from, the only thing he could think of was that silly little flower. Later, he kept telling himself. Just give it to her later.
That was the day of the battle. As the Daleks ascended into the sky and the Cybermen flooded the streets, his mind kept wandering back to the golden rose. There will be time, he thought, later. Later.
Later.
That was the day his Rose was taken away from him.
And when he was alone, cheek pressed against the wall where the breach had closed, that stupid flower snuck back into his thoughts, and he realized that there was no later. He had missed his chance, and now it was too late. His time had run out.
He saw her again once, briefly, before he had to take her back to her world. There was no way he could give her the flower then. He knew that what he had to do was hard enough; suddenly admitting his feelings for her would only make it worse. This time, he was the one who left her, and he never forgave himself for that.
It had been three hundred years for him, in the TARDIS, since he had last seen her. He had changed, a different face and a mind filled with hatred of nothing and no one but himself. She was long gone, dead in another world with a copy of his previous self. But the rose still sat by his bedside, never dying, never wilting or losing any petals, a constant reminder of what could have been, and what never was. All that regret, all that guilt, all the feelings unspoken, came back to haunt him every night as he tried to sleep.
His Rose was long gone, never to return. Instead, all he had was one little golden flower to keep him company for the rest of his cursed life. A gift to last as long as his love.
The immortal Rose.