Her thoughts are rampant, yet unsettled... undefined. All she can think is the pain inflicted, the light making the shadows dance around her. No way out, no ease to the scalding arid force around her.
Tears stinging salty trails down her fractured flesh and she falls to her knees; too much power, too much energy. The cooling, aching trails dry almost instantly, salt burning like acid to the exposed nerves. "Doc... tor..." She calls, reaching out to the leather-clad man standing before her. Fear and sorrow etched in his features, he's helpless. There was nothing he could do now, it was too late. The power from within, a force no mortal was meant to bare, was consuming her.
Golden light, flaming power emanates from her aching, dying body. Tiny spasms wrack her weakened, fragile form. Every movement hurt, every breath, every tiny shiver. Heat and cold enveloped her, the acrid smoke of burnt flesh making her head throb, pulsing along with the power inside her. Forward, she falls to her hands, left arm shaking while her right stretches for the man she trusted. The man who SWORE he'd protect her, who swore he'd keep her safe. She'd come back for him. Into the heart of the TARDIS she had gazed, absorbing a power above and beyond herself, for him. Now he was powerless to save her.
Everything, past, present, and future, she knew. The entire Universe was forced into her, devouring her from within. She knew she'd come back, she could see it, she could see ALL outcomes. She knew what would happen, if she'd let him take the Vortex from her, if she let him 'save' her. Willingly, he�d give his own life for her, she knew that, but she couldn't let him, not when she knew she'd come back... But now, as the Vortex ate her up, as the power she'd taken to save him, was burning away everything... she wanted nothing more than to let him. It was within her power, a simple temporal reversal, and a minor one, at that, for the Bad Wolf, the Time Goddess, it was nothing, not even a flick of the wrist.
But she couldn't. Rose, the young woman so out of her element, couldn't let him give up his life, his visage, his being, just for her. She came on a rescue mission, she'd be damned if she ended up the one needing rescuing. Above the scorched flesh and Dalek ash, she could smell his fear; fear of losing her, of having broken a promise, of being once more alone. Were it not for the acidic, smoky taste on her tongue, she could almost taste it.
"I'm sorry..." His words cut through the roar in her ears, and the deafening echoing silence in his own. "I'm so sorry." He didn't know what else to say. What else was there to say? He couldn't save her; she didn't let him. She'd pushed him away, when he tried... now it's too late. She was burning alive, with a power beyond reckoning, and he was helpless to do anything but watch.
Cracked lips parting as she forces a smile, a mere ghost of her former enthusiasm and life. There was nothing she wanted more, than to reassure him, to tell him it was all right. But it wasn't, not yet. The pain was too strong, too overwhelming, to be all right. It was all she could do to not pass out from the pain. Especially as her arm gave way, dropping her to the cold metal floor of the game station with a dull, clanking thump. The soothing coolness of the metal draws a sigh from her burnt, cracked lips, though the solace is fleeting. New waves of pain course through her, drawing her in upon herself in a fetal position.
Death, closing in on her, she could feel it... pulling the dark edges further into her vision. The Time Goddess in her knew, rationally, that she would come back, that she'd be all right. The power would burn her up... but like the Phoenix, she'd rise from her own ashes, whole and unscathed... with a reminiscence of a power tying her to her Doctor, '/Together forever./' They'd agreed, in another timeline that hadn't even happened yet. A timeline that - with the power she held - she was making sure was never going to happen. She'd make sure they were together forever, rather than the broken promises of the other timeline.
Rose Tyler, stubborn human, merged seamlessly with the sentience of the Time Goddess. They deserved a happy ending and through her own selfishness she�d see that it came to pass. Or that was the plan. The pain, however, she didn't count on its intensity, and the immensity of it... The selfish little girl in her fought it, wanting her Doctor to hold her, comfort her... take away the hurt. It was that selfish little girl that fought to keep her vision, fought the inky dark of oblivion as long as she could... The last sight in her eyes, before the eternal dark of death overcame her willpower, was his panic, his fear, filling his usually mirth-sparkling cerulean ones.