A.N.: I have a confession: I'm only really including this as part of the Angel!Verse because I wanted to re-write this scene with Nine anyway, and because Nine survives in this AU, it seemed to fit. That being said, it is worthy of the Angel!Verse and fits in with what I want to happen later. The main focus is the change in the Doctor's reaction to losing Rose in this way (because Nine would be more passionate than Ten was), so I hope it works.

Warning: Slight Doctor self-bashing/self-hating

Series summary: The TARDIS doesn't always take the Doctor where he wants to go, but it always takes him where he needs to go; Time Lords hold a secret behind their backs, and they have a duty to follow.

Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who

Chapter 1 – Canary Wharf

The wall behind them turned bright white as they pulled the heavy-duty switches and the Void was opened. The Doctor still couldn't believe that Rose had come back from the other world – Pete's world – just so that he didn't have to do this alone. She'd left behind her entire family – a family which she had only just found again, a family which she had been so desperate to get back that she'd risked rewriting time a few months after they had first met – for him. Even though this was the girl who had absorbed the Time Vortex to get back to him, he would never in a million years have dared to dream that she would do something this drastic.

Yet she had made her choice, as she had said, and she had accepted the fact that she would never see Ricky, or her mother, or the prodigal father that had had only just returned, ever again.

A great wind began to pull them towards the wall, the white light, and the Void. The two of them grabbed onto the manga-clamps, clinging onto them as Daleks and Cybermen began to rush passed them and be sucked back into the Void.

He now knew just how difficult it would have been to do this on his own; how much time would he have had to pull one switch and then run across the room to pull the other? Would he have been pulled into the Void before he had reached the other side? After all, though he didn't have as much 'Void stuff' on him as the Daleks and the Cybermen did, he was a lot closer to the bridge than they were. As it was, the wind was pulling at him and Rose with such ferocity that their feet were no longer touching the ground.

The Doctor looked over at Rose, her hair whipping around her face as she laughed. Daleks began being pulled into the room from outside, screaming as they passed the Doctor and Rose into the Void; she was slightly obscured from his view as they flew through the gap between them, but the Doctor was unable to take his eyes off of his companion, and he still had a massive grin on his face.

Their relationship hadn't been the same since Platform One. He had initially put down the kiss in the TARDIS after they had left the Game Station as some kind of irrational reaction to the news that she would now always be able to see his wings.

Yet as the weeks went on, the kisses continued – often morphing into full-on snogs – and he found that he had to wonder what exactly had changed between them. For it was clear that something had changed, but it seemed to have happened with no words exchanged between them; it was just a shift in the atmosphere, an unspoken alteration of how they viewed each other (or, rather, how Rose viewed the Doctor, because he had been viewing her in such a loving way since he had realised just how much he trusted her over fish and chips, because only a fool falling in love would give all of the secrets of the Time Lords to a human who they had only just met – even when there were no other Time Lords to rebuke him for doing so).

Even so, he had never spoken up about it; he felt for sure that it was some kind of mistake, and that Rose would soon come to her senses and the kisses (which were sometimes full-on snogs) would stop, and they would go back to what they had been before the Game Station just as suddenly as they had become whatever they now were after the Game Station.

Yet his fears had been stilled when they had been on a visit to Bracrow, and one of the Saveng – who were the dominant race on Bracrow – had been rude to the Doctor, at which point Rose had demanded of the alien that he leave her boyfriend alone.

Her boyfriend? Surely you would not just say that to someone if it wasn't true; the Saveng would no doubt have backed off purely to end the experience of being on the receiving end of the great Tyler rage that Rose had inherited from her mother, so she had no real reason to pretend that they were in a formal romantic relationship if they were not.

Even though they had not had that conversation, he said nothing of it; after all, he certainly had no objections to being able to say that he was Rose Tyler's boyfriend (even if the term itself was rather human for his tastes). The exact moment when they became boyfriend and girlfriend was beyond him, but he was definitely not complaining.

He found himself transfixed by the woman across the room from him, almost forgetting that there was any danger in what they were doing at all – they were just doing what they always did: turning up, finding an evil plot, foiling said evil plot, and in the process, saving the universe. Just another Tuesday.

Until Rose's switch began to move back to its neutral position, pulled by the force of the wind sucking things into the Void, and the voice above them declared that it was now offline. Daleks were still rushing passed them, but at a much slower rate, and there was every chance that they wouldn't all disappear before the bridge collapsed in on itself.

Yet as Rose began to reach for the switch, the Doctor knew instantly that he would rather risk his life fighting every last Dalek left on Earth to the death than risk Rose falling into the Void. He begged her to hold on, but – as always – she didn't listen. She let go of the magna-clamp and both the Doctor's hearts leaped into his mouth, only settling down to their natural position in his chest again when Rose had her grip firm on the switch. She fought against the wind to push the switch back to the 'on' position, and eventually the voice from above declared that she had been successful.

Relief filled the Doctor from head to toe, but the blissful feeling disappeared abruptly when he felt a tugging sensation at one of his wings. He looked behind him and saw that one of his black feathers was being pulled by the wind, the quill loosening as it lost its fight to stay in place. Eventually, the wind won the battle with the feather, tearing it free from the wing and sucking it into the Void. The Doctor cried out in pain and shock as a small bead of blood appeared where the quill had been ripped from the wing membrane.

"Doctor!" Rose called, concern thick in her voice as her fingers began to slip on the switch. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he assured her. "Just hold on!"

But her grip was weakening, and the angle available for her to hold on to the switch was not as secure as that which she had been able to hold onto the magna-clamp. Her fingers slipped against the rubber covering the top of the switch, threatening to release the lever altogether and send her spiralling into the Void.

The Doctor reminded her to hold on, all the while gritting his teeth against the pain as more feathers were pulled from his wings. Two more black feathers flew into the white light as he watched Rose hold on for – quite literally – dear life; and then one his primary feathers began to come loose, and oh, that hurt.

His bright primaries were much more sensitive than the black feathers below them, and when one of those soft, red feathers finally broke free from the wing, he was blinded for a half-second by the sheer pain of it. He screamed in agony, clamping his eyes shut as ripples of pain shot through his entire wing.

Then he opened his eyes, and saw something that was far more painful than feathers being torn out of his wings could ever be:

His scream had been the final straw that made Rose lose her grip, and now she was hurtling towards the Void with nothing to hold on to that could stop her descent.

"ROSE!" he yelled, reaching out his hand as far as he could to try and grab hers before she disappeared forever. It couldn't happen like this – surely it was never supposed to happen like this – but the Doctor just couldn't reach far enough fast enough, and soon Rose was nearly at the wall, nearly in the Void…

A flash of light appeared just before Rose was gone forever, and suddenly the other Pete Tyler – the Pete Tyler that the Doctor had actually been able to save – was there, catching Rose and saving her. Rose looked back over her shoulder, fixing the Doctor with such a look of sadness that the Doctor had never felt so inadequate.

How could he not save Rose Tyler, the woman who had saved him more times and more completely than she would ever know?

And then she was gone, and the bridge was collapsing, closing in on itself and sealing itself up. The white light disappeared, and the wind died down, and it was safe to let go of the magna-clamp, but the Doctor didn't care. He wanted to let go and be swallowed up by the Void, if the alternative was to live in a universe that no longer contained Rose Tyler.

He let go of the magna-clamp, running as fast as he could to the wall – and with each second that passed without him being pulled into it, he became more and more disappointed – until he reached the plain white expanse and began pounding on the wall with his fists.

"ROSE! ROSE!"

~{G}~

On the other side of the Void, Rose stood by the same wall in parallel Torchwood, with tears smudging her mascara as they fell down her cheeks. She reached up to the wall, hearing the cries of the Doctor as he screamed her name from the other side. His voice was only slightly muffled – as though he actually was on the other side of the wall, rather than a whole universe away – his grief powerful enough to transverse the Void itself.

In the end, though, the cries dissolved into sobs, and soon, they had stopped altogether.

Then, there was silence.