After the New Earth incident, with the Face of Boe and Cassandra, Rose went to her room and didn't come out. The Doctor was worried, but let her go. She'd come back in her own time, she always did, and if he didn't bother her, she'd be happier when she came back.
As the evening wore on, though, the Doctor eventually wound up in the library, laid out on a couch with a book propped on a pillow on his chest. It wasn't a particularly good book, but a companion once had recommended it to him, years ago- had it been Sarah Jane? Tegan? Grace? It didn't really matter, because he wasn't focusing enough to retain any of the story.
However, he was just about dozing when he heard footsteps in the hallway. So Rose was better, then. He slipped a bookmark into the book and sat up, stretching as she walked in.
"Hey," she said, sitting down on the opposite end of the couch. "Have a nap, then?"
The Doctor flashed her a smile. "I was simply resting my eyes. Anyways, feeling better?" She nodded and picked up the book he'd been reading, flicking through the pages curiously.
"Any good?" she asked, holding it up.
...
A few weeks later, after the alternate universe scare, with the Cybermen and all, Rose slipped into the console room and sat with her legs straddling the rails, kicking her feet as she watched him tinker with the TARDIS' wiring.
After a few minutes of looking at him speculatively, Rose pulled herself up. "Can I show you something?" she asked at last, biting her lip. The Doctor looked up in surprise and straightened.
"If you like," he replied, and followed her as she abruptly turned and headed into the hallways of the TARDIS.
She led him, strangely enough, to her bedroom. "I want to show you what I do, when we get back from an adventure safely," she explained, and opened the door.
The Doctor gaped, jaw hanging as he gazed around, taking in everything. He'd never been in Rose's room before- he respected her privacy, and she respected his- but he still had trouble taking in what adorned the vaulted ceilings and walls. There was so much space here. But then, she'd need it for this, wouldn't she?
...
They were gone. Everyone was gone, and the Doctor closed the TARDIS doors on Stormcage and set the TARDIS into the vortex, sighing.
He went to Rose's room, like he had so many times, and opened the door slowly. His heart ached from the lose of the Ponds, most recent in a long line of companions he'd lost forever. That's why he was here. To remember.
Because it turned out that Rose was a gifted painter. After every one of their adventures, especially the ones that affected her deeply, she would come to her art studio-cum-bedroom, and paint. She painted the Face of Boe, Woman Wept, Blon Fel-Fotch, the cat-sisters of New Earth, and so many others. But those weren't what he was here to see, not today. Maybe later.
No, he was here for one painting. After they'd met Queen Victoria, she had taken the time to paint a picture of the Doctor regenerating, and it was still painful for him to look at. It wasn't picturesque and realistic, like many of the others, but an explosion of light and color which still somehow made sense.
This painting was all light, bright and painful and blazing, and at the center was the Doctor. But the figure didn't have a specific face, and it wasn't twisted in pain as his had been. Rather, it seemed to shift, even on the canvas, even in the stillness of long-dry paint, between who he had been and who he had been in the process of becoming, and somehow, she'd managed to add her love for him into his face, make him beautiful.
He'd died so save her, and she lived to help him stay alive. And now she was gone, but that was okay. Because she'd left a reminder, potent as always, that he wasn't bad. He wasn't evil, the destroyer of worlds. He was a saviour, a bringer of life. And it always left him speechless.
A/N: I didn't mean for it to be sad.