A/N: So this is my companion piece to my songfic Into the West. This is a lot more angsty, since it's from Rose's POV, and it starts out during the goodbye scene in "Doomsday." Since direct quotes are taken from "Doomsday," I highly urge you to have some tissues nearby. Recommended listening for the first part: "My Heart is Broken" by Evanescence, and when the story starts to coincide with Into the West, then put on the last verse of "My Heart Will Go On." by Celine Dion. Oh, and when you've finished reading, please review! I'd love to know what you thought about this story!

Forever

Four months. That's how long it had been since the Battle of Canary Wharf. Four months since Daleks came to our universe in a Void Ship and allowed the Cybermen to come after, starting a war. Four months since my parallel world father caught me as I hurtled toward the closing breach and brought me back to his dimension. Four months since I had been separated from the Doctor. Four months. Four long, excruciating months. At my darkest times, sometimes I think it would have been better for me if Pete hadn't come back and just let me be sucked into the Void. I still remember the agony and desperation on his face as he reached out for me, the way he screamed my name, before I had been sealed away. If I had been sucked into the Void, I would remember nothing.

Rose.

Last night, I had a dream. I told Mum, Dad, and Mickey. Anyone else would think I was mad. But not those three. They believed it, because they've met the Doctor. So they listened to the dream. And that night, we packed up; got into Dad's old Jeep and off we went. Just like the dream said. Followed the voice across the water. Kept on driving hundreds and hundreds of miles, because he's calling. Here I am at last. And this is the story of how I died.

The Doctor had found one last gap in the universe. And while a hologram of him appeared to me on Dårlig Ulv Stranden (a cruel irony that this beach was named Bad Wolf Bay, since "Bad Wolf" was always a message to me, saying that I could get back to him); he was really inside the TARDIS, orbiting a supernova so that we had two minutes to say goodbye.

"You're dead, officially, back home," he informed me, and I felt the truth of that statement, because without him, I felt dead. "So many people died that day, and you've gone missing. You're on a list of the dead. And yet here you are. Living a life day after day. The one adventure I can never have." Adventure, yeah right. As if a regular life, even given the fact that I was working for the Torchwood in this dimension, could ever compare to the adventure I had daily while travelling with the Doctor.

"Am I ever going to see you again?" I asked, even though, in the darkest part of my heart, I knew the answer.

"You can't." When he said those two words, I felt like it would have been kinder if he sent an actual knife plunging through my heart, instead of a metaphorical knife causing me to die emotionally every single day, separated from him for eternity.

I had to let him know, even though in this situation, it was a goodbye, "I-" I choked out, scolding myself for freezing up, wasting the precious two minutes that we had. "I love you." I managed to say at last.

"Quite right, too." He said, and I had to smile at that typical, egotistical comment; as if I had no choice but to love him, and I suppose that was true. "And, I suppose, if it's my last chance to say it..." I looked up. Was it possible he reciprocated my feelings? I barely managed to hold back my tears, because I so wanted to hear him say this. "Rose Tyler..." he began, but that was as far as he got. Our last two minutes together were up, and I would never know if he truly felt the same way about me as I felt about him.

I felt Mum hug me in an attempt to console me, but I felt empty. A part of me had died after Torchwood, and now another part of me was gone. But, even though I knew it would be hard, I knew that the Doctor would not want me to live my life this way. What were the last words of Emergency Program One? "Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life." As heartbreaking and as devastating as this experience was, I knew that I had to move on and continue to live. I might never love anyone romantically again, but I had something to live for: Mum's baby would need its big sister. And even though the Doctor said it was impossible for anyone to cross dimensions anymore, he had no idea what a determined companion was capable of. I would find a way back to him if it was the last thing I ever did.

Three months later...

"Rose, this is getting ridiculous!" Pete's practically shouted as he followed me down the stairs one morning. "I know the Doctor would love to see you again, but you're working yourself to death on this Dimension Cannon." I sighed, annoyed. He knew how important this was to me! If there was any chance for me to get back to the Doctor, I would leap at that opportunity and not stop until I was back home on the TARDIS and in the Doctor's arms.

However, Pete wasn't done quite yet. "Now, Rose, you might be the Head of Human/Alien Relations, but I'm the director of the whole company. And, as your boss, I'm ordering you to take the day off." How about that? Usually the boss insists that the workers come in to work, but now the boss was ordering a worker to take a day off. "I'm sure that we can get by one day without you."

Mum came in the front room, then, hand upon her stomach (she had begun showing about a two months ago.) and began taking Pete's side. "He's right, Rose," she said. "One day off is not going to kill you. Besides, think what the Doctor'd say if he saw what you're doing to yourself. He'd be horrified!"

Great. Not only were they ganging up on me, they were also pulling out the "What would the Doctor say?" card. And they knew, they always knew, even Pete knew, exactly what the Doctor would say if he saw me in my current condition. I sighed, realizing that I had no choice but to admit defeat. I turned to Pete.

"Promise me you'll tell me the exact amount of progress that you've made on the cannon when you come home?" I asked. "And to call me in immediately if you get it working?"

"You'll be the first to know." Pete promised.

With a final kiss on the cheek, I let him head on to Torchwood without me. He might not be my real world dad, but he did accept Jackie as his wife and me as his daughter even before the breach sealed us here. And I really did appreciate that, no matter how I acted. And, if I'm being totally honest, it was good to have a father figure in my life, even if it was twenty years since I'd had one.

The day was mostly uneventful, and I realized that I really had needed the day off. I spent most of the day in the great outdoors, exploring the woods at the back of the mansion, or swimming in Pete's private pool. Who knew that exercising, other exercise than running from evil aliens with the Doctor, could be so relaxing? Besides, I knew that I had to stay in peak running shape in case I managed to find a way back home without damaging the fabric of the universes. Unfortunately, Pete came home that afternoon to report that zip to nil progress had been made on the cannon, that no matter what they tried, they always got the same exact results, same exact power failure. Mum reminded him that she had an appointment tomorrow morning to finally find out the gender, and that did excite me; I had been wondering for a long while if I was going to have a baby brother or baby sister. My newfound big sister's hunch said that it was going to be a baby sister, but I secretly hoped that I would have a baby brother. Maybe Pete could also finally get some relief from being the only male Tyler in the house if Mum had a boy.

"Now, Rose, you go on and get to bed early tonight," Mum insisted. "You've been depriving yourself of sleep for the last three months and you barely had a nap this afternoon. One little nap is not enough to make up for three months' worth of lost sleep. What would the Doctor say?"

I barely repressed a groan of annoyance at her. She absolutely had to remind me of the Doctor? Three months after our stolen goodbye, and the hurt was still as fresh as it had been when he disappeared off of that cursed beach, even more so than it had been seven months ago when we had first been separated. However, I refused to let my annoyance show. "You're right, Mum," I agreed. "And I will need my strength for tomorrow, to try to figure out what is going wrong with this stupid Dimension Cannon." I used that to excuse myself and went up to retire for the night.

I laid down in my bed, thinking about the usual things I thought about at the end of the day: What went wrong with the Dimension Cannon this time?; Would the new addition to the Tyler family be a boy or a girl?; and Would the Dimension Cannon start working in time for me to get back the Doctor before he had to regenerate again? As always, my last thought before drifting off to sleep was what I imagine our reunion to be like: me running into his arms and both of us clinging to each other like we would never let go. And maybe I would kiss him, too, just for good measure.

I'm not entirely sure what woke me: perhaps it was the absence of my blanket, perhaps feeling grass underneath me instead of my mattress, or maybe feeling feathers underneath my hand. I blearily opened one eye and was startled awake when I noticed that, instead of my bed, I was lying in a summer meadow, with flowers in bloom all around me and blue sky up above me. I also found out that, instead of my nightgown, I was wearing my usual jeans, magenta shirt, and blue faux leather jacket. I didn't remember changing, I didn't even remember waking up. What were those feathers underneath my hand? And why was I suddenly glowing? Where was I, even?

"This is the ether realm, young one." A voice startled me into turning around. An angel stood there, only about a few feet away from me. There was a very bright glow about him, brighter than the one I was emitting, bright enough so that I had to look away for a few seconds before my eyes adjusted. I had absolutely no idea what he meant by "ether realm," since the Doctor had never mentioned it at any point when I travelled with him, but at my confused look, he elaborated. "The afterlife. You're no longer bound by time and space."

"So I'm... dead?" I asked, horrified. Snow white feathers suddenly wrapped around me from my back, and I couldn't hold back a startled shout. After calming down, I raised one of my glowing hands, touched one of the wings, and managed to trace the origin to my back, confirming that these wings were my own. Unfortunately, it also confirmed that I was dead. How had I – How had I managed to die? I had told myself, ever since we were separated, that the Doctor wouldn't want me throwing my life away. And I hadn't, I had devoted my time to finding a way of getting back to him. But how could I get back to him now, since I had died?

The angel in front of me nodded solemnly. "We've been expecting you for some time." He explained. "You've been appearing and disappearing from this realm for quite a while, even though time means nothing here. We knew that eventually, you would arrive here permanently."

Suddenly, it felt like a great burden was placed on my shoulders. I took a few deep breaths to steady myself, noticing that the colour of my wings was fading from snow white to a dull grey, and they had started to droop. A few tears leaked from my eyes, and I turned and walked away without saying another word. I could hear the angel leave me, but I found that I didn't care. My tears started flowing faster, and the glow around me faded to almost nothing. I buried my face in my hands as the sadness of the entire world and all parallels seemed to be laid on my shoulders. But my own hurt poured forth first: My separation from the Doctor, our stolen goodbye, and the knowledge that now, I truly wouldn't see him ever again, unless I somehow miraculously managed to find him when he came to the ether realm.

I didn't have any clue how long I blindly wandered, weeping uncontrollably, and although to me it felt like half an hour, although it probably would have been more like a hundred years if time actually meant something. Finally, I couldn't hold my agony in any longer, and I threw my head back, screaming, letting nearly my entire burden of sadness show to anyone who was near me. Yet, as my scream died down, I heard another voice, a male voice, softly breathe my name. "Rose..." it whispered. I hadn't told anyone here my name, so how did he know it? I whipped my head around and saw a very familiar figure wearing a pinstriped suit, with brown hair swept upwards in the front, and intense brown eyes. He, too, now had wings, which were the same golden colour as his regeneration energy, and there was a glow around him as well, but I would recognize him anywhere.

"Doctor." I murmured. The sadness was lifted off of my shoulders, my tears stopped immediately, and my strength came rushing back to me, even to my wings. The only image in my mind was how I imagined our reunion to be. And that's exactly what was happening now; I just hadn't imagined that both of us would be dead when we were reunited. As it was, I was able to use my restored wings to cross over to him faster. He took a few steps forward, holding his arms out, and I eagerly landed in his embrace, throwing my arms around his neck with a relieved gasp. My glow exploded to life and his glow also brightened significantly.

I buried my face in the crook of his neck, inhaling and rememorizing his beautiful, addicting scent. When I felt his cheek leave my hair, I looked up at him, startled, but he made no move to remove his arms from my waist, or my arms from around his neck. Instead, he kissed my remaining tears away, and I relished in the feeling of his lips against my eyes. I was gasping, drunk on the waves of what I could only guess was love radiating off of him, and telling myself that this was really happening, before finding my lips otherwise occupied. It took me a moment before I realized that he was kissing me. The Doctor was actually kissing me! My eyes slid shut and I pulled my arms slightly tighter around his neck, even though the kiss itself remained chaste.

It took us both a while, but he eventually released my lips. I was absolutely speechless, capable of nothing else but simply looking and drinking in the sight of him. As always, his face was the most beautiful (and it was only made even more beautiful by his glow), but his new wings were a close second. I was speechless at the sight of him, and his own power of speech was severely hindered too.

"Oh, Rose," he sighed, and I felt giddy by the way he said my name, as though it was the most beautiful word in any language. "Look at you." He ran his hand over one of my wings, and, when it bent longingly into his touch, I noticed that the colour had gone back to the snow white it had been before the sadness was placed on my shoulders.

I smiled at him, blushing slightly from his gaze and from my reaction to his touch. "You have wings, too," I informed him, and a small giggle escaped my lips when an astonished expression appeared on his face. Apparently, he hadn't known, so I gently coaxed one of his wings around to where he could see, finally allowing myself to touch those beautiful golden feathers that now sprouted from his back. His wing curled around and followed my touch to where it stretched out beside us. My smile widened slightly. "My Lonely Angel finally gets his wings." I whispered lovingly. I instantly began to regret not being careful and calling him mine, but when I saw the corners of his mouth twitch up in a smile, I realized that he had never minded it whenever I called him mine. In fact, he wanted to be called mine.

For the first time since our goodbye in Norway, I was finally able to lie down and relax. My Doctor lay down next to me (and I barely resisted the urge to run my fingers over his wings again), his fingers gently intertwining with mine, comforting me after I had reluctantly admitted that I had suddenly died only three months after Bad Wolf Bay, even though I had tried to hold on, if not for my own sake, then for the sake of Mum and the baby. My thoughts wandered to the family that I had left behind, the little brother or sister that I never knew, and I groaned in slight discomfort, a memory of the sadness returning.

"Rose?" the Doctor asked, slight fear coloring his voice. "What's wrong?"

"'M just tired." I reassured him. "Until I finally saw you... well you probably remember. It felt like the sadness the entire world, and all parallel worlds, was weighed on my shoulders. It's not a burden that can easily be forgotten." That was half true. Maybe I would tell him about how I felt having to leave behind my unborn brother or sister, but I wasn't exactly in the mood for saying it right now.

He shifted slightly, and I saw that he was now lying on his side, smiling gently at me. "I think you need a Doctor." He softly declared before leaning down and pressing another kiss to my lips. I couldn't help but smile into the kiss as I remembered the first Doctor that I accompanied saying that very same phrase on the Gamestation after I destroyed nearly all the Daleks. My memories of Bad Wolf and absorbing the Time Vortex had been fuzzy at first, but when I had arrived in the ether realm, everything had come rushing back.

My eyelids began drooping, but I fought sleep off. How could I possibly sleep, when I had just been reunited with my Doctor? True, we had all eternity now, but I didn't want to sleep just yet. What if he left me yet again? I didn't think I would be able to cope with that if he did. But I soon felt him draw me into his arms and plant another kiss to my forehead. "Sleep, my Rose," I heard him murmur, and my heart leaped when he called me his, like I called him mine. "I'll still be here when you wake up. I'm never letting you go again," he reassured me.

Why did his voice have to be so seductive? As soon as he finished, my eyes fluttered shut, my wings folded themselves up against my back and I snuggled up against his chest. A memory of my life suddenly crossed my mind: him asking me how long I would stay with him and me responding that I would stay with him forever; however, our very next adventure was the one where we were separated. But since we were now both dead and had transcended time and space... "I can finally give you that forever I promised you." I whispered to him, allowing a peaceful smile to cross my face.

Sleep began to fog my mind, but I could have sworn that I felt him pull me closer to him, wrap his own wings around both himself and me, press his lips to my hair and whisper in my ear, "Rose Tyler, I love you."