"Love is a sickness full of woes, All remedies refusing; A plant that with most cutting grows, Most barren with best using." –Samuel Daniel
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, it's all wonderful creations from the mind of Russell T. Davies that are copyrighted by the BBC. So yes, please don't sue me. Especially as I'm a student with very little money as it is...
A/N: This is set in the wake of Series Two's The Age of Steel. I must confess, to write this I've drawn on some of the experiences I've had with the love of my own life. What got me thinking was the idea of having someone who is so amazing, and brilliant, who can do things you can't possibly emulate – but who still has flaws too. And maybe you overlook these flaws - because their better qualities dwarf them, or because you just don't want to see the bad in the person you love. Or maybe because when you're together life is bliss, and it's only at certain moments that you can step back and try to look at it objectively—especially when you're upset. I know that Rose would have to get her frustration out every once in a while, or just take a break from it all-like the lovely moment in The End of the World, where she "just wants chips", or wanting to go home in the 2005 Children In Need Special. And we don't really see this happen again, and no more emphasis is put on it, at least not in this way. Of course, being the Doctor's Companion, and thus made of stronger stuff than your average human, the upset would be short-lived – i.e. only until she realises that she could never really be without him, of course, despite anything that might happen. But enough of my rambling - here goes...
Rose Tyler walked into her bedroom in the TARDIS, slamming the door behind her. She tossed her coat over a nearby chair, and kicked off her shoes, watching as they bounced and rolled into the furthest corner of the room. She threw herself on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, her eyes still moist with tears. How much more of this can I take?! Memories flashed through her mind - from Henrik's cellars with Nestene plastic dummies, right up to the marching ranks of steel Cybermen on a parallel world. The past year and a half had just been so strange, and scary, and impossibly, utterly brilliant—but what lay in store? What if this rollercoaster ride comes to an end, and we never see it coming?
Some things are worth getting your heart broken for.
Sarah-Jane's words reverberated in her head. Really?! Rose had been given good reason to wonder during her time as the Doctor's—what had Sarah-Jane first called her? —his new "Assistant". She'd left her Mum on her own, lost her Dad again, and left Mickey in a parallel universe, where she'd never see him again. Her own boyfriend, who used to mean so much to her and had always been there for her! He had been so patient through thick and thin, despite all she did – even when she ran off to Amsterdam in a camper van with Jimmy Stone and spectacularly failed her A-levels. Granted, the Doctor had saved her life countless times, but he nearly left her stranded in the fifty-first century for love; essentially the same thing that she had done to Mickey! You and Reinette. Breaking the portals saved the world, but it also meant that you left me.
Rose shook her head, and sat up, wiping away her tears. So despite all your amazing gifts, Doctor, this makes you no less fallible than me. But everything she had ever experienced before seemed to pale in comparison, more and more, to The Doctor. The man who had given her a new life travelling the cosmos, dashing madly from one point in space and time to another. They had merrily gone on their way with little or no planning, like rebellious students on an extended Gap Year across the stars. She'd been so swept up in the maelstrom of incredible adventures, the rush and the sights and sounds, that she hadn't stopped to think about her future. She always thought that she'd find the time, somehow, to put her life back in order. Rose smiled briefly, realising she should know better, being with the Doctor for so long, and sighed loudly. Things would have been so much easier if the Doctor hadn't waltzed into her life, and shaken it up as casually as someone might do to a snow globe. Which looks perfectly nice until the snow settles, she mused. And what if he regenerated so radically that he hated to even look at her? What would she do then?!
A sudden urge overtook her to let everything out at once. From the Georgian-era bedside table beside her, Rose reached into the back of the top drawer. She carefully took out a biro and the nearest piece of paper she could find – a sheet of neopapyrus, from the Egyptian Imperium of Andromeda. Rose took a deep breath, and began to write...