A/N: This idea suddenly came to me some time after the season 2 finale. Basically coz I hated how they left it and I'm the sort of person that needs to give characters closure. Even if they aren't my characters. So this is what came out of my head.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.
"I'm never gonna leave you. I'll stay with you forever…" Her own words echoed inside her head, and she spoke them out loud, tasting salty tears on her lips.
It had been almost a month since she had stood on this very spot, the Doctor fading into nothing before her eyes. She had tried to stay with him, only to be snatched from the world she grew up in and hauled to safety, leaving him stranded and alone. A minute-long hologram was the only goodbye they got, before he was pulled back into that world without her.
Her eyes had been blurred with tears then, too, her heart filled with the aching loss that had become so familiar over the past few weeks.
The sea whispered back, but it wasn't the soft roar of the ocean she heard, but a man's familiar tone.
"Rose…Rose…"
"Doctor?" Hope swelled in her chest, but there was nobody to greet her as she opened her eyes. He had come back once, and that was all he could do. To see him again would mean the end of the world, literally.
"Rose…" She ignored the voice this time, telling herself it was her mind playing tricks. Squeezing her eyes shut, she retreated inside her mind, where she could be with him forever, frozen in time where no one could tear them apart. His face shone in her mind, a sad smile dimming his usually bright eyes. She reached out, eyes still shut tight, but the image faded as the voice got louder.
"Rose!" Her eyes fluttered open as she was hauled from the dream, jerking awake. An arm was reaching towards the dark ceiling. Shadows draped the room and the figure sitting on the edge of her bed.
"Doctor?" Rose mumbled, still half asleep, but the person reached out to switch on the lamp adorning her bedside cabinet.
"It's only me, love." Rose's hope plummeted as her mother reached out to brush hair from her clammy forehead. 'How are you feeling?'
The girl shrugged, her gaze inadvertently drawn to the bedside cabinet, or more specifically, to the pair of 3D glasses lying on the surface, next to a packet of pills. Jackie followed her look.
"Are you taking your sleeping pills?" She took the packet, saw that half the tablets were missing, and nodded in relief. "Good girl." She popped out two from the packet and placed them in her daughter's unresisting hand. "Your father wants you to go into work tomorrow, look through some files on some…alien or other."
Rose nodded absently, pretending to be tired, though she was becoming more awake every minute. Jackie ruffled her shoulder length blonde hair, turning the lamp off as she headed for the door. "Night, love." She cast her silent daughter a worried glance before shutting the door behind her, casting the room into darkness once more.
The tablets lay in her palm, offering a deep and dreamless sleep, free of worry and pain. But that wasn't what she wanted. She would willingly endure the pain of a thousand lonely nights to see his face in her dreams.
Rose lay in silence in the comforting blackness for a few minutes, wide-awake and drowning in loneliness. Finally she sat up, swinging her legs out of bed. Her bare feet made no noise on the soft carpet as she padded slowly to the window, the two sleeping pills still clenched in a fist. She stared out at the view of London, brightly lit despite the late hour. She found herself wondering what the Doctor was looking at. Earth, or some strange planet that she'd never see, or the inside of the TARDIS where she'd never set foot again…
Opening her fist, she dropped the small white pills out of the window, where they were instantly swallowed by the darkness. Rose stood at the window a moment longer, the cool English air wafting her hair around her face and tugging at her thin cotton pyjamas, before slipping back into bed.
It took a long time to get to sleep, and her dreams were haunted by the Doctor's sad smile.