The Doctor woke from his sleep with a crink in his neck. He rolled his head from side to side, blinking his heavy eyes and not noticing his glasses until they fell off his nose and onto the floor. He picked them up. He sat back up in his chair and squeezed the hand that he held in his.
It was wrinkled and rough, nails trimmed unevenly with flecks of old nail polish on top and bits of foreign soil beneath. On one finger was a simple, yet beautiful and intricate ring, the finger having shaped to it after years. He briefly glanced at the matching band on his own finger. His hands weren't as rough, with scarcely a wrinkle to be seen. He followed the first hand up the arm, up to the shoulder where it connected to a sleeping form.
Her hair was silver and she was still the most beautiful thing he had seen in all of time and space. And she was his, as much as he would always be hers.
He hadn't left her side for days now, only getting up to bring her more water and food, never getting any for himself, though. The only morsels of food that had passed his lips recently were the ones that she'd forced him to eat while she was awake. In all these years she'd never stopped caring for him.
He was about to get up to refill her water jug when she squeezed his hand gently and spoke.
"Doctor?" she asked. He turned to see that her eyes were open and she was smiling at him. "Sit with me?" she asked, tapping the bed softly with her other hand.
Without hesitation, he walked around the bed and laid down next to her, grasping her hand and running his thumb over the back of it. It was a tender gesture that had stuck with them through centuries. She rubbed her thumb back and the Doctor was instantly comforted.
They laid there staring at the ceiling for a while, and it wasn't long before Rose drifted back to sleep.
She woke up an hour later and the Doctor noticed her breathing change. Her breaths were more laboured. She was breathing faster too. He sat up in alarm.
"Rose? Rose, what is it? Do you need me to get the respiratory enduser?" She didn't respond. "Rose?" His voice rose in pitch and his hearts were beating rapidly in panic.
He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and waved it over her body. He looked at the results. He scanned again. He threw the screwdriver at the wall. He got up and started running his hand through his hair in dismay. He paced back and forth at a frantic pace.
A soft shushing came from the bed.
He stopped.
Rose had her eyes open. Her face was pale, but she was breathing.
"Come here."
He did.
He sat beside her and held her hand tight. She squeezed his hand. "I need to go now, Doctor."
He shook his head, hot tears falling down his cheeks. "You're not going anywhere, Rose Tyler. We've still got places to go. Planets to see. Aliens to outrun. There are so many things we still need to do!"
She laughed and gave him the tongue-in-teeth grin that melted his hearts to their core. "I've got my own travels to do now. You've got to let me go."
His face was red and he could barely speak for the tossing and turning of his stomach and the aching of his hearts. "I don't want you to go. Please Rose. Not now. I don't want you to go!" A sob escaped him.
"Please don't leave me," he whispered. But there was no one left to hear him.