A/N: The approach I've always taken to the relationship between The Doctor and Rose is that, while he wants to love her, because she represents everything he cannot have, he will not allow himself to do it. I've taken this opportunity to explore these thoughts. Takes place during 'Human Nature'.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Bleh.
He dreams frequently, of impossible things.
Amidst the living machinery and the beasts, the mysterious appearances of the family maid and the blue box, there was another face, burned into his subconscious. She almost seemed real. Her yellow hair and fair skin haunted him, even in his waking hours.
Each time she appears, he calls out her name. And each time, she doesn't hear him. Each time, she fades away. And he feels lost, her name hovering in the air, overtaking him as she fades away to a place where he instinctively knows he cannot reach her.
Rose.
He gets the feeling that he should love her. Anyone else in his position, he presumes, would be absolutely enamored of her. All he feels is guilt. Guilt that she loves him, guilt that he doesn't, guilt that he feels he should. The girl named Rose brings nothing but feelings of guilt and sadness in her wake, yet he feels grossly elated every time she graces him with her presence.
Her eyes long for him, and he longs to long for her. He longs to feel what she feels. But then he feels two hearts beating in his chest, and he knows they can never be. As the mysterious 'Doctor', he must keep this girl safe and, recognizing this charge, he bars himself from feeling anything for her at all.
He wonders, so briefly that he hardly noticed himself doing any wondering at all, if this defense mechanism was just an elaborate form of denial.
Sometimes, he wakes up muttering her name. Sometimes, he finds himself muttering her name during the day. And sometimes he notices his servant, Martha Jones, with her eyebrows furrowed, looking vaguely hurt every time the name escapes his lips.
"Is that a name from one of your dreams, Mr. Smith?"
"Mind your business, Martha."