Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: One shot fic, takes place just after the 'wall scene' in Doomsday. Sorry about the angst.
Dedication: Dedicated to my own Father.
Pete Tyler's POV
Sometimes I blame myself. I caught her. I saved my daughter from dying. I stepped out and caught her before she could be taken completely by the Void. I don't know what made me do it – I suppose it was seeing Jackie's tears at losing her daughter forever, or Mickey's anguished face. Most of all it was a selfish desire, I suppose. I'd let her down before, and I'd let her go before. And I couldn't do that again, I had to speak to her. Of course, I came at the right time to save her...but I'll never forget the look on the Doctor's face when he realised she was gone, and how Rose sobbed and screamed at us to take her back, to take her back to her Doctor.
I caught her, I saved her life. But in a way I killed her. I took her away from the one she loved. The one she wanted to spend her life with – her Doctor. Perhaps it would have been kinder to let her be demolished by the Void. She only lives a half-life now.
I can't stand seeing my daughter like this. During the day she's cold, cold and untouchable, wandering off for long walks by herself, not talking to anybody, sitting in a corner somewhere clutching a mug of tea that's steadily growing colder. She shouldn't be like this. I haven't been with her long, I know that, but from what Jackie's told me, she should be lively, bouncy, tearing around the place before running back home to settle down with a steaming drink and argue with Jackie about what channel they should watch on television. She's not like that here.
I catch myself wondering what would have happened if I had let her go. If I had died with her – or if I had simply not acted upon my desires and taken myself back to her world. She would have gone, gone forever...but she would have gone knowing that she still had the Doctor.
She dreams about him. I hear my Rose, screaming aloud in her sleep, and when she wakes with frightened eyes, the same word is always on her lips – "Doctor". Sometimes it's more of a question, as if she's asking me where he is, or mistaking me for him, and those times she pushes me away, sometimes screaming for her Doctor. It scares Jackie when she does that. Sometimes she wakes and doesn't recognise anyone. Just cries, cries for her Doctor, her Lonely Angel.
In the morning she has no memory of the nightmares, the screaming. She sits, staring into space, not eating. She won't touch food, except for bananas. Occasionally she'll smile, and grab a banana. I don't know why, none of us do. We can only presume it has something to do with The Doctor. Seeing her sitting there makes me realise how very alone she is. We all knew the Doctor, of course, but not as well as her. And she loves him, you can see it in her eyes.
I caught her sobbing in her bedroom the other evening. Walking past her door – the sounds of grief from behind a closed door. My daughter was in there, crying for him, almost hysterical. She knows she's lost him. There's nothing I can do.
Sometimes I blame myself. And I hate myself for it.
