Everything heals, eventually. Except the things that don't.
Because no matter how much time she allows, there is always a crack in her heart that refuses to be mended. In the mornings, she wakes up, and it is there; she sits up in bed, and she debates, momentarily, going out for the day.
But the crack is always too big to conquer, so she pulls her covers over her head, and spends the day in bed.
Her mum doesn't understand it. And how could she, really? She has never experienced this sort of all-encompassing love. Because the Doctor may have burnt up a sun to wish her goodbye, but she would obliterate entire planets if it meant one more moment, one more smile, one more touch. She would kill for just one kiss. She would leave behind everything she holds dear and never look back.
Instead of any of that though, she lies there, miserable and aching because she does not work, and the one man who can fix her she can never have.
She's convinced she'll live out her life this way (not quite whole and forever confined to her bed) until one day, her mother—in true Jackie Tyler fashion—comes barging into her room and stands, furious and demanding, hands on her hips, and barks out, "All right, Rose Marion Tyler, I've had just about enough of this."
Shocked, Rose slowly turns and sits up ever-so-slightly.
Jackie looks at her in a way Rose has never seen before—it is the look of a mother who cannot bear her daughter's pain any longer.
She continues, "You've been moping around this house for three weeks now, and I'm here to tell you that there ain't gonna be no more of it. You are a Tyler, for god's sakes! There's no way your gonna spend the rest of your life lying in bed. Not over a man; not even over him." Her face softens as she drops her hands to her sides. "He wouldn't want this for you, love. He'd want more."
And Rose, always so much more clever than anyone gave her credit for, knows this—has known it since her arrival home three weeks ago—so she doesn't argue when her mother adds, "So tomorrow, you are getting out of this bed, whether you like it or not."
As she leaves the room much more quietly than she came, Rose thinks about her mother. She thinks about the woman who spent eighteen years without her beloved husband; she thinks about Mickey, who has spent his life waiting for her; and she thinks about her father, who she has yet to get to really know. She thinks about little un-born Tony and about Sarah Jane, who warned her about this pain. And she thinks about Reinette and Jack Harkness, who got only tastes of their promised adventure.
But mostly she thinks about the Doctor, so old and so terribly lonely. And it occurs to her, suddenly, that she is not so alone as she once thought. Scattered across every Universe, there are a thousand bleeding hearts that beat with hers.
And maybe the cracks are necessary. Maybe, just maybe, every crack in her heart makes her a bit more brave, a bit more loving, a bit more human. Maybe, in some other Universe, in his TARDIS, the Doctor's hearts have matching cracks of their own.
Some things, she reminds herself, watching her mother's retreating form, are worth getting your heart broken for.
The next day, with a crack set firmly in her heart, she gets out of bed.
