Author's note: After Rose's and Meta-Crisis Doctor's dangerous venture in 'Forever: The Broken Fragments', after running into the Time Lord Doctor in 'Forever: Nineteen Hundred' at the very moment of his regeneration, Rose and her - now one and only - Doctor are about to start a new journey together. There is just one thing they completely forgot about... the void... and now they are about to discover what lies beyond it.

English is not my mother tongue so please let me know when you find errors or when something just doesn't sound right. Reviews and comments are always welcome!

[Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. BBC does.]

I would like to thank Bria for volunteering to be my beta! This chapter is now officially better than it originally was :)

FOREVER: COLOURS OF ETERNITY

The old home town looks the same,
As I step down from the train,
And there to meet me is my Mama and Papa.
Down the road I look and there runs Mary
Hair of gold and lips like cherries.
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they'll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly.
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.

("Green Green Grass of Home" music and lyrics: Claude "Curly" Putman, Jr., as sung by Tom Jones)

RED RED GRASS AND ORANGE SKIES

The impact was just enough powerful to bring his consciousness back for a split second before knocking him out again. It took him several minutes to come to his senses again after he hit the ground. At first it felt like all his bones were shattered: it didn't hurt but his body felt like it was made of rubber. Then, as his nerves lost the numbness, his brain registered the pain. He made an effort to move, and his limbs responded, although with some reluctance. It hurt but at least nothing seemed to be broken. There was some minor internal bleeding, which he should be able to stop by going into a healing trance. And he had cut his cheek against something sharp.

Almost immediately, his brain registered something else.

Rose was not there.

A wave of panic surged in him but he forcefully put it down. Scared could be a superpower but panicked was not. Last he remembered they were holding each other, falling into the void. Now his senses, at least those that were working, could not detect her presence. He didn't feel any thoughts or emotions around, except for his own. He gulped. If they fell together, she might be unconscious, or even... He pushed the thought away before his mind even had a chance to inspect the end of it. No. His sense of smell assured him she was simply not there. After all the years together he could tell she was present by her scent, by the sound of her breath when she was asleep, and he would never mistake the feel of her skin for anything else, even back when his senses were mostly human. He didn't need to look to be certain that Rose was not anywhere near him.

But there was something else. Something that sent a cold shiver down his spine and made him stand up immediately, opening his eyes wide in spite of the splitting headache.

As soon as he did, the headache suddenly spiked and pierced through his eyes straight into his brain. The colours! The colours seemed to be burning through him.

They couldn't be real...

Before he knew it, he was on his knees, touching the grass and staring at in with an insane smile. Not just touching: smelling, licking, sensing its age, taking it in with any senses he could possibly think of. Then he lied on his back - Ouch! It hurt! - to look at the sky. All right, so he was most likely dead, he admitted with stoic calm, still grinning. But if this was the afterlife, that he ever believed in any afterlife, because actually he didn't... but if this was the afterlife, then he decided he was almost ready to change his mind about it.

But not before he knew what happened to Rose.

The moment Rose's name reverberated in his mind, his grin faded. He jumped to his feet. All of the places he could think of, could this be... Could this be...?

It was lucky there was something he could hold onto: a large stone, or even a rock just next to him. Because when he saw the scenery, he felt weak at the knees, and colour drained from his face.

It must have been the smell that first reached her consciousness: it was intense, a bit similar to lemon grass, fresh and fruity on the outside, but with richer and heavier notes underneath. She struggled to open her eyes and realised she was lying in the grass. She must have fallen asleep, obviously. The air felt warm: a perfect sunny day for a nap in the meadow. Except, she couldn't remember having a walk in the countryside, anywhere near meadows or grassy spots.

And she didn't remember ever seeing grass that would be red.

It was soft and velvety to touch, and very comfortable to rest your head on, almost like a pillow. But most of all, and above all else, it was red. Not the rusty red of autumn leaves, or ginger red, or orange red, but just the proper, deepest and reddest shade of red she had ever seen. And there were sparks of shine scattered about like dewdrops. Or tears, actually? Unconsciously, she moved her hand to wipe her eyes, and she realised she could hardly move. She felt stiff and kind of battered. She wondered how long she had slept: definitely long enough for her body to feel the discomfort.

But there was no hurry, not that she knew of. She could just as well stay here for a few more minutes. The fragrance was a bit dizzying and she wondered if it had anything to do with the tears welling up in her eyes. She blinked to get rid of them. When the vision cleared a little, she was surprised to notice that what she took for dewdrops were in fact tiny silver flowers.

She turned onto her back slowly, trying to overcome the stiffness of aching muscles, and gasped with awe. The sky was bathed in the bright orange light of two suns. Never in her life had she seen anything quite so beautiful and so overwhelming at the same time. It made her want to stay there forever, just watching the sky and becoming one with it. Time would not matter, nothing would.

She shivered with some unexplained premonition.

Something was wrong. Missing. Something around her but very close. Or something inside her? She took her gaze off the orange sky and made an effort to sit up. It made her tired and breathless, so she leaned against a rock rising out of the red grass. She must have lain in its shadow to begin with, but as the suns moved, she ended up exposed to the heat and that was why she felt so disoriented.

She looked around uneasily. She wasn't sure. Funny feeling, she knew how it was to have something just off the tip of her tongue, except this time it was just off her thoughts. She was missing something, her brain was missing something important but she could not place it, as if the idea was hidden from her somehow. Yet, it made her feel wrong.

This place was all wrong, it was wrong for her to be here, and it was very wrong not to remember.

She grabbed the piece of rock she was leaning against, held on to it and struggled to her feet. The rock was covered with silvery moss, some of which clung to her fingers, and left a clear glossy surface behind. She noticed the surface had been carved: traces of some ancient drawings - No, she corrected herself, some ancient writing - still remained. Circular uneven forms. How did she even know it was writing? It carried no meaning for her, and for all she knew it could just be some artistic doodles. Well maybe it was. People left all sorts of graffiti in places like this, just to mark their presence. This one looked definitely like writing. Either made very long ago and deformed by time, or made with a shaking unskilled hand, without proper tools. If this was made with a knife, it would have taken ages, and more than one knife to make. Seriously though, unskilled hand? Someone had carved circles, dots and lines! She didn't know where the idea of unskilled hand came from.

A shiver went down her spine. She felt the urge to touch the writing. Nothing happened when she did: it felt like any carving in stone. Rough surface, irregular cuts. She was almost disappointed. Shifting her attention to other things, she inspected the surroundings from her new position.

The landscape was breath-taking. Sky-high mountains rising around her, casting deep burgundy shadows, and their peaks painted with streaks of orange sunshine. And sky-high buildings under a translucent dome far away, in the valley below. Almost like a painting, she thought. Admittedly, she had never seen such a scenery, not even on TV... Could this even be real?

Then she wondered how far the city was and whether she would manage to get there on her own. She wasn't afraid of hiking but it seemed a long way. She couldn't even be sure there was a path.

The problem was she felt lost. Not just lost in a place she didn't know: she was lost about how she got here, where she came from and what was going on.

It seemed reasonable to try to get to the city and look for some people who could help her get home.

Home? She wasn't sure she knew where home was.

As she made her first step on the narrow path leading by the precipice and, if she guessed correctly, further across a mountain pass towards the city, her uneasiness grew. It was not the fear of heights, or maybe just a little bit of it. And not the stiffness of her muscles. It made the path more dangerous but it was not what stopped her.

It was that funny conviction that she should stay here, at that silvery rock, carved with an ancient graffiti. That it was the right place to be.

Before she had more time to reason herself out of that silly idea, she saw them approach. Tall, majestic human figures. Well, human-like at least, she corrected herself. Where had that come from? 'Human-like'? Like there were aliens in the world, or anything! She wasn't sure she was able to follow her own thoughts.

The strangers wore long robes or capes, and there seemed to be quite a few of them. Rose gulped and stood still, trying to look as harmless and friendly as she possibly could.