ose returned to her small flat in Kensington that her father had bought for her six months after her arrival in this universe. At first, she used it primarily to escape her mum's constant hovering and endless battles between them over the Dimension Cannon. Whilst Jackie would protect both Rose and the Doctor with her life, loosing her only daughter to the madman in the box was not something she relished. Once Tony was born, Jackie's protectiveness only grew worse. Now, she used it to escape the memories of the Doctor.
On days like this, weeks before the holidays, she missed Mickey terribly. Though Time had caused them to grow apart romantically, Mickey became the older brother she never had: as only children from a rough South London estate — Mickey from a broken home — they relied on each other. After Jimmy Stone, which Rose referred to with Mickey, her mum and Shareen as AW — After Wanker — they became a content couple. Mickey found work as a mechanic; Rose went to Henrik's. Every so often, Mickey and Rose saved a few quid for a weekend in Cambridge or Oxford, to visit the places that were normally forbidden to two chavs from Peckham.
Then she met the Doctor.
Rose knew Mickey felt betrayed and cast aside for yet another mysterious bad-boy. Whilst they were never truly in love, Rose left Mickey and the Powell Estate behind for a life of adventure and new opportunity. Mickey hated her for it. He recalled the mess he was left with AW; Rose 'escaped' the Powell Estate, only to be unceremoniously "returned" once Jimmy was finished with her, battered and bruised. When she disappeared for an entire year (twelve months instead of twelve hours thanks to the Doctor's crap driving), he had been questioned, cautioned, nicked, released and nearly dismissed from his job. Though she was unaware of the passage of time, the 19-year-old Rose had not considered the consequences of her action.
It was not until the Doctor was drawn to a certaine Pompadour in shiny gems, silk gowns and courtly etiquette that Rose comprehended what she had, in her impulsiveness and immaturity, done to Mickey. She spent a better part of a week apologising to Mickey and making amends for her behaviour. Once they landed in Pete's World for the first time, their paths diverged irrevocably. He had found his own way and no longer wanted to pine after a Rose Tyler ever distracted by the newest bad-boy.
During her separation from the Doctor, their adolescent romance fueled by fear grew into a deep bond of friendship. Shortly before her dimensional jumps to save the multiverse, Mickey pulled her aside. "Are you sure you want to go back?" he had asked.
Of course she'd been sure. It was the Doctor. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Mickey knew, along with everyone else, that the Doctor would send her back to Pete's World. It was inevitable; even she knew as early as her first encounter with Sarah Jane Smith that the Doctor would take her back to Earth. Humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happening to someone you…
What, Doctor?
Then came the Metacrisis Doctor and the Doctor-Donna. Rose couldn't help feeling a little — immensely — jealous of Donna. She was brilliant, extraordinary, the most important woman in the universe. She was a human with a Time Lord consciousness. Donna was, with the Metacrisis, the only being left in Universe Prime that could share Gallifrey with the Doctor. Rose knew through his deafening silence on the matter how much Gallifrey and its loss meant to him. On one hand, she was grateful that Donna would continue to travel with him so that he would never be alone. On the other hand, if he invited other companions on board the TARDIS, why couldn't she have stayed?
Because no one wants to the Tin Dog.
At least he spared her that humiliation. But what of his "twin," his Other self? After witnessing so many possible outcomes, jump after jump, she knew that allowing the Daleks to live and possibly attack Earth upon retreat would have proven a holocaust. Secretly, she, along with Mickey, her mother, Jack, Sarah Jane and Martha, approved of what the Metacrisis did in a state of panic and traumatic stress. As Bad Wolf, she had herself turned the entire fleet of 400,000 Daleks, with their Emperor, into atoms floating in the vacuum of space. Rose knew, from the knowledge that she had retained after absorbing the Vortex, that there had been no alternative. The Time War had to remain time-locked. But he had also been stranded on Darlig Ulv Stranden because he was born from blood, anger and revenge. He could not be trusted on his own.
The New New New Doctor told her what she so ached to hear. Yet he also told her that people change, they move on and they find someone else. That was precisely what the Doctor did post-Canary Wharf. He found Donna, Martha and possibly others, unlike what he said (or did not say) on the beach. The Metacrisis was the Doctor in every way it mattered, except his timeline was much shorter than the Other's: instead of centuries left, he had decades. But the Doctor does not do domestic; he does not grow — he is; he does not stay behind with others — he leaves them behind.
A few days after the beach, Jackie comforted her as best she could, gently cajoling her to talk to the New New New Doctor. But what would Rose say, what could she say? In an incredibly sick, evil way, Davros was right: she finally saw the Doctor's soul. He could never be bound to anything — to anyone except in his capacity as the Doctor.
Rose sank down on the sofa, work clothes and winter coat, trying to hold back a sob. She loved the Doctor; she always would. He opened her eyes to a vast world that a girl from South London could only read about in a H.G. Wells novella. He was her mentor, her best mate. He saved her, her mum's, Mickey's, her dad's lives. But could she continue to risk her heart for a man whose existence meant to wander? Jimmy Stone may have been a wanker, but he taught her one vital lesson: a girl can't go down with the ship and expect to live.
Have a fantastic life, Rose. Do that for me. During their separation, Rose did well for herself: shortly after her farewell to the Doctor, she passed the entrance exam for the University College London and became a top student in physics and maths. She was in her last year of undergraduate study when the stars began disappearing. Upon her return, she successfully petitioned the University to allow her to complete her last year without time penalty. Once she graduated the following June, she planned to take leave from Torchwood to pursue postgraduate study at Cambridge. As the British government had officially classified the Dimension Cannon Project, the Physics Department made a discreet invitation to its programme for the following year.
If she couldn't be among the stars, she could still watch and protect them from Earth.
Jackie, of course, could not cease bragging about her daughter, the Cambridge physicist. Even her father, who was not the Pete who died in 1987 and did not know her until 2.06, had a big smile upon reading her acceptance letter.
There was no such thing as an ordinary human, the Doctor once said.
Rose hoped that he would one day be proud of her.
