The last thing she hears before the screaming is a woman whispering in her ear and saying, "Hold on a bit longer, love. Not long now."

She groans and stares up at the cloudless sky. Disoriented, she lifts a hand to her throbbing head and touches her fingertips to her temple; they come away wet with blood. She blinks at her red-coated fingers numbly, not really processing what's happened. Distantly, in the part of her brain conditioned by years of time travel and running for her life, she knows that she's going into shock.

She hears someone calling her name, and Alec's face fills her vision. She feels him pull her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. Her anger seeps away, replaced with a steady feeling of peace, and she can't even remember why they were fighting. Love's silly like that.

Her vision is getting blurrier, and Alec is frowning. He shouldn't frown, she thinks, it makes him look grouchy. She knows in her heart that he's a good man, even if everyone else thinks badly of him. He pretends it doesn't bother him. but she knows better. It hurts him.

"Rose, the ambulance will be here any minute," he says urgently.

What's he so worried about? she thinks hazily. Doesn't he know?

…Know what? She doesn't know. Is he supposed to know? It's important, Rose is sure of that, something very important that's just…out of her reach. She stretches out her arm for it, feels her fingers brush against it…

No, wait, that's Alec's leg. He catches her hand in his and entwines their fingers, squeezing tightly. He's concerned. She feels bad that she's made him hurt. All she wants is to make it stop hurting.

She wants everything to stop hurting.

"Rose, don't go to sleep!" He smacks her gently on the shoulder. "You've got to stay awake."

He's right, and she knows it. They both know that she's going to die. It's strange. She's known that the end was coming for so long, and now it's here, and she can't bring herself to care. All that time, and she isn't scared. She should be terrified of what happens next, but she isn't.

"Rose, please," he pleads with her, as if that will change things.

Rose tries to clear the fog from her mind, but it's so hard, and it would be so easy to just stop trying and let the fog envelope everything. It would bring peace with it, and she wants that, so badly.

She wants to hang on for him, because he doesn't deserve this. He shouldn't have to kneel here, trousers splattered with her drying blood, while she passes away in his arms. He's been through enough already. He's lost so much.

Not as much as we have.

When did her life become measured by loss?

She sees their faces, all the people she has had to say good-bye to. Dad, Gwyneth, everyone on the Game Station, Mickey, Pete's World Jackie, the people at Canary Wharf, Harriet Jones Prime Minister, Donna. All the people she couldn't save, as a shop girl, as the Doctor's girl, as Jack's girl, as a Preacher, as a Torchwood operative. As Alec's girl.

(she likes being someone's girl, it makes her feel the good kind of fuzzy)

The Meta-Crisis Doctor, her second chance. After Team TARDIS piloted the Earth back into her orbit, he took her aside and kissed her, long and hot and full of two lives' worth of restrained passion. It was the kind of kiss that made her dizzy and weak in the knees, the kind of kiss that isn't supposed to exist outside sappy chick flicks and trashy romance novels.

She watched him burn, minutes away from a new life together. She will never forget the screaming, the pain in his eyes, the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. Jack and Mickey holding her back. Screaming. She was screaming, the new Doctor was screaming, Donna was screaming. Jack was silent, but she knew he was screaming, too, on the inside.

It wakes her up in the middle of the night. At least, it used to.

Jack, her other half. Falling asleep curled up together, watching movies, laughing, joking, trading playful shots and helping out. Cooking together—he cooked, she swiped vegetables off the cutting board. Fighting together. Loving together. Loving the Doctor together.

Jack, falling, his skeleton lit up by the Dalek's killing blow. Jack, heart silent, blood draining from his face, body going cold under her fingers.

Sucking in a breath and convulsing, eyes open wide but unseeing. He's with that universe's Ianto now, and even though her heart aches at the thought, she's happy for him, too. It wasn't fair to expect him to wait for her. Besides, the other Ianto seemed like a nice man, just like his Pete's World counterpart. In another life, she'd have liked to take him out for drinks and given him the requisite "He's like a brother to me, hurt him and the Doctor and I will drop you into a sun" speech.

Now she'll never get the chance. Funny, life is.

The Doctor.

She doesn't want to watch anyone else leave, to watch them die because she didn't do enough to save them.

She is so weak she couldn't roll over if she wanted. She can barely lift her head. She has just enough energy to lift her hand—slow, shaking terribly, veins pulsing against her pallid skin—and lay it against his face. She can't feel the stubble under her fingers, she can't feel him cover her hand with his.

"It's alright," she says. It isn't a lie.

Strangely, she doesn't mind that she's about to die. She does regret, however, not getting the chance to tell Alec she loves him. And, she'll miss Torchwood, and Broadchurch, and her family. She's sad that she won't get to see Tony grow up, or that she won't be there for Jake and Ianto's wedding (it's only a matter of time and everyone knows it, too).

But, there's a kind of peace coming that she's never felt before. She can see it on the horizon, getting closer and closer, and bringing darkness with it. For the longest time, she was afraid of the dark, because she's seen firsthand what hides in the inky black and the unknown. There's something waiting in the darkness, waiting for her. She's known about it for weeks, she's seen it in her dreams. She's felt it, looming over her shoulder, getting closer and closer. Now, it's here for her.

She's not afraid anymore.

"It's alright," she repeats. "Everything is going to be alright."

She closes her eyes. She can feel it, the end, and it's always seemed silly to her when people on TV died closing their eyes. But, now, she figures that she must know what they were thinking. She doesn't want to just pass away, and have Alec think she's still there for a few seconds before horrible reality sets in and he sees her empty eyes. She wants to die like this.

Rose closes her eyes, and drifts away.

oOoOoOo

Holy. Frakking. Crap.

I asked for reviews and you guys blew me away. I post the chapter, go to sleep, and wake up to 8 freaking reviews. You guys are amazing. Let's see if we can't hit 85 reviews.

So, as promised, here's the last few chapters.

I apologize in advance for all emotional trauma.

Review please!