It took the Doctor nine minutes and twelve seconds to make good on his promise to retrieve Rose Tyler. It only took him twenty-three more seconds to have her back in his arms once more. It was twenty-three seconds longer than he thought was right, but he was still largely being fueled by fear and anger in that moment and the Doctor needed to know that the dalek threat had been neutralized before he let himself pause to focus on anything else.
When he finally did rush towards her, the Doctor's mind reached for her as easily as his arms did, and he let loose a ridiculously satisfied sigh as he buried hi nose in Rose's hair and felt her warm mental presence radiating through her skin. What would he have done if he had been robbed of the chance to have something like this ever again?
"Feels like I haven't seen you in years!" she exclaimed softly as her happy relief seeped into his mind and immediately erased the fear and pain of the last few hours that had been torturing him while they had been separated.
"I told you I'd come and get you," he replied easily, pushing as much love and devotion into her mind as he could before he stepped away again. There was still so much to do - but even so, the Doctor allowed himself the indulgence of letting his lips trail lightly across the skin of her cheek before he finally released her.
"Never doubted it," she insisted with a sunny smile.
"I did," the Doctor quipped back lightly. He was distantly aware that his arms were still hanging loosely around her, seeming to refuse to let go despite the urging of his conscious mind to get moving. "You alright?" he asked, desperately needing the reassurance that she was properly safe before he attempted to face the dalek threat once more.
"Yeah. You?" Rose reached for the lapels of his jacket and the hard double-thump of his hearts immediately jump-started him back into action. The Doctor knew that if he allowed himself to linger any longer in this moment, then they'd both be stuck here all day - just mooning over each other while the daleks went on to destroy the earth unhindered.
"Not bad, been better," he muttered dismissively, finally side-stepping out of her reach to examine the steaming dalek shell currently smoldering in the entryway of his ship.
The sigh immediately sobered him to their situation once more, and he scowled at the dalek husk before him as Jack and Rose debated possibilities around him. The familiar urge to run was quickly bubbling up within him, so he did what he always did in situations like this and attempted to channel that instinct into an action that was at least semi-productive.
Unfortunately, there wasn't a whole lot of room to stretch his legs on the floor of the dalek ship outside and the daleks themselves were as difficult to converse with as ever, so there wasn't much of an outlet for his nervous energy. Every attempt at levity on his end was met with cold indifference and hate. And these daleks - if they could even rightfully be called that - were even more mad than the usual lot. The Doctor was unable to tease very much useful information out of them other than the fact that they had plans to destroy the earth and harvest the humans below for spare parts.
The chaos waiting for them back on Satellite Five didn't grant him any amount of confidence, either. His options were dwindling quickly and he had no tools, no time, and no plan. It really only left one very obvious, very dangerous solution ...
"You've got to be kidding," Jack muttered, echoing the Doctor's own disbelief.
"Give the man a medal!" the Doctor shouted, knowing that the others wouldn't hear his forced optimism.
A delta wave - easy enough, really. All he needed to do was figure out how to cram three days worth of work into twenty-two minutes.
The Doctor immediately designated Rose as his assistant - partly because he didn't want her anywhere near the front line of defense with Jack, and partly because he didn't think he could stand to have her out of his sight again.
Lynda went with the rest of them, though - brave, sweet Lynda, who had stayed behind just for him. How could the Doctor keep his promise to her now? With daleks circling around them and the threat of death so very imminent, how was he going to get her out alive? How was he going to get any of them out alive? Still, they each promised to do their best and the Doctor supposed that that would just have to be good enough.
But after so much time traveling with Rose, he realized that he didn't quite remember what was socially acceptable as a normal human goodbye. The Doctor was running on adrenaline and he reached for Lynda without thinking, ready to bring her in for a bracing hug before they all turned and faced down their encroaching deaths. It was only Lynda's wide, surprised eyes and Rose's look of obvious disdain that reminded him at the last minute that he shouldn't be going around hugging random women, and they settled for the universe's most awkward handshake instead.
Jack's goodbye was next and it was just as dramatic and surprisingly heartfelt as the man himself was - though the Doctor personally could have done without all of the kissing. The Doctor decided that his strange moment with Lynda was nothing compared to Jack's refusal to accept personal boundaries, but he allowed it all the same - knowing full well that it may just be the last time that he ever spoke to the man.
Once Floor 500 had been cleared out, the silence that descended upon the room was unlike any silence that the Doctor had had to deal with yet. It was comfortable, in a way - just like it always was when it was just him and Rose together. If he closed his eyes and pushed away all of the fear and anger he could almost make himself believe that they were back on the TARDIS again - just spending time in one another's company while he tinkered with something or other.
But the quiet was also eerie - a haunting sound of desolation and abandonment. It felt like they were the last two people left standing, and for all he knew, they very soon could be.
When Rose finally broke the silence to suggest that they attempt an escape with the TARDIS, the Doctor felt his hearts swell with love and admiration for her. Of course his clever girl was still quietly working, trying as desperately as he was to find some sort of loophole - some way out.
The conversation did spark his brain though - just as conversation with Rose always did. That's why he liked keeping her around him whenever he was fiddling with something or trying to be clever. The sudden idea wasn't one that he liked, though - it sat like a lead weight in the pit of his stomach and made him feel sick. It was a suicide plan - a plan that there would be no coming back from. But what other choices did they have?
"There's another thing the TARDIS could do," the Doctor suggested quietly once she had dismissed the idea as hopeful fantasy. "It could take us away. We could leave - let history take it's course. We could go to Marbella in 1989."
"Yeah, but you'd never do that," Rose reminded him, smiling as though his foolish stubbornness was something to be praised and not feared.
"No, but you could ask," he told her pointedly, his eyes watching her reaction carefully while his hands continued their desperate, hopeless work. She frowned down at the split wires in her hands as she considered his words and he realized that she truly never intended to leave him. She was determined to stay, no matter what happened, because somehow she still believed that he would find a way out for them. "Never even occurred to you, did it?"
"Well ... I'm just too good," she announced teasingly.
And what argument could he possibly have for that? Of course she was too good - too good for him, anyway. Definitely too good for this damned universe and all of its problems. And absolutely too good to die pointlessly at the hands of the daleks 198,000 years away from home.
The Doctor had one last burst of hope as the delta wave began to build, but it was instantly crushed when the readings filled the screens with a promise of death with no way out.
Well, there was one way out - there always had been. Rose had even touched on it, earlier. He still didn't like the plan, but what other choice did he have?
"Rose Tyler, you're a genius!" he exclaimed, jumping up and forcing his old, weary limbs into action once more. Her proud, excited smile was like sunshine on a cloudy day and he grasped her neck and placed a hard, quick kiss to her forehead. The Doctor moved quickly, hoping that she wouldn't realize that this was his attempt at saying goodbye.
The quick touch was all she needed, though, to toss one quick thought from her mind into his - I knew you could do it. But her unshakeable faith in him didn't fill him with hope, as it usually did. In fact, it weighed heavy right in the space between his hearts and he found that he wasn't able to look her in the eye for a second longer.
He lured her into the TARDIS with promises and clever lies, just as he always did, but this time, the Doctor left her there. When he turned back to face those gorgeous blue doors, he could feel his sentient ship in his mind, groaning a warning. She stood before him like a sentinel - judging him for his many misdeeds.
Take her home, he thought desperately. Keep Rose safe. Please, just do that for me.
The TARDIS made a growling noise in his head, but her protests were oddly resigned. It seemed that even she knew that there was no arguing with him or attempting to change his mind - not now, not when Rose was in danger. So he ignored her protests as he raised his sonic and remotely activated the dematerialization sequence.
He forced himself to watch as his gorgeous ship blinked and then faded from existence before his eyes. He was unused to being on the wrong side of those doors whenever those whooshing, groaning sounds finally faded away into silence. But here he was - left behind all on his own (again, why did he always have to be alone?) while she flew off back into the vortex without him.
Initiate Emergency Program One, he commanded, feeling his connection with the TARDIS slipping through his fingers even as he fought desperately to keep her in his mind. She responded with one last final wave of hope - a promise that he didn't dare allow himself to believe in - before she moved out of his reach.
And then, just like that, she was gone - and it really was just like the Time war all over again. Her familiar mental signature disappeared from his mind like a puff of smoke and he was left so terribly, horribly alone that it made him ache. It wasn't as dramatic as when the entire race of Time Lords had suddenly gone silent in his head, but it was vastly more intimate and devastatingly more painful.
So he filled his nervous hands and empty mind with the only thing that he had left - and that was work. But no amount of life-threatening situations could erase the one thought running through his mind on a loop - threatening to drive him mad.
I never told her. I just said goodbye to Rose Tyler for the last time, and I never told her that I loved her.