Some two hours later, Rose had cried herself out, but bereft of tears, she just felt empty.
She sat on her bed, knees tucked up beneath her chin, staring bleakly at the wall. There was a poster stuck up there; she'd spotted it in some tacky bazaar on Legosa III and taken a liking to the abstract geometry and nebulous colors of it. Sort of Escher-meets-Monet. The Doctor had laughed as he'd bought it for her, and not told her until after she'd put it up on her wall that it was a map of the local gas mains. She had stuck out her tongue and left it up anyway.
And now he didn't remember her.
Before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic.
He was right; he had gone. Only it was worse because he'd left some imposter in his place. One who knew he was the Doctor, knew about Barcelona and flying a TARDIS, but didn't know any of the important things. None of the things that had made the Doctor… the Doctor.
She felt her eyes burning but she had no tears left. She scrunched her eyes tight and buried her face in her arms, and couldn't help but think that somehow, this was all her fault.
There was a knock at the door.
She didn't want to talk to him. Didn't want to look at him.
"Rose, it's me," he called.
"Who bloody else would it be," she muttered, flopping back on the mattress and staring blankly up at the canopy of her four poster bed.
There was a jiggle at the door handle. "Rose, look, we need to talk. Can I come in?" After a few moments when she didn't reply, he added, "You know, the sonic screwdriver could take care of this lock easily enough. I do remember how to use that." His voice, too young, wrongly pitched, lilted even higher at the end in an attempt at joviality.
She just felt sick. Her stomach twisted around the great emptiness inside her and she clenched her teeth to fight down a wave of nausea. He remembered the sonic screwdriver, but not her.
She heard a faint thud as slumped against the opposite side of the door. "All right, I was just kidding," he said, his voice muffled now. He must be speaking to the corridor wall opposite her room, his back to the door. "But you can't stay in there forever, you know. Eventually the temptation to come out and hit me is going to win out."
She bit her lip. Didn't want to laugh. A tiny snicker escaped anyway, and brought along a coughing fit. She reflexively wiped at her eyes, but they'd dredged up only the faintest dampness from her exhausted tear ducts. She settled for wiping her nose instead, and sat up again to let her abused sinuses drain.
"Regeneration's never easy," he was saying. "I'm so sorry, Rose. I think – I know – I wished I'd had more time to explain it to you. There's irony for you. A Time Lord, running out of time." He laughed sardonically.
The gentle drone of his voice was oddly comforting, somehow. She felt something loosen in her chest, as if a great angry fist had finally stopped squeezing her heart, and scowled, because she didn't want to be comforted right now. She was much more comfortable being angry. But still, something in the way he spoke…
"Are you even awake in there?" he asked, his voice coming back into sharper clarity as he addressed the door directly again.
Not the way he'd said it. What he'd said. She slid abruptly off the bed and crossed the room to yank the door open. He, having been leaning against it, nearly fell on top of her, but managed to catch hold of the doorframe and hold himself up with just a small stumble. She balled her fists and forced herself to look into his eyes. Eyes that were brown when they should have been blue, and were missing all of their familiar laugh-lines. "Say it again," she whispered.
He looked bewildered. "I'm sorry?"
Her jaw quivered and she fought not to be sick. Standing up suddenly after having been lying on one's bed having a good cry was not the best thing for equilibrium. "No," she said, and found that her voice was surprisingly, obediently calm. "The part where you said my name."
His face split in a broad grin. "Rose."
She wished she'd the wherewithal to make an appropriate response to this: this revelation that he did remember her, after all; but all her exhausted body could manage was a faint hiccup as she leaned into him, nestling wearily against his chest. She felt his hands, steadying, about her shoulders; felt soft lips press a gentle kiss to the crown of her head. "It's going to be all right," he murmured.
"Thought I'd lost you," she mumbled, clenching hold of one of the loose folds of his shirt and noticing for the first time that he'd finally changed out of that damn jumper. She bit down a faintly hysterical giggle. Maybe the Doctor had finally grown a bit of fashion sense along with his new hair?
"Not getting rid of me that easily," he said brightly. She pressed her hands against his chest and pushed away slightly, looking curiously up at his face. He shifted his eyes uneasily at the scrutiny; then settled on raising one expressive eyebrow in an unspoken, 'What?'
"Do lots of planets have a Scotland, then?"
He squinted puzzledly, needing a moment to process the question; then his eyes lit up as he placed some errant memory. "As a matter of fact," he replied drolly, "yes, but they don't all call it that."
"You get too much further north and you really will be Father Christmas."
"Well, I've got three lives left to get there," he grinned. "Don't hold your breath though; I plan to hold on to this one for a while, thanks."
"Three?"
"Thirteen total. I've been doing this a while, remember."
"Right," Rose nodded, committing this tidbit to memory. She drew back a bit more, sliding her hands over his bare forearms – he'd rolled the French cuffs of his sleeves back to the elbow – and playing absently with his hands. "Well, now you're in double-digits, guess you'd better be more careful, yeah?"
"Never been very good at that," he said sheepishly.
"Good thing you've got me to keep an eye on you, then." She took another deep breath, still feeling a rather out of sorts about the whole thing, but comforted to know she wasn't in it alone. "We've got to find Jack," she turned the subject around again, looking firmly back up into his eyes.
"Rose, I—"
"You trust me, right?" she interjected sharply. "I know you don't remember him but we have to go back. We can't just leave him there."
"It's not that, Rose, I…" his brow creased fretfully. "I was the last person on that station. I remember the Daleks, all around me… they couldn't have gotten to me without going through everyone else there. He must've…" his voice seemed to fail him. As if he couldn't quite bring himself to say the word 'exterminated.'
Rose set her jaw determinedly. "Either way, we're not leaving him."
He nodded, slowly. "All right." The quiet words, the serious expression; neither seemed to fit very well on his youthful face, but it was undeniably the Doctor who had spoken them. Rose set her lips in a thin smile and clasped his hand tightly as they headed to the control room together.
