Survival

"Hey, don't talk like that, mate. You've done worlds of good. Just think about what you're condemning both yourself and the rest of us to if you end up willing yourself out of existence. You survived because you had to," Ace said, stepping from behind her Doctor to look down at him.

A tiny smile appeared on his face, "Ever my conscience, Ace? Too bad. You're not here. Neither of you are. If I am but a figment, what does that make you?"

"NO!" the Seventh Doctor exclaimed, "Fight it, Doctor. Don't let it win!"

"Yes. You are a figment of a figment, both of you. And you know what? I deny you."

"Professor?" Ace asked staring in shock at her transparent hand, "What's going on?"

"I," the Seventh Doctor said sadly as he faded away, "Am doing a very stupid and foolish thing."

"Rose! Don't let him go, you hear me? Don't..." Ace's voice came from a distance even after her body disappeared, "Let him go."

"Doctor! What have you done?" Rose's voice reflected her shock as she watched her friends fade from view, "They were my friends."

The Doctor's voice changed, taking upon the honeyed tones of Doctor Jenkins, "Quite a coping mechanism you have, there, Rose. Inventing a Dorothy McShane to keep you company. Inventing the Doctor. When will you accept the truth? When will you accept reality?"

The hard crack of a hand meeting a cheek echoed through the room. Rose had not even realized that she had moved. "Don't you ever talk like that. Never! You're real, Doctor. You know you are! So, stop it!" Despite herself, she felt tears well up in her eyes.

"Am I real, Rose? Really?" The Doctor's voice was normal as he turned to look at her, "Then why can I feel what you're feeling? Why can I feel your desperation? How can I feel that, Rose, if I am not just some figment of your imagination?"

"I don't know, okay? Maybe the TARDIS did something, or whoever took us. I don't know, but you're real, Doctor. You have to believe me."

"Why?" he asked, his blue eyes fathomless in their despair.

"Because if you're nothing but a figment, Doctor. If you're nothing but a dream..." Rose's voice broke as she suddenly leaned forward to press her lips against his. When she broke away, she continued in a small voice, "I don't want to wake up again."

The Doctor's eyes closed and through his dark lashes she could see tears.

"Do you see, Doctor? You matter. You matter to me, you matter to Jack, you matter to this entire universe. Without you, what's the point?"

"Oh, Rose," the Doctor's voice broke much as hers had and she wrapped her arms around him, "Why do we survive?"

"Because we can," she whispered into his neck, "Because we have to. Because without us, who is there to remember?"

With a pang the Doctor came to a realization of what he had almost done. He had almost condemned the Time Lords, Gallifrey, his entire planet's history to nothingness. Without him, there would be no last Time Lord. There would be no Time Lords at all.

There would only be Rose, and even then she did not know the half of it.

He suddenly knew the answer to the Dalek's question.

'Why do we survive?'

"To remember."