Nineteen

McRaider

Summary: She was only nineteen

Author's Note: Not a death story, takes place during the Doctor's furious rant in Dalek after he thinks Rose has been murdered.

"Sorry—I was a bit slow," she mumbled in reply as she continued to breath heavily. "See you then Doctor. It wasn't your fault, remember that okay? It wasn't your fault. An' you know what? I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

"EX-TERM-INATE!"

I ripped the ear piece from the side of my head, tears beginning to fill my eyes as I heard those words that made my hearts sink. "I've killed her," I murmured as I realized the truth. What had I done, My Rose, my beautiful Rose?

"I'm sorry," came Van Statten's response.

I suddenly turned on him, he was sorry—"I said I'd protect her. She was only here because of me, and you're sorry? I could've killed that Dalek in its cell. But you stopped me." I could feel my muscles beginning to tighten, and tense, my breath becoming quick and unsteady.

My Rose, my Rose, it was like a mantra over and over in the back of my mind, screaming 'you killed her'. What had I done; a beautiful girl, and that's all she was a mere child according to most. Still a teenager full of life, full of light, exuberance: I was alone again. My heart stopped, for a second time. Hundreds of years I'd had companions, assistants, but none I'd ever loved like I loved Rose. Not even Sarah Jane Smith, although she was close.

No, Rose had brought something back to my life that no one else ever had. A reason, a morality; I spent years trying to find ways to die, and suddenly I was trying to find another way to survive and love her. I would do anything to have her back, my sweet beautiful Rose.

"It was the prize of my collection!"

"Your collection? But was it worth it? Worth all those men's deaths? Worth Rose?" Worth my Rose, oh what was I supposed to do? Could I suddenly spend the rest of my cursed eternity living without the simplest human being who made me happier than I'd ever been? Would that really be a life? "Let me tell you something, Van Statten. Mankind goes into space to explore. To be part of something greater.


"Exactly! I wanted to touch the stars!" Van Statten attempted.

"You just want to drag the stars down and stick them underground underneath tons of sand and dirt. And label them. You're about as far from the stars as you can get." I paused, before saying the next words, my eyes filling up with tears again, "And you took her down with you. She was nineteen years old." I whimpered. My nineteen year old.

What would Jackie say; she'd begged me to leave her behind, to safe Rose from a world of hurt and pain. All I'd done was kill her because some this man wanted to collect specimen for his sick fascination. I'd killed one of the most innocent creatures on the face of the planet, she never knew. I'd never really told her. I'd say how glad I was to have met her, but only ever once in awhile. Things would slip like my comment about saving the world but losing her. She would never know the truth, the truth that I was madly in love with this beautiful young child who I wanted so badly to spend whatever time we had left together.

When I learned she was alive, I was almost too far gone to actually believe it. But then I saw her; standing there defending my mortal enemy. That's when I realized she was alive. My Rose, she had a sense of morality that even I couldn't contest with. It didn't matter what she said or did, I couldn't say no to her, she saw the best in everyone, and she was showing me to see the best in people, aliens and creatures. She was teaching the old dog new tricks.

When it was all said and done I grabbed her in a bone crushing hug, forcing myself to hold back the tears as I held her. She was alive, my Rose was alive, still in my life. The only thing I had to remind me of that was her physical body up against mine, and that was something I wasn't likely to relinquish any time soon.

She was only nineteen, and from that moment on I realized I had to help her make it to twenty, then twenty one…until she ran out of birthdays, or I ran out of regenerations. Either way, I was keeping her with me until one of us died.