Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow –

Part Four: Three Words, And Goodnight Indeed

A/N: Part four of five. Thanks so much for all the lovely reviews, guys! I'm sorry for making you cry though. Title is again from Romeo and Juliet, which I do not own, just like I don't own Doctor Who.

Unfortunately.

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Gaze on the ceiling, she tried to keep her voice even as she spoke. "I never thought I'd die young. Not even when I started travelling with you and had to run for my life at least twice a week…I always thought it was something that'd never happen. Long way off, y'know? Not even worth thinkin' about."

"I used to think that." His lips were pursed, verging on curling. Most people would mistake the expression for sulking, disgust or even boredom, but she knew better: this face was all sadness and reminiscing.

"Yeah?" she tilted her face towards him, surprised by this voluntary divulge of information.

"Yeah. Even up until my eighth incarnation. I felt like I had all the time in the world, but then…" a long pause in which he ran a hand tiredly through his mop of hair, expression darkening as the allusion to the Time War lay untouched. "…and now? I've never felt so old." There was something about watching a person as young and full of life as Rose wither and fade before your eyes that made you feel decidedly ancient, world-weary and unworthy of life. The Doctor wasn't the only thing getting old; death was too, and he'd seen it far too many times.

He fell silent and she reached a hand out to tilt his chin, forcing him to look at her and he flinched at the touch of her cold hands. "Please don't leave me."

A sad smile crossed his face while he removed her hand and placed it back under the cover in an effort to keep her warm, keep her alive. "I thought I was supposed to be the one asking youthat."

"Promise me," she whispered, the anxious, rushing feeling inside her forbidding her from hesitating over this. "I'm scared to die by myself."

How could he say anything but "yes"?

--

Her mouth dropped open a little and her face screwed up in concentration as her mind turned to Yvonne. "I don't…really understand what I did."

"Hmm?" Eyebrows raised, inviting her to go on.

"I mean, why she – why poison me? Why not just leave me there if I've done somethin' wrong? Or even jus'…" Thoughts buzzed randomly through her brain, making her head pound. "It – it just seems a bit pointless. I dunno what she thought she was stopping."

"You were – are – a threat, a danger, a… " He puffed air out between his almost-closed lips, trying to find the words. "A risk factor. You know too much."

"Oh." Who would I have told? Who would have believed me, anyway?

He let out a heavy sigh, swallowed his anger and pulled on his ear thoughtfully. "That's exactly what it was. Completely and utterly pointless." It took a lot to keep his voice steady and calm and even more to not drop Rose's hand there and then and hunt Yvonne down personally. Yvonne, any remaining Cybermen, the Daleks, Torchwood employees…anyone. They all caused this. However, he knew he couldn't justify ripping them limb from limb, as he was quite tempted to do, knowing as he did that it was his fault for ever getting her involved with Torchwood in the first place. For handing her over to Yvonne, for travelling with her, for even asking her along all those months ago.

"Yeah?"

"A few secrets traded for sixty years or more?" By human standards, she hadn't lived. She didn't reach her twenty-first birthday, she never would get married nor have children. She never left home or completed her A-Levels or progressed in her job. All these little events, milestones in the human calendar, eluded her and always would – because of him. "It's not fair, Rose. Doesn't matter what you know or what you could have said. None of it's worth your life."

Something like warmth spread through her arctic body and she smiled.

Minutes passed, some crawling by and making it feel as though Rose was hanging on by a thread and others racing around the clock, drawing the inevitable nearer and nearer. They sat together, mostly in companionable silence, as Rose became steadily weaker. By the time an hour had gone, she could no longer see things clearly – everything had taken on a permanently misty edge and the Doctor swam in and out of view and she swam in and out of consciousness. Eventually, words that had been whirling around her mind sprang from her now blue lips without much of a second thought, rather surprising her as she had been considering them for two years. Death did strange things to people.

"Doctor, I –"

For the first time, he locked eyes with her sharply, voluntarily, as if he was able to read her mind. "I know. You don't have to say it."

Taking a deep breath which almost caused another coughing fit, she pressed the matter. "But what if I want to say it?" She would never have another chance. Her fingers were growing colder even encased within his and her pupils had long since ceased to react to any form of light. She could feel her rib cage tightening as she spoke, the creeping, burning feeling accelerating into a raging fire sweeping through her blood, controlling her entire body and holding it in an iron grip.

"I don't suppose there's much I can say to stop you." He wasn't sure he wanted to stop her and definitely would never have tried if it hadn't been for one thing. Her eyes alone, pleading but full of something else – red and watering, shadows below them deepening by the second as the poison took hold – were a constant reminder of what he stood to loose, a loss that would be made so much more painful by three little, monosyllabic words.

That didn't stop him wanting to hear it, though.

"I love you," she sighed simply, as though they weren't words that she'd been waiting to say ever since the day that she'd met him, words that surpassed all time and meaning. As though it was the most straightforward and obvious thing in the world, that it was perfectly natural for a nineteen year old girl to fall in love with a nine hundred year old alien.

Though the Doctor's face didn't change – this was no big revelation; they had always known – he placed an arm flat across her pillow and brought his head down to rest on it. His mass of hair tickled her ear and Rose drew back slightly, startled and alarmed by this display of weakness. A battle raged inside him, love and envy billowing through and overwhelming him. Unlike him, she could love so easily, gave her heart to him so freely…and she wasn't going to be the one left behind to deal with the fallout. Unseen to Rose, he closed his eyes bitterly against his arm.

"Have I gone and left you speechless? Now that's an achievement and a half." Ordinarily her eyes would have sparkled cheekily along with a comment like that, but today they were dull and matte, clouding over. Besides, it was not so much an attempt at humour as an attempt to cover up her shock at his reaction.

"I – I can't…" deal with loving you when you're about to die. Cope with anyone else leaving. Tell you how much that means to me.

"If you don't love me, that's alright." Somehow it was. It wasn't as though she could do anything about it now. "I jus' had to say it." Though she felt a weight lift off her at having finally told him, she began to worry that she'd messed things up; that he wouldn't want to stay anymore and she'd have to face this alone.

"Love." The word came after a beat, oddly muffled despite the fact that he was so close to her ear and accompanied by a humourless laugh. She let out a shaky breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "You humans don't have a word that even begins to cover it. You're – "

"Stupid apes?"

"I was going to say completely, ridiculouslyuseless in a crisis, but that would do quite nicely." She laughed and for a moment he felt as though everything would be fine just as long as he could keep her smiling.

He raised his head and sat back, suddenly completely sincere. "I more than love you, Rose. I love you doesn't do it justice. You've got no idea how much you…everything that you've done for me. It's above and beyond what I'd expect of anyone."

"Look at that face. Who could say no to you?" she teased, reaching up to pinch his cheeks. It took a conscious effort on his part to ignore how deathly pale her own had become.

"You stayed with me through a regeneration," he levelled. "Not many people have ever done that. Not only did you stay but you've treated me exactly the same. You ripped apart my ship and came back to save me, even though I'd sent you home to be safe, even though it opened up a hundred and one ways for you to die. I…"

"Can't you say it, though, please? Just this one time." If he felt it, too, there was no way she was going to let him get away with not saying so. Even though he was the Doctor, mysterious and (for the most part) untouchable, she knew he still had emotions hidden in there somewhere. Perhaps the words weren't adequate for him, but she needed to hear them.

"I don't have the words."

"No, humans don't have the words."

He muttered something in Gallifreyan before smiling at her hollowly. "There."

She laughed, pretending it didn't hurt, and he in turn pretended she hadn't winced. "You know I didn't understand that. C'mon, just once. For these silly stupid human cloth ears of mine."

"I love you, Rose Tyler." The words almost ripped from him, new to these lips, long untested waters even for his memories. Expecting them to sound rusty, unused, he was slightly shocked at the force with which he managed to utter them.

Instead of widening Rose's smile, as she expected it would have, this only made her infinitely sad. Perhaps for what she'd now never have, perhaps for what they'd missed, a tear rolled sideways down her face from the corner of her eye, leaving a tingling, burning sensation in its wake.

"It's funny," she muttered quietly, swiping it embarrassedly away.

"What's funny?" he asked, clearly finding the situation less than humorous.

"Everything we've been through…it all comes down to this. And it took all this just to get you to admit it! And d'you know what?" her voice broke as tears poured down her cheeks, making her next words seem futile. "It's not so scary. Just promise you're gonna be here, yeah?"

As much as he hated watching this, he couldn't have left her now for the world.