A/N: Yeah, so maybe it's predictable and done and unoriginal. But I've written it now and it's here. So there.

Thanks to eeveekitty85 for the encouragement and help. Awesome.

Disclaimer: You know it's not mine.


He couldn't pass a rose garden now, without the sudden flash of grief striking. He couldn't catch the scent of a rose on a breeze without being completely shaken up, inside. Even the picture of one was enough to throw him for a few seconds. It was ridiculous, he knew. But he couldn't help it.

He had considered creating his own garden in the TARDIS. If he was going to be affected like that, it would be better if it could be somewhere familiar, somewhere safe. His own little tribute. But he wasn't sure he was ready, just yet. His association with that flower was real and vivid - almost unreasonably so. Whether it was a perfect, Earth rose, or one from a planet millions of miles away, they still had the same effect on him. He was getting better at handling it now, though. He still felt it, but he found it easier to close his face up so it didn't show. Gradually, he could pass one of those flowers without a change in his stride, or a pause in his speech. It was, he considered, very good progress.

But once, as he wandered through a market, on a planet light years away from Earth, a vendor pressed a blue rose into his hand. And he had stood, frozen and numb, as the crowd swelled around him and passed him by. He had stood, locked in his memories, not even noticing as tiny drops of blood pricked his palm.

But that was just it, wasn't it?

Roses have thorns.