But no trip with the Doctor (however seemingly-innocent it may be) ever really went according to plan, did it? Rose realized that she had forgotten, during the decades spent living her normal, human life - she had forgotten the lives that were sometimes lost in the disasters that the Doctor jumped head-long into. She wondered if he was ever truly able to make himself forget the many names and faces that were lost while he fought so hard to put the universe back in order. She wondered if he ever went back and counted them.
Rose had been beside herself when she had been forced to sit back and watch as Merry Gejelh, the Queen of Years, had been carried away screaming - but the Doctor had quickly taken on a familiar look of determination, so Rose followed him without question as he immediately started carrying out a plan for her rescue.
"I need something precious!" the Doctor cried out as he ran up to a stand in the bazaar that seemed to be renting out some sort of alien mopeds.
"Well, you must have something!" Rose called back, gesturing lamely to his coat pockets and barely biting back the urge to dig into his bigger-on-the-inside pockets herself. "All the places you've seen, there must be something!"
"This," the Doctor admitted, sheepishly waving his new sonic screwdriver between them before returning it to his breast pocket once more and continuing, "and I don't want to give it away, because it comes in handy."
Rose gritted her teeth in silence for a moment as she stared deep into his eyes, desperately trying to puzzle out a better option. The Doctor simply stared back at her, his nervous energy making her feel as fidgety as he was. She knew that he was testing her, waiting for her to come to the same conclusion that he had already made before he had even turned to ask her.
Finally, without breaking eye contact with him, Rose bit the inside of her cheek and wrenched the thin, brass-colored ring from off of her third finger. She shoved it unceremoniously into the Doctor's hand without a word and turned away before she could convince herself otherwise.
It's not even real, she silently scolded herself. It's just a fake - a stupid, useless imitation. But no amount of assurances could ease the deep, bitter sensation of loss that Rose could feel deep in her gut as she crossed her arms tight over her chest and determinedly stared down at her own boots. She felt as though she were somehow betraying her husband by throwing away the last memento of his that she had left. She hated the Doctor for asking her to do it, and she hated herself even more for going along with it.
She could see the Doctor out of the corner of her eye slowly twisting the small ring about in his fingers before he finally stepped forward and handed it to the female alien renting out mopeds. The two of them didn't speak again until they got to the pyramid and they fell back into their usual routine of teamwork in an attempt to save the young, innocent Merry Gejelh.
However, neither of them had quite been prepared for the rescue to include facing off against a giant, soul-eating sun.
"You're going to fight it, aren't you?" Rose asked as she stood at the Doctor's side and squared off against the impending alien threat before them.
"Regrettably, yes. I think I may be about to do that," he murmured sardonically.
"It's really big," she commented idly.
"I've seen bigger."
"Really?" Rose asked, finally breaking her gaze away from the deadly sun and whirling to look at him with a doubtful expression.
"Are you joking? It's massive!" the Doctor hissed, turning to meet her eye as well.
"I'm staying with you," she informed him simply.
"No you're not."
"Yes I am. I can ... assist," she continued stubbornly.
"No you can't!"
"I'm not leaving you, Doctor." Rose locked her jaw as she stared up at him, but his expression was completely unwavering - just as it always was when he was determined to play the martyr.
"Listen, you've got something precious, there," he murmured, his tone low and serious as he glanced sideways at Merry. "And when you're holding onto something precious, you run - always, always run."
He was looking deep into her eyes now, and Rose felt as though her knees might buckle with the sheer weight of emotion that she could see lurking behind his green gaze. "You run and run as fast as you can and you don't stop running until you're out from under the shadow. Now ..." The Doctor paused to flash Merry a small, encouraging smile as he continued, "off you pop. Take the moped. I'll walk."
He turned away without a backwards glance and the familiar routine of their adventures quickly came rushing back to Rose, reminding her that there was always an order to things. Make sure that the civilians were safe, first - save as many as you could - and then go back and save the Doctor.
"Isn't he frightened?" Merry asked nervously as Rose set her back down in the amphitheater a safe distance away from the glowing golden pyramid.
"I think he is," Rose admitted, already preparing the moped so that she could retrace her steps and get back to him. "I think he's very frightened."
"I want to help," the young girl insisted.
"So do I," Rose agreed, giving her an encouraging nod before punching the accelerator on her borrowed vehicle and quickly racing back to the Doctor's side.
She found him hunched over before the massive sun, his limbs shaking weakly and his head hung down in defeat. The image sent a shock of pain straight to Rose's heart, but before she could move any closer to comfort him or assess his injuries, she blinked and a familiar flash of gold caught and drew her attention away.
The Bad Wolf appeared this time as nothing more than a humanoid shape with long, glowing hair and bright golden eyes. She stood over the Doctor like a sentinel, keeping herself between him and the imminent threat before him, but her eyes were trained on Rose.
"He has sacrificed his own memories to sate the hunger of the beast," the otherworldly creature informed her. "But it is still not enough."
"What do we do?" Rose asked breathlessly, glancing in terror between the glowing woman and the ravenous star.
"The only thing that will satisfy the being's hunger is the infinity of time," the Bad Wolf explained simply. "I am the sun and the moon, the day and the night. I can out-burn the monster."
"So do it, then!" Rose demanded impatiently.
The Bad Wolf didn't say another word, she simply raised her hand towards Rose, silently beckoning her forward. Rose felt ice cold fear clutching at her heart, but the Doctor was still bent down in the dirt at her feet and she couldn't turn down the offer to end all of this and save his life. Rose Tyler would always be there to protect her Doctor, no matter what the consequences.
The second that her fingertips touched the glowing gold light of the Wolf's, Rose gasped as the energy of time quickly flooded her veins. It wasn't the raw, unrestrained power of the time vortex this time - this energy was focused and had a dangerous intent. Rose could feel the Bad Wolf in her head as a separate entity - channeling through her as the soul-eating star greedily tried to drain the life out of her.
She was distantly aware of the Doctor shifting near her feet once more, but Rose shut her eyes tight as the eternal song of time rang through her head and forced herself to focus on feeding as much energy into the hungry alien sun as possible.
Keep him safe, a feminine voice whispered as the golden light pulsed brighter and brighter. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, the Bad Wolf was gone as though she never was.
Rose gasped as she instantly returned to her own mind and her eyes snapped open to watch in fascination as the sun before her imploded in on itself until its light completely dissipated into darkness.
"What ... did you do ...?" The Doctor's weak voice drifted up to her and immediately demanded all of Rose's attention once more. She fell to her knees at his side and put her arms around him in an attempt to steady him.
"Are you alright?" she asked breathlessly.
"Right as rain," he murmured wearily. "Never better. A-okay, that's me." He turned to glance at her out of the corner of his eye as he asked again, "What just happened?"
"You did it," Rose lied, smiling as confidently as she could and squeezing his shoulders reassuringly. "Great big carnivorous sun - easy. The people of this star system won't have to worry about sacrificing innocent souls ever again."
"No, but ... you ... There was a light ..." the Doctor insisted haltingly, his brows screwing together in confusion as he stared at her with hazy, unfocused eyes.
"Yes, there was," Rose agreed quietly. "But now it's gone. All sorted, thanks to you, Doctor."
He was muttering more questions, but his words were slurred together, so Rose wasn't quite able to catch them.
"How about we get you back to the TARDIS, eh?" she asked encouragingly, pulling at his arms in an attempt to get him to stand once more.
Rose was half-bent over him when he suddenly grabbed her left hand and pressed something small and warm against her palm. Once he released his hold on her, she slowly drew back her fingers to reveal the small, brass-colored ring that she had been certain that she would never see again. She gasped out loud in shock and couldn't even bring herself to feel the slightest bit of annoyance at the smug grin that the Doctor was leveling in her direction.
"But how did you ...?" she asked breathlessly.
"Nicked it after we got the moped," the Doctor replied matter-of-factly. He narrowed his eyes on her in a mildly indignant look as he added, "You didn't really think I'd ask you to give up your wedding ring, did you?"
It certainly wasn't outside of the realm of possibilities that Rose could imagine concerning the Doctor - he had never really been overly-sentimental about material objects, after all (even the sonic had been burned and left behind before in pursuit of bigger and better things). But she decided not to mention that fact as Rose rewarded him instead with a winning smile and thanked him profusely for thinking of her.
She slipped the ring quickly back onto her finger and continued to help the Doctor to his feet, where he wobbled unevenly for a few moments and stared curiously out into the vacuum of space where the soul-eating sun had been just a few minutes ago. Finally, he turned his hard, assessing look back on her.
"Clara, that light ..." he murmured quietly.
"It was just the sun, Doctor," she lied again, making her face as flat and unreadable as possible. Rose could see his jaw tense as the Doctor narrowed his eyes on her in thought. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?" she asked, already knowing full well, but wanting to see what information he was willing to reveal on his end before she opened her mouth and said something irreversibly foolish.
"I don't know," he replied slowly. "You remind me of someone."
"Who?" she asked breathlessly.
"Someone who died."
That didn't really answer her question - Rose knew that the Doctor had been forced to watch many of his past companions come and go over the years. So the question was - which one was he referring to now? Was he talking about the Clara that the Bad Wolf had set on his path twice already? Or was he talking about her?
The Doctor was watching her intently as Rose looped her arm under his shoulders and let him lean his weight on her as they stumbled unsteadily back to the moped that she had driven to his rescue.
Finally, she murmured quietly under her breath, "Yeah, I think I know the feeling ..."
"Eh?" the Doctor asked, his focused interest dulled somewhat by his exhaustion.
"You remind me of someone, too," Rose admitted, smiling slightly and glancing up at him quickly out of the corner of her eye. "Someone I lost a while ago."
The Doctor furrowed his brows at her as he asked again, "You're sure we've never met before?"
Rose chuckled and patted his side reassuringly from where she kept her grip on him, making sure that he didn't stumble or sway too far away from her. "I don't know," she muttered teasingly, "maybe we did, once - in another life."