The Doctor tried running, just as he always did, but Rose had long since learned how to chase after him. She eventually found him slumped against the bottom of the TARDIS time rotor with tears drying on his cheeks as he stared listlessly out at nothing.
He was still a disheveled mess from when he had jumped clumsily from her bed in an attempt to avoid the inevitable. His hair was tousled, the sleeves of his Oxford were rolled up unevenly along his forearms, and his braces hung loosely down around his legs.
Rose didn't bother saying anything in that moment. She still didn't even properly know what was going on. So instead, she simply sat down next to him as close as she could get and leaned her head against his shoulder - silently reminding him that she was here and she wasn't going anywhere as long as he needed her.
The Doctor sighed heavily and hung his head until his chin practically touched his chest. "Trenzalore," he muttered wearily. "I've heard the name, of course. Dorium mentioned it; a few others. Always suspected what it was - never wanted to find out myself. River would know, though. River always knew."
Rose still didn't make any sort of response other than to twist her head on his shoulder so that she could see the expression on his face as he spoke. The Doctor was scared - really, properly terrified. It was something that she experienced so rarely that she always had a hard time reacting to it.
"What can I do, Doctor?" she finally asked quietly after silence reigned for just a moment too long and his expression began to fall into a grimace.
"The coordinates you saw will still be in your memory," he stated simply. He flashed her a look out of the corner of his eye as he added, "You've been communicating telepathically with the TARDIS, haven't you?"
Rose lowered her gaze in embarrassment as she realized that this was just one more secret that she hadn't found the time to reveal to him yet, but she nodded slowly and replied, "Yes, I think so. Ever since I've been back it's like ... I can hear her in my head sometimes."
"Right," he replied, his tone still quiet and hard and revealing absolutely nothing to her. "She should be able to use those coordinates, then."
"Doctor, what is Trenzalore?" Rose finally asked, unable to keep the question to herself any longer. "Where are we going?"
A muscle in his jaw twitched he glared hard at the opposing wall as he refused to meet her curious gaze. "When you are a time traveler," he replied slowly, "there is one place you must never go - one place in all of space and time you must never, ever find yourself."
"Where?" Rose asked breathlessly.
The Doctor jumped to his feet as though she had shocked him and Rose faltered as his weight suddenly disappeared out from under her. She blinked up at him in confusion as he began to nervously pace around the empty space underneath the TARDIS console and busily wrung his hands together.
"You didn't listen, did you?" he snapped irritably. "You lot never do. That's the problem. 'The Doctor has a secret he will take to the grave - it is discovered.' He wasn't talking about my secret. No, no, no, that's not what's been found. He was talking about my ... grave."
The Doctor's pacing slowed as he turned to face Rose once more, and the look in his deep green eyes broke her heart. There was a hopelessness there that she had never seen before on any face of the Doctor's. She had never seen him just ... give up like this, and it shook her to her core.
"Trenzalore is where I'm buried," the Doctor finished matter-of-factly as he glared down at the ground in bitter defeat.
"Why are we going there, then?" Rose asked timidly, her fingers fidgeting nervously in her lap as she fought the urge to reach out to him once more.
"I have to save Vastra and Strax," the Doctor sighed wearily as he took up his pacing once more, "Jenny, too, if it's possible. They ... cared for me during the dark times. Never questioned me, never judged me, they were just ... kind."
He paused as he flashed Rose another sad, hopeless look, and she wondered, not for the first time, who it was that the Doctor had lost that had caused him to be so lonely. Was it River? Was it the young couple that she had seen him with at the dalek asylum? Or was it someone else entirely - someone that he hadn't even mentioned yet?
She didn't get the chance to ask him a single one of her many questions before he took off up the stairs towards the upper levels of the console room without another word. "I owe them," the Doctor called back to her resolutely. "I have a duty."
Rose immediately jumped to her feet, following directly behind him, but he paused on the steps and turned back to meet her gaze once more with a hooded expression. With his hands stretched out towards the railings on either side of him, he effectively blocked her way as he leaned down ominously and leveled his face with hers. "No point in telling you this is too dangerous?" he asked, his tone low and serious.
"None at all," Rose replied without hesitation. She skipped up the last few steps that separated them and leaned up to press a hard, insistent kiss to his cheek. "How can we save them?" she asked, flashing him a mischievous, daring smile that she knew he couldn't resist.
He responded, as she knew that he would, with a small smile of his own. Even though it wasn't as confident as it usually was, it was genuine and looked far better on his features than the nasty scowl that he had been wearing ever since she first muttered the word "Trenzalore".
Her vow to stay by his side also spurred him forward into action as the Doctor turned and continued mounting the stairs only to begin sliding around the console in his usually flurry of movement. "Apparently," he called out grandly in response to her question, "by breaking into my own tomb."
He threw down the dematerialization lever without another word and the TARDIS immediately began to groan her protests as she shook violently and caused them both to stumble.
"Well, she doesn't like that," Rose shouted sarcastically above the ship's din as she grabbed onto the railing behind her in order to keep herself standing.
"She's just figured out where we're going. She's against it," the Doctor replied, grunting as he continued to attempt to poke and prod the time ship into submission. "I'm about to cross my own timeline in the biggest way possible. The TARDIS doesn't like it."
The sentient ship gave another almighty lurch as if to confirm his words and Rose heard her song growling a threatening warning in her head. At the next shudder, Rose was tossed forward against the console, her hips colliding painfully with metal and a joystick stabbing awkwardly into her gut as she attempted to brace herself against the solid surface.
"She's fighting it," the Doctor grumbled as he gripped the lever nearest him and put all of his weight into attempting to force it down. "Hang on!"
The console room immediately exploded into a shower of sparks and clouds of smoke as the machinery worked hard against its own stubborn pilot. The wild, uneven movements suddenly came to a shuddering halt that threw the Doctor and Rose both into the nearest railing, their limbs sprawling haphazardly over the edge of the flooring as they clung tight and attempted to catch their breaths.
"Must you two always fight?" Rose groaned, coughing against the suddenly smoke-filled atmosphere as she glanced sideways at the outline of the Doctor's shape through the mist.
"She doesn't want to land. She's shut down," he replied unhelpfully. "But we must be close!"
He scrambled to his feet without another word and quickly darted towards the TARDIS doors. Rose silently apologized to the sentient ship on behalf of them both as she stood to her own shaky feet and dusted off the front of her dress.
"Okay, so that's where I end up," the Doctor grumbled as he glanced nervously out at the planet that lay just below them.
Rose was at his side immediately, the tense tone of his voice calling out to her in a way that was instinctual and impossible to dismiss. The planet below was dark and ashy, ribboned through the glowing lines of red and orange fire.
"Always thought ... maybe I'd retire," the Doctor muttered quietly as though to himself, "take up watercolors or bee-keeping or something."
Rose cast him a sad, sympathetic look that he answered with one of his own as he took a moment to look deep into her eyes and then returned his gaze to the volcanic planet below. "Apparently not," he breathed ruefully.
"You could still do those things," Rose reminded him gently as she reached on instinct for his hand, which she wrapped up protectively in both of hers. "There's time enough for all of that."
The Doctor breathed a humorless laugh as he continued to stare out at the expanse of the planet before them. He was keeping his thoughts tightly shielded away from her, but with his hand in hers, Rose could easily make out the tense, nervous energy that he seemed to be bristling with.
"Did he ever retire?' the Doctor asked suddenly, furrowing his brow in curiosity, but not quite meeting her gaze. "Your Doctor - your ... husband?"
Rose smiled as she squeezed his hand in hers and stepped closer so that she could rest her head against his shoulder again. "Eventually, yes," she replied quietly. "But there were a lot of false-starts and plenty of dangerous escapades in between. You never could say 'no' when someone needed help."
"Were you happy with him, Rose?" he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper as he squeezed her hand tight and buried his nose in her hair.
Rose closed her eyes and let out a small sigh of breath as she telepathically projected the depth of the love and contentment that she had shared with her husband during their lifetime together. "Deliriously," she whispered out loud as her lips curled into a peaceful, satisfied smile.
The Doctor turned towards her, then, so that he could wrap his free arm tight around her waist as he brought her closer and bent to rest his forehead against hers. He sent Rose a quick snapshot of his thoughts - just the barest glimpse, keeping the majority of his mind locked tight away and out of her reach. Even this small part that he revealed to her, he let loose with a sense of timid shyness that she rarely ever associated with the Doctor.
Through this quick glimpse into his mind, Rose could see that he longed desperately to give her the sort of life that he thought she deserved, but he wasn't sure if he could ever live up to the simple day-to-day of domesticity that she had shared with her half-human husband. He felt hopelessly, terribly out of his depth and he wasn't even truly sure that he deserved her in the first place.
Rose quickly put all of those fears to rest, however, as she projected as much love and understanding as possible into his mind and tilted her head up to slant her lips against his own in a firm, deliberate kiss.
The Doctor let out a small breath through his nose as he leaned further into her and Rose could sense his thoughts beginning to turn towards other creative ways that he could run away and delay the inevitable, but she forced herself to pull back before he could let either of them get too carried away with that line of thought. Rose knew that there was no use in wasting the time that they had left while Jenny, Vastra, and Strax were still in danger.
She kept her tone light, however, as she flashed the Doctor a playful smile and brought her free hand up to sweep through the unruly mop of his hair. "Best get you cleaned up before we land," she reminded him quietly, giving his unkempt clothes a pointed once-over.
"Who says we're landing?" the Doctor asked, his own teasing grin beginning to turn up the corners of his mouth. "The TARDIS won't let us go any further. How are we supposed to get down there?"
"You'll think of something," Rose replied with a knowing smirk as she let her hand fall to his chest, her fingers slowly following the straight, vertical line of buttons down the front of his Oxford.
The Doctor's grin widened and his green eyes sparkled as he adopted her knowing grin and replied, "You sound fairly confident."
"Oh, I am," Rose assured him, her tone low and sultry. "You see, I've seen the Doctor in action before, and he can be very ... impressive."
The Doctor said nothing in response to that, but Rose could both see and sense his answer to her playful words and she giggled lightly to diffuse the tension between them and remind the Doctor once more that there were more important things to be getting on with.
"This, however," she added, gently poking his rumpled shirt for emphasis, "is not impressive. Can't go swooping in to save the day looking all raggedy like that, now, can you?"
The Doctor's breath hitched, then, and Rose immediately lost her playful smile at the strange, wide-eyed look that he cast in her direction. However, the moment only lasted for a second, and when Rose blinked again, he was smiling widely at her and then dashing back into the depths of the TARDIS to retrieve clean clothes and his faithful bowtie without another word.
Rose didn't get a chance to ask him what it was that she had said to put such a look on his face as she jogged quickly after him, eager to find a fresh set of clothes, herself. She figured that this, too, could be a discussion saved for later. Right now, there were people in danger, and the universe's cry for help would always come before Rose and the Doctor - no matter what they might be dealing with personally.