Another short Doctor-Rose one, just to keep you all interested. Don't worry, the two story lines will cross soon!

Chapter 13: Forever Alone

Rose finally managed to corner the Doctor alone when Mickey and that woman Sarah Jane went to carry the tin dog back out to the car.

"How many of us have there been? Traveling with you?" She demanded of him as he pulled his coat back on. She could tell by the immediate stiffening of his shoulders that he didn't want to talk about this. Pulling the collar down, he turned his back and walked out of the café.

"Does it matter?" He asked over his shoulder, trying to sound casual. She followed right behind him.

"Yeah, it does if I'm just the latest in a long line."

He whirled around to face her. "As opposed to what?" He snapped. Rose stumbled to a halt but he didn't look angry. More like… upset. Anxious.

"I thought you and me were…" She began but found she could not even finish the thought. How could she ever have thought that she could mean that much to him? That this relationship meant as much to him as it did to her? The man who could travel anywhere, do anything, be anyone. "Well I obviously got it wrong." She finally managed to finish.

The Doctor couldn't seem to look at her, he kept glancing away with that same look on his face. Something that was not quite sadness and not quite anger that had settled in his eyes and around his mouth.

"I've been to the year 5 billion but this, this is really seeing the future, you just leave us behind." Rose continued as he looked in yet another direction that was not her. Her throat tightened. "Is that what you're going to do to me?" She asked. Was she to become just another face in his memory?

"No," He said, his eyes immediately shooting up to lock with hers. "not to you." But he still looked disturbed, unsure.

"But Sarah Jane, you were that close to her once and now…" She saw a flicker of fear pass through his eyes. "…you never even mention her." She hadn't thought it could be possible to feel sorry for Sarah Jane. But now she was starting to understand. "Why not?" To be left alone after all those adventures with him… if that happened to her, she didn't think she'd be able to cope. What if he left her behind and never again mentioned her name? Would someone else take her place? Another young woman who would know neither the name Sarah Jane Smith nor Rose Tyler?

"I don't age." The Doctor replied in a very serious voice. "I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone you…" He broke off suddenly, the look in his eyes deepening to unfathomable emotional turmoil. She couldn't tell what he was feeling in that moment.

"What, Doctor?" What was he saying? That when the time came, he'd leave her simply because he didn't want to watch her die? That he… was he saying he loved her too much to think of her dying?

She briefly saw that fear flicker through him again. He took a quiet breath before replying. "You could spend the rest of your life with me." He said carefully. Rose felt stuck, unable to speak. "But I can't spend the rest of mine with you…" Her eyes stung. "I have to live on, alone." He said the word with loathing, dismay and the heavy knowledge that it was inevitable. "That's the curse of the Time Lords." Rose felt her heart clench. It wasn't often with this new body that she was reminded just how damaged he was. Her first Doctor had let all the cracks show, he'd smoothed the edges with humor but he'd never denied the pain he felt. But this body, this one had seemed to erase all that. It was bold and intense, happy and lighter. Whole.

But now she saw. The cracks hadn't healed. They were still there. They'd always be there, no matter how he changed or what he did to hide them. He'd been pretending for her sake that that pain was gone.

Of course. After all, he was over 900. And she was barely two decades old, a baby in his eyes. He'd seen so much more, carried so much more pain and loss than she could comprehend. What was she thinking; that they'd find some way to stop her aging? That time travel could go on forever? She would never want to leave him, of that she was certain. But what if his next face, his next body didn't want her? What if one day he decided it was time to say goodbye?

What would her life be without the Doctor?