-1'I
could've missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the
dance'
-The Dance, Westlife
Chapter 4:
'Torchwood has this…tablet' Rose said. By now her and Jacob were in a café, sipping at too strong, stupidly expensive coffee. 'called Retcon. It's an amnesia drug. You go to sleep and when you wake up you've forgotten. Usually only the actions of one day or something small like that, but there's one person there working on making it selective. So you only forget certain things.' Rose felt a lump in her throat again, but was determined not to cry again. 'Sometimes…sometimes I think it would be so great to be able to take that. To forget the Doctor.' She was surprised to hear herself saying this out loud. She had had the thoughts quite a few times but she had never told anyone about it. 'If I forgot him it would stop hurting. If I forgot him then the days wouldn't seem to long and pointless, because before him when I was living a life doing nothing it didn't feel like nothing. If I forgot him it would be so easy. But then…then I think about everything we did. Everything he showed me. How he opened me eyes to so much. Not just time and space and aliens, but love and understanding and everything. When I think about that I wonder how I could ever think I could want to forget him. And I don't, I know I don't. It's just sometimes it feels as though life would be easier. And it's like…even though I can never see him again, and I can't imagine this pain ever getting easier, it was worth it.' Rose was making sense of her thoughts as she spoke them aloud. 'It was worth the pain. Before I knew him I worked in a shop. It was our basic 9 to 5 job. Pointless and boring. I dropped out of school at 15 because of a stupid boyfriend - not Mickey may I add. My life was nothing. The Doctor made it so much more. The Doctor made me feel important, like I could make a difference. The Doctor was the most important person in the universe. Is, the Doctor is the most important person in the universe. Everything we did together, everything, it was worth the pain of the way it ended. Definitely worth it.' Rose blinked back the tears, stopping them from falling. 'It hurts like hell, but it's worth it'
'The crazy thing is everything you just said makes sense' Jacob replied. 'Love has to be the most complicated crazy thing in the world. All the things you've seen in time and space, with aliens and other worlds and all the things that are going on right here on earth with werewolves and vampires and normal girls, out of all of that, love is the most complicated.' Jacob paused briefly before continuing. 'It's love that made losing the Doctor so hard for you. It's love that made Bella choosing Edward so hard for me.'
'Definitely' Rose agreed. 'Love is the most amazing thing in the world, and the most deadly. People say money is the most important thing in the world and everything, and sure that's probably true but I'm sure people underestimate the power of love. I've seen the power of love so many times.' Rose's thought's moved to her Dad. Her real Dad, the one who died for her. She wasn't going to go there now, she had only just managed to stop herself from crying so she wasn't going to talk about something that would make her cry. 'It beats everything in my opinion'
'Mine too' Jacob said.
Having just about talking each other mad, Rose and Jacob stopped there sad talks and left each other's company, after swapping phone numbers and promising to phone each other if they just needed someone to talk to.