The Doctor and Rose approached the doorway of the kitchen, where Pete and Jackie were sat. They had taken cover in the basement for a while giving Jackie time to calm down.

"Mum?" Rose said, slowly walking towards her.

She felt so guilty and nervous; she didn't know whether she could actually take up a life of dashing between this world and travelling with the Doctor if it was going to make her mum like this.

"Mum, can't you please just be happy for us?"

Jackie looked up from the empty cup she was staring into she, looked more composed now. She smiled softly at them both.

"I knew from the start that if you had the chance you would find a way back to him, and you did. And I knew that if you could travel with him again you would, and you are."

She looked over at her daughter, she looked so confused, she couldn't quite grasp what her mother was trying to say. She stood up slowly and placed her hands on Rose's shoulders.

"After you were separated I watched you go through depression, I watched you cry every single day, I watched you hitting walls and cursing yourself for falling in love with him. Until eventually you became so determined that you were going to get back to him. It wasn't just you who went through that Rose it was me too. And I bet you haven't even told him all of this have you?" she asked rhetorically, her eyes welling up.

Jackie looked over at the Doctor, he too was welling up, he had no idea what Rose had been through in those two years. She had told him all about what she did to get back to him, but never what she went through.

Tears began to fall from Rose's eyes as she listened to what her mum was saying.

"Mum please, he doesn't have to know this, he's here now, and that's all that matters right?"

"You wanted to share your life with him sweetheart, don't you think he has a right to know how much you really do love him?" Jackie replied.

Rose turned to face the Doctor; he was stood so still just looking down at her with a sense of understanding and anger in his eyes.

"I am so happy for you two, and want you to have that life, but it's dangerous. I just don't want you to go through that again. I don't want either of you to go through that."

Rose glanced back at Jackie; she didn't know what to say. She took it as an indication that she had to tell the Doctor about her life in those two years now, by the way she tugged on Pete's arm and led him out of the room into the garden where Tony was playing.

She looked back in the Doctor's direction but avoided eye contact with him.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, his voice sounded angry and Rose looked up she saw that his teeth were clenched and his eyes were watery.

"I… I di…I didn't want you to know." She began to weep slightly.

The Doctor felt himself getting angrier, it wasn't that Rose never told him; it was that he never saw it. He'd loved her for so long and he didn't even think about what her life was like without him.

"Please don't look at me like that; I don't want you to be angry with me. Please." She began to plead with him.

A couple of stray tears began to roll down the Doctor's cheeks, he couldn't help it, he had no control over how much emotion he showed.

"I can't do this." She shouted before pushing past him and running out of the room.

The Doctor was left on his own, more tears escaping from his eyes. As he looked over towards the kitchen window he noticed the rest of the Tyler family silently observing his sadness, a very similar emotion was smeared across their faces. He walked out of the kitchen door and lent against the wall standing opposite them.

"Can you tell me what happened?" he asked them.

Pete turned to Jackie and took Tony from her arms. What was happening between Rose and the Doctor had upset him.

"He should know," he said to her.

Jackie nodded her head in agreement and led him to the end of the garden.

"She'd spend the whole day in bed just crying, she was like that for weeks." She began.

"We tried everything you could imagine, but nothing worked. Eventually she got out of bed and started going out a bit more, but she was getting worse. She never spoke to anyone, only you."

The Doctor looked at her in puzzlement.

"She used to talk to nobody, she used to think that maybe if you tried to listen close enough you could hear her."

The Doctor started to chuckle to himself even though he was still crying.

"He used to do the same. When he was alone in the TARDIS he'd talk to her, hoping she could hear him, even though he knew that she couldn't," he confessed.

"You Doctor, I don't want you to refer to him, it's you now. You did that." She said to him, allowing him to fully be himself and not feel like second best.

He smiled at her kindness, Jackie Tyler the scariest and sweetest woman in the world.

"So what happened next?" he eventually asked her.

"Are you sure you want to hear this?"

He hesitated for a moment before nodding and waiting for her to continue.

"She became so depressed, lost all hope, she got ill. One day I came home and…" she began to cry as she tried to gain the courage to tell him.

The Doctor gently put his arm around her shoulders to reassure her that it was ok, he now realised how serious Rose's condition was.

"She tried to kill herself," she finally blurted out.