Chapter 5
Rose carefully pulled an old carpet bag down from the shelf in the storage closet. This was where she'd kept some secret things, special things she rarely looked at and never showed anyone. She'd planned to show both of her kids someday, but not yet. Today, she was looking for one picture.
Digging through a protective photo case, she found it.
"Hello," she said softly to the picture, sitting back on her heels. "I'm probably goin' mad, talkin' to pictures now. But—I really wish I could see you again!" She ran a finger down the image, across the outline of a firm, shaven chin beneath a pair of powerful, ice-blue eyes. The big old nose and ears that stuck out on either side of his close-cropped head. The mouth that she'd seen set much tighter than it was now, in the prank picture she'd taken of him when she thought he wasn't looking. The look he wore in this picture said, in his deep voice and distinctive northern accent, "Rose, WHAT in the name of Dickens are you up to this time? I'm tryin' ta work!"
"I wish you could see what a mess you got me into," she added, with a hint of scolding in her voice. "I'm married wif kids, my dad's alive and made a fortune, we live in a parallel universe, and Mum—oh, if YOU saw Mum now, you'd fall over backwards, I guarantee it!" Rose laughed and lay down with her back to the carpet, holding the picture up where she could still see it. "Fame, wealth and glory never changed her! Jus' made her an awful lot funnier! This is your fault, you know," she continued, more seriously. "You just—you and your—your daft old fa—" her voice got shaky with tears and she had to take a deep breath to keep going. "You loved me too much, Doctor! You loved me so, so, so too much and it's not fair you had to die!"
The tears were flowing freely now. "I was just a stupid kid, and you gave me your whole world and acted like it was nuffin', so I thought it was nuffin! And by the time I figured out you loved me it was too late!" Rose let the picture drop to her chest, where she held it closely as if she could somehow pretend that way that Nine was still there, listening to her cries.
"Doctor, I love you!" she sobbed, clinging to the frame. "I love you more than anything but God himself, I really do! I loved Ten and John stole my heart, but you were the first. So I'm gonna make a promise," she sat up and sniffed loudly. "Not to them, but to you, for them and any other Doctor in this whole wide universe and all the parallel ones out there that you showed me. I've lost you three times and I'll stop at nuffin' so I won't lose John, too." Rose felt her mouth twist as she thought of her poor husband, sleeping upstairs but unable to ever truly rest because he was fighting his own mind in a death challenge.
"But I promise you this," she continued, her voice beginning to steady with determination, "Doesn't matter how many times I keep losin' you, I'll keep lookin'. I'm not gonna stop lookin' for you, Doctor, not if it takes me the rest of my life to find you. If I lose you once, I'll find you again. If I lose you twice, I'll find whatever's left. If I lose you three times, I'll search until worlds burn and die around me and if I lose you four times, I'll never, ever stop lovin' you, Doctor, 'cause I do. I love you!" She lifted the picture to her face again, blinking to clear her eyes as she took in the face she loved most of all her Doctors. And carefully, so she didn't stain it with her tears, she kissed it and sealed her promise.