Aftermath

Rose and The Doctor walked hand in hand towards the Tardis.  He risked a glance at her face, saw her tear streaked cheeks, the emptiness in her eyes.  No spark.  Her fingers trembled in his hand.  He squeezed them affectionately.  There were no words to say.

_____________________________________________________________

Rose sat huddled on the floor of the control room.  Her knees drawn up to her chest, her face a pale ghost as the tears continued to silently stream down her cheeks.  She had been that way for hours.  He’d made her a cup of tea.  She hadn’t touched it.  He rubbed her back, held her hand, and murmured sympathies in her ear. She hadn’t moved.  The Doctor had tried to talk to her, to comfort her, offering what little words of consolation he could.  She said nothing.  

Hours had passed and the Doctor grew increasingly fearful that Rose would never be the same again.  He activated the tardis and parked them at a point in space as far from 1987 earth as he could get.  He sat down to face her, hoping to ignite the flame that had gone out in her eyes.  

He reached out to touch her, to take her hand but he suddenly found he could not.  A deep and terrible terror was beginning to well up inside of him.  She looked so fragile, so breakable.  He was afraid that if he touched her, she would shatter into a million pieces and he would lose her forever.  Tears sprang to his eyes as he thought of what his life would be like without her.  Without his Rose.

He’d had many different companions over the years, but no one could come close to her.  No one had ever challenged him they way she did.  She was constantly amazed at each new planet, each new experience.  He had never met anyone who shared his passion for space and time, his passion for life itself as much as she.  In the few short months he had known her, she had changed his life completely.  Rose touched his heart with every smile, every touch, and each lingering look.   

Looking at her now, pale and empty, the Doctor felt as though his hearts were breaking.  His vivacious, fantastic girl was reduced to little more that a hollow shell and it was all his fault.

“Oh God,  Rose!  I’m so sorry!  I’m so sorry for everything.  Please come back to me!”  The doctor buried his face in his hands letting the tears give way to wrenching sobs.  

“We’ll go back.  I’ll fix it Rose.  I’ll do it again and again till we get it right.  I’ll bring him back, Rose.  I won’t let him die.  I promise.  Just please...”  

“Die?”  She whispered.

“Rose?  Rose can you hear me?  Stay with me Rose please, please!  I’ll do anything to make it right.  We’ll go back right now!”  The doctor leapt to his feet, wiping his eyes roughly with the back of his hand and began to fiddle with the tardis’ controls.

“NO!”  Rose screamed, getting to her feet.  

“But Rose, I thought.....”  The doctor backed away from the console in surprise.

“Stop!  Just stop it!  Shouting at him, she pushed him roughly away from the console.

“I can fix it for you Rose.  Just give me a chance.”  He pleaded.  God, how she must hate him.  He wasn’t sure he could bear it.  The doctor knew that his greatest fear was just lying beneath the surface.  She would leave him.  He couldn’t let that happen.

“NO!  NO!”  She said, shoving him so hard that he fell to the floor.  “You can’t fix this!  I messed it up!  Do you hear me?  It was me!”

“No Rose,” He shouted, getting to his knees.  “It’s not your fault”.

“I can’t do it again!”  She wailed.  “Please don’t make me!”

“But it’s alright Rose,” He grinned one of his maniacal grins through the film of tears in his deep blue eyes.  “I know where we went wrong!  I’ll be able to fix everything!”

Rose slapped him hard across the face and the doctor recoiled, stunned.  “You’re not listening to me!”  She screamed.  “I won’t go through it again!”

From his position on the floor, the doctor could see the fear on her face, the pain in her eyes.  He knew then that he had lost.  He had failed Rose.  He’d lost her trust and now he would lose her too.  All he could do was watch her helplessly and pray to the gods that he hadn’t completely destroyed the girl he loved.  Yes, he realised, loved.

“I can’t” she wept, gasping for breath.  “The world was ending, everything was falling apart... but I didn’t care.  I didn’t care!  Do you hear me?”  The doctor’s astonished eyes met hers.  Rose fell to her knees.  “I didn’t care about anything...because you were gone.  I...I killed you.  You... left... me.”  She dissolved into tears.

“Rose, look at me”.  She raised her face to meet his eyes.  He saw now that the fear in them, the emptiness, matched his own.  He reached out trembling hands to clasp her face.  Gently, wiping the tears away with his thumbs he said, “Rose, I will never, ever leave you.  I swear it on my soul.”

“But, you were gone...”

“BUT now I’m not.  I’m right here, right now, with you”.  Rose’s face was tantalisingly close to his.  He couldn’t believe that all this time HE’D been worried about losing HER.  He wondered if he dared hope that she felt the same way about him as he did about her.  He wondered if she too was in lo-

All thought stopped as Rose rested her hand upon his cheek.  She was about to place the other one on his face too when he caught her hand in his.  They sat that way, mirroring each other, one hand held against the other’s cheek.
They stared into each other’s eyes – the doctor’s blue and bright, full of renewed hope and Rose’s eyes dark and turbulent like the sky before a storm.  

She started to move closer to him, but he stopped her.  “Don’t,” he said.  He caught the fleeting look of confusion, the fear of rejection cross her face.  She started to get up.  He pulled her back down.  “Don’t,” he said again. Rose looked at him questioningly.  His voice was so strained, so serious.  “Don’t do it if you don’t mean it”.  And she understood then.  “I couldn’t take it if....”.

She put a finger to his lips.  They were both trembling on the edge of a vast precipice; the only decision was whether to fall in or not.  Rose made the choice for both of them.  

“You’re right here, right now, with me,” She said, stroking his face.  Her voice was choked with emotion, raw and passionate.  The Doctor gazed into her eyes and saw the fire within, burning brightly.  His Rose.

Her lips trembled against his as she fought to get the words out.  “And I want you with every breath in my body”.

“Fantastic”.  He murmured as their lips collided for the first time and he held her tight against him.  He would never, ever let her go.  Not now, not ever.