So long after Turn Left and even the finale...sorry. AU-ish cause draft was written before Turn Left...edit was done this morning so I tried to maybe make it slightly canoner...er yeah. Love you all my brilliant reviewers, ciao.

"Hey, this is Rose. I'm busy. Running probably. If this is Mum, don't panic. If this is Mickey just don't give up on a call back, please. If this is the Doctor...I'm sorry but 'don't wander off' is a real rubbish rule. Ah, mmm...if you're anybody else, don't expect a call back anytime soon and…..cue beep!"

There was a bitter smile on the Doctor's face as he listened to her speak. He wasn't in the mood today. He didn't want to be reminded that she was a universe away; he just wanted to sink into someone's arms and sit for a moment. To be comforted. Specifically, he wanted to sink into her arms, to be comforted by her. It wasn't that Donna wasn't the perfect comforter, no, she was good like that; but in times like this he simply didn't have the energy to pretend he wanted anyone other than his Rose. And Donna got that. Donna was brilliant. But she wasn't Rose. No one was like Rose to him, not super temps from Chiswick not even Archaeologists from the future.

So this is why, through the magic of a cordless phone, the Doctor was sitting on the sand dunes on a beach in Norway trying to picture her standing in front of him. He just wanted to be near her, to remember her. It wasn't really working; the sun was shining and half the beach was submerged in water, breathtakingly beautiful but it was all wrong for it hadn't been breathtakingly beautiful that day nearly two years before. It had been windy and cold and lifeless. Now he could almost mistake this place for just another beach out of the thousands of beaches on this planet. It wasn't their beach anymore, not really. Wrong universe too.

The Doctor pursed his lips and breathed out through his nose, his eyes squinting in the sunlight bouncing of the water as he spoke to her, "Time's been playing games with me recently. Me and the future meet each other quite often, how can we not. But me and my future? Well…you see, I recently met someone. She was very unimpressed with me."

He shook his head, as if unable to believe what he was saying, "Not very nice, is it? I'm very impressive."

He straightened his jacket awkwardly to stress this.

"But this woman, River, Professor River Song, I hadn't met her yet, yet she seemed to know me very, very well. Do you know what I mean when I say 'very'?"

The Doctor snorted and rolled his eyes to the heavens, "Well, that makes one of us because I wouldn't have a clue. Which is frightening and scary and means that...I don't know...wow, this is...listen to me, lost for words. It's becoming a habit. A bad habit."

He sniffed haughtily, picturing her rolling her eyes at him. "Well, you try living in my head! See what you come up with."

If he tried really, really hard he could nearly see her standing on the beach. Except she was crying. That was his last memory of her. She cried, he tried not to and they both stood there on this beach, helpless, unable to do anything about it. He hated feeling that helpless.

"Midnight." He started bitterly, "It's a planet. Sounds lovely doesn't? Remember when we went to that planet, Moonlight?" He smiled at the memory, "Did what it said on the tin, didn't it? The night sky, the moon, the stars, me and you lying on the dew covered grass looking up at that wondrous scape?" He paused and added flatly, "Well, Midnight wasn't like that. No. It wasn't."

He spread his spare hand through the sand letting the warm grain swallow his fingers, his fingers longed to clutch her fingers, hand and hand, running, doing a hell of a lot of running. Now, his hand was simply drowning in the sand. He looked around himself for a long moment then began to wonder why he was here, really, this place wasn't all he had left of Rose. He only had to step into the TARDIS to feel her presence. Scoffing at himself he pulled his hand out of the sand and stood.

"Me and Donna, we go good." The Doctor told her as he clambered to the top of the dunes, "And there are times..." He reached the top and stopped, gasping for breath a little, gazing down at the beach below, "times when you aren't hovering painfully at the front of my mind." The curves of his mouth twitched, "Sorry, but you're very frustrating, you won't leave me alone. But now, I remember you, and it doesn't hurt as much." He snorted as he looked out at the beach and turned to see the TARDIS sitting on the grassy ledge above, beaming at it, his words becoming light and almost uplifting, "It's almost as if you're here, just beyond my realisation."

He continued off to the TARDIS, bounding slightly as even footing returned and he moved across the grass, "Me and Donna go off, save the world and I feel it, I do, no matter the void that separates us, you're still here with me. I like that. I like feeling like that."

He reached the TARDIS and fumbled awkwardly for the key, the phone held in place by his shoulder. He finally managed to unlock the door but before he stepped inside, he took a look out at the beach again and regardless of the shining sun a chill crept down his spine, his voice lessening, and the words, hard to admit usually, slipping off his tongue with ease, "But lately, I've had this other feeling too." He leant against the TARDIS and closed his eyes, speaking into the phone with a manic earnest, "It feels like it did before which is the most devastating, devastating part. He opened his eyes and blinked up at the blinding sun, "I can feel it again. It's not a storm this time...it's darkness. It's nothing, it's hollow. And...Rose, I'm afraid of it. I'm so afraid of it and what it might mean. Cause it's colossal and all consuming and..."

He swallowed dryly and took a big shaking breath, forcing out the last words.

"it just feels like the End."

--

The sun was shining on Bad Wolf Bay as the TARDIS dematerialised. Here the day was calm and peaceful but out there in the universe, not ours but another, Rose Tyler looked up at the sky and saw darkness; nothing but the darkness and wished, wished with all her might that she could find her Doctor.

That's when her mobile phone went bonkers and she received six new voicemail messages.

Thanks for reading, sorry for the delay, I was on holiday. My first ever finished fic...WAHHOOOOO!