A/N: I had just watched "The Runaway Bride", and the Doctor looked so sad in it. I thought about all the pain he must have felt when he lost Rose and wondered if he realized that it was worth it. This just started running through my head and I had to write it down. It's kind of angsty but I think it ends happily. This is not a 9/Rose story, it's a Doctor/Rose story but it starts from Nine's point of view.

Disclaimer: No, I don't own Doctor Who and I'm too tired to think of a clever way to say so.

Worth It

When the Doctor first met Rose Tyler, he was a little too busy saving her life to get a good look at her. Nevertheless, one thing did stand out to him in the quick glance that he got – her time lines. They were every where and any where and no where – in other words, she had far more time lines than any human should ever have and they made absolutely no sense. They were all so different and yet, they all shared one thing – unbelievable pain. And the Doctor, already full of so much pain, knew he could never ask her to help him or travel with him or else he would also feel the pain. And he knew that she couldn't possibly be worth it.

So the Doctor simply told Rose to run for her life and left her – never intending to see her again. But that was not to be and he ended up running into her again. And she teased him with how brilliant she could be. She entranced him and fascinated him like no one had ever done before. Hoping to return the favor, he took her hand, intending to show her how the earth spun beneath his feet. But when he did so, something happened to him as well – the earth stood still and he felt peaceful. The screams of his people no longer echoed in his ears and his guilt no longer threatened to destroy him. It was wonderful but he still remembered the pain he saw in this girl's time lines and he left her because he knew she still wasn't worth it.

But it appeared that no one could stay away from Rose Tyler for very long, for the Doctor ran into her again. She proved how brilliant she was and saved his life. Even though he hadn't forgotten the inevitable pain in her time lines, he couldn't stay away from her anymore and he asked her to come with him. She might, possibly, be worth it.

However, it appeared that the Doctor would never know if she was or not because Rose turned him down. He left, thinking that perhaps this was for the best. He went to his special place, to the place he always went when he was in pain. It was a planet that seemed to be frozen in time, covered in snow and ice, so beautiful and tragic all at once. But this time, he noticed something different about it. There, sitting in the ice, was a spot of color amongst the white, a beautiful red rose preserved by the cold. He went to go investigate, picked it up, and saw that there was a sentence carved into the ice underneath. As soon as the Doctor read it, he ran back to the TARDIS and reappeared on earth a few seconds after he had left. Breaking his cardinal rule, he asked Rose to come with him again, mentioning that the TARDIS traveled in time. This time, she didn't turn him down. As she ran towards him, he thought that the sentence he has read that had caused his to break his rule could be right. She really might be worth it.

The Doctor looked into Rose's golden eyes as he prepared to save her life. He was going to die but it didn't matter. She had given him so much. Was the pain of regeneration the same pain that he had seen in Rose's time lines? If so, then he knew, as he leaned in to kiss her, that she was worth it.

The Doctor and Rose continued to travel and had such a brilliant time and were so busy. He kept meaning to go back to his special place and leave the message for himself. But the Doctor's special place was a refuge from pain and he certainly was not in pain while he was around Rose. Life seemed perfect. But then came Torchwood and the Cybermen and the Daleks and Bad Wolf Bay and the Doctor was left alone in the TARDIS with tears in his eyes and no one to hold his hand. And he realized that this was the pain he had seen in Rose's time lines. Regeneration and the loss of his entire race was nothing compared to this. He felt as though there were two holes in his chest and he didn't know if he could go on. Life with Rose could not counteract the unbelievable pain of life without Rose. He laughed at the naivete of his younger self in believing that regeneration was painful and resolved never to place that rose in his special place because the Doctor knew that even she wasn't worth it.

The Doctor thought he'd started to get over the pain of losing Rose a long time ago. But as he lost her again and gave her away to someone else, he realized he'd been wrong as the pain came back in full force. When he had first been assaulted by this pain, he would've done anything to be rid of it – even if that meant losing the time he had had with Rose. Over time, however, he'd grown to accept it because he knew what the pain meant. It meant that he completely and utterly and selflessly loved her. As the pain came back this time, the Doctor clung to that knowledge because it helped him acknowledge something – that because Rose was who she was, she might very well be worth it.

Everyone was gone – Rose, Donna, Amy, even the TARDIS, and the Doctor was left alone to die. Mortally wounded and out of regenerations, he used Jack's old vortex manipulator to make a quick stop in London before coming to his special place. It was time to die. He had out lived everyone (including, presumably, the people in Pete's world) and his only companion, for a while, had been the pain in his breast which had never left him. He materialized in his special place, with a rose in hand. He had a choice to make here – he could refuse to leave the rose and could avoid the pain of his past. But he would lose all that Rose had given him. He couldn't change the past because he loved her and even though he had gone through hell, he didn't want to think about what kind of a man he would've been if he had never loved her. He had been a fool when he was younger in thinking that a life without pain was better than a life without Rose. Besides, the Doctor now had one thing that had used to be a stranger to him – hope. Rose had given him so much, had saved him from his darkness and when he had lost her, that stranger – hope – had continued to hold the darkness at bay. The Doctor still didn't know what he believed in, but he hoped that there was something after this, for if there was, he could see Rose again. This hope and others like it had given him a peace over the years, a peace that allowed him to accept the pain and embrace it rather than be destroyed by it. After placing the rose over the sentence that he had carved in the ice, the Doctor walked away to die, secure in his hopes and in the knowledge that even if there was nothing else, even if he never saw her again and this pain was never healed, that he had loved her and Rose had most definitely been worth it.

A/N: I hope you liked this. Please review! Oh, and to all you readers of my story Word of the Day, I promise to update soon! I just had to get this out there.