A/N: At the bottom. (Spoilers!)

"Ohh, fascinating! Seems to be a bio-flip digital stitch, specifically for—" the Doctor looked up from the device he was holding, seeing only the vast emptiness of the control room. He stood, shoving his hands in his pockets to distract himself, trying not to think. How empty his ship felt, cavernous and hollow. Even with just one other occupant, it took on the cozy crowdedness of a home. Inhabited, that was the word. He nodded. Inhabited. His voice chased itself along the walls, solitary but for the hum of the engines. No one to respond, no one to comment. No one to laugh at his jokes or his rambling.

This body liked to talk. Liked it quite a bit, actually. What an amazing thing, words. Say 'em any way you like and someone'll understand you. Maybe not everyone, but someone. Some were scary to listen to. Some were lots of fun to say. Like 'spectacles' or 'lollypop'. He tried this second one out loud, popping the 'p' and grinning at the sound it made.

He stilled, catching sight of his reflection in the glass of the time rotor. Alone in the control room talking to himself, giggling at funny noises. 'Mad with grief', there was a good set of words. But that's an idiom for you. Though you can't take an idiom at face value, and it was quite possible he was going mad. And he was most definitely still grieving.

'Stabbed though the hearts.' There, that was an idiom, though not one commonly used on Earth in that particular form. Ah, metaphors. Still, that base knowledge didn't make the twin ache dissipate. He closed his eyes, pushing his glasses up with his fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose, and took a deep, steadying breath.

This was his life now. He knew if he could sort it out, file it away in a handful of words, he could accept it. But he had none. Who knew? he snorted to himself, amazed at the irony. Chatting and chattering and prattering on because he couldn't find the words. Martha would've rolled her eyes if she saw him now. Donna would have scoffed. Rose would've—

He pinched harder. There were no words.

Well, nothing for it, then. Only one man in the universe could put this right. This 'Adipose' conundrum would have to wait until he got himself sorted.

"Off we go," he told the empty air. This switch, then that button, that's it. Give this a quarter-turn to the right, wiggle the conjunction lever, apply the parking break, aaaand there. Parked. Smooth as you please. "Early sixteen-hundreds. Very early sixteen-hundreds, actually. Only man in the world worth talking to, right outside those doors," he said. He spoke to fill the silence, because silence was all he had left.

Walking down the same narrow avenue he'd traveled with Martha, the Doctor kept a steady pace. He noticed everything, from popular food choices to subtle changes in garments since his last visit. This would usually flow forth from his lips unbidden, a veritable fount of information, trivia, entertaining stories. But what was the point? There was no one around to educate. No one to distract him from thinking the thoughts around which he so carefully tread.

The loss of Rose was a wound that had been treated for a time by Martha's presence. She'd been a friend when he needed one, but he was unable—incapable, actually—of returning her affections. Then she'd left, leaving him without distraction, festering in the lesion of his misery.

Rose's absence was an infinite chasm in his mind. One step too close to the edge, and no consciousness in the universe could predict how far he'd fall.

Look at me, waxing poetic already. Ol' Shakespeare's genius must be transmittable by long-distance osmosis.

He reached the building where Shakespeare was staying, according to the townspeople, and introduced himself to the lady of the house. She led him upstairs and knocked on a wooden door. "Will, a man called the Doctor is here to see you."

An angry voice yelled, "Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it!" and they heard a noise that may have been a bottle smashing against the wall.

"It's not a doctor, it's the Doctor," the Doctor said, calling through the crack in the door. "We met a few years back. 'Loves Labours Won'?"

A chair scuffled and the door was pulled back a few centimeters, causing a chink of candlelight to fall on the wooden boards at their feet. Will, slightly balder than he had been, waved the Doctor inside. "Come in, old friend! Are you well? You've a lean and hungry look about you." He looked at the matron, "Drinks," he ordered, and she left, grumbling about 'rude men' and 'were there any other kind".

"I've got a problem, Shakespeare," the Doctor said, collapsing into a chair, "and something tells me if I can word it correctly, I can store it away."

Will sat again behind his writing desk and picked up a quill, writing languidly as he spoke. "Lady troubles? Is it the lovely dark Martha?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Martha was just a companion. This is much deeper than that." He picked at the splintered wood on the arm of his chair before continuing. "I lost someone. A year ago by my count, but it seems like so much longer." He rested his head in his hands, pressing his eyes with his palms.

"What's gone and what's past help should be past grief, good Doctor."

"'Should'," The Doctor repeated with a shake of his head. "Maybe, but I can't help it."

"What was her name, this fair lady of yours?" Shakespeare asked, continuing to write.

"What does it matter? You'll never meet her; I'll never see her again." The Doctor leaned back in his chair as the lady of the house brought their drinks. He thanked her.

Will responded, "Yes, of course. What's in a name, after all?" he added.

The Doctor looked sharply at him, sensing a crucial time nexus in literary history taking place. "Rose. Her name was Rose."

"Ah." Shakespeare's face took on an enlightened expression, and he scribbled a few more lines onto his parchment before setting the finished page aside to dry and starting a new one. "I sense, Doctor, that you were in love with this girl?"

"Don't have a stronger word, do you?" the Doctor asked, honestly curious.

"I'm afraid not."

The Doctor looked at him disbelievingly. "Come on, you're the Bard himself! You've got to have something less common than 'love'."

"And you're a king of infinite space who can't find where he wants to be. Seems we've both been negligent."

"All right, that's fair. Yes, I was. Am. And I never told her. Not properly, anyway. And it kills me every day to think that she might not know."

Will was writing faster now. "Please continue," he requested.

"It's like—" the Doctor paused, "It's like part of me is missing. An important part, something that I need to function. I go to do anything, and she's just…" he waved a hand, "not there. I've been traveling for longer than you'd believe, but there's no where I'd rather go than wherever she is right now."

"Yes, go on," the quill was flying across the page.

"What are you writing?" the Doctor asked, craning his neck to see.

"I'm not writing, I'm translating, now finish that thought."

The Doctor never was one to question a genius. Well, he was, but he wouldn't this time. He continued, "I just wish I could go back and fix it. But I can't, because that would throw off everything else, and who knows what I'd manage to erase? I might never meet her at all."

"Truly, the course of love never did run smooth."

"Not in my experience, no."

Silence fell, but for the scratching of nib upon parchment. The Doctor leaned his head against the back of the chair, eyes closed in an attempt to formulate his thoughts.

After a few minutes, in which the Doctor pondered his loss and the Bard put them to paper, Shakespeare leaned back in his chair and stretched the kinks out of his shoulders. "Your Rose, Doctor. How would you describe her?"

"She's my universe," he answered without hesitation. And there it was: he'd finally found the words. He'd seen the universe, and without Rose it was just a jumble of facts and figures and science. Law without meaning. Splendor without beauty. Life without living.

That's not how it works, Doctor, a tiny Rose said in his mind. Ever since they'd run into a lone Dalek in a bunker in Utah, his conscience had taken on her voice. You can miss me without being miserable, you know. The Doctor gave an inward scoff. Maybe you should find someone to talk to that isn'ta famous historical figure. Go get yourself a mate. Can't be hard, you're friendly enough. Just try to pick someone who doesn't fancy you this time.

"Hmm," Shakespeare snapped him out of his introspection, "I was inquiring of her outward appearance, but your way is much more fine," Will signed his paper with a flourish, spattering ink on his sleeve in his enthusiasm. "Of course, Doctor, your story may not yet be over. Journeys end in lovers meeting, after all."

"Maybe." How often the Doctor had daydreamed of that reunion. "Thank you, Shakespeare. You're a piece of work, you know that?"

"Just a man. But well worded, Doctor." He dipped a cloth in his drink and attempted to wipe away the ink stains. "You know, I've been enthralled by this tragic romance of yours. Lovers, crossing the stars together only to be cruelly separated? It's a masterpiece in the making, I must write more." He shuffled around on the desk, trying to find a page that wasn't already covered in his miniscule script.

The Doctor rose to leave. "I'll be off then. Don't want to distract you from this 'masterpiece in the making'." As he reached the door, his curiosity got the better of him. "I have to ask, Shakespeare. What's that you've just finished?"

"Oh, nothing of importance," he gave a flippant wave before lifting up a sheaf of parchment and extracting a blank piece. "Just an old pattern from Italy that shows promise, if worded properly. That was the–" he glanced at the numerals over his writing, "hundred and ninth, by my count. Do stop by again, Doctor, if you ever find the time," he added with a clever twinkle in his eye.

The Doctor nodded goodbye. "Shakespeare," he said, by way of farewell. As he walked down the dark and empty street on his way back to the TARDIS, he fished around in the pocket of his coat. After pushing aside a cricket ball and several small paper bags full of sweets, he managed to grasp hold of a very old book. He leaned against the blue doors of his phone box as he flipped the last few pages to Sonnet 109 and read:

"O, never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify.
As easy might I from myself depart
As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe, though in my nature reign'd
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stain'd,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my Rose; in it thou art my all."

The words were his own, passed through the mind of one of the most brilliant humans in history. The Doctor committed every syllable to memory, repeating it as he unlocked the door, arming himself with the knowledge that his love for Rose Tyler was preserved forever as a masterwork of the greatest poet of all.

He set course, once more, for London.

A/N: The above sonnet was written by the Bard himself. It's been dropped in later printings (for academic reasons), but in the original, the 'r' in 'Rose' was capitalized!