The Doctor didn't talk about his companions. Once they were gone, their names were never again mentioned. As new people joined him, he focused on his adventures with them, and they might never have known that there was anyone that came before them. So many grand companions, so many amazing people, so many fantastic, brilliant, incredible people were lost in their stories and became names that would never be spoken again in that incredible blue box that was so much bigger on the inside.

But the Doctor talked about Rose. He spoke of her all the time, to anyone and everyone who would listen and even those who weren't really paying attention at all. He told Donna about her, he told Martha. He remembered her and told her story to thin air. Her kindness and her courage, her wit and her charm, her comfort and her compassion. He remembered it all, and if there was one thing he could do, it was talk. He couldn't stop when she was involved. She would know what to do in this situation. She would have already pieced together what he had missed. And do you know why that was?

Because she was his equal, and he loved her with both of his hearts. Rose Tyler, defender of Earth, wasn't truly a companion, because that insinuates that she was just along for the ride and, if something went wrong, she would be the victim. Rose Tyler wasn't a victim, and she wasn't along for the ride. She was a warrior, a savior to so many people including the Doctor himself. She sought the danger and the adventure that he lived for, she needed to help people and save the world like he did, and this strange, brave, imperfect pink and yellow human was everything he needed. She had saved him, a lonely and broken man born in the hateful fires of war, and given him new hope and the chance to live again, to be something besides a killer. She fixed him.

And so he talked about her. He talked about that reckless, intelligent human. That brave, irresponsible girl. The beautiful, stubborn woman that he had come to love without ever realizing it had happened. She was forgiveness and kindness, acceptance and understanding. She was the embodiment of all things that he so desperately sought, and though it wasn't fair of him to ask for her forgiveness when his sin had been so terrible, she gave it without a second thought. She trusted him implicitly, and for any person to do that was enough to bring this hardened man to tears. That strange woman would have given her life in an instant to save him, and she vowed never to leave him because to do so would be to let him be alone in this vast world again, where he would sink back into the depression that so often accompanied loneliness. Her every thought became for him, and his for her.

Imagine having all of that stripped away from you in the blink of an eye. That person who would do anything at all for you, who was so flawed and yet at the same time so perfect. Just...gone. The one who saved your life was pulled viciously away from you, and there was nothing you could do to save them. You didn't even get the chance to tell them how much you needed them, how much you loved them, and they had just vanished. The Doctor had to suffer through that. He lost Rose, the woman who had saved him and defended the Earth, and more importantly, the woman that loved him and had convinced him to love himself.

Wouldn't you talk?