Warning: Post-doomsday angst!

A single drop of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, laced with a little amount of potassium chloride- that was nowhere close to expressing the loss he had suffered- the loss of Rose Tyler, his Rose, his best friend, his undefined definition of happiness. The soft mournful hum of the TARDIS, the dying breathe of a supernova, the haunting beats of two weary hearts, and the echoes of the cadence of her breathe in his vast lonely empty ship- that was all he could feel anymore in the whole of space and time. All that was left to tie him to humanity, to kindness, to life, was a room at the end of the corridor that we vowed never to enter again- complete with the few photographs that he had collected from her tiny apartment before the government declared her dead and seized the property and snatched from his reach all the memories of the moments they once shared there that made him grateful for domestics for once in his life, the pink fluffy pillows that still smelt like her- strawberry and sweat and innocence- and had caught his tears the way she would have had she still been there, a few items of clothing scattered on the floor without a pink and yellow human with golden locks to wear them and look like the brightest star across the galaxies- one such purple jumper currently in the console room with him.

That was what life without Rose Tyler was going to be like- virtually time locked in the past while the future raced past him till the end of time.

"I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of."

No. She could not believe that he would just give up on her, on them, at the blink of an eye and the press of a button on a certain yellow disc. He was the most brilliant man in the Universe, and he would find a way back to her like he always did. That's who they were- the stuff of legends. He was going to come back. He always did, he always would. Yes, he would.

"Alright, Jake, fire up the Dimension Canon again."

"Rose."

She was tired of the exasperation and the pity she could hear in their voices, that only increased in intensity with each failed attempt at making the jump across the universes. The dimension canon was going to work, she would make sure it did, no matter what it took, no matter how many aliens she had to interrogate and how many books she had to read. She was going to do it. She believed in herself, just like he did, and they couldn't be both wrong.

"I'm ready."

Commands were shouted, buttons pressed hastily on machines, fingers typed out instructions on the super computers, the beam of light focused on her.

And nothing.

With the disc clutched close to her chest, its taunting uselessness burning into the walls of her frozen heart, her eyelashes fluttered shut to hold back the tear that was threatening to fall. With her eyes closed, she could see him, smiling, holding his arms out for her, wriggling his fingers, licking a wall, raising an eyebrow. And yet, time was taking its toll on the details with each day that passed her by, erasing her memory of which shoes she wore on their first trip to New Earth, or how the corners of his eyes wrinkled when he was sad or how his voice sounded when her mother was being particularly questioning. Images fading slowly like a water-color painting dipped into the vast cruel oceans and at the mercy of the treacherous waves, universes sealed and Rose Tyler trapped on the wrong side of the void- this was not how it should have been.

He would come back. He had to. He had to.

"Come back! Even as a shadow, even as a dream!"

The eclipse of Karhoon's purple sun was one of the most exquisite sights he had ever seen, and no matter how many times he saw it, it always invoked a sense of deep awe inside his very being- beauty and danger painted perfectly in a crimson sky. "Remember the last time we came here, Rose?"

Oh.

Two seconds later he remembered that she wasn't there, and he was talking to himself, again. A small, irrational, rebellious part of him that dared to dream, to believe the universe was capable of surprising him with miracles and impossible feats, always felt that she could hear him, wherever he was, however she was. No, he decided swiftly, she was happy, she had to be. Rose Tyler, defender of the earth, he was so proud of her. He couldn't see her, or hear her, but he was certain that she knew, that if she could still dream, she would find herself with him again every now and then.

And he could dream too, with his eyes wide open, with the ghost of the past holding his hand, and having a conversation with himself. "You had fish and chips while watching that. I had bananas." A smile tugged at his lips at the memory of her gasps, her questions, her amazement at the sight in front of them. He could see the world through her eyes in a way he had never seen before- it was more hopeful, more alive, than it had ever been. He was more hopeful and more alive than he had ever been, with a hand to hold and a friend to share a companionable life with. "It was a good day, wasn't it?"

He was answered by only the silence and a reluctant moon leaving the sun with a whine.

"I missed you every hour. And you know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. I'd catch myself just walking around to find you, not for any reason, just out of habit, because I'd seen something that I wanted to tell you about or because I wanted to hear your voice. And then I'd realize that you weren't there anymore, and every time, every single time, it was like having the wind knocked out of me."

There was this blonde brilliant woman, John Smith was sure of it. He didn't know who she was, or what she meant to him, but he knew she had been the most important thing in his life somehow- his salvation, and his punishment, molded into one entity, and embedded deep inside his heart. Matron Joan Redfern reminded him of her a bit-brave and compassinate and something that tugged at the strings of his soul.

But she wasn't quite that girl, and he missed her every day, this woman, this precious creature that he could not even remember. He would wake up with the words "Bad wolf" echoing in his head sometimes, a vague sound of laughter that seemed sweeter than the songs of nightingales, and his heart would clench like it was missing something indispensible.

He was missing something indispensible, even if he didn't know what it was.

"You want the sad truth? Even if I forget you, I'll always miss you."

A perfect Rose. With fluttering eyelashes that made his heart melt and tempting clothes that were scandalous for that century. His Rose. No matter how many times he dreamt of her and how hard he tried to capture her image in paper and ink, her elusive beauty always evaded him.

He dreamt of her every night, in the blue box with the mad man in the leather jacket, with robots and green monsters and human-like plastic toys - and with him, hand in hand, arms in arms, or locked in long embraces that were never quite long enough. "How long will you stay with me?" He had asked, and she had said "Forever" in response- one simple word that made him feel so connected to the atoms of her being.

And yet, he woke up every morning to his cold, empty bed, with his journal of impossible things mocking him from its place on the night stand. He wondered if that was the day he would stumble upon her, if she would mysteriously come to life and come to him. But as the days wore on and there was no trace of her, it became clearer that his life wasn't an impossible fairytale like it seemed in his dreams.

A perfect Rose. He did not know who she was or how he knew her, or if she was even real to begin with, which he doubted sometimes, because she was far too brilliant and far too fantastic to be true, to be more than a figment of his imagination that dwelled in his vivid dreams. But he knew he loved her, whoever she was, wherever she was. And he would always take her hand and tell her to run. They would run through impossible places- never ending stairs, bridges between stars, a land made of stones, and he would feel so happy.

"You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you. That's where I'll be waiting."

He was afraid to look behind him, afraid it was another dream, or The Flesh, or The Autons, or some other cruel trick of the Universe that was trying to give him hope and take it all away yet again. Because, it was just not possible that he would meet Rose Tyler in this life again outside of the rare few vulnerable hours of sleep.

Eyes wide and captivated by the smile on her face, an ever-familiar smile that he had memorized and thought he would never be at the receiving end of again, he was aware of every micro-second passing by, till his legs caught up with his brain and he started running.

Stars were going out, Daleks were everywhere, planets were missing, the universe was ending, and he was here with his Rose. He should have known that he would always come running back to her in the end.

"If you think of someone enough, you're sure to meet them again."

Bad Wolf Bay was the definition of mixed emotions for him. On one hand, he had saved the world and offered his Rose a normal, happy life alongside her family and the other him. And on the other hand, he had to watch her soft lips caress those of the one who was him, but not him.

And he had to walk away. From her. Again.

He never thought it could be so fulfilling and exhausting and soul-crushing and heart-warming, all at the same time. He never knew if he could get over these feelings. But he knew one thing with the utmost clarity- he would love her, forever. Hers was the first face this face had seen, and before it was time to say goodbye to it, he would go back and meet her, so that hers would be the last face he saw as well. He would see her again. Until then.

Until then.

"I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday."

Thirty five years gone, and this Universe still felt wrong, the human body still felt lacking, and the only thing that made him feel complete was Rose. Rose Marion Tyler- Smith. Lighting up the Bad Wolf Bay with every smile and every wrinkle on her face after all these years. They both knew what was coming, and he knew he couldn't run from it anymore. "Rose, I need to tell you something, before it's too late."

She plucked a strand of grey hair from his scalp just to make him yelp. "Don't be daft, you're not dying, I'm not killing you. Don't fancy a trip to the jail at this age, thank you very much."

She had picked up his distraction tactics rather perfectly over the years. But he couldn't stop, not at that moment. It felt like a fixed point in time, and he needed to say it. "This is serious, please."

She looked him straight in the eye. The waves made a rumbling sound, like a siren from a far away star, screeching out a warning to her, and she knew everything was about to change. "You're going to tell me something that you should have told me years back and hope that I don't hate you for it, yeah?"

A wave crashed against the soles of their feet, getting their converses drenched, and he could feel the sand receding from under his feet in the silence that followed between his response. "Yeah."

She took his hand then, tracing her finger along the ring. "We've been married for thirty years. I already hate you, ha, too late!"

He couldn't do it if she was being so her. "If you're done being cheeky..."

Two more waves- hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye, she could hear them speaking to her. The roar of the water and the wail of the wind. Her eyes grew misty. "Yes." Another wave, and she couldn't bear his proximity that seemed to melt his like a wax doll. She turned to face the ocean, challenging it to swallow her up if it dared. It didn't, it only kept caressing their feet. "I've wondered why you... he left us here. Sometimes. In the beginning, I mean. I knew if we were both human, we could have just travelled with him till we died. That wasn't the whole reason for leaving us in another universe. Figured that out a long time back."

He sat down on the sand, writing their names down in Galifreyan, imprinting their existence on this place till it was erased, as all things are eventually. "Blimey, you know me too well. All these years and you never asked?"

She shook her head, unsure if she knew how to answer, unsure if she wanted to know. Her eyes traced the weakening sun that was crawling towards the horizon. He had taken her to watch the eclipse on Karhoon once, the purple sun in the crimson sky looking threatening and captivating. If words could be painted across the sky at the moment, she was sure what was to come would look the same way.

"He..." The words died on his lips, and once again he felt like he could sense the rotation of the earth and the collision of past and present in tiny paradoxes. This was it. "Ood Sigma told him that his song was about to end. He was going to die. He didn't want to lose you again, or to get your hopes up and then have to let you watch him die, or worse, have you try to save him again and in the process-" The rest of that dreadful sentence clung to the edge of the tongue and couldn't make it beyond that. She had taken further steps into the water, and a wave had washed away their names. This was it. "And then the metacrisis happened, and he found his way to give you everything he wanted to give you. And more."

Rose stared at the surroundings of the place where she always had these conversations with him that changed her life. But did things really change? The sun would rise again the next day, the waves would run away from the shore during the next low tide, and the chill in the air would drop when the seasons change. Everything was growing and dying and being born and evolving and, and what mattered was that he was by her side, had been for years now, would be till the end. And it was time to let go of the other him. "Is-is he dead?"

Nine hundred and thirty five years of memories and knowledge, and only one statement from his precious girl seemed perfect as the substitute for an answer that he didn't have. "Time, Rose, is relative. It's a matter of when. 500 BC, and Napoléon hasn't even been born. 5000 AD and he's long dead. But he's alive, somewhere in between. He's always alive. Everyone is. Always."

A Rose Tyler grin against the backdrop of a gorgeous sunset had to be his new favorite thing in the world. "Forever?"

His smile mirrored hers. "Oh yes!"

-The end-

A/N: That's it! It's over! Thank you for the response! Hope you liked this! Please review! If you liked this, check out my other doctor who stories, I write fluff and angst both. :D