Life After Death

By Kate Carter

Disclaimer: If "Doctor Who" was mine, this would have already been seen.

A/N: I apologize, but in order to get where I wanted, I had to include basically a transcript of the last scene in "Doomsday" (all right, the last Doctor/Rose scene, not the one where Donna suddenly appears) that made it a bit longer (a lot longer) than I intended. I, however, feel that it was well worth it, and I hope you feel the same.

Insane "Doomsday" spoilers, Ten/Rose, just like everything else I've done so far (I'll do something different eventually, I promise!)

Rose stared at the place where he'd been. Then the tears came, and there was no stopping them. She turned to see her family, and saw her mother running towards her. She ran to meet her, and they hugged, Rose clinging to her mother.

She didn't notice the jolt as her knees gave out and she hit the ground; she was too busy sobbing. Her father and Mickey joined them, crouching down onto the sandy beach, Mickey gripping her shoulder, her father rubbing her back, as her mother continued to hold her. They had the good sense not to bother whispering words of comfort; no silly platitudes, no "It'll be all rights" came from them. They knew that for Rose, things would never be all right again.

When the rift closed, she'd sobbed, and banged the wall, until a voice, a heartbreakingly familiar voice, seemed to whisper in the back of her mind. "Rose." She froze for a second, unable to believe it, and then she pressed her face to the wall. "Rose, I'm coming. I'll find a way. I'll get to you, I promise," he said in her mind, and she believed him, because he had never failed to keep his promises.

Pete took them to his new mansion, purchased after the Cybermen had attacked, and she spent the next two weeks staring off into space. Jackie had to remind her to eat, and once to take a shower. After half an hour in the shower though, Jackie began to fear that Rose had found a way to drown herself. She knocked on the door to the bathroom and slowly opened it. "Rose? You all right?" she asked cautiously. There was no answer. She warily opened the shower curtain, steeling herself for whatever she was about to see.

Rose was sitting in the corner of the shower, curled up into a fetal position, staring at the wall, where the spray from the shower was hitting the wall. "Rain," she said dully, as she watched it. "He kissed me for the first time in the rain."

Jackie shut off the water and got her a towel. "Come on, dear, let's go get some tea," she said quietly.

Three weeks after the rift had closed, Rose accepted the offer to work with Torchwood, although she refused to set foot in the room that had been used to transport them between the universes.

Six months after the rift had closed, Rose had a dream. Except, it wasn't a true dream, because those aren't real, those are just something your brain makes up. But the voice calling her name, telling her where to go, it wasn't made up. It was real. She believed it, and her parents and Mickey did too. They left that night, the love they had for her so strong that they didn't complain about packing up and leaving at three in the morning.

Four days later, they were there.

She stood on the beach, not knowing what to do next, when the slightest whisper drew her attention. And he was there. Transparent, but there. She knew he would be. "Where are you?" she asked; because it was pretty obvious he wasn't really there, where she'd hoped.

"Inside the TARDIS. There's one tiny little gap in the universe left, just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection, I'm in orbit around a supernova. I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye," he said with a little not-quite-half-laugh.

"You look like a ghost," Rose said quietly, still not believing.

"Hold on." He adjusted the sonic screwdriver, pointed it at something she couldn't see, and then he was there, solid, standing on the beach. His face was filled with sorrow, the saddest she'd ever seen it. There seemed to be a few more lines around his eyes, the eyes that had always been so old in such a young face. She walked forward and stopped, less than two feet away. "Can I…?" she asked hesitantly, reaching out for him. Before she could touch him, he shook his head. "I'm still just an image," he said sadly. "No touch."

"Can't you come through properly?" she asked plaintively. He shook his head. "The whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse."

"So?" she asked. He smiled a bit at that. She sighed and looked away for a second. He looked at her, making sure his memory was right, and he knew every detail of her. She looked back at him, and for a second, they just watched each other. She was struggling not to cry.

"Where are we?" the Doctor finally said. "Where did the gap come out?"

"We're in Norway," Rose told him. He nodded his head a bit. "Norway, right."

"About fifty miles out of Bergen," she continued. "It's called 'Darlig Ulv Stranden.'"

"Dalek?" he asked, surprised. "Darlig," she corrected, with a hint of a smile. "It's Norwegian for 'bad.' This translates as 'Bad Wolf Bay,'" she said, laughing slightly. When she looked at him again, her eyes were filled with tears. "How long have you got?" she asked, her voice cracking. "About two minutes," he said. She ran her hand through her hair. "I can't think of what to say!"

He smiled and glanced down, also not knowing what to say. He looked behind her and saw her family. "You've still got Mr. Mickey, then," he commented. "There's five of us now," she told him. "Mum, Dad, Mickey…and the baby."

Shock filled his face. "You're not…?" he asked, for a horrible second leaping to the conclusion that she had forgotten him, or hadn't loved him the way he had her.

She shook her head and laughed a little. "No, it's Mum. She's three months gone. More Tylers on the way."

Relief filled him, although he didn't show it. "And what about you?"

"Yeah, I'm, I'm back working in the shop."

"Oh, good for you," he said blankly. That wasn't quite what he'd been expecting.

"Shut up," she told him, and had he actually been there, he would have received a whack on the arm for his trouble. "No, I'm not. See the Torchwood on this planet, it's open for business. I think I know a thing or two about aliens."

He smiled then, his pride in her filling his face. "Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth!" he said proudly. Her eyes were beginning to fill with tears again.

"You're dead. Officially, back home. So many people died that day and you've gone missing. You're on the list of the dead." She glanced down again, and then back up at him, wiping away the tears that were beginning to leak out. "Here you are," he continued. "Living your life day after day. The one adventure I could never have," he said wistfully.

She lost the struggle to avoid crying. "Am I ever going to see you again?" she asked. He shook his head sadly. "You can't."

"What are you going to do?" she asked. Without me?

"Oh, I've got the TARDIS. Same old life, last of the Time Lords," he said, trying to make his tone as light as possible.

"On your own?" she asked, sniffing.

He didn't say anything, just nodded, but the look in his eyes told her how can I ever replace you, Rose Tyler?

Time was running out, she knew it, and she had to tell him, had to let him know. "I-" her voice broke. She took a breath and tried again. "I love you," she said, her voice wobbling all over the place.

"Quite right too," he said with a hint of his cheeky grin. It made her smile, which is what he'd wanted it to do.

"And, I suppose…if it's my last chance to say it…" He stared deeply into her eyes, his emotions coming through to his face. "Rose Tyler-"

And he was gone.

Rose stared at the place where he'd been. Then the tears came, and there was no stopping them. She turned to see her family, and saw her mother running towards her. She ran to meet her, and they hugged, Rose clinging to her mother.

She didn't notice the jolt as her knees gave out and she hit the ground; she was too busy sobbing. Her father and Mickey joined them, crouching down onto the sandy beach, Mickey gripping her shoulder, her father rubbing her back, as her mother continued to hold her. They had the good sense not to bother whispering words of comfort; no silly platitudes, no "It'll be all rights" came from them. They knew that for Rose, things would never be all right again.

And then she heard it.

The glorious, wonderful, heart-stopping sound that she had thought she would never hear again.

It was the TARDIS.

She froze for a second, pulled herself back up onto her feet, and stared in shock as it materialized a hundred yards away.

And then she was running, and the door was opening, and he was there, and he was real, and he was solid, and he flung his arms out and caught her as she raced to him, and then he held onto her, clinging to her as much as she clung to him, her face buried in his neck, his buried in her hair, and she sobbed, and he sobbed, and they clung together.

After several minutes, they finally calmed down enough that they could begin to speak, and he looked in her eyes, and he whispered, "I was going to say, I love you."

And she hit him.

"Ow! What was that for?!" he said, releasing her and rubbing his shoulder where she'd punched him.

"You told me I was never going to see you again! You said it! And now here you are, five minutes later!" she yelled, looking very much like her mother's daughter.

"It's been ten years, Rose," he said quietly, looking at her. "It's been ten years since you were trapped in this universe."

"Oh, Gawd…" she moaned, wrapping her arms around him again. "I'm sorry, but how did you…?"

He looked down at her. "I never gave up. I kept looking for a way through, hoping there was some way I could do it without ripping a hole in the universes.

"Finally, I found one. There was a red giant going into supernova not too far from a black hole. When it threw off the gases, the black hole attracted them, and for just a split second, the rift opened up. When the next wave of gases hit it, I joined them, and I made it. Landed three hundred years ago, managed to repair the TARDIS just enough to get me here."

Rose realized what he was saying. "You could have been killed!" she said, hitting him again.

He looked at her. "It was worth it," he said simply.

"So…wait…" she said, thinking of what he'd just told her. "Does that mean you're trapped here?"

He nodded. "It does."

"What do you mean, repair the TARDIS?" she asked.

He grinned ruefully. "Well, let's just say that being sucked into a black hole with the remnants of a supernova wasn't exactly healthy for it."

She sighed, and buried her face into his chest again. "Ten years?" she said, the sound muffled.

"Ten years."

"All by yourself?"

"Not entirely. I ran into a few people, completely by accident. But there was never anyone like you, Rose Tyler. That's why I spent all this time searching for a way to get to you. It was you who kept me going, you who kept me fighting," he told her, pulling her chin up to look at her. "I was never alone, because I always had the thought of you."

She sniffed. "So what now?"

"That's up to you. The TARDIS is going to need some repairs, though, I don't think she'll get very far as she is."

"In that case," Rose said, slipping her hand in his, "let's go home."

A/N: Wow. Way longer than I intended it. But it turned out all right, I'm pleased. Please review, because reviews make my life happy, and they help give me ideas, and ideas equal stories!