A/N: WARNING! (Please Read) This will have mentions of suicide and just overall very, very sad themes. Please click away now if you don't want to see these things. On a happier note, I saw the Thor movie last night and it was fantastic. :) But uh, yeah. This is a pretty sad story. It takes place after Doomsday, of course. Enjoy anyways and review!

The gun was eye-level with him.

It was tempting, if he was honest. It was a way out, always an option that had always been there. Regeneration made it more difficult, but the option was still there. Two shots to both hearts would end his nine-hundred year life. Ever since Rose Tyler had been taken into the parallel universe his life had been like this. Waking up, not bothering to shower, staring the gun down.

As if he'd ever shoot himself.

Nine hundred years and that was one of the only constants; the Doctor had always been a coward. Would always be a coward. He pictured his Rose in front of him, no, that wast right, not his Rose, just Rose. He pictured Rose in front of him calling him a coward over and over again. Rose picked up the gun and pointed it at him, counting down to the moment when she would shoot him. He sighed and flew his hand across the console, the gun clattering onto the metal flooring. Collapsing on the TARDIS console, he allowed the ship to send him comforting messages. That was another one of the constants in his life, his ship being way too good to him. Obviously he didn't deserve the TARDIS's stupid kindness. The ship had loved Rose, the bad wolf, why would she be nice to the man who had gotten rid of Rose?

His stomach rumbled, interrupting his thoughts. He was starving. Of course he was starving, what was the last thing he had eaten? It must have been a while ago, he thought. While his feet dragged him to the kitchen, his hands death-gripped the hallway railing so he wouldn't fall down. For some reason, his thoughts drifted to a zombie movie he had seen a hundred years ago. Brainless, thoughtless, slow, worthless, was he a zombie now? Was that what he had become? Suddenly he stopped walking and banged his head on the railing, hard.

"DAMN YOU!" He screamed at himself, tears falling everywhere. "You're so stupid, so, so stupid! How could you be so dumb? Blew up your own planet... Killed off or lost anyone or anything that could possibly EVER love you, except this dumb ship!" His fists got bloodied as he banged them on the wall of the TARDIS whose humming got quiet. "Why'd you have to fall in love with Rose... Not like it would ever work out. Not like she even loved you back, not really."

Before he knew where he was he had stormed back into the console room, only to find that the gun was now missing from the floor. "Give me the gun," He commanded his ship.

Nothing happened.

"I said, give me the gun. GIVE IT NOW!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking and his head on fire, burning, raging.

Blood clouded his eyes and his clothes were tattered as he fell onto the console floor in a ball, sobbing full of anger at himself. "I just want to die..." He whispered. "All I want is to die, for this all to be over... Humans risk their lives to live longer, I'm blessed with such a long life, and what do I do with it? I find a way to make it into a curse... The ultimate curse... Heart being broken OVER and OVER and OVER..."

The gun appeared across the room. His eyes widened.

Everything was blurred as his feet picked him up. He marched solemnly across the room, this time without a thought in his head, only the feeling of pain and rage. His hand landed on the console to support his walk, and something unexpected happened. A small blue button was pushed down and a hologram appeared, simply a floating blue message.

WATCH RECORDED HOLOGRAM?

His eyes flickered away from the gun and onto the message and his eyes widened. What was this? When had he recorded a hologram message? Was it just one of his old emergency protocols? He glanced around the room as if expecting to see someone standing there before speaking, "Yes."

Rose appeared, her beautiful face already lifting his mood as she glared down at something invisible to him. Her eyebrows were scrunched together as she mumbled, "Is this working?" Suddenly she looked up, directly at him, and he couldn't prevent the smile that floated onto his face.

Even though the very image of her made him want to curl up and die, it also made him feel like he could grow wings and fly. "Okay, I'm just going to assume this is working," She laughed a little, the sound filling his mind. His entire body numbed as he listened to her words. "Hey, Doctor, so uh, I'm leaving you this message. The TARDIS told me she'd only give it to you after I'm gone. I hope she keeps that promise."

"I know my time with you is limited. Right now, for me anyways, you're in the shower singing Bohemian Rhapsody, but some day I won't even be able to hear you do that. Well, maybe that's a good thing, you're not the best singer," A small smile graced her face but disappeared just as quickly. "I won't be with you forever. I'm human, you're not. And..."

"Whether I've died in your arms... Or for some crazy reason decided to leave you..."

"Or I was killed in battle... Even if I died of disease or injury..."

"You need to listen to this entire video, even if it hurts you. I know you like to run away, but you have to listen. So make me a promise now, okay?"

He stared at her hologram, mouth slightly agape and tears falling onto his feet and chest from his face. He nodded quickly, wondering if she could see him in some mystical way. "I promise."

"No matter how I died or left, I love you. You probably never believed that I loved you. I always have and always will love you, even now, in your time, I love you, wherever I am. Your ship loves you too, I know that, so treat her well as well. I thought I knew what love was when I was with Mickey. And, I sort of did. I loved him, in a completely different way. More as a friend. But after I met you..." Rose sniffed and tears came to her eyes.

The Doctor reached forward to wipe away her tears but his hand went right through her face and she faded for half a second. "After I met you I learned what true love is. It's when you can't live without them. It's when your happiness is completely dependent upon the happiness of the other person. It's when they grab your hand and whisper run, and talk at a million miles per hour. It's when they stroke bits of the TARDIS and would do anything to keep you safe. It's when they show you the entire universe and make you smile and laugh and feel better than you have in the rest of your life."

"And thing is, love is personal. It's completely different for everyone. For me, that's love. No other person in the world could do those things the way you do them, and nobody will ever, ever replace you. And I can only hope for you that someone will replace me." The Doctor tilted his head out of confusion and stared at her when she stopped to sniff. "Now knowing you you're probably really confused since you want to argue with that, but let me explain. I hope, I hope to God, that someone will replace me in your life. I hope you love someone else. Not the same love, because like I said, it's personal. Nobody will every love you the same way I did, or nearly as much as I did. But they can still love you and can still fill the emptiness. So, please... Don't be alone, Doctor. Don't ever be alone, you don't deserve it."

"I'm not done yet though... There's just a few more things. Honestly, I have no idea what situation you'll be in when you see this hologram."

The Doctor glanced down at the gun to his right and sobbed. Rose kept talking. "Maybe you're already happy with someone else and this means nothing. But just in case, I need to tell you more things too. I have to tell them for my sake as well, just to get them out. I know you destroyed your home world, your people, the Daleks, and some others. I know you're carrying the guilt of so many lives, so many souls. I can't pretend to know what that's like, trust me, I have no clue. But I do know you need to stop feeling that guilt. Yes, you should remember them, they should always be remembered, but if any single one of them could feel even a fraction of what you're feeling then they'd forgive you, because nobody should have to feel like that."

Rose turned around for a moment, "Oh, I think you're out of the shower. I'll have to hurry this up. Don't be sad, Doctor. Be happy. Um, this is going to sound really cheesy... Maybe I won't say it..." She laughed a little to herself and shook her head.

"Please say it," The Doctor whispered to the hologram, moving himself a little to his left afraid from the gun, now scared of it.

"Screw it, I'll say it. When I was a kid I read this Dr. Seuss book and there was this line that I've always remembered... I liked to live by it. My dad read it to me the first time, but then I read it by myself a few years later... My mum said my dad had the line on his wall."

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

The younger version of the Doctor entered the hologram, in his usual pinstripe suit with a towel covering his crazy hair. He smiled at her and examined the console. "What are you doing, Rose?"

"Give me a few minutes, please," She said politely to the hologram Doctor.

He didn't leave, instead he put his finger to her face and wiped away a tear, staring at his finger as if he couldn't believe it was now wet. "Have you been crying? Rose, wha-"

"Just like, three minutes, please."

The hologram Doctor hesitated for a minute before nodding and leaving. Rose turned back towards the tattered Doctor and continued talking. "Sorry about that. Blimey, I don't even know if you'll be in the same body when you see this. Anyways, I'll wrap this up. Never forget me, but get over me, is my point. And... Could you carry something around with you? I guess that sounds pretty dumb considering you could be way over me when you see this video, or maybe you won't even care about me anymore..."

"That'll never happen," The Doctor whispered.

"It'd mean a lot to me knowing you'll carry something around to remember me by. I only made this to... Well, I'm not really sure why I made this. I guess I made it mostly for myself. I'd like to know, in the moment of my death, that you'll never forget me and that you'll know that I... I love you, Doctor. I love you so much. I love you more than the whole universe and the entire scheme of Gods and Devils and Angels, I don't care if I'm dead, I still love you from wherever and whenever I am. I really don't care where I end up or you end up as long as we're together for every possible moment that we can be. God, I just wish I could tell you that now. Why can't I tell you that now?"

Another tear fell from her eye as her voice cracked at her last question. "If there wasn't the risk of losing our friendship that I treasure so much then I would go over there and kiss you right now. Cheesy, isn't it? I never even dreamed I'd meet a man as great as you... As fantastic as you... Thought I'd be a shop girl forever. Because the truth is it wasn't the universe that mattered. Sure, it's great, it's vast, it's beautiful. But if it wasn't you who had shown me the universe... My life wouldn't be the same. So, my point is, don't be alone. I love you, find someone, be happy. Live a great life. And... While you're at it, go to a star for me. I'll be with you. I'd still kind of like to see Barcelona, yeah?..."

The old Doctor walked back into the frame in the background without a towel this time, staring at her. Rose put her finger on the console and stared directly at the beaten-up Doctor and whispered, "I love you."

Then she was gone.

He was completely silent as he stared at the spot where Rose's hologram had been. Suddenly, a pop came from the TARDIS and he turned around to see a VHS tape with the video hologram on it. It looked like a normal VHS tape, however, on the back, he noticed a tiny little note. It was handwritten on a perfectly cut square of regular computer paper. A little plastic rose was taped on the note, and the handwriting he recognized as hers read in Gallifreyan, "I love you." Quietly he took the little rose off of the paper and put it in his coat pocket, smiling a little at how well it fit in there. He took the tape and walked down the TARDIS hall to the memory room, placing the tape in there.

As he walked back into the console room, not sure what to do next, his foot kicked the gun that was still laying on the floor. He knelt down slowly, picking it up and running his left thumb over the head of the gun. Cautiously cradling it in both hands, he walked over to the police box doors and opened them. He took one long last look at the gun before tossing it out into space carelessly, slamming the door when it was gone.

It took him a minute to realize he was hyperventilating, and he calmed his breaths down before walking back to the console. Placing his hands on the familiar levers and buttons, he made a decision. The TARDIS made its satisfying whooshing sound before it landed, and the Doctor stepped out of the doors with a big breath. Blue grass spread out in front of him, nicely contrasting with the brown tree trunks without leaves and light gray sky. As he took his first few steps onto the new planet, something bounded up to him. A golden-retriever looking dog grinned up at him, completely noseless.

"You're adorable..." The Doctor mumbled, patting the dog on top of the head. "What do you think, Rose?"

Tears fell from his eyes as he stared at the dog and looked over the planet. He could practically picture Rose running around, wandering off, asking him questions about everything only to get long rambles in reply. Though she had always liked his rambles. The dog rubbed it's head against his leg and he hugged it tight, murmuring comforting words. "You're a good dog... Oh, why'd she have to leave?"

The Doctor sat cross legged, the dog on his lap, while he stared up at the trees and sobbed. What he couldn't see was a human girl walk up behind him, leaning against the police box doors and smiling at him.

"Dogs with no noses, you were right!"