the doctor will never forget rose. not really. and though he may not speak of her, or let himself be as sad as he once was, he remembers her. even hundreds and thousands and millions and billions of years later.
the doctor will move on, not because...
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the doctor fell out of his tardis, convulsing with regeneration energy. the little child in whose backyard he's fallen, looked confused. but he's not. he knows what's happening.
"are you alright mister?" the child asked.
"no i'm fine. it's ok. this is all perfectly normal." he grunted through the last word of his sentence. she was still a child, and he didn't want to scare her.
no matter how scared he was himself.
as the regeneration convulsed out of his mouth he remembered. he couldn't stop remembering.
he watched as rose, the woman he had grown to love and adore, embraced her mother.
"don't stay out all night." she chastised.
"try and stop me." her mother answered. the doctor did everything he could to not chuckle.
he shouldn't be seen. too complicated. but as she walked back towards her flat, a sudden wave of pain hit him and he couldn't hold back a groan. she whipped around.
"you alright mate?" her voice was gentle.
"yeah."
"too much to drink?"
"something like that."
"maybe it's time you went home."
"yeah." he felt his hearts pang at her words. she had no idea that in a few short months he'd be telling her about his home, how it blew up and how he was the cause of it.
"anyway, happy new year." his hearts broke. she didn't know him.
the first time rose saw the doctor was the last time he'd ever see her.
"and you." she turned to walk away and he couldn't resist. "what year is this?"
"blimey how much have you had?" he shrugged and made a dismissive sound. "2005, january the first."
"2005?" she nodded. "tell you what. i bet you're gonna have a really great year."
"yeah?" her smile came back and he nodded, glad that she had noticed him standing there. "see ya."
with that, rose tyler ran away from the doctor and back to her flat, sparing him one last glance, and that was the last time he'd ever see her.
he remembered the way he felt as he entered the tardis, knowing that the first and last face he saw as this version of himself was a face he could never see again.
he'd never know her as this version of himself.
and he didn't have her to even figure out who this version of himself even was. - "the crack isn't in the wall."
"where is it then?"
"everywhere. and everything. it's a streak in the skin of the world." he told her. "two parts of space and time that should never have touched."
he placed his ear up to the wall and ran his hand over the crack.
although he heard the words, he heard the "prisoner zero has escaped" that amy had been hearing, he also found himself imagining another voice.
a voice he had just recently heard, and thought he would never hear again.
"take me back! take me back!" it was faint, very faint. and he knew it wasn't really there. "take me back!"
he could almost hear the faint sound of thumping against the wall.
instantly he knew what it was.
it wasn't actually there. his regeneration brain was focused on the last person he saw before he was forced to regenerate.
'rose.' the doctor thought to himself.
it took everything in him not to open the crack and go to her.
but he shook his head, trying to clear the thoughts of her out of his still freshly cooking brain.
he couldn't bear to think of her anymore.
so instead of thinking about the fact that he just imagined hearing rose tyler through the crack in amelia pond's wall, he continues on, trying to help this little girl figure out what is going in her bedroom.
he pushed it down, the feelings of sadness that came along with thinking about her he'd never be able to get rid of, and he forgot.
he forgot, because forgetting was easier, and remembering rose tyler, in any way, would always hurt. - "is this world protected?" the doctor watched as they scanned the history of the world in front of him.
the daleks, the cybermen. every single alien he'd ever fought off.
"cause you're not the first lot to have come here."
not even remotely. the doctor was angry. properly, truly angry.
he was alone in the universe, somewhere in the late 2000's, and he didn't have anyone to turn to.
he'd had to say goodbye to all his friends, to rose.
and now this creature, this THING had the audacity to threaten the world that he tried so hard to protect.
the world that he had given up rose tyler to save.
not gonna happen.
"oh there have been so many." he couldn't help but think back to the events that felt like they had taken place just moments before.
"ROSE!"he was screaming, but he couldn't stop her.
rose tyler was falling.
"ROSE! HOLD ON!" the doctor reached his hand out and tried to grab her, but she was too far.
and she was slipping. she was heading towards the void.
rose tyler was falling into the void with the daleks and the cybermen, and there was nothing he could do to stop her.
the earth was protected.
he would protect those people of the earth like he wished he could've protected rose.
