Another Dimension (Tenrose AU)

13: This is Goodbye

It's a dream. It's not real. I'm not back here again. No. I'm not back at this wall, this stupid, stupid wall, crying, slamming my hands against it, begging for a way back.

A way back to my Doctor.

But it's not a dream, it's completely real. I can't do it again. I can't. I can't. I can't.

This time, I really can feel my tears on the wall. They're really there.

I can't stop the tears. And I might as well give up trying, because they'll never stop. Never. Nothing will ever close the deep hole in my heart, the deep cut from where the Doctor was torn away from me, and I was left alone.

Again.

Slowly I turn away from the wall and I see a hologram in front of me - just like the one at Bad Wolf Bay. It's not real. It's just my mind. I wipe the tears from my face and push away the hologram from my head, willing it to go away.

It doesn't.

'Stay, Rose,' are the hologram's words. It's the Doctor's voice. I can't stay. I've got to go. I can't stand it anymore.

'Rose, don't leave. Please. You can't,' says the Doctor softly. I can't leave him. I force myself to stay, standing in front of the hologram, wanting to just reach out and touch him.

I know I can't.

'This is goodbye, Rose. I'm sorry.' More tears. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry you can't come back, and I'm sorry I'm not there for you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. But we only have one minute and I have things I need to say.'

One minute left. One minute left with my precious Doctor.

'Rose, the time I spent with you was the best time of all my life. I can't see you again but I want you to know that I love you and I always will, more than anything in the world. I know I can't see you again and this will never mean anything, but I have to say this.'

My heart is in my throat and I am sobbing as his hand slides into his stupid hologram pocket and he pulls out a ring.

'I've generated enough power to be able to give this to you. You have to promise me to wear it forever and forever, and I will wear mine. I would like to have the honour of asking you: Rose Tyler, will you-'

But he didn't get to say it. I know what he was going to say and he didn't get to say it. The last I have to remember my Doctor is this ring, this precious ring with Gallifreyan writing. I'll never know what it means, and I'll never care. I'll never care for anything except my Doctor.

I've never taken it off. I need to remember him and it's the only way. I can't fill that hole in my heart with anything, not anything, because nobody will ever replace the Doctor.

Nobody.

Never.

I never got to marry him.

Never.

But I love him. God, I love him so much.

And he knows.

Oh, he knows.