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 was dying. he couldn't breath.
"voice interface enabled." the holographic doctor said to him. his hearts panged a little.
he hadn't been a hologram since he had to say goodbye to rose.
"oh no no no no give me someone i like!" he was desperate. he didn't want his last moments alive to be filled with pain and misery.
he wanted to hear a familiar voice, any voice that made him feel better, but of course there was one person who came to mind before anyone else.
and then he saw it.
the voice interface changed and he froze. almost as if it had been reading his mind, the first person that the voice interface gave him was her.
the one and only rose tyler.
'well,' he thought to himself, 'at least she is indeed someone i like.' he couldn't stop the small, strangled cry he felt come into his throat.
he couldn't look at her. if he looked at her that meant he was acknowledging that his current face hadn't met her.
this version of himself had never met rose tyler.
he never would.
"thanks!" he cried. "give me guilt." ever the sassy doctor.
because if he stopped, if he let down his guard, even for a second, he would remember her.
and remembering just hurt. - he loved her.
he watched as he was shown himself, rose, martha, and donna and his hearts hurt each time.
there was no getting around it, the doctor had hurt many people.
the running, the hiding, the saving others he'd meet once and never see again, it was all a ruse.
he needed to distract himself from the fact that all he did was hurt people.
martha, donna, rose, jack, they all had been hurt by his hand.
'they'd all have been better off if i hadn't come into the picture.' he thought as he looked at the hologram in front of him.
"there must be SOMEONE LEFT in the universe i haven't screwed up!" he cried. it was mostly to himself, although the tardis could certainly hear him.
his mind wandered back to the first person he had been shown after himself.
rose tyler.
as much as he had messed with her life, leaving her not once but twice on the beach of a parallel universe, she had messed up his infinitely worse.
because he knew that he'd never recover from loving her, only to lose her in the end. - "amelia listen to me. i can be brave for you but you've got to tell me how." his hearts ripped in half as he spoke to little amelia pond.
he'd wanted to talk to someone.
someone specific, as always.
but he'd passed up his chance to hear her voice, because hearing rose tyler's voice was too painful.
"amelia, listen to me." he hesitated. "i can be brave for you, but you've got to tell me how."
he was brave. the doctor had faced atrocities that no one in the world should ever have to see, and he had faced them all alone.
but right now, in his dying moments he couldn't be brave alone.
and although amelia stood in front of him in voice interface form, he couldn't help but wish that he had kept the second one.
that he had kept the voice interface in the form of rose.
because as he laid there, about to die, asking amelia to show him how to be brave, he realized that the only person for whom the doctor could truly be brave was rose tyler.
and he had given up his chance to see her again, even if only in hologram for, because it just hurt too much.
