His True love

"How many have there been, travelling with you?" asked Rose.

"Does it matter?" The Doctor replied gruffly.

"Yes! if I'm just the latest in a long line..."

"As opposed to what?"

"I thought you and I were... well, I obviously got it wrong" replied Rose, hurt shining in her eyes.

The Doctor looked uncomfortable and didn't look at her.

He knew he should have had this talk with Rose long before now. It wasn't as though he could even remotely entertain the possibility of returning the ardent feelings she clearly had for him. He was still in love with someone else. Someone who shone like every single star in the universe put together.

Compared to her, Rose was the dim glimmer of a white dwarf star.

"Leave it Rose" he warned in as calm a voice as he could muster. He berated himself for not tackling this earlier and with tact.

He had sort of felt quite flattered by the attention he had gotten from her, but now it was becoming something of an irritation.

"No, I will not. I can't just go on like this! If you won't say it, then I will." She paused for a moment and took a deep breath, seemingly mustering all the courage she could lay her hands on in that moment.

"I love you Doctor and stupidly, I thought you loved me" she blurted out, not recognising her own voice as the words that had been so secret to her came tumbling out into the open.

The Doctor just looked at her for a moment and blinked, then, taking a big, deep sigh, he straightened up and looked her in the eye.

"I love you Rose, very much indeed. But as a friend there can't ever be anything more between us" he said softly, trying to cushion the blow as much as he could by his tone.

Her face grew pallid and a sad, broken look flickered across her face.

"Why, not? How come? It's because of that Sarah Jane isn't it?" she said, now anger and disbelief clipping syllable. Her eyes glittered with tears that she was too hurt to let fall in front of him.

The Doctor shook his head sadly.

"Then you tell me, are you in love with someone else?" she railed.

He stopped nodding and looked meaningfully at her – she was right.

"Her name was Romana, she was one of my own people, a Time Lady, I didn't want her with me at first, but in time we grew closer and we fell in love. She was the President of Gallifrey during the time of the Last Great Time War. She died, protecting our people" it was the Doctor's turn to let anguish lace his words and for sadness to fill his great dark eyes.

"I'm sorry" murmured Rose, feeling almost foolish for misjudging the situation in the first place. If she was really in love with him, then surely she would never want her own feelings to come first?

"She had exiled herself to another universe know as E-space, but returned home because of me. I wish she had never gone back to Gallifrey. She's gone forever now. I blame myself for her death. She became a martyr for her own cause... but no. It's me, I should have left her in E-space where there was a chance that she could have made it" he pressed his lips together to form one long thin line and looked firmly at the ground.

Memories of the last time he ever saw ran through his mind and choked him where he stood.

"So" Rose began tentatively after a moment or two "You two were together then?" her tone sounded more prying than sympathetic.

The Doctor looked up at this and into her eyes, a scowl creeping across his face as she stood there, pouting.

"Rose Tyler, I am over nine-hundred years old. You can assume I was with someone before I met you. But Rose, Romana was my true love. I'm not talking you and Mickey, or even what you think you feel for me. I mean, the thing that only happens once in a life time. I don't think I can feel that way for anyone again."

"I saved your life." Rose offered "I left my family for you, I left Mickey," she said coolly, as if she had all the aces.

"Surely that has to mean something" she continued.

"Nobody asked you to do those things. All I needed was a friend" he replied to her, narrowing his eyes at the sheer lack of empathy and certain lack of even trying.

She gaped at his reply, there was nothing but anger welling up inside her and utter dejection from being rejected. She simply turned on her heels and stormed out, slamming the door behind her with a thunderous crash.

He shook his head in the direction of the door she had just exited through. Rose was but a child, how could she possibly understand? It was wrong of him also to expect her to either. She was simply being true to her emotions and biological needs, like any young human, but it still irked him that she seemingly had an ability to turn her sympathy on and off.

He wasn't mad with Rose, nor would he hold it against her. Now, they both knew where they stood and in many ways he was glad that she had gotten it out of her system so that they could both move on.

The thought that she could possibly even come close to his Romana made him chuckle quietly under his breath. The love that Romana left within his hearts was the type that you never got over and never moved on from. Romana was his all and his everything, even after he had lost her, he knew that, for him, that was it.

He felt sorry for Rose, but knew there and then, quite adamantly, that sorry was all he was ever going to feel for her.