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Rose Tyler, despite what many people may think, is a smart woman. She thinks it may be easy to forget that when she’s like this, but she’s not stupid. She’s just sad. It’s tough, for the first few months but there’s hope. Because the Doctor wouldn’t just give up like that, she knows him, and she knows he’ll find a way back to her, find her a way back to him.
People seem to forget she’s smart when she talks about her life with the Doctor as if it isn’t over. She sees the looks, the pity they all have on their faces. And she hates it, the pity burns because they might be right. But she doesn’t lose hope, she never has, not in the Doctor.
And then she hears it. Him. She hears him. Her Doctor- and he’s calling to her. So she does the only thing she can; answer it.
It takes forever.
It takes 3 days.
But it feels like forever.
It doesn’t matter that it’s now been months without him.
Everything feels like forever without her Doctor.
But that’s okay because he’s calling her.
And then- after three days- there he is.
Standing on a beach in Norway. Except he’s not actually there. And when Rose sees that thin projection and feels like she’s already staring at an afterimage, some part of her, deep inside, breaks. It fractures slowly, gently, the heart around it too fragile to jostle. He didn’t come to take her. He can’t take her. She thinks it may hurt worse that he wants to.
Rose stands there crying as he says he’s burning a universe to say goodbye. She would burn them all to have him again, but that’s not her choice to make.
She tells him she loves him. It’s all she can do. He knew, and she knew he knew but she needed to say it. More than that though, she needed him to hear it. Her heart stops when he starts talking again. His every word cuts painfully and she can barely breathe. She wishes he hadn’t, that he wouldn’t. It would be better to believe that he didn’t love her like that. That there was never a chance for them. That more than just the universe was keeping them apart. Rose shuts her eyes as he says her name, bracing for impact and knowing she’ll never be the same and then-
He’s gone. He’s gone and she didn’t see him leave. She already misses his eyes and she wishes she had been looking into them when he disappeared. Rose falls to the ground before she can take a step and her mother is by her side in an instant. She doesn’t feel them move, she barely processes when they get back in the truck and drive back.
Rose feels numb.
The months after her and the doctor got separated were rough, the months after they said goodbye were hell.
He loved her. They could’ve been together if they hadn’t been separated. Because he loved her and she loved him. God she loved him.
It felt like her life had been split. Not by her adventures, or by the new dimension, but by him. Rose Tyler thinks her life could officially be separated into ‘before the Doctor’ and ‘after the Doctor’. They were together, and they knew each other, and they loved each other, they were close to conjoined. And Rose isn’t sure she can survive the separation. But she has to. Because what other choice does she have? So she picks herself back up, she starts moving because nothing good comes from standing still. She knows this because Rose Tyler is a smart woman.
But it hurts.