Chapter Text
The Doctor found himself, as he always does after an adventure, standing in her room. It doesn’t matter how long it's been since this room was inhabited. How many times has the TARDIS changed. How many centuries has he survived. How many faces he has worn. The room remains untouched. The bed is unmade, covered in loose clothing. Shoes are scattered across the floor. The shelves are full of pictures and alien trinkets. The vanity is piled with makeup. The room is an explosion of pink, the only place the Doctor can find peace.
He used to only come here in tears. Then only in anger. At one point, he kept the door shut for at least five hundred years. But he’s healed now, or rather, the face he last wore healed. Comforted by his once lost mate Donna, and her amazing daughter, whose name eventually stopped hurting to hear. Now he can simply enjoy the flood of memories and the subtle pain that comes with them. The Doctor sits on the pink bed, stroking the soft material, and lets himself sink into the memories of her.
The Doctor simply can’t understand how he could ever move on from Rose Tyler. Even now, that pink and yellow human still holds both of his hearts. He truly doesn’t know how long it has been since he lost her; he stopped counting at one point. He does know that in the time since he last held her hand, entire nations have risen and fallen. Stars have been born and burned out. Species found and forgotten. And yet, he still misses her. His hand feels empty. How does he move on? He knows that he must eventually. Ruby is proof of that. Oh, and how that one hurts. His amazing best friend, Ruby. That brilliant, brave girl who he has been lying to since the day he met her. Ruby with her blond hair and brown eyebrows that betray her true brunette roots. There’s still peroxide in the bathroom of this room, from when she last dyed her hair.
He doesn’t want to move on from Rose Tyler. He truly doesn’t think he can. She was just a blip in his unending lifetime, and yet, the pain of her loss has never softened. He never even told her how much he loved her. At the time, he thought himself ancient. Nine hundred years old. Unlovable. Undeserving of her fragile, fleeting life. Now, so much older, he sees how young and stupid he truly was. Now he would do anything for a moment more. The years they had were not enough. He sometimes thinks it would be better if she were dead. At least then, maybe he could mourn. But she is alive. So heartbreakingly alive. And entirely unreachable.
Yet Ruby exists; she is sleeping just down the hall, in a room much less pink, much cleaner. And he has been lying to her since day one. He felt it the moment they met. His daughter. Or rather, his future daughter. Ruby is the painful truth; one day, he will move on from Rose Tyler. One day, he will have a daughter… And one day, the Doctor is going to abandon his daughter on Earth. And he doesn’t know why.
Why?
The question has been plaguing him since the day they met, since Ruby told him her story. She has spent her life wondering who her mother was. Wondering why she was given up. She’s spent her whole life asking the same question he’s now asking himself: why? For all the doctor knows, Ruby could be his from a future regeneration. Maybe he becomes a woman again. Maybe… he is her mother? He doesn’t know. And perhaps that part doesn't even matter. The question that won’t leave him alone is constant. Why?
The doctor tears himself from his racing thoughts, eyes settling on a picture frame on the bedside table. God, the face that stares back at him might look older than he is now, all ears and nose, wrapped in leather. But truly, he was so young. Hanging off his arm is her. She's beaming up at him, all tongue and teeth. He misses that smile. If Rose were here, she’d help. She would hold his hand. Fight all of his fears. But she's gone, she has been for a long, long time. He stands finally, taking in the room one last time. The memories threaten to drown him. They used to drown him constantly. Now he has new worries to drown him.
He closes the door behind him. The room remains frozen in pink. Rose Tyler is gone; she’s never coming back. Ruby sleeps just down the hall. The Doctor loves Rose Tyler. And God, does he love Ruby Sunday. The question remains: why?