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Rose materialized on a ridge overlooking a valley of red and yellow maples. She had no idea where she was, and from the feel of the cold metal key against her skin, she wasn't any closer to the Doctor.
She sighed, feeling the tears threatening again. Rose could remember, with painful clarity, the Doctor and her walking through a grove of trees just like those with the sun filtering through, dappling shadows everywhere. She didn't have to be down on the forest floor to picture what it looked like.
She she also recalled how he'd looked back at her, smiling under a tree glowing yellow with sunlight and wanting him so badly it hurt.
She wanted him now. It still hurt.
Unbidden, a song popped into her head, one that she'd hated as a child because hearing it meant her mother would be weepy for hours.
"And I saw my reflection in the
snow covered hills
Well the landslide brought me
down."
Rose had grown to like the song, to appreciate the sweetness and melancholy of Stevie Nicks' vocals. However, at that moment, it was the last thing she needed to be thinking of.
"Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise
above?
Can I sail through the changin'
ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my
life?"
She didn't know where she was. Every planet was alien to her, including the one to which she'd been consigned. It didn't matter where she was, because he wasn't.
Well, I've been afraid of changin'
'Cause I built my life around
you...."
It was getting harder and harder to keep going, She knew once the sun set there would be empty spaces in the sky where stars should be and that had to be enough to motivate her. Rose had to keep going, she had no choice.
"But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too."
But on jumps like this, when the simple beauty of autumn depressed her. It was so difficult to continue.
But she had to. She had a responsibility to the multiverse. She thought she could understand the Doctor a little more now, having weight of many worlds on her shoulders and the pain of loss in her heart. No wonder he guarded his own hearts so closely.
"So, take this love and take it
down.
Yeah, and if you climb a mountain
and you turn around..."
The dimension cannon beeped, letting her know a jump was imminent. So she'd try again. And again, and again, until her luck ran out or she found the Doctor.
Before she dematerialized, she caught a glimpse of snow on a nearby mountain, and the accompanying cool breeze reminded her that autumn would soon fade into the bitter cold of winter. Then she felt the pull that sent her back to Torchwood, to report yet another unsuccessful attempt.
"And if you see my reflection in the
snow covered hills,
Well the landslide brought me
down."