#iwrotethis

He began by making a list.

Although it’s not truly a list if it doesn’t list anything, is it? And it’s impossible to list the possible ways to get Rose Tyler back by his side if the ways are nonexistent, isn’t it?

The only difference between the white paper and the white wall is that he can only feel Rose on the other side of one of them. So he pushes his list away—not a list?—and goes back to the wall instead. Except she’s no longer on the other side.

She could be dead by now, given the timelines.

For just a moment, he wonders if he’s alive and then he becomes acutely aware of the pain and, yes, he must be alive, because the dead don’t feel. Perhaps he’s almost dead? Perhaps he’s on the borderline of hell, the tips of his toes teetering over the edge?

(And he’d gladly go to hell if somehow the pain would stop, if somehow his hearts would stop aching in a way he’d never quite felt before. He’d leap into the welcoming abyss.)

But no, he must keep moving.

Days, weeks—years? centuries?—pass, and the list—(is it a list? please, please let it be a list)—is still blank. One day he finds a sun that he could burn without consequence to see her again, but he’s not sure whether or not it would be better to live with uncertainty than to find out that she’s dead.

The worst scenario, he decides, is failure.

Failure is not an option.

And as he debates whether or not to burn the sun, whether or not to take the risk, she’s in front of him. Her head is on his shoulder and her scent is intoxicating, pulling him in, and he wonders if this is the edge of hell that he was standing on? Wonders if he hugs back, if he wraps his arms around her and never lets go, if he’ll be gone forever?

(Or maybe it’s real?)

No, it can’t be real, because he wakes up on the grated floor and she’s no longer there. It’s just salty tears and a wrinkled purple blouse providing the illusion, and yet he’s thankful for it. Because her touch had felt warm and inviting and if that’s a fantasy then he’s not sure he wants to be a part of reality anymore.

He burns the sun.

She’s standing in front of him, then, and this time he’s certain it’s real.

She tells him that she loves him.

He’s afraid to respond in case she’s fake. Afraid of everything about her, afraid of what she does to him, afraid of what he’s done to her.

After all, she’d travelled the stars, and now she was grounded and there was so much lost potential and how, how, oh god, how would her life on Earth ever compare to her home among the stars?

And how would his life among the stars compare to his home with her?

She loves him, but maybe she means the stars or his ship or his ability to show her the universe or anything, anything but him. Because all he has done to her is break her heart, and, no, that claim is justified, because he had known that this would happen all along, has known that one way or another they’d be separated.

Forever. It was a lie they had spun like a silken web and he’d caught himself in it on accident, unable to free his feet and his arms and his mind.

And he wonders about being human, wonders about the Chameleon Arch and the possibilities of a shortened lifespan, how much more he could do with one hundred years than thirteen lives.

If the universe offered him a trade: his ship, the stars, everything he knew for Rose Tyler, he wouldn’t blink. The universe owes him this. He is owed.

He travels without direction. Someone joins him.

The list—(is it? he’ll have to ask Martha if a list is a list if it doesn’t list anything)—is still in her bedroom, on her soft pink sheets. The bed isn’t made, as if she’ll be back tomorrow.

(Please, please be back tomorrow.)

His knuckles are red as he grips the pen.

His breathing is soft as his eyes flicker from page to wall, page to wall, page to wall.

His hearts beat on.