preserved_ginger

Title: Alone?
Rating: PG-13
Beta(s):

karenor
Setting: Immediately post-Gridlock
Character(s): Ten. Cameo by the Face of Boe. Mentions of Rose.
Pairing(s): Ten/Rose
Spoilers: Some for Gridlock (especially the message that the Face of Boe gives the Doctor), if you've not seen that episode.
A/N: This takes place in my You're Not? universe.
Summary: Could he have meant Rose?

The Doctor left New Earth in something of a state of shock after the last, cryptic, message from the Face of Boe; he refused to let his mind process what "you are not alone" could possibly mean. It couldn't, literally couldn't, be true that there were others like him out there; he was the last of them. He was the last of them, and had been since the end of the War; he'd have felt it, in his mind, if there was another Time Lord out there, he knew he would have. It couldn't possibly have been that. It had to be something or somebody else.

Rose was never far from his thoughts at the best of times; could she be the one Boe had been going on about? Her mind (it felt as if it should be her mind, but it seemed somehow not) seemed connected to his on a psychic level, by some means he still hadn't been able to work out (and if it meant he could keep some kind of connexion with her, however small, he wasn't going to try too hard to find out how it was happening; just this once, he was going to let it slide).

Could he have meant Rose?

And now he had given voice (even in his head) to that theory he found himself clutching to it, however unlikely it might be. He had to believe it was Rose that Boe had meant; had to believe that it wasn't just wishful thinking on his part, dreamt into existence through the strength of his feelings for her. There had to have been a message here for him, beyond the obvious one of not being alone — he had never been alone, in any meaningful sense, since he'd met Rose — there had to have been; he was itching to get back to the TARDIS and check, again, that there was nothing he'd missed — no Ts he’d forgotten to cross, no zeroes he’d not carried over. He could feel her distress at being without him — it flooded through his mind at regular intervals, whenever he was too tired or too depressed to care about whether he kept his guard up.

One day soon he would have to see just how strong that psychic link actually was. He'd sent comforting thoughts through before, psychic hugs he supposed they could be called, but had never yet tried to speak to her properly.

(If he could only ... if he could talk to her, just tell her ... tell her he ...)