Work Text:
They'd said goodbye before- long drawn out ones, ones that were sealed with a quick peck. But this one. This one was final, everlasting. Her casket stared at him, mocking him for having the audacity to be half Time Lord, for having survived the attack.
He'd always thought that he'd be first.
There were millions of cultures that believed in an afterlife, ones where souls were sent to the sky, others where you returned back to the soil in which you came. He didn't know what to believe in, in all honesty. All that he knew was that she was gone.
It'd been quick, Death merciful as she claimed another soul. Rose hadn't seen it coming, a weapon fired, and a life extinguished. But life goes on.
Mia stood beside him. A woman of 23, she had followed in her parents footsteps, now at Torchwood where she was the lead of the xenochemistry department. Brilliant, she was. All blonde hair and big, enthusiastic smiles, but she wasn't a fighter. No, she was just a scientist.
Like him.
Rose's ghost lingered beside him in her, memories dancing between the two like sardonic sprites. Mia sniffed back tears, ever the empath. Like her mother.
"Ready to go home," she said, glancing around. They were the last remaining- Jackie and Pete having been the first to flee.
(This was the second time Jackie had grieved her daughter, the first in disappearance, the second in death.)
"You go ahead," he said. "I want to stay here."
Mia nodded, unmoving for a nanosecond before she moved towards where her fiancé waited.
Soon, he was alone with headstones, fresh soil, and a wooden box that held the body of a woman he'd crossed universes for.
He never did well when silence was his companion.
The Doctor felt it before he heard it. It was rare for him to be on this side of a TARDIS landing, and he tried to tamper down the irritation that settled in his jaw as he listened to the engine whine. The TARDIS settled in a corner of the graveyard, a monument to futures lost.
The door opened, and a blonde woman emerged. Her panicked, stricken eyes immediately found his, and he knew.
He wouldn't be the only one to bear the burden of Rose's death.