Title: Strong Enough
Rating: G
Couple: Both Rose/Ten and Rose/Nine implied
Spoilers: Pretty much all of seasons 1 and 2, esp. Doomsday
Summary: After Rose turned from the Wall, before she woke up from the dream of the Doctor. What was she thinking? Similar to Love Her. Inspired by Merry Christmas, Darling



Disclaimer: Ugh. No. I may be bubbling with DW ideas ATM, but trust me...if I owned it, I'd be just the opposite :P

AN: Well, consider this a sort of companion to Love Her, as I kind of wanted to make one, and this one sorta popped up out of nowhere--inspired by a recently posted R/D Christmas angsty fic (The line "Not strong enough")

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Strong Enough

Dead, flat brown eyes gazed down at raw and bleeding hands. A soft burning sensation echoed through her hands and reverberated through her arms. So strong, those hands.

With them she had saved a 900 year old alien from senient plastic. With them alone she had shown a cold, emotionless killing machine what it meant to love. She had wounded time with them, and when it had healed, they had been there to comfort her father as he gave up his life for hers. She had hung from a barrage balloon in the middle of the London Blitz wearing a Union Jack, and taken a lonely hand to dance through time. With these hands she had defied death, time, and reality. With but a wave she had destroyed the greatest enemy of her greatest love. With these hands she had defeated a real live werewolf, and banished Satan himself to hell.

So strong, those hands. She thought if she had held on long and hard enough to his hands, she could give him the forever he thought he could never have. She thought she could be strong enough to be the one to keep him forever, to make the loneliness flee from him forever.

But she wasn't strong enough.

Those hardened, strong hands weren't strong enough. As a scream ripped free from her throat, the grip ripped away from her frail hands. Bruises were developing under thin layers of flesh, and the wall she had fought with all of her strength stood unmarred, save for a smudge of mascara.

She wasn't strong enough. Not nearly enough.

Hands fell limply to her sides, as her gaze turned up to the impossible sight of a Zepplin floating leisurely over what would have otherwise seemed to simply be Canary Wharf. What would have once been somewhere she could have called 'home'.

She had fought for so long. She had conquered so much. But she wasn't strong enough. She would never be strong enough.

Because he was gone. Because she was really alone. Because it would never be alright again.

A comforting hand pressed onto her shoulder, a soft voice telling her to go 'home'.

And she wept.

END

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AN: And yes...it was mostly inspired by Never Ending Story, the old Golem who lost his friends to the 'Nothing' and kept repeating 'These big, strong hands, but I wasn't strong enough'. Yeah...something like that (havent seen it in at least a decade) Just feircely reminded me of it :P