100 Themes, Doctor Who Style

Rose wrapped her arms a bit tighter around herself, staring out the viewing screen to the wide expanse of space before her. The Doctor wondered for a moment if she had heard him come in, but surely the sound of his boots--

"It's so weird," she said, answering his unspoken question. The Doctor nodded and stepped up behind her.

"Yeah," he agreed. "It will be, your first few trips, being in different time--"

"No," she interrupted him. "Not that. Well, yeah, that too, but..." She let out a soft, breathless laugh at herself. "Yeah, like you said, that part is weird. But... it's gone. The whole world. All my family long dead, *me* long dead..." She trailed off, her lips quirking up sadly. "Any evidence we ever existed at all, all gone in that one moment. And yet..." She gestured out the viewing screen, capturing all the stars in the brief sweep of her arm. "Life goes on. Life I never even knew about until today, and it will just keep on going like nothing ever happened." She turned around, her eyes alight with thoughts flying through her mind as she tried to process the enormity of what she had witnessed.

"It's like when my Granddad died when I was fourteen," she explained. "I loved him so much, *so* much, and when I heard he had died I couldn't imagine a world without him. But when I got up the next morning, the sun was still shining, the school bus still came by. The mail still came." She turned back to the screen and rested her hand on it, fingers splayed. "Life went on," she said softly. "Just like it will now. All those stars out there," she said wonderingly. "The same ones I used to look at when I was a kid, and they're still there, still going even after the end of the world." The Doctor rested a hand on her shoulder.

"It's a huge universe, Rose," he said, smiling down at her reflection. "Humans are still out there, some of them probably your descendants, spreading out across the universe. You lot are amazing, you are." Rose smiled up at him.

"We are that, aren't we?" she said cheekily, dragging herself out of her thoughts. "Well, you've shown me the end of the world, Doctor. My world. Now show me some others," she said eagerly. "Show me something wonderful." The Doctor grinned widely, her enthusiasm catching.

"Alright then," he said, putting hands on her shoulders to turn her around. "You are so fond of your stars, Rose Tyler. Pick one." After a moment's hesitation, she pointed at a small one towards the left of the viewing screen, with a bluish tint. "Fantastic. Let's go see it!" With that, he grabbed her hand and tugged her back toward the Tardis, his mind already whirling with all the things to show her on the fourteenth planet from the sun she'd pointed out.