"Rose, love, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but we're shutting it down."

Rose had to remind herself not to be cross with him. It wasn't Pete's fault, after all. If anything, he was the one who kept the program going for as long as it had.

"But you can't, not now," Rose fought to control her voice, but her desperation still seeped through. "We've worked so hard, and we're so close!"

"Rose," Pete sighed, his expression equally weary and pitying. "Believe me, this was not an easy decision. I know how much this means to you. But you have to look at it rationally. It's been three years, and the rest of the research team tells me that you're hardly any closer now than you were when you started and that progress has been completely stalled for almost a year now. When we started the project, we were worried about the stars going out, but that's stopped now. I know that you hate to hear this, but it stopped being feasible to keep the program up quite a while ago, and we just can't continue with it any longer."

Rose knew he was right, of course. Everything about this project had been a drain on Torchwood, and it simply was not sustainable. If she was completely honest, it had been a drain on her, too. The last three years of her life had been nothing but this project. She had gone without sleep and food in favor of getting in that little bit of research or testing that might just be the breakthrough she was looking for. She hadn't gone out at all, despite Mickey and Jake's constant invitations. She had even ignored her family – the only good thing about this universe – and missed most of the early years of her brother's life simply because she was so wrapped up in her work. And yet, even knowing all of this did not make her newest loss any less painful.

"Pete, please," Rose was begging now. "Just give me a little more time, that's all I need, and we'll get it to work. I'll just have to work harder and work longer hours and –"

"Sweetheart." Pete put his hand on her arm and Rose met his gaze, unable to help how she visibly crumpled under the finality of that single word. "You can't work longer hours – you're working yourself to death as it is. I'm sorry. But I have to shut it down."

Closing her eyes against the tears that threatened to fall, Rose only nodded.

The Dimension Cannon had only been a wild hope, anyway. Everything about it was so conditional – maybe they would find a way for it to work if they worked hard enough, maybe circumstances would change that would allow it to work, maybe it would work and she could get back to the right universe,and maybe she could find the Doctor there. It had been a long shot at best, and Rose was fortunate that Pete had let her spend so much time and so many resources on it. The Dimension Cannon had been a gamble, and in the end she had lost.

The defeat was almost crippling as Rose replayed the conversation in her mind. It had only happened the day before, but it felt like a lifetime ago, and at the same time it felt like a dream or something she had watched happen to someone else. She felt detached. That girl who she remembered talking to Pete yesterday couldn't have been her. Rose Tyler would never have accepted defeat, would never have given up so completely and been so weak as to shed tears over the loss.

There was nothing to do today, and the long, empty hours stretched out before her. Pete had insisted that she take some time off – she had been working so hard, and having the project shut down was quite a blow, so maybe it would be best if she just had some time to relax. Rose wasn't as sure as Pete was that this was a good idea. She had tried to sleep in but woke at the crack of dawn anyway, unable to fall back to sleep and ending up just looking up at the ceiling for hours. Finally, at what seemed like a reasonable time, Rose dragged herself out of bed to make herself a cuppa, pausing to look at her reflection in her bedroom mirror for what felt like the first time in ages. The years of exhaustion and desperation had certainly had their impact – her face had grown pale and shallow, and her eyes were perpetually ringed with dark circles. She looked worn and weary, and not at all like the Rose Tyler who had said goodbye to the Doctor on the beach.

Maybe defeat would look better on her than desperation had.