After a week of rest, Pete allowed Rose to return to Torchwood, assigning her as a field agent on some less-dangerous missions. Rose had to admit that she did feel better than before – while she certainly wasn't her old self, she was a little bit closer. Her time off had been spent lounging in bed with a book and taking hot baths, talking with Jackie and playing with Tony. She was sleeping more, and her eating was closer to normal. She had even bought herself chips.

It wasn't a drastic improvement or anything, but it was enough to giver her hope that maybe, eventually, she could heal.

She tried to go about her day like she normally would have. She filled out and filed some of the paperwork that was stacked high in her office, visited various departments to discuss issues with them or see what they were working on. She tried to act like she didn't notice the pitying looks that she received from every single person who passed her in the hall. She tried not to listen to the murmured conversations that people thought she couldn't hear. "Poor girl," they all said sadly. "I simply can't imagine what she's going to do with herself now." And just like that, the weight of everything she had lost and all the grief she had suffered came crushing back down on her.

The entirety of Torchwood certainly did not know the specifics of her tragic story – only Jackie, Pete, Mickey, and Jake knew everything. But the rest of the Torchwood staff had plenty of time to observe, over the previous three years, that the Dimension Cannon meant everything to Rose and that, for some reason or another, she was deeply emotionally invested in it. Everyone had seen how hard she had worked and how wholly devoted to the success of the project she was. And, apparently, word had gotten out that the project had been shut down, and so everyone knew that, too. Rose couldn't imagine anything worse than being pitied by people who didn't even know exactly why she was to be pitied. At least until she sat down with Mickey for lunch, that is.

"Don't look at me like that," she sighed, looking down at the plain surface of the cafeteria table rather than facing Mickey. "I can stand that look from everyone but you."

"Sorry," Mickey replied, though the expression remained firmly in place.

"Yeah, me too."

They sat in silence for a moment, Rose picking idly at her food, before Mickey gave in. "Are you doing all right, Rose?" Rose opened her mouth to answer, but Mickey cut her off. "And don't try to feed me that bull you've been giving everyone else. Be honest with me."

"I honestly am ok," Rose snapped. Mickey continued to look at her blankly until she added, her voice softer, "Or at least I thought I could be until I came into work today. At home, I could sort of block it all out and not think about it – pretend it never really happened. I guess it's all starting to seem real again."

"'Spose Torchwood's not exactly the most encouraging place to be in the world," Mickey muttered, and Rose cracked a small, bittersweet smile.

"'S really not. I don't really feel like talking about it, though."

"Fair enough. But I'm here if you decide you do feel like talking."

Rose did not decide to talk about anything; this was the closest she got to it all day and, if anything, the looks that she continued to receive made her want to talk even less. It was as if they had all given up on her. Everyone felt sorry for her because they felt that she had nothing left, and they were starting to convince her of that, as well. There was nothing for Rose to do but hold her head high and continue trudging through her day. By the time she left Torchwood, though, the tiny amount of optimism she had felt that morning was gone.

She wished she knew how Mickey could do it. He didn't seem like he was just getting by – he seemed happy with his life. Mickey had been just as invested in the Dimension Cannon as Rose, at least in the beginning. His grandmother had died peacefully in this universe, and for a while there was nothing to keep him here any more than there was anywhere else. He and Rose had worked side by side, researching and going on missions to gather potentially helpful information or stop the rising threat of another Cyber attack. But Mickey had seen this coming. Near the end, he had started trying to distract Rose, giving her other projects to pursue and gently saying things like, "You know, Rose, we've put so much work into this, but it may just be impossible." He had always been the last one to leave the lab, apart from her, trying to convince her to go home and rest for a while.

Saying that Mickey was moving on with his life sounded harsh in Rose's mind when the thing he was moving on from was so indescribably important to her, but she knew it was true, and she knew it wasn't a bad thing. He was devoted to his work at Torchwood, sure, but he had a life outside of work, too. He had friends to go out with, and he even had a steady girlfriend – a doctor called Martha from the hospital down the road. He was doing so much better than just getting by. But for Rose, just managing to get by seemed like enough of a goal.

Despite the bleakness that settled in, it wasn't hard for Rose to find a comfortable routine. Get up, spend the day pouring over research and paperwork and, if she was lucky, go out with a Torchwood team to handle something in the field. Some nights she would have dinner at the Tyler mansion and keep Tony up late, playing with him and telling him stories about the Doctor and the people they met and places they went (she would only leave when she couldn't contain the tears any longer, and she'd wake up the next morning still unable to shake the sadness, but Tony loved those stories, so she told them anyway). Some nights her colleagues would manage to drag her to the pub for a while and she would sit quietly, sandwiched between Mickey and Jake, until she could manage to politely excuse herself and slip away. Most nights she simply returned to her bare, empty flat, exhausted and a little more deflated than the day before.

Every once in a while, Rose would lose her composure and snap at well-meaning coworkers or stubbornly refuse to answer her cell even though Jackie had left five messages already. One night, as she looked around at her undecorated flat, realizing that everything seemed prepared for her sudden departure and that she would have to do something to make the space more livable, it suddenly hit her that she had accepted staying in this universe. The realization made her feel utterly hollow, and she had sat on the floor and cried for over an hour. These times when she broke down were relatively rare, though, and she always hated when it happened.

Her days lacked the excitement and joy of travelling with the Doctor and the sense of purpose that the Dimension Cannon gave her, but Rose carried on. And so a month went by.

"Rose, sweetheart." Rose looked up to see Jackie sitting down across from her with a cup of tea, sighing inwardly at the tone in her mother's voice. That tone had become common during their visits, full of concern and hope and caution. Rose could guess where the conversation was going, and it made her start to regret opening the door to let Jackie into her flat. "I've been thinking lately that it'd be nice to go on holiday. Someplace tropical, maybe. Doesn't that sound nice?"

"'Spose so," came Rose's usual noncommittal reply.

"Wouldn't it be fun to go someplace just the two of us? I think a girl's trip would be just lovely, and it'd be a nice change to get out of London for a while."

"I don't really want to go on holiday, Mum," Rose said as gently as her worn-out patience would allow.

"Why not? You used to do nothing but travel. Don't you miss it?"

"Of course I miss it," Rose snapped, and Jackie's expression softened.

"I'm sorry, Rose. I know how hard these last few years have been. I'm just worried about you, is all. You seem so…" Jackie paused, searching for the right word, "…unhappy."

"I'm fine, Mum."

"I never said you weren't fine," Jackie pointed out. "I said you're unhappy." Rose couldn't think of a way to respond, and Jackie took the opportunity to continue. "Rose, you've handled everything that's happened to you with more strength and dignity than I thought possible. But have you really let yourself deal with any of it? It seems like as soon as the initial shock wore off, you threw yourself into your work and finding a way to get back to the Doctor. You've worked so hard, but do you feel any better than you did at the start?"

Rose shrugged. "I don't know," she admitted. "I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever feel better. Sometimes I think I'm starting to, and it all just comes crashing back down on me."

"You can't just bury yourself in your work forever and hope that everything else will go away in the meantime, sweetheart."

Rose was thoughtful for a moment while Jackie sipped her tea. "You really think I should go on holiday?"

"I think it might help you to get out of London for a while," Jackie told her. "Sometimes a change of pace helps more than anything else. Pete and I've already talked about it, and if you decide you want to travel, we'll put you up anywhere you want for as long as you want."

"You don't have to do that," Rose said quickly. "I do have three years of my Torchwood salary that I've hardly used."

"I know, but we want to," Jackie told her. "Just take some time for yourself to do things that make you feel better. Torchwood will wait until you get back."

Rose smiled a little. "Thanks, Mum. I'll think about what I'd like to do and let you know when I figure it out. Maybe some time off will do me some good."

No more than two days later, Rose found herself loading her bags into a rental car. She had wrapped up everything at Torchwood and gone out for one last drink with Jake and Mickey the night before.

"Why are you leaving?" they had asked.

Rose didn't really know, though, and settled for the simple response that immediately came to mind. "Because I want to."

Her family was here to see her off, now, Pete and Jackie wishing her a safe trip and reminding her to call them when she could, and Tony wrapping his small arms tightly around her legs and reminding her to bring him back a present. Rose laughed and promised that she would do her best to adhere to all of these requests, and then she was in the car and they were disappearing from view in the rearview mirror. Flipping through the radio stations that were preset for the car, she settled on one that played upbeat pop music that she could mostly tune out.

It wasn't until she was well outside of London that Rose pulled over to unfold and examine the road map that was stuffed into the glove compartment. Jackie had been hesitant, to say the least, when Rose had phoned her to say that she wanted to take a car and leave without knowing where she was going, but Rose eventually wore her down and Jackie had agreed. Now, as Rose traced the lines of the roads with her finger, she knew that she would eventually have a destination. That didn't mean that she had to know where she was going, though.

Picking a route to follow at random, Rose pulled the car back onto the road and drove, completely unknowing of what she would find.

A/N: Hello, lovely readers! I'm so glad that people are showing interest in this story – I'm really excited to continue working on it. Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions, and reviews would be much appreciated!