She sat on the curb with her legs straight out in front of her, the ankles crossed in an awkward fashion. She admired her scuffed boots and all the places they had accompanied her, from distant planets to future disasters and even, she thought foolishly, here. Of all the places she had been, nothing quite compared to being home on Earth. It didn't matter if it was in the past or the future, if the surroundings were familiar or not. She could feel the energy, the pulse, the familiarity claiming her as it's own. To anyone who hadn't travelled with the Doctor, it might sound a bit odd. Thankfully she didn't discuss this much with other people.
"You ready to go?"
She looked up and saw him standing above her, hands in the pockets of his coat.
"Yeah, 'course. But I was thinking," she said hesitantly, "maybe we should just stay here. The view'll probably be just as good and there won't be a million people roamin' about."
He looked down at her, his eyes narrowing in contemplation. "Quite right, quite right."
A small smile was working its way onto her face. "Whadda ya say? Yeah?"
He sighed and sat down beside her on the curb, kicking his legs out in much the same fashion as her. "Oh, why not! Once you've seen fireworks from above, now that's spectacular. From the ground it all looks the same, really."
"Shut up!" she said excitedly, punching him playfully in the arm. "It's really not fair, you know. Someday I'll get to see that too."
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, the smile fading from his face at an alarming rate. Something about her last assertion didn't sit well with him. It hit like a mini atomic bomb in his brain. Why? He didn't have the faintest clue.
Before he could respond, a loud roar erupted in the sky above them, sending down a shower of pink, sparkly diamonds. "Oh my God, it's gorgeous." The lights were fizzling now as another loud crack echoed in the distance.
"Not too bad by Earth standards," he said in a joking tone as she looked on, transfixed.
The black canvas of the sky was littered with millions of tiny, shining freckles, but only for a moment. Sure, it looked bright and promising and wonderful in that pinpoint of time, but shortly after they would all fade away and fizzle out. He knew this metaphor all too well. Most times he accepted it, actually. But tonight? He didn't want to.
"I don't think I've ever seen fireworks like this," she said happily, pulling out an old Polaroid camera from her tattered messenger bag. "I want to remember it forever."
She flipped the top part of the black, plastic camera body and pulled the little lever to produce a tiny, black and white souvenir. Swiftly, she grabbed the bottom of the photo between her thumb and index finger, pulling it out gently. "Bollocks," she exclaimed disappointedly, "you can't see a thing." He reached over and took the photo from her hand and gave it a few floppy shakes but to no avail.
"Fireworks are hard to capture even with a really good... what do you call those things, cameras? They're so... well, I can't tell you. Ruin the future and all that stuff. Cameras, oh, they're something alright."
She was still fiddling around with the knobs on her beloved camera. "Oi! Stop it, you. At least I'll have the memories I suppose." He nodded and watched as the last streaks of green smoke wafted through the calm night sky.
"Hey!" she said suddenly, turning around rather abruptly to face him, "come 'ere, let's take a picture, yeah?"
He raised an eyebrow at her for half a second before happily obliging. He turned so that they were both facing the same direction as she flipped open the old camera again and held it out in front of them.
"3...2...1!" The flash nearly blinded him. Eagerly, she grabbed the photo by it's edges and began shaking it like mad. "Easy, woman! You're gonna knock me right out of the frame if you keep that up." She looked at him with a glint in her eye and placed the picture facing up on the sidewalk. Under the light of a nearby streetlamp, they could both make out their faces on the black background.
"Not too shabby," she said, apparently pleased as she picked it up for closer examination. It was the simple things, he realized, that meant the most to her. She liked pictures and souvenirs and memories and... well, it was obvious, him. But why? Why didn't she like the big ticket things like power and wealth? She saw foreign kingdoms and empires but none of that really interested her. Rose Tyler was certainly an exception to the human race.
"Now this," she said rather contentedly, "is something that's gonna last. Me and you, traveling through time and space." For the second time that night he felt his insides shatter. Humming a simple tune, she placed the photo in the outside compartment of her bag, the one with all the little rips and tears. He offered to get her a new one on planet Xyrbia but she insisted that there was nothing wrong with it. He sighed without knowing exactly why... it was Time Lord thing he figured.
"You might want to put that in your wallet or something so it doesn't get lost," he said hesitantly, pointing to the ragged pouch. She smiled and nodded, removing it at once.
"It's not even that great... we could always take a better one some other time. You know, on some really cool planet... now that'd make a great picture, yeah?"
He nodded before stretching his legs and standing up on the concrete curb, lending her a hand once he was able to do so.
"Still though," he said, a serious tone infecting his usually calm one, "I wouldn't throw it away just yet. You never know what can happen in the blink of an eye."