The TARDIS kitchen has seen many things.
Its white walls have surrounded events that shaped days and years and centuries and beings.
The metal door to its storage room has opened other doors; less visible ones.
Like most places that are frequently underestimated, the TARDIS kitchen has many stories to tell.
The five-story cake with the turquoise icing was made by a baker from New New New New New New New New New New York, and given to the Time Lord as thanks for saving his bakery. The baker never knew the Time Lord had, in fact, saved his whole planet.
The icing's colour found its way onto the small, usually pink tongue of Rose Tyler.
It was the first of many visits to the kitchen.
She wondered why there was no fridge.
He explained the time loop.
"Fresh as the day I put it here," he said.
They were already catching each other's smiles.
Their joy was becoming contagious to one other.
They sat on the TARDIS floor and cut into the cake.
Icing found its way onto his leather jacket.
The end of the world stayed behind.
He never forgot the turquoise on her tongue as she laughed, leaning her head into his shoulder, a touch of icing finding its way to the tips of her yellow hair. He spun tales into the air; an old, wonderful spider from a different world, and she caught the webs of his stories to treasure for later.
At first, she was haunted by nightmares.
The thought of her mum woke her that night, a dream featuring her mother's cookbook, which had been used exactly once.
Restless, she stumbled from her room into the kitchen, unable to get the smell of strawberries out of her head.
He found her there an hour later (he liked to call it 'TARDIS dawn', so he could wake to it each day), decorating a dish with strawberries and whipped cream.
"It's five in the morning."
"Not technically, it isn't."
"What are you doing?"
"I miss my mum."
He didn't ask her to explain. Instead, he let her sob into his shirt, thinking about humans and families and human families.
"At least you already made breakfast," he told her when she grew calmer.
Change requires changing. Many fail to realise this, but the Doctor was an expert at change.
Rose kept to her room that day. She liked this new Doctor, she really did. She just needed time.
He attempted cooking. He needed to check the possibility that this body might be perfect for it.
It wasn't.
"I give up."
He was covered in flour, oil, and frustration.
She leaned on the frame of the kitchen door, arms crossed.
"We can go to a floating food festival," he suggested.
"Go take a shower," she said.
It was Cassandra who had unbuttoned her shirt, exposing breasts he'd thought about more than he would admit. It was Cassandra whose lips had met his with such appetite.
But it had been Rose's body.
Always so beautifully human; even when her consciousness was tucked away in a corner of her mind. As long as she fought to push through, to return to her body- Rose was beautiful.
And oh, how she fought.
He never mentioned it, but when their lips met, he thought he could feel a moment of Rose. Rose breaking through Cassandra's consciousness, attempting to regain strength, becoming dominant in her own body.
She hadn't broken away from his lips for a single second.
For a moment, it had been Rose Tyler kissing the Doctor, and nothing else.
Back on the TARDIS, dinner consisted of a salad with ten vegetables collected from different galaxies, none of which Rose could pronounce. They blew the dust off a bottle of wine they'd found hidden beneath a set of large, vibrantly coloured eggs.
She was still wearing that shirt, not having bothered to close its buttons. And yet, everything about her was Rose. The blush in her cheeks, spreading with every sip; the glint in her eyes that he could have interpreted in five hundred different ways; the way she sat, seemingly tall and upright, and simultaneously leaning towards him; they way she ate, appreciating not only the flavours of the food, but its colours and shapes, its sounds and smells.
Her laughter calmed him and excited him at the same time, and he wondered if she knew what she did to him when she licked her lips like that.
Such a good meal is never complete without a kiss goodnight.
Even if it's not technically night.
Even if the kiss leads to another, and another.
Putting it into words scared them, so they did not speak.
She craved his scent, and he desired the touch of her skin.
The night tasted like fine wine.
The morning chose kisses over words.
They made an attempt at chocolate chip cookies, using the vibrant eggs which were nearly impossible to crack. They added blue and pink and yellow, but the eggs' colours never mixed and instead created patterns in the dough, filling the oven with swirls of colour.
"It smells like home," he said.
"Gallifrey?"
He shook his head. "Not that home."
"What, then? The TARDIS? Earth?"
He did not reply.
The word 'you' formed on his lips and died before he let it escape.
The results were slightly burnt and hardly edible, but they feasted on the colourful TARDIS shaped cookies anyway. Even with the taste of burnt chocolate chips and her lips, he felt time stretch in every direction. He wondered if he might get to spend some of it with her.
If a living being spent too much time in the time loop where the food was stored, it would die from the mere endlessness of possible paradoxes. He wondered if locking himself up in there would be worth it. The TARDIS might explode, but at least he wouldn't be alive to see it.
He'd lived to watch too many endings.
"I love you."
He said it to the sink.
He confessed it to the oven.
He whispered it into the doorknob.
He shouted it at the windows.
The words echoed against the walls.
They seeped through the fabric of time and space.
They danced around him, almost taunting.
Everywhere.
Except where they needed to be.