Rose knew she should be used to strange by now, but, as she learned, traveling with the Doctor didn't afford time to settle into a familiar pattern of strangeness. Almost every trip something new, sometimes exciting, sometimes dangerous and always strange would present its ugly face/muzzle/eyehole/stomach.
Not that the outside Universe had any sort of monopoly on strange. Meeting the last of Time Lords with a spaceship that looked like a police-box from the 60s should have filled her quota for all things weird for at least a few months, and subsequently traveling with said Time Lord and finding out that he was just a little bit completely mental should have covered a few years. Or decades. Let's not even mention the bizarre aliens and such.
"Rose! I need the temporal fluctuation adjuster! No, the yellow one! Does that look like it can compensate for the accumulation of the causality debt?" Like, how was she supposed to know? Yes? Maybe? No? She wasn't the 900 year old alien.
"OK, fine, where's the yellow one?" she yelled back as the TARDIS rocked from side to side.
"It's beneath the reconciliation matrix for-" He stopped when she shot him a death glare. "It's beneath the blue thing that kind of looks like a hippopotamus muzzle. No, that's the muzzle of a Condarinian Tigerbeast. Unimaginative name, that, maybe we should travel there and fix it. What do you think? Maybe something Latin. I love Latin."
"Doctor!" Rose yelled.
"Right! Sorry. Right… there! Yeah, there it is! Quick, give it to me!"
Such things usually lead to safety hazards aboard the TARDIS, too.
"AHH!"
"What? What is it?"
"The TARDIS! It's giving off… some kind of purple smoke!"
"Oh, that's alright, that's normal. Just the rerouting of old power matrices to a new function, that's all." He patted the control panel of the TARDIS like a cherished pet. "Yup. Nothing to worry about. So… how about pre-revolutionary France?"
Then, of course, when there was an actual emergency, Rose had no idea what to do or if there was even a problem.
"Hey! HEY!"
"What?"
"The yellow smoke? Why didn't you TELL me?"
"I'm not a Time Lord, Doctor! Why, is it bad?"
He sucked in a breath. "Maybe. If we die horribly in the next two seconds, there is definitely a problem."
They held their breath a little while.
"OK. We're fine."
Yes, Rose had consigned herself to strange. When something she didn't understand happened, she hardly ever bothered asking what it was anymore unless said thing was alive and about to kill her. Plus it didn't help that the Doctor sometimes looked at her like she'd sprouted a second head whenever she asked him something.
"Ah! Here we are!" The TARDIS settled down. "The planet Steckanapolis, home to the Steckanians and the Butterheads!"
"The Butterheads?"
*cue strange look* "People with butter on their heads, of course."
"Right."
How was she supposed to know? It's not like anything else in the past few months was as it said on the tin, so to speak. Sue her.
If she were to make a list of all of the strange things she'd seen it'd take up the length of the entire Universe. Well, maybe that was an exaggeration, but still. The Doctor seemed totally used to it all. Heck, he was, like, the authority on it all. She supposed nine-hundred years of traveling plus an upbringing on an alien planet where that sort of stuff was probably taught in schools was a bonus, but still. How the bloody hell does he have that kind of memory? She couldn't remember half of the stuff she'd been taught in school, and that was all boring Earth stuff.
"Duck!"
A bolt of energy sailed just above her head. She lifted her head, and her eyes met the Doctor's for a second as he hurried to close the TARDIS door. His face split into a huge grin.
"Ahh!" he said as he practically danced back to the control panel. "Now THAT was a good vacation! Ah, come on now, don't be like that!"
The "that" the Doctor was referring was the terrified expression on Rose's face that Rose considered a perfectly normal reaction to being shot at by bloodthirsty aliens.
"That was FUN, don't you think? Good bonding experience at the least." The Doctor grinned again and Rose had to grin back.
"So! Where to now?"
"Somewhere relaxing, I think."
"Aw, but that's no fun! Come on, let's go to Raxacoricofallapatorius!"
"The Slitheen homeworld? No!"
"Well, actually, the race isn't called Slitheen, that's just the family."
"Still, I don't want to go to Raxacor-ico-pol-to- that place!"
"The Doctor pouted. "Fine. Somewhere-"he said with air quotes-"relaxing."
The Doctor turned back to the controls and when he wasn't looking, Rose's severity collapsed and she started to giggle. Just a little bit. Not enough that the Doctor would notice. But it was definitely there.
Yeah, the Doctor was strange, her life was strange, everything she did nowadays was strange. But, fortunately for them both, she liked strange.
Hey all. This is my first Doctor Who fic, and I'm rather proud. I've been meaning to write one for a fair while, but inspiration wasn't being cooperative. Plus the Whoverse is so BIG; I could write about literally any point in the entire history-and future- of the entire Universe. Quite daunting if you ask me.
Still, I hope this was good, and I hope I kept the Doctor and Rose in character (I haven't seen Rose in a while, so I'm a little worried about how I did with her). As you read, keep in mind that I haven't actually seen all of the episodes yet, so I apologize if I stepped on any canonical toes with this story (I doubt it, though, this story doesn't make all that many outside references).
Remember, every time you Read and Review, you get ONE MILLION DOLLARS!*
*Not really, but you get my gratitude :3