They stay at her mum's for a while, after Mickey leaves.
Well, when she says stay at her mum's, Rose means that they leave the TARDIS parked in the sitting room. They don't actually stay there. She doesn't go back to her old room – doesn't sleep in the bedroom she grew up in, under the fluffy pink duvet she'd always loved so much, surrounded by the comfortable mess that her mum really hasn't touched since the first time Rose left.
(She doesn't like to think about coming back that first time, after the twelve-hours-twelve-months debacle, and finding the room the same – untouched, for a year, because her mum couldn't bring herself to change anything).
That's not why she doesn't sleep in the flat, though. And it's not for the reason her mum thinks, either, no matter how much Rose privately hopes that it might be, one day – that clasped hands and casual touches and bone-cracking hugs might someday slide into lips on lips, to skin on skin.
It's just been a long time since the flat felt like home.
Honestly, Rose is a little surprised that the visit lasts more than a few hours, let alone overnight. These trips back to her mum's usually don't. The Doctor claims that the TARDIS still isn't quite up to traveling anywhere grand just yet – says she's still recovering from their unplanned jaunt to the parallel world.
Rose isn't quite sure she believes him. Still, even if it isn't home, the flat is warm and comfortable, and her mum's there with hugs and hot tea and ears that are always willing to listen, so Rose doesn't mind. Not at first.
But she's restless, staying in one place this long, and Rose isn't sure why – if it's because she's gotten so used to the itinerant lifestyle she and the Doctor share, or because the fact that she isn't running for her life means she has to stop and think.
The Doctor has been making himself scarce, most of the time they've been here. He mills around in the console room, tinkers under the grating, occasionally disappears into the bowels of the ship to fix things that may or may not actually need to be fixed. He pops out of the TARDIS every once in a while, to pester her mum or steal some biscuits from the kitchen, but mostly he gives the two humans a wide berth. She thinks he's trying to give her space.
Rose doesn't really want space, but it's an oddly considerate gesture coming from him, so she takes it as the kindness it's intended to be. For the first two days, at least.
By afternoon on the third day, the walls of the flat feel like they're closing in on her, the jaws of a trap edging closer and closer, centimeters at a time. It's suffocating, maddening, and it makes Rose march into the console room and drag the Doctor out from underneath a bit of machinery, asking fancy some chips?
The chippy down the street isn't Alfava Metraxis, but it's not the sitting room, either. For now, it'll do.
On the way back from the chip shop, they stop in the park on the estate. The Doctor clambers all over the play equipment, acting about nine hundred years younger than his age, and Rose settles onto a swing, where she can watch him and laugh. It's autumn in London, and grass and gravel alike are covered with a layer of leaves – brown and orange and red and yellow, a patchwork quilt thrown over the landscape.
Rose has always liked this time of year. She likes the way the trees change color, likes the way the air thins out and cools down as August becomes September becomes October, sliding gradually from muggy summer into brisk autumn. She likes the way the falling leaves get everywhere, loves the gentle crunch of them under her feet when she walks across the estate courtyard.
The Doctor's short attention span isn't held by the play equipment for long, and eventually he comes to settle onto the swing beside her, rocking gently back and forth with his hands in his lap. The laughter of a few moments ago fades gradually, slipping into a silence that's still a little fragile, not quite comfortable again just yet – recovering, as it is, from old friends and new worlds and a very long five and half hours.
"Mickey and I used to play here, when we were kids," Rose says, quietly. "Used to drag the leaves all together and make these huge piles, so we could jump in." She laughs, a little, at the memory. "We'd pile them back up and jump in so many times there'd be little bits of crushed leaves all over us – hair, clothes, everywhere. Drove Mum mad."
"You miss him." The Doctor's voice is measured, inflections chosen carefully, so as not to reveal too much.
Rose shrugs, and pushes gently against the ground. It sets her swinging, just a bit, and the rickety old swing set creaks in protest. "Everyone leaves, eventually." She tries for nonchalance. Even to her own ears, it doesn't sound very convincing.
The Doctor smiles – a small, sort of sad-looking thing, half a smile and half something else – and pushes his swing forward slightly as well. His legs are so long that the rocking motion tangles them awkwardly under him. "I'm still here," he says cheerfully, and Rose can tell that he's trying to be flip, deliberately attempting to lighten the moment. He wants her to read between the lines, intuit his meaning, to hear the better with two that colors nearly every word they say to each other.
If she does that, then he doesn't have to say – well. Then neither of them ever have to say anything new.
There's a long bit of silence, broken only by the metallic creak of the old swing set, before the Doctor clears his throat and scuffs one of his trainers against the ground, absently. "I'm sorry," he says.
Rose laughs. It's a rough sort of sound, and there isn't any humor in it. "For what?"
He looks everywhere but at her – at his hands, at his feet, at the leaves the wind is kicking up all over the playground. "Take your pick, I suppose."
Rose shakes her head. "I don't want you to apologize to me, Doctor."
He finally turns to look at her, then, and when he asks, "What do you want, Rose?", it's absolutely earnest, like it's the most important question he's ever asked.
The sheer sincerity of the moment is a bit dizzying – as is Rose's sudden certainty that no matter what her answer is, the Doctor will give it to her.
There are so many things she could ask for, maybe even should ask for. It almost makes her feel a little greedy – that she has time and space at her fingertips every day, and yet there are so many things she still wants.
Rose wants to say tell me about them – wants to ask all the questions that she didn't at Deffry Vale, about Sarah Jane and the ones who came before, wants to know why they left and when and how she'll be any different. She wants to say tell me about you. She knows how the Doctor takes his tea and that he squints when he reads and that he never laces up his trainers properly, just ties them once and then wedges his feet in afterwards – but she doesn't know the name of his home planet, or what he was like as a child, or why, sometimes, she catches him just looking at her when he thinks she won't notice.
Rose can guess, there, on two out of three. When it comes right down to it, it doesn't even matter. It's all just details, and doesn't change anything, because he's still the Doctor and she's still arse-over-teakettle in love with him.
Rose wants to say kiss me.
It's all a bit paralyzing, and she spends so long mulling over what to say that the Doctor breaks the silence first.
"I was afraid, you know," he says softly, and Rose is momentarily confused by the statement, made out-of-the-blue, before he continues. "I thought you might want to stay. Like Mickey." He scuffs one of his trainers against the ground, crushing a brittle orange leaf beneath the rubber sole. "Gingerbread houses, and all that."
"You're daft." Rose says, so quickly that it seems to startle him.
He jerks his head awkwardly, in what is probably intended as agreement. "Right. Of course. Not after then Cybermen and your – well, not your mum, really, and Pete–"
"That's not why, Doctor."
He looks honestly confused, and Rose rolls her eyes, exasperated. "I'm not gonna leave you, you idiot." She looks over at him, pointedly, until he finally meets her eyes. "Not for gingerbread houses, or any other kind of houses besides."
Rose watches the confusion melt off his face, replaced with something soft and wondering, an expression she can't quite classify – but knows, without question, that she likes.
Then the Doctor gets up from his swing, brushes some imaginary dust from his overcoat, and meanders over to her. When he's standing right in front of her, he stretches out a hand, reaching for hers in a familiar gesture. "Well, then – shall we? I believe we've got a nearly-good-as-new TARDIS waiting for us, back at your mum's."
Rose doesn't take his hand. Instead, she takes what she wants.
It's awkward, the height difference. She's still sitting on the swing, rocking back and forth just slightly, while the Doctor is standing directly in front of her, face far too high to reach the way she wants to.
His tie, though, is at the perfect height for grabbing. Rose tugs at it with one hand and drags him down, trying not to lose her balance when his hands, after a moment of hapless flailing, finally grip at the chains that hold up her swing.
"Rose?" His voice is high, and a little bit anxious. "Are you – what are you–"
Rose slides her other hand, the one not fisted around his tie, up to his face. She runs a thumb across his cheek, and when he shudders, just a little, it sends a thrill right down her spine. "I want this."
"Oh." Something dawns on the Doctor's face – excitement, maybe, or hope, and it lights up his eyes before bleeding into the smile that's slowly spreading across his face. "Oh."
Rose shakes her head and matches his grin, and for a moment they just sit there, him smiling down at her and her beaming up at him. Then someone moves – maybe Rose, maybe the Doctor, maybe both of them at once – and then there's her lips on his, her hand sliding from his face to the nape of his neck, her fingers finding his hair.
Sadly, they can't kiss for long. They're still at an awkward angle. Rose's neck is bent a little unnaturally, and the Doctor is slightly hunched over, still holding tight to the chains on her swing. After a few moments, they have to break apart, and Rose watches her breath, warm enough to fog in the air, drift towards the Doctor's face.
He looks a bit manic, between the slight flush on his cheeks and the way she's just mussed up his hair even more than it usually is. Rose can't help but giggle a little at the picture they must make – and it bubbles over into real laughter, true and happy and honest, when he gasps out a breathy me too.