A/N: So I recently started watching Doctor Who...and promptly fell deeply and irrevocably in love with it. I lovelovelove Rose/Ten, but I imagine it took a very long time for her to get used to him. That being said, allons-y!
She reckons it's a bit unfair of her to be doing this. After all, he's saved her life more times than she could count, and most often at the risk of his own life.
Lives.
Whatever.
The point is she shouldn't be doing what she's doing. Shouldn't be betraying him like this. Shouldn't be hiding in the TARDIS's massive closet like a child playing hide-and-go-seek, pressing a certain green jumper to her nose while wearing a certain leather jacket. But she can't stop, doesn't want to stop. This is all that's left of her big-eared, blue-eyed, "lots of planets have a North"-accented Doctor, and she doesn't want to- won't- can't let it go.
Can't let him go.
This lanky new Doctor with the floppy dark hair, pale freckled skin, bright brown eyes…he's not the same, not even close. He talks too fast, moves too much, wears pinstriped suits with canvas trainers.
He's wrong. He's not her Doctor. She doesn't think he'll ever be her Doctor.
She sighs a bit when she catches a glance of herself in a large mirror on the wall opposite her. The jacket is too big, hangs off her body, makes her look like she's drowning in the worn leather.
She rather likes that thought. Drowning in the Doctor's jacket. Idly, she wonders if his previous incarnations are in some sort of heaven or hell or another dimension where dead people go, and if she'd meet him there should she die. Not that she's planning on dying any time soon. Not at all. She still has plenty to live for, even if the only man- or alien, as the case may be- is gone, never to return…
Growling to herself, she shakes the thoughts off, burying her nose in the jumper again and inhaling the scent that is purely Doctor: metal, bananas, and something she can't describe, something both sweet and bitter all at once.
She decides it's the smell of time.
She jumps when she hears him calling for her, wincing slightly because the voice is too high, the accent too much like her own. Hastily, she sheds the jacket, stuffing it and the jumper behind a large steamer trunk and stepping away as his footsteps grow louder. Her hands rattle through clothes hangers at random, plucking a cream-colored flapper dress from its place just as he walks in.
"All right?" he asks, leaning against the door. To her relief, the manic grin is gone, replaced by a softly curious look probably intended to inspire reassurance but instead only succeeds at making her feel rather uncomfortable.
He still isn't her Doctor, no matter how many times he tells her otherwise.
"'Course," she answers anyway, not wanting to offend him. She forces a smile; it's weak but she's past caring that he might see through it, see that she is still unsure. That she still wants her Doctor back. "Just playing dress up."