Beta: Miral-Romanov

Prompter: Genesis Chi

For Want of Communication

Though it was several weeks since Rose had launched herself across the void back to her universe — and, subsequently, back to the Doctor — and had made the choice to leave her family behind, the atmosphere between the two of them was thick with awkwardness. The Doctor reasoned that, while it had only been about eleven months for him, it had been almost two years for her— two years since her tearstained confession on that godforsaken beach. It was plenty of time for a human to move on, he reasoned to himself.

Since then, Rose had shared several anecdotes about her time working for Torchwood. Never mind the fact that she had trained her way up the ranks— she'd also conceptualised the idea of a 'dimension cannon', which in the Doctor's mind put her on par with the first person to envision travelling through time without a capsule or vessel. She'd even admitted to sitting through several supposedly gruelling engineering lessons so she could learn enough to help build it (but, as she'd protested with embarrassment, she also had a team of over ten people working on it alongside her). Regardless, the Doctor was beyond impressed and proud of her.

And a little bit uncertain of where that left the two of them, if he was being frank. The Rose he knew and lost had known nothing about science beyond what little she remembered from his sidetracked rants, and had been more interested in happily winging it through a dangerous situation, relying mostly on him for protection. The Rose that had found him again was noticeably different— and he wasn't just making the assumption from the stories she'd told him. He watched her walk around the TARDIS every day with a straight back and a confident, mature manner about her. In adventures she spoke up and took charge more often, and always walked through the alien terrains with the air of a soldier, carefully scanning her surroundings with watchful eyes.

Truthfully, it was distressing. He'd always hoped Rose would one day realise her full potential, but the idea of her becoming a soldier, now able to be lumped into the same general category as an ancient alien who destroyed his own planet, truly nauseated him. It was just another reason, despite everything that had happened to them, for the Doctor to distance himself from Rose— it was his fault that she was like this now.

Rose was also a bit distant from him, whether it was because he initiated the distance or because she had the same sentiments, he wasn't sure. She spent most of her time in the library or the media room, but there were occasions when he couldn't find her at all, and in these instances the TARDIS refused to cough up Rose's location. Upon emerging, Rose never explained her absence and he never asked, afraid of the answer.

Presently, Rose was returning from yet another mysterious disappearance; he meanwhile was sprawled on the grating underneath the console, poking at wires. He paused for a split second when he heard her enter, but resumed his tinkering almost immediately after, loath to give away that he'd been carefully listening for her. A slender hand slid over his knee, making him tense up until Rose's warm voice said, "Hey. Brought you a cuppa."

The Doctor forcibly blank expression gave way to a genuine smile, and he scooted his way into open air to accept the cup of tea. "Thank you!"

Rose chuckled and said, "Anytime." She wriggled her way next to him so they were both sitting with their backs against the console, the Doctor happily slurping up his perfectly sweetened tea. After a brief moment of silence, permeated by the sounds of sips, Rose turned to him with a serious expression and said, "Could I ask something?"

The Doctor swallowed the mouthful he had before he choked on it, suddenly terrified of the potential question Rose had. "Sure."

"Well… I just wanted to ask… I mean—" She frowned for a moment, before saying bluntly, "I want to take my A-levels."

"What?" the Doctor said, confused.

"S'just, I took all those science and engineering classes at the Torchwood in Pete's World. It took some effort," she added, wrinkling her nose at the subject matter in a way that had the Doctor smiling fondly, "but eventually I got the hang of it. But the whole time I hadn't even graduated high school."

"Rose," the Doctor sighed, prepared to tell her she didn't need some 21st century government to tell her if she was smart enough.

"I know it's stupid," she interrupted, "and that I shouldn't need a piece of paper to feel good enough. But s'just hangin' over my shoulder like unfinished business and I just want it out of the way." She cast a quick glance in his direction, trying to gauge his reaction. Whatever she saw was apparently satisfying, because she relaxed a bit and continued, "There's something else. When I was at Torchwood I wasn't just workin' on the dimension cannon."

"You weren't?" he said with a frown.

She shook her head, looking a little guilty for keeping it from him. "I was also… kind of an unofficial ambassador, I guess?" At his look of shock, Rose apparently got nervous and started blurting out, "Not really, but I went on most of the first contact missions and 'cos we didn't have a giant sentient time machine to translate alien languages I sort of got into studying them… and I wanna keep doin' that."

"What?" he repeated again, blinking at her.

Rose huffed and said shortly, "I said, I want to keep learning alien languages. I'd get my A-levels first, but still."

"But why?" he asked, frown deepening. "The TARDIS can translate almost every language." The console beeped at him indignantly, and he qualified, "Okay, every language, then."

Rose grinned, patting the console fondly even as she said, "I know, but I want to anyway. It was fun, learnin' about how other species communicate." She shrugged and said, "I guess s'like my equivalent of you reading advanced quantum physics for fun."

"I'll have you know that quantum physics are very fun," the Doctor said indignantly.

Rose rolled her eyes at his comment, smiling before she added, "So… could we maybe go back to Earth 'round my time, so I could sit for my exams?"

Despite thinking it was silly and unnecessary (and, in regards to learning alien language, a bit strange) the Doctor gave her the warmest smile he had and said, "Of course, Rose."

She beamed and, to his amusement, hugged his arm with a gleeful squeal. Pulling away, Rose stood up and hopped to her feet, tugging on his sleeve in a not-so-subtle way of telling him to get off his arse and join her, missing his sideways glance of concern.

His uncertainty only grew over the weeks. Upon receiving the pointless scrap of paper that was her high school diploma, Rose proceeded to ask a suspiciously eager Jack Harkness for continued training in alien linguistics, forcing the Doctor to turn off the translation circuits during her classes. He couldn't help but wonder why she chose to study from Torchwood and Jack I'll-shag-anything Harkness when she was living with the foremost expert on alien languages, extinct or otherwise. It made not entirely irrational fear curl in his stomach every time she left the TARDIS for another lesson, departing with a quick hug and a cheerful wave, leaving completely unnoticed the terrified expressions he adopted whenever she departed.

The instances where Rose would disappear into the depths of the TARDIS also increased in number, further fuelling his insecurities. Beside the fact that he feared Rose's distance was a sign that she was preparing herself to leave him — of her own free will, this time. He wasn't sure if that was worse — on his more unreasonable days, he hunted for her relentlessly, for hours, thinking with mortal terror that she had been taken somehow. Despite the fact that in a scattering of those instances he nearly panicked himself into passing out, the TARDIS still refused to relinquish Rose's location— although strangely enough Rose always seemed to emerge from wherever she'd been just in time to keep him from doing something drastic, brightly suggesting tea or chips.

The months passed, with Rose showing no further signs of trying to leave— although she did show signs of improvement in her studies. It grudgingly impressed him one adventure when the TARDIS was stolen and transported off world by a desperately poor family of Khij peddlers and Rose, taking charge, tried to reason them in slightly broken but coherent Kharish. She'd beamed at him when the TARDIS had been returned to them, as if he'd been the one to save the day. Her progress amazed him and he made sure to let her know that (underneath the fear) he was incredibly proud of her.

After nearly nine and a half months of the same weekly routine — drop Rose off at Torchwood for classes, go on an adventure, return to the TARDIS, wait for hours for Rose to return from yet another mysterious disappearance — the Doctor felt decidedly in a rut. He'd been so certain back when all of it started that Rose was just getting herself ready to tell him that she'd made a mistake, coming back to that universe and travelling with him, and that she was better off working with Jack at his Torchwood branch. And yet, almost a year later, Rose hadn't even come close to saying that. She wasn't emotionally pulling away from him either— if anything, she was slowly becoming more and more excited, like she had a brilliant secret she was keeping from him. It made his fear lessen and his curiosity grow. If she wasn't distancing herself from him, what was she doing whenever she disappeared?

After a particularly gruelling adventure, in which they were locked up in a holding cell and took two weeks to find a way to escape, Rose had bolted for her shower to wash away the grime from half a month in the cell and the Doctor had piloted them into the Vortex before collapsing exhaustedly onto the jump seat. He shut his eyes and rubbed at them, letting out a tired sigh. While that adventure had definitely been difficult, he and Rose had spent every night snuggled together in the cell's single bed to ward off the planet's chill, and despite the circumstances the Doctor was loath to return to their old roles.

He heard Rose enter the room, smelling the flowery scent of her body lotion and conditioner, but he was too tired to lift his head and greet her. Rose was unperturbed, evidently, because she placed her hands on either of his shoulders and began kneading. The Doctor sighed gratefully, keeping his eyes shut and letting her rub the knots out with her fingers. He was unaware that Rose was leaning towards his ear until she whispered with a smile in her voice, in the chiming language of his lost people, "I missed you," with proper syntax and all.

He froze for the briefest of seconds before jumping up like a spring and whirling around to face her, gaping at her in shock. "How—?!" he tried to splutter out, but couldn't seem to finish his sentence even though he knew full well what his question was.

Rose was smiling at him, an embarrassed blush spreading over her cheeks. "S'just something I've been workin' on," she said quietly, shrugging a shoulder.

"But…"

Since it was apparent he again couldn't finish his sentence, Rose elaborated a little more. "The TARDIS helped a lot, showin' me old books an' stuff. Wanted to surprise you with it. Took a long time to figure it out enough to say even that— why does your language have to be so bloody complicated?" she added with a fond sort of indignation.

He exhaled a half-hearted, humourless chuckle, still too astonished to believe he'd actually heard her speak his language. Eventually the TARDIS let out a beep from the console, a not-so-subtle way of saying 'get on with it, then' and his face immediately split into a beam that made Rose's eyes go wide and delighted. He'd spent so long thinking she was isolating herself from him, but the whole time she'd really been studying his language, so he'd have something to share with her.

"You like it?" Rose asked hopefully, when he did nothing but smile at her.

"Yeah, I like it," he breathed, trying to force back tears of gratitude.

She beamed at him, looking happier than he'd ever seen, and with a swift motion he pulled her around the jump seat and into his lap, hugging her tightly. She giggled, happily snuggling into his chest and saying with thought, "Never actually tried sayin' that out loud before. How come it sounds sort of musical?"

"The syntax is mathematically structured similarly to music," the Doctor said conversationally, feeling incredibly free to be sharing this information with her.

"Is the written language also mathematically based?" When he pulled away to look down at her, shocked once again, she shrugged and said, "I tried my hand at that too, but it seemed more like a code of bloody circles an' dots than a language."

"Yes, it's also mathematical," he said warmly, hugging her a little tighter in secret delight.

"Could you teach it to me?"

"Might do," the Doctor replied, pretending to mull it over even as he thrilled at being able to share that with her as well.

"And the spoken language?"

"Why?" he said with a proud grin. "You're doing just fine on your own."

"It took me almost a year to figure it out!" Before he could respond, she added with conviction, "Although that isn't all I learned how to say."

"It isn't?"

Rose shook her head, a malicious twinkle in her eye, and she leaned over to his ear again. He held his breath, waiting with surprising enthusiasm to hear what else she'd say, only to have it all come whooshing out in one shuddering exhale when she murmured in his native tongue, "I love you."

Suddenly he was kissing her— there was truly no better way to describe it. One second the last musical syllable was rolling off her tongue; the next her tongue was in his mouth, lips fused together, and his fingers were gripping her hair so tightly he wondered if it hurt. "I love you," he gasped out in Gallifreyan between violent kisses, and he wasn't sure why it was freeing to say in his language and terrifying to say in English— it just was.

"I missed you," she repeated in his language, voice trembling with potential tears.

"Me too."

He wasn't sure if she even understood that time, but he didn't care. One day soon, she would.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed a nice lil fluffy piece :) Prompt from Genesis Chi (from ages ago... sorry dear :x) was: "Rose wants to go back and do her Alevels, and from her experiences with the Doctor she wants to specialise in languages and communication - but that means the Doctor must turn off the translation circuits for Rose to learn properly."