"Doctor! What are you doin'?"
"It isn't me!"
The TARDIS stopped abruptly and both the Doctor and Rose were thrown painfully down on the grating.
"Um, ow," Rose complained. "What just happened?"
"I dunno," the Doctor said, grabbing onto the edge of the console and hoisting himself to his feet. "I mean, we've moved, obviously. I just don't know to where. Or, you know, why."
"But what about Jack?" Rose asked angrily, ignoring the hand the Doctor offered her in favour of standing under her own steam. "You just let him walk out of the TARDIS and then left him there. You don't even know where 'there' was! How are we gonna get back to him when we don't know where and when we have to go, huh? And what about what's happenin' to him in the meantime? He could be stuck in prison with no one to get him out. Or he could be attacked by angry natives. Or, he could be stuck in a prison without any food or water, gettin' eaten by his angry native cannibal cell-mates! Did you think of that?"
The Doctor was unsuccessful in muffling his snicker. "No, actually. The prospect of angry native cannibals didn't really occur to me, believe it or not," he said. "Don't worry, Rose," he quickly added. "Jack's an experienced time traveller. He can take care of himself."
Rose laughed humourlessly. "You really don't care, do you? You don't care that he probably thinks we left him on purpose. Did you leave him on purpose?"
The Doctor shrugged, though he looked uncomfortable. "So what if I had done? All I did was save his life. It wasn't exactly a promise that he could stay with us forever."
Rose gritted her teeth and let out an inarticulate, but very clearly annoyed, noise. She stormed out towards the door, deciding she needed a little space before she attempted to throttle him.
Honestly, sometimes he was just ... such a bloke!
"Rose, don't! We don't know –"
Rose stepped out into bright sunshine. Sand immediately made its way into her shoes, despite them being almost entirely closed in (the better for running in). She really could never figure out how sand did that, anyway.
Rose walked out onto the beach, letting the TARDIS door fall shut behind her. The sound of the waves repetitively washing against the shore was somewhat relaxing, which was definitely what she needed right then. Perhaps that would have even calmed her down had the Doctor not chosen that second to fling the TARDIS doors open and rush out onto the beach after her.
"Rose!" he called in a panic, then stopped in his tracks when he saw where they were. He took a moment to do a full turn, taking in the scenery, before turning back to Rose with a glare. "What d'you think you're doing?"
"Oh, so you actually care what happens to the people you travel with now?" Rose asked.
"There could have been anything out here," the Doctor said, ignoring her. "The air might not have been breathable, for all you knew. The TARDIS wasn't exactly acting normally. She could have dropped us right in the middle of a war or something. Or right beside a black hole, even."
"Well you're the one drivin'," Rose said. "I didn't figure you'd take us anywhere where I couldn't even breathe the air."
"Yeah, well, I wasn't so much in control this time," the Doctor admitted.
"It's your ship," Rose insisted.
"Our ship," the Doctor corrected.
She tried not to be too pleased by the idea of that. He didn't mean it the way she wanted him to, obviously. "Oh yeah?" Rose asked instead. "Well then, I think I should have some say in what happens on our ship, don't you? Startin' with whether or not we just dump our friends on alien planets when we're done with them."
"He's not exactly our friend," the Doctor said.
"He's my friend!" Rose cried.
Whatever the Doctor had been about to say in reply was lost in the loud slamming of the TARDIS door.
"What ..." the Doctor said, squinting at his ship with a frown. He glanced at Rose almost suspiciously for a second, as if making sure that she wasn't running off the moment his back was turned, and then stepped back toward the TARDIS. He pulled out his key and inserted it into the lock and turned it.
Nothing happened.
The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and flicked it through seventeen different settings (Rose was counting) before thumping his palm heavily against the wood of the TARDIS door in defeat.
"Let me in, you barmy ship!" the Doctor demanded.
"I wouldn't let you in if you talked to me like that either," Rose said.
"Yeah, thanks, I'm already getting that vibe from the not-so-subtle way you've been ranting at me and flouncing off without me," the Doctor muttered.
"Flouncing!"
The Doctor thumped the TARDIS again, ignoring her protest. "You can't just lock me out!" he said to the ship.
The TARDIS just sat silently. If it wasn't for the fact that Rose didn't have enough psychic ability to understand the ship like the Doctor seemed to, she might have said it was acting smug.
That didn't bode well. The more the Doctor upset the ship, the longer they'd be stuck on that beach.
Rose sighed and walked up beside the Doctor, keeping just enough distance between them that their arms didn't touch as she reached out to press her hand gently against the TARDIS.
"Hey," she said softly, coaxing. "Don't listen to him. We both know he's an idiot." The Doctor made a muffled sound of objection, but said nothing. "But you don't want to lock me out, do you? Will you open the door if he promises to stay outside?"
Rose looked pointedly at the Doctor, who rolled his eyes. "I promise to stay outside," he huffed obligingly.
They waited about ten seconds in silence.
Nothing happened.
"Just as well," the Doctor said. "What did you think you were going to be able to do in there without me? You can't exactly pilot her."
"I could have got some supplies, just for starters," Rose said.
The Doctor looked taken aback. "Ah," he said.
"Yeah. We're stuck on a beach, and there's no one and nothing in sight. I'm not the only one getting the feeling we're all alone, am I?"
The Doctor looked around again. "It's an island, definitely. Quite a small one, too. And you're right; no signs of life."
"Oh, right, of course. You got us stuck on a desert island. Why'm I surprised?" Rose groaned.
"Oi, I didn't do anything, remember?"
Rose rolled her eyes and walked away from him.
"Give me a shout with the TARDIS stops sulking," she called back to him. When she neared the wet line of sand where the water sporadically lapped up higher than usual, she kicked off her shoes and sat down to wait.
Surely the TARDIS wouldn't wait too long before letting them in.
When the tide had come in enough that the water was consistently racing in around her hips, and even splashing up against the front of her shirt and spraying salty moisture onto her face occasionally, Rose realised that waiting stubbornly exactly where she'd sat herself down wasn't doing her any good. She had to get up. And getting up meant going back up to the top of the beach.
It meant going back up near the Doctor.
She was still angry, and the uncomfortable way her jeans were now sticking to her legs as she walked really wasn't helping her mood at all. She didn't really feel like facing him right now, but she didn't have much choice.
It was getting dark. She couldn't just avoid him forever.
"She's really gonna leave us stuck out here, isn't she?" Rose asked as she walked up to the Doctor.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I think she is."
"What did you do to her to make her upset?" Rose asked.
The Doctor glared. "Why does it always have to be my fault? Why can't it just be that the TARDIS is malfunctioning? Or maybe it's your fault."
"My fault?" Rose asked, incredulous.
"Maybe the TARDIS doesn't like the ridiculous way you and Jack have been hanging off each other ever since he came on board," the Doctor said.
Rose snorted. "Oh, yeah, sure. The TARDIS doesn't like it. The TARDIS is the one who's jealous."
"What's that supposed to mean?" the Doctor practically growled. "And who said anything about being 'jealous'."
"What do you think?" Rose asked. "Is that why you left Jack behind? You got sick of seein' us being happy, did you? You should have told me about the 'no fun on the TARDIS' rule when I came on board, then. I need advance warnin' about these things, you know."
"Oh for –" The Doctor shook his head. "I didn't leave Jack anywhere! I was just about to walk out right behind him when the doors shut."
"You were not! You were standin' by the console touching all the buttons!" Rose accused.
"The hand brake!" the Doctor shut back. "What, did you want the TARDIS to drift off to the 87th century Indochinese Republic without us or something?"
"Oh, the hand brake!" Rose laughed shortly. "Well, looks like it doesn't work so well, seein' as how it didn't stop the TARDIS from comin' here."
"Rose," the Doctor said seriously, "listen to me. I don't know how or why the TARDIS brought us here. But I'll fix it. And then we'll track down Jack. All right?"
Rose nodded curtly. She stayed silent for a while, sitting down and staring off towards the sunset. A chocolate bar obscured her vision suddenly and she blinked in confusion, wondering for a crazed moment whether the hunger that had snuck up on her in the many hours since she'd last eaten was somehow already making her see things, like she'd heard about when people got stuck out in the desert. 'Mirages', that was it.
However, she quickly figured out that the Cadbury's bar she was seeing wasn't a figment of her imagination, but rather something the Doctor was holding out to her like some kind of peace offering.
"Considering how much my pockets can hold, you'd think I'd have more food in there," he said. "Not so much, though. That there's about the extent of what's edible. Anything else in there is ... well, I wouldn't subject you to it, anyway. I tend to forget what I've put in there for years at a time, sometimes."
Rose made a face at the thought, but took the chocolate bar from him. Taking her easy acceptance as a sign, the Doctor sat down beside her.
"She wouldn't just let us starve out here, would she?" Rose asked. "Or die of dehydration, more likely. She wouldn't do that, right?"
The Doctor shrugged. "I don't know what's wrong with her. She might not have a choice."
Rose tried not to wish that he's put his arm around her to comfort her, then. She still hadn't quite forgiven him, after all. Even if she didn't quite believe that he'd done this on purpose after all, there'd still been those cracks he'd made about Jack. She couldn't just forget how little he'd seemed to care about a man who'd saved both of their lives from a falling bomb, and who she, at least, had really grown to like.
"But we're not going to die out here," the Doctor said, sounding much more resolved at that. "Not because of lack of food and water, anyway. Even if the TARDIS isn't going to help us, I'll manage something. Just you watch."
After a night of barely managing to sleep, laid out on top of his leather jacket (Rose refused to think of it as chivalrous that he'd offered it, since that really wasn't a word that she'd associate with the Doctor), Rose woke up with a start as something fell with a thunk not all that far from her head.
She sat up with a start. She looked around and didn't see the Doctor, though the TARDIS was still sitting exactly where they'd left it (or where it had left them, more like it). In the direction the noise had come from there sat a single coconut half-buried in the sand from the force of its impact.
"Doctor?" Rose called uncertainly.
"Ah, you're up," the Doctor's voice called from above her head.
Rose squinted up to the top of the palm tree. The Doctor grinned down at her, then tossed down another three coconuts before reaching for the rest of the batch.
The Doctor had climbed nearly thirty feet up an almost completely vertical palm tree, which he was at that moment hanging onto by only the grip of his bare feet and a single hand.
If that wasn't the sort of ridiculous overt show of testosterone she would have expected him to designate as just a 'stupid ape' sort of thing to do, she didn't know what was.
"Here we go then," he offered a few minutes after he'd shuffled his way deftly back to the ground, passing to Rose a coconut which now had a wide hole bored into it. Who knew that the sonic screwdriver had a setting for that? "Not as good as bananas, of course. Seeing as how we've got no food and water, though, I s'pose coconuts will have to do in a pinch. Drink the milk out of that and then I'll smash it open on a rock and you can eat the rest. I'll go looking for some proper fresh water in a bit and see what other food I can forage up on the way."
Rose was not impressed at his ingenuity and his show of physical strength. She just wasn't. Not at all.
She fought back the smile that wanted to inch its way onto her face.
"Come on," Rose begged the TARDIS two days later. "I need to get inside. Just let me in for a few minutes. I just need to get some things."
She waited a while, hoping the TARDIS would change its mind. The door creaked open slightly, and for a moment Rose thought the ship had given in. However, the gap was nowhere near wide enough for her to slide through, and after a moment the gap closed completely.
Not before the TARDIS ejected five packs of tampons out at her, though.
Rose raised her eyes immediately to meet the Doctor's, who was looking amused. Mortified, she scooped up the boxes. It was too late to hide what they were from him, of course. And much too late to stop the raging blush from sweeping across her face.
"Shut up," she said, even though he hadn't said anything. She could practically hear him thinking it, and that was enough.
His face cracked into an overt grin, then. Rose glowered, still flushing red-hot, and stormed down the beach away from him.
Damn alien, she though. Damn man.
"So looks like we're gonna be stuck here for a while," Rose said, many days later. She was starting to lose track of just how many days it had been, a bit. She figured that was all right. The Doctor was a Time Lord. If she asked, he'd probably be able to tell her how long they'd been there to the second.
She wasn't sure that she wanted to know, really. She thought it was somehow a bit less depressing just letting the days sort of blend together. She could pretend they'd been there for less time than had actually passed that way.
"Looks like," the Doctor agreed flatly.
Rose looked up at him, alarmed. He'd been in remarkably good spirits the whole time they'd been stuck there, with the exception of that first day when they'd been fighting. She doubted it was a good sign that he was starting to get a bit of a hopeless tone to his voice. The Doctor always had a trick up his sleeve, usually. If he stopped trying, Rose didn't have a clue how they were going to get out of there.
"So what exactly do you think I should tell my Mum when I show up at home next time suddenly forty years old? That we decided to play Gilligan and the Skipper for a while and lost track of time?"
"Oh, come on Rose," the Doctor said. Then he smiled slightly. "You'd be Mary Ann, not Gilligan."
Rose glared, though secretly she was just relieved that he'd made a joke of it.
"Oh, all right," the Doctor relented. "You can be Ginger, if you like."
"So not helpful," Rose said. She couldn't hide her smirk, though.
"Feel free to come up with a better suggestion," the Doctor said.
"All right, then. We could tip the TARDIS on its side and use it like a raft, if she's not going to help us any other way. I bet she'd float," Rose offered with a lightness she didn't quite fully feel. "Just in keeping with the Gilligan theme, you know."
The Doctor peered at her. "You were one of those people who actually thought that one of their ideas was going to work and that this week they were going to get off the island, weren't you?"
"What if I was?" Rose asked.
The Doctor smiled. "Then I'd say 'good'. I wouldn't have it any other way."
Rose shrugged. "Mum and I used to watch reruns of it together. It was fun to pretend."
The Doctor nodded. "That's what I like about you. You're so optimistic."
"You need that, I think," Rose said, suddenly sounding a bit more serious than she intended to. "Someone who believes the best of people."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "You don't always believe the best of me," he reminded her. "You thought I'd left Jack behind on purpose."
Rose shook her head. "No, but I do, though. What in the whole universe is there to believe in if not you? It's just that I think you need someone to remind you what your best actually is. You go off, sometimes. And you really don't seem to like Jack much, so I thought maybe ..."
The Doctor studied her for a long while, looking contemplative, and then seemed to literally shake himself out of it. "Anyway!" he said, overly loudly, breaking the sober mood. "What were we talking about? Oh, right, Gilligan's-Island-esque escape plans!"
Rose let the change of topic pass without comment. "Yeah, we were. And I told you my plan. It's your turn to come up with one."
"You miss those stars, don't you?" Rose asked. She looked across at the Doctor, who was also lying on his back looking up at them. She wondered if the longing in his eyes was mirrored in his own.
As if he'd read her thoughts, he answered, "Don't you?"
Rose said, "It's not really about the stars for me. I mean, we've never even been to another planet."
The Doctor looked over at her, and Rose met his eyes. He was frowning. "We haven't?" he asked.
"Nope," Rose said. "A few space ships and stations and things, but never another planet."
The Doctor looked like he was casting his mind back, as if he didn't quite believe her. Then he said, "Huh. That's odd. I didn't plan it that way. I didn't even realise. Oh, but there's so many planets I could take you, now that you've mentioned it. Sick of the same old beach? I could take you one where everything's just stopped. Frozen solid. Once we can actually travel again, that is."
"That's the point, though," Rose said. "I'd love it if we went there, sure, but it doesn't really matter. That's not why I like travellin' with you." She was very careful to use the present tense. She didn't want to encourage him in thinking that there was a possibility that they might not be able to go off among the stars again one day.
"Why do you like travelling with me, then?" the Doctor asked.
For the barest moment, Rose considered telling him the truth. Then she quickly dislodged that idea from her mind by saying, "For one thing, I like that we get to meet new people, and that most of the time we get to help them."
"Not always," the Doctor said darkly.
"But most of the time," Rose insisted. "And sometimes everyone can be helped, remember? Isn't that worth the rest of it?"
The Doctor allowed a small smile to creep across his features, sanding away the lines of his frown. "Yeah. I s'pose it is."
"There we are, then," Rose said. "It's worth it, so we'll get back to it soon. Simple as that. We'll get out of here, and then we'll go back and get Jack, and then it'll be travellin' through time and space savin' the universe again."
"Right," the Doctor said bitterly. "Jack. Of course you'd want to get back to him."
"I want to make sure he's all right!" Rose said, exasperated. "You know, for a guy who can't seem to keep his mouth shut about how much more intelligent he is than everyone around him, you aren't half thick sometimes!"
She walked across the beach, but was careful to stay well within the reach of the firelight where they could still see each other.
She missed Jack. Really she did. And unlike how the Doctor sometimes talked about it, Rose really did care what was happening to Jack wherever he was. At least she and the Doctor had each other to lean on; Jack had no one. But she hadn't meant to make the whole conversation somehow about Jack. That kept happening, with the Doctor and her. It seemed like every time she'd so much as mentioned Jack's name since he came on board, it had started a fight. That, of course, was nothing compared to the Doctor's reaction when Rose and Jack were even close to being in each other's space.
Jack wasn't even with them, and hadn't been for ages, yet just the memory of him was still somehow enough to cause fights.
It frustrated the hell out of her.
She slept alone that night, across the beach a bit from her usual spot.
It wasn't so unusual that she'd sleep by herself. The Doctor rarely slept, after all, even if he had often laid down with her since they'd been stuck there on that island.
What was unusual, though, was that for the first time since they'd arrived, she had no leather jacket to use as a mixture of mattress and pillow. There was no scent of treated hide and something else indefinable that just made her think of the Doctor to breathe in. She felt somehow cold without that jacket near, even though the temperature on the island was fairly balmy even at night. It wasn't rational, perhaps, but there it was all the same.
It took her much longer to drift off to sleep that night than it had since the first night they'd spent on the island.
She refused to admit that it was because she missed his presence.
"What are you doin'?" Rose asked as she watched the Doctor pile what seemed like every palm leaf on the whole island onto a big pile.
"I'm making a bonfire," the Doctor said. "If we make it big enough, it'll be seen and someone will come and pick us up. We're running out of food on this island. We have to leave."
"No," Rose said harshly.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "No?"
"No," Rose confirmed. "Don't."
"Why not?" the Doctor asked. "What part of 'running out of food' didn't you understand?"
"Don't start up that whole thing again where you talk to me like I'm a kid – and a particular stupid one, at that. I understood. But we don't even know what century we're in. You might attract someone's attention all right, and they might come for us. But what if it's pirates or somethin'? Are you gonna protect us with your sonic screwdriver and a few words?"
"I've always managed with that," the Doctor said.
"Yeah, but we've always had the TARDIS to retreat to if need be," Rose reminded him. "Right now, though, we're stuck on this island with nowhere else to go."
"Yeah ..." the Doctor said, sounding dejected.
"Oi, I didn't mean it like that!" Rose said. "We'll get off this island. We will! But it's gonna be on board the TARDIS when it happens, all right?"
"We could die here waiting for that to happen," the Doctor warned.
"As opposed to what?" Rose said. "Even if this is the 21st century on Earth or sometime like that, what will we do? Settle down to a life with jobs and stuff? The domestic life? I could probably manage that, especially if you were there. Could you? Could you just leave the TARDIS here and live out life like a human if it came to that, knowin' that you could have stayed with her and waited a bit longer for her to open up for us?"
The Doctor was silent. Rose nodded sharply. "Yeah, that's what I thought. So we stay here until we can get the TARDIS to open. I'm not havin' you give up on her. Everythin' else aside, you're not made for any other life. I'm not sure I ever want to see you washin' clothes or cookin'. It'd be disastrous."
"You'd die just because you don't want me to get stuck livin' a human life?" the Doctor asked.
Rose set her jaw stubbornly. "If it came to that, yeah."
"Stupid little human," the Doctor said.
Rose opened her mouth to protest angrily, but her words were stopped in their tracks as the Doctor caught her mouth with his, having crossed the small space between them at what seemed like lightspeed.
Rose moaned involuntarily into his mouth and reached up to clutch at his shoulders, catching the beaten leather of his jacket in her grip. She nibbled his lower lip as she drew it into her mouth, memorising the texture of it.
She might not ever get this chance again, after all.
When he pulled away, looking a little more ravaged around the mouth in particular for his efforts, he said in a much more affectionate tone than he'd used the first time, "Stupid woman."
Rose was really a bit too caught up on the fact that he'd used that voice, and called her a woman rather than a girl, to care so much that he'd called her stupid. Twice. Sometimes she thought 'stupid' was practically a term of endearment from him, anyway.
They stood together just grinning broadly at each other for a long moment, as if they were the only two people in on some grand joke, before they both let the moment pass seemingly by silent consent.
They might never speak of it again – and they might even end up living out the rest of their shorter-than expected lives (especially for the Doctor) on that island – but Rose still couldn't bring herself to quite be sorry that they'd ended up stuck together if it had been what was necessary to lead to that kiss. It didn't matter if the kiss just faded into the back of their friendship for now, or possibly even forever. The important thing was that now she knew. It wasn't just her that felt it.
And yes, he'd definitely been jealous of Jack. If she'd ever doubted it, she was certain of it now. She rolled her eyes slightly at his obviousness, but partway through her gaze was caught by something that startled her out of that train of thought.
"Oh!" Rose exclaimed, taking herself by surprise with the unexpected volume of it. Her eyes widened, as if attempting to be sure that they were actually taking in what they thought they were seeing.
"What?" the Doctor asked.
"Um, well ... how long has the TARDIS door been open?"
The Doctor whirled around. He looked at the ship for a long moment before shouting, "Oh for ... stupid ship!"
Rose shushed him. "Easy on the 'stupid' bit, eh? I, for one, would prefer if you waited until we're inside before you aggravate her again. Who knows what set her off last time."
"But don't you see?" the Doctor asked, laughing mirthlessly.
"See what?"
"My meddling ship, that's what! She's been playing matchmaker."
"She ..." Rose trailed off, squinting at the ship. "I don't get it."
"She got it into her head that she'd stick us together and wait for us to figure things out.
Rose's mouth formed an 'o' shape in disbelief. "She was waiting for us to ..."
"Kiss and make up," the Doctor supplied with a derisive snort. "Yep. Exactly that. Obviously didn't like the fact that things were a bit tense with Jack around, so what did she do? Dumped Jack off somewhere, probably a dance club or somewhere else where he'll have a great time off on his own, and then stranded us together so we could work it out between ourselves with no distractions."
"And it still took over a month," Rose mused quietly. "Just imagine how long we could have taken if there had been distractions."
"Don't tell me you're on her side!" the Doctor exclaimed.
Rose looked at him pointedly. "Right now, you've got a running-out food supply, a constant supply of sand, and you on your side. The TARDIS, on the other hand, has non-island-fruit-related food, runnin' water, a shower, a proper bed to sleep in, a bunch of other creature comforts that I've had my whole life and don't really fancy givin' up again anytime soon, and, unless you're really in a snit and refuse to leave, also you. Don't make me choose sides, hey?"
Rose threw the Doctor a quick grin and took off at a run towards the TARDIS.
"Rose!" the Doctor called after her.
Rose stopped in the doorway, just inside the TARDIS (in case she decided to try and lock herself again) and looked back at him. "Comin'?"
She didn't even wait for an answer. It was a no-brainer.
A deserted island, or home, the latter of which brought with it the two women in his life.
However annoyed the Doctor might be at the TARDIS – or at Rose herself, for that matter – she knew full well that the Doctor wouldn't leave either of them on their own.
Just like Rose was never going to leave the Doctor or the TARDIS, either. Not for anything.
~FIN~