Bananas For Her

Disclaimer: Dr. Who, the Doctor, Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler, Pete Tyler, and all other associated themes and characters are *not* the property of Lexophile42, but instead the property of BBC and the associated producers and writers.

Chapter One-- Awake

I heard her voice again today. She was crying. She had a nightmare about the end of the world. Our first date. We had chips. She called me a "tightwad" and paid for the chips herself with the money that she had earned at the shop that I destroyed. Salt and vinegar; but not too much. I showed her the destruction of her home world and she bought me chips. So human. Such big dreams about the future; the past; the present. The dream and dream about everything. Until they've seen everything. Then there are only the nightmares.

I wonder how Jack is...

"Rose!" he gasped and sprang to his feet, some bleeping thing alerting him to his surroundings. "Sleeping. I was sleeping? Why was I sleeping?" He thought a moment, checking his watch, "How long have I been sleeping?!"

Doctor

"Rose?" he glanced around, "Where'd you--? Oh... right."

"He sighed and flooped back down on his seat in front of the TARDIS's central unit, his eyes following the monotonous, hypnotic up-and-down motion of the glowing pipes. He yawned and stretched, reclining again with his hands behind his head. A tear slid down his cheek as he watched the glow bounce around the expansive chamber.

"No culture shock," he mused, "Irked a bit... after her boyfriend was Barbie-fied. And then his head melted. That was a smooooth moooove," he chuckled. A melancholy knot tied itself about his throat, choking him with the tears that wanted to have a go at his eyes, but were stopped by the pride that still remained. He couldn't cry. She needed him to be strong. "She forgave me, though. Goddess Santori only knows why. I destroyed her world... and she bought me chips!"

Doctor...

"Why is she in my head?!" he ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair, grasping at the ends and pulling firmly, trying to expand the volume of his skull in order to allow his brain more room to think. He managed to tug out a few strands of his bouncy brown hair, but that was all. No internal expansion. No sudden revelations. No Rose.

Rose...

Doctor?

He gasped for air, wrenching himself out of his sudden bout of fitful sleep. He ran a quaking hand swiftly through his hair and leapt off the bed upon which he had been meditating some days before. There was no memory of what had transpired between meditating and sleeping, but he had a creeping feeling that it had something to do with several Trans-Arterian gyn'n'tonnix and a few lemons wrapped round rather large gold bricks. His head was, quite simply, throbbing.

"I think... there's an echo in here," he mumbled, rolling off the bed, his bare feet hitting the cool floor with a dull thud. "That's what it is... an echo."

He shook his head, trying to empty it of the echo, and continued slowly walking toward the central engine chamber/entry hall.

"Good morning," he reached out and lovingly patted the tall glassy tubing, "Where do we want to go today?"

No reply.

"Earth?" he leaned forward, listening intently, "Naawh. Where else could we go?"

Silence.

"New Earth?" he stood back a moment to ponder the idea, but quickly disposed of it. He paused a moment longer, just to see how it would sound. It was too quiet. "BetelgeuseBetelgeuseBetelgeuse."

He stood, shrouded in the silence again, waiting for an answer, which he knew would never come.

"Maybe not..." he sighed and sat down, holding his aching head in his shaking hands, "Maybe this is it. The end of the line. The point of no return. The light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. The it. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera."

He leaned forward and reached out for a never-before-noticed knob and gave it a turn. The TARDIS quaked and whirred, filling him with a new hope.

"Nothing to lose," he stood at the monitor, scanning over the characters flashing over the face of it, a morose smile etched into his face, "There's ought to be one surprise left in this universe."

(A/N: back in the saddle again. A new story before I've finished the old ones. This one has been sitting at the back of my mind for a while and I finally put digital pen to digital paper and wrote it up. R&R, if you will. Much love, Lexxi)