Title: And Then He Dies Off-Stage
Author: lightning bug
Rating: T
Characters: Ten, Rose.
Summary: Rose gets drunk after seeing King Lear. The Doctor tries not to laugh.
Spoilers: It's sometime post-season 1, so assume spoilers for that.
Disclaimer: If only I did. Alas, all belongs to the BBC

Note: goldy-dollar wrote in her lj: "But who would write the world's greatest play and then tear out the final Act?" and asked us to write fic based around that.

"You, Rose Tyler, are drunk."

"No, I am not! Everything I've seen with you has told me not to believe what I thought I believed, and now that I have seen King Lear, I am telling you that there is something missing from that story."

"There is not!"

"There is! Everyone dies off stage! No death scenes or anything! It's like someone ripped up the last few pages!"

The Doctor sighed softly. He should've known that sharing the theatre box with some of the 23rd century's most notorious party girls would be a bad idea. Oh well, it was best to play along with her.

"But who would write the world's greatest play and then tear out the final act?"

Rose raised her finger, as though she was going to make a proclamation, but she floundered and ended up twirling it in a circle and said "Someone who wasn't Shakespeare."

"Oh, Rose, don't tell me your one of those people who thinks Shakespeare didn't write his plays. I've met the man! I can take you to go see him when he was writing Romeo and Juliet so you can see for yourself" Really, all those conspiracy theories were ridiculous. And people never got tired of them, that was the most frustrating part.

"Yeah," Rose said, "let's go see him now. And I'll ask him what he thought he was doing when he had everyone die off stage, because I really didn't-" Rose swayed and grabbed at the TARDIS for support, "I think I need to throw up."

"All right," the Doctor stood behind her and placed both hands on her shoulders so as to steer her. "You're going to bed now. And hopefully this whole experience will be over before we know it, and you'll never have a chance to tell your mother that you got so drunk that you tried to engage me in a literary debate."

"Ooh," Rose giggled, "She would kill you if she knew you got me drunk."

"Oi!" the Doctor said, maneuvering her towards her room. "I did not get you drunk, the Countess of Atlantis did, so your mother can take up any problems she has with her."

Rose collapsed onto her bed the second she stumbled into it (with an "ow" as she hit her shins on the side of it). The Doctor seriously considered speeding out of there right away, serve her right for getting drunk, let her handle the consequences. But he happened to have been born (as it were) an incredibly caring person, and in the time it took him to decide to err on that side of his personality, Rose had grabbed his wrist and dragged him onto the bed with her.

"Stay with me," Rose slurred.

"I am never taking you out again." He was only half joking.

"S'not fair!" She blindly tried to hit his shoulder but got hit ear instead. "I was just celebrating that for the first time, you took me somewhere nice and nothing bad happened."

"Yeah, well, just be glad that the girl playing Cordelia wasn't really a Slitheen, because then you would have been in trouble."

"Do you know who would've loved the—what was her name? Was it Eudora?—well anyway, do you know who would've loved the Countess of Atlantis?"

Rose was extremely chatty when she was drunk, and all he wanted to do was go back to the library and reread Shakespeare, but if he told her that, she would've called him a dork and laughed (not like he was scared of that. Not at all).

"Who would have loved her?"

"Jack."

The Doctor didn't know quite what to say to that. Rose had never brought up Jack and neither had he, because neither really knew what to say about him. He was fairly sure Jack wasn't dead; there was always the possibility, but he was sure that Jack was out there, doing good.

"Yeah," he said softly, "He would've."

"Of course, he would still be out with her having fun while we'd be waiting in the TARDIS like an old married couple."

"Hey!" He said, "We are not an old married couple."

"Oh that's right," Rose said dramatically. "You don't do 'domestic'" Even in the dark of her room, he could see the exaggerated air quotes she put around the last word. "Why is that?"

There are so many answers he could give her. Because she'll leave him someday. Because she'll die, most likely painfully, and he can't see that. Or because she'll die of old age while he stays the same. Because apparently he is nothing if not lonely.

He can't lie to her, but he can't tell her the truth either. He settled on what he did best instead: the joke.

"But if you and I settle down, naturally you'll have to cook for me all the time, and that pie you made once was absolutely foul. And your cleaning really leaves something to be desired."

"That pie was wonderful," Rose retorted, but her voice was getting softer. It seemed like sleep was coming fast to her. "You ate two pieces."

"It was just to be polite," he murmured.

"But you're rude," she yawned, "and not ginger."

"But I am getting better."

"Mhm." Rose fell silent. He waited a few minutes to see if she was really asleep (his checkpoint was: if she does make a random insult directed towards him, she's asleep). Once he was sure, he carefully slipped out of the bed. He took the fluffy pink comforter (kicked to the bottom of the unmade bed, of course) and covered Rose with it. He pushed the slightly sweaty hair away from her forehead and placed a soft kiss there.

The Doctor left for the console room. He needed to make a trip back to 2247 to pick up something for Rose; she was definitely going to need it in the morning.

Rose woke up with a horrible head ache. She had always prided herself on her minor hangovers, but this felt horrible. All right, she said to herself, alcohol from the future does different things to your system, lesson learned. She turned to squint at the clock on her bedside table and was greeted by a tall glass of water and a small white pill.

"Oh, bless him," she groaned. She downed what she thought was aspirin, but was proven wrong when her head immediately stopped pounding and her stomach felt a lot less queasy. Well, that made sense. Future drinks, future hangover cures. Not as good as the chips Shireen would load up on after a night out, but it was quicker.

Rose sat up and saw a note pinned to her lamp. In the Doctor's scrawl, it said "He did write those plays, and I'm taking you to 1607 to prove it. Dress accordingly."

Oh lord. Rose assumed that his note had something to do with whatever she had said last night, but she couldn't remember a thing right now.

Still though, 1607. It could be fun. Just as long as no one made her drink anything; she had a feeling that anything laced with 17th century Thames water would get her so drunkenly delirious that she would kiss the Doctor.

(Not like that would be a bad thing)