"Um, where are we?" Rose asked, squinting against the harsh sunlight.
Though they'd been in the shadow of a high-rise in central London just moments ago, calling the place where they were now standing a farm would actually have been overly generous. There wasn't as much as a dirt road in sight in any given direction.
The Doctor said, "I'd guess somewhere in rural Romania, going by the looks of it and the taste in the air. Very rural, mind."
"And the TARDIS is..."
"Still back in London, I'd imagine," the Doctor admitted.
"Perfect," Rose sighed. "Just tell me the nearest city is somewhere within walkin' distance. I don't fancy havin' to hitchhike. With our luck, we'll get picked up by another stray alien who'd dump us who knows where once you inevitably ticked him off."
The Doctor pointedly ignored that last part, looking around thoughtfully instead. He stuck the tip of his index finger into his mouth and then raised it into the air, testing.
"That way." He pointed off to the right. "At least I think so. It's hard to tell with these wind patterns. The weather on Earth in the twenty-first century is completely mad."
"And what exactly's wrong with just usin' the screwdriver so's you can be sure?" Rose asked.
The Doctor suddenly took on a far-too-innocent expression. Rose wasn't having any of it.
"Don't even tell me you somehow wrecked the sonic screwdriver on top of everythin' else," Rose said, incredulous.
"Hey, it's not my fault that Gregarian used an Andovian energy beam to send us here, of all things," the Doctor protested. "That stuff fries the sonic screwdriver's circuits without fail, and there's no way to prevent it. Believe me, I've tried. So you can't blame me for any of this."
"Well yeah, actually," Rose said, "I really think I canwhen that alien bloke only did that because you were tauntin' him. Why'd you have to go big-notin' yourself like that, threatenin' to blow his cover and tryin' to be all impressive? He was just mindin' his own business, probably just on Earth for a holiday or somethin'. Least 'til you poked him with a stick, anyways. This serves you right."
"You never can tell with Gregarians, though," the Doctor said uncomfortably. They're a shifty lot."
"Since the Earth's obviously still spinnin', I reckon he probably didn't have it out for the human race. Which means you got us stranded for nothin'. No, worse, for your ego."
"My ego's just fine," the Doctor said. "It's perfectly healthy, especially for a Time Lord. And we'll get back to the TARDIS in no time, you'll see. I just have to figure out... you know, how. I have a plan. Or I will do. Give me a minute."
"Don't hurt yourself overthinkin' it. I already know what we're gonna do. 'Course, it's fairly low-tech compared to your usual plans."
"Just what are you talking about, here?" asked the Doctor with a frown.
Rose smiled and announced, "Obviously, we're just gonna have to go on a road trip."
"Don't you think it would be easier and quicker to go by airplane?" the Doctor asked. "Travelling without the TARDIS is slow enough as it is, but this?"
Rose laughed. "Yeah, actually, I do think a plane would be better. You got enough money for two seats on a flight all the way back to London, though? I don't think the psychic paper's gonna do it, since plane tickets don't really come with a 'plus one' option."
The Doctor shifted in place. He remained silent, for once.
"Yeah," Rose said. "That's what I thought."
The Doctor conceded defeat. He went to reach for the car keys that had just been placed on the hire desk in front of them, only to be beaten to them by Rose.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
Rose raised her eyebrows, jingling the keys pointedly. "What's it look like?"
"Like you're very wrong about who's going to be doing the driving if we're going to do this; that's how it looks."
"Have you ever even driven a car before?" Rose asked.
"Of course I have," the Doctor said indignantly. "Who doesn't know how to drive a car? In fact, I'm brilliant at it."
"And how long has it been since you last did it, exactly?"
"Er..." the Doctor started. "A little while. Well, I say a little while; I mean a couple of centuries. Well, I say a couple..."
"Yeah," Rose decided. "I'm definitely drivin'."
"But I've always been the driver," the Doctor whined.
"Yeah, and look how that's always ended," Rose pointed out. "It's all very well if you crash the TARDIS into the wrong century, but crashin' the car into a tree is gonna get us killed, and only one of us can regenerate. 'Sides, I was the one who had to ring my Mum to beg her to transfer me enough money so's we could afford to hire even the dodgiest car they got here. After goin' through all those 'I told you so's, I think I've earned the driver's seat. Unless you wanna call Mum back and have a nice long conversation with her about just how this was all your fault, that is."
"No," the Doctor squeaked. He cleared his throat. "No," he repeated more normally. "I don't think that'll be necessary. I don't think we need to bother your mother again, do you? And it's probably about time I let you drive anyway, don't you think? I think so."
"Does that mean you're gonna teach me to drive the TARDIS when we get back?" Rose asked with a sly grin.
The Doctor grimaced. "Don't push it."
"We're stopping again?" the Doctor complained. "But we stayed in that hotel for six hours and twenty-three minutes. Over six hours of staring at rose-patterned wallpaper. Wallpaper, Rose! Honestly! And now we've just barely got away from there and you want to stop again? At this rate, we'll never get back to London. Don't you want to get back to the TARDIS? I do, Rose. I really, really do."
"I know. But I'm human," Rose reminded him. "Obviously I'm gonna need some sleep after spendin' a whole day clompin' through Romania just to get back to civilisation. I also happen to have a bladder, and it's been three hours and an entire bottle of water since that last rest stop. I'm gonna have to pull over, end of story."
The Doctor silently fumed in the passenger seat, clearly wishing he'd insisted on driving after all.
"You can choose the music," Rose offered. "I think we might be gettin' near somewhere with a decent radio station soon-ish."
Though the Doctor grumbled, he let himself be at least somewhat placated. Rose got the impression it had less to do with that concession than the cajoling smile she bestowed on him for a moment before looking back at the road.
"Okay, this time it can't be because you need to go to the bathroom, surely," said the Doctor.
"No," agreed Rose. "I figured somethin' good ought to come out of this detour. I wanna stop off and see Paris."
"We could visit Paris anytime once we get back to the TARDIS. Believe me, there are lots of much better times to see Paris than in the early twenty-first century."
Rose nodded. "Yeah, but at least this way I know that I'll actually end up in Paris and not somewhere off on the other side of the universe. No offence – or, actually, maybe a little bit of offence intended – but your sense of direction kinda sucks."
"But London..."
"Will still be there tomorrow, yeah?" Rose deflected. "Or, at least, Mum'll give me a call if it's lookin' like aliens might try to blow it up or somethin', so we can swoop in and save the day just in time. In the meantime, don't you wanna show me the sights of Paris?" Rose gave him that coaxing smile again.
The Doctor looked torn. As he always did when Rose really wanted something, though, he caved fairly quickly. "Oh, all right then. We're not waiting in line for two hours just to go up the Eiffel Tower, though."
Rose reached across and squeezed the Doctor's hand, keeping her other hand firmly planted on the steering wheel. "What, you sayin' that just 'cause we're in the one century, you can't find any way to impress me in Paris? You?"
Rose didn't even need to take her eyes off the road to know that the Doctor's whole expression lit up at the challenge.
Visiting a colony of lizard-men in a hidden section of the catacombs and sneaking into a private house to meet a teenage boy who would apparently be a famous author in fifteen years (planting a few fun ideas as they went) were about what Rose had been expecting.
On the other hand, the last thing Rose would have thought the Doctor would purposely do next was take her shopping. She had to admit, though, that the marketplace he dragged her through was just as insane as a lot of the more exotic places he'd taken her during the past two years.
It was so tightly-packed that Rose would have likely been lost in the crowd if not for the Doctor's hand tightly clenched in hers. There was a cacophony of vendors' voices calling out, the words difficult to make out even though the TARDIS was translating them from French for her. The food, interspersed between stalls of jewellery and clothing and odd knick-knacks that her Mum would probably appreciate, smelled incredibly fresh and appetising after the food she'd had to settle for while they'd been on the road.
"If you won't let me get you back to the TARDIS and try for the real 47th century France, then I'll just have to bring a bit of 47th century France to you," the Doctor told her loudly, trying to be heard over the noise. He flitted from stand to stand, somehow managing to order an assortment of foods with what little cash Rose still had on hand. Rose followed wordlessly, half in-awe of the ordered chaos and the easy way he navigated it.
The Doctor even managed to suddenly catch one of the nine balls a street performer between the stalls was juggling. The busker was almost homicidally angry that the Doctor had interfered and ruined his streak, though the Doctor insisted that the toss had gone far too wide and that he would have dropped the ball anyway. Rose giggled as the two of them had to take off running (or ducking and diving between people, more to the point).
"Lucky I got everything I needed already," the Doctor said when they reached a small park, not even sounding slightly out of breath even though Rose was definitely panting from the chase through the market.
She watched, fascinated, as the Doctor laid out his coat like a picnic blanket and then proceeded to combine the food into a very odd looking dish that looked almost like a sandwich, though it was made up of ingredients Rose would never have dreamed of putting on a sandwich on their own, let alone all together.
"This," the Doctor announced, "is probably the most popular Parisian dish of the 47th to 49th centuries, believe it or not. It's called a venibar. Or, well, close enough. I had to improvise with one of the ingredients, since it's only grown in an underground facility which humans haven't even discovered yet. Still, it's close enough to pass the grade."
He held it out to Rose expectantly. Rose certainly had her misgivings about the look of it, but she wasn't about to back down and let him call her a chicken.
"Wow," Rose said at the first bite. "That's seriously tasty, and then some. How's it possible that all those things put together don't taste completely disgustin'? I don't get it."
"It's a mystery," the Doctor agreed. "Scientists studied it for years after it was invented trying to figure that out, with no success." The Doctor was clearly pleased with himself. "It just goes to show that I was right; other centuries are much better choices for visiting Paris. Still, once you've finished that, I'll take you to this great place with no crowds, since it won't be popular with tourists for another six hundred years."
"Why's that?"
"Because it's completely invisible, of course!" the Doctor exclaimed. "No one has any clue that it's there. But don't worry. I know exactly where to find it, and how to get in."
"I know the door is around here somewhere," the Doctor said two hours later, running his hand through his hair in frustration and glaring at what appeared to be an empty lot.
Rose just snorted, having long since settled down for an extended wait. She'd taken to sunbathing and half-snoozing on a low rock-wall fence across the road while she watched the Doctor stalk ineffectually around the supposedly-invisible building trying to find a way inside without any help from his broken screwdriver.
If he didn't figure it out soon, she thought she might practise her eyelash-fluttering and see if she could get him to go get her an iced coffee. It was hot out, after all. And if he still hadn't figured it out once the sun started setting, she was going to have to insist on calling it a day.
Other than that, though, the Doctor being foiled by an inanimate object that might not actually even exist yet would probably continue to be amusing enough to keep her happy for several hours yet.
"I never thought I'd be so glad to see 21st century London," the Doctor said as they drove through the outskirts of the city. "I'd even take gladly go see your mother right now if it meant getting back to the TARDIS."
"Yeah, yeah. Complain about it as much as you like," Rose said. "I know the truth."
"What truth?"
"You actually sorta love this place. It's like your home away from home."
The Doctor laughed as if that was completely ridiculous, but Rose wasn't fooled.
He might not want to set up shop on Earth permanently (and Rose wouldn't ever try to tie him down that way, not least because she was looking forward to getting back to the TARDIS almost as much as he was), but Rose liked that he still secretly sort of wanted to be involved in the more day-to-day part of her life, and of humanity at large. Even spending two whole days crossing the continent when they should have been able to do the same thing in two seconds wasn't anywhere near as painful for him as he made out. Since he'd regenerated, he sort of liked things a little domestic, though he'd never admit it.
The same went for Rose, of course. Even when he was getting them into trouble for stupid reasons, or when he was just frustrated and complaining and driving her a little bit nuts, she definitely still loved this life with him. And while she'd be just as happy as him to finally leave this stupid car behind, she wanted to keep travelling (at least in a non-car-related way) with him forever.
She just hoped he secretly felt the same way about that as well.
~FIN~