one. leisure - free time
Rose Tyler was bored.
It was rare that she was bored; her life had been so full of adventure and danger since the Doctor with his blue box and leather jacket and Northern accent had come around. And normally she appreciated some leisure time, but it had been three hours since they had been outside - eleven if she included her eight sleep hours. And while she rather liked watching the Doctor tinkering with the Tardis, it got boring after the first ten minutes. Not to mention that every time she tried to make conversation, he would either brush her off with a one-word answer or give her a five-minute speech on Gallifreyan technology and its quirks that she wouldn't understand a single word of.
"Doctor?" she asked tentatively. He grunted. She took that as a response. "When do you think you'll be done?" Another grunt. Okay, not so much of a response. Realising she was going nowhere, she slid off her chair near the Tardis console and decided to go exploring.
"What are you doing?"
The Doctor. Oh, so now he chose to say something. "I'm bored, so I'm going exploring."
"But your wrist - " he began.
"Is fine," she finished for him. They'd run into some nasty aliens yesterday on the planet Awrin yesterday, and she'd sprained her right wrist. Was that why he wasn't dragging her off on some adventure, as usual? Her wrist was fine, all wrapped up in some alien cast thing that was supposed to heal her wrist by tonight.
The Doctor sighed, realising there was no way he could stop her. "All right then, but don't get lost. The Tardis is a lot bigger than you think."
"It's alright," said Rose. "The ship likes me." She hadn't gotten lost since her first night, in which she'd wandered around for twenty minutes looking for the bathroom before bumping into the Doctor, who had pointed her in the right direction. He said it was normal - the Tardis liked to test his companions, that sort of thing. But since then, she'd gotten around just fine. She'd passed the test, apparently.
She'd only been exploring for a few minutes when she ran into a huge set of double doors, made of mahogony with eleaborate decorated gold handles. Curious, she pushed the door open with her left hand. To her surprise, it actually opened. Her eyes widened as she stepped in and soaked in the sight. To her right was a cozy couch, a side table, an armchair, and what appeared to be a large screen. And to her left - shelves. Hundreds of shelves, all filled with books. How many were there? There had to be thousands, hundreds of thousands. A library. This was the Tardis library. It was huge, and it was amazing.
She'd never been much of a reader, but she'd have to be blind not to be interested by this. She slid a book off a shelf, and for a second, it was undecipherable, written in a strange language, but it immediately translated. The Beasts of the Sedus Galaxy. She flipped to a random page to see an image of a strange creature with what appeared to be the head of a moose and the body of a slim white cat. Tucking the book underneath her arm, she crouched down to examine the bottom shelves - the books looked a bit different - when she realised that those weren't books on the bottom shelves at all! They were movies! Placing her book on the floor, she slid a familiar DVD case out. The Lion King.
"Oh, you wonderful, wonderful Tardis," she said. It slipped out before she realised that she was talking to a ship. The Doctor must've been rubbing off her. She picked up the book and the movie, holding them both with one hand, placed them on the side table, and scrutinized the screen. It must've been some sort of advanced telly, but she couldn't find the controls. She opened the drawer of the table and found a remote control. Okay, that was good... if only she could understand half the symbols.
Frustrated, she decided to give up on the telly and just read her book. But before that, maybe she should pop some popcorn. And grab a blanket. Nothing says cozy leisure time like a book, popcorn, and a blanket.
When she came back with a bag of microwaved popcorn and her favorite lilac and grey snuggy draped over her shoulder, she found the Doctor, spread out on the couch with his head on one side and his feet on the other, reading The Beasts of the Sedus Galaxy.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
He turned his head around. "Oh, hello." He stood up, walked over, and reached for a handful of her popcorn, but she jerked the bag away.
"I thought you were tinkering with the Tardis!"
"Finished tinkering. Was bored. Went to the library, because y'know, it is my library. By the way, if you were going to read that book, don't. It's rather boring, and very outdated - only the first edition. You should read the eighth - that's fabulous, with 3D photos and everything..."
"Alright, if you can find it. Although I didn't want to read it very much in the first place," she confessed. "I wanted to watch The Lion King."
"Why didn't you?" the Doctor asked.
"I... couldn't figure out the remote," she said, embarrassed.
To her surprise, he didn't laugh. "That's alright. This sort of telly won't be invented until the 50th century. Great telly, this is though. Not only can it play the 5-D flashes, it can play good old fashioned 2-D DVDs. Not VCRs though. Those are ancient."
"So can you turn it on?" she asked hopefully.
"Why would I?" he asked, twirling the remote in his hand. "You'd be better off reading Beasts. At least it's educational and all that, better than watching some old cartoon Disney thing."
"Oi!" she exclaimed. "That film was my childhood. Good memories, you know. That's it, no popcorn for you." And with that, she pulled the bag away from his fingers and far out of his reach and sat down on the couch. Keeping her eye on the bag, she wrapped her blanket around herself and reached for the book. However, she couldn't resist looking up when she heard a slight click and saw the familiar Disney symbol illuminating the huge screen.
"Aha!" said the Doctor gleefully, swiping her unattended bag on the table. He had a handful of popcorn stuffed in his mouth before she could jump up and snatch it away from him. The Doctor didn't let go easily, however, and the bag ripped apart. Rose squeaked as popcorn flew everywhere.
"Look what you did!"
"What I did, Rose Tyler?"
She would have said more, but the beginnings of the "Circle of Life" started warbling out of those 50th century speakers, and her eyes drifted to the screen, entranced.
"Oi, Rose, someone's got to clean this up," the Doctor said, bringing her back to reality.
She sighed. "Okay, I will..." The Doctor raised his eyes, surprised that she gave in so easily, when, hit by a sudden impulse, she added, "if you watch it with me?"
"Sorry, Rose, but why in the universe would I watch a Disney film from the 20th century? No thank you!"
She pouted. She hadn't been expecting him to say yes, of course; watching Disney films rather went against his leather-jacket-and-brooding-Time-Lord image, but it was worth a shot. "Come on," she urged. "You have nothing to do since the Tardis is all fixed, and I've stolen your library. And we can't go on adventures since I broke my wrist." She put on her best puppy-dog pout. "I'll share my blanket, and I'll even pop another bag of popcorn."
He raised his eyebrows and was silent for a very, very long time. Finally, he said, "Two bags. And I get to choose the next film we watch."
"Next film?"
The Doctor nodded and slid another case out of the shelf. "A History of Computer Chips - a three-hour long documentary made in the thirty-first involving things like physics and machinery, all the things I know you love."
Rose rolled her eyes. But fine. That was a small price to pay. Smiling to herself, she headed for the kitchen, looking for popcorn and a dustpan.
Written for the One Hundred Words Instant Challenge on the FanFiction Imagination forum.