It's funny, but for all the things the Doctor can remember, he doesn't remember being born. (Born, made, loomed—it all comes out the same in the wash.) But he imagines it wasn't much different from this: sleeping blissful and unaware in a safe fluid-cocoon, immune to the dangers and the hurts of the world, then BAM! Cocoon bursts and gives way to bright lights, loud sounds, sensory overload, and a sensation like everything is burning around him.
Of course, that last bit could be because the TARDIS is on fire. Maybe not exactly like birth, then.
But after the TARDIS is saved, the Daleks destroyed, the day won and the holes between the universes sealed once again, the adrenaline subsides and reality starts bleeding back in. He becomes less occupied with what it's like to be new again, and more distracted by what it's like to be different. No more time sense, for one thing. The song of the universe has subsided and left a whole lot of nothing in its place. For another thing, his stamina is shot. He can't run for hours on end anymore. This body seems determined to thwart him at every turn, constantly reminding him that he needs to breathe, he needs to sleep, he needs to eat, he needs to piss, he needs to do something about that coy smile Rose shoots him every day. His vision is duller, his sense of smell flatter. He can't rattle off every single component of something just from one lick, anymore. (And Rose is sure to remind him of his new, rubbishy human immune system anytime he tries. That's another new thing: having to worry about colds. Since when does he have to worry about getting a cold?) It's sort of like he went from making films in color, with glorious surround-sound that booms until your teeth chatter, to producing flicks in black-and-white, with sound that is patchy and full of pops and snarls.
(He doesn't like to think about how the black-and-white films were almost always significantly shorter, too.)
The Doctor makes the comparison aloud one day, frustrated when he leaves his specs at home and it makes his day at Torchwood that much more difficult. (How is he supposed to interpret this ancient Ghurligian text when he can't even see every speckle or half-dash without squinting?) He doesn't like to use the words can't or stupid or trapped when it comes to this new life of his but he does, he spits them right now, hurling them like darts at a dartboard with sharp and vindictive pleasure. Each and every one hits their intended target and he remembers why he doesn't say these things when the hurt flashes across Rose's face.
He tries using her name next, words as balms instead of weapons, but it's a lot easier to inflict wounds than it is to cure them. Some doctor, he is. Additional words fail to come to his aid, reinforcements dragging their feet—another sign of his newfound defectiveness, he's sure—and all he does is watch, cringing in silence, as Rose calmly pushes back from the table, stands up, and leaves the room.
Wonderful. Now he feels guilty on top of everything else, because just like he can't turn everything else back on, he can't turn these stupid human feelings off. Isn't that just fantastic.
(Is this the sort of thing flowers are for? Maybe he should buy her some flowers. That's what human blokes do, right? Buy flowers and jewelry instead of apologizing? Take the blow to their pocketbooks instead of their pride? Though he can't see how an offering of dead flora is supposed to make anything better. No, no. He's not going to buy her flowers. That's ridiculous.)
One dozen pink roses and 65 quid later, he cracks open the door to their home to find Rose sitting on the couch, in the dark, her face lit a soft white by the screen of the laptop in front of her.
"I'm trying to understand," Rose tells him before he can say anything. She turns to look at him, and he's relieved at what he sees, or rather, what he doesn't; no puffiness and no makeup smudges means she probably hasn't been crying. "I want to understand photography," she says.
He blinks. He doesn't know what she means.
"I've been looking at black and white photos," Rose continues. "Trying to see if I can get it."
The Doctor edges further into the room, closing the door behind him. He wonders what she's discovered.
"Never been a big fan of black and white," she admits. "You know me. I like color. Pictures without it...they seem sort of flat, don't they? Incomplete?"
He agrees.
"But I dunno, a lot of people still seem to like the black and white," she muses, sliding her fingers along the trackpad, and the Doctor watches the light play on her face like watery fireworks, brighter and softer as different images flash on the screen. "So I did a little reading to find out why. There's a lot of blather about lighting and composition and forcing the viewer to 'really engage' and how color is distracting. Can't help but think that what it really boils down to is detail. You notice a lot more small stuff in a black and white photo than in a full-color one. You know?"
She angles the laptop toward him so he can see the screen. It shows a picture of a sunset, robbed of its rich golds and blood reds and violent purples and deep blues. The Doctor is tempted to ask why this picture, what's the point of looking at a sunset if you can't enjoy its vivid hues, but this time, the slowness of his human body is a blessing, because his mouth doesn't get a chance to push out the words before he realizes that maybe she's not wrong. The photo is leeched of color, sure, but he can make out the exact texture of the clouds, observe the stark contrast of light, pick out the first pinpricks of stars bright against the night sky. Things that would typically get overlooked in favor of color-filled brilliance.
He fidgets with the flowers hidden behind his back and points out that when a photographer has shot with color all their life, the transition to black-and-white-only film can be difficult. That a photographer might understandably get frustrated with their new limitations. That a photographer in such a position might be prone to lashing out sometimes. That they might need room to be angry sometimes, but they would never do anything to hurt their fellow photo artists on-purpose. And they're very sorry if they did. Hurt their fellow artists, that is.
Rose's lips curve upward in a small smile. "It's just hard not to take things personally sometimes. When photographers lash out, I mean."
He nods. He understands.
She stands up and approaches him, depositing the laptop on the coffee table on her way. "Besides," she says. "I sort of got the impression that that was something you liked about humans. That we asked the right questions, because even if we didn't see the overall picture, we noticed the details. So maybe—I dunno, maybe instead of black and white being worse, it's just different. Different's not so bad, right?"
The Doctor opens his mouth to argue, but falters. She's got a point. Of course she does, she's brilliant, and sometimes he hates her for it. That doesn't mean the hurt or the frustration or the impatience have completely abated, that they won't flare up again. They've still got their claws in him and they're not keen to loosen and let go. But he sees her nervousness in how she bites her lip, the hope in how her wide eyes watch his, feels the hesitance in her hands when she reaches up to smooth his coat-lapels, and he thinks maybe he can try to embrace the black and white for her. Maybe he even wants to.
"Besides," Rose teases, "You look really good in black and—"
Her words are cut off by his lips on hers. Not because he doesn't want to hear what she has to say, but because if he's going to spend the rest of his life looking at the details, then he wants to start with this. He focuses on the silk-softness of her lips instead of calculating coefficients, weaves her hair in his fingers and cups the curve of her skull in one hand in place of determining angles of descent, basks in the warmth of her mouth rather than willing his body to thermoregulate. Instead of thinking, he feels, losing himself in the pleasant almost-drunk feeling fizzing up from his toes to the top of his skull. He allows her to take control of the kiss instead of reaching out for potential timelines, humming when her hands fist in his coat and she pushes him against the wall and something goes crunch behind him.
Rose pulls away just in time to see him guiltily reach around and present a fistful of very crumpled flowers. Surprise!
She laughs with her tongue trapped between her teeth, pulling the bouquet out of his grasp. Broken stems fall over, bruised leaves wilt, and several petals drift lazily down to the floor.
"I think that's a detail we can overlook," Rose says slyly, and in a few minutes, the roses are left forgotten on the carpet.
(Three flowers survive the ordeal intact, eventually making it into a vase. Rose and the Doctor decide that's good enough.)