(1)

A slight breeze, just a whisper, shook the tall and yellow grass which seemed to stretch for miles and miles. Under the bright sunlight, a strange blue box suddenly began to take shape, like a mirage first, as a solid thing later; it passed a few seconds until the TARDIS hum stopped and the ship stood like that, pretending as usual to be just a simple old and blue English police box.

The wooden door creaked and a young man with tousled brown hair leaned out, his eyes sparkling with curiosity and expectation. Opening widely the door, he came out with his hands in his pockets and stepped forward, squinting in the sun. Over a striped brown suit, he was wearing a long trench coat that he probably would take off soon, taking into account the weather.

"Doctor?"

A blond-haired young girl left the TARDIS, closing the door behind her. As if he had foreseen the weather, she was wearing a jacket tied around the waist, wearing a plain shirt-sleeved bluish top and a pair of dark-blue jeans with a lot of pockets.

The Doctor was already looking around carefully, making one of his usual analyses of situation in time and place, when Rose Tyler began to try finding out for herself where had they landed. They were in a wide, open ground, flanked by lush trees which didn't let them see what lay beyond. The tall and yellow grass crunched under their feet when they walked.

"Where are we?" asked Rose finally.

The doctor took a couple of steps, slowly, gracefully, without removing his hands of his pockets.

"I have no idea", he stated with a big grin.

Rose chuckled in disbelief, collecting her hair in a ponytail.
"You and your random landings ... One of these days we're going to land in the middle of a barbarian invasion, or som'thing…"

The Doctor simply shrugged.

"No big deal, I've done that a couple of times ... let's see! ..." he sniffed the air and looked around "Yes ... I'd say this is Austria ... Ja, Österreich ... Nineteen century…? ... Although I'm not very sure of the year, so it may be simply Austria, or the Austro-Hungarian empire ...

Rose closed her eyes and breathed deeply, stretching his arms.
"And I'd say, it's noon ..." she said, imitating his tone of Dr. smartass "I've missed the sun ... the solar system one, I mean"she added, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

The Doctor looked up at the sky, squinting his eyes slightly when sunlight penetrated on them. He smiled in satisfaction, feeling the heat in his face and his smile broadened up to be that of a naughty child.

"Let's have a look: the most exciting thing about unplanned destinations" he said cheerfully, turning his head toward his companion.

And so they did, but the searing heat made Rose feel that the minutes elapsed, possibly no more than fifteen or twenty, seem hours. Even the Doctor had taken off his raincoat, but his energy still seemed inexhaustible. She stopped and gasped, her hands on her hips.

"We are back in the same place" she said with deadpan-voice.

"That's not true..."

She pointed with her head towards the space behind him in response; there it was the TARDIS, just as they had left her.. The Doctor just stared at his ship and blinked several times, slowly, open-mouthed.

"Blimey… You're right"

Rose sighed and sat on the grass.

"Exploring in this heat is killing me ..."she said. Then she leaned back until she was lying on the grass, right where the TARDIS was projecting a little shadow, stretching his arms above her head; she chuckled with satisfaction.

"Good idea, nothing will happen because we rest for a while and enjoy the warm light of your star" the Doctor said.

He spread his coat on the grass and fell over it with an exaggerated sigh. Rose laughed and their eyes met, just a few centimeters from each other.

"Hello!" he said with a smile.

She smiled back.

"This reminds me of our first trip, "he said, amused ... Well, our first trip with this body. Remember?"

Rose stood up with a snort.

"Yes, but this grass is not as soft as it looks and it doesn't smells like apple ..." she mumbled, trying to remove some sticky blades from her hair.

The Doctor sit down and took from her hair one little blade. He put on his rimmed spectacles and stared at the blade with great interest, while Rose was trying to get rid of another one, the same color as his hair.

"A-ha! A nettle… Urtica Dioica ... harmless, except for the hives" he snorted "What a pain in the neck they are ..." he threw it down and looked around "Nettles ... the Sun's height and his powerful shining ... Summer! Little by little we are about to know when we are, huh?" he said with a wide, careless smile.

"Yes... that's something ... Although taking into account this heat, it was something I had already deduced" she said, a little annoyed, removing the last nettle of her hair. "Now we only need to know where we are. But I prefer to take a break first, or I'll die of sunstroke… "

The Doctor laid back on his raincoat, his hands behind his head, making room for Rose so that she wouldn't end with her hair full with nettles. He closed her eyes against the bright sunlight, letting the sweet warm to stroke his freckled face. He noticed some movement at his side and he saw that Rose was mumbling something while she removed another nettle from her ponytail.

"They're a pain, aren't they? Lean on me if you want"

Rose seemed to hesitate a moment and then she smiled, shyly; she didn't know if her cheeks were turning slightly red due to the sun or to his sudden offering.

"Really, I don't care, come on" he said blithely, closing his eyes again.

After a while, he noticed that Rose leaned her head on his shoulder with a slight sigh, and she stayed there. He opened one eye to look at her, amused; pretty soon he perceived the sweet, fruity smell of her hair.

Then, Rose chuckled.

"What happens?"

"It's nothing ... I've just remembered that Mickey used to let me use him as a pillow when we watched telly on the sofa"

The Doctor frowned slightly, looking straight to her for a moment.

"Oh… really? So, who is more comfortable?" he asked with a funny voice.

Rose seemed to hesitate a moment and then she sat up to look at him with a mischievous face, pretending she was analyzing him.

"Well ... You're not very soft, you're too skinny ..." she said, mockingly.

"I'm not skinny!" he exclaimed, looking hurt "I'm just… too tall".

"Shut up, you lanky bloke..."

The girl laughed and put her head over his chest, in a more natural, spontaneous way this time. Suddenly, as she had just realized something, she carried a hand to the other side of his chest, leaving it there firmly; she grinned.

"I can hear them..."

The Doctor opened an eye to look at her. Rose could listen his left heart beating, feeling under her hand how the right one immediately followed. The Doctor smiled, amused at her companion's sudden interest. She closed her eyes to concentrate more in the sound, without wiping the smile off her face.

She tried to follow their rhythm with her fingers, one each hand, but she screwed it up and desisted, giggling.

"I've never been able to do it either, and I know them since veeeeery long ago!" he said, moving his fingers with a funny, confused expression in his face. She laughed again.

The Doctor grinned; he loved to hear her laughing, and all of a sudden a great affection for her came over him, like a tickling. Still smiling, he breathed in slowly, filling his lungs with the pure air of summer, and closed his eyes. He realized that Rose had made herself comfortable and she breathed deeply too. The blazing sunshine had already invaded their pleasing TARDIS-shadow, but no one of them seemed to care.

"This is so relaxing ..." she muttered.

He smiled, with a sudden shining in his eyes. The pressure of the head and the girl's hand on his chest was something nice and warm. As if he didn't realize what he was doing, his fingers tangled in a strand of her hair, and the affection he felt for her when he had heared her laughter seemed to multiply by one thousand. He found himself wondering how he sometimes envied that fact about human beings (the simplicity of things, the slight details that could make a person happy) when his mind, often frenetic, started to dive into a great, silent calmness. When he breathed in deeply again, he perceived the sweet scent of her hair. It smelled so good…

Rose also was starting to doze off; the sound of the hearts was almost hypnotic, and the smell of the grass and the warm caress of the sun on her face did not help at all to keep her awake. At that moment in the world there were only the two of them. They two, and the fragrant smell of the sun-warmed grass ... The soporific heat ... The rhythmic beating of the hearts ... first one, two times ... then another, other two ... And then a third ...

A third?

Surprised, she opened his eyes and sat up, trying to find the source of that third knocking.

Pretty soon she recognized the sound: horses' hooves. Someone was approaching.

"Doctor...?"

"I know ..."

They got up slowly, their eyes fixed on the horsemen who were coming towards them. Without looking away from their sudden guests, the Doctor grabbed his coat from the floor and put her lips near Rose's ear to whisper her something.

"I know when we are: we're about ten years after the creation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, sometime in the fifties or sixties ... And in the private gardens of the Emperor Francis Joseph"