The thing about travelling through all of space and time was that in the same moment one could feel glad for the adventure but also deprived of the beauty of natural life. Natural life, to Rose, was what she left behind as a little human dwelling from a housing estate. One where she woke up every morning to the blaring of an alarm telling her that the time was always going to be 7:30 when she opened her eyes. The life where her mum made her tea with lemon (the Doctor only kept milk on board) and her boyfriend would give her a kiss that was sweet and searching. At times, Rose wasn't sure whether she really missed the structure of a boring, human life or rather that she longed for what she had always known. She was always afraid to tell the Doctor that she missed some things 'domestic' because he disapproved so fiercely, and Rose was never quite sure why. Maybe he thought that she would ask him to take her back and he didn't want that to happen. However, it was more likely that he was torn between loving the Earth so much and yet hating most of the people that inhabited it. It was a bit hypocritical actually, as he was always saving the place and ending up in the cesspool of the universe, as he so loving called it when his mood slipped into the foul side.
All this aside, she couldn't blame him for his feelings- how often had she wished…While she loved her mum, she knew that she was in every way ridiculous. Rose, with her teenage ambitions, always believed that her mum never wanted her to go far simply because Jackie herself had never gone far. She lived in the same hole since before Rose's father died and it was highly unlikely she would ever be supplanted. Mickey was the same. In some ways Rose did have feelings for Mickey, but he wished to hold Rose down too, or so she felt. She could never shake the way he clung to her legs like a child, begging her not to go when she did. She almost gave up what she had now for him, the same way Jimmy Stone made Rose promises and convinced her to throw away another life she could have had all for him, not for her. Mickey would rather she come down to him than he ever rise up for her and be the kind of bloke that she wanted. The kind of bloke Rose Tyler deserved. But her mom would tell her that Rose Tyler deserved nothing. Who was she to believe that the world owed her anything?
Still. Rose missed human relationships. She missed physical contact. She missed someone pushing back her hair and she missed the brushing of someone's bottom lip against her own. Her body clock was physically out of sync. It didn't matter when she woke up because time could always be relived. She could wake up and it would be four in the afternoon on Earth but the TARDIS didn't care about time. The TARDIS didn't care about days. The Doctor could take her anywhere but things were so easily lost on that ship. She kept a track of how many days she had been gone. She didn't mention it to the Doctor but they had bypassed what would have been Easter. They spent so much time going to days that history saw as special that it seemed like sometimes she forgot the days that she could have made special back in her own time. She shook her head. She had nineteen years to make those days special. But she never did.
Rose was in a brooding mood and she resolved that something ought to be done about that. She ripped the covers from her body and put her feet on the ground. A shower. That was all she needed. Early in the morning; her soft feet were bare and creaked on the staircase as she came down, stretching her arms into the air like someone reaching for everything above them; the atmosphere, the stars... In this case, the stars were no longer above her or below her. They were before her and after her.
Rose was awake. The Doctor had been up for some time- in fact, he hadn't ever put his eyes to rest. He laid there, in the dark, but never slumbered. It meant that he never dreamed, and for that he was grateful; instead he meditated on where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do next. He had heard Rose pass by his bed chamber. He was eager to have some other form of amusement now and her laughter was the best the universe had to offer. He creaked his bones, moving the joints in his neck until they made a satisfying pop, and sprung off his bed quite spryly and springy for an ancient alien, at least in comparison to such a young woman as the one he traveled with. He moved to sprint down the stairs but caught sight of his reflection in the mirror and paused, turning his strong chin in the air to the left and to the right. He needed a good shave. Right then... He looked older when he let the shadows grow and consume his face, especially his eyes. He knew this. So did Rose, because she was the one who told him. "I don't like seeing a shadow on your face, Doctor"… He made an expression in the mirror and casually flicked his big ears. This was the best he was going to get, for now.
He made it down the stairs in one piece but Rose wasn't there; he tried not to pull a face of annoyance. Honestly. After Rose, he was done with young women with all their grooming and fussing and facial hair insulting…They didn't appreciate the rugged, dark look of a man. But most of all, he disliked their rigid and complex regimen that resulted in their pretty looks. He supposed, in a way, it might have been worth it. He ran a hand across his face again. The floor shook around him; the TARDIS gave a great groan, and the Doctor looked at her large blue core reproachfully, running his hands across the controls.
"Oiy, that's enough outta you!" The TARDIS, for all of its beautiful imperfections, really had something against hot water. Convincing her to provide you with some when you were in the shower was hard enough, but she always shouted in protest as if she was being violated. "Let the girl get clean!" Taking his own advice, he decided it might be a good time to take care of his face. He left the console room in search for another bathroom (the 5th bathroom, specifically) that possessed a little fraction of the TARDIS down the hallway and left from the console room. He opened the medicine cabinet and took out an old fashioned safety razor and cream. He lathered up his face and started. His eyes softened as he did, and he recalled what he had previously thought to himself. About there being an 'after Rose'. He glanced behind himself like he half expected her to appear there and reassure him that she wasn't going anywhere, but the TARDIS was still groaning and the water was still running. Life after Rose. It seemed so much worse than what it was. But he had lived without Rose before. He had been bitter, and cold, but he lived. He could live without her now, surely. The razor glided across his skin.
The Doctor often wondered what it was about Rose Tyler that made him come back for her. There was, of course, no regret in his decision but at times he didn't- or wouldn't- fully understand it. It was good enough for him to feel that she had proved herself a worthy person to travel with. A worthy person to respect. And to-
"Dammit!" He exclaimed, as he nicked the underside of his strong chin. He very quickly finished off the rest of his face and grabbed a hold of some tissue and pressed it up under his neck. There now. His face was clean. He turned it back and forth again. The reflection had hardly improved. Not that there was much to work with. He sighed enduringly, as if his own silhouette in the mirror caused him pain constantly (though in reality, the thought hardly bothered him until he saw himself in a mirror) and headed back to the main control room. He realized that the shower had stopped running and leaned against the railing, facing the entire prospect of the engine and her gadgets. It was long before Rose appeared, fresh-faced and young and dressed in smooth jeans and a pink shirt and altogether lovely. He stared at her for a moment or two, before speaking. "Good mornin', Rose." She smiled at him, but it was a cold smile. Or rather, not as warm as he was used to seeing.
"Wotcher, Doctor. Did you cut yourself?" He nodded, solemnly, and she moved closer to him and batted his hand down to look at the underside of his neck. It was easy to do as she only came up about that high as it was. "S'not so bad, it's stopped bleeding at any rate. You're safe to throw that tissue out without an incident." He took the paper from her hands and aimed it at the garbage can like a ball, arching his back as he launched it that way and missed. He held up a hand to stop her from taking care of the mess like she usually would. Rose had a tendency to clean whenever there was a mess. The Doctor, in all his wisdom, thought this spoke mounds about her. He walked over to the bin and threw it out.
"Y'seem dull today." Her eyes flashed. In fact, Rose wasn't sure how he made this deduction but it was true, admittedly. She blew hot air from her bottom lip and rolled her eyes a bit, in that brattish way that at nineteen she still hadn't entirely shaken. He frowned at her. It was the complete opposite of what he had been wanting.
"I'm not dull. It's just. Well."
"Well, what, Rose?"
"I think I need a holiday." It was true. Maybe she had seen too much. She had survived hollow plastic robots, avoided being a sausage frying in a pan, narrowly missed out on being turned into a zombie, tumbled with a future prime minister in a cabinet during a missile attack…a Dalek couldn't kill her but she watched it kill hundreds of other helpless people while she ran. She was nearly dead because of her own inability to run fast enough. She saw the Doctor look on helplessly as she was left to die- she heard the heaviness, the throat and ache in his voice when he admitted that he thought he lost her. She knew what she felt in her heart when his voice broke. She knew what she felt when the Dalek asked him if he would save the woman he loved. He didn't confirm it but he didn't deny it, at least not completely one way or the other. But she wasn't a woman. Not really, definitely not to him. She was a kid, a young woman at best. She was, the Doctor had admitted, the best there was. He didn't want anyone else, and he made that clear. She didn't want him to have anyone else either. All of this aside, all this loyalty and devotion and friendship between them, it was still a lot to take. None of the pain and suffering and life and death situations she faced hurt as bad as watching her father die twice. She knew the Doctor hesitated to take her there for her own good. She knew that she had acted selfishly, and that she had thrown her feelings and the Doctor's feelings around that day, though she wasn't entirely sure what either of their feelings were. They both had hit upon sore points- the Doctor accusing Rose of using him, and Rose accusing the Doctor of wanting to be the only person in her life. They were both right, subconsciously, about in the other. Rose had used him to escape. But the Doctor has used her to discover himself again. It was a beneficial partnership. They both grew because of the other. She didn't want to leave it behind but she wished that their lives together- their adventures- sometimes could bit a bit more…simple. Less complicated. Fun. It was too heavy.
"Oh, lovely idea! We'll jus' go a bit back in the past, what say you to 1945? You can kill Hitler the same day he's meant to kill himself. We'll get it published, you'll be a hero, the day can be named after you and then you'll get your holiday!"
"That's not what I meant." She said in response to his snarky speech. He had hoped to make her laugh but it fell flat, obviously, like a child kicking an airless football. "I mean…remember Christmas, 1869? I missed Easter, 2005. If I was home then, the day before yesterday, I'd be eating baked ham with my mum. Instead, I missed the whole year of holidays. I was born in May. That's only weeks away to me, but to my mom I'm already 2o because I missed a whole year. If I'm still with you, I age differently. I can go to a holiday in my grandad's time but miss it in my mum's." The time had come already. He knew it would. He wanted to curse her up and down for it- stupid Doctor, for picking a stupid girl, a girl who would eventually long for home because who doesn't long for home? Who doesn't indeed, Doctor? He knew better. The Doctor knew better. Doctor… "That's not what I meant, Doctor…" She answered. He looked back up at her; his eyes were a cross between emotional and stoic, both hard and cooling at the same time, like salty seawater slapping against open wounds, but he hadn't parted his lips to speak at all. When he finally did move to speak- he felt himself almost unclenching his jaw, as if subconsciously he was forcing himself to have no reaction to her words. Obviously though, Rose had seen one despite his attempt to close himself off from her in those moments.
"Whatdya mean, then?"
"Take me to Easter, 2005." He raised his eyebrow at her.
"Rose…"
"It doesn't have to be back home. I know why it can't, crossing timelines or whatever. But that doesn't mean you can't take me to Easter, 2005 in France. Or to Easter, 2005 on a different plant. We can do both. We can go to a different planet that celebrates something else, but in 2005. I was supposed to be travelling, anyways. You said you can do anything. Everything." He furrowed his brow for a moment.
"Well…2005 is a tiny year, Rose. Your little race hasn' spread beyond the universe yet. I cant just take you to another planet and introduce you as…as…"
"Have you been to another planet in 2005 before?"
"Well, yeah but…I'm-"
"You're a time lord. You look like a man. Why can't I be a time…madam?" His furrow drove deeper into his skin. "Look, fine, forget the other planets for now. But can't you take me…I don't know, forget Easter. Forget it all." He didn't know what else to say, so he stood up and looked at the quiet engine of the TARDIS.
"I'll take you." He said, quietly. "I'll take you wherever you want to go." His voice built in sound, rising as he took a deep breath and very quickly added, "Easter is frightfully borin' though. Dull holiday, with eggs and rabbits and sugar highs. Tell you what. Let's do St. Patrick's Day." She smiled, finally. The Doctor smiled as well, drawing from her what it was he wanted so badly to see after the sleepless night he had. Some dawn in the morning.
"Where, though?"
"America."
"America. Right...New York?"
"No, Boston…Boston, Massachusetts, America, 2005. Go put somethin' green on." She bounced from where she was leaning, and made it halfway down the hallway before she turned back. She titled her head at him for a moment, as if there was more meaning behind what she was about to say than she'd let on. He thought for a moment that her excitement and energy were going to leave her again, and she'd tell him that maybe it would be best for her to go home.
"Thank you, Doctor." She leaned up to him and put her arms tightly around his neck. He was a bit taken aback by this for a moment. The Doctor was a touchy sort of man in the heat of the moment. But he hadn't been expecting her to press against him, to hug him like she thought that he might slip away. It was a shadow to how he felt about her sometimes- that she would just slip away and become another memory to him like everything else good and whole and beautiful that was once in his world and heart. He recovered by wrapping his arms around her and pressing his chin into her hair, forgetting about cut that had been made there because he could no longer feel it. He remembered the first time he hugged her- she was swinging from a rusty chain and he caught her and they clung to each other with total and debilitating eagerness- an eagerness that would bring him back to her, twice. An eagerness that made her abandon her life before. An eagerness that made it seem impossible for one to live without knowing more and everything about the other. He owed her a holiday. Several. He owed her his life. She pulled away from the hug, but kept one of her hands around his neck. She took her fingers and laid a kiss against them with her big, full lips and pressed them against the scratch on his skin. "I'll see you in a mo'."
Just like that, she left him again to get changed. There one moment, gone another. The Doctor placed a hand on the top of his cropped head. He had so many reasons to smile, but there was one thought- really, a tiny little boo-boo of an oversight- that made him smirk right now.
...Wait until she remembered the drinking age in America.
