A/N: A songfic! I know, it's crazy. Cos no one posts songfics on the Doctor Who page. No one at all.
Except for everyone. Which is why I'm doing one now. Because I felt very left-out.
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. I do own a shirt, though, from cafépress, but don't tell the BBC, they're probably not too happy about that.
Also, I did not write the song in this fic, "Poor Wand'ring One". That would be those chaps Gilbert and Sullivan. From the operetta Pirates of Penzance.
Rose tended to over-think sometimes.
Actually, a lot. She over-thought a lot, and she was proud that she did because sometimes she made amazing discoveries by hacking into the very deepest, darkest corner of her brain and coming to some amazing conclusion.
Poor wand'ring one,
Thou hast surely strayed
Like when she first realised she loved the Doctor. She found that out while she was taking a shower one day, not long after meeting Harriet Jones the first time. She had put the thought away, tried to ignore it, but it was there and it stayed there, pestering her. She felt so helpless, because what could she do? Try out Adam, that's what, and that hadn't worked out so well. Actually, whenever she thought about Adam, all she could do was cringe and laugh.
Rose spent a lot of time with herself, thinking, in the shower or lying in bed, trying to sleep or just sitting in the captain's chair in the console room, listening to the Doctor explain things: anything. She loved to listen to him talk.
Take heart of grace,
Thy steps retrace,
Poor wand'ring one!
Rose thought about her mum, too- how could she not? Her mother was such a complicated issue. Every time Rose came home, Jackie would do one of two things, depending on how she felt that day: either pull her into a bone-crushing hug or look her up and down in the threshold with an arid gaze and say, "Oh, you're back again, are you?"
Rose knew that deep down, her mum liked the Doctor…it was just, the Doctor wasn't exactly Jackie's ideal match for Rose. He was "A man without a name," she had said once, while Rose was visiting home just before the fiasco on that mining planet with Ida and Captain Cross Flane. Jackie frowned and handed her daughter a teacup to dry. "A wanderer- do you really want to spend your life wandering, Rose? No anchor, no home, just wandering?"
Poor wand'ring one,
If such poor love as mine
Can help thee find true peace of mind,
Why, take it! It is thine.
And Rose would try to explain, but Jackie would never have any of it so she usually just stopped trying. The glaring truth, however, was that of course wandering what Rose wanted. Rose personally had a hard time understanding why someone, after having the experience of seeing the whole of time and space, would not want to travel it.
Take heart, no danger low'rs;
Take any heart but ours!
But she wouldn't tell Jackie that, so as not to get scolded. She just took in a breath, hugged her mum and went into the next room to rejoin the Doctor, and he would smile at her in a way that would make her dizzy with happiness, in a way that spoke volumes to her but that her mother was deaf to. Then Jackie would hug her goodbye, bid a stiff goodbye to the Doctor, and mother and daughter would part ways.
Then one of them (Rose eventually talked the Doctor into letting her unlock the TARDIS once in a while) would open the TARDIS door and they would take off, back into the vortex.
"What do you want to do now?" the Doctor might ask.
"I don't know," Rose would say, pretending to think hard. "Just…drift around for a bit?"
"What, wander?"
Rose would grin. "Yeah, I suppose so."
And the Doctor would grin back and nod, and Rose would be so happy.
Take heart, fair days will shine;
Take any heart, take mine!
Teh end! Review, would you be so kind?