It began with the simplest of remarks.

They'd just fought off a real werewolf in order to save Queen Victoria. To be honest, Rose was still half-convinced that this life, where a day like that almost passed for normal, had to be a dream. So it somehow seemed like the right time for Rose to mention what she'd been thinking since she first stepped into what appeared to be just a small wooden box, but was actually something that was equal parts alien technology and (whatever the Doctor might say about its existence) magic.

"A fairytale," the Doctor repeated, musing over her words. "That's really what you think this life is like?"

Rose wondered, then, whether she should have maybe held back from saying anything. After all, as much as they'd fallen back into a companionship that Rose enjoyed, it wasn't quite the same as it had been. She still didn't know this new man he'd turned into quite well enough to know how he'd take certain things. If the old him had thought what she'd just said was stupid he'd just say so, and then they'd probably bicker a bit, and then everything would be ultimately forgotten (and forgiven, if necessary). That man was gone. This new man was untested. Rose didn't even think he even knew himself yet. Not really.

Still, Rose Tyler had never been one to walk on eggshells, even when she probably should.

"Well," she amended, "maybe not a fairytale, exactly. More like a kid's book. Or loads of 'em, all rolled into one. Ones that're filled with all those completely unbelievable stories about flyin' cars, and 'good' witches who're actually secretly probably the worst of anyone, and ordinary people savin' the world with the help of talkin' animals, and all of those other things that make kids want to hang about outside so's they can make a wish on the first star of the night."

The sorts of things that Rose never thought a girl trapped on a Council Estate could ever really be involved in, even if they did exist. She didn't say it, but she was fairly certain from the look on the Doctor's face that he understood the meaning behind her words anyway. After all, as little as Rose had ever been able to pry out of him about his past, she'd heard enough that she knew he saw the TARDIS sort of the same way. It was an escape; a freedom that neither of them had ever really expected to have.

She waited silently, biting a fingernail nervously between her front teeth before she registered that she was doing it, for him to shake his head at her fondly but condescendingly, or maybe for him to snap at her that his life was full of death and violence rather than unicorns and love spells, and honestly, couldn't she see that?

Instead, he asked, "What was your favourite?"

"My what?" she said, taken aback.

"Your favourite weird and wonderful story as a kid," he elaborated. His smile was somehow disarming.

Her knee-jerk reaction was to tell him about how she'd been so instantly fascinated with the idea of Narnia that she'd nearly cried when she'd found that the copy of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe she'd got from her school library had a whole chunk of pages ripped out and so much graffiti scribbled over the last page that Rose could barely make out the words. She'd begged her mother to buy a proper copy of it and all the other books in the series so that she didn't miss anything, but they just hadn't had the money to spare at the time.

She was right on the verge of mentioning far-off lands, unexpected jumps in time, and heroic figures that saved the day in the nick of time (she didn't fail to see the parallels inherent in any of that, of course). But then Rose remembered instead the hours and hours spent with her bucket and spade in the sandbox at the edge of the playground just off the Estate. Her Mum, frustrated when she'd had to fight to drag Rose inside as the sun was setting, had asked her almost scathingly if she was trying to dig her way to China.

China hadn't sounded like a half-bad option, all things considered, though she'd thought it might take a while to get there. That hadn't stopped Rose from answering sullenly, "Not even. I'm searchin' for buried treasure."

After weeks on end of disappointment (or perhaps just a few days that had seemed like weeks to Rose's young impatient mind), Rose had had to face facts. There weren't going to be any chests of jewels conveniently lying around in some stupid Estate in the middle of London. It just wasn't going to be that easy for Rose and her Mum to move somewhere nicer, where there was no Doris the mad cat lady next door or woman across the hall who never went three whole hours, no matter the time of day, without getting into a shrieking match with her latest bloke-of-the-moment. Still, Rose had always thought that it was a nice story, even if it'd turned out to be out of her reach. Perhaps that was why they'd played the lottery every single week, without fail. There was no saying that treasure like that didn't come in the form of a big cheque rather than a buried stash of coins, after all.

Rose had to admit that her somewhat stumbling explanation didn't entirely cover the 'why' behind that great childhood ambition of hers. The Doctor clearly understood at least part of the appeal anyway, though, for his eyes visibly lit up at the words 'buried treasure'.

She'd thought she'd seen the full extent of his new face-splitting grin when his hand was in hers and they were running about New Earth or Scotland, but this here and now was an all new level of unabashed happiness. She wished that expression would never fade, though she knew that no matter how many deep-seeded dreams the TARDIS could bring to life, that one would never be one of them. He may have been a new man, but he was still the Doctor, whose happiness always seemed so heartbreakingly transitory.

It was much later, after they'd dusted off the drying sand and the grin was well and truly back in place (for she'd been right in thinking it would fade soon enough, even if it did return within the hour) that Rose realised that the Doctor actually liked that she saw life on the TARDIS as a mad but magical adventure.

That was exactly how he wished he could see it himself.

"We're really supposed to find buried treasure here?" Rose asked.

She'd expected an endless expanse of sandy beach, where one could only find the exact spot one should start digging based on the number of paces from the nearest palm tree or some such. What she got instead was a cove that looked more like it belonged in the middle of a rainforest than still within sight of the shoreline where they'd just parked the TARDIS.

"Absolutely," the Doctor said. "Great hiding spot, really. No one came looking here for centuries after the haul was left here. Well, one century and ninety-seven years, actually."

"So where is it, then? In the cave?" she asked, peering into the deep blackness beyond the hanging vines as if straining her eyes would somehow shed some more light over there.

"Nope," the Doctor said. "Under the water."

If she'd expected that he might take the time to so much as strip off his overcoat before plunging into the water in an unexpectedly graceful dive, she'd have found herself sadly mistaken. As it was, Rose had already long since given up ever finding any situation in which the Doctor didn't think it necessary to be clothed from wrists to throat to toes. It was one way that he was no different in this body than he ever was. One of the few, Rose thought.

Not that Rose wanted to see him strip down to his smalls or anything. Of course not. It just meant that it was slightly more awkward when Rose decided that she, for one, would choose avoiding having to trek all the way back to the TARDIS in heavy wet clothes over some ridiculous insistence on preserving her modesty.

It was hard to put too much stock in modesty, really, after having spent so much time around Jack. Rose bit her lip and pushed that thought into the back of her mind.

She almost rethought her decision when she noticed how the Doctor's gaze followed for a moment as her shirt fell onto the rock beside her. She was slightly more self-conscious about shimmying out of her jeans after seeing that, but honestly, she used to wear far less covering items when she and her mates had all headed over to the local pool.

Of course, at the pool the only eyes that had looked at her like there was truly something to see were the sort of brainless teenage boys she'd mostly just ignored (until she'd stupidly gone and fallen in love with one of them and dropped out of school for him, of course).

She'd never been able to ignore the Doctor. He may have been pointedly looking away by then, apparently more embarrassed about it than she was (since, if she was honest, she was sort of more affected than actually embarrassed), but it felt as though he was watching her every movement regardless.

Rose dove into the water after him, letting the odd feeling of exposure be carried away on the ripples. When her head broke through the surface, the Doctor had disappeared beneath the water. He took so long to reappear that Rose found herself treading water more and more quickly, her nervous energy looking for an outlet. Rose ducked her head down to check on him. The water was clear enough that it barely stung her eyes as she watched the Doctor unhurriedly skimming the rocks along the bottom in what looked to be a systematic way, as if he was searching. He didn't look like he was running out of air as she'd feared, but Rose kept dipping her head back under between breaths so that she could watch him for any signs of distress.

She was just barely getting used to him having changed himself to save his life once. She didn't want to have to go through that again just because, despite being a genius in so many ways, he was still somehow too stupid to know when to come up for air.

It took minutes – she wasn't sure how many, but certainly more than she thought he should have been able to stay alive under there – before the Doctor finally pushed off the ground and ascended again. Rose waited, catching her breath, until he popped up just a few feet from her, grinning as if he couldn't imagine that he could possibly have done something wrong. That was, of course, until he saw the thunderous look she was sending his way.

"What?" he said, suddenly sounding defensive.

"You could have maybe told me," Rose exclaimed, "that you can breathe underwater. I thought for a while there that you might have drowned."

The Doctor blinked. "Oh," he said. Then he looked sheepish. "Er, respiratory bypass. Time Lord thing. No worries at all."

Rose continued to glare. The Doctor swam towards her and adopted a coaxing expression that she swore he'd somehow got from her. She'd spent several of her early teenage years perfecting that exact look to use on her Mum when she most needed it, after all, so she'd seen it in the mirror often enough.

"I found the treasure," he offered placatingly.

He swam close enough to her that she'd likely have been able to feel his body heat through the water if he'd run as hot as a human. The water that stirred in the small gap between them ghosted over her skin almost like a cool touch. His touch, perhaps. She didn't think she could really be faulted for finding it hard to concentrate on staying mad at him in those sorts of circumstances.

The Doctor apparently saw as much, for his pleading expression was abandoned in favour of a self-satisfied grin. He propelled himself back to where he'd surfaced and raised his eyebrows. Rose rolled her eyes at him in turn – he deserved it – but still followed him anyway.

It was a relatively long way down, so Rose had to keep surfacing for air regularly, but there was just no way she was going to let him dig up the treasure all on his own. This, after all, was her childhood dream, not the Doctor's (as far as she knew, anyway).

They each gripped a handle of the chest (which looked pretty much exactly how Rose had always thought a treasure chest would) and fought to pull the heavy load to the surface. It was an even greater struggle to push the chest out onto a rock not far from the messy pile of Rose's abandoned clothing, and even the Doctor seemed to pant a little from the effort in the moments afterward, respiratory bypass or not.

"And that's how you dig up buried treasure," the Doctor said as they pulled themselves out of the water as well.

Rose smiled, but she found that her heart was strangely not quite in it.

Maybe it was because the whole experience had lacked the sense of urgency she'd always associated with secret treasure-finding expeditions, or maybe it was that there was no map (at least not one that Rose could have understood) leading them there on a journey. Whatever the case, it turned out that uncovering buried treasure wasn't quite what Rose had always hoped.

That was, of course, until the pirates turned up.

The Doctor's eyes widened unexpectedly just moments after he'd stood up fully. "Ah," he said. "It's possible – just sort of vaguely possible, mind – that I might not have landed us on the 17th of August 1689 after all."

"It wouldn't be the first time you were wrong," Rose laughed. "How comes that's important?"

"Well, you remember what I said about no one searching here for this treasure for a hundred and ninety-seven years? Well, if I was, say, out in my calculations by exactly a week, then it might so happen, just maybe, that today was the 24th of August 1689. That's the day when the ship Intimidator, captured from the English Navy and used by the most violent pirates – or corsairs, to be more exact – in the Mediterranean for a hundred years, showed up at this exact cove. Supposedly there was a bloody insurrection onboard the ship after they failed to find the stash of gold that the crew were relying on to quite literally keep them afloat."

Rose turned around to look where the Doctor was intently staring at something just past her left ear. She almost audibly gulped at the sight of the impressive ship out at sea, from which several boats filled with rowdy men had already been deployed.

"No chance that's just some random transport boat or somethin'?" she asked.

"They're not flying a flag," the Doctor answered. "Clear sign of piracy."

The boats had practically hit the beach. Even if the Doctor and Rose were incredibly lucky (and really, when had they ever been?) and it turned out that all pirates really did have wooden legs and other injuries that would stop them from coming after them at a run, they still had mere minutes before they were caught.

"And this'd be that gold you were talkin' about right here, then?" she asked, already fairly certain that she knew the answer.

"Yep."

Clearly even having a TARDIS and the Doctor's inconceivably large brain on hand still didn't mean that finding buried treasure could ever be easy.

Rose's heart raced with the anticipation she'd been sorely missing, and she found that she didn't mind the complication so much, actually.

An outburst of raised voices arose from the direction of the boats, and Rose was fairly certain that they were suddenly being rowed with much greater urgency and purpose than before.

"I think they may have spotted us," the Doctor stated unhelpfully.

"And I guess it would be very bad if we just dropped the chest back where we found it and swam for our lives?" Rose asked.

"History says that the ports in this region just barely hang on until the repeated pirate attacks subside, and even then it takes a long time for them to really recover," the Doctor said darkly. "Any significant holdings of money in the region have all long since been stolen from them, for one thing, which is why this lot are here in a last-ditch effort to find some other way to fund their exploits. If they don't tear themselves apart out of anger and desperation after failing to find that money... well, then they'd cause decades more bloodshed and death. At least."

"So it'd be really bad. That's really all you had to say," Rose sighed. "Guess the stories are a bit different when we're the ones with the pirates chasin' after us."

The Doctor grinned, though. "I don't know. Could be fun, don't you think? We could make a break for the ocean and swim away from them. A gallant chase across the high seas, eh?"

"Pretty sure it wouldn't be much of a chase, considering that great honkin' ship they've got could go further in a minute than we could go in a whole hour if we was just swimmin' along draggin' a big heavy chest," Rose pointed out.

"If it's speed you're worried about, I've got flippers in my coat pocket," the Doctor offered.

"Flippers," Rose repeated, deadpan.

The Doctor nodded. "Flippers. I left the ones with in-built motors back on the TARDIS, though, so I'm not sure whether they'd give us enough of an advantage to get away."

She thought to mention that the heavy wet coat that he still hadn't even considered shedding would probably slow him down as well. Then, however, it occurred to her that he had her at least semi-seriously considering the logistics of the two of them using a pair of flippers each to out-swim a massive pirate ship.

If she hadn't already realised it over the previous year, that certainly settled it. She was clearly made for this life with him.

"Probably a better idea to find some way less likely to get us caught, I think," Rose said instead. "I mean, I for one don't know how to swordfight. I know that you've apparently got that swashbucklin' fightin' hand and all, but me? Not so much."

"You're not going to have to swordfight," the Doctor assured her.

"So you've got a better idea of how we're gonna get out of here alive?" Rose prompted hopefully.

"Define 'better'," the Doctor said slowly.

"You sure a deadly snake or spider or somethin' isn't gonna leap out and bite me? There could be all sorts in here, and I can't see a thing."

" 'Course I'm sure," the Doctor replied. His voice was so loud that it echoed around them much more obviously than Rose's had.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Certain," the Doctor said. Even though she knew he was probably lying to placate her, she still wished he'd kept the, "Almost," that followed to himself.

Rose wouldn't have complained, really she wouldn't. After all, a pitch black cave where anything could be waiting for them still seemed entirely preferable to being back out in the open where they knew exactly what was coming. However, the cave was a lot deeper than Rose could have imagined when they'd been out in the bright sunlight considering it as an avenue for escape. She felt as though they'd walked for so long that they must have circled half of the island already. Perhaps they'd walked down into an endless tunnel under the surface that they'd never find their way out of. Even if they happened to have been lucky enough to have stumbled across the stupidest pirates in all of history, they were still eventually bound to catch up to the Doctor and Rose, especially since they weren't weighed down with a chest of jewels that was hitting Rose's shins every three steps or so. It made for a particularly slow and clumsy getaway.

Rose wasn't sure that she'd ever been so relieved in all of her life when they happened across an opening leading out of the cave. Even though they were still far from out of danger, Rose had always been the sort to believe that nothing could really be wrong (or at least stay that way) when there was a cloudless sky above her head and the sun was warming her shoulders.

When they found a convenient but out-of-the-way place to stash the chest so that the pirates wouldn't find it, Rose had to admit she hesitated for a moment. She thought of her Mum and Mickey, still stuck on the Powell Estates even though she'd made it out. Her obsession with treasure had once been focused on what she could actually do with it.

Now, though, she realised she didn't really want the gold itself after all. That mad rush of adrenaline that never failed to make everything about life with the Doctor fall into place, even since the Doctor had changed, was enough.

While the initial uncovering might not have quite lived up to her expectations, now she was getting precisely what she'd hoped for through the dash to re-bury what they'd so easily found. Hostile pirates might burst out and find them elbow deep in the dirt at any moment, and Rose really did sort of love the thrill of that.

"This is more like it," she murmured aloud.

"What, this is living up to your childhood fantasy?" the Doctor asked incredulously, even as he tossed a handful of sand over his shoulder. "Stealing treasure right from under the noses of pirates whose current greatest aspiration is to inflict very slow and painful deaths on us?"

Rose gave the Doctor an overly innocent look and shrugged.

The Doctor grinned. "Brilliant."

She couldn't help but laugh.

The pirates didn't end up showing up (Rose tried not to feel strangely disappointed about that). Regardless, Rose and the Doctor still ran back to the TARDIS with their dirt-caked hands swinging between them as quickly they would have if the enemy had been right on the heels of their feet.

The TARDIS finally came into sight, bringing with it the prospect of leaving 1689 behind relatively unscathed. It was only then that Rose properly realised that she'd left her clothes back at the cove. Or rather, she'd been hyper-aware the whole time they'd been escaping that her jeans and shirt were somewhere other than covering her, but until then it hadn't quite occurred to her that she'd left her decidedly 21st century outfit on a rocky outcrop in the 17th century. She weighed up the idea of going back and possibly having a run-in with about fifty pirates who were likely out for her blood, and who also might be more than just passingly interested in the way she was so obviously half-naked.

The Doctor had always maintained that history was always in motion. Maybe it wouldn't matter so much if denim was invented a few centuries early, Rose hoped.

She was sidetracked by the fact that the opening of the TARDIS door revealed that her phone was ringing on the console where she'd left it ('MICKEY' the display read when she grabbed it up).

The distraction didn't stop Rose from seeing the look on the Doctor's face when, still listening to Mickey chattering away about some apparent alien invasion back on Earth, she slipped out of the room to shower off the dirt and find some clothes.

Despite feeling somewhat self-conscious about it earlier, now she just smiled to herself at the memory of his lingering eyes.

~FIN~