A/N: Stemmed from Danny's 'Oh, look, the mysterious couple' line in The Impossible Planet and I just couldn't stop. Written before TSP aired, so all set during TIP, but I wanted to wait before posting in case I missed any giant, glaring characteristics I should include. Set after the TARDIS has gone and before the end of TIP.
Humans have a knack of – or perhaps a need for – assigning romantical feelings to any situation. A girl and a boy together meant love, never friends. Holding hands always had a deeper meaning, and the mere suggestion of a platonic relationship made them laugh. They could pick up on a whiff of 'Eros' from a mile away and tended to be able to form some sort of argument as to why someone must be mad about someone else through sheer will power alone.
This particular knack tends to increase when one has been alone or isolated for a long time and is desperate to find affection in some part of their life, whether it is in characters on television or the girl nextdoor and the milkman.
So, naturally, being rather isolated themselves and with no one else to speculate upon, their automatic first assumption was that the 'Mysterious Couple' (aptly titled later on by Danny, much to the amusement of the rest of the crew) were an item.
Contradiction was first, and arguably only, offered in the form of their introductions. Being as they both seemed young, the fact that they didn't share a surname was not nearly as much of a shock as the fact that he didn't appear to have one, and the lack of possession in Rose's words was the biggest surprise. He was not my fiancé, my husband, my boyfriend, my partner, nor even my Doctor, no more than she was said to be his Rose or his girlfriend. Did they deem it unnecessary for the crew to know? Did they assume it was obvious? Were they – an implausible explanation to the human brain – purely travelling companions and nothing more?
The rest was down to opinion. Danny would have argued that they never kissed, that if they were so in love they would surely revel in public displays of affection. While he saw and understood, his logical brain chose to ignore the way the Doctor was always there every single time Rose stumbled. Toby and Scooti would have noted the way they could never quite look at each other. Jefferson looked at them and tried not to think at all. Ida kept her gaze trained on them as they locked hands, insisting perhaps they just weren't into public displays of overt attention, and Zack pretended all he cared about was his ship while secretly he wanted whatever it was they had. So what if envy was one of the deadly sins? So what if allowing it to germinate and take root in your soul (a soul which, you had previously convinced yourself, was purely scientific and completely barren when it came to sentiments) was breaking a commandment? It wasn't as though he was religious or even knew exactly what it was he craved.
Questions were soon asked.
"Who are they?"
"How did they get here?"
"Do you like them?"
Jefferson wished he could answer. His job was security, after all. He was supposed to know the answers to these questions.
All the while, the pressing question which they would all dismiss as stupid, petty, insignificant in comparison to other queries, was glossed over. Ignored, but by no means forgotten: do they love each other?
However, he no more knew the answers to the bog-standard questions than he did the answer to the unasked one.
"Do you trust them?"
This last came from Ida. Danny took a minute to ponder his answer.
"I don't know…they can't've come here to do any harm." What could they do? If they had a plan, they would surely have implemented it by now. He was sure that losing your only form of transport out of a spacestation couldn't be part of a plan involving getting into said spacestation. "They…she seems alright, but what about him?"
Scooti ambled over and laughed. "Trust you to like the pretty blonde one!" Sarcasm aside, she added, "Mr No-Name got me, too."
"Yeah. That's what I thought. He knows a lot. And why does she have a name if he doesn't?"
Ida smiled. "I don't think you can take them separately. They seem to come as a package." They stood so close together that you couldn't always tell if they were holding hands or not. Where he ended and she began.
"Oh, don't tell me you're going all romantic on me, too. I've already had Scooti hassling me for a bet over whether they'll ask to share a room or not." But Ida was not listening. She stood gazing thoughtfully at the door through which the Doctor and Rose had disappeared not five minutes ago, something masked and unreadable in her eyes.
As Danny frowned slightly at Ida, Scooti shifted so that she was putting all her weight on her back leg, jutting her hip out slightly, mock indignantly. She placed a hand there, elbow out, smiling to take the sting out of her words. "You old grouch."
Always a slight outsider to the group, Tobyapproached a little warily. "At least he's not as bad as Jefferson," he muttered, a slightly plaintive tone to his voice. "He hasn't pulled that frown off his face since they stepped in."
"That's 'cause he's paranoid he's gonna find them making out in a broom cupboard," Danny put in, rolling his eyes, "or sneaking into each other's rooms." He looked at Scooti sharply, as if to remind her that he had actually won that particular bet in the end, choosing to ignore Toby's protest of 'but we don't have any broom cupboards'.
"C'mon, there's nothing wrong with some love and affection…and a bit of gambling!"
Danny tried not to laugh. "Just because no-one loves you, not even the Ood." She continued."Especially not the friends of the Ood." She looked meaningfully over at Rose.
"What is there to love on this God-forsaken rock? It's all stone cold dead." He glossed over it admirably.
Ida appeared a little bit lost in her own world. Seemingly having neither heard nor listened to any of what had just passed between Scooti and Danny, she said slowly: "How long is it? How long have we been here? Things we haven't seen in years, manifesting themselves right before our eyes…what's wrong with a bit of romance?"
Danny told her patiently that he didn't 'do' romance and nor, he had thought, did Ida. He revealed having previously thought Scooti to be "marginally better than your average sap", earning himself a smart rap on the head with a plastic cup while Ida's eyes flickered over in the general direction of Zack.
"I never used to." She muttered quietly. "But people change." In what could be called reply, Scooti raised an eyebrow and Danny followed suit.
Footsteps echoed from behind the door and each crewmember looked up, slightly startled, not yet used to the idea of new people. "Close door 16" was announced as their new visitors proceeded through the doorway and into the room, the girl looking wistful and the man's brow furrowed in thought. He ran a hand through his already messy mop of hair and leaned down towards Rose's ear, saying something that brought a slight smile to her lips. Ida's whole body seemed to deflate a little as she watched them, sighing.
"Makes you miss home, doesn't it?" She offered, by way of explanation.
Danny frowned. "I thought you didn't leave anyone behind." It wasn't a question.
"I didn't. That's not what I meant…interaction. People. Emotions other than confusion, or loneliness or fear. Watching those two is like watching an old fashioned film."
"They're either in denial about wanting to shag each other senseless or they're pretending they're not shagging each other senseless, I'll give you that." Toby told her as Rose buried her head in the Doctor's neck, biting her lip as she tried to avoid crying. He tried to summon some sympathy for the girl but had been on the planet for so long that he'd forgotten how it felt to be newly trapped and hopeless. The pair stayed as they were for a long time despite the new movement of everyone else: his back to them as he leant against Zack's console, her eyes closed and her hair draping over his shoulder. He was a lot taller than she was, Scooti noticed, noticing also the way his arms were positioned around her as if he needed that embrace just as much as Rose did.
They were surely a couple? But there seemed so much unsaid between them. The way they looked at each other, as though it wasn't quite allowed, eyes widening and cheeks colouring if the crew or the one they were looking at caught them, suggested a lack of straight-forward simplicity. Yet even when they were at opposite ends of the room they were undeniably together. The-Doctor-and-Rose. Ida was right: they were a package deal. Feeling a little sheepish for wondering and a little resentful towards them for making her wonder (she never usually cared about this kind of thing), she quickly resumed her task of repairing the safety belt on her chair.
Unwritten rule of space travel number one: newcomers did not volunteer for old-hat missions. Rule number two: the Doctor liked to break rules. His offer to accompany Ida both shocked the crew and cemented their trust in him, though they wouldn't admit it aloud. After all, what kind of crazy person trusts someone who arrives on a planet that shouldn't exist without knowing what it is and without being able to explain how they got there?
All the while, Rose looked on. Controlled tears dampened her eyes but never fell onto her cheeks and Zack saw that she managed to smile sadly as the Doctor walked towards her. She didn't want him to go, and especially not without her, but Zack would never let two potentially inexperienced strangers go down there and he had a feeling that the Doctor would put up some pretty strong opposition, too.
There was one man who saw him walk towards the girl with something akin to regret. Jefferson wished someone had seen him off like that when he had first embarked upon this journey, but he was left with no such memory to flick through as though it were a scrap-book. All that belonged to him in that department was the knowledge that Rose had similar hair to the woman who had never quite managed to forgive him. It was ironic how he seemed to be the one to whom love would matter least – old, alone and standoffish as he was – and perhaps it did, but forgiveness was what he needed most. A conditional thing, often overlooked, linked inextricably with love, the lack of which made him fire a gun with that little bit more ease.
The others let them be, figuring that private goodbyes would take place, Jefferson rolling his eyes as the younger members of the crew practically tumbled over themselves in their excitement. Sin had killed his curiosity, at least. Maybe spending so long in space really did send you crazy. None of the rest could've predicted that they would have an interest in something like this. Real humans, with real issues! It was like their very own soap opera, and they so wanted to see how the episode ended.
Ida was the only one who knew. She watched from the sidelines and, in her mind, saw them kiss goodbye properly, as much passion in their movements as was barely hidden in their eyes.
Not like this.
This wasn't how it was meant to end.
Zack knew insisting she got off the comm. would be useless. It didn't really matter; they had other links down to Ida and the Doctor, but this girl should not be listening to any of them. What if something happened? How would she feel listening to her – whatever he was in relation to her – die? Zack had knowndeath all to well recently and wasn't keen on helping someone else have a live feed to it.
When the pit opened, he knew it was all over. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he prepared her. "He won't come back," he told her. "You know that?"
"And even if he does, we'll all be dead first." Jefferson added, perhaps for good measure.
"He will." Well aren't you a little ray of sunshine?
"How can you be so sure?" Zack asked her, implying she knew nothing about space and couldn't comprehend the dangers being faced ten miles below them.
And even though she was scared to death that something would happen, she knew. Why? Because he promised me that I could spend the rest of my life with him. Because he can change his body and become a whole new person if he gets too close to death. Because, if he doesn't, I might just throw myself down that hole after him. Because he's all I've got left – all I want left. "Because he's the Doctor. And that's what he does."
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"You never did tell us, you two…who are you?" You never did tell her. Do you love her? Perhaps they didn't know themselves.