Disclaimer: I don't own "Doctor Who." I'm just doing this for fun!
A/N: Hello all! This is a bit of a break from my on-going story (which probably means that I'll never keep up with my intended schedule sigh, but one can always hope!), and it's also my first-ever one-shot! When I was watching "Turn Left," I found myself wondering what was going through Rose's head when she was describing the Doctor to Donna. (I'm an actress; I find myself wondering what's going through characters' heads a lot – force of habit/good practice.) So, this is my take on what Rose might have been thinking during that scene.
The stuff in both italics and quotes are Rose's actual spoken lines; the rest of it is her thought process.
Enjoy!
"I think you dream about him sometimes."
Where did that come from? I've rehearsed what I was going to say to Donna Noble countless times since everything started falling apart, and never once was that line part of the program. … But now that I think about it, I think, I'm probably right. I bet she does. 'Cause that's the Doctor – even when you're in some alternate dimension where you've never him, he's still left an imprint from the dimension where you have.
Then again, she's sort of just… staring at me. Blankly. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe I'm the only one with that strong a memory of him, and she doesn't dream of him. But I've gone and said it now, haven't I, so I suppose I've got to do something about it. I'll describe him… Donna's him, I mean, the form she would have met if the world hadn't gone all wonky. Wouldn't do any good to describe the others…
"A man in a suit…"
Oh, God, that suit. And the trainers! Should have mentioned those. I remember when he first debuted that outfit… Christmas day. He came out of the TARDIS in that brown pinstriped suit, and I thought, "Alright, that'll do." Then I kept looking down and saw the footwear. Trainers with a suit!? I was gonna say something, too, I was all ready to make some sort of jokingly sarcastic comment… But then I saw his face. He looked so happy – like a little kid who'd just dressed himself for the first time. And you look at them, and you know they look ridiculous and that it's gonna reflect on you, and you wanna make them go change but they just look so proud of themselves that you can't find it in yourself to ruin their handiwork. That's how I felt. Not that the Doctor's a little kid, and not that it was the first time he'd dressed himself (though, to be fair, it was the first time he'd dressed himself in that particular regeneration, but that's a different story…). But he can be awfully like a little kid sometimes. Childlike exuberance, that's the Doctor.
"Tall, thin man…"
And I mean that bit. He was tall, and he was thin. When I met him, and he was in his ninth body (not that he ever told me it was his ninth, but I found out eventually), he was taller than me – I'd thought he was tall then. Then he regenerated, and I remember, standing next to him for the first time, I'd never felt so short in my life. It was a good kind of short, though, because I was the perfect height for hugs. And I'm not gonna think about the thin too much, because I think I was wider than he was, standing sideways, and that's just not cool. But the point is, he was definitely thin.
"… great hair."
He did have great hair. He may have wanted to be ginger, but I liked the brown. Really, I liked the hair in general – he'd had practically none when we'd first met, and I preferred the hair. But it was a nice shade of brown, and I quite liked it, whatever he says. And it had a mind of its own! Most people, they look to see what someone's wearing – well, the Doctor never changed clothes, so the first thing I'd look at was his hair, to see what it was doing that particular day. It was always flying off in so many different directions – I swear it would stand up at angles not found on a protractor. And it was so fluffy! I mean really, really soft. Not that I ever would have let her know, but I don't blame Lady Cassandra one bit for wanting to run her fingers through it. It was kind of fascinating.
"Some really great hair."
Oh, Lord, Rose Marion Tyler, get a grip on yourself. You're supposed to be describing the Doctor to this poor woman so that she'll know if she remembers him from some distant time and place – not for your own personal recollection! You have a job to do, Missy, and you'd best get back to doing it. You can be as nostalgic as you want, as soon as the world's been saved. That's the way the Doctor would have done it, that's the way you've learned it, and by God that's how you're gonna do it.
Besides… If I don't manage to convince Donna to help us help her save the world… There won't be anything left to be nostalgic about.
