Title: Comfort Thing
Author: Sheela
Rating: T
Disclaimer: The BBC apparently owns "Dr Who" and while I'd love to make money from writing fanfiction I unfortunately don't (nor do I think I ever will).
Archive: Sure! Just tell me where it's going.
Feedback: Yes please! It's what makes authors happy. Just leave a review or mail me at MorgaineTheFairygmx.de – I'm always happy to hear honest opinions or suggestions and I promise I'll reply to it.
Summary: Tea and silence. It's a comfort thing for them. But sometimes it can mean so much more. Spoilers for Boom Town.
Author's Note: Special thanks go to my betas Acid and Helen who are always there to improve what I write. Thank you guys!
The first time he found her was purely coincidental. They had just come back to the TARDIS from the year 1869 where they had left Charles Dickens with a whole lot of new ideas that he would never get to write down. Rose had gone to take off the gorgeous but slightly uncomfortable Victorian dress she'd been wearing, and the Doctor had decided to fix (a.k.a. tinker with) the TARDIS. A short while later he walked into the kitchen, looking for a "specialised, durable, elastic wire connections unifier" (or in layman's terms, a rubber band), and stumbled onto his companion there. Rose, now dressed in her usual jeans and t-shirt again, was just rinsing out her cup. Giving the Doctor an unusually shy, almost caught look, she dried her cup and quickly left the kitchen without a word – again highly unusual for her.
After that first time the Doctor quickly found out that this behaviour obviously was a habit for Rose. Whenever they came back to the TARDIS, whether from an Earth period or a totally different, far off planet, from high strung, dangerous adventure or plain sight seeing, Rose would always end up in the kitchen with a cup of tea, drinking it in silence.
After about two weeks (Earth timekeeping), the Doctor just came in wordlessly one day and sat with her in her quite moment, as he did the next day, and the next. She then began to offer him a cup of tea as well, which he accepted with a small grin.
"Plenty o' milk and two sugars," he would remind her the first three or four times, after that she always automatically fixed the tea the way he liked it.
Unconsciously it quickly became a habit for them both after that. After a day out, they'd end up in the kitchen, Rose would make tea and they'd both drink it in silence.
The Doctor had to admit it was a nice habit – even if it was getting dangerously close to "doing domestic", but he could ignore that nagging voice in his head easily. However, at the same time this ritual puzzled him. It was so unlike the loud and outgoing Rose that he usually saw.
His continued confusion must have shown on his face or translated into a certain air of tension because one day Rose broke their comfortable 'tea silence' without warning.
"It's kind of a comfort thing for me, you know?" she said, glancing at him briefly before turning her eyes back onto the cup she was holding. "Back home, on Earth I mean. I always had a cup of tea when I came home, be it from school, work, shopping, going out with my friends or after a date. I'd just sit, drink my tea and think. Process the day if you will."
The Doctor nodded mutely.
"Often my mum would sit with me – just like you're doing now," she jabbed quickly, knowing that the Doctor would not like having anything in common with her mother. "We were quiet most of the time, but if there was a problem or anything really important to talk about, then that's when we would do it. D'you understand?"
Again, the Doctor nodded without saying a word.
They kept up their habit after that brief, rather one-sided conversation. The Doctor secretly felt that it did actually helped connect them on an even deeper level. If there was anything to talk about they'd talk, otherwise they'd drink tea in comfortable and companionable silence, both lost in their respective thoughts.
Then Captain Jack joined the TARDIS crew and their duo became a trio, but their quiet down time remained tea for two. Maybe because Jack didn't catch on their habit or he just didn't care very much for tea and silence. Whatever it was, the Doctor was quite glad to keep their ritual private. A small but valued sanctuary in the daily insanity that they called their life. It was only a short while later that the Doctor was to learn the real value of their habit.
They'd just saved Cardiff (and the Earth along with it) from being sucked into a rift. Mickey (the idiot and Rose's now ex-boyfriend) had left without so much as a goodbye, leaving her fighting to hide her tears from her two companions, and the Doctor quietly afraid of what their 'tea'n'talk' that night would bring.
"A second chance… that would be nice," Rose had said about the Slitheen egg, her tone and eyes betraying that she wasn't talking about the egg at all.
Tea time came and this time it didn't bring the comfortable calmness to the Doctor. He barely touched his drink as he tensely sat and watched Rose consume her tea, waiting, fearing, and dreading the moment when she would start to talk. Would tell him that she wanted that second chance. That she wanted to go home. Wanted to leave. Leave him.
Eventually Rose finished her tea with a last gulp, got up, rinsed out her cup and silently left the kitchen. At the doorway she briefly turned to face him.
"Goodnight. I'll see you tomorrow," she told him, giving him a small smile before she walked off.
The Doctor was left alone with his now cold tea, musing that sometimes, just sometimes, doing domestic wasn't so bad at all.