short chapters, but I don't have time for much sustained writing, so it will have to do.

Disclaimer: see first part.


"Rose!" The cheery sound of someone banging on the door to her room filled her with resentment yet again that this earthbound Doctor was a morning person. He never did seem to notice time of day even at the best of times. "I have to show you something Rose! It's fantastic!"

A low groan leaked out from between her lips right before she smothered it by placing the pillow next to her over her face. It seemed that was all the invitation the Doctor needed as a high tone was followed by the door popping open and revealing the mad, dashing, and extremely grease smeared visage. What she could only assume was a new sonic screwdriver was clutched in his hand, the project that had taken all his waking hours in the past two and a half weeks.

She wondered if he had bathed in that time. It seemed she was going to discover, as he rushed over to show her the new model he had finished up in the Tyler's basement lab after beginning the project at Torchwood.

"It's not as durable as mine since you humans don't have access to all the metals that make constructions like these relatively easy in another few hundred years, from what I can tell of this Earth's timeline at any rate." Rose listened to him prattle about other technical differences while she checked the clock. It wasn't even a quarter to 4 in the morning yet. When was he sleeping these days?

"Rose? Did you even hear that last bit?" She flopped an arm over her eyes and tried not to snap at him. The point of a vacation was that you didn't have to have 4am wake up calls about alien tech and emergencies involving a certain Time Lord. Er, or half-Time Lord in any case.

"It's brilliant. You're so happy. Building us a spaceship next?" Flat tones betrayed the sarcasm, but the Doctor wasn't perturbed in the least. She should be happier for him, lord knew he had been in a rare funk since discovering all the foibles that came with being half-human, and in this moment he was practically back to his old self (or was that old old self?).

The Doctor paused for a moment, expressive hands making a little twirling motion as he reflected. "Interesting thought and possibly, but not quite exactly what I said." She heard his coat fall to the floor and felt the sink of the bed as he flopped down at the foot of it on his back. Feeling stirrings of vague alarm as she finally began to process that this was not a whirlwind tour to show off a new toy and instead an extended visit in her boudoir she felt like shrinking into herself and hiding all the clothes tossed around and work papers strewn about.

"I said, while you were apparently sleeping with your eyes open, that as I was working on the final tests for screwdriver mark 2.0 it occurred to me that you have been spending entirely too much time at home sleeping away your vacation when we could be seeing the world!" His voice was strong at first, but a yawn punctuated the word "screwdriver" and he shifted his weight to lean more towards her to speak while tossing his new re-creation onto his beige trench on the floor.

She heard and felt him hitting the wall. One of those fabulous new things he learned about his body was how while he didn't need much sleep, his tendency to push himself until the brink of exhaustion made sleep heavy and immediate. In 3 or 4 hours he'd be up and refreshed and she would still be cranky from his morning wake up call.

"Where did you have in mind?" Rose snuck a pillow in under his head and he shifted around to be up next to her and get his long legs off the edge of the mattress. He was on top of the covers, extra blanket being dragged up with him nearer to Rose.

"Paris. Or possibly New Orleans. Jakarta if the weather permits."

"I wouldn't mind seeing Paris again."

From the light in the hallway she could make out the bags under the Doctor's eyes now, and how his hair was greasy and a bit matted. He'd been living in the basement and working like a madman, and apparently had gone so barmy he thought the next logical step was not a shower and a sleep in his own bed but to rush up and talk about vacation plans with her before hogging Rose's own mattress.

"Tomorrow then…" His hand was reaching out for hers, and from force of habit she met it and entwined their fingers. Before she could pull away he was asleep, and Rose cursed her luck. Even with the Doctor asleep on top of the covers, the mere fact that he was next to her would mean she wasn't going to get back to sleep tonight for some time. She was too aware of his presence and this is the closest they had been physically in weeks.

It had also been the most they had spoken in days. Right up until that furious knocking woke her up, she had been almost a week with hardly a glimpse of his coat tail let alone carry on an extended conversation. The separation hadn't done much to relieve her agitated state regarding him, but she suspected he had worked on more projects than just the screwdriver in order to give her some space.

"You beautiful, infuriating man," she whispered as she used the machine grease still coating his hand to extract her own and then smooth back the hair on his forehead. Rose slipped out of bed and into a robe while she cleaned up her cluttered room. She couldn't be in bed with the Doctor, but she didn't want to leave him all the same.

Clothes were tossed towards the general direction of the hamper and papers found their way to a desk in piles that she'd evaluate later. One red folder with classified stamped all over it made her wince and promise to herself she'd make a special trip to Torchwood tomorrow to return it.

How peacefully he slept, she thought enviously. Where she had dropped his hand, it still lay at an awkward angle to his side. Rose may have lived in the luxurious Tyler estate and have a room as big as her whole mansion at Powell Estates but it felt too small and stuffy to hold both her and the Doctor in it. She was inexorably drawn and somehow the last place she thought she wanted to be was exactly where she ended up.

"Moth to a flame," she reminded herself, but as she clasped his hand again and slipped under the bedding she couldn't bring herself to care.