Degrees and the Doctor
Thanks for all the reviews. OK, you're getting this early as SOME people have been pestering me to update (cough xXxRoses-are-redxXx and pazaz of nothing cough). If I fail my Law test tomorrow, it's all your fault! And while we're on this subject, full credit to xXxRoses-are-redxXx for coming up with the basic plot idea. Thanks hun! Please enjoy!
Disclaimer: Nothing you might recognise belongs to me
"Rose…"
"Mmm?"
"Wake up, Rose. Come on, now,"
"Too tired, lemme alone!"
"Rose! You need to wake up."
Rose groaned, rolled over and cuddled in tighter to the Doctor's chest. "Too warm and comfortable here," she murmured, her voice muffled in his bare chest,
"Well, tough luck, honey," replied the Doctor, "It's six AM and…"
"What?" Rose snapped her eyes open and sat up, staring incredulously at the Doctor, "Why'd you wake me so early?"
"You need to get back to your room," her lover replied, "The other lecturers are going to be moving around soon and we don't want to get caught,"
"Yeah, OK," she replied, rubbing the last bits of sleep out of her eyes and stretching, before looking in surprise at the shirt she wore, "I forgot I was wearing this!"
"You can keep it if you want," the Doctor said,
"Yay!" Rose cried, beaming.
The Doctor laughed and hauled her out of bed, intercepting her for a good morning kiss before she began to shove her jeans and trainers on.
"I'll see you later on," she promised, picking up her t-shirt and jacket off the floor, "Do I have a lecture with you today?"
"After lunch," replied the Doctor, "You've got more welcome meetings this morning."
Rose groaned. "They're so boring!"
"But important," the Doctor countered, tweaking her nose. She grimaced at him and suddenly hugged him.
"Thanks for letting me stay over last night," she murmured into his ear, "Love you,"
"Love you too," the Doctor replied, "Now scram!"
Rose managed to find her way back to her room without anyone seeing her. She stood against the door, breathing deeply and thinking about the enormous task that she, Jack and the Doctor had undertaken. She hoped that Lavia would become a bit more approachable soon as it would make life so much easier. Kall and Jen would be useful as well, especially if Kall had previously known Lavia. Maybe he could tell her more about the seemingly stuck up girl or even, more about the abduction plot if he knew about it. She would have to be careful though; she didn't want to make Kall suspicious. And then there was the Doctor. Rose let a grin cross her face as she thought of all the things she could do to her lovely Doctor. It was going to be hard to be separated from him but this almost made up for it. Realising that some of her fantasies would become reality, Rose's grin reached Grinch proportions and she wandered into her en-suite bathroom for a shower.
She met up with Jen, Kall and Lavia about an hour later and they made their way down to breakfast; fortunately without getting lost. The canteen was a vast room, full of chattering students of all ages, sitting at large round tables. The lecturers sat at a long rectangular table at the top of the room to eat their meals. The Doctor was already in there when Rose and her friends arrived. He didn't look up at them, like quite a few other people did but Rose knew he knew she was present. He was like that.
The four friends quickly found four empty seats at a table and took their menus before scanning them briefly. It showed a selection of foods that were available that day. There were all sorts, suitable for all the different species of aliens that were at the university. Once they had chosen, each of them keyed in a specific code on a pad in front of them. A round hole appeared in the table and a minute later their dish of choice appeared ready to eat. It was most ingenious. The evening before, Rose had been confused and a little surprised as there had been no prior warning of this. She had watched her new friends order their food without the least bit of trouble and had successfully tried it herself, after looking up and making eye contact with the Doctor, who smiled reassuringly at her across the room. Now, Rose was enjoying her bacon and eggs (costing ten credits) after turning down the cereal and toast (five credits). Kall and Lavia were both eating a sort of bluey porridge and Jen had what looked like pink rice. Rose didn't ask to try either of their breakfasts.
A little while later, all of the new undergraduates congregated into lecture theatre one, which was the biggest. Looking around at the sea of faces, Rose was still amazed at just how many species of aliens there really were. She shared the Doctor's joy at the fact that they all studied and lived peacefully together at this unique university. After nearly three years of travelling around time and space with the Doctor, she was content with this after seeing so much fighting.
The clearing of a throat interrupted her musing and Rose looked down to see a female alien with feathers instead of hair on her head waiting to speak. Her name was Tally and had introduced herself as a Resident Tutor for Rose's set of halls.
"Good morning, I hope your first night was comfortable…"
Rose grinned secretly. Her first night had certainly been comfortable.
"…Right, this meeting is for me to explain our computer system to you…"
Rose sat back with a sigh. Over two thousand years later and they still couldn't make welcome meetings interesting!
As soon as the numerous meetings were over, Rose shot out of the lecture theatre; Jen and Kall hot on her heels. It was only when they reached the campus bakery, where they had decided to get lunch from, did they realise that Lavia wasn't with them.
"Never mind," Kall shrugged, "She'll find us. She knows we're here,"
"Don't you think we should go find her?" Rose asked, feeling a little guilty as she was supposed to be watching Lavia,
"No," Kall said, immediately, "Trust me, Rose. It'll only make her feel important. We don't want to inflate her ego anymore. She'll be along in a moment whining about how we abandoned her…"
Sure enough, five minutes later, Lavia turned up on the scene, looking cross.
"Why did you leave me? I can't believe you did that!"
"Sorry," Rose said, "We thought you were right behind us,"
"Well, I wasn't! You could at least have checked! I think it was very rude of you!"
"Lavia, put a sock in it, will you?" Kall interrupted.
Lavia bristled. "You can't speak to me like that! I'm the…"
Kall's eyes widened and he started choking, cutting off Lavia's words. Rose looked between them, guessing that she had been about to reveal her position as heir of Piripi. She hadn't heard Lavia say this yet and as it would be the kind of thing that she would boast about, Rose could only assume that she and Kall had been told to keep it a secret. Jen hadn't appeared to have noticed anything from the way she was casually chewing her lunch.
"Come on," said Kall, at last, "Lavia, get your lunch and then we'll need to go find where we are for our physics lecture…"
"Lecture theatre three is here… so lecture theatre four should be along here somewhere…" said Jen, leading the way along the corridor, "Yeah, here it is…oh hi!"
The group arrived at the door to discover the Doctor leaning against the door with his arms folded. Just past him, inside the room, they could see a few other students, sitting and waiting.
"Hello," said the Doctor, "You're Jenico, right? Likes to be known as Jen?"
"That's right," said Jen, sounding surprised that he'd remembered,
"Good to see you," the Doctor told her, shaking her hand, "Go on in and find a seat,"
"OK," replied Jen, before doing as he said.
Kall and Lavia followed her after re-introducing themselves to the Doctor and soon only Rose was left.
"Hi, I'm Rose Tyler," she said, straight faced.
Her lover grinned. "You alright?" he questioned, gently,
"Yeah. Nearly fell asleep this morning though,"
"Don't you go falling asleep in my lecture, missy," the Doctor warned,
"I won't," Rose promised, "Unless it's really boring,"
"It won't be," he said, taking her hand in his warm one and shaking it like he had done with all the others, "Always sit on the end of the row in lectures, alright? Just in case,"
"Yes sir," Rose grinned cheekily, before squeezing their still encased hands and then walking over to her friends.
"You were talking to him for a while," Jen remarked,
"Yeah, he was teasing me about getting lost yesterday," said Rose, saying the first thing that came into her mind.
Kall laughed. "He seems nice."
"Yeah," said Jen, gazing at the Doctor, "Kinda cute too,"
"Yeah," nodded Rose, secretly wondering what her new friends would say if they knew that she'd spent last night cuddled up with their new lecturer, in his bed.
After a bit more idle chit-chat, the rest of the students had arrived and the Doctor was starting the lecture.
"Hi everybody," he grinned, "Right, we've done introductions at the door so you now know me, you lucky things. I thought we'd spend today seeing how much you already know. We'll begin the real work next session but today we'll be having a small test."
There was a unanimous groan from the students. It wasn't very loud as the students were still getting to know their lecturer.
Rose bit her lip as he prattled on, telling them to turn on the computers that were inbuilt into the desks in front of them and access the university network. How could she do the test? She barely knew any Physics and this would be proper difficult stuff. Desperately, she tried to catch the Doctor's attention but he seemed to be ignoring her as he told everybody to begin.
Immediately all around her came the tapping of keyboards as her peers began the test in earnest, typing away at top speed. Rose stared at her screen, not even beginning to understand the question. She glanced to her left and saw that Kall had already written loads so she leant over slightly to get a better look.
"No cheating!"
The Doctor's voice made Rose jump and she looked at him. He seemed to be concentrating at his desk at the front of the room with his head down but his hand seemed to be patting mid-air, almost as if to tell her to calm down and it would be alright.
Feeling comforted, Rose looked afresh at the test and clicked her way through the questions, trying to find one that she could attempt.
There!
There was a question on space. She knew a bit about that as it had been a topic which had fascinated her when she was younger. It was a bit ironic seeing as she now studied it in detail as she walked through the stars with her Doctor. Taking a deep breath, Rose began to type. She could do this! She could! Only there was that question on electromagnetism and that other one of quantum physics…
Suffice to say, twenty minutes later as the first people began to trickle out, having completed the test, Rose felt very depressed. None of it made any sense. She struggled on for a further ten minutes, in which time her three friends had finished and left, before giving up and looking around. There was only one student left in the room and he was in the process of leaving too. He looked at her and gave her a sympathetic smile before walking out of the door, closing it quietly behind him.
Rose glared at the screen, fighting back the hot, angry tears that were building behind her eyelids and dismally typing the same thing over and over again.
I am so thick. I am so thick. I am so thick
Suddenly a presence sat down beside her,
"You're not thick," it said.
Rose sighed. "I am, Doctor. I don't know any of this stuff."
The Doctor snaked his arm around her waist; his hand creeping under her top to draw patterns on her skin. "No, you're not," he said, firmly, "You just haven't studied Physics before in detail like all the others have. I'm sure if the test had been on Psychology or History or Law, you'd have passed it no problem."
Rose sighed again and rested her head on his shoulder. "Still doesn't change the fact that I'm rubbish at Physics,"
"Rose!" exclaimed the Doctor, "Please don't worry about it, angel. Look, d'ya want me to go through this paper with you and explain some of the science?"
"It might help, yeah," said Rose, heavily,
"Alright," replied the Doctor, "But only as long as you cheer up first!" His hand found her ribs and he began to tickle her, making her firstly squeal with surprise and then erupt into giggles.
"That's better," he continued, when he saw a smile on her face, "You must be happy; Doctor's orders!"
"Alright Doctor," Rose complied, snuggling into his side and wrapping her arms around him, "Teach me Physics then."
About an hour later, Rose quietly left the lecture theatre knowing quite a bit more about Physics than she had before. The Doctor was a brilliant teacher but she suspected that his teaching method of kissing her every time she got something right might not work on everybody. She walked back to her room, thinking up a decent excuse as for why she was so late as she went. Upon reaching her corridor, she had just concluded that she should say that she was phoning her Mum (and she really ought to do that for real soon) when a scream penetrated her thoughts.
"What are you doing? No! Get off me!"
It was coming from Lavia's room.
Review please. Constructive criticism is gladly received
