Rose had gone to bed nearly as soon as they entered the TARDIS. Being oxygen deprived, as well as fighting to escape, the crash of adrenaline that no doubt surged through her as it did him when they were behind those bars, it was all bound to tire her out. Her body wasn't used to the sorts of adventures the Doctor was used to having. And more so, it was only her second.
But oh, wasn't she magnificent. Brave, kind, the only time she had any sort of problem was when the Gelth wanted the bodies, and even he wasn't sure that was the right thing. She wasn't better than any of his other companions, at least not that he could say for sure. He only took the best, after all. And yet, he had a feeling Rose Tyler of Earth was going to be something fantastic. He still couldn't peek her time line, and that was a little disconcerting, but he tried not to let it bother him that much.
Shaking his head, the Doctor approached the monitor and brought up his scans for anything Gallifreyan.
A knot within him twisted as he did so, and something he might call guilt whispered in his mind, asking him if he should. The Nestene, and now the Gelth? He knew there would be damage, he had witnessed much of it first hand. He knew the time lords were merciless when it came to their desire to win, having absolutely no concern with the various races on various planets that they all thought was so beneath them. There was a reason he enlisted the help of twelve others to tuck them away, so why did he want to bring them all back?
The silence in his mind seemed louder, like a reminder, and he sighed. Dragging his hand down his face, the Doctor looked at the monitor and blinked, suddenly finding his scans were replaced with the vitals of his current companion.
He smiled, glad his ship liked Rose, and pleased that she seemed to be suffering few ill effects. A headache, it would seem, and the a touch of nausea. Oxygen was being pumped into her room more than necessary.
The Doctor frowned. "Bit more thorough than you usually provide, Old Girl." He said, only fully realizing that he shouldn't be seeing a full report so much as merely heart rate and oxygen levels. As it was, he could now see that Rose was about to enter REM sleep, and her temperature was a touch below normal because of the cool air within her room.
He pushed a few buttons, bringing up his search for displaced beings or damage brought on from temporal weapons.
It was barely up on the screen long enough for him to read before the vitals and details of one Rose Tyler were brought back up.
"I'm starting to understand that perhaps you like Rose a bit more than you should." He said, glancing up at the column as the ship hummed indignantly. "Don't give me that, never once have you been insistent that I monitor the care of a companion, not even Charley. And we both know how … fond of her I was."
The ship hummed again, sounding noncommittal this time.
"And what makes you believe Rose will be around any longer? Bad things could happen to her as well, they almost did back there. She might even decide one day that she's done and leave us, too."
The ship tsked him as much as a sentient ship could.
"Oh yes, you can see all that is, was, and will be, but you don't care to share. Tell me, did you know that mine and the Time Lord's plan to hide our whole planet would end quite as spectacularly as it did?" He challenged, and the Old Girl remained silent. Instead of humming or groaning, the monitor switched from Rose's vitals to his search for damage. "Yes, change the subject, why don't you?"
There was a lot of temporal anomalies, displacements (thankfully not all located on Earth), and complete losses he could never fix. Environmental changes could be investigated easily enough, especially the un-inhabited planets. It would actually be a good idea to catalog their changes, just so he would know in case the new atmosphere, flora, and fauna match up with a displaced species.
But first….
"Let's see what else on you needs to be repaired, shall we?" He said kneeling down and getting under the console. "I never did finish under here." He added as he set to work.
Despite the change in desktop, there was a lot of tinkering still be done. Wires that needed mending, repairing, circuits that came loose. A big ball of wires, resisters, and something else that he had no idea what it was, or how they all worked together in the grand scheme.
He reconnected one wire, and Madam Butterfly filled the console room, causing the Doctor to smile.
The wires promptly came apart, halting the music.
"I know very well that you wouldn't let her wake her, so you're just being stubborn." He retorted to the TARDIS, re—reconnecting the wires, and sonicing them for good measure. The opera resumed, and this time stayed on. "Much better. Don't start berating my taste in music now." He grumbled. "Who knows, next regeneration I just might have a penchant for disco."
He continued his work, the music changing though remaining in the same genre. He was lost to the rhythm of the music and his work, practically in a trance. The TARDIS might have beeped at him a time or two, hummed at him a bit, but since she didn't press against his mind, he assumed it wasn't of any importance. Likely, she was just getting a bit irritated with him.
It wasn't until the clink of a tea cup on the floor by his head, just when he was beginning to realize how long it had been since his last cup, that he snapped out of it.
Turning his head away from the cup, he met the eyes of one smiling, wide-awake Rose Tyler.
"Hello," She said as she sat on the floor beside him, her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth.
"Hello," he said, not at all hiding his surprise or confusion. He picked up the tea cup, frowning. "I've worked right through breakfast, haven't I?"
Rose shrugged. "Not much of one, to be honest. Never very good at whipping anything up, me, so was just tea and toast." She then twisted to get beneath the console and laid down as he sat just enough to have a drink of his desperately needed tea.
It was the perfect cup, he'd have to say. Steeped exactly the right amount of time, in the proper temperature of water, with just the right amount of milk. It was the same as when she had made him a cup in the flat she shared with her mother. He took another drink, watching as Rose studied the underside of the console, a cute little wrinkle forming between her eyes.
"Not much like a car, this. Not that I thought it would be, but stared at the underside of a car 'nough times that this feels a bit natural."
"In which way?" The Doctor asked, taking another hearty drink. "I don't particularly see you working on vehicles in your spare time."
She grinned sadly. "No, that was Mickey. He's a mechanic."
"Really," He asked, draining his cup and the laying back down beside her.
She hummed in affirmative. "Been working on cars since he got his own at sixteen. He had an older mate, one who'd come by and help out his Gran with the stuff he couldn't do, and he had a garage. He let Mickey sorta tinker here and there after school and on weekends when he could. Went with Mickey quite a bit when we were younger. And again, after …." She trailed off, her eyes taking on a hazy sort of pain.
He frowned, wondering what this after was. He tried to remember hearing her mention a father, but he couldn't recall her having spoken about him. Had he passed? It seemed the most likely "after", but he didn't want question or push, not yet.
The Doctor reached over, covering her hand with his, causing Rose to whip her head around and look at him. "If you ever just want to recline while I tinker about with the Old Girl, you are more than welcome to." He smiled gently, only to have it grow at the joy that replaced the negative light in Rose's eyes.
"So, where we going now?" She asked after a moment, pulling her hand out from under his and giving it a slight squeeze over top before putting both hands on her stomach. "Going to crash another author's Christmas? Swing by JK Rowling's place and find out how she ends the series?" Her tongue peeked out from between her teeth.
"JK Rowling … the name sounds familiar, but I … I'm sorry, I'm not sure I remember … what series was it again?" Rose's smile fell, and she gapped at him in disbelief so palatable that he couldn't hold back the laugh that came from so deep within, the Doctor could have believed it came from his toes. "I'm joking, Rose. I'm a time traveler, I have read nearly every popular book ever to grace the Original Earth's literary world."
"Right." Rose said, laughing shyly to herself as she grabbed on to the edge of the console and swung herself up from underneath in a move so graceful he believed she really was a gymnast at one point in her life. "And when do you have the time for that, eh?"
"Well," He said as he got out from under the console. "When you're over a thousand-"
"A thousand!" Rose exclaimed, gapping at him.
He barely held back his amusement. "Well, I'm never entirely sure of my exact age. I think I'm somewhere around sixteen hundred Earth Years."
Rose stared at him for a while, her brow furrowed, her jaw slacked, and he barely kept it together.
"Suppose makes having a great-grandchild bit easier to understand." She said, shaking her head. "So… so sixteen hundred years old."
"Yes,"
"And you've been traveling how long?"
"Oh," he said, thinking on it. "Probably something like thirteen hundred, give or take. I think I was just shy of three hundred when I stole the TARDIS, took Susan, and ran off."
"And she went off and got married." Rose reasoned.
"Yes, I think I was about four hundred, perhaps."
"And … you haven't been alone since then?" Rose asked, chewing her lip in concern.
His hearts warmed at it. "No, no, I haven't been alone in all that time. I've traveled with people from your planet and mine, sometimes with people who would be considered alien to us both. I once, well, more than once actually, I had a dog, a robot. K-9, I called him."
"Clever," She smirked, and he smiled back.
"I tend to think so."
There was a beat of slightly awkward silence, in which both human and time lord shuffled about for a moment.
"I had a trip in mind." He said. "Well, several." He amended. "Might be a good idea to take a quick trip down to the wardrobe, might go somewhere a bit chilly."
"Yeah?" Rose said. "Like, the arctic?"
"Something like that," He teased as he headed to the console. "Off you pop, now." He glanced at her, seeing her shake her head before skipping off to the wardrobe.
He shook his head after she left, chuckling to himself before sobering.
He really shouldn't be this content so soon after the war. He shouldn't be happy to take a human companion on trips, which whether to check up on things or not, were still as much of a pleasure for him as it was for her. He should be grim, but as much as he tried, once he imagined Rose's reaction to her first alien planet, he couldn't dim the joy.
The TARDIS hummed a teasing melody, and he sighed.
"Yes, alright." He said quietly. "Perhaps I like her a bit more than I should, too."
~DW~
As Rose stepped out of the TARDIS, a chill swept over her. Much like when she stepped out into 1869 Cardiff, her shoe made an impression in a thin layer of snow. There were flakes fluttering in the air, and on the distant horizon there looked to be two moons in an indigo colored sky. It was light out, however, which confounded Rose enough that she ventured forward a few feet from the TARDIS and looked for a sun. She found it at their backs, too high in the sky for the moons to be visible.
And then it hit her.
Moons.
Plural.
Two.
Earth only had one.
She spun on her heel and gaped at the Doctor who wore that smug, suave grin that was both grating and endearing at the moment. He never told her where they were going, and he never corrected her assumption they'd be going back to Earth. He mentioned the Universe, other planets, but in no way had she ever expected he would actually take her to another world.
"This is an alien planet."
"Yes," he said, his voice tickled with laughter. "This planet is called Zigma 24 Delta, though it's more commonly referred to as Woman Wept. It's a bit smaller than Earth, and has only one land mass. And that mass, in which we are standing on, looks exactly like a woman lamenting, with her hand on her face as her head is bent over and she is on her knees in grief. It was, and is, one of the most beautiful planets in the whole solar system of Dram 2. It is also the only one left."
Rose looked around. "Why is it the only one left?" She asked.
"Because there was a small skirmish in the Time War in this area. The Daleks, my people's main foe and the other side of the war, had been enslaving the locals of a planet in this solar system. My people came to stop them, as the weapons that could have been made would have had some devastating effects. The details of what happened were kept pretty quiet, and any documentation I could scrounge up on the TARDIS while you were getting your jacket were heavily redacted. I suppose they wanted to keep something for the next president, had one survived. Anyway, the result of the battle was the total destruction of the planet, and the shock waves wiped out all the other four planets that happened to be on the same side of the sun at the moment. The solar system, of course, only had six planets to begin with." Rose watched as he walked slowly toward a cliff face, looking up at it as he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his frock coat. "The results of the decimation, the shock waves, caused a cloud to form around the sun, flash freezing the planet. These are waves," he said, pointing to what Rose thought was a cliff face. "Frozen in an instant, all the way through. If the planet had had any life before it wouldn't have survived. The time we're at now, this planet is about a thousand years post Time War, and it's only just starting to warm up."
"So, the waves will thaw out eventually?" She asked as she joined him.
He shook his head, staring at the frozen mass. "Possibly, but I can't be sure. It's still below freezing, and it may stay like this for eternity now. The TARDIS wouldn't let me peek ahead."
Rose smirked at the thought. The Time Ship, while still a bit unsettling in the way in constantly seemed to know what she wanted or needed, was growing on her. She could sense a personality inside the sentient ship, one that, had it been human, would have been just Rose's type for a girlfriend. The fact that the TARDIS seemed to be calling the shots in this relationship she had with her captain only made Rose fonder of her.
After a long stretch of silence, a thought niggled at Rose's mind. "Why are you the only one out here doing the work? Where are all the other Time Lords when they did a lot of the damage?"
The second Rose looked up at the Doctor, she wished she could have taken the question back. The pain in his eyes was so clear her heart ached for him, and her gut twisted in empathetic agony.
He looked toward his feet and the snow, though his gaze seemed to see something much farther away.
"No one else is out here, because there is no one else." He looked at her through the corner of his eye. "I'm the last one in this Universe. The rest …."
"Whaddya mean, last in this Universe?" She asked, reaching out and taking his hand. It was always cool, so she'd expected it to be freezing. By comparison to the air around them, the Doctor was warm. Still not human warm, if that was the reason he wasn't the same temperature as her, but not uncomfortable to touch.
He squeezed it, and didn't let go of the hold when he weakened the grip. "Myself and a few others of a similar mind did something we all thought was quite brilliant. We sent our whole planet to another Universe, as there are many out there. But … it was in the middle of a battle with the Daleks, and while we managed to take them out as well …."
"You're the only one who survived." She finished for him. "I'm so sorry, Doctor." Rose shook her head, stepping closer to him, taking his other hand and turning him to face her.
"Don't be sorry for me, Rose." He said gently. "I did what I had to do, and now … now I live with the consequences. And I'm not the only Time Lord left, I just need to … to find a way to get my planet and my people back."
"Bet you will, too, clever as you are." She said, biting her lip as she gave him a bit of an awkward hip check despite their position.
"Surprisingly not as clever as you think," He said with a self-deprecating grin. "Not by Time Lord standards." He looked around them, something pulling his attention enough to do a double take.
Frowning, Rose looked to see what it was, catching something in the pattern of a wave face that looked a lot like words.
"How about we go in the TARDIS, head to the library with some tea, and we can revisit the Wizarding World? We can read the nine books first, then move on to the fourteen films."
"Nine books? Fourteen films?" Rose gapped at him, instantly distracted from the wave face.
"Well, one book was actually a script. Or was it two? And one of the films is a recording of the play that was made. Not the best work, to be honest, but it does help one relive the magic. And also, to be fair, five of the films are more prequels than anything else."
The Doctor led her back toward the TARDIS, only dropping one hand and holding the other as they traversed. Before she stepped inside, though, Rose turned and caught one last glimpse at the wave face with the words in the pattern.
While she couldn't make out both words before she went inside, the one she did decipher sent a shiver down her spine. It was as clear as anything and hard to put down as a simple coincidence.
The word was Bad.
~DW~
"Oh it's lovely," Rose said as she paused in the TARDIS doorway behind him. He turned, taking in her wonder-filled, wide eyes. Her smiled was nearly as bright as the sun that beat down on the land around them. Humid, like Earth's tropical regions, and sweat was already starting to dot Rose's forehead, but she didn't seem to care.
Slowly, she stepped out, glancing at the pale, green sand beneath her foot for a moment before slowly moving away from the ship to take in their surroundings. The trees resembled the basic structure of an earth evergreen, but instead of needles, there were small little palm-like leaves. And they were yellow.
Which they shouldn't have been, they should have been orange this time of year. What's more, it should be raining heavily. The planet that they were on had a season of rain, constant and unrelenting. He'd checked three times before stepping outside, because the moment they materialized, they should have heard the rain pound against the TARDIS roof.
Still, watching Rose take in the jungle planet that must have looked a bit mixed up to her human mind, watching as she took the scene in with breathless wonder despite the sweat dampening her clothes and hair, was wonderful. And healing, in a strange way. She didn't see the anomaly, she didn't see how the planet had been altered on its axis.
They walked deeper in, and as they did, she hardly took her eyes way from their surroundings.
She saw alien birds with scales instead of feathers, watch in awe as they shimmered in the deep, red sunlight while the moved from branch to branch. She took in the strange, oblong shaped fruit that hung heavy from the trees and appeared to be coated in thorns. She gingerly reached out and touched a vine that dropped nearby, retracting her hand with a surprised giggle before caressing the velvet like vegetation that hummed in response.
"Where are we?" She asked moving toward him while barely able to take her eyes away from the scenery around her.
"We are on the planet Beutoyu, about 400 lightyears away from Earth. I think, time wise, we're in your past. Normally, we'd have never risked stepping outside the TARDIS this time of year."
"Why's that?" Rose asked, finally turning toward him.
"It's supposed to be rainy season."
"So… like home." She smirked.
He laughed. "Much, much worse. You know how the TARDIS shower has an incredibly heavy setting, like standing beneath a waterfall?"
"Yeah," She said, smirking a bit. "Probably gonna need that after this, me."
The Doctor refrained from chuckling. "Yes, well, rainy season on Beutoyu is like that. For a quarter of the year."
Rose first looked shocked, then frowned thoughtfully, looking around them. "So, what? This whole place floods then?"
"Well, not really. You see the sand isn't like sand on Earth. It doesn't get wet and clump, you can't make a sand castle on it. Instead, it allows the water to drain deep within the ground, giving the vegetation the water it needs the rest of the year. We're actually, now, about near the end of its post-Rain season. There's still a lot of moisture in the air, and the fruit is just turning edible." He said, reaching for one of the lower hanging ones.
"Doctor, don't-" Rose started to warn, but stopped when he plucked one down bare hand.
"It's not sharp." He said, bringing it over for her to feel.
He watched as she very carefully ran her hand over the skin of the fruit.
"Feels like silk." She said with a grin, caressing it again.
"The animals here would have no way of getting into them otherwise. The herbivores here have nothing sharp on their bodies to break the skin." He explained, taking the fruit in both hands and squeezing. He felt the fruit split, the ripped it open the rest of the way, revealing the deep purple flesh beneath the yellow and brown exterior.
Rose looked at it apprehensively, and more so when he handed half of it to her.
"Don't trust me?" He said, peeling off part of the skin and taking a bite.
Rose slowly removed a part of the skin on her half as well. "I do, 's just… is it safe? For humans?"
"Unless you happen to be allergic." He replied, taking another bite.
He smiled behind the fruit, anticipating the reaction of Rose's first experience with alien food. He thought of all his companions, how they would get a bit squeamish, or apprehensive. She was more the latter, which was to be expected, all things considered. But she didn't take a little bite, either. Rose went for it, taking off a normal amount, and carefully considering it.
He brow furrowed as she chewed, and the fact that she didn't immediately spit it back out was a good sign. He imagined her tongue moving about her mouth, what with the way her cheek stuck out and the way her jaw moved. She swallowed, looking at the fruit in her hand with consideration.
"Reminds me of tea. With honey and a touch of lemon. Bit strange, actually."
"It's interesting, isn't it?" He said, taking another bite.
"One of those things you're not sure you like it, but you know you don't hate it." She replied, taking another bite and chewing as she walked forward a bit.
He grinned, then with one hand, took out the sonic to get a read on the atmosphere. He wanted to make sure that everything was still going at least somewhat as it should, despite the detonation of a temporal weapon close enough to throw off the seasons. The leaves around him rustled, birds making their strange chirps overhead.
Then Rose yelped.
It wasn't a scream, though it could have been, and it certainly wasn't in mere surprise.
The Doctor spun around, and then remained perfectly still as he watched a creature he'd never seen before perch on Rose's shoulder with her portion of the fruit in her hands.
It was like a cat, if he had to put it in Earth terms. A cat with longer fur than necassary, and strange-monkey like feet and hands. It gnawed at the corner of the fruit, which was bigger than it was, its tail curled around Rose's shoulders and flicking wildly.
His companion seemed a bit frightened, but mostly she just watched.
The creature looked at her for a moment, assessing the being it stole the fruit from, then stilled.
The Doctor's hearts pounded, and his body coiled and tensed, waiting to launch toward Rose and save her from the creature should it attack her.
It put the fruit in its mouth, then turned around. Rose's eyes went wide as it proceeded to crawl down her back, then once it was on solid ground again, it tiptoed back into the trees on two feet.
"What was that?" She asked.
"I honestly have no idea." He replied. "Interesting little creature wasn't it?"
"It climbed up my back." She said, her voice cracking a bit. "It ju-just… climbed up and took the thing right out of my hand. Reached right over, calm as can be, and just took it." She laughed, looking at where it went, though he doubted she could see it. "I just had an alien animal climb me like a tree and take off calm as can be. Never even been close to anything 'cept a cat or a dog, and it… I just…."
"Amazing, isn't it?" He asked.
"It is!" She exclaimed, turning toward him and clutching his arm. "Well, maybe not so much at first. Bit scared it was gonna try and kill me or something. Didn't seem bothered one bit, though."
"Probably wasn't. You're not exactly giving off predator vibes."
"Sayin' I'm not scary?" She teased.
He smiled. "I'm saying you come off as kind." He said, taking a bit of his fruit before offering some to Rose.
She shook her head, obviously not having enjoyed it enough to miss her portion, and then she frowned. She looked to his arm, then studied his face. "How are you not sweatin'?" She asked.
He smirked. "My biology is superior to yours." He said, as she rolled her eyes, he chuckled. "It's true. My body regulates itself so that I'm never hot, and never truly cold."
"Yeah?" Rose said, letting go of his arm as they continued a bit further into the jungle-like surroundings. "What else makes you better than me?"
"I can hold my breath for a very long time. Which is how I was able to tolerate being in the house when you and Charles had to leave."
"Makes sense. What else?"
"Two hearts." He replied.
"Seriously?"
"Yes, two."
"Do you need both going at once, or…."
"Are you planning my murder?" He teased, and she laughed.
"No, no. Just… might come in handy to know, yeah? Dangerous, this traveling with you. Already had to save you once. Know it's more likely gonna be the other way 'round, just wanna know this stuff. Just in case."
He nodded. "If one gives out, I have time to restart it before damage is done. It's extremely painful."
Rose gave a sympathetic hum, but didn't ask anymore.
He opened his mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again with one more major difference on his tongue, but paused. Regeneration was a topic he really should discuss with this companions more, and earlier on. But right now, with that thoughtful, and slightly uncertain frown on Rose's face, he couldn't bring himself to bring it up. He liked her, really liked her. She was the sort of companion he loved to travel with, someone who was becoming more friend than merely someone along for the ride of a life time. What if the thought of him changing into someone entirely new had her put off enough to make her go home. He'd have to tell her someday, of course. But for now, he was going to keep quiet and hope he got around to telling her before it was too late.
He took another bite of the fruit (accurately described by Rose), chewed, raising his hand and dislodging Rose out of necessity. She puzzled at the sonic as he scanned the atmosphere, but didn't ask anything about it. She, instead, looked around them.
A couple feet in, the Doctor stopped, and read the readings he'd taken of the atmosphere.
"Oh," He said.
"What?" Rose asked.
"Well the planet is supposed to be in the middle of its rainy season, but it turns out-"
A drop of rain fell on his hand heavily, another one quickly following. And judging by the way Rose flinched, one landed on her as well. It then proceeded to fall much, much faster.
"Start of it, then?" Rose called over the increasing volume of falling rain.
"Got it one, come on!" He shouted, and pulled Rose along as they ran back toward the TARDIS in what Earth might consider heavy rain showers.
She laughed the whole way, and that laughter was utterly infectious.
They weren't overly fair from the TARDIS, no more than five minutes at a running pace, but they were soaked through when they got inside. Their hair clung to their faces, and their heavy clothes had them leaning against the TARDIS doors, but they were still smiling, still chuckling.
"We're a right mess, aren't we?" She giggled. "Suppose I should get changed and put on the kettle, then, yeah?"
"I'll never turn down tea," He said from against the doors, watching as she pushed off and headed into the bowels of the TARDIS.
"Noticed that," She said, flashing him a smile over her shoulder.
When she disappeared, he went to the controls, yet he didn't do anything. He stood before them, looking at them, but not really seeing them. He was thinking of Rose. Rose, and her excitement over new creatures and new planets. Rose, and her lack of complaint when things went a bit sideways. She laughed, how many of his past companions would have lamented over being caught in the down pour instead of laughing?
She was something special. But he wouldn't say so, at least not out loud.
~DW~
"Why are we looking at the planet from up here?" Rose asked, and if she was holding her mug a bit tighter than usual, so be it. They were sitting with their legs outside the TARDIS, the doors wide open, a shell around the outside to keep them breathing and warm.
The Doctor took a sip of his tea, eyes focused on the planet below. "Because the atmosphere would kill you." He said in a very matter-of-fact way.
Rose liked that about him, he didn't try and make things pretty for the sake of it. He told the truth, maybe put a positive spin on it from time to time, but at the heart of it was always honesty. There weren't many honest blokes in her life. Honest, and kind.
The day before they went to a planet where the people had been altered by the time war. She didn't fully understand, but gathered that their very early development had been altered, and therefore they had been as well. It wasn't something he could set right, but he still went down and ensured they had what they needed to survive, that their planet was still able to support them.
She watched as he spoke to the elders, demonstrated some ways of construction that might be easier on their eight fingered hands. He pulled out a violin from within his jacket and played a bit for the children. He was very good with the children. And she didn't miss the way he smiled and watched her when she allowed the little girls of the village braid her hair. She sort of liked him watching her when he thought she didn't know.
She'd been looked at her whole life, never once had she felt admiration, even from Mickey. It thrilled and scared her all at once.
"Right," she said. "So…."
"I went down while you were sleeping." He admitted. "It's not as backwards as some of the other places we visited. But there were some changes. Ones, I think we'll note in a moment, when we shift around to the other side. We're orbiting the planet, after all."
"Orbiting the planet." Rose repeated in wonder. "Over a thousand years, and you still find wonder in all this."
"I do." He replied, glancing toward her. "Don't tell me you're bored."
"Not in the least." She shook her heard with a grin, her tongue peeking out in the end. "'S just… the places you must have been, the things you've seen! I think a lot of people would start to grow numb to it all."
"You may be right." He said, a cautious tone to his voice. He looked to the cup in his hand. "Sometimes… sometimes it's not going to be all sight seeing and investigating. We've been doing the simple stuff."
"Gelth and Autons are simple?" She smirked, and he quirked his lips a moment at that.
"Things like that are going to come up again. Again and again. It's not to much the wonders of the universe that people grow tired of, it's me. Me, and the dangers I inevitably lead them into. There's only so many times someone can watch people die, watch me make decisions they don't agree with, before they say 'enough is enough'. And then they leave." He turned to look her in the eye. "I earned a nickname, Rose. The Oncoming Storm. The Doctor of War. They aren't titles I relish, but they speak a truth I often don't wish to admit even to myself, even before the Time War. I've lost many friends because of things I've done and decisions I've made."
Rose held his gave until she couldn't, needing to break from those sad, stormy, beautiful blue eyes in order to speak. "Suppose they weren't really your friends, then."
"They were, for a time." He said.
She peeked at him, seeing him staring off at the vastness before them.
"Some, yeah. Sure lots of them still think fondly of ya. And I suppose, I could see all this gettin' a bit much. It's overwhelming, and makes ya feel a bit small. But the thing is, I get it. You know, it can't all be easy out there. 'S like with Gwyn. One girl, or the world, yeah? May not have liked it, but I get it."
"You are far more understanding than most." The Doctor confessed.
Rose didn't know what she could say to that, so she let it drop.
After a moment she changed the subject. "I went to the TARDIS library last night. You've gotta lot of children's books."
"Children's books?" He frowned.
"Yeah, you know. Like Harry Potter, of course, but also Narnia, Lemony Snicket. And those are just the ones I remember, and from my time."
He smiled. "I only take the best, you know. And that's not just limited to' who' I take aboard, but 'what'."
"And what makes them the best?" She smirked.
"Magic," He replied with enthusiasm. It was the same wonderful, passionate sort she'd seen him exhibit when they went to new places. The same sort he had for helping, and engaging with others. "Few if any novels of your time, aimed for adults, had such wonderful things as wardrobes taking children to another world, or an entire school brimming with the impossible. There are some fantastic novels for the more mature, don't get me wrong. The Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, Charles, of course, and Mark Twain, they all did some wonderful things. But magic and mystery, Rose, those are what lure an adventurer like myself."
"Suppose so." She smiled. "Were sort of among my favorites as a kid, too."
"Adventurer at heart, then." He replied.
"Guess so." She agreed, nodding once and then looking out to at the stars. There were so many, and among them were planets, and beings. She felt small and insignificant, and yet so incredibly special. She was among the few that he deemed 'the best', and while she didn't feel it, she still knew she was important.
"Ah, here we go. Watch the shadow, Rose." The Doctor said, touching her shoulder to get her attention, then pointing at the planet down below.
Just as they shadow where the moon blocked the sun came into view, an orange flash of light broke across it. Then pink, then red. It repeated and grew, a dazzling display.
Rose gasped, then smiled. "'S like the Northern Lights."
"Same effects, really." The Doctor nodded. "It's just the chemical make up of the atmosphere below changes the color and frequency. Amazing, isn't it?"
"'S beautiful." She agreed. "All these little wonders scattered across all of space, phenomenons of nature you can only see at certain times… no wonder you never stay still."
"It's not a bad life." The Doctor agreed with a smirk, taking a sip of his tea.
"Better with two?" She asked, and he grinned.
"Yes, I believe it is." He replied, meeting her gaze.
They stared at one another for a long time, or at least what felt like it, and yet Rose couldn't bring herself to turn away. His eyes were fatigued and full of fire all at once. Those eyes had seen so much, tragic and magical. And they were the windows to the soul of a beautiful man who loved life so fiercely he was more than willing to risk his own to ensure it carried on for everyone else. He was alien, but so very human.
He was the most enchanting being she'd ever bet, and he wanted her with him on this fantastic adventure.
He inhaled, and she blinked, and the spell was broken. They both took a deep drink of their tea, turning their attention back to the light show in the planet atmosphere below.
When she put her hand on the floor of the TARDIS, her finger grazed his. Neither moved, and that suited her just fine.
