Chapter 6
Hours later, after dusk had long since settled, birds had migrated to their nightly perches and the stars had emerged bright and victorious over the darkness of the bitter winter sky, the Doctor eased his way as quietly as possible back into the old time hotel room.
He had soldered, welded, tinkered and fused all day and most of the night but finally he had to concede that the thinner oxygenation levels in the wounded T.A.R.D.I.S. were starting to make even his superior respiratory bypass system labour for breathe and his muscles were growing heavy, burning lactic acid, his throat dry and parched and his stomach tight and angry.
He stole some food from the kitchen downstairs and hoped that Rose had worked out the currency he'd left her. He was far too excited and buzzing that morning to stop for a history lesson.
Valuing this rest-bite before she'd eventually leave him, he snuggled in beside her under the covers and she adorably snuffled in her sleep, throwing an arm across his chest. She was so beautiful. He drank in her sleep clad features in the dim light burning them to his inner eye like a permanent photograph. Soon, however, sleep had him under siege. He was so exhausted and so with a muttered 'good night, my Rose', he let it claim him.
When Rose awoke the next morning there was an unfamiliar weight atop her waist. She wriggled out from under it and sat up to catch her bearings as had become her instinctive ritual upon waking and not hearing the comforting thrum of the T.A.R.D.I.S. Where was she this time?
Suddenly she remembered and let out a small, squeaking sob as a fresh tear began to pool like Saturn's glistening rings under her hazel orbs. Her face was still tight from those that had fallen and dried the night before.
"Rose, Rose what is it?" A dishevelled figure quickly roused itself and intently met her bright eyes.
She squeaked again although this time in surprise.
"Rose, what's wrong?" Genuine concern laced the rumbling voice, still hoarse from sleep.
"You!" She pointed.
"Me?" He pointed and quirked an eyebrow in confusion and slight amusement.
"You're here?"
"And you're squeaking!" he chuckled, looking adorable under a bed head fringe.
"Sorry." she started and lowered her index finger.
"It's rude to point." he said.
"Well that's me, rude and not ginger." she barked out a hysterical laugh that ended in shuddering tears.
The Doctor was mid chuckle when he noticed the shift and pulled her to him.
"Shush, Rose, talk to me." He rocked her gently and awkwardly, both sets of legs still trapped beneath the bulky, winter blanket.
Finally she stilled in his arms and drew in a few calming breathes.
"I thought you'd gone." she muttered into his tear damp chest.
"Gone? Gone where, Rose? Did you have a nightmare?"
She pushed herself up, bracing a hand on his shoulder.
"No. Gone as in, left me."
She almost laughed at the confused expression on the brilliant but ignorant Time Lord's face. She was feeling a little light headed, giddy and not a little confused herself.
"Where could I go? We're stranded, remember? The T.A.R.D.I.S. is right there." He gestured wildly in the general vicinity, though visually impeded by a stone wall with a garish painting of a horse and hound oil.
He was giving her one of those, 'have we ingested any weird alien drugs again?' looks though a little hurt was also seeping through.
For her part, Rose stared at him like he couldn't possibly be there, a miracle in brown pin-stripe.
"You can leave someone and still be standing right in front of them." She clarified stoically.
"What?" There was definitely hurt there now.
"I went to the T.A.R.D.I.S., it was locked, and my bag was outside with some spare change."
"But I told you; in her condition the T.A.R.D.I.S. wasn't safe."
Rose stared blankly at him.
"No you didn't."
"Didn't I? Well I meant to."
God, this man was infuriating. He looked perplexed for a beat and then horrified as he realised what she thought.
"You thought…" His wide eyes nodded with her head as she put as much disbelief and aggravation into the gesture as possible.
"Oh."
"Oh indeed." As confounding as the man was she couldn't stop her lips twitching into a smile in utter relief and affection for the clueless brainiak.
Her smile made him smile until, "Oi!" His expression turned upset and reproachful.
"You really think I'd just abandon you like that?"
"Thought that was your M.O.?"
"After all this time together you really think that I don't see, that I don't care, that I'm incapable and jealous of 'human love' as you put it?"
She winced, hearing the acidity of her words with fresh ears.
"No. I guess I just thought, you'd done what I asked and didn't want to say 'goodbye'. So you went for the subtle hint of the packed bag and locked door. For someone who talks a LOT, I know that you find talking difficult."
With Rose already dizzy with his mood swings, he morphed again and spoke in that curious detective way of his.
"Rose, I know I'm over nine hundred years old and may be getting senile but I could have sworn your impressive war wound, lumpy bump head thing, was on the other side yesterday?"
She could see his hand edging toward a pocketed screwdriver obviously ready to expose her as a counterfeit, body snatching, changeling Slitheen or something.
"It was. I mean is. I got one to match. You know how I like to accessorize."
"Huh?" Out came the 'brainy specs'.
"Oh alright! I fainted, yesterday, just dropped, right outside the T.A.R.D.I.S. Must've jumped out of bed too quickly or something."
He scrutinised her with a concerned, furrowed brow and started his medical man impersonation. Pupil dilation, pulse rate, probing of the cranium and poking of the substantial bruise.
"Aowww!" She grabbed his finger.
"Rose, I need that to poke…"
"Stop poking me!"
"Oh! Yes! Right! Sorry."
She needed to distract him and in the absence of bananas, jam or shiny alien knick-knacks, she plopped for… "So how's the T.A.R.D.I.S.?"
He visibly slumped a little and she mentally kicked herself mouthing a silent, 'tactful'.
"I was so excited yesterday, so sure. I went looking for her EMP, not literally of course but there are alternative temporal anomalies that could have spiked her out of the Vortex. Even a T.A.R.D.I.S. isn't invulnerable to Time or universal energies. Though the few possible explanations didn't bear thinking about. They're impossible anyway with my people gone."
He was drifting to some place else again in contemplation. She could see his eyes clouding over, losing their chocolate sparkle. She didn't know where he was journeying but she was sure it was cold and dark.
"You use that word way too freely." She laughed and he came back to her.
"Well there aren't enough superlative synonyms in your primitive English thesaurus plus I like hyperbole. Impossible is a very grandiose word and makes the situation more dramatic and me more brilliant when I overcome it. Because if there's one thing I am, Rose Tyler, it's brilliant!" He wiggled his impressive eyebrows at her and smirked at the obligatory eye-roll.
"Is brilliant a downgrade from fantastic? I mean is it like fantastic then brilliant, great, pretty good? How long 'til mediocre?"
"Shut your mouth, young lady." he tapped her on the nose like a misbehaved pet dog.
"It is IMPOSSIBLE for me to be mediocre." he grimaced at the word like it offended his talented, taste buds and maybe it did.
She humoured him with a theatrical yawn, their normal repartee which, in turn, won his instinctive, sullenly pout and she giggled at his facial gymnastics. God, she missed him.
"No, but seriously" he continued. "If that were the case, the whole universe would be on red alert!"
"Mauve!" she corrected and he scowled at her smug grin.
"Ok so 'apocalypse now' isn't happening now then?"
"Weelll, now's relative as we might be now, later and have a travesty to avert next in the now, sometime in the when but not until our now becomes then."
"Semantics!" she sighed and glanced a blow off his shoulder.
"Oh big word, Tyler! Do you know what it means?" So she hit him again.
"You're perkier!"
"Weelll, she's a little more stable and you were so upset when you thought I left you, even though you apparently wanted to leave or does it matter who leaves who?" he teased.
"Of course it does. But I said 'it was time' not that I wanted to go."
He sobered at this and a silence fell upon them. She was still going then?
"Can I see her?" she whispered almost reverently.
"Of course you can!"
