A/N: Bit of a longer chapter! Enjoy!
"Were you serious at breakfast?" Rose asked him when they were alone, walking into the TARDIS. "About us travelling soon? With Donna?"
He smiled sincerely. "Of course I was."
"What about the yogurt?" she asked, frowning. "You know, strawberry and banana – the separation?"
"We'll do that and then travel," he elaborated, walking down the hallway with his hands shoved in his pockets.
Rose caught up with him and tried to get a good look at his face. "You make it sound like it's gonna be really easy. Is it?"
"It should be," the Doctor replied nonchalantly. Just a few more tests and I'll have it figured it out, Rose. I'll need you in the medical bay again tonight – I'm going to put you on some drugs and monitor the effects. It's no good for you to be walking around without any sort of medication."
She swallowed. "Will I be, you know, loopy?"
The Doctor shook his head. "Not those sorts of drugs. Well…" He rubbed the back of his neck. "A few of them might be. But I can give you those ones while you're asleep, if you'd rather."
Rose tried to imagine herself drugged up while conscious around the Doctor and shuddered. "Yeah, while I'm asleep might be best."
"I promise I'll get to the bottom of this, Rose." The Doctor smiled at her and kissed the top of her head.
Rose smiled up at him and grabbed his hand, squeezing it gently. "I know you will."
They entered the library without really thinking about it – after all, it was where they went before Canary Wharf whenever they were simply relaxing. Rose sat down on the sofa and watched as the Doctor carefully searched the tall, cherry-wood shelves. Occasionally he plucked a book from them, stared at the cover, and then placed it back into its position.
Rose watched him in amusement, enjoying the view of his bum and back muscles that moved underneath his tight suit. She thought he looked skinnier than when they had travelled together – or perhaps it was just her imagination.
"What are you looking for?" she asked eventually. She had her chin propped up on her palm and was lying on her stomach, elbow resting on the arm of the sofa.
He glanced at her over his shoulder; glasses perched on the tip of his nose, looking irrevocably adorable, in her biased opinion. "Oh, nothing. Just a book."
She thought about telling him that the fact that he was looking for a book was a bit obvious, but she thought better of it and continued her ogling instead. Well, perhaps ogling wasn't the best word – that made it sound a bit too dirty. More like… Admiration.
After a few more minutes he seemingly found what he was looking for, plucking the book off of a shelf and grinning to himself. He walked back over to her and Rose pretended as if she hadn't been admiring him by picking up a random book off of the coffee table and pretending to study the first page.
"What are you reading?" he asked her, plopping down beside her and sinking into the cushions.
"Dunno, just picked it up. Looked interesting," she lied.
The Doctor quirked an eyebrow, leaning forward to see the cover. "The development of biotechnological enhancements on Deruol XII looked interesting?"
Rose shrugged. "What are you reading?" She looked at the green cover but he quickly turned it away from her.
"A book about anomalies," he admitted. "Written by my people, happened to have a copy in here."
She frowned. "To help with my, uh, condition?"
The Doctor nodded, flipping open the book and scanning the first page.
Rose bit her lower lip. She was torn between thanking him for worrying about her and telling him that he should read something he actually wanted to read instead of about her medical issue. In the end, she decided not to pester him further and to get a book for herself instead to distract her mind.
She picked a good-looking cover from the fiction section and read the synopsis on the back, deciding that it seemed like her type. Rose allowed herself to become immersed in the book – it was a love story about a traveller from another planet who met a girl on one of his travels and how they fell in love. Some parts of it – especially the differences between the two lovers – hit a bit close to home, but it was a good read all the same.
After a few hours she doggy-eared the page of the book she was on and set it down on the table. "I'm going to go into Torchwood," she announced to the Doctor, standing up.
Immediately, he was by her side with his book in his hands. "I'll come," he suggested.
"You don't have to," Rose said, worried that he felt the need to accompany her when, really, she was perfectly capable of going to Torchwood on her own. Besides, it wasn't as if she was going to be alone and without care. "I mean, if you want to, sure, but you don't have to."
He smiled at her a little shyly. "I'd like to come with you."
Rose gave him a smile in return, looping her arm with his and walking him out of the library and down the hall. "I can't wait for us to start travelling," she beamed, leaning closer to him. "You have no idea how much I've missed it."
"How long were you in Pete's World?" the Doctor asked, quirking an eyebrow.
"Five years. Well, four years and ten months." In a quieter voice, she added, "And nineteen days."
He nodded, taking in the information. Five entire years. Blimey, that had been longer than he had fathomed. "We can start travelling soon," he promised.
"How soon?" Rose asked eagerly.
"As soon as you're better," he promised. "Completely and one-hundred percent better."
She sighed, leaning closer to him. "What if we don't go anywhere life-threatening? A small trip couldn't hurt me, yeah? Victorian London in… What year did you suggest?"
"1851," he provided.
"Maybe tomorrow?" she prompted, squeezing his hand. "Or the day after? Come on, I'm dying to get out of here," Rose pleaded, leaning closer to him and resting her chin on his shoulder. They were in the console room, though he couldn't remember when they had stopped walking.
He felt ambivalent, torn between wanting to please Rose and wanting to keep her safe in the TARDIS until he was sure that she couldn't ever be harmed or taken from him again. When he looked at her, his mental conflict only increased.
He saw a bit of himself in her – there was that same wanderlust and desperation to travel anywhere and everywhere. He tried to switch their positions – imagine himself stranded for so long. Then, he realized that it wasn't hard, since he had been stranded here for a relatively long while. He wanted to travel, too. He hadn't quite realized just how badly until this moment.
After a while, she had broken his, admittedly, initially weak resolve. "Alright. Tomorrow. But, promise me that if you don't feel good we won't go. Agreed?"
Rose nodded, giving him a brief kiss on the cheek, at which he was embarrassed by how his hearts raced wildly and he felt his face reddening. "I will."
They stepped out into Torchwood and sat down with the others in the common area where they were watching some sports game that he couldn't bring himself to care about. Instead, he only had eyes for Rose.
"You two have been spending a lot of time alone lately," Jack said suggestively, waggling his eyebrows. Martha hit him on the arm. "I'm just messing with them!" he defended.
Rose ducked her head slightly. "We're not like that, Jack."
Donna rolled her eyes. "Yeah right. Thick as thieves, you two are."
The Doctor gaped at Donna in shock. "What exactly do you mean by that?"
"Longing looks, whispering nonsense to one another, giggling," Donna said, counting off on her fingers. Jack hummed in agreement.
"You two are teaming up on us now, huh?" Rose asked, looking between Donna and Jack. She hadn't gotten to know Donna particularly well yet, but she now realized she was the straightforward type.
Changing the topic, the Doctor nodded towards the TARDIS. "By the way, we're leaving tomorrow for a trip. You still want to come, Donna?"
Donna nodded. Then, Martha spoke up. "Could I come too, you think? Just for a trip or two, I kind of miss it, honestly."
The Doctor brightened. "Of course! That'd be brilliant. The quartet of… Uh…"
"Quirkiness?" Rose suggested.
He laughed and moved closer to her. "Do I seem quirky to you?"
She gave him a playful smile. "Quizzical, maybe."
"Oi!"
"Or… Hmm… Quaint, quick-witted, quixotic?"
The Doctor looked at her, his expression full of pride. "You have a great vocabulary! Wait – do you know what quixotic means?"
Rose simply gave him a mischievous look. "I do know what it means."
He smacked her on the arm teasingly and she hit him back. She leaned in close to his ear and whispered a lame joke about the word at which he giggled and wrapped an arm around her waist, tugging her closer to him.
Rose, admittedly, had practically forgotten there were other people in the room. When she looked up at the amused faces of their friends, she gave an embarrassed nod to them and decided to quiet up, realizing how they had essentially just proven Donna right.
"Not thick as thieves, yeah right. If they're not sleeping together, then I'm the prime minister." Donna mumbled to Jack, causing him to burst out in laughter.
"What did you say?" the Doctor asked, looking anxiously from Donna to Jack. "What was it?" he repeated.
A few hours later, Martha offered to go and get food for the lot of them. Rose offered to go with her, and the Doctor stared after her apprehensively, not dissimilar to a lost puppy. Rose told him that she'd be fine and the chippy shop wasn't far, and eventually he acquiesced.
At the beginning of the walk there was a companionable silence between the two women, until Rose asked her a question. "So how long did you travel with the Doctor?"
"I'm not sure how long it was," Martha admitted. "Sometimes it feels so short, sometimes it feels so long, you know?" Rose nodded understandingly "Definitely around one year. Give or take a few months. How about you?"
"I don't know either. A long time, maybe two years? I've got no idea. Probably a little bit over that."
Martha hummed. "He loves you, you know."
Rose looked at her, surprised. "What?"
"I've never seen him as happy as when he's with you," the other woman elaborated, an emotion that Rose couldn't detect underlying in her inflection. "Never seen him smile so much, laugh so much. And the looks he gives you when he thinks you're not looking… I wish I had a relationship like that."
Rose thought about her current medical condition and his reaction to it, and more importantly the strain that was still on their relationship because of it – the strain that both of them had covered up so efficiently. She swallowed, remembering how angry he had been. "But we're not like that. We're just friends, really."
"Do you want more?" Martha asked. "I know Donna and Jack have been joking about it, but what do you actually want? And do you know what he wants?"
Rose thought about it. More with the Doctor. For so long it had seemed like such an unattainable dream – such as how someone would dream about becoming a billionaire or how a child dreamed about becoming a superhero.
But now it was so much closer, so barely out of reach if they could just get past a few barriers. For one, there was her condition, which was an inevitable obstacle. And then there were his undeniable emotional issues. She wasn't sure which would be harder to overcome.
"I'd love it, having more with him," she admitted. "But don't tell him I said that," she added. "I don't want to scare him away, I guess."
Martha gave her a sympathetic smile. "I had a crush on him, you know."
"Really?"
"Mhmm. At first, I kind of kept dropping little hints. When it became clear he was totally oblivious – he's a bit human in that respect, isn't he? – I got a little more straightforward, but eventually it hit me. He's besotted with you. Talked about you all the time. Seemed as though everything reminded him of you."
Rose frowned at the other woman, reaching out to squeeze her arm comfortingly. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Martha assured her. "I'm over it. I thought to myself, I can get out there and find myself someone better for me. He's my friend – he'll always be my friend, he's amazing, really, but it wasn't meant to be between us at all. All I could wish after I had left him was that he'd find you again. And, well, you found him."
Rose smiled and felt tears threatening to form in the corners of her eyes. She swallowed and composed herself, somewhat humiliated by how easily Martha's words had affected her. "You'll find someone who deserves you," Rose said after a moment. "Someone who loves you unconditionally."
Martha sighed. "Yeah, one day, maybe. But my point is, he loves you. And I'd bet quite a lot that he wants more with you, too, even if he's a bit stupid about it."
"He is really human in that aspect," Rose concurred.
Martha nodded, annoyance evident in her expression. "Really human."
They laughed and Rose held open the door to the chippy shop for Martha. "We're trying to keep it a little on the down-low, but I have a small medical condition that came with the whole, um, species change," Rose said. "The Doctor says he can fix it really soon, but that's why he's been a little… Uh, stressed."
Martha frowned. "What kind of a condition?"
"It's… It's like a cough. It comes and goes like crazy, though. Sometimes it's barely there, sometimes it's really bad. Something to do with different particles from different universes, I don't know. He's worried about it, though. Hardly leaves my side. Is it bad that that doesn't really bother me? The clinginess, I mean."
Martha shrugged. "It might start to bother you eventually. If it ever does, just tell him. Or maybe he'll just stop being so clingy as soon as you're better. Who knows with him, really?"
Rose laughed. "He's so unpredictable. I honestly don't know how to initiate more with him. He won't take any hints – or if he did he'd probably just brush them off."
Martha ordered the food quickly then sat down on a stool. "I think you sort of just have to rip off the bandage with him."
Rose sat next to her. "What do you mean?"
"Make it one day, when everything is fixed with your cough, of course, just out of the blue. I don't think there's another way to do it. If you wait for the perfect situation then it'll never come – not with his lifestyle."
She thought about it. "Yeah, you're right. I think it has to be out of the blue."
Martha gave her a reassuring smile. "You shouldn't be nervous. Nothing could scare him off, Rose. He's in love with you."
Somehow hearing the words physically being spoken by someone else shocked Rose slightly. Did Martha really believe that? Was it even true? What if she was wrong and Rose ended up making a complete fool of herself? She grimaced as she imagined the Doctor rejecting her, completely shocked by her actions. That was, she reminded herself, worst-case scenario.
"When you do it," Martha said, "you've gotta be a hundred percent sure, Rose. Because he won't be sure at first, so it'll help reassure him if you're confident."
"Thanks for the advice," Rose told her, genuinely grateful. When she had travelled with the Doctor before, it was rare that she got any relationship advice. There was Jack, of course, but his relationship advice usually consisted of shagging the Doctor senseless against the nearest surface and allowing Jack to watch and possibly join in.
"Anytime you need advice, I'm available," Martha promised her, smiling.
Their food was ready and Rose picked up the bags, handing a few to Martha and proceeding to walk out of the shop.
The two women walked through the street chattering happily to one another, talking about the Doctor amongst other things. What they didn't notice, however, was a tall figure stationed at the entry to an alleyway, shrouded by tall, looming shadows. He was dressed in a black jacket with a gun strapped to his side underneath it and some regular, faded blue jeans. Nothing conspicuous.
He picked up his cell phone, hitting the speed-dial button. The other end picked up halfway through the first ring and he pressed the phone to his ear.
"Did you find it?" the voice on the other end asked instantaneously.
"Yes," the figure replied in a gruff voice. "There's a woman with it. Dark skin, black hair in a ponytail, purple shirt. Attractive. Human, I'm fairly certain."
"Track them," the woman on the other end commanded. "If they split up, consider the anomaly more vital than its accomplice."
The man nodded. "I'll follow the anomaly. Should I send you coordinates?"
"Yes. Be careful, but try to integrate yourself into its situation and learn something. Don't get too close, but get a handle on its defenses and surroundings."
He nodded again, mentally memorizing each word of his boss. "Why don't we just grab it now? It'd be easy – I have the spray Dormioxiclyn drug that's in testing. I could grab the anomaly and bring it to you after knocking the woman out."
The woman sounded annoyed. "We need more information first. The anomaly could potentially be too dangerous to be kept with the others, or it could be hiding with even more of them. Do as you're told – you're not paid to be creative."
"Right, sorry," he apologized pathetically.
"Just get to work."
The line went dead, and the man began following the anomaly and the woman with her at a safe distance, listening in on their conversation as he walked.
A/N: Any predictions? I love hearing what you guys think in reviews! :D Hope you liked the chapter!