As it turned out, he needn't have worried so much about the pretty boy. The bloom was off Rose rather early, as he surmised from the glare he earned from over the rim of her coffee mug one morning two weeks on. He blinked mildly at her, but shrugged, and returned to watching his toast. He had to keep an eye on it, the thing had been funny since he had tried to fine tune it with his sonic and had only managed to make it run hotter.
"Hitting a sour note among the lovebirds?" He hoped he didn't sound as horribly smug saying it out loud as he did in his head, but then wondered why he should care whether it did or not.
"We aren't 'lovebirds'," she muttered, stirring a bowl of oatmeal, but not eating it.
"Okay," he replied, watching her as she piddled with her cereal. "Well, since I don't think the oatmeal did anything to you, I have to ask why you are trying to savage it?"
She rolled her eyes in disgust and pushed it away, pulling the sleeves of the comfy pajamas she had on over her hands and resting her chin on them. "What are we doing today?"
He returned to his toast, eyeing the fine, caramelized browning of surface, one that was just on that fine edge of being burnt, and popped it out of the toaster. "Don't know, hadn't thought much about it."
Her response was to groan and plant her face on the table.
"I'm so bored," she bellowed as he calmly searched for jam in one of the cupboards, finding marmalade, but going for strawberry.
"Thought you were enjoying showing off my ship to...Billy."
"Adam," she snapped, raising her face off the wood. "And we've been sitting in space for a week."
"It's not space," he replied, sitting down at the table with his toast and jam, dolloping the latter generously on the former. "It's the Vortex."
As usual when throwing out something new towards Rose she perked up, curiosity alight. "Vortex? What's that?"
"The Time Vortex," he continued, pleased she had asked. "It is the place between. It's not in space or time. Sort of outside Einstein's realm."
"If it's outside of time and space, where is it?"
"Between the two," he replied, crunching on his toast. "The Vortex is the place between."
Rose smiled as she considered. "That sounds so...fantastic. Like something out of a comic book."
"Even humans in your time period know about the Vortex, though they don't call it that. It's a place where the laws of physics as your people know them sort of...bend."
"And we are in that place right now?" Far from sounding worried, Rose sounded intrigued.
"Yeah," he nodded, reaching for his tea on the counter. "It's how we get through all these places and times, through the Vortex. The TARDIS tends to like to stay there when we aren't in regular space-time."
"So if it isn't in space and it isn't in time, what is it? What's there?"
"Glad you asked," he grinned, not for the first time finding himself amazed at the utter joy this human girl with little formal education took in knowing how and why things worked. "The Vortex is hostile. Filled with winds that can age you, and creatures that can feast on time itself. No one can really survive in it. Well, except for a Time Lord."
"Of course," she snorted, smirking at his pompousness affectionately. "Your superior biology?"
"Well, yeah." He shrugged, slightly nettled. "It's why we have it, you see?"
"You evolved to play around in this Time Vortex?"
"We evolved because of the Time Vortex." His hearts skipped slightly as he recalled that moment, so long ago, when he had stood, just a wee tot with scabby, knobbly knees and wide eyes, staring into eternity. "A long time ago my people learned how to manipulate time and see into the Vortex. Some say it changed us."
Rose's keen eyes brightened as it clicked with her. "That's why you can live so long then, yeah?"
"Yeah...well, kind of. The Vortex, the energy there, it's the most powerful thing in all of the universe. It's bound to change anyone, sort of like living next to a radioactive dump. But for Time Lords, it lets us…"
A thumping noise and a choked groan sounded from outside of the galley, as the tousled head of his newest companion came into view, eyes groggy and baby face in need of a dire shave. "Is it morning yet?"
The Doctor swallowed his spike of irritation as Rose rolled her eyes, giving Adam an indulgent smile. "Isn't ever really morning on here, not really. One of the quirks of living in a ship that travels through time."
"I feel like I have the worst case of jet lag ever," he whinged, collapsing like a sack of potatoes into the nearest chair, eyeing the Doctor moodily. "Does it feel this bad for everyone their first time?"
"Rose adapted just fine," he found himself saying before he could help himself, completely unimpressed by his newest charges complaining. "She was up three days before she collapsed, and we had how many adventures?"
"Three," she replied, thinking. "Once to the future, once to the past, and once with the Slytheen."
"Slitheen?" Adam rolled the word off his tongue as if it were a particularly nasty disease, which considering the family, wasn't that far off.
"Yeah, remember that incident where Number 10 got blown up?"
His bleary eyes blinked. "Yeah, when I was like twelve or thirteen. They said it was terrorists."
"Nope, it was the Slitheen," Rose grinned, tongue peeking out cheerfully. "We were there when it happened."
That had been only months ago for Rose, not years. But it might as well have been, he mused, watching her now, so cheeky and confident about it all in hindsight. He could have lost her that day if not for her quick thinking. Now she laughed at it, was proud of it.
"So what are Slitheen?"
"Aliens," Rose responded. "And not good ones. Make all these farting noises all the time, rather disgusting."
"And rather greedy," the Doctor rose from the table, finding himself suddenly no longer hungry for toast. "So, Rose says she's bored. Care for an adventure?"
"Does it have to be with Slitheen?" Adam looked rather queasy at the thought.
"How about the future," Rose chimed in. "That's where you took me, Doctor. Though, maybe not to the end of the world."
"You saw the end of the world?" Adam piped up, eyes wide in disbelief.
"Yeah, burned to a crisp." She waved her hand at him. "Maybe someplace fun?"
The Doctor considered her, half-torn by irritation and affection at how easily she brushed off the end of her world now. "I got a place. Think you two might like it. Space station, overlooking one of the great, human empires on Earth, in the future. Best food, best art, best culture, best everything from your world."
He glanced between the pair. "You two game?"
Rose nodded eagerly, already rising with her half-eaten cereal. Adam looked cautiously game.
"Right, clean up, meet you in the console room in half and hour, wear comfortable shoes."
Adam wondered as the Doctor stood. "Why comfortable shoes?"
"Cause something mad always happens with him," Rose snickered over her shoulder.
"Quite right," he muttered at Rose's teasing. "Don't want to be thrown into a future jail for trespassing, do you?"
He didn't stick around to hear Adam's worried response.