On Top of the World
Interlude, with chips, thought Rose, as she scrubbed grease from her fingers with a too flimsy napkin.
You've seen how dangerous it is. Do you want to go home?
Sitting in the dingy restaurant, on Earth in November, she pondered. Did she want to go home? What did she want?
I want...
I want a better paying job...
I want to move out of my Mum's flat...
I want to run away with a devastatingly handsome rich man who is madly in love with me...
A small shock ran through her body as she realized for the first time how low her sights had been set. After all the other shocks she'd had in the past twenty-four hours, it barely registered.
She looked up at the man sitting across from her, eating chips with such single-minded focus that you would think the fate of the world rested on it.
A second, stronger shock ran through her. I helped save the world, from the- what was it?- the Nestene Consciousness. Me. Rose Tyler. If I hadn't been there, aliens would have taken over the Earth and killed everyone. A small gasp must have escaped her lips, because the Doctor swallowed his last chip and looked at her inquiringly.
"What?"
She shook her head, indicating it was nothing important- no aliens leaping out from the restaurant's kitchen, no plastic mannequins on the rampage. As he returned to the important business of picking all the crispy bits from the bottom of the box and then licking the salt from his fingers, she took a moment to study him.
He was pleasant looking, but "devastating" and " handsome" were not really adjectives that applied. Rich? A smile tugged at one corner of her mouth as she contemplated the remains of the meal for which she'd had to pay. But she remembered when he had swept into the room like some avenging angel after having saved the observation platform, his new friend Jabe conspicuously absent, the anger rolling off of him in waves as he brought the baddie to justice. An unstoppable force. Alone in the universe.
Unless...
"Finished?" she asked. "All right, then, let's go. No doubt there's another mess somewhere that needs sorting out. Besides, you haven't shown me the past yet..."
She was rewarded with a look of surprise, followed by that slow grin that transformed his entire face, as he carefully gathered up their trash and disposed of it, then took her hand in his and led her back to the TARDIS.
