Title: Mercurial Rhythm
Chapter: Six
Rating: T
Summary: The Doctor, Rose and Jack stop on a planet for little bit of shopping but what starts out as an innocent expedition ends up being a trip full of a lot of interesting conversations…okay, someone else write my summary for me.
Pairings/Spoilers: The Doctor(9)/Rose and takes place just after The Doctor Dances
A/N: Me again, here's another one, as promised. Thanks for the reviews. And thanks to saganmidreams for the betaing.
Chapter Six
Armed with an array of clothes, food, trinkets and things she couldn't categorize, Rose retired to her room. Stowing away her purchases, she flopped onto the bed in exhaustion.
As she slipped into sleep, she realized that six hours in the market, followed by four hours gloating with Jack and teasing the Doctor, made today's antics the biggest, grandest shopping expedition she'd ever experienced.
She woke up several hours later, the lights in her room having turned themselves off and no noises present except for the soothing hum of the TARDIS. She guessed that she still had a couple of hours before she was expected to get up but she wasn't really that tired. She wriggled her toes and stretched, her body feeling rested and relaxed.
Despite the fact that she'd gone to sleep with the necklace on, her neck felt fine and she'd proven to herself that the green metal really was impossible to disfigure. Moving around to lie on her back, her feet sweeping over the bottom half of her bed, she hit something with her foot. She quickly realized that there was something hard and rectangular on the end of her bed that certainly hadn't been there when she'd gone to sleep.
Sitting up she spied what looked like a book that had been dipped in silver paint. She picked it up, tried to open it and found that it seemed welded shut. She turned it over and saw a big red button. If there was one thing television had taught her, it was not to push red buttons, so promptly, she did. A transparent screen lit up in front of her eyes, seeming to stem from the book like a hologram.
On the screen were at least fifty different words, each in a different language, some looked like they could be from earth, Hebrew, French, English, while others didn't look even vaguely familiar. She pointed at the English one and the screen rearranged to what could only be described as a front page.
The Oxford Guide
to the
History
of
Intergalactic Human Relationships
Oxford Press
London, Earth, 403076
It took a moment for the title to sink in, it being so long, but once it had she couldn't do much except raise an eyebrow. She pointed to the little star in the bottom right corner of the hologram and immediately the front page dissolved to show the contents page
1.Pre-Intergalactic Years ( 6200)
2.Systematic Exploration (6200-7800)
3.Limited Galactic Exploration (7800-62200)
4.Galactic Exploration (62200-375800)
5.Universal Exploration ( 375800)
She stuck her tongue between her teeth and made herself comfortable, sitting cross-legged in her shorts and camisole and pushing her ruffled hair back behind her ears. She chose the first of the options and three hours later she was almost half way through a chapter in Limited Galactic Exploration. The chapter in question regarded the 58th century phase that all of humanity went through which basically stated that in that particular century it was fashionable to have at least three Ginfies hanging off you at all times.
The book provided a picture of a rather naked Ginfy and Rose couldn't honestly see the attraction. She'd gone through the human race's slow acceptance of gay, interracial and transgender marriages (well and truly accepted by the year 6800) and the realization they weren't alone in the universe (5992). The discovery they were sexually compatible with aliens (6743) and the first alien marriage (7298, a man named Fred to a Venusian beauty). It had then taken almost forty centuries for the government of Earth to finally just let the human race go for it and have sex with whomever and whatever it wanted to, opening both borders and marriages to anything.
It was during a particularly descriptive paragraph on Ginfy sex rituals that the Doctor knocked on her door. Habit led her to yell for him to come in and he was suddenly standing just inside her doorway saying, "Morning Rose!"
She quickly stuffed the book under a pillow, successfully shutting down the hologram. "Hi!" Her voice was a little higher than she would have liked but she managed a smile nonetheless. "What's on for today?"
He hesitated for a moment, torn between wanting to tell her his plans and asking her about whatever it was she was hiding from him. He opted for he first option, knowing the second could lead someplace he didn't want to go. "I need to pop back into the market for some food supplies and I thought we could check out their equivalent of Wall Street."
She smiled, but not her usual smile. "Yeah, um," she paused for a moment, "I might just stay here for a while, got some stuff to do for another few hours. Go ahead without me."
The Doctor's face fell faster than a meteorite. "Okay, suit yourself. I'll see how long I take and come back in three, four hours, okay?" He managed to keep his voice cheerful and bouncy but even Rose couldn't miss the look of shock he'd taken on at her rejection.
She just nodded, and he wandered off down the corridor. She felt bad for ditching him for a book, but she couldn't have been more than half way through and she'd seen the marketplace yesterday. She cursed under her breath as she pulled it back out; she knew perfectly well she was only still reading it because she was looking for a particular fact.
And yet another chapter. I believe this marks the quarter way mark. Keep the feedback up, it's really great.