Perfume
Chapter Two: Intuition
By Rhondda Lake
The open panel revealed a maze of wires and circuit boards, wire ribbons and tubes as complex as any biological construct. Indeed, the background hum was as soothing as any heartbeat because the ship, was in fact, alive. There was something visceral and satisfying about puzzling out what was wrong and putting it to rights. There was certainly evidence of previous bypassing and patchwork. Elements replaced, some plain missing, stood out from the original components. However the external atmospheric sensors had never been tampered with before.
Oh well, after seven hundred years without a problem, not much room to complain really. At least this problem hadn't gotten anyone hurt. No materializing on a moon with no atmosphere at all, or in the centre of a sun. It could have been much worse, all considered. Having his companions get light headed and drag in something revoltingly smelly was actually a fairly good day in the scheme of things.
It was silly to try and see if the problem was any of the hundreds of sensors themselves. No, just one or two on the fritz would have still left plenty of others to alert him to trouble, so the problem had naturally been the central feed.
He had lost track of time as he deconstructed the box, roughly the size of a hardcover novel, and had begun rewiring and occasionally improving. It didn't seem like he'd been at it that long, with the TARDIS heartbeat hum moving up through his spine as he sat on the floor and the lingering eau de swamp planet giving his nose a teasing burn, when the doors opened and Rose and Jack walked in, laughing, each bearing a good sized cloth bag.
"How was I supposed to know he was her father?" Jack was grinning ear to ear.
"You're going to start another riot, you are. I just hope you didn't send them into family therapy. You could at least try limiting the flirting to a single gender in any one area, yeah?"
Rose dug into her satchel of purchases and brought forth a small glass bulb with an atomizer on the end. She gave a few spritzes near the doorway and up the ramp, stopping to loop her arm around one of the curving support beams she pressed a quick kiss to it. "There you go, girl. No lady likes to smell of swamp when she can smell pretty."
"Pretty?" The Doctor looked up, slightly alarmed. "You didn't just hose her down with something flowery and girly, did you?" He did not want his ship reeking of flowers. How undignified could you get?
"Just give it a minute, will you?" Rose tilted her head and smiled. "I know you blokes and your cars… or TARDIS."
The odour that had been burning his nose faded as a citrus tang took over. It smelled clean and a bit crisp. A vast improvement, but he couldn't let her off too easy. "Bit fruity, isn't it?"
"If you'd rather the flowers I can always go…" she turned to head out the door again.
"No! No, it's fine." He didn't want to tempt her to follow through. She would, too.
"Thought so," she beamed at him, giving her one of her satisfied and happy smiles.
He grinned back, their eyes locking and the rest of the universe falling away for a few precious seconds.
Jack came over and crouched beside the Doctor, breaking between their locked gazes and losing the moment as he looked over the strewn bits of the central feed component. "Got most of it done, I see. That didn't take too long."
The Doctor held up his screwdriver. "See, having it a bit more sonic does more than build shelves. Don't need a gun to solve everything, you know."
"Yeah, but bananas and screwdrivers don't stop rampaging Dorgnaks." Jack shot back even as he started handing parts to the Doctor as they were needed, like a well coordinated surgical team.
"Were you flirting with the Dorgnak too?" Rose leant against the console.
"You know you have a one track mind," Jack winked over his shoulder at her.
"Got your replacement shoes then?" The Doctor finished closing up the central feed box and got up off the floor.
"Yeah, ankle boots with a nice thick sole and good traction, for that running for our life thing we do so often." Her eyes sparkled with humour, and that tingle of excitement that had drawn him to her from the start. "I also got this great perfume from the place I got the air freshener."
"Perfume? Not really practical for that running for our lives thing we do so often." The Doctor shot back.
"Not like I'd wear it when we plan on rushing into danger," she defended.
"But how often do we plan on rushing into danger?" Jack jumped in.
"Go ahead and ruin my fun. At least I'll smell good while running." Rose pushed off from the console and held out her wrist.
Jack leant in and not only inhaled, but brushed his nose lightly, teasingly, along the skin of her arm. "Mmmm. That is nice. They have anything for men?"
"Oh, come on. Rose just got rid of one stink out of here," the Doctor kept tone light, although he didn't care for Jack's turning on the charm with Rose. At least she didn't take it seriously anymore.
"Doesn't stink," Rose pushed her wrist closer to the Doctor's face.
He was not about to go sniffing around Rose. Too damn uncomfortable, that. But he could smell the new perfume. His nose was more sensitive than humans. It did smell incredible, like Rose and musk and disturbingly sensual. It was almost erotic, and he didn't like the thought of her wearing that too often. Even if he wasn't sure why it disturbed him so.
"Slitheen aren't the only ones to hunt by smell. Best be careful where you wear that." The Doctor warned as he backed away a bit and turned to start reattaching the now repaired central feed for the external atmospheric sensors.
"Yeah, men do too." Jack cut closer to the truth than was comfortable. "Come on, Rose, let's get our purchases stashed."
They left the control room side by side. The Doctor watched them from the corner of his eye, inhaling the lingering scent of Rose's new perfume. It spread an uncomfortable warmth through him.