You Can Run All Your Life
A/N: This is for Ro (xxasktheangels), who is as brilliant a beta as she is a writer! You have her to thank for the Sherlock Holmes line :D Thank you for your help and lovely comments!
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The sonic screwdriver whirred uselessly against a big, heavy padlock and the Doctor sighed. Rose sat on the cold stone slabs of the floor a metre or so behind him, having been inside this cell so long that her tired legs now took precedence over the slime covering said slabs.
"We could always hit it with my shoe," she suggested half-heartedly, jiggling a foot in his direction.
"Rose, I know they call them killer heels for a reason, but…"
He put the screwdriver away and plonked himself down next to her, grimacing at the squelching noise the slime made as he rested his head back against the wall. "Maybe we could spear one of the aliens with it," he suggested glumly.
"Guess we're stuck here then," she sighed, resting her own head against the wall with a grimace. "Ugh. You think they'd clean this place once in a while. Prisoners' rights an' all that."
Reluctantly, as though she didn't want to know, she leant forwards and ran a hand down the back of her head. "What is this stuff?"
The Doctor wiped a finger across the floor and sniffed at it gingerly. "Dunno. Some kind of exploded alien remains, I'd guess." She didn't put her head back.
"Oh, great. It can never just be…melted jelly or somethin', can it?"
"Well, I'm not licking it to find out."
He was obviously more resistant to the alien goo than she was, as when he turned his head to look at her, he kept it leant against the wall. He flashed her a quick, boyish grin before flicking his gaze to the ceiling. From what he could see, there wasn't even an air vent to escape through. They were trapped until someone felt like releasing them, which, he realised with a groan, could take days.
They sat, companionably if uncomfortably, in a damp, gooey silence for a few minutes, until: "S'pose it could be worse," Rose muttered reasonably from his left.
"Hmm? How so?"
"You could be stuck in here with my mother." Rose giggled as a look of pure horror crossed the Doctor's face. Domestic as he had become, Jackie Tyler still scared the screaming heebie-jeebies out of him.
"Oh, now that certainly would be – " He paused at the look on Rose's face, something half way between amusement and rage. He picked his next word carefully. "Entertaining." There were several things he would rather be shut in this cell with, and a Cyberman was one of them.
Rose looked around the room with her nose wrinkled up, pretending to inspect it. "Well, I don't think much of the cleaning," she said critically, in her poshest voice, "and the lighting is simply dreadful – " That much was true, noted the Doctor. The girl next to him was simply a shadowy outline with patches of flickering orange illuminating her hair and face as she moved. Returning to her normal accent, she finished, "But the company ain't half bad."
"Oh, I dunno," he replied, wrinkling up his own nose and pursing his mouth as he glanced around their little prison; he tried not to smile. "I think I could get quite used to this."
Rose's lips curved upwards as she took to leaning her head on his shoulder instead of the wall.
"Using the last Time Lord as a pillow now, are we? How rude." He failed his continued attempt at keeping a straight face and a grinned broadly.
She wriggled a bit and the words "Shush, you" came, slightly muffled, from somewhere near his neck.
"Are you going to sleep?"
"Mmph. No. I'm just comfortable."
"S'alright for some!"
He considered his own position, wedged against a wall covered in unidentifiable slime, one of Rose's knees digging into his side, her hair tickling his neck. "I wouldn't exactly call sitting on this floor comfortable."
"I never said my ass was comfortable."
He retorted by telling her he'd have to wash her mouth out with soap if she continued using language like that and giving her a sharp jab in the ribs. She let out a breath of laughter that tickled across his skin and made him wriggle. "Oy. No moving."
At this point, shifting his arm to place it around her shoulders and playing with her hair was a rather appealing option but would probably have been a little too…domestic, so he settled for simply wriggling some more and prompting Rose to call him 'bloody annoying'.
He received a poke for his next effort: "Ah, but you know you love me really."
"Big-headed, too."
"If by big you mean lots of space for a brain as large as mine…then yes," he countered and, knowing he had won thanks to Rose laughing in something like resignation, lightly pushed her off his shoulder with a silent apology. "I'm going to try that door again."
"It won't open," she protested as he got to his feet, but he walked over to it anyway, pulling out the sonic screwdriver and trying, agitatedly and in vain, to shift the lock. Slime was much less tolerable when you weren't lying on the Doctor, Rose decided, trying to ignore the way her hair was now sticking to the wall.
He frowned at the door, examining it. "I don't understand why it's not working. It's just a padlock…"
Ignoring Rose's repeated insistence of 'it's not gonna open', he gave the padlock a final try with the screwdriver and, suddenly, the door swung open with a neat 'click'. Rose, expecting an 'I told you so!', got to her feet rather reluctantly (not to mention squelchily) and made her way to the door.
However, the 'I told you so' lay forgotten. "Now that's interesting," he said in his best Sherlock Holmes voice.
"Interesting? Are ya kidding? Let's get out of here and find somethin' to eat; I'm starving."
That and she was trying to avoid aforementioned 'I told you so'.
As she walked, she wondered if the Doctor had an 'I was right dance' and hoped it was better than Mickey's had been. She moved into the doorway, peering around.
But the Doctor flung an arm out and pushed Rose – her eyes now wide and staring, wondering what was going on – back behind him, into the cell.
"That door didn't open by accident. I've been trying it for a long time and only now does it work?" He eyed the screwdriver. "There's nothing wrong with this thing. Something's going on."
Rose's eyes followed his uneasy gaze down the dark, deserted corridor before flicking back to him in realisation.
"Oh? Oh. Someone out there likes us, eh?" He smiled at the familiar words.
"Exactly. Someone we probably aren't too keen on in return."
"Right. Well, can we eat before we figure it out?"
Instead of answering, the Doctor rummaged in his pockets, eventually producing a banana and throwing it at her. She caught it, stunned. "Ta. Always take a banana to a party, that it?"
How on Earth – and more importantly, where – that had fit into his pockets without anyone noticing was quite beyond her.
"Not that I would call this a party, but yes, pretty much." He watched her peel it in silence for a few seconds before he ventured to speak again. "I think…this is dangerous, Rose."
She looked up from the banana, unfazed. "Yep."
He pulled on his ear as he spoke. "I don't know what's out there. There's something worse than those Kwrargians wandering around and I don't like it. Maybe you should stay here…" He trailed off, waiting for a reaction, keeping his eyes trained keenly on her.
Hand now on her hip, her eyes sparkled indignantly. "What, and rot in this cell instead? I don't think so, Doctor."
"And I suppose the time when I can tell you I ought to take you home 'cause you'd be safer there is long gone?"
Rose considered the question. Literally? By about two hours, considering that was when the (now not-so) funny blue aliens had taken the TARDIS away, leaving him with no physical way to take her home. Emotionally? By about two years. From the moment she'd joined the rollercoaster ride that was the Doctor's life, she knew she wouldn't be stepping off anytime soon. But did Rose Tyler say so now, did she remind the Doctor of quite how long she'd fought by his side and how long she would continue to do so?
"Yep." No. He knew it as well as she did. "You're stuck with me."
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Even though you could die?"
She shrugged. "What else is new? It ain't as though we haven't risked it before. I mean it!" She added, at his incredulous expression. "I'm used to it by now. Besides, I know you'll ride in and save the day, as per usual, if anything does happen. And being in so much danger, thinking 'oh crap I'm going to die – again' every other week…well, it just makes me realise how much I love – " Resisting the urge to clap a hand over her own mouth took a lot of will-power. She had not been about to say that…
"What?"
"How much…I love –" A pause as she seemed to decide what to do. " – this. All of it." Well, it wasn't a total lie. The thought of going back home, to eat chips and work in a shop actually truly scared her; sent a horrible thrill down the back of her spine and made her feel like she was falling into a hole she'd never climb out of. Pity for Sarah Jane and any other past companions overwhelmed her for a few seconds. How could anyone settle for normality after this? "Really. You've shown me a different life." A better way of living. "Let me go out there and live it." There was also no way she would ever stay in this slimy cell for God-knows how long, waiting for him to come back as either rescuer or prisoner once more.
He hesitated.
"C'mon. I know you're just dyin' to play the hero," she implored, smiling with her tongue between her teeth.
A grin broke out across his face and he took her hand. "Then you're ready to run for your life yet again?"
"You bet." She handed him the half-eaten banana then bent down, struggling with her shoes. He noted that it was difficult with only half the usual number of fingers available but didn't release her other five. Instead, he goggled down at her, wondering what on Earth (or rather, what on Kwrarg) she was doing.
"Rose?"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm taking my shoes off." His face was blank. "So I can run? Gosh, I'm going to have to complain to the travel agents; the ad said you were clever!" As she straightened up triumphantly, he took one of the shoes out of her hand, examining it. Now it was her turn to look confused.
"You could probably do some real damage with this…"
"Right. So can I have it back?"
"Not a chance." His face split into a grin and he hid the shoe under his arm. "I might want to spear a few aliens on the way out." And with that, he tugged at her hand and they were off, running for their lives again. They never would stop running or travelling; sometimes, normality was much more terrifying than death.