Of course, the soufflés never actually ended up happening - the Doctor was far too eager to get moving and Rose rolled her eyes at his back as she mused over the fact that some things certainly never changed. It was one of the reasons why it had taken her and her husband so long to perfect their own soufflé recipe - the Doctor was easily distracted and as impatient as a four-year-old, so baking delicate confections had never been an easy task when he was around.
She had just barley finished brewing her first cup of coffee before the Doctor was racing back to the TARDIS without even bothering to look over his shoulder to see if she was following. "Hurry up and get dressed!" he called back to her eagerly. "There's something I still haven't shown you yet!"
Rose was surprised when she surveyed Clara's closet upstairs to find that it was filled to overflowing with a variety of dresses and skirts. In her old life, she had preferred dressing in comfortable denim and shoes that were easy to run in. It had seemed practical, and she liked the way that the jeans hugged her curves and showed off her figure.
But she was even more surprised to find that she actually preferred the skirts, now. She liked the way that the wool tights clung to her like a second skin and made her legs look skinny and feminine beneath a gauzy, flowing skirt. Rose found that she finally understood why the Doctor always went through his costume changes with each new regeneration. The new look somehow just felt right.
As soon as she was ready, Rose followed the Doctor out to the TARDIS and did the whole wide-eyed, "it's bigger on the inside!" song and dance for him because she knew how much he secretly enjoyed it. She also quietly hoped that her fake shock would help dissipate some of his lingering suspicions about her. She figured that if she played the part of the typical, human companion, then perhaps he would stop trying so hard to figure her out.
He was dancing around the TARDIS console with his usual enthusiasm when he suddenly clapped his hands together loudly and whirled to face her once more. "So, where do you want to go, eh?" he asked tantalizingly. "What do you want to see?"
Rose ducked her head and smoothed her fingers over the new but oh-so-familiar TARDIS controls in an attempt to hide the wide smile that she couldn't quite manage to keep off of her face. It had been a lifetime since she had had all of time and space at her disposal. When she and her husband had been trapped in their parallel world, they had kept some of the Doctor's TARDIS coral with them, but it hadn't been able to grow into anything of any use. Their new home was simply too different from the TARDIS's original universe. It seemed that no amount of petrol in a diesel engine would ever get it to run properly.
As Rose caught the Doctor's gleeful smile out of the corner of her eye, she was reminded of that first time he had asked her this question ...
"Right, then, Rose Tyler, you and me - where do you want to go? Backwards or forwards in time? It's your choice, what's it going to be?"
"You think you're so impressive," she had teased.
Well, it looked like that hadn't changed, either.
"What would I like to see?" Rose repeated, tossing him a challenging smirk. "Well, something awesome, of course."
The Doctor's grin only grew as he snapped his fingers at her and then began his manic dance around the console controls. Rose noticed idly that his driving skills hadn't exactly improved in over a century of time, but the landing, at least, was a little less shaky than normal.
The Doctor threw on the hand brake and then came to stand before her, his green eyes positively sparkling as he leaned in close and whispered, "Close your eyes."
"What? Why?" Rose asked, startled into defensiveness as she carefully tried to gauge his expression.
"You'll see in a moment, now close your eyes," the Doctor insisted eagerly, shifting his weight impatiently between his two feet as he looked down at her.
When she did nothing but flash him another doubtful look, he took another half-step closer and whispered, "Please. Just trust me."
And Rose knew that this man was not the Doctor that she knew - and he certainly wasn't her husband - but in all of time and space, there was no one else who she had ever trusted more, so she did as he asked and closed her eyes.
She felt his large hands on her shoulders, leading her out the TARDIS doors and onto unknown soil as she blindly followed his direction. The air smelled different, and Rose instantly knew that he had taken her somewhere far away from Earth. There was a permeating, peaceful quiet all around that was an unusual change from their normal adventures, though.
"Can you feel the light on your eyelids?" he asked quietly, continuing to move her slowly forward.
Rose hummed in assent, secretly thrilling at the way that she could feel his solid, comforting presence so close at her back. She still desperately missed her husband, but it was no secret that she had always loved the Doctor. It seemed that a hundred years of time and space and parallel worlds hadn't been enough to change that particular truth.
"That is the light of an alien sun," the Doctor explained, continuing on completely oblivious to her silent thoughts. "Forward a couple of steps," he instructed, and then he leaned down and whispered in her ear, "Okay, are you ready?"
And if the breathless smile breaking over her features had absolutely nothing to do with the alien sun and everything to do with the alien man standing behind her, Rose figured that what the Doctor didn't know wouldn't hurt him.
"Yes," she breathed quietly, and when the Doctor made no further response, she slowly blinked open her eyes to gaze upon the sight before them.
Had seventy years really been all that it took for her to forget how amazingly beautiful the universe was? Rose had loved her perfectly normal life with her husband in that parallel world, but in all of that time, it seemed that she had somehow managed to reduce the memory of how dazzling a life with the Doctor could be.
"Welcome to the rings of Akhaten," the Doctor stated dramatically, looking between the constellation of asteroids dancing around in the sun's glow before them and Rose's look of wide-eyed wonder with an expression of pure, childish glee.
Rose immediately recognized the name from the Bad Wolf, but she didn't let on as she continued to stare out at the vastness of the alien star system before her with barely-constrained awe.
"Can we see it?" she asked after she had patiently allowed him to give his usual Doctor-lecture on the system's history and culture. She found that she was almost afraid to hope that she really could just jump back into her old life of traveling the stars so easily. What had she ever done to deserve such a gift, such a second chance - and with the man who she loved most in all of time and space to go along with it?
The Doctor gave her a sly smile that she felt all the way down to her toes as he offered her his hand without another word. Rose almost expected him to shout, "Run!" before they dashed back into that mazing blue box of his, but he simply continued to smile knowingly as she fit her hand into his and he led her back the way that they had come.
Rose marveled at the way that - even though they were both two completely different people, now - their hands still fit together as easily as they always had. It seemed that no matter the time, no matter the place, Rose Tyler and the Doctor were simply made for each other. She wondered if he could feel the same sensation of satisfied completion that she did as they ran back into the TARDIS and prepared for their newest adventure.
Rose began to suspect that maybe the Doctor was beginning to catch on to her when they finally touched down in the alien bazaar and began wandering around through the various strange species and their wares. It was all so similar to their first trip to Platform One that she began to wonder if he did the exact same series of adventures with all of his companions, or if he was simply somehow subconsciously replaying all of their old times together. Neither thought brought her much comfort.
The Doctor made no comment on the similarities, though, so Rose couldn't be sure what his true intentions were as he showed her around the overflowing booths and pointed out the various species, cultures, and food that he liked the best. Rose didn't have to fake her wide-eyed interest as he led her around the busy streets, and her heart softened every time that she caught the Doctor watching her out of the corner of her eye. It was clear that he needed this as much as she did, and Rose wondered (not for the first time) what he had been through in the past century to make him so sad and alone.
His off-handed mention of his granddaughter only managed to heighten her concern as Rose quietly studied him. Her husband had told her stories of Susan as well as all the rest of his family that he had left behind on Gallifrey. She knew the depth of importance that his favorite granddaughter had for him, and the fact that he was bringing up those old memories now concerned her greatly.
Before she could ask him about it further, though, the Doctor was shoving a basket of glowing blue fruits into her hand and eagerly encouraging her to try one. However, Rose could remember trying similar glowing fruits during her past journeys with the Doctor (though the ones that she had tried had been purple rather than blue), and she recalled them to be watery with an odd metallic taste that lingered on her tongue for hours afterwards. She turned up her nose at the blue fruit on instinct, deciding not to take any chances this time. The Doctor made an offhanded, disappointed sound as he returned the basket to where he had found it without further comment.
"Think they've got chips anywhere around here?" Rose asked suddenly, deciding to test his memory of that trip from long ago, which she still fondly referred to as their "first date".
"'Chips'?" the Doctor asked incredulously. He said it like it was a bad word, but he was turned away from her once more and wouldn't meet her eye. "Why would you want something like that when you've got local homemade cuisine all around you? Look! There's hodir from the Krisini System - piping hot, right here under your nose, but what does she ask for? Chips. Honestly, you humans ..."
Well, it was better than "apes", she supposed. At least he had grown out of using that condescending moniker.
"You could have just said 'no'," Rose grumbled in irritation anyway. But she realized as she considered the surrounding booths that she didn't actually fancy chips, anyway. It seemed that this new body was more suited to sweet things rather than savory.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing to a pile of what looked like fresh-baked pastries.
"Er, those are melashi buns," the Doctor muttered, pointing his sonic at them for a quick scan before adding, "They'd kill you, stone dead in five minutes flat. Best not. Ooh! Here, try these!"
He shoved what looked like a bright green whipped pudding cup into her hand, quickly turned back to the booth, and then returned to stab a little plastic spoon into it.
But Rose had lost all interest in alien confections as she openly stared at the device that the Doctor was still fiddling with in his hands. He caught her looking and displayed the instrument with a proud, cocky grin. "Sonic screwdriver," he explained simply.
"It's ... green," Rose muttered awkwardly. And that wasn't the only new thing about it, either - but she decided to stick with the obvious in an attempt to not let on that she knew exactly what a sonic screwdriver was.
She supposed that it shouldn't have been so shocking that he would go and get a whole new casing - especially when he had already gone and changed both his TARDIS and his face as well - but it still struck her as odd in a way that made her uncomfortable. When she thought of the Doctor, she thought of his sonic screwdriver - he was never without it. But it seemed that even that had changed in the past one-hundred years that she had missed with him.
"Yes, it's green. Of course it's green," the Doctor replied, his tone taking on a certain amount of defensiveness. "Green is cool. Why? Do you not like green?"
"No, green is ... green is fine," Rose replied haltingly, staring hard at the alien delicacy in her hands and not daring to meet his eye. "I just ... always liked blue."