"So, what's everyone doing here?" Rose asked, tugging on the Doctor's elbow so that she wouldn't be separated from him in the thick crowd and also to remind him that he couldn't simply turn and run off whenever something shiny caught his eye.
"They're here for the Festival of Offerings!" he announced grandly, turning to smile back at her. "Takes place every thousand years or so when the rings align. It's quite a big thing, locally - like, er ... Pancake Tuesday!"
Just then, one of the aliens in the booth that they were passing by reached out and grabbed Rose's arm, forcing her to come to a halting stop. Rose whirled around to find a woman (at least, she thought it might be a woman) with an oddly dog-like face and menacing teeth snarling down at her.
"Looking for a bauble, Miss?" the strange woman asked loudly. "We've got the finest wares in the whole System, right here! You'd look amazing in Reluvian Gold. What do you say, Sir? A fine necklace for the missus? Or earrings! We've got earrings!"
"Thanks, we'll have a look around," the Doctor replied politely, but Rose noticed that he brushed the alien's demanding grip off of her arm with enough force and authority to silently warn her that she should keep her hands to herself from now on.
"Do all of these aliens speak English?" Rose asked mildly, knowing that she would have to replay this old conversation as well, so as not to raise any further suspicion.
"Ah, that's the TARDIS!" the Doctor explained, just as excitedly as he had the first time around. "There's a telepathic field that she can project into your mind to translate spoken and written languages. Comes in handy quite a lot. You can understand them, and they can understand you!"
Rose fought the instinct to roll her eyes at him as she began to peruse the booth's wares. It seemed that the Doctor still didn't quite grasp why some humans might have an issue with his strange blue box getting inside of their heads. But Rose and the TARDIS had been through so many things together by now, she found that she couldn't really bring herself to be as angry as she had been the first time he had explained his ship's telepathic abilities.
"So, what do you say? Anything catching your eye?" the Doctor went on casually, watching Rose carefully as she inspected the glittering alien jewelry before them.
"I don't have any money," Rose reminded him, flashing him a pointed look over her shoulder as she leaned closer to poke at a long chain that looked to be made of gold. She knew that the Doctor didn't normally travel with currency - and she doubted that a century of time without her would have been enough to change that particular habit.
"Neither do I," the Doctor replied predictably, "but they don't use money, here. They trade in value. The more sentimental something is, the more value it has. A photograph, a love letter, something like that. It's called psychometry - the objects psychically imprinted with their history."
"That's ... different," Rose admitted, scrunching up her nose as she continued to casually shop through the alien woman's wares. How did someone rate value? It seemed a bit subjective to her.
"Better than using bits of paper," the Doctor countered stubbornly.
"Fine, then you pay," Rose challenged, flashing him a teasing look. "You're a thousand-years-old. You must have something you care about." No, the Doctor never traveled with money, but she knew for a fact that he did have bigger-on-the-inside pockets that were filled to overflowing with various bits and pieces of varying value.
But the Doctor simply shrugged noncommittally and turned away from her without a response, a strange cloud darkening his green eyes as he refused to give her a proper answer.
"Talk about a cheap date," Rose teased, smiling at him in an attempt to lighten his mood.
"Oi!" he protested indignantly. The Doctor whirled around to glare at her, but at least the sudden, forlorn look had left his expression. "It's ... not a date," he grumbled under his breath as he turned to scowl at a row of bracelets that were studded with some sort of pink-colored gem.
"Alright, then, what can I use?" Rose asked, looking down at herself and trying to think of what she might have that would hold any sort of value. This was a new world, a new body, and new clothes - none of it held much meaning to her.
"What about your ring?" the Doctor asked mildly, not even turning to look at her.
"My what?"
"Your ring," he repeated, turning to nod pointedly at her left hand before turning his back on her once more.
Rose furrowed her brow as she glanced down at her left hand in confusion and noted for the first time that there was a thin, brass-colored ring around her third finger.
"But that's ..." she murmured breathlessly.
It wasn't her wedding ring - that had been handmade by her husband, and she knew for a fact that there wasn't another single ring like it in any number of parallel worlds. But it followed the same general shape that she had grown so accustomed to wearing over the past seventy-or-so-years of marriage. It was thin around the bottom and widened towards the top, with a single, open circle sitting where she was used to seeing a delicate rose-colored gem.
"That's got plenty of value," the Doctor continued, his tone as unaffected as though he were simply discussing the weather as he remained standing with his back to her. "You could buy this entire booth with that ring alone."
"No, that's ... I'm fine," Rose stuttered, trying to force words out through the sudden lump in her throat. "I don't really want anything anyway. It's fine. Let's go."
The Doctor flashed her an assessing look out of the corner of his eye, but then simply shrugged and led them off further into the alien bazaar. "Are you married, then, Clara Oswald?" he asked casually, his hands tucked primly behind his back as he quietly matched his pace to hers.
"I used to be," Rose replied quietly, staring down hard at her left hand as she slowly twisted the strange ring around her finger. How had she not noticed it before? And how long had the Doctor known that it was there? Knowing him, he had probably seen it from the moment he first laid eyes on her.
"Bit young to be a widow, aren't you?" he asked curiously, and Rose wasn't even surprised that he had so accurately gauged the situation.
"Says the thousand-year-old alien with the baby face," she murmured sarcastically, flashing him a sardonic look out of the corner of her eye.
The Doctor chuckled good-naturedly, but Rose knew that he wasn't done questioning her - not by a long shot. "It's also a bit rude to assume a woman's age like that, Doctor," she continued, pretending to scold him. "And, just so you know, it's human custom to offer condolences in a situation like this."
"Oh, right ..." the Doctor murmured awkwardly. "Sorry."
Rose flashed him a gentle, forgiving smile and was prepared to let the topic of conversation drop when the Doctor suddenly asked, "How did he die?"
And Rose knew that she shouldn't tell him the truth - this conversation was dangerous enough already. After all, this man who she was talking to now was deeply connected to her husband in a way that was confusing and terrifying all at once. She knew that she shouldn't have even let on that she was married in the first place - the Doctor was right, her new, mid-twenties body would raise questions if she went around like the grieving widow that she was. But how was she supposed to know that the Bad Wolf would somehow make her a parallel approximation of her wedding ring without telling her?
Still, the temptation to blurt out the truth was too great to be ignored. Rose knew that it was selfish, but she had no one else who she could talk to about her husband, and she still missed him so terribly that it took her breath away sometimes. The man before her may be wearing a different face, but in some ways, he was the only other person in this world who even knew who her husband was.
"His heart gave out," she muttered, not daring to meet the Doctor's eye as she spoke. "About a year-and-a-half ago."
And for once, the Doctor surprised her by letting the conversation end there. Rose knew that he had more questions - how could he not? But he kept them politely to himself as he nodded solemnly and repeated his quiet condolences.
Rose, however, knew that she was never going to get a better chance than this, so she asked, "What about you, Doctor? You're a thousand-years-old, why are you wandering out here all alone? Don't you have friends or ... anyone else?" She didn't dare bring up Susan again, and certainly not Gallifrey, but Rose hoped that maybe he would deflect the question and at least tell her about his most recent companions. He had had friends with him in the dalek asylum, as well as that rag-tag group in nineteenth-century England. The fact that he had still not brought any of them up to her concerned Rose greatly.
"Friends? Yes, of course I have friends!" the Doctor replied, his loud exuberance returning once more, along with his nervous fidgeting. "I've got loads of friends - all in different time periods across the galaxy. You can't do as much traveling as I do without making friends."
And enemies, Rose thought silently to herself. Out loud, she asked, "Well ... where are they, the? Why aren't they here with you?" And she knew that it hurt him to remember, but she just had to know what had put that deep, heavy sadness on his shoulders.
The Doctor only paused for a moment, but it was all that Rose needed to see that his hurt ran even deeper than she could have imagined. Finally, he threw his hands in the air and exclaimed, "Nah, they've got better things to do! They're all off living their lives, having babies and anniversaries and building debt - all that boring, normal stuff. They don't need me. Besides - I've got all of time and space to see! Can't forget that. There's so much that needs doing - worlds to save, people to meet, food to try."
The Doctor punctuated his chattering words by dipping his finger into the green whipped thing that was still slowly melting in Rose's hands and then brought it to his mouth with a gleeful grin.
"See?" he insisted eagerly. "Can't get that back on Earth, now, can you?"
Rose took a moment to watch him before replying. She wanted so badly to tell him the full truth of who she was, but she still didn't quite know how to explain this strange situation that they had now found themselves in. She knew that as long as she decided to keep this secret, she would have to be subtle in order to keep him from getting suspicious, but she couldn't have stopped the words that came next even if she wanted to. She knew that he needed them now as much as he had needed them back when he had first met her, and she wasn't about to let the Doctor go on in misery if there was anything that she could do to stop it.
"It's better with two," she muttered quietly. "Wouldn't you say, Doctor?"
Her words stopped him in his tracks and the Doctor turned to stare at her in unrestrained shock for a moment. She could practically see his brain working behind those new, bright green eyes of his. He was looking at her as though he had seen a ghost, and he wasn't quite sure if he could believe the proof of his own two eyes.
Rose threw caution to the wind as she stepped forward and firmly took his hand in hers. She watched as all of the air whooshed out of his lungs as though she had firmly and solidly hit him right in the gut.
"Right ..." he murmured slowly, continuing to stare down at her with a complicated expression. "Quite right." And Rose was pleasantly surprised when he offered her a kind smile instead of more suspicion.
"This way!" he said, suddenly tugging on her hand and jolting her immediately back into the adventure that he had planned. "There's this Hilomian soothsayer that you simply have to meet. Oh, I hope he's still here. The last time we met, he told me ..."
And just like that, he was back to his over-ecstatic Doctor-teaching-mode and he went about leading her off to see the many wonders of the universe. Rose was grinning like a fool as she followed after him, hoping beyond hope that maybe this time the universe would be kind, and she wouldn't have to be torn from his side again.