1.7 The Long Game
Now that the rush of defeating an evil alien built on domination of the human race had ended, Rose was feeling extremely stupid. She couldn't BELIEVE that she had fallen for Adam's bullshit. He had played her so perfectly, capitalizing on her empathy as a recently new time and space traveler. She had been so willing to see her own early shock at TARDIS travel in him that she hadn't even questioned his being "overwhelmed" and wanting to separate from her, despite his obvious earlier fascination with the brain spike. And then, AND THEN, he had thrown in the bit about not being a good enough man to get between her and the Doctor, playing into the exact train of thought that occupied so many of her thoughts these days, and she had fallen hook, line, and sinker for his sad rejected puppy story and let him go on his merry way to try to undermine human history for his own profit. Wanker.
Rose closed the TARDIS door behind her as she exited Adam's mother's house and hurried to catch up with the Doctor as he walked up the ramp toward the console. Jogging slightly, she managed to reach him and grab his hand, pulling him to face her before he could start the dematerialization sequence.
"I'm sorry," she said without prelude, her voice pleading.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows at her in surprise. "What for?"
"You know," Rose waved her free hand back vaguely at the TARDIS door, "Adam, basically. Bringin' him along. I'm sorry."
The Doctor gave her a sympathetic smile as he detached his hand from hers and went about setting the TARDIS into motion, it's familiar whoosh soon filling the room. "Not your fault," he told her, eyes now on the various screens. "You're not the first person to be fooled by a pretty face. Besides, it's my ship, I could have told you no." Rose walked around and sat on the jump seat, dangling her legs. She watched the Doctor move around, relaxing a bit as she basked in the now-familiar scene. After flipping a few switches and pressing a couple buttons, he made a discontented sound and crouched to remove one of the panels of grating, lowering himself into the gap to presumedly make some repair or adjustment.
"That's not what it was, you know," Rose said eventually, breaking the silence.
"Hmm?" The Doctor responded absentmindedly, his sonic between his teeth. Holding a few wires with one hand, he reclaimed the sonic with the other and used it to… well, Rose didn't know, really. Flash lights at something. "Not what what was?"
"Adam. I didn't bring him because he was pretty." Rose clarified.
The Doctor snorted, not looking up from his work. "Well, it certainly wasn't his winning personality."
Rose giggled a little. "Nah. I just… I dunno. Coming with you, it changed my life. I sort of wanted to do that for someone else, you know?" The Doctor made a noncommittal sound. "...Also, he was a bit of a smug bastard, if I'm being honest, and I wanted to show 'im he didn't know as much as he thought he did," Rose admitted sheepishly. The Doctor chuckled. "Anyway, I really am sorry," Rose finished.
The Doctor looked up at her, his eyes level with her feet. "Water under the bridge," he reassured her. "I told you, not your fault. You weren't the one who tried to steal future technology for your own personal gain."
"'Kay," Rose answered him with a grin, "Thanks." She jumped off the seat, stretching. The Doctor's eyes surreptitiously followed the languid movement of her body, snapping back to the wires he was fiddling with as she looked down at him. "I'm glad it's just us again, though," she added after a moment, thinking back to the moment in the elevator, when he had grinned down at her and taken her hand. The Doctor glanced back up at her and grinned briefly, mirroring his earlier expression.
"Me too."
Shit, she thought to herself as her heart lurched at the sight of that toothy grin. I really am falling for him, aren't I? Inconvenient, that. Can't imagine it's going to end well for me.
"Anyway!" Rose said cheerfully, giving herself a mental shake and beginning to move toward the hall, "I'm gonna go read for a bit. You wanna join?"
"Be there in a bit," the Doctor assured her.
Sprawled across the sofa in the library, Rose couldn't concentrate on her book. Adam had been a disaster, it was true, but frankly she had other things on her mind that required a bit more analyzation than the ill-advised invitation. She'd realized, when she was bound on Floor 500 with the Doctor, before Cathica had set the Jagrafess' downfall in action, that she wasn't scared. No, she was… annoyed. She, Rose Tyler, shop girl and resident of the Powell Estate, had been captured by a giant murderous stomach with teeth and his frozen corpse sidekicks, and she was ANNOYED.
She wondered if she'd become braver since traveling with the Doctor, or if she'd just finally been presented with opportunities to show bravery that she never would have had otherwise. She liked who she was when she was with the Doctor. I only take the best, he'd said, and she could tell he meant it. This centuries old alien genius saw something in her that made her worthy of his time - something that Adam, for all his education and supposed intelligence, hadn't had. No wonder her feelings for him were increasingly seeming like more than a crush. He saw her in a way she wasn't sure anyone else ever had. He didn't see her Estate upbringing as a deciding factor in how far she could go in life. He didn't look down on her for not having finished school. He didn't treat her like a child even though she was centuries his junior. He thought she asked the right questions, was worth listening to, was a worthwhile companion on his adventures. He saw HER. How could she not love him for that?
Said alien walked into the library to join Rose at that moment. Grabbing an in-progress book from the coffee table, he looked down at her expectantly.
"Budge up, then," he said, using his head to indicate how she had managed to take over the entire sofa, and with an impish grin, she swung herself around to make room for him to plop down before promptly curling up into his side. The Doctor absentmindedly brushed a kiss across the top of her head before opening his book and beginning to read. Rose flushed slightly, keeping her head down so that he wouldn't see, and reopened her own book, determinedly focusing on the story and not the seemingly unconscious show of affection. Oh, she was in trouble.
