Chapter 19: A Time to Rest
When Rose woke up the next morning, the Doctor was already gone—and unlike the day before, his mood was heavy and brooding. Her heart ached. He stayed with her more nights than not, claiming her required four hours wasn't too much downtime.
But even when he got up in the middle of the night, he was almost always in bed when she got up, unless he was upset about something. Meeting the Daleks so soon after the Face of Boe's claim that there was another Time Lord somewhere in the universe had him more on edge than he had been since… since Canary Wharf.
Rose got out of bed and grabbed her dressing gown, then followed their bond to the Doctor. He was facing away from her when she entered the console room, sitting on the jump seat, staring at the time rotor.
He sighed when she draped her arms around his shoulders. "Love you," she murmured, then kissed his neck. He took her hand and pulled her around to sit beside him.
"I didn't wake you up, did I?" he asked her.
Rose rested her head on his shoulder and took his hand in hers. "No, I wasn't tired anymore. I woke up and thought I'd come find you."
The Doctor nodded, and Rose kept quiet, waiting for him to speak.
"There's still one out there," he said bitterly.
"I know."
"Every time I think we've finally seen the last of them, they come back. Over and over again."
"I know."
The Doctor jiggled his leg, and Rose thought quickly, trying to come up with some kind of distraction before his anxious energy boiled over. She glanced around the room, and when her gaze landed on the console, she smiled.
"You know, Doctor," she said, keeping her voice light. "Martha probably won't be up for another three hours, and I don't think either of us are going to get any more sleep."
He cast her a sidelong glance. "Do you have something in mind to fill the time?"
Rose stood up and ran her fingers over the controls. "Well… you could teach me a little bit about TARDIS maintenance."
The Doctor leaned back in the jump seat and crossed his arms over his chest. "That was not where I expected this conversation to go," he muttered.
It only took Rose a moment to parse out what he meant, and she smiled at him, letting him see a hint of her tongue. "Oh, console room sex is definitely on my to-do list, but I'm pretty sure she'll only allow it in cases of life-or-death reunions."
He raked his hand through his hair. "It's a bit disturbing that we have enough of those for the condition to not actually eliminate the possibility." He sighed and stood up. "So, maintenance lessons it is."
"I'm gonna go get dressed first. I'll be right back."
The Doctor nodded absently, his mind split between thinking about where he should start Rose's maintenance lessons and wondering when they'd see Dalek Caan again. Because even with just one Dalek left, the universal Sod's law guaranteed they would run into each other.
"Stop brooding."
He looked up and smiled weakly at Rose, now dressed in jeans and an old t-shirt, with her hair pulled back in a practical ponytail. "It's one of the things I do best, though."
"And don't I know it," she said gently. "Come on, you were going to show me how to take care of our ship."
The Doctor pulled up the grating. "After you."
oOoOoOoOo
Two hours later, the Doctor followed Rose out from under the console, unable to stop a smile when he looked at her. With a bit of grease on her face instead of makeup, she looked adorably disheveled.
Rose shot him a grin. "You gear heads are all the same," she teased as she used a rag to wipe oil off her hands. "Get a girl underneath your car…"
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "The TARDIS is a bit more than a car," he pointed out.
"Really?" Rose put a hand on her chest. "I hadn't noticed. Is that why we're able to go anywhere in time and space?"
"All right, Miss Cheeky, I think you've got just enough time for a shower before Martha wakes up. Most likely."
Rose winked saucily and started down the corridor, but stopped when the Doctor called her name.
"Where do you want to go today? We talked about going to the moon a while back, what do you say?"
She spun around and walked backwards while answering. "I was thinking a more… domestic destination."
"Oh, Earth?" the Doctor complained. "But we just left Earth."
She chuckled. "More like the media room. I'm thinking a movie day, with popcorn and candy and pyjamas for Martha and I. You, of course, may stay in your suit."
"So generous of you," the Doctor grumbled, but truthfully, a slow day in the TARDIS sounded like exactly what he needed. "I'll go make breakfast and meet you in the media room."
"All right. I won't be long."
oOoOoOoOo
Martha slept until 8:30, which after years of school and work felt almost decadent. She showered and put her clothes back on before finding her way to the galley, which was surprisingly empty.
She only hesitated for a moment before she opened the fridge and rummaged around until she found a yogurt. It felt a little odd to be foraging for food, but she reminded herself that the TARDIS was her home now and forced the discomfort down.
"Oh, good!" Rose's voice startled her, and she looked up to find her in the doorway, holding a tray of dirty dishes. "The TARDIS told me you were awake. I hoped you would be helping yourself. Anything you find in the galley is fair game, Martha." She set the tray down on the counter. "Well… the Doctor does have an unspoken rule against eating the last biscuit."
"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me." Martha tilted her head and looked at the other woman. "You're still in your pyjamas."
"Yeah… we thought we'd have a quiet day in, if that's all right? The last two trips have been…"
Rose clammed up, but Martha could fill in the blanks. A reminder of his lost planet, followed immediately by meeting the alien race who led to their destruction?
"Sounds good to me," she said easily. "I don't suppose the wardrobe room has a pyjama section."
Rose laughed. "Does she ever. The TARDIS is telepathic, so when you go inside, just tell her what you want and she'll help you find it." She giggled. "Sometimes her interpretation of your request is a little puzzling, but she does pretty good most of the time."
Martha paused with her mug halfway to her lips. "Your ship is telepathic?" she asked, even as she berated herself for not figuring that out.
An unreadable expression crossed Rose's face, and for a moment, Martha worried she'd offended her. Then she thought about the idea of a telepathic ship getting in her head, and she bit back the apology that was on the tip of her tongue.
"I don't believe it," Rose muttered. "I'm turning into him. Unbelievable." She huffed out a breath, then smiled at Martha. "She is, and the wardrobe room isn't the only place that crops up. For one, she's got a translation matrix that'll translate alien languages in your head. You won't even know the people are speaking a foreign language, and they won't know you're speaking English."
Martha nodded slowly. "And if I go to the wardrobe room this morning, she'll know I need pyjamas and help me find a pair." A memory came to her, something that had struck her as odd at the time, but had been easily dismissed. "Hang on, that's why you took me straight to a rack of clothes I might've bought for myself."
"Yeah. I'm so used to following the TARDIS' directions, it didn't even occur to me to say something." Rose held her hands out, palms up, and shrugged her shoulders. "Sorry."
Martha mulled it over for a moment, letting the idea sink into her head. She was travelling in time and space with an alien couple in a ship that was bigger on the inside—was a telepathic wardrobe really going to be the thing that she couldn't handle?
"It's convenient, I'll give you that," she said finally.
Rose grinned. "I love it," she said honestly. "I've gotten so used to it that regular houses seem… empty."
Martha didn't know quite what to say in response to that.
"Anyway, the TARDIS can be easy to get lost in, but I've asked her to help you out today." She beckoned to Martha, and when she'd joined her at the galley door, Rose pointed at the two more doors across the hallway. "The one on the right is the wardrobe room, and the one on the left is the media room. I'll give you a proper tour later so you know where they usually are, but this saves us some time today."
The idea that whole rooms could be moved around in this ship, like some kind of Hogwarts, felt even more alien to Martha than a telepathic translation circuit. She swallowed hard and nodded. "Got it."
Rose patted her shoulder. "You'll get used to it, Martha, I promise. We wouldn't have asked you to come along if we didn't think you could adjust to life in the TARDIS."
That promise made Martha feel a little better, and she managed a genuine smile. "All right. I'll see you in a bit."
oOoOoOoOo
The Doctor watched bemusedly as Rose slumped onto the couch, her face in her hands. She didn't seem… upset—she was almost amused, actually.
"Rose?"
"Nothing… just…" She parted her fingers and peeked out at him. "It's possible I owe you the teensiest apology."
His lips quirked up in a smile. "Oh? What for?"
Rose lowered her hands and traced a finger over the pattern in the upholstery. "Wellll… I was just talking to Martha about the TARDIS, an' it seems I never told her she's telepathic."
The Doctor tipped his head back and laughed. "Slipped your mind, did it?" he teased.
"Maybe. I've just gotten so used to talking to her; I forgot most humans aren't accustomed to telepathy." She leaned against him, her warm human body curled against his side. "So, sorry for getting so upset with you back then."
The Doctor wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Don't be. The way you stood up to me so fearlessly was the first thing that made me fall for you."
Rose looked up at him incredulously. "You're joking."
"Nope." She looked at him, obviously expecting an explanation, and he sighed. "You were never afraid to tell me when you thought I was wrong, even though I had the keys and could've just left you there if I'd wanted."
"You'd never do that to a companion," she said automatically.
"No, but you had no way of knowing that back then. You just… you felt safe enough with me to challenge me, right when I thought I was completely unworthy of that kind of trust."
Rose pulled her feet up on the couch and leaned into him. "I never doubted that you were a good man, Doctor."
The Doctor's throat closed up. Rose… He closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to her temple. Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me. She tilted her head back so she could look at him, and he brushed his thumb over her lips. You've helped me become a better person than I was before.
He locked down his feeling of unworthiness as best as he could, but he knew she'd caught a hint of it. Her mouth opened, probably to argue that he'd been good before they met, or that he'd helped her just as much as she'd helped him, and he shifted his hand from her shoulder to the back of her neck and kissed her tenderly.
Moving his lips against hers, the Doctor poured all of his love and adoration over the bond. This was his Rose, his precious girl, the Bad Wolf who protected her mate. He'd been lost in the darkness when they met, and her light had redeemed him.
The Doctor gentled the kiss and ended it with a series of soft pecks against her lips before pulling back just far enough to see her face. He watched her eyes flutter open, and knew immediately that he had not distracted her from her argument.
"Doctor…"
The door opened before Rose got any further. Martha took one step inside, then paused. "Am I interrupting something?" she asked.
"Nope!" the Doctor said, putting a little bit more space between himself and Rose. "What do you want to watch, Martha? We've got access to every channel available through intergalactic cable, and thousands of films." He pointed to the shelves against the wall, and Martha wandered across the room to look them over.
A soft hand squeezed his knee, and the Doctor looked over at Rose. One of her eyebrows was arched, and he smiled innocently at her. She just shook her head. We'll talk about this later.