Chapter 10

"Right up here should be the wardrobe," the Doctor said giddily as he towed Rose behind him through the corridor of the new, yet familiar, TARDIS.

"Are you sure? I think it's the pool." Rose pushed open a door and they both peered in. It was neither. Instead a small kitchen greeted them with a round glass table and two chairs in the centre of the room. The countertops sparkled, as they were completely bare.

"Hmm," the Doctor frowned, disappointed he hadn't yet found the wardrobe. "I wasn't expecting the kitchen here. And not a banana in sight. Remind me to stop by Villengard." He paused for a moment. "I wonder if Villengard has bananas in this universe."

Rose tugged him away. "What is it with you and bananas?"

"Bananas are good," he protested as he opened the door across the hall from the kitchen. "Found the library."

"It's a bit smaller than the last one." Rose looked around the hexagonal room (must be the TARDIS' favourite shape, she thought) and took in the dark wood shelves filled with books that covered five of the walls from floor to high ceiling. Two ladders were propped against the shelves.

"The other TARDIS is hundreds of years old. She's had a lot more time to expand her collection."

"The fireplace is a nice touch." Rose ran a hand along the dark marble mantel. A small, overstuffed couch and a low wooden table were arranged in front of the fireplace. "It's cosy."

They continued through the twisting hallways, finding a game room and a small gym. Rose scoffed at the latter. "With all the running we do, what do I need a gym for?"

The pool was next. It, too, was smaller and made of the same pinkish coral as the control room. Light from the ceiling bounced off the water creating ripples on the walls. "Lovely," Rose declared.

"What, no sand?"

"I think I've had enough of beaches for awhile." She hadn't meant to sound bitter, but it came through anyway. A look of guilt briefly flashed across the Doctor's face.

The next stop was the wardrobe, at last. Like the library, it wasn't nearly as large as on the other TARDIS, but it still held more clothing than Rose could ever think to need. Not that it would stop her from visiting the shops.

The Doctor raced through the racks of clothing, weaving in and out as he went on the hunt for something. Rose heard him give a shout of triumph as he emerged carrying a suit very much like the one he was wearing. He handed the clothing to Rose and started removing his pinstriped jacket.

"What are you doing?" Rose asked, somewhere between disbelief and exasperation as she looked between the Doctor and the brown suit in her hands.

He stopped in mid motion with his suit jacket halfway down his arms. "I'd think that would be obvious. Changing."

"Into the same suit?"

He tossed his old jacket onto an empty rack and took the new one from Rose, putting his arms through the sleeves of the new jacket and buttoning it around his slim torso. He gave a satisfied sigh. "It's not the same at all, Rose. This one has blue pinstripes. And pockets! Much better pockets. Now for the trousers."

Rose threw the pair of trousers at him and turned around. She heard rustling but resisted the urge to peek. "Molto bene!" he exclaimed.

Rose turned around and stared. The Doctor stood before her with his hands shoved in his pockets, his tie loosened and slightly askew, and his dark hair sticking up in all directions. The suit was nearly identical to the one he'd just been wearing, and yet he looked different. Or maybe he'd been different for the past couple months and now he was back. The Doctor and his TARDIS, she thought with a mix of affection and apprehension. Then a darker thought came unbidden. With a fully functioning TARDIS, he had no reason to be stuck on Earth with her, and that worried her.

"Rose?" The Doctor's voice interrupted her troubling thoughts.

"Fishing for compliments, are you?" she jabbed, turning away before he could see the doubt on her face. She left the wardrobe and pushed open the next door she found. It was a spacious bedroom, clean and modern with a large bed in the centre of the room with a blue duvet. A small sitting area took up one corner of the room, complete with a plush loveseat, and a glass and metal built-in wardrobe filled most of one wall.

"Well, now, what's this?" the Doctor asked as he looked over her shoulder.

"This is nice," Rose commented. "It even has an en suite." He heard her soft gasp as she explored the bathroom, her voice echoing. "You could fit half my mum's old flat in here." She rejoined the Doctor in the middle of the room. "Is this your room?"

His brow creased with uncertainty. "I think...I think this is meant to be our room." Once he said it aloud, it felt right, thanks to a little mental nudge from the TARDIS. It certainly didn't feel like his, and he didn't think it was meant for just Rose, either.

"Our room," Rose echoed, her earlier doubts starting to ebb. She looked at him shyly. "I like that."

"Really? I'm sure the TARDIS would give you your own room, if you like. Or you can redo this one. She gets some funny ideas about decor sometimes, but she's always liked you."

"Doctor," she said gently, stopping him with a hand on his arm before he could babble further. "I like this one."

"Oh! Well, I could just go elsewhere." He was starting to look flustered, and Rose found it adorable. She grabbed the lapel of his new suit before he could run off.

"I like it because it's ours."

"Oh," he said distractedly. "Oh!" He placed his hands on either side of her waist. "You're really okay with this?"

Rose clasped her hands behind his neck and leaned against him. "Traveling through time and space with you? I said forever, and I meant it."

"I thought you might have changed your mind. I'm not the same man I once was." He looked like he was going to pull away, but Rose wouldn't let him.

"We've both changed. When I met you, I worked in a shop. Thought that was all I was ever gonna do. Never in a million years did I think I'd be traveling to parallel worlds or become an expert on aliens."

The Doctor's eyebrow rose ever so slightly, but Rose still noticed. "I was! At least, until you got here."

"Rose Tyler, you are brilliant," he said sincerely as he leaned down to kiss her.

"Brilliant enough to help you get the TARDIS ready to go?"

He grinned and pulled Rose in the direction of the console room. "I thought you'd never ask."

"What is all this stuff?" Rose asked, surveying the pile of alien tech odds and ends the Doctor had strewn around the console. When he took a breath to reply, she held up a hand. "Never mind. I wanna get going before I'm thirty. How can I help?"

The Doctor jumped down into the open gap in the floor grating and removed the sonic pen from the pocket of his new jacket with a flourish. He dragged a worn-looking black cube towards him and hefted it down into the hole. "There are three knobs on the far side of the console. Turn all of them all the way to the left."

Rose found the knobs and turned them whilst the Doctor nearly disappeared below the floor grating. She could hear the distinct hum of the sonic as he worked. "Does a sonic pen work the same as a sonic screwdriver?" she asked.

"Not really." His voice was slightly muffled. "Of course, after a few modifications and some reprogramming, it's more screwdriver than pen now." His head popped into view again. "That should do it. Turn the middle knob to the left."

Rose frowned. "It's already to the left."

"Is it?" His eyes moved rapidly from side to side as he seemed to be having an argument with himself. "Right, then."

"Right?" She started to reach for the knob.

"No, middle!"

Rose rolled her eyes. "Middle knob to the middle?"

"Right. I mean yes," he corrected hastily. "Blimey, your language is imprecise." Rose turned the knob slowly and the dim glow of the Time Rotor brightened.

The pattern of confusing instructions continued for the next hour as the Doctor installed more of the parts he'd brought with him from Torchwood. Enough floor panels had been removed to require a game of hopscotch to get from one end of the room to the other. Eventually there wasn't much for Rose to do, so she stretched out on the jumpseat and watched the Doctor work just like she used to.

"She's not going to go around looking like a file cabinet all the time now, is she?" Rose asked idly after trying to suppress a yawn.

The Doctor's head appeared just above the grating. "Nah. With a functioning chameleon circuit, she'll blend in perfectly with any surroundings. Well, at least I think so. Though she might be willing to turn into a police box if I asked nicely."

"Good. I'd gotten used to the blue box," Rose said with a smile that the Doctor immediately returned.

"Speaking of which, how did you change the sign on the TARDIS? I mean, before it was things I could explain, like graffiti, but this time you changed the TARDIS herself." The Doctor sounded genuinely puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

"After you fixed Donna's alternate timeline. All the banners in the marketplace on Shan Shen as well as the TARDIS read 'Bad Wolf.' That's how I knew you were coming back. That, and the fact that Donna told me."

Rose's brows drew together as she shook her head. "I didn't do anything. I mean, that's what I told Donna to tell you—'Bad Wolf'—but nothing else." She felt a tingling sensation at the back of her neck and the faintest suggestion of music that was too quiet to hear as she saw an image of the TARDIS, the blue police box version, with the lettering at the top shifting back and forth from "Police Public Call Box" to "Bad Wolf." "Oh!" she exclaimed.

"What?" The Doctor sounded concerned as he jumped out of the hole he was working in and bounded across the console room to Rose. "What is it?"

Rose looked up into brown eyes filled with worry. "It wasn't me, it was her."

"What?" he repeated, the pitch of his voice rising.

"The TARDIS used her telepathic translation to make you see the words."

"And how do you know that?"

"She told me. Just now." Rose stifled a smile as the Doctor's eyebrows reached even higher in surprise.

The Doctor sputtered. His brain was going faster than his mouth could keep up, wanting to simultaneously know how Rose could communicate with the TARDIS and how the TARDIS knew Rose was coming back.

Somehow Rose knew what he wanted to ask. "I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me."

"You're linked."

She shrugged. "I don't really know. But sometimes I can hear her, yeah."

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets as he thought. He seemed to sway the slightest bit on his feet.

"Doctor, how long has it been since you slept?" Rose herself was starting to fade from the long day.

He answered immediately. "Thirty-six hours and forty-nine minutes."

"And how many times have I told you humans need to sleep? Even part-Time Lord ones." She watched as he took her rhetorical question seriously and started counting on his fingers. Hopping up from the jump seat, she grabbed the hand he was counting on and pulled him towards the hallway.

"Rose?" he asked when she opened the door to their new room. She looked back to see his cheeks looked a little more pink than normal. With a small smile she stood on her toes to give him a brief, chaste kiss.

"You need to sleep. Just sleep." She pulled him into the room with her and released his hand to check out the built-in wardrobe. As she suspected, even this smaller wardrobe had been outfitted by the TARDIS, and she selected a pair of soft lilac pyjamas from a drawer before retreating to the bathroom.

When she returned, she found the Doctor lying on the bed with his head propped up against the pillows. He'd gotten as far as removing his trainers, jacket, and tie before falling asleep. Rose carefully climbed in beside him, tucking herself against his side and laying her head against his chest. She still half expected to hear the double rhythm of two hearts beneath her ear, but there was just one. Her more-human-than-he-cared-to-admit Doctor, she thought fondly as she drifted to sleep.