Out of the blue and there I met you
There are many strange things about living with a half-human, half-Time Lord. Rose would be tempted to write a book on the subject, but there's a fairly limited audience.
For one thing, half-human, half-Time Lord males have odd sleeping patterns. Her half-human, half-Time Lord male goes to bed with her each night but pops up as soon as she's asleep, going off to do whatever it is he does in the late night hours. He'll come back to bed for three or four hours and then get up again before she's awake. He needs roughly half the amount of sleep as a normal human, he told her once.
For another thing, Rose's understanding of Time Lord biology, limited as it is, always led her to believe that they could control their emotions and desires better than most males of any species. She attributes this to the way they produced offspring on looms - whatever that was - instead of the traditional fashion most other species use.
Her Doctor was always very good at withholding that part of himself. Right before she fell through the Void, Rose had thought that they were growing closer. She'd hoped for something more. Maybe it wasn't meant to be, not for her and a Time Lord.
But a genetic meta-crisis got in the way and gave her a human male with a Time Lord mind. And this human male is very much a slave to emotions and desires.
"You're a slave to your hormones," Rose tells him that morning after one such demonstration. Well, two.
"Am I?" He doesn't sound too worried about it. "Well, I'm still new to this. It's to be expected. I'm sure in a few years I won't have any interest at all in you."
"You're acting like a teenager," she accuses him.
"I don't hear you complaining," he smirks.
"That's not the point."
"What is the point?"
She doesn't have a point, actually. "It's not a point. More of an observation."
He yawns and eyes her from across his pillow. "What are you observing, Rose Tyler?"
Honestly, she will never get tired of the way he says her name.
"It's fun," she confesses. "This. You and me. It's fun."
"Being human is fun," he agrees. "Shame I waited so long to do it."
oOoOo
As he's leafing through Lights!Camera!Action! later that morning, the Doctor comes across a familiar name.
"Sam Lively, writer and director of such sci-fi faves as Supernova, They Came from the Moon, and Neptune's Platoon, will be honored next month with a Spock, the highest honor a sci-fi guy can achieve."
Thoughtfully, the Doctor makes a note of the movies he hasn't seen. Just for research, he tells himself. Curiosity, really. Certainly nothing else.
He hears Rose finishing up in the bathroom and puts away the magazine and the notebook where he's scribbled down the movie titles. He's not hiding anything, of course, and certainly not hiding anything from Rose. He's just...making notes. It's not like he's hiding anything from her. She doesn't even care for the sci-fi genre very much.
Rose walks into the kitchen, fluffing out her freshly dried and styled hair. "What's up?"
"Nothing. Nothing is up. Should something be up? Why do you ask if I'm up to something? Your hair looks lovely today." The Doctor clamps his mouth shut to keep from babbling some more.
Rose gives him an unreadable look and reaches for a box of cereal. "Thanks." If she wasn't suspicious before, she is now. He doesn't have the gob that he used to, and he doesn't babble on about nothing very much anymore, but sometimes, when he's nervous or stalling, he'll start to talk on and on about nothing at all.
"We haven't had a holiday in ages," the Doctor says as she sits down across from him. "Years, really, not since the last time we went to visit your mother." He tries to swallow the words as he speaks them but it's too late. Rose flinches a bit at the memory but manages to smile at him.
"That was a while ago," she agrees. "But I don't know that we can get away from work right now. And where would we go?"
"Oh, I don't know. Someplace fun?"
"Chasing down aliens isn't fun enough?" she smirks.
He watches her chew her cereal. "It's certainly fun," he admits. "Are you having fun, though?"
"Yeah. It's been nice, working with you."
He brightens up. "Well, thanks."
Rose swallows and reaches for his hand. He lets her take it, watching her with a question in his eyes.
"Are you having fun, Doctor?" she asks him earnestly. "Because I know how hard it was to come here. I don't want you to be unhappy."
"I'm not unhappy. I'm with you." He smiles and kisses her hand, an old-fashioned gesture that takes her by surprise. "A holiday will have to wait. The TARDIS isn't exactly portable right now."
Rose used to love traveling in the TARDIS. The whooshing, the excitement of new places, never knowing if they were going to end up in the proper time and place...She's actually a bit surprised to hear him mention the baby TARDIS they're nurturing. It's growing here in her flat, and she keeps forgetting they have it.
"It is always gonna be so dependent?" she asks.
"It's not dependent now, not really. I'm just making sure everything goes right." He stands up to get the morning paper. Rose listens to their front door open and nods to herself. It's the last thing he has of home, and of course he's anxious to keep it.
"Mysterious fire near the Thames," the Doctor reports, coming back to the kitchen with the paper unfurled. "Boat caught on fire."
"Anybody hurt?"
"No. Looks suspicious." He lowers the paper to look at her. "Wonder if it was a spaceship."
Rose grins. "A ship flown by a spacepig?"
He arches an eyebrow. "Maybe." He turns to a new section, much as Rose knew he would. "Here we are."
"Here's what?"
"Be ready to take a risk. Don't be afraid to go with your instincts. Eat Chinese for lunch today."
"Is that Janet Jupiter again?" Rose asks. "You've got to be kidding me."
He hands her the paper.
"She's beyond ridiculous."
"Maybe, but Chinese for lunch sounds good, don't you think?"
oOoOo
The mysterious fire by the Thames, rather disappointingly, turns out to be just a boating accident. Torchwood is slow again. Aliens either show up by the spaceship-full or not at all lately.
Jake and Rose are hiding in Rose's basement office, casually leafing through old caselogs that need to be signed off and filed away. Rose had a real office that wasn't in the basement, but she found that she missed this one too much. Simon and Ian and Riley have moved out, so she's by herself a lot of the time. Jake has a desk there, but he's not one for paperwork if he can avoid it. The Doctor will stop by, of course, but usually they meet in the office next to his lab.
"What'd you do last night?" Rose asks as she sifts through old notes on a case that she can't remember.
"Went out with some friends." Jake is not talkative at the best of times, but even this is a bit short. Rose glances up.
He grimaces. "Went out, had a fight, went home."
"Who'd you fight with?" she asks, concerned.
"My friend's girlfriend. She says that all these aliens are nothing but stories made up by the government to keep Londoners afraid."
"Seriously? Doesn't she remember the Cybermen?"
"'Course she does. She's a stupid one, that one. I didn't mean to get into it with her, but having seen what I've seen, I wasn't going to let her trash us all."
Rose nods. "Good work, Jake."
"Are you finished?" the Doctor asks from her doorway. "I just gave my findings on that rock to Pete," he says, coming in and and setting aside a pile of folders to sit down in a chair.
"I thought you had no findings," Jake says.
"I didn't. Anna didn't come up with anything, either. That's what we told Pete."
"He must have liked that," Rose murmurs. Her dad likes to have all evidence presented, catalogued and fully described. Unknown things make him nervous.
"He wasn't happy but we did all that we can do at the moment."
"At the moment?" Rose questions. "What else can you do with it?"
"I have a few theories I'll be testing out." The Doctor is signing his name with a flourish on paper after paper, giving his authorization that everything's in order. Rose hopes everything is.
"Have you read all those?" Jake asks.
"I'm sure I did at some point." He finishes his last signature, a scribble that reads Doctor John Smith. He's fond of it only because it encompasses his name and his assumed name, and is largely illegible. "There we are. Right as rain. Good as new and ready to be filed."
"We're done early," Rose observes. "Are you hungry?"
Jake glances at his watch. "Shall we stay here in case something comes up?"
"How about Chinese?" The Doctor asks. They all turn to look at him and he shrugs. "It's Friday, we're here, no reason to eat in the cafeteria today."
"That sounds good," Jake agrees.
Rose nods. "You're not doing this because of the paper, are you?"
He looks surprised and confused. "What paper, Rose?"
"The newspaper. The horoscope?"
To her relief he laughs. "Of course not."
"You read the horoscopes?" Jake's voice sounds slightly appalled.
"Just for fun," the Doctor assures him. "As a sociological experiment."
China Palace is just down the street. They are seated at a table and are perusing menus when someone across the room catches Rose's eye. It's a woman dressed in a black trench coat and dark glasses. It's an odd look to be sporting indoors. Rose's curiosity increases when the woman looks up, seems to meet Rose's gaze, and then jerks her head back down to the tabletop.
Weird.
Soon after their orders arrive, the woman in the black trench coat stands up to leave. She walks across the restaurant and past their table, angling her head in such a way that she's staring directly at the Doctor. He is talking to Jake and doesn't notice. Rose sips her drink and pretends not to notice, either.
The woman continues on her way. Rose watches her leave and head down the street, the opposite direction from Torchwood.
"You okay?" Jake asks her.
"Fine," she says. "Fine."
He's followed her line of vision but doesn't see anything unusual. "Is something out there?"
The Doctor looks to see what they're looking at. "You two okay?"
"I'm going with my instincts," Rose says finally.
"My instincts say yours a bit confused," he points out. "There's nothing there."
"Maybe." Rose takes a sip of her drink and glances out the window again. "You never know."
oOoOo
Rose wakes up slowly. The knowledge that it's Saturday is wonderful and comforting, and she stretches her arms over her head.
"No invasions," the Doctor murmurs in her ear. "No invading species coming to our doorstep."
She hums in agreement and turns to wrap her arms around his neck. "Just you and me."
"I don't have such a problem with sleeping so much," he says into her neck. He goes to bed later than she does and wakes up earlier, but it's still an excessive amount of sleep, in his opinion.
"No," Rose agrees, a bit breathlessly. "You've adjusted well."
"To sleep and to other things." He kisses and Rose lets him show her what else he's adjusted to. She kisses him back, twines her hands through his hair.
Later, Rose wakes up quickly and looks around. The Doctor is writing on a pad of paper, lying beside her in bed.
"Did I fall asleep?" she asks him.
"Just for a few minutes." He grins at her. "I take it as a compliment."
"Shut up." But she can't help smiling back. "What are you doing?"
"Making a list."
"List of what?"
He shows her the sheet of paper he's been scribbling on.
To-Do (Short-term)
1. grow TARDIS
2. manufacture circuits
build console
set circuitry
eye of harmony? find possible replacement
Rose assumes this list is for the TARDIS. Even reading it over twice doesn't help her understand it any better.
She holds it up. "How long will this take?"
He peers at the page. "Oh, that's just the first things I need to do once the TARDIS is grown. That'll take seven to twelve months, I think."
"Just for these?"
He shrugs. "I'm hardly in a position to go running around the universe for parts, am I?"
Rose props her head on her hand. "What'd you...do, you know, before?"
He smiles sadly. "There were other TARDISes around. We could wait for them to grow."
"Even with what Donna told you to do?"
"What, if you shatterfry the cosmic shell and modify the dimensional stabiliser to a foldback harmonic of 36.3, you accelerate growth by the power of 59?"
She rolls her eyes. "Yeah. That."
"It still takes time. Not that we have all the time in the world," he adds with a quick grin. "But enough."
A knock on the door grabs their attention.
"Who's that?" Rose wonders in a mild panic, reaching for her clothes. "It's only eight o'clock." It's a fairly secured building - you can't just walk in off the street and start knocking on doors.
"Not your mother, I hope," he mutters, pulling on his own pants.
"Don't be silly. Mum calls first. Well, usually," Rose amends, recalling one memorable day when Jackie not only failed to call ahead but let herself in. By the expression on his face she can tell he remembers that one exactly.
Rose dresses first and she hurries to the door. Opening it, she beholds a woman dressed in an immaculate gray suit. Her blonde hair is swept up in an elaborate knot, and huge luminous pearls hang at her ears and at her throat. She smiles at Rose with a perfectly made-up face and blue eyes fringed with long dark lashes.
Clearly she's got the wrong door. "Can I help you?" Rose asks, feeling a bit underdressed in her sweats and t-shirt. She tries to shove her hair back over her shoulders.
"Are you Rose Tyler?"
"Yes," she says cautiously. She's aware of the Doctor coming up behind her, standing close and putting his hand on her waist.
The woman smiles in delight. "So glad to have found you at home! I'm Sally Marshall." She holds out her hand to the Doctor, who shakes it without removing his other hand from Rose's waist. He's clearly not sure about this visitor.
The name doesn't sound familiar to Rose.
"Do I, do I know you?" Rose asks politely, shaking the hand that Sally's held out to her.
"Your mother called me this week! She asked if I wouldn't mind showing the two of you some properties."
"Properties," Rose parrots. Maybe it's too early in the morning for her brain to function properly.
The Doctor is three steps ahead of her, as usual. "Are you an estate agent?" he asks. "We weren't expecting one."
"Well, Mrs. Tyler called me herself. I was so flattered that she would take the time out to track me down! I helped her friend Midge buy a house just last month. Same neighborhood as your parents," she confides. "Smaller floor plan but beautiful garden."
"Oh. So Mum called you." Rose clears her throat and opens the door wider. "I'm sorry, won't you come in? We've been working all week and this is our first day at home."
Sally steps inside, carrying a briefcase with her. "Not at all, Ms. Tyler. Do you prefer Ms. Tyler, or may I call you Rose? One doesn't want to be rude."
"Oh, no, Rose is all right. Please, come into the kitchen."
Luckily the table is cleared off and there are no dishes in the sink. They all sit down at the table, Rose's mind racing with worry. This woman thinks she is some kind of wealthy heiress. How does a wealthy heiress act? She can play the part at parties, but never on her own before. Jackie and Pete have always been there with her. It helps to catch each other's mistakes.
The Doctor looks absolutely fascinated. Rose can't tell yet if it's because he's enjoying this early morning visitor or because he's that excited about finding a house.
"And you're Dr. Smith," Sally says, and holds out her hand for him to shake. "So nice to meet you. Jackie told me a lot about you."
He snatches his hand back. "Don't believe her."
She laughs and opens up her briefcase. "Now." Her tone turns businesslike. "Let's go over my contract, and then we can discuss what you're looking for in a home."
"I don't think we've really had time to think about that," the Doctor admits. "We just decided the other day to find a bigger place."
Sally smiles. "Perfect. I have the morning free. Why don't you tell me what you're looking for?"
Two hours late Sally is gone, and Rose collapses on the couch. "I feel like I was just interviewed for a position and passed over," she complains. "I can't believe Mum called her without telling us."
"I believe it," he says. He sits on the floor beside the couch and covers his face with a pillow. "That was just awful. Who knew houses come in so many styles?"
"And neighborhoods," Rose agrees, although having grown up in a house herself, she did know about styles and neighborhoods ahead of time.
The phone rings and Rose reaches for it. "Hello? Mum? I'm gonna kill you."
"What's wrong?" Jackie's voice sounds alarmed, even over the phone.
"Sally Marshall stopped by, that's what's wrong. First thing this morning with no warning."
"She's very good, sweetheart. She's perfect."
"I know we're looking for a place, but we just started thinking about it. Now I've got this woman making appointments to take us all over London next week."
"Oh, where is she taking you?" Jackie asks interestedly.
"She's going to surprise us," Rose says gloomily.
"Surprise you? With a house to look at? Didn't you tell her what you want?"
"I don't know yet what I want," Rose says patiently.
"Of course you do, Rose. A nice garden out back, a decent kitchen, enough bedrooms upstairs for children."
"Mum," Rose says hastily, lest this turn into a conversation about her potential offspring, "I've got to go. I haven't done the shopping."
"Well, come round afterwards. Your father wants to talk to you."
"What about?"
"The board position. Come for lunch! See you later!"
"No, Mum, wait." But Jackie's already hung up.
"What was that all about?" the Doctor asks.
"Mum wants to have us for lunch," she tells him, hanging up the phone.
"There goes the weekend," he says grumpily.
Tony is waiting for them when they pull up to the house.
"Rose! John! Look what I got!" He's holding up a large, red robot.
"Lovely, sweetheart," Rose assures him.
"My name is Doctor," the Doctor says encouragingly. "Can you call me that?"
Tony frowns, his bottom lip sticking out. "John."
"No, call me Doctor."
Tony thrusts the robot at Rose. "Come see."
"Okay," she says.
The Doctor scowls as they head into the house. A few weeks ago Tony was taken to the doctor's office under false pretenses and given his vaccinations. He's managed to forgive Jackie for the pain and deception this caused, but the mention of doctors in any form still makes him upset. He's renamed the Doctor by himself and refuses to change it.
It drives the Doctor mad.
"You'll get used to it," Rose tells him now. "People call you that at work all the time."
"They're supposed to call me that," he says, overlooking the fact that half the time he doesn't respond to the name John Smith. "Tony is supposed to be informal with me."
Rose smiles at him. Only he would consider Doctor less formal than John.
Jackie serves them chicken salad at lunch. The chicken is spooned into small rolls and set on her good china. It's clearly a special occasion.
"Here." Jackie passes the Doctor a plate filled with the sandwiches. "Mrs. Colton made these just for you."
"Did she?" He smiles with pleasure at the thought of Jackie's housekeeper. "I'll just pop in afterwards and thank her."
The housekeeper dotes on him, and he shamelessly encourages this devotion. It usually drives Jackie mad, but Rose finds it cute.
"Jackie says you're going to start looking at houses," Pete says to Rose.
She nods. "Yeah. We're going to go round London with her on Monday after work."
Pete clears his throat and glances first at Jackie and then at the Doctor. "If you need a larger place we can buy one for you."
The Doctor looks up at that. "We can take care of it, Pete." He's not human male enough to be insulted by the offer, but he does know he's capable of doing this on his own.
"I know. But to get one that's good enough, and large enough for you," Pete begins.
"Dad. We're fine, yeah? You can help us choose it, if you want."
"Leave them, Pete," Jackie says. "They know what they're doing."
The Doctor shoots her a furtive look. "Thanks, Jackie."
"Of course." She smiles at him, and though they've always been friendly since he came back to this world with Rose this new show of affection makes him uneasy without knowing why.
"Just make sure you choose a proper neighborhood," Jackie says to Rose. "You don't want to settle someplace undesirable."
"We thought we'd buy something close to the Powell estate," Rose says casually.
"Don't you dare!" Jackie says indignantly, at the same time that Pete says, "What?"
"I'm just joking."
"Honestly." Jackie glowers at her daughter. Just because they once lived there doesn't mean she wants Rose to go back.
"Of course Rose is joking," the Doctor says soothingly. "She'd never want to put me in any danger."
"Danger!" Rose splutters. "When were we ever in any danger back home?"
"You mean aside from plastic arms and Slitheen?"
"Well, they were there only because of you."
"Rotating Christmas trees?"
"Again, that was you."
Pete shakes his head. "You'd be better off moving back here than going there. The estate on this world wasn't much different, from what your mother told me about yours. Jackie and I lived there when we were first married." He means his first Jackie, of course, the one who was Cyberized. Rose can't help but feel guilty at the thought of her. Her mother continues eating. She's drawn her own conclusions about Pete's first wife, and doesn't think too highly of her.
"Dad," Rose says, ready to change the topic, "I don't know if being on the board for Vitex is a good idea."
"It's a great idea," he corrects her. "You don't have to work at the company, Rose. Just sit on the board when there's a meeting, vote once a year, and be visible."
"Yeah, but I don't know enough to do that."
"You do. I'll help you."
"Yeah, but I don't know anything about business."
"Rose, I'm spending more time at Torchwood than I'd like lately. It helps to know I have you over at Vitex."
"I told her she'd be great," the Doctor volunteers.
"You will be, Rose," Jackie assures her. "How hard could it be?"
Rose can't quite seem to answer this satisfactorily enough. How can she explain that the mere notion of the Vitex board terrifies her? They'd laugh themselves silly.
"Yeah," she says instead. "It'll be okay."
"Someday I may need you and Tony to run things more closely," Pete continues. "Think of it as early training."
If this is meant to reassure Rose it has the opposite effect. "Me work at Vitex?" she says in alarm. "I don't think so."
"I'm just planning ahead, Rose. For anything that might happen. For now I just need you at board meetings."
Rose swallows her objections. "Okay. I can do that."
"Make sure you find a house with a nice garden," Jackie says. "Children need lots of room to run around."
Rose whips her head up to look at her mother. "What did you say?"
Jackie only smiles at her. Rose feels a headache coming on.