Chapter 3- Settling In
I felt the scrapes
From the slippery subway grate.
Oh, how you laughed
At my complete lack of grace.
But I could not recall
A more perfect fall
Cause when I looked up into your eyes
It didn't hurt at all.
And I thought, be still my heart
This could be a brand new start, with you.
- Be Still My Heart, The Postal Service
-Tyler Mansion, Pete's World-
It's been a week since they came home from Norway.
When Jackie walks down the steps and into the basement of the mansion she shares with her family and The Doctor (though, she muses, it seems he might as well be family at this point) to call Rose and The Doctor to dinner she finds them hunched conspiratorially over the TARDIS coral. Jackie doesn't understand why anyone would want to spend so much time in a musty old basement, but they spend almost as much time down here as they do at Torchwood now that The Doctor has signed on with them.
And now her Rose seems to be talking to a lump of coral. Jackie lifts her eyes to the heaven's and muses that if her daughter had any sense she'd be spending a bit more time in the bedroom with that Doctor of hers rather than tinkering on their many projects.
Jackie has noticed, though, in the way that mothers do, that if they are in the same room they are usually touching and when they aren't they find each other with their eyes. As if to check to make sure that the other has not disappeared. And, of course, she's noticed that Rose is happy. If The Doctor can manage that then she figures she can keep herself from smacking him when he acts the idiot.
Oy, she thinks, now the bloody alien is talking to the lump as well. "Come on, you lot." She interrupts the excited chatter of The Doctor to the coral. And the idiot is pouting like Tony might when she's taken a favorite toy from him. "Dinner time."
"Is there pudding?" The Doctor asks.
"Banana." She replies.
He jumps up, full of energy and anticipation all of a sudden, seemly about to bound up the steps. But he stops, bouncing on his toes to help Rose up off the floor where she was sitting.
"Did you hear that, Rose! What a brilliant creation! Banana pudding. I wonder if it's a good source of potassium?"
Jackie feels the familiar tickle in her palm. The urge to just ismack/i the stupid grin off The Doctors face. Instead she just rolls her eyes at Rose, who looks utterly amused by his antics. The sight of her daughter's smile makes the tickle fade. Jackie walks back up the stairs, leaving the ridiculous pair to trail behind her.
Anything that makes her smile like that... after the past years... After everything that Rose went through... Well, it's best not to dwell on that bit. She's happy now. That's what counts.
xxxxxx
Rose grins up at The Doctor, his enthusiasm infecting her. He swings her hand back and forth a bit as the begin making their way upstairs. When they reach the top of the steps he stops momentarily, a contemplative look taking over his face.
His eyes search hers, his dark brown eyes turning darker still. The hand which is not holding hers goes to her face and he pulls her close, kissing her quickly. It's over all too soon for Rose but it still leaves her breathless.
This is how it has been since Norway. Neither one wanting to leave the other's side, both afraid of how close they want to be. A series of stolen kisses instigated by both of them. But they still haven't talked about it. Rose is getting anxious. She wants more than anything to pull him so close that they become one person. But that would never suit The Doctor, and too be honest, she has become to independent to be satisfied with that sort of relationship. And she isn't going to risk getting this wrong. But there are secrets that she isn't ready to tell him. Things that make it easy to hide behind a wall of silence. But she clings greedily to those kisses, letting them reaffirm that they are more then they were, that the words he spoke on the beach were true. With every press of his lips to hers, his every touch, she feels them as if they are spoken in the corner of her mind. Since it is The Doctor, perhaps they are.
He smiles, as if hearing the thought. She smiles back.
"Pudding then?" She says. If her voice is huskier then usual he doesn't call her on it.
"Quite right, too."
As they turn the corner out of the basement stairway, she thinks she hears him mutter, "Still got it."
xxxxx
At the dinner table Pete asks about the progress they are making on the TARDIS.
The Doctor replies, "Well Pete, due to the interval refractation period, it's going to require a bit more energy then initially expected. Shatterfrying the plasmic shell and modifying the dimensional stabiliser to a fold back harmonic of 36.3, and accelerating the growth by the power of 59 like Donna suggested will definately assist in reducing the amount of time the TARDIS will require to grow. However..." He continues down this vein for a while. His hands gesture a bit more wildly and since he is still holding his fork with a dollop of mashed potatoes on the prongs the walls and ceiling are in grave danger of being redecorated.
Pete is blinking slowly watching his gestures, and Rose interjects, her hand stilling The Doctors and carefully de-forking him. "It's goin' well, Dad." She sets his fork back down on his plate carefully. The Doctor grins back at her fained look of disapproval and she can almost hear him thinking, "Well, I iam/i rude and not ginger."
And it is going well. Growing the TARDIS, that is. It's going very well. Although, Rose is still not sure how The Doctor is going to handle waiting five years for his TARDIS to be ready. She's not sure how well she is going to handle waiting for that matter. For her it's been two years already since she's been able to explore the universe and sometimes she feels an itch from the the top of her head to the tips of her toes calling her back to the stars.
If it's that bad for her she cannot imagine how The Doctor will handle it. When she first met him it seemed as though he was made of the stars themselves, and so for the next five years he will be without a part of himself. At the same time she is more aware then ever of how fragile their existence together could be. He is human. And he is The Doctor. The Doctor does not take the safe path, he barrels ahead full steam regardless of the consequences to himself. Rose doesn't think she could handle loosing him again. She slips her hand underneath the fabric of her shirt and feels the ropey scar that mars the skin there, an unforgettable reminder of the price she almost paid for the man she loved. No. She could not handle loosing her Doctor again.
Her thoughts are disturbed by the chatter of her family around her. Her mum has just slapped her fathers hand away from her plate. He was trying to steal another bite of pudding off Jackie's dish after finishing his own. The Doctor is joking about the infamous Tyler slaps and her baby brother Tony is giggling at the antics of the grown ups around him.
Perhaps, everything might turn out okay after all, Rose thinks. Perhaps.
xxxxxx
After dinner Rose and The Doctor retreat to the garden. They have another project to discuss that Jackie and Pete are not aware of.
"I believe I've worked out most of the kinks." Says The Doctor.
"I hope so, we wouldn't want it, her, coming too with three heads and no toes or anythin' would we?" Rose shakes her head a bit. "It's just so strange, Doctor, I'm talking 'bout creating another version of myself, givin' her superpowers, and sending her off to a different universe."
He shrugs a bit, "I do admit a feel a bit like Victor Frankenstein at the moment - Met Mary Shelley once, did you know? Lovely woman, she and Percy made an interesting couple. Not a bit afraid to argue a point with each other if they felt strongly enough about it. Frankenstein came to her in a dream. Well, dreams sometimes do make interesting reading material. I had a dream last night-" He cuts himself off and looks back at Rose as if coming back down from the clouds. He blushes, which she finds to be quite adorable. "Well, perhaps it wouldn't have made a very good book after all."
Rose laughs. She is unable to resist kissing him again. Their teeth click together since they are both smiling and it takes them a moment to find their rhythm. Once they do if their lips linger together a little longer this time neither seems to mind. Her phone, the same mobile he jiggery-poked so long ago begins to ring. They disengage from their embrace. Rose pulls the offending device from her pocket and looks at the display.
"Torchwood." She says, "Alien threats have come in. Want to go save the world?"
"With you, Rose Tyler?" He clasps her hand in his. "Always."