A/N I ain't even British.

Book of the Update: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Chapter 27

"Well, I'm beat," Donna said about an hour after Amy had left. "Let's go and watch a movie or something."

"Yeah, sounds good," Rose agreed and they began to walk down the hallway. "Ever seen that princess movie Frozen?"

Donna shrugged. "Never even heard of it."

Rose smacked her head. "Oh! Sorry, time travel. When are you from?"

Donna laughed at her as they quickly found the movie room, courtesy of the TARDIS. "2008. You?"

Rose shrugged sheepishly. "Honestly I don't know. 2000 and….6 maybe? 5? Been sort of jumping around lately."

"So when's this princess film released?" Donna asked, flopping back onto the couch as Rose went digging around the DVD bins, looking for the disk.

"2013, I think. Must've been late in the year, cause it was still playing January 2014 when the Doctor and I went to see it. Ahah!" she cried in triumph, holding up the elusive film. She slid it into the player and hopped back to curl up in a pink fuzzy blanket on the other end of the couch. The TARDIS, sweet girl she was, dimmed the lights for them as the movie began in a swirl of blue and white.

The Doctor, unbeknownst to the two girls, stood in the doorway, watching them laugh and cry and gasp in accordance with the film. He smiled, happy knowing that they were getting along. His best friend and his….what was Rose? His girlfriend? Lover? But, no, they weren't quite that close yet, he amended, his whole face red. Rose was his girlfriend, he finally decided, though the word felt almost inadequate. But he was happy that his best friend and his girlfriend were getting along. And the TARDIS certainly had no qualms about either of them – she rather loved them, in fact. So…he was happy that his best friend, his girlfriend, and his sentient space-and-timeship were all getting along? No, that didn't fit. He was happy that his three favorite girls were getting along. That sounded much better.

He'd been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed that the movie had finished, Donna had fallen asleep, and that the TARDIS had started the movie over again, per Rose's request. She was still awake, though her head was back against the couch and her eyelids were dangerously close to closing. He smiled and walked over, scooping Donna up in his arms. Rose must've finally fallen asleep, because she hadn't even seemed to notice. The Doctor left her there with a silent promise to be back in a moment, and carried Donna to her room just down the hall. He laid her down in her bed and pulled the covers up over her, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead.

"Goodnight, Donna Noble," he murmured before leaving her bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind him.

When he made it back to the library, he meant to carry Rose back to her room as well so she could sleep. Honestly. But looking at her, lying there on the couch with her hair spread messily around her like an off-kilter halo…he couldn't bring himself to disturb that. He kicked his shoes off and slipped his arms out of the tweed jacket, letting it drop to the floor as well. Rose made small sleepy noises as he gently lifted her head up, only to lay it back down on his chest once he slipped behind her, between her back and the arm of the couch. She turned and snuggled closer to his chest and he smiled, wrapping his arm around her back and pressing his lips to the top of her head.

There was the quiet noise of people laughing, and the Doctor turned his head slightly to see the movie that was still playing on low volume. He remembered when they saw this. It was back when he'd had the big hair and the bigger gob and it was just him and Rose. She'd wanted to go to the future, but not too far ahead, to see what the fashion was like and to do some shopping. He distinctly remembered rolling his eyes and whining and grumbling, but he took them to January the seventh, two thousand and fourteen, landing just outside of some big shopping mall. He didn't know what it was called, just that there was a cool statue in front of it. Rose had been delighted and immediately grabbed his hand and pulled him to all of her favorite shops, and she had a lot of them. Eventually, she'd seemed to out-shop herself (or his wallet) and they'd gone back to the TARDIS. She dumped her bags and then said she still wanted to do something. He'd suggested a movie and off they went. On January 7, 2014, they went to see the new princess movie Frozen. She'd let him put his arm around her. She'd held his hand. He hadn't even been able to focus on the movie, finding too much interest in watching her face react to whatever was going on with the characters.

He'd taken her to Proamon the very next day to see the ice, but their trip had been cut short when they'd had to run from the natives, who thought they would melt the planet. Something to do with body temperature. Running. That seemed to happen an awful lot with him, but she didn't seem to mind. It seemed as though she rather enjoyed it, in fact. He was glad, because it didn't look as though he'd ever stop, and he wanted her to be right there with him forever, like she'd promised. And now, if what had happened a few days ago – or twelve years ago, depending on who you ask – wasn't a one-time thing, it looked as though she would be. His brows scrunched together at the thought. It was almost painful, not knowing. He'd never not known something for this long. It really did bother him.

He looked down at the sleeping figure on his chest and sighed, resigning himself to not knowing as long as she was safe. She must've sensed him staring at her, because her eyes fluttered open and she looked around, finally landing on his face with a soft smile. "Hello." Her voice was still thick with sleep and he couldn't help but to smile.

"Hello."

"Don't 'member fallin' asleep on you," she observed, blinking sleepily.

He shrugged, a sort of sheepish look on his face. "Ah, no. No, I don't think you did," he admitted.

She giggled, snuggling closer to him. "Okay."

"I was thinking-" he started, but she cut him off with a yawn. "Oh, I'm sorry, are you still tired? You can go back to sleep if you'd like, I'll wait."

She shook her head, stifling another yawn. "No, 'm fine. What were you sayin?"

"I was thinking about twelve years." That's all he had to say and she knew exactly what he meant.

She sighed and wriggled around a bit on his chest, trying to make herself more comfortable. "Doctor, I thought we were past that. Doesn't matter anymore, yeah?"

"But it does matter, Rose. Don't you want to know what's happened? Why? How?" he asked in surprise and exasperation, sitting straight up and disrupting her Time Lord pillow.

She sat up as well and shrugged, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. It left a blur of mascara on the skin under her lashes, but she didn't seem to notice. "S'not like I'd really understand it anyway, right?"

"But just try to think of anything that might've happened," he implored, looking at her right in the eye.

She blinked, a bit taken aback by the intensity of his gaze. "Well, I guess that whole Bad Wolf thing," she said slowly, "or maybe um…" she trailed off, uncertain.

"Just try to think. Has anything ever happened that would possibly affect your biology?" she laughed, shrugging, and he smiled. "No, you wouldn't really know, would you? Okay, well…has anyone ever…err, taken over your body? Or your mind?"

Her brow furrowed. "No, I don't…I don't think so. I mean, I would know, right? I wouldn't forget about it or anything?"

"No, but you might not – "

"Oh!" she exclaimed, cutting him off. "What about when Cassandra did that thing in New New York? That, umm, psycho grate thing?"

"Psychograft! Oh, Rose, you're a genius," he declared, planting a kiss on her forehead. "Right, yes, Cassandra would've needed to modify your body a bit – or at least your mind – for the psychograft to work on such a primitive human – no offense," he added absentmindedly and Rose rolled her eyes. Primitive human was better than stupid ape. "Whatever she did wouldn't have been enough to actually extend your life, but it probably did make your body more resilient, stronger. A psychograft wouldn't have worked on the average 21st century human; it needs a strong body that won't disintegrate with another creature's essence inside of its head. Now Rose, tell me, because this is very important, did Cassandra do anything…odd? Or Chip, for that matter?"

Rose scrunched up her eyebrows, thinking back. It had been so many years ago…. "They did put me in a sort of….cage forcefield thing. Thought it was just to trap me, but now that I think about it, it did kinda feel weird. Like, tingly and a bit painful, y'know?"

The Doctor jumped up to his feet, sending Rose flopping to the other side of the couch, and began pacing around, running his fingers through his hair. "Think, think, think!" he growled to himself. He spun around to Rose again. "What color?"

"Sort of a blue-ish purple," she said, referring to the color of the forcefield.

"Narrows it down."

She smirked and stood up and stepped over to him, standing so close that their chests touched. "Oh, are we playing that again? Raxacoricafallapatorous?"

He grinned wickedly at her, but kept up with the game. (Though he could think of a few things he'd much rather do). "Anything else you remember about the forcefield?"

She shrugged. "It stung, it was blue-ish purple, I couldn't move while I was in it….I dunno. Think I passed out after a bit. Next thing I remember is yellin' at her to get out of you," Rose explained and the Doctor's face fell.

"Narrows it down. Perfect! I've got an idea!" he sprang away from her – just a tad bit reluctantly – and raced down the hall, Rose hot on his heels. "It sounds as though you were inside a fortiricorp ring. Very rare, very illegal. They're known to completely disintegrate some species – thankfully not humans – and decapitate others – also not humans. It was outlawed a few centuries back. No, that's not right, because time is all relative. A few centuries back from when we were on New Earth," he explained in his own rapid-fire babbling sort of way as they made their way down the hall.

He made a sharp turn and Rose nearly smacked into his back, saving herself only by jumping back at the last minute. "Kay, but what's that got to do with me?" Rose asked, prompting him to speak again, preferably in words she would understand.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, stopping short and spinning to face her with a loud clap. "Yes, I was getting to that."

He scanned her with his sonic screwdriver and then walked over to some beepy machine on the wall. He didn't say anything else.

"Uh…Doctor?" she asked after a few minutes.

"Mmm."

"Can you…what've you found out?"

He turned to her, his eyebrows scrunched together and his arms crossed. "The TARDIS won't tell me much, but I think the gist of it is…a bit complicated, actually. Not to mention impossible," he added with a sigh, twisting his fingers through his hair.

Rose walked over and took his hands, pulling them free of his hair, and cupped his cheek with her hand. He leaned into her touch on instinct. "Try to explain?" she asked gently and he nodded, closing his eyes for a moment.

They opened and he took a breath. "Okay, yes. So, basically, I did take the Heart of the TARDIS – that is to say, Bad Wolf – out of you back on the Gamestation. When I regenerated, the energy went back into the TARDIS, since that was technically where it belonged. Got that?"

She nodded slowly. "TARDIS energy into me, into you, back into the TARDIS. Got it."

"Right. Wonderful. But, err…this is where it goes a bit wibbly," he said sheepishly with a little grin. "I haven't got it all figured out yet, but…after New Earth, when we got back to the ship, apparently when you made contact with the console – or possibly even the coral, she wasn't too clear about that – it somehow went back into you without your knowledge."

"But then why didn't I –"

"The fortiricorp ring increased your body's durability and resistance to deterioration, so the err…Bad Wolf was able to use your body as a host without killing or harming you," he explained, knowing her question before she'd even completed it. "As I said, she didn't tell me much, but it seems as though this so called Bad Wolf entity has been umm, bonded to you since before you were even born, which is just…." He trailed off, at a loss for words.

Her brows furrowed. "How's that work then?"

"I've no idea! This whole thing is impossible!" he cried, flinging his arms up into the air and walking in a big loop, coming to a stop in the same place he'd stood moments before, facing Rose. "She mentioned something else, but it didn't make sense at all; just gibberish, really. She said 'Bad Wolf', 'Moment', and 'circular', but I can't see how any of those things fit together. I just can't make sense of half of this, this nonsense!"

Rose stroked his arm consolingly. "It's alright, Doctor," she told him in a confidential whisper, "I can't make sense of any of it."

He looked down at her, looking up at him with a serious look on her face but a glint in her eye and he smiled, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his head on hers. "You're very short," he told her in a whisper and she smiled into his chest.

"You're just tall," she whispered back. "Why are we whispering?"

"Why not?"

She giggled and he could feel it vibrate through her body, pressed against his. "Alright." She was still whispering.

They stayed there like that for who knows how long, just holding each other. Accepting that sometimes you just had to not know. Accepting that that was alright. Not knowing was alright. They stood there in each other's arms for what was – in reality – nearly an hour. If you had asked Rose, she would've said forever. If you had asked the Doctor, he would've said not long enough. Because everything depends on perspective.

DOCTOR WHO

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Rose jerked upright a bit floppily, eyes still closed, and flung her arm around on her bedside table, trying to locate the elusive and persistent alarm clock. But then, she remembered…she didn't have an alarm clock on the TARDIS. It had fallen into the pool when the ship had crashed into Amy's backyard twelve years ago, and she had yet to get a new one. So what was that noise? She flopped back into her mountain of pillows, grabbing one and pulling it over her head to block out the noise.

"DOCTOR!" she yelled, still wrapped up in pillows and blankets and sleep. "DOCTOOOR!"

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"SHUT OFF THAT BEEPIN!" she hollered again when the noise failed to stop.

"Rose, honestly, there's no need to shout; I'm right here," came a voice from right next to her and Rose shot up with a little shriek, pillows flying.

The Doctor was sitting on her bed, fully clothed – shoes, bowtie, tweed, and all – fiddling with a little green box with wire sticking out a hole in the back. He was in her bed. At 7 in the morning. Holding the source of the beeping.

She glared at him. "What the hell is that thing?" she snapped, glaring at said object. "Make it shut up." And then she proceeded to wrap back up in her comforter and bounce back into the cave of pillows, pulling one over her head again.

The Doctor looked a little miffed. "This is a premium automatic toaster, Rose," he explained to her, though she wasn't listening. To be precise, she wasn't even awake. She'd fallen back asleep, despite the beeping. "I made it myself," he said, sounding pretty proud.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"Ah. Yes, the beeping. Well, you see, the miniature pivot yolk got stuck, and that caused the thermal generator to backfire, and that made this bit of plastic melt off and then all of these little wires popped out, and it –"

"Doctor," Rose groaned, having awoken to hear him rambling on about plastic and wires. "Just make it stop beeping!"

"Right," he said, a bit sheepishly. "I'm not sure why it's beeping."

She flung the pillow off of her head and sat up, looking at him with a sleepy and irritated expression. "I don't care why it's beeping," she said slowly, "just make it stop! 'S givin' me a headache."

The Doctor looked at her with concern and then promptly dropped the funny little green toaster onto the floor and smashed it under his heel. The beeping stopped. Rose looked at him in surprise. Her hair was everywhere. She wasn't wearing makeup. Her shirt had wrinkles. The Doctor thought she looked beautiful. And he told her that.

"I like how you look when you've just woken up."

"Oh, God," Rose said, laughing, "I probably look a fright right now, sorry."

"I think you look beautiful right now," he said nonchalantly, fiddling with the tassel of a pillow. "I always think you look beautiful."

Rose blushed, looking down at her legs, folded criss-cross on top of the purple sheets. "Considering I'm human?"

He shrugged. "No. This is a brilliant pillow you've got here," he said, showing her the pink pillow with the gold tassels. She'd bought it from some alien country that was a bit similar to India. It was called….

"Thanks. I got it off that one planet – what was it called again? The one like India?"

"Rintalla."

"Yeah. I got it off Rintalla." They were quiet for a moment or two, the Doctor playing with the Rintallan pillow, Rose still trying to wake up. "I'm gonna go and…." She paused to yawn. "I'm gonna go and have some cereal or something," she told him, standing up and stretching.

She was wearing a t-shirt and her favorite fuzzy pyjama shorts – not that the Doctor knew which were her favorites, of course. Of course he didn't know that. – and when she stretched her arms up, both the hem of her shirt and the bottom of her shorts slid up quite a bit, exposing enough of Rose's back and bum for the Doctor to know for a fact that that statue of her back in Rome was completely accurate. He coughed and dropped the pillow into his lap, forcing his eyes away from her bum and legs. "Right, yes, breakfast," he said, his voice a tiny bit raspier than normal. "Cereal. Good idea. Cereal. You run off and get cereal, and I'll umm…be along in a minute. Just got to inspect this pillow." The pillow that was quite conveniently covering his lap.

"Mhm, okay, Doctor," Rose said with another yawn before making her way to the door and presumably to the kitchen. (She didn't run, to the Doctor's slight disappointment).

"Morning, Donna!" she said in a sing-song voice when she got to the kitchen.

Donna raised her eyebrows. "You're in a good mood this morning," she noted. "Did you two finally shag last night?"

CLANG.

Rose blushed furiously as she bent to pick up the spoon she'd dropped in shock. "What? Donna, that's not really any of your –"

Donna sighed loudly and sat down at the table, sipping on her coffee. "You didn't. Never mind. Did you hear that thing this morning? That beepin' noise? Bloody scared the livin' daylights outta me," she grumbled, staring moodily at the coffee. It had burnt her tongue.

Rose giggled. "The Doctor had this thing, a, oh what was it called….automatic mini toaster or something that he'd made himself. He was messin' with it right near my head and it went off, all beepy and woke me up. Think I mighta smacked him 'cross the head, flailing about like I was," she added with a smirk.

"Serves him right!" Donna agreed loudly, "I could've had a heart attack and died because of his ruddy toaster."

"Oh, I certainly hope not, Donna Noble," the Doctor said, just walking in through the door. He straightened his bowtie with a grin. "Because today, we're going to a museum."

The girls exchanged glances. Rose was the first to recover from her surprise. "Is there an invasion in this museum?"

"No," the Doctor said a bit defensively.

Donna cocked an eyebrow, and Rose asked, "A revolution of the artifacts?"

"Course not!"

"Has something from the past woken up and begun to terrorize small towns?"

"No!" the Doctor cried, and the girls gave him dubious looks. "Can't I just visit a museum like any normal person?"

"You hate archaeologists," Donna pointed out, "Why would you like museums?"

"You've probably already seen everything that's there," Rose added, and his face scrunched up.

"Or maybe I haven't," he said, turning on his heel and walking back down the hallway, towards the console room. "Come on! Hurry up!"

Rose laughed at him, shaking her head. "We've gotta get dressed, Doctor!"

"Well get to it! Chop chop!"

"His brain goes faster than a bolt a' lightning, doesn't it?" Donna asked in an almost amazed mumble, "One minute he hates museums, the next he loves them. I can't keep up!"

Rose groaned comically and put her head in her hands, though she was smiling. "Oh, you shoul've seen him after he'd just regenerated – it was all 'I love yogurt' and next thing I knew, he'd be spittin' the yogurt all over the floor and claiming that a seven year old had poisoned him!"

Donna gaped. "No, really? Oh, that is rich. Im'a pull that one out next time he calls me paranoid. And all because I thought it was the butler!" Donna cried, throwing her hands up and standing. She left the room with a laughy sort of sigh and Rose was alone with Donna's half-empty cup of coffee. The butler…?

A/N So, um. I kind of hate this. Like kind of a lot. It's also kind of short. And kind of late. And it kind of sucks. Wasn't worth the wait I apologize for my life

Started up with sports and other activities again, so I haven't got as much time to write every day. It'll make the time between updates a bit longer, maybe five or six days vs just one or two. Sorry. Maybe even more than fivee or six. Maybe a month. (Okay, no, not a month. Perhaps a week). Who even knows bc I don't. But hey, sports are a good thing, yeah? I mean, I got my six-pack back so like swag yolo 2k14 right