New fandom
Which currently is making me feel rather frightfully like a teenager.
Title: Brainy
Pairing: Ten II/Rose
Rating: PG
Genre: Fluff, humour.
Spoilers: Season 4
Summary: Rose picks up certain of the Doctor's habits.
Disclaimer: Belongs to the BBC.
The first time he saw her with them was six weeks after his arrival, at their first proper full-scale alien invasion on this earth. A contravariant sub-anisotropic portal had opened up in the sky--directly above London, because some things never changed, not even in a new universe--and he'd kicked down the door of the Torchwood situation room, and found her hunched over a computer screen, surrounded by a small crowd and barking out orders. She glanced up at him; he did a double take.
There was no time to ask, however, as at that moment the portal spat out a Troximoozian Warbringer.
What happened next, in rough order, included the following highlights:
Running and rummaging frantically through a rabbit warren of labs, stockrooms, and storage vaults in that basement of hers. ("I told you, I'm not the one who does the cataloguing round here, 'kay?" retorted Rose defensively.)
Realizing that the Troximoozians here had their galactially famous teleportation shields, too. (The hard way. The killer headache would probably catch up in another twenty-four hours or so. At least he fervently hoped it would be merely a killer headache like in the other universe.)
Running.
An impromptu meeting with "other agencies" which rapidly devolved into Rose shouting death threats at about twenty painfully stiff-brained, play-by-the-book bureaucrats. (Magnificent, she was. Undeniably magnificent. But they really must find an oppurtunity to discuss her obsession with great big monster-sized guns. No matter how alarmingly captivating the vision of it had been.)
Running.
An extremely bumpy ride in a hijacked top-secret military aircraft. ("Makes you wish our TARDIS grows at exponent 590 instead of 59, doesn't it?" he asked her. Not that she could have heard him over the whinge of the cloaking device.)
The crude cloaking device, to put it quite bluntly. In any case not nearly good enough to fool the Troximoozian sensors.
An attempt at negotiation which rapidly devolved into about two thousand armed-to-the-beak goons shouting death threats at the two of them. (It was the Shadow Declaration in this universe, as it turned out. And Convention Ninety-seven point six point five two instead of Fifteen.)
Running.
A brilliant bit of sabotage. (If he did say so himself. Given that the new sonic screwdriver was still very much a work in progress, and he'd only got 28.64 percent of the functions up.)
Desperate running. (He missed his double cardiovascular system something fierce at times like these. His respect for Rose--for all his companions, in fact--went up another notch.)
An idiotically, suicidally long flying leap straight into the stratosphere and down onto a swooping zepplin. ("Yeah. Exponent 590 sounds lovely. Just about right now," answered Rose one second before takeoff.)
Strong wind. Clinging. Yelling. (He barely fought off a brief yet rather intense flashback to...well, you know.)
Throwing the invaders (thirteen kilometres from bumper to bumper, thank you very much) back to the other end of the universe and sealing the portal, using one human laptop, one aforementioned 28.64 percent functional sonic screwdriver, two Ka!Neng crystals, and a mummified Dri'luese head, while thirteen kilometres' worth of Troximoozian warship (damaged, true, but nevertheless) rammed it on the other side, teleportation shields and all. And while the zepplin jiggled and lurched, almost worse than the TARDIS herself on one of her temperamental days. (Only later would he learn that Jake Simmonds cheated for his license by sneaking Mickey onboard.)
As the portal vanished, the final energy boom knocked them both off their feet, and of course he ended up cushioning her fall. The specs teetered at the tip of her lovely nose, and dropped at last. It bounced off his chest.
"Gold-rimmed?" he asked faintly.
"Well," she said. Funny, he'd never seen her looking uncomfortable while straddling him before.
"You aren't going blind, are you?" An abrupt wave of worry rushed at him. "You haven't been fighting any Im Il Iks lately, have you, Rose Tyler? They'd be very dark purple sorta humanoid aliens with invisible antennae and great thermal vision. Or those, oh, what are they called, right, Qooms, from just over in Triangulum, elephant-shaped and coloured kind of like...like the Void. Or if there's been an infestation of Kurejjac infra-worms on Earth, nasty little things if they get behind the cornea, or--ooh, please, please tell me it's not dyadic quasi-omchion radiation, because that would be bad, and believe me, I know, from that time when I had to pull the plug on this big brane excitation station they had on Marulin Six. Absolutely not fun even if it was only a week--"
"Doctor--"
He squinted up for a better view, and suddenly it occurred to him that he must be going on about all the wrong things instead of being properly supportive. What if this was something he couldn't fix?
"Though of course," he changed tacks hastily, "it won't matter to me even if you are going blind, I mean how I feel about you, because nothing so trivial as that is gonna make the least bit of difference to my eyes." Eyes. No, maybe that didn't quite come out right, either. "Which is not to say anything more nontrivial will, that is. Not that I'm trying to trivialise--"
She pinched him. Then she pinched his lips shut to with two fingers.
"I'm not going blind, Doctor."
A hand fumbled along the floor next to them until his fingers snagged the object in question. He pushed it over his own nose and blinked. Flat lenses.
"Oi, give that 'ere!" With a glare, Rose snatched the gold-rimmed specs off his face and shoved them into her pocket. Letting out a slow breath of relief, he arched an eyebrow, and aimed his best stare into her face.
"If you must know," she mumbled, grudging each syllable. "I thought they made me look more...serious."
"More serious?" he repeated in confusion. "Why would you want to--"
"Well, those people back there. You saw 'em." Rose let out a little snort. "All the officials and military brass and, y'know, politicians, it's their world and their turf and you saw how after so many times they still don't believe me, not really, right? Let me tell you, it was a lot worse when I first got here."
"But, but," he sputtered, indignation starting to rise within. "But Torchwood--"
"Oh, they're a good lot, the Torchwood people. Though there did use to be that whole let's-humour-the-crazy-blonde-'cos-she's-the-boss's-daughter thing going, at first. But they believe me just fine nowadays, yeah. Most of them, anyway." She shrugged, offering him a quick smile, though there was a small furrow of anxiety touching her brows that he didn't remember, not from the old Rose. Before he could speak, the floor jerked out of control again beneath them; reacting with lightning speed, he encircled her waist with both arms and kept her from rolling off him.
"And quite right, too," he stated firmly.
This time her grin, however brief, was exactly as he always remembered. "Anyway, that was back when I first came here. Then stuff started to happen and they kept happening, and then suddenly one day I saw all these fancy secret agents and scientists with loads of letters after their names staring at me as if I were...Except I was still just this...shopgirl. With an accent that kept dropping aitches and not even A-levels--"
"A-levels?" He attempted to recall what those were. There seemed to be a remote past when she'd babbled about such things, once or twice. "What, in the name of everything good and glorious in all the universes, do A-levels have to do with anything? They don't give them in timeline repair or dimension cannons or--or general earth defense on this planet, do they?"
"Well, no--"
"Didn't think so," he beamed, having carried the point. "So, the specs...Brainy specs?"
Her cheeks flushed to a most becoming pink. A Rosy Rose, a part of his mind supplied in dazzlement.
"I sort of...got into the habit," she admitted. "I reckoned, you liked having them, right? When I had to ask myself what would the Doctor do...It felt like they kinda helped when things got--Anyway, yeah, I know, I know, it's stupid. Bet I look pretty silly in them. Totally ridiculous, huh? 'Cos obviously it's not like I were you and I'm--"
Her voice trailed off, half embarrassed, half apologetic though he had no idea what for. Once more he caught the faint frown against the edge of her eyes, and something other than laughter about the corner of her mouth. And there he was again, years spent on another side of a wall subsisting upon a mental construct of her moving on, being carefree, not thinking about him or like him or carrying the world alone--
Reaching up to her forehead, he laid two fingers against the skin between her eyes, and began to rub gently. She could use his own face for a mirror.
"You look fantastic in these."
It appeared to be working, this improvised brow smoother of his.
"Brainy beyond words, actually. Brilliant. A touch on the serious side, yes, but strangely and traffic-stoppingly adorable nonetheless. By which I mean traffic across the..." he spent a second in assessment, "Local Group of galaxies. And, oh! Did I mention outrageously hot? Delectable? And...And say!" A lightbulb, the one reserved for his very best super-clever ideas, flooded his head with incandescence. "D'you think you'll mind wearing these when we...?"
It was gradual, but the smile--smirk, to be more precise--spreading itself out across her features was definitely much more like it.
"And you're gonna wear yours, Doctor?"
Keeping one arm around her, he started digging in his suit pocket. The zepplin chose this instant to give another heave like an enraged wild stallion. Distracted as he was, he did not get the chance to brace himself, and they slid halfway across the floor as Rose collapsed against him. Nevertheless, her lips landed onto his with unerring accuracy. Must be her lightning reflexes this time. A long moment passed.
"Rose?"
"Mmmmm...?"
"Next time we need to make a fast exit from an alien spacecraft without the TARDIS, could you please find us a better pilot?"
Title: Brainy
Pairing: Ten II/Rose
Rating: PG
Genre: Fluff, humour.
Spoilers: Season 4
Summary: Rose picks up certain of the Doctor's habits.
Disclaimer: Belongs to the BBC.
The first time he saw her with them was six weeks after his arrival, at their first proper full-scale alien invasion on this earth. A contravariant sub-anisotropic portal had opened up in the sky--directly above London, because some things never changed, not even in a new universe--and he'd kicked down the door of the Torchwood situation room, and found her hunched over a computer screen, surrounded by a small crowd and barking out orders. She glanced up at him; he did a double take.
There was no time to ask, however, as at that moment the portal spat out a Troximoozian Warbringer.
What happened next, in rough order, included the following highlights:
Running and rummaging frantically through a rabbit warren of labs, stockrooms, and storage vaults in that basement of hers. ("I told you, I'm not the one who does the cataloguing round here, 'kay?" retorted Rose defensively.)
Realizing that the Troximoozians here had their galactially famous teleportation shields, too. (The hard way. The killer headache would probably catch up in another twenty-four hours or so. At least he fervently hoped it would be merely a killer headache like in the other universe.)
Running.
An impromptu meeting with "other agencies" which rapidly devolved into Rose shouting death threats at about twenty painfully stiff-brained, play-by-the-book bureaucrats. (Magnificent, she was. Undeniably magnificent. But they really must find an oppurtunity to discuss her obsession with great big monster-sized guns. No matter how alarmingly captivating the vision of it had been.)
Running.
An extremely bumpy ride in a hijacked top-secret military aircraft. ("Makes you wish our TARDIS grows at exponent 590 instead of 59, doesn't it?" he asked her. Not that she could have heard him over the whinge of the cloaking device.)
The crude cloaking device, to put it quite bluntly. In any case not nearly good enough to fool the Troximoozian sensors.
An attempt at negotiation which rapidly devolved into about two thousand armed-to-the-beak goons shouting death threats at the two of them. (It was the Shadow Declaration in this universe, as it turned out. And Convention Ninety-seven point six point five two instead of Fifteen.)
Running.
A brilliant bit of sabotage. (If he did say so himself. Given that the new sonic screwdriver was still very much a work in progress, and he'd only got 28.64 percent of the functions up.)
Desperate running. (He missed his double cardiovascular system something fierce at times like these. His respect for Rose--for all his companions, in fact--went up another notch.)
An idiotically, suicidally long flying leap straight into the stratosphere and down onto a swooping zepplin. ("Yeah. Exponent 590 sounds lovely. Just about right now," answered Rose one second before takeoff.)
Strong wind. Clinging. Yelling. (He barely fought off a brief yet rather intense flashback to...well, you know.)
Throwing the invaders (thirteen kilometres from bumper to bumper, thank you very much) back to the other end of the universe and sealing the portal, using one human laptop, one aforementioned 28.64 percent functional sonic screwdriver, two Ka!Neng crystals, and a mummified Dri'luese head, while thirteen kilometres' worth of Troximoozian warship (damaged, true, but nevertheless) rammed it on the other side, teleportation shields and all. And while the zepplin jiggled and lurched, almost worse than the TARDIS herself on one of her temperamental days. (Only later would he learn that Jake Simmonds cheated for his license by sneaking Mickey onboard.)
As the portal vanished, the final energy boom knocked them both off their feet, and of course he ended up cushioning her fall. The specs teetered at the tip of her lovely nose, and dropped at last. It bounced off his chest.
"Gold-rimmed?" he asked faintly.
"Well," she said. Funny, he'd never seen her looking uncomfortable while straddling him before.
"You aren't going blind, are you?" An abrupt wave of worry rushed at him. "You haven't been fighting any Im Il Iks lately, have you, Rose Tyler? They'd be very dark purple sorta humanoid aliens with invisible antennae and great thermal vision. Or those, oh, what are they called, right, Qooms, from just over in Triangulum, elephant-shaped and coloured kind of like...like the Void. Or if there's been an infestation of Kurejjac infra-worms on Earth, nasty little things if they get behind the cornea, or--ooh, please, please tell me it's not dyadic quasi-omchion radiation, because that would be bad, and believe me, I know, from that time when I had to pull the plug on this big brane excitation station they had on Marulin Six. Absolutely not fun even if it was only a week--"
"Doctor--"
He squinted up for a better view, and suddenly it occurred to him that he must be going on about all the wrong things instead of being properly supportive. What if this was something he couldn't fix?
"Though of course," he changed tacks hastily, "it won't matter to me even if you are going blind, I mean how I feel about you, because nothing so trivial as that is gonna make the least bit of difference to my eyes." Eyes. No, maybe that didn't quite come out right, either. "Which is not to say anything more nontrivial will, that is. Not that I'm trying to trivialise--"
She pinched him. Then she pinched his lips shut to with two fingers.
"I'm not going blind, Doctor."
A hand fumbled along the floor next to them until his fingers snagged the object in question. He pushed it over his own nose and blinked. Flat lenses.
"Oi, give that 'ere!" With a glare, Rose snatched the gold-rimmed specs off his face and shoved them into her pocket. Letting out a slow breath of relief, he arched an eyebrow, and aimed his best stare into her face.
"If you must know," she mumbled, grudging each syllable. "I thought they made me look more...serious."
"More serious?" he repeated in confusion. "Why would you want to--"
"Well, those people back there. You saw 'em." Rose let out a little snort. "All the officials and military brass and, y'know, politicians, it's their world and their turf and you saw how after so many times they still don't believe me, not really, right? Let me tell you, it was a lot worse when I first got here."
"But, but," he sputtered, indignation starting to rise within. "But Torchwood--"
"Oh, they're a good lot, the Torchwood people. Though there did use to be that whole let's-humour-the-crazy-blonde-'cos-she's-the-boss's-daughter thing going, at first. But they believe me just fine nowadays, yeah. Most of them, anyway." She shrugged, offering him a quick smile, though there was a small furrow of anxiety touching her brows that he didn't remember, not from the old Rose. Before he could speak, the floor jerked out of control again beneath them; reacting with lightning speed, he encircled her waist with both arms and kept her from rolling off him.
"And quite right, too," he stated firmly.
This time her grin, however brief, was exactly as he always remembered. "Anyway, that was back when I first came here. Then stuff started to happen and they kept happening, and then suddenly one day I saw all these fancy secret agents and scientists with loads of letters after their names staring at me as if I were...Except I was still just this...shopgirl. With an accent that kept dropping aitches and not even A-levels--"
"A-levels?" He attempted to recall what those were. There seemed to be a remote past when she'd babbled about such things, once or twice. "What, in the name of everything good and glorious in all the universes, do A-levels have to do with anything? They don't give them in timeline repair or dimension cannons or--or general earth defense on this planet, do they?"
"Well, no--"
"Didn't think so," he beamed, having carried the point. "So, the specs...Brainy specs?"
Her cheeks flushed to a most becoming pink. A Rosy Rose, a part of his mind supplied in dazzlement.
"I sort of...got into the habit," she admitted. "I reckoned, you liked having them, right? When I had to ask myself what would the Doctor do...It felt like they kinda helped when things got--Anyway, yeah, I know, I know, it's stupid. Bet I look pretty silly in them. Totally ridiculous, huh? 'Cos obviously it's not like I were you and I'm--"
Her voice trailed off, half embarrassed, half apologetic though he had no idea what for. Once more he caught the faint frown against the edge of her eyes, and something other than laughter about the corner of her mouth. And there he was again, years spent on another side of a wall subsisting upon a mental construct of her moving on, being carefree, not thinking about him or like him or carrying the world alone--
Reaching up to her forehead, he laid two fingers against the skin between her eyes, and began to rub gently. She could use his own face for a mirror.
"You look fantastic in these."
It appeared to be working, this improvised brow smoother of his.
"Brainy beyond words, actually. Brilliant. A touch on the serious side, yes, but strangely and traffic-stoppingly adorable nonetheless. By which I mean traffic across the..." he spent a second in assessment, "Local Group of galaxies. And, oh! Did I mention outrageously hot? Delectable? And...And say!" A lightbulb, the one reserved for his very best super-clever ideas, flooded his head with incandescence. "D'you think you'll mind wearing these when we...?"
It was gradual, but the smile--smirk, to be more precise--spreading itself out across her features was definitely much more like it.
"And you're gonna wear yours, Doctor?"
Keeping one arm around her, he started digging in his suit pocket. The zepplin chose this instant to give another heave like an enraged wild stallion. Distracted as he was, he did not get the chance to brace himself, and they slid halfway across the floor as Rose collapsed against him. Nevertheless, her lips landed onto his with unerring accuracy. Must be her lightning reflexes this time. A long moment passed.
"Rose?"
"Mmmmm...?"
"Next time we need to make a fast exit from an alien spacecraft without the TARDIS, could you please find us a better pilot?"