Fic: Under the Pale Green Sky (1/1, Teen)
Title: Under the Pale Green Sky
Characters: Ninth Doctor/Rose
Spoilers: Minor for "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances"
Rating: Teen
Beta: dynapink
Summary: Not for the first time, something hasn't gone entirely to plan when the Doctor takes Rose to another planet for a visit. Perhaps the scenery can make up for it.
Author's notes: Written for the hearts_in_time Run! ficathon. Also fulfills the "sunrise" prompt for my Ninth Doctor doctorwho_100 prompt chart.
Run! ficathon info:
Gift for: irishlullaby
Prompt 1: Blanket
Prompt 2: Picnic
Prompt 3: Clouds
Optional "to includes" were: Something sweet, somewhat fluffy. Smut encouraged, but not required.
Asked to exclude: Character deaths
"How far now?" Rose asked, deciding she'd mentally add at least a kilometer to whatever he said if he avoided eye contact with her when he answered.
He glanced backward at her from the rock he was sitting on before he-yes, there it was. He looked ahead of them again before he started to speak, a sure sign that he was trying to downplay an answer he knew she wouldn't like.
"Oh, not far. Not far at all now, really. Should be there in...oh, well, soon." He seemed to be inspecting the toes of his boots now. "Interesting planet though, wasn't it?"
"Oh, yes," she said, laughing and wondering if he was serious. "Quite a thing they had on there today, do you think?"
"Well, that. Yes," he said, his tone clipped and suggesting he didn't want to speak of it any further.
"Did you know that would be going on?"
"Not...as such. 'Course, in retrospect, once I saw the carriages were decorated like that I might have known."
"Ah, the carriages."
"The carriages," he repeated, sounding a little hesitant.
"The carriages that you said we should take into town, and leave the TARDIS where it was?"
"Yes."
"The ones you said we'd be able to find another of whenever we liked?"
"Yes, those'd be the ones, but Rose, I-"
"The ones there are no sign of now, d'you mean? Wait, don't answer that. That's still not the good part. It's what the carriage drivers are all busy doing...that's the good part."
"To be fair, Rose, it's not just the carriage drivers. It's the whole lot."
"Yeah, and they've all run off to...to..."
"To?" he said, challenging her to say the word.
"Well, you know," she said, realizing when he grinned at her that she'd admitted defeat somehow.
"That I do. I was just wondering what brand of human euphemism for the act you were going to use. Matter of curiosity, you might say."
She fidgeted around on the rock she was perched on, suddenly finding it more uncomfortable that she had a moment ago.
"Interesting sky on this planet," she said, deliberately looking away from him so she wouldn't have to see how amused he was at her abrupt change of subject. She could imagine his smirk without having to witness it, at any rate.
"Yeah, it's the mix of gases in the upper atmosphere," he said, immediately falling into line with the new topic of conversation. "Nothing like it anywhere else in the universe, really. Light filters through it, refracts just like it would anywhere else, but here you get those distinctive color patterns. It'll keep changing as the sun goes down. We can stay and watch it if you like."
"It's like a kaleidoscope. Had one, once, when I was little. Loved it. It was like a different world." She looked at him, suddenly feeling a wave of gratitude that he'd plucked her out of London and brought her to see things like this.
"One difference, Rose. This is a different world."
"And it is brilliant, actually. Walk or no walk."
"So...do you want to stay until the sun sets?"
"We could, but...not exactly comfortable here, is it?" she said, looking pointedly at the rock underneath her. "Shame, though. Could be really nice, under the right circumstances."
"Right circumstances?"
"You know," she said, feeling silly again. "Checkered blanket. Wicker basket full of sandwiches. View."
"Handsome bloke?" he suggested.
"Oh, that goes without saying," she said, giving him a wink and feeling a bit light-headed. Perhaps there'd been something in those fizzy drinks she'd been served during the festival after all.
"Right then, ready to go?"
"Yeah," she said, letting him take her hand and pull her to her feet. It was an odd thing, that, the way he'd take her hand and just keep it sometimes. They walked the rest of the way to the TARDIS that way, in fact. Her hand in his in a way she couldn't label.
That was all right, though. She was beginning to think labels were overrated.
She woke the next day and stared at the ceiling, wondering for a moment where they were before deciding it didn't really matter. Wherever they were-wherever he was, to be more precise-there would be something interesting going on.
She was just yawning and stretching, trying to talk herself into putting her feet on the floor to find out what was in store for her, when an abrupt banging on her door got her out of bed on pure reflex alone.
She thrust her arms into the sleeves of her dressing gown and tied it haphazardly around her waist before she opened the door. That his grinning face would be waiting for her behind it was a given, but some ridiculous part of her was still surprised to see him there.
"C'mon, Rose. Got to hurry. We haven't got all morning, or we'll miss it."
"Miss it? Miss what? This is a bloody time machine!" she said, running her hands self-consciously through her hair.
He wrinkled his nose at her. "I could explain it to you, Rose, but then I'd be wasting time. So get up, get dressed, and meet me outside."
"Yes, sir," she said, sounding just a little more sarcastic that she actually felt. By the time she got ready and got to the control room, the crankiness that had been fueled by tired muscles and a slight lack of sleep had gone, replaced with that feeling of excitement she got whenever he was about to show her something new.
She opened the door and felt the dim, unfamiliar light of an alien dawn on her cheeks. On slightly closer inspection, though, she found it wasn't a completely new sight after all.
"We haven't moved," she said, turning to face him when she heard him clear his throat in an attempt to get her attention.
"Sunrise on this planet is even more impressive than the sunset we missed," he explained. "Thought you might like to see it before we go. We'll have it all to ourselves, in fact. Everyone here is still-"
"-otherwise occupied?" she interrupted, for some reason desperate to cut him off before he finished that sentence without one of the human euphemisms he'd referred to the night before. She refused to fully consider why it would bother her so much to hear how he would complete his thought if left to his own devices, but she had a feeling she'd be stuck thinking about it later.
"Something like that, yeah." He gestured to the ground and she noticed, wondering how she'd missed it until now, that he'd laid a woolly blue blanket over the dewy grass. Sitting on top of it was a box stuffed with items she'd bought the last time they'd gone back to London.
"What's all this about?"
He shrugged. "Didn't have a checkered blanket, I'm sorry to tell you, and I was fresh out of wicker baskets as well. These will have to do."
"Do?" she asked, wanting to see him squirm a little as she pressed him to explain.
"Help you watch the sunrise properly. No point in doing it if you don't do it right, is there?"
"No," she agreed, sinking to her knees on the blanket, purposefully putting herself a bit too close to him as she looked up into his eyes. "No point in doing any of it halfway," she added, watching him to see if he'd show any sign of discomfort.
He smiled down at her, seeming not the least bit affected. It disappointed her a little, but not enough to deter her from starting in on the food he'd brought with them in the battered cardboard box. She was just opening the first wrapper, in fact, when it occurred to her that he was still standing, towering over her.
"Aren't you going to sit?"
"Should I?" he said, seeming genuinely puzzled.
"Well, you're blocking my view."
"Ah, sorry, your Majesty," he said, getting somewhat awkwardly to his knees before sitting down properly, his long legs stretched out in front of him, one boot crossed over the other, as he leaned back on the palms of his hands.
She glared at him, but gasped as she finally noticed the riot of colors in the sky above them.
"It's beautiful," she breathed, and he looked up as well.
"Never seen a morning here, myself. Wondered what the clouds would look like. You're right. It is rather striking, isn't it?"
"Yeah, there weren't any clouds last night."
"There's only clouds in the morning here. One of the more unique climates in the universe, this. Their days and nights are completely different."
"Like night and day?" she said, laughing a little when his eyes rolled skyward.
"Funny," he noted, but she could see he was working to keep from smiling.
She leaned back until she was lying down, trying to take in as much of the sky as possible. The patterns were ever-changing, similar to the night before but changed by the clouds that now dominated the vista before her.
"Still like your old kaleidoscope?" he asked.
"No," she said, answering him truthfully. "A million times more amazing."
They watched in silence as the sky slowly evened out into a light green.
"How'd I do, then?" he asked. She knew what he was asking but she chose to make him explain himself anyway.
"What d'you mean?"
"You had a checklist last night."
"Ah, that's right," she said, pretending she had to try quite hard to remember it. "Well, checkered blanket. Afraid I can only give you half credit for that one."
"Understood."
"Wicker basket, I believe I said. So yeah, half credit again."
"I'll accept that."
"Full points for the view. Can't begin to fault that," she said, sighing and trying to remember how that last streak of purple had wound its way across the sky and slowly morphed into the color of spring grass.
"Not bad, I'd say, on no notice."
"Hold on, that's not all I asked for. I believe I also required a handsome bloke."
"So, full credit there, then," he said, thrusting his chin upward with a comical amount of pride.
"If you say so," she said, laughing to cover her slight discomfort with this particular issue.
"Oi," he said, and there he was, suddenly, leaning over her with his face hovering just in front of her nose.
"All right," she said, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. She waited for him to pull back, but he didn't. When she gave up on waiting for him to pull back, she began to will him to close the distance and kiss her. She was equally frustrated there, stuck yet again in a maddening limbo.
She could hear the words she wanted to say in her mind and she tried to imagine saying them out loud. You did say you knew how to dance, didn't you, Doctor? He was so close to her now that she imagined that the mere act of moving her lips to speak would bring them into contact with his.
"Thanks for being here with me, Rose," he said, and she wondered if he had even noticed that their lips actually did brush each other as he spoke.
"I wouldn't miss it for anything," she answered, hearing her voice shake just a little as she spoke.
It was unbelievable, she thought, being so close to someone without having hands pawing at her, pulling at her clothes, always rushing two steps further ahead. Not that it would be all bad, really, if she were to find out today what his hands felt like on her bare back. She was suddenly feeling quite aware of what the rest of the planet was up to.
"Mating festival? Did you really bring me to a mating festival?" she asked, almost laughing out loud at the expression that passed over his face.
"More species procreate that way than you'd think. Takes a lot of the uncertainty out of it."
"Takes a lot of the fun out of it, more like." He pulled back a little, much to her disappointment.
"That, Rose, is a uniquely human perspective." She felt him shift his weight to one shoulder as his hand found hers. "Are you ready?"
She blinked up into his eyes as she pondered the several answers left to her depending on how she chose to interpret his question.
"Always," she answered, deciding to let him guess her meaning. When he pulled her to her feet and gathered up their things, she felt that all-too-familiar wave of relief and regret before she pushed it down, replacing it with excitement at the thought of their next adventure.
Characters: Ninth Doctor/Rose
Spoilers: Minor for "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances"
Rating: Teen
Beta: dynapink
Summary: Not for the first time, something hasn't gone entirely to plan when the Doctor takes Rose to another planet for a visit. Perhaps the scenery can make up for it.
Author's notes: Written for the hearts_in_time Run! ficathon. Also fulfills the "sunrise" prompt for my Ninth Doctor doctorwho_100 prompt chart.
Run! ficathon info:
Gift for: irishlullaby
Prompt 1: Blanket
Prompt 2: Picnic
Prompt 3: Clouds
Optional "to includes" were: Something sweet, somewhat fluffy. Smut encouraged, but not required.
Asked to exclude: Character deaths
"How far now?" Rose asked, deciding she'd mentally add at least a kilometer to whatever he said if he avoided eye contact with her when he answered.
He glanced backward at her from the rock he was sitting on before he-yes, there it was. He looked ahead of them again before he started to speak, a sure sign that he was trying to downplay an answer he knew she wouldn't like.
"Oh, not far. Not far at all now, really. Should be there in...oh, well, soon." He seemed to be inspecting the toes of his boots now. "Interesting planet though, wasn't it?"
"Oh, yes," she said, laughing and wondering if he was serious. "Quite a thing they had on there today, do you think?"
"Well, that. Yes," he said, his tone clipped and suggesting he didn't want to speak of it any further.
"Did you know that would be going on?"
"Not...as such. 'Course, in retrospect, once I saw the carriages were decorated like that I might have known."
"Ah, the carriages."
"The carriages," he repeated, sounding a little hesitant.
"The carriages that you said we should take into town, and leave the TARDIS where it was?"
"Yes."
"The ones you said we'd be able to find another of whenever we liked?"
"Yes, those'd be the ones, but Rose, I-"
"The ones there are no sign of now, d'you mean? Wait, don't answer that. That's still not the good part. It's what the carriage drivers are all busy doing...that's the good part."
"To be fair, Rose, it's not just the carriage drivers. It's the whole lot."
"Yeah, and they've all run off to...to..."
"To?" he said, challenging her to say the word.
"Well, you know," she said, realizing when he grinned at her that she'd admitted defeat somehow.
"That I do. I was just wondering what brand of human euphemism for the act you were going to use. Matter of curiosity, you might say."
She fidgeted around on the rock she was perched on, suddenly finding it more uncomfortable that she had a moment ago.
"Interesting sky on this planet," she said, deliberately looking away from him so she wouldn't have to see how amused he was at her abrupt change of subject. She could imagine his smirk without having to witness it, at any rate.
"Yeah, it's the mix of gases in the upper atmosphere," he said, immediately falling into line with the new topic of conversation. "Nothing like it anywhere else in the universe, really. Light filters through it, refracts just like it would anywhere else, but here you get those distinctive color patterns. It'll keep changing as the sun goes down. We can stay and watch it if you like."
"It's like a kaleidoscope. Had one, once, when I was little. Loved it. It was like a different world." She looked at him, suddenly feeling a wave of gratitude that he'd plucked her out of London and brought her to see things like this.
"One difference, Rose. This is a different world."
"And it is brilliant, actually. Walk or no walk."
"So...do you want to stay until the sun sets?"
"We could, but...not exactly comfortable here, is it?" she said, looking pointedly at the rock underneath her. "Shame, though. Could be really nice, under the right circumstances."
"Right circumstances?"
"You know," she said, feeling silly again. "Checkered blanket. Wicker basket full of sandwiches. View."
"Handsome bloke?" he suggested.
"Oh, that goes without saying," she said, giving him a wink and feeling a bit light-headed. Perhaps there'd been something in those fizzy drinks she'd been served during the festival after all.
"Right then, ready to go?"
"Yeah," she said, letting him take her hand and pull her to her feet. It was an odd thing, that, the way he'd take her hand and just keep it sometimes. They walked the rest of the way to the TARDIS that way, in fact. Her hand in his in a way she couldn't label.
That was all right, though. She was beginning to think labels were overrated.
She woke the next day and stared at the ceiling, wondering for a moment where they were before deciding it didn't really matter. Wherever they were-wherever he was, to be more precise-there would be something interesting going on.
She was just yawning and stretching, trying to talk herself into putting her feet on the floor to find out what was in store for her, when an abrupt banging on her door got her out of bed on pure reflex alone.
She thrust her arms into the sleeves of her dressing gown and tied it haphazardly around her waist before she opened the door. That his grinning face would be waiting for her behind it was a given, but some ridiculous part of her was still surprised to see him there.
"C'mon, Rose. Got to hurry. We haven't got all morning, or we'll miss it."
"Miss it? Miss what? This is a bloody time machine!" she said, running her hands self-consciously through her hair.
He wrinkled his nose at her. "I could explain it to you, Rose, but then I'd be wasting time. So get up, get dressed, and meet me outside."
"Yes, sir," she said, sounding just a little more sarcastic that she actually felt. By the time she got ready and got to the control room, the crankiness that had been fueled by tired muscles and a slight lack of sleep had gone, replaced with that feeling of excitement she got whenever he was about to show her something new.
She opened the door and felt the dim, unfamiliar light of an alien dawn on her cheeks. On slightly closer inspection, though, she found it wasn't a completely new sight after all.
"We haven't moved," she said, turning to face him when she heard him clear his throat in an attempt to get her attention.
"Sunrise on this planet is even more impressive than the sunset we missed," he explained. "Thought you might like to see it before we go. We'll have it all to ourselves, in fact. Everyone here is still-"
"-otherwise occupied?" she interrupted, for some reason desperate to cut him off before he finished that sentence without one of the human euphemisms he'd referred to the night before. She refused to fully consider why it would bother her so much to hear how he would complete his thought if left to his own devices, but she had a feeling she'd be stuck thinking about it later.
"Something like that, yeah." He gestured to the ground and she noticed, wondering how she'd missed it until now, that he'd laid a woolly blue blanket over the dewy grass. Sitting on top of it was a box stuffed with items she'd bought the last time they'd gone back to London.
"What's all this about?"
He shrugged. "Didn't have a checkered blanket, I'm sorry to tell you, and I was fresh out of wicker baskets as well. These will have to do."
"Do?" she asked, wanting to see him squirm a little as she pressed him to explain.
"Help you watch the sunrise properly. No point in doing it if you don't do it right, is there?"
"No," she agreed, sinking to her knees on the blanket, purposefully putting herself a bit too close to him as she looked up into his eyes. "No point in doing any of it halfway," she added, watching him to see if he'd show any sign of discomfort.
He smiled down at her, seeming not the least bit affected. It disappointed her a little, but not enough to deter her from starting in on the food he'd brought with them in the battered cardboard box. She was just opening the first wrapper, in fact, when it occurred to her that he was still standing, towering over her.
"Aren't you going to sit?"
"Should I?" he said, seeming genuinely puzzled.
"Well, you're blocking my view."
"Ah, sorry, your Majesty," he said, getting somewhat awkwardly to his knees before sitting down properly, his long legs stretched out in front of him, one boot crossed over the other, as he leaned back on the palms of his hands.
She glared at him, but gasped as she finally noticed the riot of colors in the sky above them.
"It's beautiful," she breathed, and he looked up as well.
"Never seen a morning here, myself. Wondered what the clouds would look like. You're right. It is rather striking, isn't it?"
"Yeah, there weren't any clouds last night."
"There's only clouds in the morning here. One of the more unique climates in the universe, this. Their days and nights are completely different."
"Like night and day?" she said, laughing a little when his eyes rolled skyward.
"Funny," he noted, but she could see he was working to keep from smiling.
She leaned back until she was lying down, trying to take in as much of the sky as possible. The patterns were ever-changing, similar to the night before but changed by the clouds that now dominated the vista before her.
"Still like your old kaleidoscope?" he asked.
"No," she said, answering him truthfully. "A million times more amazing."
They watched in silence as the sky slowly evened out into a light green.
"How'd I do, then?" he asked. She knew what he was asking but she chose to make him explain himself anyway.
"What d'you mean?"
"You had a checklist last night."
"Ah, that's right," she said, pretending she had to try quite hard to remember it. "Well, checkered blanket. Afraid I can only give you half credit for that one."
"Understood."
"Wicker basket, I believe I said. So yeah, half credit again."
"I'll accept that."
"Full points for the view. Can't begin to fault that," she said, sighing and trying to remember how that last streak of purple had wound its way across the sky and slowly morphed into the color of spring grass.
"Not bad, I'd say, on no notice."
"Hold on, that's not all I asked for. I believe I also required a handsome bloke."
"So, full credit there, then," he said, thrusting his chin upward with a comical amount of pride.
"If you say so," she said, laughing to cover her slight discomfort with this particular issue.
"Oi," he said, and there he was, suddenly, leaning over her with his face hovering just in front of her nose.
"All right," she said, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. She waited for him to pull back, but he didn't. When she gave up on waiting for him to pull back, she began to will him to close the distance and kiss her. She was equally frustrated there, stuck yet again in a maddening limbo.
She could hear the words she wanted to say in her mind and she tried to imagine saying them out loud. You did say you knew how to dance, didn't you, Doctor? He was so close to her now that she imagined that the mere act of moving her lips to speak would bring them into contact with his.
"Thanks for being here with me, Rose," he said, and she wondered if he had even noticed that their lips actually did brush each other as he spoke.
"I wouldn't miss it for anything," she answered, hearing her voice shake just a little as she spoke.
It was unbelievable, she thought, being so close to someone without having hands pawing at her, pulling at her clothes, always rushing two steps further ahead. Not that it would be all bad, really, if she were to find out today what his hands felt like on her bare back. She was suddenly feeling quite aware of what the rest of the planet was up to.
"Mating festival? Did you really bring me to a mating festival?" she asked, almost laughing out loud at the expression that passed over his face.
"More species procreate that way than you'd think. Takes a lot of the uncertainty out of it."
"Takes a lot of the fun out of it, more like." He pulled back a little, much to her disappointment.
"That, Rose, is a uniquely human perspective." She felt him shift his weight to one shoulder as his hand found hers. "Are you ready?"
She blinked up into his eyes as she pondered the several answers left to her depending on how she chose to interpret his question.
"Always," she answered, deciding to let him guess her meaning. When he pulled her to her feet and gathered up their things, she felt that all-too-familiar wave of relief and regret before she pushed it down, replacing it with excitement at the thought of their next adventure.