Hearts and Minds Collection: Rosebud (10/Rose)
Title: The Hearts and Minds Collection: Rosebud
Author: angelofprey (it's unbeta-ed so mistakes are my own)
Character/Pairing: Rose/Doctor (Ten)
Rating: G
Summary: The Doctor is on a beach and meets a little girl.
Disclaimer: I don't Own Doctor Who or the BBC. They own me...
Author's Notes: Written in response to a series of picture prompts from themasterspet over at LJ. Might do a couple more… there were some other ones that looked intriguing. This wasn’t the prompt I had originally planned to use… but hey, my muse is very fickle.
Grandma Prentice lived on the coast.
She had a little cottage, and a big garden, and six-and-three-quarter-old Rose Tyler couldn’t hold in her excitement when she could smell the ocean from her bedroom window.
Her mum, Jackie Tyler, had saved up for a month (meaning absolutely no chips for a whole month!) to get them here for the week. Rose initially had moaned when Jackie mentioned that they were going to visit Grandma Prentice. Grandma Prentice smelled like kitty litter, and her kisses were too wet… But then Jackie mentioned that they would be visiting her house on the seashore, and Rose found that the idea of seeing the ocean for the first time far outweighed the displeasures of seeing Grandma Prentice.
It was seven in the morning, according to the digital clock on the lacy nightstand next to her lacy frilled bed… which also smelled like kitty litter, so Rose figured that it was still early enough for her to slip out of the house and down to the seashore for a few minutes then pop back inside before her mother woke up. They had gotten in late last night and Jackie promised to take her down to the beach first thing in the morning, but Rose just couldn’t wait a second more. She’d just pretend to be surprised and in awe of the beach when her mum brought her down later that morning.
Rose hopped out of bed and dressed herself in a light blue shirt that had white sleeves that made it look like she was wearing two shirts at once, she also pulled on a pair of darker blue sweat pants and a pair of well-loved wellies, before she snuck down stairs, tiptoed out the front door, then broke into a run when she reached the garden gate.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Rose Tyler was confused, and maybe a little bit lost. First of all, the beach was nothing like she’d imagined. She’d seen plenty of beaches on all of the travel shows on tellie, and she’d seen others in the window of the travel agency down the street back home. Where were the palm trees? Why wasn’t the sun shining over clear turquoise waters? Why did the sand not look like miniature yellow diamonds? This wasn’t what a beach was supposed to look like!
It was a normal grey day and the clouds over head were reflected grey on the water. Through breaks in those clouds patches of sky-blue could be seen but those were few and far between. A stiff breeze was kicking up the looser sand and tossing it in Rose’s eyes. Greeny-brown seaweed crunched under her wellies and little brine-bugs jumped out of the way of her steps. Rose had been wandering for… a long time now and she wanted to go back to Grandma Prentice’s for the pancakes she had been promised. The only problem was, she couldn’t remember which direction exactly Grandma Prentice’s was.
Instead of panicking, Rose did what Rose did best, made the most of the situation, eventually her mother would come along and find her, probably spank her for wandering off, but in the end she’d be safe and happily eating pancakes, and that’s really all that mattered.
By making the most of it, Rose decided that startling the seagulls into flight was the best option. So Rose Tyler ran across the expanse of beach with her arms flung wide and making her closest impression to a seagull-call. The birds were satisfyingly startled away from their savaging and took to the air when Rose got too close.
Eventually Rose had to stop and flopped onto the beach with a huff, and lay looking up at the clouds, her chest heaving from her previous exertion.
Suddenly a face blocked out the sun and rudely, but brightly called, “Hello!”
Rose screamed.
“Whoa, whoa! Shh!” The stranger said, putting his hands on her shoulders and working very hard to calm her down. When Rose stopped screaming he smiled brightly at her, “There now, who’re you?”
Rose clamped her mouth shut and shook her head.
“Ah,” said the man. “You’re mum’s probably told you never to talk to strangers is that right?”
Rose nodded, her hands still covering her mouth and staring at the stranger wide-eyed.
“Well, then, I can remedy that! Hello, I’m the Doctor. Nice to meet you!” The man offered Rose his hand to shake, and she eyed it warily.
“S’alright,” The Doctor said, “S’just my hand.” He wiggled his fingers and his eyebrows at the same time and Rose tried very hard not to smile.
Rose finally gave in and shook the man’s hand, he had very long fingers and her hand disappeared into his.
“Now then, we can’t not be strangers until you tell me your name. I promise I’m very nice. I’m a traveler, that,” He pointed behind him to a blue box. “Is my travel machine.”
Rose was beginning to find fewer and fewer reasons not to like this man. He certainly seemed friendly enough. He had brown hair that was standing up in every direction imaginable, and had warm brown eyes. He was wearing a rumpled brown suit and a long tan coat, and a pair of dirty, well-loved trainers.
“I was just popping by and I noticed you lying out here all by yourself. So, if you tell me your name, I’ll get you back to where you came from.”
“It’s Rose. Rose Tyler.”
The man’s face was suddenly very different from the gentle smile it had been only a moment before hearing her name. His eyes searched her face frantically before pulling a pen-light-like thing out of his pocket and shining it in her face. It whirred at her.
“Hey! What’re you--!?” Rose huffed backing up a few steps.
The light suddenly went out and the Doctor just stared at her with a strange expression on his face.
“Um,” she stammered, now nervous under his gaze. “Are you alright?” She asked gently, creeping forward and reaching out one hand to touch his face.
The Doctor started and looked down at her hand. When his eyes returned to her face he was smiling again, but he looked like he was really seeing her now. “What? Yes! Ah… And how old are you… Rose Tyler?”
“Six-and-three-quarters.” She answered proudly, grinning at him.
“Six-and-three-quarters.” The Doctor repeated grinning. “Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. You know Rose Tyler; I think you’re going to be something wonderful when you grow up.”
“How’s that?” Rose replied, her mood dampening a little. “I live on a council estate… The girls at school say no one great ever grew up on an estate.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t listen to them.” The Doctor said puffing out his cheeks and then blowing out the air through his teeth. “Loads of great people come from council estates!”
“Name three!” Rose insisted.
“Ah…” The Doctor’s mouth opened and closed like a fish a few times, Rose giggled. “Well… there was… um… well… alright fine you got me, I don’t know anyone besides you, Mickey Smith, and Jackie Tyler, but that hasn’t happened yet.” He muttered.
Luckily little Rose didn’t hear the last bit.
“So what are you doing alone on this beach Rose Tyler?” The Doctor asked.
“I got lost.” She admitted. “I really wanted to see the beach so I snuck out of Grandma Prentice’s house… but I don’t remember how to get back...” she looked vaguely in the direction she had come from earlier, her head whipped around suddenly, her expression excited. “Do you think you could help me?!”
The Doctor smiled fondly. “Always wandering off. Alright Rose Tyler, you have my word that I will get you back to your Grandma Prentice’s safe and sound. Come on.”
She took his outstretched hand and grinned up at him, the Doctor returned the smiled.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Ten minutes and forty-three seconds later the Doctor returned Rose to her Grandma Prentice.
He knew that Jackie Tyler would awake a half an hour later to find her daughter curled on her bed asleep, fully clothed and with sandy boots by the bedside and sandy hair on her pillow.
Rose had told him about this particular excursion when they’d visited one of the beaches on Quixotic 8.7- beta beta/kappa apple pi 67.
She said that the first time she’d ever seen a beach she’d wandered out of her Grandma Prentice’s house early and had gotten lost. She’d been returned by, who she supposed was, a local man because he took her through three back gardens, (and the first had a yappy dog that she’d had to sit on his shoulders to pass without her getting bitten), around two sheds (one melon colored, the other green) and through one hedgerow into her grandmother’s backyard (which smelled oddly of kitty litter). This was a route that a local person could only know. Rose had also told the Doctor that she and the man had pretended to be on a perilous quest the entire way. The yappy dog had been a fearsome dragon, and the man was a good knight who had protected little Princess Rose most gallantly, even though he had almost dropped her at one point. The sheds had been stone ogres and the hedgerows had been the forests at the boarder of her kingdom. Rose had been so enchanted by the man that she remembered actually wanting to forgo her promised morning pancakes to play with him some more. But he’d refused, claiming to be needed elsewhere. She couldn’t for the life of her remember what he looked like though…
The Doctor played his role to the t. Princess Rose was indeed protected from the fearsome yappy dragon, stone ogres were avoided, hedgerows were traversed, and Rose was returned to her Grandma Prentice’s back garden… which really did smell of kitty-litter.
And now it was time to say good-bye.
The Doctor hadn’t meant to ever see a younger version of Rose, well aside from when she’d been a baby in a bassinet, in a church, at a wedding and the world had been ending. He certainly hadn’t known that Rose’s “local hero” had been him. He wondered absently if she’d recognized him after all these years, he rather doubted it, she probably would have said something to that effect if she had recognized him.
It was amusing to find that little Rose was just as jeopardy friendly as big Rose was. It was also amusing to find out that big Rose was just as adorable as little Rose was, and just as heartfelt.
But now it really was time to say good-bye.
“You want to come in and have pancakes with us?” Little Rose said, interrupting his thoughts.
Part of him whined like a dog and begged to be allowed to follow this little girl every step of her life and never lose sight of her again… it would be so easy… NO! The other parts shouted. Unfortunately, the parts of his brain shouting no were the ones he listened to.
The Doctor sighed, “I can’t.”
Little Rose pouted, and he felt his heartstrings tug all over again. “Why not?” she asked, her voice small.
He knelt to her level. “I’ve got somewhere I’ve got to be. I’ve got things I need to do…”
“Will I ever see you again?” He felt it deep in his gut; he remembered another time when she said those words to him, standing on a beach…
But this time the answer was more to his liking.
“Oh, yes.”
Rose smiled, and turned to run into the house. “Bye, then!” she called over her shoulder.
He waved, and smiled a little sadly.
The Doctor turned to go and nearly fell flat on his face when something wrapped itself around his knees.
“Thank you, Doctor!” Rose said. He knelt again and hugged her back.
“You’re very welcome, Rose Tyler.”
She kissed his cheek, and then ran back into her grandma’s house for real this time with a bright smile and a “See ya!”
The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck as he walked away and shoved his hands in his pockets on his way back to the TARDIS. She hummed a greeting to him when he entered, her consciousness brushing against his in a comforting gesture. He tossed his coat off and walked up to the console and patted some of the levers. Then he sent the ship into the vortex and set the coordinates for random. Who knew? He might run into Rose Tyler again…
When he landed he poked his head out of the door and found himself outside a hospital… Well… he might as well have a peek inside; after all he was feeling a bit… blah…
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A/N: Well… I like it…
I used this image here:
Comments are lovely!
Author: angelofprey (it's unbeta-ed so mistakes are my own)
Character/Pairing: Rose/Doctor (Ten)
Rating: G
Summary: The Doctor is on a beach and meets a little girl.
Disclaimer: I don't Own Doctor Who or the BBC. They own me...
Author's Notes: Written in response to a series of picture prompts from themasterspet over at LJ. Might do a couple more… there were some other ones that looked intriguing. This wasn’t the prompt I had originally planned to use… but hey, my muse is very fickle.
Grandma Prentice lived on the coast.
She had a little cottage, and a big garden, and six-and-three-quarter-old Rose Tyler couldn’t hold in her excitement when she could smell the ocean from her bedroom window.
Her mum, Jackie Tyler, had saved up for a month (meaning absolutely no chips for a whole month!) to get them here for the week. Rose initially had moaned when Jackie mentioned that they were going to visit Grandma Prentice. Grandma Prentice smelled like kitty litter, and her kisses were too wet… But then Jackie mentioned that they would be visiting her house on the seashore, and Rose found that the idea of seeing the ocean for the first time far outweighed the displeasures of seeing Grandma Prentice.
It was seven in the morning, according to the digital clock on the lacy nightstand next to her lacy frilled bed… which also smelled like kitty litter, so Rose figured that it was still early enough for her to slip out of the house and down to the seashore for a few minutes then pop back inside before her mother woke up. They had gotten in late last night and Jackie promised to take her down to the beach first thing in the morning, but Rose just couldn’t wait a second more. She’d just pretend to be surprised and in awe of the beach when her mum brought her down later that morning.
Rose hopped out of bed and dressed herself in a light blue shirt that had white sleeves that made it look like she was wearing two shirts at once, she also pulled on a pair of darker blue sweat pants and a pair of well-loved wellies, before she snuck down stairs, tiptoed out the front door, then broke into a run when she reached the garden gate.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Rose Tyler was confused, and maybe a little bit lost. First of all, the beach was nothing like she’d imagined. She’d seen plenty of beaches on all of the travel shows on tellie, and she’d seen others in the window of the travel agency down the street back home. Where were the palm trees? Why wasn’t the sun shining over clear turquoise waters? Why did the sand not look like miniature yellow diamonds? This wasn’t what a beach was supposed to look like!
It was a normal grey day and the clouds over head were reflected grey on the water. Through breaks in those clouds patches of sky-blue could be seen but those were few and far between. A stiff breeze was kicking up the looser sand and tossing it in Rose’s eyes. Greeny-brown seaweed crunched under her wellies and little brine-bugs jumped out of the way of her steps. Rose had been wandering for… a long time now and she wanted to go back to Grandma Prentice’s for the pancakes she had been promised. The only problem was, she couldn’t remember which direction exactly Grandma Prentice’s was.
Instead of panicking, Rose did what Rose did best, made the most of the situation, eventually her mother would come along and find her, probably spank her for wandering off, but in the end she’d be safe and happily eating pancakes, and that’s really all that mattered.
By making the most of it, Rose decided that startling the seagulls into flight was the best option. So Rose Tyler ran across the expanse of beach with her arms flung wide and making her closest impression to a seagull-call. The birds were satisfyingly startled away from their savaging and took to the air when Rose got too close.
Eventually Rose had to stop and flopped onto the beach with a huff, and lay looking up at the clouds, her chest heaving from her previous exertion.
Suddenly a face blocked out the sun and rudely, but brightly called, “Hello!”
Rose screamed.
“Whoa, whoa! Shh!” The stranger said, putting his hands on her shoulders and working very hard to calm her down. When Rose stopped screaming he smiled brightly at her, “There now, who’re you?”
Rose clamped her mouth shut and shook her head.
“Ah,” said the man. “You’re mum’s probably told you never to talk to strangers is that right?”
Rose nodded, her hands still covering her mouth and staring at the stranger wide-eyed.
“Well, then, I can remedy that! Hello, I’m the Doctor. Nice to meet you!” The man offered Rose his hand to shake, and she eyed it warily.
“S’alright,” The Doctor said, “S’just my hand.” He wiggled his fingers and his eyebrows at the same time and Rose tried very hard not to smile.
Rose finally gave in and shook the man’s hand, he had very long fingers and her hand disappeared into his.
“Now then, we can’t not be strangers until you tell me your name. I promise I’m very nice. I’m a traveler, that,” He pointed behind him to a blue box. “Is my travel machine.”
Rose was beginning to find fewer and fewer reasons not to like this man. He certainly seemed friendly enough. He had brown hair that was standing up in every direction imaginable, and had warm brown eyes. He was wearing a rumpled brown suit and a long tan coat, and a pair of dirty, well-loved trainers.
“I was just popping by and I noticed you lying out here all by yourself. So, if you tell me your name, I’ll get you back to where you came from.”
“It’s Rose. Rose Tyler.”
The man’s face was suddenly very different from the gentle smile it had been only a moment before hearing her name. His eyes searched her face frantically before pulling a pen-light-like thing out of his pocket and shining it in her face. It whirred at her.
“Hey! What’re you--!?” Rose huffed backing up a few steps.
The light suddenly went out and the Doctor just stared at her with a strange expression on his face.
“Um,” she stammered, now nervous under his gaze. “Are you alright?” She asked gently, creeping forward and reaching out one hand to touch his face.
The Doctor started and looked down at her hand. When his eyes returned to her face he was smiling again, but he looked like he was really seeing her now. “What? Yes! Ah… And how old are you… Rose Tyler?”
“Six-and-three-quarters.” She answered proudly, grinning at him.
“Six-and-three-quarters.” The Doctor repeated grinning. “Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. You know Rose Tyler; I think you’re going to be something wonderful when you grow up.”
“How’s that?” Rose replied, her mood dampening a little. “I live on a council estate… The girls at school say no one great ever grew up on an estate.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t listen to them.” The Doctor said puffing out his cheeks and then blowing out the air through his teeth. “Loads of great people come from council estates!”
“Name three!” Rose insisted.
“Ah…” The Doctor’s mouth opened and closed like a fish a few times, Rose giggled. “Well… there was… um… well… alright fine you got me, I don’t know anyone besides you, Mickey Smith, and Jackie Tyler, but that hasn’t happened yet.” He muttered.
Luckily little Rose didn’t hear the last bit.
“So what are you doing alone on this beach Rose Tyler?” The Doctor asked.
“I got lost.” She admitted. “I really wanted to see the beach so I snuck out of Grandma Prentice’s house… but I don’t remember how to get back...” she looked vaguely in the direction she had come from earlier, her head whipped around suddenly, her expression excited. “Do you think you could help me?!”
The Doctor smiled fondly. “Always wandering off. Alright Rose Tyler, you have my word that I will get you back to your Grandma Prentice’s safe and sound. Come on.”
She took his outstretched hand and grinned up at him, the Doctor returned the smiled.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Ten minutes and forty-three seconds later the Doctor returned Rose to her Grandma Prentice.
He knew that Jackie Tyler would awake a half an hour later to find her daughter curled on her bed asleep, fully clothed and with sandy boots by the bedside and sandy hair on her pillow.
Rose had told him about this particular excursion when they’d visited one of the beaches on Quixotic 8.7- beta beta/kappa apple pi 67.
She said that the first time she’d ever seen a beach she’d wandered out of her Grandma Prentice’s house early and had gotten lost. She’d been returned by, who she supposed was, a local man because he took her through three back gardens, (and the first had a yappy dog that she’d had to sit on his shoulders to pass without her getting bitten), around two sheds (one melon colored, the other green) and through one hedgerow into her grandmother’s backyard (which smelled oddly of kitty litter). This was a route that a local person could only know. Rose had also told the Doctor that she and the man had pretended to be on a perilous quest the entire way. The yappy dog had been a fearsome dragon, and the man was a good knight who had protected little Princess Rose most gallantly, even though he had almost dropped her at one point. The sheds had been stone ogres and the hedgerows had been the forests at the boarder of her kingdom. Rose had been so enchanted by the man that she remembered actually wanting to forgo her promised morning pancakes to play with him some more. But he’d refused, claiming to be needed elsewhere. She couldn’t for the life of her remember what he looked like though…
The Doctor played his role to the t. Princess Rose was indeed protected from the fearsome yappy dragon, stone ogres were avoided, hedgerows were traversed, and Rose was returned to her Grandma Prentice’s back garden… which really did smell of kitty-litter.
And now it was time to say good-bye.
The Doctor hadn’t meant to ever see a younger version of Rose, well aside from when she’d been a baby in a bassinet, in a church, at a wedding and the world had been ending. He certainly hadn’t known that Rose’s “local hero” had been him. He wondered absently if she’d recognized him after all these years, he rather doubted it, she probably would have said something to that effect if she had recognized him.
It was amusing to find that little Rose was just as jeopardy friendly as big Rose was. It was also amusing to find out that big Rose was just as adorable as little Rose was, and just as heartfelt.
But now it really was time to say good-bye.
“You want to come in and have pancakes with us?” Little Rose said, interrupting his thoughts.
Part of him whined like a dog and begged to be allowed to follow this little girl every step of her life and never lose sight of her again… it would be so easy… NO! The other parts shouted. Unfortunately, the parts of his brain shouting no were the ones he listened to.
The Doctor sighed, “I can’t.”
Little Rose pouted, and he felt his heartstrings tug all over again. “Why not?” she asked, her voice small.
He knelt to her level. “I’ve got somewhere I’ve got to be. I’ve got things I need to do…”
“Will I ever see you again?” He felt it deep in his gut; he remembered another time when she said those words to him, standing on a beach…
But this time the answer was more to his liking.
“Oh, yes.”
Rose smiled, and turned to run into the house. “Bye, then!” she called over her shoulder.
He waved, and smiled a little sadly.
The Doctor turned to go and nearly fell flat on his face when something wrapped itself around his knees.
“Thank you, Doctor!” Rose said. He knelt again and hugged her back.
“You’re very welcome, Rose Tyler.”
She kissed his cheek, and then ran back into her grandma’s house for real this time with a bright smile and a “See ya!”
The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck as he walked away and shoved his hands in his pockets on his way back to the TARDIS. She hummed a greeting to him when he entered, her consciousness brushing against his in a comforting gesture. He tossed his coat off and walked up to the console and patted some of the levers. Then he sent the ship into the vortex and set the coordinates for random. Who knew? He might run into Rose Tyler again…
When he landed he poked his head out of the door and found himself outside a hospital… Well… he might as well have a peek inside; after all he was feeling a bit… blah…
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A/N: Well… I like it…
I used this image here:
Comments are lovely!