Winter Sun
Winter Sun, ten/rose, pg.
It's just past Christmas, which has been a particularly cold one, and Rose wants just a little bit of sun. That's not to much to ask, is it? Well, the Doctor doesn't do white beaches and clear blue seas, but what she gets is something much more than she expected.
Winter Sun
“Right, so how about it, Miss Tyler, a summer holiday?”
Rose beamed. They had just spent another Christmas with Jackie, although this one was invaded by relatives of Rose's from near and far. Neither he, or Rose was told about it (the Doctor even suspected Jackie didn't know quite so many of her relatives would try and squeeze into her tiny flat) so they had to make do with a metre or so of the kitchen floor. Jackie had demanded that the TARDIS was parked a safe distance away from the flat and that they, or at least Rose, slept in the house so the relatives didn't notice anything amiss. The Doctor refused to leave Rose on her own so the two had dragged the Doctor's duvet from the TARDIS and had the kitchen to themselves (which wasn't hard considering even with the two of them there was baring enough room to breathe without hitting a cabinet).
So the Doctor, as soon as they had bid their goodbyes after dinner on Boxing Day, had announced that he was taking Rose on a summer holiday, to make up for the Spanish Inquisition her relatives had subjected her to; endless questions about how she was, how her travels were, where she had been, who this 'Doctor' was.
And, most surprisingly, it was actually Jackie that had saved them from death by questioning with supplying endless cups of tea and alcohol and karaoke, which even Rose (albeit after consuming her body weight in alcohol) had had a go of, which had shown she was actually a pretty good singer. Maybe she would have been better if she hadn't thrown up halfway through Robbie Williams' Let Me Entertain You.
So they had set off as soon as the leftovers from Christmas dinner had been wolfed down on Boxing Day, the presents were in the TARDIS (now situated in Jackie's front room for convenience) and the wrapping paper in the bin. Of course, Jackie had pleaded with them 'come on, just a few more days?' but the couple had departed with sincere promises that they would be back bright and early on New Year's Eve. The Doctor had grumbled a bit about that one, but Rose had promised that they wouldn't have to go back for a while after the nearly-but-not-quite week-long stay at the Powell Estate.
“Sounds good to me,” Rose said, closing the door on her mother, blowing her a final kiss goodbye. “Somewhere hot, please. I know they said winter would be getting colder, but that was ... cold,” she concluded lamely, but the Doctor laughed. With the mean temperature of Christmas hovering somewhere around 1 degree centigrade, hey had spent most of their time at Jackie's with the heating on max and several jumpers on, with even the Doctor dragging out an extra jumper from his ninth incarnation to add, paving the way for days of teasing from Rose, to whom he had always insisted he didn't feel the cold.
“Hot it is then!” the Doctor said, pressing some buttons before pausing. He seemed thoughtful for a moment. “Actually,” he said, after a minute of humming and aahing and stroking his chin like he had a beard there. “I think I may have the perfect place.”
Rose braced herself, beaming all the while, as they went tumbling through the Vortex at breakneck speeds. She briefly wondered if the Vortex had speed limits before she was thrown to the side as the TARDIS signalled their arrival.
“Ready?” the Doctor said, as he did before every journey they had. He did it on purpose, Rose believed, wanting the now-familiar anticipation prick at her skin for a few moments more than necessary.
Rose could only nod, her blonde head bobbing up and down in excitement. At that moment she looked no older than five, excited at the prospect of getting an ice-cream.
He smiled and let her brush past him, throwing open the doors. Her excitement soon turned to dismay.
“I asked for sun, Doctor, not frost.”
The landscape was beautiful, Rose could appreciate that. There was a long stretch of ice for as far as she could see. There was water, though, a sea of sorts, although it was a purplish colour. There was trees as well, though, behind the beach of ice; icicles hung like crystals from it, glinting in the sunlight. Far in the distance, she could make out what seemed to be a giant glacier. It was beautiful. It looked like Narnia, if such a place existed.
The Doctor just smiled. “Come on,” he said, stepping out into the icy landscape. He had dressed for summer, in the way he could; he had removed his overcoat,suit jacket and tie and had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, and had unbuttoned his shirt showing a little more chest than Rose could handle. A pair of sunglasses were hooked on the neck on his shirt.
Rose was also dressed for summer weather; her denim shorts were so short the pockets peeked out from under the hem, and teamed with a azure sleeveless vest top and blue flip-flops she looked totally unprepared for cold weather. She had a pair of sunglasses perched atop her head, but she was already deciding whether to go and swap them for a jacket.
“No way. I'll freeze out there,” Rose said, standing behind the TARDIS door that was still shut, as if that would protect her from the cold.
“No, you won't. That's what so magical about this planet. I'm not cold,” the Doctor explained. Rose frowned. “Look at my arm - I don't even have goosebumps.” He held out his arm, which Rose inspected and found no goosebumps.
“How … ?” Rose said.
“Come out and I'll tell you,” he said teasingly, taking off across the ice.
Rose huffed, wondering what to do; but as always curiosity won and she stepped out and into the ice wonderland.
Boy, it's hot.
Hot?!
“Oi, Doctor,” Rose said, catching the attention of the man who was a fifty meters in front of her, “How come I'm boiling?” She fanned her face, slipped the sunglasses down onto her nose.
The Doctor turned back, his expression gleeful as he walked towards Rose. ”That's the beauty of this planet, Rose! It's in the Berquin galaxy, the planet Tergive, which is actually derived from Latin! Really, how they did that I have no idea … but it's from the Latin Tergiversatio, which means backwards. Everything here is backwards. Which means that it is frosty and icy when it's sunny, and when everything isn't covered in ice it's cold!” he finished as he stood in front of Rose, hand outstretched.
“Seriously?” Rose said, taking the offered hand. “Like, what are the people like?”
“It's a deserted planet. What, did you think they'd walk on their hands and talk out their arse?”
”Yeah, actually, I was thinking that,” Rose said, nudging him. “Wow … this, this is really beautiful, Doctor.”
“Yup,” he said, popping the 'p', but he never took his eyes off her as she took the landscape around her in wonderment. “Wait here,” he said, and ran up the bank, snapped a crystal icicle from a silver tree, and bounded down to her again. “Present.”
Rose took it in her hands, rolling it around. It felt warm to the touch, which was pleasant in a disconcerting way. It caught the light as she turned it, throwing light onto her hands in every colour on the spectrum and one at the end that she had no name for. It was beautiful, way more than any diamond or any jewel back on Earth.
She couldn't speak when she looked up at him, but clearly her face said it all as he broke into a mega-watt smile, one she found herself mirroring. She looked up at him, and she simply couldn't help herself, there was simply no other way to thank him; she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him hard, but gently, on the mouth.
When they pulled apart the Doctor was laughing. “You're welcome,” he said, his cool breath billowing steam into her face, like what one would usual associate with breathing in cold weather. Rose laughed too, and the Doctor took her hand, swinging in gently back and forth, not moving away so the were still about two centimetres apart.
“Now, with everything I've told you about being backwards, are you up for a swim in the sea?”
Rose's hand is ripped from his and she's halfway down to the beach, crystal in hand, before he's even finished the sentence.