Don't Blink - 47/?
Title: Don't Blink - 47/?
Characters: Ten, Rose
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor? How would they get back to their proper time? Would they want to?
Rating: PG
Beta: nattieb
It's been so long since I posted that I don't quite remember how to link stuff or do a cut or just about anything. But here is the next installment!
Forty-six
The department meeting had been going on for two hours, twenty-three minutes, twelve seconds, about two hours longer than was absolutely necessary. The Doctor had been slowly losing his patience for the last two hours, sixteen minutes, forty-three seconds. The self-importance of the department heads, the cigarette smoke wafting his way no matter how he positioned his chair, even the frantic pencil scratch of the secretary and her steno pad were all conspiring to drive him mad.
He’d managed to block out his surroundings in his favorite way, by thinking about Rose. He had many, many images of Rose stored up in his frankly remarkable memory banks. From the first time he saw her, facing down a shop dummy, all the way down to watching her fall away from him towards a blank wall with Daleks and Cybermen careening around her, her face was a constant in his memory banks.
Even better than that, even better than the memory of trips to various planets and holding hands and giggling and running for their lives and running for the sheer joy of it, even better than all of that were his memories of Rose from this past year. How utterly, utterly amazing that he had them. Shopping with Rose for food and household goods, watching her twirl in a circle as she modeled a scarf for him, helping to pick out tea towels that would match the cheap dishes from Woolworth’s. They were all memories he treasured.
He’d never thought he would get to have anything like that, and certainly nothing like what he had at night with her, tucked into the same narrow bed, whispering and giggling and kissing and...
A loud exclamation from one of the chemistry professors dragged him back to the present, and he cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. Just as well - the memories he had of Rose in their bed were not the ones he ought to be dwelling on in public.
He couldn’t wait to get home. Another happy memory there, watching Rose’s face light up as she saw him, reaching up to greet him with a kiss. Debating what to eat, what program to watch on the telly, what to have for dessert. Last week they had decided to bake chocolate biscuits, and Rose swore she was still cleaning up flour.
An argument sprang up over an issue of the grading policy, taking him away from thoughts of Rose and baked goods. The Doctor had to work hard to keep from exclaiming that there were more important things in the universe to worry about. Really, would grading on a curve really alter the path of humanity?
“Enough of this, please!” All eyes turned to Ian Chesterton, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his forehead. “I’ve timed this absurd conversation. Twelve minutes! Twelve. Will grading on a curve really change the path of humanity, gentlemen? Sometimes we need to look beyond ourselves.”
The Doctor suppressed a proud smile. What a magnificent change he’d made in Ian’s life, taking him aboard the TARDIS! The others looked at Ian in shock and concern.
“Of course it matters!” snapped the professor who had brought up the issue in the first place.
“Well, of course you’d think so, Markham, and feel free to grade however you like. I personally don’t see a need to hold a discussion about it,” Ian replied.
A long, awkward silence ensued. The secretary smiled behind her pencil.
The Doctor nodded at Ian in support. Being around Ian put him on edge but he tried to act normal. Their interactions were an uncomfortable reminder that once he left his companions behind, their lives continued on without him. He had simply never thought much about them once he’d moved on. What kind of man was he to forget his friends that way? What would Rose say if she knew?
“Anything else we need covered?” someone from biology asked, and chairs were being pushed back and people were rushing out of the room before anyone could answer. Several slapped Ian on the back as they went. The Doctor cheerfully joined the crowd, heading straight for the exit and for home.
The ride home was uneventful. He did occasionally glance around at his fellow passengers, half expecting to see someone with a golden glow about their person, or perhaps someone obese with a potential zip round their forehead. Nothing unusual appeared, though, and he contented himself with staring at a newspaper and reading absolutely nothing in front of him as his mind ran along on its own.
He was set on not noticing Ian Chesterton anymore than he had to, didn’t want to be recognized. But would it be so bad if he was? How terrible would it be, really, to walk up to Ian and introduce himself properly and correctly? They could talk about old times and Barbara and -
And here the Doctor’s mind shut down, because he had done many, many terrible things during his long life, but very few had ever topped leaving Susan standing outside the TARDIS. He had never been able to reconcile his actions, and it wasn’t on the scale of the whole scale destruction of his home and people but it was close. It was sometimes worse. If he’d kept her with him she would certainly have been killed with everyone else on Gallifrey. He had given her a chance to love and be happy.
Hadn’t he?
The train pulled up to his stop, and he was jerked out of his thoughts by the rush of people heading off. He blinked rapidly down at his newspaper before folding it up and putting it away.
Time to meet Rose and walk home together.
Spring brought the end of snow and the promise of sunshine. The Doctor was spending less time at the university, preparing to defend his dissertation. For most doctoral students, this would have been an incredibly stressful time, involving very little sleep and lots of writing and rewriting of their thesis. The Doctor had no more teaching duties this term. He’d made sure his was properly typed up - he’d paid a professional to do it this time, not one of the secretaries - and spent the rest of his time hanging round the flat, reading, and waiting for Rose to come home.
He was willing to admit to himself that he was, maybe, possibly, on edge. Perhaps even a bit maudlin. His moods were swinging from incredibly happy and content to panicked and brooding. They were stuck in time. With no access to the TARDIS he had literally no way to get back. The thought of living out his days until the proper time made him want to scream. And in the back of his mind, quiet but persistent, was the thought that Rose would age and age by the time that happened.
What would he do then?
He was sitting in the flat, and the thought of Rose old and gray and tired pushed him out of his chair and out into the street. Sometime during his brooding the sunshine had changed to rain. He was wearing dark brown trousers and a blue button-down shirt; he hadn’t even thought to grab his coat. Ignoring the raindrops, he set grimly off to the shop, determined to find Rose and see her smile at him.
She was just stepping away from the locked front door of the building when she saw him, and sure enough, she broke out into a wide, happy smile.
“Hello!” And then, “Where’s your coat? It’s raining.”
“I left before it started.” He tried to take the bag that held her lunch bag and other small things. She frowned and held on to it. There then ensued a small tug-of-war, which he won.
“You’re so weird,” Rose told him, fastening the buttons on her jacket.
“It’s called chivalry,” he informed her. Her disbelieving laugh had him scowling at her. “What?”
“What? Oh, nothing, except for the fact that you are the least chivalrous person I know!”
He gaped at her in genuine outrage. “I am not!”
“You’ve left me behind lots of times,” she said sternly. “‘Don’t wander off, be right back, Rose,’ and the next thing I know I’m sitting in a prison cell of some backwater planet while sparkly things catch your eye.”
He opened his mouth to refute that statement but realized he couldn’t without lying about it. There were at least two instances with those identical circumstances.
“Well,” he said instead, trailing off into nothing.
Rose laughed. “Well, indeed! Buy me dinner and I’ll forgive you.”
He looked down at her face, lit by the streetlights and framed by blonde hair damp from the rain. She’d forgotten her umbrella. Rose shifted uncomfortably when he didn’t respond.
“Doctor? You all right?”
He was memorizing her features, committing them to memory so that he would never, ever forget them.
“Doctor?” The note of deep concern jolted him from his thoughts.
“Dinner! Yes.” He offered her his arm.
Rose took the hand he held out. “You are such a dork.”
“Yeah, but I’m your dork.”
“You’re my dork,” she agreed. “And don’t forget it.”
On impulse he stopped her before they’d gone more than a few steps. “Rose.”
She looked up at him. “Yeah?”
There were a hundred things he wanted to tell her, confess to and beg for her forgiveness. A thousand promise he wanted to make that he knew he would be unable to keep.
“I love you,” he said instead. “I love you so much.”
A slow smile crossed her face. “Quite right, too.”
They stood still for a few moments, just staring at each other, until people started to crowd around them, reminding them that they were standing on a street in the middle of the evening rush.
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand firmly in his. “I’ll buy you a curry.”
There were no more missing people being reported, but the police were in the neighborhood questioning people at the end of the month. None of the previous reported missing had been found, and it seemed the police were eager to close the cases out. Rose could not help but worry
that the Doctor could once again come under suspicion.
“They had nothing to hold me on last time,” he reminded her over dinner at their favorite pub. “I haven’t done anything, remember?” She bit her lip and he raised an eyebrow. “Should I be worried about you?” he asked in amusement. “What are you getting up to on your days off?”
“Of course not,” she replied crossly. “Sometimes police get fixated on the wrong person, and -”
“Rose Tyler, we are not living in a police procedural drama on ITV. Stop worrying.”
“Fine,” she snapped, and took an angry bite of food. He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you look at me like that!”
“What’s worrying you, mate?” Their neighbor Jeff materialized beside them, sitting down and helping himself to one of Rose’s chips.
“Missing people,” the Doctor answered. “What happened to you?” Jeff was wearing a pearl grey suit with an oversized collar, and the fabric was covered in ash.
Jeff grimaced. “Had a meeting with a client this afternoon. Man likes to smoke.”
Rose tried to stifle a cough as the smell of smoke drifted over to her. “That’s disgusting.”
“I know. The secretaries left and say they won’t come back until the offices are aired out. The missing people?” Jeff continued, waving over the waitress and placing an order for fish and chips and ale. “The ones just gone? I was just talking to the detective in charge. None of them have been found.”
“It’s so weird - usually people turn up on the other side of the city on holiday or something.” Rose sipped her Coke and frowned.
Jeff snorted. “Or washed up in the Thames.” Rose looked at him reproachfully and he shrugged. “I hate to think it, especially since one of those poor fellows was my friend, but reality is reality.”
The Doctor frowned at him. “Is that what the police think? That foul play was involved?”
“Must have. My mate Isaac wouldn’t have gone so long without coming home. He called his mum every Sunday night to check in with her.”
“But no one else is missing,” Rose pointed out. “Not recently, anyway. So isn’t that a good thing?”
“They don’t have a motive or a suspect. The bloke could have moved on, could still be here.” Jeff shrugged and stole another chip.
The doctor seemed to freeze up at his words, his eyes moving to Rose with a worried look.
“Don’t start,” she told him. “It’s one thing to not want you called out as a suspect. We don’t need to start wondering what lurks around every corner, all right?”
The Doctor couldn’t let it go, continuing to brood even after they were back home. Rose locked the door carefully behind them and turned to look at him as she shrugged off her coat. The expression on her face was one of pained patience.
“Doctor. I know you’re as crazily paranoid as the next worried man, but at some point we do need to simply live our life as if something bad isn’t going to come out around the corner at us.”
“Bad things are always around the corner! Haven’t you learned that by now?” His tone was light but challenging.
She rolled his eyes, hung her coat on the rickety coat rack, and headed to the kitchen. “Do you want some tea?”
“No,” he said sulkily, and threw himself down on the sofa, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and using it to switch the television on.
Rose stalked off into to the bedroom to change out of her dress.
“You’re really too old to pout,” she called down the hallway.
“Ha!” was the only response she got, and it was so ridiculous that she didn’t even bother to roll her eyes over it.
Once she’d peeled off the tightly-fitting sheath dress she’d worn to work (bright blue, polyester, long sleeves, itchy and hot and absolutely miserable to wear) and stuffed it into a corner of the wardrobe, she changed into her pajamas and dressing gown. On her way to wash the makeup off her face Rose paused and fished her mobile phone out of its usual place in its drawer.
Once more she dialed the number, and once more she was told that Jackie’s number was no longer in service. She put the phone away tried very hard not to feel sad.
The television was airing a news program as she left the bedroom. Inside the small bath Rose shut the door and ran the water until it was warm enough to wash with. She tidied up the sink once her face was clean and her hair was up in an easy ponytail, fixed her reflection with a stern look and went out to confront the Doctor.
He was in the kitchen, keeping watch over the kettle. “I’m sorry,” he said at once, and poured some tea into her favorite mug.
She took it in surprise. “You are? What for?”
“For being paranoid with no reason.”
“Thank you for adding ‘no reason’ to that,” she responded dryly.
“Well, if I’m paranoid for a good reason, there’s a good reason.”
She took a long, thoughtful drink of tea. “Do you want to move?”
That startled him. “What?”
“We can find a different flat. There’s no guarantee that these disappearances will stop, but if it makes you feel safer, we can move.”
He scowled at her as Rose set her mug down and moved to the sink, picking dishes up from the drying rack and setting them on the table. “It’s not about me feeling safer. I just worry about you.”
“Well, I worry about you! All sorts of things tend to happen when you’re around, you know.”
“Me! Well, I like that. Pot, meet kettle! You are the most troublesome human of my acquaintance.”
She stopped in the act of setting out bread and butter and the last of the chocolate biscuits. “Me!”
“Do the words ‘don’t wander off’ ring any bells?”
“You’re just lucky I always came back,” she answered sternly. “Where’s the jam?”
He retrieved the jar of strawberry jam and set it beside the butter. Conversation moved smoothly to other topics, and when they’d finished the bread and butter and tea Rose reheated some soup left over from the night before. They watched the telly, shared the newspaper once the programs turned off, and retired to bed when Rose’s yawns got too big.
She drew in close to the Doctor beneath the blankets, knowing he would leave once she was fast asleep.
“Promise you won’t leave tonight?”
“I won’t,” he promised softly, running his hands through her hair.
She took a deep breath and tried to voice the thoughts that chased through her head almost constantly. “This flat...we’re just waiting here, to see what happens. If we move to a new place...it’s like we’re giving up, like we’re accepting that we’re not going home again.”
His hand stilled for a moment against her head. “I know,” he said, even more softly. “I know.”
Characters: Ten, Rose
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor? How would they get back to their proper time? Would they want to?
Rating: PG
Beta: nattieb
It's been so long since I posted that I don't quite remember how to link stuff or do a cut or just about anything. But here is the next installment!
Forty-six
The department meeting had been going on for two hours, twenty-three minutes, twelve seconds, about two hours longer than was absolutely necessary. The Doctor had been slowly losing his patience for the last two hours, sixteen minutes, forty-three seconds. The self-importance of the department heads, the cigarette smoke wafting his way no matter how he positioned his chair, even the frantic pencil scratch of the secretary and her steno pad were all conspiring to drive him mad.
He’d managed to block out his surroundings in his favorite way, by thinking about Rose. He had many, many images of Rose stored up in his frankly remarkable memory banks. From the first time he saw her, facing down a shop dummy, all the way down to watching her fall away from him towards a blank wall with Daleks and Cybermen careening around her, her face was a constant in his memory banks.
Even better than that, even better than the memory of trips to various planets and holding hands and giggling and running for their lives and running for the sheer joy of it, even better than all of that were his memories of Rose from this past year. How utterly, utterly amazing that he had them. Shopping with Rose for food and household goods, watching her twirl in a circle as she modeled a scarf for him, helping to pick out tea towels that would match the cheap dishes from Woolworth’s. They were all memories he treasured.
He’d never thought he would get to have anything like that, and certainly nothing like what he had at night with her, tucked into the same narrow bed, whispering and giggling and kissing and...
A loud exclamation from one of the chemistry professors dragged him back to the present, and he cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. Just as well - the memories he had of Rose in their bed were not the ones he ought to be dwelling on in public.
He couldn’t wait to get home. Another happy memory there, watching Rose’s face light up as she saw him, reaching up to greet him with a kiss. Debating what to eat, what program to watch on the telly, what to have for dessert. Last week they had decided to bake chocolate biscuits, and Rose swore she was still cleaning up flour.
An argument sprang up over an issue of the grading policy, taking him away from thoughts of Rose and baked goods. The Doctor had to work hard to keep from exclaiming that there were more important things in the universe to worry about. Really, would grading on a curve really alter the path of humanity?
“Enough of this, please!” All eyes turned to Ian Chesterton, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his forehead. “I’ve timed this absurd conversation. Twelve minutes! Twelve. Will grading on a curve really change the path of humanity, gentlemen? Sometimes we need to look beyond ourselves.”
The Doctor suppressed a proud smile. What a magnificent change he’d made in Ian’s life, taking him aboard the TARDIS! The others looked at Ian in shock and concern.
“Of course it matters!” snapped the professor who had brought up the issue in the first place.
“Well, of course you’d think so, Markham, and feel free to grade however you like. I personally don’t see a need to hold a discussion about it,” Ian replied.
A long, awkward silence ensued. The secretary smiled behind her pencil.
The Doctor nodded at Ian in support. Being around Ian put him on edge but he tried to act normal. Their interactions were an uncomfortable reminder that once he left his companions behind, their lives continued on without him. He had simply never thought much about them once he’d moved on. What kind of man was he to forget his friends that way? What would Rose say if she knew?
“Anything else we need covered?” someone from biology asked, and chairs were being pushed back and people were rushing out of the room before anyone could answer. Several slapped Ian on the back as they went. The Doctor cheerfully joined the crowd, heading straight for the exit and for home.
The ride home was uneventful. He did occasionally glance around at his fellow passengers, half expecting to see someone with a golden glow about their person, or perhaps someone obese with a potential zip round their forehead. Nothing unusual appeared, though, and he contented himself with staring at a newspaper and reading absolutely nothing in front of him as his mind ran along on its own.
He was set on not noticing Ian Chesterton anymore than he had to, didn’t want to be recognized. But would it be so bad if he was? How terrible would it be, really, to walk up to Ian and introduce himself properly and correctly? They could talk about old times and Barbara and -
And here the Doctor’s mind shut down, because he had done many, many terrible things during his long life, but very few had ever topped leaving Susan standing outside the TARDIS. He had never been able to reconcile his actions, and it wasn’t on the scale of the whole scale destruction of his home and people but it was close. It was sometimes worse. If he’d kept her with him she would certainly have been killed with everyone else on Gallifrey. He had given her a chance to love and be happy.
Hadn’t he?
The train pulled up to his stop, and he was jerked out of his thoughts by the rush of people heading off. He blinked rapidly down at his newspaper before folding it up and putting it away.
Time to meet Rose and walk home together.
Spring brought the end of snow and the promise of sunshine. The Doctor was spending less time at the university, preparing to defend his dissertation. For most doctoral students, this would have been an incredibly stressful time, involving very little sleep and lots of writing and rewriting of their thesis. The Doctor had no more teaching duties this term. He’d made sure his was properly typed up - he’d paid a professional to do it this time, not one of the secretaries - and spent the rest of his time hanging round the flat, reading, and waiting for Rose to come home.
He was willing to admit to himself that he was, maybe, possibly, on edge. Perhaps even a bit maudlin. His moods were swinging from incredibly happy and content to panicked and brooding. They were stuck in time. With no access to the TARDIS he had literally no way to get back. The thought of living out his days until the proper time made him want to scream. And in the back of his mind, quiet but persistent, was the thought that Rose would age and age by the time that happened.
What would he do then?
He was sitting in the flat, and the thought of Rose old and gray and tired pushed him out of his chair and out into the street. Sometime during his brooding the sunshine had changed to rain. He was wearing dark brown trousers and a blue button-down shirt; he hadn’t even thought to grab his coat. Ignoring the raindrops, he set grimly off to the shop, determined to find Rose and see her smile at him.
She was just stepping away from the locked front door of the building when she saw him, and sure enough, she broke out into a wide, happy smile.
“Hello!” And then, “Where’s your coat? It’s raining.”
“I left before it started.” He tried to take the bag that held her lunch bag and other small things. She frowned and held on to it. There then ensued a small tug-of-war, which he won.
“You’re so weird,” Rose told him, fastening the buttons on her jacket.
“It’s called chivalry,” he informed her. Her disbelieving laugh had him scowling at her. “What?”
“What? Oh, nothing, except for the fact that you are the least chivalrous person I know!”
He gaped at her in genuine outrage. “I am not!”
“You’ve left me behind lots of times,” she said sternly. “‘Don’t wander off, be right back, Rose,’ and the next thing I know I’m sitting in a prison cell of some backwater planet while sparkly things catch your eye.”
He opened his mouth to refute that statement but realized he couldn’t without lying about it. There were at least two instances with those identical circumstances.
“Well,” he said instead, trailing off into nothing.
Rose laughed. “Well, indeed! Buy me dinner and I’ll forgive you.”
He looked down at her face, lit by the streetlights and framed by blonde hair damp from the rain. She’d forgotten her umbrella. Rose shifted uncomfortably when he didn’t respond.
“Doctor? You all right?”
He was memorizing her features, committing them to memory so that he would never, ever forget them.
“Doctor?” The note of deep concern jolted him from his thoughts.
“Dinner! Yes.” He offered her his arm.
Rose took the hand he held out. “You are such a dork.”
“Yeah, but I’m your dork.”
“You’re my dork,” she agreed. “And don’t forget it.”
On impulse he stopped her before they’d gone more than a few steps. “Rose.”
She looked up at him. “Yeah?”
There were a hundred things he wanted to tell her, confess to and beg for her forgiveness. A thousand promise he wanted to make that he knew he would be unable to keep.
“I love you,” he said instead. “I love you so much.”
A slow smile crossed her face. “Quite right, too.”
They stood still for a few moments, just staring at each other, until people started to crowd around them, reminding them that they were standing on a street in the middle of the evening rush.
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand firmly in his. “I’ll buy you a curry.”
There were no more missing people being reported, but the police were in the neighborhood questioning people at the end of the month. None of the previous reported missing had been found, and it seemed the police were eager to close the cases out. Rose could not help but worry
that the Doctor could once again come under suspicion.
“They had nothing to hold me on last time,” he reminded her over dinner at their favorite pub. “I haven’t done anything, remember?” She bit her lip and he raised an eyebrow. “Should I be worried about you?” he asked in amusement. “What are you getting up to on your days off?”
“Of course not,” she replied crossly. “Sometimes police get fixated on the wrong person, and -”
“Rose Tyler, we are not living in a police procedural drama on ITV. Stop worrying.”
“Fine,” she snapped, and took an angry bite of food. He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you look at me like that!”
“What’s worrying you, mate?” Their neighbor Jeff materialized beside them, sitting down and helping himself to one of Rose’s chips.
“Missing people,” the Doctor answered. “What happened to you?” Jeff was wearing a pearl grey suit with an oversized collar, and the fabric was covered in ash.
Jeff grimaced. “Had a meeting with a client this afternoon. Man likes to smoke.”
Rose tried to stifle a cough as the smell of smoke drifted over to her. “That’s disgusting.”
“I know. The secretaries left and say they won’t come back until the offices are aired out. The missing people?” Jeff continued, waving over the waitress and placing an order for fish and chips and ale. “The ones just gone? I was just talking to the detective in charge. None of them have been found.”
“It’s so weird - usually people turn up on the other side of the city on holiday or something.” Rose sipped her Coke and frowned.
Jeff snorted. “Or washed up in the Thames.” Rose looked at him reproachfully and he shrugged. “I hate to think it, especially since one of those poor fellows was my friend, but reality is reality.”
The Doctor frowned at him. “Is that what the police think? That foul play was involved?”
“Must have. My mate Isaac wouldn’t have gone so long without coming home. He called his mum every Sunday night to check in with her.”
“But no one else is missing,” Rose pointed out. “Not recently, anyway. So isn’t that a good thing?”
“They don’t have a motive or a suspect. The bloke could have moved on, could still be here.” Jeff shrugged and stole another chip.
The doctor seemed to freeze up at his words, his eyes moving to Rose with a worried look.
“Don’t start,” she told him. “It’s one thing to not want you called out as a suspect. We don’t need to start wondering what lurks around every corner, all right?”
The Doctor couldn’t let it go, continuing to brood even after they were back home. Rose locked the door carefully behind them and turned to look at him as she shrugged off her coat. The expression on her face was one of pained patience.
“Doctor. I know you’re as crazily paranoid as the next worried man, but at some point we do need to simply live our life as if something bad isn’t going to come out around the corner at us.”
“Bad things are always around the corner! Haven’t you learned that by now?” His tone was light but challenging.
She rolled his eyes, hung her coat on the rickety coat rack, and headed to the kitchen. “Do you want some tea?”
“No,” he said sulkily, and threw himself down on the sofa, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and using it to switch the television on.
Rose stalked off into to the bedroom to change out of her dress.
“You’re really too old to pout,” she called down the hallway.
“Ha!” was the only response she got, and it was so ridiculous that she didn’t even bother to roll her eyes over it.
Once she’d peeled off the tightly-fitting sheath dress she’d worn to work (bright blue, polyester, long sleeves, itchy and hot and absolutely miserable to wear) and stuffed it into a corner of the wardrobe, she changed into her pajamas and dressing gown. On her way to wash the makeup off her face Rose paused and fished her mobile phone out of its usual place in its drawer.
Once more she dialed the number, and once more she was told that Jackie’s number was no longer in service. She put the phone away tried very hard not to feel sad.
The television was airing a news program as she left the bedroom. Inside the small bath Rose shut the door and ran the water until it was warm enough to wash with. She tidied up the sink once her face was clean and her hair was up in an easy ponytail, fixed her reflection with a stern look and went out to confront the Doctor.
He was in the kitchen, keeping watch over the kettle. “I’m sorry,” he said at once, and poured some tea into her favorite mug.
She took it in surprise. “You are? What for?”
“For being paranoid with no reason.”
“Thank you for adding ‘no reason’ to that,” she responded dryly.
“Well, if I’m paranoid for a good reason, there’s a good reason.”
She took a long, thoughtful drink of tea. “Do you want to move?”
That startled him. “What?”
“We can find a different flat. There’s no guarantee that these disappearances will stop, but if it makes you feel safer, we can move.”
He scowled at her as Rose set her mug down and moved to the sink, picking dishes up from the drying rack and setting them on the table. “It’s not about me feeling safer. I just worry about you.”
“Well, I worry about you! All sorts of things tend to happen when you’re around, you know.”
“Me! Well, I like that. Pot, meet kettle! You are the most troublesome human of my acquaintance.”
She stopped in the act of setting out bread and butter and the last of the chocolate biscuits. “Me!”
“Do the words ‘don’t wander off’ ring any bells?”
“You’re just lucky I always came back,” she answered sternly. “Where’s the jam?”
He retrieved the jar of strawberry jam and set it beside the butter. Conversation moved smoothly to other topics, and when they’d finished the bread and butter and tea Rose reheated some soup left over from the night before. They watched the telly, shared the newspaper once the programs turned off, and retired to bed when Rose’s yawns got too big.
She drew in close to the Doctor beneath the blankets, knowing he would leave once she was fast asleep.
“Promise you won’t leave tonight?”
“I won’t,” he promised softly, running his hands through her hair.
She took a deep breath and tried to voice the thoughts that chased through her head almost constantly. “This flat...we’re just waiting here, to see what happens. If we move to a new place...it’s like we’re giving up, like we’re accepting that we’re not going home again.”
His hand stilled for a moment against her head. “I know,” he said, even more softly. “I know.”