Who Fic - Better Days
Better Days PG-13, Ten/Rose
The much anticipated follow up to where The Art of Being Human left off. Warning: this story contains awkward conversations, a veritable Holiday spree, Banana Daiquiris, a bit of kissing, an unexpected present and a Chinese Dragon Puppet. Make of that what you will and Happy Chinese New Year!
Their next stop was supposed to be a proper Victorian Christmas - Turkey, snow, the whole nine yards. Despite his best intentions however the Doctor completely missed the mark, both in time and place. They somehow wound up in America instead where they rescued a young boy who had fallen into the family well. Turned out it was Thanksgiving and they were asked them to stay and celebrate. The Doctor tried to excuse his driving with a blustered, “Well it’s like Christmas - just a month early!” but Rose merely laughed and patted him on the arm.
“Not like I expected you to hit on it straight away anyway,” she said, goofily solemn. She had never been to a Thanksgiving celebration before and was surprised at how similar the fare was to Christmas. This particular family had made it somewhat of a tradition to go around the table and let each member give thanks and toast to something. The Doctor waved off all of their thank you’s for his bravery in rescuing their son and Rose couldn’t think of anything she was thankful for that she wanted to go blurting out in front of a group of strangers. But then...
“I’d like to give thanks...”
Rose startled at the sound of the Doctor’s voice, rising clear above the warm babble of voices. Polite to a fault, their hosts all listened in intently to their guest as he stood and raised his drink.
“To my...brother-” he stammered only slightly over the word. “John.”
Rose suddenly felt like her ribs were tightening in on her chest, as if a corset had been built into her very skin. The Doctor swallowed and then sought her out, meeting her gaze and giving a tight little smile. “For taking care of Rose when I couldn’t.”
“To John,” their hosts echoed and they all drank, Rose struggling to swallow through the lump in her throat.
Yeah she definitely wasn’t going to be getting up and making a speech anytime soon.
“I thought for a minute back there you were gonna give thanks for me.”
They’d had a lovely meal but the wine and apple cider had been even nicer and Rose had drunk quite a bit more than she perhaps should have. Now on their way back to the TARDIS she was leaning her slightly tipsy self into the Doctor’s side for support. He, as always, seemed totally unaffected by the drink though he’d probably had just as much. He certainly looked chastened by her suggestion though, a hand jumping to his hair.
“Really?” he wondered. “I didn’t think it really needed saying. Does it?” Rose, mildly offended, was just on the point of answering when he paused in unlocking the door to the TARDIS to shoot her a sideways glance and a small smile.
“I’m always thankful for you.”
And she was so stunned by the extraordinary pronouncement that she ended up being left behind whilst the Doctor skipped off into the TARDIS. Giving her head a good shake to try and clear it, she followed him in, holding onto the guard rail to stop herself from teetering about.
“Right!” he was saying, readjusting the settings on the console with great sternness. He obviously hadn’t forgiven the TARDIS for taking them to the wrong place. “I think we’ll give Victorian England a miss don’t you? Boring really. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. How about we go for somewhere a bit more...” he paused, gripping the handbrake and grinned. “Interesting?”
Rose didn’t know if it was the wine they’d drunk earlier or just the usual giddiness that tended to accompany the two of them that got them into trouble at their next destination. In any case, the Doctor hit right on the money for once and landed them exactly where and when he had intended.
The decorations in New Hong Kong on Christmas Eve were spectacular - a dazzling array of religious and secular iconography from around the universe interspersed with some of the more familiar decorative motifs from Earth, including the biggest wreath Rose had ever seen hanging off the side of a skyscraper.
After they were kicked out of the Revolving Restaurant for disorderly conduct (“Be fair,” the Doctor had protested as they were manhandled out the door. “If you didn’t want people to play with the controls you shouldn’t have made them so easy to find...”) they ran down to the water front and ended up weaselling their way onto a hover ferry designed to look like an enormous Chinese junk.
“The lights are even prettier out here,” Rose observed as they stood quietly at the railing together. It was cool out on the water, especially compared to the muggy heat within the city and she was beginning to sober up. The Doctor made a vaguely affirmative noise and for a while they just stood there watching the lights chase each other up and down the skyscrapers. A huge likeness of Santa and his Reindeer took flight from the side of a squat building, twinkling through the same pattern again and again. The Doctor traced the patterns of light with his eyes once more before turning suddenly towards her.
“I-ahem-believe it’s traditional to give gifts at Christmas...” he began, digging through his pockets.
“On Christmas Day yeah,” Rose said vaguely and the Doctor froze. Surprised, she turned to find him quietly wilting and she realised that she had managed to burst his bubble without even meaning to.
“Did you get me a present?” she demanded.
“Oh,” the Doctor waved her off blithely, going to put the trinket back in his pocket. “It’s nothing.”
“No go on,” she pressed. He’d never really given her a proper present before. Oh he’d bought her things of course, but never for a special occasion. He gave her things because he could - usually on a whim or because she’d just happened to take a fancy to something when they were out and about. This though, was different. Rose watched closely as he extracted the gift from his pocket, wonderingly.
In typical Doctor fashion he hadn’t bothered to wrap it. Rose smiled as she noticed that he had knotted it into the corner of a handkerchief for safe keeping. But then as his clever fingers undid the ties he’d made and Rose caught the sparkle of marcasite from between his fingers...
“But that’s...?” her heart leapt.
Grinning wryly, the Doctor offered it to her with a simple, “Time machine.”
Awed, Rose reached out to take the comb and then stilled. “You remembered,” she realised. “I told him I was saving it for Christmas.”
She was gobsmacked by the gesture. Utterly. The Doctor nodded and babbled awkwardly, flourishing the comb at her hand. Rose however turned her head to the side and gestured at her hair.
“Help me put it in?”
She thought at first that he might refuse but then his fingers were gently pulling back a section of hair, sliding the teeth of the comb through until it was holding fast. She touched it again to make sure it was secure. To make sure it was really there.
“It’s not exactly diamonds or pearls,” the Doctor started up again, almost apologetically. “Well on some planets I suppose its equivalent to...”
Rose threw her arms around him and pressed her nose into his neck. After a startled moment the Doctor gave a low, delighted chuckle and pressed himself into the embrace too.
“Merry Christmas Rose.”
“Merry Christmas,” she mumbled back.
And silently, between them, Merry Christmas John.
“Where to next then?” he asked when they returned to the TARDIS. “More Christmas?”
Rose was feeling a little giddy, a little sad. Even a little guilty maybe. She didn’t really want the day to end here, she wanted it to go on. But how long could they play this game before the Doctor grew bored? She smiled tiredly, laughed a little to try and lighten the mood.
“Don’t you think we’ve had enough Christmas?” she asked, peeling off her jacket and slinging it over the railing. “Maybe we should move onto New Years instead,” she joked, taking over the jump seat as the Doctor began fiddling about at the console. Truth be told she was getting a little tired. Not that she would dare tell him. But she hadn’t slept properly in a good long while and they had been doing a fair bit of adventuring since...
God had it really only been a day since he had picked her back up again? It was starting to feel like much longer - like she had never left.
In any case she would almost have just been content to watch him tinker with the TARDIS for a while before popping off to bed. She had missed these quiet moments in the console room and the soothing hum of the TARDIS was starting to lull her into a comfortable drowsiness already. The Doctor seemed to have taken to her idea however and he was already piloting them somewhere with great enthusiasm. Soon they were landing and he was holding his hand out expectantly towards her.
“Seriously?” she gave him a disbelieving look but he merely smiled at her and together they stepped out onto a street in Rio.
It was New Years Eve, 2037 and Rose soon discovered that high sugar energy drinks had only become more potent as time went on. She was all but vibrating with vigour, gleeful in the sweating crush of bodies. This club reminded her of all the night spots London she had trawled through at age fifteen - fake ID, desperately caked on makeup and a push up bra stuffed with small change in case she couldn’t find anybody willing to buy her a drink.
Here though she had the Doctor’s psychic paper to get them VIP entry, free drinks and anything else she might want. Talk about pipe dreams.
The Doctor leaned forward so he could shout in her ear even as she bounced up and down like a madwoman to the pulsing, throbbing music.
“Having a good time?”
“You bet!” she yelled back, and as he leant in to say something else the countdown to midnight began. Beaming, Rose grasped the Doctor’s cool hand with hers and joined in. She was still bouncing when they hit Happy New Year and then looked up expectantly. “Where’s my kiss then?” she demanded, knowing that she’d be able to get away with such a brazen request when everyone else around them was glued at the lips and she was four strawberry daiquiris in.
To her disappointment the Doctor didn’t snog her senseless. But nor did he give her a disapproving, grumpy-old-man look. Instead, being especially careful not to spill either of their drinks, the Doctor leant over and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek that had her blushing red from head to toe.
“Happy New Year,” he said, eyes bright as he held out his own daiquiri - banana of course. “And to many more to come!”
Far more thrilled than she had any right to be - even after the consumption of a bucket load of alcohol - Rose clumsily clinked her glass with his. The bright pink concoction she was drinking was a sweet contrast to the Doctor’s buttercup yellow drink.
It was an image, unfortunately, that she would not recall later on. Three and a half more Daiquiris and Rose’s recollection became decidedly fuzzy. But the chaste kiss he had bestowed upon her upturned cheek was not forgotten. Nor was the soft, dark look in his eyes. Or, for some strange reason, the sensation of being picked up and carted about like so much luggage.
”Blimey you’re heavy...”
“Oi! You sayin’ I’m fat?”
“I’m saying that I think you might’ve had a bit too much to drink. Talk about a dead weight...”
“Well stop takin’ me places wif alcohol then!” A pause. The slap of a solitary pair of trainers on concrete. “Think you’re trying to get me drunk.”
“I think you just can’t hold your liquor.”
“Think you’re so bloody smart...”
“Wh-hey, mind out! I don’t know that you should be trying to think at all with the amount of brain cells you’ve doubtlessly just killed. Or point at anything.”
“’Kay.”
The scrape of a key in a lock. A creak. A small thud. “Oh, sorry. Was that your leg?”
“S’the TARDIS?”
“Yeahhhh. Sorry, not used to navigating an extra pair of legs through this door. Can you pull your feet in a bit?”
“Mebbe.”
A dry chuckle, a grunt of effort and a shuffle of feet. “Rose Tyler what am I going to do with you?”
“Bed.”
“A very good idea. Possibly your best idea yet.”
She never remembered that he carried her home and to her old room. Nor that he carefully removed her shoes before he tucked her up in bed, pressing a moistened thumb against her cheek to wipe away an errant smear of mascara.
Nor that he slipped something secretly into her spare pillowcase for her to find at some later, unannounced date.
One hangover, a small foiled alien plot on a minor asteroid and a day of recovery in the TARDIS later and Rose was about ready to call it quits on their little Holiday spree. The Doctor was still irritatingly keen though, so after forcing a hangover remedy down her throat, he took her to China in order to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
“Where better place to celebrate it?” he asked, the two of them strolling hand in hand through streets hung with red banners. They were on the cusp of the Year of the Dragon and, as it turned out, aliens that looked like dragons too.
On the run from something the Doctor called a Nian, they somehow managed to get themselves inside a storage unit filled with dancing dragon puppets. In order to escape undetected they ran off underneath a detached head, Rose shrieking with laughter. Soon enough the fireworks were booming overhead though and they frightened the creature off. The Doctor and Rose retired to an alleyway to catch their breath and sat on either side of the huge dragon head, Rose absently petting the tufted red hair and letting her head fall back to watch the warm glow of the fireworks.
She didn’t even realise that the Doctor was watching her until she felt the touch of his fingertips on the back of her hand. She jumped, met his gaze and then stilled, surprised by the intensity of his touch. The intimacy of it...he had barely laid more than three fingers on her skin and yet she found herself swallowing as she tried to read his expression.
Just what was going on inside that colossal brain of his? He’d been odd today, almost...fierce. Not towards her though. Well, she hoped it wasn’t being directed towards her. Truth be told she was a touch embarrassed at how wild she had been behaving the last few days. He hadn’t said anything about it but she didn’t drink often when she was with the Doctor - and even less did she drink to the point of drunkenness. But being back with him she had sort of felt like...well celebrating. And so celebrate she had.
Or maybe she’d been drowning her sorrows too. Just the teensiest bit.
Now though he was gazing at her almost solemnly and she felt a sudden thrill of premonition. Was he going to admonish her for her behaviour? Maybe even tell her that he had changed his mind after all and he was thinking of taking her back home? Vaguely Rose felt a twinge of guilt for disappearing on her mum again leaving hide nor hair. She would have to make sure she went back and explained herself at some point. But not now. Not when the Doctor was gazing so quietly and earnestly at her for who knew what reason.
“Hello,” she murmured, turning her hand over so that she could press her fingers against his.
His eyes immediately crinkled up into a smile but his mouth still looked sad. “Hello,” he returned, pressing his fingers back against hers. “Rose Tyler.”
They stayed there a long moment, skin pressing together and eyes locked. A stationary dance. Slowly the smile faded from his and Rose followed suit and they were just staring needlessly at each other.
“You know you never actually said,” Rose blurted, the first thing she thought of to fill the silence. “What you’ve been doing when I was-” she struggled to find the right word, finally settling on. “Away.”
The Doctor looked blank for a long moment but then shrugged with a surprising amount of modesty and looked away, his hand falling limply from hers.
“Oh,” he sniffed, focusing on something invisible on the opposite wall. “Just, you know, the usual. Quashing dictators. Curing deadly alien diseases. Fixing paradoxes. Normal Last-of-the-Time-Lords stuff.”
Rose bit her lip, her own hand fumbling uselessly in the dragon’s hair in the absence of his touch. “On-on your own?”
The Doctor’s gaze flickered. He looked at her and smiled tightly. “Yeah,” he admitted. “On my own.”
Rose tried to think. Tried to say something, anything, and found herself at a loss. Mouth gawping like a fool, she looked down at his empty hand and was on the point of shutting her mouth and just grabbing it in lieu of anything to say when the Doctor let fly a rather magnificent ramble of words.
“Well I say on my own, there may have been one or two...not anybody of any great importance...that isn’t to say they weren’t...but nobody I’d say was...I mean obviously there’s not a person out there who isn’t important in the grand scheme of things - the universe you know has a way of - but mostly I was on my own, preferred it like that really, rather than...well instead of having someone who wasn’t...”
You.
His hand, the one that had abandoned hers earlier, was gesticulating wildly as he stammered and stuttered. Rose reached over and took it properly, twining their fingers together so that he would stop thrashing it about like a nervous fish. The Doctor blinked and focused on his captive hand, watched the slight displacement of flesh and bones and muscles as she squeezed.
“Well,” she said matter-of-factly. “Not alone anymore. Are we?”
His face lit up slowly, like the Christmas lights in New Hong Kong. Like a hazy memory of dawn breaking over Rio as they stumbled back to the TARDIS.
“No,” he agreed. Fingers tightened. “No we’re not.”
Together, they settled back, hand in hand, and watched the final bursts of light above their head.
The much anticipated follow up to where The Art of Being Human left off. Warning: this story contains awkward conversations, a veritable Holiday spree, Banana Daiquiris, a bit of kissing, an unexpected present and a Chinese Dragon Puppet. Make of that what you will and Happy Chinese New Year!
Their next stop was supposed to be a proper Victorian Christmas - Turkey, snow, the whole nine yards. Despite his best intentions however the Doctor completely missed the mark, both in time and place. They somehow wound up in America instead where they rescued a young boy who had fallen into the family well. Turned out it was Thanksgiving and they were asked them to stay and celebrate. The Doctor tried to excuse his driving with a blustered, “Well it’s like Christmas - just a month early!” but Rose merely laughed and patted him on the arm.
“Not like I expected you to hit on it straight away anyway,” she said, goofily solemn. She had never been to a Thanksgiving celebration before and was surprised at how similar the fare was to Christmas. This particular family had made it somewhat of a tradition to go around the table and let each member give thanks and toast to something. The Doctor waved off all of their thank you’s for his bravery in rescuing their son and Rose couldn’t think of anything she was thankful for that she wanted to go blurting out in front of a group of strangers. But then...
“I’d like to give thanks...”
Rose startled at the sound of the Doctor’s voice, rising clear above the warm babble of voices. Polite to a fault, their hosts all listened in intently to their guest as he stood and raised his drink.
“To my...brother-” he stammered only slightly over the word. “John.”
Rose suddenly felt like her ribs were tightening in on her chest, as if a corset had been built into her very skin. The Doctor swallowed and then sought her out, meeting her gaze and giving a tight little smile. “For taking care of Rose when I couldn’t.”
“To John,” their hosts echoed and they all drank, Rose struggling to swallow through the lump in her throat.
Yeah she definitely wasn’t going to be getting up and making a speech anytime soon.
“I thought for a minute back there you were gonna give thanks for me.”
They’d had a lovely meal but the wine and apple cider had been even nicer and Rose had drunk quite a bit more than she perhaps should have. Now on their way back to the TARDIS she was leaning her slightly tipsy self into the Doctor’s side for support. He, as always, seemed totally unaffected by the drink though he’d probably had just as much. He certainly looked chastened by her suggestion though, a hand jumping to his hair.
“Really?” he wondered. “I didn’t think it really needed saying. Does it?” Rose, mildly offended, was just on the point of answering when he paused in unlocking the door to the TARDIS to shoot her a sideways glance and a small smile.
“I’m always thankful for you.”
And she was so stunned by the extraordinary pronouncement that she ended up being left behind whilst the Doctor skipped off into the TARDIS. Giving her head a good shake to try and clear it, she followed him in, holding onto the guard rail to stop herself from teetering about.
“Right!” he was saying, readjusting the settings on the console with great sternness. He obviously hadn’t forgiven the TARDIS for taking them to the wrong place. “I think we’ll give Victorian England a miss don’t you? Boring really. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. How about we go for somewhere a bit more...” he paused, gripping the handbrake and grinned. “Interesting?”
Rose didn’t know if it was the wine they’d drunk earlier or just the usual giddiness that tended to accompany the two of them that got them into trouble at their next destination. In any case, the Doctor hit right on the money for once and landed them exactly where and when he had intended.
The decorations in New Hong Kong on Christmas Eve were spectacular - a dazzling array of religious and secular iconography from around the universe interspersed with some of the more familiar decorative motifs from Earth, including the biggest wreath Rose had ever seen hanging off the side of a skyscraper.
After they were kicked out of the Revolving Restaurant for disorderly conduct (“Be fair,” the Doctor had protested as they were manhandled out the door. “If you didn’t want people to play with the controls you shouldn’t have made them so easy to find...”) they ran down to the water front and ended up weaselling their way onto a hover ferry designed to look like an enormous Chinese junk.
“The lights are even prettier out here,” Rose observed as they stood quietly at the railing together. It was cool out on the water, especially compared to the muggy heat within the city and she was beginning to sober up. The Doctor made a vaguely affirmative noise and for a while they just stood there watching the lights chase each other up and down the skyscrapers. A huge likeness of Santa and his Reindeer took flight from the side of a squat building, twinkling through the same pattern again and again. The Doctor traced the patterns of light with his eyes once more before turning suddenly towards her.
“I-ahem-believe it’s traditional to give gifts at Christmas...” he began, digging through his pockets.
“On Christmas Day yeah,” Rose said vaguely and the Doctor froze. Surprised, she turned to find him quietly wilting and she realised that she had managed to burst his bubble without even meaning to.
“Did you get me a present?” she demanded.
“Oh,” the Doctor waved her off blithely, going to put the trinket back in his pocket. “It’s nothing.”
“No go on,” she pressed. He’d never really given her a proper present before. Oh he’d bought her things of course, but never for a special occasion. He gave her things because he could - usually on a whim or because she’d just happened to take a fancy to something when they were out and about. This though, was different. Rose watched closely as he extracted the gift from his pocket, wonderingly.
In typical Doctor fashion he hadn’t bothered to wrap it. Rose smiled as she noticed that he had knotted it into the corner of a handkerchief for safe keeping. But then as his clever fingers undid the ties he’d made and Rose caught the sparkle of marcasite from between his fingers...
“But that’s...?” her heart leapt.
Grinning wryly, the Doctor offered it to her with a simple, “Time machine.”
Awed, Rose reached out to take the comb and then stilled. “You remembered,” she realised. “I told him I was saving it for Christmas.”
She was gobsmacked by the gesture. Utterly. The Doctor nodded and babbled awkwardly, flourishing the comb at her hand. Rose however turned her head to the side and gestured at her hair.
“Help me put it in?”
She thought at first that he might refuse but then his fingers were gently pulling back a section of hair, sliding the teeth of the comb through until it was holding fast. She touched it again to make sure it was secure. To make sure it was really there.
“It’s not exactly diamonds or pearls,” the Doctor started up again, almost apologetically. “Well on some planets I suppose its equivalent to...”
Rose threw her arms around him and pressed her nose into his neck. After a startled moment the Doctor gave a low, delighted chuckle and pressed himself into the embrace too.
“Merry Christmas Rose.”
“Merry Christmas,” she mumbled back.
And silently, between them, Merry Christmas John.
“Where to next then?” he asked when they returned to the TARDIS. “More Christmas?”
Rose was feeling a little giddy, a little sad. Even a little guilty maybe. She didn’t really want the day to end here, she wanted it to go on. But how long could they play this game before the Doctor grew bored? She smiled tiredly, laughed a little to try and lighten the mood.
“Don’t you think we’ve had enough Christmas?” she asked, peeling off her jacket and slinging it over the railing. “Maybe we should move onto New Years instead,” she joked, taking over the jump seat as the Doctor began fiddling about at the console. Truth be told she was getting a little tired. Not that she would dare tell him. But she hadn’t slept properly in a good long while and they had been doing a fair bit of adventuring since...
God had it really only been a day since he had picked her back up again? It was starting to feel like much longer - like she had never left.
In any case she would almost have just been content to watch him tinker with the TARDIS for a while before popping off to bed. She had missed these quiet moments in the console room and the soothing hum of the TARDIS was starting to lull her into a comfortable drowsiness already. The Doctor seemed to have taken to her idea however and he was already piloting them somewhere with great enthusiasm. Soon they were landing and he was holding his hand out expectantly towards her.
“Seriously?” she gave him a disbelieving look but he merely smiled at her and together they stepped out onto a street in Rio.
It was New Years Eve, 2037 and Rose soon discovered that high sugar energy drinks had only become more potent as time went on. She was all but vibrating with vigour, gleeful in the sweating crush of bodies. This club reminded her of all the night spots London she had trawled through at age fifteen - fake ID, desperately caked on makeup and a push up bra stuffed with small change in case she couldn’t find anybody willing to buy her a drink.
Here though she had the Doctor’s psychic paper to get them VIP entry, free drinks and anything else she might want. Talk about pipe dreams.
The Doctor leaned forward so he could shout in her ear even as she bounced up and down like a madwoman to the pulsing, throbbing music.
“Having a good time?”
“You bet!” she yelled back, and as he leant in to say something else the countdown to midnight began. Beaming, Rose grasped the Doctor’s cool hand with hers and joined in. She was still bouncing when they hit Happy New Year and then looked up expectantly. “Where’s my kiss then?” she demanded, knowing that she’d be able to get away with such a brazen request when everyone else around them was glued at the lips and she was four strawberry daiquiris in.
To her disappointment the Doctor didn’t snog her senseless. But nor did he give her a disapproving, grumpy-old-man look. Instead, being especially careful not to spill either of their drinks, the Doctor leant over and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek that had her blushing red from head to toe.
“Happy New Year,” he said, eyes bright as he held out his own daiquiri - banana of course. “And to many more to come!”
Far more thrilled than she had any right to be - even after the consumption of a bucket load of alcohol - Rose clumsily clinked her glass with his. The bright pink concoction she was drinking was a sweet contrast to the Doctor’s buttercup yellow drink.
It was an image, unfortunately, that she would not recall later on. Three and a half more Daiquiris and Rose’s recollection became decidedly fuzzy. But the chaste kiss he had bestowed upon her upturned cheek was not forgotten. Nor was the soft, dark look in his eyes. Or, for some strange reason, the sensation of being picked up and carted about like so much luggage.
”Blimey you’re heavy...”
“Oi! You sayin’ I’m fat?”
“I’m saying that I think you might’ve had a bit too much to drink. Talk about a dead weight...”
“Well stop takin’ me places wif alcohol then!” A pause. The slap of a solitary pair of trainers on concrete. “Think you’re trying to get me drunk.”
“I think you just can’t hold your liquor.”
“Think you’re so bloody smart...”
“Wh-hey, mind out! I don’t know that you should be trying to think at all with the amount of brain cells you’ve doubtlessly just killed. Or point at anything.”
“’Kay.”
The scrape of a key in a lock. A creak. A small thud. “Oh, sorry. Was that your leg?”
“S’the TARDIS?”
“Yeahhhh. Sorry, not used to navigating an extra pair of legs through this door. Can you pull your feet in a bit?”
“Mebbe.”
A dry chuckle, a grunt of effort and a shuffle of feet. “Rose Tyler what am I going to do with you?”
“Bed.”
“A very good idea. Possibly your best idea yet.”
She never remembered that he carried her home and to her old room. Nor that he carefully removed her shoes before he tucked her up in bed, pressing a moistened thumb against her cheek to wipe away an errant smear of mascara.
Nor that he slipped something secretly into her spare pillowcase for her to find at some later, unannounced date.
One hangover, a small foiled alien plot on a minor asteroid and a day of recovery in the TARDIS later and Rose was about ready to call it quits on their little Holiday spree. The Doctor was still irritatingly keen though, so after forcing a hangover remedy down her throat, he took her to China in order to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
“Where better place to celebrate it?” he asked, the two of them strolling hand in hand through streets hung with red banners. They were on the cusp of the Year of the Dragon and, as it turned out, aliens that looked like dragons too.
On the run from something the Doctor called a Nian, they somehow managed to get themselves inside a storage unit filled with dancing dragon puppets. In order to escape undetected they ran off underneath a detached head, Rose shrieking with laughter. Soon enough the fireworks were booming overhead though and they frightened the creature off. The Doctor and Rose retired to an alleyway to catch their breath and sat on either side of the huge dragon head, Rose absently petting the tufted red hair and letting her head fall back to watch the warm glow of the fireworks.
She didn’t even realise that the Doctor was watching her until she felt the touch of his fingertips on the back of her hand. She jumped, met his gaze and then stilled, surprised by the intensity of his touch. The intimacy of it...he had barely laid more than three fingers on her skin and yet she found herself swallowing as she tried to read his expression.
Just what was going on inside that colossal brain of his? He’d been odd today, almost...fierce. Not towards her though. Well, she hoped it wasn’t being directed towards her. Truth be told she was a touch embarrassed at how wild she had been behaving the last few days. He hadn’t said anything about it but she didn’t drink often when she was with the Doctor - and even less did she drink to the point of drunkenness. But being back with him she had sort of felt like...well celebrating. And so celebrate she had.
Or maybe she’d been drowning her sorrows too. Just the teensiest bit.
Now though he was gazing at her almost solemnly and she felt a sudden thrill of premonition. Was he going to admonish her for her behaviour? Maybe even tell her that he had changed his mind after all and he was thinking of taking her back home? Vaguely Rose felt a twinge of guilt for disappearing on her mum again leaving hide nor hair. She would have to make sure she went back and explained herself at some point. But not now. Not when the Doctor was gazing so quietly and earnestly at her for who knew what reason.
“Hello,” she murmured, turning her hand over so that she could press her fingers against his.
His eyes immediately crinkled up into a smile but his mouth still looked sad. “Hello,” he returned, pressing his fingers back against hers. “Rose Tyler.”
They stayed there a long moment, skin pressing together and eyes locked. A stationary dance. Slowly the smile faded from his and Rose followed suit and they were just staring needlessly at each other.
“You know you never actually said,” Rose blurted, the first thing she thought of to fill the silence. “What you’ve been doing when I was-” she struggled to find the right word, finally settling on. “Away.”
The Doctor looked blank for a long moment but then shrugged with a surprising amount of modesty and looked away, his hand falling limply from hers.
“Oh,” he sniffed, focusing on something invisible on the opposite wall. “Just, you know, the usual. Quashing dictators. Curing deadly alien diseases. Fixing paradoxes. Normal Last-of-the-Time-Lords stuff.”
Rose bit her lip, her own hand fumbling uselessly in the dragon’s hair in the absence of his touch. “On-on your own?”
The Doctor’s gaze flickered. He looked at her and smiled tightly. “Yeah,” he admitted. “On my own.”
Rose tried to think. Tried to say something, anything, and found herself at a loss. Mouth gawping like a fool, she looked down at his empty hand and was on the point of shutting her mouth and just grabbing it in lieu of anything to say when the Doctor let fly a rather magnificent ramble of words.
“Well I say on my own, there may have been one or two...not anybody of any great importance...that isn’t to say they weren’t...but nobody I’d say was...I mean obviously there’s not a person out there who isn’t important in the grand scheme of things - the universe you know has a way of - but mostly I was on my own, preferred it like that really, rather than...well instead of having someone who wasn’t...”
You.
His hand, the one that had abandoned hers earlier, was gesticulating wildly as he stammered and stuttered. Rose reached over and took it properly, twining their fingers together so that he would stop thrashing it about like a nervous fish. The Doctor blinked and focused on his captive hand, watched the slight displacement of flesh and bones and muscles as she squeezed.
“Well,” she said matter-of-factly. “Not alone anymore. Are we?”
His face lit up slowly, like the Christmas lights in New Hong Kong. Like a hazy memory of dawn breaking over Rio as they stumbled back to the TARDIS.
“No,” he agreed. Fingers tightened. “No we’re not.”
Together, they settled back, hand in hand, and watched the final bursts of light above their head.