In With the New (3/5)
Beta: roxieflashPairing/Characters: TenII/Rose, Jackie Tyler
Chapter Rating: PG
Word Count: ~2,600
Summary: Picks up where Journey's End left off with Rose and Human!Ten. Absolute fluff.
A/N: Written for the Spring Fling Fixathon at doctor_rose_fix
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"Yeah?" Rose responded to the Doctor's impromptu proposal, surprising herself by being able to speak through the smile on her face.
"Yeah," the Doctor replied softly, now with a catch in his voice. Though his grin matched hers-he was shamelessly, hopelessly in love with this human girl-he felt a familiar prickling sensation behind his new human eyes. He felt no sadness, of course. Here, now, at this moment (and possibly for the first time in his life), he had absolutely nothing to feel sad about. Happiness, joy even, was present but not the cause of his imminent tearfulness. It was more like… relief. He was here, on a beach with Rose Tyler. A Rose Tyler that had just pledged to stay with him. A Rose Tyler that would soon be bound to him by the sincerest of promises. His Rose. A Rose that had crossed universes to find him, knowing full well it was impossible but trying anyway and succeeding. And she was his. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back onto the sand. What an amazing, marvelous creature she was. After centuries of passing it off as cliché, he now, finally wrapped his mind around the fairytale propensity to promise that elusive 'happily ever after'. What a wonderful thing it was.
Taking a deep breath to gather his thoughts, he gently dislodged Rose, stood, and helped her to her feet. Offering his arm to her, he said, "Shall we go find your mother, Miss Tyler? I'd hate to rob her of the knowledge of your impending nuptials."
Rose snorted as she took his arm, linking her hands at the crook of his elbow. "Since when am I 'Miss Tyler'?" she asked him, humor evident in her tone.
"Since I won't be able to call you that for much longer, eh?" he responded, flashing her a smile, winking, and nudging her with his elbow as they took one last survey of the coral-bearing dune. "We should downgrade her phone first, or she may call half the world before dinner. Likes to gossip, your mum, in case you hadn't noticed." They turned away from the TARDIS's plot. "Well, then. Allons-y, Miss Tyler."
With that, they made their way once again through the projection's shielding, heading towards the sound of approaching zeppelin engines.
...
They were on their way to London, which gave them all time to shower and have a meal after the exhausting events of the previous day. The Doctor had been ushered by a midshipman-turned-manservant into a washroom with instructions to leave his garments outside the door. Though he was not thrilled with the prospect, he complied; the room was amply supplied with towels in any case, should a clothing emergency arise. He turned on the shower and stepped into the flow without a second thought. Immediately, he had not only second, but third and fourth thoughts as well as he yelped and backed into the far wall, putting as much distance between himself and that horrid cascade as possible.
Since when was water so cold?
"Are you all right in there, sir?" the midshipman's voice carried through the door.
"Ye-," the Doctor started to answer in a barely audible squeak. He cleared his throat for another attempt, unlocking his white knuckles from the towel-rod he'd clung to for support. "Yes, I'm fine." The Doctor grabbed a towel and vigorously dried himself, wanting to preserve his body heat until his suit was dusted free of sand and returned. "Hold on, that's it! Body heat!" He felt about in a side drawer for a few moments before finding makeup of some sort (this must be Jackie's bathroom, he thought), and started sketching figures on the mirror.
"Sir?"
The Doctor absentmindedly gave a dismissive wave, though it wouldn't be visible on the other side of the door. "Not you, you go do… midshipman-y things." He briefly considered asking for his screwdriver out of his coat pocket, but decided to tackle this problem hands-free. It should be a good workout for the human half of his brain.
Five minutes later, the Doctor had an ideal setting calculated, given the average differential between Time Lord and human body temperature and the supposed inclination of humans towards hot showers. As he did not know their exact altitude, he had been unable to factor that into his equation. Still, that would only alter his figures half a degree in either direction. Preferring to err on the side of caution, the Doctor set the shower near its maximum setting, steam soon pouring out from over the curtain rod, making a miasma of his formula in the mirror. He steeled himself, prepared for the same shocking sensation as before, and stepped into the water.
Oh, Rassilon, that felt good.
He felt at once an overwhelming urge to sing, or purr, or fall asleep, he couldn't tell. He had been unaware of the aching in his new, overtaxed muscles until this delicious heat melted it away. Eyes half-closed, he turned and let the steady stream of water beat against his shoulders. He arched the muscles in his back, savoring the warmth, then tilted his head back to wet his hair. As he reached for the small tray of toiletries, he cursed. Of all the…
The doctor poked his head out of the shower, water running down his fringe into his eyes, which he hastily wiped away. "Midshipman?" he called towards the door.
"Sir?"
"Find me some shampoo that doesn't smell like pear."
...
Once the water started to cool, the Doctor shut off the stream and reached outside, feeling around for a towel, unwilling to leave the warmth of the shower for the chilly air outside the curtain. As soon as his body was dry, he reassembled his suit and walked to the dining room for tea. He caught sight of the back of Rose's head; she was sitting with her back to the door talking animatedly with her mother. He'd just smiled to himself, noticing she'd saved him a place next to her when Jackie caught sight of him and jumped out of her seat, pointing a finger accusingly in his direction. "And you! I suppose this is your idea, is it?" Her hands were on her hips in a textbook overprotective mother gesture, and her expression was beyond irate. "Waltzing back into our universe, quick as you please, and shacking up with my daughter?"
The Doctor froze in the act of drying the back of his hair with a hand-towel and glanced over at Rose, who had turned in her seat to look back at him. She mouthed "sorry" and looked both amused and sincerely apologetic.
"Um-" was all he could say before Jackie started in again, this time directing her ire at Rose.
"He is notgoing to live with you!"
Rose rolled her eyes and dropped her head back onto the seat's headrest in frustration. "'Course he's going to live with me, Mum. Nothing new with that, anyway, as we were on the TARDIS together for ages." Jackie gave her a stunned look. "What, you think we parked it every night and got separate hotel rooms? We're adults, Mum."
"What, adult? You're twenty-two, and hardly that! You think all this Torchwood rubbish has aged you, but you've not been on your own long, and now you're getting engaged to someone a hundred times older than you!"
"Oi!" said the Doctor, his mouth dropping open in indignation. That was going entirely too far. "I'm not even half that old!" Jackie ignored him, which was probably for the best.
"And how d'you reckon I'm twenty-two, Mum?" Rose narrowed her eyes. "Hmm? How long did the Doctor and I travel together?"
"Two years! Popping back for Christmas and milk and whenever you needed laundry done. Forgettingfor twelve months, even."
"Yeah," Rose nodded sarcastically, "and how long do you think it takes to spend two years in a time machine? It could've been six months for me." Rose gave a flippant shrug at this weighty information, "Or five years, you wouldn't know."
The Doctor was glancing wide-eyed from one Tyler female to the other. He had a feeling that the result of this argument involved much more than his sleeping arrangements and that he would have no say in it whatsoever, no matter how involved his future was. In an effort to dodge the domestics, he pointed a hand over his shoulder. "I think I'm just going to step outside."
Jackie actually stomped her foot at him. "It's a blimp, you prat, you can't just go walking about."
The Doctor winced. Now was not the time to launch into clarification between zeppelins and blimps, especially here in a relatively small space with Jackie in a distinctly non¬-tea-making mood. So much for leaving until they'd worked it out. He sighed and resigned himself: time to be human. If it was anyone else but Rose he wouldn't bother, but it wasRose. And Rose's family. They'd be his as well soon enough, and he'd be stuck with them for quite a while. Now was not the time to avoid familial disputes: he had to be actively involved.
Euch.
He braced himself and thumbed through his mental rolodex of facial expressions, settling on a basic 'pacify the homicidal alien' look and setting it to 'angry maternal figure' which he then directed at Jackie as he took his seat next to Rose.
"Jackie, nothing went on in the TARDIS. Not like what you're thinking," the Doctor said in a soothing voice. He placed his folded hands on the table. Though he would much prefer to have an arm around Rose, now wasn't the time. He made a mental note to make time soon. They had missed so many moments together.
Rose sniffed and crossed her arms. "Not for lack of trying," she mumbled under her breath, low enough that Jackie didn't hear. The Doctor gave her a confused look. "What, you think I leave my laundry about on accident?" she said in a slightly louder voice.
"I thought maybe you used it for decoration," was his response. It was true; he found some very odd pieces of clothing in some very odd places. During their time together, there hadn't been a nook or cranny of the TARDIS that didn't have an inappropriate piece of clothing tucked away in it, it seemed, causing inappropriate but oh-so-enticing thoughts for the Time Lord whenever they were discovered. They still cropped up occasionally, either because he'd been neglecting the cleaning or because the TARDIS was missing Rose as much as he did, and needed a companion in her mourning.
He remembered one such recent incident in particular. Right before his adventure with the Adipose, the Doctor had gone to see Churchill again and had given an introduction at the Commons. During Churchill's 'We Shall Fight on the Beaches' speech (bugger to write, that), the Doctor had wiped his own forehead with what he thought was a pocket-handkerchief-it was the middle of June, after all. He hadn't discovered until later when he and Donna were climbing back aboard the TARDIS next to her mother's car that it was instead a rather garish yellow polka-dotted pair of women's knickers. He had silently vowed to never speak of the situation again, and hoped that Winston had done the same.
In the beginning, it had taken the majority of his self-control not to mention the garments to Rose and to deposit the offending clothing back in the laundry whenever they revealed themselves. Well… that wasn't entirely true. In the beginning, it had taken the majority of his self-control not to jump Rose whenever she walked into a room. That was, he had been certain, a surefire way to scare her into leaving. Now, the evidence seemed to point in the other direction…
Jackie was obviously unconvinced by the Doctor's reassurances. "What's this about laundry, I thought you were telling me nothing was going on!"
"I'm in love with your daughter."
His blatant confession stunned Jackie into silence, for which he was exceedingly grateful. He saw Rose looking at him from the corner of his eye, and he glanced down at his still folded hands once before looking Jackie square in the eyes and telling her what he had previously unable to speak, even to Rose. "I am absolutely, unquestionably,madly in love with your daughter. I never told her before today. I can't imagine life without her. I'velivedlife without her, and I can't..." He shut his eyes against the echoes of heartache from those lonely years. When he opened them again, it was to see Jackie shaking her head slightly in disbelief. "I can't do it again."
Jackie pointed at the two of them in turn. "So you two never…" she let the statement hang in the air.
The Doctor and Rose both shook their heads. "Never," they responded in unison.
"And all this time I thought you'd been shagging like rabbits."
Rose's eyes went wide. "Mum!"
"Oh, come on, Rose, you can't blame me for thinking it, the way you can't keep your hands off each other, him all fancy dressed, you all doe-eyed and talking about his hair." Jackie flipped a hand towards them. "Well, go on. Get married. I'll want grandkids before I'm fifty."
"MUM!"
Jackie ignored her. "You're still moving in with her? Now?" she asked the Doctor.
"If she'll have me."
If Jackie had any remaining misgivings, she ignored them for the moment. "Alright, then. Who wants tea?" She rose and put the kettle on, searching the cabinets for cups and saucers.
Rose smirked. "Oh, I'll have you, all right," she murmured in a smoldering tone, giving the Doctor a look that was simultaneously serious and wickedly playful.
The Doctor opened his mouth to retort, but was distracted by the quirk of Rose's lips and how fast his single heart could rush blood to his cheeks. He searched the sum of his knowledge for a proper response, and found himself with no words at all. Was it warm in here all of a sudden? He should have a word with the engineers.
Giving up on formulating a reply, he gave in to his desire for physical contact. He put his left arm about Rose's shoulders and felt her settle in, her head on his chest. He bent slightly and kissed her temple, eliciting a sigh from her as he did so. To call the sound 'contented' would have been an insult. That gentle breath told him more than any actions or words could have expressed. Rose was happy to be with him.
They sat in companionable silence for a handful of minutes while they listened for the kettle to reach a boil, both with their minds going over the events of the past two days.
Oh, hang on, had it been this jacket? He reached his other hand into his pocket. Yep. "These are yours, by the way," he whispered to Rose. Grabbing the knickers, he handed them over to Rose, who blushed and tucked them away before her mum could return with the tea.