Fact: I am extremely impressionable.
Okay, THIS FIC USED TO BE VERY HAPPY. And then I talked to thedorkygirl, and look what happened. I'm sorry. No, I'm not. The end is deliciously vague. LOOK MA I MADE WHO FIC AGAIN.
TITLE: Cote d'Azur
AUTHOR: daygloparker
FANDOM: Doctor Who
PAIRING/CHARACTER: Ten/Rose
SPOILERS: S2 and "Idiot's Lantern"
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: No more Earth. For a little while, at least.
---
Several jumps later, Rose is still tapping her toes to the sound of Elvis Presley and twirling about when she thinks the Doctor isn't looking, and even the TARDIS has begun to hum along. He can feel it; the engines are all shook up.
When he knows she isn't looking, the Doctor watches her and smiles to himself.
*
He takes her to Egypt to see the pyramids and to America to witness the Boston Tea Party. The Sphinx is eating humans and the chests are full of something glowing and blue that no one would want to ingest.
At first she plays the part nicely. She enjoys it.
At first.
*
So... that whole incident during the Peloponnesian War, the one where all the phalluses of the hermai statues standing symbolic guard outside Athenian homes were knocked off by rowdy fraternity brothers and everyone in Athens was convinced it was an omen regarding the impending departure of the Athenian navy? Total lie. (Well. Sort of.)
"Hermunexicrags," Rose pronounces carefully, keeping one eye on the horizon line, which is getting gradually lighter and lighter as time passes. Morning is coming to Athens, 415 BC.
The Doctor takes a swing at the next herm. "Very good!" He offers the bat to Rose, but she declines.
"And of all the places in the world to hide transmitters to network a signal, they've got them in their… um. You know."
He grinned at her, slightly devilish. "Sure you don't want a try?"
She laughs at this, and kicks a stone down the road with her feet, wearing sandals made by local craftsman. The Doctor tried arguing with the cobbler for a better price, but Rose seemed glad that they had money at all, which they had earned after their little adventure saving the polis from brain-sucking aliens (who had hijacked the body of a well-known sophist) and their networked phallus transmitters that were intent on converting the whole lot of them, so she didn't really care about being ripped off.
"I still don't understand why you can't just sonic them off or something."
"Because!" and he turns to her, arm wound up for another swing. "First of all, there's an image that'll certainly last through time if someone happens to be fighting a bit of insomnia tonight. Second of all, it's history, Rose, your history! The invasion of Syracuse! The mutilation of the hermes! A death sentence! It's all history and it's happening right here, right now. We're making it!"
She says nothing at first. He destroys another transmitter.
"But what if we weren't? Someone did this before, obviously, because people know about it. So how can we make history if someone was already supposed to make it?"
"We always made it."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"It does," he replies, grinning again, but it still doesn't.
She murmurs her reply, and for the rest of the street there's only the sound of the historical desecration of statuary and the stones and dirt under their feet. They make it to the TARDIS just as the sun is rising, and slip away from time without being discovered.
For a while they drift in the nothing of space. Rose sits on the console, legs dangling; she is still wearing her sandals. The Doctor fixes and cajoles his ship into something new, and twice the TARDIS lurches to one side in protest and Rose almost topples off the console.
When he gives up, she's sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him. Her sandals are off to one side.
"No more Earth. For a little while, at least?" she tells him, and she says it like it's perfectly normal to be tired of your own planet and not want to go back.
"All right," he agrees. It's not what he wants, but he also wants her to be happy.
Yet later, she is still humming Elvis and Buddy Holly.
*
The beach stretches out to the horizon and the ocean is bright blue, and when Rose steps out of the TARDIS he can tell that in spite of her disappointment she is still a bit taken with its beauty.
"Where are--"
"The French Riviera." And he watches her heart sink further.
For once, he times it perfectly.
A hovercraft zooms above them. He sees her follow it over the mountain and out of sight. There are four more on its tail. A second later, she turns to him again, this time a bit more impressed and even smiling. "Where are--"
"The New French Riviera, I should have said."
It is a decent compromise.
They walk for a while in the sand toward the nearest signs of civilization, bits of white set against a blue sky and the sea, and then a touristy hover-tram stops them and the Doctor's psychic paper is enough to convince the driver to give a free lift to personal friends of the Duke of Manhattan. The man has blue skin. Rose finds the traffic button quite entertaining - an calm female voice, telling passersby to kindly mind the hover-tram, please - and even the Doctor has to roll his eyes after she's pressed it a few dozen times.
But she is laughing, so it's something.
The town is Le Bar-sur-Loup and the buildings are low and white and classic 1950s Earth (Rose wants to go back for her sunglasses). There's a marina that juts out into the sea, populated with boats in every shade and size, as well as a couple of buoyant space vehicles. In the greeting center there are ice cream stands, a mall, and a colorful kiosk that chants for your kindness in the form of a small monetary donation (for a prayer to 'Le Loup' and in support of the local brethren). Everything is clean and colorful, men and women, humans, flutter about with handheld devices and things that flicker in their ears, and just when Rose is starting to doubt the year, a Tree shuffles past them and into the shade of the attached beachfront cafe.
"I still can't get used to--" and she doesn't finish. But she smiles. Still smiling.
The Doctor grabs her hand, saying, "Come on," and they begin to explore.
*
They cover the grounds in under ten minutes.
"So... what is it this time: special alien transmission?"
"Nope."
She is walking backwards along the shore, past the resort lines and into unpatrolled territory, carrying her shoes in one hand. "Distress signal?"
"Nope."
"Oh, come on! There has to be something."
He shakes his head. "Call it a holiday."
Rose is grinning now. "Do we even really get those?" But he doesn't need to answer her, because she's turned back around and skips a bit forward into the surf.
Further down along the shoreline, he stops to kick sand from his shoes.
"Take them off," she insists. "You look..."
He shakes his head. "I'm an old man, Rose." And he says it with just enough of a smile so that she laughs and it's all a wonderful joke.
*
Her skin is flushed from the heat, and her nose is a bit pink, too.
The sun goes down, and Rose drinks a bit more than she should, and on the terrace at another beachfront cafe there's a three-piece band that plays well into the night. She wears the dress that she bought (again, a gift to a friend of the Duke of Manhattan), a smooth shade of lavender, and she tries to get the Doctor to dance with her even though he won't. There's no good reason not to, but he enjoys watching her, only her. She settles for a loosened tie.
They stay in rooms overlooking the sea, but the Doctor doesn't sleep.
The next day, everything is rather dull and uneventful until Rose Tyler is nearly eaten by a rather large sea creature. The Doctor takes a boat from the harbor, the Perseus, and she is rescued from almost certain death. She swears a little (okay, a lot), but he decides to call it an adventure and is happy to drive around on the water and the waves until they can't ignore the calls from the marina anymore.
At night they go to a different cafe with a different band, but Rose wears the same dress. It's quieter than before, maybe too quiet; it's only the sound of Rose making conversation with herself and the ice cubes clanking against the side of her glass.
"Are we leaving?" she asks, her question suddenly directed explicitly at him.
He crosses his arms. "Are you asking to?"
"No." She reconsiders. "Dunno, I just thought..." Her voice trails off, point unfinished and unmade, and she twirls the ice cubes around in her empty glass. She twists around to see the band, tonight made exclusively of yellow and green men.
He seems restless. That is the thing that she thought but didn't say. He likes to show her things but there is nothing here that they haven't already seen and done and laughed about. The sea creature is over and done with.
"I like it here," she says instead. She means it. Rose smiles at him, at him, and for a moment he is caught by it, and in that there's something implicit about what else she likes about this place.
They're not enough for the Doctor, these pauses between time, but sometimes they're enough for her. Tonight, it's enough. He could give her all of time (and maybe save her valiantly from part of it, too), but this is what she needs.
The greeting center is quieter at this time of night and the lights of the inside pavilion are dimmer. They pass by the prayer kiosk, and it calls to Rose. She deposits her last coin into it, saying, "Had my life saved today, didn't I?" Le Loup chants for her longer than it should, longer than her small donation allows for, chants and chants and doesn't stop singing even when they've been standing there for almost two minutes. It's beautiful, the serene harmonizing voices. Almost.
He understands. Rose does not, because he won't let her.
"Broken or something," she surmises. She laughs. "Bad wolf."
The Doctor takes her hand in his and holds on tightly.
*
They spend the night in the TARDIS instead, leaving in the morning just as the sun rises over the mountains.
TITLE: Cote d'Azur
AUTHOR: daygloparker
FANDOM: Doctor Who
PAIRING/CHARACTER: Ten/Rose
SPOILERS: S2 and "Idiot's Lantern"
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: No more Earth. For a little while, at least.
---
Several jumps later, Rose is still tapping her toes to the sound of Elvis Presley and twirling about when she thinks the Doctor isn't looking, and even the TARDIS has begun to hum along. He can feel it; the engines are all shook up.
When he knows she isn't looking, the Doctor watches her and smiles to himself.
*
He takes her to Egypt to see the pyramids and to America to witness the Boston Tea Party. The Sphinx is eating humans and the chests are full of something glowing and blue that no one would want to ingest.
At first she plays the part nicely. She enjoys it.
At first.
*
So... that whole incident during the Peloponnesian War, the one where all the phalluses of the hermai statues standing symbolic guard outside Athenian homes were knocked off by rowdy fraternity brothers and everyone in Athens was convinced it was an omen regarding the impending departure of the Athenian navy? Total lie. (Well. Sort of.)
"Hermunexicrags," Rose pronounces carefully, keeping one eye on the horizon line, which is getting gradually lighter and lighter as time passes. Morning is coming to Athens, 415 BC.
The Doctor takes a swing at the next herm. "Very good!" He offers the bat to Rose, but she declines.
"And of all the places in the world to hide transmitters to network a signal, they've got them in their… um. You know."
He grinned at her, slightly devilish. "Sure you don't want a try?"
She laughs at this, and kicks a stone down the road with her feet, wearing sandals made by local craftsman. The Doctor tried arguing with the cobbler for a better price, but Rose seemed glad that they had money at all, which they had earned after their little adventure saving the polis from brain-sucking aliens (who had hijacked the body of a well-known sophist) and their networked phallus transmitters that were intent on converting the whole lot of them, so she didn't really care about being ripped off.
"I still don't understand why you can't just sonic them off or something."
"Because!" and he turns to her, arm wound up for another swing. "First of all, there's an image that'll certainly last through time if someone happens to be fighting a bit of insomnia tonight. Second of all, it's history, Rose, your history! The invasion of Syracuse! The mutilation of the hermes! A death sentence! It's all history and it's happening right here, right now. We're making it!"
She says nothing at first. He destroys another transmitter.
"But what if we weren't? Someone did this before, obviously, because people know about it. So how can we make history if someone was already supposed to make it?"
"We always made it."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"It does," he replies, grinning again, but it still doesn't.
She murmurs her reply, and for the rest of the street there's only the sound of the historical desecration of statuary and the stones and dirt under their feet. They make it to the TARDIS just as the sun is rising, and slip away from time without being discovered.
For a while they drift in the nothing of space. Rose sits on the console, legs dangling; she is still wearing her sandals. The Doctor fixes and cajoles his ship into something new, and twice the TARDIS lurches to one side in protest and Rose almost topples off the console.
When he gives up, she's sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him. Her sandals are off to one side.
"No more Earth. For a little while, at least?" she tells him, and she says it like it's perfectly normal to be tired of your own planet and not want to go back.
"All right," he agrees. It's not what he wants, but he also wants her to be happy.
Yet later, she is still humming Elvis and Buddy Holly.
*
The beach stretches out to the horizon and the ocean is bright blue, and when Rose steps out of the TARDIS he can tell that in spite of her disappointment she is still a bit taken with its beauty.
"Where are--"
"The French Riviera." And he watches her heart sink further.
For once, he times it perfectly.
A hovercraft zooms above them. He sees her follow it over the mountain and out of sight. There are four more on its tail. A second later, she turns to him again, this time a bit more impressed and even smiling. "Where are--"
"The New French Riviera, I should have said."
It is a decent compromise.
They walk for a while in the sand toward the nearest signs of civilization, bits of white set against a blue sky and the sea, and then a touristy hover-tram stops them and the Doctor's psychic paper is enough to convince the driver to give a free lift to personal friends of the Duke of Manhattan. The man has blue skin. Rose finds the traffic button quite entertaining - an calm female voice, telling passersby to kindly mind the hover-tram, please - and even the Doctor has to roll his eyes after she's pressed it a few dozen times.
But she is laughing, so it's something.
The town is Le Bar-sur-Loup and the buildings are low and white and classic 1950s Earth (Rose wants to go back for her sunglasses). There's a marina that juts out into the sea, populated with boats in every shade and size, as well as a couple of buoyant space vehicles. In the greeting center there are ice cream stands, a mall, and a colorful kiosk that chants for your kindness in the form of a small monetary donation (for a prayer to 'Le Loup' and in support of the local brethren). Everything is clean and colorful, men and women, humans, flutter about with handheld devices and things that flicker in their ears, and just when Rose is starting to doubt the year, a Tree shuffles past them and into the shade of the attached beachfront cafe.
"I still can't get used to--" and she doesn't finish. But she smiles. Still smiling.
The Doctor grabs her hand, saying, "Come on," and they begin to explore.
*
They cover the grounds in under ten minutes.
"So... what is it this time: special alien transmission?"
"Nope."
She is walking backwards along the shore, past the resort lines and into unpatrolled territory, carrying her shoes in one hand. "Distress signal?"
"Nope."
"Oh, come on! There has to be something."
He shakes his head. "Call it a holiday."
Rose is grinning now. "Do we even really get those?" But he doesn't need to answer her, because she's turned back around and skips a bit forward into the surf.
Further down along the shoreline, he stops to kick sand from his shoes.
"Take them off," she insists. "You look..."
He shakes his head. "I'm an old man, Rose." And he says it with just enough of a smile so that she laughs and it's all a wonderful joke.
*
Her skin is flushed from the heat, and her nose is a bit pink, too.
The sun goes down, and Rose drinks a bit more than she should, and on the terrace at another beachfront cafe there's a three-piece band that plays well into the night. She wears the dress that she bought (again, a gift to a friend of the Duke of Manhattan), a smooth shade of lavender, and she tries to get the Doctor to dance with her even though he won't. There's no good reason not to, but he enjoys watching her, only her. She settles for a loosened tie.
They stay in rooms overlooking the sea, but the Doctor doesn't sleep.
The next day, everything is rather dull and uneventful until Rose Tyler is nearly eaten by a rather large sea creature. The Doctor takes a boat from the harbor, the Perseus, and she is rescued from almost certain death. She swears a little (okay, a lot), but he decides to call it an adventure and is happy to drive around on the water and the waves until they can't ignore the calls from the marina anymore.
At night they go to a different cafe with a different band, but Rose wears the same dress. It's quieter than before, maybe too quiet; it's only the sound of Rose making conversation with herself and the ice cubes clanking against the side of her glass.
"Are we leaving?" she asks, her question suddenly directed explicitly at him.
He crosses his arms. "Are you asking to?"
"No." She reconsiders. "Dunno, I just thought..." Her voice trails off, point unfinished and unmade, and she twirls the ice cubes around in her empty glass. She twists around to see the band, tonight made exclusively of yellow and green men.
He seems restless. That is the thing that she thought but didn't say. He likes to show her things but there is nothing here that they haven't already seen and done and laughed about. The sea creature is over and done with.
"I like it here," she says instead. She means it. Rose smiles at him, at him, and for a moment he is caught by it, and in that there's something implicit about what else she likes about this place.
They're not enough for the Doctor, these pauses between time, but sometimes they're enough for her. Tonight, it's enough. He could give her all of time (and maybe save her valiantly from part of it, too), but this is what she needs.
The greeting center is quieter at this time of night and the lights of the inside pavilion are dimmer. They pass by the prayer kiosk, and it calls to Rose. She deposits her last coin into it, saying, "Had my life saved today, didn't I?" Le Loup chants for her longer than it should, longer than her small donation allows for, chants and chants and doesn't stop singing even when they've been standing there for almost two minutes. It's beautiful, the serene harmonizing voices. Almost.
He understands. Rose does not, because he won't let her.
"Broken or something," she surmises. She laughs. "Bad wolf."
The Doctor takes her hand in his and holds on tightly.
*
They spend the night in the TARDIS instead, leaving in the morning just as the sun rises over the mountains.