Title: A Day in the Life
Author: meself, fid_gin
Beta:
unfolded73 (who is such a good soul, she never even asked why I had her beta this a jillion years ago and then never posted it!)
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/alt!Tenth Doctor/Rose. Features special guest, Malcolm Taylor!
Rating: PG13, for some talk of sexy stuff at the end
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all hail the BBC
Summary: It's just another day for Rose Tyler.
Notes: Wow, it's really strange to go back and re-read stuff you wrote and then never posted, huh? First in my Massive Halloween Ficfest is this little offering, written immediately after the airing of Planet of the Dead. Someone had challenged me to write Malcolm in the Loved 'verse, and this is what I came up with. It's short, and silly, and cute, and I have no idea why I never posted it. Early days of the Loved 'verse, this...there's a mention at the end which places it directly before, and during,
Voyeurs.
It's just another day for Rose Tyler.
Of course, what this means is that it starts over coffee and scones with identical men in pinstriped suits in the kitchen of a transdimensional police box. The TARDIS pumps Brit-pop into the room at just the right volume and the part-human Doctor sweetens her drink just the way she likes it, and a few minutes later the gadget resting at the corner of the table starts bleeping as a small dish on top begins rotating while the Doctor in brown shrugs on his long coat, gesturing excitedly and babbling about holes in time and it's just another morning in the life of Rose Tyler.
"What are we looking for again?" It's actually night outside where they've landed and Rose has been relegated to carrying the bleeping, humming, spinning and slightly vibrating tracking device as the Doctors walk ahead all ruffled hair and hands-in-pockets.
"Hard to say." The Doctor in blue, turning to walk backwards while he addresses her, rubbing the back of his neck. "Wormhole? Spacial displacement? Reality tear?"
"And we want to find this thing why?"
"Now, Rose." Her first Doctor, calling over his shoulder. "Where's your sense of adventure?"
They locate it eventually, and Rose finds herself in the mobile laboratory of a small man with a childlike grin and sparkling eyes and a brown scarf with blue pinstripes. "But you're Rose Tyler," Malcolm Taylor repeats for about the fourth time as though her name is some magical incantation, enthusiastically shaking her hand.
"Yep! That's me."
"You travel with the Doctor." Singular, she notices. "You're the Doctor's companion! I've read all the files! Oh, this is unbelievable."
"Yeah, Malcolm, uh hadn't you better..." Gesturing over his shoulder at a computer representation of the anomaly which has doubled in size in the last five minutes and which, a UNIT soldier shouts from outside, now has flying metal stingrays coming out of it, she tosses Malcolm her mobile so he can speak to the Doctors from their location closer to the wormhole, and it's just another afternoon for Rose Tyler.
The hole is closed after Malcolm returns her phone so he can struggle with a fire extinguisher as his computers spark and sizzle and Rose relays the unlikely instructions from the Doctors to increase a signal to '500 Bernards'. Only three stingrays make it through in the end which die shortly thereafter of rust contamination in the damp London air, and Rose introduces the Doctors as Malcolm grins from ear-to-ear and runs to clutch them both in a hug. The Doctor in brown looks amused and flattered while her Doctor in blue shoots her a pleading look, and she suggests that perhaps they might want to take Malcolm on one little trip, to say thank you?
"Two Doctors," he muses as they stand in the doorway of the TARDIS an hour later, munching kettle corn and watching Haley's Comet. "There was nothing in the files about that."
"Yeah, well, it's sort of our little secret." She glances back at the them where they stand, steering. Smiling.
Malcolm looks over at her and his eyes might be a bit moist. "Thank you for this. Thank you." The secret's out now, she thinks, and has a fleeting moment of appreciation for the level of strange celebrity of herself and the Doctors and their magical machine and it's a bit like being the wife of the most famous footballer in the world, but it's just another evening for Rose Tyler.
They drop Malcolm off back on Earth and, overcome, he just points at them as he stumbles away back to his trailer. "I love you!" he shouts as they wave from the doors of the TARDIS.
"Love you too, Malcolm," Rose yells, laughing, as the engines begin to grind and groan.
A quick pop to Italy for a huge spaghetti dinner and way too much wine, and later that night Rose convinces the Doctors to kiss each other for the first time, makes love to her half-human Doctor as the Doctor in brown sits behind her, guiding her, watching her. "Y'know," Rose says afterward, when her second Doctor has gone to bed and she and the Time Lord Doctor are making tea, exchanging glances and smiles, remembering what happened earlier that evening, "our lives are amazing."
The Doctor smiles softly and kisses her. "Don't I know it."
It's never just another day for Rose Tyler.