Rose awoke to find her room bathed in sunlight. But that wasn't right…why was she in her mum's flat and not on the TARDIS? Then she glanced at the brown stuffed horse beside her on the bed, and suddenly all of the events from the day before came back to her. How long did I sleep in? Rose wondered as she absently threaded her fingers through her sleep-mangled hair. She had assumed the Doctor would have her awake by dawn so they could get on a plane to India as soon as possible.
But when she walked bleary-eyed into the living room, she found it startlingly empty. There was no TARDIS taking up half the room today. Instead Rose was greeted with a sofa that looked unused, a clear dining table, and a tele that was playing news reels. Through the walls she could hear water running, a clear sign that her mum was still in the flat. Rose sighed and silently wished she was back on the TARDIS. The ship always seemed to provide her sole female passenger with the best bathing facilities in the universe, or so the Doctor had claimed.
She walked out of the kitchen, fresh cuppa in hand, the same time Jackie came out of the loo. "Mornin', sweetheart," her mum said, tying her fluffy pink robe around her waist. She took one look around the empty flat and rolled her eyes. "Still gone, is he?"
"Looks like it." Rose sipped her hot tea carefully. "You know where he went?"
"No, but I hope he's out buying the plane tickets," she replied. "Can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss that blue box. 'S like it's part of the flat sometimes." Rose smiled at her mum's words. Surprising as they were coming out of Jackie's mouth, the sentient ship with a retro exterior had become woven into the daily life of the small Tyler household. "And if that Doctor stays here for much longer I'll be clean out of both bananas and jam. Walked into the kitchen and you know what I find? An alien man with his fingers in my jar of blackberry jam."
Rose burst into laughter along with her mum, as she could easily picture the lanky Time Lord getting caught red-handed by Jackie Tyler. The mother-daughter pair took their conversation to the sofa, and bantered back and forth about the Doctor's antics.
Until Jackie grew more serious and asked, "Is he always like that, though? Eating certain foods like he's got some kind of fetish?"
Rose chuckled, but as she considered her mum's question, her smile lessened. "Well, yeah, he always eats a lot. Claims Time Lords metabolize food faster than humans," she answered. "But he only goes for the jam jars when he's upset or nervous about something." Rose set her now-empty mug on the lounge table. "Why do you ask?"
Her mum bit her lip and fiddled with her robe before replying. "Cause I heard him. Last night. I was just about to fall asleep when I heard some kind of yell or scream coming from the living room. I went to see if everything was alright, and there was the Doctor, sittin' on the edge of the sofa with his head in his hands. Wouldn't answer me, just mumbled that he was fine and walked out the front door."
"Oh." It was the only thing Rose could think to say. She had occasionally seen or heard evidence of the Doctor's nightmares during his previous regeneration. A random shout in the middle of the night, or occasionally seeing his leather-clad shadow passing by her door as he would walk the halls of the TARDIS. It seemed his new body was no less afflicted.
"Is there something going on between you two?" Jackie continued. Rose opened her mouth to deny it, an answer that had become second nature to her, despite her wishes for it to be different, but her mum cut her off. "I'm not prying. I'm just curious, that's all. 'Cause I thought I heard him say something, just before I walked in. It sounded like—"
At that moment the door swung open and the two women jumped. The Doctor's voice rang through the flat without any sort of greeting. "Those travel agents! You should have warned me about them, Jackie. When I say 'no baggage' I mean 'no—" He stilled when he walked into the living room and saw that both Tylers were sitting on the couch, staring at him. But what startled him the most was one Tyler in particular.
"Rose!" The Doctor said. His lifted his arm so he could scratch his ear, but dropped it when he seemed to remember that his hand was already occupied by a small bundle of papers.
It was then that Rose realized that what was in the Doctor's hand weren't just any stack of papers. Across the top of each one was the British Airlines logo. It seemed her mum had been right in assuming that he was eager to get back to the TARDIS.
But the Doctor's thoughts were running on a completely different strand. There were times where, in brief moments of mental vulnerability, his mind would become overwhelmed by certain things, like a sunset that reminded him of Gallifrey, or the birth of a new star. But these days it was Rose that occupied his thoughts and senses, almost as if this body had been made for her during the regeneration process. Her smile made both his hearts pound, her scent intoxicated him, and his ears yearned for the sound of her laugh. She was beautiful in every sense of the word, that small human word that could describe anything in the world and yet could never come close to being enough. His previous regeneration had known of these feelings, too, even if that big-eared form had been too cowardly to admit it, even to himself. And now Rose Tyler, no make-up and with ruffled hair and jimjams, looked as stunning as she had on that Victorian Christmas all those years ago.
And just like that day, the Doctor was faced with two distinct urges. One was to plant a kiss right on her pink lips before she could react, and the other to run. He was finally knocked out of his brief state of shock when he realized that the women's faces were creased with worry. "What?" he said, a frown beginning to form.
Like two beings with the same mind, the Tyler women shrugged and did not answer him. Instead, Rose nodded at the slips of paper the Doctor's hand and asked, "So what's that, then?"
And just like that, the Doctor reverted to his usual self with the flip of a switch. "Plane tickets!" He proclaimed, holding up said tickets with a triumphant grin. "One-way flight for two to the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. How 'bout it, Rose Tyler?" He waggled his eyebrows. "Fancy a trip to India?"
Rose smiled, her tongue poking out between her teeth in the most distracting way. "Wouldn't miss it for the world!" And then, because she couldn't help herself, Rose squealed and leaped up to hug the tall Time Lord. The Doctor, laughing as he was, held her tight as well. They were on their way to the TARDIS at last! If there had been more room in the small flat he probably would have spun her in mid-air.
Jackie, for her part, pushed her worry for the Time Lord's well-being aside and smiled at the scene in front of her. If someone had told her past self that her daughter was destined to fall for an alien, she'd never have believed them. But something had shifted between the Doctor and Rose, some subtle tweak that made their relationship so much more personal than that between travel companions. That light that came into his eyes when she entered a room. The easy smiles that sprouted from her lips whenever he started to ramble. They fed off each other's enthusiasm for living, and this in turn became something that could only be described as love. To Jackie, and anyone who met them, it was a natural assumption. And in that blue box, taking the next step in their relationship was only a matter of time.
Part of Jackie envied her daughter for this chance, but she had long ago come to terms with the sobering fact that she was past her prime. Now it was her daughter's time for love and happiness, before any untimely tragedies should befall them.
Finally, Rose untangled herself from the Doctor and stepped back so she could examine their tickets. "Right. When's our flight, then?" Our flight…how normal and boring that sounded! Since when did surreal describe travel that wasn't in a time-and-space ship?
His previous regeneration would have balked at the human implications of such domestic statement, but now the Doctor found that he loved the way those words sounded coming from Rose Tyler. With her, going anywhere was an adventure. "Plane leaves at five in the afternoon. Would have gotten an earlier flight but this was the only one with two seats—available." He decided not to mention that plenty of earlier flights had empty seats, but this plane was the only one with two open seats next to each other. Besides, according to the Doctor, a plane trip without a window seat was a wasted flight.
"No, no, five's great," Rose replied. "Good thing we don't have baggage or it'd be loads more expensive."
"Nothing to a sonic screwdriver," he said, twirling the device in his fingers.
Rose handed her mum the tickets so she could look at them. Soon, Jackie was shaking her head and chuckling. "Prices like these, I'll never reach France." She looked up at the Doctor. "I don't know how you did it, but thank you, Doctor. Thank you." The look that passed that passed between her and the Time Lord was not one of reproach or sarcasm, but of gratitude. The kind of gratitude that a parent shared with another. But Jackie, of course, had no idea of the Doctor's past, and was slightly confused when he mirrored the look in her eye.
Her daughter, however, now felt a little more than guilty. Could they take her mum along somehow? But Jackie would never agree to return on the TARDIS, and Rose knew from years of experience that her mum was too proud to agree to use the Doctor's money, no matter how ill-gotten it was. "Mum…"
"Don't worry 'bout me, sweetheart. You two have fun." She stood and returned the tickets, but not before she said with a hard look, "Just make sure you give me a ring as soon as you reach India, and your blue box."
The Doctor grinned at the mention of his ship. The TARDIS! They were on their way! "We will."
They paused there for a moment, the two humans and the single alien letting the companionable silence stretch for as long as was comfortable. But Jackie took one look at the clock on the wall and quickly set about cleaning up her and her daughter's mugs. "If your plane leaves at five then we've got to be gettin' there around three, and it's already ten! Sorry, Doctor, but Rose and I have some freshin' up to do."
"Fine, fine!" The Doctor nodded and quickly pocketed the tickets. As soon as Jackie was out of ear-shot, he leaned closer to Rose and muttered, "Looks like it'll take her a while." She snorted, and he silently added, You, however, don't need to freshen up at all.
"Five hours until go time, though," Rose said, and the restless Time Lord shivered inwardly. Like he needed to be reminded of the sobering fact that he would have to suffer through the slow passage of time like a normal person, even if it was only for a short while. "What d'you want to do?"
At that moment, her mum stepped back out of the kitchen and interrupted their discussion with her own ideas. "Sorry, Doctor, but whenever my daughter comes home we always go out for dinner. And since you insist on running off at the first opportunity then it only seems fair that I take her out to lunch. You're invited, of course."
The Doctor opened his mouth, most likely to make some excuse about upgrades he wanted to give the Tyler household's tele, but Rose cut him off. "She's got a point, you know."
He hesitated, and she pressed her advantage. "Please, Doctor? It's nothin' fancy, just a quick bite at a chippy or something. And you won't have to face mum's cooking."
A part of him, a small part, was still questioning the idea of a meal, any meal, with Jackie Tyler. But that side was slowly waning with each second Rose kept those big, hazel, puppy-dog eyes on her face, until the Doctor realized that his doubt had dissipated completely. He never could deny her anything. With a last glance, he sighed and replied, "Oh, alright. I'll come."
Rose hummed through her tongue-touched smile and hugged his right arm, a feeling that the Doctor was finding himself more and more receptive to. The limb felt cold and vacant when she extracted herself and fled to her room to change. Her mum followed after, taking time to give the Time Lord her best "don't mess with my daughter" on the way by.
The Doctor slid his hands down his face and attempted to clear his mind, though he was finding it more difficult than usual. Rose's scent still lingered all over his entire coat, and he had to admit that his focus had first gone haywire when he had walked into the flat. Or maybe, if he was being honest with himself, it had all began with the word "run".
But now was not the time to indulge in wayward thoughts and improbable fantasies. With a heavy sigh the Doctor sat himself down on the couch he'd barely used and concentrated his telepathy on his connection to the TARDIS, faint as it was. He could feel her hum in response, and soon, the Time Lord was lost in his and his ship's shared thoughts of Time and Space.
**News flash: this story is turning out to be way longer than I originally anticipated. Five chapters? As if! They haven't even gotten on the plane yet. So yes, there are lots of chapters coming. My goal is to have this whole thing finished by Thanksgiving Break, but we'll see how that goes. Keep writing, all!**
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