Title: We Are Not Amused
Characters/Pairing: Rose, Ten
Rating: PG
Spoilers: up to Tooth and Claw
Summary: After being honored (and then threatened) by Queen Victoria, Rose and the Doctor talk about their latest adventure while taking a ride back to the TARDIS.
Originally written for the
ten_n_tyler ficathon, for
nightbeast.
"Beginnin' to think you don't like me," Rose said, hoping her tone would allow her to play it off as a joke, though part of her was just the tiniest bit serious. The cart hit a particularly deep hole just as she finished talking, and the she and the Doctor both braced themselves as the tremor passed through the rickety old contraption.
"What?" the Doctor replied, yelling just a bit too loud over the noise of the wheels. Rose winced a little, but the Doctor didn't seem to notice.
"I said," she began, and then thought better of it. "Never mind. It was nothing."
"Ah, good then," the Doctor said, looking all around and taking in the view of the fields and sky, completely oblivious, as always, to the Earth laws of male/female conversation and the true meaning of the phrase, 'it was nothing'.
After a few more bumps courtesy of the uneven road, all of which were punctuated by silence from the Doctor as he happily breathed in the fresh air, Rose decided to forge ahead after all.
"It's just...we get separated a lot, don't we?"
"What? Separated?" the Doctor said, looking upward and scratching his neck thoughtfully. "We do? The two of us? I don't think...well, I suppose if you count our run in with Dickens, the aliens at 10 Downing Street, and yes, just about everything on Satellite Five," he said, running out of fingers to tick each item off with, "the time we spent passing Cassandra back and forth between us, and then you being kidnapped and nearly killed by a werewolf..."
"Well, yeah. If you count all that," Rose answered, laughing a bit.
"Hardly my fault," the Doctor added with that air of indignant innocence that usually meant he secretly felt it was all his fault. "You certainly don't lack the talent for finding trouble, Rose."
Rose rolled her eyes. "Now you sound like mum," she explained, laughing again at the horrified look on the Doctor's face. "Spent most of her life tellin' me how much trouble I got myself in."
The Doctor was examining her closely, looking very serious, and it made her wish she'd just kept her mouth shut.
"Not that I'm worried at all, Doctor," she stammered. "I still love this. Traveling with you."
"Too bad that's not what we're doing then, isn't it? You're not traveling with me. We're traveling together."
"What d'you mean?" she asked, but he met her with that maddening silence yet again, though he was grinning at her this time. "You mean that you aren't just draggin' me behind you, yeah?"
"Once we step out of the TARDIS, Rose, it's your adventure as well as mine."
She grinned back.
"So it's not that I don't like you," he continued, mimicking Rose's voice with his last three words.
"Hey!" she protested, smacking him on the shoulder and laughing when his hand flew to cover where she'd hit him as though she'd really hurt him. He pouted a little as his fingers rubbed the offended area. "So what you're saying is that you trust me to take care of myself."
"And me as well," he added. "Sometimes, you're nearly as brilliant as I am."
He took her hand just then, and they rode along toward the TARDIS with the help of Dougal's cart. The Doctor took in a huge breath and held it for a long moment before he let it out again. Just as she was about to ask him what he was up to, he did it again.
Rose wondered if he was gathering up the courage to say something, and what in the wide universe could possibly scare him. Her mind wandered to thoughts of him drawing her into a kiss, a real kiss, at long last. This seemed like that sort of a moment, like sitting in a dark cinema on a date and wondering when the bloke sitting next to her would finally make his move.
"Smell that fresh air, Rose. Isn't it wonderful? Go on, take in a nice lungful of it. Take two! Nothing like it."
Rose suppressed the sigh that threatened to betray her private disappointment, but moved on quickly.
"And you owe me ten pounds, don't forget. The Queen most definitely was 'not amused'," Rose said, putting on a posh accent with much more success than her attempt at a Scottish one.
"Don't have it," the Doctor said, shrugging. "Could give you a few bits from any number of other planets, though. I think I've got a coin in the back pocket of my trousers that you could trade in for a mate of your choice on...oh, where was it?"
"Oh, no. I'm not having that. You owe me ten pounds."
"What would you possibly need ten pounds for?"
"Proof. You were wrong, and I was right," she said, enjoying the indignant wail that came from the Doctor in response. "Argue all you want, I was still right. And you're supposed to be the big time traveler."
"We're both time travelers," he corrected. "I've just got a bit more experience."
"So I'm just as 'in charge' as you are then, yeah?" she asked.
"Sure!" he said, spreading his arms widely and flapping a corner of his jacket into her face, which she pushed aside with a look of mock annoyance. "Say the word, Rose, and we'll go. Mars!"
"Nah, too hot," she said, and he positively roared with laughter.
"Las Vegas?" he asked.
"Too noisy," she said, pulling a face.
"Where, then?"
"Cardiff, probably," Rose said. "Though what you'll be aiming for when we end up there this time, I don't know. Where was it you were trying to take me when we ended up here?"
"You met royalty and you're bothering me with tiny little details like time and place."
She giggled. "Mind you, it was exciting to meet Her Royal Highness, even if she was quite nasty to us there in the end. Thought she was going to bite your hand off."
The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her. "I think you might be more right than you know. If there'd been a full moon, I think she might have had a go at my hand."
"What are you on about?"
"Queen Victoria. She had a wound on her hand and she wouldn't show it to me. I think," he said, leaning in toward Rose and beckoning her to come closer, "she got bit by the werewolf."
"No!" Rose said, scandalized and amused, all at the same time. As the Doctor continued trying to convince Rose of his crazy theory that the royal family was a pack of werewolves, they found themselves back at the TARDIS.
The more she thought about it, though, the less crazy the idea became. Royal Disease, he'd said, and it seemed more and more certain all the time. The royal family...werewolves! And she'd been there to see it happen.
"Oh my god, they're werewolves!" she called out, and the sound of the TARDIS, as the Doctor spurred her to life, was drowned beneath the din of their laughing.