Fic: The First Night
Title: The First Night
Series: A Series of Firsts
Author: arwen_kenobi
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine. No profit. Just for fun. Please don’t sue
Pairing: 10/Rose (Journey's End Compliant)
Spoilers: Series 4 finale!!
Summary: First story in "A Series of Firsts". The first night after the events of Journey's End.
Author's Notes: This will be the first in a series that I'm calling "A Series of Firsts" which will document exactly what it says: firsts for the Doctor and Rose in their new life.
The First Night
“I’m going to bed.”
Her mother’s mouth dropped open. Rose made no apologies for interrupting her parents’ conversation, it had been a long and exhausting day and she had no idea how anyone was still awake and speaking coherently. Pete had been unable to secure a zeppelin so they’d ended up taking a car, a boat, a train, a bus, and another car in order to get home again. The first thing Rose had wanted to do when she’d walked in the door was to go straight to bed and not wake up for the next millennia or two. Maybe when she woke up the world would make sense again. Everything was perfectly fine with her while still not feeling quite right, it reminded her way too much of the first time she’d seen the parallel world. Everything was so familiar and comforting but there was that dash of the unknown that threw it all just slightly off balance. It didn’t really help that the embodiment of this displacement was sitting right next to her.
Rose found it easier to understand and accept this concept of the Doctor as two people at once by thinking of it in terms of regeneration. Same man, same everything, but this time he’d regenerated into two people instead of changing his face. He was the Doctor and she loved him. She always would, just as she would always love the one that had left her behind. She had both found him and lost him. She was both thrilled at how things had turned out and disappointed. .
This was why she needed the sleep. Things would work themselves out soon enough, she had faith in that. She just needed to digest it properly. “I’ll leave the rest of the tale to them,” she told her father with a gesture at her mother and the Doctor. “I really need to stop thinking for a few hours.”
Pete nodded. “Night, Rose.”
“Night, sweetheart,” Jackie echoed.
“Pleasant dreams,” the Doctor sang.
Rose shook her head. “I’d rather not dream at all for now, thanks.” She smiled ruefully. “I’ve got enough to think about right now.”
He nodded in agreement. “Pleasant nothingness then.” His face was impassive for a moment and then he hazarded a smile. Rose gave him as big a one as she could muster in return. She didn’t want him to be nervous around her. For God’s sake he was the Doctor and she was Rose Tyler. They were the stuff of legends, thick as thieves they were…
But they also weren’t, Rose thought as she left the room and headed up the stairs to her room. Technically speaking this Doctor was only a few hours old and they were really just strangers. Irrelevant, she decided. She’d proclaimed him the Doctor and he was staying as the Doctor, no need to further complicate matters.
She felt a throbbing in her head and groaned in frustration. No more of this rubbish tonight, she told herself firmly. She slammed her door closed, and threw herself into bed without bothering to change. A good night’s sleep was all that was on the menu for tonight.
- - - -
Rose only managed to sleep for two hours. She tried to roll over and go back to bed but the unholy, eerie green light emanating from her alarm clock seemed to make this task impossible. Six crossword puzzles and half a novel didn’t help tire her out either. She thanked God that tomorrow, or rather today, was Saturday and that she could catch up on her sleep at some other point.
Or was today Saturday? She really wasn’t sure. Another glance at her alarm clock told her that today was, indeed, Saturday. Rose had only been gone from this universe for four days.
Four days, Rose griped. It was probably close to four months to her. She’d been to so many parallel worlds, made so many attempts to get into her home universe at the right time and the right place in the same jump. She felt she’d aged a century or two in the space of those four days. Her thoughts began to turn to what she had seen in some of those universes and she gave herself a firm pinch on the arm to return her mind to the world she was currently in and would always be in. Forever.
This called for a cup of tea.
Rose slowly opened her door and stuck her head out. The house was dark and silent, not a sign of life. Perfect. She just wanted to sip her tea and maybe leaf through whatever magazine was lying in the kitchen in peace. The last thing she wanted was her mother blundering in and insisting on a heart to heart talk.
She paused halfway down the hall. Startled at first as to why there was light coming through the crack between the door and floor. That was the guest room, no one slept there. It took Rose longer than she’d have thought to realize that of course her mother would put the Doctor up in the guest room close to her room.
As she stood in front of the Doctor’s door she raised a hand to place gently on it while she decided whether or not she should knock. He was human now and probably was only now just discovering how it felt to be tired enough to need to sleep for eight hours and she didn’t want to interrupt his efforts. A burst of memory struck her. Whenever she’d woken up alone in the night like this the Doctor had had a wonderful ability to show up exactly when she’d needed him to talk to, or simply to hold on to. They’d become a touch more psychically aware of each other since the Game Station, since Bad Wolf. A prime example was when she’d whispered “help me” into his ear that Christmas and he’d woken up long enough to do just that. Another was how he’d called to her from across universes to bid her farewell.
Maybe there was too much human in him for it to work now, she thought, but she still dallied a little longer at his door before finally heading down to the kitchen. She did not stop herself from making enough tea for two and was not surprised to see him, all ruffled hair and striped pajamas, appear when she was halfway through the latest issue of “Individuals.”.
He smiled shyly at her. “You could have knocked you know.”
“I know.” She set the magazine aside and pushed the other cup of tea toward him. “I didn’t want to interrupt you. I figured you were trying to fall asleep.”
“Try being the operative word,” he said with a mighty yawn; Rose swore she’d heard the dishes in the sink rattle. “I don’t know how you humans keep pressing on when you’re this tired. I feel like I could sleep for the rest of my life!” He all but collapsed into the chair across from her.
“Me too,” Rose agreed. They both sipped their tea, studying each other while trying not to look as if they were.
“Another mystery of humanity,” the Doctor declared. “We’re both so tired yet we are both very obviously awake. How is this possible?” He sipped his tea again and it was only when she caught him staring at her in the way he used to when he was waiting for her to catch up with some difficult concept when she realised that he’d asked her a sort of question. It was she who held all the answers to being human, she who knew the ropes of this life and he who was now in unfamiliar territory. Rose found the reversal of roles both interesting and terrifying all at once.
“Not really a mystery,” she shrugged. “A lot of things to think about and not enough time to do it.”
“I thought you didn’t want to think about anything tonight.”
“I didn’t,” Rose acknowledged with a sigh. “Seems I’m not to have any rest until I’ve sorted the important things out.” She said these last few words from behind her hands as she scrubbed at her face and worked to suppress a yawn. The tea was working its magic, finally.
“And what would those things be?”
Rose opened her mouth to give that mighty list but she was suddenly silent. There was no mighty list to give and any fretting she’d been doing was consequently needless.
The important things really only amounted to one thing: The Doctor. That issue was already well resolved. The Doctor was here. The Doctor was also there, true, and she’d love them both until her last breath but she could only be with one. This one had been able to say the words that the other would probably never have been able to. Be able to be with her in every way where he probably wouldn’t have been able to. They’d have their forever and a have fantastically wonderful adventures together, maybe not the way she’d imagined it but since when did any of her plans go precisely the way she’d intended?
The Doctor had given her himself and that was exactly what she had wanted from him. Expect him to take the unspoken request literally. She giggled out loud and she had to laugh a little bit louder at the expression on the Doctor’s face.
“You alright?” The question was earnest but also cautious. Rose didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that he was currently analyzing whether it would be best to make a run for it or to stay here and deal with this mild meltdown.
“I’m fine,” she laughed. “I’m fantastic actually!”
The Doctor studied her carefully. Rose sat there beaming, not caring for a moment if he thought she was mad, she’d been in his position more than a few times. “So,” he pronounced in a manner that sharply reminded her of the Torchwood therapist. “The important things are sorted?”
“The important thing is sorted.”
“Thing?”
“Yup.” The popped ‘p’ echoed in the kitchen. “You’re still you and I’m still me and that’s all I need sorted for the time being.” The Doctor’s face split into the biggest smile she had ever seen and she was being held in a crushing embrace before she’d even had time to blink. Rose remembered that she may have come to the conclusion that he was who he was but she had never actually told him. She certainly wasn’t the only one who was uncertain. He’d been handed this life just as abruptly as it had been handed to her. They’d face it together, as they’d always had and now always would. Rose hugged him back, pressing another kiss to his cheek for good measure and then broke out into a yawn. The Doctor pulled back indignantly but he soon yawned loud enough that the whole house should have fallen down.
“I think bed is a good idea now,” the Doctor suggested, taking her hand and leading her out of the kitchen. “This sleep thing had better be amazing,” he griped. “If I have to give up eight hours of my day to rest it had better be the best thing since…since…since everything created ever. EVER.”
“Oh it will be,” she assured him. “Ten quid says I’ll be the one up first and trying to drag you out of that bed.”
“Done!”
Rose stopped on the stairs for a second. “Make it twenty quid,” she amended. “You still owe me for that Queen Victoria nonsense.”
The Doctor groaned. “I was hoping you’d forgotten about that!”
“Not a chance,” she grinned triumphantly. The Doctor grumbled until they reached his bedroom door, where they hung around for a few moments as awkward as two teenagers. Rose finally just grabbed his hand and brought him into her room. Perhaps it wasn’t the best of ideas to bring him into her bed now but all she had plans for right now was actual sleep. It seemed that was all he had planned as well: he was asleep the second his head hit the pillow.
She may not be totally sure of things, she thought as she closed her eyes, but she reckoned she had a pretty good idea. That was as good as anything in this situation.
Series: A Series of Firsts
Author: arwen_kenobi
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine. No profit. Just for fun. Please don’t sue
Pairing: 10/Rose (Journey's End Compliant)
Spoilers: Series 4 finale!!
Summary: First story in "A Series of Firsts". The first night after the events of Journey's End.
Author's Notes: This will be the first in a series that I'm calling "A Series of Firsts" which will document exactly what it says: firsts for the Doctor and Rose in their new life.
The First Night
“I’m going to bed.”
Her mother’s mouth dropped open. Rose made no apologies for interrupting her parents’ conversation, it had been a long and exhausting day and she had no idea how anyone was still awake and speaking coherently. Pete had been unable to secure a zeppelin so they’d ended up taking a car, a boat, a train, a bus, and another car in order to get home again. The first thing Rose had wanted to do when she’d walked in the door was to go straight to bed and not wake up for the next millennia or two. Maybe when she woke up the world would make sense again. Everything was perfectly fine with her while still not feeling quite right, it reminded her way too much of the first time she’d seen the parallel world. Everything was so familiar and comforting but there was that dash of the unknown that threw it all just slightly off balance. It didn’t really help that the embodiment of this displacement was sitting right next to her.
Rose found it easier to understand and accept this concept of the Doctor as two people at once by thinking of it in terms of regeneration. Same man, same everything, but this time he’d regenerated into two people instead of changing his face. He was the Doctor and she loved him. She always would, just as she would always love the one that had left her behind. She had both found him and lost him. She was both thrilled at how things had turned out and disappointed. .
This was why she needed the sleep. Things would work themselves out soon enough, she had faith in that. She just needed to digest it properly. “I’ll leave the rest of the tale to them,” she told her father with a gesture at her mother and the Doctor. “I really need to stop thinking for a few hours.”
Pete nodded. “Night, Rose.”
“Night, sweetheart,” Jackie echoed.
“Pleasant dreams,” the Doctor sang.
Rose shook her head. “I’d rather not dream at all for now, thanks.” She smiled ruefully. “I’ve got enough to think about right now.”
He nodded in agreement. “Pleasant nothingness then.” His face was impassive for a moment and then he hazarded a smile. Rose gave him as big a one as she could muster in return. She didn’t want him to be nervous around her. For God’s sake he was the Doctor and she was Rose Tyler. They were the stuff of legends, thick as thieves they were…
But they also weren’t, Rose thought as she left the room and headed up the stairs to her room. Technically speaking this Doctor was only a few hours old and they were really just strangers. Irrelevant, she decided. She’d proclaimed him the Doctor and he was staying as the Doctor, no need to further complicate matters.
She felt a throbbing in her head and groaned in frustration. No more of this rubbish tonight, she told herself firmly. She slammed her door closed, and threw herself into bed without bothering to change. A good night’s sleep was all that was on the menu for tonight.
- - - -
Rose only managed to sleep for two hours. She tried to roll over and go back to bed but the unholy, eerie green light emanating from her alarm clock seemed to make this task impossible. Six crossword puzzles and half a novel didn’t help tire her out either. She thanked God that tomorrow, or rather today, was Saturday and that she could catch up on her sleep at some other point.
Or was today Saturday? She really wasn’t sure. Another glance at her alarm clock told her that today was, indeed, Saturday. Rose had only been gone from this universe for four days.
Four days, Rose griped. It was probably close to four months to her. She’d been to so many parallel worlds, made so many attempts to get into her home universe at the right time and the right place in the same jump. She felt she’d aged a century or two in the space of those four days. Her thoughts began to turn to what she had seen in some of those universes and she gave herself a firm pinch on the arm to return her mind to the world she was currently in and would always be in. Forever.
This called for a cup of tea.
Rose slowly opened her door and stuck her head out. The house was dark and silent, not a sign of life. Perfect. She just wanted to sip her tea and maybe leaf through whatever magazine was lying in the kitchen in peace. The last thing she wanted was her mother blundering in and insisting on a heart to heart talk.
She paused halfway down the hall. Startled at first as to why there was light coming through the crack between the door and floor. That was the guest room, no one slept there. It took Rose longer than she’d have thought to realize that of course her mother would put the Doctor up in the guest room close to her room.
As she stood in front of the Doctor’s door she raised a hand to place gently on it while she decided whether or not she should knock. He was human now and probably was only now just discovering how it felt to be tired enough to need to sleep for eight hours and she didn’t want to interrupt his efforts. A burst of memory struck her. Whenever she’d woken up alone in the night like this the Doctor had had a wonderful ability to show up exactly when she’d needed him to talk to, or simply to hold on to. They’d become a touch more psychically aware of each other since the Game Station, since Bad Wolf. A prime example was when she’d whispered “help me” into his ear that Christmas and he’d woken up long enough to do just that. Another was how he’d called to her from across universes to bid her farewell.
Maybe there was too much human in him for it to work now, she thought, but she still dallied a little longer at his door before finally heading down to the kitchen. She did not stop herself from making enough tea for two and was not surprised to see him, all ruffled hair and striped pajamas, appear when she was halfway through the latest issue of “Individuals.”.
He smiled shyly at her. “You could have knocked you know.”
“I know.” She set the magazine aside and pushed the other cup of tea toward him. “I didn’t want to interrupt you. I figured you were trying to fall asleep.”
“Try being the operative word,” he said with a mighty yawn; Rose swore she’d heard the dishes in the sink rattle. “I don’t know how you humans keep pressing on when you’re this tired. I feel like I could sleep for the rest of my life!” He all but collapsed into the chair across from her.
“Me too,” Rose agreed. They both sipped their tea, studying each other while trying not to look as if they were.
“Another mystery of humanity,” the Doctor declared. “We’re both so tired yet we are both very obviously awake. How is this possible?” He sipped his tea again and it was only when she caught him staring at her in the way he used to when he was waiting for her to catch up with some difficult concept when she realised that he’d asked her a sort of question. It was she who held all the answers to being human, she who knew the ropes of this life and he who was now in unfamiliar territory. Rose found the reversal of roles both interesting and terrifying all at once.
“Not really a mystery,” she shrugged. “A lot of things to think about and not enough time to do it.”
“I thought you didn’t want to think about anything tonight.”
“I didn’t,” Rose acknowledged with a sigh. “Seems I’m not to have any rest until I’ve sorted the important things out.” She said these last few words from behind her hands as she scrubbed at her face and worked to suppress a yawn. The tea was working its magic, finally.
“And what would those things be?”
Rose opened her mouth to give that mighty list but she was suddenly silent. There was no mighty list to give and any fretting she’d been doing was consequently needless.
The important things really only amounted to one thing: The Doctor. That issue was already well resolved. The Doctor was here. The Doctor was also there, true, and she’d love them both until her last breath but she could only be with one. This one had been able to say the words that the other would probably never have been able to. Be able to be with her in every way where he probably wouldn’t have been able to. They’d have their forever and a have fantastically wonderful adventures together, maybe not the way she’d imagined it but since when did any of her plans go precisely the way she’d intended?
The Doctor had given her himself and that was exactly what she had wanted from him. Expect him to take the unspoken request literally. She giggled out loud and she had to laugh a little bit louder at the expression on the Doctor’s face.
“You alright?” The question was earnest but also cautious. Rose didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that he was currently analyzing whether it would be best to make a run for it or to stay here and deal with this mild meltdown.
“I’m fine,” she laughed. “I’m fantastic actually!”
The Doctor studied her carefully. Rose sat there beaming, not caring for a moment if he thought she was mad, she’d been in his position more than a few times. “So,” he pronounced in a manner that sharply reminded her of the Torchwood therapist. “The important things are sorted?”
“The important thing is sorted.”
“Thing?”
“Yup.” The popped ‘p’ echoed in the kitchen. “You’re still you and I’m still me and that’s all I need sorted for the time being.” The Doctor’s face split into the biggest smile she had ever seen and she was being held in a crushing embrace before she’d even had time to blink. Rose remembered that she may have come to the conclusion that he was who he was but she had never actually told him. She certainly wasn’t the only one who was uncertain. He’d been handed this life just as abruptly as it had been handed to her. They’d face it together, as they’d always had and now always would. Rose hugged him back, pressing another kiss to his cheek for good measure and then broke out into a yawn. The Doctor pulled back indignantly but he soon yawned loud enough that the whole house should have fallen down.
“I think bed is a good idea now,” the Doctor suggested, taking her hand and leading her out of the kitchen. “This sleep thing had better be amazing,” he griped. “If I have to give up eight hours of my day to rest it had better be the best thing since…since…since everything created ever. EVER.”
“Oh it will be,” she assured him. “Ten quid says I’ll be the one up first and trying to drag you out of that bed.”
“Done!”
Rose stopped on the stairs for a second. “Make it twenty quid,” she amended. “You still owe me for that Queen Victoria nonsense.”
The Doctor groaned. “I was hoping you’d forgotten about that!”
“Not a chance,” she grinned triumphantly. The Doctor grumbled until they reached his bedroom door, where they hung around for a few moments as awkward as two teenagers. Rose finally just grabbed his hand and brought him into her room. Perhaps it wasn’t the best of ideas to bring him into her bed now but all she had plans for right now was actual sleep. It seemed that was all he had planned as well: he was asleep the second his head hit the pillow.
She may not be totally sure of things, she thought as she closed her eyes, but she reckoned she had a pretty good idea. That was as good as anything in this situation.