Time & Space (1/2)
Title - Time & Space (1/2)
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters - Ten, Rose, Jackie
Spoilers - Through "Love & Monsters"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - The repercussions of the mortgage conversation include a pile of dastardly wires, a not-blue bucket, and a visit to Jackie.
Author's Notes - Written for the Time in Flux ficathon. The goal of the ficathon is to get the Doctor and Rose together as a couple in every episode of the series. I was assigned "Love & Monsters." I actually don't mind this episode, so this pleased me. I tried to go in my own direction, but I may have been inevitably influenced by unfolded73 and fid_gin's brilliant "Lust & Monsters." Here, at any rate, is what came out of my keyboard.
Not Chaosverse compliant.
Thank you to jlrpuck and chicklet73, for the encouragement and the betas. Thanks also to Kristin for the brainstorm, read-through, and help with the title.
He left some wires out, and she tripped over them, and that was what they were arguing about. Because, bloody hell, couldn’t he ever pick up after himself?
“I don’t understand,” he said, sounding irritated, flipping a lever with a good deal more force than was necessary. “It’s not like you got hurt or anything.”
“That’s not the point,” she retorted, sulking from the captain’s chair as she watched him fly. “The point is that you can’t just leave things lying around. I could have been hurt. I could have been killed.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, sarcastically. “Rose Tyler, survives Daleks-twice-and the Devil himself, only to be killed by a bunch of wires in the TARDIS.”
“It could happen, okay? I could have broken my neck.”
He ignored her, walking around the console and banging on it. “When you think about it, it’s really rather silly that Daleks use extermination beams to kill people; they could just go around leaving piles of wires all over the place.”
Rose crossed her arms and huffed. He was impossible when he got this way.
“People would trip over the wires and then-bam!-problem solved, people dead, much cleaner and much less energy involved. Better for the environment.” He stopped fiddling around with the console and looked at her finally.
She lifted her eyebrows. “Bam?” was all she said, mildly.
He frowned and turned back to the console and brought the mallet down hard on a button. The TARDIS jerked, and Rose caught the edge of the captain’s seat to keep from tumbling off. The Doctor went scurrying away, coming back with a red pail and a blue pail.
“What are those for?” Rose asked him.
“The Hoix,” he said, shortly, lugging them out of the TARDIS.
Rose followed him. They were in the middle of what looked like an abandoned industrial complex. “What’s a Hoix?”
The Doctor had put the pails down and was now fussing with the sonic screwdriver, frowning at its readings. He had begun babbling to her, something about the Hoix and where it had come from and what they needed to do to neutralize him, and it was something about the pails and whatever was steaming inside of them, and Rose was not paying attention. She was looking at him, at the carefully styled thicket of his hair and the wide, curious brown eyes, and the way his tongue rested against the front of his teeth as he concentrated, and oh, the things he could do with that tongue, she suspected. He never showed the slightest inclination to do anything to her with that tongue. Oh, doors soaked in mistletoe, they were a different story. The Doctor was willing to stick his tongue anywhere but down her throat, apparently-
“Rose. Are you listening to me?”
She blinked at him. He was now holding a steak. Where had that come from? “What are you doin’ with that steak?”
He exhaled impatiently. “Setting a trap. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This is how we lure the Hoix. You heard the thing about the pails, right?”
“The pails?”
The Doctor began walking determinedly away. “Yes,” he called back. “What we need is not blue.”
Rose stared at the pails. “Blue?” she echoed, before running to catch up to the Doctor.
“Now,” said the Doctor, as they entered the first building. “All we have to do is find him.”
***
Rose didn’t know exactly what a Hoix looked like, but she was pretty sure that the thing in front of her was it. Or else she and the Doctor had more than one alien species to watch out for.
The Hoix turned and caught sight of her and roared, and Rose panicked. What she needed was the Doctor and his steak, she thought. Hadn’t the Doctor had some sort of plan with the steak? And the Doctor had wandered off in the other direction in search of the Hoix. “Doctor!” she shouted for him. “Doctor! The trap!”
And then she took off at a dead run in the direction the Doctor had gone. She thought the Hoix would follow her, but when she got to the Doctor, who was running in her direction, it wasn’t directly on her heels the way she had supposed.
“Where’s he gone?” he asked her. “Can you see him?”
Rose turned, looking back from where she’d come. It was a long hallway, with an impossible number of doors branching off it. “There he is!” she decided, seeing a blur of movement on the left.
The Doctor began to move past her, but Rose thought she saw a blur of movement from a door on the right. “Stop - no! Watch out! There!”
The Doctor paused and turned back to her. “Where?”
Rose was certain now, the movement had been to the right. “There!” she pointed. “Over there!”
“Run and fetch the pail,” said the Doctor, and disappeared through the door Rose had indicated.
Rose dashed out of the building and toward the pails. Why the Doctor had left them outside was beyond her. She stared at them. One red, one blue. What had he said now? Something about the blue one… She grabbed the blue pail and dashed back into the warehouse. The Doctor was holding up his steak, distracting the Hoix. And there was another man in the warehouse, staring at the Doctor and the Hoix with his jaw agape. Rose pushed past him exasperatedly, yelling in determination, and tossed the contents of the blue pail onto the Hoix. The Hoix howled and began clawing at its eyes.
“Wrong one!” exclaimed the Doctor. “You made it worse!”
“You said ‘blue’!” Rose protested.
“I said ‘not blue’!” he shouted back.
Rose looked at the Hoix, who looked back at her. Perhaps, considered Rose, this was not the time to continue arguing with the Doctor. With a slight whimper, she dashed away from the Hoix. She heard him follow, and she heard the Doctor call after her, a definite shade of irritation in his voice, “Oh, hold on!”
Rose didn’t know what he wanted her to hold on for. All she knew was she had to get to the not-blue bucket, which any normal person would have called ’red.’ But no. Not the Doctor. He had to call it ‘not blue.’ Sometimes, she thought he was deliberately goading her.
Rose ran, not even sure what direction she was running in. She became aware that the Doctor caught up to her, and she grabbed the red bucket and turned on the Hoix. The Hoix turned from her and began fleeing in terror. She pursued him, the Doctor right behind, both of them yelling, for reasons she couldn’t really pinpoint, except maybe they were both taking the opportunity to release some frustration. Rose felt as if they were running in circles, back and forth, back and forth, and by the time she tossed the red bucket over the Hoix, which turned him, abruptly, into a tiny, mewling, harmless kitten, she’d lost track of the Doctor. She picked the kitten up-it stretched in her arms, purring-and went in search of the Doctor.
He was standing in the hallway, hands settled in his pockets, looking thoughtful.
“Oi,” she said, coming up to him. “Solved the Hoix issue. Could have told me it would turn into a kitten.”
He didn’t look at her. “Did you see that man?”
“What?” She glanced down the hallway, confirming it was empty.
“That man who was in here.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She remembered pushing past him.
“Did you know him?”
“I didn’t…I didn’t really look at him, Doctor. I was busy trying to defeat the Hoix that turned out to be a terrifying kitten.”
“I know him. I’m sure that I know him…”
Rose lifted her eyebrows. “Did you talk to him?”
“Tried to. He ran away.”
“Well,” said Rose, briskly. “You meet lots of people, yeah? What are we doing with this now?” She indicated the kitten, who meowed.
He looked at it blankly. “Oh, uh,” he said, and waved his hand, then started walking away.
“I don’t know what that means,” muttered Rose, following after him, kitten still in her arms.
He was already in the TARDIS.
“Doctor,” said Rose, firmly. “What are we going to do with the kitten?”
The Doctor didn’t seem to hear her. “I just can’t place where I know him from, and why it feels like it might be important. You didn’t recognize him at all? I wasn’t with you?”
Rose bristled. “He didn’t look familiar to me. And it’s not like you spend all your time with me. Who knows? Maybe you met him while you were pallin’ around with Reinette.”
The Doctor looked at her in bewilderment. “Why is that even called for?”
“What d’you mean, ‘called for’? Just stating a fact.”
“You’re always bringing Reinette up. Always. It’s completely unnecessary.”
“She’s just a fact,” said Rose again.
“If she’s just a fact, she must be your favorite fact in the entire universe,” remarked the Doctor.
“No, isn’t she yours, though?” said Rose, and then dumped the kitten into his arms. “Deal with that. I’m going to take a bubble bath.”
***
The TARDIS was moving, taking them somewhere, probably to drop off the kitten Hoix, but Rose laid in the bubble bath and tried to relax. The bubble bath she used was, after all, supposed to be the most relaxing bubble bath in the universe, with some special chemical in it that was supposed to trigger something inside of her to make her relax. Or something. The Doctor had bought her the bubble bath and presented it to her after a day when she had thought he’d been in search of TARDIS parts. He had, but he’d thought of her when he’d seen the bubble bath, and he’d bought it for her, and he’d bounced with excitement as he’d explained it to her, and she had not heard the explanation. She had been busy staring at the bubble bath and telling herself to get a grip, that it was the simplest thing, she was always taking bubble baths, it made sense he would buy her some, but it was a gift from him, and somehow it had been the best thing she had ever been given.
Rose pushed the bubbles about in the bath, feeling dissatisfied. It really wasn’t fair, she thought. Maybe, partly, it was her fault, for wanting more from him than he was ready to give, but still, it was easier to blame him. She’d tried to have a conversation about it, had ventured forth when she’d suggested the possibility of sharing a mortgage. Maybe it hadn’t been the best time to broach the topic, when he had still been reeling from the loss of the TARDIS, the one constant in his life for so very long. But the way he had changed the subject, so quickly, looked so shell-shocked by the very idea…Not the idea of being trapped but the idea of being trapped with her…
That had hurt. So very, very much. So much more than she was willing to admit to him. So much more than he had seemed to notice. And after the joy of their reunion had worn off a bit, after he had set her back on the floor of the console and spun them out into the Vortex, it had finally begun to sink in for her. If he hadn’t kissed her then, he was never going to. She was traveling space and time with an alien she was hopelessly in love with and who was never going to love her back. At least, not that way. And she knew it was possible they needed to talk about that, needed to get it all out in the open, but the Doctor had been avoiding her, had been running around tinkering constantly. Every time she tried to say something that sounded vaguely serious, he came up with an excuse to run away. The only evidence of him was the wires he left everywhere. Some of which she’d tripped over that morning.
Rose was suddenly tired of being in the bubble bath. She pulled the plug on the drain and stood up, toweling off perfunctorily and then going to her bed and curling in a ball under the duvet, which she pulled up over her head, enjoying the warmth and the dark and the quiet. She was feeling lonely and young and uncertain about what she should do and she just wanted her mother.
Rose crawled out from under the duvet just enough to grab her mobile and bring it back into the protective cocoon with her. And she dialed her mum.
“’Lo?”
Her mother sounded distracted, even from the simple greeting, and Rose suddenly felt bad for calling her like this. She sometimes completely forgot to call her mother, which she knew was inexcusable, but sometimes she just got busy and was caught up in the Doctor and she forgot, and she felt guilty that she then called when she had a problem and expected her mother to drop everything. “Hi, Mum,” she said, striving to sound perfectly normal.
“Rose,” her mother said, and her voice, sharpened a bit, focused. “Sweetheart! How are you?”
“I’m…” Rose thought of so many things to say, of the quarreling with the Doctor, of the fatal mistake she’d nearly made of staying on the planet instead of going in the rocket, of having to kill Toby, of the Devil himself telling her she would die in battle so very soon. So, so many things, and how could she worry her mother that way? “I’m fine,” she said, and smiled widely, hoping it came across in her voice.
“Rose?” she said, sounding as if she knew better.
“Really, Mum, I’m fine, I…just wanted to hear your voice.” She realized at that moment it was true. Nothing her mother could say would change anything that had-and hadn’t-happened. But it still felt good to hear her mother’s voice. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” her mother replied, and she sounded it. “I’m really good.”
“Good.”
“Lots of stuff been going on around here lately.”
“Really? Like what?”
“Like…well, stuff. I’m sure you have more interesting stories to tell.”
“Oh,” shrugged Rose, staring at the duvet over her head. “Probably not. Maybe we’ll stop by for a visit soon. We’re…dropping off a kitten now.”
“A kitten?”
“Yeah, it’s…Oh, Mum, it’s so complicated.”
“I know, sweetheart,” said her mother, and she sounded if she knew every way that things were so complicated.
“We’ll come for a visit,” Rose decided. “I’ll talk to the Doctor about it.”
“I’ll see you soon,” her mother said.
“Definitely.”
“All right, be careful.”
Rose thought of her actions on the impossible planet. “Yeah,” she said. “Bye.”
“Bye,” her mother replied, and Rose ended the call and huffed into the darkness of her duvet cocoon. Her mother had sounded sad at the end there. Probably because she’d sensed Rose was sad. Rose had upset her mum by having to pretend to be happy.
And that was all the Doctor’s fault.
Rose threw her duvet off and decided to get dressed. It would calm her down to get dressed. She pulled on knickers, a bra, jeans, and a blue hoodie. Then topped it with a black jacket. The Doctor, she thought, wasn’t the only one who could layer. She regarded her hair. She’d washed it in the tub, and it was still damp. She parted it down the middle and began to braid it in a complicated fashion, hoping that she would be even calmer when she was done with her complicated braids. She finished the braids and decided to put on make-up. And big hoop earrings. She regarded her reflection in the mirror.
Nope. Still not calm.
She got up and went in search of the Doctor. He’d also changed. Well, his tie, at least. He had been wearing a blue-swirly one that she was very fond of. Now he was wearing a blue-boxy one that she did not like. He was in the control room, tinkering. Fancy that, she thought.
“Doctor,” she began.
“Hoix taken care of,” he interrupted her. “Kitten all dropped off. And now I have to go check on the fibbetyittyupdymidget.” He dropped through the grating, conveniently disappearing.
Rose really thought that he’d just started making TARDIS parts up at this point. “I called my mum,” she said.
The Doctor made a noncommittal noise from underneath the grating.
“I had to pretend that everything’s just dandy,” Rose continued, feeling like she was talking to himself.
“What do you mean?” responded the Doctor, innocently. “Pretend? Everything is just dandy. I mean, aside from your getting the blue / not-blue distinction wrong.”
Rose felt her lips tighten in a frown. He was really the most infuriating…thing, she thought. “We have to go visit my mum.”
His head appeared through the hole in the grating, looking alarmed. “What?” he squeaked. He never liked a visit to her mum.
“Yes. We have to go visit her. And do you know why? Because you’ve upset her!”
“Me?!” he exclaimed, sounding offended. He looked offended, too, his hair fluffing upward of its own indignant accord. “What have I done? I haven’t done anything!”
“You upset me, so I had to pretend not to be upset for my mother, and because she knew I was pretending not to be upset, it upset her, and you were the cause of my being upset in the first place, so therefore…” Rose paused dramatically. “You upset her.”
The Doctor looked speechless, which was a sight she didn’t often get to see. He ruffled at his hair nervously. “But…but…” he sputtered.
“And stop playing with your hair!” Rose snapped, because suddenly that affected hair-ruffle of his was driving. Her. Mad. “Must you always play with your hair?”
The Doctor bristled. She could see it. He moved from bewilderment to fury, like the swinging of a pendulum. Never, ever, ever insult the Time Lord hair, she thought, watching him pull himself up from under the grating and march over to the control. At least, not on this version of the Time Lord, and she abruptly longed for her old version, old and comforting and still confusing and infuriating but at least he had never ruffled at his hair and panicked at mortgage talk and gone about calling things “not blue” when they were clearly red.
“Fine,” he bit out, angrily punching at buttons and pulling at levers. “We will go, and we will visit your mother. Maybe-” He brought the mallet down, forcefully, once, twice. “I will just leave you there with your mother.”
“Fine!” she shouted.
“Fine!” he shouted back.
And she stomped out of the control room and was all the way to her bedroom before the impact of what he’d said hit her.
Next Part