Doctor Who: Sheer Memory
Title: Sheer Memory
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairings/Characters: Eleven/Rose, TARDIS
Rating: K+ (Blink-and-you'll-miss-it implications)
Notes: The first of perhaps three entries for Challenge 94 over at then_theres_us. It didn't come out exactly like I wanted, but it's sorta a weird idea to begin with. Enjoy.
There are dainty silk shower curtains in his bathroom. They contrast the harsh, utilitarian lines of the rest of the décor, an unexpected softness against cold metal and blue tile and the strangely orange glow of the lights. He wishes it was more red: the orange is just close enough to the natural light he remembers of his lost home that he makes the connection, but not enough like it to provide any real escapism.
The curtains haven't always been silken and delicate. They were practical plastic, once, and a matching sort of TARDIS blue sometime, and he's pretty sure there have been several stretches where there weren't any at all. A long time ago, when the lights were less orange, there was just glass. He isn't entirely sure when that changed, when it ever changes. Since near about his sixth regeneration, he's had a tendency of stumbling into the shower mostly filthy, covered in dirt or muck or sand or freezing water to the very bone, the latest adventure refusing to let go. Tired enough that little details like shower curtains tend to be glossed over by worries for his companions' safety, or what he didn't do-could have done. Even in his tenth, he paid far more attention to the mirror than to the shower curtains. When it finally dawns on him that his new shower curtains are definitively more girly than his new hair, he's convinced that it couldn't have been there long.
Maybe it changed when the TARDIS regenerated. It would make sense. A lot of things changed, and for the manly shower curtains to go along with the coral console room makes sense enough. Maybe she's playing a joke on him. Maybe she thinks he needs to cut his hair. Maybe she really just thinks that he'll like it...
Maybe she thinks that her rooms need something soft and delicate around, with their Rose long since gone. Maybe the TARDIS feels like someone has to make ridiculous things happen within her confines, and that Rose was always the one to talk him-sometimes silently-one step closer to domestic.
Maybe they actually are Rose's curtains, brought in because her bathroom wasn't precious enough to keep, though surely her room must've been. Maybe that's why the shower always smells like coconut. He hates coconut, this time around, so he'd never use it, but maybe she would. And, maybe, if it didn't smell offensively like coconut, brashly devoid of any hint of Rose to compliment it and give it life, he wouldn't mind. But he's too nervous to wash them out. He might damage the silk, after all. And what respectable time traveler has time to stop and wash shower curtains, really? Not him, that's for sure.
Maybe it's just one more thing of hers the Doctor and the TARDIS can't let go of, the item having long since forgotten about its owner so the Doctor and his TARDIS can act like its just another of the mementos littering the ship's many rooms, bequeathed by the famous or the beloved or the fantastic (by all three).
Maybe, some days, on the bad days (on the good ones that aren't quite fantastic because she can't be there), he leans into it and takes a deep breath, coconuts and lack of Rose or not, and lets himself remember. Maybe, some days, the remembering turns into something a little bit fonder and he has to turn the knobs so the shower water is a little bit colder. Maybe, sometimes, he doesn't.
But is the TARDIS, and she's made much more eclectic decorative choices before. He's made much more eclectic decorative choices before. Maybe they are just any old curtains.
And maybe she was just another companion.
Inspired by this image
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairings/Characters: Eleven/Rose, TARDIS
Rating: K+ (Blink-and-you'll-miss-it implications)
Notes: The first of perhaps three entries for Challenge 94 over at then_theres_us. It didn't come out exactly like I wanted, but it's sorta a weird idea to begin with. Enjoy.
There are dainty silk shower curtains in his bathroom. They contrast the harsh, utilitarian lines of the rest of the décor, an unexpected softness against cold metal and blue tile and the strangely orange glow of the lights. He wishes it was more red: the orange is just close enough to the natural light he remembers of his lost home that he makes the connection, but not enough like it to provide any real escapism.
The curtains haven't always been silken and delicate. They were practical plastic, once, and a matching sort of TARDIS blue sometime, and he's pretty sure there have been several stretches where there weren't any at all. A long time ago, when the lights were less orange, there was just glass. He isn't entirely sure when that changed, when it ever changes. Since near about his sixth regeneration, he's had a tendency of stumbling into the shower mostly filthy, covered in dirt or muck or sand or freezing water to the very bone, the latest adventure refusing to let go. Tired enough that little details like shower curtains tend to be glossed over by worries for his companions' safety, or what he didn't do-could have done. Even in his tenth, he paid far more attention to the mirror than to the shower curtains. When it finally dawns on him that his new shower curtains are definitively more girly than his new hair, he's convinced that it couldn't have been there long.
Maybe it changed when the TARDIS regenerated. It would make sense. A lot of things changed, and for the manly shower curtains to go along with the coral console room makes sense enough. Maybe she's playing a joke on him. Maybe she thinks he needs to cut his hair. Maybe she really just thinks that he'll like it...
Maybe she thinks that her rooms need something soft and delicate around, with their Rose long since gone. Maybe the TARDIS feels like someone has to make ridiculous things happen within her confines, and that Rose was always the one to talk him-sometimes silently-one step closer to domestic.
Maybe they actually are Rose's curtains, brought in because her bathroom wasn't precious enough to keep, though surely her room must've been. Maybe that's why the shower always smells like coconut. He hates coconut, this time around, so he'd never use it, but maybe she would. And, maybe, if it didn't smell offensively like coconut, brashly devoid of any hint of Rose to compliment it and give it life, he wouldn't mind. But he's too nervous to wash them out. He might damage the silk, after all. And what respectable time traveler has time to stop and wash shower curtains, really? Not him, that's for sure.
Maybe it's just one more thing of hers the Doctor and the TARDIS can't let go of, the item having long since forgotten about its owner so the Doctor and his TARDIS can act like its just another of the mementos littering the ship's many rooms, bequeathed by the famous or the beloved or the fantastic (by all three).
Maybe, some days, on the bad days (on the good ones that aren't quite fantastic because she can't be there), he leans into it and takes a deep breath, coconuts and lack of Rose or not, and lets himself remember. Maybe, some days, the remembering turns into something a little bit fonder and he has to turn the knobs so the shower water is a little bit colder. Maybe, sometimes, he doesn't.
But is the TARDIS, and she's made much more eclectic decorative choices before. He's made much more eclectic decorative choices before. Maybe they are just any old curtains.
And maybe she was just another companion.
Inspired by this image
