Doctor Who fic: Sundries and Oddments
It's not a fic in the coherent plot sense, but, you know ...
Title: Sundries and Oddments
Doctor: Tenth Doctor, Rose
Rating: PG
Summary: Bits and pieces of scenes and such that I couldn't fit elsewhere.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all related characters and elements belong to the BBC and are used here without permission.
***
A moment to breathe.
He's been going through rooms, clearing things out, sorting other things, packing one life away and unpacking another. She's been relaxing. Soon enough, boredom will creep in and they'll dash, breathless, through time.
"What do you think of this tie?"
"It's nice."
"Are you sure? It's got spots. Do spots go with stripes?"
"Since when do you care? I've seen some of your old clothes. That multi-colored coat? I nearly went blind."
"I was young," the Doctor sniffs, and sits down across from her. "Do note how generous I'm being in not mentioning your youthful fashion."
Rose smiles and turns to her magazine. "If you think can trust my advice, those spots go with those stripes."
"Do you like the stripes, then?"
She sits back and closes the magazine, knowing he'll hover and pester until she gives him her full attention. "I do. I couldn't see you in a suit before, but it fits this you."
"I wore suits before," he argues, more on principle, because that's what he does, than out of any sort of offense.
"Never saw you in one. Oh, wait, I did. In a picture of you with some family before the Titanic. Clive had it." She pauses and shakes her head with sad fondness. "Poor Clive. He was a bit of a nutter -- well, more than a bit -- but it was sort of like he really wanted to believe you were real, but wasn't quite sure he did."
He frowns and loops the tie around his neck, deciding her fashion taste is, at least, no worse than his. "The Nestene would have done everybody in, Rose. We stopped it, saved millions."
She smiles at him again. Still trying to take her moment to relax, she doesn't want to dwell on the heavy price the universe can ask. She tries for levity. "I think I was the one stopped it, thank you very much."
"Oh, as if you'd even know it existed if it wasn't for me," he scoffs, stands and knots his tie. He smooths the tie down, buttons the jacket and tugs his cuffs into place.
She reaches for her magazine again, but he's apparently not done yet.
"Something I've been meaning to ask."
"Yeah?"
"Who was it got me into those jim-jams, anyway?" His eyes are wicked and there's a smile lurking on his lips.
She smiles back, equally wickedly. "Now, do you really want an answer to that?"
She laughs at him when he looks thoughtful and then slightly horrified.
"Don't tell me it was your mother."
"Would you feel better if I said Mickey?"
He shudders. "Not particularly."
"It was a traumatic enough day, I was just glad you wore pants," she tells him mildly and makes a point of opening and raising her magazine.
***
A cave.
"I keep hearing this singing." Rose leans against one rough wall and watches the Doctor run his hands over a small stone block. All has been quiet so far, quiet enough to let her mind wander. Not that she expects the quiet to last.
His hands still and he looks at her over the top of his glasses. "What? Now?"
"Sort of. All the time, but really only sometimes. Like a song on the radio you don't realize you're hearing 'cause you're not paying attention, but then suddenly, a word or a chord or something catches your ear."
"Now's rather an inconvenient time to go mad, Rose." He pushes at the block, and smiles when a thin sliver of stone slides away.
"If I'm mad, what does that make you?"
"Very clever," he tells her absently, as he pulls a small, black object out of the stone. "Hold this."
She takes it immediately, but holds her hand out away from her, refusing to close her fingers around the black, scarab-shaped object. "It's not going to bite, is it? Like that beetle in the glass caves. I could have lost a finger."
"It was just a nip," he tells her and grins again when its black carapace, warmed by her touch, opens to reveal brilliant jade wings.
"Wasn't your finger."
"True. But that won't bite. Probably."
She holds her hand out a littler further. "You're always so reassuring, Doctor."
"Thank you. Did I forget to mention it's not alive?"
"You might have." She's trying very hard not to laugh.
"It's not alive. Bring it closer to the altar."
She does as she's told, and the wings begin to vibrate.
"Um. Is the wall supposed to move like that?"
"Er. No."
She gives up trying not to laugh. "Are we running?"
"Fast as we can."
***
A balcony.
The city is built on stilts, perched five miles above the toxic swamp that makes up most of the planet's surface. They've been on the balcony, in bitter clouds spitting hard pellets of snow, for almost half an hour.
"So, if we went to the end of the universe -- the very end -- would there still be time?"
The Doctor removes his specs and tucks them carefully in his jacket. The wind blows his hair into his eyes and he shoves it away irritably. "Depends on what you mean."
Rose is sensibly wearing a cap, her hair tucked securely away from the howling gale. "I mean, was there time before the beginning of the universe? The big bang, or whatever."
"Big is an understatement."
"You've seen it?"
"It's ... not really something you can see with your eyes."
"Oh." She considers that for a moment, and he thinks she sounds a little bit disappointed.
"I assure you it was indeed a very big bang."
"Sort of feel it, then?"
"Sort of. Still do. It's still going."
"But if time and the universe are one, that fourth dimension stuff, can you have one without the other?"
"You end up with something else all together. English doesn't really do for it."
"Oh. Okay. By the way, at what point do we jump?"
"When that red light flashes."
"Like that?"
"Like that. Together?"
"Of course."
***
An evening.
"You should have ducked," Rose mutters as she dabs at a bloody cut across his forehead.
"I did duck," the Doctor grumbles.
"Doesn't do any good to duck after they hit you, does it? Hold still," she orders, a firm hand on his jaw.
Her thumb brushes a fresh bruise and he winces. "You have the bedside charm of a sadist."
"I'm not the Doctor, am I? Now, you gonna keep moaning, or you gonna let me finish?"
He gives her a baleful look and mutters, "Should've let the fishwife with the bloody great needle have a go."
"I heard that."
"Or your mother."
"Now you're not even trying. And leave my mother out of this."
"'Least she probably has a mother's touch. Unlike you, all thumbs."
"You're after being a complete pillock today, are you?"
"My head hurts. Besides, she likes me now."
"Don't remind me," she mumbles and starts to tend the cut on the bridge of his nose.
"You don't want your mother to like me?" he asks, not realizing he's pouting, because Time Lords do not pout.
She's well familiar with how often Time Lords actually do pout, and she rolls her eyes. "I swear, you're nine hundred going on four. It's not that I don't want her to like you, it's just ... well, it just sort of does my head in," she explains with a frown, as she tries, with as much delicacy as she can manage, to apply a plaster to his nose. "Going from slapping you to calling you sweetheart?"
"It's a universe gone mad," he observes philosophically.
"Stark, staring," she agrees and steps back. "There, done. That wasn't so bad, was it?"
"I fell off a radio telescope once, I think that hurt less."
"Do you practice being an arse in the mirror? Or does it just come naturally?"
"Naturally, I think. With my charm."
***
A festival.
The day is warm, the wine is plentiful, and the entertainment is questionable.
Rose is looking skeptical. "He's a what now?"
"A Satyr."
"Okay, and he's doing what to that woman?"
"What's it look like, Rose?"
She raises an eyebrow and crosses her arms. "Right."
"It's a satyr play," the Doctor explains with a wave of his cup. "He represents the God's ... er, never mind. It's a little bawdy levity after all that tragedy."
"Right. He's half goat," she points out, failing to appreciate the levity of the play.
"You're not enjoying this?"
He tries, so she tries. "It's a little odd," she admits. "So, they ... what? Each guy puts on a play?"
"A trilogy of tragedy."
"Just the thing for a fun weekend out."
"Exactly. It's a competition, a festival, a celebration. Good fun for all and plenty of wine."
"Which is where the good fun is really coming from," she smirks. He's had most of the jar between them.
"Philistine."
"Hmm. Who's the one making me sit through Ancient Greek Idol, then?" She laughs at his outraged sputtering. "Don't look at me like that. You know it had to be said."
"It really didn't," he assures her.
***
A Tuesday. Possibly.
"Your aunt what?" Rose frowns at him, and cocks her head.
The Doctor looks up from his monitor and a problem that refuses to resolve itself. "What?"
"Did you just say something about your aunt?"
"No, I'm sure I didn't."
"Could have sworn you did."
"You're hearing things again," he says quickly, changing the subject. "What have I told you about your burgeoning madness?"
"Don't do it?"
"Exactly. Press that button."
"Why?"
"Because I told you to," he exclaims, and wonders why the universe picked that exact moment to go bloody-minded. "Is everything going to be an argument with you today?"
"The button's not connected to anything," she points out, ignoring his mood.
"How would you know?"
"Because you ripped it off the panel and threw it across the room just this morning. It's only back in place 'cause I put it there."
"Oh. Well, press it anyway."
"I'm not pressing a button connected to nothing," she tells him, being immanently and, the Doctor thinks, annoyingly reasonable.
"Then find one connected to something and press that one."
***
A palace.
"They're shooting at us. Why are they shooting at us? Most people at least wait until we say hello."
The Doctor kneels behind the entirely inadequate bush, and considers. "Well ..."
Rose shakes a twig out of her hair and raises her eyebrow. "What?"
"I really didn't think they'd recognize me. And, besides, that was a long time ago. Hundreds of years even. Generations for this lot. You really have to admire their cultural memory."
"I'd admire it more from a distance. Should I ask what you did?"
"A bit of a long story for the moment, but, let's just say, it wasn't theirs to begin with and they had no call getting so irritable when I returned it to where it belonged."
"And 'it' is?"
"Not important."
"Just important enough to have us shot."
"Not even that. Really, they're being entirely unreasonable." He pushes to his feet and pulls her with him. Bullets shatter against the wall nearby. "Maybe I make them angry at some point in my future. Remind me not to do that."
"Yeah. Except, one of us clearly forgets, because they're still shooting."
They duck behind a hopefully sturdy, yet immeasurably gaudy architectural feature jutting from the side of the building.
"Maybe if we think really hard about leaving a sticky note on the console, they'll stop shooting."
She gives him the look she always gives him when he says something completely absurd and she's not sure if he's having her on or being serious. He enjoys the look too much to ever tell her the truth -- that he's never entirely sure himself.
He settles for a grin and a nod at her feet. "Good thing you wore your running shoes."
"I always wear my running shoes."
***
A forest.
The air is chill, and a frozen mist clings to the ground, frosting everything in white. They're standing in a meadow on a small moon, surrounded by a dense growth of whip thin trees with flaming leaves. Low over the horizon is the broad crescent of an immense planet, chaotic bands of clouds and swirling storms creeping up over their sky.
"Listen," the Doctor tells her and puts his hand on her shoulder.
Rose listens. "I don't hear anything."
"Well that's a first."
"I'm not going mad."
"How would you know?"
"You'd probably start making sense."
He frowns, not sure if he should laugh or be insulted. She takes his hand and he laughs.
Behind the planet, a red sun rises, setting the forest alight in vivid scarlet. The mist thins, and a breeze brushes through the trees. The leaves begin to vibrate with a ghostly morning song.
***
An ending. Possibly a beginning. Or, most likely, a middle.
A gleaming forest of steel merges sinuously with a wild forest of nature. Around them, a living city hums and oddly leathery birds sing.
"So, then Carl from the butcher's walked out on her. Apparently."
"Oh, too bad." The Doctor rests his elbows on the broad balcony's railing and leans over, looking across the city. "We are sad about this, right?"
"I think so." Rose slumps back in her chair and props her feet up on the rail. "I have no idea who Carl is. I can almost, vaguely picture him, but I might be getting him mixed up with a bloke called Paul. At least, I think that was his name."
"Senility in one so young. Such a tragic thing."
She lifts a foot to kick him lightly on the arm and ignores his wounded pout. "Shareen's love life is hard enough to keep on top of even when I'm there all the time. Going off for months at a stretch, it's impossible. Not even you could manage it."
He gives her a haughty look and turns to lean back against the railing. "I don't think I'd want to manage it. Where's the fun in that?"
"Not near as fun as being chased by vampires."
"They weren't really vampires."
"Close enough." She laughs lightly and shakes her head. "You know, this life is a little weird sometimes."
"Just sometimes?" The Doctor smirks. "Oh, come on now, have you ever thought that life is the weird one? Think of it, spending your life in the same place, day after day, same things, same dreary old drama, same work, same everything. That's weird. Why choose that, when you can have all this?" He makes an expansive, sweeping gesture towards the view beyond their balcony.
"You don't have to sell me on it, I'm already here, aren't I?" She closes her eyes and sighs. "It is lovely here."
"I remember visiting when this was six brick buildings and a muddy rut they optimistically called the high street," the Doctor muses. He turns and stares down into the man-made canyon beneath them. Level upon level of streets, paths, movers, and courtyards, disappear into the shadowed gloom.
"Now there're enough shops to satisfy even you." He looks back at her and considers for a moment. "Maybe."
She opens her eyes and gives him a mock scowl that ends when he grins and she can't help but grin back. "How many people live here?"
"Thirty-one billion and change, on a planet not much larger than Earth. 'Course they built up, and down, plenty of room then. There are some people here who never set their feet on the ground."
"Really? But they've got all that wilderness everywhere."
Verdant hills and vast golden plains roll up against the city, like an ocean against the shore. Their hotel, set into the side of a dizzyingly immense building, faces the edge of the city, smaller towers -- if a tower of two hundred stories could be considered small -- edging the frontier, and then stopping abruptly, giving way to a high, grassy plain that stretches up to the skirts of jagged, white-capped peaks.
"Mm. There's a waiting list for permits into the preserve. Four years, last I recall. Most never bother, though. Too much work. And see, there's my point. Happy to stay in your own little block. Oh, sure, sometimes you go to Spain, but that's the safe, choice, isn't it? Everybody goes to Spain. Your neighbor goes to Spain. Your grocer's mother lives there. You've had to look through all your gran's photos of when she was there fifty years ago. But us, we could go to Spain in 1594, if we wanted. Or 3794. No chance of running into any of Shareen's exes then. It's a whole other world."
"What happened in 1594?"
"No idea."
"What we doing sitting here then? We should go have a look."
"You know what? You're absolutely right."
***
Title: Sundries and Oddments
Doctor: Tenth Doctor, Rose
Rating: PG
Summary: Bits and pieces of scenes and such that I couldn't fit elsewhere.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all related characters and elements belong to the BBC and are used here without permission.
***
A moment to breathe.
He's been going through rooms, clearing things out, sorting other things, packing one life away and unpacking another. She's been relaxing. Soon enough, boredom will creep in and they'll dash, breathless, through time.
"What do you think of this tie?"
"It's nice."
"Are you sure? It's got spots. Do spots go with stripes?"
"Since when do you care? I've seen some of your old clothes. That multi-colored coat? I nearly went blind."
"I was young," the Doctor sniffs, and sits down across from her. "Do note how generous I'm being in not mentioning your youthful fashion."
Rose smiles and turns to her magazine. "If you think can trust my advice, those spots go with those stripes."
"Do you like the stripes, then?"
She sits back and closes the magazine, knowing he'll hover and pester until she gives him her full attention. "I do. I couldn't see you in a suit before, but it fits this you."
"I wore suits before," he argues, more on principle, because that's what he does, than out of any sort of offense.
"Never saw you in one. Oh, wait, I did. In a picture of you with some family before the Titanic. Clive had it." She pauses and shakes her head with sad fondness. "Poor Clive. He was a bit of a nutter -- well, more than a bit -- but it was sort of like he really wanted to believe you were real, but wasn't quite sure he did."
He frowns and loops the tie around his neck, deciding her fashion taste is, at least, no worse than his. "The Nestene would have done everybody in, Rose. We stopped it, saved millions."
She smiles at him again. Still trying to take her moment to relax, she doesn't want to dwell on the heavy price the universe can ask. She tries for levity. "I think I was the one stopped it, thank you very much."
"Oh, as if you'd even know it existed if it wasn't for me," he scoffs, stands and knots his tie. He smooths the tie down, buttons the jacket and tugs his cuffs into place.
She reaches for her magazine again, but he's apparently not done yet.
"Something I've been meaning to ask."
"Yeah?"
"Who was it got me into those jim-jams, anyway?" His eyes are wicked and there's a smile lurking on his lips.
She smiles back, equally wickedly. "Now, do you really want an answer to that?"
She laughs at him when he looks thoughtful and then slightly horrified.
"Don't tell me it was your mother."
"Would you feel better if I said Mickey?"
He shudders. "Not particularly."
"It was a traumatic enough day, I was just glad you wore pants," she tells him mildly and makes a point of opening and raising her magazine.
***
A cave.
"I keep hearing this singing." Rose leans against one rough wall and watches the Doctor run his hands over a small stone block. All has been quiet so far, quiet enough to let her mind wander. Not that she expects the quiet to last.
His hands still and he looks at her over the top of his glasses. "What? Now?"
"Sort of. All the time, but really only sometimes. Like a song on the radio you don't realize you're hearing 'cause you're not paying attention, but then suddenly, a word or a chord or something catches your ear."
"Now's rather an inconvenient time to go mad, Rose." He pushes at the block, and smiles when a thin sliver of stone slides away.
"If I'm mad, what does that make you?"
"Very clever," he tells her absently, as he pulls a small, black object out of the stone. "Hold this."
She takes it immediately, but holds her hand out away from her, refusing to close her fingers around the black, scarab-shaped object. "It's not going to bite, is it? Like that beetle in the glass caves. I could have lost a finger."
"It was just a nip," he tells her and grins again when its black carapace, warmed by her touch, opens to reveal brilliant jade wings.
"Wasn't your finger."
"True. But that won't bite. Probably."
She holds her hand out a littler further. "You're always so reassuring, Doctor."
"Thank you. Did I forget to mention it's not alive?"
"You might have." She's trying very hard not to laugh.
"It's not alive. Bring it closer to the altar."
She does as she's told, and the wings begin to vibrate.
"Um. Is the wall supposed to move like that?"
"Er. No."
She gives up trying not to laugh. "Are we running?"
"Fast as we can."
***
A balcony.
The city is built on stilts, perched five miles above the toxic swamp that makes up most of the planet's surface. They've been on the balcony, in bitter clouds spitting hard pellets of snow, for almost half an hour.
"So, if we went to the end of the universe -- the very end -- would there still be time?"
The Doctor removes his specs and tucks them carefully in his jacket. The wind blows his hair into his eyes and he shoves it away irritably. "Depends on what you mean."
Rose is sensibly wearing a cap, her hair tucked securely away from the howling gale. "I mean, was there time before the beginning of the universe? The big bang, or whatever."
"Big is an understatement."
"You've seen it?"
"It's ... not really something you can see with your eyes."
"Oh." She considers that for a moment, and he thinks she sounds a little bit disappointed.
"I assure you it was indeed a very big bang."
"Sort of feel it, then?"
"Sort of. Still do. It's still going."
"But if time and the universe are one, that fourth dimension stuff, can you have one without the other?"
"You end up with something else all together. English doesn't really do for it."
"Oh. Okay. By the way, at what point do we jump?"
"When that red light flashes."
"Like that?"
"Like that. Together?"
"Of course."
***
An evening.
"You should have ducked," Rose mutters as she dabs at a bloody cut across his forehead.
"I did duck," the Doctor grumbles.
"Doesn't do any good to duck after they hit you, does it? Hold still," she orders, a firm hand on his jaw.
Her thumb brushes a fresh bruise and he winces. "You have the bedside charm of a sadist."
"I'm not the Doctor, am I? Now, you gonna keep moaning, or you gonna let me finish?"
He gives her a baleful look and mutters, "Should've let the fishwife with the bloody great needle have a go."
"I heard that."
"Or your mother."
"Now you're not even trying. And leave my mother out of this."
"'Least she probably has a mother's touch. Unlike you, all thumbs."
"You're after being a complete pillock today, are you?"
"My head hurts. Besides, she likes me now."
"Don't remind me," she mumbles and starts to tend the cut on the bridge of his nose.
"You don't want your mother to like me?" he asks, not realizing he's pouting, because Time Lords do not pout.
She's well familiar with how often Time Lords actually do pout, and she rolls her eyes. "I swear, you're nine hundred going on four. It's not that I don't want her to like you, it's just ... well, it just sort of does my head in," she explains with a frown, as she tries, with as much delicacy as she can manage, to apply a plaster to his nose. "Going from slapping you to calling you sweetheart?"
"It's a universe gone mad," he observes philosophically.
"Stark, staring," she agrees and steps back. "There, done. That wasn't so bad, was it?"
"I fell off a radio telescope once, I think that hurt less."
"Do you practice being an arse in the mirror? Or does it just come naturally?"
"Naturally, I think. With my charm."
***
A festival.
The day is warm, the wine is plentiful, and the entertainment is questionable.
Rose is looking skeptical. "He's a what now?"
"A Satyr."
"Okay, and he's doing what to that woman?"
"What's it look like, Rose?"
She raises an eyebrow and crosses her arms. "Right."
"It's a satyr play," the Doctor explains with a wave of his cup. "He represents the God's ... er, never mind. It's a little bawdy levity after all that tragedy."
"Right. He's half goat," she points out, failing to appreciate the levity of the play.
"You're not enjoying this?"
He tries, so she tries. "It's a little odd," she admits. "So, they ... what? Each guy puts on a play?"
"A trilogy of tragedy."
"Just the thing for a fun weekend out."
"Exactly. It's a competition, a festival, a celebration. Good fun for all and plenty of wine."
"Which is where the good fun is really coming from," she smirks. He's had most of the jar between them.
"Philistine."
"Hmm. Who's the one making me sit through Ancient Greek Idol, then?" She laughs at his outraged sputtering. "Don't look at me like that. You know it had to be said."
"It really didn't," he assures her.
***
A Tuesday. Possibly.
"Your aunt what?" Rose frowns at him, and cocks her head.
The Doctor looks up from his monitor and a problem that refuses to resolve itself. "What?"
"Did you just say something about your aunt?"
"No, I'm sure I didn't."
"Could have sworn you did."
"You're hearing things again," he says quickly, changing the subject. "What have I told you about your burgeoning madness?"
"Don't do it?"
"Exactly. Press that button."
"Why?"
"Because I told you to," he exclaims, and wonders why the universe picked that exact moment to go bloody-minded. "Is everything going to be an argument with you today?"
"The button's not connected to anything," she points out, ignoring his mood.
"How would you know?"
"Because you ripped it off the panel and threw it across the room just this morning. It's only back in place 'cause I put it there."
"Oh. Well, press it anyway."
"I'm not pressing a button connected to nothing," she tells him, being immanently and, the Doctor thinks, annoyingly reasonable.
"Then find one connected to something and press that one."
***
A palace.
"They're shooting at us. Why are they shooting at us? Most people at least wait until we say hello."
The Doctor kneels behind the entirely inadequate bush, and considers. "Well ..."
Rose shakes a twig out of her hair and raises her eyebrow. "What?"
"I really didn't think they'd recognize me. And, besides, that was a long time ago. Hundreds of years even. Generations for this lot. You really have to admire their cultural memory."
"I'd admire it more from a distance. Should I ask what you did?"
"A bit of a long story for the moment, but, let's just say, it wasn't theirs to begin with and they had no call getting so irritable when I returned it to where it belonged."
"And 'it' is?"
"Not important."
"Just important enough to have us shot."
"Not even that. Really, they're being entirely unreasonable." He pushes to his feet and pulls her with him. Bullets shatter against the wall nearby. "Maybe I make them angry at some point in my future. Remind me not to do that."
"Yeah. Except, one of us clearly forgets, because they're still shooting."
They duck behind a hopefully sturdy, yet immeasurably gaudy architectural feature jutting from the side of the building.
"Maybe if we think really hard about leaving a sticky note on the console, they'll stop shooting."
She gives him the look she always gives him when he says something completely absurd and she's not sure if he's having her on or being serious. He enjoys the look too much to ever tell her the truth -- that he's never entirely sure himself.
He settles for a grin and a nod at her feet. "Good thing you wore your running shoes."
"I always wear my running shoes."
***
A forest.
The air is chill, and a frozen mist clings to the ground, frosting everything in white. They're standing in a meadow on a small moon, surrounded by a dense growth of whip thin trees with flaming leaves. Low over the horizon is the broad crescent of an immense planet, chaotic bands of clouds and swirling storms creeping up over their sky.
"Listen," the Doctor tells her and puts his hand on her shoulder.
Rose listens. "I don't hear anything."
"Well that's a first."
"I'm not going mad."
"How would you know?"
"You'd probably start making sense."
He frowns, not sure if he should laugh or be insulted. She takes his hand and he laughs.
Behind the planet, a red sun rises, setting the forest alight in vivid scarlet. The mist thins, and a breeze brushes through the trees. The leaves begin to vibrate with a ghostly morning song.
***
An ending. Possibly a beginning. Or, most likely, a middle.
A gleaming forest of steel merges sinuously with a wild forest of nature. Around them, a living city hums and oddly leathery birds sing.
"So, then Carl from the butcher's walked out on her. Apparently."
"Oh, too bad." The Doctor rests his elbows on the broad balcony's railing and leans over, looking across the city. "We are sad about this, right?"
"I think so." Rose slumps back in her chair and props her feet up on the rail. "I have no idea who Carl is. I can almost, vaguely picture him, but I might be getting him mixed up with a bloke called Paul. At least, I think that was his name."
"Senility in one so young. Such a tragic thing."
She lifts a foot to kick him lightly on the arm and ignores his wounded pout. "Shareen's love life is hard enough to keep on top of even when I'm there all the time. Going off for months at a stretch, it's impossible. Not even you could manage it."
He gives her a haughty look and turns to lean back against the railing. "I don't think I'd want to manage it. Where's the fun in that?"
"Not near as fun as being chased by vampires."
"They weren't really vampires."
"Close enough." She laughs lightly and shakes her head. "You know, this life is a little weird sometimes."
"Just sometimes?" The Doctor smirks. "Oh, come on now, have you ever thought that life is the weird one? Think of it, spending your life in the same place, day after day, same things, same dreary old drama, same work, same everything. That's weird. Why choose that, when you can have all this?" He makes an expansive, sweeping gesture towards the view beyond their balcony.
"You don't have to sell me on it, I'm already here, aren't I?" She closes her eyes and sighs. "It is lovely here."
"I remember visiting when this was six brick buildings and a muddy rut they optimistically called the high street," the Doctor muses. He turns and stares down into the man-made canyon beneath them. Level upon level of streets, paths, movers, and courtyards, disappear into the shadowed gloom.
"Now there're enough shops to satisfy even you." He looks back at her and considers for a moment. "Maybe."
She opens her eyes and gives him a mock scowl that ends when he grins and she can't help but grin back. "How many people live here?"
"Thirty-one billion and change, on a planet not much larger than Earth. 'Course they built up, and down, plenty of room then. There are some people here who never set their feet on the ground."
"Really? But they've got all that wilderness everywhere."
Verdant hills and vast golden plains roll up against the city, like an ocean against the shore. Their hotel, set into the side of a dizzyingly immense building, faces the edge of the city, smaller towers -- if a tower of two hundred stories could be considered small -- edging the frontier, and then stopping abruptly, giving way to a high, grassy plain that stretches up to the skirts of jagged, white-capped peaks.
"Mm. There's a waiting list for permits into the preserve. Four years, last I recall. Most never bother, though. Too much work. And see, there's my point. Happy to stay in your own little block. Oh, sure, sometimes you go to Spain, but that's the safe, choice, isn't it? Everybody goes to Spain. Your neighbor goes to Spain. Your grocer's mother lives there. You've had to look through all your gran's photos of when she was there fifty years ago. But us, we could go to Spain in 1594, if we wanted. Or 3794. No chance of running into any of Shareen's exes then. It's a whole other world."
"What happened in 1594?"
"No idea."
"What we doing sitting here then? We should go have a look."
"You know what? You're absolutely right."
***