bodldops | (no subject)

After such a dramatic start, the long afternoon proved to be a decided anticlimax. Her mum came home after a few hours, breaking up the routine of aborted conversations and multiple cups of tea. She hugged Rose and a more unwilling Doctor with equal enthusiasm, and then rambled on to Rose about the doings of the neighbors while the Doctor wandered in and out of the flat, tinkering with various gadgets and becoming increasingly restless as no dangers threatened. Her mum was decidedly unhelpful in puzzling out the riddle - no, nothing unusual is happening, love, unless you count that hideous dress Mrs. Peters has started wearing out, that's pretty strange.
Finally unable to stay peacably at home between the Doctor's twitchy brooding and her mother's incessant and (to her mind) inane chattering, Rose grabs her purs and coat and heads out into Greater London. Of course, left to herself, the only thing she can seem to think of is this latest problem. How could someone call them, or rather, call the Doctor specifically, and not contact them once they've arrived? How could anyone call them anyway? Sure, there's a phone in the TARDIS, but... well. She always thought she was special, the only one to have that number.

She remembers Sarah Jane, and wonders if she has the TARDIS on speed-dial too.

She almost heads out that way, to find Sarah Jane and her little tin dog, to talk about what the Doctor, her Doctor was like before she knew him, how he's changed and how he stays the same, but she doesn't. She's not ready for that, yet.

Maybe it was a false alarm - a rogue signal that just happened to hit the right frequency so that the TARDIS recognized it as this phantom signal that worries the Doctor so much. Yes, she decides as she drifts through a trendy boutique, that must be it. After all, he's always going on about what a noisy planet Earth is, all stray signals blasting off in random directions. Surely he must have already decided that is what this is all about. Still, she supposes, there is nothing wrong with hoping. Nothing wrong with thinking, just for a little while, that you aren't the last of your kind in the universe. But then she remembers his drawn, worried, far-off gaze from earlier today and wonders if it there might be something terribly wrong with it after all.
It's odd, she decides a bit later, wandering around London without Mickey. No one to talk about predictable, reliable things like the newest sort of racing car or how the football teams are doing or who's definitely going to win the Premireship this time or to tease her about buying yet another pink outfit. But Mickey's got his own life now, an important life, taking over for Rickey, fighting the last of the Cybermen and protecting his gran and... doing whatever it is he does there, where she won't see him again.
"I thought I was supposed to be the one brooding." She looks up, sharply, from her seat on the stone rim circling Eros' fountain in Picidilly Circle, to see the Doctor with that almost-shy little half-smile, offering her a trap of chips.
"Yeah, well, can't let you have all the fun, now can I?" She smiles at him, so he won't worry, because she's fine, and he doesn't need more to worry about. "Oh, these are gorgeous, where did you get them?"
"Little shop I know, just down there a ways." His grin broadens at her obvious enjoyment of his little peace offering. She fails to be surprised that he knows the best place to find chips in London - after all she's seen and done with him, it is such a minor thing. They are, however, fantastic chips.
"Mum drive you out?" She asks as he sits down beside her, stealing a chip for himself. He grimaces at the chip, or more accurately, at her question.
"You abandoned me there, Rose. I have never met a woman who could go on and on and on about such trivial minutae... well, yes I have, but she was much less likely to try to feed me. Hasn't your mum ever heard of a cookbook?" He pauses for moment, chewing thoughtfully on his pilfered chip. "Was that rude?" She nods, trying hard not to giggle like a schoolgirl. He shrugs, slightly. This new concern over whether he's being rude or not cracks her up every time. She might still miss her old Doctor, the one who swept her off her feet and showed her what it was to really live, but she has to admit that this one... this new side of him, it's a lot less predictable. She's about to make some observation to that effect, because it amuses her how he always scoffs and rants on about how this is a much improved model over the last (better taste in clothes, he says, much more stylish) when suddenly, without her ever seeing him move, he's crouched in front of her, shaking her shoulders gently. She only just has time to register this when he sweeps her into a crushing hug, resting his chin on the top of her head.
"There you are." He pulls back suddenly while she's still blinking at the sheer relief in his voice and finds herself confronting his serious stare, his brown eyes wide and focused, almost as if he can look inside her. Maybe he can.
"Do you feel alright? No headaches, dizziness, vertigo?" She shakes her head, dumbly. He hugs her again, a little less desperately.
"Doctor?" She asks, her voice muffled against the fabric of his coat. "Doctor, what happened? What's wrong?" He pulls back just enough that she can see his face. It has that set, focused look he gets when he has finally caught a clue, figured out a pattern that will let him know what is going wrong.

She loves that look so much.

"Someone is playing silly buggers with time, and I think whoever called me knows I can stop them."

Also, saw the new ep of Battlestar Galactica last night. It was unanimously agreed that the prison break-in scene and the beating up of the Cylon ships scene ruled ginomrously.

I don't need a new fandom. I don't.