Current mood:	sick
Entry tags:	fic, fic: romanticizing the impossible, nine/rose, ninth doctor

Fic: Romanticizing the Impossible
Romanticizing the Impossible (1/?)
By prChung
Pairing: Nine/Rose
Rated: PG/R?

Note: Probably could use some work. Sitting on the drive for months. Pulled together from previous work both beta'd (Thanks Nina) and non-beta'd. Was originally intended for the Ficathon back in May. Sorry I dropped the ball on that.

Snippet: “I showed you mine,” Rose said, flirtatiously arching a brow, “now show me yours?”
The Doctor's brows shot up in momentary surprise.

“Come on,” she continued, straightening in the chair. She leaned towards him, chin on hand, and looked at him from under her thick fan of black lashes. “Don’t be shy, Doctor.”


Romanticizing the Impossible (1/?)
By prChung

Apparently, as some sort of insurance, the Doctor liked to sprinkle spare parts for the TARDIS here and there through time and space, like some miser stashing away money in tins. However, tins could be misplaced, and forgotten. The latter being the case when it came to locating something called a trans capacitor.

One road, three eras and four antique shops, and Rose had opted for her own bit of shopping while the Doctor tried once more to find the elusive widget. An hour later, as agreed, and she was standing on the street outside Tobias & Sons Antiques, waiting. She could see the Doctor through the shop window, close to the exit, yet still talking with the man inside. He was holding a small box. With some luck, the contained the Doctor’s misplaced tin, and not just some other trinket that struck his fancy.

Rose took a cleansing breath and let it out slowly, surveying the lane, waiting, and patient. Not too patient though, if this took much longer she’d go in after him, and this time she wasn’t going to be caught up in another mental chat between him and a shopkeeper. It was fascinating at first, but after the 19th century, it was just tiresome. Besides, she was getting hungry.

The smell of food was in the air, and there was a restaurant across the way, just a little place, chairs and tables on the patio, and an awning fluttering in the breeze. The patio had a good view of the shop, and she could conceivably wait there, watch for the Doctor to come out of the shop.

Rose surveyed the couples populating the patio; happy, chatting, together. She looked at the scene, feeling suddenly hesitant about going over. It didn’t matter that she was on her own, really. The Doctor would join her soon as he came out of the shop. Even then, what difference did it make that the Doctor would be joining her or not? They were not a couple, despite all frequent misconceptions.

Everyone just assumed her and the Doctor to be a couple, Rose thought as she watched couples seated on the patio. Maybe those seated at the restaurant weren’t even couples, Rose reassessed. She’d just assumed it on first observation. It didn’t mean any of those two cheerful people seated together at that restaurant were a couple just because they held hands… and exchanged longing looks… or stole kisses.

Rose looked away from the patio, and the couples, hesitation shifting to a tinge of disappoint. There was a lot to her relationship with the Doctor that was absolutely and completely nothing like that of a couple, so why would anyone think…

A man and woman strolled past Rose, hand in hand, chatting playfully with one another.

The thought of her and the Doctor…

The couple leaned into eachother; the man wrapped a long arm around the girl’s waste…

…being together was just…

Subtle and tender, he kissed her…

… ridiculous… Right?

Distracted, lost in wondering, Rose followed the couple’s progress down the pavement. “Could be us.”

“What’s that?”

Rose turned, startled by the sound of the Doctor’s voice. She realised then that she’d said it aloud while watching that couple pass, the same hand-in-hand couple the Doctor was now eyeing. He flicked his gaze back at Rose, and she could see his nostrils flared just the slightest.

“Know them?” he asked.

“Them?” Rose answered with a question; distractedly glancing back at the two, and just in time to see them lean in for another peck on the lips. Rose shut her eyes, embarrassed.

She heard the Doctor clear his throat. When she pried her eyes open and looked around, she saw that his attention was pointedly on the box in his hand.

“No.”

He nodded and made a ‘humph’ sound of disinterest as he looked down the road in the opposite direction of the couple.

“Find your part?” she asked.

“Yep, right where I’d left it,” he answered and looked back at her. “Hungry?”

Rose hesitated. The corners of his eyes pinched ever so slightly when he’d asked, and she could have swore she heard something of an accusation in his tone. She was just being paranoid, right?

“Starved,” she answered, her meaning as equivocal as his question.

“Me too,” he said and grinned as he reached for her hand. Without complaint, Rose was running with him across the lane and towards the restaurant on the other side.

------------

They sat and ate, and Rose showed off her purchases to the Doctor. He was quiet, his mouth held in a thin line of amusement as she declared the necessity for each item. Stuffing all her treasure back into the shopping bags at her feet Rose looked around at him and grinned mischievously.

“I showed you mine,” she said, and flirtatiously arched a brow, “now show me yours?”
His brows shot up in momentary surprise.

“Come on,” she continued, straightening in the chair. She leaned towards him, chin on hand, and looked at him from under her thick fan of black lashes. “Don’t be shy, Doctor.”

He watched her a moment, a question or maybe confusion pinching the corners of his eyes before a smile appeared across his mouth. “All right then,” he agreed and reached for the box sitting before him on the table.

The Doctor moved his chair closer to hers and opened the box just under the lip of the table, shielding the contents from prying eyes and allowed Rose a glimpse inside.

“It’s…” She looked up at him, and he was grinning wildly, delight lighting up his face. “It’s a piece of pipe.”

“Yep, but not just any piping,” he said exuberantly. He explained to Rose about special properties of the metal, which wasn’t really metal but something more like ceramic, and yet nothing like ceramic at all he decided and started over again.

Rose sat quietly, listening to him go on, eager to hear his rhapsodizing at first, and then a bit lost, and finally her focus turned simply to enjoying the richness of his voice. Leaning a bit closer, she had become delightfully distracted watching him speak. She followed his profile and the clean angle of his jaw, and came to wonder at the motion of his mouth and how his lips massaged language with a sensual force.

The Doctor’s speech became more animated and Rose nodded, fascinated by the way he moved; the kinetic roll and hunch of his shoulders, the fluency of his long arms, the wrists peeking out the cuffs of his jacket. Rose loved moments like this, when he was so very absorbed and completely passionate. She wished though he could find himself absorbed and passionate about more than cosmology and physics.

Movement across the way drew her attention. Rose glanced up and was transfixed by a seductive scene playing out; a young woman reaching out to her companion, touching his face, drawing him to her for a kiss that set Rose’s heart to longing.

Maybe it was something special about this restaurant, Rose reflected for an instant as she watched the two. With the Doctor’s voice in her ears Rose entertained the thought of turning to him, taking his face between her hands and pulling him down for a kiss. If she did something so bold there were endless outcomes to consider, some good, some very bad, and quite a few that were tremendously better than others.

The Doctor would pull away with light gasp, look at her with astonishment, and take just a moment to realise how much he had liked it and come back to meet her mouth with a matching kiss. She could kiss him and he would fold into it, push back and dominate her with furious, lustful, hungry kisses that would leave them breathless and wanting. He would take her by the hand, run with her to the TARDIS, take her places in that mysterious time ship that she’d never seen before, his hands exploring her body, his mouth tasting her skin, their bodies sweat slicked and colliding among stars---

“Rose?”

She came up out of her daydream, flushed and startled, finding him staring at her skeptically.
Rose cranked her jaw up and down wordless, her mind in whirl, her heart racing, and her body tingling with an afterglow to blame on her over active imagination.

“Sorry, I…” she hardly said before her eyes inadvertently darted to the couple.

The Doctor noticed of course, and looked up to see what had her attention. Rose winced and prepared for what might come; all manner of diatribes on typical human behavior, uncontrolled urges, or the more sophisticated and proper matting rituals of some distant culture on a planet with a name that only the Doctor could pronounce.

The sound of the restaurant blurred as they both watched the couple across the way; the couple sitting so closely to one another, leaning together, the man and woman kissing affectionately.

Rose looked at the Doctor, saw the preoccupied expression mixed with something almost of anger in his eyes. She realised then that she was mistaken; she realized it was sadness that she saw reflected in his eyes.

“Could be nice,” she quietly said, braver than she thought she could be with him when it came to this.

He blinked and turned, focusing his gaze on her briefly before he looked down to find the piece of pipe of great interest again. “Already nice,” he replied.

Rose marshaled her courage and leaned closer to him, tilting her face up so she could look into his eyes. “Could be nicer.” She placed her hand atop his and smiled when he flicked a surprised look back at her.

“Rose,” he tried, but she cut him off with a kiss. His lips were dry, but softer than she’d imagined, and cooler. But what she noticed most as she touched her mouth to his was his response. At first her stomach quivered as she felt him press back, felt him lean in and-- and then she felt herself pushed gently away and he withdrew.

Rose opened her eyes to see the Doctor looking downwards, away from her, avoiding her gaze. Anxiety gripped her stomach. She was hopeful and regretful at once. What had she thought? How would he react? She held her breath as he raised his eyes and looked back at her. His mouth twisted with a half smile that was of awkward politeness, and held a touch of sadness that traveled to his eyes.

The silence stretched until the Doctor pulled his lips inward pensively before speaking. He looked at Rose, and gave a shake of his head. “I can’t.”

Rose opened her mouth, but she had no idea what to say as she watched him brusquely stand and stride away, all but completely running out of the patio, leaving her behind.

“Doctor, wait,” she called, and grabbed up her shopping bags, missing one and leaving it as she hurried after him.

When Rose reached the pavement she saw that he was already turning the corner down the lane. Her heart leaped, and for an instant, she thought that he was leaving her behind—that he was going to go into the TARDIS and leave her on Earth. The scenario played over in her mind the entire time it took her to run to the corner and down the next street, and until he came into view again.

She saw his back, the dull glisten of the leather jacket, disappearing through the door of the TARDIS. She was fumbling for her key as she ran to the door, hoping she wouldn’t’ need it; hoping the door would still be open to her.

--- to be continued ---