This is a response to Jessa L'Rynn's February Challenge 1:
The Love is In the Air Challenge. It is February, after all. Take any one scene you like and turn it truly romantic. Make it real, make it accidental, make it humorous, or make it fantastic. It doesn't have to become a complete AU, but it will change things. Tell us the story.
I’ll take Daleks in Manhattan for 1000, Alex.
Oh, and you may recognize something in this fic. I made a reference to another brilliant author's work. Bonus points if you get it:)
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| Tenth Doctor | |
Possibility by cordelialear [Reviews - 6]  Author's Notes: | |
“And you’re doin’ what, exactly?” she asked, examining the assortment of materials on hand.
“DNA sequencing. If I can crack the code, then we’re laughin’”
Rose glanced down at the equipment: one spotlight, an old radio, various wiring, and the sonic. The Doctor continued to toy with the radio knobs, white noise fading into high pitched squeals, then canned voices, a song. Seemingly satisfied with the results, he directed his attention to the specimen, watching eagerly.
Rose looked out at the empty theatre. The building was drafty, and the air of melancholy seeping through from the Depression permeated the room. Rose hugged herself against the cold and lonely environment.
Suddenly, the music on over the radio changed to a slow number, drawing parallels to another hopeless lonely place: a Union Jack, the Blitz, and barrage balloons. The man sprawled across the floor was just as clueless as ever, mumbling softly to himself as he tinkered with his impromptu device. She smiled softly to herself at his determination, and suddenly remembered the panic playing across his other face when she’d asked him to dance all that time ago. She wondered…
“Rose, hand me that mirror,” he motioned absent-mindedly behind him, angling the specimen as he did so.
Broken from her nostalgia, she turned, located what it was he was asking for, and handed it over. He took it, lifted the mechanism carefully, took some sort of reading, and then checked his own reflection.
Rose laughed.
“What?”
“You’re so vain!”
“I probably think this song is about me, don’t I?”
“Do you ever make sense?”
He smiled in that amused way that said he knew something she didn’t.
“So, anything, yet?”
He jumped, pulled from his previous train of thought. “Not yet, though I could probably fry an egg for you. Don’t know if you’d want it.” He motioned to the jellyfish like creature at the center of the device. Rose made a disgusted face in response. “’S what I thought.”
They fell into a companionable silence, the soft music adding comforting background noise. The sonic hummed as he positioned it to the base of the device, and he was once again lost in concentration.
She watched him for a few moments, studying what he was studying, and when she could make nothing of it, she let her eyes drift over his features. He was different from before: slimmer, younger looking, more jubilant. The changes were far from new to her, but it had been some time since she’d been able to study him. The tip of his tongue slid out in concentration and she suddenly wanted more than anything to protect him. To keep him safe from the nightmares that haunted him, the atrocities he’d witnessed. It was insane, she knew, to feel this way for a man who was old enough to be her grandfather many times over, but it was there.
The soft music playing changed again, and her lips drew up into a sad smile, the connection between the tortured knight in leather armor and the smiling, pinstriped prince coming back into focus. After Canary Wharf, she’d lost her ties to the 21st century. She and the Doctor were more alike than ever. They were alone in the universe. The odds were constantly stacked against them, but they always had each other.
Scanning his long, skinny frame, Rose let her thoughts drift back to the Blitz. She smiled mischievously. Grinning, she crouched down beside him, barely able to hold back her laughter. “Doctor,” she whispered playfully in his ear.
He turned to face her and went briefly cross-eyed at her proximity. “What?” he asked, mirroring her gleeful expression.
“I was just thinkin’… drafty old building, the past, antique radio. ‘Course, I haven’t been hanging around any barrage balloons, but even so…”
His smile fully lit his features, “Rose Tyler, are you asking me to dance?”
“Suppose I am.”
Without a word, he stood up, and took her hand pulling her close, purposefully mimicking their stance in 1940’s England. She took a step closer, enough to rest her head against his shoulder. They swayed in silence for a few moments, Rose relishing the rhythm of his steady double heart beat.
The soft music continued to play, not that either party noticed, lost as they were in distant memories, and an insistent pull towards each other.
He broke the silence. “Has my form improved?”
“Hm?” She looked up at him from against his chest.
He smiled softly, “My dancing. Is it better?”
She snuggled her head under his chin. “Much better.”
His tightened his arm around her, and rested their joined hands against his chest.
“Can I ask you something?” she said suddenly.
“Anything, Rose Tyler. I am an open book.” He smiled down at her affectionately.
“That night, if Jack hadn’t beamed us up, what would have happened?”
“Well, I would either have successfully set up the resonation pattern of the concrete, or we’d both be calling for our mummies right now.”
She chuckled, shaking her head. “That’s not what I meant,” she smiled.
“Ah.”
She went back to leaning against him, letting him spin them a bit more animatedly than he had been previously. She got the distinct impression he was avoiding answering her question.
“Doctor,” she started out.
He sighed, his breath skimming over her hair. When he didn’t speak, she glanced up at him. His eyes had fallen closed, and he stopped swaying to the music.
“I see possibilities, Rose. Every choice we make, every path we take or could or should never set foot on. But you, Rose Tyler, you are fascinating. A phenomenon I cannot track or hope to capture fully. I sent you away, and you came back. I watched you hold onto that lever, and never fall. You are the unpredictable variable in my life. Everything bends to your will.”
She listened, breathless and not a little overwhelmed. Surely he was having her on. She was nothing as special as he made her out to be.
He opened his eyes abruptly, locking them with her own. He was solemn, and serious, and within the depths of his timeless gaze she saw herself. A half remembered song, the pulse of creation within her grasp, and knowledge of what should be.
“So, I ask you, Rose Tyler: What would have happened?”
She looked deep into his eyes, and from within her, she felt the propulsion, the echoed knowledge that the time was right. She knew this as clearly as she knew she loved him.
Their eyes fell closed as she captured his lips with her own.
The device behind them beeped, and he pulled away, to glance in its direction. He looked back at her, clearly torn, and she rolled her eyes.
“Go on.”
He beamed at her, kissed her again, and went back to his specimen.
Taking the readings, he paled.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned.
“Planet of origin: Skaro.”
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