your song is #25 🔀 damage gets done by hozier & brandi carlisle
One hand on the thruster, the other on the yoke, Rose squeezed until her fingernails bit the leather. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the external monitor long enough to look at the Doctor, but she heard him smiling—heard the thrumming eagerness beneath his casual question.
She was not ready. The Doctor didn't seem to notice.
“I’ll just… shift her into manual,” he informed her pleasantly, reaching for the appropriate lever. The instant he hit it, a judder ran through the floor, rattling up through the soles of Rose's feet. Her knees went weak, bones as insubstantial as candyfloss, but the Doctor’s smiling voice didn’t waver. “She doesn’t like manual terribly much. Do you, girl?”
The walls of the ship groaned, and in a surge of panic, Rose's attention slipped. Her gaze flew desperately up the Time Rotor, nerves stripping her of any thought more coherent than please, please don't, please.
“Now, she's not going to take it easy on you just because it's your first time—”
“Of course not,” Rose breathed out.
“—so you've got to be confident. Yes? Confident, Rose!” he repeated, stepping close enough that his tangled brown curls filled her periphery.
For once, he wasn't waving his arms about like an anemone in a current; he was carefully poised to leap into action, to take over should she utterly fail at this. Piloting the TARDIS. Mental. Honestly, she wished he'd just reach over and take her hands in his—either to hold them or remove them from the controls, it didn't much matter. She wasn't sure she could bear the anticipation much longer.
“Half the battle is keeping your focus, holding the image of your destination in your mind,” he reminded her. “So, it's important visualize where you want to go. And then, you simply… go there.”
Rose stared for one last moment at the monitor. Outside, right now, was a massive starscape. Endless possibilities. But she had to choose, had to take them—fly them—somewhere specific. Somewhere she knew well, down to the smallest detail.
Rose closed her eyes, and the images flooded in. But one floated above the others, clear and perfect; all she had to do was reach out and grasp it.
“Punch it, Chewie,” she mumbled to herself, feeling suddenly giddy. Fear turning to elation. The Doctor's laugh was melodic and warm, a comforting presence at her side.
And then it was like her hands moved on their own—more confident than she felt they ought to be, but operating entirely on her power. She felt the TARDIS heave and groan into manual motion, like she was standing in the ship's lungs, feeling her breathe. Rose's own breaths fell into sync.