Rose x Ten, Rose x TenToo Any rating, Something fluffy/happy, preferably.
My gift for hollonsy. I hope you find lots of happiness this holiday season!
—
Rose always loved snow, despite that fact that it was cold, difficult to walk through, and no one looks good with a red nose and cheeks. But she could never shake the feeling that there was something magical in a city street blanketed in shimmering white, in the soft way it dusted her hair, and especially the way it added an extra bit of charm to Christmas. And there was one Christmas that always came to mind at the mention of snow.
She remembered blinking away the fake snowflakes as she stared up into the clear night sky, both her and her Time Lord looking up at the stars and sneaking shy glances at each other. His new body was just as cool to the touch as his last one but she shifted closer to him anyways, grateful for the cover of cold air that excused her shivers.
Several years' worth of Christmases would come and go after that one, and none of them would fill her with such wonder and happiness as that night had. After being stuck in Pete's World, she managed to keep her to her senses; never becoming reclusive or feeling the urge to shut her family away. Rose was there to decorate the tree ever year, to watch Tony's young hands struggle with the wrappings on his gifts, to share that last glass of spiked eggnog with Pete long after everyone else had gone to bed. Every Christmas in this new universe was warm and loving, without the need for a single insincere smile.
But as she fell asleep at the end of every holiday she would feel the bitterness eat away at her heart, despite all her happiness. The sullen feeling that even after so many years, nothing was like it should be. She had friends, she had family, but she had no one to hold her hand.
So she would crawl into bed on Christmas Eve with the sweet words of carols singing through her memory, helping to fight the sorrow that threatened to consume her, and know that the morning light would return as a reminder that she did indeed have a reason to wake.
The creek of the bedroom door pulled her farther from sleep and she stretched her legs on reflex, still caught on the precipice of the dream world and ready to fall back into its darkness.
"Mummy?"
"Sshhh."
Rose heard the question presented as a single word in a young girl's timbre, followed by the familiar voice from a life years ago. She remained half asleep as images of the faces that belonged to those voices flashed before the inside of her eyelids without context.
"But she has to see!" came the desperate cry, barely contained in a whisper.
"Maddy, wait-"
But the man was interrupted by the patter of tiny feet across the carpet and soon Rose was receiving a tap tap tap against her nose.
"Mummy, it's snowing!"
The unknown voice, turned suddenly high, finally pierced through the veil of deep sleep that Rose had been clinging to. She opened her eyes to see a toddler, barely even two years old, with dark blonde hair and the Doctor's eyes.
And then she remembered.
New new new Doctor, new first dates, new suites, new life. A new life that was now bouncing up and down before her and gesturing wildly towards her window.
Tony, Mum, Dad, tree, and nog were still a part of her life. With as fuzzy as her mind was, apparently she had very enthusiastically returned to the spiked nog sometime last night.
"You alright there?" the Doctor asked as Rose continued to give their daughter a delirious stare.
"Yeah, sorry," Rose groaned, rubbing her eyes and sitting farther up, "guess I had a bit too much of the Christmas spirit last night."
"Christmas Eve spirit, you mean," he said, crouching down to Maddy's level. "It's now officially Christmas Day and someone has something very exciting to show you."
"Get up, get up, get up!" the bundle of tangled hair and fleece jim jams demanded, pulling on Rose's arm as she struggled to untangle herself from the sheets.
"Ooooh, hold on love, the room is spinning around Mummy."
Maddy looked down at the floor and then at the room around her before turning very seriously concerned eyes back at Rose. "No it's not."
"She's just having an allergic reaction to the eggnog last night," the Doctor explained, casting Rose an amused and very unsympathetic look.
"Like us and ginger?"
"Like us and ginger."
"But it's snowing!"
That caught Rose's attention. "It's snowing?"
"It's snowing!" both the Doctor and Maddy confirmed in unison.
"You were so asleep, you missed her screaming it up and down the halls earlier."
Rose was up and at the window, tearing away the black-out curtains to reveal the transformed grounds of the Tyler mansion. "But it never snows here. Not since the rift was opened."
The Doctor joined her at the window. "But this universe has been healing. Every year the average temperature drops a little more."
"But it's Christmas!"
The Doctor nodded with a closed smile.
"It's the first snow in years and it's on Christmas Day!" Rose exclaimed in disbelief.
He leaned a little closer to Rose, tilting his body until his head was at the same height as hers, and whispered in a conspiring tone. "And someone's never seen snow before."
She met his eyes as he gestured at the tiny human behind them, who was currently jumping on the bed and chanting, "It's snowing! It's snowing!"
"Ready to change her world?" he asked with a grin.
___
Tony came sprinting through the foyer and out the door, nearly knocking Rose over. She had been in the process of teaching Maddy that putting mittens on wasn't a struggle as long as one didn't wiggle so much, but she lost her grip on the child during the momentary distraction of several screaming Tylers.
"Anthony Tyler, we do not run in the house!" Jackie shrieked as she followed them into the yard, carrying a heavy coat for her son.
Rose stood and zipped up on her own coat as the Doctor offered her his arm.
"Shall we?" he asked as she eagerly looped her arm through his.
"Oh, definitely."
They stepped outside and Rose gasped as the frozen air filled her lungs and stung her face. She had forgotten how painful the cold could be and she was surprised that it didn't seem to be bothering her summer child.
Tony and Maddy were both running in circles; arms extended, palms up, and tongues out, as they attempted to catch snowflakes. But a toddler bounding through several inches of snow is bound to have her clumsiness catch up to her and Rose watched helpless as her daughter planted herself face first into the snow covered ground.
The Doctor and Rose both ran to her and helped her up, brushing the snow from her hair and face as she stood there in shock. Her face and hands quickly reddened as her vessels constricted in response to the trauma of being suddenly buried in ice. Maddy brought her hands up before her, examining her pint-sized fingers with inquisitive eyes.
Her chin quivered for an instant before she broke, bursting into tears at the realization that the powered sugar falling from the sky was the cause of her discomfort.
Sweeping her up in his arms, the Doctor carried her into the house and Rose followed. In the kitchen, the Doctor worked on heating up hot chocolate while Rose placed Maddy on the counter top and rubbed her hands between her own.
"I hate the snow," she sniffed once her sobs had subsided.
"It'll be better when you wear your mittens, you won't feel a thing," Rose promised.
"My face hurts, too."
"Well then you'll just have to be careful not to fall down again. No running around. But we can make snow angels or a snow man. You'd like that, yeah? We'll make them together."
"You just want an excuse to go and play out in the snow yourself," the Doctor teased, using the sonic to warm up the sippy cup to just the right temperature before handing it over to Maddy, who snatched it away from him. She may have developed advanced speech patterns due to her part Time Lord father, but she was still as graceful as any two year old human, and still managed to spill some hot chocolate on her, despite the lid.
Rose rolled her eyes at him. "Says the man who only buys her converse. We all have to have something we're childish about."
"There is nothing childish about Chucks."
"And there's nothing childish about playing in the snow," Rose said, sticking her tongue.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows and grinned, most likely thinking up a retort, but Maddy set down her cup with a finality that captured both her parents' attention.
"I want to throw a snowball at Tony."
Rose answered by hauling the girl back into her arms and walking back towards the front door. "I win!" she called over her shoulder to the Doctor, "She's obviously mine."
____
By nightfall, the snow had stopped falling, but the view from Rose's room showed nothing but a blanket of white. The heavy cloud cover from the day had burned away in the afternoon sun, leaving a clear night sky full of moon light that bathed the earth in a ghostly glow.
Rose heard the bedroom door open and shut, signaling the Doctor's triumphant return from that night's bedtime battle with Maddy. He joined her at the windowsill, watching her as she watched the night.
"Penny for 'em."
"Sorry," Rose said, finally turning to look at him, "I've just been thinking of the last Christmas we had like this."
His brow furrowed thoughtfully. "When was that?"
"When you regenerated."
"Ah," he nodded, then paused for a moment, "I still don't get it."
Rose smiled sheepishly, "Well, there was snow for one thing. Not real snow, but it felt the same. That was the first white Christmas I'd had since I was a little girl. It always snowed right afterwards, in time for New Years, but never actually on Christmas. But what I really mean, as far as you and me go, it feels the same as that night did."
"This is the fourth Christmas we've had here," he said, almost looking hurt.
She stepped over to him, bringing an arm around his waist and snuggling into him. "I know, and they've all be amazing. But they also just felt like another day in the life that we were only living while we wait for everything else to start. And now we're right back where we were all those years ago. The TARDIS isn't quite ready to go yet, but it will be in just a little bit. The waiting doesn't seem so long now and now we get to really start thinking about where the three of us will go."
Rose felt the Doctor rest his chin on her head. "All that from just a bit of snow?"
"You think I'm being stupid."
He pulled away, holding her at arm's length, and then abruptly leaned forward and pushed the window up and open. One arm supported his weight against the windowsill as the other gestured for Rose to join him. She did, hanging the upper half of her torso up and craning her neck up to get a better image of the sky.
"So, where're we going first?" he asked, giving her a smile that perfectly matched the one he gave her when she had asked the same question years ago.
Rose bit back her smile, pretending to seriously contemplate his question. Stretching her arm up towards the stars, she found one and directed her index finger towards it's pinpoint of light. "That way."
"You sure?"
"Er, hold on," she said, adjusting her position until she landed on the adjacent constellation. "That way."
"That way?"
"Mmmhhhmm," she mumbled, narrowing her eyes at the star cluster, letting her imagination already take her there.
"Yeah, that way," the Doctor agreed, without ever looking away from Rose.
to the anon who's dissatisfied with her sex life: being vocal about what you like/don't like while in bed can be a good way to get the point across w/o having an actual sit down conversation. encouraging him when he does something you like ("oh yeah, like that") and gently suggesting something else when he does something you don't ("here, try this", guiding his hands, etc) can help you teach [...]
[...] him about your body and what does it for you without making it feel like a lesson. i.e. he won't feel like he's doing something wrong, because all of your words are positive. ("try this" vs "not like that")
yes good advice, thanks holl!
although could be tricky if the anon's bf lasts under a minute... but even then you could make a game of it -- like "let's make it through this whole song!" or something lol. he may like a challenge. :D
here's a random headcanon for slumber party friday: the reason why cosima has to wear glasses and none of the other clones do is because she spent so much time reading science books under the covers when she was supposed to be asleep and squinting at microscopes and computer screens when she was little. she basically killed her eyesight for science.
It's sleepover Friday!
Yes yeees, I like this. I think someone from the show's creators said something like this before, too, though I'm not sure. That would be hella awesome because then Cos and I would have another thing in common (I used to read books like Harry Potter and LOTR when I was like 12 under the covers when it was past my bedtime, since I loved how Harry did it in POA). Thank you for this amazing (and probably very true) headcanon!
re: "talk, dark and handsome"—i think the dark is supposed to mean something more along the lines of shadowy and mysterious. because y'know, broody secretive men are the most attractive thing ever ofc. all women love ~man pain~.
Ohhhhh. So kinda like a masked man walking down a dimly-lit alley at night? Mmm, romantic. Nah, I’m kidding — if that’s what people like, then it’s all gravy.
Me personally, I like my men how I like my coffee — nowhere near my lips [but I’m totally fine with people who do drink coffee].
And I like my women how I like my hot chocolate — sweet and covered in whipped cream. ;)
hollonsy replied to your post: “hollonsy replied to your post: I really hate that I can’t respond to...”:
oh, sorry! i thought there was an android version too. but at least you can use it on your ipad. :)
the xkit guy said he was going to try to roll one out for androids too, but it might take some time because he's got to learn how to write the code. so *fingers crossed*.
