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The Doctor stared at Donna in shock, still trying to process the words that had come out of her mouth.
“Double booked at the O2 World in Berlin. How does that — how does that even happen? Aren’t there professionals working at these places so these sorts of things are avoided?” He started pacing, yanking at his hair and barely resisting the urge to shout at Donna. This wasn’t her fault.
“Massive, massive miscommunication,” Donna said, her expression somewhere between concern and empathy, her body poised between pulling him into a hug and tackling him before he ran out the door to do something stupidly rash. He still had plenty of righteous anger to get out. “Actually, I think it was a bit of deviousness on the part of their manager. He’s always been slippery — well, you know. It’s Davros.”
The Daleks were an industrial-metal rock group, fronted by a man named Davros, notorious for his use of electronic voice tracks, and even more notorious for his anti-social behavior. He was bent on worldwide domination, swore to out-sell and out-perform every other act on the planet, spewed never-ending hateful diatribes to the press about anyone he considered competition. The Daleks had risen to popularity not long after the Doctor scored his first number one hit, and Davros tended to fixate on the Doctor with unhealthy levels of obsession.
When the Doctor released the Scarf Album, the Daleks came out with Kaled. The Cravat Album, the Skaro Degradations. The Leather Album, the Mad Emperor. And two weeks before the Doctor’s Suit Album, Davros made Crucible available for pre-download; it out-sold any other Dalek album to date, and even out-sold the Suit Album for the first twelve weeks.
“Well,” the Doctor said, slipping his fingers out of his hair — it was wild, spiking in every direction like an angry puffer-fish. “We can handle this. We’ll start with some phone calls.”
“Already on it,” Donna replied, mobile in-hand.
At that moment, the door of his ancient blue tour bus opened. “Doctor?”
The Doctor couldn’t help the grin that twitched at the corners of his mouth; he was furious, but the feeling abated at the sound of her voice. “Come in, Rose!”
She walked up the steps, but she wasn’t alone. There was a bloke with his arm around her shoulders. The Doctor’s small smile faded.
“Doctor, I — umm — this is Mickey, an old mate of mine. Best freelance sound engineer in the biz. My mum thought I needed a bit of professional intervention, in that department.”
The Doctor had dealt with plenty of sound engineers in his life, and he’d never felt like wrapping himself around one the way Rose seemed to with this –Mickey.
Donna cleared her throat, elbowing the Doctor on the way to greet them. “Mickey, I’m Donna Noble.”
Mickey laughed, shaking Donna’s hand. “I know who you are! Even if this one,” and he squeezed Rose’s shoulder, “Didn’t talk about you all the time, I’m a huge fan of your work with the Chiswick Temps.”
Donna’s pleased smile to the Doctor indicated he’d just lost her, but he was more hung up on Mickey talking to Rose “all the time.” They’d only been on tour for a week and they’d been practically inseparable – when was she talking to him? Is that who she was always texting? He’d assumed it was her mum.
This time Donna leaned none too gently on the Doctor’s toes and he leaped forward to escape it, putting him right in front of Rose and Mickey.
The Doctor relented. “Well, nice to meet you, Rickey –”
“It’s Mickey,” Rose said.
“– but we’re in a bit of a jam. Seems we’re double-booked in Berlin, same night as Davros. Well, The Daleks, but still no time to chat, has to be dealt with!” He turned for the back of the bus when Mickey’s voice stopped him.
“Oh, at the O2 World? I’ve got a few mates over there, I could make a couple calls, send an e-mail?”
The Doctor spoke at the same time as Donna: “No, not necessary, we’ve got it.”
But Donna spoke louder. “That’d be great! All the help we can get on this one, yeah?”
Mickey beamed, clearly pleased to be useful.
Donna moved toward the door. “My laptop’s backstage, come on, Mickey. Let’s see if they’ve got the catering set up yet, too. I’m bloody starved.”
Mickey moved back down the steps and out the door, Donna behind him.
Rose shifted on her feet. “So.” Then she lapsed back into silence.
Moving to shuffle a stack of takeaway napkins on the counter, the Doctor rushed his words out.
“So, your boyfriend’s in the industry, too? Didn’t know – that. I mean, didn’t know you had a boyfriend or that he was in the industry. And I didn’t know that I didn’t know it, wasn’t like there was a big gap in my brain where I thought, ‘something’s missing here, wonder what it could be?’ Just thought, ‘I know exactly as much as I need to about this situation.’ The, ehm, boyfriend situation, I mean, otherwise maybe I would’ve not – well, the past in the past.”
And he caught Rose’s eye, curling one of the napkins into his fist.
“It’s not — I mean, we’re not — anymore,” she replied, dropping her gaze to the floor and crumpling up the hem of her t-shirt in her fists just like he was crumpling the napkins. “He’s a great bloke. Mickey is. I mean.” Her face was flaming red and she was looking at everything but his eyes.
It would be fine —this would be fine — if she’d just look at him again, so he could read what she wasn’t saying aloud, and there wouldn’t be a blip in the connection between them.
Because right now that connection was blipping, and the Doctor’s heart was blipping right along with it, and he didn’t like this feeling one bit.
Thing was, he knew full well his heart didn’t have a right to blip about anything. It’s not like Rose was anything more than a business partner. Artistic partner, too, naturally — really she was a brilliant songwriter, the few sessions they’d already had together had been the most creatively stimulating of his life.
She was a brilliant, stimulating personal friend.
Because personal friends did things like hold hands all the time, and invade each others’ personal space on a regular basis, and bring their hair-straightening devices and tubes of lipstick to each others’ tour buses and leave them there, because they tended to crash on each others’ couches and bunks more often than sleeping in their own bus.
Rose made a motion forward, and the Doctor thought for a soaring moment she was coming in for a hug; his arms lifted a little, ready to lock around her torso and squeeze, but she shifted sideways and scooted past him.
“Sorry,” she said, and he wasn’t sure if she was apologizing for the awkwardness, or Mickey, or what she was doing at this very moment: picking up her hair straightener and her lipstick and bundling it all into the crook of her elbow. Before she walked down the steps, she finally looked him in the eyes again.
“Mickey’s really good at what he does. And my mum admires him. And she got the tapes from our last show, and she’s never been away from me like this, with me off on my own. I think she’s a bit panicked, if you want to know the truth.” She took a deep breath, and it shook a little. “Donna said something earlier, about heading out for Berlin tonight? Do you think we ought to do a bit of rehearsal, before this circus gets on the road?”
He very deliberately dropped his eyes to the stuff in her hands, not answering her question yet, and she squared her shoulders at the challenge.
“I was just thinking how it might look, my things in your bus.” She shifted. “You know, if you brought someone back or – something.”
He physically recoiled, hands groping behind him to press on the counter.
“I’ve never made a habit of that before, Rose, and I don’t intend to start now, but if you’re concerned about propriety, maybe you should ride in your own bus to Berlin.”
Something in the way her fingers twitched, now clutched around the tube of lipstick, made him pause. “Oh.”
She twisted the cord to the straightener around her hand, blood pooling in her fingertips before she spoke again, “He’ll just be coming up to Berlin and then he flies back. It’s just the one stop.”
The Doctor pushed off the counter and ushered Rose down the steps, “No, no, if he’s brilliant, maybe we should invite him along.”
They made their way indoors and to the stage. The Doctor was just plugging into his amp when Rose finally broke the silence, clearly warring with herself. “I don’t want to invite him along.”
The Doctor nodded and lit into Bloc Party, knocking out the beginning of “Helicopter” before Rose had even strapped her guitar on. Adam jumped up from his kit – was he just waiting back there? – and kicked in with the drums almost immediately.
Rose caught up to him before the lyrics began, singing pointedly right at him –running on bravado– and he was off like a shot.
Despite himself, he enjoyed the song, the quick push-pull of their guitars, Adam hitting every mark, and Rose growling into the mic that he was born a liar, he’d die a liar.
(And didn’t he know it.)
He was fidgeting with his capo, moving it up and down, debating another Bloc Party song – would it be too heavy-handed to sing about this modern love barely a week in, because he sort of didn’t give a toss – when Mickey stepped onto the stage.
“That was brilliant,” Mickey said. “Never heard you play like that, Rose!”
The Doctor felt a tiny point of pride, he’d seen her play like that plenty in the past several days, focused and furious, and clearly Mickey didn’t know her as well as they both thought.
“And you, on the sticks!” Mickey turned to Adam and Adam beamed.
“Thanks, mate!” Adam said.
Mickey crossed his arms, surveying the group of them thoughtfully, but he was speaking to Rose: “Jackie sent me tapes of the first few shows — she was worried, with the direction your duets with the Doctor were taking. In terms of recording for the live releases — pop versus punk — we’ll need to reevaluate some things.”
“Just been experimenting a bit,” she replied, pointedly not looking at the Doctor. “Trying something new for a change. Doesn’t mean it’s a permanent shift, mum shouldn’t get her knickers in a twist.”
“Welcome aboard, Mickey!” The words came out of the Doctor’s mouth rapid-fire, too loud, and everyone turned to look at him. “Glad to have a specialist along. Now we’ve got some rehearsing to do, and less than an hour before we roll out. If you don’t mind …”
Mickey took a step back, arms out and eyebrows arched, his attention flickering to Rose. Rose shook her head with a shrug as, without warning, the Doctor lit into The Strokes.
Rose was staring at Mickey, and Mickey was staring at Rose, and the Doctor was staring at both of them, and by the time he got to the verse, “Well, I’ve been in town for about fifteen minutes now, and baby I feel so down, and I don’t know why, I keep walkin’ for miles,” he was infinitely grateful to see Donna march into the room. She had a mobile pressed to one ear, a finger in the other, and she was shouting something inaudible over the music. With a grimace in the Doctor’s direction, she snagged Mickey by the elbow and hauled him away.
When the song was over, Rose took off her guitar and turned to Adam. “Really, you’re keeping up better than I am today.”
The Doctor stepped between them. “Keeping up?”
“Running with you — with your whims, musically speaking. Rehearsals are sometimes like a jukebox that’s been kicked, you just never know what song’s going to pop out next,” Adam replied brightly, his smile growing awkward as the Doctor leveled a death glare at him. Adam cleared his throat.
“I think everything’s smashing. It’s great. I’m tired, and we’re leaving in less than an hour, and I’m going back to my bus. You guys knock yourselves out though, okay?”
Wielding her pink guitar like a shield, Rose left.
The Doctor stared after her for a second before turning to find the rest of the band looking at him expectantly.
“Keep up,” he growled, and rocketed off into the beginning of “Citadel City,” one of the most jarring songs he’d ever written.
He had just blown it on a chord change and screeched the song to a halt when a pair of hands covered his eyes.
“Guess who!”
Wheeling around so fast he knocked his guitar into her, he enveloped his mystery guest into a hug.
“My Sarah Jane!”
She returned the hug, gripping him tightly before pulling back, “I’d ask how you are, but if you’re playing that song, I already know.”
He felt embarrassed for a moment, but recovered quickly, “None of that right now. How areyou? What are you doing here?”
Leading her offstage with barely a wave to the band, he listened to her talk about Luke, how he was visiting a friend in town, and she just knew she had to stop by.
He walked with her out to the buses and smiled as she patted his fondly as he searched for the key.
Giving up for a moment, he impulsively wrapped her in another hug just as Rose stepped out of her own bus.
She was wearing an over-sized red jumper, her legs bare, and he didn’t miss the cigarette she palmed when she spotted them, looking guilty at being busted. Her expression quickly changed to displeased as the Doctor released Sarah Jane from the hug, but kept his arm around her shoulders.
“Rose!” he called, as if they weren’t all already aware of each other.
Rose crossed the asphalt toward them, struggling to get the cigarette up and into her sleeve.
“Rose, this is Sarah Jane, Sarah Jane, this is Rose.”
Sarah Jane stuck out her hand politely, but the Doctor didn’t miss the way her eyes narrowed.
“Oh, I know who she is,” Sarah Jane said. “Can’t shake a stick at a music blog lately without hitting her name. Tell me, Rose, does your mother know you smoke? Or does she need to buy them for you?”
The Doctor watched as Rose physically recoiled, then steeled herself. “Nice to meet you, Sarah Jane. Are you a blogger then? Did you take one of those classes on how to use computers down at the community centre? I know it doesn’t come natural to your generation.”
“My generation?” Sarah Jane breathed dropping her hand and bristling. The Doctor opened his mouth to intervene, becausesurely he could think of something clever and distracting to say, and it would be ever-so-much easier if Rose would stop fiddling with that damned cigarette, her fingers tugging and pulling at her cuff like she was trying to perform some horribly amateur magic trick.
Before the Doctor got a syllable out, someone else spoke up: “Hey, babe!”
Mickey was strolling across the lot, eyes pinned on Rose (more specifically, Rose’s legs and the short jumper that didn’t cover them).
“Got everything sorted with Donna, then?” Rose called back, eyes still narrowed at Sarah Jane.
“Just waiting to hear back from a few of my guys,” Mickey replied. He threw his arm around Rose with practiced familiarity, squeezing her shoulder affectionately, and turned his attention to Sarah Jane. “Oh my god, Sarah Jane Smith, Sarah Jane and the Adventures, I can’t believe it! It’s an honor to meet you — I’ve used your tracks for so many mixes, you’re classic!”
Sarah Jane’s face stretched into a forced smile.
“Timeless!” the Doctor squeaked, panic clawing at his stomach like a rabid hamster. “Timeless, is what she is!”
“I had posters of you on my wall, when I was growing up!” Mickey barreled on. Rose’s smirk was not helping matters.
“We’ve only got a minute to catch up before we’re on the road, so if you’ll excuse us,” the Doctor said, yanking open the door to his bus.
He closed it fast as he could behind them, but not quick enough to avoid hearing Mickey’s words to Rose: “We’re in your bus tonight, right babe?”
“Look at this place, it’s hardly changed!” Sarah Jane said, sitting down at the kitchenette table, picking up and sniffing at an old takeout container, tossing it into the trash; for a moment, it was as though she’d never left, as though this was still only his fourth tour. She looked up at him and tilted her head, youthful eyes gleaming, her anger already faded away.
“You’ve changed, though!” she said, and he sat down hard on the bench. “Just look at you, Doctor. You’re in a state.”
“It’s — it’s Berlin, Davros is up to his old tricks, he’s pulled a stunt with the venue, and —”
“You’ve dealt with Davros your entire professional career, and I’ve known you long enough to be certain he doesn’t usually inspire you to dredge up ‘Citadel City.’” Sarah Jane interrupted, leaning forward to prop her elbows on the end of the bench and studying him as though he was a crossword puzzle, if she could only slot in the correct letters she could read his thoughts.
“Oh, now, I don’t want to talk about me. Tell me about you – where’s K-9?” The Doctor smiled fondly, thinking about his favorite amp, the first one he’d ever used a bit of jiggery-pokery on – it went to 11 now.
Sarah Jane smiled, “Clearly you haven’t changed that much – still first in distraction, I see,” she sighed. “K-9 is well, Luke inherited him, actually. He’s been giving the bass a go lately.”
The Doctor watched Sarah Jane trace her fingers over the table, navigating piles of papers until she stopped on one, a crumpled thing covered in his handwriting, and Rose’s.
“What’s this?”
The Doctor blinked at the lyrics, meandering verses about love and stardust and the bits in between.
“Oh, just a new song I’m working on.”
Sarah Jane leaned back again, bringing the paper closer to her face. “Alone?”
It was out of his mouth before he thought better of it: “With Rose.”
Her expression faltered only for a moment, long enough for him to feel it in his guts, but not long enough to comment.
“That’s – that’s new. Writing with someone else,” she trailed off briefly, but seemed to find her resolve. “When I would ask, you’d always say you wrote better alone. I mean, you played with me, of course, but writing, Doctor?”
He ought to just announce it on stage tomorrow, get it all out in the open: Rose Tyler is different and new and lovely and it’s terrifying.
“It’s – we’re – she’s. I don’t know, Sarah Jane. It just happened. I wrote a song for you, doesn’t that count for something?”
She placed the paper back on the table, smoothing it out. “It couldn’t have been a single.”
“I’m sorry?”
Sarah Jane sighed, “The song, the label said it couldn’t have been a single. We had a great time on tour, playing together, seeing the world, and you dropped me off with something I’d never even get on an album.”
He reached for a set of takeaway chopsticks, lying still in their wrapper on the table. Snapping them apart, he positioned them in his fingers, opening and closing them a few times before he spoke again.
“And what? You want me to apologize? Sorry I didn’t write you a hit?”
She slid out of her chair. “I have to go now, Luke’s expecting me. But – it wasn’t about that, Doctor. And if this,” she gestured to the lyrics, “is what it’s about now, I’m glad for you, but don’t – don’t send her away with a b-side, give her an album. Oh, listen to me, I’m rubbish with metaphors now. Your Rose wasn’t too far off; I do blog about music sometimes, classics week on Pitchfork, you know.”
The Doctor followed her to the door. “Take care, Sarah Jane.”
He reached out to hug her, but she cut it short, a brief pat on the back and she was down the steps and back on the ground, the door rattling behind her.
The Doctor watched her walk toward the opposite side of the lot. She stopped; something caught her attention. Mild panic churned in the Doctor’s stomach as Rose stepped out from behind her enormous black bus. Sarah Jane approached warily, and the Doctor’s hand rested on the door, ready to burst outside and intervene before they got into it again.
Rose extended a pair of cigarettes toward Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane had given up smoking a while back, the Doctor knew, but she accepted the cigarette anyway. Rose produced a lighter — where was she hiding all these things, she couldn’t possibly have pockets in that long jumper, and her legs were … quite lovely, really, so very long and smooth — not that he’d touched them — not that he didn’t want to — focus, Doctor!
The women leaned up against the side of Rose’s bus and began talking — not arguing or screaming, but civil and serious. Then it happened: Rose cracked a smile. Sarah Jane smiled right back.
Rose said something and nodded toward the Doctor’s blue bus. Sarah Jane turned around to look, and the Doctor hit the floor like a soldier in a firing zone.
A few seconds later, when he worked up the nerve to army-crawl to up the bench and peek outside again, both women were doubled over in laughter. Sarah Jane said something else, pointing at his bus, and Rose guffawed, which was both fascinating and horrifying at the same time.
Horrifying, because it was obvious they were talking about him. And whatever Sarah Jane had to say, the Doctor wasn’t sure he wanted Rose to hear. The only small comfort he took was that they probably weren’t plotting his death, not while giggling so uncontrollably.
The sight was also fascinating because Rose looked so happy — her cheeks flushed and her full mouth open wide in a smile, her hair wild and down around her face. This wasn’t the costumed Rose putting on a performance like she did onstage; this was the Rose who sat up with him in the small hours of the night, writing songs while the bus rolled through the darkness, the Rose who crashed on his bunk while he took the cramped bench, ever the gentleman.
At the swimming pool a few nights ago he’d told her he found her inspiring, and she seemed content with that (lips and tongue and skin – so much skin, of course she’d been wearing a bikini, really, with her curves it’d be criminal if she didn’t – focus, Doctor!).
But those were vague words, and what did words matter, if he wasn’t showing her anything?
He watched as their conversation slowed to easy smiles and only the occasional glance his way.
The bin with the ashtray was the one next to his bus and as they finished their cigarettes, Rose collected Sarah Jane’s, giving her a quick hug before turning to walk toward the bin. He focused on Sarah Jane’s retreating form, following her all the way to the entrance before he realized he’d lost track of Rose.
A knock on the door startled him out of his search and he pulled it open to the sight of Rose, flushed and happy. He grinned brightly back, and motioned for her to come in.
When she brushed by him, she smelled like smoke and Rose, and it was a heady combination, something close to the scent she’d wound into his sheets after a show – the smell of a venue, beer and cigarettes and sweat still clinging even after a shower and a change, and the smell of her, vanilla and spice and some fruity shampoo.
He’d gone whole tours and not noticed what someone smelled like and here he was sniffing after Rose like a bloodhound.
Clearly he was doing a bang up job of classing her as nothing more than a friend.
“Sorry for that before,” Rose said, breaking the silence. “With Sarah Jane. She’s brilliant.”
“Yeah?” He lifted a corner of his mouth, pleased Rose understood.
“Yeah. I was just je– I was just confused.” She tugged on the hem of her jumper, the movement drawing his eyes back down to her legs and he lingered there, cataloging scars and freckles and the curve of muscle and bone before Rose cleared her throat.
“Oh! Oh, right,” he said. “Totally normal thing, confusion, I was – confused before, when I met Mr. Mickey, actually.” That admission felt like a lot, and something lodged high in his throat, watching her reaction.
“Nothing to be confused about, Doctor. Mickey’s a mate, and it’ll be good to have one when all this is through.”
The thing is his throat slipped lower, circling his heart. “Planning the next move already then? Your mother would be proud.”
She practically squinted at him, trying to read his expression, but he concentrated on keeping it neutral.
“Not planning, preparing. Heard there might be a little bit of – jet lag when you leave, I mean, when we finish. When it’s over. Doctor time isn’t like normal time, yeah?”
Jet lag? The Doctor had a vague idea what to make of that, the implications of what it felt like to end up in his wake, but he pushed those vague ideas aside without letting them coalesce into anything solid. What he did let coalesce was the realization that Rose was certain she’d end up there, too — behind him, with Sarah Jane and Ace and Jamie and everyone else. She was steeling herself for it, as though it was inevitable.
“We’re leaving in a few minutes, why don’t you stay here for the night? I’d like to finish this,” he said, stepping over to snatch the paper Sarah Jane had been holding a while ago, the rough cut of their first collaboration.
“Yeah?” Rose said, and her smile was just at him, her eyes glittering with half a dozen emotions; he picked out the ones he liked and tucked them right next to his heart, which was beating double-time.
“Well, for this professional collaboration to work, we ought to take this seriously. One album is a few months’ worth of work, but it’s never to early to start mapping out a second album, too. Or look at some long-term paths. For our professional development. Together.”
Her grin had only grown wider, and before he finished she lunged forward, throwing her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest. “Good, I’m glad that’s settled, then,” she said, her warm breath saturating his oxford. He hugged back, leaning his head down to rest his lips against the crown of her head.
The bus door opened and Donna sailed in, pulling Mickey along. “Right, you two,” she said, giving the Doctor a half-smirk, half-smile over the top of Rose’s head. “That’s enough of that for now. We’ve got business to see to. We’ve done as much as we can behind the scenes, Doctor, and now it’s time for you to put an end to this mess with Davros.”
Rose pulled away, and a twinge of disappointment tugged at the Doctor. He didn’t mind anyone seeing them like that. Especially not Mickey, whose eyebrows had risen nearly to his hairline.
The bus driver popped his head in. “Ms. Noble, is everything settled?”
“Yeah, Elton, we’re all onboard for the duration, till everything’s sorted. Drive on!”
The four of them settled in, and everything was as easy and comfortable as it would be with family. The Doctor made exactly three phone calls: one to O2 World management, one to Davros’ tour manager, and one to Davros himself. He didn’t yell or raise his voice — he didn’t have to.
Davros’ management, predictably, refused to back down, going on at length about how they’d already begun load in and a lot of other things the Doctor frankly tuned out. O2 management wasn’t keen to lose half the night’s revenue by picking a side and he was halfway through the call with Davros himself when Mickey flipped his laptop around, gesturing wildly at the screen.
The Doctor covered the speaker on the phone. “Uh, Mickey, kind of in the middle of something here.”
Mickey rolled his eyes and turned to Rose, speaking so close to her ear that for a moment the Doctor wanted nothing more than to hang up and put the two of them on opposite ends of the bus. Maybe Mickey could drive, even.
But then Rose seemed to understand what Mickey was saying and she lit up, explaining it to Donna and then all three of them were nodding furiously and making the same hand gestures at the screen.
The Doctor finally looked at the laptop, noticing the evening’s weather report in one window and a picture of the spacious green surrounding the arena in the other.
Oh, yes.
When the Doctor conceded the arena, Davros cackled and hung up, and Donna and Mickey swung into action. Donna locked in security and the proper permits, requesting an e-blast to ticket-holders that the concert would now be held outdoors. Mickey called in everyone he knew in Germany – waking more than a few people up – to get a temporary sound system that would rival the permanent one inside the O2.
By the time the buses rolled in, the lawn looked as if there was always meant to be a concert there – speakers and a stage in various states of assembly and a handful of fans already milling about the grass.
The sun was just rising and the Doctor peered at the sky through the windows.
He’d play under the stars tonight, with Rose Tyler.
Something about that felt right.
But they had time for a bit of an adventure first, and Mickey had earned a spot on the team, at least for now.
They piled out of the bus together, Donna bee-lining for the set up crew as soon as her feet hit the ground.
“Where to now, Doctor?” Mickey dropped his arm around Rose’s shoulders and the Doctor didn’t miss the way she quietly ducked out from under it, locking eyes with the Doctor before smiling at Mickey to soften the blow.
Mickey didn’t miss it, either. He stared at Rose, a sad sort of resignation in his face. “Y’know what they call me in Germany? Tonmeister — that’s cool, innit? Tonmeister. You guys go on, if I’m going to be a proper tonmeister tonight, I ought to make sure my equipment’s properly seen to.” And he headed off without looking back, his gait determined and his shoulders squared.
“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said, jamming his hands into his pockets. He stepped close enough to bump her shoulder with his arm and was rewarded with a tongue-touched grin. “What kind of adventure should we have today?”
The adventure turned out to be relatively mundane, as far as their usual escapades went, but the Doctor decided it was perfect all the same. After a day holding hands at the Pergamon Museum and finding the best Apfel-Streusel old East Berlin had to offer, they came back for the concert. The field was packed, the stadium itself only half-full (and oh, the Doctor could practically hear Davros frothing at the mouth in a rage, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t please him just a little).
At the end of the last encore, the Doctor motioned the rest of the band to silence and started plucking a few chords all by himself, but he wasn’t looking at his guitar or the audience or anything else; his eyes were locked on Rose Tyler’s face.
The crowd, which had been raucus and enthusiastic all evening, grew quiet. Her body was rigid in shock and her expression like someone who’d just opened a plain door and found a wondrous new world behind it, like stumbling into the wardrobe to Narnia and figuring out it’s bigger on the inside.
She joined him after the first few words and they debuted their first collaboration right there, without backup from the rest of his band, just the two of them in a spotlight, voices and guitars in perfect harmony.
The minute they were out of the line of sight of the crowd, she threw her arms around his neck.
“It was perfect!” she sighed in his ear as he picked her up off the ground, her legs kicking with glee. He put her back on her feet, but before he could reply she chirped, “See you in a bit!” and darted off into the crowd of crew backstage.
The door of the Doctor’s bus opened forty-five minutes later and she climbed in, lugging an enormous hiking backpack. With a laugh she tossed it at him. “I’m signing up, Doctor. You’re stuck with me now!”
He staggered back under the weight of the pack, saved from falling over only by the fact that there was a small sort of partition behind him, one that concealed the loo. “Really?”
“Called the rental company, told them I’m cancelling my bus.”
He beamed at her, hugging her backpack so hard, if it had been Rose she surely would’ve squeaked. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Later that night, the bus was on the road again, and when the Doctor helped Rose to the bunk in the back and knelt beside her to take off her shoes, she collapsed onto the mattress and tugged on his hand.
“C’mon then,” she murmured sleepily. “You don’t fit on that bench. Never have.”
For the first time, but certainly not for last, the Doctor laid down beside Rose in the tiny bunk. It was so narrow, they were practically on top of each other, Rose’s head pillowed on his shoulder, her torso sprawled across his chest, and their legs tangled together. She fell asleep almost instantly, her hand twitching against his shoulder and the bottom of her foot bumping his toes at a regular interval.
The Doctor closed his eyes, burying his nose in her hair and resting his lips against her temple. She was warm and comfortable, and she fit right here beside him like he’d been made for her, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, something felt like home.
“Rose Tyler, with the Doctor, as it should be,” he whispered.
Her only reply was a quiet snore.