Chapter Text
The days following Bad Wolf Bay were a blur to both the Doctor and Rose. They returned home after a night in a hotel in Norway in which they held each other all night and tried to sleep. They woke frequently throughout the night to comfort each other after nightmares of fire and death and abandonment. They took off in a Torchwood zeppelin the next morning, painfully exhausted. They couldn’t sleep there, either. When they arrived in London, they wavered between anger and exhaustion and despondency.
They had to endure debriefing at Torchwood, followed by inventing an identity for the Doctor. The Torchwood doctors wanted to subject him to tests but Rose put her foot down. The Doctor had been disheartened by the whole process, and he retreated into his shell. Rose had never seen him like that, and it scared her.
Jackie had wanted them to stay in the mansion. Rose declined. “We’ll take the guest house. We just need some time and space,” she had argued. The Doctor’s face had gone pale at her turn of phrase. She had given him an apologetic smile. He seemed to understand, but she still awakened alone in their new house the next morning.
They were cautious around each other, too cautious, each trying to process the whole experience. They went to bed in the same room, but he was too restless to spend the whole night there. She often found the Doctor reading or tinkering with the extra sonic he'd nicked. She feared the Doctor’s “if you want” would soon evolve into an “I'm so sorry, I can't.”
Rose understood. She felt the need to run as well. She suggested the trip after two weeks of walking on eggshells around each other left them both dejected.
They didn't have the TARDIS’ randomizing control but they did have a dart and a huge map of the world. Giggling like a madman, the Doctor donned a blindfold and Rose spun him around, aiming him toward the map they'd pinned up on the wall. The dart landed on the southern East coast of the United States, near the city of Charleston, SC, and they decided that was as good a place as any to start their road trip.
“Another beach?” he asked. “Are you up for that?”
“It’s a different beach. And a chance to make some good memories. I'm up for it. Want to travel with me?”
The Doctor smiled brilliantly. “I always want to travel with you, Rose.”
They made their plans. The baby TARDIS would be fine at home in the tank. The Doctor had “enhanced” the guest house security so he could remotely monitor their small time ship. Pete immediately wanted him to develop something similar for Torchwood and the Doctor recoiled at the idea. Rose urged him to keep his mind open to the possibility. The Doctor reluctantly agreed, “But it'll be ages before I can regard that place as anything but what tore us apart.”
“The technology there brought us together,” she reminded him.
He couldn't argue with that, nor could he turn down the use of Pete’s private zeppelin. He still wasn't sold on the idea of working for Pete, though. However, they wouldn't have to think of that for three solid weeks as they traveled the United States.
On a sunny summer morning the Doctor and Rose checked into a beach resort a few miles outside of Charleston, South Carolina. It was the first time traveling completely alone since their days in the original TARDIS. Neither knew what to expect but they were both full of hope that the relationship they had both been dancing around for so long would finally move forward.