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Rose saw the notice on the little bulletin board in the corner of her favorite chip shop on Monday. She always stopped to check it because it was the popular place to drop off notes about book clubs and indie bands and free stuff. The new note was stuck on the bottom right corner right under an ad for a cookie baking contest. It was small, written with a slightly sloppy hand as if the author had dashed it off at the last moment. "Need a roommate to share my flat. Ladies, gentlemen, multi-sex, undecided, or robot...don't care. Call the Doctor for more info." There was a phone number scrawled down the side, but it was the capital letters across the bottom that drew her attention: No Potential Relationships Please!
She pulled the note from the board and pocketed it with a slight nod. She needed to be on her own again, away from listening to her mum go on about bad decisions and airs and graces and "why can't you just give Mickey a chance." She knew her mum meant well, but the one thing Jimmy's place had afforded her was freedom, albeit under his controlling thumb. Whoever this Doctor was, he was bound to be better than all of that and definitely without complications.
Rose dialed the Doctor's number as soon as her shift at Henrik's was over that evening. He sounded pleasant enough, though not quite awake, and the price and location of the flat was reasonable. They made plans to meet up the next afternoon and Rose dealt with her mum's remarks about where her life was (not) going with a civil grace and packed up her underwear drawer to help herself feel better.
The flat was everything she could have hoped for and more. Seemingly bigger on the inside, it came with a washer/dryer, spacious rooms, two full bathrooms, and plenty of floor-to-ceiling windows and the Doctor had already furnished it with a retro-look that really fit the place. The Doctor himself was a study in contradictions, gruff at first, but gradually warming up and even offering her a glass of something to drink. They discussed details over the drink; he was reticent to talk about why it was so cheap, only informing her that he was a bit anti-social and reiterating the bit where he wasn't interested in a relationship. She had absolutely no interest in a relationship anyway, he was too old, his ears were too big, his forehead too wide, his tone too patronizing, and she signed the rental agreement happily.
She planned to move in on Sunday - her day off - and when a knock sounded on the door at six am she blearily pulled it open expecting Mickey and getting ready to berate him for showing up at the crack of dawn. It wasn't Mickey. It was the Doctor and despite his raised eyebrow at her nightclothes and her mum's suggestive comments and the slight creepiness of him appearing at her home, he had a moving truck and strong arms and Rose wasn't about to turn away his offer of help. By the time Mickey showed up at half ten, Rose's entire childhood bedroom was packed neatly in the back of the Doctor's truck.
The first week together was awkward and formal. Every time they crossed paths, the Doctor said something rude and Rose re-questioned her mental stability in agreeing to share a flat with him. He turned out to be something of a night owl (Rose was actually beginning to wonder if he ever slept), his bedroom light shining out from under the crack of his door and occasionally she would wake up to hear his clumping footsteps pacing up and down.
Thursday evening when Rose arrived home from work, she was shocked to find a redhead sitting on the couch with a pint in one hand and her feet on the coffee table. She turned out to be named Donna and she was the Doctor's twin sister and Rose liked her instantly. By the time the Doctor put in an appearance the two women were laughing hysterically and fast friends and the Doctor narrowed his eyes and then shrugged, grabbing a beer and joining them for a movie marathon that lasted until way too late.
After that night it was less awkward between Rose and the Doctor. Oh, he was still a right prat when he wanted to be, going on about the general stupidity of the human race for twenty minutes when he stubbed his toe against the doorframe, but he stopped directing most of that ire towards Rose. By the end of week two they'd even settled into something of a routine. He'd have breakfast for her on her way out the door (despite the fact he "didn't do domestics" he was actually a competent cook) and she would pick up takeaway on her way home (she was not a cook, competent or otherwise).
On the second Saturday, Rose was woken before the sun by her door swinging open and the Doctor appearing there with a wild glint in his eyes, demanding they go for an adventure. All Rose wanted to do was sleep the day away, but there was something about the set of his shoulders that propelled her upwards and into a shower. Twenty minutes later they were in his truck - a blue beat-up pick-up that was oddly roomy - and headed for destinations unknown. It turned out to be a road trip to Cardiff and more museums than she could keep track of and stargazing (there was a lunar eclipse that night) and when he picked up her hand it almost seemed like an accident except he sort of never let go and they didn't arrive back at the flat till almost six pm Sunday evening and by then Rose had a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach every time she looked at him.
It became a routine - these weekend adventures. Sometimes it was a hiking trip and they would pitch a tent in the middle of the woods, sometimes it was more museums and planetariums and historical monuments, sometimes to art galleries and photography exhibits and random people's wedding ceremonies (granted that was just the once, but it made an Impression), other times it was just a long drive - burning up the petrol while they talked. And yes, they talked. Mostly her, mostly her telling him about her life, her dreams, her hopes, but she could coax words from him too. And he would tell her about his work in the cutting edge of science, about the history of the world, about what he thought the future was, and once, every so often: some tidbit about himself, about his past, about the darkness he was just barely holding at bay and she would squeeze his hand and think about how glad she was that she had met him, sometimes she'd even tell him that and her stomach would jolt at the look he'd give her.
She learned more about him from Donna. Donna who would show up at the most unexpected times and bring real food ("no one should survive on chips, you two are the actual unhealthiest people on this planet") and conversation. Once in awhile Donna would bar the Doctor from these times, insisting on a girl's night and she and Rose would have heart to hearts over wine and spa treatments while Donna shared the family history, both of them pretending that the Doctor wasn't pouting in the next room about not being allowed to be there with them (though he would have hotly denied it if anyone had mentioned this to him).
Jackie wasn't a fan of the fact that Rose was sharing a flat with a single man, especially one with such an obvious age gap, and Mickey even less so. But when the Doctor fixed Jackie's plumbing, well, she couldn't be expected to stay angry after that - even if the Doctor steadfastly refused to even try some of Jackie's world famous shepherd's pie ("more things to do in the world - don't need to be poisoned, do I?"). Mickey and the Doctor had a tense relationship with plenty of name calling on both sides and Rose did her best to prevent the two of them from being alone together, ever (it was slightly healed after an intense computer game, but never more than slightly).
She would show up at the Doctor's lab when he worked late, sitting on the counter and watching him, stoutly ignoring his grumblings about her germs surely contaminating everything. His leather jacket and work boots were in stark contrast to his fingers delicately mixing chemicals or wiring together inventions that she was certain would change the world. When she looked at him, she wanted...more, but those words from the notice echoed in her ears - "No Potential Relationships Please." And sometimes, just sometimes, he would look over at her, pausing in the very act of combining dangerous compounds and she would swear that, for a second - he was regretting those hastily scrawled words too. And then...his eyes would shutter and he would finish his experiment and nine times out of ten they would have to evacuate the lab because of a fire or a hazardous chemical spill and then they would spend the rest of the night wandering the street, hand-in-hand.
She didn't think he meant anything by it, that hand-holding. She thought he'd hold a stranger's hand; it was just something he needed to ground himself to an earth that was constantly shifting under his feet when his head was firmly in the stars. But she couldn't help hoping, just a bit, when he used it to propel her to new adventures or grabbed it while they are riding it in his truck or walking through a crowded marketplace or...well, after awhile they moved through life with their hands more linked than otherwise. She was content with this, really she was - it wasn't her fault that her stomach would flip when he would pull her close during a movie or wrap an arm around her while riding the London Eye or he would hug her after a more...interesting adventure. They were just best mates and that was enough - no, really!
It was a year to the day after she moved in that everything changed. It started out the same as every other Thursday in the last year - she enjoyed his fry-up for breakfast and told him she'd bring Chinese home for dinner. She left for work not seeing the look in his eye and went through the day without an inkling that anything was wrong until she got home and he was gone. The flat was empty of his personal affects (a surprisingly small amount of stuff) and there was a note on the table. It was scrawled in his now-familiar handwriting, constantly looking like he didn't have time to be writing - and it said he'd "gone off traveling and the flat was hers now and he'd enjoyed their time together but he was better off on his own."
She didn't remember picking up the phone, but Donna and Jackie walked into the flat one right behind the other, looking fit to kill someone. They thoroughly bashed the absent Doctor and Rose sat in the middle of the sofa and very intently thought about nothing at all. Halfway through a particularly heated diatribe on the part of her mum she leaped up and raced for her closet, dragging clothes out and shoving them in a large red backpack - absently remembering buying it with the Doctor, him insisting that she didn't need it and her insisting that she did because he was stuck with her going on adventures with him. She held the look on his face when she'd said it, half-hope, half-incredulity in her mind and it gave her the burst of energy she needed to kiss her mum and hug Donna and tell them she knew what she was doing (she didn't) and walk out of the flat.
Her feet took her to the bus station and then the airport and she stared at the list of destinations desperately hoping one would speak to her. A long-ago conversation came echoing through time - the two of them stretched out in the bed of his truck, watching the swirling stars far above, his voice in her ear, telling her about Barcelona and dogs with no noses; she didn't know how those thing fit together because his hands were anchoring her body to his and his voice was doing Things to her insides, but they gave her the motivation she needed now to step up to the counter and order a ticket with her voice only shaking once.
Dogs With No Noses was a cafe apparently and she saw him the instant she stepped through the door and she wasted no time stalking over to him and smacking his shoulder, before dragging him upwards by the hand. He stared at her as if she was made of star stuff herself and followed her mutely, his eyes never leaving her face. They walked for fifteen minutes before they found the beach and by then her heartbeat had slowed enough to talk. They didn't talk though because the instant she let go of his hand to turn to him his eyes went wide and an instant later he was kissing her.
She didn't know if it was enough to cover everything, but for the moment it was and she kissed him back because it seemed like a good place to start and because she'd wanted this for a long time and because, oh god, he was kissing her and the back of her knees were weak and his arms were wrapped so far around her she was certain they looked like one entity and anyway, she wanted to.
They eventually talked - seated hand-in-hand on that beach until the stars were shining down and the moon was sharpening the planes of his face and she learned his history from his lips and this time when she told him he was stuck with her, he looked like he believed her. They made love right there on the beach and spent the next twenty-four hours in jail and when they were released with a growl of "tourists" and "banned from our city" the Doctor looked at her with a twinkle in his eye (him! a twinkle!) and when he told her to run she did - they did it together towards a future promising to be full of "complications" and "potential relationships" and a love to make them question why they ever thought they were better off on their own.