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"D'ya remember Cassandra?" Rose asked.
He was tinkering. Hunched over the console, spectacles on his nose, he stared at some part of the TARDIS that was, currently, no longer attached to it. In one hand was a small screwdriver — regular, not sonic — and in the other he held a soldering gun. Or maybe something that looked like a soldering gun but was actually advanced alien technology.
Mickey was asleep in his new room. It was late, or it would be late, if ideas like 'late' existed on the TARDIS, which, the Doctor was never shy about sharing, they did not. Tomorrow (if ideas like 'tomorrow' existed, anyway,) they were taking Mickey on his first trip. She still couldn't say she was happy that Mickey was here, but as long as there were still moments like this, it couldn't be too bad.
The control room was quiet, and dim, and she wondered vaguely whether the Doctor's eyes strained, trying to fix tiny TARDIS parts when the room was cast in shadow. Maybe the glasses helped (she wasn't entirely sure he needed them), or maybe Time Lord eyes didn't need as much light as human eyes. Then again, he was squinting.
Now he was squinting at her.
"Yes, I remember Cassandra." He raised his eyebrows and muttered, "She'd be a bit hard to forget."
Looking vaguely uncomfortable, he avoided her eyes, focusing again on the TARDIS. Abruptly, he put the soldering gun down and rubbed the back of his neck, apparently lost in thought. He sighed, then shifted position, then sighed again. Tapping the TARDIS part with the butt of the tiny screwdriver in a way that could not possibly have any effect whatsoever, he projected an air of distraction that suddenly felt deliberate.
She walked further into the control room. He watched her, eyes flickering quickly between the part in front of him and her slow movement toward the beaten captain's chair. She sat.
"How old was she?"
"What?"
"I mean, approximately. Not that you marked her birthday in your calendar or anything."
"Why?"
He'd dropped all pretense of TARDIS-distraction and faced her. She did her best to look at him with a neutral expression. He seemed to do the same. She sat up straighter. He narrowed his eyes. The silence stretched for five seconds… Six, seven...
"Dunno!" He flashed a grin at her and turned back to the console, using the small screwdriver to scratch the back of his head.
Rose went quiet for a moment, considering.
"D'ya remember on Platform One?" Rose continued, folding her arms. "She said, 'I don't look a day over two thousand.'"
"Did she?" he remarked.
"Mm," Rose replied.
"Figure of speech, I'm sure," the Doctor suggested. He had somehow soldered together two pieces of yarn. He held them up and evaluated them, then gave a tight nod of satisfaction.
"So she wasn't over two thousand years old?" She could tell by the change in his expression that her tone had slipped from neutral to leading. His eyes grew shrewd. He peeked at her from above the rim of his glasses and put down the yarn.
"Rose."
"Was it the… the surgery? D'ya have to be a trampoline to be two thousand?"
"Yes. That's it." He frowned. "No."
"So, humans can live to be thousands of years old?" She met his eyes. "Theoretically."
He took off his spectacles, leaving them facing up on the console, and stepped toward her. He reached for her, then hesitated, compromising some unspoken debate by laying one hand on her shoulder. He jammed the other into his pocket.
"Rose, that was the year five billion. Humans in the year five billion can live to be thousands of years old."
"With medical advances?" Now she was the one avoiding his eyes.
"And evolution," he added, lowering his hand from her shoulder to where hers rested against the seat. He twined their fingers.
"And without the evolution? How long can the human lifespan be? The twenty first century human lifespan."
"Theoretically?"
"Right."
"With twenty first century medical resources?"
"No, I mean, with … the year five billion medical resources."
He lifted their hands, twisting them back and forth. He'd drifted closer to her and now his left thigh touched her right knee. They both looked at their hands instead of each other. The quiet settled in, the dull hum of the TARDIS barely noticeable over the soft sounds of their breathing. Finally, he spoke.
"A couple hundred years. Maybe five hundred. Could even be a thousand." His voice grew quieter. "I'm not sure. No twenty first century human has ever received medical resources from the year five billion. Once they did, they couldn't go back to the twenty first century. Not permanently. Not with future medical advances in their system."
"Of course," Rose murmured. "Future medical advances in the past. Could be a disaster, if word got out."
"A universe shredding paradox. Not to mention, very dangerous," he agreed. "Trampolines, running amok. Well, bouncing amok, anyway."
"Moisturizer, everywhere." Rose smiled. "People slipping all over the place."
"Tort lawyers, living like kings," the Doctor added.
"Terrifying," she remarked, grave.
They fell silent again. She couldn't help running her thumb along the side of his, slowly. She scraped her nail against him and he shivered, hiding it poorly.
"But… a long time?" She turned very slightly in the chair, bringing the skin of their wrists flush above their linked hands.
"Yes."
"Good."
She looked up at him through her lashes. His eyes were heavy lidded, but bright, as he stared back at her. He looked... unguarded, full of emotion. Fear, hope, and something else she couldn't quite place. She licked her lips. He leaned down just slightly, as if he weren't aware he was doing it, eyes flickering to her mouth and back up again. She raised her head, in response, and lowered her eyes to his tie. She wanted to close her eyes altogether and drift closer still, but she was suddenly afraid she'd look foolish. She could feel his breath puffing gently against her lips. His breath smelled sweet, like he'd been eating candy. She'd never been close enough to notice before and she breathed it in, despite herself, wondering if he'd been eating something sweet or if it was just him. Their eyes met again and they drifted just slightly forward.
A loud crash sounded from down the hall.
"Sorry!" Mickey's voice reverberated, seeming to bounce into the control room, up and down, and between them. "Thought it was the loo, but it was a closet full of slow cookers!"
She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. The Doctor dropped their hands and turned around, facing the hallway.
"No, not the crock pots!" the Doctor exclaimed."Mickey. Tell me you didn't break the crock pots!"
"Who has a closet full of crock pots!" Mickey yelled. "No one could possibly need this many crock pots, alien or not!"
"Someone who's hosted a stew night now and again, is who, not that you're cultured enough to appreciate the wonders of the slow cooked chili," the Doctor responded, sounding exasperated, but composed, underneath. Unemotional. Distracted, again.
The Doctor left without another glance, heading towards Mickey and, presumably, a hallway strewn with broken bits of ceramic.
Rose let out a sigh, resting her head in her hands for a moment to regain her composure. She'd all but said it. He'd understood. The way he'd looked, when she'd said… Maybe tonight was it, then. Maybe now there would be no more distractions.