Ficathon Entry: Tomorrow 2/6

[rosa_acicularis]

Title: Tomorrow 2/6

Characters: Ten, Rose

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: Series Two.

Disclaimer: Scoundrel that I am, they are not mine.

Beta: jlrpuck! She's the bestest evar. <3

Summary: After the events of Fear Her, Rose and the Doctor play detective and find themselves taking a rather unexpected detour. Along the way, Rose learns a little something about "forever".

Written for the Anywhere But Cardiff ficathon at time_and_chips.

++

 

The first, unavoidable fact that presented itself as they entered the Lost Temple of the Lost Race of the Palbanians was that it was far larger than Rose had imagined. They stepped into a massive amphitheatre, an empty, circular space ringed by step-like seats large enough to hold thousands of people. To either side stood the buildings they’d seen from the hill. What from a distance had seemed little more than two unformed, crumbling masses of stone were actually thick clusters of thinner, individual towers, their wickedly sharp spires reaching into the sky. The great glass arch stretched between them, glittering in the meagre daylight and shielding the courtyard below from the rain.

 

Rose closed her umbrella and took a few hesitant steps into the empty amphitheatre, craning her neck in a hopeless attempt to see everything around her at once. Her footsteps sounded unnaturally loud against the stone floor.

 

“Wow,” she heard the Doctor whisper. She could do little more than nod in reply.

 

Then the clouds shifted and the light changed, growing somehow harsher, and Rose realised that, in the first rush of awe, she’d overlooked the signs and consequences of decay. Every building and wall around them had suffered some indignity in the inexorable onslaught of time. Moss and choking vines grew rampantly, swallowing pale stone. One tower had collapsed into the amphitheatre, reducing the long flight of stairs beneath it to rubble. Broken glass crunched beneath the Doctor’s trainers as he wandered toward the centre of the circle; she looked up to the arch overhead to see that far more panels of glass had fallen and shattered than remained intact.  

 

“What happened here?” she asked, her voice sounding eerily small.

 

The Doctor stared up at the towers. “Time,” he said, his expression remote. “This place is ancient. Thousands upon thousands of years old.”

 

“There aren’t any birds,” she said, unnerved. “Place like this should be filthy with animals sheltering from the rain.” Something cold and uneasy settled low in her stomach. “Doctor, what happened to the Palbanians?”

 

“No one knows,” he answered faintly. “They were lost.”    

 

She followed him to the centre of the amphitheatre and took his hand. “Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us.” He glanced down at her, confused. She gave him a slight smile. “Big haystack, tiny temporally disruptive needle?”

 

Slowly, he grinned. “Oh dear. There’s that look again.”

 

“You,” she said, bumping her shoulder against his playfully, “are getting paranoid in your old age.” She looked down at their interlocked hands, his fingers pale and cold around her own. “And you never know – we might find something while we’re looking. They couldn’t have just disappeared.”

 

He tugged gently on her hand and she met his gaze. His focus on her was sudden and intense, and she couldn’t help but find it unsettling. “Rose Tyler,” he said, each syllable of her name rich with a deliberate warmth. She waited for him to continue, but he simply stared at her, his expression unreadable.

 

“Doctor?” she prompted hesitantly.

 

He released her hand. “Last one to the door at the base of that tower has to do the washing up for a week.” Before she could react, he sprinted away, grin wide and long legs eating up the distance to the steps of the amphitheatre.

 

“You shameless cheat!” she cried, and launched herself after him, her boots clapping loudly against the stone floor.     

 

He won, of course, and they continued to bicker over chores and who cheated more often at which games as they slowly, painstakingly searched each tower. It quickly became apparent that the Temple had not been used as such for a very long time; while they came across living quarters and the occasional ballroom-like hall, it seemed most every room they searched had most recently been used as a scientific laboratory. Or so the Doctor claimed – there was nothing in the long, empty rooms to suggest such a use to her. In each laboratory the Doctor took a moment to trail his fingertips over the stone walls, and in each room he was disappointed by the result. When Rose asked what was supposed to happen, he only answered, “Something a bit more than nothing.”

 

More than once they were forced to turn back because the Doctor declared a winding staircase unsafe, and twice they opened a door to find a gaping hole in the tower where a room should be. It did not escape Rose’s notice as they searched that the Doctor was keeping an unusually close eye on her, rarely letting her out of his sight – and even then only for a moment. She was tempted to call him on it, to tell him he was behaving like someone’s worrywart old gran. But they had not discussed the Beast’s prophesy or the Doctor’s own premonition since London 2012, and Rose was hesitant to bring up something that had so obviously disturbed him.

 

He’d said, “Never say never ever,” but Rose was sure that whatever storm was coming, they would weather it together – just as they always had.    

 

As the hours passed and they found nothing, Rose eased the monotony by imagining the Temple as it must have been – filled with voices and people and life. She had no idea what the Palbanians had looked like, of course, but judging by the height of the doorways and the long, thin beds they came across in the living quarters, she pictured a society of particularly laidback basketball players. In her mind, clusters of scientists skived off work and gossiped around the coffee counter, while a floor below their children ran wild, daring each other to brave a slide down the staircase’s curving banister. Then she’d stumble over a hunk of debris or a broken mug lying in the middle of the floor, and they’d disappear, blinking out like streetlights in the early dawn. Her footsteps echoed in empty corridors.

 

By unspoken agreement, the two of them returned to the shelter of the glass arch to eat their lunch, preferring the rain to the silence of the tower rooms. They settled comfortably beneath a tree that had grown on the top of a plateau of rubble, its roots swallowing stone. She slipped off her wellies and let her tired feet dangle off the edge of the stone precipice, swinging in the cool, sweet air. The rain fell around them in a curtain, the tree sheltering them from the worst of the damp.

 

“I don’t suppose,” she said, lounging against one large root, “that we could go back to the TARDIS and ask her to be a bit more specific about where, exactly, this thing is?”

 

The Doctor was searching the pockets of his overcoat, his forehead creased in concentration. “I know they’re in here somewhere. I distinctly remember—”

 

Rose sighed. “That’s a no, then.” She raked her fingers through her damp, fizzy hair. “Try the left inside pocket.”

 

“Already did.”

 

“Try it again.”

 

He did, and made a pleased noise when he pulled out two sandwiches wrapped in paper, a green apple, and a bag of crisps. “A gourmet meal for two, courtesy of yours truly.” He tossed her a sandwich and the apple. “Tuna salad, light on the mayo and heavy on the pickle.”

 

The Doctor was brilliant at many things, but Rose had long ago decided that he did nothing so well as he made sandwiches. She grinned and began to unwrap hers eagerly. “You’re so good to me.”

 

“You say that now, but where’s that gratitude when I need you to convince an entire civilization you’re their warrior goddess made flesh and you have to order my release before the high priestesses brutally sacrifice and cannibalize me?”  

   

Rose took a bite from her sandwich. It was divine. “Can it really be cannibalism if you’re a different species?” she asked.

 

“No. Not really.” He stared at his own sandwich for a moment, and then pulled off the slices of turkey and returned them to his pocket before taking a bite. “So,” he said around a mouthful of lettuce and cheese, “what do you think?”

 

She chewed in silence for a moment. “I think that we’re going about this wrong.”

 

He leaned back against the trunk of the tree. “How so?”

 

“Remember that warning at the entrance?”

 

“‘Beware ye who seek what is not to be found,’” he repeated, his voice deep and foreboding.

 

“Well, that,” she said, “but more the ‘it’s for your own good’ bit. That’s an odd warning for the entrance of a Temple – particularly one with an auditorium with room for thousands of people. Seems to me this place was designed with visitors in mind.”

 

His expression brightened. “The warning must date from the time they converted the Temple into a research facility and closed it to the public.” He took another large bite from his sandwich. “Whatever they were studying, it must have been risky. They were worried about experiments that might go boom – which, if you ask me, are the only kind worth doing.”

 

“With all those labs, the Palbanians must have been running tons of experiments. Could they have been working on anything more dangerous than time travel?”

 

He snapped open the bag of crisps with a pop. “Not impossible, but unlikely. All sorts of things can go wrong at the experimental level of temporal manipulation.”

 

“And at the professional,” she muttered. Before he could respond, she continued. “A sign saying ‘Bugger off’ isn’t much in the way of security. There wasn’t even a gate.”  

 

The Doctor shook his head. “Not their style. It would have been hard enough for them to deny people entrance in the first place; they would never resort to locks or armed guards, even if it meant any idiot off the street could stumble over a massively dangerous experiment.” Then he froze, one potato crisp halfway to his mouth. “But you know what they would do?”

 

“Hide it?”

 

“They would hide it.” He blinked at her, surprised. “Oh. You’d already figured that bit out.”

 

She shrugged and took a bite of the apple. “I ran through this whole conversation in my head earlier while you were stroking the walls and being deliberately vague.”

 

A number of reactions battled for dominance over his expressive features, not the least of which was irritation and approval. After a moment he settled on amusement. “At this rate, the day you learn how to make a decent sandwich, I’m going to be out of a job.”

 

“Don’t be silly. I’ll still need you for reaching things in the top kitchen cabinets and changing light bulbs.” She paused, considering. “Unless I get a stepladder.”

 

“That’s it,” he said with the air of one gravely insulted. “You just forfeited your share of the crisps.”

 

She gasped melodramatically, clutching her chest with one hand. “You wouldn’t dare.”

 

“Oh, I would,” he taunted. “I would dare – in fact, I have.” He dangled the bag over his smirking lips, as if any moment he might spill its entire contents into his mouth.

 

She stood and held the half-eaten apple over the dark crevasse between the stone block beneath the tree and the rest of the ruin. “One more move and the Granny Smith gets it.”

 

“You fiend,” he said, his mouth twitching as he fought to keep a straight face. “You know Granny Smith’s my favourite.”

 

“You should have thought of that before you started this, Doctor.” She had no intention of actually dropping the apple, but she leaned further out over the gap, swinging her hostage by its stem. “Now say bye-bye.”

 

Strangely enough, Rose heard him call out her name in alarm before she felt her stocking feet slide against the damp wood of the tree’s roots, saw him stumble toward her before she lost her balance and tumbled off the ledge into the gap.

 

She just managed to catch herself in time, her fingers digging painfully into the rough stone of the edge as her feet scrabbled for purchase on the alarmingly sheer face of the ruin. “Don’t you dare tell me I deserved that,” she said through gritted teeth when his hands seized hers a moment later.

 

But when she looked up at him, she saw nothing but panic in his face, his jaw tense and his eyes wide. His fingers locked around her forearms tightly enough to bruise. “I’ve got you, Rose. I’ve got you.” He began to pull her up, and she pressed her feet against the stone wall for leverage. But the stone shifted, swinging away from her reaching toes with a loud groan. She looked down to see the crevasse below flooded with light. A door had opened.

 

“Let go,” she said, trying to tug her hands from his grip.

 

“Absolutely not,” he snapped.   

   

“Look down – it’s not far.”

 

“For a human being, any fall from a height of three feet or greater is potentially fatal.”

 

The muscles in her arms burned. “Have you always been such a ninny, or is this new?”

 

He scowled at her. “It’s new. Now get back up here.”

  

“Doctor, I just found a hidden room with actual, working lights. This is what we in the business call a ‘Eureka moment.’ You should be cheering, not dangling me in mid-air ‘til my arms come out their sockets.”

 

He sighed wearily. “Bend your knees when you land,” he said, as if she needed to be told such a thing, and released his grip on her forearms.  

  

The fall was further than she had predicted, and though she landed on her feet, the joints of her knees and ankles stung a little from the impact. The same white stone from which everything in the Temple was made was cool beneath her stocking feet. She stood in the narrow crevasse, two walls of rock rising sharply on either side of her. Cut from a smooth, stone wall, the door opened onto a well-lit flight of stairs – what Rose had assumed to be just another pile of rubble was actually the entrance to whatever lay hidden beneath the Temple. This was what they’d been looking for, she just knew it.

 

One Wellington boot fell from above, nearly smacking her in the head. “Watch it!” she called out. The boot’s twin fell with a thump and the Doctor followed shortly after, landing neatly on his feet. He glared at her, his ire an unpleasant combination of worry and annoyance. “What we in the business?” he repeated incredulously. “What business would that be, exactly?”

 

“You know,” she said, snatching up her boots and clutching them to her chest. “The business of…well, of finding things. Finding them and then saying, ‘Eureka!’” She paused, flustered by his stare. “Because you’ve found them.”

 

“Ah,” he said, pursing his lips. “That business.”

 

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you the only one allowed to make things up? ‘Cause I missed that intra-TARDIS memo.”  She tugged on her boots, hopping a little to keep from tipping over. Rolling his eyes, he reached out and took her elbow, steadying her.

 

“You know,” he said idly, “I used to think it was something you couldn’t help – like some sort of metaphysical predisposition for trouble. Rose Tyler: disaster magnet.” He straightened the collar of her Mackintosh with his free hand. “But I know better now.”

 

She gave him a sceptical look. “And you don’t think that’s a tad hypocritical?”

 

Releasing her arm, the Doctor stuck his head through the door, leaning against the frame. “Well, will you look at that. The Lost Temple of the Lost Race of the Palbanians has a Lost Cellar.” He beamed goofily over his shoulder at her. “Think this might be worth a look-see?”

 

She folded her arms across her chest. “Just so you know, I can tell the difference between the times when your short attention span acts up and the times when you just don’t want to lose an argument.”

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he replied haughtily. He looked back to the staircase. “Seems safe enough, but you’ll have to forgive me if I insist on going first.”

 

She bit back a joke about Time Lord chivalry, her curiosity and excitement prevailing over the usually overwhelming impulse to knock him down a peg. She stood on her tip-toes and peered over his shoulder. The winding staircase was narrow but well-lit. She wondered how far down it went.

 

“Look at these steps,” he said, pointing. “Sharp as the day they were hewn from the rock.”

 

Rose nodded, her chin bumping his shoulder. “The stairs in the towers were all worn down. People’d been using them for centuries.”

 

“Exactamundo. Not a lot of foot traffic down here, that’s for sure.” He hopped lightly onto the first step. “Certainly supports your ‘hidden room’ theory.”

 

“It’d be more than a theory if you’d get a move on, Sherlock.”

 

He stuck his tongue out at her, making her giggle. They continued down the staircase at a maddeningly slow pace, his soggy trainers squeaking slightly with every step. Pale light shone from globe-shaped lamps that lined the walls, casting an eerie, ethereal glow. Rose focused her gaze on the back of the Doctor’s bobbing head, passing the time by counting spikes of rebellious, rain-damp hair.

 

“You said you’d never been here before,” she said after several moments, her voice echoing strangely in the narrow passage. “Why not? Weren’t you curious?”

 

“What part of the phrase ‘Lost Planet’ confuses you, Rose?” he asked dryly.

 

She made a face at his back. “What part of ‘time machine’ confuses you? You could’ve visited long before the planet disappeared.”

  

They passed a lamp that had gone dark and he tapped it inquisitively. “Whatever we’re heading towards, it must have a fairly impressive power source. These lights have been on for a very long time, even by my standards.” He began to descend more quickly, easily taking the stairs two at a time.

 

Rose opened her mouth to call after him, but thought better of it. More and more often recently she’d wanted to push him when he dodged questions, to ignore his clumsy attempts to change the subject whenever she managed to touch on something forbidden. She wanted to push, but she didn’t. She’d learned her lesson the night they met Sarah Jane, when she’d stood outside a chip shop, demanding answers, and all she’d gotten in return was more evasion and an ex-boyfriend for a chaperone.     

 

“Oh boy,” she heard the Doctor say, and a moment later she turned the corner and found herself standing at one end of a long, bare hall. Large, pale globes of light hung from the vaulted ceiling. The hall ended some ways in the distance, leading to another room which, despite the lamps, remained in shadow.

 

“How far underground are we, do you think?” she asked, walking around him to take a few echoing steps further into the hall. Just thinking about it, she felt the pressure of the earth overhead and the distance between her and the open air.

 

“Do you really want to know?” he replied, sounding amused.

 

“Probably not.” She turned back to him. “It’s far, though, isn’t it?”

 

“Very.” He stepped towards the wall, reaching out with one hand, but she slipped between him and the stone, stopping him.

 

“Let me have a go.”

 

He shrugged. “It may not be any different to the others.”

 

“I bet it will be.” She gave him a sly grin. “Anyway, I think the Temple likes me better than you.”

 

“First off,” he said, counting on his fingers, “let’s not get in the habit of ascribing sentience to everything. Some planets and spaceships and pop stars are nothing more than what it says on the tin. Secondly, what could possibly lead you to believe that she likes you better than me?”

 

“He, not she.”

 

“Fine, but either way these ruins are definitely flirting with me.”

 

She chuckled, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “Sometimes you can be so weird.”

 

“I’m a very attractive man this time around, Rose. Is it my fault if the occasional architectural marvel finds me charming? Debonair?” He stepped closer, backing her against the wall, and grinned. “Seductive?”

 

Smiling, Rose tried to hide the way her breath caught in her throat at his sudden proximity. “He’s a bit old for you, don’t you think?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled, resting his hand against the wall and leaning into her. “What’s a few thousand years between friends?”

 

They stared at each other, grinning, their eyes locked. She waited for him to step back, to break the moment before it became anything more than a joke, a casual, silly flirt. But he held her gaze almost defiantly, as if daring her to look away first. The silence stretched on too long, until, entirely by accident, her eyes flitted down to his lips. His grin nearly doubled in size and then he was, impossibly, even closer. She was lost in the sensation of his breath against her cheek when out of the corner of a half-closed eye she saw movement.

 

“Did you see that?” she asked, twisting away from him.

 

“No,” he said in a terse exhale. “I was rather—” He stopped. “Blimey.”

 

Beginning where the Doctor’s hand met the wall, thousands of graceful characters and symbols flowed across the surface, emerging from nothing as if carved into stone by an invisible chisel. The Doctor slid his hand across the surface and the words changed, curving elegantly into the distance with incredible speed. To Rose they were entirely indecipherable, but he tore his glasses from his suit coat pocket and began to study them intently.

 

“The walls,” she said, stunned. “They’re computers.” She was a little surprised that after all she’d seen such a thing could still surprise her.

 

“Yepperdoodle!” he cried giddily, and then paused, grimacing. “Yepperdoodle? That’s just—”

 

“As long as you promise never to say it again, we’ll pretend it never happened.” She drew her fingers along the cool stone and the lovely, alien script bloomed and faded beneath her touch. “Why isn’t the TARDIS translating it?”

 

“She’s doing the best she can. English as you speak it doesn’t have the proper vocabulary for advanced temporal physics, let alone the verb tenses.” He squatted and squinted at what must have been a particularly puzzling passage near her left knee. “If we jetted ahead to the 49^th century and you spent the next seven to ten years getting your doctorate in complex nonlinear flex time theory, all this would be clear as crystal.” He glanced up at her. “You don’t want a doctorate in complex nonlinear flex time theory, do you?”

 

“Maybe later,” she said, amused.

 

“It’s spectacularly boring stuff.” He stood and stuck his hand in his pockets. “And nearly all of it’s complete rubbish. Still, if you ever get a hankering…”

 

“I’ll let you know.” She watched as line after line of symbols streamed past them. “So what does it mean?”

 

He slipped behind her, his arm brushing her back as he leaned over her shoulder. “It means, Rose,” he said, his mouth inches from her ear, “that this is what we in the business call a ‘Eureka moment.’”

    

++

Comments

[ghostrunner7.livejournal.com]

EEE! Eureka! :is an enormous dork: Lovely, really. Very enjoyable.

[kudzita.livejournal.com]

This is so very them; I love it. As regards this bit:

She waited for him to step back, to break the moment before it became anything more than a joke, a casual, silly flirt. But he held her gaze almost defiantly, as if daring her to look away first.

I've really been enjoying how your fics make Ten the instigator of something...else...just as often as Rose is; it makes a nice change from all the stories wherein Rose essentially bullies the Doctor into sex. Your way is a lot truer to the characters, I think, especially at this point in the series.

[littlemadame.livejournal.com]

OH! I Love your Ten/Rose dialogue, the banter,the tension, the friendship, it feels very natural. Can't wait for more!

[kudzita.livejournal.com]

(Also this is entirely random, but all the eureka business reminds me of a moment in my introductory Greek class back in the day...the professor was trying to nudge a student into remembering that heuriskw means "find" and asked him why Archimedes had jumped out of the baths yelling. The answer?

"I dunno, 'cause he got killed?"

Anyway, the point is, 'eureka' never fails to amuse me.)

[rosa-acicularis.livejournal.com]

"I dunno, 'cause he got killed?"

*snicker*

Seems someone got Archimedes confused with Agamemnon. Oh, burn!

(Hee. Classics trash talk is fun.)

[honorh.livejournal.com]

I adore your Doctor/Rose banter, you know that? This is just delightful.

"Yepperdoodle"?!? They must never speak of this again.

[dark-aegis.livejournal.com]

Oooh. You've got Ten/Rose banter down pat. Seriously. Fantastic as always and I love the romantic tension, the lean in, and then the inevitable distraction ;) I look forward to the next chapter!

[jlrpuck.livejournal.com]

*pushes six-pack of Yuengling and yet more beer-steamed crabs towards Rose*


Now, back to that thing you e-mailed me about last night...

;)

[tubby2747.livejournal.com]

hehe, i love the interaction that you create between Rose and the Doctor.

[karawillow.livejournal.com]

Haha, their little food fight at lunch made me snort. I couldn't stop grinning for a while reading that!

She stood and held the half-eaten apple over the dark crevasse between the stone block beneath the tree and the rest of the ruin. “One more move and the Granny Smith gets it.”


“You fiend,” he said, his mouth twitching as he fought to keep a straight face. “You know Granny Smith’s my favourite.”

Could totally see that happening between them.

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

The Doctor was brilliant at many things, but Rose had long ago decided that he did nothing so well as he made sandwiches.

Very Arthur Dent. :)

I liked the first chapter very much but I liked this one better. Lovely banter, very visual and evocative, playful and goofy and very Ten and Rose. Yay. More, please, now, okay?

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

Things that I love: intra-TARDIS memo, architectual marvels flirting with the Doctor (who can blame them?), Eureka moments, and Rose and the Doctor sharing crisps and apples. I wish I was a lyricist, because I would set this to the tune of "My Favorite Things," and it would make sense and be brilliant, I swear.

Oh, and also this:
“Have you always been such a ninny, or is this new?”
He scowled at her. “It’s new. Now get back up here.”

*Loved* that.

[dettiot.livejournal.com]

Oooo, this chapter really started bringing things together. I liked the exploration of the Temple, and Rose and the Doctor's conversations, and the lunch under the tree with the sandwiches, and sentient architecture finding the Doctor as attractive as Rose does. All these different elements, and they're all working together just beautifully. I can't wait for the next chapter!!

[salienne.livejournal.com]

As usual, wonderful chapter. I'm intrigued, this feels like a Ten/Rose adventure, and this feels like them. So IC, and you've made me giggle and squee repeatedly.

My favorite bits:

“Fine, but either way these ruins are definitely flirting with me.”

She chuckled, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “Sometimes you can be so weird.”

“I’m a very attractive man this time around, Rose. Is it my fault if the occasional architectural marvel finds me charming? Debonair?” He stepped closer, backing her against the wall, and grinned. “Seductive?”
...and the entirety of the almost-kiss, which is so Doctor/Rose.

“Yepperdoodle!” he cried giddily, and then paused, grimacing. “Yepperdoodle? That’s just—”
So. Very. Ten.

Can't wait for the rest. :D

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely, lovely! Adventure, discovery, amusing banter, flirting, near-kissing, non-linear flex time theory, computers in walls and Eureka moments - all wonderful stuff.

Loved this in particular:
“Just so you know, I can tell the difference between the times when your short attention span acts up and the times when you just don’t want to lose an argument.”

That is so Ten, and so Rose calling him on it. Perfect!

[akeyoftime.livejournal.com]

The dialogue in this chapter is absolutely snappy and really jumps off the page. You almost always do it well, but this part really stands out. Also, so much win when the Doctor took the sliced meat out of his sandwich. It's so quirky and endearing and so him. Looking forward to the next part!

[rosa-acicularis.livejournal.com]

Also, so much win when the Doctor took the sliced meat out of his sandwich.

Strangely enough, that's a throwaway reference to the Sixth Doctor era episode The Two Doctors, in which cannibalism is a rather disturbingly prominent theme. At the end, the Doctor declares that he'll be going vegetarian for a while. ;)

Thanks so much for the comment!

[biggrstaffbunch.livejournal.com]

My god. Your complete grasp of these characters makes me feel like I'm holding a crayon in my hand when I write. You are amazing and hilarious and just...oh, Rose. Oh, Ten. Oh...Palbians? Really? Huhn. Weird.

Love it, obviously. Need more, even more obviously. <3

[elegant-pepper.livejournal.com]

I thought that I might go back through the story and pick out my favourite bit to quote in this comment, but I couldn't decide on the top 8, let alone a top 1.
You, my dear, are made of awesome.

xoxo

[purplemonster77.livejournal.com]

Guh. Just ... guh. I thought the last chapter was good, this was just beyond words. Your characterisation ... you're writing Rose and Ten better than RTD. All this chapter, all their conversation, their interactions, flirting, near-kisses, sexual tension, friendship and laughter ... THIS should be canon.

Guh. More please!

[mizufae.livejournal.com]

please tell me that in chapter 5, the slices of turkey will save the day? because that was my favorite part.

[rosa-acicularis.livejournal.com]

I really, really wish this were the case.

Because that would be awesome.

;)

[svanderslice.livejournal.com]

I just read the first two parts and I love love love this so far! The humor is wonderful, especially since you had the Doctor flash into angst so quickly when Rose almost fell. And your circular writing with the "eureka" line was fabulous.

[vinceliav.livejournal.com]

lol I love how they snark good naturedly at each other! Spot on with the characterization!
Love it so far and can't wait for more!

[orange-crushed.livejournal.com]

If you are indeed suffering writer's block, I'd love to fax you some idea-giving jam or something. Because, oh. Oh my. I am really loving the hell out of this.

You, like the actual show, manage to veer deftly between giggly fun and sudden, heartwrenching pathos. Ten's face when she's about to fall- I could see it, dammit. Their banter's delightful and always, always in character. Great flow.

I'm going to ramble if I don't go to sleep soon. So: can't wait for more. I trust you to bring me all the very best awesome.

[clinicallybored.livejournal.com]

This is perfect--the dialouge, the awesome banter, is so in tune.

And I like the foreshadowing to something ominous. Color me intrigued!