tampered | we are born, madly dancing

we are born, madly dancing

When; August 30, 2011, mid-afternoon.
Rating; We'll start with PG as a blanket
Characters; The Doctor, Rose
Summary; Well they just had a fairly major relationship shift. The Doctor wonders if he ought to share a bit more with this wonderful human who's all pink and yellow and apparently not going anywhere. Eventually.
Log;

The Doctor is lying on the hammock-bed thing in their living room, not sleeping in his own bed because this one reminds him more of the movement in the TARDIS on an average day in the vortex. He's got a book that he's reading the normal way, if for no other reason than that he would basically instantly run out of books and then not have anything to do. He's also sort of only half reading it anyhow, thinking partly about the narrative but mostly about Rose. Himself and Rose, specifically. It's a step that he's finding he wasn't entirely unprepared for, but now that the initial giddy shock of it has waned, there's been the old constant awkwardness revealed underneath. Not too much, and really just on his side - Rose so far had been giving him space and time (lol) to get used to the idea, if not the actions, and even though he felt it a bit unfair to her, he was taking it. Like right now, where he's reading a book in the hammock, and letting things mull themselves over properly.

[He's gone to work and come back home. I had it post tiny as well, but it doesn't matter much to me, really.]

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Rose has spent the day at work, making appointments for Cinna, selling clothes and absolutely not worrying about things with the Doctor. All right, perhaps a bit of worrying about the Doctor. They'll be fine regardless, right? They're the Doctor and Rose Tyler. Things haven't been that awkward. Maybe a bit. It's an adjustment though. Only a small one. They're still very much them just with the occasional snogging and it's not as if she's in a rush. There's time and this is the sort of thing one takes time with.

In any case, when she walks through the door she is not worried. She's pleased to see him, that constant tiny fear he'll be gone put to rest. She grins at him, kicks off her flats (because she refuses to wear heels even with the nicer clothing she wears for work. She told Cinna something about the running) and she nudges the Doctor over with her knee before she sits down next to him, hammock set swinging.

"All right day?"

He doesn't look up when the door first opens because who else is that going to be. However when there's movement he can't help himself, and he returns her grin with one of his own. She always looks a bit different when she comes back from work, which he fully attributes to the clothes she wears, which are a bit out of range of what he's used to seeing on her. Definitely not bad different, in fact quite possibly good different, but still different different. Right now there's bigger things that are different though. They follow in the same bad, good, different pattern though.

He budges over when she knees at him, shuffling shoulders and hips until he's off to the side, and lets the book rest on his lap.

'Not bad. Nothing terribly eventful. Did get to play with some technology I had to pretend wasn't originally created centuries ago somewhere else though - I do like playing with a half-decent Transformational Circuit.' He shrugged a bit. 'You?'

"Alright. Made some appointments. Sold some shoes and couldn't help thinkin' she couldn't run in 'em if she had to."

It is the least of the ways he has changed her, not that Rose was ever a high heel sort of girl to begin with. She's always preferred jeans and hoodies to the skirts and suits she wears to work now. She curls her feet up underneath her and rests her chin in one hand.

"You miss it, don't you? All the technology that's new. Somethin' to figger out and be brilliant about."

She doesn't blame him. She would miss it too except she has him to make her feel brilliant and exceptional.

He laughs lightly. 'Poor decision on her part then. Always need to be ready for running.' Beat. 'Particularly in fancy dress, actually, so possibly a very poor decision.'

In all honesty the jeans and hoodies suit her better, but it's Rose and he doesn't really care what she wears at any given point. When she gets more comfortable he sort of does the same, crossing his legs at the ankles and then letting his book close after getting a glance at the page number. He looks over at her over the top of his glasses and goes for simplicity.

'Yeah.' Well, okay, maybe that's too much simplicity. 'New familiar things. There's no... logic, here. Not really much to figure out most of the time.'

"Have to remember that and wear trainers with the fancy dress."

She will too. Cinna will be mortified but she'll wear a ball gown with a pair of converse. She watches him, sympathy clear on her expression and something else, some sort of empathetic sadness.

"M'sorry, you're stuck here." Oh and there's guilt. Lots of guilt because she's spent the last few weeks flat out grateful and never, ever wanting to leave this place. She hadn't really thought what it was like for him. "Eventually you'll figure a way out. S'what you do."

And that part is said with absolute faith and a tiny bit of doubt. He's got other companions now, other people who travel with him. There's no guarantee he'll take her with him when he leaves this place, or if he does, there's every chance he'll drop her off in the dimension she 'belongs' in, forgetting that where she belongs is with him.

'S'what I always do.'

Her response earns her a half-smile, because she's just thinking about other people all the time. And for other reasons. He doesn't mind it terribly, since this place really could be worse - at least he's not stuck somewhere where nothing happens. There's worse things to be happening than simply an illogical series of events.

'Yeah, but stuck here with you. Not so bad.'

Actually bringing up finding a way out sort of makes him think along the same lines, because she isn't supposed to be with him right now, and technically he's pretty sure he shouldn't even be here either.

And his response earns a full grin from her. She remembers this conversation.

"Yeah?"

It's funny, how much she rebelled against being stuck without him when here, or on a doomed space ship, with him she's perfectly happy, excited even to be stuck.

Yeah, but isn't that what they do? Poke about where they're not technically supposed to be? The truth is, they're dangerous together but they're even more dangerous apart.

'Yeah,' said in that somewhat high pitched of course kind of way. It was sort of a special conversation. Hard to forget.

He lets his head fall back to the pillows for a bit, considering things.

'Do you like it here?'

Oh that's a very good way for him to speak. Especially about that conversation.

She's slow to answer, mostly because she does feel guilty and she knows she ought to want to leave here. She ought to want to help everyone here get home. She knows this and yet she can't lie to him--he'd see straight through her, besides she's not in the habit of lying to the Doctor about anything. Even if she did try to lie, she can't hide the slight giddiness in her voice, the same sort of giddiness that infiltrated her voice on all their trips.

"I love it here."

He's here. Of course she loves it here. She'd love anywhere he was and that's been seen over and over again, no matter where they traveled.

He doesn't mind waiting on people to take their time answering things; he just rocks side to side a little as he waits and gets the hammock moving a little bit again. He looks back up at her when she does answer though, and feels like he probably knew what her answer was going to be after she says it. Still something you ask instead of just assuming though.

It's not without its own bit of conflict though. Of course he feels the same way but it's a little frightening to be so tangled in with someone else. 'It's definitely different, I'll give it that.'

She's pretty easy to please and to read. When it comes right down to it, it's easy to make Rose happy.

That's one place she doesn't understand, not really. She's been tangled up in the Doctor from almost the moment he offered her his hand. She gets that he's not though and she doesn't hold it against him.

"'Least it's not a spaceship headed toward a black hole."

He's not too difficult most of the time, he just seems to like to work against it for some reason.

It's really probably just because he's been tangled up in people before and it tends to not go that well. Leaving for various reasons and occasional death and some memory wipes. He feels somewhat justified in being so cautious at this point even though things are definitely better when he's not.

'This is a very good point.'

He isn't entirely sure what else to say at that point and settles for putting the book down next to him entirely and sort of settling closer to her.

Oh she knows this and she even gets why, although she thinks his reasons have to do more with the Ninth version of himself than with everything that came after. Sure, she knows he had to leave her but the rest of it is a bit after her time.

When he moves closer, there's a moment of awkward where she's trying to decide if she should move closer as well or just let things remain. A couple of seconds pass where the awkward is too much and she can't leave things this way. She gnaws on her bottom lip, watching him the entire time. She releases her bottom lip and slides closer, legs going across his so that she's facing him, not quite in his lap but not far from it either.

All in with blind faith, remember?

"So you played with a half way decent transformation system, what you transforming?"

And she reaches up to run her fingers lightly through his hair. He seemed to like that the other night.

"This all right, yeah?"

He thought there might be a bit of awkward because... Things are like that. But at the same time he oddly didn't really care when he did it and then it was a bit late and he was comfortable anyway. There is kind of a moment where he is waiting to see what she does, but then she does something and he's quite pleased because it's not as bad as he thought it might be. Actually it's very okay.

Oh boy, science. He can talk about science no problem. 'Technically it's not transforming anything - a Transformational Circuit creates a sort of feedback loop within an energy matrix, usually created between two people. I don't know how they recreated it here, none of the proper materials exist. Fascinating though.'

The next question isn't nearly so easy to answer. He probably leapt on the science one so elaborately because it was technical and less complicated.

The action initially causes a bit of stiffening but it's only about a split-second and then he leans into the motion. 'Yeah, this is all right.'

Slow and easy, that's Rose's plan for this...whatever this is. No hurry right? They're stuck here.

She gives him a moment to get comfortable, fingers still in his hair then jumps right back into his comfort zone.

"What does it do though? Once it creates the feedback loop?"

Now she's done it. There are gestures and things going along with the words now. She's almost lucky he's not going to try and draw her a diagramme. 'It's usually to continue the cycling of energy itself. Getting the cycle started takes a decent amount of conscious effort on the part of the usually-two-people involved, and the circuit - well, I say 'circuit', traditionally it wasn't actually a circuit, it was just sort of a... mentality, which makes it more interesting here - is used to keep it going without having to constantly reinvest that energy over and over again. It's like...' Gesturing as he thinks of it. 'It's like inertia. Once you get something going it's easier to keep it going. Actually I suppose that means it is inertia. Or a form of it anyway.'

He pauses for a moment, mulling that entirely failed simile over, and then continues. 'The energy itself is created from the living beings though, residual magnetic resonance built up in the body, latent psionic... things. In some places it is the form of power! Totally green! So long as you've got enough people with happy thoughts, or at least contented ones. Big wave of depression sweeps the planet, need a backup.'

All that imparting of knowledge to her has somewhat (pathetically) predictably lifted his mood a bit, and as he lets his hands fall from where they were gesturing, he rests them on her legs where they aren't quite in his lap, and leans a bit more into her with his head, because really that hair thing. He's like a cat.

He's quiet for a few moments before he speaks again. 'Was a good form of it, anyway. We tried it, for a bit. Already touch-telepaths; had a bit of a leg-up on the process. Worked for a while, too.'

Rose listens, genuinely interested. The science bits aren't really her forte but especially after her stint with UNIT, she follows along a bit better. The gestures make her grin slightly, just because she knows it means he's very involved in what he's talking about.

The hair thing goes from a light running her fingers through it to outright combing them through his hair, fingertips against his scalp. She can't help it when he leans into it like that. And it's nice, his hands on her legs without any awkwardness. Or at least without marked awkwardness.

"So if there came 'round a really big curse that made everyone depressed or nutters or afraid, you could sort of...counteract it?"

Jumping ahead to the application of the theory. It's sorta what she does.

'Well, sort of, I suppose, maybe, except kind of the opposite.' Another hand comes up to gesticulate again. 'If any of the people involved are in a depressed or otherwise negative emotional or mental state, then the circuit - the natural one, anyway - doesn't work. The feedback loop can't close, and the strain of recreating it eventually outweighs the individual's ability to do so. Unless they're just special, in which case they might not even need the other person to be consciously involved in the process.'

He's going to have to go back and look at that circuit again now that she's said that. There's got to be a way to store that sort of energy at some point. 'S'a good idea though. Since it's drawn primarily from positive energy, if there were a way to save it and break it back down you could potentially redistribute it as such during a curse where everyone was depressed or nutters or afraid.'

"Ought to work though. If you've got someone who isn't affected by the curse. Somebody that's happy to be here."

Yes this is Rose volunteering herself to be a lab rat. It's not that she thinks she's special. It's just that she knows that most people aren't happy to be in the City and she loves it. If she can help even one person get through the curses a bit easier, she wants to try. "'Least once you get the storage down."

It's that sort of faith that other people have that only ever lets him get things done. He is happy that she's happy here, even if he hasn't quite himself managed it, and while he really won't test things on her first, obviously, it's amazing and all shades of someotherpositivething that she's already willing to go for it.

'That'll be the tricky bit. Don't think I've ever heard of that working without sort of... leaking everywhere. You'd get a kind of Lotus Eaters effect quite quickly, I'd imagine.'

It'll do for now. As long as he's not actively miserable she can work on the happy. It's what she does, save the Doctor whether it's from aliens or from himself. Of course she's willing to go for it. It's one of his things and she trusts him. He wouldn't do anything that would hurt her. Okay well, he wouldn't do anything that would hurt her on purpose.

She ponders that, the whole Lotus Eaters effect comment, her fingers still tangled in his hair, her thumb lightly stroking the top of his cheekbone. Classical mythology, not Rose's forte, but figuring out what the Doctor means is.

"Like a cult? Shiny Happy People syndrome? That song always did get on my nerves after listenin' to it a time or six. Just too much."

Definitely not on purpose, no, although that's ridiculously obvious. Not even anything that he can really think forward to inadvertently causing her any amount of damage, in as much as he is possible to do it. Or... Not do it. Whichever way. It's happened often enough as it is regardless, and that whole 'lost you once already' syndrome is in full effect for the pair of them, I think.

He laughs a bit. 'Yeah, something like that. A falling into complacency. 'Course, you have got the inevitable crash when it runs out or whathaveyou. That would be... fun.'

If he's lucky he won't have that song stuck in his head. 'It is a bit of a peculiar song, isn't it?' If he's very lucky, at least.

Never often enough to make her start doubting him. They are both fully, entirely affected by the 'lost you once already' syndrome. It does drive them to follow each other to the end of the earth, literally.

"Oi. I think we'd run 'round tryin' to save everybody that's depressed. M'not sure I've got that many pep speeches in me."

Of course she does. She's Rose.

Well now that makes her want to put it on the stereo and dance about.

'Oh, I should say you do. Peppiest pep talker that ever talked a... pep. Talked peppily.' It had been punctuated with light pokes to her leg until it got to the point where it wasn't actually English anymore. He never really understands how that happens; five billion languages and he still has to make up words. There's something vastly wrong with spoken communication there.

He would be very disappointed if she got up right now to dance along to a song he's trying not to get stuck in his subconscious. It's very comfy in this hammock-bed with her doing that to his head. If there were some sun on him through a window he would honestly be felining things up. As it is, he just settles into her side a bit more because he can, now, apparently, and this is easing into things very easily and carefully.

'Harder to get at intangible things though. Now, if we could turn depression into something we could run from, we'd have a decent shot at it. Not that we can't beat anything anyway, obviously.'

Probably because it's spoken and so many things can't be said in words. They're too complex to convey things like the pokey punctuation that makes her grin and his argument makes her giggle. "Well, how can I argue with that sort of evidence?"

Well in that case, there will be no dancing. It is comfy in the hammock-bed and when he settles closer she slips down a bit so that she really is in his lap. It's nice, being able to do things simply because you can. She's rather enjoying it.

"One great big depression monster we could run from 'til we found how to change it back to contentment or happiness. That'd be brilliant."

Psssh totally fine with me. Phone posting here ftw

you are a star, posting with phones.

Prose is easier! No HTML!

good point. Still more patience than I have with tiny keyboards.

It's just slow but if I'm bored with nothing else to do...

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