Groceries

Spoilers: Journeys End

Rose/10.2

Teen

A/N: Doctor Who is the beebs. Not mine.

The Doctor stared at the shopping list in his hand. "It's just like a list for getting spare parts," Rose had told him when she saw his wide eyes at the mention of groceries and sharing and helping out. Holding the finally agreed-upon piece of paper in his hands, he missed having the TARDIS to escape in. He missed the TARDIS.

"Right, so I'll just…" he gestured to the door when Rose walked back into the room, gathering her work things as she went. Looking over at him she raised her eyebrows, nodding quickly before ducking into the kitchen.

"Right." He spoke to the empty room, rocking on the balls of his feet.

To say the Doctor didn't want to leave was an understatement. Rose had never asked him to go off for her before, and it wasn't like he himself hadn't ventured to the centre to pick up a few bananas when she was out or he was on his way home. But a few bananas were a great deal different to a week's worth of food and goods. It was responsibility and it was domestic.

It was at this point that the Doctor had realised he had settled. Settled into human existence; getting the shopping, filling the car, zipping a dress, flipping through channels, he'd just about completed that list entirely. He'd settled into this life they had no choice in accepting and he had settled with almost no complaint. He, the Doctor, Timelord, impeccable nuisance, rude-not-ginger half-human metacrisis had settled.

When Rose re-entered the living room, croissant in one hand and laptop case in the other he still hadn't moved.

"Doctor?" she asked, flipping the strap of the bag over her head, watching him with concern. "What's wrong?"

"Hmm? Nothing! Nope, nada, zilch, ziporino –"

Rose had spotted the list clutched tightly in his long hands by his second word and swiftly she stepped forward and kissed him silent. Full lips tugging at his she smiled at the immediate change in the Doctor's stance as he threaded a hand through her hair, leaning into her with familiar pressure.

"You don't have to. It's ok, never mind," Rose took the list out of his hands as he watched her dazedly.

"Huh?" was all the Doctor managed. He really missed being able to smell the tinge of chemicals after something like that.

"It's not important," Rose's smile was small as she moved towards the door to her flat. "I'll see you when I get home, yeah?" She turned, giving him one last look before stepping out.

Watching the door behind her the Doctor realised what had happened between his pondering (panic attack) and Rose going to work. He also realised he still hadn't moved.

…

Several hours later Rose stepped into the flat and could smell something burning. Dropping her stuff by the door, she took her time getting to the kitchen; quite sure she knew the source of that smell. Rose thought quietly to herself that the place was at least relatively free of flammable material after his third attempt to make soufflé.

"Alright, what –" she stopped, her hands frozen in place from unbuttoning her cardigan. "Oh."

The Doctor stood surrounded by packet recipes, her mother's cookbooks on barbequing and cut herbs. A half-cooked salmon lay on the counter in front of him, its dead eyes glistening in the overhead kitchen light.

"You're back!" The Doctor exclaimed, a touch of panic entering his voice before he grinned widely at her. Stepping towards Rose he motioned to hug her but she quickly stepped back, holding him away from her.

"Not with fish hands you don't!"

"Oh," the Doctor quickly pulled off his oven mitts (a pair in the shape of orange sharks Tony had picked out for Christmas that year) and threw them by the salmon. Shirking off his apron he pulled Rose easily into a hug before tugging her around the kitchen with excitement.

"Look what I've done!"

"I can see," she said amused. He pointed out the cookies he gave up on in dough-stage, the melted icing in a bowl she would never have put in the microwave and a box of chocolate she was told by no means to eat.

"Well what's the fun in that if you can't eat it?"

"The fun is in finding out your brand new sonic screwdriver doesn't have a setting for sorting out which is salt and which is sugar."

"I'm surprised you didn't just lick it."

"Don't think I didn't try, Rose Tyler. Only, I forgot to check before I'd put them in the bowl and it was a little late after that."

"Oh clever you are."

The last thing presented to her was of course the half-cooked salmon. The Doctor leant over his dish mournfully, his elbows resting on the countertop, hands cupped under his chin.

"This one's the worst."

Rose leaned over his shoulder, thinking her house would smell like fish for weeks.

"Least s'not burnt?" she offered, her own chin resting against his shoulder as she talked. He sighed sadly and she rubbed his back soothingly as they stared at the fish in her kitchen on a Thursday night. "Sides," Rose poked him in the ribs, smiling when he squirmed away from her, ticklish in his human skin. "S'not the end of the world if you can't cook human food."

"Oi!" he grinned despite himself at her and Rose swallowed. He looked so much like the real Doctor when he did that. The warmth under her palm that pressed against his bony shoulder reminded her sharply of otherwise and immediately Rose felt guilty for such thoughts.

"Well there's one meal that's not too badly done," the Doctor moved to the oven pretending not to notice the shift in gravity, grabbing his mitts as he went. "Welllll… by 'not too badly' I mean it's only half burnt. Or really rather crisp and black but I'm sure that's only the outside."

"Doctor," he felt her hand rest against his wrist and he wavered. Standing in the suddenly cramped kitchen with burnt lasagne in his hands and Rose burning for the wrong man he felt unequivocally awkward. And hurt.

"It's fine, Rose." The Doctor said quietly, not looking at her. The hand on his cuff hesitated until he put the tray onto the stove. He was unable to hold back the sigh that escaped as he slowly felt himself suffocate for the second time that day, aware when Rose draw her hand away. There was no quick hug or smashing of lips but a cold emptiness as he leaned on his hands against the counter.

"You only say s'fine when it's not."

He chanced a look at Rose and saw her watching her business shoes with an expression he associated with beaches and whipping wind. Hated himself for being the cause of that, here or in the other universe, now or then. Still the silence continued until Rose turned around and left, closing the bedroom door tightly behind her, leaving him in the kitchen over burnt lasagne.

…

Laying on the too-small bed in the guest bedroom the Doctor felt silly, but mostly sorry for himself. Inadvertently hitting his head against the headboard for the fifth time that minute he resettled further down, refusing to sleep on the couch where he'd feel like a complete git. Even more than in Tony's bed.

With his hands crossed over his chest he stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stickers of the solar system with ridiculously shaped stars and a Saturn with too many rings. He thought about Rose and the complete mess he'd made of things from the moment he woke up that morning to the point where his long legs were bent on the end of a child's bed.

He regretted not making love to her in the kitchen.

The Doctor turned his head to look out the window on the other side of the room. He'd thought he'd moved on from identity crises, thought they'd moved on from identity crises and yet here he was, a year and two months on from first setting foot in Rose's flat unable to reconcile himself.

He could just make out a zeppelin passing in the night sky. Couldn't believe he'd not felt domestic until today. "I mean really," he murmured, disgusted with himself, a year, two months and eight days and he hadn't realised how domestic he'd become? The Doctor grimaced in the dark, tucking his hands under his head. He was an idiot to think Rose would accept him so wholly when he hadn't even worked himself out.

Yes, he missed the TARDIS, missed the feel of time and singing under his clever fingers. Yes he missed travelling to strange worlds in a blink and being back to London in time for tea after saving a civilisation or two. And the real London mind, not this one he was stuck in without even a London Eye or Chiswick Roundabout.

But he had Rose and she was everything. Wasn't she?

Rolling onto his side the Doctor considered it. He loved the way she smelt after she rolled off him, or the way she grinned when she caught him eating cookie dough in the bathroom. He loved the way she gasped his name after they argued or had a great day and ended up against the wall. He loved the way she held his hand without question every time he woke in a cold sweat thinking he was in fire. He loved the way he was in love with her and needed her and wouldn't let her go.

He couldn't live without Rose. He'd done it of course, and he'd been just as alive as before he'd met her. But he wasn't alive. Not until he'd turned and seen her carrying that offensive weapon and smiling like the world made sense even displaced in the wrong nebular and time.

He wouldn't be the other him for anything.

And suddenly the Doctor was standing and making his way to the equally small bedroom next door with a bed big enough for two.