3. Chores

He raises an eyebrow at her in serious doubt. "Can't we just…buy another bed?"

"Honestly, Doctor," she says, folding back the comforter with slight annoyance, "for someone who has saved entire planets, you really are quite lazy."

He walks to the foot of the bed and pulls off the comforter begrudgingly. The fate of entire galaxies, pockets of the universe teeming with civilizations upon civilizations, seemed to always boil down to his impeccable timing and narrow, daring escapes. To those who had just barely invented the wheel, he was a god. To Rose Tyler, he was the help. Honestly, he had expected some kind of exemption from…chores and the likes. Domestic life had never been his forte, and laundry day would've been nonexistent if it hadn't been for her insistence.

He would've never bought a bed if she wouldn't be in it.

"This is how it starts for people," he insists, wadding up the top sheet and tossing it onto the floor. "First, a bed, then a matching furniture set. Then carpets…doors." He grimaces.

She gives him a quizzical look. "No, I…don't think that's how anything starts for anyone, actually."

"You won't be saying that a hundred years from now," he frowns at her, peeling off the bottom sheet, "when we've got a mortgage."

Her heart flutters for a brief moment. "We?"

He opens his mouth to explain his blunder. Realizing there is no justification for the accidental slip, he promptly shuts his mouth and gives her a defiant look. She turns away from him to gather the linens and hide her grin.

"We could both, I don't know…share," she had told him once during a discussion on mortgages, with her chin resting in her palm and her bottom lip adorably captured between her teeth, and it had changed everything.

They could stay in one place indeed, filling their life with work and food and sleep. That thought did not bother him the way it used to. If it meant continuing to share living quarters with her, waking up every morning to her bed head and peculiarly cranky, yet cheerful, demeanor, then he would do it. Maybe not for the rest of her life. Maybe only for a couple years, in fact. But he would do it, and he would relish those mornings above any other he has spent alone.

She returns from placing the laundry in the washer (an atypical contraption he had found on a distant planet that required the both of them to learn how to use it) and hopped onto the bed, rolling over onto her stomach. From his angle, he notes that her body has an ass that a ruler couldn't measure; the strange crudeness in this thought causes him to blush and turn away immediately.

She glances over her shoulder. "Doctor? You alright?"

"Absolutely."

He approaches the opposite side of the bare mattress (his side, as he had quickly coined it) carefully, as if she had once again gained clairvoyance into his thoughts (her gift, as he had once noted it). His body relaxes, however, once it reaches her familiar proximity. He lay next to her, observing the corners of her mouth curve upward slightly and her eyes close. Her head rests on her folded arms, and he suddenly feels the necessity to touch them. His fingertips lightly touch the skin there, slightly tanned after meeting the radiation of various suns, incredibly soft as rose petals (how cliché, and he mentally kicks himself for the metaphor).

All she can provide is a gentle "Mmmm." Goosebumps form.

"Cold?"

She nods, keeping her eyes closed as if her lie might leak through her pupils and reveal itself. He reaches over to the side of the bed and retrieves a blanket that had been slightly kicked under perhaps a few days ago. Adjusting it to cover the both of them, they instinctively move closer.

"Laundry should be done in about fourty."

He nods, despite her eyes being closed. He closes his own.

"Doctor?"

He opens them, in the way his body strangely reacts whenever his name passes through her lips, and her eyes are peering at him curiously. She looks down a moment, as if she is searching for a bit of courage. A small twinge of worry passes through him as he wonders when the day will come when she will be comfortable enough to speak freely to him.

"May I ask you something?"

As if she had to ask. That bothered him. But just a bit.

"Of course."

"Does settling down," she says carefully, looking up at him, "why does that bother you so much?"

He adjusts the blanket to further cover her. "It doesn't."

"Well, it bothers you," she persists, attempting to make eye contact.

"It did. At a time when I was alone, full of vengeance and solitude due to the extinction of my people."

He fumbles with the edge of the blanket as if to avoid her; she takes his hand, stilling him.

"I will die one day."

"Don't." He finally looks at her, and his eyes are hard, cold pieces of rounded steel.

He would share a home with her one day, yes. Maybe not for the rest of her life. Maybe only for a couple years, in fact. But he would do it, and he would relish those mornings above any other he has spent alone. And what will happen to him, the morning he wakes up alone? What then? It was like she was forcing him to count down the days, twisting his arm to make him scream and realize that if anything ever happened between them, (he dared to think it) if she ever loved him, he could not marry her. The universe often felt ethereal, magical to him, but there was no Fountain of Youth or potion for eternal life.

She will die and there is nothing he can do about it. The thought turns over and over in his head, like a smooth stone in his hand he was unsure of what to do with.

She laughs lightly, but still reverberates with a bit too much force. "Easier said than done."

Of course, modern medicine would develop rapidly on Earth after the 23rd century, and people would begin modification processes to live longer. However, as external changes occur, internal ones within the human population begin to change the way the body responds to innovation. Ironically, there is no guarantee 21st century Rose Tyler would be compatible with the future, unless she wanted to follow the path of Cassandra or other extreme "versions" of mankind that would result from opportunities for genetic and physical modification. And assuming she would stay in good health for the majority of her life, there is still no cure for old age.

"Don't," he says quietly to her.

He wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her toward him. Her blonde hair rests under his nose – he notices she has changed shampoo, something with safflower – and he presses a kiss to the top of her head. The sudden display of emotion surprises her, and she moves in closer to bury her face in his neck. He tightens his hold.

"Rose Tyler, I'd share a mortgage with you any day."

She smiles and plants a kiss on his collarbone.

"And help with the laundry? And make the bed?"

"Absolutely."

It is then when he realizes domestic chores aren't so bad after all.

A/N: Sorry I took forever to update! Sorry this was supposed to come out lighthearted and perhaps a bit funny but I'm terrible at both of those things. Despite all this, your feedback is wonderfully appreciated. Thank you so much to all of you who reviewed, favorited, and subscribed. It means the world to me.