Fic: Taste

title: Taste
author: uktechgirl
archive: Yep
fandom: Doctor Who 2005
rating: gen; PG
spoilers: POTW

Summary: Rose meets Ten. Yes, it’s yet another post- Parting of the Ways ficlet. Shoot me now...

(x-posted to time_and_chips)



She can’t stop staring.

Which isn’t much of a worry, because neither can he. There isn’t a mirror as such on the console, but he’s making do. Checking out those brand new teeth in the screen of the nav array. Pondering eye colour over the comparative field modulator. Plucking out a hair, then sneaking a peek down below to see if collar matches cuffs.

‘You do know I can see you doing that, right?’

Her voice is fond, forgiving, and also brash and uncultured and unnecessarily loud. As usual, he thinks.

‘Or possibly not. Possibly you sound to me as radically different as I must look to you. But perhaps a Rose by any other name would sound as sweet?’

He tilts his head, peering again at the nav array. The ears: there’s something different there, surely; has to be.

She takes a step backwards.

‘So you know my name.’

He grins, wide; nods rapidly. It feels familiar, and strange: neck a little longer, perhaps.

‘You know everything that he knew?’

‘Well…’ He hesitates on the brink of explanation, before remembering she won’t wait to hear it. ‘Yes. Mostly.’

Her head nods: her face says ‘huh’? His new eyes will, he reckons, probably see that a lot.

‘And this…this…’

‘Regeneration,’ he supplies.

‘Regeneration,’ she repeats, suspiciously. ‘Is it…I mean, is this a Time Lord thing, or a Time Vortex thing, or a whole new thing that’s going to decide it wants to blow up Earth along with everyone else?’

He grins. ‘Time Lord thing. He was Nine. I’m Ten. There’ll be Thirteen all together - unless one of us manages to bugger it up in the meantime.’

The full lips tremble, and he feels something else: something new, or nothing new, because he’s a Time Lord, and nothing is new. It all tastes different, so he’s not yet sure what to call it. Sweet. Bitter. Umami.

‘So when he saved me, when he – when he kissed me,’ she says, jutting out her chin. ‘When he did that, he knew. Wouldn’t kill him. He’d re-whassit. He’d turn into you.’

He shakes his head.

Her eyes look very bright.

‘You were going to die. Sent off in the TARDIS to live a long, boring, prosperous life without even the faintest whiff of Dalek. Only then you came back, and you were right in the middle of it, and you saved everyone, and you were going to die. And I couldn’t let that happen.’

She blinks. ‘You?’

‘Me.’

Her absurdly wide mouth breaks into a smile. ‘Right then,’ she says, skipping to the console and peering over his shoulder. ‘Where exactly are we?’

‘Now if I knew that, I really would be having an identity crisis.’

Chips, he decides. She tastes like chips.