rivendellrose | a little fic post

Gave up the Grand Item Search in favor of getting some writing done. I've found the house's spare key, so as long as no one else loses their keys before I find mine, we're all set.

So I start writing... and discover that, yes, I've hit the fatal point of no return for any new fandom - not only have I begun a little fic, but I've started to notice songs on my playlist that could be associated with the show. Nothing says "fan-girl" like the compulsive feeling that a given song is 'just perfect' for your fandom. *Is a horrible geek*

This way shall lead only to ruin, I'm sure. On the way, however... there is fic.

Title: Old Friends
Fandom: Doctor Who
Notes: I've only seen through the first season of the new series - Please don't spoil me on anything that comes later! If the Doctor turns into a chicken and the TARDIS rediscovers her chameleon chip and decides she'd rather travel the universe as a flying trash can so they can more easily avoid Daleks, I don't want to know.
...Seriously, though. I've done really well avoiding spoilers so far, and I mean to keep it up!
Disclaimer: Everything here is owned by the BBC, and I don't intend infringement or profit.
Summary: Gen-fic, Nine and Rose, entirely self-indulgent and pointless. And I apologize for any inadvertent Americanisms that slipped in.

Rose had never read science fiction. She only went to space movies - the ones with aliens that looked like bugs and lots of big explosions and all that - when Mickey wanted to go, and she hadn’t particularly cared one way or the other about them. It was just a bunch of makeup and special effects. Computers and plyboard and plastic guns. Still, you couldn’t grow up in the modern era without a few ideas of what a space-ship ought to look like.

The TARDIS was not what a space-ship ought to look like. First off because it looked like little a blue box - that much was pretty obvious, but even on the inside, which had at first impressed the bloody brains out of her... even there, it just didn’t look quite right. In movies, space-ships always looked either crisp and spartan, or dark and dingy, full of hidey-holes something might jump out of and bite you. The TARDIS was clean, relatively light and comfortable, but as far as the rest went...

“You keep everything you run across, here?”

The Doctor looked up from the wall panel, setting aside one of the mismatched controls he’d been fiddling with. “Pretty much,” he agreed. He stretched as he looked around the room, at the collection of objects Rose had gathered on her exploration of the TARDIS’s interior. “Never know what you might need.”

“Screwdriver, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a whole box full of mismatched screws and rivets...”

“This isn’t a young ship, Rose. She needs repairs, sometimes, and not always in a place with a mechanic’s shop nearby.”

“Okay, sure, but what about the rest of this junk? I’ve been looking around, and some of the stuff you’ve got tucked away in corners around here... I mean, honestly. Isn’t this a blender?” She held up the offending item, found in the room he’d designated hers. “And, just so you know, if it isn’t... I don’t want to know. Anything with blades just shouldn’t be under a bed.”

“It is a blender, thank you. As for the rest...” He shrugged and repeated - “You never know.”

“Alright, what about this?”

The scarf hung twice over her arm, garish colors patched all together like somebody’s blind old auntie couldn’t figure out when to stop knitting.

“Hey!” The Doctor lunged forward, snatching the mess out of her hands with an expression of glee that was shocking even for him. “Look at you, then! Haven’t seen this in ages!”

“You kept that... on purpose?” Rose wrinkled her nose.

“Sure!” He draped the thing twice around his neck and, loose as it hung, it still dangled past his waist on both sides. “Can’t give up an old friend like this...”

“But it’s all... ratty. And look, it’s got a burned bit just here. Can’t you just... buy a new one? Or - know what? I’ll buy you a new one. Next time we’re in London, we’ll find one that goes with your coat, and--”

“Rose, no.”

“Well, you can’t mean to actually wear that grubby old thing!”

“I don’t, Rose. But I did. For... longer than I care to count the years of. I don’t keep many things purely as sounvenirs, but this... It’s an old friend, that’s all.” He untwined the thing, folding it carefully arm over arm until the scarf hung once over his arm, his fingers resting on it like a little boy petting a droopy stuffed animal that had been patched so many times the original color barely showed anymore.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Rose said softly. He got this look sometimes, when she said something unintentionally mean, like he’d seen too much and was getting tired of it all. “It’s... unique. Colorful.”

“It’s hideous.” He looked up at her with one of those brilliant grins that always surprised her, and she couldn’t help returning it. “I know it is, Rose. It’s alright. I don’t even like the look of it anymore. I was... a different person, you could say, when I wore this. But I remember being the person who liked it very much.”

“Yeah.” Rose reached out and petted the soft, worn yarn. “I’ve still got my stuffed animals from when I was a baby, you know? Some things, you just can’t get rid of.”

“Exactly. Besides,” his grin got a bit more wicked, “you never know what fashions might come back around. Especially hanging out with you humans.”