1.1-1.2 Rose/The End of the World

Rose Tyler had had a weird day. Or was it two days? Maybe 36 hours? Five billion years? She honestly wasn't entirely sure. She knew she'd woken up at 7:30 AM despite the fact that she no longer had a job to go to. She knew that it had been past sundown already when she and the Doctor had reached the London Eye. By the time she'd made the perhaps slightly impulsive decision to join the Doctor in his TARDIS, it had been well after dark. But then they'd immediately launched themselves into the future, and landed themselves on Platform One. She thought they'd technically only been there for a bit over an hour - just long enough for the Earth to burn, half the craft's passengers to die, and a sentient skin graft to explode in front of her - but she'd felt years older by the time they left. Then the Doctor had landed them back in London in what she assumed to be her own time period, but in full daylight. The Doctor had confessed to being the last of an otherwise extinct alien species, and then they'd gone for chips.

A weird day. Definitely.

When they'd returned to the TARDIS, the Doctor had seemed eager to be off again as quickly as possible. Rose thought that perhaps, now that she had food in her stomach and had had some time to process, he was hoping to keep her busy enough that she wouldn't have a chance to second guess her decision to keep traveling with him after he took her to watch her planet be incinerated. She'd tried to remain engaged, hovering next to him in front of the console as he nattered on about some potential destination or other, but she'd been having trouble focusing and her eyes had kept trying to drift closed, despite her repeated attempts to snap them back open. Finally, the Doctor had taken notice of her nearly-unconscious state and gently taken her by the shoulders, turning her toward a long metal corridor.

"Go on then, off to bed with you," he'd directed fondly. "There should be some empty bedrooms down the first corridor on your left. Take whichever one you like." Rose had nodded, stifling a yawn with her arm, and shuffled off to find a bed.

Too tired to go back and ask the Doctor what she should do about pajamas once she'd chosen a room, Rose had simply stripped off her jeans and hoodie and climbed into bed in her knickers and tee shirt. Now that she was safely ensconced under a fluffy duvet in a quiet room, however, Rose couldn't seem to reclaim the exhaustion that had overtaken her just minutes before. Staring at the ceiling, she pondered what, exactly, she had gotten herself in to.

She knew why she'd done it, of course. She hadn't been lying, when she said she had no A-levels, no job, and no future. Before the Doctor arrived and blew up her job, Rose hadn't had a plan for her life whatsoever, other than continuing to go to work and spend time with her friends and Mickey. She hadn't even begun to think about when or how she would move out of her mum's flat. It wasn't a bad life, sure, but it certainly wasn't interesting. When confronted by a mysterious older man who saved the world and offered to whisk her away into space and time, what girl in her right mind would say no?

Lying in the dim room, listening to the hum of the impossible ship, however, Rose wasn't entirely sure she'd made the right decision. Sure, the Doctor was charismatic and exciting and maybe a bit handsome in a Roman statue sort of way, but he was also undeniably not of this world. He'd pulled off the plastic replicant of Mickey's head without a thought, and been irritated that Rose was upset about the possible death of her boyfriend. He'd taken her to watch her planet burn as though it were a treat and not a nightmare. He'd more or less sentenced Cassandra to death without a trial right in front of her, without even blinking. And yet he'd also been a bit sweet - he'd fixed her phone so that she could call her mum from five billion years in the future, he'd come back for her even after she rejected his initial offer to travel, and he'd offered to take her home when she seemed overwhelmed by their first (to be fair, disastrous) excursion - presenting the offer not with disdain, but with understanding and an undertone of worry.

Rose groaned and rolled over, punching one of the extremely fluffy pillows before burrowing her head into it. What was she going to do?! This was all so surreal. Two days ago she'd been halfheartedly refolding jumpers at a department store, and now she was trying to fall asleep on a sodding SPACESHIP. Before two days ago she hadn't even had a strong opinion on whether aliens were REAL or not, and now she was going on holiday with one. IN SPACE.

A soft knock sounded at the bedroom door.

"Rose?" came the Doctor's quiet voice from the hallway.

"Yeah, I'm up," Rose called, sitting up in bed, pulling her knees up to her chin under the duvet. "You can come in if you want." The door swung partially open and the Doctor leaned on the doorframe, arms crossed across his chest.

"Just wanted to make sure you were okay," he explained, sounding a bit hesitant. "I was walking by and heard you just now; you sounded distressed."

"Nah, I'm fine," Rose denied quickly. The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her.

"Alright, if you're sure," he answered skeptically. "If you need anything, you come find me, okay? The TARDIS will help you track me down."

"Won't you be in bed?" Rose queried. The Doctor had experienced the same chaotic "day" that she had; surely he was also exhausted.

"Nah, don't need much sleep, me. Don't bother with it most nights," he returned nonchalantly.

"Yeah, alright," Rose replied, pondering this and filing it away under her new mental list of things that made her host not-quite-human. "Thank you," she added after a moment, realizing that she was a bit touched that he'd checked in on her. One more mark in the "a bit sweet" column as well, then, she thought. The Doctor nodded and turned away, pulling the door closed behind him.

"Good night, Rose Tyler," he bade her quietly over his shoulder before the door latched.

"Goodnight, Doctor," she whispered after him, unsure if he could still hear her. The interaction had been brief and arguably insignificant, but it had somehow reassured her that while her decision may have been impulsive, it wasn't necessarily a bad one. The Doctor had been transparent about the fact that traveling with him would be dangerous, but he also seemed to genuinely care about her comfort and happiness, despite the fact that they barely knew each other. With a sigh, she rolled over and fell asleep.