The Locket, The Letter and the Lost Girl

Summary: A trio of moments, bound together by their Wibbly Wobbly connection to a wolf-child and her necklace. Ten/Rose

Disclaimer: I a poor one am. Nothing do I have. Freely do I give

"Doctor…"

The Doctor grinned sheepishly as his companion groggily slurred his name. Rose Tyler. Calling him in her sleep. He made a mental note to tease her for it later. He could picture it in his head. Her cheeks would darken just a little, she'd deny it to the moon and back (maybe even to Raxacoricofallapatorius) and then she'd stick her tongue out from under her teeth and slyly suggest that he really just wanted her to be calling out his name…

Oh dear…was he fantasizing?

He'd never been one for fantasies before. Ooh, was this new new Doctor a romantic? A fantasizing, romantic, closet Mills and Boone author?

No.

No, really. No. Just…no…

"Doctor?"

And now she was awake.

"Hello," he said, voice warm and smile deep. By Rassilon, he was a romantic. Disgusting.

"Hello," Rose said back, her eyes dark with sleep. She took in a deep breath, and her eyes glazed over with confusion. She wrinkled her nose and squinted. "Oh," she said after a moment, "Apple grass."

He smiled down at her. She was just a little bit cute when she was recovering from possession. Generally, a brain invasion like the one Cassandra had just performed would leave a humanoid unconscious for a good day or so. But Rose Tyler was up and about. Well, she was up. Well…she was semi-conscious.

He wondered whether it was excess energy from the Bad Wolf that kept her awake. He liked to think that he had absorbed every last morsel of vortex from within her, but her remarkable recovery from the day's brain compression was evidence to the contrary. She ought to have been completely passed out for another ten hours at least. Her breathing ought to have been shallow and her heart beat erratic, but here she was, Rose Tyler, just a little bit sleepy and incoherent. And cute.

She had lasted a remarkably long time after being freed from Cassandra's control. She had stayed with him while he debriefed the hospital staff and had comforted and talked to the post-sick, the new new residents of New New York. She hadn't quite lasted the journey back. Once the clean streets had given way to the freshly mown apple grass of the outer city, Rose's legs went in a similar fashion. Her knees had given way and her eyes had rolled to the back of her head. She had murmured incoherently and The Doctor had no choice but to scoop her up in his arms and carry her the rest of the way to the TARDIS. She had nuzzled his chest and called his name, but had not succumbed to unconsciousness. He had wondered if perhaps she was too scared she would wake up as a prisoner in her own mind again.

When they had returned to the TARDIS, she stood on her own, a little disoriented and unsteady on her feet. The Doctor had suggested she sleep, but the TARDIS made her queasy. Entropy-sickness. Caused by the inner-out of body experience, a little bit of Timey Whimey, and a whole lot of recently departed vortex, namely the Bad Wolf. Rose's body needed a good detox. A bit of normalcy. And what was more normal than a picnic-style nap on the apple grass of New Earth? Nothing at all. Well, a few things…well…

So Rose had taken a shower (The Doctor had uncomfortably hovered outside the bathroom, in case he heard her fall…and decidedly not allowed his new new mind to wander over the sound the water was making as it cascaded down her shoulders…Oi! Enough Mills and Boone!), changed her clothes and promptly fallen asleep on his lap on the apple grass on New Earth.

He looked back down at her to find her asleep again, her head nestled into his stomach. He smiled and lay back on the soft grass, watching the medical aircraft fly to the hospital.

He took in a deep breath of sea and apple and Rose. New noses. He always forgot how efficient they were when they were new. Efficient and in this case, a vast improvement. He'd done quite well if he had to say so himself. Which he did have to considering the only other person that might have told him so was currently passed out on his stomach.

She thought so too. Well, Cassandra had said she had. She might have lied. She might have lied in order to get some kind of hook into Rose, or some kind of something into someone to get her something something…

Ah, why try to explain it away? He was foxy and she liked it. Ten points for the tenth incarnation.

The wind blew Rose's hair over her face and he brushed it back, careful not to wake her. It must have been hard on her, seeing him change like he did. But here she was, by his side, suffering the ill effects of traveling with him. Yet again. Sometimes he didn't know why she bothered. Nearly every day she ran for her life. Nearly every day she feared for it and nearly lost it, but every day she was still there with a smile and her hand out for him to hold.

But then there were some days where there was no running, or at least there was stillness after the running, Like now. Well, maybe not right now. She was a little too unconscious to appreciate the serenity of the afternoon. The sun was bright, the moons were glowing in the distance in their mid-afternoon, New Earth way, the apple grass was blowing and they were together. But now she was snoring. Not quite the serenity he had pictured.

He chuckled.

"What?" Rose grumbled, her eyes fluttering open under her lashes.

"Nothing," he answered, grinning like a school boy.

"You were laughing at me," she accused, groggily.

"You were snoring," he countered.

"I was not."

"You were."

"Was not!"

"You were!"

Oh dear. Was this the sort of man he was? Arguing like a little boy? Hardly fitting for a Timelord of 900 years.

Terrible fun, though.

He poked his tongue out at her. She returned the gesture in kind.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, as she sat up.

"Fine," she answered. "It's a little quieter in here, but I can definitely handle that. Why aren't you down for the count?"

"Superior Timelord brain capacity," The Doctor answered, tapping his forehead. "Luckily for me, when you store a thousand years in here, one extra consciousness doesn't do all that much damage. You on the other hand…" he trailed off, looking at her in concern. "You should be resting."

"And waste this?" she asked, looking around her. "I wouldn't waste a minute, Doctor."

His hearts squished together in a warm, sloshy, squishy squick of goop. Ah yes, this incarnation was sentimental. And romantic. Not particularly articulate when it came to maudlin adjectives. Perhaps not a Mills and Boone author, after all.

More's the pity.

Rose looked up at him, from under her dark lashes and her tongue peeked out at him from under her teeth. Just as he had pictured. Imagined. Fantisi…

He was fighting a losing battle.

"What?" she asked again, smiling woozily.

"What?" he repeated back to her, sweeping his non-fantasies out of his new new brain. Unfortunately, he had been right just before in saying that extra thoughts could inhabit his brain without much consequence. So the little fantasy took hold somewhere behind his ear and made a nest there, pumping over-stylized pictures of a tongue-poking Rose Tyler through his conscious and sub-conscious mind at annoying intervals. Multitasking was not always all it was cracked up to be.

He focused on the Rose Tyler who was actually in front of him. Well, on top of him. She was absent-mindedly twirling a little heart in her hand. A little silver heart hanging from a chain on her neck. The Doctor cocked his head and looked at it. He had never seen that one before.

"What's that?" he asked.

Rose cocked her head back at him, looking for all New Earth like a little puppy. The Doctor grinned at his own comparison.

"Necklace," she answered, sitting up again. The Doctor was decidedly not disappointed that she wasn't directly touching him anymore. Decidedly. Not. "I've had it for ages," she continued, going slightly cross-eyed to look at the little heart in her hand. Which wasn't at all cute. Not at all.

She ran her hand around the chain on her neck, flicking her hair out of her way. It brushed past The Doctor's face and he pushed it away, curling it back around her ears without a second thought. Rose found what she was looking for; another tiny heart that had run around the chain and found itself on the back of her neck.

"Two hearts," she said, holding them both out on the chain in front of her. "Just like you." She grinned.

The Doctor grinned back, lazily, one hand twirling the apple grass beneath him, the other still hovering close to her hair.

"I've had it since I was a kid," she continued. "Came home with it one day, I think. I don't remember, really. I was about seven. Mum thought I stole it from Mandy Bowles. Has her initials on it, see?" She leaned over to show him the tiny faded letters, one on each heart. He could vaguely see an M and a B, etched into the silver. Mostly he could see Rose's dark eyes looking at his, only inches away.

The hand that had previously been in and around her hair was now tracing the letters, in innocent intimacy. For a second, at least.

"Ooh!" he squeaked, tearing his hand away after that second. He bumped heads with Rose and she swore at him, laughing.

"What?" she asked, letting go of the hearts and letting them dangle on her chest.

"You necklace gave me the tingles," he accused, eyebrows furrowed. Rose giggled at him. The Doctor wriggled his fingers. "Excess time-radiation," he murmured, although the reaction seemed much too great for radiation to be the full extent of it. "Were you wearing this on the game station?" he asked.

"It was in my pocket. For luck."

"What?"

"Two hearts," she said, and her cheeks darkened just that little bit. Lovely. "They make me think of you."

He grinned again. "My two hearts." Right where they belonged. How fitting. How lovely, and perfect and metaphoric and romantic and sappy and maudlin and disgusting and…

This new Doctor needed to harden up fast or he would end up a blob of goo on the floor…well, apple grass.

Rose's head was in his lap again, stroking her necklace. Her eyes fluttered closed and she murmured. The Doctor smiled and chuckled. Rose Tyler. Couldn't even hold a completely conversation. But she held his two hearts in her hand, literally. Well…literally held a pair of sterling silver hearts that symbolized his two organic hearts.

"Doctor," she murmured again, eyes closed and cheeks pink. And in one fell swoop, he was back to where he started. Fantasies and apple grass and Rose.