keep_counting | Fic: The Good and the Strong (Doctor Who)

Happy birthday to

the_silverdoe, yaay :D here's a fic for you, and it's even Nine/Rose for your reading pleasure!

Title: The Good and the Strong
Characters/Pairings: Nine/Rose
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers for season one up to 'Father's Day', fluff-alert
Genre: tiny Angst/Fluff/Friendship/Slight romance
Word-count: 1,323
A/N: My first attempt at writing Nine, so I hope you like it :) Birthday fic for

the_silverdoe
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in relation to this
Summary: After getting into perhaps too much trouble on another alien planet, Rose wonders if she's even worth it.

There’s a soft knocking on the door, and it interrupts her thoughts like a pebble being thrown into the water and disturbing it. Rose is sitting on her bed, arms tugged around legs that are pulled up to her chest and wonders if now is the time he’ll kick her out.

“Come in,” she says and hopes that it’s only her imagination that makes her voice sound so small and insecure.

The door opens and he strides in, a look of worry on his face.

“You alright? You left so quickly you didn’t even get to finish your tea,” his grin is disarming, big and goofy like always, but his eyes are still concerned.

She hadn’t expected concern. She’d expected annoyance and degradation and maybe a little anger. She’d expected a stern telling-off and at worst, a trip back home. Back home for good.

“Yeah, m’fine,” she mutters, trying to sound dismissive and like she really is on top of anything. He blinks at her and clearly doesn’t buy it for a minute.

“Rose… I’m not angry with you,” he says, stepping a little further into the room. She ducks her head, embarrassed that he can read her so easily. “Hey, I mean it,” he steps even closer, standing beside her bed now. “You made a mistake; you couldn’t know that girl was a spy now, could ya? You were just trying to help her,”

“I nearly got us all killed,” Rose quietly mutters, thinking of all the blue-skinned, kind aliens on that planet, trying to lead a revolution against oppression and slavery. And she’d nearly blurted out everything she knew about it to a traitor, just because the girl had faked a broken ankle and a lost mother.

Rose could relate to losing a parent, after all.

“It could have been anyone she’d made to spill secret,” The Doctor protests, standing over her like a tall, dark shadow. “In fact, it was lucky it was you and not some of the captains or one of the founders of the movement; they know a lot more than you do,”

“No, they don’t,” Rose whispers. “I know things they don’t know, because you told me – you’d already been there, remember, a hundred years into their future and you told me how things had happened. So I knew stuff. It could have been disastrous.”

“So it’s my fault then!” The Doctor exclaimed, actually sounding a bit glee-full. Rose would have rolled her eyes if she wasn’t still so torn up about it all. “Shouldn't have gone and filled your head with all those silly tales now, should I?”

“Exactly, because you can’t trust me: I blabber all over the place,” She let out a low, humor-less laugh. “I give my cell-phone and the TARDIS-key to some idiot that I’ve picked up. I set loose a Dalek and I nearly make the whole world end trying to save my father, and you can’t deny that that was all stupid because you gave me lip for it!” She hadn’t meant to be shouting that last bit, but something had been ripped free and she just needed to get it out. Sighing, she rubbed a hand over her face, trying to calm down.
“Sorry,”

“I never shouted at you for the Dalek, did I?” He then said. “That wasn’t your fault – how were you to know? And what happened with Adam was Adam’s fault, no-one else Rose,” he sat down on the edge of her bed, turned towards her and reached out to grabbed her hand. She couldn’t help but flush a little, because really, while he’d been in her room before he’d never sat on her bed while she was in it too and… well, it was a bit discontenting. And nice. Though he might notice her sudden flustering. Yeah, definitely discontenting.

“Didn’t you notice a pattern just there?” he said suddenly, a glint in his eye – the same glint he got whenever he was just about to exclaim ‘brilliant!’ to everyone that was around to hear it. “All those times Rose, when it could and did go wrong – what where you just trying to do?”

“Well, whatever it was, I seriously think I should just stop because clearly it… it gets people killed!”

Okay, he looked a little angry now. Though it didn’t seem to be at her, exactly.

“Rose…” he gave her his best ‘stupid-ape’ look. “How many times have people died, even though we’ve tried to save them?”

“But that’s different,” Rose quickly argued. “You know what you’ve been doing – what was it, nine hundred years you’ve been swaggering around, saving people. Of course you can’t save everyone, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. You’re the only one that can.”

He gently squeezed her hand. “That’s not true, Rose. There are many more who could save the world, who have saved the world, time and time again. The universe doesn’t need me, I just use it as my playground now and again.”

Rose sighed. “Stop degrading yourself, Doctor,”

There was that glint again. “Yes, annoying when people do that, isn’t it Rose Tyler?”

“Ugh! What are you even trying to say?”

“That I still hold to what I said when we dumped Adam back home – you’re one of the best, Rose. I wouldn’t have taken you with me if you weren’t. And all those times, whatever mistake you made, you never meant to hurt anyone. Yes, you might have been quick to act and trust, but that is not always a bad thing – and you were always trying to help. And I might shout at you for that, I might be angry at you, and people might even die, but your intent was sincere and that makes a difference,” he leaned forward to tug a strand of hair behind her ear. “At least it does to me. Okay?”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Fantastic! Now – “ he jumped up from her bed so quickly it made her a bit dizzy. “Time for your little human sleep – it’s been a long day,”

“Could you…” Rose started to say and immediately regretted it, closing her mouth again. The Doctor gave her a quizzical look.

“Could I what?”

“No, never mind.”

“No, what is it?”

“It’s…” she bit her lip, unaware of his eyes lingering on the bruise her teeth left there. “It’s just that I was trying to sleep before, and I couldn’t…”

“Would you like me to stay with you until you fall asleep?” He asked, easily guessing what was on her mind. Mainly because it was also, just a tiny bit, on his.

A bit embarrassed, but also very hopeful, Rose nodded. To her great relief, he grinned widely at her.

“I can do that – scoot over.”

She yelped a little as he in a matter of seconds had kicked off his shoes and jumped into the bed, leg resting over the covers and shoulders against the headboard.

“Well come on then,” he smiled as she kept sitting and just staring at him. “Bit uncomfortable, sleeping like that, isn’t it?”

Rose desperately hoped he couldn’t hear her heart beat frantically in her chest, though that hope was probably futile considering it was pounding so hard against her chest it felt like it would break free any moment now. She swallowed and laid down, slipping under the covers and dutifully resting her head against his shoulder as he indicated. His arm snaked around her waist from behind and Rose wide-eyed wondered if she would get any sleep tonight at all, or might instead die as her heart gave out from over-exertion.

Her heart relaxed after a while however, and exhaustion quickly caught up with her: she fell asleep to the soft rhythm of the Doctor’s double heart-beats and his fingers rubbing soothing circles into the small of her back.

Unbeknownst to her, he held her through the night a lot longer than originally intended.