New New Year -- Part One Commentary

[earlgreytea68]

In response to this post, cailetls requested New New Year. Here's Part One! 

I don't know why I ventured outside the Chaosverse for this fic. But I admit I love to write the Doctor and Rose getting together, and, in the Chaosverse, I could only write it once. Sometimes, you have to start with a fresh page to get some fresh angst.

Rose, finally emerging from the bathroom, freshly coiffed and dressed to the nines, (a lot of people giggled about the reference to Nines here. I am pun-illiterate and didn't intend it at all) nonetheless paused to take fresh stock of herself in the mirror. It was the thousandth time she’d critically examined herself in the past ten minutes but it seemed important to her that she look…different. After all, the Doctor had managed to radically change, and she hated the idea of looking exactly the same, of not proving that she was open to all this newness.

I completely understand this emotion. Do you ever feel like everyone around you is changing, while you stay stagnant? Don't you think you'd feel that magnified by a billion if your best friend/unrequited lover CHANGED HIS ENTIRE BODY?

And, okay, there was also the issue of a night out with “her bloke.” Which was how Shireen had put it. “Come ring in the new year with us! And bring your bloke—we’d love to meet him!” It had been the easiest way to explain away her long absences, to say she’d met a guy, but she wasn’t sure what the Doctor was going to think about pretending to be her bloke all evening. She’d only proposed spending New Year’s Eve with her friends, thinking baby steps to be the way to approach the problem. To be honest, she hadn’t expected him to agree to come at all. She had been taken aback by his giddy enthusiasm for the human tradition of New Year’s. But then, he hadn’t quite been himself lately. Whatever “himself” was nowadays

Rose doesn't realize yet how accurately "giddy enthusiasm" describes her new Doctor.

Taking a deep breath, Rose moved past the ruined wall, the shape of a Christmas tree carved into it (my favorite TCI detail), and headed into the lounge, rehearsing in her head. I told them we were dating. It was the easiest explanation...

The Doctor was sprawled on the couch, where he had been when she’d disappeared into the bathroom to get ready. Except now he was sound asleep.

Rose couldn’t help it; her lips curved into a smile. He was adorable when he was sleeping. She had almost never seen the other Doctor sleep but this one slept a great deal. She knew it was because he wasn’t quite well yet, although he tried to wave it off. But sometimes he went pale and complained of headaches—“synapses re-adjusting,” he claimed—and the only thing that he said could help was rest. And tea.

Rose switched off the telly he’d been watching, walked over to him, and brushed his fringe off his forehead. He was warmer than her first Doctor. She thought it was a slight fever and not a permanent body temperature change, but then again, who could really tell?

He stirred and blinked blearily at her.

“Hello,” she smiled, softly. “How do you feel?”

“Fine,” he mumbled, and then closed his eyes again.

I love sleepy, slightly sick Doctor. And I seldom get a chance to write him.

“How about a cup of tea?” She kept brushing at his fringe, gently, and wondering how much he was going to read into the action and what he ought to read into it anyway.

“Mmm,” he snuffled. “Sounds lovely.”

“Good. I’ll make us a pot, and we’ll stay in for the evening.”

“Mmmm—what?” His eyes flew open. “But we were going out! It’s New Year’s Eve! We were going to, you know, do things with noise-makers and…eat grapes and…have adventures and…stuff.”

“You don’t feel well,” she pointed out.

“I feel fine,” he protested, meekly. “I just…need a cuppa. And maybe ten more minutes of sleep.”

“Really?” she said, dubiously.

“Yes. Wake me up in ten minutes.”

She left him on the couch, boiling water in the kitchen and making him his tea. When she walked back into the lounge, he was sound asleep again, and she placed the tea on the coffee table and sat across from him and watched him as he slept, breathing deeply and evenly, wrinkling his nose briefly, and she wondered if he dreamed.

Her mother came into the lounge, fresh from her own bathroom preparations, and remarked, “I thought you two’d be gone by now.”

Rose shook her head, eyes still on the Doctor. “He’s still not feeling well.”

Her mother glanced at the sleeping Time Lord. “I wish he’d tell us what we could do for him. Doesn’t seem like the tea’s really helping all that much.”

“I think it’s the best we can do, though,” sighed Rose. “Whatever his people used to do, to make this easier, it’s lost now.”

I wonder this, sometimes, with respect to the Chaosverse kids: Will all future regenerations be exhausting for these Time Lords? Without Gallifrey?

Her mother looked from the Doctor to Rose and back again. “Well. You going to sit here all night and watch him sleep? You ought to go out with Shireen, leave him be. I’m sure he’d want you to go.” Rose hesitated, and her mother delivered her final blow. “You wouldn’t want to suffocate him.”

No, thought Rose. She didn’t want to suffocate him.

Rose is so young, and so confused by him.

***

The Doctor woke. He was snuggled deep into a blanket that someone, probably Rose, had thrown over him, and around him the flat was dark and quiet. Far quieter than any flat with Tyler women in it ever had a right to be. Which meant there were no Tyler women around.

The Doctor sat up, rubbing at his eyes and ruffling at his hair and called, just in case, “Rose?” His headache felt immeasurably better, and he thought his right heart was finally falling into the correct rhythm. Maybe, he thought, he was almost fully recovered. That would be lovely.

He noted the tea on the coffee table, leaned over and stuck a finger in it. Cold. He licked the tea off his finger (wouldn't he just?) and reached for the note next to it. You needed more than ten minutes. Feel better. Rose. She’d clearly gone to meet her friends without him, which he had to admit was disappointing. He’d celebrated New Year’s Eve before, of course, but never in this body, and never, really, with humans he was as comfortable with as he was with Rose. He disliked the missed opportunity, and drank his cold tea sulkily.

The flat around him seemed very quiet, and he didn’t like it. This body had never been alone, and he was finding he disliked it even more than he had used to. Before, he had been able to bear the loneliness, but now he found himself more often than not somewhere in Rose’s flat. Even when he felt terrible and needed to sleep for a bit, he almost never went on the TARDIS. The silence of it was unnerving; he didn’t like it.

I had to explain why the Doctor was in the Tyler flat instead of on the TARDIS. This is what I came up with.

He turned on the telly, to try to dispel some of the silence. Scenes of human revelry flashed across the screen. Couples snogging, drunk women throwing their arms around the necks of perfect strangers. The Doctor frowned,  turned the telly off and stood up. He walked to the bathroom and splashed water on his face, he spent some time pushing his hair in one direction and then the other until he was satisfied—gorgeous hair this time around; he was quite pleased with it—and then thought. The party had been in Shireen’s flat, according to Rose, which was on the Estate;  the Doctor just didn’t know where. Well, he thought to himself, how hard could it be to find a party? Not hard. He was the Doctor, finding a party should be child’s play to him.

I tried to research whether or not Shireen's flat was on the Estate. I think the results were inconclusive.

The Doctor opened the door to the flat, instantly encountering the competing thrumming of bass beats from a massive number of parties taking place all up and down the building. “Oh, bugger,” he said, and sighed. He supposed there was nothing for it but to start looking.

He wasn’t sure why he wanted to go to the party. Actually, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go to the party at all. What he wanted was to find Rose. He didn’t want to sit and welcome in his first new year in this body all by himself in a lonely flat. There were too many new years in his past that had been welcome in silence; this one would not be another. It was somehow important to him that the tone of this new regeneration be set as being one of fun and frivolity and not-aloneness, and he could only accomplish that by finding Rose.

This is a fic that needed a lot of explanations for its basic premises. Why does the Doctor leave the flat to find Rose at the party? This, I decided, was why. (And, under the surface, which he would never say, because he already misses her.)

He went from flat to flat, knocking on the door if there were indications of merriment within, asking if Rose Tyler was there and having no luck. Some of the parties had spilled out onto the balcony, but he moved through the laughing throngs without paying them more attention than necessary to ascertain that Rose wasn’t among them.

The seventh door he knocked on was opened by a young girl who exclaimed, “Hiya!” as soon as she saw him and blew a blowout in his direction. “Happy New Year, yeah?” she giggled.

Also requiring a lot of research for this fic: the term "blowout."

“Yes,” he said, impatiently. “Thank you. Does Rose Tyler happen to be at this party?”

“Rose? Yeah. Who’re you?” The girl gasped suddenly. “You must be her bloke! Is your headache better?” She reached out, grabbed his hand, and tugged him into the flat, which was hot and crowded with people, and she shouted out over the crowd, close enough to his ear to make him wince, “Shireen! C’mere a sec!” Then she turned back to him. “I’m Keisha.”

Who I met in "Feast of the Drowned." And possibly you did, too!

“Hello,” he ventured, because he gathered that name was supposed to mean something to him.

Another woman had pushed her way over to them. “What’s up here?” she asked, giving him an appraising look. “Hello.” She managed to make it sound speculative.

“This is Rose’s bloke!” Keisha shouted at the new arrival.

The Doctor frowned again at the description. “I’m—”

“Get you,” said the woman-who-wasn’t-Keisha. “Aren’t you a catch? No wonder she keeps herself holed up with you. Nice suit.”

The Doctor glanced down at it, and tried to think what to say.

“I’m Shireen,” said the new arrival. “And I’m glad you could make it. Rose was over that way.” Shireen waved vaguely. “Help yourself to a drink. Got to…” Shireen made another vague gesture, and then slipped back into the crowd.

“You know,” remarked Keisha, “all of us were wild with curiosity at who Rose could have dumped poor Mickey for. I mean, Mickey’s a doll. And I know you’re a doctor and all, but still, we thought Rose was making a huge mistake. But you seem nice.”

He’d said all of two words, he thought, wondering how he could have possibly come across as ‘nice’ in that span of time. And, at any rate, he rather doubted that Keisha’s characterization of the situation was accurate at all. As far as he could tell, Mickey was constantly still hanging about. And he wasn’t, really, ‘a doctor’. He started to correct her all her many misconceptions. “I’m—”

“And it’s sweet,” Keisha barreled forward, loudly, gesturing with her blowout. “I mean, Rose is so over the moon for you, it’s adorable.”

The Doctor’s words died on his lips. He stared at Keisha in disbelief.

“Anyway,” Keisha finished, “happy New Year!” She blew the blowout at him again, and then slipped into the crowd.

The Doctor wanted to call her back. He wanted that last comment described, in great detail. Frowning, he headed out into the crowd after her, pushing his way through a mass of people, and then freezing in place. Because there was Rose. Her back was to him, but he would know her anywhere, the curves encased in a shimmery silver dress that barely deserved the title. There was a sparkly purple top hat perched jauntily atop her head. And she was dancing, paired opposite another girl, the two of them laughing at something as they danced. The Doctor watched Rose’s hips sway in time to the beat that was pulsing through the flat, and his hearts faltered in their rhythm, shifting to match the rhythm of Rose’s hips. His blood pounded through him, drowned everything else out.

He wanted, immediately, to take her somewhere and tear that absurd dress off her and shag her until she said she was over the moon for him. He had wanted this for some time, of course, but…

New Year, he thought. New Doctor.

I love this moment of decision from him.

And he took a step forward.

***

Rose was having a good time. The champagne she’d been drinking had a little to do with that. Seeing friends she hadn’t seen in a while had a little to do with it, too. And she was remembering that she loved dancing. It had been a while since she had danced. The swing dancing with the Doctor didn’t really count. Singing along with the song, Rose lifted her arms up and shimmied, dropped her arms and took a couple of steps backward to the beat, and collided with someone. “S—” she began, apology already on her lips as she went to move away, but his hands settled on her hips and pulled her back against him, and she went still.

How she knew it was him she could not have explained if asked. Just that she did. The fingers that settled on her waist and held her in place, flush up against him—somehow, even having held them as infrequently as she had, she knew exactly who they belonged to, unlikely as it seemed. She swallowed thickly, unsure what to do or say.

She felt him trace his nose, slowly, up the curve of the side of her neck, his breath hot against her skin, and she closed her eyes and gasped for breath.

“Hi,” he murmured into her ear.

This is, by far, my favorite seduction scene between them that I have ever written. I *love* this scene. I could just see it so vividly. For a little while, I thought maybe it would end with him dragging her outside and shagging her against the wall. Then it took an abrupt turn...

She forced her eyes open and turned her head to look at him. His eyes were very dark and very deep and he wanted her, she was in the very best position to know at that moment. She had no idea why, suddenly, but it was clear he did, and he was not entirely her Doctor, but he was still the Doctor, and she thought that, ridiculous as it was that she had known this new him only a few days, she was still hopelessly in love with him. She stared into his eyes and said, breathlessly, “Hi.”

I tried to be sensitive to Rose's problem here. This new Doctor is hot and seductive, but, to Rose, he isn't yet the man she's in love with, and it's got to feel a bit like cheating, on some level.

“I’m feeling better.”

“I can tell,” she managed.

He smiled faintly. “I hear we’re dating.” His voice was husky in a way that made her entire body twinge.

“I…” She didn’t know quite how to explain that away now.

“Tell me, Rose Tyler.” He dipped his head, pressed his mouth against her shoulder, where her dress had slipped down and bared it, scraping his teeth, then soothing with the flat of his tongue. Rose gasped and dropped her head back against his chest. She had wanted him for so long that there were very few ways he could have touched her and not have it felt heavenly—even holding hands with him gave him a frisson of excitement that almost made her shiver, a reaction she’d worked to suppress so he wouldn’t suspect—and to have his mouth actually on her skin seemed almost too much to take. She feared she would collapse in a boneless puddle at his feet. She could hear, vaguely, the party around him, but mostly what she could hear was the Doctor seducing her in a very public place, whispering in her ear, “Am I very good in bed?”

Rose squeaked, images of every fantasy she’d ever had about him flickering behind her eyelids.

“Come now,” he continued, and sucked on her earlobe briefly. Rose bit her lip, whimpering instead of crying out, and lifted one of her hands, threading it into the hair on the nape of his neck. She stroked at the silky strands, and his hips shifted against her, an involuntary thrust that made them both gasp. “Surely,” he growled in her ear, “you’ve told your friends all about me. How does it go, Rose? In your wildest fantasies, how does it go?”

She heard her voice from a great distance, and it didn’t even sound as if it belonged to her, and she didn’t even register what she was saying until she said it. “You look like him.”

Because, of course, he would. In almost every fantasy she'd had up until that point, he looked like another man.

He froze. He even stopped breathing. She was close enough to him to feel the rise and fall of his chest come to a stop. Her eyes flew open, as she heard what she’d said, and then he took a step back, dropped his hands away from her.

She turned to face him desperately. He looked…hurt. He looked hurt and vulnerable and stunned, his mouth half-open and those wide, expressive, puppy-dog eyes that belonged to this new Doctor made her feel like the very worst sort of person. Because even if it were true, and even if her fantasies had belonged to the old him, he was still the Doctor, wasn’t he, and—“I’m sorry,” she told him. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“I…” He sounded fuzzy, as if he could barely think to put two words together, and she thought how desperately she must have cut him to the quick, to stop the flow of words in this man. “My head…I…” He made a vague motion, as if to go.

I feel terrible for him here. He is *so* *hurt.* *So* *hurt.*

She caught at his hand. “Don’t go,” she begged. “I’m sorry. Please.”

He shook her hand out of his, not looking at her. “I’ve a headache,” he said, thickly. “I shouldn’t have come out at all. I—”

“Here you go!” exclaimed Shireen, enthusiastically plopping a sparkly blue top hat onto the Doctor’s head. “Break it up, you two, before it gets completely pornographic, yeah?” Shireen beamed at the two of them.

The Doctor stared at Shireen as if he couldn’t quite comprehend her, and then abruptly turned and left.

“Wait!” Rose called to him, trying to follow after him.

“What happened?” asked Shireen. “Is it something I said?”

“No,” said Rose, frustrated, trying to dart around Shireen to stop the Doctor before he got too far.

“He’s nice, Rose,” babbled Shireen, obliviously. “Keisha and I love him.”

“Great,” said Rose, tightly. “Got to go.” She pushed unceremoniously past her, shouting the Doctor’s name.

Comments

[glorious-clio.livejournal.com]

"I wonder this, sometimes, with respect to the Chaosverse kids: Will all future regenerations be exhausting for these Time Lords? Without Gallifrey?"

Why are you thinking this??!! Why are you even *allowed* to think this??!!!! Stop right now!!

Just kidding. And I think we all met Keisha in Feast of the Drowned. ;)

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

Ha! I *think* these things, but I don't *write* these things. It's an important distinction!

[orelle-peredhil.livejournal.com]

I think you're totally justified in loving that seduction scene. Because it's freaking awesome. And hot as heck. Every time I read it, it makes me go "guhhh." And then of course it all goes to hell in a handbasket, but hey! It gets better.

I also think it's funny that you "justified" so much of this fic in the set up, because I totally missed it, ha. Reading it I'm just like "yeah, yeah of course he'd go hunt her down, of course he'd be in the flat..." So I guess the explanations fit so smoothly into the narrative that they seem entirely obvious. :P

I hope we'll get part II at some point!

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It was *such* a fun scene to write, and I've always enjoyed reading it over, too!

I'm so glad that the explanations fit so smoothly! That is always the goal when you spend so much time making the story make sense! I'm relieved it doesn't feel that way!

Part II shall be coming shortly!