Work Text:
Rose shifted for what seemed the hundredth time and sighed. It was obvious she wasn't going to be getting any sleep tonight. No matter how many deep breaths she took or how many sheep she counted, she couldn't sleep. She wished now that she'd taken the Doctor up on his offer of a little telepathic help, but she'd been so sure that the exhaustion of a four day trek through Molkania trying to escape the rebel King would send her straight to sleep that she'd declined.
So much for that.
Turning over yet again, she huffed in frustration. Right, that was it. Flinging back the covers she slid from the bed and marched out of the room in search of the Doctor, expecting he'd be in the library as he usually was, reading away as she slept.
Only he wasn't.
She frowned at the empty room, irritation warring with exhaustion. Where was he, then? She knew he wouldn't be in the console room, because he'd said the TARDIS needed a break from repairs, and they both knew he couldn't spend more than a minute in the console room without fiddling with something. So where was he? She was so tired and all she needed was a little telepathic nudge from the Doctor to help her sleep, but she really didn't feel like traipsing all over the TARDIS to find him.
Focusing intently, Rose pleaded with the TARDIS. "Help a girl out? I know you can do that telepathy stuff too. Just....I can't sleep an' I'm dyin' here. Please?"
The TARDIS hummed soothingly and Rose sighed in relief as her bedroom door appeared.
"Thanks love, you're the best."
The TARDIS hummed affectionately and Rose patted the wall in thanks as she opened the door to her room...only to find she wasn't in her room.
She was, in fact, in the Doctor's room.
"What?" She rubbed at her eyes, staring at the Doctor's banana-print bedspread. "What'd you bring me here for?"
The TARDIS hummed again and closed the door before removing it for good measure.
"Oh, you're kiddin' me!"
The timeship's hum was smug, this time.
"Come on, don't do this to me now," she pleaded. "I'm dyin' here. Just let me go back to my room and help me sleep. Please?"
The TARDIS hummed soothingly but the door didn't reappear.
Rose sighed and gave in, flopping onto the bed.
Now what?
Just then, she heard the shower start in the next room and a familiar voice started singing at a hundred miles an hour.
"There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, and hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium..."
Rose rolled her eyes, recognising a few of the names from junior form science.
"And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium, and gold and protactinium and indium and gallium, and iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium."
She snorted, curling up and smuggling into the closest pillow. Only the Doctor could sing about chemicals with such great enthusiasm, and judging by his volume, he was really enjoying himself. She turned her face into the pillow to stifle her giggles.
Surprisingly, however, as the song went on, her eyes began to feel quite heavy, no matter how she tried to keep them open, and the comforting scent of the Doctor on the pillows and sheets left her languid and utterly boneless.
"You were supposed to help me sleep in my room," she muttered to the TARDIS, trying her best to stay awake.
By the time the Doctor got to 'tungsten, tin and sodium,' however, Rose was fast asleep.
++++++++
The Doctor rubbed at his (very impressive) hair vigorously with a towel and hummed a few bars of Tom Lehrer's Elaments Song. It was a brilliant composition, if not long out of date, and a good, rousing rendition was just what he needed after the very long few days he and Rose had had.
He frowned as he slipped into his jimjams. Rose had looked more than a little peaky, come to think of it- he'd have to look in on her and make sure she was sleeping alright. It had been a pretty grueling few days even by his standards, after all, so who knew what it had done to her utterly brilliant but oh, so fragile human self?
Flinging open the bathroom door, he decided he'd look in on her first thing before nipping off to the library for a few hours of quiet reading. However, he had taken no more than two steps into his room when he noticed a lump on his bed.
A Rose-shaped lump, to be precise.
And she was fast asleep.
He huffed, cocking an eyebrow at the ceiling, knowing full well who was responsible. "You know, out of all the ships, I chose to steal you. I'm sure the other models wouldn't have been this meddlesome."
The TARDIS chimed and if he didn't know better he'd say she'd just blown a raspberry at him.
He rolled his eyes and strode to the bed, bending to lift Rose into his arms and carry her back to her own bed...only to change his mind and straighten up again. Sighing, he tugged at the covers and pulled them gently over her instead.
She looked so peaceful and she'd been so very tired that it would be a shame to wake her, he told himself. She was only human, after all. He'd leave her settled comfortably and go and have a nice read in the library, as he'd planned. However, turning towards the door, he noticed it was missing and sighed.
"Oh, come on! That's a bit much, isn't it? What if I want to read a book? You know I don't sleep as often as humans do."
The TARDIS said nothing and a small pile of books appeared on his bedside table. He sighed in resignation. "Fine."
Rifling through the stack, he resolutely ignored Twenty-First Century Human Courting Rituals for Dummies and instead chose to re-read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Noticing that his armchair had mysteriously vanished, he rolled his eyes and settled into bed side Rose, careful not to disturb her. He glanced over as he opened the book, and smiled.
Rose was sleeping peacefully, a contented smile on her face.
"Molto bene," he said quietly. "Molto bene."
Fin