The Texture of Tea
by Camilla Sandman

Author's Note: Part one set after "World War Three", part two after "The Christmas Invasion".

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Characters of Doctor Who are BBC's. The words are mine, but they ain't giving me no profit.

II

Raw

it doesn't mean much;
it doesn't mean anything at all
- Sweet Surrender - Sarah McLachlan

II

Tea has become an abyss between them.

She's watching him watch the TARDIS, green light illuminating his face and his face illuminating nothing of what he's thinking.

It shouldn't matter, she keeps telling herself. He doesn't do tea. Or at least, not tea with family. He did save her mother when she asked, saved the planet in fact, and that's the most important thing. That there's the dark little thrill at knowing he hesitated for her, she hides in the smallest corner of her mind and it still seems to shine brighter than everything.

He hesitated for her, but he still didn't do tea. Didn't do domestic for her. A minor little thing like that shouldn't mean anything, and yet it does.

"Are you gonna mope all day?" he asks without looking at her, and his tone holds a faint hint of resentment. What he has to resent so, she has no idea.

"Not moping."

"If that's not moping, someone needs to rewrite the dictionary."

"I'm sure you'd know just who to visit for that."

"As a matter of fact..."

She glares at him, he glares back. For a moment, she is almost tempted to ask him to take her back, just to see the tiny flicker of hurt across his face. Maybe then he'd know how it felt.

Maybe he does know and still did it.

"Don't you like tea?" she asks and he looks positively horrified.

"I love tea!"

"So you just hate my mother," she concludes and he sighs.

"Rose..." He pauses, then seems to finally focus on her, his gaze like a maelstrom, dragging her to him. "It's not me. It's not who I am now."

"Can't you... change? A little?"

He laughs, but she's not quite sure what's funny.

"Surely my family's not as bad as the Slitheen family," she tries, smiling slightly at him. He tries to look stern, but she can see the urge to smile back in the slight curving of his lips. "Less farting."

"More slapping," he counters, and now he does smile. "That hurt!"

"Poor Doctor," she says jokingly, stepping close and cupping his cheek. "Tell me, does it still hurt?"

He exhales, and the intimacy of their position sinks into her. She can feel his breath, feel the skin move as he swallows slightly, feel the tension in his body as she remains still. If he was any other bloke, she would almost think he would kiss her now, his gaze travelling over her lips almost like a caress.

"Yes," he says softly, and she's not quite sure what he's answering.

"My mother's not that bad," she mutters, feeling the arguments slip from her in the face of him.

"Your mother's... motherly. Family. Domestic."

"Is that so bad?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I would endure that for you, and it would kill me," he says evenly, and looks as surprised as her at the revelation. "Rose, I need to..."

He stops himself, looking for a moment as if he doesn't know himself what he needs. Adventure? Danger? Atonement? Death?

Life?

"I don't domestic," he says instead after a moment, putting his hand on hers for a heartbeat. Then he gently lifts it from his cheek, lacing his fingers in hers in the process. "But I do tea. Let's go to Buckingham and steal the Queen's morning cuppa."

She wonders briefly what he's really so afraid of. Maybe her family reminds him of his own, the planet he's revealed he's lost. Maybe he's afraid he'll be tempted to leave her there if he sees too much of her life. Maybe he is just a bit of a bastard sometimes. It doesn't really matter. She'll make it not matter.

"Let's!" she agrees and he beams at her, a bridge across the abyss and a beacon to adventure.

Him, her, and all of time to run across. In the great scheme of things, everything else doesn't mean much at all, she thinks.

She can live in the lie of that.

II

Indistinct

I write the lines you want me to;
with the words I dare to use
- The Misery - Sonata Arctica

II

He couldn't have surprised her more if he'd told her he was Prince Harry and Buckingham Palace was where aliens met and married and had long detailed affairs, mostly to see how the humans would react. In fact, she's almost convinced that could be true and what he said is having her on.

"You what?" she says stupidly, staring hard at him. He seems a little confused by her reaction, the smile fading from his lips.

"Tea," he says again. "You, me, your mother. She's assured me all plants have been cleared away and there'll be no attack of vegetation. You ask me, that just completely ruins the element of delightful anticipation. What could it be this time, a strangling orchid? A curious lily?"

"You don't do tea," she protests, ignoring the rest of what he's saying.

"Why not?"

"Because you didn't used to!"

"I didn't?" He looks blank for a moment, then cheers up. "Blimey, I didn't."

He seems to contemplate it for a moment, or at least that's what she thinks he's doing. She can't read his new face, and she's itching to.

"Whole new body now, Rose, and this body needs tea," he says firmly, in a voice that doesn't invite argument. That hasn't changed, but neither has her tendency to raise an argument anyway.

"You don't have to do this," she insists and he almost rolls his eyes.

"Didn't you want me to have tea with your mother?"

"Well... Yeah, but..."

"Then what are you moping about?"

You, she thinks. What she has said goodbye to, but still sometimes misses, because she was used to it and fond of it and even...

She shoots that thought down before it can truly settle, but he must've seen something in her face anyway, and she feels his hands curl around hers. She wants desperately to say something that won't hurt him and still make him understand, but she has no idea what it would be. No idea what hurts him yet.

"I picked up a bit of your accent," he says and she looks surprised up at him.

"You can do that? Change because of... me?"

"Yea!" he says excitedly, looking at her as if she's just uncovered a treasure for him. "Who knows what else you might've influenced, Rose Tyler. I could be the dream man you wrote about in your diary at age eight, or if you left your telly on, I could be Ant or Dec."

"Actually, I think the telly was on with Harriet Jones," she replies jokingly, but his face hardens.

"I am not Harriet Jones," he says and she thinks whatever the accent, he can still sound like a judge.

"No," she agrees softly, and watches his face. She's almost sure she can read gratitude from it. And something else, something she sometimes saw in his previous face and never quite dared interpret. She's not sure she dares still. "You, me, my mother, then."

"And tea," he replies, his thumb running across her skin, and she thinks maybe one day she will dare it after all.

"And tea," she agrees, and beams at him, feeling his excitement sink into her too. Him, her, and all of time to explore - and quite a bit of him now too. "If you're Ant, d'you think you could introduce me to Robbie Williams?"

"No."

"No?"

"On the planet Robbie's from, he's known as a her."

"Oh - wait a minute, how do you know about what I wrote in my diary at age eight?"

She's definitely sure she can read his 'uh oh' face now.

FIN