kalleah | Navel Gazing (1/1)

Character/Pairing: Ten/Rose
Beta:

platypus
Rating: PG for some mild comic naughtiness
Disclaimer: Sadly, the characters belong to the BBC, however I may pretend otherwise.

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"Why do you have a belly button?" Rose asked. She traced her index finger down the trail of fine hair to that particular part.

The Doctor chuckled, which puffed his belly out just slightly under her finger. He looked completely at ease, with his hands under his head and his pointy elbows sticking out on either side of his head.

She might have also added "as naked as the day he was born" except for the fact that she had been right there when he had popped into this particular body, and he hadn't been naked at all. In fact, she wasn't sure if he had been born at all. However, she was completely certain that the navel she was currently exploring was entirely decorative.

"That's what troubles you?" he asked. "I've got nipples, too, and they're not all that useful." Her hand traced obligingly upward, and he grinned appreciatively at the caress. "Well, when I said useful, I meant, in a biological sense."

"Seriously," she said, sitting up and pulling the sheet around her. He eyed her newly covered form with a raised eyebrow. "Why do you have a belly button?"

"Why do you have one?" he retorted. "It's not like it does anything."

"I got one because I was attached to Mum. I saw you. You just sort of – materialized out of energy. No belly button required."

"Piffle. It's a lot more complicated than 'materializing,' I'll have you know. You try changing every cell in your entire body sometime and tell me how easy it is. I mean, every cell! And some things that aren't even cells, like hair and fingernails and earwax and osseous tissue and collagen and so forth. I'll tell you, the whole process surprises the hell out of the mites on my eyebrows."

"Belly button fluff." She gasped with laughter and fell back on the bed. "You regenerated earwax and belly button fluff."

He rolled on top of her, glaring, their faces only inches apart. "I do not have belly button fluff. That is completely absurd. Take it back."

"Fluff," she giggled. "You've so got fluff."

He captured first one hand, then the other, as she sent fingers scrabbling toward his middle. "Take it back," he growled. He shifted so he could hold both of her wrists in one hand and then pinned her legs down beneath his. It was a very naughty pose, she thought, but before she had the opportunity to make a searing reply, she felt a single finger prodding at her own navel.

"Oi!" she shrieked, trying without success to wiggle free. It tickled horribly, and there was no escape from the onslaught. She pleaded with him to stop between wheezing breaths and thrashed her head from side to side.

He released her and sat back on his haunches, contemplating his finger with a smug expression. "It's blue."

"Blue?" she parroted, still catching her breath.

"Your fluff." He grinned. "It's blue. See?" He aimed the finger at her and she studied the smear at the end. It was a little blue at least – well, bluish-grey, the unremarkable colour of the worn lining of her favourite jeans. "Quite normal for humans, actually. It's almost always this colour blue with you lot."

That provoked a giggle. "How much of this stuff have you studied?"

"Personally? Almost none, thank you, present sample excepted. There was an extensive study conducted by Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki in 2001. Human belly button lint is almost uniformly blue."

"What about yours?"

He rolled his eyes and flopped back onto the bed. "I told you. I don't have any."

She'd managed to distract him from stuff on his finger, which she had been terribly afraid he was going to put into his mouth. "Still," she persisted, "it doesn't even make sense that you even have a belly button. You're not going to tell me why, are you?" She had intended to sound playful, but the question had more than a trace of whinging in it.

The Doctor let out a little sigh and lifted up one arm. She took the encouragement and snuggled into his side, letting her head settle comfortably onto his shoulder.

"I don't know," he said finally. She squinted, unsure of what to read into that statement. When she didn't reply, he continued. "I don't know why I have a navel. I don't know why I have goose bumps, for that matter. I just do. Always have. It's the long religious argument; did Adam have a navel? I mean, your metaphorical Adam, since there actually never was such a singular person. But if a man had been created in the image of God, would he have a navel?"

"Guess he did," Rose finished. With the present evidence, it seemed like a reasonable conclusion.

"No such man."

She drummed down the midline of his stomach and circled the indentation in his flesh. It was perfectly circular and fairly shallow. She scooted down and rested her head on his chest, giving his navel a closer inspection. It lacked the knotty bit of skin at the bottom that hers had, and as he had claimed, there wasn't a bit of fluff or lint or detritus inside. Maybe there was nothing for it to stick to.

"No fluff," she confirmed.

"Mmm," said the Doctor. His voice vibrated pleasantly into her ear. "Typically, when one meditates, the normal procedure is to gaze at your own navel rather than someone else's."

With her ear pressed against his abdomen, the rolling, four-part drumming of his hearts was loud. It, like the oddly smooth navel, was just distinct enough from the human norm to remind her how different he was from her, regardless of how familiar he seemed. Another species, not just another gender.

His hand smoothed back and forth against her hair. "I'd tell you, if I knew," he offered. "Do you believe me?" His voice wavered just a little with the question, letting her know that he was looking for reassurance and not simply for the pat answer.

"Yeah," she breathed, and decided that the best way to banish that uncharacteristically tentative mood was to follow that trail of fine hair down past his navel and see where it led her.

As it turned out, that was a great deal more fun – for both of them – than navel gazing.

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Author's Notes:
Karl Kruszelnicki's study on belly button lint is real. It won an Ig Nobel prize in 2002. And yes, most belly button fluff, or lint, or whatever you want to call it, is blue.

Additionally, regardless of your perspective on the Doctor's birth, hatching, looming, or other forms of origin, his navel is canon.