kalleah | The Calm Before the Storm (Chapter Seventeen)

Oh, the creative mind is all a flitter this fantastic weekend. It is absolutely gorgeous outside and between running around wildly outside and staring in delighted happiness at blooming azaleas (blooming azaleas! it is spring), I have been writing like mad.

Your comments and the subsequent discussion keep me writing. For example,

nostariel had a comment that got me thinking, again, of the end of this story and then the stories to follow. All the discussions about Jacob's character got me thinking about the stories he still has to tell, most specifically, his interaction with Nine immediately following the Time War, which has been a subject of continued discussion in this story. With love from

dark_aegis and

sensiblecat (and several others), there's more about the trans-dimensional pockets in this chatper as well.

I don't have a beta for this story -- I write quickly, and truthfully, I can't handle waiting! -- but if you have any criticism or Britpicking or grammar issues to point out, I absolutely will go back and change them, and the feedback is much appreciated.

Previous chapters (also archived at Teaspoon).

They spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the ruins, at least, after Rose had persuaded the Doctor that he should wear more than just his socks and trainers to do so. She wasn't entirely sure if he was teasing or not, but the idea of him clambering atop half collapsed walls in the altogether made her nervous. "What about sunburn?" she had asked, eyeing his pale, freckled skin.

"Not a problem," he answered sagely.

"Got some sunscreen in one of your pockets, then?"

At that, with another mutter about laughing at a naked man not being at all polite, he had clambered into his clothes and fastened his tie with a puppy-dog look at her. She planted a wet kiss on the end of his nose in response.

"Minx," he said, affectionately, and offered her his hand, which she took willingly.

His explanations about building styles, masonry, carpentry, and a dozen other topics provided a constant soundtrack to the day, with Rose occasionally following along enough to ask a question. When she did, he was invariably delighted and gave her a more detailed explanation than she probably wanted. This is what he does, she thought good-naturedly. He rattles.

He stopped abruptly and pulled the sketch pad out of a pocket, earning a curious look from Rose, and sketched some of the walls and lines of the buildings. She studied the drawings over his shoulder, not sure what he saw in one fairly unremarkable brick column in particular. When she asked about it, he traced a series of four-sided shapes in the air in front of the column and the wall before it. "Just a coincidence, I'm sure," he said. "When it was built, the architect deliberately used the golden ratio for several rectangles in the church and other buildings here. Now, it's fallen apart, but it just caught my eye that its remaining parts are also composed of golden rectangles. A little touching, that the original aesthetic sense of the architect is still evident in the ruin."

"Golden what?"

"Golden ratio, golden rectangles." He squatted and drew a line in the earth with his finger. "Now this line, here, is composed of two parts, a and b. Follow?" Rose nodded. "The ratio of part a to part b is the same as the whole line is to part a. That's a golden section, this line. The golden ratio is the formula for the relationship, usually represented by the Greek letter phi." He wrinkled his nose. "In a golden rectangle -- that's what I saw here -- the ratio of the longer side is to the shorter side is the golden ratio. There's a lot of debate as to whether the Greeks and others intentionally used it in their architecture or whether they just stumbled across some geometry that happened to be pleasing to the eye." He winked. "I might have more information, but that would be telling."

"You told the Greeks about the golden ratio," said Rose, a little more than slightly confused.

"I didn't say that," said the Doctor cautiously, looking around as if for eavesdroppers, and stood, wiping over the line with one foot. "I'll just say that the human brain is programmed to see the golden ratio as aesthetically pleasing. You look for it in faces, bodies, art, buildings. Actually, you're not the only species that's true for, which is quite interesting in and of itself. And, the ratio pops up in plant life, solar system formation, and a lot of other unlikely places. Geometry seems to be a more universal language than physics, and much more so than that crazy Esperanto your people came up with." He winced. "The TARDIS refuses to translate Esperanto, did you know that? I had to learn it myself once to keep a mining colony from being destroyed."

"How long did that take you?" Rose smiled at him.

"One minute, forty-eight seconds."

"No," gasped Rose in mock horror. "Almost two whole minutes?"

"I hadn't had breakfast." He shrugged. "I'm not always at my best."

She laughed and swung into his arms, causing him to drop the sketch pad and pencil. "Oi," he protested. "Now it's got dirt on it. Have you no respect for art?" He released her and retrieved the items in question, exaggeratedly brushing the pad off and giving her a stern look. "Miss Tyler," he said. "You're in for it now."

"Oh?"

He put the pad and pencil away and leaped toward her, turning her back against him, wrapping one arm around her, and ticking her with the other while he mock-growled into her ear. She shrieked and wiggled. He gripped her fiercely. "Apologize!"

"Never!" He retaliated with more tickling until she refused to stand up, letting her knees go weak and pulling at his arms. He let go all at once and she dropped unceremoniously onto the ground with a thud, jarring her teeth together. "Ow," she said. The Doctor was immediately on one knee beside her, searching her face and body for any sign of obvious injury. He looked genuinely worried and Rose laughed to reassure him. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she said. "And I'm sorry I made you drop your pad."

He helped her to her feet and brushed the dirt from her bottom with considerable care. She picked a few leaves out of her hair. "Apology accepted," he chirped brightly. She gave him a wondering look. "Are you hungry?"

Rose started to make a witty rejoinder about his constant need to talk or have something in his mouth, but she remembered their encounter this morning and thought she couldn't go another round with him on sexual innuendo. "Sure," she said.

He rummaged through his pockets. "Apples are around here somewhere. Oh, look, Rose!" He pulled out a metal spring with a few wires hanging off one end. "I've been looking for that for ages. Ah, here are the apples." She took one apple from him and watched him tuck the mystery part back in a pocket, wondering if he'd ever find it again. He crunched happily into his apple. Rose held the stem between her thumb and forefinger and twirled the apple around several times before it came loose with a pop. She gave the stem to the Doctor, just to see what he'd do, and he did indeed put it in his pocket, although a different one than the apples had come from.

"Is that the dustbin pocket, then?"

"Nope," he said. "Biological samples." He reached in and pulled out several green, waxy leaves. She looked at them, perplexed. "You saw me pick them," he reminded her. "When we first arrived." She still looked blank. "Camellia japonica, for comparison to camellia sinensis. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, right. I didn't think you were still carrying them around."

"Absolutely. I haven't had time to run any tests yet."

She ate her apple and regarded him. He held the camellia leaves in one hand and the apple in the other, and studied the leaves between bites. He seemed to come to some conclusion and tucked the leaves back into the pocket.

"What are you going to do with the apple stem?" she asked, curiosity finally getting the better of her.

"Toss it," he said, with a grin. She snorted. "What? It's not like I haven't studied an apple before. Really, Rose, you need to think these things through before you ask."

"I thought there were no stupid questions."

"Oh, I never said that. There certainly are stupid questions. And stupid question-askers, too, although you aren't one of them. That was just a poorly thought out question. If you'd met me just after I had eaten my first apple, and asked about an apple stem, I would have responded quite differently. So not a stupid question, just a few centuries too late to be meaningful."

Rose was taken by a curious thought, and wondered if this would be a stupid question. "Could I meet you then? I mean, a younger you."

"Not a good idea at all," said the Doctor. "Causality, all that. What if I recognized you later when we met at the shop? Catastrophe."

"Reapers?" she asked tentatively.

"Nah," he said, "nothing so serious as that, but a paradox that I'd prefer not to have to unravel. Besides, I don't think you would have liked that particular version of me very much."

"I liked the last version of you."

It was his turn to snort. "And that proves there's no accounting for taste. Those ears, the angst, what in the universe were you thinking?"

"I thought you were funny." She smiled. "And sweet."

"Only a little, and I'll thank you not to mention that in public."

She hugged him tightly. He dropped his mostly eaten apple with a thump and wound his arms around her. "I like you now, too," she said, her eyes suddenly stinging.

"I know," he responded, nuzzling her neck. "I like you, too." A pause. "Even if you laugh at me when I'm naked."

"You laughed first."

"No, I laughed at your prudish human sensibilities about sex, not at your body. Never ever at that. I think I said a number of rather flattering things about your body. Actually, I know I did. And then you laughed at me."

Rose kissed his cheek. "I laughed at the socks. Your body," she hesitated. "Well, you're very attractive."

He sniffed imperiously. "That all you have to say?"

"Foxy, even."

"You're not the one who said that."

"Do you have any idea how confusing it was to still miss the other you and want the new you just as badly?" she blurted out all in a rush.

He leaned back and took her face in his hands. "Yes," he said simply. "I saw you struggle and I didn't want to interfere. I thought -- well, I thought it was a bad idea to get involved. We've covered that." He sighed. "Rose, I wanted you before I regenerated and I wanted you after, just differently. It's hard to explain. The body's different, the mind is different, but it's still me underneath, just with new likes and dislikes and quirks. But I came into this body wanting you and that's never changed."

"Same here," she said.

He smiled a little knowing smile. "I didn't see much evidence of that at the start. You seemed quite eager to get the old me back."

"I thought -- I thought you were dead."

"I should have told you about it before," he said. "It's not the first time someone has reacted badly to my regenerating." The unspoken and it won't be the last hung in the air between them. "I scared you and I could have made it easier. I'm sorry for that."

"Apology accepted," she said softly. He kissed her tenderly on the lips, and for a moment she almost remembered the kiss she had shared with the other him, the golden light and the music.

"We ought to be heading back soon," he said, some regret in his words. "We've got a long walk and should be back before dark. Jacob would worry."

"Mmm," she said, not moving, and truthfully, leaning closer into his embrace.

"You're not helping," he said. "This was quite a lovely place to spend an afternoon but I for one don't fancy spending the night here. For one thing, it's going to rain. For another, as you so delicately pointed out to me earlier, this coat of mine doesn't make a great bed."

Rose had to agree, and they ambled off in the direction of the new monastery, hand in hand.

"So," she asked, "why did they move from this site to the new one? I mean, if you said they had been rebuilding on the new site for so long, why not just do it there?"

"Water," said the Doctor. "There was a bad storm that drove a great deal of salt water inland, and for several years, they ended up having to trek miles out of the way to get fresh water. When there was a fire here, it made much more sense to rebuild nearer a reliable source of water than to do it here and end up hauling so much."

"Makes sense."

"Monks are generally quite practical. Well, except for the whole belief in a higher power and an afterlife."

Rose rolled her eyes at him. "Don't be rude."

"It was a compliment! I said 'practical,' didn't I? And the faith, it's a nice dream, but a dream." He squeezed her hand. "I can think of worse failings to have."

"Obviously, or Jacob wouldn't be your friend."

"Honestly," said the Doctor, "I'm not quite sure why he puts up with me. I unloaded several lifetimes' worth of angst on him in my last visit and refused to talk about any of it, for one. There's also that time when he was at university -- well, that's another story."

"Oh, tell it," said Rose.

The Doctor shook his head. "Not today. Maybe another day. I was rather a cad, and I am rather enjoying your flattery, at least when you're not laughing at me."

Rose laughed. The Doctor, smiling, took it in stride.