DW Fic: Learning Curve

[salienne]

Title: Learning Curve
Author: Salienne
Rating: PG
Characters: Nine/Rose

Summary: "What, so you're tellin' me that there's a world out there where pogo stick's the main mode o' transport and where they speak in jam, but there's no world out there where riding a bike's the only way to get about?"

Rose learns that somehow, the Doctor has managed to go 900 years without ever riding a bike, and just what sort of person would she be if she didn't set out to remedy that situation?

A/N: This story was written for doctor_rose_las. It was also my first time writing Nine, and I had lots of fun with it. So... enjoy! :) As always, comments are much appreciated.



"Seriously?" Her eyes narrowed, Rose pursued the Doctor around the console. "You've never done it before?"

Very purposefully, he flipped several switches. "Nope." He pulled the screen over and, leaning in, scrutinized the symbols she still couldn't understand as if they, not she, were the ones speaking.

She took another step toward him. "But you're 900 years old. In all that time, you've never-"

"Rose." He straightened up, crossed his arms, and gave her his what's-the-stupid-ape-nattering-on-about-now look. "I've had slightly more important things to worry about."

"Well yeah, everyone has. But just last week we were on pogo sticks bouncin' away from those Vl'hurg things. I'd've thought at some point you would've had to, I dunno, ride for your life."

His eyebrows knit together in obvious confusion. "Ride for my life? Rose, where d'you come up with these things?"

"What, so you're tellin' me that there's a world out there where pogo stick's the main mode o' transport and where they speak in jam, but there's no world out there where riding a bike's the only way to get about?"

For a moment, those blue eyes bore into hers, so close she could see every shade of ice and night and sky. Ignoring the sudden pounding in her chest and coiling in her stomach, she waited.

"Not a one," he replied, grinning, and she couldn't help but smile too.

"But, you musta been a kid once, yeah? Didn't you, I mean didn't your parents ever..." It was then that she realized her mistake.

Barely looking at her, the Doctor reminded, not unkindly, "Alien, Rose." But there was a hardness in his voice that went beyond this simple fact, to a day months ago when they had stood on a street in London with the earth burning on the backs of their eyelids. Rose wanted nothing more than to take his hand and smile and make that darkness fade away.

But, with her arm already raised, she stopped herself and looked down at the grating. He was right. Even though he looked human and sang along to old musicals and wore mismatched socks half the time, he was still an alien. Looking around at this place, just listening to the grinding of the motor, she shouldn’t need to remind herself of that. And if she kept forgetting, she would end up back at her mum's, 800 pounds or credits or whatevers in debt, wondering how she'd ever thought two hearts and another leather jacket could lead to anything better than her dad's duffel coats.

Right, she thought, duffel coats. Her dad, old enough to be her dad, no, make that her great-great-great-great-great-great-great granddad squared. Hell of an age gap. Too much of an age gap. Too much of a species gap.

But he was her friend, her best friend. And he was in pain.

Rose leaned back against the console and cocked her head to the side. "Well c'mon then, Mr. Alien. 'Bout time you learned how to ride a bike."

---

Teaching Time Lords to bike ride, Rose came to find, was about as easy as attempting to remove several small, plumberry jam coated aliens from her hair. It was, however, far more amusing. As the Doctor picked himself up off the ground for the third time, shaking out his jacket and brushing off his trousers, she was giggling.

"That was better!" she said. "Much, much better."

He glared at her, and a fresh peal of laughter burst out. She put a hand on her mouth to stifle it.

"Rose, this really isn't necessary."

"Oh, c'mon then, you big baby," she said, her tongue teasing at the edges of her teeth. "You've almost got it. Takes kids days and days to learn, bound to take an old geezer like you more 'an three tries."

The blue bicycle was upright now, balanced against his hip. Frowning, he clapped the dirt and grass off of his hands before beginning to push the bike back toward her. Walking, at least, he seemed capable of staying on the asphalt. "I'll have you know," he said, "a Time Lord's learning curve is significantly steeper than a humans. Calculus, linear algebra, Newtonian Physics-we learned it all before our first growth spurt. You lot, it takes decades."

"And bike riding?"

"Never did it." He circled around her in order to properly orient the bicycle, and Rose almost held her breath. "Children from my planet had better ways to spend their time, things like quantum cubes and integral rods. And flying scooters."

As was always the case whenever he spoke of that still unnamed planet, Rose was so intent on listening that it took her a moment to realize what he'd said. "What, seriously? Like in Back to the Future?"

Grinning, he answered, "Yup. Well I did anyway. Never did learn to follow the rules." He threw one leg over the bike. "Well let's go then. You teaching me this or aren't you?"

"Oh aren't I?"

With one hand on her hip, she motioned to the handlebars, and obediently, he wrapped his fingers around them. "You will find the pedals," she said, "still on the bottom of that bike, unless falling so much has knocked 'em flat off. The wheels are there t' keep you upright an' moving, not t' fall over on. Those handlebars aren't just for holdin'. They're to steer." She smirked. "Got that?"

"Got it."

Although she felt a strong urge to put her hands on the handlebars beside, or even atop, his-just to steady him, she told herself-she took a step back. She motioned down the path. "Feel free to start pedaling any time now." But then, before he could so much as lift a foot off the ground: "And you're teaching me how to use that flying scooter soon's you get the hang o' this."

The sound of his chuckle made her insides far too warm. "Have one under you in ten minutes tops."

This time, the Doctor made it all the way to the curve in the path before falling over. Laughing, Rose shook her head.

Comments

[salienne.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad it worked for you. :)

Rose can try to fight it all she wants, but it won't work. No one can resist Nine. ;)

Exactly. Silly Rose. :P