One Hundred and Eighty Two Days ~ (a TenRose Fanfiction)

6 Months

~Chapter 1
Rose's POV

***

I wake from a deep sleep to the sound of a loud alarm going off. With as much effort as I can manage, I keep my eyes closed and stretch out a tired arm to hit my bedside clock, in a lazy attempt to hit snooze. The ringing continues to sound out, it's jarring high pitched beeps beginning to pull me from the warm arms of my afternoon nap. I had needed a long rest after our trip to Ancient Rome where I ended up turned into a statue, which pretty much drained the life out of me. I hit the clock again, but the noise continues. I open one eye, squinting as my eyes adjust to the dim light of my bedroom on board the TARDIS. It then occurs to me this noise isn't coming from my room, it must be coming from the console room. "Just as I was trying to get some sleep" I mutter to myself as I heave my body out of bed, feeling the heaviness of sleep in my limbs. Half-asleep, I shove on my sweater and scuff my feet into my shoes. I wander out my bedroom and out into one of the TARDIS' many corridors, where the noise of a loud beeping has now grown even louder. With curiosity beginning to build, I follow the noise round the corner and into the door of the console room. There I find the doctor, stood at the console with a very agitated look on his face, so much so he's seems to have turned an alarming shade of pink.
"6 months?!" The Doctor shouts, starring at the Tardis scanner screen in despair. His fingers have gone weight from gripping the screen with such tightness. 
"Doctor?" I enter the console room, trying to cover my ears from the noise "Why're you shouting?"
"Umm, nothing." The Doctor laughs unsteadily and leans against the scanner screen, hastily twisting it out of my view. He hits something on the console as he moves, and the alarm noise suddenly switches off.
"Don't play games with me. What do you mean...6 months?" I walk a little closer, raising an eyebrow in suspicion.
"Uhh..." He swallows and trails off, trying to avert his eyes "absoluetly nothing, Rose. Yep, just a general malfunction. Nothing at all. Fine and dandy-"
"Doctor" my voice comes our rather agitated as I fold my arms across my chest "you did just wake me up, I think you owe me an explanation."
"How about breakfast? Shall we-"
"Doctor!" I shout. That gets his attention. I never usually raise my voice with him about anything. There are very few times when I do, and usually it's when he's hiding something. He sighs, knowing he's been defeated by me. Again.
"We're 6 months behind your normal Earth time. Strictly speaking, exactly 182 days." He pauses and tugs nervously at his ear "Sooo, your usual reality on Earth is 6 months ahead of here..." He trails off again, and I notice he looks a little nervous, which puts me on edge. When is the Doctor ever this nervous?
"So, what're you saying? We've gone 6 months into the past?" I say.
"Yeah...Basically" he shrugs and diverts his attention to the flashing console screen, which he nudges even further away from my view. Clearly he's making an awful effort to hide something.
"Well it can't just be that, because we time travel all the time. That's not all. Come on, tell me." I raise an eyebrow expectantly.
For a second he looks as if he might conjure up another excuse from the back of his mind, but instead his eyes find mine and those same flicker of nerves re-appear behind his eyes. "We're trapped here."
"What?.." I let this sink in for a second, before shaking my head in confusion "I don't understand"
"For 6 months." 
"Why?" I ask "I don't...Why can't we just go back to the normal time zone?"
"The TARDIS is broken." The Doctor says "Broken as in, temporarily. I can't fix her, she doesn't want to fly...She's been playing up ever since this morning when we went to Ancient Rome, and you were a..." he trails off.
"A statue!" I say.
"And so was I!" The Doctor says defensively, straightening his tie a little "Anyway, she must've seen something there she didn't like, or for some reason just isn't happy with me at all. Well, the point is, we can't move the TARDIS anywhere until we've got to the appropriate time zone."
I'm about to reply, when suddenly a beeper starts going off on the console, this time even louder, and red lights start flashing. "Oh God." The Doctor says.
"What is it now?!" I say in exasperation.
"The TARDIS doesn't want us in here either. She wants us out. We've got to go."
"But what about-"
"Out!" The Doctor shouts.
"But where-" I begin, but he presses his hand to the small of my back, and I try not to shiver under his touch as he firmly guides me outside. We both stumble out onto a pavement and then turn around and watch as the TARDIS de-materialises, leaving us stranded in God only knows where. For a moment, we both just stare at the empty space in front of us on the pavement. I'm stood in the cold, in my old sweater, jeans, and feet still half-shoved into my old converse. The Doctor seems awfully quiet beside me. 
"So we've lost the TARDIS", I say. 
"No. We've not lost her, she'll be back in the exact spot in exactly 6 months time." The Doctor says, inspecting the spot the TARDIS was a few seconds ago, "I'm sorry".
"Well it's not exactly your fault...Where even are we?" I say, looking around us. The Doctor licks his finger and holds it to the air.
"London. 6 months in the past. October 8th." He says, and shoves his hands into his pockets.
"So, we'd have to come here around about the same time in March next year, and the TARDIS would be here then?" I ask.
The Doctor nods, and I can tell he is nervous. I step closer to him.
"Hey, it's alright. We'll figure this out. We've got each other. And who knows, maybe she'll even fly back earlier and we can leave"
"You're right" he shrugs off his nervous energy, but I know he's only masking it for me. "Now I guess we....well, I don't know. Money and food? I don't really do domestics." The Doctor takes a hand out his pocket and tugs at his ear.

"Yes. Food and water definitely. But....where are we going to stay?" I say, looking around for any signs of shelter. Nope. Just a plain alleyway leading around the corner.
"I don't know. We should probably get a hotel or something."
"We can't stay in a hotel for 6 months. Why don't we just go to my flat?"
"Nope, definitely not. Too dangerous, we could run into our past selves, which would be dangerous."
"But Doctor, we were all over London at this point in time, remember? We're bound to run into ourselves." I say.
"You're right, maybe we should get a train somewhere where we're less....vulnerable?" He says, looking at me for a few long seconds before glancing back up.
"Like where?" I say.
"Cardiff?" He suggests.
"We don't even have any money! How are we gonna do this?!" I run my hands over my face.
"Hey," The Doctor comes over and peels my hands away from my face, holding them tight between us. "It's only 6 months, I'd love-I mean-" he clears his throat "it won't be so bad."
"But Doctor, you don't do domestics, you said yourself! You can barely survive two minutes without wanting a new adventure." I say. He squeezes my hands.
"I can try." He says. I look deep into his eyes, and see the honesty behind them. It must be hard for him, I realise. To have to go through 6 months on Earth without his Tardis, and have to live like a human. It'd be like me trying to survive on Gallifrey.
"Okay." I say, and we untangle our hands. "I know this isn't your area, but we've got to try, for the sake of both of us." I say. He nods and swallows.
"So where shall we start?"
"Do you have any money?" I ask, and the Doctor shakes his head, before a smile appears on his face. "Ah! But I have this!" He pulls out his sonic from his top pocket.
"Doctor, you can't just go round sonicing cash out of machines, it's not right."
"Well do you have a better idea?" He challenges. I cross my arms.
"Not really, no." I say.
"Well I suggest we sonic a bit of money out, y'know, to get the ball rolling." He shrugs "Then we get a train and go from there."
"Just like that?" I say.
"Just like that." He smiles a little, although a deeper look hides in his eyes: a mixture of grief at the loss of the TARDIS, and apprehension about what is to come. He takes my hand "Come on." And so I find myself being pulled along the alley way by the Doctor, perplexed about what these 6 months may bring.