"TARDIS hide and seek?" the Doctor boggles.
"Well, we're stuck in the Vortex with nowhere else to go, I'm bored," Rose says and continues over the first syllables of his objections, "and I'm not in the mood for reading, no matter how well equipped your library is."
"It's just that the last time..." he says with a blush.
"...Jack suggested naked hide and seek," she giggles. "Don't worry. I have no intention to force you out of that suit. I just want you to keep me company, and stop fiddling with your ship for a while."
"Anyway, you can't hide from me. You broadcast your emotions and your general there-ness like a beacon." He smiles. "Never stop shining like the sun, Rose."
"You just flatter me to change my mind," she says, smiling with her tongue sticking out, but she welcomes the compliment.
"How about picnic and internal exploration instead? Tea, sandwiches, a real red and white blanket, and then we go open doors at random?" He barely has the time to finish the sentence before she runs off to the kitchen to pack the basket.
***
"I'd like you to actually follow my rules for once. The first rule of TARDIS exploration is that you keep out of the rooms marked 'Danger! Explosives!'. Really, don't snigger like that. I used to travel with a," he smiles and imitates Harriet Jones, "very violent young woman called Ace. Her explosives could blow up a Dalek."
"Those could have been handy," she mutters.
"One Dalek, not a Dalek armada. Anyway, you can wander off all you want. It's perfectly safe here, apart from the explosives. And the radioactive material. And the prison cells. And the time spiders. Don't wander off, okay?"
"You'll just have to follow me then. Company, yeah? But I get to pick the doors to open." Her eyes are alight with the pleasure of discovery.
***
They start by going first left, second right, third on the left, straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins and take the fifth door on their left. She just loves the TARDIS wardrobe. The door opens on the first level, where the period outfits are. "I know you'd look smashing in a toga," she says, picking up one that's not much longer than her miniskirts.
"Practical things, togas. In style nog just during the Roman Empire, and we're not going back there. I like you better when you're flesh and blood..."
"Likewise."
"...but also during several of the warmer centuries. Early fiftieth, for example, and during the New Roman Empire, of course, and let's not forget the togas plus kilts that were all the rage on Beta five hundred years post colonisation. I'm still not wearing that. I have some sense of modesty."
"And I bet you have a great pair of legs, too. I take it we're not going to any nudist planets?"
"Oh, no. Staying far away from those. Temperature regulation, you know. Except in case of Dalek attacks, of course."
"Where and when is this thing from?" she asks, holding a plastic and neon blue skintight dress with a skirt made out of inch-wide strips.
"You're not going out in that. It's a prostitute outfit from the third moon of Plato, circa five apple three."
She blushes and immediately puts it back. "I've only been on this floor. What's upstairs?"
"Oh, just all of my outfits. Wanna see some of the crazy things I've worn?"
"Any time." They run up the stairs holding hands.
She wraps herself in the impossibly long scarf and smells it. It doesn't smell like him, not the him she knows. Instead of oil, leather and musk or oil, citrus and just masculine and clean, it smells of something else. Something alien. Ozone and spices. Cinnamon? Ginger? Cardamom? Not quite, but almost. There's still a hint of TARDIS engine fluids. He picks up the long fringe and caresses the first few stripes. Fawn, rusty red and washed out blue. She twirls out of it, one, two, three, four revolutions, and ends up with the other fringe in her hand. It's like a strange dance, and they're at the apogee. He reels her in. "How did you wear that?"
