orange_crushed | Drabble responses, part one.

Slowly but surely I am writing the drabbles that you lovely darlings asked for. And I'm having fun again ! I have an idea for a longer fic, too, but OH GOD WHY it is another plotty epic thing and I don't know why I keep doing that. Anyway, no spoilers so far in anything.

ETA: HEY YOU GUYZ. I CAN HAZ HOURGLASS. *does a small dance.*

For

clevermonikerr, Ten/Rose, rain.

Sunshine.

The umbrella breaks.

"Oh," he says. "Dear." He looks up, as if expecting a slight reprieve. The rain continues confidently downward and soaks into his shoulders. It's Drexian rain, so it smells a bit like burnt flowers and rye toast. He spares Rose an apologetic glance. "I'm sorry, but if you want to stay dry we're going to have to-"

-she's not listening.

He takes a minute to watch her, turning slow circles in the stuff; she's balancing on the ball of her foot and her face is turned up. Her hair's plastered to her shoulders but she doesn't seem to mind. And she's bright, achingly bright; she shimmers with it, every wet tilt of her head and flash of her pale hands as she stretches up towards the atmosphere. She isn't very tall.

He'd forgotten that the sun still shines in Drexia when it's raining.

"It's beautiful," she says. "It's like an oil painting. You know, the way they glow ? I read that it's because oil paint's almost clear at the top, so light bounces back." She turns around to face him. "Is that true ?"

"It's true." He smiles at her, proud, and she reaches out her hand for him to take.

He drops the umbrella.

For

jennsthedevil: Ten, Rose, the Master, evil leprechauns.

Ten Points.

Rose wonders, sometimes, if all the aliens in the universe don't just have a secret fetish for looking at the Doctor's tummy: they have kidnapped him and tied him upside-down again, and his shirt has come untucked.

"ROSE, HELP," he says, with great dignity. "ROSE, ALL THE BLOOD IS GOING TO MY BRAIN."

They have done a lot of things today, already; Rose was in a good mood, so she got up early and made scrambled eggs. After that, a bit of shopping at the outlet moon of Rancephalis; of course the Master got caught lifting a Palm Pilot and they had to run all the way back to the TARDIS, and along the way the Doctor ended up nearly drowning in a plaza fountain. All in a day's work.

And then the leprechauns.

"Could you please not-" Rose begins; as the Master winds up another swing with the cricket bat, aiming at the rabid knee-high men in adorable frock coats and buckled shoes, "hit them in their little faces ?"

"It's the red beards," he says, concentrating. "It helps me aim."

"BLOOD," gargles the Doctor. "BRAIN."

"It's probably good for you," she grins. A snarling leprechaun, with a darling little clover tucked into his buttonhole, launches himself at her and chews solidly on her arm. Rose gives in to her baser impulses and whallops him sideways, wondering if she's had all her shots recently.

"Ten points !" says the Master.

They escape, but just barely.

For

the_spin: VM/DW crossover; Martha, the Doctor, Lilly.

Busy Life.

California's nice this time of year.

And it isn't until after the Lamoracks are defeated; their finest science officers thwarted in their attempts at body-snatching and roundly slapped by a teenage girl in green shorts; that the Doctor actually stops to ask their innocent-bystander-of-the-week her name. "Lilly Kane," she says proudly, shaking his goo-stained hand; Martha sees the Doctor freeze, and then slip back into himself with a kind of practiced calm.

"Thank you then, Lilly Kane." He shakes her hand gravely. "You can tell them you saved the world, someday."

"Right, yeah." She snaps her gum, grinning. "Your props were totes convincing but you movie people, no offense, you're insane. This better not show up on E Channel." Her eyes are bright, round as olives. She's oddly beautiful. "I'm going to take two valiums and forget this ever happened, okay ? Okay." She turns around and walks away, doesn't look back; Martha sighs and spares a glance for the gorgeous green scenery, and something occurs to her.

"Wonder what she'd have thought," she says, "if you showed her the TARDIS. One trip ? Maybe she'd have believed it then, d'you think ?"

"I couldn't," he sighs, watching her go; Lilly crosses the street without checking for the stoplight, her hair swinging below her shoulders; golden and shifting as rays of sunlight caught between blinds.

"Why not ?"

"She's got somewhere to be," he tells her. He shuts the TARDIS doors behind them, so carefully, like he's ending a sentence. Martha watches him, and doesn't ask. "Busy life," he says. "Always moving on."

It's half a day before he smiles again.