Earth Grazer || Doctor Who

XXXVII. Self-Care

~unedited~

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“Why are we doing this again? It’s stupid,” the Doctor grumbled when Ella pulled Rose and the Doctor from their rooms and dragged them to the kitchen. They needed a family meeting.

“You and Rose have been moping about Adam for who knows how long now, and I understand that, I really do. I get you’re both hurt, and you probably feel betrayed, what he did was inexcusable, but you can’t hide in your rooms forever …”

“Like you can talk,” the Doctor mumbled. Ella whipped her head in his direction so fast he shrunk down in his seat in shame for his insensitive comment. Rose saw that Ella was too far away at the moment, so she reached over and hit him in the back of his head. “Sorry, that wasn’t nice.” Ella pushed off the chair she was leaning on and angrily ranted in French, when she was done, she took a deep calming breath.

“What happened with Taludav and I is COMPLETELY different than what happened with Adam, Adam was just a boy and Taludav has been my nightmare since I was 16. Anyway … you two need help and I want to help because I love you both and I hate that he did this shit. So, Rose, brush your hair. Doctor, clean your room and meet me back here in like an hour.” The Doctor went to his room properly scolded and he hated that his mouth decided to talk without permission, it was always doing that.

When he opened his bedroom door, he suddenly understood why Ella had ordered him to clean it. Looks like a junk galaxy had exploded in here, while he cleaned, he was trying to compose the perfect apology to Ella for his horrible comment. Her words from earlier had snuck into his mind just then and he dropped the pile of machinery he held in his arms. She said ‘love’ … but surely, she couldn’t mean … probably just a general kind of love … right? Even if she did, now wasn’t the time to declare it.

As the Doctor was having his crisis, Rose stood up from her spot in the kitchen and walked back to her room, the comment from the Doctor made her seethe and she knew that Ella was right, she mostly always was. Her and the Doctor have been moping for far too long for some boy. When she stepped into her room, she went into the bathroom that was off to the side, she showered and washed her hair. She got out changed into new clean clothes and while she waited for her hair to dry, she decided she might as well clean her room too. When she got done with that she brushed through her dry hair and already she was starting to feel better.

Rose felt a small pang in her heart when she thought about why Ella was so great with this kind of stuff. The brunette has been dealing with these kinds of issues since she was 8 years old. Sure, Rose had a dead parent too, but it was different since she was so young when her father died, she didn’t remember him at all. Ella had memories of her mother and she had to deal with the silence her mother left behind, she had to deal with the void in her life. The silence and the void were all Rose had known so she didn’t have to deal with it in the same way that Ella had to.

An hour later everyone was gathered in the kitchen once again, Rose’s stomach growled because while Rose and the Doctor were cleaning Ella was cooking. Ella heard the two enter the kitchen she pointed her spatula at the table without looking up from the pan, “sit.” The two wordlessly sat down and didn’t say much while they were being served still feeling like they were in trouble. “I’m not mad anymore so you can stop acting like scolded children, I just want you get out into the universe again. A universe without the Doctor for a couple weeks? The whole place might be on fire now.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” the Doctor softly smiled into his food as the tense atmosphere lifted.

“Well, maybe not.” Rose started then shrugged, “we should still answer a few distress calls, that always helps.”