The Monk's Altar

Chapter 1

It was a slow day in the TARDIS, full of repairs for the Doctor and boredom for Rose Tyler.  After a morning of wandering the hallways deciding what to do with herself, she walked to the library and threw herself into the Doctor's plush chair.  

Usually, if he caught her there, he'd be frustrated, saying it was his chair, and she'd grin up at him.  He'd sigh and sit down on the couch and she'd relinquish her seat without question, knowing perfectly well that it was his chair and he felt most comfortable in it.  

Unfortunately, she felt most comfortable in it too, surrounded by the scent of the TARDIS and the Doctor's cologne... Assuming he wore cologne.  She lowered her book and furrowed her brows.  Did the Doctor wear cologne? It was a rather interesting question, after all.

She read for awhile, losing herself in a Jane Austen paradise and wondering if she should ask the Doctor if they could meet her.  However, Rose wasn't terribly used to silence on the TARDIS, now with this New Doctor aboard.  With her previous Doctor, it was hard to tell where he was because he was often brooding or hiding in one of the rooms on the TARDIS.  Unless she was with him.  She swore the very lights grew stronger when he smiled at her.

This new Doctor though... He was exactly what she wanted in a man, added on to the fact that she'd technically already known him for a year or so.  He was bloody affectionate, this one, and she really couldn't be bothered to be irritated by it.  She bit her lip and tried to focus on her book.  

She missed him when she wasn't with him, but it was always like that with him.  It was when she realized she felt like that that she knew she would never leave him.  

This was all too heavy for her to think of this early in the morning, so she shook herself up, drew her feet up onto her chair, and buried herself back into her book.

After a while, Rose had decided she was tired of sitting in the library alone.  She padded out to the console room and threw herself on the jump seat, sighing heavily and flipping her book open.  The Doctor peeked out from under the console and eyed her carefully.

"What are you reading?" he asked conversationally.  

"Pride and Prejudice," Rose said distractedly, slumping in the seat to read.

The Doctor wrinkled his nose at her.  "Why read something you've already read before?" He asked.

"I've not read it before," she replied, fingering one of the thin pages of the antique book. 

"You haven't?" the Doctor sounded incredibly wounded by this, as though it affected him personally, whether or not she read it.

She looked up at him and her lip twitched in a smile.  "Well, I'm reading it now, aren't I?" she said, arching an eyebrow at him.  "Didn't really have time to read when I was working at the shop," she flipped the page carefully, knowing he'd scold her if she did it too harshly.

"Oh, well how are you enjoying it?"  He asked, right before swearing laying his hand down on the console and swearing as it shocked him.

"I like it," Rose laughed, setting the book in her lap so she could focus on him more fully.  "The stories of love and all that."

He blinked at her and then cleared his throat, sliding back under the console.  "You human women and your love stories."

She sighed and rolled her eyes.  Leave it to him to take a moment turned tender and turn it into a 'you humans' statement.  They would never be quite as close as she wanted, and she was prepared to accept that.

It took only a few moments for her to settle back into her book, sprawled comfortably on the jump seat, listening to the Doctor clink away at the console, fixing a what's it that probably wasn't even broken to begin with.