100 Themes, Doctor Who Style

AN: Thanks for stopping by to take a look at my new fic! I've written fics for years and have written Torchwood before, but this is my first Who fic, so please let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is welcomed with open arms! All rights to these characters belong to the BBC... I just borrow them when I'm bored, and try to return them in one piece.

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She'd been inside about fifteen minutes when it happened. The first ten had been spent watching the Doctor rush around turning dials, flipping switches, turning cranks in a seemingly random fashion. He seemed to know what he was doing, though, so she tried not to worry about it too much. Tried. Watching him mutter under his breath as if talking to the machine had started to unnerve her, so she announced that she was going to have a look around, and he had waved her on without so much as a glance in her direction, still fully focused on the display screen before him.

The first hall she encountered seemed endless and contained rooms as random as the array of controls she had been watching previously. She found three bathrooms in a row, all on the right-hand side, before encountering a broom closet that was exactly that -- a closet filled with nothing but brooms. Another bathroom, still on the same side, then finally a door on the left.

Like all the other doors, this one was unlocked. Rose stepped through the door to see a bedroom, sparely furnished but comfortable-looking. Her first thought was that perhaps this room belonged to the Doctor, and she immediately turned around to leave, not wanting to trespass in his personal space, but the door she had left open swung closed. Slightly alarmed, she grabbed the handle and jerked on it, half-expecting to find herself locked in. The door swung open easily, though, and on the other side was something new -- a plaque bearing the name 'Rose' was hanging on the outside of the door.

Frowning, Rose tried to remember if the sign had been there before, but could not imagine that she would have missed something so obvious. She nervously stepped back into the room, keeping a hand on the doorjamb... just in case.

"Is that to mean this is where I'm to sleep?" she wondered aloud, leaning around the corner to open the closet, blinking at all the clothes it was filled with. As she spoke, the panel where her hand rested seemed to... *pulse* for a moment before settling down and becoming a normal wall again. Rose jerked her hand away and stared at it as if it had offended her. "Okay, that was weird," she said quietly, swallowing a bit hard before pressing her hand back to the wall. "Doctor, is that you?" she asked hesitantly, wondering if this was some odd form of communication. The wall warmed quickly, more quickly than it should have, under her hand, and though she heard nothing, she knew somehow within moments that the answer to her question was 'no'.

"This isn't possible," Rose muttered, squaring herself in front of the wall. "Of course, neither is time travel, so..." She continued to rest her hand lightly on the wall. "You... you, the Tardis, are you answering me, somehow?" The wall pulsed again under her hand, and Rose's mind was filled with a sense of *yes*, of agreement. Rose's lips parted in amazement and she stared at her hand where it connected with the wall. "Kind of like meeting the parents, innit?" she finally said with a nervous smile. "I suppose telling you that you have a lovely home would be a bit odd, wouldn't it?" Amusement seemed to fill the air around her.

"I don't quite understand all this," Rose said quietly. "Any of it, really. I'm just trusting him. I just hope you don't mind me being here. I don't think he should do all his traveling alone, you know?" There was a long pause during which Rose wiped her free hand nervously against her jeans, then a feeling of acceptance all but flooded the air around her. She let out a breath slowly, feeling as if she had passed some test.

"Making friends, are we?" came the Doctor's voice from behind her. She whirled around, clasping her hands behind her back.

"It's alive," she blurted out, eyes wide. "The Tardis... it's alive?" The Doctor nodded.

"Well, sentient, anyway. She takes good care of me," he added affectionately, running a hand down the nearest wall. "I'm impressed, though," he said, turning back to Rose with that goofy grin of his. "Most people I have to tell before they realize it. They get that something's odd, sure, but you got it all on your own." Rose shrugged self-consciously.

"It kind of... talked to me," she admitted grudgingly. "Not with words, but..." she trailed off and shrugged, glancing back up to the Doctor, who was still grinning widely.

"Fantastic! She likes you, you know," he added as an afterthought. "Anything you need, just ask her. She'll help you if she can. This will be your room, I suppose, if she set if up for you." He looked around it as if seeing it for the first time. "Got a nice one." He returned his gaze to Rose, who was looking around a bit wide-eyed as if wondering what she had gotten herself into. "Come on, then," he said, stepping forward and holding out his hand. "Let's take her somewhere nice, shall we?"