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"Not at all," he agreed.<br />
"And you didn't spoil anything," she added.<br />
"So you say."<br />
"And anyway, I'd much rather spend the night in," she concluded, passing him a box of pizza. "Just you<br />
and me and the junk food."<br />
The Doctor raised at eyebrow at her as he took the box. "A disk of bread, a jug of wine, and thou?"<br />
"Sounds about right." Speaking of the wine—she poured a glass for each of them from one of the bottles<br />
Ianto had already opened, and passed the Doctor his. "To home," she said.<br />
He looked around again, like he was just now seeing the place properly with all their well-wishers gone.<br />
"To home," he said, and he sounded a little uncertain, but he clicked his glass to hers and drank it down<br />
anyway.<br />
Chapter 4<br />
They spent the rest of the evening slouching around the flat, migrating from couch to chair, sprawled on<br />
the floor or hunched over the kitchen table, not doing much of anything. Rose started work on her<br />
report to Torchwood in a desultory fashion; it was hard to put her thoughts together, even though the<br />
whole fiasco had ended barely forty-eight hours ago. Or perhaps that was why it was so hard. Far easier<br />
to let the Doctor distract her, which he was more than capable of doing, especially once he found her<br />
photo albums—the ones Jackie had put together from all the pictures on Rose's hard drive in a sort of<br />
protest against technology. After the third or fourth time he tugged on her sleeve or foot or hair to ask<br />
about this picture or that person, she set her laptop aside and curled up next to him on the rug, pizza in<br />
one hand and wine in the other, spilling out stories and memories and more than a few of the long<br />
lonely stretches in between.<br />
He told her a bit about Martha, then, and Jack and the Master and the end of the world. He told her<br />
about somebody named Astrid who had saved his life, and about Donna—lots of bits about Donna, and<br />
he sounded sad while he did it, but Rose couldn't figure out why.<br />
"I'm glad you haven't been alone," she said, leaning her head on his shoulder.<br />
He looked down at her, eyebrows knit. "You are?"<br />
"Well, I mean, I'm also totally jealous," she said, "but...you do need people around you, Doctor." She<br />
thought of Donna's parallel world and he heart tightened up at knowing just how much he needed<br />
people. "You need people, and I'm glad you had good ones."<br />
"What about you?" he asked. "Looks like you've got yourself some faithful companions as well."<br />
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