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“How on earth–” Rose says, through gritted teeth, “did you talk me into this again?”
The Doctor winks at her, and Rose is honestly torn between wanting to slug him or snog him. She might do both. It’s not even two in the morning, after all. There’s still plenty of time. “I said story, and you came running.” He hazards a quick peek out through the cracked door and into the hallway before turning back to her. The closet they’re currently hiding in is dimly lit, mostly illuminated by the light filtering in from the corridor, but she doesn’t need much to see the smug grin on his face, all complacent self-satisfaction as he drawls, “Just like you always do.”
It’s a token protest, but Rose feels the need to make it, anyways. “I don’t always,” she says, a little petulantly, as she reaches down to adjust her skirt and contemplates taking off her shoes. They may be quite the fashion at the moment, but these pumps are hardly the thing for running – an activity which is almost certainly in the offing, if she isn’t mistaking the fast-approaching sound of heavy boots on wooden floorboards. “And I’m fairly certain that editors aren’t supposed to encourage this sort of behavior in their reporting staff.”
The Doctor gives her a deeply patronized look. “Now you know that isn’t true. Any editor worth his salt will tell you that any amount of shocking behavior is worth it–”
“–for the story.” Rose finishes the familiar phrase before the Doctor has a chance to. She means to sound exasperated. She really ought to be exasperated – frustrated, irritated, angry even – because the Doctor’s been dragging her all around London for the past eighteen hours, with hardly a break to eat or sleep or do anything except hunt down leads on this damn story.
She isn’t, though. She’s flushed and giddy with excitement, half-crouched in a storage closet at Scotland Yard at half one in the morning, chasing some daft story about a police cover-up that may or may not even have legs. There’s a slightly crushed pad filled with notes and numbers and half-written paragraphs stuffed into the pocket of her coat, and Rose has spent half the time they’ve been hiding in here itching for a typewriter, wanting desperately to be able to sit down and finish the words swimming around in her head.
(She’s spent the other half of the time trying – and largely failing – not to stare at the Doctor’s arse).
The sound of footsteps is getting louder than ever, and the Doctor backs slightly away from the cracked door, pressing closer to Rose in the enclosed space. He smells like newsprint and cigarettes, like Rose’s whole life, and she tries very hard not to be distracted by the way his hand feels on the small of her back as he sidles up next to her, whispering we’re probably going to have to run in her ear.
Because she is, first and foremost, a professional, Rose takes off her shoes before they start running.