Title: Breathe Me
Characters/Pairings: Nine, Rose, Ten
Rating: G
Genre: Romance, Drabble
Warnings: Not a full on drabble. Drabble-y. I think.
Summary: Rose remembers her Doctor, simply by smelling his old leather jacket.
Notes: 1003 words. Comments = win.


She took a deep breath in, inhaling every last memory she had of him. The smell of old leather, the special kind that you can only get buying an ancient leather jacket on Portobello Road. The grassy smell all northerners had. A twinge of cinnamon, God knows why. He always smelled faintly of cinnamon. And Old Spice, that aftershave he’d use. Once she was out of lotion and was developing an awful rash on her legs and she wanted to wear the cute mini she had bought in the nineteen-sixties, so she snuck into his bathroom and stole his Old Spice. She smelled like him for a week, and for some reason, that didn’t bother her at all. The next time she saw Jackie she received a slightly dirty look, either one of “The only way you can smell like that is that you’re sleeping with him” or “That smells disgusting” looks. But Rose didn’t mind. She smelled like him, and that made her feel strangely giddy. 

Another deep breath and there was a whole new myriad of smells. On the right shoulder she could smell the pungent tobacco of a cigarette that Greta Garbo lit, standing too close to him. But he held her hand, the hand of a London shop girl while one of the most famous silver screen actresses smiled coyly at him and took long, seductive drags of her cigarette. He grasped her hand, palms warm and sweaty while she teased him about stinking of smoke. He glared at her, but she could only feel his hand tightening on hers.

And there was the sweet, salty smell of the clear, purple tinged oceans of the water planet Caladaan. They were forced to fight a water worm and he ended up completely soaked, and now the entirety of the jacket smelled sweet and salty and so like him.

There was the acrid smell of formaldehyde from the sentient frog babies they liberated and the smell of the cherry blossom lotion used by the geishas during their massages in Kyoto and the tangy smell of the weird pollen from the planet of the Aradi (a story she swore to never remember—it was far too embarrassing) and the maple syrup from the waffles she made (and burnt) for him the morning before…

Before he died.

“Rose, hurry up!”

She glanced at the doorway frantically, hoping he couldn’t see her mourning like this. He proved to her he was still the same man, with just a different face. And it wasn’t that she minded his new face—she liked it quite a lot, in fact. But when he held her, he smelled…different. He smelled like minty vanilla and rust and his aftershave wasn’t Old Spice, it was something citrus and a subtle amber and not anywhere near as simple and sturdy.

He didn’t smell like grass or cinnamon or old leather or Old Spice or smoke or the twilight colored oceans of Caladaan or the piercing formaldehyde of the frog babies or the flowery lotion from Japan or the heart-racing pollen that made her act weird around him or the waffles. He didn’t smell at all like the waffles she ruined that morning he died.

He didn’t smell like any of those memories. He didn’t smell like Portobello Road or her cute mini skirt or Jackie’s dirty looks or Greta Garbo or their fingers laced together, making her heart pound harder than ever, or the water worms of Caladaan or the frog babies or their last trip with Jack to Kyoto or their lips touching, turning into a passionate embrace, a situation caused by the pollen (or so she was constantly reminded by him), or even the waffles of their last meal together.

He smelled like new memories, memories she knew she’d enjoy, memories in the future. There would be times where that minty vanilla would remind her of him, or he’d smell so strongly of rust and coral after fixing the TARDIS and how when he hugged her she would smell his neck, the citrus and amber making her feel closer to him than ever before.

But that wasn’t now. The jacket she was holding in her hand wasn’t those memories that hadn’t happened yet. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to not miss the old him.

“Rose, hurry up, the Sex Pistols at the One Hundred Club won’t wait up for us forever! Or they will, because you know, time machine and all, but you know what I mean! It doesn’t take that long to get dressed in half ripped clothes if you’re going for the punk style.”

She could hear his footsteps coming closer and she held the leather jacket tighter to her chest, as if he was still here, hugging her, protecting her. She didn’t want him to see her like this, to be so caught up in the past, to be so in love with the memories they shared.

“I’m getting dressed! Don’t come in!”

“Oh, okay.” She could smell minty vanilla wafting strongly into the room. The scent quickly faded away as he walked back down the corridor.

That was close, she thought, leaning against the wall and sliding down to the floor. The jacket was still wrapped around her arms and it felt out of place there. She unraveled it from her elbows and straightened it out and wrapped it around her. Now it felt like he was enveloping her and she could distinctly remember everything they did together simply by breathing in and smelling.

God, she missed him.

She looked up at the ceiling, closing her eyes, feeling the cool leather on her skin.

She just wanted to stay here like this for a few more seconds with him wrapped around her. Before she got up and folded the jacket and stored it in one of the numerous racks in wardrobe room. Before she no longer smelled him and no longer remembered him.

A few more seconds, just with him.