When Rose wakes up, there’s a single yellow rose on her nightstand. It looks exactly like the roses on Earth, but she doesn’t touch it immediately in case it’s one of those sentient plants they encountered once.
She’s still inspecting the flower when she hears from the door, “sometimes a Rose is the manifestation of beauty on Earth, sometimes a rose is just a plant I found while getting some coffee.”
Jack sounds like if he didn’t find coffee, coffee found him, because he’s extremely animated, if a little distant. Usually, he was the first to barge in a room with a strut that made people turn to look at him.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, sure that his smile hesitated.
“You gotta promise you won’t freak out.”
“Jack, come on, what is it?”
“The Doctor thought you’d like to visit Earth, catch up with your mother maybe.”
“Didn’t we do this a few weeks ago?” Rose was sure she was keeping track of the days and it’d been less than two months since she visited.
“Love, it’s been over six months. And I can’t wait to meet your mother. I’ve heard wonders from the Doctor.”
With a quick glance around the corridor, Jack fake whispers, “and you didn’t hear it from me, but there’s a surprise waiting for you in the console room.”
After a quick shower and after just throwing on some jeans and a pink t-shirt, she stops in front of her small closet and decides that her black jacket should suffice. She takes the delicate rose from her nightstand and places it in her breast pocket, where its petals look brighter still.
When Rose makes it to the console room, she sees the Doctor brought a box of pastries. They don’t look like London pastries to her. Jack, for his part, is a ball of pent up energy ready to leave at a moment’s notice. He’s dressed for winter: long, heavy coat, scarf and gloves even. The Doctor is also wearing a thicker layer under his favorite black jacket.
“Anyone care to tell me what’s going on?”
“Oh, Rose, you need to grab a scarf, you’ll get cold,” the Doctor says, matter-of-fact as always.
“But why?,” she asks.
“Just come back in 2 minutes with a scarf, you’ll thank me later.”
When she comes back, though, the console room is empty, the TARDIS door open and a gust of wind quickly cooling the space inside.
“Come on, Rose, you’ll miss it,” the Doctor calls from outside.
Becoming annoyed at the secrecy, she bites miss what? just as she comes out of the TARDIS directly to a heavily snowed place. Her hands immediately feel the biting cold, so she shoves them inside her pockets.
“What’s going on?”
The cold surrounding her makes her want to step back into the TARDIS, but the night is dark and the stars are shining down on them with their full intensity.
Jack is out there too, and he opens his arms (and coat) for Rose, who takes her cue to go inside the hug. “We stopped a few years short of visiting your mom for the Geminid shower of the century. We didn’t want you to miss it.”
The Doctor walks to them then, sneaking a hand inside Jack’s coat pocket. With a shrug, like it isn’t one of the most thoughtful things someone has ever done for her, he says “I just wanted to give you something nice, in case tomorrow doesn’t go well.”
She looks up to the meteors, at their white, sometimes yellow and a few green, red and blue streaks and Rose thinks back to the flower on her nightstand, the pastries that wait for them after the shower, to every night they’ve spent looking at different constellations in different galaxies and thinks I never want to miss this. I want it to be this, forever. For as long as they’ll want .
And if their shared sunsets and sunrises mean anything, they mean she still has time for so much more.