Chapter Text
The first time she curls into the couch and can smell him on the cushions, it's like something shifts in her chest. It doesn't click into place, it's always been there, now it's just making itself comfortable.
&&.
What Rose can't figure out -- among many, many things -- is why they're still recognizing these lines they'd drawn, still tiptoeing right up to walls, only to back down at the last second.
When there's so many touches, so many opportunities (taken and missed) for physical affection, and there's just the one thing, or the handful of things, they won't do, can't do, don't do, it makes it that much bigger. It makes the hurdle seem that much higher.
That they're not crossing the divide and moving things from slightly-too-touchy mates into people who are shagging starts to make her endlessly frustrated.
And maybe, a little, (a lot) endlessly aroused.
She gets home from visiting her mum. Normally the Doctor comes with, playing with Tony on the lawn and making something slung low and primal in Rose ache in a way that has nothing to do with fucking, except where it does. But he'd stayed home today, to write a report for Torchwood.
It's not that they have jobs, or contracts, or anything so clear cut. It's just that, at regular intervals, a certain amount of money is deposited into their (now joint) bank account, and totally separate from that, they help out with global crises of the alien variety.
The first thing she notices when she walks through the door to their flat (he'd hung plastic, glowing stars on the ceiling in the living room, it's his place now, too) is that it smells overwhelmingly of artificial fruit.
The Doctor is sucking on an ice lolly, wearing a thick jumper, and a slouchy beanie slung low over his ears and hanging down in the back. Whether it's a nod to the weather or the snack, she can't tell.
(It works on him, though.)
"It is quite literally freezing outside," Rose says. "Proper freezing temperature, I mean. And you're eating ice."
He pulls the lolly back from his mouth, a popping sound as the suction breaks.
"Do you know how slow time moves here? How slow it feels? It'll be ages before it's time to eat them again, in proper weather." He smiles at her, licks at his lips. "I like it, it's banana. Orange are the best though. I saved you one, you can have it."
She's pleased he saved her something he considers the best, but confused by the implication there's only one left.
"How many lollies have you eaten?" She rounds the couch to sit next to him, a football match forgotten on the telly in front of them.
"Four," he looks away as he says it.
"Oh, not so bad then."
It's so quiet she barely hears it.
"-- boxes."
She squints at him, his lips stained and his tongue behind them, red like bricks.
Before she has time to stop it, before she can push it down, she wonders which flavor his mouth would taste like. How cold his tongue would be.
She's almost mad at him for forcing her hand, making her think about things he's clearly in no hurry to do anything about, when she decides to push it a little more.
Grabbing her orange lolly from the kitchen, she peels off the wrapper slowly, strip by strip, locking eyes with him when he turns from the couch to see where she's gone.
She saunters (tries to saunter) to sit next to him.
Then she eats her treat in the absolute most vulgar way she can think of, licking, sucking, strategically biting.
He slurps at his, clearly enjoying it, and she can tell the exact moment he notices her, because the slurping stops. She can almost hear him swallow.
When there's just a third left, she brings her mouth over the rest of the lolly, sliding it off the stick with her teeth and into her mouth.
His Adam's apple bobs and he wipes his hands on his pants, realizing too late they're covered in melting, cold sugar, sticky and gross.
That'll teach him to make her think about snogging him, if he's not going to deliver. She'll work up to it one day, soon, kissing him proper, tongue and all, but part of her is hoping he starts it first.
(Neither of them like grape. It takes a week, but she wakes up one morning and the freezer door has burst from all the lollies, spilling them onto the kitchen floor, where they'd liquified over night. There's a great, purple-y mess in the middle of the room, and although it's not a great, purple-y monster, it's starting to be enough.)
&&.
The next bit, it happens so fluidly, so matter-of-fact, that she barely has time to recognize it.
They're up late one night, no work for a change, just a terrible old movie playing and empty takeaway containers on the table in front of them.
She almost falls asleep against his shoulder, tipping her head to it just before she nods off. He shifts, brings an arm around her shoulders, and then she nestles into him, tucked under his arm.
Rose is no longer tired.
His hand curls around her bicep, scratching lightly, fingering the sleeve of her shirt.
When she looks up at him, nearly crossing her eyes to do it, he's staring straight ahead, like he's going to disavow any knowledge of what he's doing, if she busts him.
She brings the hand pinned between their bodies up awkwardly, without enough grace to make it seem natural, and then her hand is on his thigh. She scratches lightly at the rough fabric of his trousers, inching her fingers up until she feels the edge of his pocket underneath the cloth.
There's heat coming from him, more than normal, and it's centered in just the one spot.
She hears him (feels him) hum low in the back of his throat, shifting his hips just the slightest bit. On an impulse, Rose extends her pinky from her hand, tracing the outline of his zip before pulling her finger back.
The Doctor goes still, his entire body unmoving. It makes it all the more noticeable when something under his trousers twitches, rises just the slightest bit.
She's not sure who swallowed, but one of them did it audibly.
The hand he's got wrapped around her shoulder readjusts, pulls up and frees itself. His fingertips skating over her collarbone and dipping lower. He walks the tips of fingers down, so fucking slowly, and outlines the top of her bra under her shirt.
Just a little bit further, she could arch up, even, and he'd have a handful.
Instead, he pulls his hand away, sets it back on her shoulder.
It's still tough to get a look at him, but she shifts into him, under the pretense of nuzzling, and she sees he's still got his eyes trained on the telly.
The delicate, girly hair, on the back of her delicate, girly arms, stands on end.
She shifts back, refocuses on the movie, and slides her hand back to his zipper.
This time, she traces the length, slow and deliberate, feeling him solid and warm underneath the pad of her finger.
He sucks in a breath, lets it out through his nose. She pulls her hand back, resting it safely just above his knee.
When the Doctor makes his move this time, he attacks from below. His fingers dipping down to tuck up under the bottom of her bra, still, inexplicably, under her shirt. He nudges his fingers up, past the underwire and meets the underside of her breast, just a thin layer of cotton between their skin.
It's not so sexy as it is bold, and he withdraws his hand in a way Rose can only describe as cocky. A weird adjective for a bunch of (slender, long, nice) digits, but there it is.
The way they're settled, Rose's options are limited, and so she turns into him more, her front against his side, his hand resting just above the clasp of her bra.
She uses the hand still settled on his knee and slides it over, to the seam of his pants. Then she slides, slowly, slowly, slowly, up. When she gets there, to where he's straining under his trousers, she cups, just for a second. A little squeeze and she pulls her hand back, turning to lay her head on his chest and refocus on the movie.
(Is it that fucking traveling clothes thing again?)
He takes a deep breath underneath her, she can hear him flex his hand behind her, the joints in his fingers cracking.
In one deft movement, he pops open the hook to her bra -- still, she would like to point out -- under her shirt.
He resettles his hand on her back.
"I hate this commercial," he says low and rough in her ear, nodding at the screen. She hums in agreement, pops open the button on his trousers.
He skirts a hand underneath her shirt, fingers sliding along skin for the first time all night. He leaves his hand there, curled around her ribs, thumb just extended enough to fit under her bra and nail scraping the delicate nerves there.
Forcing herself to relax, Rose slides his zip down, the noise echoing over the sound of yet another advert.
The Doctor edges further into her, cupping her breast, catching her nipple in the webbing between his thumb and index finger.
He stills again, one quick squeeze while she works out her next move.
Well, while she screws up the courage to make it, that is. The next move is pretty clear, hand moving into the space under his fly, but it almost seems -- disproportionate? Like hands in pants is not equal to hands in shirts.
She does it anyway. Fingers closed together, she slides into his open zip. She hadn't meant to get under his boxers, too, but the gap was forced open by his dick, the way it was standing at attention. She can feel his hair, feel how inside his pants is apparently some sort of sauna now, and she doesn't move any further.
He shifts then, accidentally brushing himself against her fingers as he moves, clears his throat. Her hand and arm twisted around now, as he settles his front to her back, their legs stretched out along the couch.
And that's it, that's his turn this time.
Her hand is so awkwardly trapped that she just pulls it from him, wrapping it low on her stomach and scooting back in to him pointedly.
Both of his hands settles at her hips before dipping lower, fingers stretching toward the button of her trousers and undoing it.
She inches back into him, can feel him hard against her lower back, but there's still not much she can do in this position and she ends up just tipping her head back into him, sighing a little.
When he slides down the zip of her trousers, she gives up on two things. The first, any pretext of watching telly, her eyes slipping shut anyway. The second, that they're taking turns.
Instead, she arches up into his hand, feels his fingers circle lower, sliding over damp fabric.
He breathes something into her hair, a word, a sound, she can't quite make it out and almost asks after it, when his finger traces the elastic of knickers and slips under it.
She loses track of moments as linear then. It's his finger making a wide arc, nearing closer and closer. It's her hips lifting toward his hand, trying to force contact, real contact. It's how slick her skin feels, warm and sticky, as her rubs at her, slips a finger inside her.
The pulse of his single heart is beating the seconds out against her back, and she can feel it where his finger is, too, and he slides another to join it.
Her arm winds up, before she even tells it to, and then it's reaching back, fisting in his hair as she anchors herself to him and just fuckingbucks.
She has half a thought to try and kiss him, to pull him forward and bring her mouth to his, but then he curls his fingers, twists, strokes, and his thumb is pressing down. He's set up a rhythm and her hips fall into it.
When she comes, it's sudden and quiet, arching into his hand, a quiet fuck whispered as she clenches around him.
He stills, letting her glide down, keeping his hand unmoving inside her. When she feels like she can breath again, feels boneless and electric, he removes his hand, wiping his fingers on the side of his shirt. She can smell herself on him in the movement, and she has a vision of him licking his fingers, eyes blazing and vulgar.
He noses at the top of her head and shifts, trying to back away from her, put some space between their bodies.
Rose uses the space to turn, twisting awkwardly between his legs. He groans and puts a hand on her shoulder, presumably to stop her, but she's not having it. She glances down to where his trousers are hanging open, the gap in his boxers giving her just the slightest glimpse of skin underneath.
What she really wants, what makes her eyelids heavy and her tongue go dry, is to taste him. His mouth, or lower, or anywhere else. But if they're keeping things equal, she's only got one option. She hauls herself over him, pushing his legs to the floor as she straddles his legs, pausing only to get his trousers and pants down the slightest bit.
She was definitely right those few weeks ago -- the Doctor has a cock. And it is super chuffed to see her.
He grabs her chin, tips her head up so he can look her in the eye for the first time since this whole thing started.
She grins up at him, a big, stupid, happy, human grin, and pulls her head back, looking down before she wraps her fingers around him.
Whatever he felt like before, whatever he looked like before, this is normal bloke stuff now. The way he shuts his eyes, his jaw clenching -- the tension in his hips as he tries not to buck up into her fist.
(This is normal except for how she's absolutely, ass over elbow in love with him.)
She rounds her thumb around his tip, trying to collect a little moisture, something to create friction, but it's not enough. She pulls her hand away and he sucks in a breath.
It's an impulse, how she licks her hand, it's an impulse and it's vulgar and when he lets out that breath in a soft sound like a groan, she is -- extremely pleased is something of an understatement.
She sets a rhythm, trying to match the one he'd used before, the one just a skip behind their hearts, and she's biting her lip so hard, concentrating and pumping and, oh my god, this is happening. He swipes a thumb across her mouth, just catching her tongue as it darts out to lick her lips and she can taste herself there, it's -- there's a sky on a planet they visited once, where the stars pulled apart, bursting like fireworks before reassembling -- it's like that.
Her strokes get sloppy as his breaths start hitching, as he keeps all his sounds choked deep down in his throat.
He warns her, just a second before, echoing her fuck from earlier, edging out -- I'm gonna --
Then he's hot and slick across her fingers, getting the zip of his jeans, the bottom of his shirt.
The Doctor looks embarrassed and triumphant and tired. She cleans up as best she can, using a napkin from their dinner, before buttoning her own trousers. He tucks himself back in, zips up.
It occurs to her then, they never did end up kissing.
It makes sense in a way. This is how they do things: time out of order.
(They sleep in their own beds that night. Rose wraps a hand around her alarm clock, checking the time just before nodding off. Her skin glows pink and red under the light of the digits. It looks a little bit alien. She likes it.)
&&.
Rose wakes late the next morning and forgets for just a second, forgets what happened. She sees her knickers on the ground, where she'd stripped them off when she'd gotten to her room, and she remembers. That's a first across the board.
In the kitchen, the Doctor is making tea, softly singing a song.
She's heard him sing a hundred times since they've been here, quiet little things under his breath in words she doesn't understand, but this one strikes her as particularly beautiful.
"What's that you're singing about?"
(She is not going to think about the possibility that he's singing a song about her, about wanking your best mate off on a couch in an alternate universe for the first time.)
"It's about how I'm going to go change my jumper, and about how I'd murder some chips right now."
It's somehow less jaunty when she realizes he's trying not to forget all the languages he used to know.
&&.
The new things, the firsts, they come spilling out after that.
The first time she yells at him for not putting the leftover pizza away.
The first time he wears a tie in a half-human body.
(Just a suit jacket with it, no trousers to match. "I'm not a full Time Lord anymore, Rose, no full suits. Well, maybe at the wedding.")
The first time he mentions a wedding.
The first time he gets sick.
(Stoically marching across the flat to pour himself glass after glass of juice, crumpled tissues stuffed in every pocket.)
The first time they share a bed.
(The spider comes back, and he brings mates. The Doctor is half-asleep, Rose screaming at the walls. He shuts the door to her room and tugs her by the hand across the hall to his. It's clear from the pillows he was sleeping right in the middle of the bed, but he tilts his head, like he's thinking, remembering, and scoots his pillow over, leaving the side she sleeps on in her own bed empty. When she slides in under the sheets, pulling the duvet up to her chin, he nudges toward her, wrapping an arm around her waist. She backs up into him, fitting her knees against his, and they fall asleep. In the morning, they're not cuddled up anymore, but his arm is thrown out, hand wrapped around her bicep. Her foot rests against his calf.)
The first time she almost kisses him -- not with the other Doctor watching.
(Backed up in a corner at a pub, trying to beat the high score on some ancient arcade game. 10 quid and two hours later, he does it. Puts in DrNRose as the name for the scoreboard. She leans up on tiptoe, and gets his cheek as he whips his head back to the screen, "A bonus level, Rose! Isn't that brilliant?")
The first time they do kiss.
&&.
It's Christmas -- the first proper Christmas they've ever had on normal time. With lead up to prepare, get a tree, buy presents, string lights.
They're spending the day with the Tyler's, Rose picking out presents for everyone but Tony, a privilege the Doctor had laid claim to early in the season.
There are a few gifts under the tree in their own flat, wrapped in gaudy paper and bright bows, but the most important one isn't wrapped. It's folded neatly in a corner, a blue jacket, pockets stuffed and bulging out.
They'll each get to fish one thing out of the pockets, but they have to make it through the festivities first.
She wears a skirt, a swishy reddish-maroon thing, in the spirit of the holiday. He wears a tie, an awful Christmas one, and those skinny corduroys. Trainers, too, of course. They're both in white button downs, on complete accident and they look like a proper, respectable couple, spending the day with their family.
(That they are those things -- she doesn't know what to do with it.)
When they get to the Tyler's, the first thing the Doctor does is give Tony his present. It's every piece of sports equipment Rose could possibly imagine -- and a few she recognizes from the vaults at Torchwood. It's definitely enough to spend the whole day playing outside, on the artificial grass, surrounded by the heat lamps.
The Doctor juggles a football out the door, arching his eyebrows at Rose like, Look what I can do!, as Tony squeals and claps.
He sticks his head in every hour on the hour, offering to help cook, clean, set the table, assess any potential threats in the Christmas crackers. She waves him off each time, but smiles to herself when Jackie comments on how helpful he is now -- helpful in a more mundane, not universe-saving sense, of course.
It's nice that Jackie's come around, sort of, in her own way, on the Doctor. What's not as nice is that Jackie has taken this newfound tolerance to mad levels. There's mistletoe over every door in the house.
When Rose asks after it, she regrets it almost immediately.
"What makes you think that's not for me and Pete?"
"Mum!"
"Oh, I forget our Tony is a little Jesus Christ, immaculately conceived."
"Mum!"
Rose goes outside after that. She shows heretofore unrecognized talent with a cricket bat. She also manages to knock the wind right out of the Doctor, sending a football square to his stomach.
He's on his knees, wheezing and Tony's running around them in circles, "Rose kicked him! Rose kicked him!" He's a cute little boy, Christ-like or no, but right now, Rose needs him gone. The Doctor is gasping for breath, screwing up his face like he's trying to trigger something.
"Tony!" she says. "Go get the Doctor some water."
He scampers off back toward the house, "Rose kicked him, Rose kicked him!" It's become a song now. That's just fucking wizard.
She looks back to the Doctor, sinking down on her knees next to him, "No respiratory bypass in this model, eh?"
"You've - taken - my - breath - away - Rose - Tyler," he's still gasping, but grinning all the same.
She puts a hand on his face, and one on his chest, trying to get him to slow down.
Before she realizes it, his breathing is steady and she's curled her fingers around his ear, nails just brushing the hair behind it. His heart beats strong and slow under her other hand.
Her eyes dart across his body, making sure she's done no serious harm, and she hesitates on bringing them back up to meet his. There's a charge in the air now, the warm glow of the heat lamps nothing compared to the way her blood feels too hot, the way her skin feels, all tingles and light.
When she finally gets there, drags her gaze past his Adam's apple, his chin, his nose, he's staring at her like she's saved the world again.
He blinks.
"And this is the way the Doctor ends, not with a bang, but with a football," he quotes (well, paraphrases) Eliot like other men quote (well, overestimate their own intelligence with regard to) Top Gear.
"Nah, I couldn't take you out, take more than playing with some Earth girl to end it."
His face darkens, like he's remembering something, but he blinks again and it's gone.
"Would you believe -- not the first time someone's brought up my playing with Earth girls?"
"That's plural, then?" Rose keeps her focus steady. This is one of those things she's wanted to get in to, since Sarah Jane, since before maybe, but was always terrified to get a straight answer on.
"Just mates, Rose." His tongue presses against his front teeth, waiting, gauging her reaction.
"What'd you do with those mates?"
He blinks again and it almost makes her miss the winking.
"Eh, the usual. Gallivanting across space and time, saving civilizations, you know, same old, same old." And wait -- there it is -- a wink.
"No firsts left then? No uncharted territory?" She brushes her thumb across the hair of his sideburn, and he tips his head into her hand.
"Firsts are relative, and there's always something else to explore." He's looking meaningfully at her mouth.
She'd never thought of it like that -- that it's all what you make of it.
She slides the hand on his chest up and around to the back of his neck. He nudges forward on his knees, leaning in.
It's so different from the beach, there's no TARDIS around, no other version of him, no hurried, frantic need. She has to time to think about it.
Time to recognize the way his hand fits around her hip, brushing the skin of the bone there with his thumb, heat palpable even through her clothes. Time to watch as he licks his lips, tongue darting out to leave just the slightest bit of moisture behind. It's so red, his tongue, it's almost like --
"Did you eat another ice lolly?"
He pulls her forward, with the hand around her waist, their chests almost touching, "Maybe."
"Where did you get it? Oh my god, did you give one to Tony? He'll be bouncing off the walls, Mum's gon --"
"Rose, you're stealing my thing." He skirts his other hand around to her back, presses her against him.
"Yeah?" She has forgotten entirely what they were talking about, only aware of the way his chest feels against hers, his fingers like tiny points of pressure across her body.
"Talking too much, ruining the moment, that's me," he tips his forehead to hers and his breath flutters, warm and cherry-flavored, across her mouth.
"Mm," and she feels the vibration of her voice in the space between their lips.
It's killing her not to move in, not to close the gap and snog him until he's out of breath again, panting for much better reasons, but she needs this, needs him, the Doctor, to go first. She needs proof that this is something he actively wants, instead of something he's making his peace with, stuck on this planet and stuck in this time.
Just when she's beginning to doubt whether that's true, he tilts his head and meets her lips with his.
Everything she didn't think about on that beach, everything she couldn't think about, too wrapped up in confusion and anger and sadness and hope, comes pouring through this kiss. His lips are warm and soft, and slightly parted already. His fingers on her back ease up, scratching lightly over her shirt.
He pulls her bottom lip between his and slides the tip of his tongue out to meet it.
It's -- a lot to take in.
Barely thinking, she opens her mouth to his and his tongue slides further in, all hot and wet, a heated friction against her own. She wraps her arms around his neck and he slides his around her waist. They're anchored to each other now (again), but with less desperation and more liquid warmth.
(This won't be the last time, it's just the first.)
With a nudge of his knee between hers, the Doctor is lowering her down to the artificial grass of the lawn. She puts her arms out behind her, never breaking the kiss, and helps. A little bit of teamwork never hurt anybody, right?
It's not very graceful, and not very pretty, the getting there, but where he ends up, hovering over her, propping himself up on his forearm, a leg fitted between hers, is perfect. He moves his lips to her neck, licking and sucking and biting, and Rose pulls at his hair, squirms underneath him, into him.
He ghosts a hand up and down her side, stopping to edge his fingers underneath her shirt, the tips of them dancing over the waistband to her skirt before heading back down and, oh, up her skirt, brilliant. She's got tights on, it's winter, after all, but he doesn't seem to mind, scratching his nails across the thin nylon as he inches his hand further up, bringing his lips back to hers.
She reaches up to clutch at his tie, smiling against his mouth and adjusting the angles. She takes control, just a bit, wrestling his tongue back into his own mouth, shifting the playing field some --
Oh my god, they're on a playing field.
And then, it swims back into view, suddenly she can hear again, and there's Tony squealing, "She kissed him, she kissed him!" as Jackie Tyler makes the first audible gape in the history of the universe. Pete stands next to her, arms crossed, and he's the first one to speak.
"I know it's off some, the universes and all, but Rose is a like a daughter to me," Pete says and looks pointedly at the Doctor's hand, now firmly up Rose's skirt.
The Doctor moves back slowly, pulling away from Rose, like he's buying time, trying to formulate a plan.
"We were just --" The Doctor just stops talking, mid-sentence.
Rose tries to help, "Yeah, just --"
Jackie closes her mouth, opens at again, "You were just snogging in the middle of a field on Christmas Day!"
The Doctor finally stands, dusting his hands off on his trousers and helping Rose up. He looks back and forth between them and then back to Jackie, "Seems so. How about that dinner? That fixed yet?"
Jackie looks like she's going to push it more, but Rose gives her a small smile, tries to tell her how happy she is, and Jackie lets it go. She stares at Rose's neck for a moment, and Rose is sure she has a mark.
"Soon, dinner soon. Better wash up, you lot." She gestures at the white of their shirts, now dirty and wrinkled.
Pete and Jackie turn to leave, pulling Tony along behind the them, and starts in again on the song, "She kissed him, she kissed him!"
The Doctor stares after them before turning to Rose, "You know, I thought Tony was a bright, young lad, but he seems to have missed thatI kissed you."
"That's a first."
He nudges her with his elbow and grins.
&&.
When they get back to their flat, they open the normal presents first.
Rose bought him another cardigan, hoping for a repeat of the boxers/cardigan combo and hoping it ends with her slipping it from his shoulders. She's also bought him a couple of tubs of hair wax, and the Dummies Guide to Winking. There's a few more presents, new trainers, a long coat, but she's most excited about the last:
An autographed album from The Shins, complete with creepy, foreign symbols under the signatures.
"Looks a bit alien to me," she says, pointing at one of them.
The Doctor squints, pulls his glasses on, looks again.
"Better investigate, maybe Torchwood's file is wrong."
"We better."
They both look at his old jacket, wondering if there's anything in there to help, any little toys that will settle the matter of whether an American indie rock band is actually hellbent on Earth domination.
She reaches for the jacket, but he stops her.
"I got you proper presents, too," he gestures at the small pile under the tree.
Rose opens them, suddenly pleased at the thought of him in a shop, picking out things he thought she'd like.
The first present is literally five pairs of knickers.
She raises her eyebrows, picking a pair up. They're mostly modest, cotton and more than just string, but it's intimate and she feels herself flush, looking up at him, waiting for an explanation.
"You know humans actually dream about shagging? Never had that before," he tilts his head thoughtfully. "I keep having this dream where I tear your knickers off, thought I'd better be ready to replace them, in case it's a premonition."
She -- does not know what to say that. She maybe wants to try it now, shove her skirt up and let him have at it, but she really wants to pick from the jacket, wants to see what they're working with.
"That's -- thoughtful, thank you." And she almost says fuck it, almost pushes him down in the blinking lights of the Christmas tree and fucks him, but she holds back. There's all the time in the world now (this world), they can shag under trees all year, if they want.
The rest of her presents, they're all around the same theme.
A new skirt -- "Dreamt about hitching that up, putting you on a counter."
A pair of leather boots -- "Thought you could leave those on."
Assorted bath products -- "You smell really good."
That somewhere between their first kiss on a beach, fooling around on a couch, and their first proper kiss this afternoon, he'd been thinking in depth about shagging her makes her want to conquer time travel once more, just to go back and tell past Rose that she's not a nutter, that it's there, this undercurrent.
The last present, the only one left under the tree, is small and square and when he hands it to her, he almost looks shy.
It's a fob watch.
"Nothing in this one, but it -- it means something to me, figuratively," he says, and she thinks sadly of the one buried in her desk, all that time she spent angry at him, when she should've known.
"Thank you," she says, lifts up to give him a kiss. He returns it slowly, drawing it out, until she pulls back, tells him against his mouth that there could be an old sonic in those pockets.
He jerks back and stares at the jacket, "You think?"
"Dunno, better find out."
He makes her go first, and she doesn't even pretend like she wants to protest. She shoves her hand into the front right-side pocket and pulls out --
"Coral?"
The Doctor's face lights up, "TARDIS coral!" He turns it over in his hand a few times, "Oh, that's gonna take a while. Let's see what I've got!"
He reaches to the inside pocket, fiddles around, pulls his hand back triumphantly to reveal -- celery.
She thinks he's going to go back for the jacket, try again, but he seems content to follow the rules they'd made up, an item on important days.
(Rose is not above suggesting that the third Tuesday of every month, as well as every single bank holiday is an important day, but they'll get there.)
He takes one last look at the coral, something like hope in his eyes, and turns to Rose, eying her legs.
"Ripping tights, that wasn't in my dream, but," he solemnly holds up his hand, "Time Lord's privilege." He lunges for her, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her to the floor.
&&.
The thing about having all of London and all of Earth at her disposal, is there's plenty of places for Rose to get into trouble, and plenty of places to shag.
The thing about having a Doctor at her disposal, is that Rose finds them all.
&&.