This was a belated Christmas present for fleurdeneuf over on tumblr. Sorry I've been absent lately, holidays were super busy and I have an insanely crazy workload this semester as it's my last semester of college so...yeah. Have this little bit of fluff while I try to get other updates written. Hope you enjoy! As always, all mistakes are mine.
Also this says teacher/student au and it is but I would like to specify here at the beginning that it does not involve minors. Rose is about 21 or 22 in this and John is like.. 41 or something.
It came as a surprise to approximately zero people that Doctor John Smith was involved in the controversy that was currently sweeping through the university campus.
He'd always been the unconventional type in his leather jacket and jumpers instead of the more formal teaching attire donned by his colleagues. There was also the fact that he was always arguing with the findings of other professors, no matter their specialty. He had been hired to teach history, but he was often found haunting the physics and chemistry labs as well as the halls of the foreign language department. The sheer amount of degrees that hung on the walls of his rarely used office had most of the student body and at least half of the faculty calling him the Doctor, instead of John or Dr. Smith.
What did come as a surprise to everyone, including the Doctor himself, was the nature of this controversy. It had nothing to do with his frequent academic arguments or even with his propensity to be at least marginally involved in any and every campaign for change on campus. It had everything to do with a blonde half his age with whiskey eyes and a teasing smile who he'd literally run into last semester as she exited a chemistry class.
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When the fateful meeting occurred, John Smith ran straight into the young blonde, neither of them having been paying attention to their surroundings. John had started apologizing profusely before he even got a look at who he'd bowled over.
He brushed a hand over the lapels of his leather jacket and then reached a hand out to help her up off the floor. That's when he saw the tears on her face and immediately started trying to determine if she had been injured in their collision. She'd simply shaken her head at all of his questions, the motion causing more tears to fall free.
Carefully, the Doctor took a hold of her arm and led her out of the busy hallway and into an empty classroom. He guided her to sit on one of the desks and perched on the one opposite of it.
He watched her for a moment, waiting to see if she would offer up an explanation on her own but she stayed silent besides the occasional sniffle. She was clutching a text book hard enough to turn her knuckles white so John put on the most non-threatening expression he could muster before proceeding.
"Now then, what's the matter?" he asked. The blunt words were belied by his gentle tone.
The girl glanced up, red rimmed eyes still glimmering with tears. "Why do you care? You don't even know me." She tilted her chin up, offering a challenge even though her voice shook.
"I'm John," he answered simply, choosing to ignore the challenge. "Some people around her call me the Doctor."
"That supposed to sound impressive?"
A wide grin spread over John's face at the unexpected tease. "Sor' of."
That earned him a watery giggle.
"My name's Rose."
"Well then, Rose, it appears we are no longer strangers. Want to tell me what's got you so upset?"
The small smile that had appeared on her face when teasing him disappeared as she looked back down at the book in her hands that she had a death grip on. There were a few moments of silence as Rose obviously tried to decide if she should say anything.
"I'm rubbish at chemistry," she finally blurted out. "I need to pass this course and it's just the intro chem class and none of it makes any sense. We got our first exams back today and now it's gonna take a miracle for me to pull my grade up and…I-I can't fail this class."
"Have you tried talking to the professor and seeing if they can offer any help?"
Rose laughed bitterly. "Yeah, he just told me to read the book like I hadn't been living and breathing the damn thing for weeks while trying to make sense of the material." Her gaze, which had met John's while talking, skittered away again. "I think he just wrote me off because I'm a transfer student and it's obvious that I don't really belong here. My accent gives me away every time."
"Everyone belongs at a school if they want to learn. Your professor is being a prick," John said definitively, tamping down the anger that was roaring through his veins so he wouldn't upset Rose any further. It was her idiot professor that deserved his anger, not Rose. "Can you drop the class and take it with someone else next term?"
"No, I have everything planned out so that I can graduate at the end of next semester. Didn't know I was going to have to take chemistry and barely squeezed it in this semester. There's no way I can fit it in next semester and still graduate on time. And I can't do another semester. I have to pass this course." Her voice broke as her desperation rose to the surface.
Rose looked up at John in the silence following her outburst. What was she doing spilling all of her worries to a stranger? A bloody gorgeous stranger but a stranger nonetheless and judging by his age, probably a professor here. He didn't need to hear her sob story, god he wasn't even saying anything right now, probably figuring out a way to extract himself from the conversation and regretting starting it in the first place.
She watched him for another moment, taking in the way his blue eyes sparked with some unknown emotion even as his face remained impassive. She felt her cheeks flush as everything she'd said ran through her head again. Rose suddenly felt like a child, breaking down in front of this man.
Time to beat a hasty retreat.
"I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said all of that," she said, flushing even redder. "Was just building up I guess." Rose jumped off the desk she was sitting on and started edging around John. "I didn't mean to take up so much of your time. I'm sure you have more important things to be doing than listen to me blubber."
"Rose," John started, firm tone freezing her in place, "I asked to hear what was wrong."
He waited for her to meet his eyes before continuing, "As far as I'm concerned, you're the most important thing right now."
They stared at each other for a long moment as his words hung in the air between them.
Rose broke the silence. "John, thanks for listenin' and all that, I really do appreciate it. I just don't think there's anything else you can do to help and I need to start studying for another class…" she trailed off, moving towards the door again.
Rose needed to get away from John and his kindness and his blue eyes that seemed to see directly into her soul and just…shit she'd always had a weakness for blokes older than her and if she didn't get out of here right now she was going to have to admit she had a crush on the Doctor, as he said he was called. She didn't have time for a crush, especially not such an ill-advised one and especially not when she'd already made a fool of herself in front of him.
Her hand was on the door handle when John spoke up again.
"I could tutor you, if you want," he said with a shrug that was probably intended to be casual. "I'm good for a bit more than checking to see if jeopardy friendly blondes are alright."
The offer escaped John's mouth without permission from his brain. He'd panicked when Rose tried to leave. He wasn't sure he wanted to examine the reasons behind that or the fact that he seemed to be flirting while offering help. He just knew that he wanted Rose to stay, wanted this to not be their first and last meeting.
He could see the indecision in her eyes and the hopeful smile that had accompanied his offer started to slide off his face.
"I don't…I can't afford a tutor," Rose said quietly, clutching at her textbook once more, white knuckles betraying her nervousness.
"Well good thing I wasn't expecting payment then," John commented, striving to sound as nonchalant as possible. "I meant what I said earlier about thinking everyone who wants to get an education should be able to do so. That applies to current students who just need an extra hand too."
"Are you for real?"
"Yeah."
"Do you even know anything about chemistry?" Rose asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Oi! Course I do. Have a degree in it and everything!"
The blonde in the doorway stared him down for a moment longer and John had to resist the urge to fidget. He wanted her to say yes, wanted to be able to help her but it was in her hands now.
Finally she broke out in a smile, tongue peeking out between her teeth. "That supposed to sound impressive?" she said again.
John flashed a manic grin back at her before echoing his earlier answer, "Sor' of."
They made plans to meet in his office two days later for their first tutoring session.
Rose had been surprised to learn that he was a history professor with an additional degree in chemistry.
(he didn't tell her about the other varied degrees he held until she saw them on the walls of his office)
John had been surprised to learn that she was an art student.
(she didn't tell him that he probably walked past one of her paintings every day since it hung in the history building after it had won a contest)
They were both surprised to leave the chemistry building in a much better mood than when they had entered it, never expecting to have met someone interesting completely by chance.
(neither of them admitted to themselves that they were looking forward to the tutoring session more than they felt like they should be if it was just about a chemistry lesson)
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Rose spent the two days before their meeting desperately trying not to think of John's arresting features and gruff, kind demeanor. Just from their brief interaction she could tell that he had a lot of layers, that he was one of those deeply complex people that she would probably never understand.
But oh, she wanted to understand him, to get to know him. And that was such a dangerous wish when she needed to maintain a strictly professional relationship with him. He was a professor for crying out loud and she just needed to accept his help with chemistry and not think about anything more.
She looked down at the notes she was taking in her art history lecture and found that she'd absently been sketching John's face instead of actually taking notes. Rose blushed a bright red and quickly shut her notebook. She needed to banish this crush, and soon.
John spent much of those same two days trying not to roll her name over his tongue repeatedly.
Rose Tyler. It just had a ring to it and it fit in his mouth perfectly.
(Another one of those things he tried not to think too hard about.)
John also spent two mornings staunchly denying to himself that he'd dreamt of a blonde woman when he managed to catch a few hours of sleep. He especially did not admit that it was her name, the one he'd been rolling over his tongue over and over, that was on his lips when he awoke. She was a student. A student in her last year but a student nonetheless and he needed to nip this infatuation, or whatever it was, in the bud.
When the appointed time finally arrived, John was shuffling papers around on his desk. It wasn't nerves, it was…tidying. And if he happened to be glancing at his watch every minute and a half, it was certainly just a coincidence.
A minute after four, there was a tentative knock on the doorframe.
John whipped his head up and found Rose standing in the doorway, a backpack slung over one shoulder and wearing a nervous expression.
"Rose, hi. Come in," he gestured towards a chair that was at the end of his desk, positioned so that the piece of furniture wouldn't be separating them.
"Thanks so much for offering to help me, Dr. Smith," Rose said, oddly subdued now that she was in his office and surrounded by an absurd amount of degrees. It was a reminder that he was way out of her league, that he existed in a completely different universe than she did.
John made a face. "Please either call me John or Doctor. Dr. Smith is just…not right." He watched her take in all the degrees and accolades that the university insisted he have on his walls. If it were up to him, they'd all be in a box somewhere in a cupboard.
"Alright, Doctor." Rose offered a small smile as she fidgeted with the backpack in her lap.
John was a little disappointed that she'd chosen his nickname instead of his given name. Plain as it was, he'd liked how it sounded when she had said it at their first meeting more than he ever had been before.
He was trying to figure out exactly how to start this when he noticed Rose still shooting glances at the walls and twisting the straps of her bag. Abruptly he realized she was nervous here, surrounded by an overload of academia memorabilia. There was no way she would be able to focus on chemistry if she was like this.
"Why don't we go find an empty classroom? My office can get a bit cramped and I didn't manage to clean off my desk before you got here," he sent a pointed look at the various piles of paper spread out on the workspace, interspersed with bits of machinery that Rose didn't recognize.
"Yeah, alright," Rose agreed as she stood up. "Lead on then."
Rose followed him down the hallway until he found a seminar room that was empty. Once they were both inside she dumped the contents of her backpack, her chem textbook and a notebook, on the table.
"Where do you want to start? Cause if we're being honest, I haven't understood much of anything since the beginning of the class. I got a handle on a few things before the test but it feels like I'm missing some of the essentials," Rose knew she was rambling a bit but being in the same room as John again was more intense than she had expected. She had attributed the intensity of their last meeting to her emotional state at the time. But no, there was still a charge between them and she was going to have to keep herself in check lest she start flirting.
Really needed to do something about this crush.
"Do you have your syllabus?" John asked, oblivious to Rose's train of thought.
Rose flipped open her notebook, dug the syllabus out and handed it to him. Once he had looked it over, he agreed that they should probably start at the beginning. If they met a couple of times a week he was confident that he could have her caught up by the next exam.
The hour flew by, even with the dry subject material. Somehow, John explained the concepts in a different way that helped Rose to actually get a handle on them. With every success they both became more comfortable with each other and by the end her questions and his explanations were peppered with jokes and teasing.
An alarm went off on Rose's phone, alerting them that time was up.
Rose looked up with a sheepish expression from where she was taking notes. "Sorry, I promised I'd meet a friend for an early dinner before she goes on shift tonight. She claims she hasn't seen me in two weeks because of all this." She waved a hand at the explosion of chemistry papers on the table.
"Probably a good time to call it a day anyways. Don't want to try and stuff too much new information in at once."
"You saying I couldn't handle more, John?" Rose shot back, letting her tongue perch between her teeth as she grinned at him.
He spluttered, mind going down paths that it definitely should not be going down, most of which featured that teasing bit of tongue she was flashing him. "Oh, I'm sure you could handle most anything, Rose Tyler."
He had the satisfaction of watching her cheeks turn pink when he said her name. John was conveniently ignoring that his ears felt like they were probably a bright red.
"Right, well I have to go. Meet here on Monday, yeah? Same time?" Rose asked, stuffing her things back in her bag and trying to will her cheeks back to their normal color. She could not let him realize that his effortless flirting was affecting her, had been affecting her all afternoon.
"Yeah, Monday at four, this room," he confirmed. "Make sure you don't forget everything you figured out today."
"I think I got it now," she said. "You're a great teacher, thanks for taking the time to help me."
John just smiled softly at her and jerked his head towards the door. "Go on, you're going to be late for meeting your friend."
Rose called a goodbye and tossed him one more smile and then was out the door.
John groaned and put his head down on the table. This was simultaneously the best and worst idea he'd ever had, tutoring Rose one on one like this. He had to get himself under control here, he could do it. He had excellent self-control, he just had to dredge up the will to use it.
It was going to be a long semester, a fantastic one to be sure, but long all the same.
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John was right about it being a fantastic semester. Their sessions just kept getting better as they became more comfortable with each other and Rose was picking up the material with much less effort now and had aced her second test. Now she just had to get a good mark on her final exam and she would be home free.
Her chemistry grade wasn't the only thing improving. John and Rose's friendship grew by leaps and bounds. They still usually met in their classroom but occasionally they'd end up at the campus coffee shop instead. The flirting and the teasing were a constant but they both acted like it didn't mean anything.
Rose had figured out that the Doctor was practically a legend on campus partway through the semester and teased him about it mercilessly, telling him that he had a lot of nerve calling her jeopardy friendly when he was the one always getting into mischief.
John finally realized the painting down the hallway from his office was one of Rose's when she showed up to their session one day with a finished piece that she was going to drop off with her professor after they finished up.
They'd traded phone numbers halfway through the semester, ostensibly so it would be easier to get in touch if one of them had to cancel or reschedule because something else had come up.
In reality, Rose would send him random texts about everything from chemistry questions to comments about the strange smell that seemed to be emanating from the psychology building.
(Every time his phone buzzed, John hoped it was Rose. Her texts were the highlights of the days that he didn't see her)
In what seemed like no time at all, it was time for Rose's final exam. John called an emergency session the night before to make sure that she wasn't stressing or cramming too much. Rose had given him a brief hug before she darted out the door to get some sleep.
It wasn't the first time they'd hugged but it wasn't a common occurrence and John treasured each and every one of them.
(his fingers itched every time she initiated a hug. he wanted to rest them on her hips and pull her closer, wanted to twine them in her hair or entangle them with her fingers. he wanted more than the carefully platonic contact but he knew that anything more wasn't an option no matter how much he wanted)
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John was sitting at his desk grading exams when Rose bounded into his office, mega-watt grin in place.
"I passed!" she exclaimed before he could even say hello.
"Congratulations!" he answered, wide grin matching hers. He stood and stepped around his desk, opening his arms to invite a celebratory hug.
Rose wasted no time in accepting the invitation. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest, inhaling the scent of wool and leather that was just John. She held on longer than she usually let herself, reveling in the feeling of being wrapped in his arms.
Rose had stopped trying to rid herself of this crush long ago, wasn't even sure crush was the right word anymore. The more she learned about John and about the image of the Doctor that he presented to the world, the more she wanted to know. She wanted to know why he rarely talked about the days before he came to teach at the university and why she sometimes walked into his office to find him asleep on his desk like he hadn't slept in days. She wanted to see what he looked like when he woke up on lazy Sundays and know if he was as good with his hands as she suspected.
Yeah, she was way past the crush stage.
Slowly they pulled apart, neither of them quite letting go of the other. Rose looked up at him, taking in the fond look on his face and how his fingers were flexing on her hips like he was trying to make himself let go and made a split second decision.
Rising up on her tiptoes, Rose slid her hands from where they rested on his arms to his neck and leaned up to press her lips against his.
John's mind went blissfully blank at the feel of Rose's lips sliding against his own. There was a moment of stillness on his part, surprised that this was actually happening after months of dreaming and wanting.
When he felt her start to pull away, he tightened his grip on her and followed her lips, returning the gentle pressure that she had initiated. Her tongue snuck out and swiped across his bottom lip and John pulled back.
"We shouldn't be doing this," he said, resting his forehead against hers and hoping she didn't mention how rough his voice sounded. "You're still a student."
"But not your student. Have never taken one of your classes so not really a problem," she argued.
"Won't matter to most people," he pointed out.
"Well they can sod off," she scoffed. "Got any more problems you want to bring up or can I go back to kissing you?" She waited a beat and then continued, "And if you bring up the age difference I might hit you 'cause it doesn't matter to me if it doesn't matter to you."
"Doesn't matter to me," he assured her, "but we'll certainly raise some eyebrows."
"Don't care," Rose said, brushing her lips over his briefly before pulling back again. "Want to do something about this fun kind of chemistry we have going, though?"
Instead of answering, John captured her lips and this time didn't back off when their tongues came into play.
It was a long while before John got back to grading exams.
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In the end, they decided to try and keep their relationship under wraps until Rose graduated. There were no legal or ethical issues in play since she was not a minor and he had never been her professor but it was better for both of their reputations if those questions were never even raised.
They thought it would be easy since there was only a semester before her graduation but after months of denying the attraction and emotions it was nigh on impossible to keep their hands off of each other.
(and his hands were just as good as Rose had imagined)
(and she surpassed every single one of John's dreams)
Of course there were arguments and fights but they always managed to work it out after their tempers cooled and they were able to talk.
They had lazy Sundays together and met at off campus coffee shops so they could hold hands over the table and minimize the risk of being recognized.
One day, late in the semester they weren't careful enough and a professor who had Rose as a student and knew John saw them kiss goodbye after a lunch date.
The next day, the news was all over campus that the infamous Doctor was apparently dating a student.
Rose and John decided to not them affect them too much. If anyone asked they clarified that Rose had never been his student and that they were perfectly within their rights to see each other.
(John was usually not so polite in correcting people. As far as he was concerned, their relationship was their business and no one else's)
(Rose tended to yell at people who made snide comments about the age difference.)
Once the initial controversy blew over, they enjoyed their new freedom to hold hands and kiss whilst on campus and grew even closer, fell even more in love.
(they didn't say the words often, both a little wary of their power. but they said things like "better with two" and "I'm so glad I met you" and "forever")
(at graduation, John asked for confirmation of her promise of forever and when she said yes, he slid a ring on her left hand and kissed her breathless)