Summary: A reaction to and explanation for a certain moment in the latest series three trailer. Sometimes, there's a little more to a kiss than appears at first sight. Ten and Martha, implied TenxRose.
A/N: Spoilers for the newest series three trailer, obviously. Devout DoctorxRose shipper as I am, I had to come up with another explanation for what we see towards the end, and lo and behold, this little idea came to me as I got on the bus this morning.
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"Nice to meet you," he says. "I'm the Doctor."
She raises her eyebrows like this is nothing new. They're just about to lower again when he purposefully strides towards her and, in one swift motion, grabs her face and snogs the hell out of her, somehow all force and no passion.
Eventually, he pulls away, completely unruffled, while she is left dazed and with the sudden urge to giggle rather profusely.
"What're you standing there for? Come on!" he orders, already running up the corridor away from her. She blinks a few times and says the first thing that comes out of her mouth, hoping it's remotely intelligent or at least coherent.
"If that's hello, I'd hate to see goodbye…do you do that to everyone when you first meet them?" she asks, incredulous and perhaps a little offended. Ah. He hadn't thought of that. He pauses, screeching to a stop, and turns around on the spot before taking a couple of confident steps back towards her.
"Nah. You're special." She can't tell if he's joking or not – his smile is stretching from ear to ear, as though he finds this all endlessly comedic, but his tone is unfaltering, marred by neither laughter nor nerves. "Besides, it saves time later," he grins, widely, but it fades and a strange, closed-in look takes over the eyes of this mysterious man as he opens up to her a tiny bit more, gives her the tiniest window into his life. "I waited a very long time to do that to someone who should've seen a lot more of those kind of gestures from me," he says, too lost in his own feelings to consider her, obviously believing this is a perfectly adequate explanation. She can hardly be blamed for thinking that it isn't a very good one at all. Cloudy as her thoughts are right now, she's beginning to feel as though she should be disappointed – evidently, she is some kind of replacement, a quick substitute to make up for mistakes he's made long-since, and it doesn't seem likely that there's going to be a repeat performance. Perhaps she should hit him. It's hard to, though, when he's standing there like that, a man who gives such an impression of power with every movement and word somehow suddenly reduced to a vulnerable mass of skin and bone.
"So!" he snaps, bracingly, as though he's about to move on yet again. This is all a bit too lightning-paced for her liking. What's next, breakfast in bed and a long engagement on the rebound before he goes off and does the whole thing again with some other poor, unsuspecting medical student?
Confusing as he is, she's glad when he opens his mouth again to continue because at this point she's beginning to think that she's going to have to beat him with her stethoscope just to get a straight answer out of him. If he talks for long enough, though, maybe they'll eventually stumble across something a little less nonsensical. He rubs his hands together and fixes the smile back in place. "At least if you get stuck in another world, neither of us will be left thinking about what I haven't done or said. Oh!" he exclaims, suddenly, apparently gaining the kind of revelation the bewildered doctor-in-training opposite him wishes she could be part of, because, intelligent as she likes to think she is, all of this is going quite over her head. "That reminds me. I love you," he states, almost deadpan, his mouth twitching a little, "whether it's my last chance to say it or not."
She stares at him, completely nonplussed, mouth hanging open slightly as she wonders if the hospital has added a mental ward with terrible security some time in the last hour. Insincere as she's experienced those three words to be, she's never had a declaration of love quite like that before.
"Right, okay, I think we're done here…" He looks around, as though expecting a little sign to pop up and tell him to propose or ask her how she feels about seven children and a dog. "Off we go, then!"
A second later and he's gone, rounding the corner at the end of the corridor, trench coat swishing behind him. She's just learnt the fastest lesson of her short career – that life with this man is evidently nothing if not interesting. What else can she do but follow?
