They're perfectly normal lips, as far as the Doctor can tell; plumper than many, perhaps, maybe a little pinker, certainly more distracting. Absolutely normal, gorgeous, regular, luscious, run-of-the mill human lips. But what the Doctor can't figure out is why she keeps feeling so drawn to them, like Rose has her own special kind of gravity, as if Rose's mouth is a magnet for hers.
Rose raises an eyebrow in concern. "What's wrong? Have I got something on my face?"
No, but my face could change that is what the Doctor thinks. "Sorry, just lost in the clouds for a mo," is what she says. "Regular daydreamer, me."
Rose flashes her that smile, yes, that one, the one with her tongue trapped between her teeth; it does nothing to lessen the Doctor's distraction. "Thought Time Ladies were too high and mighty for silly things like daydreaming," she teases. "What's running through that head of yours?"
You, just you. "Oh, nothing in particular," the Doctor replies, tearing her gaze away and forcing herself to focus on the screen in front of her. That's what they're here for, after all; that's why they're doing this, why she's doing this. The TARDIS isn't going to repair herself, or at least she's not very likely to.
The Doctor bangs the side of the screen impatiently. Its readings remain stubbornly unchanged; no surprise, since the Doctor hasn't actually managed to do anything productive, despite her best efforts. But how can she help it that Rose Tyler is so ridiculously distracting—how is she supposed to think about anything else besides kissing her?
"This was a mistake," the Doctor announces, pushing back from the console desk. "I should have known better, should have known that bottle was full of nothing but panaceæ and snake oil. I can't recalibrate the temporal conduits like this. The work is too delicate. I need to be able to focus on it, just really focus. We're just gonna have to wait, is all."
"Wait? You?" Rose laughs. "You're gonna go mad!"
"Too late," says the Doctor, scrubbing one hand over her face.
Plucking up the medicinal vial from where the Doctor unceremoniously dumped it in the jumpseat, Rose turns it over in her hands, searching the label. "Maybe it hasn't kicked in yet?"
"Oh, it's kicked in," the Doctor says darkly.
"Okay, well, that's good, isn't it? We just need to get you focused on the right thing. Shove that big ol' impressive brain of yours into action!"
Rose heaves herself onto the jumpseat, her feet swinging over the grating. "So, how does it usually work, this hyperfocus thing?" she asks.
The Doctor doesn't answer; she's too busy staring at Rose's mouth again, at the perfect sweetheart shape of it, the lips that look so, so soft, the way they purse expectantly after Rose asks a question, the way they're pressing together right now.
Uh oh. Rose just asked a question. The Doctor has no idea what it might have been.
"Erm," she says.
Rose frowns. "Are you all right?"
The Doctor glances up at Rose's eyes.
That's a mistake. They're every bit as entrancing as her lips.
She gulps.
"Doctor?" Rose asks, her brow furrowed in worry. Slipping off the jumpseat, she takes a cautious step the Doctor's way, reaching one hand out to her shoulder. "Should I get you to the medbay—?"
"No!" the Doctor shouts as she springs back, making Rose jump. "I'm fine, Rose. Really! Don't worry about daft old me."
"Yeah, but you really seem off," Rose argues.
"Do I?" the Doctor asks; when her eyes slide down to Rose's lips again, she slaps herself in the face. "I feel fine to me!" she says, wincing only a little bit.
"What the hell did you do that for?" Rose demands.
"Nothing. No reason. It's just side effects of the drug, that's all."
"But you said there weren't any side effects—"
"Well, I was wrong, wasn't I?" the Doctor snaps.
Eyes widening, Rose plants her hands on her hips. "Funny, I didn't see anything on the label about a side effect of being mean."
"Yes, well, the manufacturers of this particular pharmaceutical likely never had to deal with anyone as bloody damn distracting as you," the Doctor shoots back.
She watches as coolness settles over Rose's face, hiding her feelings like a mask. Guilt instantly starts roiling in her guts.
"Fine," says Rose, her voice clipped. "I guess I'll just leave you to your delicate work, then. God knows I would hate to distract you any further."
Turning on her heel, Rose flounces away, disappearing down one of the TARDIS's many corridors. The moment she's out of sight, the Doctor heaves a frustrated sigh.
A make-up kiss would solve things nicely says a hopeful little voice in her head.
The Doctor answers that with another slap.
When Rose doesn't answer her knocks at the door, the Doctor pushes it open to find her sitting on her bed, arms crossed, eyes glaring, lips turned down in a pout.
(Bet I could kiss that pout away, the Doctor thinks, and her toes curl in her boots.)
"Well?" demands Rose. "Are you done?"
"Like I said, can't fix it right now," the Doctor replies. "My brain's gone…elsewhere. We're stuck for a bit until the drug wears off. I can't give the conduits the attention they need."
"Why? Am I so distracting that I'm bothering you even way back here?"
Yes, is what the Doctor thinks. A second later, she's surprised to register that it's exactly what she said, too.
This time, Rose doesn't bother to hide the hurt that flits across her face. The Doctor half-expects another barb to be flung her way—it's no less than what she deserves—so she's surprised when Rose draws her knees up to her chest, like she's trying to make herself as small as possible.
"I'm sorry," Rose mumbles. "I'll try to do better."
Something seizes uncomfortably in the Doctor's chest, creeps up to strangle her throat. The urge to reach out to Rose, to soothe her bruised feelings, battles mightily with her instincts to take advantage of this way out. They've wrapped the topic up in a nice little bundle, brought the circle to completion, and tomorrow, things will go back to normal, the way they always are—walls thick and strong and solidly back in place. No more things almost-done or words almost-spoken or lips almost-kissed.
The way it always is, the Doctor tells herself with an inward sigh. The way it has to be.
Those walls are in place for a reason.
She turns to leave, to give Rose a little space and take some time to clear her head, purge this gods-forsaken drug out of her system, but she finds she can't move any further. Her feet don't want to take her out of Rose's bedroom, don't want to leave their spots on the floor. Strangely, the rest of her body doesn't seem to, either.
The Doctor tuts impatiently. "Not your fault," she says, her voice gruff. (That'll work, right? Maybe that will be good enough to smooth things over without admitting…other things.)
Rose shrugs. "It's okay, Doctor. I was asking too many questions."
"No such thing, Rose Tyler," says the Doctor with a grin. Rose responds with a small smile of her own and that's no good, that's no good at all, because the movement draws the Doctor's gaze down to her lips once again—it's just the movement, just the motion of them, she swears.
Doesn't explain why you were thinking of kissing her before you took that drug, her brain says helpfully; the Doctor tells her brain, in no uncertain terms, exactly how many ways it can sod itself.
"Doctor?" Rose asks cautiously, and the Doctor hates that she's the reason for the hesitation in her voice. "Are you okay, though? Really?"
"Really," the Doctor says with a curt nod. "Nothing a little downtime won't fix."
Wordlessly, Rose scoots over on her bed, making room for the Doctor. When the Doctor doesn't move, too transfixed by the sight of Rose, in a bed, creating space for her in that very same bed, Rose pats the mattress next to her. Discomfited, the Doctor opens her mouth to generate some excuse or another, but at the hopeful look in Rose's eyes, she quickly caves in.
Just when did she allow herself to become so easily wrapped around Rose's finger? (More importantly, why doesn't she mind?)
The Doctor sits stiffly on the edge of Rose's bed, her leather jacket squeaking with every movement. She doesn't crawl into the bed next to Rose, but she does at least angle her body toward her—seems like it would be weird, otherwise.
"So," says Rose, her hands fidgeting nervously. "The drug was a bust? You couldn't focus on anything after all?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," the Doctor grunts.
"But if you couldn't focus on the conduit thing, what did you end up thinking about?"
"Doesn't matter."
Rose nods, draws her knees closer to her chest. "Sorry, I'm being nosy again."
"Can't really be nosy when it's got to do with you."
Rose's eyes widen, and only then does the Doctor realize what she said.
Damn. Double bloody damn.
"I mean," she starts to say, but what exactly she means, her tongue fails to elaborate. "It's just—see, the thing is—you were just—"
Oh, she should go. She really, really should. Should have left a long time ago. Probably shouldn't even have come in here. Probably never should have ever returned to Earth in the first place, probably should have avoided the Milky Way altogether—
"A distraction," Rose supplies, but she doesn't look upset this time. Instead, she looks…thoughtful. Like she's figuring something out.
Double bloody damn, indeed.
A slow, knowing smile creeps over Rose's face. "So when you took that drug," she says, her eyes lighting up with the promise of mischief, "you weren't thinking about the conduits at all."
The Doctor shakes her head. "No."
"You were thinking about me?" Rose asks, as if she can hardly believe it.
Clearing her throat, the Doctor adjusts her jacket, just for the sake of giving her hands something to do. "We travel together," she says, looking around the room at anything but Rose. "S'only natural you'd cross my mind every once in a while."
"Why were you thinking about me?"
The Doctor frowns. "Reasons."
"What were you thinking, specifically?"
Now the Doctor glares at her properly, but Rose doesn't seem even remotely deterred. In fact, if anything, she seems even more interested. Positively intrigued.
"You've got a lot of questions, haven't you?" she mutters. "Too many questions."
Rose's grin widens. "No such thing—right?"
The Doctor scowls. Grinning ear-to-ear, Rose scoots back over on the bed, until she and the Doctor sit only inches apart, nearly touching.
"Doctor," Rose says, her voice teasing, "What were you thinking about me?"
She knows she should answer—a lie would do beautifully; yes, a lie is just the ticket, the perfect reset button, an excellent method of restoring the status quo, and one sits perched on the tip of her tongue just now, just waiting—but her gaze flickers down to Rose's lips once again—perfect and plump and so, so close, certainly close enough for a kiss; she's fairly certain she remembers how, even if it has been a century or two—and maybe Rose hasn't just got her own gravity, she's got her own chronology, too, because time certainly seems to be slowing, crawling by at such a glacial pace that the Doctor can make out each and every nanometer of blush that blooms across Rose's cheeks—
Before she knows it, the Doctor has swallowed the lie.
"Huh," says Rose softly, with the air of someone who just figured out something very important, and panic seizes the Doctor's throat. Time to bail, she thinks; it's too late to quit while she's ahead (she fell behind a long, long time ago, practically the second one Rose Tyler set foot on this ship) but surely it's not too late to cut at least some of her losses. If nothing else, maybe she can salvage a shred of her dignity. She would settle for twenty, maybe fifteen percent of her dignity.
But Rose moves just a little closer still, her eyes traveling over the Doctor's face, landing on her lips, and the Doctor suddenly forgets what dignity even is.
(Of course she knows that Rose has feelings for her; the Doctor isn't that daft. She's got eyes and ears, hasn't she? But somehow she never let herself think—or hope—that Rose might have feelings for her.)
There are a thousand reasons why the Doctor shouldn't do this, but all of those reasons flutter out of her head the second Rose bridges the distance between them and gently presses her lips to the Doctor's.
Instinctively, the Doctor stiffens, every muscle in her body going as rigid as a block of concrete. But her eyes still shutter closed, her hands fist in the bedclothes, her hearts hammer painfully against the walls of her ribcage. Rose is so soft, so wonderfully warm, all pressed up against her shoulder as she tilts her head for a better angle. And her lips—well, the Doctor doesn't like to wax poetical (she much prefers prose, she does), but her lips are the stuff dreams are made of, all tender and sweet and silky-smooth and just the littlest bit wet when they part at the end. The Doctor doesn't believe in heaven, but if she did, she would believe it felt like this.
Rose pulls back with her eyes closed and cheeks pink. Gaze cast shyly downward, she asks in a quiet voice, "Was that okay?"
Playing for time, the Doctor licks her lips. (Horribly ineffective strategy, because she tastes Rose there, and that just makes her want more.)
"I mean, for the hyperfocus thing," Rose says carefully. "Like, did it help with that?"
Rose is giving her another out, the Doctor realizes. She can play this all off as drug-addled nonsense, if she so chooses. It's another chance to go back to normal, to pretend nothing ever happened, to return to life as she knew it before—a little sad at times, perhaps, isolated and alone behind her walls, but safe. Resolutely, blessedly safe.
The Doctor's eyes stray back down to Rose's lips. This is it. Take that lifeline. Take that chance—
She tilts Rose's chin upward and presses a kiss to her mouth; it's short and firm but it's sweet and it leaves absolutely no room for doubt.
"Oh, Rose Tyler," she murmurs when they part, her thumb stroking Rose's jawline. "Not even a little bit."
Rose's lips curl up in a smile; it might be one of the most beautiful things the Doctor has ever seen.