Fun in the Sun

1. Sun

The Doctor closed the door of the TARDIS behind them and squinted around in the bright sunlight. After his eyes adjusted to the glare, he turned and contemplated his surroundings; taking in the parking lot, barbecue area, and even the polo grounds across the street. Everything looked…well, normal. Even the beach itself looked just as relaxing as advertised. He of all people knew that appearances could be deceiving, but, on the other hand, he really couldn't find anything remotely threatening. And he wasn't sure if that made him feel relaxed…or disappointed. Rose just smiled at him when he turned to her and headed off for the beach, leaving him to follow behind.

They laid out their towels under a convenient tree, and Rose pulled a bottle of sun cream out of her beach bag. The same bag he'd slipped his sonic screwdriver into a moment before, finding to his shock that his swim shorts had no pockets. He just didn't feel right without his screwdriver close to hand, just in case. One never knew when it might come in handy.

It was really quite pleasant here, to be sure. The water was so calm that it was difficult to believe that this was really the ocean. Not three yards away there was even a baby sitting in the shallows splashing away as though the ocean was just a rather large bathtub. Her mother smiled down at her, one hand supporting the little one's back. The Doctor turned away quickly, ignoring a sudden rush of complex emotions and the little voice in his mind wondering how he was supposed to make it through an entire day of inaction. There was, after all, a reason that he spent his life in constant motion.

He gazed stubbornly into the distance for a while, until he realized that he was actually scanning the horizon for invading spaceships or any sort of rampaging sea monsters heading their direction. Nothing. Not even a shark. Just blue sky, wispy clouds, and slightly wind blown water. Damn!

Amused with himself, he glanced back at Rose and stared. She'd untied her sarong and was busily applying sun cream to her abdomen in long, careful strokes. He could see that she'd already taken care of her face and legs, so that only left her back and…the rest of her top half.

Dear. God.

He should look away or close his eyes. Think of something else, anything but watch Rose as she started on her neck without looking up at him. She could look up at any moment and see him drinking in the sight of her hands moving over her pale skin. And really, he was pretty sure that his expression would say too much.

With a titanic effort of will, he managed to tear his gaze away from her body only to find the same scene replaying itself on the back of his eyelids. Rubbing his face and running his fingers agitatedly though his hair, he fought to keep from groaning aloud. This was torture, pure and simple. How was he supposed to survive a whole day of this without doing something stupid?

The Doctor had managed to get halfway to his goal of reciting pi to a thousand digits—and had begun to feel a bit calmer in the process—when Rose touched his arm.

"Doctor? Could you do my back?"

He opened his eyes and turned to see a shade-dappled Rose offering him the bottle of sun cream. His hand reached for the bottle automatically, even as his mind was shouting at him that this was a bad idea.

Distance, he reminded himself desperately—rules!

Rose turned her back to him, ducking her head and moving her hair to expose the nape of her neck. A sudden vision of him grabbing her around the waist and biting down just where her neck met her shoulder leapt unbidden into his mind, and he nearly dropped the bottle. What was wrong with him today? He was beginning to get the feeling that her neck was taunting him as he poured some of the sun cream into his hand. So he did the only thing he could think of to distract himself as he proceeded to work the lotion into her skin.

He started babbling.

Well, actually, it was a lecture about the history of the planet they had been headed towards when Rose had decided that she wanted to come here instead, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it sounded like babbling anyway. He worked his way through the fall of the royal family and the rise to power of the current tyrant as his hands glided across her skin, being careful not to miss a spot. Her skin was perfect the way it was, and he certainly didn't want it to burn. Also, it was incredibly soft. Was that a tiny birthmark under her shoulder blade?

Between the thread of his narrative and the random observations flitting through his mind, it took him a moment to realize that he was done. Actually, he was more than done. He'd begun to trace words into her back with his fingers. Three quarters of the way through the word "golden" he stopped abruptly. The whirling patterns of Gallifreyan letters were invisible on her skin, but he felt as though his hands had betrayed him somehow.

"All done," he pronounced, standing up and moving away from Rose…and temptation.

Her voice stopped his flight, but only for a moment. "Do you need me to do your back, too?"

Refusing to even contemplate the feel of her hands on his back, he smiled at her disarmingly. "No thanks. My skin isn't as sensitive to radiation as yours is. I'll be fine. I think I'll just go for a swim."

Raising his head from the water, The Doctor looked for the towel that Rose was napping on for about the hundredth time. Well, she had called it "tanning," but how she could ever hope to get a tan when her towel was in the shade he wasn't sure. But he certainly wasn't checking up on her just to stare at her barely clad body. Oh those long legs and… stop it!

He located their towels and things quite easily, but this time Rose was gone. Telling himself sternly not to panic, he scanned the beach for her familiar form. After a moment, he spotted her a little way further along the beach chatting with two tanned muscular blokes dressed much as he was. Both of them seemed to be listening intently to what she was saying.

Wait—what was that growling noise?

Glancing quickly to either side, The Doctor found nothing nearby but more water.

This left only one conclusion….

Rassilon and Omega—the noise was coming from him. This is bad.

Before he could ponder this development any further, one of Rose's two new admirers reached out to touch her arm. The Doctor narrowed his eyes and instantly began moving toward the trio. No doubt she was enjoying the attention, but if there was one thing that he knew, it was males. They were much the same the Universe over. Really, they were both standing much too close to her for comfort. Well, his comfort anyway. Come to think of it, he didn't like the way they were looking at her either. Like she was a starving man's next meal.

Attempting to keep to his usual relaxed pace, he walked toward them through the shallows. Coming up behind Rose, he oh-so-casually draped his arm across her shoulders and smiled at her new friends.

"Hello, Rose. Who are your friends?"

She glanced up at him, and he thought that he caught a sparkle of amusement in her eyes before she looked away, but he wasn't sure.

"This is my friend, The Doctor," she offered, and hands were duly shaken all around.

Steve and Mike, it turned out, were visiting from California. They were brothers. One worked in Marketing; the other, in Sales. Rose had actually managed to glean a surprising amount of information from them. The Doctor, however, was really more interested in making them go away. He didn't wish to embarrass Rose by being rude, but either they were too blinded by her beauty—really who could fault them for that—or he wasn't getting his point across.

And if Mike didn't get his eyes back up to Rose's face right now, he wasn't going to be responsible for his actions.

Ever so slowly, The Doctor drew himself up to his full height. Though his lips still curved up in a smile, all of the humor behind it drained from his face leaving only The Oncoming Storm looking out. This gaze he directed at Mike, and waited for a reaction.

Rose continued her conversation with Steve, seemingly oblivious to the sudden increase of tension to her right.

The Doctor watched as Mike finally finished his current perusal of Rose's swimwear. Their eyes met. Mike reddened under his tan and actually stepped back a pace, looking alarmed. Finally.

The Doctor's affable mask was instantly back in place when Rose turned towards them, and looked suspiciously between him and Mike.

To his credit, Mike took this pause in the flow of conversation as an opportunity to take his leave. "You know, it's getting late. We should go see where the rest of our group got to. Nice meeting you both," he said, before dragging a confused Steve away with him.

Only after they left did it occur to The Doctor that his behavior so far today might have seemed a little bit…strange. He just couldn't account for some of the things he had thought and done. He looked down once more at Rose who was watching the brothers' rapid retreat with perplexed expression on her face, and he wondered briefly if her bikini was somehow trying to control his mind.

The idea had merit, actually. Where had it come from in the first place? If she'd found it in the TARDIS, it could have originated anywhere. Some sort of external influence could explain today's strangeness. Perhaps the bright red swimwear had appeared on the TARDIS at the same time as that feathered outfit he'd found earlier. He'd never seen either of them before, so why not? There was bound to be some mind-controlling, alien-made, bright-red swimwear available at those large bazaars that Rose so enjoyed. Come to think of it, Jack had loved those bazaars, too. Maybe Jack…

He could almost hear Jack laughing at him now.

Okay. He was just being silly. The Doctor knew perfectly well that it was the woman inside the swimsuit that was driving him mad. Normally, he was busy enough to ignore this attraction. Well, most of the time, that is. And normally she was wearing more. Not that he was complaining, of course. It was just that he was having a really hard time thinking about something other than the feel of her skin under his hands.

Time Lords are rational beings, he reminded himself. They do not need to give in to baser urges. They are above that sort of thing.

Riiiiight. You just keep telling yourself that, Doctor.

And when exactly had his inner voice started sounding like Captain Jack Harkness?

Maybe he really was going mad. Either way, he needed to come up with something to distract himself with soon, or even his impressive willpower would finally fail.

And speaking of mad….

Rose had her hands on her hips and her face wore an expression that did not bode well for his future. "What was that all about?"

The Doctor tried for innocent incomprehension. "What was what all about?"

Rose's eyes somehow managed to get even narrower. "What did you do?"

Innocence hadn't worked, so The Doctor tried for a change of subject. "Nothing. Well, it is nearly suppertime, right? They were probably just hungry. Growing boys, you know. What do you think? Shall I try my hand at barbecuing?"

Rose rolled her eyes and shook her head, her stance relaxing. The Doctor could almost hear her thinking git at him.

He grinned at her, heaved a large mental sigh of relief, and took her hand, preparing to lead her back to their towels, but she stopped after only a few steps and looked up at him.

"Wait. You said something about barbecuing. You want to barbecue?"

Instead of the hoped for enthusiasm, Rose's eyes grew worried, and The Doctor was treated to an image of himself standing in front of a huge ball of flame with soot marks decorating his face and his sonic screwdriver. He dropped her hand, and the image disappeared.

Now, that was worrying. Twice, come to think of it. He shouldn't have been able to receive an image from her mind so easily. Holding her hand shouldn't have been enough contact. …And did she really think that he'd blow up the barbecue?

"Well," he began uncertainly, "I thought, you know, we're at the beach, so barbecue. I mean, they even have a barbecue area. Nice word, barbecue. Hmmm…bar-be-cue." He drew the word out as if tasting the syllables, but Rose's worried eyes hadn't left his face. "No barbecue, then?" He asked finally after the silence had gone on a bit too long.

"No," Rose said decisively, and then her face lit with sudden inspiration. "No barbecue. You are going to take me out to eat. Someplace nice. And," she added with a mischievous smile, "you are going to pay this time. With real money. I know you have some. Proper sit down. Just you and me."

"I am?"