"Rose Tyler, are you doubting my shopping expertise?"
It's an especially stomach-swoopy sort of day. They've had rides on the London Eye - the new and improved version, done over after the fourth World War with hover technology - and tumbled, laughing through twenty-ninth century London, dodging in and out of shops on the first good lark they've had since Reinette and Mickey and the Cybermen.
Rose is bent over laughing, her cheeks pink with the cold and with mirth and maybe with something else, something else that puts his stomach into freefall and curls his toes in his trainers. It's snowing a bit, so she's got his coat on, and it's too big by half, dragging the ground behind her and swamping her arms, and he wishes he could be concerned about the state of the coat but all he can think of is that it should be illegal for anyone to be that huggable.
"I'll have you know," he says, raising his eyebrow archly. "That I am a scarfconnoisseur."
His eyes widen just a bit when she steps closer, steps right into his very small circle of personal space and gives him a grin touched with the tip of her tongue. He's absolutely positive that he was going to say something else, except Rose's hand has snuck up to twine itself in the glittery thing around his neck, and he can quite suddenly feel her breath against his cheek as she yanks him downwards.
"Dunno, Doctor," he found it very hard to concentrate on her voice, as her fingers were very near to the nape of his neck. "What're your credentials?"
There's something on the tip of his tongue about eighteen foot credentials andMadame Nostradamus, but it dawns suddenly on the Doctor that it doesn't quite matter what they say as long as they keep talking, and most importantly, as long as Rose's fingernails keep scratching the back of his neck like that.
His brain is just getting round to the fact that A) this is a terrible place for a snog, and B) that he really doesn't care, when suddenly she darts off, laughing. This whole trip has been filled with moments like that - a step forward, and then Rose takes a few laughing steps back, like a cat toying with it's prey.
He thinks, with a long and unashamed look at her as she retreats, that his turn as the prey is coming to an end.
The Doctor means to follow Rose, really he does. She's disappeared around a corner, and there's bound to be more interesting things to do in the wake of Rose's swaying hips than standing in a twenty-ninth century crafts market, but two things happen that prevent him from doing so.
The first is a subtle, tingling feeling - something he'd brushed off as a headache before, or some sort of minor temporal anomaly. A ringing in his ears that has only grown louder (and been persistently ignored for fear of spoiling the carefree atmosphere) throughout the day. It's almost impossible to ignore now, and with a solid, resounding clang a flood of memories wash over him that most certainly weren't there before.
The second thing that prevented him from leaving was, quite literally, a leather clad wall of man standing between him and where he wanted to go. He made to follow Rose so quickly that he ran straight into the other man, who was solid and unmoving and just a little bit terrifying.
"Oh, I'm sorry, did that hurt?"
Oh, right.
The Doctor couldn't help it. He grinned at the grim-faced man now facing him.
Oh yes, he remembered now. Rose had insisted on having Christmas - proper Christmas - with him, and with Jack, and the three of them were even now split up to find gifts for one another. They had a pre-arranged time to meet back up, and until a few minutes ago, all the Doctor remembered was an afternoon spent fretting over Rose Tyler and gifts and silly human customs. But he remembered now, the brief flash of Rose-who-wasn't his, his now-Rose, smiling his smile at a stranger.
Oh.
Well, he was a bit silly, wasn't he?
"Oh ho ho," said the Doctor, folding his arms over his chest. "Look at you, big fella! You rather look like I've stolen your sweets - though I suppose I have, haven't I?"
He didn't recognize himself. It wasn't often that happened, holes in the universe the size of Belgium besides, and he intended to have a little fun.
The Doctor-with-the-ears (blimey, were they ever big) gave him a look of pure disgust, taking in the striped suit, the plimsolls, and - oh. The sparkly silver scarf.
Well.
"Where does she find you lot?" he said with a sneer.
"Oooooh, us lot. Now what does he mean by that, I wonder? The remarkably handsome? The incomparably charming? Blokes with normal-sized ears?"
"Oh, will you shut up?"
"Touchy."
Scared, more like. Of seeing Rose happily settled, somewhere and somewhen else far away from him. He felt a bit embarrassed, now, knowing what he did, to have thought that Rose would just leave him and settle in with someone new.
The Other folded his arms over his chest, not meeting the Doctor's eye.
"Is she happy, at least?"
Oh, he couldn't resist.
"You mean, have I made her happy? The sort of happy that she deserves? The sort of happy that I'd better provide for her or else or you're going to loom scarily at me and threaten bodily harm?" the Doctor grinned. "Yep!"
It may, the Doctor thought as his back met brick wall, have been a little much.
"I don't know who you are -"
The Other's large hands curled into the lapels of his coat, catching on the silver scarf.
"You're gonna want to stop that," he warned.
"Or what you've done to deserve Rose."
He…didn't remember much of this part, aside from the slight haze of red and the sickness in his stomach from realizing Rose would be gone from him one day. But what came next…
"No really, things are going to get very embarrassing for you in a moment."
"But you listen to me -"
"I'm talking coat of many colors embarrassing here, in about five seconds."
The Other didn't listen. He was saying very true things, mind, but they were uselessly said, because these were things the Doctor already knew.
"She's precious, you understand? Not another woman in the universe like her, and so help me -"
"Three seconds."
One, two, three.
Rose Tyler - his now-Rose, not his then-Rose - poked her head back around the corner, her eyes going crinkly and concerned and not a little on the defensive. The Other was facing away from her - she didn't see two Doctors, she only saw one scrawny one in immediate physical danger, and she bristled as her small hands curled into fists.
"Doctor?" she said.
The Other's face froze. He looked at the Doctor, then down to the coat and the plimsolls and the very sparkly scarf thank-you-very-much, and his mouth fell open as comprehension dawned.
"Hello!"