"…Big decisions," the Doctor mumbles, and Rose- as he anticipated she would- looks up from her nail-polishing to respond flippantly, "Hm?"
He's miffed by her readiness to respond to his absentminded comment. She seems to think his Freudian slip is something to pursue in actual conversation.
"Oh- nothing." A subtle twitch at the corner of his mouth. "Just…big decisions."
She daubs the tiny brush on the lip of the bottle of cherry-blossom top-coat and sets her cosmetics aside. "Well, what about big decisions?"
He pulls a face and shrugs, stretching out in the jumpseat, kneading his heels into the floor and pushing the seat cushion past the point of elasticity. "This thing," he groans, cracking his back, "has no lumbar support."
"Doctor." Rose coaxes in that surreptitiously-eager snip, the one that makes her voice wax low and impatient. Her eyebrows dart up and her forehead crinkles and she's swaying her hips at him so seductively, deliberately slow. "What about big decisions?"
"What? Oh, right. Yeah. Big decisions. I…make them."
Rose stares.
The Doctor curses her curiosity. It is so very different than his own.
She shouldn't be phased by his inadvertent blurts; she's so accustomed to everything else in his life, why not permit him a private conversation with himself, for once? Shouldn't she be interested in far-reaches and that's-impossibles and we-should've-turned-backs?
"That's it?"
"That's it, yeah," and it is his turn to get snippy.
She circles the console- his console- predatorily, dictating the territory- her territory- with leggy strides and outstretched arms. "Right," she nods, affirms, grins, and places her elbows on either side of the headrest. "Sure. And thus concludes that train of thought?" She props her chin on the crown of his head.
He sits ascetically still. She pieces his bangs with her freshly-painted fingers.
"No," he second-guesses, and swats her hands out of his hair, mostly to cut the distraction, although it does annoy him somewhat. "All the little decisions I ever make are always part of something bigger."
He's talking to himself again, which is precisely why Rose responds. "I don't believe there's ever something as simple as a 'little decision'. …And I didn't think you believed that either."
"I don't," he mumbles, and then leans his head back to finally acknowledge the dialogue Rose thought they'd been having. "Rose-?"
"Hm?" She repeats, just as chipper, before he can finish the question.
"What's the biggest decision you've ever had to make…?"
He already knows her answer, damn his intuition, (damn her for not having his intuition), so he stands to face her as she replies.
Her options intersect and he watches them as they flicker across her face, too briefly to be considered with the gravity and worth that they deserve. He's already shaking his head when she unavoidably says, "You."
"Okay, yep," the Doctor nods, taking a step closer to her. "And…do you regret it?"
"No!" Rose cries, and the Doctor chimes in with her- not mocking, but conceding with her innocence and honesty.
She bites her lip and watches the Doctor's face for possible outcomes to this conversation. Pity it started out as a monologue...
"Well, I end up regretting a lot of the decisions I make. …Especially the big ones. …Like, this one-"
And without further ambiguities, he kisses her.