A/N: This is my first attempt at DW fic and it's taken a gulp of courage (or twenty) for me to put this out there, so I hope you enjoy it. *hides*

xx Ashlee Bree

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Doctor Who or any of its characters.

It's addicting, the Doctor thinks, inebriating himself with these Rose Tyler smiles.

But, blimey, how wrong! How incredibly reckless it is to supernova before her in this candid way—a fervid, bombastic, incalculable something curving into his dimples each time their eyes meet or their hands fuse together throughout these companionable years of space-journeying! His cheekbones lift and redden without warning these days. His lips stretch, curling upwards for lightyears. His eyes, shrewd, round, and markedly alien, widen to dilate his pupils until they molt into golden-amber pools…and shine.

All because she's there. Near. His smiles enlarging as a result of meager moments granulating with her preciousness.

Like how after a, 'the TARDIS 'n I hear all those numbers clunkin' about in your head as you shrink inward, Doctor. When you're…y'know, thinkin' exponentially' remark at his expense, her tongue traces the bottom edge of her teeth playfully and he finds his ears blazing with the need to hear more of her unique observations about him, her entire vocabulary of words. Or those times when he feels his eyes memorizing the atoms of her mouth as they reel him in close (dangerously, dangerously close) with their tantalizing electricity. Or the way she spoils him with sugar-propaned bananacakes because she knows they're his favorite Alphabeta'd 5 treat. Humming with delight, he never fails to lick up every last inch of rocketized frosting before offering her a broad, thankful grin.

(All the while praying the titanium sprinkles haven't metaled-over his pearly whites.)

Then there are the moments when he plops down on the edge of the bed before dawn, roused there by her whimpering, to chase away Bad Wolf nightmares with his caressing fingertips and to treasure the quiet intimacy of holding her while she snores. For a while, he allows himself to sink into her softness. She's a duvet made of the finest Egyptian cotton; he's the Time Lord pillow on which she rests snugly, wholly unaware. And as she sleeps, he inhales the soap mixed with perfume and pheromones wafting off the sheets—her skin—losing himself in her completely. Without a care.

Most mornings, however, he scampers off early to fiddle with wires in different rooms or to recalibrate his ship before she wakes. Anything to distract himself from the sound of her lullaby pulse in his ear plus that tickle of breath which still lingers like a hickey on his neck.

The only problem is he never can make himself forget.

Nope.

Not a damn thing can make him forget the sweetness of surrender: the feel of her arms draped around his middle, hand bunched in his pocket; blonde hair splayed messily across his tie; her right cheek cuddled against the center of his button-down shirt; the peaceful coo of his name as it's murmured on her lips like a piece of poetry…

And what about the color she paints into his clouded life merely by being? Her lungs still breathing laughter? Her heartbeat thumping wildly—enthusiastically to the ticking cadence of time?

Excitement zips through him at an infectious rate of acceleration and spurs a Δ velocity so terrifyingly fast, he stumbles over his own gangly feet to impress her with something better around the next galactic bend. And then there's the way his chest heaves peacefully, contentedly, the instant she curls herself into him. His hearts immediately settling into perfect circadian homeostasis because she's the warmest home he's ever known…

Why, Rose fills him full of photosynthesized buttercups! More than that, the fundamental truth of him is perceivable in every particle of attachment written across his features in easy-to-solve calculus.

"An abominably simple chemical reactant these days, me," he wants to tell her, but doesn't. "I'm an elementary school math problem. Nothing more than a, '1 Doctor + 2 hearts = ∞Rose' equation."

There's no "x," "y," or "z" devotion variable obscured by scientific notation, you see. There's no pining diameter too complex to measure in kilometers. There's no vertex of indifference because his feelings for this one remarkable human slope and parabola outside of him in flares so prominent, they nearly blind.

…And isn't that fantastically ironic?

After all, hadn't he sworn to lock them up, these smiles? Hadn't he promised himself to stifle them behind encephalon-shields where they could blaze privately? Perfectly undetected?

Yes.

Yes, he bloody had.

(Unfortunately, he exposes himself in the .00254 seconds it takes to blink, his resolve disintegrating into asteroid dust because a million photon particles shoot from his face whenever she's around…twinkling, twinkling.)

"This pink and yellow girl has fashioned me into a star again," he mutters quietly, unable to keep himself from laughing at the blatant and unmistakable reality of it all, marveling at how she bends around darkness to pull his faded light from the inside back out. "She's transformed the universe in which I live and exist by looking inside of me. Tinkered things about in there, she has. She's…why, she's gone and rekindled me!"

He cannot stop beaming now, can he?

(Nah. Nope. Never. Not with his brilliant Rose Tyler around!)

It only takes a moment before a new glow settles comfortably and cheerfully against his mouth, blossoming into something beautiful that yearns to be admitted to her with a kiss. (But isn't.)

"And, ah, what a wondrous thing, this facial shining!" the Doctor muses as brain cells buzz rosily with endorphins and adrenaline. "What an incredibly lovely human anomaly!"

Something about her pulls radiance out of him, he believes. Slips it across his lips. Fills him full of life-music so delightful, and so pleasant, he reaches for her hand and interlocks their fingers with a claiming squeeze. Damn-well determined to twirl her across the universe for as long as their starlit song-of-forever lasts.

He doesn't speak of it, however. He never addresses, out loud, the delightful smile-energy Rose draws out of him.

Impossible, he maintains, quite an impossible thing to do.

That being said, the Doctor cannot…he cannot resist showing her with simple somethings how far into him her influence spreads, or how fast it multiplies throughout him and into the armless arms of infinity.

The right words, the ones battling fear on his tongue, refusing to come out when he opens his mouth to speak, become tangled in his embrace. They curl into the trembling hands he wraps around her waist after they defeat another alien threat because he's so relieved they're safe, so grateful she's still with him in body, heart, and mind. But how he manages to pull back from her—to let go, he'll never know.

They also tuck into the sigh he leaves in her hair when she pilots a portion of the TARDIS from between his two straddled feet. The controls clang and creak as the ship veers left toward Planet Sigma H, clamping them together like two uncoordinated tango dancers until they're all left feet, tangled limbs, and he's laughing, "D'yknow what? I quite like these Doctor-Rose kinetics!" he says. "I should let you drive more often, eh? Allons-y!"

They press into the lips that ghost across her forehead in stolen moments just before sunrise as well. In the seconds before a yawn stretches open to clear the loving-dream-that-wasn't-a-dream from her mind. The right words slide down a string extending from him to her, unfurling like a poetic confession scribbled in telepathic meaning:

You are the warmest and the loveliest, Rose Tyler. You are the bubbliest of never-ending golds. You drunken both of my hearts then fizzle clear through to the spine of my soul, leaving me so wibbly-wobbly, I float toward you with the universe trailing like a hovercraft beneath my trainers.

I want to show it all to you, you see. The world within worlds. And that's why I whisper, "Come away—come and fly through Time with me."

Then, to my delight and surprise, you take my hand. Make a promise.

"I'll go," you say, "I'll go and never leave. 'N if I asked to stay forever, d'you think you'd want to keep me?"

Keep you? Why, I'm already sonic'd through with your name!

"For as long as I can," I say with a nod, then avert my gaze.

"Oh? And how long is that?"

I shrug. Adjust my spectacles. "According to the Cloudonions," I answer, looking up up up to count the galaxies still awaiting us, "'the edges of 'always' never fray…' "

Please say you know you are the beginning and ending of everything I am?

I burn anew in the sky you re-drew for me: Saved and remade. Bruised but no longer askew. I'm braver now because the style of the cosmos has changed, and 'forever' is a feeling that neither a lapse of time nor an increase of space between us can destroy.

Whole and round and colorfully loud, I am a star again—but a star glowing because of one.

You.

Fondness gleams from him like diamonds studded to the daylight when he thinks of his beloved gal; when he looks into her curious, honeyed face; when he reaches out, desperate for the flower-petal touch he doesn't deserve to feel wrapping around him in hug; when he catches the pop music hum of her stimulated pulse…and it will never burn back to black. The only thing this glimmering sensation can do within him is expand.

(And surely Rose senses this, yes? Surely she sees the intoxicating everything she pours inside of him?)

"Oh, she knows," he assures himself silently. Pulling her closer, the Doctor tucks her hand over his chest where it clicks into his like a planet that's found its way home, "She knows I twinkle with life again because of her—that she's my Big Bang. Surely she knows how much I…"

"Oi, since when are three words enough to clarify emotional immensity, anyway, hmm?"

"Don't be daft," Rose breaks in, patting his cheek softly, "they're not." Groggy, she rubs at her hooded eyes before nestling more comfortably against his shirt. " 'S usually easier to say I love you 's all. Much less yammerin' that way, I'd wager."

"Wha—but I—and you—" the Doctor's voice cracks; probabilities multiply so fast they rattle his eardrums "—you're…you're awake!?"

"Mmm. Have been."

"For how long?" he blurts.

"A bit."

"Welllll." He runs a jittery hand through his hair and clucks, "My Time Lord senses didn't detect—but ah! Perhaps I need to re-attune some neuron synapses or adjust a few electrostatic brain waves in my microtubules—so let me recalculate for R.E.M cycle here and—"

"Twinkle on, then," Rose says yawning, "twinkle on."

"Hmm? What?" She could not have possibly—his mind knots. His two hearts jump. Leap. Fluttering against muscle and bone, they threaten to sprout wings and fly out through his ribcage. "Come again?" he flusters.

"Nothin'." She bites her bottom lip to repress a smile. "Never mind," she says.

"Does that mean you were—did you happen to hear—"

She shrugs.

"Y'know, a simple yes or no would suffice here. Deducting at its basic form and all that."

"Mmm. 'S too bad I'm so tired," she trills as she presses a kiss beneath his earlobe and settles back against him with a hum, seemingly more than content to fall back to sleep while cocooned in his arms. "G'night Doctor."

"But, but Rose…"

(Blimey, how much of that uncensored drivel did he think aloud just now!? And better yet, how come she didn't seem to mind at all!?)

Thanks so much for reading! Comments are lovely.