a/n: I decided to post another of my trope fics here. This one is AU Gen combined with mistletoe kiss. Nothing but fluff with a smidge of angst. Very sweet romance story. Part 1 of 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who

The last thing Rose Tyler ever expected was to be Program Director in the product testing department at Tardis Toys. It was all a fluke really. She had been assigned to the toy department at Henriks and was dreading it. No one wanted to work there due to the noise, mess and chaos caused by children and their overwrought parents who walked through that area with a glazed look in their eyes while their children squealed, whined and ran off to bounce around the toy aisles. There was always an incident of some sort, like a tantrum of being denied a desired toy, tears, begging and not to mention the occasional lost child while a parent's attention was diverted by their mobile. It was the duty of the sales person on call to cater to said overwrought parent, find the missing child, clean up the mess of toys thrown asunder and locate that elusive toy that some clueless adult needed but had no idea what it was, only that they must procure it and quickly or devastation and the apocalypse would rain down upon them and their sweet little angel child would contort into something out of Dante's inferno.

All the Henrik's employees avoided this area. When Rose was assigned this duty, she groaned. Her supervisor, Yvonne Hartman, lectured her on duty and dedication and how she would never get anywhere in the world without paying her dues and learning how to cope with any obstacle thrown in her path, including tiny sticky fingered, crying ones. Rose had sighed and made her way slowly up to the toy department. She received several sympathetic looks from other sales associates, one of whom wished her luck before scurrying away in case Yvonne Hartman tried to corral her into helping Rose.

When Rose arrived, it was chaos. Obviously, the prior sales associate had fled leaving Rose to straighten up and organize everything. It took her an hour just to get things back on shelves and would take her at least another hour to make any sense of it. At least, it would have if there were no customers to assist. It was the week before Easter and the shelves were stocked with the latest Easter toys like plush bunnies and chicks as well as paint sets, coloring books, arts and crafts and the latest electronic gadgets. It wasn't long before Rose plastered a smile on her face and began helping customers. She was run ragged all day and barely had a break for lunch. The bright side was she did receive a commission for sales and sales in this department were booming.

As the day drew to a close, she was counting down the minutes. She was tired of hearing Peter Cottontail every time a child activated a particularly horrid plushy, she had sugar goo from a lollipop sticking to her favorite blue cardigan and had nearly was bruised from having to climb up to the top of one shelf to retrieve on particular puzzle for a demanding parent who insisted all the other boxes had marks on them and she had to have an untouched box.

It wasn't all terrible, though. She had met one rather shy boy by the name of Owen whose mother ordered him to stay put while she dragged his whinging sister away to try on clothes. This was against store policy but the ginger haired mother looked so hurried and put out; and the boy was so quiet and well behaved, Rose let it go. As she watched Owen quietly examine the science section, she couldn't help but smile. He was staring at one particular toy with longing. It was a Super Science Magnet kit. It reminded Rose when she was little and used to stand outside a local toy store and stare through the plate glass windows at the latest toy which she knew her mum could never afford.

It was a lull in customers and there was only one other shopper in the area so she quickly walked over and plucked the kit off the shelf and opened it for him with a quick, "don't tell anyone." He looked at her as if she was some comic book super hero who just saved the Earth from destruction. He proceeded to babble a mile a minute to her about how magnetics were a force of attraction or repulsion and how a magnet is an object that has a strong magnetic field attracting materials like iron; that magnets have two poles and two magnets will be attracted by their opposite poles.

Rose reluctantly left her little scientist when another customer came by asking for assistance. Owen seemed to be happy and sat off in a corner in his own geeky world. Soon, they would be closing and just as she was about to page his mum, another customer hurried up. It was a man in a business suit walking with a blonde haired girl in a school uniform. He ordered the girl to pick out something and be quick and then he focused on his mobile. If it wasn't bad enough that he waited until she was closing up, this git of a father now ignored his daughter. Rose was seething but once again, pasted a smile on her face and went to work asking the man if they were looking for something in particular.

He looked at her annoyed and waved her toward the little girl who was biting her lip and tugging at her skirt while staring at the aisles of toys.

It took a while, but Rose soon coaxed out of the little girl what she wanted. As it turned out, the girl had a stutter and was nervous talking to strangers. Rose was able to get her to speak to her and together they picked out a toy. When they walked up to the father, the little girl was smiling and talking hesitatingly to Rose. The father seemed a bit stunned looking from his watch to the girl to Rose. Rose escorted them to the register and before they left, he turned to Rose. "Thank you. We just lost my wife and my daughter…she hasn't taken it well. She doesn't normally talk much." He paused and looked down at his smiling daughter clinging to his side and then back at Rose. He looked at Rose's name tag. "Thank you, Rose, for taking the time to make my daughter feel special."

All her aggravation from annoying, screaming children, cleaning up messes and dealing with haughty condescending parents melted away. Rose watched him leave and the little girl turned and smiled, waving goodbye. Working in the toy department was tough but that might have just made her day. She was startled from her musings when someone cleared her throat off to her side. It was the ginger-haired woman whose son had been her quiet companion.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I was just about to page you," Rose exclaimed, looking down at the little boy.

"No, I should be apologizing to you. My daughter here, Lily, has been a right pain today…"

"Was not!" the little ginger haired Lily announced with a pout.

"Zip it you!" the woman ordered. She then turned back to Rose with an apologetic smile. "Anyway, you really helped me out today with Owen. I really appreciate it."

It wasn't often a parent was so nice, much less apologized for leaving their child with her. "Oh, Owen was no problem at all," Rose said and looked down at him standing close to his mum. She looked back up at his mother. "He's real bright but I guess you know that."

Donna Noble knew talent when she saw it. It was part of her job as Vice President of Tardis Toys. This sales associate had it, although from the looks of her, she didn't know it yet. Donna excelled at recruiting only the best for her company and she was about to snatch up another diamond in the rough.

"Yeah, genius sort of runs in the family," she acknowledged and looked down at the boy. Who smiled and then walked up and hugged Rose.

"Thank you for being nice to me today, Rose," he said softly and walked back to his mum and grabbed her hand.

"So, Rose, I hope you don't mind me saying this but you have a real way with kids. What are you doing here?"

Rose was shocked. That was the last thing she expected to hear. "Um, I just got transferred to the toy department. Normally, I work in women's apparel downstairs and I'm really not that good with kids. I mean, Owen's so well mannered and smart. He was a breeze!"

"I saw you with that little girl earlier. Not everyone can make that kind of connection with kids. It really is special. I also saw you earlier working with some of the products, especially the Slitheen Slime lab, Timey Wimey Trivia and Key to Time Puzzle. Most parents have a time of it figuring that stuff out but you just dived in and got it. I have to say, I think you can do better than some generic shop like this."

Donna handed Rose one of her cards. "We could use someone like you at Tardis Toys."

Rose looked at the card and recognized the name right away. Tardis Toys was top of the line and Henriks carried several of their products. Rose had sold at least a half a dozen of their line today. She looked back up at Donna. "But, I don't know what I could do. I mean, I don't even have my A Levels."

Donna smiled at her. "Stop selling yourself short. You've got talent Rose. I'm Donna Noble by the way."

"Tyler, Rose Tyler." Rose responded.

Donna held a hand out and shook Rose's hand. "Nice to meet you, Rose Tyler. I'll be expecting a call in the morning." Some of the lights dimmed in the store and Donna looked up. "Well, I don't want to keep you. Thanks again for Owen and I'll talk to you tomorrow." With that Donna swept out of the toy department, with children in tow leaving a stunned Rose Tyler.

She looked at the card again. "Donna Noble, Vice President and Director of Marketing." Rose grinned. Tardis Toys. Couldn't be worse than here and it didn't hurt to talk to them. With that, she tucked the card away and went to work shutting down the toy department, leaving work with a hop in her step and looking forward to tomorrow and whatever adventure lay ahead at Tardis toys.

Everything happened fast once Rose met with Donna at Tardis Toys headquarters. She was given a tour and fell in love with the atmosphere. It was busy but relaxed. Everyone smiled and seemed to love working there. Rose didn't feel out of place or intimidated except perhaps for the Research and Development Department. It was filled with what Donna called the brainy types. They developed the next generation of toys, some of which went way over Rose's head. She never did quite get what one of the toy inventors or scientists, as they were called here, was trying to explain when he showed her the latest toy in development, physics monopoly.

The product testing area was not a disaster but it needed improvement. Rose was nervous that she couldn't do it and after her mother's lecture about not getting airs and graces and remember her roots, she was even more nervous. She was just a shop girl from the estate after all.

Donna was looking expectantly at Rose, waiting for an answer and before Rose could say anything, a tall skinny bloke in a suit burst into the room, his arms full of electronic bits and wires and something that looked like a robotic dog.

Donna sighed. "Rose this little strip of nothing is the Doctor, our resident space man and all around bonkers inventor."

The Doctor turned to Rose. "Hello! Would you like to see my newest invention, Alonzo?" he asked and set his robotic dog toy down on a table.

Rose looked at the brown pin suited mad man. He was handsome in a geeky sort of way, with a friendly face, big brown eyes and the most gorgeously tousled brown hair Rose had ever seen. She looked at Donna who rolled her eyes and then looked back at the Doctor.

"Doctor, this is Rose, who I hope will be taking over product testing. Don't scare her off!" Donna said, almost chastising him.

He just grinned and excitedly went to work on Alonzo the tin dog as if it was an every day event to waltz in work on a robotic toy dog in front of a visitor..

Rose stood quietly and watched him wondering about this whole job idea. She listened to him babble on about circuits, processors and artificial intelligence and was barely able to follow him he talked so fast. That being said, there was such an enthusiasm about this Doctor that she was immediately drawn to along with his excitement about the product he was pointing at. She might not understand how it worked but she had enough of the gist of it and could almost see the excited look in the face of a child like Donna's Owen. She may not know a whole lot about kids but she could certainly bridge the gap between this science geek, his new inventions and showing it off to kids. It would even be fun. What could be better than coming to work and showing off toys to kids?

The Doctor was demonstrating his mechanical dog by activating a penlight remote control when the dog shot across the table at an alarming speed. Rose shot forward and caught it just as it was about to crash to the floor. She looked at the toy tin dog and smiled as it wiggled its antenna like ears at her. She looked up at Donna with a huge grin on her face.

"I'll take it!" She exclaimed!"

The Doctor stared a moment at her and tugged at his ear. "Well, it's really not ready. I mean, it might need a little bit of work and when I say a bit, I mean…"

Donna rolled her eyes. "She means the job, dumbo." Donna then looked at Rose standing there cradling the Doctor's new toy and smiled. "You can start tomorrow. Let's get you to HR and get things started.

Rose walked up to the Doctor to hand him his toy dog. "He's lovely. Um, thanks for showin' him to me. I'm sure kids would really have fun with this…" She paused and looked at the K-9 emblazoned on the side. "K-9 toy."

He just stared at her a moment before breaking out in a huge grin. "Brilliant," he breathed. "I mean, K-9 was just the current model but it has a certain ring to it," he said, gazing into her eyes as if looking for something and then pleased at what he found. He would be keeping an eye on this Rose Tyler. She had a fresh enthusiasm he was drawn to, not to mention she had the most dazzling welcoming smile he had ever seen.

"Shouldn't you be off fixing him so he doesn't speed off and kill some kid?" Donna, asked crossing her arms in front of her, interrupting his thoughts.

"What? Oh yes! Fixing things! I'm good at that. Especially tin dogs and advanced sentient toys," he said as he stumbled out of the room looking at Rose and grinning like a loon.

Rose couldn't help but giggle. He was just so adorable and enthusiastic. This job was not going to be boring.

Rose wasn't wrong about the exciting part. She had turned in her resignation at Henriks the next day and went straight to Tardis Toys. It was challenging to put together the product testing department but she had fun making their product testing room child friendly. It didn't take long before she met everyone. Well, everyone except the mysterious CEO of the company who nobody met. Apparently, the CEO liked to stay out of the limelight and remained anonymous although there was always wild speculation about who he or she was. It added another layer of excitement to working there.

Rose's position wasn't just confined to the product testing department though. She took part in meetings to learn about the products and marketing as well. She soon realized Tardis Toys was filled with a bunch of friendly nutters. R&D was at the top of her nutter list. Although the marketing people weren't far behind. They had debates on everything from pears versus bananas; the importance of the little shop in hospitals and how their toys helped sick children heal; whether or not bees were aliens and the importance of rubber ducks.

Of course, like any large organization, there was also company gossip. Rose was in the elevator one day with a group from an accounting when she ended up in the middle of just such a conversation.

"So, you're the new girl taking over product testing?" a young Scottish ginger-haired girl asked..

"Yeah, that's me. I'm Rose, Rose Tyler."

"Amy Pond, and these are my friends, Astrid, Elton and Lynda," she said indicating, a bubbly blonde-haired girl, a thin blonde man in a t-shirt and a vivacious girl in pony tails dressed in a jeans and a red and white cardigan set who looked like she was fresh out of university.

"So, have you met our resident mad scientist then?" Elton asked as Lynda slapped him on the shoulder. "What? You know it's true. Just last week he set fire to his lab for the fourth time."

Amy grinned. "Maybe that's because he was otherwise indisposed," she teased.

"Sorry, who's this you're talkin' 'bout? I'm still putting names and faces together," Rose said, curious about the office gossip.

"They're talking about the Doctor. He's this gorgeous bloke in R&D who wears these fitted suits and has this great hair that just makes you want to…" Astrid said with a glazed look in her eyes

"Astrid!" Lynda exclaimed giggling. Alton just rolled his eyes.

Amy sighed. "What they're trying to say is he's a nutter but a gorgeous nutter. You'd know him if you met him."

Rose blushed. She had, in fact met him, several times.

dwdwdwdwdwdwdwdw

They were, of course, talking about the Doctor. She had been charmed by him during their first encounter with the tin dog but then she'd run into him, literally, a couple of days later when she became lost in the building. He'd been focused on some weird metal ball thing with antennas and flashing lights that he'd been holding in his hand. Rose she had been looking at a building directory on the wall when he bumped into her.

"Oh Rose, hello!" he said with a huge grin on his face.

"Hello," Rose responded, blushing a bit as she took him in. He was wearing another well fitting brown pinstripe suit and with his hair all tousled, she couldn't help but think he looked a bit foxy.

"I don't suppose you've seen any Ood running about have you?" he asked and put on a pair of glasses that just about left Rose speechless.

She stared at him, having a geek love moment before shaking herself out of it. "Sorry, what's an Ood?"

He lit up at her question. "Oh! They are my newest project! Interactive marbles! They move around and change colors based on the mood of the children."

Rose giggled. "Mood marbles! So they what, change colors and play with the kids then?"

"Well, sort of," he agreed tugging at his ear. "But they, um, went a little funny and shot out the door."

"So, you need a hand findin' 'em then?" Rose asked and he beamed at her. An hour later, after the two of them had run around joking and giggling like a couple of naughty children, the Ood hunt was completed. The Doctor declared Rose an Ood whisperer as all of the little marbles had turned pink and yellow and congregated at her feet as she cooed to them. Rose had been delighted and enjoyed her mini adventure with the Doctor. Of course, his flirting may have helped.

Her next memorable encounter was when she had a meeting with one of the toy inventors in R&D, Malcolm Taylor. The Doctor had popped in to Malcolm's office much to Malcolm's discomfort.

"Rose Tyler, Top Toy Tester! There you are!" he shouted out in joy, standing in the doorway to Malcolm's office, hands shoved in his pockets and rocking back on his trainer clad feet. Malcolm had jumped and looked warily at the Doctor.

Rose had just grinned. "Hi, Doctor! What's up today. You lose the ood again?"

Malcolm gaped at Rose. "Lo…oose the ood?" he stuttered and looked at the ground suspiciously shuffling away from Rose. Rose tried not to laugh.

"Oh no, no, no! This is better than the Ood!" he said enthusiastically and walked over and grabbed her hand, dragging her out of Malcolm's office.

Rose looked over at Malcolm still staring at the floor, his glasses slightly askew. "Malcolm, I'll be back in a mo!"

The Doctor's lab was chaotic. There were bits and bobs of about everything stacked on every available service, some things hanging from the ceiling or stuck to walls. It was like a junk yard and a toy factory had exploded in the room depositing bits of metal, wires, springs, board games, game pieces, video game controllers, dolls and stuffed toys everywhere. The Doctor led her through the maze of stuff toward a work table with several lights pointed at it.

On the table was a clear cube the size of a coffee cup. When she looked up at him, he was staring at her. "So what am I lookini' at?" she asked.

"Touch it," he said and tried to hold back a smile she knew was itching to spout off information about whatever it was.

Not one to back off, Rose pressed two fingers to the cube and it reacted. It pulsed a rainbow of colors and they swirled in the box.

"Talk to it," he asked her, now clearly excited.

Rose shrugged and leaned down to the cube "Hello, I'm Rose," she said.

It then played a happy song and created a perfect pink rose in the box which then morphed into words and a voice sang out, "Hello Rose! What sort of games do you like to play?"

Rose grinned and looked over at the Doctor who was bobbing up and down excitedly. "Go on, tell it!" he whispered.

She thought about it and decided to test this new invention. "Um, I like to play football."

"Football is fun! It was first played in medieval times, brought to our country by the Norman Conquest." It then began discussing the rules and more history on the game as well as suggestions on how math could be used to improve one's skills.

Rose looked at him beaming. "So it's a teaching things then?" she asked.

"Oh no! It's so much more! This is just the first step! I'm creating virtual environments and this will be the communication port. It will teach children how to integrate science in all aspects of their life. Think of it! We could have game facilities all over that not only let children play and improve their coordination but learn at the same time!"

Rose smiled at his enthusiasm even if she wasn't convinced kids would go for the science part. He stood next to her and tapped the cube, hovering over it like a proud father. "You are such a geek!" she teased and bumped her shoulder into his.

"You say that like it's a bad thing!" he replied, giving her a somewhat hot look.

She blushed. "Didn't say it was a bad thing. Some girls like the whole smart geek thing."

"Some girls?" he asked, clearly digging for a compliment.

Before things went further they had been interrupted by one of the research assistants.

dwdwdwdwdwdwdwdw

She was shaken from her musings by Amy. "Oh you have met him!" she exclaimed and looked slyly at Lynda who was giggling. Poor Alton just looked bored.

The Elevator dinged open and Alton escaped, followed by Lynda. Amy paused in the doorway. "Word of advice, be careful with that one. He's pretty to look at but he's not so innocent. He has a reputation for running through girlfriends. He's a real serial flirt who isn't interested in anything serious and runs at the first inkling of settling down or commitment. Just be careful."

That was enough to make Rose wary. She didn't need to make another relationship mistake. She'd already done that once before with disastrous results. Then, there was her best mate Mickey. She loved him but wasn't in love with him and in the end, she had hurt him. They were still friends but it wasn't the same. The Doctor was gorgeous but she had to be vigilant and keep her heart safe. Of course, that didn't mean she couldn't flirt back.

The months at Tardis Toys flew by and Rose had more good days than bad in product testing. On the bad days, she had screaming children flinging toys across the room and parents who looked put out and glared at her. On better days, she had fun talking with children who asked questions and really seemed to get some of the toys that she herself didn't entirely understand. Donna insisted Rose share her findings at marketing meetings to put a more human spin on things instead of simply sending them statistics or cold reports. She also often attended a few meetings in R&D to, as Donna put it, "Reign in the eggheads to think more like a kid and less like a mad scientist."

Rose genuinely enjoyed those meetings. Some of the toy designers seemed genuinely perplexed by the children's comments and others found inspiration. The Doctor always seemed to waltz in and out as he pleased but always sat down next to her and whispered commentary in her ear about each of the toy designers and their quirks. Many times she'd shove his shoulder and tease him about being rude and mad. The two of them just clicked. It wasn't unusual for the Doctor to pull her out of the meetings and go on some mad adventure testing one of his projects. Rose felt herself growing more and more comfortable with him and he seemed mad for her as well. Although she kept Amy's warnings in mind, she couldn't help but wonder if he wanted more. If he asked her out, she wasn't sure she could say no to him.

It wasn't until she was sitting in a meeting and a beautiful brunette waltzed in and up to the Doctor pulling him into a snog that the tiny bit of hope she had that they might have something between them was snipped. Lady Christina De Souza was refined, intelligent and beautiful. When she swept into the room, all male eyes in the room turned to her. With a husky whisper and an intimate caress, she swept the Doctor away without a backward glance. The previous intimacy between them, the whispering and giggling to each other was gone. Rose felt a few pitying glances directed at her and decided to counteract it with as much cheer as she could muster, even if her heart was breaking.