Prompt Reply: Birthday
"Happy Birthday, Doctor!"
He looked up from his book, confused, to see Rose standing there with a chocolate-iced cake and nine sparkling candles on top.
"Wait- What? Rose, I…" He stares at her, forehead wrinkling as he tries to figure out what's going on.
"Well," she says, obviously prepared for this, "You once said you were Nine-Hundred years old. And I asked about your birthday, once, and you just said that after 900 years you don't really count any more. And while, yeah, I get that, it means that you don't get anything liiike~" She puts down the small cake in front of him before pulling something out of her back pocket. "This," she finishes softly, handing him a small, wrapped present. "So I made up a day for you. Picked one at random."
"Rose, I…" He looks at her and, for a moment, she can see exactly what he's feeling, all his barriers down. All his pain and sadness and years of lonely wandering are there, but they all take a back seat to the small, sincere smile he has at the joy – and is that… Love? – he feels from just that small gesture. But it only lasts a moment, because then he's standing and pulling her into the hug of a lifetime.
"Thank you, Rose," he says softly, voice only just muffled by her hair. "This is… Thank you."
"You're welcome, Doctor," she replies, a smile on her face.
The sweet moment only lasts a second, though, before his inner child takes over. "Right!" he says, springing back to look at the cake, "I better blow out these candles, then! Wouldn't want all your hard work covered in wax!"
He has a bright grin on his face when he blows out the candles, grinning triumphantly for a second… Before his jaw drops as the flames come back. He then turns at a snort and giggle to the side and finds Rose with her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. "Hey! That's cheating!" he says with a pout. That just makes Rose laugh harder, though, since she's taken to calling him The Oncoming Sulk when he does that.
"It w-was worth it! Your face!" she manages through her laughter.
He just pouts and turns to the cake again, trying twice more to blow out the candles before grinning and pulling out his sonic. After two clicks, he finds the setting he wants and aims it at the cake, a look of victory already there as the candles flicker…
Until the cake explodes.
At that point they both collapse into gales of laughter and pull ucing from each others hair just to throw at each other. Eventually The Doctor tries a bit from her cheek and comments, eyes going wide as saucer, "Mmm, Banana! Brilliant! How did you know!"
"Pretty hard to miss~" she replies, daring a kiss to his cheek under the guise of getting some icing. Even the cake on his face can't hide the slight bush and stutter, then.
Eventually they clean themselves up and change before starting to clean the chocolate-banana mess off of everything. In the process of doing so, though, he finds the small package still on his desk.
Rose is otherwise occupied when he opens it, revealing a small, blue frame with a little battery-powered light at the top. And the picture inside… It's one they took in a tiny photo booth a couple planets back. It is, quite literally, them in the TARDIS. And one of his happiest memories, to boot.
"Rose…" he says softly, enamored with the small trinket.
"Mmm?" She turns and sees him like that, his face priceless, before he looks up.
"Thank you," he says again.
She walks over and pulls him into a hug, this time. "You're very welcome."
They stay that way for a moment before he says softly, "You know what today is, right?"
She tilts her head to look up at him with a soft, "What?"
"Today," he says simply, "Is when you first joined me on the TARDIS."
He hugs her a little tighter before pulling back and brushing some hair from her face, the other hand keeping contact by resting on her shoulder. "You made me a new man, Rose Tyler," he says, his eyes open again, "And that day was the start of it all. So today really is my birthday."
He remembers that to this day as his best birthday ever. But since he lost rose, he hasn't had the heart to celebrate it.
And that picture is still in his room. In the original frame.