It was about noon, Earth time, and in the seventeenth TARDIS dining room (no one had ever bothered to count how many dining rooms there were) Rory Williams was sipping his coffee and reading an intergalactic newspaper that River had left for him. She'd said he might enjoy it, and so far he found it extremely interesting; he had to remember to ask her about the sort of medical techniques used in the 51st century. Fascinating woman, River Song, even if Rory had no idea who she was.
"Rory?" came a hesitant voice, and Rory put down the newspaper to look up at a nervous-looking Doctor, who was wringing his hands apprehensively. It was almost silly how handsy the Time Lord was. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Ask away," Rory replied, and then added hastily, "Unless it's about fixing the TARDIS, because last time we did that I sort of landed the TARDIS inside the TARDIS and-"
"Howdoyoukissawoman?" the Doctor asked in one breath, sitting down with a whumpf on the chair next to Rory.
"Sorry, what?" said Rory with a laugh.
"How do you kiss a woman?" mumbled the Doctor, staring at his hands.
"Is this about River?" Rory asked suddenly. "Did you find another message from River?"
"Rory, really, I'm just asking you a simple question, can't you just answer it without asking about River?"
"I'm fairly sure that the mechanics of kissing can't be too hard for you to understand," said Rory in amusement, taking a drink of coffee.
"Gah, no, that's not what I mean, Rory," the Doctor groaned. "I just want to know how to kiss a hypothetical woman so that they'll be able to tell how much I like them. Hypothetically."
"Um, well, uh, this is really not a conversation I anticipated having," said Rory. "I think I might need something stronger than coffee."
"No, really, I really need help, really soon!" said the Doctor desperately. "I don't know how to hypothetically kiss someone so that they know that I fancy them, hypothetically, and that might be sort of important, because hypothetically I just accidentally asked this nonexistent hypothetical woman out by accident. Did I mention that it's all hypothetical?"
Rory stared at him, and then he said, "If you do fancy River, if you are falling in love with her, I don't think you have much of a problem, Doctor, because she's in love with you. You are aware of that, right?"
The Doctor stared at him with wide, stunned eyes. It looked as if someone had smashed a plate over his head.
"Apparently not," muttered Rory, turning back to his newspaper.
"RORY HELP!" the Doctor yelled in his ear. Rory jumped and nearly slopped his coffee down his front. "Sorry," the Doctor added sheepishly, "but it's a hypothetical emergency."
"You just sort of kiss her," said Rory in exasperation. "You lean forward and you kiss her."
"But-but what about tongues?" the Doctor asked, whispering the last word apprehensively, as if it was deadly.
"Sorry, what?" said Rory, this time without the amusement in his voice. He felt for the Doctor, he really did, but it was tiresome sometimes to have to give advice when one just wanted to relax and drink some coffee.
"Tongues, Rory, tongues. What about tongues? River did tongues last time, should I do tongues this time? Or is she going to do tongues before I can, or is she going to wait for me to do tongues-"
"What?" said Rory, now completely befuddled. "Tongues?"
"Like when you stick your tongue and cuddle the other person's tongue with your tongue when you're kissing them," the Doctor explained with a condescending patience that annoyed the hell out of Rory, especially since the alien seemed to have no idea what he was doing.
"Doctor, I really don't want to know about your snogging sessions with River."
"I don't have snogging sessions with River! I just need some advice! How am I supposed to kiss her when she shows up tonight?"
"Hypothetically," said Rory, who was starting to find the situation funny again. "And River doing tongues last time...that was hypothetical too?"
"Whatever," said the Doctor dismissively, blushing furiously. "How do you kiss someone that you fancy?"
"I don't know, be gentle?"
"Okay, thanks Rory, that really didn't help at all, I'm going to go ask Amy-"
"Fine!" Rory shouted, losing patience, and really not wanting the Doctor to end up practicing good kissing techniques on his wife. "Fine, fine, fine, um-try tongues. And maybe cuddle her a bit. Amy always likes it when I hold her for a bit after the kiss."
"Thank you," said the Doctor in exasperation. "That was all that I was asking for." He got up out of the chair, straightened his bow tie in a last-ditch attempt at looking dignified, and left the room, leaving Rory trying not to laugh and trying not to roll his eyes.
That night, Rory went down to the kitchen to get a drink of water. The day had been uneventful for him and Amy; the Doctor and River had left the TARDIS when the latter had shown up. Rory and Amy had spent the entire day exploring the TARDIS, which they'd found to be great fun.
He was met with a soft giggle and a hasty "Shh!" from someone else that seemed to be directed at the giggler. But when he flipped on the lights, there was no one in the room but him.
"I'm going mad," said Rory sleepily, stumbling over to the sink and rummaging for a cup in one of the open cupboards.
There-another giggle! Rory stopped moving, and the voices started getting louder. They seemed to be coming from a broom closet.
"Is he gone?"
"No clue. How do you know it's him, though?"
"Amy doesn't wake up in the middle of the night. Is he gone?"
"I can't tell, there's a door. I don't have x-ray vision-"
"Shhh!"
"You're the one who started talking, sweetie."
"So let's stop talking, th-" The Doctor's voice (because that was the Doctor) dissolved into giggles again (because it had been him giggling).
On a hunch, Rory shuffled over to the broom closet and opened the door. And sure enough, River was pinning the disheveled Doctor against the leftish wall of the broom cupboard and untying the bow tie while pressing kisses to his neck. The Doctor's face was stained with (presumably non-hallucinogenic) lipstick, and he looked extremely pleased with himself-and okay. Apparently there was more than one way in which a Time Lord could be handsy.
"Hi, Rory," said the Doctor breathlessly. "River and I were-um-talking."
Rory, who wasn't really in the mood to further explore the Doctor's strange definition of 'talking', decided to go back to bed. As he turned away, he heard the closet door slam shut and the Doctor's giggles intensify in both pitch and volume (the former, Rory would later admit, he was rather impressed by, as he hadn't actually known that it was humanly possible to giggle at that high a pitch).
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-The Eclectic Bookworm