Well this is my first story that I've actually known is going to have more than one chapter - not exactly the most exciting of beginnings, but there will be angst and romance coming up, I promise!

It must have been about half one in the morning when Rose woke up freezing cold. The heating in her flat was rubbish, when she had first moved in she had barely been able to sleep through the night. But she had adjusted. Just as she had adjusted to sleeping in a room that wasn't on a spaceship, to not having that comforting hum lull her to sleep, to knowing that there was not a room just down the corridor where a skinny alien was tinkering away at some sort of machine, waiting for her to awake so that they could be off adventuring again.

It had been a few weeks since Rose had been cold in bed. In fact, if she wanted to be really specific, Rose could say that it was exactly 3 weeks and 4 days since she had woken up shivering with her duvet wrapped around her. 3 weeks and 4 days since the Doctor had wandered past her room in the middle of the night, seen her shivering and slipped inside, lifting the corner of her duvet and settling himself on her bed. It had been a week since Bad Wolf Bay and the Doctor had been staying in Rose's spare room, more out of awkwardness than anything else (a trait which Rose actually found quite adorable in him), and because neither one was quite sure what was going to happen next, or who was going to make the first move.

Rose, for her part, had barely woken up when the Doctor slid into bed next to her. She merely turned over and snuggled into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his bare chest as though it was the most natural thing in the world. It had seemed as though this was completely natural to the Doctor. This new human body was slightly warmer than his complete Time Lord one had been, but it also needed more warmth than it had before, and the Doctor was grateful to have Rose's warmth so close to him. He had questioned whether or not it was his human side appearing, being brave enough to sleep in Rose's bed with her when he would never have dreamed of doing that before. (Well, he had actually dreamed of doing that quite a few times, which was surprising considering how little he slept, but he chose not to think of that right now.)

The Doctor kept very still, arms wrapped tightly around Rose, listening to the sound of her slow, steady breathing. The room was very cold, but each found comfort in the other's warmth, and soon both human and half-human-Time Lord were fast asleep.

And so it had happened every night for the past 3 weeks and 4 days. The Doctor and Rose, sleeping together (though not in that way, Rose thought almost bitterly as she swung her legs out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown.) Until tonight, when Rose had woken up not only freezing, but also without the comforting weight of the Doctor beside her on the mattress, the feel of his arms around her or the soft sound of his breathing.

After delicately placing her feet down on the cold wooden floor – "Need to get the heating fixed," she muttered to herself – Rose stood up and walked over to the door, tying her dressing gown and trying to remember whether the Doctor had actually come to bed that night. She paused with her hand on the doorknob, staring into the darkness as she attempted to distinguish last night from all the other – frankly, wonderful – evenings that she had spent since coming back to this universe with the Doctor. Yes, yes he had definitely come to bed with her. They had both been very tired after spending all day and a bit of the night babysitting for her mum and dad – Tony was the most hyperactive child she had ever met. Rose was grateful that the Doctor had been there, or she might not have been able to keep up with him.

Smiling a little at her memories of the Doctor and Tony playing together, Rose opened the door and wandered into the living room, peering around in the gloom for the Doctor's familiar shape. Nothing. She frowned a little – Rose knew he wasn't in the bathroom, the door was open and the light off, and she could see into the tiny kitchen from here as well. No Doctor. Just as Rose was about to check the spare bedroom, a fluttering in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she realised why the flat was extra cold that night. The curtains were drawn over the doors that led out to the tiny balcony – the reason she had purchased this flat in spite of its hideous heating was the view – but she could just make out their shape in the darkness, flapping ever so slightly as the wind caught them.

Rose made her way over to the doors, trying not to knock into the coffee table on her travels, and dragged one heavy curtain aside, peeping around it and finding what she was looking for. The Doctor was sitting with his back against the hard brick wall, legs stuck through the balcony railings and bare feet dangling in mid air. He was wearing stripy pyjamas that reminded Rose of that Christmas that seemed so long ago. She recalled that actually her saying that was the reason that he had bought them – "they seemed to suit this body very well," he had said, and grinned at her before buying 3 or 4 pairs the same, a habit that she could not seem to wean him off of. His arms were crossed and Rose could tell just by looking that his fingers must be just about numb with cold. The Doctor had not looked up as Rose had appeared on the balcony next to him – in fact he had not moved a muscle, his eyes aimed slightly upwards at the clear sky, scattered all over with tiny dots that must have been so familiar to him, but just different enough to remind him that he was no longer in the universe that he had lived the whole of his (extremely long) life in.

Next chapter should be up tomorrow, I'm very excited, I've never done a story with more than one chapter before :P Oh dear god I am so pathetic - but anyway, hope you enjoyed it!