Summary: The Doctor and Rose go to a dance. He struggles not to tell her that he loves her, because he believes she doesn't feel the same way. Then he meets a stranger who tries to convince him otherwise. Nine/Rose
Setting: Set after The Doctor Dances.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who
Author's Notes: None.
The Dance
"Come on, Doctor. It would be so much fun," Rose pleaded.
"Rose, no matter how many times you ask, I'm still going to say no. I told you, I don't dance," the Doctor said.
"Oh really?" Rose raised one eyebrow. "Didn't seem like it that one time when–"
"That was different," he said shortly. How could he explain to her why he couldn't go to the dance without telling her how he felt?
"Please, Doctor?" she begged, giving him the hurt-puppy look she only used when she really wanted something.
Well, if it would make Rose happy…
"All right, fine," he relented.
"Yes!" she yelled, jumping up and running out of the room just as Jack came in.
"What's so exciting?" Jack asked.
"Oh, nothing really. I just told Rose I'd go to some dance with her. She really wanted to go and she needed someone to go with," the Doctor said, rationalizing that if she hadn't needed a partner, she wouldn't have asked him. She would have just gone by herself. After all, why would she want to go to a dance with him unless she had to?
"Aww, I'm hurt," Jack said. "What about me?"
"Ah," said the Doctor, thinking about that.
Why would Rose have asked the Doctor if she could go with Jack?
"I was probably the first person she saw…" he trailed off, knowing that was a lame reason but not knowing why else Rose would have asked him instead of Jack.
"Uh-huh," Jack said, nodding like he knew something the Doctor didn't. "Of course."
Rose popped her head inside the control room, noticed Jack, and waved hi to him. Then she said to the Doctor, "You have to actually dress up, okay? Like, a good suit. This is a black tie dance."
"What, so I can't wear my jacket? I'm not so sure about this dance thing anymore," the Doctor fake-complained, searching for a way to ask Rose why she hadn't asked Jack to the dance. "What about Jack? I'm sure he wouldn't mind dressing up."
Rose looked at the ground. "Yeah, um… I already asked him," she said, glancing at Jack with a strange look in her eyes before looking back down. "He has other plans."
"Yup," Jack said, way too quickly. "I'm just surprised she got over the rejection so quickly and asked you right away."
"Oh," the Doctor said. Of course. He should have known…
Well, if Jack wouldn't go with her, he'd have to. She wanted to go to the dance so badly, and he never could refuse her anything she wanted.
"Well then, I'd better get changed," he said, just a bit too brightly, and left the room.
He was pretty sure there was a good suit in this wardrobe somewhere… it was like the TARDIS didn't want him to find it.
"What are you saying?" he asked it. "That I shouldn't go with her to the dance, just because she doesn't love me? She wants to go. It doesn't matter what I feel, okay? It just matters that she's happy. So I'm going to take her to that dance, and I'm going to do it in a suit if I have to go out and buy myself one."
It sounded like the TARDIS sighed in exasperation. An instant later, he found a suit.
"Thank you," he said, putting it on. Then he went back into the control room to wait for Rose.
A minute later she came in, but he was too busy tinkering with the TARDIS to notice.
"Doctor?" Jack said, tapping him on the shoulder, and he looked up. His mouth literally dropped open. He closed it quickly, hoping Rose hadn't noticed.
"You look… beautiful," he managed to say. But beautiful didn't cover it. She was radiant. Gorgeous. There weren't enough words in any language to describe how beautiful Rose looked.
"For a human," she said, and he smiled at their old joke.
"For anyone," he told her, and it was the truth. And then she smiled that fantastic smile of hers, and he was amazed that his knees hadn't given out before that moment, because right then, they just stopped working, and he had to hold onto something to keep himself standing.
"Shall we go?" he said, and offered her his arm. She took it, and they walked out of the TARDIS and into the dance.
The Doctor found out quickly that he enjoyed dancing, at least when it was with Rose. He knew she didn't love him, but just for this one night, he could pretend…
Maybe that was why, when a friend of Rose came up to them, introduced herself, and said, "You two are such a cute couple," he didn't deny it like usual. He noticed that Rose wasn't denying it either, and while he knew that she probably had a reason that was very different from his own, he pretended that it was because she secretly agreed.
Rose went off with her friend, promising she would come find him later. He stood near the edge of the room, watching other couples dancing.
"You're a lucky man," someone said to him suddenly. He jumped, startled, and looked around for the speaker. It was a young man wearing a tweed jacket and a bow tie.
"What do you mean? And what's with the bow tie?" the Doctor asked. The man looked offended.
"Hey, bow ties are cool. And I mean Rose. She's a beautiful girl. Don't let her get away from you."
"You know her?"
"I used to," the man said, and the Doctor thought he detected a trace of sadness in his voice. "She loves you, you know."
"No, she doesn't," the Doctor told him sadly. "She loves someone else. Trust me, I've seen the way she acts around him."
The man shook his head. "Don't wait until it's too late to tell her how you feel," he said, and walked away.
The Doctor shook his head. That had been strange. How had that man known that he and Rose had come to the dance together? And why had he said that, about Rose loving him? How could he know how she felt?
Besides, the man was wrong. Rose loved Jack, not the Doctor.
Just then, Rose came running up to him.
"Come on, I love this song," she said, pulling him out onto the dance floor.
No, the Doctor wanted to say. It was a slow song. He couldn't do slow songs. Not with Rose. It was too… couple-y. It would hurt too much.
But then he saw the pleading look in her eyes and gave in. One dance.
He held her close, much closer than he normally would. He saw the man with the bow tie looking at them almost enviously and pulled her just a little closer. She's mine, he wanted to say, but he couldn't, because it wasn't true…
He noticed that Rose was looking up at him with a smile on her face. He smiled back at her, noticing how close their faces were. If only he could just reach across those few inches and kiss her…
He found himself leaning towards her almost unconsciously and jerked back. He couldn't give in to this…
Her smile had disappeared. That was bad.
"What's wrong?" he asked her. She shook her head.
"Nothing… I was just thinking."
He nodded and waited for her to continue. She looked at him almost nervously and spoke hesitantly.
"Well… we saved Jack, right? We saved him from the bomb."
Not Jack. Please, Rose, don't talk about Jack right now.
"And, I mean, that's what we were going to do, yeah? So we could just drop him off, now that he's safe."
That was definitely not what he'd been expecting her to say.
"Well, yes, we could. But I thought you wanted him along," he said, not daring to hope that she meant what he wanted her to mean.
"I do, I mean I did. I mean… it's okay. But he's just…"
"We can drop him off somewhere, if you want," he told her. She smiled and nodded, and then rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes.
He was sure his hearts were pounding loud enough for her to hear them.
After a minute, the song ended, and a new one began, another slow song. The Doctor had been planning to just do one song, but Rose didn't seem to notice that the song had changed, and it just felt so right, holding her like this, that he kept dancing.
It was funny, he thought, looking down at her with a smile. He could face Daleks and Cybermen and all kinds of other enemies without flinching, without fear. But when it came to this fragile, beautiful human… he didn't know what to do with himself. And he was scared. Not of his own feelings. He knew with both of his hearts that he loved her and always would. Not even of her feelings, that she didn't love him back.
He was scared—no, terrified—of losing her. She was so small and so delicate. It wouldn't take much… and his life was very dangerous. He was so afraid that she'd die or leave him. He didn't know what he'd do without her.
He noticed suddenly that she was looking up at him like she was about to say something.
"Doctor," she stammered. "D-do you ever wonder what it would be like if, you know, if you were human? Like… still you, still saving the universe and the TARDIS and seeing aliens and all. Just… as a human."
All the time, Rose, he wanted to tell her. All the time…
"Yes," he whispered instead. She smiled up at him uncertainly, then looked away. In response he pulled her closer to him, so that if she had been just a bit taller, their noses would have almost been touching. It took every ounce of Time Lord self control not to kiss her right then and there… but he knew he couldn't.
"Doctor…" she whispered, and he could feel the air she breathed out, cool on his skin.
He hadn't realized until that moment just how much power she had over him. He realized that she could tell him to crash the TARDIS into a sun and he'd do it.
He wondered if she knew.
The song ended and a new one began, this one more fast-paced. But Rose didn't seem to notice. She was looking into his eyes, and he found that it was impossible to look away. Not that he wanted to.
He realized then that as impossible as it might seem to him, Rose actually might love him. He knew that he wanted to believe it so badly that he could be imagining it. But maybe…
The man was right. He had to tell her how he felt.
"Rose Tyler," he whispered, so quietly he wasn't sure she'd heard him at first, until she nodded.
He took a deep breath and told her, "I love you."
She smiled then, a huge, wonderful smile that made him dizzy. Then she stood on her tiptoes so that their lips were almost touching, and whispered, "I love you too."
At that point all his resistance broke down and he took her face in his hands and kissed her.
And when he finally broke away, he saw over her shoulder that the man in the bow tie was watching them.
He was smiling.