A/N: Post series. The degree and type of sentiment here is purposely vague and left for you to decide. As is the outcome.
Ace and Seven have been together about four years now. The Doctor needs to ask himself how much have things changed. How much more can they change... before they just break?
That's it. I've had enough of this behavior, the Doctor decided. He punched the exterior display off and hammered the door control with an exasperated fist.
"Get in here, Ace," he growled. He deliberately kept his eyes on the console screen that had a moment before been filled with the young woman's form.
He had no doubt he sounded like an overprotective father. And he didn't care a jot. He had indulged her on this type of thing entirely too long.
He gave the open doorway half a glance and hoped the bit of motion he saw was a good sign.
"Just you, Ace," he ground out. The pair outside had shifted a bit now, and the Doctor could see the young man who had attached himself to his companion. He could see him too clearly. He realized he had hoped to spare himself that. "Leave your paramour outside." He added a tense, "Please."
'Tango' or 'Billy' or 'Crash,' whatever this one's name was, had that annoying mannerism of bidding his date farewell by placing his hands in her rear jeans pockets. And squeezing. The Doctor rolled his eyes and leaned impatiently into the console. "Ace!" he called out. But she seemed unwilling to do anything to remove the clinging vine that was her admirer from her person or from the TARDIS' walls.
"Off you go," she finally murmured, and she pushed the great hulking thing on the chest. With a dimwitted smile, Ace's young man finally left. The Doctor secured the door then with stabbing gestures that spoke volumes about his mood.
"You must have been young once," Ace accused.
"Not if THAT is a symptom. No."
"I don't know why you care what I do."
"Well, I do," he fired back. "And I don't want to see you with the likes of 'Bingo' or 'Borrto' or whomever." He gave up on any semblance of emotional composure and pinched his brow.
"Alright. Alright, Professor. Don't get all bent."
"Wash up, Ace," he said, turning back to the console. "Wash him off you."
"Why?" she challenged.
"So we can sit in the library together," came his weak reply.
"Okay," she said softly.
And any lingering restraint left him as he watched her turn for the interior door, as he watched those jeans pockets and the shirt that was now half untucked walk away. "Why do you do it?" he demanded.
"And you so smart," she snapped without even looking at him. "I would have thought you could understand, being so old and wise. But maybe it's too simple a thing. Maybe Time Lords are beyond all this."
"Go on, Ace. Just tell me. Beyond what?" he said with irritation.
"Wanting to be noticed," she said, suddenly sounding shy and unsure.
"Oh, I think he noticed you," the Doctor spat. "And the three before him. There has been a string of you getting 'noticed'.... very physically noticed."
The young woman surprised him then. She didn't take offense. She didn't lash out at him for his bitter words. She just groaned. Shook her head. "I meant wanting to be noticed by the one you want noticing you," Ace told him, sadly.
There was an interminable pause then. A heavy silence that was only broken by the faintest hum of the TARDIS' walls.
"I think wanting that's fairly universal," he conceded. But he was frozen there at the controls now. Even his thoughts wouldn't properly move forward. Because nine-hundred years old or no, the Doctor had never managed to shake self-doubt where this sort of thing was concerned. And so he had to wonder. Did she mean me? And how did she mean it. "Ace?" he began again. "Who is it you want to notice you?" he finally said.
She half snorted her laugh. It was all too absurd. The Doctor was beyond intelligent. Yes. But could you count on him to be any more perceptive or emotionally aware than the average bloke who latched on to you at a pub?
The pinched look of confusion on the Time Lord's face answered that question.
"You wanted me to notice you," he said a little more surely. It hung there as a sort of half question. He took a quick look at her to gauge her reaction before looking down again. Her face was steady and calm now. The teaching role plainly hers this time. He decided all of that and the lack of denial confirmed he was the subject here. "I did notice," he protested. "Obviously, I notice you, Ace."
"No, not obviously..."
"Or I wouldn't be dragging the likes of him off you and asking you to clean up."
"But it isn't the same."
The heat rose in his face then, and he looked close to bursting. "And it wouldn't, couldn't ever, be the same. What do you want, Ace?" he said with frustration. "My hands in your pockets? My leering at you? Leaning all over you. That anonymous, ridiculous, hormonal, self indulgent..."
"No! Just, maybe that was better than what I was getting."
"I noticed," he insisted. "I will try to notice more." The pause was long and painful then. "But it might not ...."
"It might not be enough..." she finished for him. "This ... whatever you are capable of when you 'notice' someone."
"Right," he said. There was more to the drop in his gut then than just feeling inadequate. Was this that moment he had been dreading, he asked himself. Was this that seemingly inevitable point where he stopped being what someone he needed needed him to be?
"I'm gonna get cleaned up," she told him gently. "I'll meet you."
Or would he get it right this time, he wondered.
He nodded to her. Faked a smile. And struggled with the meager words. "I'll be there."