The Doctor returned to his classroom after lunch, sitting down with a small smirk on his face as he flipped idly through the papers on his desk. He was somewhat distracted by thoughts of Rose's indignant looks and comments about the fact that she had to play dinner lady whilst he got to be a physics teacher, so he didn't notice when the first few students of his afternoon class traipsed into the room.
"Er, Sir? Can we come in?" asked one girl, holding her books to her chest and looking nervous. Some teachers must be rather strict, the Doctor thought, when he looked up in surprise at the timid expression on the girl's face, if she was worried that she needed permission to enter.
"Of course!" he said brightly, dropping his legs from where he'd had them propped up on his desk. He jumped to his feet and gestured at the group of kids behind her. "Come in, come in." He glanced down at his register. "You lot are in Year Ten, right?"
"That's right, Sir," said one of the boys.
The Doctor hummed to himself as he considered what he could teach this year group. "What was the last topic you did, with your previous physics teacher?" he asked, as all the students got settled in their seats.
One pupil raised their hand, but someone shouting out beat them to it; "Radioactivity and nuclear fusion!"
The Doctor scratched at the back of his neck. "Riiight. Hmm…"
"What I'd like to know, Sir," said a brunette girl near the front, who seemed to be quite popular, if the gaggle of girls and boys staring at her in anticipation - strangely with their hands over their mouths muffling giggles - were anything to go by. "Is what you and the dinner lady were talking about earlier?" She raised her eyebrows in curious delight, and her friends snorted and chuckled beside her.
"Oh, we were just discussing the chips. So - "
"Sir, we saw the way you were looking at her," piped up another student. Clearly, they were all trying to gang up on him; they evidently thought that as a new teacher at the school he would be easy to wind up. He'd show them how easily he could rise above such nonsense.
"I think what we'll look at today is how the universe is expanding, maybe do a bit about black holes, that sound interesting to you?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Good. Right!"
"No, but Mr Smith," insisted another girl. "Do you and the lunch lady know each other outside of school?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Not that it's at all relevant to wave properties and blue shifts but yes, we do. Anyway - "
"I think you should tell us about her," said a boy with spiky hair, highlighted ridiculously with flecks of blond.
"Thomas has a crush on her," laughed another boy.
"So what if I do?" said spiky-haired Thomas. "She's well fit. Do you know how old she is, Mr Smith?"
The Doctor's eyes widened. Clearly this boy was so hormone-addled that he thought himself a viable suitor for Rose. How preposterous. "Far too old for you!" the Doctor couldn't help but retort.
"And far too young for you," the boy shot back with a huff.
Rolling his eyes, the Doctor continued, "So, can anyone tell me what types of radiation are emitted by the Sun - "
"Are you dating the dinner lady, Sir?"
" - anyone? Come on, this is an easy question!"
"Ultra-violet?" asked a diligent student.
"I reckon you want to date her, that's for sure. Tim said he saw you staring at her longingly across the dinner hall."
"Tim told me that you arrived together, too."
"Oh my god! Then you are totally dating her!"
"Maybe not, though. Could be they're just shagging."
"Well, Tim said that - "
"Who the hell is this Tim? Which class is he in?" demanded the Doctor.
"Oh he's not a student; he's the caretaker."
The Doctor's eyebrows lifted. "Oh. Well, he's a bit unprofessional…" he muttered.
"He tells us all the goss, he's well fun."
"He's like, sixty but he's so cool. Tells us all about the teachers and that," said Thomas.
"This is a very unappealing and irrelevant conversation. Now if we could get back on track - "
"Like, you know, if you're hiding something, Tim is sure to find it out."
"Yeah, Lisa's right. So you might as well tell us."
"Come on guys, let's get focussed on the task at hand - "
"So are you dating her or not?"
"Look at the way he's blushing! He so is!"
"Oh, my god, that is so adorable," said Lisa, fanning her face with her textbook. "He's so flustered it's making me flustered."
The Doctor, really rather concerned that he was possibly losing control of this class, said quickly, "This is really not appropriate classroom conversation and I have to insist that you all stop - "
"Sarah, do you know the dinner lady's name?"
"Think it's Rosie or something," said Sarah.
"Rose. She doesn't like being called - " the Doctor started to correct, before shutting his mouth with a click, aware he was feeding the flames.
"Oh, that's a nice name! I like that name."
"I thought she'd be called something sexier," mused Thomas. "I mean, like, Jack, have you seen her?" His deskmate Jack nodded vigorously in approval.
The Doctor cleared his throat. "So, how do we know that the universe is expanding?"
"I'm more interested in something else expanding," muttered Lisa, biting her lip.
Teenage humans are ridiculous, thought the Doctor. Ridiculous and unable to see what's really important here, namely, physics. And not the nature of his and Rose's relationship.
"I dunno why you keep avoiding our questions," said Jack. "Joe caught you checking her out when you left the hall earlier."
"I did not - I don't - that's not - "
"Swept your gaze from her head to her toes, Joe said, didn't you Joe?"
"I saw it with my own eyes!" a boy, presumably this evil Joe character, announced proudly. "There I was, walking down the corridor, and Mr Smith almost bumped into me 'cos he was walking backwards out of the hall, staring at her bum whilst she cleaned the tables!"
"The suggestion that I would objectify someone in such a way is ludicrous," snapped the Doctor, "And if you don't watch it, you'll be in detention for the rest of the week. All of you!" He paused, then looked at the nervous girl right at the front, whose eyebrows had drawn together in sorrow at this news. "Except you. You're all right. But your classmates are behaving like - like -" The only comparisons the Doctor could think of where unfavourable alien comparisons, which none of them would understand anyway. He settled for just growling under his breath instead of finishing his sentence.
"Just answer one question, and we promise to shut up and do our work," said a ginger girl to the right of Lisa.
The Doctor pinched the bridge of his nose. Even threats of detention weren't working. He suddenly had a hell of a lot more respect for the teaching profession. How anyone managed to teach anything to these gossiping Chraxixans he did not know.
"Are you and Rose together?"
"No. How's about we look at how waves are used in communications - "
"Why are you denying what is so clearly true?" pouted Sarah.
"We're not - it's not - we're friends. Just friends. Does anyone know what waves are transverse?"
"Oh my god," gasped Lisa suddenly and loudly. The Doctor stared at her in alarm. She continued, "Oh my god, I've got it." He waited for her answer, only to be disappointed that her statement had nothing whatsoever to do with transverse waves. "It's unrequited! Oh my god! That's so sad, you poor thing!"
Thomas pitched in, "You know, you're right I reckon, Lisa. When he was smiling at her in the lunch queue, she proper scowled at him. Did she reject you, Sir?"
"I've told you, we're just friends, now that's enough - "
"He's right, we should stop, guys," said Lisa. "He's heartbroken, the poor man. Let's not rub salt in the wound any more."
"I'm not heartbroken - " the Doctor spluttered.
"Maybe she'll change her mind?" suggested Sarah. "You might still have a chance, Mr Smith! Don't give up hope!"
"I'm bloody well going to give up teaching in the next thirty seconds if you all don't stop talking about this - "
"Maybe you two will run away together!" put in the ginger girl who he still didn't know the name of. "It would be so romantic. You could just, drop everything and run off together hand in hand, away from the normal boring drudgery of life, and - "
"You've been watching too many soaps," scoffed Joe. "No one runs off 'hand in hand' these days, what are you like?"
The Doctor frowned. "And what's so wrong with running and holding hands, young Joe? Have you never met a girl you'd like to hold hands with?"
Joe smirked. "Nah, not really. But I've met a girl who I'd like to - "
"Don't continue that sentence. Ugh. Humans," muttered the Doctor. "You teenage boys need to learn how to talk appropriately and respectfully about women or trust me, you'll never get the privilege of holding someone like Rose's hand. Anyway, back to waves - "
"Oh my god do you hold hands with Rose?" gasped Lisa theatrically. "That's so sweet!"
"I think I'll just give you a page in your textbooks to read over," said the Doctor, exasperated. "Maybe you can manage writing some answers down about the frequency and speed of waves and how they - "
"You should totally ask her out again. She wouldn't be holding hands with you if she didn't want more. Ask her out. Are you gonna ask her out?"
"No! Page 324! Read it!"
"Aww why are you denying your love for each other?"
"I'm not denying anything!"
They stared at him.
"That is, there's nothing to deny!" he amended hastily, raising his voice. "Page 324! Read!"
"Are inter-staff relationships even allowed, Sir?"
"Intra, and how the hell do I know?"
"Tut tut, no need to swear, Mr Smith. Just because you're sexually frustrated doesn't mean you need to take it out on us."
"I am going to jump out of that window," he said frankly, seriously considering it.
"You know what I think?" said the quiet, nervous girl who the Doctor didn't think would say boo to a goose.
"What's that?" he asked eagerly, hoping she'd have something insightful to say about UV rays or something.
"I think you should just admit that you're secretly married so that these people can shut up and I can learn something."
The Doctor gaped at her. "But we're not married!" he practically shrieked.
There was a knock at the door, then, and his and the students' heads all swivelled towards the sound. Fuck, thought the Doctor eloquently, as he saw Rose standing outside. Talk about fuelling the fire. All the teenagers stared at him, whispering amongst themselves, as they watched him stalk towards the door. He opened it swiftly and stepped into the corridor, closing it tightly shut behind him.
"What?" he snapped at Rose, who, he then realised, was unaware of the torture he had just been through and so did not understand why he was apparently agitated with her.
"What's got your knickers in a twist?" she snorted. "Look, I just came to say that I've finished my shift cleaning up, and they won't let me back in the kitchen 'cos something secretive and fishy is going on, if you ask me. So I thought we could check it out."
"I have a class to teach."
"Didn't sound like you were doing much teaching," she pointed out wryly, arching an eyebrow.
"…just how long were you standing here for?"
Rose smirked. "Doctor, it's fine, I'm not about to get offended because you expressed such horror at the thought of marrying me."
"I - that's not - that wasn't - "
She laughed, and rested her hand on his upper arm, squeezing gently. "I said it's fine, I'm just messing with you. Why were they talking about that, anyway?" She let her hand drop, and it brushed against the back of his own on the way down to her side. His fingers twitched.
"They were just, well, ahem, I think they just picked on us 'cos we're both new and they thought they could get some sort of drama out of it and - well - they seem to be under the misapprehension that - you know - anyway! I've put them straight."
"Right," grinned Rose, clearly very amused. "So shall I go check out these weird kitchen staff on my own?"
He swallowed. "Well, I can't really leave this lot in here on their own, without adult supervision. There's no telling what mischief they could get up to when left to their own devices."
Rose pressed her lips together to hold in a laugh. She could see what the Doctor could not; through the window in the door, the pupils of his lesson were already up to mischief. Half of them were sitting on desks chatting and flirting and throwing paper aeroplanes, and half of them had their faces pressed up against the glass, watching the Doctor and Rose's every move.
"Okay, then. I can see you have this under control so I'll just…" she said, biting the inside of her cheek as she backed away, gesturing with her thumb over her shoulder. "See you later."
He took a few steps towards her quite spontaneously. "Actually the truth is, I don't want to go back in there," he admitted in a low voice. "Rose, teenagers are terrifying. All they want to talk about is my personal life!"
"Still, you've got to keep your cover, so - "
He grabbed her hand, lacing their fingers together. "Help me," he begged, squeezing her hand.
"Nothing I can do," she said, shrugging. "After all, thanks to you I'm just a dinner lady."
His thumb stroked over the back of her hand. "You're never just a dinner lady. You're never just anything."
"That's really sweet, but you've still gotta go back in there on your own," she said, really struggling not to laugh at him, now.
"We could always just…run away and leave Mickey to investigate the school on his own," the Doctor suggested hopefully.
"No, we really couldn't. He needs our help with this, Doctor, you know that."
He heaved a sigh, but let go of her hand. "Yeah. I s'pose."
"Only an hour left of the school day and then we can take a break from the kids and snoop around here and the staff, yeah?"
"Yeah," he said, reluctantly, as he watched her back away again.
"Just look at the clock and think about seeing me soon, I'm sure that'll pass the time," she said, with a cheeky wink, then pranced off down the corridor to do her own investigating.
The Doctor sighed as he watched her walk away. Someone opened the door behind him, and he heard, with his unfortunately very good hearing, several simultaneous voices saying:
"Oh my god did you see them holding hands -"
"They are totally doing it."
"You do realise, Sir, that you're staring after her like a lost puppy, right?"
"I bet they will be married by the Christmas break."
"Did you see the way she squeezed his arm?!"
"I bet she's well good at kissing. Did you see those lips?"
"Did you see the way he grabbed her hand? See Joe, some guys are decent and nice and you're evidently just way too immature for a real woman like me - "
"I wonder what she's like in - "
In that split second, hearing all those things, the Doctor came to a swift conclusion. Rose Tyler most definitely needed his help investigating the kitchens and he absolutely had to leave this class to its own devices for the good of the universe. He walked briskly down the corridor, in the direction of the lunch hall, and the last thing he heard as he moved away from the chattering voices was:
"Oh, my god. He's totally chasing after her to profess his love and sweep her off her feet!"