Suspicious Activity

The Doctor was beneath the console, quite happily tinkering whilst his human friends slept half their lives away in the bedrooms down the corridor. It was half past one in the morning, and he didn't expect to hear from them until around eight o'clock. Well, in Rose's case, perhaps a quarter past nine. She wasn't exactly a morning person. It wasn't so bad, now that Jack was travelling with them; before, he'd been grumpy about her taking so long to get up in the mornings, but at least Jack could keep him company nowadays. He'd got quite used to Jack's presence, actually, and was glad that Rose had persuaded him to let the other man come aboard. Underneath the ex-conman's bravado was a good heart, really. And Rose's influence certainly helped. The Doctor could tell that he and Jack had that in common, at least; subtly basking in the youthful joy and light that was Rose Tyler was doing each of their darkened souls a world of good. And Jack had proved to be both excellent in a crisis and at grasping the TARDIS' technology.

So it was with a contented sort of musing over his good fortune in terms of the friends he had acquired in these past few months that the Doctor lay fixing one of the components of the TARDIS' gravitation thrusters.

This good mood and the favourable thoughts about Jack and Rose deteriorated rather rapidly when he began to hear something very suspicious.

Giggling.

He wasn't averse to hearing Rose giggle – rather the opposite, in fact – but the Doctor couldn't help but think that something was amiss. Firstly, she was usually asleep at this time of night. Secondly, it was not only her giggling, but also Jack. And thirdly, he'd thought he had made it plenty clear to Jack Harkness that any sort of nefarious plot to visit Rose in the night would be met with expulsion from this ship.

The giggling was getting louder, but he could tell that it was coming from Rose's bedroom. Jack was simply making her squeal with laughter. Which would not do. It would not do at all.

Growling, the Doctor scrambled out from under the console. He straightened, wiped the grease off of his hands with a piece of cloth, and made his way down the corridor.

As he got nearer to Rose's bedroom, he could hear that not only was Rose squealing in delight over something, but she was also squealing words. He listened carefully, and then recoiled in surprise, inexplicably hurt and really rather jealous, when he distinctly heard Rose shout,

"Jack! Oh my god!"

He hands clenched into fists. Surely they wouldn't – couldn't –

"Yes, that's the one, that's the one!" she called out next, followed by more laughter.

If they were laughing, he tried to rationalise to himself, they certainly couldn't be doing what he thought they might be doing. He'd gathered the impression that Jack was quite the lothario, and he didn't reckon a guy like that would seek to make a woman laugh in bed. Who laughed whilst having sex, anyway? Mind you, the Doctor considered, it wasn't like he was an expert himself. In fact, it had been roughly a century since he'd last partaken in such an activity, and it really hadn't gone very well that time. He winced. He didn't actually remember the event all that clearly, only the embarrassment that it had generated before, during and after. As old and as superior he was in the universe, he wasn't exactly, er, refined in that area.

Sniffing purposefully, and trying to pretend that he wasn't feeling very deficient at that moment, he stepped forwards and grasped the handle of her door. Then he hesitated.

"That's it – no, the other way!" Rose exclaimed, then laughed again.

Maybe it was some special Harkness trick, the Doctor thought irritably. Well, whatever they were doing, he'd put a stop to it. He couldn't exactly concentrate with all this racket going on. Besides. Jack wasn't supposed to be – to be – to be corrupting his best friend. He shook his head at that thought, correcting himself, because it wasn't that he thought of copulation in any way abhorrent, it was just, Jack shouldn't – Rose wasn't – it wasn't fair, that Jack could monopolise her attention like that. The Doctor was her mysterious time travelling friend first, not Jack, a paltry Time Agent who pretended to be a Captain.

"Jack, this is wearing me out. We're gonna have to finish this tomorrow - "

He swallowed hard and opened the door without another moment's hesitation. "You will not," he corrected, storming into the room. Then he blinked. Once. Twice. He sagged against a wall in relief. "Oh thank Rassilon…" he muttered under his breath.

Rose and Jack stared at him in confusion, standing over the other side of the bedroom amongst a sea of clothes from the wardrobe room. They were evidently amusing themselves with a bit of dressing up in bizarre and wondrous clothing. "What's the matter, Doctor?" Rose asked cautiously.

"Nothing," he assured her, starting to smile at his own ridiculousness. "It's nothing. Don't worry."

"Are you sure?" asked Jack, frowning in thought.

"I'm sure," the Doctor nodded. "So! You ransacked the wardrobe room, did you?"

Rose, apparently satisfied for now that there was nothing drastically wrong with him, answered cheerfully, "Yeah, well, you said the other day that we'd be going to a ball at some point this week, so Jack and me were taking a look through the wardrobe when suddenly, we came across all this weird and wonderful stuff." She flashed him a tongue-twixt-teeth smile. "Jack's been giving me a fashion show!"

The Doctor smiled absently and said, "Well, you certainly seemed to be having fun."

"Rose appreciates my modelling skills," agreed Jack with a grin.

"Mmm," the Doctor responded. "Well, then. I'll leave you to it. Mind you, it's getting a bit late. Big day ahead tomorrow. Got lots of adventuring planned. Maybe it's time for bed, now?"

"Yeah, I was just saying to Jack that I'm feeling tired."

Jack nodded, and removed the hat and feather boa he was wearing, dumping them onto the pile of clothes. "Yeah, okay. Goodnight, Rose. Sweet dreams," he winked at her, then started to leave the room. He stopped in the corridor, though, and looked at the Doctor strangely. The Time Lord was still standing in Rose's bedroom, showing no indication of leaving. "Doctor?"

"Yes, Jack?" he replied distractedly. Rose was staring at him for some reason, and he couldn't quite bring himself to look away first.

"You staying with Rose tonight?" he joked cheekily.

"Just going to talk to her about something," he murmured. "Go to bed, Jack."

Jack raised his eyebrows, shrugged, then shoved his hands in his pockets, before waltzing down the corridor whistling to himself.

"Why did you burst in, earlier?" Rose whispered suddenly.

The Doctor straightened his posture and assumed the defensive mode of attack. "Why? Was it a private party?"

"No, course not," she said hurriedly. "I was just wondering, that's all."

"My ship," he countered, folding his arms.

"Yeah," she muttered.

"And you were making a lot of noise. I couldn't concentrate."

"Sorry," she replied, but she didn't sound sincere in her apology.

She probably thought he was being a grumpy old bore, complaining about a bit of laughter. "You don't need to apologise," he clarified quickly, even though it was quite clear that she hadn't been, not properly, "I just meant that all the giggling intrigued me, and I wanted to know what was going on."

"Nosy," she said, but her lips had quirked up in a smile.

He shrugged.

"Did you feel like you were missing out?" Rose asked curiously, with just a hint of tease.

The Doctor fought against the blush rising in his cheeks. "No," he said, in a low, authoritative voice.

She bit her lip to stifle a giggle, and walked over to him. "I think you did."

He sighed, trying to cover his embarrassment with the pretence of boredom. Once she'd reached the area that could be labelled as his personal space, he doubled his efforts. "Really, Rose," he snorted derisively. "Why would I be jealous of anything the two of you get up to?"

Her eyes widened.

He suspected that he shouldn't have said anything about jealousy. Bugger.

"What exactly did you think was going on in here?" she remarked.

"Nothing."

"Rubbish."

"Well, I didn't know. That's why I was coming to see."

She eyed him suspiciously. "When you came into this room, you said, 'you will not.'"

Ah. So she'd heard that. Right. He cleared his throat. "Did I?" Deny everything. That was his motto. "I don't think I did."

"Yep. You definitely did. Now why would you say something like that?" she said slowly, piecing it all together. "You sounded angry, too. And all I said was that we ought to finish Jack's spontaneous fashion show tomorrow, because I was worn out."

"I don't know, Rose. I think perhaps you're hearing things."

She smirked at him, then – in a knowing sort of way - and he suddenly didn't feel very clever. In fact, he felt a little bit like he was going to melt into a puddle of Time Lord goo. He wasn't even sure why; it was either embarrassment over the fact that she had evidently worked out his thought process of earlier, or…

Or.

He coughed awkwardly. "I'm going to go now," he murmured, but he didn't move an inch.

"Are you?"

"Yeah." Damn, was his voice shaking? What the hell was wrong with him?

"Okay," she said.

He still didn't move. He watched the amusement and curiosity play across her face.

She arched an eyebrow. "Doctor?"

"Mmm?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm…" he started, then abruptly trailed off. His eyes dropped to the floor and he inhaled deeply. "Rose."

"Yeah?"

He looked at her again, intending to meet her eyes but taking the leisurely route up to her face. He swallowed thickly. "You're so young," he blurted out.

Rose was nonplussed. "What?"

"I just mean…" he floundered for a moment. Why had he gone and said that? "It's just – Jack. He isn't – you ought not to, um – what I'm trying to say, Rose, is that I don't think it'd be a good idea for you to let yourself fall for someone like Jack."

"Wasn't intending to," she snorted. "I like him, and obviously he's dead attractive and all that -"

"Obviously," the Doctor muttered to himself in annoyance. He still wasn't over the 'why is it that all the good-looking ones do that?' remark she'd made in that hospital room a little while ago.

"- and he's really funny, I mean, I was laughing so much earlier, he's a really funny guy - "

"Hmph." He was supposed to be the one who put a smile on Rose Tyler's face. Not Jack. Jack had looks and charm and suavity; why couldn't he let the Doctor get to be the one who made her laugh?

"- but I'm not stupid. Even if I suspect the bad boy thing is an act, I know he's a massive flirt and chases after anything that moves," Rose finished. She shrugged again. "I'm young, yeah, but I'm not daft. Besides…"

The Doctor perked up a little. "Besides?"

"I've made the mistake of falling for the wrong sort of guy before," she said, glancing away for a moment.

"Have you?" he murmured hoarsely. And though he knew it was absurd, knew it was ridiculous and stupid and reckless, knew that it shouldn't even be on his wish list, he wondered if she meant him.

She soon doused that thought, though. "Yeah. Left school at sixteen for some idiot in a crappy band," she muttered, and rolled her eyes. "Really embarrassing, how that ended."

He swallowed hard. "Oh?"

She looked at him again and replied, "Yeah. He ran off with some of my money and some other girl. Think they ended up in Denmark or Belgium or somewhere. Oh well. He was a git. Dunno what I saw in him. I s'pose I was just bored, and then he seemed the antidote to that, all rock star and exciting." She sighed. "Silly, really."

The Doctor reached for her hand before he even registered he was doing it, and gave it a comforting squeeze.

"I'm much savvier, now. In fact, I think I'm more mature than you give me credit for sometimes, Doctor," Rose murmured, squeezing his hand in return.

"Yeah," he exhaled roughly. "Maybe you are." He cleared his throat. "Still. Like I was saying. Best not get involved with Jack. Even if it's just a, you know, bit of fun sort of thing."

Rose grinned. "You really are adorable," she said.

"I'm sorry?" he retorted, utterly baffled by that conclusion.

"You can't fool me. Jealous, that's what you are. I can read the signs, you know," she teased playfully, poking him in the chest with her free hand.

"I'm not jealous," he insisted with a huff.

"Probably not in the normal way, no, but you definitely don't want me to like Jack best out of you two," she said.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "What do you mean, 'not in the normal way?'"

She met his fiery gaze defiantly. "Well, you're not exactly…" Her half-sentence seemed to make him even more annoyed, so she trailed off warily.

"I've had just about enough of you assuming that I'm not – that I don't – that I'm not - "

"That you're not what?" she demanded, dimly aware that they were still holding hands and yet suddenly glaring at each other.

He reigned in his temper and began, quietly, "Just because I'm old and not human, doesn't mean that I don't want to – to -" He was tilting his head forwards without realising it. Rose's eyes widened again and he snapped his head back, interpreting her reaction as negative to anything he may or may not have been about to subconsciously do. "I'm sorry," he murmured hurriedly. "I didn't – I wasn't going to kiss you, I – I'm sorry." He released her hand and stepped backwards.

"I didn't think you did that sort of thing," she remarked.

"I don't," he said slowly. "I've not exactly lived nine centuries as a monk, but you're right: generally, I don't, er. Do the kissing thing. As a rule."

The corner of her mouth twitched in a half-smile. "Could I be an exception to that rule?"

He felt his hearts double their speed. "What?" he whispered.

She laughed, a little, to cover her tracks, he suspected. "I mean, if you…if you wanted. I wouldn't be opposed to you…testing it out. I mean if it's been a long time and you just wanted to…check. That you still… But if you don't then I'm totally fine with it because obviously you're my best mate and I really want us to be best mates for – well, forever – but I just mean that if you did want to maybe be something else as well as best mates then that would be completely fine with me too. Hypothetically." She gulped.

He stared at her blushing cheeks in astonishment. Was she seriously saying…?

"Rose."

"Yeah?"

"It probably wouldn't be a good idea," he murmured.

"Right." She nodded vigorously, as if convincing him that she agreed. "Right, well, no, I guess it wouldn't be."

His pulse rate was hammering full speed ahead. "I mean there are lots of reasons that we really shouldn't," he added.

"Yeah. I s'pose there is."

"Your mother, for starters," he muttered, arching an eyebrow. "She definitely wouldn't like it."

"I wasn't exactly thinking of announcing it to her," Rose muttered back.

"No, well, aside from that there are the obvious issues."

"Sure. Yeah."

"I mean I'm nine hundred years old."

"Mmm."

"You're not even twenty yet."

"Yeah."

"And I'm not human, so…it's not like, er. It's not like it would be a long-standing thing. And really, I don't think I could kiss you, Rose, and then lose you, I - " He broke off, aware that he'd perhaps said too much. "I just…" He glanced helplessly around the room.

"It's okay," she said understandingly. "I get it."

They were silent for a few moments.

Then Rose asked, "Why were you so keen just now to tell me that you were just as capable as Jack of wanting to kiss me, only to snatch that implication back a few seconds later?"

He sighed heavily. "I'm sorry."

"Was it just a male pride thing?"

He shrugged, not knowing the answer himself.

"Or are you just, like, you can't have me but neither can anyone else? Is that it?"

"No, I – I - " He faltered. "I don't know."

"When Mickey and Mum ask me – repeatedly - if you're my boyfriend, I tell them that you're better than that."

"I'm sorry if I've disappointed you," he responded curtly.

She rolled her eyes. "That's not what I meant. You're better than a boyfriend because you are the only person in my whole life who actually - " she cut herself off, then, glancing at the floor. Blinking quickly, she continued, "I told you what a git Jimmy turned out to be. And Mickey was fine, right, 'cos I'd known him since I was a kid and he was fun and he loved me and he's a good person, a decent bloke. And Jack makes me laugh and flirts with me and kind of makes me feel beautiful, in a way, which is a new feeling for me, to be honest, but in another way he's like the older brother I never had, right? And Mum, obviously, she's there for me like no one else, she's brought me up all on her own and taken care of me through all the shitty stuff that happens in life..."

He stepped forwards, closing the distance between them again, but remained silent, patiently waiting for her to continue.

"But Jimmy was no good. And Mickey didn't do anything, except watch T.V and play video games. And Jack makes everyone feel beautiful. And Mum has never encouraged me to be more than what I am." She looked up at him and locked her gaze with his. "But you…"

"Yeah?" he prompted, entranced by her speech and wondering where she could possibly being going with it.

She swallowed against a lump in her throat and continued, "You're the only person who's ever shown me what I can really be." She paused, and pressed her lips together tightly for a moment, watching him watch her. Then she finished, "The only person who's ever believed in me. And that's the best thing I could ask for in a friend. I don't think you realise just how happy you've made me."

He stared at her, amazed by what he was hearing. "Rose," he whispered reverently.

"If you think that it'd ruin all that if we kissed, then fine," she said next. "But if you change your mind, then, well, at least you know now that I think it'd be - "

Whatever she had been about to say was cut off, then, as the Doctor leant down and pressed his mouth to hers, stealing her words. Surprised but completely thrilled, Rose framed his head with her hands to encourage him to stay right there, and opened her mouth beneath his.

Emboldened by her obvious reciprocation, the Doctor deepened the kiss, and moved his hands to her waist. He couldn't quite believe he was really doing this. He couldn't believe how good it felt. And he definitely couldn't believe how, well, for lack of a better phrase, how into it Rose seemed.

Slowly, reluctantly, he broke the kiss; he leant his forehead against hers and they breathed in deeply. Her fingers slipped to his jumper and gripped the fabric tightly. "Rose Tyler," he whispered, his hot breath hovering over her lips. "How you've saved me."