A/N: I know. I know. I've got a couple of fics waiting for attention. They will get it, I assure you. Just that with new episodes canon has changed somewhat and I need to rethink my strategy on one of them. The others are simply waiting for me to edit new chapters .. which I find so incessantly boring to do.

I've also had to take a step back recently to deal with some RL issues that required my absolute focus (School bullying more than anything else), so happy happy joy joy hasn't been hanging around me much. Need to breathe, take a step back, then run back headlong into those that I've already begun.

Anyhooooo. I have a song that I love. It's a beautiful little song called the Highwayman by Loreena McKennitt. I find it to be a fascinating tale .. so heartbreaking and so beautiful. Anyway, I started to picture the Doctor and Rose in the story and thought ... woah .. This could be fun. I can knick part of this and then warp it around to fit the Doctor and Rose and another idea I might've had. Only a few chapters are needed to get through this so let's give it a shot then!

Soooo. That said. Some of the descriptives have been taken directly from the lyrics, so anything recognizable (which is always the actually best written bits) belong to her.

I really hope you enjoy this one...

isclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or any of the characters. I kind've wish I did, but alas ... they're property of the BBC.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The corset-style brassiere top that she wore over a loosely fitted long bell-sleeved peasant blouse was perhaps the most constricting garment that Rose Tyler had ever had the misfortune of wearing. Any breaths she took had to be taken in very short bursts, which unfortunately, led to her voice taking on a slight giddy breathlessness. It was a sound that had the Doctor chuckling against her ear as he curled around her to walk toward the exit of his TARDIS.

"You know," he teased with a wink in his eye and a smirk across his lips. "This isn't America in the late eighteen-hundreds." His eyes rolled. "Well. We're not even on Earth, for that matter."

"No," she cut in breathlessly as she shifted her corset in an attempt to find comfort. "We're on a planet with a name I can't pronounce, who've taken their culture and fashion sense from the turn of the century Ireland…"

"Which century?"

Her eyes narrowed with annoyance. "Sorry, what?"

"Which century?" he continued with a shrug. "Earth is billions of years old. That's quite a few centuries turning over. If you could possibly be a little more specific, it might help…"

"Oh don't you dare pretend that you don't know what I'm talkin' about," she answered with a huff. Her eyes narrowed with annoyance when his shoulders shook lightly with a chuckle. She pointed her finger at him. "Listen here snickerpuss. Just think yourself lucky that I'm so tightly bound in this kit, because it's the only thing preventing me from thumping you right now." She lifted her arm and looked at it with a sigh. "I swear I've cut off all circulation to my upper body."

"Really?" he breathed with false disappointment. "So violent, aren't you?"

"Can be," she muttered childishly. "If'm poked the wrong way."

He shook his head and clicked his tongue. "And if I was to lever the same threat your way? Hmm? Would that be as okay?"

Her eyes flashed open wide and she lifted her head. The question in the flare of her eyes didn't need TARDIS translation – nor did it require her to voice it.

"That isn't to say that I'd make any such threat," he peppered out too quickly for it to be as nonchalant as he wanted it to come across. "I'm not a violent person. More of a pacifist .." he winced up one side of his face and twisted the wrist of his right hand in a slow rotation. "…ish"

Rose merely blinked at him.

So he continued. "And despite your odd threats here and there to do all manner of violent things to myself or others when they frustrate you – I know that you Rose Tyler truly are a compassionate and gentle pacifist yourself."

"Uh-huh," she answered blandly.

"Now. That all said of course," he continued with a bluster as he flicked the last of the levers on the TARDIS to shut down her drive systems. "The point I'm trying to make. And there is one. A perfectly good point. A point very much worth bulleting and bolding in a Microsoft Word Document…" He looked at her with wide and questioning eyes. "Do people still use that? Word?"

"You've forgotten your point, haven't you?" Rose said with a smile.

He smiled and shook his head as he peppered out a series of "no no no no no no" inside a gentle laugh. He held up his finger, but looked away from her in an obvious gesture of forgetfulness. "I do know the point that I was heading toward …" He swallowed thickly. "…via the scenic route, of course."

Rose smiled and tenderly touched at his cheek with her fingertips. She waited for that action to draw his eyes to hers.

"Superior Time Lord brain," she offered breathlessly. "Never forget a thing, you. Eidetic memory and all that."

"Yeah," he breathed out as his eyes flicked their focus between hers.

"And your intelligence is so inspired that you made your point without actually having to properly explain it to me."

His brows lifted with surprise. "I did?"

"I'm sorry I threatened you, Doctor," she vowed quietly with a stroke of her thumb on his sideburn. "It's not right…"

He captured her hand in his and curled his fingers around hers as he let their hands drop in the space between them. "As long as you don't follow through," he assured her gently. "Then it's okay."

"No," she blustered quickly with a shake in her head. "No, it's not."

Silence fell upon the pair in that moment as each of them searched their minds for a good jumping off point to the next subject of discussion. None really was forthcoming. It wasn't until Rose staggered in her inhale that the Doctor found his new starting point. Very quickly he released her hand and took a stride backward.

"As I was saying earlier," he said with a squeak. "You know…" He circled his finger in the air in front of her. "Before you distracted me with your violent nature and confusing allusions toward turning centuries."

"Oh get on with it," she cut in with a groan.

He smirked and straightened up in his stance. His eyes crinkled with mirth. "About your attire, Rose." He strode a few steps backward and tipped his head at the tightly laced corset. "And as I was alluding to back when I initially brought it up." He inhaled a deep breath and held onto it a moment before exhaling and speaking rapidly at the same time. "We landed on Haprietograwa…"

Rose moved her mouth in an attempt to try to wrap her tongue around the name, but said nothing.

The Doctor paused just long enough to grin at her. "Oh, you'll get it, Rose. I know you can. I mean. Well. You finally got your tongue around Raxicoricofallapatorious."

"Yeah. Kay. That was a right mouthful," Rose said with a roll in her eyes. "But memorizing it was more difficult than getting' out all those syllables in one breath."

He had to chuckle. "If you think that's tough, you should try pronouncing my name," he scratched at his sideburn and noted her widened eyes. "That is to say my Gallifreyan name."

"You mean Doctor in Gallifreyan?" she queried with genuine interest. "How do you say that in Gallifreyan?"

"Doctor?" he parroted with high brows. "Oh. Sure. In my language it's pronounced Glissorganutentris."

Rose giggled into her hand. "Really? That's Doctor in Gallifreyan? Glissorgano-something"

"Tentris," he finished for her. "Close enough, but yes. If you were looking for a surgeon on Gallifrey, that's the name you'd use."

"I see why you're goin' with the English version then," She muttered with a wince of distaste. Her expression shifted into coy curiosity. "But. So that's your name, then? Glissorganutentris? Glissorganutentris, what?"

"Pardon me?"

"Your last name," she clarified. "I mean, you have one, right?"

His eyes widened and his jaw dropped in realization. "Oh! Yes. Right. Of course. Name of my house with familial extension on the end. Lungbarrowmas." He tipped his shoulder up to his ear and continued somewhat distractedly as he tugged on his ear and looked off to the side. "Not that any of us actually used it. I certainly never did. Can't really remember any of my cousins using it unless forced to do so. Well. Except for Quences, of course, but he was a right stodgy old fellow who was happy to have a name long enough to require the use of the respiratory bypass to say in its entirety."

"So," Rose began curiously. "Glissorganutentris Lungbarrowmas?"

"What?" The Doctor's attention snapped to her and he gave her a look of confusion before he finally realized what she was saying. "Oh! No. No. That's not my name. Not even close." One side of his face crinkled up. "Well," he drawled long in song. "Aside from the Lungbarrow reference. That part of it's accurate enough."

Rose grinned widely. "Well?"

He looked at her suspiciously. "Well, what?"

She grinned cheekily. "Your name, you plum. Are you going to tell me?"

He snorted through his nose. His answer was bland and short. "No."

"What?" She sang out incredulously. Her arms quickly folded against her chest and she slouched with rising indignance. "Why not; you know mine?"

"Decent enough rebuttal," be breathed out with a shrug. "But my answer is still no. Doctor is good enough."

"But…"

"Now, to get back to the point that I seemed to have begun circling around instead of actually reaching," he said quickly in an attempt to steer the conversation away from the moniker given to him on his nameday. Even though he could see Rose's lips part to continue to pry, he ignored the question entirely. "The fashion of Haprietograwa – as you so keenly noted earlier – is based on late nineteenth century Ireland. This…"

He paused mid-point to look her up and down with a teasingly critical eye. He lifted his hand to sweep it up in front of her chest. "Is more Spaghetti-Western brothel madam."

Rose inhaled a deep gasp of affront, but her inhale was very quickly restricted by the hold of her top. She winced and growled out her excess breath. "Excuse me!"

He shook his head and walked toward her with a gentle smile on his face. His eyes shifted to hers to offer her a very slight look of condescension as he lifted his hands to nimbly pull free the small laced bow. The shake of his head stilled as he watched the garment immediately loosen, and as it did so did the hold of Rose's breath. He lifted his eyes to hers as he deftly retied the bow. "There's no need to lace yourself up so tightly, Rose. Even if it was the style, I prefer to know that you're comfortable and that your dignity is well intact."

Rose exhaled a long breath and then drew in deeply. "That's so much better."

He grinned. "I knew it would be."

"Which means," she continued cheekily, obviously disregarding his self-praise. "That I have more breath and bloodflow back into my brain to keep bugging you."

"No different to any other day," he mused with a shrug.

"Ahhh," she countered with just her breath. "But now I have purpose, you know."

His eyes flicked to hers. There was suspicion in his gaze – and perhaps a little worry – but he hid it quickly from her with a waggle in his brow. "And what purpose might that be, then?"

"Your real name," she answered in a very matter-of-fact voice and matching stance. "I want to know what it is."

His smile faltered and his expression morphed into something thoughtful, contemplative. "Is that so."

"It is very so." She smiled her most disarming grin and fluttered her lashes in a terrifically feminine manner that was very unlike her…

The Doctor was caught – briefly – and stammered a little before finding his voice. When he did, he voiced a question that spun Rose's world on its head.

"Are you going to marry me, Rose?" he asked in a wholly serious and firm tone of voice. That question lingered in the air between them for a handful of seconds. When Rose managed a breathless "what?" the Doctor's rigid posture suddenly relaxed and he turned toward the console, walking and talking over his shoulder to her.

"Well," he drawled long. "I ask that because it's really the only way that I'd find myself actually speaking that name out loud." He thrust one hand into the pocket of his trousers and scratched at his sideburn. "Hasn't always been that way, mind. I was a little more open with my name in my youth; told a few people who asked me – Samantha Jones; Becky, my Tango instructor; Susan knew it – of course, she's my granddaughter, so I would expect that she would know, although I can't quite remember telling her. Oh, here and there I might've used excuses here that there about it being impossible to pronounce…" he spun and offered a still shell-shocked Rose Tyler a rather wild-eyed look. "Which it isn't. Unpronounceable that is. It's quite pronounceable, really. Long and difficult to remember, of course, but certainly pronounceable." He paused and mouthed a series of unreadable syllables and then gave a firm nod. "Yes. Most definitely pronounceable."

Rose's eyes were wide and her jaw was slightly gaped. All she could do in reply was to very softly say his name – his known name.

The Doctor caught her confusion and gave her a smile. "Now. While my younger incarnations might have been a little more free with spreading my name across time and space. I am most certainly not." He pressed his lips together and gave a single shake of his head. "I decided, back after the fall of Gallifrey to the Time War that I'd forego my Gallifreyan name in favour of the moniker I've used since I left – oh, so long ago." He turned, then inhaled deeply and with a slight waver. "I didn't deserve that last tie to Gallifrey. I let that name burn with my planet and vowed that from that moment forth the only person who could ever know my true name would be the woman that I chose to be my wife."

"Oh, Doctor…"

He turned toward her with damp eyes and a devastated expression on his face. "I chose it to be my vow to her – to the woman I felt worthy … No, the woman who thinks that I am worthy enough for her to want to know everything about me…" His voice fell to a whisper and he looked away from her. "And then. Once she knows it all. If she still wants me…" He gulped. "I would offer her the very last piece of the mystery. My name."

He looked down when he felt the light touch of her hand on his arm. With her touch, he felt the tension within him crumble. His voice was still quiet when he turned sharply and pulled her into his arms and spoke against her hair.

"Is that something you really want to burden yourself with, Rose?" He inhaled and huffed his breath against her hair. "All that just to know my name?"

Rose lifted her head the rest her chin against his shoulder. Her voice was wistful and gentle. "I think, Doctor, that if you're going to ask me a question like that then you should probably buy me a drink first." She chuckled when she felt him slump and let out a relieved moan, and then backed away from him. She winked at him. "I know that I agreed to move in with you'n all, but marriage? Oh I dunno about that. That's all orderin' flowers and cake and lettin' mum organize things…" She stepped away from him and twirled her hand in the air with a roll in her eyes. "An' then there's the other stuff you need to get behind, like kissin' and cuddlin' and doin' all that husband stuff like… Well. Like…"

He was getting it, and he certainly appreciated her taking the humourful approach rather than weigh the both of them down with the emotional reaction. He grinned as she stumbled to finish her thought.

"Like what?" he queried cheekily.

She levered him with a glare to accept the challenge. "Oh, you know. Like sex and all the fun stuff that comes along with it." She narrowed her eyes in question as a smile stretched wide across her face. She gestured toward his groin. "Are you even equipped for that kind've thing, Doctor?"

"And on that note," he sang somewhat uncomfortably as he spun her around and pressed his hand into her lower back to lead her toward the TARDIS doors. "Let's head outside and see just what it is that the people of Haprietograwa have in store for us today."

"Knowin' you," she sang with a chuckle as she pulled open the door and skipped outside. "Probably mayhem and chaos."

"Oh don't be like that," he countered with a long suffering sigh. "Oh yee of little faith, I've landed us on many wonderful and peaceful planets before…"

He stepped out behind her; walking directly into the barrel of a shot-gun. "Right," he purred long. He lifted a finger to Rose when he saw her smile split to say something smart. "Don't. Just. Don't."