The Doctor watched the small blonde girl skip along the paving stones of the Powell Estate, her pigtails bouncing off her shoulders. A lollipop was firmly stuck in her small, pink mouth, every now and then being freed from her jaws, licked then popped back in again. Her pink, spotty dress flew around as she jumped.
She looked beautiful. The Doctor thought. In a six-year-old who loves pink type of way.
One of the pink ribbons holding her hair up started to slip and she yanked it out, scowling. Pulling the other pigtail out, the girl shook her head and let long, golden hair fall down her back.
The Doctor smiled his dark eyes and chiselled features lighting up. Martha was going to tell her, for him. So he didn't have to worry anymore. He sat on the wall and watched.
Rose Tyler, age six-and-three-quarters, skipped down the patterned floor of her estate, waiting for Mickey to come and join her so they could go and play 'Mum's and Dad's' Fixing her eyes on her feet she ran around in circles – she had never been very patient.
Rose sighed and blew out her cheeks, rearranging her lolly in her mouth and fiddling with the ribbon she had just pulled out of her hair. She suddenly felt someone watching her.
Looking up, she saw a man with messy brown hair and brown eyes staring at her. His expression was hard to read; a cross between pride and love. She jumped and he looked away, realising she had seen him.
Rose whirled around in shock and went straight into a young woman, wearing a leather red jacket and jeans, with dark skin and spiky hair like a hedgehog. Rose gasped as she hit the lady.
"Sowwy!" She cried her mouth full of sticky red candy. She pulled the lollipop out of her mouth. "Sorry."
The Hedgehog-Woman smiled. "It's okay," She said, reassuringly. "Don't worry. You're actually the person I'm looking for!"
Rose frowned. "Really?" She asked, wrinkling up her nose.
"Yup!" The Hedgehog-Woman grinned even more. "A...friend of mine wanted me to tell you that one day, you're going to meet a man, and you're going to fall in love with him. And that this man likes to...travel..."
Rose raised her eyebrows. She was still at the 'boys are smelly' stage. Well, except Mickey. Mickey was all right.
"And one day, you're going to be separated. And my friend wants you to know, that that man loves you...very, very much, and if he could, he would go back to you." The Hedgehog-Lady had taken on a very serious face and manner. Then she grinned. "Well, nice talking to you!" She said brightly, and walked past Rose, leaving the little girl very confused.
"Rose! Rosie!" A voice was calling her name. She turned and saw Mickey.
"Do you like to travel?" she asked, abruptly, stopping him in his tracks.
He wrinkled up his dark nose in disgust. "No! I was sick on an aeroplane once, shall I tell you?"
"No. That's gross!" Rose shrieked and they started to play tag as usual.
Of course. It was so obvious now she thought about it.
Rose sat back in her chair and stared blankly at the computer screen. After a while it turned to its screensaver; a 'T' symbol with 'Torchwood, Keeping The World Safe' written underneath it in red.
She didn't know why she had suddenly remembered the memory It was from such a long time ago...before the Doctor and Canary Wharf, before she had dropped out of school, even.
But the memory remained stuck in the front of her mind as though it had only just been created.
'A man who likes to...travel...' The Doctor, of course that's who the Hedgehog-Lady had meant. She had never met another man who liked to travel.
Had he really loved her? She wished she could know for sure, but it was too late. She'd never know now.
Sighing, Rose flicked the mouse and started to type up her report.
"Where next?" The Doctor asked, jumping around the console in the centre of the room. Three women looked on, amused at his...piloting. "We could go to China or Japan or...ooh, ooh I know! Scotland! Or Ireland, or-!"
"Let's go to the land of 'Will You Shut Your Gob?'" Donna snapped at him, already tired by his ranting of faraway planets and countries. "Where ever we choose anyway, we never actually make it there!"
"That is true!" Martha agreed.
"Tis not!"
"Tis too!"
"Tis not!"
"Tis too!"
"Rose, it's not, is it?" The Doctor turned to her expectantly.
"What?" She asked, suddenly breaking out of her daydream. Conversations like this usually lasted hours so she tended to zone out during them. Unfortunately, she was always asked as the final decision, being the one who had known the Doctor longest, meaning she had more experience.
"When you choose a specific place, I usually get you there, right?" The Doctor asked.
"Not in one piece." Rose replied, grinning as she remembered Donna's head screaming at the Doctor while her body lay at the opposite side of the room.
"Hey! That was one time!"
"One time too many..." Donna muttered, making Martha and Rose laugh.
"Sorry Doctor, but it's three against one!"
"Yeah, but I'm a different species, so I count as more important than you lot!" The Doctor stuck his tongue out teasingly.
"Come on, girls!" Martha grinned. "Let's leave E.T to drown in his self-importance!" Donna and Martha left, leaving Rose and 'E.T' alone in the Console Room.
"Doctor?" Rose said, hesitantly. "Can I...Can I ask you something?"
"Yup!" The Doctor popped the 'p' and sat on the edge of the console, looking at her enquiringly.
"Well...when you found me at Torchwood-"
"Doing nothing except staring at the computer screen!" The Doctor interrupted with a cheeky grin.
"Hey! I was being emotionally challenged!" Rose protested.
"Get that from Martha?" asked the Doctor, teasingly. "Being emotionally challenged about what?"
Rose looked at him for a few moments, her face unreadable. Then she turned her head away. "You," She said her voice barely more than a whisper.
The Doctor dropped his grin. "Oh."
"So anyway," Rose continued. "I remembered something from when I was, ooh, six, seven? And it was of this woman who looked remarkably like Martha telling me that one day I would fall in love with a man who liked to travel..."
The Doctor's face lit up slightly with an expression that Rose didn't understand properly.
"And she told me that he loved me back." Rose could feel tears and blinked them away, giving her eyes a watery expression. "And so, my question is...do you love me?"
The Doctor just looked at her. Then he frowned and turned to the console, ignoring her and resuming his piloting, only a little slower and more thoughtful.
"Doctor?" Rose suddenly felt angry at his behaviour. "Do you think that you can just...just block me out like that? Like I don't really care? Like I don't matter? Why can't you just answer me? Do you know how I feel?"
The Doctor turned to her. "Yes." He said, quietly. "Yes, I do know how you feel, Rose Tyler, because I feel the same way. I almost couldn't be bothered living when I lost you, and I almost had a heart attack with the shock of finding you, ok? So yes, Rose, I know exactly what you feel!"
"Then why don't you show it?" Rose folded her arms.
"You want me to show you...? How I feel?" The Doctor asked, looking shocked.
"Yes."
"Fine."
"Fine."
The Doctor walked right up to Rose so he was looking straight down at her. He put his hands on either side of her face...and kissed her.
For a moment she stood there, rigid and shocked. But a second later she melted into his arms, and wrapped her own around his neck.
"We heard-oh." Donna and Martha ran into the room, alarmed looks on their faces.
"Aw!" Martha clapped her hands together. "They look so sweet!"
"And...sorry can't think of a sarcastic come-back." Donna shook her head.
"Oh dear. Are you feeling alright?" Martha grinned and the pair exited the room, laughing, as Rose and The Doctor broke away and smiled.