A/N: If you recognize it, I don't own it.
Beautiful
If there was one thing Rose Tyler knew, it was that she was nothing special to look at. How could she be? She was chubby – which was, frankly, unattractive – and her teeth were crooked, her lips too big for her face, her eyes were brown (not even chocolate brown, more like mud brown), and her hair was a mess. It never, ever did what she wanted it to and her roots never matched the rest of it. Her natural color was so incredibly plain-jane.
So when the Doctor, the centuries-old time-travelling alien who had quickly become her best friend and the object of the biggest crush of her life, told her she looked beautiful on a quiet night in 1869… Well, what was she supposed to make of that? Even if it was considering you're human, she had to wonder how many humans he'd met in his life. Hundreds, she'd bet. No, hundreds of thousands. And with that psychic paper of his, he could have met anyone. Everyone. Movie stars and models and glittering, glamorous, gorgeous people.
His words had lit that little fire of pride inside her, the one that made her feel, sometimes, like she was something really special. But that fire would have eventually gone out, when she was back in her jeans and tee-shirts and trainers, if not for the way he sometimes looked at her. Those blue eyes she so admired were capable of being so terrifyingly intense, capable of staring down Daleks and Slitheen and ghosts and dashing freelancers – sometimes, those same eyes, she would look up and catch looking at her. But their intensity didn't frighten her then, when he'd stare across the console room at her and not even notice her looking back.
Beautiful. It wasn't a word she associated with herself. That was for people like Jane Turner down the hall at the Estate, or movie stars on the silver screen.
Beautiful. It wasn't even a word that sounded very nice, when you thought about it. Not unless it was said in a Northern accent by a man who only ever wore jumpers and a leather jacket. A man who, despite his big ears and big nose and his moods and bluster and gruffness, is undeniably the most attractive man she'd ever seen.
Beautiful. Whenever he looked at her, she felt beautiful. When he smiled at her – that grin of his brighter than the sun, because he'd just realized something that meant they'd soon be running for their lives, because they'd survived yet another crazy adventure, because she'd said something funny, because he was just happy – she felt beautiful. When he held her hand, she felt beautiful. When he got jealous, when he danced with her, whenever he said her name… she felt like the most beautiful little human in all of space and time.
Rose Tyler knew she was nothing special to look at. For most guys. But to the one who mattered, the one she adored…
With everything he did, he told her just how beautiful she was.