Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.

Summary: John Smith's secret to getting the girl is as simple as parading yourself in front of her window for hours on end. Who would've thought?

Author's Note: This is sort of an AU. None of the Doctor Who stuff happened, they're just two normal people. Two unusually attractive normal people. =)

Window Shopping

Love is a very strange thing. A very, very, very, very strange thing. It's stranger than getting a wheat penny back as change or having the fish you won at the carnival live longer than half a second. Love is a very funny thing. A very, very, very, very funny thing. It's funnier than all the Will Ferrell movies put together or the joke that always makes you snort fizzy pop up your nose. Love can happen in very weird places. Lots of very, very, very, very weird places. It can happen in the back of a gas station or on top of the moon.

But, Rose Tyler will be the first to fill you in on this little secret: the strangest, funniest, weirdest place she has ever encountered love was through a window.

But, for authenticity's sake, she'll also fill you in on this. It was through a window she hardly ever looked through. It's hilarious how these things happen, isn't it?

She'd moved into a flat ages and ages ago. Right after the boy she thought she loved ran out on her and the boy who thought she loved him finally gave up. This flat was her gateway to adulthood; she would be forced to grow up into the sophisticated, well-off woman she was always destined to become. That's what her mother tried to beat into her head at least. Rose had a different set of plans.

This place was hers, and only hers. She could do whatever she liked: not clean the dishes, watch TV all day, and fall asleep on her couch. She could stay up late, be even later for work, and ignore her boss's calls as often as she liked. This was her life, and she was living it the best way she knew how. The only fault she could find with her disestablished palace was the view from her bedroom window.

It was horrible. It led straight into a filthy apartment of the most run-down and disgusting type. For as long as she had lived in her flat, no one had lived in that one. Soon after she was settled, pretty curtains and a lamp were appointed as guards of the window and it soon began to blend in with the walls around it. She never had any desire to look out of it.

Until one day she did.

She had just finished putting away her finally laundered clothes, and suddenly she decided she'd fancy a look out of the window she'd never really looked out of at all.

Boy, did she get an eyeful.

Directly in front of her window, generously laid out for her eyes to feast on, was the most gorgeous man she was pretty sure anyone, anywhere had ever seen. He wasn't handsome in the typical sense; he had no rippling muscles, no carefully gelled hair, and there wasn't a shade to his skin that wasn't pale. It worked unbelievably well on him. He was slender, almost to the point of being scrawny. His limbs were wiry, but she somehow knew he was stronger than he looked. Her eyes were constantly drawn to his hair, it was great, and there just wasn't any other word for it. Windblown would be the adjective she would use if she could only use one. It stuck up in large tufts, seemingly of its own accord. Every few seconds, he'd reach up and run a hand or two through it. From exasperation or habit, she couldn't yet tell. But, god, did she want to find out.

She was sure there were laws against ogling your neighbor through his open window through your open window, but somehow that didn't bother her. If the cops showed up, she could just say she was bird watching. Unless the cop was a woman, then maybe she'd have some company. She could put some tea on and grab some chips, it would be nice. Almost like when her and her equally hormonally challenged friends used to sit on the sidewalk outside their flats and watch the boys pass.

Long before she'd had her fill of staring at him, he started to inch away from the window. This couldn't be allowed, someone, somewhere had to stop him! Vaguely she wondered if he'd react if she through a brick at him. Then she figured he would react, but not in a way she'd be particularly fond of. He'd probably be fairly sexy when he was angry… Then, as if someone high above her was pulling on her strings like she was a puppet, she had reached forward, threw the latch on the window, yanked it up, and hung her upper body out.

"Oi! You in the window!"

Well, that certainly stopped him. His eyes grew wide, and almost simultaneously, an amused smile turned his mouth crooked. Her breath caught in her throat. Before she could compose herself, he too had threw open his window. "Oi! You in the opposite window!"

Suddenly, she blurted out the first thing that popped into her head. "You wanna come over for some tea?"

He answered her without missing a beat. "Thought you'd never ask."

"What?" She smiled questioningly at him.

"Well, I've been parading myself in front of this window for two and a half hours waiting for you to notice me. I'm very well near exhausted."

And then she fell.

Metaphorically, of course, this story had to have a happy ending. She metaphorically fell for him right then.

Months and months later, the flat across from hers was once again empty and her window was once again firmly covered with slightly more manly curtains and the same lamp.

This time at the neighbors' request: Rose and John really had to learn to keep their "parading" to themselves.

The End.