Dedicated to Dreamcatcher over at a Teaspoon and an Open Mind (whofic dot com)


Chapter 2 - The Girl in the Stalking Spaceship

"I think we're lookin' through a mirror."

Ah, there she was: Rose Tyler. She'd wandered off again - typical - and had apparently even armed herself with his droid-cancelling fire extinguisher. The Doctor shook his head. Hadn't he specifically said not to go looking for the droid?

"Blimey, look at this guy."

And Mickey.

Mickey, whom, by the way, Rose had not actually been excited for him to have invited.

And who she took great pains, once Mickey was onboard the TARDIS with them, to explain was no longer her boyfriend.

That boded quite well for the Doctor, considering the conclusions he had recently reached.

"Who does he think he is?" Mickey asked as the monarch on the other side of the mirror dismissed his attendants.

"King of France," the Doctor announced, coming up behind the pair. No, "pair" didn't sound right. Especially since he much preferred for Rose to be paired with him -

"Oh, here's trouble," Rose greeted with just a brilliant grin. Spectacular grin. "What you been up to?"

"Oh, this and that," the Doctor answered, pointedly ignoring that tongue of hers playing just behind her teeth... He didn't even notice it, actually. Not a bit. Oh, they really needed to get back to the TARDIS. "Became the imaginary friend of a future French aristocrat," an aristocrat whose taste he desperately needed to get out of his mouth. "Picked a fight with a clockwork man -"

Arthur's neigh followed him into the corridor.

"Oh, and I met a horse," the Doctor said dismissively at Rose's startled expression. "C'mon!" he called, turning on his heel and breaking into just a show of a run as he led the way back to the TARDIS.

"Doctor?" Rose called, already catching him up. "What is it?"

"I... have had a revelation!" he admitted to her, turning to the right, then around another corner to the left, then jumping over the steps down to the level of the TARDIS. "No time to lose," he encouraged, smiling at her before opening the TARDIS' doors and sprinting inside. "To the kitchen!"

The Doctor left Rose in the console room, although from the sound of it she had deposited her fire extinguisher there and was following behind.

He was searching through the TARDIS' cupboards, already assembling the necessary ingredients on the counter, when she ran into the kitchen, behind him.

"What's goin' on?!" Rose panted.

He glanced back over his shoulder to shoot her a wink, before turning back to his work. "Venusian spearmint, bread, water, celery - used to keep the stuff stockpiled," he mused, tossing the bunch in the air before quickly preparing a couple of stalks. "Banana for good measure, got plenty of those." The Doctor quickly consumed the first several items before turning to lean back on the counter and give Rose just a slightly less cryptic explanation. "Cleansing the pallet, Rose!" he told her around a mouthful of celery. "Cleansing the pallet."

Mickey could be heard calling for Rose from the console room. With one last crunch of the celery, the Doctor decided that now was the time for action.

In two, short steps, he was right in front of her. One hand on her jaw, one threaded into the hair behind her head, the Doctor reveled in her reaction. Confusion, surprise, disbelief, and oh, especially anticipation. It was all there on her face, in her eyes, in the gasp between her slightly parted lips.

Stealing a page out of Madame de Pompadour's book, the Doctor captured those lips with his own, pressing Rose back a step, two, three steps, until she was comfortably trapped between him and the refrigerator. She made no move to try and escape, actually tugging him closer by the lapels of his suit jacket as she opened her mouth to him -

"OH, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!"

Rose whimpered at the loss of contact, and it took the Doctor two-thirds of a moment to realize that he and Mickey - who was now standing at the kitchen doorway - had shouted the exact same thing at the exact same time.

Still, the Doctor suspected that they had completely different reasons for their respective, identical reactions.

"Pear, Rose?!" the Doctor cried. "Pear. Seriously?" he asked, nearly unable to fathom his poor luck.

"Uh," she told him, licking her lips, her hands climbing his jacket to his collar.

This disastrous situation needed to be remedied immediately, and without losing Rose's obvious interest... "This is gonna take a lot more than celery," he murmured, dipping his lips to her throat.

No pear there, he thought, dropping a hand down to her waist to pull her even closer.

And Rose's interest seemed to definitely be retained.


The end.

If you're smiling, my work here is done.