As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. June Challenges will be available as of June 3rd, but feel free to tackle May's if you'd rather. The new set will run through the end of June. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.


Chapter 4:

"I fall in love in a very intellectual sort of way," he said quietly. "It's all very Don Quixote, you know."

"You always are," Rose replied, loving him more for his vulnerability even as a voice in her head - Sarah Jane's, she rather thought - was warning her to be cautious. "Jousting with windmills. Very you. Even had the horse."

"Didn't know you read Cervantes," he replied vaguely, releasing his grip at last so he could completely destroy his hair style.

"Thanks. I didn't, but I've seen the musical. I have some culture." She smirked then, teasing. "I remembered to bring it from Mum's last time we stopped and everything."

He got the joke, even though he still looked like he'd been hit by the Number 7 bus. Twice. "Must've left it in your bag, though."

"Snob," she said.

He snorted. "Got it in one, as usual."

"I'm very perceptive, me," she said, mocking up a Northern accent for him, just to see if it would make him smile.

It didn't, he was still on other things. "She's perfect in her natural environment."

"'Course she is. She's brilliant, anyone would love her."

He glowered at the wall. "Obviously," he agreed. Then, he dropped his face into his hands. "What am I doing?" he demanded.

She knew he wasn't asking her, more demanding the Universe tell him, but the Universe never seemed to think it owed him even that courtesy. "You're being in love with a dream girl. It happens, Doctor, to everyone. You don't have to stop loving what you already loved just to fall in love with something or someone else. God, don't I know that!" She'd loved Mickey, after all, hadn't wanted to give him up for so long, but then she'd fallen in love with the Doctor the instant he touched her hand, so she knew all about being ambushed by this emotion, better than lots of people, really.

"What?" He lifted his head and blinked at her, curious and baffled and - there it was, the green-eyed monster that had been her blue-eyed Doctor's next-of-kin.

"Don't be stupid," she ordered, angrily, rolling her eyes. "You're not going to do this to me, you're not. You can't go 'round snogging brilliant, beautiful, gifted princesses and then getting annoyed if I might want to even mention someone." She was too aggravated with him to remind him that he was the "someone" if he couldn't figure it out.

He looked like he wanted to argue back for a minute, and then his head went back against the wall and he let out a great, sad sigh. "Welp, that's it then. This is officially going down as the worst day of this incarnation so far."

"Why?" she asked.

"Let's see, where to start. I didn't get to keep the horse, you're never going to forgive me, I deserted my friends for five and a half hours, the TARDIS is threatening to put me on a six foot leash..." He tilted his head to the side. "Sorry," he corrected, "a three foot leash. I got drunk and can't take aspirin for the head ache that is now pounding at the back of my skull, I met a woman who almost understood me, only she doesn't seem to have understood at all, I think I lost my tie, I forgot the obvious solution, I have almost no idea why I did any of this and finally, from behind that door, is the distinct sound of Rickey the Idiot getting the girl."

She snickered, she couldn't help it. "Did you really want her?" she asked softly.

He looked as wounded as he had during that conversation about dancing during the Blitz. "'Course I did," he mumbled.

"Um hum," she said and, because she couldn't help it, not really, she reached over and stroked her hand through his hair, trying to make his headache a bit better anyway. "You know what I think?"

"Not really," he said. "I try not to do that to you, it is abysmally rude, really, to peek at other... people's... thoughts." He turned to look toward the door with an injured, scandalized expression. "That was rude!" he exclaimed, as if he'd only just realized it.

She shook her head and lowered her hands to the back of his skull, wreathing her fingers through his hair. "It's easy to love someone when everything's excitement and dancing. I think that. I also think it's easy to love someone who everything is easy for. But the other thing I think is that you did this because of everything that happened with Sarah Jane."

"What?"

"First, you disappointed Sarah Jane and you wanted to make up for it by not disappointing Reinette. You loved Sarah Jane and couldn't come back for her and now you love Reinette and you wanted to come back for her just so she wouldn't be disappointed in you, too. Mind, Reinette wouldn't have wasted her life waiting on you - she was already doing everything she wanted to with her life, and waiting for you would have been sort of a side project for her."

"I'm not sure I like this," he said quietly.

She stilled her hands. "Sorry, I'll stop."

"No, that's fine, that's brilliant. I mean... why are you telling me this?"

"'Cause you deserve to know that you had good reasons."

"They're not good reasons."

"Depends on how you look at it. The other reason was because you made me that promise and you won't take it back even if you wish you could now, since you think I'll still leave you. Bringing Reinette and Mickey along is a way to make sure I hurry up and go so you can say 'I told you so' to my absence."

"That's definitely not a good reason," he said, looking so sad and so indignant and so very hurt. But she wasn't going to take it back, because it was true.

"It is to you, Doctor. That way, you'd get to be right, and I'd get the life you keep thinking I want and you won't have to watch me get old and die. You can come back in fifty years or a hundred and I'll still be thirty-five, living on the Council Estate, eating beans on toast."

"Is that wrong?" he asked, plaintively. "I mean, I can't even figure out who it isn't fair to."

"You're a genius, Doctor, but this stuff isn't your thing."

"I guess not," he admitted sadly.

They sat in silence for quite some time, the Doctor becoming so still against her hands that she wondered if he'd gone to sleep or something. She massaged his scalp and thought about all the things they'd been through together, and how very much he loved her - she knew he did, he'd not been able to hide that from her ever - even if it wasn't "like that". She thought about how they would never say the words because, as she'd said, it wasn't his thing.

She thought about how she should have broken it off with Mickey after that first 12 hour trip in the TARDIS and how much she regretted it later, that day in Cardiff, when she realized she had hurt him, repeatedly and very selfishly. He'd deserved a lot better than her running off on him, and certainly better than Tricia Delaney. She was actually kinda proud of him for this one, but she wouldn't tell the Doctor that, even under torture.

She thought about how jealous she'd been of Reinette at first, and of Sarah Jane, and really it was stupid, because she'd done this to the Doctor an Adam or Jack before. Mind, at the time she hadn't realized she couldn't have a shag and the Doctor. Now, if she could have both, at the same time...

She laughed quietly, remembering the look of incredulous horror on Reinette's face before.

"Hum?" asked the Doctor, a bit sleepily. So he had been drifting off. "What is it?"

"Poor Reinette," she said softly. He tilted his head, waiting for her to elaborate, but she'd be damned if she was going to repeat that bit to him. They each had their secrets and the fact that she wanted him was one she was bound and determined to keep. "Oh, you know," she said, flippantly, "thinking she was here to help with our marriage."

"What's wrong with it?" he asked, indignantly.

"Apart from the obvious?"

It seemed to take him rather too long to figure out what the obvious was. Never mind sleepy, he must have been damn near unconscious. "Oh, that," he said. "Yeah... I should..." He turned to face her, blinking more than usual. "I should probably sort of do something about that."

He'd have to wait a bit to clear things up with Reinette, though. She and Mickey still hadn't emerged from their little love nest. "C'mon, let's go get some tea. We can sort them out later."

He nodded. "Remind me in the morning, I'll need to update all of Mickey's shots."

She stood up and helped him to his feet and had gotten half-way through the tea making before that last statement finally hit something in her mind that made it make sense. "What was that about shots?" she demanded.

He blushed, a soft pink stain smearing across his freckles, obscuring them slightly. "Well, it's just... well, royal diseases aren't the same everywhere."

"What?"

"Oh, you know." He scratched the back of his neck. "Werewolves in England. Hemophilia amongst the Hapsburgs in Austria and Russia. Everywhere else though, it was..." he broke off, muttered something very quiet that she couldn't make out, then finished with, "disease."

"Sorry? No idea what mumble mumble disease is. Wanna try again?"

"I could have done this in my last incarnation," he complained. "Said 'fart' in front of like thirty or forty people."

"Yeah," she agreed, thinking about him, as he had been. Loved him, then, loved him, now. "Yeah, sounds just like you."

"I know!" He grinned wildly, as if he was talking about someone who made him immensely proud. "All those Slitheen, and I didn't know it yet, and I'm standing there, and here's the acting PM with the gas exchange problem, and I turn around and say," and here he dropped into, not only the accent but the voice and, heaven help her, even the expression. "'Excuse me, do you mind not farting while I'm saving the world?!" He laughed happily. "Fantastic!" he added.

She almost thought she caught a flash of blue in those huge chocolate eyes. She couldn't help it, she flung her arms around him and hugged him tight. He returned the hug with enthusiasm, lifting her from her feet and spinning her around a bit.

It was only when he set her back on her feet that she realized... "Oi, you're trying to get out of telling me. Oh, that's low, Doctor." Still, she grinned at him. She hadn't known he could do voices, not even his own. He should have done that right at the first, maybe she wouldn't have worried so much. Ok, maybe she would. She loved that brooding, aching survivor so much it had hurt to think about it.

"Sorry. It's... now, don't panic, he'll be fine, I promise. Just, it's venereal disease. Syphilis, if I remember correctly."

She stared at him. She stared at the wall. She stared back at him. He looked very much as if he was trying not to laugh.

She did it for him.


Hours later, they were lying on the sofa in the library. She'd wanted to look up Reinette's revised history, and he was, apparently, in the mood to follow her anywhere she went. He was at an angle, half sitting, half sprawled, and she was on her back, using him for a support pillow. He had one leg on the floor, and the other was stretched out her side. She used it for a book rest until she'd found what she wanted, closed the book, and just sort of lay there, too contented to move.

"They're a bit like a fairy tale, aren't they?" she wondered aloud after awhile.

The Doctor straightened a bit. "Aren't everybody in your fairy tales always royalty from the get-go, though?" he asked. "Or at least nobility?" He carefully detached himself from his position - not thinking about how flexible he had to be to do that - and casually shoved her into a sitting position. "I mean, even Cinderella's dad was a proper baron or something. Reinette was born bourgeois and Mickey's a right peasant even on his good days."

Rose snickered a bit. "Never thought about it. Most of 'em were, yeah, I guess." She smiled whimsically. "That's so weird. When I was growing up, fairy tales always seemed to involve the poor girl getting rescued by the handsome prince. I didn't even realize the poor girl was usually a princess herself."

"See, need to pay more attention to what people tell you," he said.

"Yeah," she agreed. "I guess I do." The mood had taken her completely, so she only realized what she'd said, after she murmured, "'Course, I also didn't expect the prince to have big ears and a space ship, so you can't blame me for getting confused."

"Sounded a bit Northern, too," the Doctor mused. "And I made a right scruffy damsel-in-distress."

She giggled, relieved. "Sorry, mate, this you'd look better in a dress than that one."

"If you're going to be doing the rescuing, I suppose I can endure it. Cheeky blonde girl, playing Tarzan." He looked around the room in a reminiscent fondness and then, suddenly, he froze.

"What?" she asked, her eyes darting around the room, her posture stiffening against him, wondering what the danger was, what he was seeing. He didn't say anything, and she didn't see anything, so she poked him in the ribs.

He didn't even flinch, but she followed his eyes to the chandelier hanging in all its crystalline glory over the middle of he room. "What?" she demanded.

The Doctor turned to her, his grin huge, boyish and only a very little bit alarmed. "Just something Reinette mentioned," he said cheerfully. "Earlier when she was telling me off." He eyed the chandelier speculatively. "Don't think it would work," he added, thoughtfully, his head tilted like it usually was when he was doing really complex math in his head.

Rose tried to make sense of that for a few minutes while he continued to do whatever it was he was doing that made his eyes sparkle and dance with that wicked humor like that. Something Reinette had said, and the chandelier.

Yeah, she thought, as the realization hit her, just shoot me.

Because she was tired, because it had been the longest day, because he was beautiful and frustrating and could make her laugh and cry and wax sarcastic and poetic all at once, Rose just decided to give it up as a bad job. "I'm going to bed," she said, very carefully pretending she had absolutely no idea what he was on about.

"OK," he agreed and bounded to his feet.

Apparently, he was still in the mood to follow her everywhere. Fine, she could blush and curse her stupid, chatty human mouth later. His arm chair was still in her room, next to her bed. He even sometimes slept in it, though often enough, before he changed, she'd wake up and catch him watching her sleep.

He trailed after her, smiling a vaguely smug smile. She closed her door behind them and he immediately started shucking his suit, so she grabbed her night dress from under her pillow and ducked into the en suite to change clothes.

The Doctor didn't follow her this time, and she was grateful, because he looked like he might would have done if he wasn't caught up in dealing with a knot in one of his trainer laces. She closed the door between them with his eyes following her, playing merry hell on all of her senses.

She dropped her shoes on the floor with a startled thud when she came out of the loo and found him tucked neatly under the duvet, smiling at her. He was doing his innocent little lamb expression, so she rolled her eyes and, what the hell, got into the bed with him.

The Doctor wrapped his bare arms around her and pulled her close. She lay still but comfortable in his embrace, unable to help the smile on her lips as she pressed her back against his chest. She was almost completely asleep when he leaned over and, right next to her ear, said, "Really Rose? The console?"

Her face turned crimson. The rest of her body did something else entirely, but she could still control her elbow, so she jerked it back into his ribs, not as hard as she would like. She couldn't do that, most of her muscles were either locked to prevent her turning over to snog him senseless, or already melting into him, against her better judgement.

He snickered, puffs of cool air circling her ear and making her have to fight the sudden shiver. "You don't even know if you're gay," she mumbled angrily, fighting the blush again. "So lets drop it, yeah?"

"If you insist," he replied flippantly.

"I insist," she agreed, and closed her eyes, fighting to get back to properly sleepy.

He waited until she was nearly gone again. "I'm not gay," he said.

She growled. "You can prove it in the morning," she muttered, because she was so going to kill him if he didn't quit murmuring startling things in her ear like that.

"That won't prove anything," he said, in that 'I'm the Doctor and I can talk for the world' tone of his. "That's perfectly normal in healthy humanoid males. S'like a check engine light in a car. Always comes on just to show it's working."

She rolled over and gaped at him. "What?" she demanded incredulously.

"Sorry," he said, but he didn't look it, not a little bit, not at all.

"You can't talk about venereal disease, but you can talk about..."

"You sorta asked," he said, in a quiet tone that, for some reason, made her body try to blush again.

"Is there any way I can get you to stop talking?" she muttered.

"I dunno," he answered. His eyes were nearly black in the dim light the TARDIS left on for them. "Is there?" His voice was going to turn her into a puddle of goo, any second now.

"Yeah," she said, finally, and shoved her pillow into his face. "Now shut it and keep your check engine lights to yourself."

He sputtered with laughter. "You're impossible," he told her, his voice slightly muffled.

"So are you," she answered, because he was. She pulled the pillow off him and tucked it back under her head.

"I know," he agreed, drawing her down to rest her head on his bare chest. Not thinking about that, either. "It's good that way, though," he added.

"Better with two," she agreed and closed her eyes.

This time he let her sleep.