Author's Note: I'm officially in university now! :jumps up and down: Sorry, excited that that particular headache is over with.

Anyway, on with the story... Enjoy!

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She looks beautiful- no, gorgeous… no, delightful, wonderful, fantastic- no still doesn't fit the teeth… exquisite. Yes, she looks exquisite in the traditional dress of the planet. A gown that leaves her shapely arms bare to his eyes and extenuates the curve of her delicate skin where neck becomes shoulder. And her hair pulled back like that- he didn't even know her hair could do that after all it's years being tossed into the messy buns he likes- which expose the arch of her neck where he wishes he could-

"Hey."

"Hey… how's the food coming?"

Rose shrugs, smiling wildly, "No idea. I'm just kind of mixing and pouring whatever they tell me to. How is setting up the chairs going?"

"It was long and repetitive," he replies, watching Rose turn away from him, ears still turned to listen to him, as she pours out two goblets of the sweet drink that is quickly growing on him. "But I did learn- thanks- a few interesting facts from Devyn."

"Oh really? Like what?"

"Not really sure what I learned, but it's something."

"Okay…"

"Devyn was asking me about the urges which-"

It tastes off.

His lips pucker and he swallows awkwardly. He stares down into the goblet of red liquid; it is the same thing he has been drinking. The gold rim presses against his lips, spilling a large gulp into his mouth. His tongue plays along his teeth, his lips smacking as he tries to analyze the taste.

"Doctor?"

"Huh…"

"What is it?"

"One second." The other women are deeply involved in their cooking and their gossiping but, even so, the Doctor places his goblet on the table and takes Rose's elbow, his mind easily dismissing the way her hot skin burns his cold hand, as he pulls her into the relative privacy of the food cupboard.

"Doctor, what-?"

His tongue snakes out, running up along the curve of her clavicle, stopping just at the base of her neck.

Too long for a sample to analyze. But he tries to quell his mind. He needs to be sure, he tries to explain away. She is just surprised, that's why she is breathing so fast. The planet is naturally hotter than they were used to, that's why his hand is boiling against her skin. Her eyes are brown, they've always been that dark. He doesn't want to repeat his actions, he just needs to be absolutely certain he is right.

His tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth and his feet force him to move away. He looks up at the ceiling, hoping that he won't notice her, that she won't notice him.

And then he has it. The taste. Beneath the human taste of salt and the sultry taste of Rose and time, there is something foreign and it's identical to the odd taste in his drink.

"Doctor?" If her voice shakes, it isn't because of him.

"You're practically exuding hormones," he tries to say playful, but it comes out funny. He won't say sexily, because it isn't.

"What?"

"Those hormones that I can smell coming off these people- it's in the food and the drinks, it must be. I knew it, their bodies couldn't possibly produce that much on their own. They're ingesting it. But why? It is naturally occurring? Do they add it on purpose? And, if they do, what's the point? Or is it something else? Someone else? But still, what do they do? Hormones? Think it might have something to do with the urges Devyn was talking about? Rose? Are you listening to me?"

"What?"

"You were completely zoning there."

"Sorry. Did you say something important?"

His head bobs back and forth as he struggles to remember what his rant was about. And it isn't because her lips are parted and her eyes are dark and the rise and fall of her silk of her dress is distracting him. It is just because his mind is racing twenty steps forward.

"Just hypothesising."

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Lynan is absolutely stunning- at least Rose thinks so. In her earth coloured gown, much like the one Rose herself is wearing but more elegant, richer and more detailed. Flowers adorn her curled and braided hair and orange jewels hang just over her eyes off her silver head piece.

So far an Azalean wedding is quite different from an Earth one. Or, at least the ones she has been to.

Spouses have been separated from each other, which means that the Doctor is somewhere on the other side of the expansive garden and she hasn't seen him in almost two hours.

Which shouldn't have been a problem. She should have been able to enjoy watching Lynan practically float into the gardens without thinking about him. She should have been able to melt at the sight of Gaderian's captivated smile as he watches Lynan approach him without imagining a similar look on the Doctor's face.

Lynan stops just a foot away from her soon-to-be husband and, without touching, they smile at each other and turn to walk the final steps to the priest- or what Rose assumes to be the priest. Even that exchange drifts her thoughts away from the wedding and back to the Doctor. She wonders at such an expressive society and their lack of physical contact and she wonders at such a physical relationship with the Doctor and a lack of expressive emotions.

And the simple thought of physical relationship pushes her mind further into where it shouldn't be going. She wonders just how human the Doctor is. Sure, he has given her the lecture before about humans not being the sole ownership of this form, that it exists throughout the universe in many similar forms. She has resisted asking if that means he has all the 'bits' that a human male has. But now… now she is really wondering. Wondering just how compatible they are. If they are compatible. What it would feel like, his cold skin on hers, his curious hands running over her, his talented tongue working its magic over her skin, trailing lower, searching…

The priest is talking. She's pretty sure that is what splashed the proverbial cold water in her face.

She listens, captivated by the ancient language that spills from his lips, untranslated by the TARDIS but its meaning universal enough not to need to be.

The family and the priest and the soon-to-be husband and wife gesture and respond in ways she doesn't understand and the priest takes great care in the way he prepares a slip of golden silk in a series of waters and oils.

She feel strange. Well not strange, unfocused in a way she hasn't been since… well, since she last lusted over Mickey. With the Doctor, she has never been like that. Oh, she looks. She might never admit it to him- except under duress by Cassandra- but she will admit it to herself. What can she say, he had regenerated into a sexy, younger man with the most ruffable hair she has ever seen.

And how she would love to run her fingers through his messy hair, flattening it and messing it back up and feeling just how soft or coarse it might be.

Gaderian's hand reaches out, palm up, his smile eager in the way only a newly wed can manage. Lynan smiles back nervously before her palm melds against his, her fingers twining with his. The priest speaks again, deliberately wrapping their hands together in a loose knot with the golden silk he has prepared, but they aren't looking at him.

The Doctor looks at her like that sometimes. When he thinks she can't see him, but she does. She knows. He looks just as much as she does. He likes what he sees too.

She isn't really sure when the wedding officially ends and when everyone begins rising and following the happy couple from the gardens and back into the main hall. Her mind is too absorbed in itself to do anything more than let her body respond. She rises with the rest, moves with the mass, sways to the music and picks at the food she had helped to prepare earlier.

She needs to find him. Not to escape the boredom that they have caused by separating them and not to see if she can embarrass him into dancing.

Actually, she hopes she can seduce him into dancing.

Oh, wow, where did that come from?

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