I wrote this, then I went back and added to it. Then again. So this is a bit longer than other chapters. But I don't think you mind, do you?
FIRST DATE PART 1:
"Love is, above all, a gift of one's self." – Jean Anouilh
Weeks passed, and he never mentioned their date again. At first she had dropped not-so-subtle hints, but each time she did he was either completely oblivious (purposefully or not, she could never tell) or he brushed it off with a wave and quick ramble about whatever humanism had overcome him lately.
He had mostly adjusted to being human, and his "freak outs" were few and far between now. Rose found most of them humorous and adorable, but every now and then she could see a dark look in his eye that required a bit more intervention on her part. These moments often resulted in her dragging him to "their spot" between the divergence in the path and talking it out with him. Even Jackie seemed to be able to sense these moods at times, and had once called Rose home from work to handle a rather frantic Doctor when a quick cup of tea wasn't enough.
Rose broke herself from her retrospection and shut down her computer; she wasn't getting anything else done at work today. She waved goodbye to the evening security just coming on shift and climbed into the driver's seat of her compact. She smiled fondly as she recalled the almost weekly driving lessons with the Doctor, gazing at the two spots on her steering wheel rubbed almost bare from his firm grip. Her drive home was relatively peaceful, though she'd had to maneuver through a particularly thick throng of reporters outside the main gate, all gathered to try and obtain the latest scoop on an alien visitation. She parked next to Pete's Mercedes and hopped out, tossing a friendly wave at the porter as he pulled the door open for her.
"Rose!" Tony toddled up to her, his right hand coated in a substance Rose hoped was nothing more than saliva. She grabbed the tail of his shirt and wiped his hand clean before hoisting him up onto her hip. Jackie rounded the corner frantically, only relaxing when she saw her son in Rose's arms.
"I swear, he's getting more like you every day," Jackie frowned. "Always running off." Rose grinned at her mother and kissed her cheek before following her to the living area. The Doctor was the picture of relaxation on the sofa, pretending to pay attention to the match on the television. Pete and a man Rose thought she recognized from Torchwood were on the edge of their chairs, cheering at the screen.
"Who's winning?" she asked, setting her brother on the floor as he tried to squirm toward Pete. The Doctor was the only one who looked up, smiling at her as she sat next to him. She glanced down to his side, eyeing the notebook that seemed to be ever-present with him lately. She'd asked about it once but he'd merely shrugged her off, telling her he was chronicling his daily experiences of being human.
"Peaches or apples?" he whispered to her, and she barely glanced over as she answered.
"Apples."
It had started some weeks ago; he would come up to her and ask her a seemingly random question (black or white? dogs or cats? dawn or dusk? water or wind?). When she answered him (black, dogs, dusk, water), he would open his journal and scribble it down as if it were the most important piece of information in the universe. At first she had tried to ask him what it was about, and when that didn't work she resorted to trying for a sneak peek into the notebook. Unfortunately, he seemed to carry it around with him everywhere and Rose was forced to endure the seemingly endless supply of questions.
This time, however, he grinned widely at her answer and hopped to his feet, gripping his notebook in one hand and offering her the other. Pete and the man Rose finally identified as Russell Gaines didn't pay him any attention, but as the Doctor grabbed her hand and hauled Rose to her feet Jackie smiled at them. Rose let him pull her out of the room and down the hall to the small study Pete had set aside for him.
Once the door closed behind her he was upon her, pressing his larger form into hers as he kissed her senseless. She responded immediately, gripping his forearms in an attempt to get him as close as possible. When he pulled away she didn't let go, but instead tugged him against her fully. He laid his head on the door next to hers as they fought to catch their breath.
"Hello," she whispered, feeling his smile stretch his cheeks against hers.
"Hello," he breathed against her skin. He pulled back to look in her eyes, as if searching for more answers in their depths, before stepping away from her. Wordlessly, he grabbed her hand and pulled her over to the small leather sofa that sat against the far wall. When she sat down, he thrust the notebook into her hands and perched next to her nervously.
"Doctor, what –?"
"Just open it," he told her quickly. She ran her fingers over the hard binding for a moment before flipping it open. His scrawl was tiny and messy, and she had to lift it up a little to make out some of the words.
The first page was filled with what seemed like jumbled thoughts and random sentences. As she deciphered his script, she realized he had indeed chronicled his first days on the first few pages, including each and every new "humanism" he'd discovered along the way. As she skimmed the passages she couldn't help but giggle at a few of them, remembering each delightful discovery or horrific encounter.
She turned to the next few pages, acutely aware of his hands wringing nervously beside her. Without taking her eyes from his notebook she reached one hand over to still his, trying to calm him even as she focused on something so obviously important to him. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she read, wondering what his disjointed ramblings meant.
"What –?" He opened his hands and enveloped hers, holding onto her tightly as he answered the unspoken question.
"I needed to figure out what to do. I mean, who I am, where I'm from, what I do…I've never had to think about all that before. Usually it's just pop in, save the world, then pop back out. No muss, no fuss. But now…I have an entire lifetime to live and I just…had to sort it out."
She took in the lengthy list of names he'd obviously thought of and discarded. Some were scratched through rather thoroughly, others had question marks next to them. Another page held quick jots of childhood or little bits of the past that Rose had never really considered before. She could recall rather vividly the home she grew up in and, with some thought, the name of some of her teachers. Childhood friends, hangouts, memories were all stored in her mind for easy recall. But the Doctor had to fabricate everything from scratch; he had to literally create an entire person out of thin air.
"Have you decided on anything?" she asked him finally, looking up from the book at his face.
"No," he shook his head softly. "I…I've never really had to consider any of this before and I figured – well, since you've been human your whole life and whatnot – that you could, sort of, help me out. On the decisions. On who I am." She shut the book quickly and turned to face him.
"You're the Doctor," she reassured him. "If you want to call yourself Clifford I don't care because, to me, you'll always be the Doctor." He grinned at her that great, brilliant smile of his and she couldn't help but smile back.
"Clifford?" he returned cheekily. "Do I come off as a Clifford?" She laughed and shook her head.
"Nope," she replied in kind, with just a hint of a smile, "but I always did think John suited you." He wrinkled his nose in thought, his eyes darting down to the book in her lap.
"John?" He knew for a fact that name wasn't in the book; he had left it off for a reason. "I thought…well, I had assumed, anyway, that you wouldn't…that is, that it would be…bugger." He ran a hand through his hair and sank back into the cushions. She followed him, tucking herself into her side easily as his arm slid around her shoulders.
"You thought it would remind me too much of him?" she finished for him, and he nodded. "Well, yeah, but you're forgetting something." She lifted her head and looked directly into his eyes, her own gaze intense and focused; he would have no doubt about her next words. "You are him."
"Yes," he agreed with a nod of his head, "and no. I mean, when I was born I was him; same thoughts, same memories, same everything." She smiled as she remembered his words to her on the beach. "But every day I live, I have my own experiences and the man I am and the man he is diverge just a little more." She could tell by his tone that he was worried – afraid that if he wasn't the Doctor, she wouldn't want him to stay. She decided it was time to set him straight. Shifting a little in her seat, she turned her body to face him more fully.
"I love you," she said firmly, and from the look on his face she wondered if he'd been having doubts. "Before you came along, I was just a no-name teenager working a dead end job with no hope of a future that meant anything. You came and took me away from all of that, and I loved you for it." Her hand came up to frame his face, and he leaned into her touch slightly, lightly caressing the skin of her palm with his lips.
"Through all of our adventures and travels, you opened my eyes to an entire universe and you changed me…you made me better." She threw his own words back at him, and she could see the beginnings of tears fill his eyes. "You showed me remorse, compassion, regret, joy, and I realized I loved you more than I had ever loved anyone. Being here, away from you, those were the worst years of my life." She had told him as much before during their first long talk in the clearing, but hearing the pain in her voice again made his heart hurt. His hand came up to mirror her position, and she smiled into his palm as he cradled her face lovingly.
"Mine too," he whispered. "I was lost without you." They shared a moment that needed no words, but Rose wasn't done with her speech yet. She wanted to make sure that he had no doubts about her feelings for him – her Doctor.
"These past few weeks have been so surreal, and some mornings I still wake up afraid that it was all a dream. But then I'll come downstairs and see you sitting at the breakfast table with Mum, or playing in the floor with Tony, or talking quietly in the corner with Pete, and it all falls into place again. I love the Doctor – I always will," she said with no guilt in her voice, and his face held no trace of anger. "But somewhere along this slow path I fell in love with you – not just because of the man you were, but because of the man you've become."
He let out a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob, and Rose swore she saw tears spilling over his cheeks as he leaned forward quickly to capture her mouth in another searing kiss. She let him push her backwards, shifting so that he was lying almost fully on her as their passions took over. With one arm supporting his weight, he let the other travel the length of her body to rest on the smooth expanse of skin exposed at her midriff. Her own hands were wandering up his arms, over his shoulders, and down, pulling and gripping his body to mold against hers seamlessly.
When his hand slipped beneath her blouse, she gasped into his mouth, and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss. Tongues explored, and she gave as good as she got as his fingers danced along her skin, shooting an intense heat from her head to her toes. Only when her need for oxygen overwhelmed her need for him did she pull away, breathing heavily and gripping his shoulders tightly.
"What was that for?" she whispered, still holding him so close her breath danced across his lips. His ever-bright eyes were dark and swimming with some unnamed emotion that sent her heart racing.
"I just…" he took a deep breath and she felt her own chest expand with it, "I just reacted. I don't know. Lately, ever since the metacrisis, I've been having these…urges. They're getting impossible to control." She smiled secretively, that little upward curve of her lips that told him this was another one of those human things he was just going to have to get used to.
"They're called hormones, Doctor," she replied in a low, husky tone. He frowned at her words and gave her a teasing look that sent a shiver of delight through her.
"I know what hormones are, cheeky girl, I just…" His thumb caressed the curve of her hip absently, and she trembled again. He glanced down at the pale, delicate skin around her navel, resisting the temptation to trace the path of his fingers with his mouth. Instead, he forced himself to focus on his initial goal, and his hand fumbled for the discarded notebook.
Wordlessly they shifted until they were lying side by side, and he opened the book to his last few entries. Reaching over her, he swiped a pen from the floor and added her last answer - apples - with a flourish before handing the notebook back to her. She traced the answers to each question he'd asked the last few weeks, wondering if and how they were interconnected.
"What are these for?" She had asked him before, of course, but he'd merely waved her off and continued asking seemingly nonsensical things despite her unsatisfied curiosity. Now, however, he gripped the edges of the notebook and smiled.
"This," he said proudly, "was our first date."
"What do you mean?" She had no doubt about the sincerity in his tone, but the Doctor had always seen things a little differently than everyone else. She often followed his rather odd way of thinking, but this time he would have to explain his madness.
"Well, I don't know a lot about first dates, not having had many of them myself. Well, I have had some, but most were quite by accident. Actually, there was this one time when I was on the fourth moon of –"
"Doctor," she admonished fondly, and he stopped rambling.
"Right, sorry. Anyway, all the research I did says that first dates are supposed to be about getting to know the person, deciding on whether to have a future with this person or not, and I figured that, well, after your little speech that second one is a pretty moot point. I'm not sure you could drive me off with a pry bar now." She smiled and craned her neck to kiss the exposed skin of his neck, delight coursing through her as he shuddered at her touch.
"Anyway," he cleared his throat in an obvious attempt to control himself, "we already know quite a lot about each other. Then I got to thinking, how much do I really know about Rose? And I realized that yeah, I know your favorite food is chips and your favorite color is pink and all those little things that only really good friends and partners know. But there were some things I didn't know, and so I made a list of every possible thing I may or may not need to know to spend the rest of my life with you."
She stared at him blankly for a few seconds trying to process everything he'd said, and her eyes darted from the notebook to his face and back again. Her fingers trailed over the answers she'd given him, and a picture began to form in her head.
"So this is…"
"Our life," he answered quietly. "A small house by the lake, dogs barking in the backyard, sitting on the porch watching the sunset. Very, very, domestic."
"Can you handle that?" She knew the answer – could feel it in every touch, every kiss – but hearing him say it was suddenly the most important thing in the world. He shut the book and leaned over her again, stifling any further comments with his lips on hers. After a few seconds he pulled away, brushing feather-light kisses to her jaw and cheek. His mouth descended to her ear, and he whispered one word that filled her with boundless joy.
"Forever."